Mission 002 Report: Hercules! Hercules!
We’re now done with our second Bromad Academy mission! Hopefully your Zeros have become Heros!
Thank you to everyone who wrote in. Here’s the mission description to catch everyone up:
Feedback Summary
We got a pretty small sample size in terms of feedback this month with just two respondents, but both Nathan and Piotr wrote detailed responses about their experiences, so thank you to both of you! They’re also both newer players, so we get a fresh eyed perspective this month on Zeros.
In general, there were a few commonalities between their feedback:
- Zero specialists are effective. FO is cheap and useful.
- Depending on your opponent, the AHD may be wasteful, but perhaps this is more of a commentary on AHDs in general.
- The Zero Minelayer is a great profile and adds a lot of board control for little cost.
Piotr also had some limited experience with the MSR profile, and noted that he didn’t leave it out to ARO. It also sounded like it was infiltrated and tried to take out a TR bot. Some feedback on that–if you can get outside of 32″, you can zero out (eh? eh?) the TR bot with a total of -12 to BS from cover, camo, surprise shot, and range modifiers. Looking at it from that perspective, the Zero MSR may be an interesting attack piece, lurking in the back of your DZ.
One other interesting thought that PIotr mentioned was the possibility of using a Zero BSG in concert with Bran. We haven’t tried it either, but it’s worth bringing up as a potential tactic for you Bakunin or vanilla players out there. Using the Zero as a cheap Bran, or maybe even taking 3 of them would be an interesting tactic as well.
In smaller games, an over-infiltrated Zero BSG can be really devastating as the above picture suggests from a recent Recon+ game. Sadly, the infiltration roll failed, but that would’ve been a truly massive first turn swing otherwise.
All in all, a good round of feedback this month. Low volume, but high quality. Thanks again to Nathan and Piotr, and good hunting to all you Bromads out there!
WiseKensai out!
This month’s prize is the Prowler blister repack, graciously donated to the Bromad Academy by Glimpses of Wonder and Warfare in Sherwood, Oregon, USA. If you’re in the greater Portland, Oregon area, look them up and stop by!
We had two blisters here at the Bromad Academy, so Nathan and Piotr, there are a pair of Prowlers, the Zero’s older cousin, on the way to you now! — WiseKensai
Raw Feedback
Nathan
https://www.bromadacademy.com/2018/09/jhokalups-field-operation-action-report-1/
For this mission I used two Zero profiles. The basic combi and the Killer Hacking device. When deploying them I used infiltration to place them on my side of the board and prone. Using the Killer Hacker as my reserve piece. Looking back at deployment, I should have put the Killer hacker on the ground in a good place to get to the middle antenna with a single order. Instead of stuck on a roof and prone.
I really enjoyed using the Combi Zero’s surprise shot, from where he was he could basically shoot at Rosie with her being the only model to ARO. He had several successful hits with the rifle, Sprocket just kept rolling 17s on those armor saves.
The Killer Hacker didn’t see a lot of use as a specialist or a hacker, especially not against USAriadna Rangers, but it’s position and camo state allowed for an undisputed coup-de-gras to tie the game.
In future games, I would put at least one zero on the ground to try and get same use out of the mines. I think the profile I am most excited to try out would be the Minelayer Zero, being able to have covered the middle antenna from the start would have been very helpful.
https://www.bromadacademy.com/2018/09/jhokalups-field-operation-action-report-2/
This week I used two new Zero profiles, the Minelayer and the Assault Hacker.
The Minelayer:
I love this profile! Being able to put out a mine at deployment felt really strong, and the mine’s presence distracted my opponent from taking out bigger threats and gaining board position. Having that mine out showed me the power of a mine, and I went a little mine happy. A coordinated order with three zeros all putting out mines to cover some lanes sounds almost irresistible to me. Five out of Five stars, would absolutely play again.
The Assault Hacker:
In this game, my Assault Hacker could have just as easily been a Killer Hacker. There were no opportune targets to hack, but as a console button pusher the Zero Hacker was top notch, needing a 16 or lower was really nice. Against other lists he could be very useful, compared to the killer. It feels like in Recon+ the Killer Hacker might be the better profile if I need a Hacker Button Pusher.
For my next game I am debating on what list I want to bring. I will probably try out the Zero FO profile next time.
Piotr
Hello,
So i’ve got couple of points to make. I still feel like quite a fresh player (1 year of playing) and been playing Bakunin since April. I’ve had quite some fun using different profiles of Zeroes.
