I wanted to cover two things I learned from the last Games & Stuff event. Those things are confusing and can be down crushing to a N00b. These are the mission "Life Blood" and link teams.
Life Blood
Life Blood is a mission that is particularly brutal and unforgiving. Not that it can't be won but a loss will basically take you out of contention of any prize in small tournaments. The mission isn't all bad. There is a random aspect with placement of the creates that occurs after deployment. That is neat and keeps it fresh. The scoring is what kills you. I guess theoretically You could possess more creates than you opponent but your opponent could destroy more than you. I just don't see that happening too often. Maybe ITS2015 will fix the scoring.
Link Teams
Link teams were introduced in the Human Sphere expansion and provide additional utility to the armies. Only sectoral armies can have link teams (Tohaa have fire teams in the base army). Link teams give several bonuses at the three main levels:
- Level 1 (2+1) - +1 burst for the link leader in active and +1 burst for all in ARO
- Level 2 (3+1) - +3 WIP (discovery) in active and leader gets L2 6th sense. In reactive all get bonus.
- Level 3 (4+1) - +3 BS and PH for the link leader in active and +3 BS for all in ARO
The draw back is sectorals are limited in their troop selection. You can do a lot with these if used right. The problem is most new players take them for granted. I have been running 5 Haramaki with a ML as the link leader. These have been devastating. They require a mess of orders to neutralize them and they are just as deadly in ARO.
Why are they so tough? The main reason is the ML link leader is firing B2 with a +3BS. That means two shots at BS 19 at medium range. That is pretty tough. If you score two hits, your opponent is rolling 6 dice to save at half armor. In ARO, I have neutralized TAGs and HI with the rest of the team using blitzens. At the last tournament, they basically owned everything.
How do you beat them (or any link team)? Kill the head and you destroy the body. Taking out the link leader easily makes the team fall apart. The LT order is the only thing that can reform them. Take it out on your turn and they lose all of their bonuses. A big weakness is they have to be withing LoC of the link leader. That means most of the time they will be ripe for templates. I lost a link team of Volunteers to a light shotgun. I lost most of the Haramaki to a FO and Uragan combo.
The one thing you don't want to do is go at them piece meal. That is one way to really get messed up. Develop a plan. Hack them if they are HI. Get templates on them. Look at using martial arts minis. Just get a game plan. Remember your opponent has to set the link team up at deployment or at least use their LT order.
I hope this quick overview was of some use to you all.
