New player with questions

By DarthSloth, in Army Building

I've been reading through some of the threads here and I have just a few questions.

1) Why is a high activation count desirable?

2) Is the TX-225 GAVw Occupier tank ever worth it? Has anyone used it as anything other than a transport?

3) Does the line of sight rule make the DF-90 Mortar unit useless in some games?

1) there are several reasons that high activation count is desirable, mainly if you end up being able to activate several units after your opponent has finished their last activation for the round you can use those units without needing to worry about your opponent responding to what you do. Also the more times you shoot the more suppression you can stack on opposing units which can sometimes lead to units panicking the next turn leading to those units not being able to contribute to combat or at worst fleeing the battlefield.

2) typically no, the GAV tank is not considered "competitive" but that's really dependant on how competitive you are. it is worth noting that there is a very high chance that FFG will be reducing the point cost of the GAV tank next month so it may become a lot more competitively viable.

3) everything needs line of sight to fire at a target, something that some of my opponents have forgotten when using the 1 pip cards of Leia and Veers, so its a matter of good deployment and sparing use of movement to get the most out of the mortar units. also can be dependant on the board terrain as well.

1) As previously mentioned it allows for better control later in the round, but its also worth mentioning it presents the opportunity to pull off first-last moves which can be devastating if played right. I will however say that activation count isn't THAT big of a deal, It is definitely beneficial, but I have also been absolutely steamrolled by multiple hero lists and Death Trooper stacks with 8-9 activations, so there is that to be considered.

2) Whilst it isn't fantastic right now, my friend has had some success with it and I definitely wouldn't call it bad. Of course rule of cool counts here and if you like it, then go for it! also there is the previously mentioned likelihood of it getting a points reduction in the near future.

3) I haven't used it personally and since Shoretroopers are pretty hard to come buy in my area, I haven't gone up against it so I can't really comment on this one.

1 has been answer pretty well, so I'll take a crack at 2&3:

2. The Occupier isn't the top of the line Imperial Vehicle, but it's far from bad. It puts out an impressive amount of firepower, and serves well in the role of assault gun or rolling cover. Ironically, the one roll it is terrible at is as a transport, as it inflicts a wound on anyone loaded up any time it takes damage.

3. There are indeed times with the LoS rule hurts the mortar, but they're relatively rare. Good placement of the mortar generally means it will have something to see, and Critical 1 means it'll quite frequently be able to push something through cover. Even if it doesn't, suppressive isn't a bad keyword, especially when stacked with other units.

Occupier tank is incredibly strong when used as a suppression machine. You can move, suppress units with displacement and then pivot after they have been placed to double suppress all in 1 move action.

EDIT: they fixed this with the new RRG. You can now only receive 1 suppression token per unit activation token. So you can still be displaced more than once per unit activation, but you only receive one suppression during that units activation.

Edited by weebaer
rules update