So Boarding Shotgun profile is like a poor Bran do Castro (Triple Zero). It’s cheaper than standard Combi profile, but it opens an opportunity for Bakunin players. If you take both Bran and BS Zero you can possibly pull something like this: you infiltrate BS Zero under one of the enemy DZ weakspots (45% success) and if you suceed you can Infiltrate Bran near a different spot with another BS or if you fail you can still make an Infiltration with Bran on 80% chance of success. That gives you 36% chance of huge threat to the enemy DZ and only 11% chance to fail both Infiltration rolls and give no threat to the enemy. Haven’t tried that one out yet (too many league games compared to casual ones).
MSR profile I have only tried once, put him exactly in the middle of table on top of the building. It basically did nothing special. 1 Wound on some meaningless model, enemy wasted some orders to heal it. Had to back out so that he wouldn’t die to AROs because from the highest building in the middle it turned out there are too many enemies looking at him. Then he died trying to take out TR Drone that was threatening other important models.
FO profile is quite a standard button pusher and it serves best as one. Yesterday i’ve played a game (flash pulse photos) to which I wasn’t really prepared. New season, old list. I ended up with a FO Zero without any use, really. The mission was Capture and Protect. I had no idea for how to use the FO Zero in the mission so i put him up near my DZ for flash pulses. For one order I intentionally didn’t declare an ARO so that I could stop fearsome McMurrough. He moved around a building corner. Zero saw him through the windows and flash pulsed. 49″ and Dodge Smoke ARO on McMurrough ended as a failed try, but the opponent had to think about how to put the Zero down. It’s good to remember that you can put up a Marker outside of your DZ that can be either FO with Flash Pulse or MSR Zero or even a Prowler with Spitfire. The opponent may be surprised.
The Hackers. So I haven’t really used the AHD profile. Maybe once or twice. KHD tough is quite a cheap KHD model. Especially for Bakunin. You can have 3 Zeroes as Bakunin and put them whereever you want in your side of table. AHD on 2nd floor of a building in a midfield can make your opponent forget that there was a marker in there and move a whole HI link or TAG in his ZoC giving you free ARO. Possibly even without Reset as 2nd short skill.
Same goes for Deployable Repeater (DR) profile. I recently played a couple of games with one and Custodier (AHD) + Healer + Kusanagi Haris. As you can see on “repeater” photos I have moved up my DR Zero near the edge of the table to put a Repeater out of Jotums’ sight. Unfortunately my lack of experience hit me because I wasted next 4 or 5 orders on trying to hack the Jotum in a Limited Insertion game instead of leaving the Repeater to serve for ARO purposes. Next turn i put up next Repeater for Jotum to deal with and started pushing the other side of the table. This simple profile blocked a 103p model for the entire game forcing him to declare Move + Reset for almost entire 3 turns. During this time I have decimated the left side of table with Haris and Chimera eventually winning the game 10-0. (btw it was my first 10-0 win after 7-9 months of playing).
Another example. Again vs PanO. Left side Chimera run finished by Swiss Guard in enemy DZ. Fast follow up with setting up a Zero in a place with hard access from the opponent side and putting down the Repeater. Swiss tries to walk up and kill the Zero, but the skirmisher dodges the bullet. Next turn Zero uses last orders to walk a bit closer to the Swiss and puts down Repeater in a corner next to the entrance so Swiss is basically blocked for the rest of the game and the opponent has to think on how to bite my units on the other side of the table since they have dugged in the middle with ODD and proper Partial Cover (Kusanagi was real MVP in this game even though it ended 1-0 – again LI but this time on Rescue so we didnt have much to do about it).
Minelayer profile is one that I played most when I started Bakunin. Set up 10 markers at the start of the game as Bakunin? (3 Minelayer Zeros, 3 Prowler and Bran do Castro) check the enemy reaction to hear that all Markers are standing. Obviously more experienced player would go in with a Sensor drone but not everybody is gonna take one because, really, how often do you see this many Markers? You can slow down opponents with it forcing them to Discover and BS Attack from afar.
I think it have covered most of my thoughts. I really like the option to take 1-2 Custodiers with either or both HD+ and AHD and two Zeros. One with Deployable Repeater and one with KHD just to be safe. I only wish more profiles had a Boarding or Light Shotgun option just like the Bandits do.
Hope to get in touch with you next month.
Best Regards,
Piotr