Heavy Gear Blitz - Comm events and ECM/ECCM

One thing that has bugged me since I restarted playing Heavy gear Blitz with my wife is how I seem powerless to fight off any objuectives in which she needs to use comm events such as FO (Which is stupidly frequent). I even posted on the DP9 forums asking what I was doing wrong. As forums go, the first couple replies didn't really answer, then things started to get more interesting.

Now before I get into the meat and potatoes of my post I want to do a quick once over about comm events in Heavy Gear Blitz. Comm events allow for many, MANY important actions to be taken. Some can literally be game changers. You can FO a target, you can give CP, you can call in airstrikes, and most importantly is the use of making an Active Lock and being able to use your IF weapons. It is pretty vital part of the game for any force. A lot of folks will tell you PRDF is great at EW since they have so many minis with the ECM perk, but that isn't entirely correct as I am finding and you will get the hint of as you read further.

In general, as I assumed from my few fights against my wife's Black Talons, the Black Talons are simply more elite then my PRDF is and I won't beat them on the EW field of battle easily. While most of my minis will have the ECM perk, having an EW stat of 1 makes many of those minis near useless in that regard. Certainly the easiest units for me to point to as being my 'best' EW unit is the scout squad. One person suggested a force build that might work, but I am thinking about something else that won't require an entire force rebuild on my end. The same eprson that suggested the different build also said something else that also rang pretty true: 'Don't try to out BT the BT'. Of course that does make sense to me and something I do think I need to refocus my efforts towards.

There is a few things though that hamper those plans.

• First is that my Cataphract is simply to much of a points cost to keep as my force commander. Having to upgrade multiple times just to get the Cataphract which only has the single IF weapon (compared to the Crusaders IVs which come with two link rocket pods), and a decent long range direct fire weapon. At 1000TV, he is simply to expensive to validate with everything else I need to add.
• Second thing is that I will need to revamp my force and go for a PL3 force listing. The reason for this is simple really. I need to have a much heavier focus on my gears, and Infantry simply do not bring what I need to the table. That actually hurts me to say since I do think, as I have said in the past, that Infantry belong in the giant robot settings as much as the giant robots themselves.
• Third thing is that I need to get myself a PRDF Patrol Squad box set, since I will need those Skirmishers to be my new commander, my main source of ECM/ECCM, and my FO for my IF attacks.

All those combined means I have to do a major overhaul to my force listing to get a better balanced force. of course those issues wouldn't be issues if I simply moved up in points, but lets face facts here. I could always add more minis to the field, but eventually I'll have to set my limit somewhere.

I will be honest, it does burn a little knowing that the first two minis I got painted for my force may well not see the table, but if I do want to win games by doing more then simply evading the enemy, I need to refocus my forces capabilities. It will only be fun for so long before either my wife gets bored of my moving at top speed to get out of the battlefield or I get fed up of my weapons bouncing off her armor or not being able to threaten her through EW.

As I get a new force idea in my head and into Gear Garage I will post my new force. We'll see how it looks once it is off of brain and onto 'paper'.