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How to defeat this shieldball?

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Massive number of rogues + racketeers + dirtbags + an aspis or two?

I can only think of outmaneuvering them with raiders and whatnot.
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5 years ago
raiders beating skirmishers by dodging their projectiles stops working when large numbers of units are involved.

stuff that could work:

- thunderbird + raiders (preferably high dps ones like glaive, bandit, scorcher)

- thunderbird + fire bombers

- skirmishers that outrange the rogues and can hit low weight mobile units while dodging: recluse, grizzly

- longer ranged skirmishers like firewalker and tank artillery
(but you'll probably need some cheaper fast units to distract the rogues to avoid being overrun, this might also fail if the opponent gets enough shields to absorb most of the shots)

- mirroring their strategy without the aspis and racketeers
(this might require manually timing the engagements to ensure your extra rogues don't just get killed by stray shots)

- mobile area cloaker + crawling bombs
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5 years ago
Many good cloaked alternatives..
No outlaws? Prelaid mines would do the trick
No felons? Skuttle
Scythes, take out racketeers first
or even whatever + iris
Big question is if they are screening for cloaked units with their dirtbags..

Switch to air for thunderbird + napalm/raiders or even ravens to take aspis and then napalm

Powerful artillery like lance or emissary

One personal favorite is the shockley tactical missile, you just have to consider if the shieldball is expensive enough to justify the cost of this counter.
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Firepluk
5 years ago
Cloaked. Roaches.
Or what the fuck devs renamed roaches into...
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5 years ago
Firepluk they are called Snitches now.
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5 years ago
glaive spam if theres no outlaw
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SErankMac
5 years ago
What I meant with outmaneuvering with raiders was to control the map and split the deathball then hit them from every angle. I'm not sure either thunderbirds or heavy units like grizzlies work due to racketeers. And you can't outskirmish them due to aspis if you fail to hit them with thunderbird. I've seen mass glaives work, but it's easy to add couple of outlaws and that problem is gone. Felons and thugs can also be added for even more upfront damage. There's no unit this factory has that is niche.

Gimmicks like crawling bomb is an easy solution but extremely unreliable, but worth a shot among everything else you could try I guess. Certain artillery could work I didn't think of that. But I'm skeptical in their use in reality unless both sides are bunkering down with towers. It seems, you just have to mix units from several different factories and micro everything in a perfect positioning, while the shieldball players a-move.
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5 years ago
the thing about skirmisher vs skirmisher with clumsy ones like rogue, is that it's that they'll be dancing and missing most of the time, so if the other guy bought large shields that can't dodge, they'll be quickly drained and be an energy drain on their economy as well.

if you add the grizzly after you have your clumsy skirmishers dancing and delaying the opponents advance, even if it gets disabled sometimes, it can tank and actually kill units when it fires.

remember that racketeers can't hit what they can't see and most units can't see past 660 range (which is barely more than grizzly), so if you add owl from the air factory it'll reveal the opposing front lines and jam radar to cover yours. It can also make thunderbird less likely to get disarmed in time.

against some compositions the counters imply using units from different factories.
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5 years ago
If is a big ball, just rush air, try not to let them see planes brewing, 2 thunderbird + 4 firebombers. Ball gone. Follow up with raders . Best counter imo
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5 years ago
recluse would probably rollt hat over unless racketeers are a lot better than i remember.
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5 years ago
If no racketeers, sumo
If racketeers, firewalkers.
If no felon/AA, roach bombers.
If classic shieldblob, cloaked roaches.
If outlaws, get dem planes then drop roaches into the disarmed shieldball for maximum lulz. For ultimate lulz, land the roach in the middle of it instead of tossing it.
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5 years ago
multiple snipers work too.
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5 years ago
Few penetrators (lance) from hovers also can help.
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cloaked knight spam under iris, seen this work too, they get in to the ball, they take a beating but generally F*ck it all up, esp if u target pest units
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5 years ago
In late game, Silo with EMP missiles can do a number
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