Re: Men Of War Assault Squad Patch 2.05.12 119
Hien Mondesir
No matter: I spend the next gleeful minute headshotting advancing Japanese soldiers in this surprise third-person shooter mini-game. Later, I learn that this mode is called "Direct Control," and I can trigger it with any unit at any time. "Accidentally discovering something awesome" will soon become a four-word summary of my time with Assault Squad 2. It's a deep, complex real-time strategy game set in various theaters of World War 2, with five distinct armies with their own multistage campaigns, hundreds of unique vehicles, dozens of personal weapons, melee combat, seasonal camouflage, fully destructible environments, and realistically modeled armor penetration.
Put together, these elements paint a tactical picture more chaotic and deeply realized than Company of Heroes 2 or Close Combat. On the downside, Assault Squad 2 isn't interested in teaching you much of anything, so your curriculum for self-education is vast.
Hours of experimentation later, I decide to make the jump to multiplayer. There are five multiplayer modes, but, true to form, the differences between their rulesets are never fully explained. The most interesting is Assault Zones Extreme, a jumbo-sized eight-on-eight version of the standard resource-capture game mode. In resource-capture modes, cash for troops accrues gradually, and each soldier type has a cooldown timer after recruitment. The shortest games are the one-on-one fights, which typically last only a few minutes and end with a decisive winner.
The town in my first match, a French village with a robust shipping and industrial neighborhood, seems completely empty. In a horror game, an empty rural village would be cliche, but in online RTS play, it's unbearably tense. My opponent is hiding. To say I'm wound a bit tight would be an understatement.
Even after three hours of learning how to play, even with an 80-point handicap, I plummeted straight off the side of Assault Squad 2's pitiless learning curve. I should have been so mad at the game, but I wasn't. I wanted more. I wanted to learn the tricks and strategies that my opponent already knew: the secrets that would unlock the game.
Much later, I'm back in singleplayer. I've sent Japanese shock troops across most of an island against those corn-eating, American dogs. I've learned a lot over the last few days. I've learned how to resupply squads with a single click, how to rearrange and organize shattered units after an attack, and how to gain ground without exposing troops to enemy armor. I take one squad of eight men and highlight half of them, creating a second squad on the fly and sending them around to flank. Meanwhile, I send my heavy tank and armored car up a western road in a column, providing a massive base of fire while my infantry closes in.
An American Marine manages to lob an anti-tank grenade before I kill him, and the blast tears off one of my tank treads and cooks the engine. My crew bails out, one of them screaming and on fire. The other two are alive, but armed with only pistols. I send them over to two fallen Marines, take their weapons and ammo, and absorb the surviving tankers into my infantry squad as a pair of new SMG-toting assault soldiers.
My keystrokes are faster now, and I'm more confident. I never send troops forward without an established base of fire, and I've learned how to stop my entire army from belly-crawling slowly across open terrain. My arrogance grows as I easily capture the last American base on the map. A supply crate drops in and I send two squads at it, filling their arms with mines and ammo. I order two other squads to begin digging trenches and filling sandbags, while still another takes a repair kit and uses it to get the disabled tank moving again. Within minutes, we're a bristling hive of angry metal, ready to defend against the American counterattack. I smugly glow with pride at the efficient way I refitted my men to change from assault to defense.
The counterattack comes, and it comes hard. Even with time slowed down, I can't keep up with the pace as Americans rush in by the dozen. I've placed my mines in the wrong corridors, and without their explosive power, I don't have the bullets I need. One, then two, then nine of my men run low on ammo as the bodies pile up. After all of my begging, all of my work, Assault Squad 2 isn't ready to give in to me yet. As I fumble with keyboard shortcuts that I learned from forum posts, the game with hidden depths beats me over the head again with my ignorance.
I love Assault Squad 2, but it was not an easy romance. Its brutal difficulty spikes and hands-off approach to training should serve as a warning to all but the most grizzled of armchair generals: this game is war, and war is hell.
