Land Speeder Squadrons

[waaanial00]

I prefer to run my Typhoons in squadrons of 2's, whilst I accept there is a possibility that I am wasting potential firepower It is just as likely that I will have to waste the first Typhoon and commit the second anyway. Its much cleaner to have all of the shots penned at one target and live with the result rather than wasting time deciding whether the first salvo was sufficient.

 

I run my MM speeders in a Squadron as well, much easier to make sure that they both arrive at the same time within range of each other to double up on something.

 

All this talk of statistics makes me laugh, its all well and good from a list building stance but honestly when you start throwing dice anything can happen, knowing what is likely to happen is like living life worrying about heinsight. Does very little but make you lament all the experience you have gained thus far.

[breng77]

So far the math hammer presented in this thread has been equating the output of 2 x typhoons compared to a squardon of 2 typhoons vs a rhino.. I see absolutely no value in this and I argue that it should not be a consideration at all when selecting the unit.. All that is important to know is that a typhoon CAN take out a rhino and is generally a good option vs AV 12 or less. Squadronning has no effect on either of these two considerations.

 

It is fine that you don't see the value, except that what I bolded is exactly what I was trying to say. Which was the point of contention, the argument was that a pair of squadroned speeders was in some way offensively more capable than 2 separate speeders. If someone was using this as a reason for picking the squadron over the individual speeders then they were mistaken.

 

I also disagree with Marshall Wilhelm that you need to know the math, if you have enough experience in this game, and are patient (play units and lists a lot before discarding them). You can achieve the same results (something that your building example fails, because you are unlikely to get many chances at it should you screw up). If I play with a unit in 50 games and it consistently does poorly I have just as good a reason for taking them out of my list as I would if I did the mathhammer.

 

One thing I will say about math hammer is that it can save you some time and money, if you look at a unit and think it is great, run out and buy it, only to later discover that it is garbage, if Math hammer could have pointed out that that unit was not good at what you though it could do then this situation could be avoided.

[breng77]

I prefer to run my Typhoons in squadrons of 2's, whilst I accept there is a possibility that I am wasting potential firepower It is just as likely that I will have to waste the first Typhoon and commit the second anyway. Its much cleaner to have all of the shots penned at one target and live with the result rather than wasting time deciding whether the first salvo was sufficient.

 

Waste time? How long does it take to decide if you achieved your desired result? For shooty Vehicles, can't shoot is usually good enough for me (weapon destroyed or immobilized might be depending on the situation), for transports, can't move is usually good enough, unless I set up to attack the contents of said transport. It does not take all that long to know if you have neutralized a threat, even if it is only temporary.

[DarkGuard]

Some really good stuff here, especially on the drawbacks vs advantages of squadrons. I still haven't run my MM/HF singularly yet, but I'm tempted to give it a try now, just to see how they do. A couple of times I've sort of wished they were separate so that they could threaten different things.

[Captain Idaho]

I prefer to run my Typhoons in squadrons of 2's, whilst I accept there is a possibility that I am wasting potential firepower It is just as likely that I will have to waste the first Typhoon and commit the second anyway. Its much cleaner to have all of the shots penned at one target and live with the result rather than wasting time deciding whether the first salvo was sufficient.

 

Waste time? How long does it take to decide if you achieved your desired result? For shooty Vehicles, can't shoot is usually good enough for me (weapon destroyed or immobilized might be depending on the situation), for transports, can't move is usually good enough, unless I set up to attack the contents of said transport. It does not take all that long to know if you have neutralized a threat, even if it is only temporary.

 

I think he is referring to the fact that having more of a decision to make potentially increases the chance of errors being made.

[breng77]

I guess, but on the other hand, having fewer decisions makes each one more critical. If i make the wrong choice with a squadron, it is much more costly, as now I have committed a larger portion of my army.

 

Think of it like a test. In a test with 10 questions there are more questions to get wrong, but each question is only 10% of the total. If a test has 2 questions, and I screw up one, I fail.

 

Neither opinion is inherently wrong, but arguing one is better than the other, is a slippery slope at best.

[DarkGuard]

Well today I played my two Speeders as separate. Was up against an Imperial Guard tank line, so reasoned having them able to engage two different targets (or both if needed), would be better. In the end, because of the game being the 2 objective game, and his hiding his behind cover, I deep striked both. On the third time of trying (one mishap back into reserve and one non fatal scatter) I landed next to his last troop choice and effectively flamed it off the objective. With my Speeders in different squadrons it also took him more firepower to attempt to neutralize, having the focus on them separately, though they were both running at the end of the game, the worst result being a stunned one.

 

What the game did show me was how fragile squadrons really are. My opponent was running vehicle squadrons, and twice I rolled an immobilized result only to have found I destroyed the vehicle because it was in a squadron. If all those had been separate then they would have just been stuck firing their nasty guns at me. Something to think about I suppose.

[Meatman]

Nothing like killing russes on a glancing hit because they are a squadron ^^

[Captain Idaho]

Yeah I had a sucky time once; my Landspeeders had 2 immobilised results on a squadron of Typhoons, failed both cover saves and lost them both! It made me want to cry!

 

Happens rarely to be fair though.