Overdron's, Xenodrons and Avatars oh my!

Greetings all.  Now that January is over and I have caught up on everything, except my painting, going into February, It is time to get in the groove of posting on a regular schedule.  I am shooting for every other Wednesday until I get up to speed.
Today I am going to be talking T.A.G's.  Tactical Armored Gears, for those unfamiliar with Infinity or new to the game.  T.A.G's are a dominating presence on the table and bring to bear some serious firepower on a very robust platform.  I am playing in the T.A.G. Rumble event at Adepticon this year. The premiere event for those with a love of Mecha and fighting robots. As I contemplated a list, I had to analyze and breakdown what I might be facing on the table.  This lead to some intensive research into the choices and abilities of each of my 3 factions T.A.G's. Lets take a look at the T.A.G. Rumble format and take a look at some T.A.G.'s


The T.A.G. Rumble format gives you 150 points to work with.  You do not need a Lieutenant and SWC does not really matter as most T.A.G.'s cost 2 SWC or higher and you can take multiple T.A.G.'s. in this format.  You are also allowed 1 Engineer and 1 Hacker.   Although the are achievements during the game last person standing wins. Now the fun part.  All the participants are at one table.  This is not a 1 on 1 bracket tournament.  This is a free for all. Players are placed at intervals around the game table and then are given an initiative number randomly. When your number comes up you have 3 orders to spend.  This can be a rather stressful time for those who go later in the turn.  If I have mucked up any of the rules please forgive me.  This will be my first year playing in the event.  Feel free to correct me.

I have three armies at my disposal. PanOceania, Aleph and Combined Army.  PanO has seven T.A.G.'s in its stable right now and they cover the gambit in terms of abilities.  Combined Army has the next most T.A.G. choices with five which like PanO have am mixed bag or abilities and mission roles.  Aleph has one T.A.G.  The Marut is expensive but brings a lot to the table.  My first Instinct was to go with PanO.  I had a lot of choices in terms of T.A.G's and Hackers.  The one thing that steered me away from my beloved PanO though was I only have one engineer choice and he is not that great.  I messed with a couple lists for the Marut, but could not fit a good hacker and a good engineer in the list with it.  In fact I could't fit both in the list. 

PanO was calling despite my crappy engineer.  Obvious choices were the Squalo with HGL and the Jotum with its massive armor.  My favorites though also were decent choices.  The Uhlan and the Tikbalong ranked at the top of the list followed by the Cutter and Seraph.  I messed with a lot of combos and I could not make anything I liked completely, mainly because of my lackluster engineer.

I then turned to the Combined Army.  My new Avatar was my first choice, but big papa does not fit well in a list and had the same issues as the Marut.  I do not own a Sphinx , but it was a contender thanks to its T.O. Camo.  The Raicho was ok, but I do not like the model, which is why I also do not own one of those.  I came down to the Xenodron and the Overdron.  A pair of Xenodrons won me the Mechanized Combat Ace trophy at the Iowa Incident this past fall.  I tried several combinations to make the bash brothers work, but I could not get a good engineer or hacker in with 2 of them.  I then turned to the Overdron.

The price point on the Overdron is all over the place but that gave me some flexibility in using the T.A.G. I started messing with some list combinations.  I decided I wanted firepower above all else so I opted for the HRMC or Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon.  I then looked at some different hacker options. I looked at several heavy infantry and camo capable hacker options.  All of them were pretty good.  I then thought about my firepower mandate.  I needed a hacker that could really mess up T.A.G.'s with hacking and with its weaponry. I wanted to unleash an onslaught of death and destruction with all of my units. One of the best ways to neutralize a T.A.G. as a threat is to tie it up and keep it engaged in close combat.  Now there are several T.A.G.'s that are good in close combat, that is they have a close combat weapon and a way above average close combat score. PanO has the Tikbalong, Seraph and Squalo.  Both of Yu Jings T.A.Gs are beasts in close combat. The Tohaa Gorgos packs a mean punch as well.  Most T.A.G.'s do have a decent CC score and a physic that makes even their fists high damage.  This means most infantry live very dangerously when engaging them.  I needed a unit with good weapons and Martial arts to even out the score.  Martial arts or Protheion....

The Umbra Samaritan Assault Hacker was my next stop.  He accompanied my Xenodrons in Iowa and reaped a hefty toll himself.  This made him a target and a distraction. It also revealed one of his drawbacks. The Samaritan can be a bit squishy.  They are great in close combat, especially since they have the Vorpal CCW. The Assault Hacker version comes with an upgraded EI hacking device that adds the "Goodnight" program to its list.  This is a pretty good upgrade in a T.A.G. Rumble.  This program can kill a remote presence T.A.G. in the unconscious state within the Samaritans hacking area.  He can stay out of sight and off my opponents before their engineer can get them up and running again.  The Assault Hacking device programs are also geared to take out T.A.G.'s, heavy infantry and remotes. So the Samaritan was my Hacker even if he can be a little bit of a glass cannon.

I have a few choices for an Engineer.  Dr. Worm is usually the first one that pops into peoples heads.  Doc Worm is a great choice, but did not fulfill my firepower mandate.  I then looked to my other two choices. Shasvasti Caliban and  Morat Kurgat Assault Engineers.  I had 33 points left so I had quite a few profile options.  The Caliban brought Inferior Infiltration and Limited Camouflage. They did not bring a lot of firepower though.  I needed to kill T.A.G.'s as well as their support units. The Caliban is a little more robust than the Kurgat, but the Kurgat can bring an Autocannon to the table. He also can lay mines.  He can dig into cover and a protected position all while a slave drone does the battlefield repairs.  So with the Slave drone added we are at 148 points and a lot of killing power.

So with the team selected I turned to analyzing my possible threats. I am going to cover that next time as I have rambled on enough.  I will also be talking about the Fireteam Duo team tournament and the Arestia! tournament as we lead up to Adepticon.  Stay tuned!

Until next time....

Remember Spartan!

and

Toni is Alive!