So, how exactly is Yakov notunderpriced? Yes, I know he's 30 points, the highest priced non-superhero character. But being able to choose to go first the vast majority of the time is ridiculously good. The increased cover ability is just the cherry on top… a watermelon-sized cherry, but just a cherry nonetheless.

This, combined with advanced deployment, is where it gets pretty absurd. Add in a squad with fighting spirit and you can basically annihilate anything on the board that you want, with the chance to move first next turn to finish the job (if necessary) or reposition.

Yes, I know there are a million ways you can argue that you can build or position your force to deal with this, but at the end of the day, what do the other factions have that comes close to this? This will also get better when the aircraft for the other factions are available, I understand that, but why does it feel so much like power creep?

To give the SSU a nice start to fight with. Our SSU guy always uses Yakov and it's not like he wins always the initiative. Unit like any other in my opinion.

One thing to keep in mind is that Yakov costs more than an infantry squad, but is still only Armor 2 with 4 health.

And what do you call a high-AP cost, low defense unit?==>a nice, juicy target

You can try and stick him inside a transport helicopter for protection, I suppose, but those choppers can always be shot down, and he can't grant a cover bonus to adjacent infantry while inside it.

I'm sorry, Lska, but I'm not sure I understand your first sentence. And while it's true that Yakov won't let SSU win the initiative EVERY time, they will win it the vast majority of the time. In fact, I'm curious what the actual statistical percentage would be?

Kriegschatten, I have killed Yakov numerous times… usually by hitting his squad with something (to reduce his hit points as he "takes one for the team") and then finishing him off with a sniper. It is very satisfying.

HOWEVER, that has nothing to do with my complaint… that advanced deploying copters plus Yakov make for a broken-powerful first and second turn. If Yakov is sitting behind a wall across the board, it is impossible for me to kill him on the first turn.

Well, I must admit that I don't have any experience playing against the SSU--all of my games have been Axis vs Allies.

On paper, though, it seems like all you need to do is out activate the SSU player (which shouldn't be that hard since they've invested 100 points just in Yakov and a helicopter).

Save you anti-air units for last, let the SSU player advance deploy his helicopter, then put your anti-air units on the board and blow it out of the sky.

I play against Yakov with some regularity, I have won (normal, without Bazooka Joe) initiative maybe twice out of probably 30+, because not only do you have to roll hits, so does the SSU general. Bazooka Joe helps, but that's not available to Axis at all.

Yakov's job is to hide in the back, definitely not in a chopper or even a tank. You really want to claw your way through all of the SSU's close range mauling power? Maybe the Axis/Allied planes will help with this, seems like a tough target to prioritize though.

I have not fielded or dealt with aircraft yet as I am happy with the balance in my armies already, so I cannot comment on how Yakov affects games when used with them but the OP's post seems legit. Legendary Tactician is a powerful skill and it would make no sense to me to field SSU without him, IMO.

It still comes down to the SSU player making the decision to move first or not having (usually) won initiative that will help win the game, and in my experience when attacking the SSU whilst they are fortified in a structure (like the Communist Party HQ in Enemy at the Gate Pt 2), you can be in for a rough ride when Legendary Tactician is in effect. My enemy protected Yakov well by moving his squad to the back of the compound when needed, and sent Winter Child to the windows to head off any assassination attempts.

I could never get ahead thanks to Legendary Tactician as my troops would be too wounded through failed initiative attempts to be in any condition to face Yakov's squad once inside…

Mike_Evans: there are few solutions to Your problem. First - as Kriegschatten already said - is outactivating SSU player and destroying choppers with AA units entering the board at the end of the turn. Second: protect Your key units with 'guardins' with Advanced or even better Superior Reactive Fire. Advanced Deploment - while may seem overpowered at the first glance - is a best and fastest way to lose Your aerial units and works in a long perspectice only on a rare opportunity when opponent forgot to include AA units in his army.

Also remember that If you shot the transport chooper down, the unit aboard loses its activation in this turn.

Now we're getting a good discussion! Thanks for the responses.

It is true you can try to out-activate the SSU and force them to commit their troops before you have committed yours. This is the best "counter" I can think of. It's also kind of a bummer, because you either have to game the system and take a lot of artillery spotters, or you have to avoid bringing any of the good/expensive units to the table. Now of course, even this will not work in scenarios where the SSU has considerably more points than you do.

