How to handle the Mishiman Army of flesh?

[Lopis]

Any ideas?

What I see in the Mishima force Iīm facing more often is hell of a lot activations.
Through their Faceless and very small squads containing two snipers or two heavies they have a lot of units fielded.
Thus itīs easy to just outmaneuver the opponent with holding back activations of your heavy firepower or tactical important units until the opponent has nothing to move. So free way for your army.
With equal points on each side they have just about on third more units fielded.
Any ideas to overcome this? Or donīt you have this problems with Mishima opponents?

Just some guys lying there waiting to respond donīt do the trick.

[semai99]

Hi Lopis what force are you fielding so we can give you more of an idea, of tactics etc

[CATerpilar]

I dont have problem with mishima players. Im Mishima player :-).

But i have same problem with Cybs..... Enhanced Chasseurs + Squads of Attilas.....

I mostly use RLs with template, GLs or Gs, FTs.
Units with Ambush SA works well.
Terrain is wery important so try to have as many pieces of terrain on the tabe as posible.

And you can try convince your oponent that his force is boring (it ussualy works best. But its maybe becouse im bigger guy than most of my opponents   ).

[Wedge]

Without out knowing any more information that what you provided I would have to say a simple tactic of concentrating your fire will suffice.  If he has a BUNCH of small squads--take them out one at a time.  Annihilate several small units to a man and that should even out the activations.  If you spread your fire evenly then he's still going to out-activate you.

[Gallagher_Standard_Barer]

Panic! If he has 2 man squads he's only one shot away from a panic test.  Use a combination of that and Wedge's suggestion of concentrated fire and you shouldn't have too much trouble taking him out.

[semai99]

Without out knowing any more information that what you provided I would have to say a simple tactic of concentrating your fire will suffice.  If he has a BUNCH of small squads--take them out one at a time.  Annihilate several small units to a man and that should even out the activations.  If you spread your fire evenly then he's still going to out-activate you.

Panic! If he has 2 man squads he's only one shot away from a panic test.  Use a combination of that and Wedge's suggestion of concentrated fire and you shouldn't have too much trouble taking him out.

I'd agree with this general tactic concentrate your firepower on a couple of units and get them making morale tests then either wipe them out or move onto another unit and do the same.

A couple of template weapons such as Rl or GL are useful against larger squads, or Ambush troops with Flamers, or just troops with flamers try a Estoiles Mortant squad with 3 flamers or mix with grenadiers and CC the rest.

[Lopis]

As for more information:

Opposing with 1k points are normally: 4 squads of Faceless for the 4 Battlewalker support. That leaves 4 slots for individuals which are filled with that healing Machine Ameterasu, then one or two Daathbringers. And to complete a Toshiro or Yojimbo. Saw a Hachiman once. And then some elites of varying quality, but mostly Pheonix samurais flanked and revived by Amaterasu. Sometimes flips the Phoenix for Naganos.
Pretty hard to punch through.

I field varying troops. Mostly Bauhaus, sometimes Brotherhood.
And normally I do NOT field Richthausens 2 Dragoons/Hussars and two hands full of Vulkans flanked by a skimmer or GTOR.
I try to have fun and vary my force pretty often. But not one system has worked well....
Backbone are one or two squads of Dragoons + Sniper a faster squad of Ducals with RL-spec. A GTOR or Skimmer as support. A Dragoon Kpt.
The Elites vary: Depending on scenario and my mood. Normally no Saglielli, but varying from the other houses.
But whatever I play or which strategy I use at army building: I never can compete with so much units. Normally he has 3 or 4 activations more per turn. Sufficient for the Battlewalkers and/or Phoenix/Nagano + Amaterasu. So he hasnīt even to try duck-and-hide. he gains this automatically by just having tons of activations!

Itīs a 6 feet by 4 feet  table normally on the short distance.


fleshy Faceless making the Shield wall and the Battlewalkers are fast and hard hittinī ( and to speak in DUNE-terms: I have no nuclear blast to breach the shield-wall) ,
Only possibility to shoot at the heavier targets is TS, but one dice roll against the target shift and you try to butcher Faceless about 20" before they could do anything..

[Wedge]

As for more information:

Opposing with 1k points are normally: 4 squads of Faceless for the 4 Battlewalker support. That leaves 4 slots for individuals which are filled with that healing Machine Ameterasu, then one or two Daathbringers. And to complete a Toshiro or Yojimbo. Saw a Hachiman once. And then some elites of varying quality, but mostly Pheonix samurais flanked and revived by Amaterasu. Sometimes flips the Phoenix for Naganos.

The reason your friend is winning is because he is cheating (wittingly or unwittingly)... plain and simple.  Four squads of faceless only qualify him to purchase two walkers for support.  You must have TWO grunt units per support unit.  So, next time you see your friend you can smile widely and let him know that his wins with that army are null and void--and illegal.

[CATerpilar]

Wedge: Sadly you are wrong. You can buy 2 Walkers for one support slot :-(

[Gallagher_Standard_Barer]

Well Faceless aren't exactly good in the armor department so you should be able to chew through his wall of faceless very quickly.  Is he deliberately using the faceless as a barrier between you and his supports and elites, if so that means he's keeping them out in the open and in LOS, which makes them easy pickings.  If he's actually trying to get those faceless to somewhere that they can do some damage he must be trying to keep them out of sight, which means you should be able to tackle his more powerful units.  What is he proxying for the Walkers?  Whatever it is it should be fairly tall, meaning you might be able to see it over some terrian that blocks LOS to the faceless, if that's the case just take cover behind that obstacle and concentrate your fire.

Finally make sure to make him take his panic and vehicle failure checks, he's using small squads and support that has only 1 safe wound so even though it might be hard to kill him you can reduce his effectiveness pretty quickly which should help you out.

[kwegibu]

I have faced that army myself as brotherhood. He outactivated me sure, but i outgunned him so bad he didn't have a chance. Spent a few turns keeping everyone in cover and just popping myself out to shoot his flesh shields. This way he couldn't use as many actions shooting me with his limited but deadly firepower of battlewalkers (not to mention he couldn't use his multiple modifiers because only one target was available at a time, and if he killed it his action was over). Once I cleared out a good bit of the faceless and he realized using them as a wall was stupid and started advancing them towards me, i came out in the open and was able to start getting shots off on both faceless and walkers. He may have 4 guys with crazy fire power, but i had several  full squads of guys with three actions and decent firepower. Really isn't much he could do. Battlewalkers are nasty buggers, but faceless are marginally useful. Basing an entire force on the combination is silly and shouldn't work out.

Count your self lucky he didn't use mishima to its full potential.

[Wedge]

Wedge: Sadly you are wrong. You can buy 2 Walkers for one support slot :-(

Hmmm... obviously I need to do a little re-reading!