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How to counter riot-skrim balls?

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3 years ago
this is my problem:

I played a few games against the hard AI and got rekt (except the one time where i just ComRushed the AI)and i noticed something: riot-skirm balles are kinda uncounterable.

like riots and assaults you send against it gets killed by the skrimishers, and raiders gets killed by the riots. I'm trying to learn the roverfac so i dont have a skirm and i can't facswap in time. am i suppose to just area cloak scorchers to point-blanc or get air for thunderbird? and ideas to counter them would be nice.
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3 years ago
arti
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3 years ago
replay link?
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3 years ago
While this may seem like a stupid suggestion, you can also make your own riot-skirm balls as rover. Another good way to counter riots and skirmishers is to use artillery. For rovers this would mean Badger, as Impaler doesn't hit too well moving targets.
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3 years ago
DErankAdminmojjj it was offline

@Omojyari and FIrankterve886 i'll try arty, though i think it would just come down to "whose arty can tank more shots from the other arty"
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3 years ago
You got Badger as rovers. Spam Badger and stomp everything.
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3 years ago
there are 2 general accepted solutions

1. fast assaults raveger/minotaur are good examples

2. raid enemy base (usualy you can only ball a critical mass in one place and that leaves everywhere else empty)
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3 years ago
If you do "1." youll get kited to death.
"2." seems like a plausile option.
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3 years ago
Thunderbird can be a game-ender against such balls if you are a Rover player.

The question is how to survive to use it; for that you skip head-on fighting and go for their countervalue targets.
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You counter it with artillery and bombs.
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3 years ago
Heavy fixed defenses such as stinger are pretty cost-efficient at stopping them from pushing you in, at least until they get themselves some artillery. However, the AI is silly and tends to suicide units, making fixed defenses particularly effective against it.

The main counter is artillery. You will probably want some riot and assault escorts to prevent your artillery from being counter-pushed, as artillery takes a while to grind the enemy down.

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3 years ago
Riot and skirms are fairly balanced composition since they tend to counter each other's weaknesses. You could try, to summarise a few things that have been said:
  • Make pure skirms. Your skirms should outnumber the opponent since some of their metal was spent on riots.
  • Make forward defenses if you need to buy time. Most riots and skirms are inefficient against at least one type of defense.
  • Harass the riots with assaults that can survive the skirm supporting fire. Minotaur is a good choice as it can retreat and repair.
  • If the game is closed in then artillery can work.
  • If the game is still fairly open then the best idea could be to go around the slow army with raiders.
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3 years ago
When GoogleFrog speaks, listen. He is a man of much wisdom.
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3 years ago
I believe that riot-skirmisher combos would indeed usually be countered by pure skirmisher forces, or by reliable artillery kiting, since you'd then overpower the enemy's skirmishers through sheer numbers (assuming equal mass), or at the very least, trade even with them. Once the enemy's skirmishers are gone, you could then safely kite the riots to death.

However, if the enemy is using mostly skirmishers in their skirmisher-riot combo, then it'd probably be better to focus heavily on raiders and/or fast assaults (like the Ravager or Halberd), since chances are that the enemy riot would be overwhelmed by so many fast units barreling down towards it (and the skirmishers).

Alternatively, you could try to sneak up to the skirmisher-riot combo with cloaked riot and/or assault units (such as Reavers and/or Knights hidden by an Iris), and not only overpower the riots through sheer numbers, but also negate the skirmishers' range advantage over the riots.
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3 years ago
Longer range AoE/Burst/Distractive damaging Artillery units break them. A protected tremor, or merlin, 2 penetrators and 3 Sharpshooters are good enough to wipe riot-skrim off the map.

Cloaked walking bombs

Surround them with some raiders and keeping distance if the skirmisher isn't homing units or area attackers. May need a widget for this. Then move the rest raiders to attack the structures.

Thunderbird Pheonix

3 Sharpshooters


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3 years ago
Holding their ground against a superior number of raiders is the specialty of riots, though. You don't need a large metal investment in riots to shut down raiders. Fast assaults units can work if you have access to those, but it depends of the riot/skirm units in question. Some riots like ogre can deal a lot of damage to an incoming ball of assaults, even if they die quickly. Light skirms like ronin tend to come in large numbers, which assaults might have trouble dealing with.
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3 years ago
i like to make a cheap thin spire in between me and the skirmish ball and then place a stinger further back behind it.. so my forces can shadow in the spire stinger zone and this seems to make the enemy more fearful

like this

Stinger .. .. .. .. .. my army .. .. .. spire .. .. .. enemy ball

if they push i can shadow in the spire and normally push them off the stinger and eat enough to stabilize costs

doesnt always work but if im spider (almost always) ill then make a crab for the spire

then a tremmor will show up and gg all spider dead
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3 years ago
tried a badger-ripper combo it it did work quite well (still got out-ecoed cos i can't macro well) i guess arty was the was to go. thanks for all the suggestions!
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3 years ago
badger and firewalker are especially good to deal with that problem.
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