Matrix Games Forums

I'm only partway through my first game, and just figured out that operationalizing formations raises the cost of operationalizing subsequent formations, so I'm having to try and be a bit more picky now.
Just wondering what formations other people have found that have been fun or effective.

It seems like grenadier might be good for plain infantry formations, but I don't know if they'll be relevant when I research jetpacks. Maybe the siege formations are a better long term for cheap defense-oriented infantry.

I also ended up accidentally investing a lot in mechanized light armor formations, of which I can choose between a regular light armor mechanized infantry, or light armor mechanized grenadiers. I think I need to have researched the basic "armored" formation before medium armor versions of mechanized divisions start to show up.

A chart showing what formations are in the game and their TOEs would be pretty helpful actually.

I'm only saying this to show even after playing a fair amount of games one can be clueless, but I mostly just go for tanks. Then I'll attach a walker or two, provided it's the kind of mountainous planet they're needed for. A little bit of artillery here and there is nice as well.

Really depends on the terrain to me as for everyone i guess too. I mostly play in plain regions with lots of mountain and inter mountain passes, so everytime i need a lot of logistics and industrial points to make the passages available. Given my preference i go for infantry brigades a lot. They're best at attacking mountain garrisons and clearing them of pesky raiders and mutants. Then i often take a lot a lot of artillery. Motorized artillery independent battalions are the best togheter with rockets in dealing with enemies in mountain ranges. I would also say i use a lot of light tanks in battalions, mostly they're for manouvering and shooting down infantry belonging to minors. Most of the job is done by my grunts. My losses are horrific sometimes [:D] Also drawing from Italian tradition of mobile infantry i go with biker regiments/battalions, simulating Italian bersaglieri regiment which in WW2 were motorcycle infantry or motorized. Lastly i use a lot chooppers. In hard terrain they can land everywhere and just using supplies bases i keep fleets of 60 on each hot front, so they support everything. Besides i don't use much yet. I'm fairly new to the game and i'm a reincarnation of a 1800 or WW1 commander i guess given my love for grunts and big cannons.

best

Heh sounds fun! I tried playing with air power enabled a couple times but it just devoured all my resources for nowhere near an adequate return. I didn't use choppers much. My suggestion for fixing things was to make it impossible to retreat from air power. I think people misunderstood me to mean air power always destroys its target, which is NOT what I mean at all. Combat lasts for ten rounds I believe, so just see if the target can endure or not for those ten rounds. It would make air power vastly more worthwhile (cannot emphasize enough how maddening it is to spend literally THOUSANDS of ammunition and not even destroy a single infantry unit) and be realistic. The whole deal with being attacked from the air is there's nowhere for you to run. If you're attacked on land from the west, flee east. If you're attacked from the north, flee south. But attacked from above, what, dig? The only specific objection I ever encountered was "but it's easy to hide from bombers!". Which even if it were true (try telling that to the charred scrap which used to be the Armenian tank corps)it's not relevant because obviously you can only be attacked AFTER you've been spotted, and it is NOT easy to hide when the bombs are already raining down. Oh well. Had to get that off my chest obviously

Personally I tend to attach special purposse units (artillery and tanks) as independant Batallions. While limited to 2, even that much is often enough. When surroundign a enemy, I tend to park them on the OHQ in defensible terrain, so nobody tries to attack that particular square.
As long as they are part of the same assault, they will take their proper position (Artillery in back, with Infantry and Tanks in front).

The advantage of mixing units into the basic formation is purely a stronger defense. If all 5 subunits have 2 Artillery, no mater where the enemy attacks you got some artillery to avoid enemy breakthroughs.
The downside of mixing Artillery in with Infantry, is that using the artillery limits your ability to use the infantry itself (however Artillery does perform well in combat).
And for mixed in tanks, the unit can only move as slow as the infantry wasting a lot of power of the tank. Plus the tank might be "dragged" into very infavorable terrain or the whole unit might be blocked from going into mountains because the tanks can not follow.

I am but a boring blitzkrieg tank corps commander. Light tanks, medium tanks, tank destroyers. Infantry to fill the gaps and occupy the cities or hex perks I want. All biggest howitzer booms, biggest armor, biggest engine but tank destroyers that field HV guns.

I like heavy MG brigades though, as more MG are always good. And I can see OOBs worthwhile with many different types in it, as all of them would field test at once, which hasn't been mentioned here yet.

But tanks...I like tanks.

I like heavy MG brigades though, as more MG are always good.

A small limitation to this:
MGs are good when being attacked by soft targets. They do not perform well against hard targets or on the offense. Indeed I tend to replace them with basic infantry for a attack - at least those losses are cheaper.

Yeah I also use pretty much until the end (when I start fielding larger armies with different stuff bc I then usually have abundant resources and can start to have fun) just infantry brigades with OHQ's (usually inf mg mix) and with attached independent armor units that do the attacking. Defend with all units except these armor units. Usually 4-6 armor units (as in 2-3 OHQ brigades for strategic spots) is enough to wage war even on extreme difficulty. Independent mg and bazooka/AT gun units for keeping the front.

ORIGINAL: Mina

A chart showing what formations are in the game and their TOEs would be pretty helpful actually.

Here you go:
Unit types for the various OOBs (now with research/upgrade/downgrade Tree)

As for what I use:
Anything with Grenadier in the name is good. I also go for lots of tanks, first pure tanks, but the armored assault and especially armored grenadier formations are extremely good.