However, even having more activations will not necessarily help you. Even if you CAN out-activate the SSU and force them to commit their copter, there are very few units that can take out a full-health medium flyer in a single round. Sturmkonig can't shoot on round 1, all of the other anti-air walkers can't kill a 'copter in a single shot. Only Grim Reapers/Hvy Recon/Flak can do it in theory, and without sustained fire your odds are pretty bad. So if you try to kill the 'copter and fail, then you've just given the copter an ideal target to nuke in turn 2, or in turn 1 with a carried squad. This is VERY easy for the squad to do if it has Fighting Spirit.

(On that note, I laughed out loud when I read the Advanced Rules for aircraft. They want you to only be able to shoot aircraft if you sustain fire? Really?)

Even so, the above suggestion is still probably the best way to combat the advanced deployment/Yakov combo that I can see, and it's far from a sure thing. This touches on my two biggest complaints about Dust…. the power of having more activations, and the crapshoot that is initiative. Many tourney armies these days use multiple artillery spotters who are there for the sole purpose of providing more activations. Also, initiative is such a crapshoot… going first can sometimes be absolutely critical, and it's either a total roll-off, or your opponent has Yakov and you never get to go first.

I have played a few games with a variant, that you can pass your turn early, before activating every unit. The person who passes first automatically wins initiative for the first turn. So far it has worked beautifully. I seriously doubt the new edition of Dust will incorporate anything like this (or any of the other activation-problem fixes suggested here on these forums) and it's kind of a shame.

Oh, and to answer Gothik, I'm not sure that Superior Reactive Fire is a "true" solution. It won't work at all on turn 1, and don turn 2, it can only be performed once per unit and only AFTER a unit takes an action. Sure, you might get to respond to an attack (if you survive) but a lot of the time it won't do any good whatsoever.

Mike_Evans, it sounds like your problem is more with aircraft than Yakov.

If your concern is that almost no unit can take out an aircraft in one activation, then it doesn't really matter if your opponent wins initiative or not.

For example, Axis vs Allies, Axis has 10 activations, Allies have 8.

Axis has two Fledermice (or whatever the plural is…).

Axis lets Allies place their eight units on the table.

Axis then places their two aircraft at the end of Round 1. Allies cannot retaliate.

Allies win initiative. A Wildfire shoots at one of the Axis aircraft and fails to kill it.

The Axis aircraft then obliterates the Allied command squad (or whatever their target was).

Can you post a sample 300 point SSU army unit list similar to what you are seeing played?

Because, whenever I start thinking about getting an SSU army together, I have a hard time choosing because the SSU has so many great, but expensive, units (like the helicopters, heavy tanks, Winter Child, etc.). I usually don't find room for Yakov…

Mike_Evans said:

You can't jump out of an advanced deployed copter though on turn 1.

Man, FFG needs to do something about their servers. I've been trying to get to this page for a while now.

@Major Mishap: Thank goodness! I had specifically found the part of the rules that says that units in transports that activate aren't activated themselves, but we did not look to see if the rule was different for Advanced Deployment. This just reinforces my growing belief that I need to read the entire ruleset myself before playing a game. Every friggin' time time I rely on somebody else for rules, I find out later that we played something incorrectly. Sometimes it's minor, sometimes it's huge.

This is great news, though. The Advanced Deply/Move First trick isn't nearly as powerful if you can't drop a squad on the first turn so you can get a second turn's worth of fire from it before your opponent can respond. It can still be pretty good, though, depending on your opponent's setup, if you are 90%+ sure you'll have the initiative.

To answer Kriegschatten, I'm amazed you don't have Yakov in every single army you field. You asked for a sample army list… well, the copter/squad trick isn't nearly as good as I though (thank goodness) but there are still tons of uses for Yakov's "always go first" ability. You can walk tanks and walkers out from behind cover knowing they'll be able to get the first shot against opposing walkers, you'll be able to drop 'copters knowing they'll get the first shot, etc… The cheap infantry squads you buy to keep your number of activations high will love Yakov's cover ability, especially snipers and such. Infantry lasts a lot longer when it can maintain heavy cover against most opposing units without really trying.