How do I play Vanguard?

[Firehawk]

I've been trying to play Vanguard for a while, and it is just not working. I do okay at first, but the first mid-game war invariably goes badly for me. I've been trying for long-range barrages from riflemen as a stopgap while I get walkers online, but it's just not working. What am I doing wrong?

[Raga]

It depends on your technology.
I tried them with voidtech, Promethean and xenoplague (to be honest I like them most with xenoplague and name my hero Sarah Kerrigan and make infested marines) :p

Hero in a bike (one can be recruited with it) with laser upgrades deals nice damage and all-round-awareness removes it's penalty to flanking.

Also you can spam more marine only armies to have advantage over enemy and autoresolve battles at your advantage.

[MrButtermancer]

Vanguard is in a strange place with regards to expectations, given they're the first in the story and front-and-center of the box art. One would think they're newbie-friendly, but they rely a lot on appropriate use of their entire kit to excel.

The Vanguard units, as a rule, are squishy ranged toolkits that are only tactically and strategically complete with appropriate mods and operational support (even compared to the other races). That means mod early, and establish an energy and op-point overhead to get the edge you need in battles.

A transition to a poor midgame probably reflects not leveraging synergies as well as you should. You would have had a terrible early game if you didn't already understand overwatch, positioning OWLs for accuracy, smokescreen and heal on your PUGs... etc.

In the midgame, you should really get a solid Trooper loadout (ideally produced with bonus armor from specialization or landmarks), and support them with modded bikes, engineers, or your early secret tech units. You should also have enough energy to spam your first secret tech tactical op (Technologist doctrine is great on everyone, but AMAZING on Vanguard). When you get a little further down the tree, Valkyries are absolutely fantastic for running interference (landing is an AoE stagger, jetpack as a free action, and throw her grenade for another AoE stagger). Upgrade Engineers with their rocket upgrade, and pair them with a PUG to allow them to place another launcher.

When you have access to their T3s, especially if you're producing them with bonus armor, you're out of the midgame and should put the bulk of your cosmite to mobilizing heavy armor into your existing stacks.

[Firehawk]

*sigh* This is why I like Oathbound. Nice, simple, clear progression. Straight line transition into a 4 warden 2 protector army with the arc weapon mass stunlock kit, leading into their late game nonsense with diviners and champions/exemplars.

What's a good kit for riflemen for the early-midgame? I've been using the mod that gives extra range paired with the electrify ammo, plus reinforced armor, but that's clearly not cutting it, even against enemies who are weak against arc damage.

[PXR5]

I go Bikes, then rush up the laser line. The moment you get access to the stagger mod and later on the disintigrate mod life becomes a lot easier. But then I play only on the largest map settings in empire mode so your game may not be compatible with my way of playing.

[never]

Originally posted by Firehawk:

What's a good kit for riflemen for the early-midgame? I've been using the mod that gives extra range paired with the electrify ammo, plus reinforced armor, but that's clearly not cutting it, even against enemies who are weak against arc damage.

Range + ammo + armor should work well up to lategame if you support the troopers with other units and ops.

[leon feargus]

I agree that the mod load out is fine. Are you using the overwatch ability? The preferred method is to enter overwatch with 2 or 3 action points left.

The Valkyrie Drop tactical operation is a real life-saver, make sure you have energy to spare during the more difficult fights and she will work wonders for you. That same research also unlocks jetpacks, which are another good option for troopers.

Most importantly, and this goes for any race, keep your units alive by having plenty of healing skills and if you run out of healing it's usually better to retreat critically wounded units out of reach of enemy fire.

[Firehawk]

Okay, sounds like I need to make more aggressive use of Valkyries, because everything else I'm already doing. I probably also need to mix in more engineers, I think.

[never]

You can also make good use of secret tech units. For example melee units like void walkers or light bringers are good at drawing enemy fire away from troopers and tying down enemy melee. Troopers are fragile and usually should be kept far from the enemy.

[Raga]

Also Xenoplague marines can have:
Parasite, rail acelerators and plague pods (instead of ammo)

This combo gives them:
- also +20% damage
- 10 hp
- immunity to morale
- resistance to status effects
- multiuse cooldown grenade which heals them, but damages and staggers enemies at the same time

[Firehawk]

How would you make it work with Voidtech or Celestian?

[Syrris]

Celestian has an excellent mod in its first tier of research: Tenets of Tranquility. Stagger resistance and protection from negative morale effects (but positive effects still work!), along with being enlightened (for Celestian effects). This mod alone makes it something of a hard counter to Psynumbra and to spawner/hazard types that mess up army morale, so you want it on pretty much every unit that can take it (and that isn't inherently morale/stagger proof).

The first tech-specific unit for both Celestian and VoidTech is a melee unit, which is something that the Vanguard otherwise lacks (aside from heroes). This covers for their relative fragility in melee since the tech unit can run interference against enemy melee, or (if you have several) be an assault force in its own right.

VoidTech gives you access to a really nice doctrine early on (Echo Protocols) that adds +1 output/worker to all of the standard resource tasks, and tactical operations that let you mess with battlefield positioning and create duplicates of units. The latter can be used as a force multiplier, but it's also a good way to generate sacrificial units that will draw enemy fire and keep the rest of your forces safe.

[Firehawk]

Oh, now that's promising. My last attempt saw me get bodied by a Psynumbra Shakarn AI that basically stagger-locked me to death, so the Celestian mod looks intriguing. I'll have to try it.

[Syrris]

Stagger resistance is also available early in the Vanguard's own tech: interlocking armor. If you're up against heavy amounts of stagger, and you don't have the Celestian mod or anything equivalent, then it's worth getting.

Similar mods are found in some of the other factions' early military tech.

[Firehawk]

Well, it went... better? At least this time it took three AIs declaring war on me at once, rather than me just losing to the first one. Yeah, the political landscape of that game was not in my favor. But I was holding my own against the first two, so I'm calling that an improvement.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by Firehawk:

Well, it went... better? At least this time it took three AIs declaring war on me at once, rather than me just losing to the first one. Yeah, the political landscape of that game was not in my favor. But I was holding my own against the first two, so I'm calling that an improvement.

It looks like you really like wars. Consider disabling diplomacy by setting teams with 1 member in each.