ORIGINAL: Mina
It seems like grenadier might be good for plain infantry formations, but I don't know if they'll be relevant when I research jetpacks. Maybe the siege formations are a better long term for cheap defense-oriented infantry.

Jetpacks can only be fielded as independent formations and can't wear heavy armor, so most people don't seem to consider them very useful.

Infantry formations should definitely include RPGs if at all possible in my opinion, as tanks dominate unless air power is keeping them in check and infantry need something to fight back against them at least a little bit. Even heavy terrain penalties can only do so much if the infantry don't have weapons that can harm the tanks in the first place. Artillery can probably defend against tanks somewhat thanks to its high caliber, but is a lot more expensive to lose if the tanks manage to breakthrough and kill it.

More generally, unless fighting in terrain where tanks are heavily penalized, I think it's best to invest either into massed armor (with supporting infantry formations to cover more ground cheaply) or into air power to counter the enemy armor. The viability of air power varies widely based on the planet, though.

The nice thing about using a more complex formation with multiple model types is that you get field testing on more models that way.

There's no walker formation ;_;

I had been wondering about walker formations. Like did they exist but I just hadn't discovered them? Apparently not, bit disappointing. Good to get confirmation machine guns are primarily defensive, that was the vibe I had been getting from their performance but it was hard to be sure.

Machine guns are soft defense if you want cheap hard defense then you want RPGs.

Machine guns are not primarily defensive. They're weaker than infantry in attack only at the very start of the game. With high speed machinegun (automatic rifle tech) they're about the same. With advanced machine gun they're about 50% better. With lasers they're twice as good at attacking and four times as good at defending compared to infantry. So they're just better at infantrying than infantry.

ORIGINAL: KarisFraMauro

I had been wondering about walker formations. Like did they exist but I just hadn't discovered them? Apparently not, bit disappointing. Good to get confirmation machine guns are primarily defensive, that was the vibe I had been getting from their performance but it was hard to be sure.

I view Walkers as mostly the continuation of the whole Power Armor Concept. Maybe they can fit into Infantry OOBs?

ORIGINAL: redrum68

Machine guns are soft defense if you want cheap hard defense then you want RPGs.

Or Antitank guns even. I think they offer even better value/subunit. And can actually have a decent callibre.

ORIGINAL: AgentFransis

Machine guns are not primarily defensive. They're weaker than infantry in attack only at the very start of the game. With high speed machinegun (automatic rifle tech) they're about the same. With advanced machine gun they're about 50% better. With lasers they're twice as good at attacking and four times as good at defending compared to infantry. So they're just better at infantrying than infantry.

It can be a bit confusing as MG's have twice the firepower and the design rolls get in the way.
You have to compare Automatic Rifles to Advanced Machineguns. Wich has twice the Firepower for twice the IP metal and IP cost, and 3 times the Ammo consumption.

Infantry uses Firepower * Weapon Design as Soft Defense.
50% of that as Soft Attack and Hard Defense
25% as Hard Attack

MG use Firepower * Weapon Design as Soft Defense
25% of that as Soft Attack and Hard Defense
12.5% of that as Hard Attack

MG's can have twice the firepower and still will barely break even with infantry in anything but Soft Defense.
But at twice the firepower they have twice the the Soft Defense.
And you pay 2 times the IP/Metal and 3 times the ammo cost for barely breaking even.

I'm not confused, I just pay attention. MGs only start with twice the raw firepower but later models have higher ratios.

ORIGINAL: DTurtle
Here you go:
-Can't post links :-(Unit types for the various OOBs (now with research/upgrade/downgrade Tree)

As for what I use:
Anything with Grenadier in the name is good. I also go for lots of tanks, first pure tanks, but the armored assault and especially armored grenadier formations are extremely good.

Oh dang thanks!

Thoughts from my current game experience:
- RPGs are kinda vital to get into your infantry formations ASAP otherwise they get pooped on by hard targets.
- Heavy grenadiers are probably what you want to stick with for your infantry, because it's mostly going to be used defensively and also you want the maximum amount of RPGs/machineguns in your formation because IP+Metals are cheaper than manpower.
- Assault infantry adds light armor and therefore soft attack value but also removes the ability for your infantry to traverse mountain tiles, as do motorized/mechanized formations, and they're still not as good offensively as armor-based formations. So they don't feel like a good option.
- I'm not sure whether siege formations add special bonuses due to infantry/artillery cooperation beyond the occasional posture I've seen which boosts both, but having some independent artillery formations is definitely necessary for offensive operations with infantry against other infantry. You need to be able to do a bombardment or two to smack down the entrenchment and readiness values before you try an assault. With tanks you don't generally need to both as much though.
- You can make Mixed Armor formations that include SPGs with Tanks to add some cheaper soft attack value to your tanks but that might not strictly be necessary if you've got Access to armored mechanized divisions, because APCs have mad soft attack values.
- Light armored mechanized formations can have really good offensive soft attack potential but uh, so can medium/heavy armored mechanized formations. And they get better hard attack.


Also hoping that Walker formations get added at some point

because IP+Metals are cheaper than manpower

Hmm, this is going to depend a lot on your situation, doesn't it ?
In my experience, early game tends to have plenty of manpower, but a sore lack of items.

I only play single player, so things might be different in mp, but i really dont use formations at all. I just raise individual battalions because i prefer flexibility and mobility.