Counter to speeder swarm?

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Jul 29, 2015 21:43

Subject: Counter to speeder swarm?

SaturnHS

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Joined: Sep 28, 2014,
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In my matches against Titans on maps with good mobility and medium cash, I've started to see a strategy where they will just build up a bunch of speeders to make a wall, then put a walker behind them. I'm having trouble figuring out how to stop this tactic. Speeders aren't too expensive so it takes very little time to get enough on the map to prevent invasion by marauders and helis. Marauders alone aren't enough, as speeders have a slight edge over them head-to-head, and unlike plasmas it's nearly impossible to just disable speeders with an engineer (due to move after attack). Batteries face a lot of difficulty for the same reason. Tanks+engineers are good at first, but their slow speed makes it hard to pursue damaged speeders for the kill, giving the titan player enough time to build more speeders and put them into rotation. Once they get enough (4-5 seems to do the trick), they can take out a tank or heli at full health in a single turn with gang-up, then retreat to heal. I am getting tired of losing to this tactic. How can I stop it?

Jul 30, 2015 17:46

Subject: Re:Counter to speeder swarm?

waxoid

Messages: 442,
Joined: Aug 07, 2010,
Location: Seattle, WA
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Yep. Titans generally win this matchup. Engineers and tank-engineer combo are strong for initial pressure on smaller maps, but if you know map is going to a big speeder battle engineers get less useful. Though remember that EMP also freezes Titan unit zone of control, so sometimes even freezing one unit opens up a weakness in the defense for jeeps to slip through that the Titan player missed.

Primarily it's a mix of tanks, jeeps and batteries (+ marines on terrain). You want tanks to control space (via threats to speeders, with jeeps cleaning up wounded speeders), and to protect batteries. You want to preserve situations where if walker is firing on your units, you are at least also firing on his with battery. So of course Titan wants to gain space by threatening your batteries with walker range, but you get to fire and reposition. You want to preserve counter-threats where if he presses you for space like that, you can retaliate with battery / tank / jeep combos. If the counter-attack is strong enough and you can defend them, you fire battery(ies) and move after forward into 4-range so walker fire would be a trade.

Of course in such counter-attacks explore all possibilities for hitting walker with a jeep. Even if it is just a trade where you lose the jeep and only get one 4-point bite on the walker, you want to take it and try to convert to a space win i.e. rush as hard as possible after getting a bite.

You have to pressure hard from the beginning to claim as much early space as possible, and whenever there is a slip-up you have to capitalize hard. This is a race to find a weakness. Starving plasmas an obvious tactic, but speeder spam is mobile and your answer involves slow tanks. (I've floated the idea of considering tank mobility 9 for this reason.) When you are on the offensive, this is where an engineer near whatever is the most exposed base can potentially come into play with EMP and reprogramming threats.

Helis are an interesting question. On the kind of map you describe, I would go light on (avoid) helis unless terrain where it clearly outclasses eclipse and you can sustain/increase early pressure with it (once there are a lot of mechas on terrain the helis get less interesting.) On the flip side, where you can get some terrain advantages (over water in particular) or where map size might be larger and there are very large buildups, heli swarms can get quite interesting when they are large enough to pound through plasmas...

Jul 30, 2015 17:49

Subject: Re:Counter to speeder swarm?

waxoid

Messages: 442,
Joined: Aug 07, 2010,
Location: Seattle, WA
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Oh and maybe obvious, but one advantage you have in standoff of course is that your jeeps can "maraud" across the lines to try to pick off mechas or speeders (takes 3 jeeps for that) and steal back to their side. So positioning jeeps for these threats and picking off any/all material you can to incrementally weaken Titans is part of such matchups as well.

You of course may know all of this, in which case the short answer is "yes, this is a very, very difficult matchup."

Jul 30, 2015 19:33

Subject: Re:Counter to speeder swarm?

SaturnHS

Messages: 4,
Joined: Sep 28, 2014,
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Thanks, this is helpful! Sounds like I'll just have to bite the bullet and figure out how the heck to use batteries

Aug 16, 2015 04:31

Subject: Re:Counter to speeder swarm?

anonym551653

Messages: 112,
Joined: Apr 06, 2014,
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Remember any matchup can be beaten of a player is smart enough. There are plenty of maps leaning slightly for titan where sapiens still stand a chance. Against speeder it's tanks. Use maraders against anything but speeders ant plasma tanks stock up a few batteries and make sure to stop walkers or positions where titans can set up impenetrable walls. Last thing no helis. Use this knowledge and make a strategy.

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