Hi All
I'm relatively new to Dust, but DT has rapidly become on of my favorite games. I don't really have a problem with 99% of the DT rules and I accept that they are streamlined and abstracted for a reason. But I recently played a few games where one rule in particular has made me think that no one thought it through particularly well before release. That rule is the Advanced Deployment rule for Aircraft in the Zverograd expansion (p10).
The issue in a nutshell is that an SSU player who activates last (either through initiative or having more units than you) can out manoeuver you with Advanced Deployment of his helicopters after all your units have activated, putting his helicopters right into your face (when you cant stop him) and that even if you win the initiative next turn, you are probably not going to be able to stop a chopper (unless you happen to be playing Axis: see below) with one activation, from destroying a significant part of your army as he will activate a chopper each activation in future and sustained fire all his single use weapons off, guaranteeing (in my experience), 3 units or vehicles killed or combat ineffective. Reactive fire probably wont help much here either. Most AAA units have not got the chops to take down a helicopter in a single sustained fire action, though the Axis probably have the lions share of those units that could (Lara & Heavy Recon or Fleigerfausts, Sturmkonig). Bar the Grim Reapers, Allies dont have a single unit that can put up enough dice to realistically scrub a chopper from the board in one go (we will see what the new heavy AAA walker does). Even if you do play Axis, unless you have a lot of the above units spread across the board you are still vulnerable to this tactic.
This is particularly frustrating when you as an Axis or Allied player can be out activated by the SSU relatively easily without the SSU player pulling a '**** move' and definitely out activated if they did. The friend and I that played saw a very simple, obvious way to break or at least severely abuse the advanced deployment and probably decide (if not win) most games within the first couple of rounds unless an opponent has set his army up to counter the specific tactic of Advance Deploying SSU attack helicopters, probably leaving them weak against any other balanced army. Not really something I would like to see a lot of in games if I was competing in a tournament and nor am I (and lots of others I guess) prepared to spend a lot of money on multiple Sturmkonigs or Allied Heavy AAA Walkers. Plus being beaten because your opponent uses a tactic you can't effectively counter takes the fun out of the game and I really enjoy DT. I am happy to play competitively, the aim of the game when you play is to win, however the reason you play the game is to have fun. If you cant win against a particular tactic, you aren't likely to have fun playing that game.
It sounds like I am kinda fixating on the SSU here, which is not the impression I want to give. I like the SSU faction and I am not complaining about SSU in particular, nor do I think SSU or their choppers are particularly broken. SSU have the only aircraft in the game at the moment, but I can easily see this becoming an issue when more faction aircraft become available.
I can go into more detail about what I mean if people don't know what I am talking about. We already wrote the points up for Oliver.
Of course YMMV, but I am wondering what the consensus is. Has anyone else been on the receiving end of this kind of tactic?
Thanks for listening.