Hey everyone. I have just recently started playing and chosen to play Azur Alliance for story reasons. I have been playing predominantly against Weissencraft, and have not been doing well. Now I will admit that some of it is tactical failure, but I can't think of a good way to beat the gears. Azur Alliance contains almost no ranged, however when i try to get close to the gear, specifically legacy of solomon, I get my face taken off. I am already trying to use the piercing weapons advantage to take down his armor, but I'm at best only taking down half of his life before my face gets smashed. I haven't had a chance to play the empire but I think I would encounter a similar problem facing them. I just cannot deal enough damage to pierce their armor, before their critical mastery smashes my face. Any thoughts on how to beat it? I would prefer to stick to an Azur Alliance army.

Hmm, I would think your Azur Stealthers would have a lovely time against Gears seeing as they can't dodge and most murder attack can do some horrific damage, especially if you consentrate your assassins.

However one of the most effective tactics for Azur is through their Arbitors especially those that can order Free Attacks and Dodges, it allows you to simple outlast your opponent (In terms of AP).

If assassins or Orders don't work you just have to remember to play stacks on and wait for Ligori to rock on up.

- Raith

With defense 9 and 5 armor, lets say someone rolls a 10 with a murder attack, Harods 10/9

Thats a 20 hit with 9 damage, so its 11 over and 4 over armor, for 15 total, out of 35 hp on LoS. Would be 17 out of 25 HP on a goethia and 16/35 on a grimorium. Legacy could also have dodged, and keeping the damage in the 10 range.

Then, with your azure force in melee contact with a mech, that you didn't kill unless you rolled 2 back to back criticals on a murder attack with 2 different people, you will have an AOE attack causing throw, an AOE attack not causing throw, or a triply target attack coming back at you. Grimorium would take 2 critical murder attacks AND 3 more damage. Goethia, mind, is going to be hard for the azur to get to in the first place as she just needs to be a terrain cheese to never get attacked and just waste time while snipers shoot people.

Azur, being very melee, is a pain to use against mechs because, well, even without dodging they still won't die from a nat10 murder attack.

Jaecp said:

Yep that is where my problem is alright. I haven't had a chance so I will have to try a more focused strategy thanks to both of you for your thoughts

Jaecp said:

Thats assuming all goes right for the Mech's or the heavily armoured characters which often have not so go attack stats. Your also missing such options as Arbiter based free dodges to enhance your teams defenses. And infiltration, an ability a lot of Azur have which can do some serious positional denial. Much of an Azur teams success is all abotu tactics and who else is on the side, in a 1 for 1 match, yes, it is uneven, Cheshire with Summun the most destructive attack in game for its cost is at a loss against big Grim which is really rare.

Ultimately I have found that the "stacks on" approach is the best way to take out an opponent with Azur, it works for every team but much of Azur relys upon smashing prowlers and the few warriors they have into a single target so you bypass whatever AP protections they might have and just hit them until they stop moving, this is especially apparent witht he Lords of the Abyss, Jerome sneaks in and Attacks, if your opponent fails to retailate with a gear they are waiting to use an AoE which gve you an opportunity to charge in Hel or Deadmoon, and again on the next activation.

With Grimorium specifically he needs a 5 to hit for base damage against the Lords assuminging their combined combat isn't going, yes it hurts but it is survivable. It is also pretty easy to beat him out if you walk into hand to hand and save some points for dodges, Damage Resistance creatures can be beaten with simple attacks if enough are aimed at them which usually gives you a dodge point or two per round.

I find keeping those three in particular in close together is very effective and they have the ability to do so thanks to Shadow of the Moon protecting them from ranged attacks striking at the clusture. I have yet to loose a game against a force with that team and the only character i would really forsee and issue with would be Konnosuke as i slaughter him and he goes boom in retaliation.

No character can not be killed by weight of numbers in Anima

- Raith

I was only laying out how hard it is to hurt them, attacking back is another issue, all 3 mechs have some form of AOE, particularly legacy. Even with 2 10's back to back, most mechs aren't going to die if you aren't using some big -armor. Its not like the other WS characters don't have some sick damage potential ya know. Of course anyone can die with enough people running at them, the thing is, if your spending so many people attacking grim, then the rest of my team gets to do mean stuff to you. I run a nice charge/heavy WS team currently, no set list really, using drake/cennette some smattering of WS figs, very mean damage there.

Simple attacks though? Rolling a 10 with most azure(5a/4d) on basic attacks is going to be ~15/4 or so 12 base to grim, 5 after my armor gets to it. Thats with 10's on base attacks, so, the average amount of damage that your going to do with a base attack is... .5, average roll of a D10 being 5.5, which translates to 10.5(3.5 over) and 4 damage (7.5) so, .5 or 1.5 if they aren't using the tank pilot. (Not sure why they wouldn't, the other pilots are not good for him)

Grimorium hitting them is a bonus, if your guys are whacking on him then he gets to try out an AOE burst every other turn or so. It really isnt neccesary, and if he does manage to land a hit, even just meeting their defense, he gets to do 8 damage, 2/3rds of whoevers LP, oh, and if grimorium manages to crit on any of them... Mind, I am talking about just one mech against 3 azure prowlers, 135(120) points of figs vs 60 points of grim. To be honest, last time I fought azure I had goethia, not grim, and just clogged the ground up with Derek and Celia in a choke point while blasting whoever ran out of LP, it was a 200 point game though, so none of us had leaders.

So anyway, the three of them, on their best day, rolling 10's on special attacks, would be enough to kill him. Getting 3 crits on command though will kill pretty much anyone though, then again, when lorenzo or rayne charge in, even with a 5 roll on raynes charge, we're talking about an 18/4, which is, even with a decent dodge of 5, going to be ~9 damage, if the die roll is beat by just a little, one shot kill. Lorenzo isn't nearly as accurate, but if he waits for someone to be out of AP for the turn, even rolling a pair of 1's means your stealther are taking at least 6 damage + possible throw, twice. Of course, arkeid could give you one free dodge per turn, it happens. On the tabletop plenty of stuff gets into tricky situations, like him taking a hollow bullet, a nice 8/5/-4armor (20inch) attack that can him very low, very fast. Or Alessa's 9/4/-4 (24inch), both of which, if they tie the new armor post dodge, the leader to half-hp, from 16 to 7, a little luck on the rolls, or he runs out of dodge, and all of a sudden hes dead in a salvo, and me killing your leader quickly is alot more probable than 3 stealth super damage types killing a grim quickly.

Truth be told, azure is the team I am least afraid of, a properly run Samael is my biggest worry (only people who can consistently hit me first)