Why are Vanguards and Infernos so good?

I'm going to focus this question mainly on the power of the Vanguard but I think Infernoes are far too good for their metal cost too.

I played a game against an opponent who placed 1 Vanguard at the front of his measly force and sent it against my army of 100+Ants. I lost horribly as the Vanguard tanked all of the shots then, with its weapon which is even more powerful than before, destroyed half of my base and all of my army with a small amount of cover fire from the enemy Ants behind.

Why are Vanguards so darn good?

Because they don't pay for their HP and damage.

They loose speed, but nothing else in the exchange.

The Vanguard is so good because it was already good, and then got a massive buff. When Uber switched to the Uber cannon from the flamethrower, they kept the exact same DPS, increased the range, and added an area of effect damage. So now the Vanguard can kill Infernos before the Infernos get into range. And the Vanguard can take out a bunch of enemy units with one shot.

Come people, come to Statera. We have cookies vanguards which aren't broken.

Uber confuses me and they confuse me more and more the more they do this.

keep in mind however, that this is kind of how they roll. they take it to extremes alot. and personally, levellers can deal with vanguards relatively quick.

If you go T2 bots and they go T2 veh, then you're screwed.
If you go T2 air and they go T2 veh, then unless you pull something out you're screwed.
If you go orbital and they go T2 veh, then unless you can escape to another planet you're screwed.
If you go mass T1 and they go T2 veh, then you're screwed.

Having the counter and what it counters require the same thing is dangerous. Even having one thing counters this other thing itself is dangerous unless it's a T1 thing vs a T2 thing.

I don't agree with this. Your list isn't correct. there is only one vech that can shoot air, rest can't. only way to combat orbital is with a building, not vech. And T2 bots are pretty nice. You would of course have to have more of them and the correct ones (blue hawk is pretty awesome). But all that said yes T2 vech are a bit op atm. I'm sure they will tweak it.

Because Vanguards are supposed to be the counter to T1 tank spam. Try using something other than T1 tanks to kill them.

Ants kill vanguards right? Or are you moving them into the ubercannons?

Vanguards are counterable with enough units but the main problem is time management. One player sets up an attack move whereas the other needs to kite in order to have a semi favorable confrontation. Prob doesn't need the radar too.

Also depends on the planet. If there's large distances involved, or mountains/water in the way, the t2 tanks lose some of their appeal.

"Why are Vanguards so good"

More than 4x dps per metal cost than Aventail/Pounders.
On top of that, they get 4.16 hp per metal compared to 1.56.
They only pay for it in speed and range. Their speed isn't even that slow.

Their DPS should probably be half what it is.

Slammers are .667 per metal.


Especially if there were ways to drop lots of units right on top of someone, like a better Pelican, or a way to teleport that didn't require an exit built, Vanguards would be hugely OP.
Technically, like others mentioned, you can kite them.

So basically... if we had unit cannon Vangaurds shot out of a unit cannon would be near uncounterable.

Unless you could shoot them down in transit, pretty much.

Commander snipes would be easymode.

maybe vehicles cannot be used in the unit cannon, in the kickstarter it was also only bots using it

Kiting. Seriously?

The combat is already at a neckbraking speed late game, so you would have to go full time into micro managing your defenses to deal with Vanguards. That's just completely screwed.

Only two possible solutions:

• Either scale down the Vanguards attributes to reasonable values
• Or finally improve the unti AI. Auto-kiting MUST be a thing!

Kiting is ok, as it is nice to have something to do on the battlefield to get a little more out of your battles.

But it's all time management of course.

If by "uncounterable" you mean "killed instantly as they touch down in single file", then yes. Vanguards launched out of a cannon would be impossible to stop. Just as a "totally defenseless gateway" is impossible to stop.

Of course there's no reason to launch any sort of assault weapon when BOOMS turn your unit cannon into a rapid fire super artillery.

Nobody said the packaging the units came in would be more fragile than the unit itself. That remains to be seen. Until then I'm gonna assume a few things: that they could be shot at by whatever counter for the layer they're in at the moment, making anchors a viable defense against the unit cannon shooting anything, as well as a good anti-air layer since they need to transition from air to ground, at which point they can finally start attacking things. So I guess I'd ask why would you need to instakill them when they touch down (and what can even do that in the first place), when shouldn't they be dead before they land?

It's not a need. It's a simple fact of sending a limited number of troops as a stream. They do not reach the critical mass required to be an effective fighting force.

When it comes to raiding and pillaging, the unit cannon is clearly built for the task. Your forces have time to land, reinforce, and deal considerable damage against a poorly defended target. This is not true for any fortified location and the cannon should not be expected to succeed against one.

Why would you want this? Being able to deflect a token number of troops may be nice, but allowing the complete defense of raiding tools is irresponsible.