The Space Marine Assault Squad is an unusual unit. They are meant to be the main assault force of the Space Marine army, but while they have the mobility to get into range of the enemy army, they lack the assault prowess when they get there to do much damage to all but the weakest of enemy units. However, used in the right role, they do have a place in a Space Marine army and can be an effective unit for taking out specific enemy threats or for board control and objective grabbing.
I would give the Space Marine Assault Squad a rating somewhere between Situational and Efficient. While they are far from an auto-include in a Space Marine army, I think that is they are used in the right role and/or sufficiently supported by the right Characters, they can be a valuable unit to bolster the mobility of your force.
The key strengths of the Assault Squad are their mobility on the battlefield, their deployment flexibility, and their strong firepower when equipped with Plasma Pistols. My standard way of running Assault Marines in 8th edition is a 5-man unit with Jump Packs and three Plasma Pistols (two on Marines and one on the Sergeant).
I think the Assault Squad should always take Jump Packs. On foot, the Assault Squad is pretty limited, needing a transport vehicle to get them into combat, and being slow to respond to enemy threats if you are using them as a deployment zone counter-attack unit.
With Jump Packs, you get a big boost in mobility for the unit. In 8th edition, being able to move over cover without penalty and assault up levels without penalty to your movement is a key ability. While Bike Squads and Scout Bike Squads are faster, they lack the ability to go through walls in ruins and to assault units that are not on the ground level (in most cases). This is one area where the Assault Squad wins in the mobility stakes.
I find that the Assault Squad is great for grabbing unattended objectives on the board, as well as scoring maelstrom cards (such as Behind Enemy Lines) or ITC objectives (such as Recon). They can also be useful for grabbing end of game objectives, thanks to their mobility and deployment options. Even though you need to deploy them on turn 3 at the latest in matched play games, you can use their jump pack assault to go after objectives that your opponent has neglected, or moved his forces away from during the game. At the very least, you can hide the squad behind some line of sight blocking terrain, then use their ability to move over the cover without penalty to grab the objectives on the final turns.
While this may be a waste of the potential of units such as Vanguard Veterans, Bike Squads, Death Company, etc, a minimum squad of Assault Marines is only 80 pt, so a unit or two simply for objective grabbing is not going to take too many resources out of your army. You are probably not expecting much from the Assault Marines in the game anyway, so keeping the unit hidden for much of the game is not a huge loss in many cases.
Using the mobility of the squad and Jump Pack Assault, you have the option to exploit any deployment errors by your opponent to target their backfield vehicles, fire support units or any characters that are left exposed. This chance increases as the game goes on, as units are more likely to move out of position or advance on the enemy army, giving you more places to place the deep striking unit. I have had some success with the Assault Squad grabbing objectives in the enemy deployment zone and severely wounding or killing enemy characters after my opponent has left them exposed in their back lines.
The mobility of the Jump Pack Assault Marines can also be key for moving over screening units without penalty to target characters that are supporting them, either firing your Plasma Pistols and/or assaulting them to try and finish them off.
Having the Fly keyword also means the unit can fall back and still shoot. This can make them useful for firing their Plasma Pistols, charging in to combat to try and stay safe from enemy fire, then falling back in the following turn and shooting again.
As mentioned above, support characters can boost the damage output of the unit. I frequently use two squads of Assault Marines (with 3 Plasma Pistols each) with a Jump Pack Captain and Jump Pack Lieutenant. Starting in reserve, all units can normally deploy together and go after a key enemy unit or character.
While you could support the Squad with a Chaplain, I think he is better suited going with a harder hitting unit such as Vanguard Veterans (who can take more dedicated melee weapons) or those with more attacks.
Black Templars are also a solid option for the Assault Squad. Getting to re-roll failed charges gives them a better chance of getting into combat from Jump Pack Assault without having to use command points on them.
Salamanders are also great Chapter Tactics for getting the most out of their firepower. This can save you using command points or support characters to make sure your shooting and assault attacks are more impactful.
Raven Guard Chapter Tactics can be useful in the right circumstances. If you are using them for securing and defending remote objectives, then the -1 to hit against enemy firepower can help keep them alive for longer to hold the objectives at the end game.
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