Matrix Games Forums

I've clocked up a few games now at pbem and against the AI, but it was not until recently something dawned on me.

Up till know I've used my armour mainly for speed and shock value, but many like myself did not realise that sometimes we may be committing Armour to combats for the shock value when it is pointless.

Why? well the CRT tables only give bonus for positive shock value ie I could attack a hex with no Shock value at all with plus 2 tanks ,,,,great.

But what if I attacked a hex that had a combined defensive shock value of 2 or more with the same tanks. I would not get the shock bonus. If I did not use the armour, but used the equivelant str in inf the results would be the same. The reason is because there is no negative shock results in table.

So you see, unless you can get a positive shift, in some cases you may be committing precious armour when there is no need.

Too true. To tell you the truth though, I consider shock to be secondary to my assault. Infact I hardly take any notice of shock... maybe thats why Im not a great player yet.

Excellent observation Pawlock. There are some interesting things about unit stacking that play into the shock value equation. In TAO,stack your Pz Grenadier INF units with the elite Mech units in the PZ Divs and watch how these grenadiers absorb the hits in combat. Beware of the MTN Div. They won't take the hits, your Mech will (tank steps bummer). It appears that the strength calculation for which unit takes a step is based on the unit basic strength and not the strength including DIV integrity. Stacking these same PZ Grendier units with 3 step tanks will also typically cause the grendier unit to take 2 steps before the tank unit will take will take any hits. Usually plenty of INF replacements to go around conversely there is usually a dearth of tank replacements. The same thing is true in KP except that you use the 4 step INF where you can. In case you haven't looked, click on the hex w/ the unit in question. Get the pull down menu and look at the base strength of the units. Compare to the tank/mech unit you would stack it with and you should be able to tell what the sequence of hits will be in a combat.