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APCs and disembodied horrors


Naja

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Ok, I'm kind of a newbie, and I haven't been playing Dune for about half a year now, (damned comp and its Norton; although there's a possibility that I might be, once this comp has Norton 2004 on it!) but what about this:

I know that the contaminator unit isn't the most appraised unit on this board... ::) That's understandable. Even in those missions in the campaign when you're being assaulted by columns of them, you just mow them all down, one way or another. Waaayy too slow.

But what if you used the Atreides APC and (slowly and in increments, to keep the cloak in effect) you deployed it in the midst of groups of infantry long before they can react, and effectively bash the Be-Jesus out of any infantry masses (assuming you're playing against an infantry-heavy player) that you encounter?

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Well, if you get a APC near any unit it will become visible. so the APC cant exacly go into a group of infantry. And when you deploy the APC the units coming out will be automatically attacked, slong with the APC. Theres a second or 2 that the unit coming out of the APC cant defend its self  :D

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That's a good point, yes. But the main problem with Tleilaxu units is their relative slowness. If it was any infantry other than Sardaukar or any other infantry type with BRUTAL firepower, it would matter not if only -one- contaminator could 'infect' one of the others...everything else would just follow in place.

Aw hell, at least it would give you and your opponent a good laugh.

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Well, they are slow but they are also got a little more armor than most infantry units (not including sub house infantry). Best way to get a group of sardukar would to make a large force of contaminators, sneak them behind the sard's. The send in a large group of cheap infantry(Light infantrys, scouts). Then when the sard start to fire at them, move the contaminators in behind them.

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Another fair point; however, stealth and Contaminators aren't that possible. Especially since in most games the Fog of War is not in play.

Also, the extra armor on a Contaminator isn't that spectacular (And some might go so far to say it outright sucks donkey; loads of it.). In fact, during a single-player Atry mission, I do believe you're forced to mow down entire ranks of them with nothing but Light Infantry and paltry sum of snipers. I don't know about you but I haven't lost a single time during that particular mission, no matter the difficulty setting (The ego throbs! ;D ).

Now! If you are distracting this hypothetical group of Sards with cheap Light Infantry or Chemical Troopers, again, this probably won't work. It only takes a single volley for a Sard to kill Lights and Chems, and they only have to turn around and mow down the Contaminators and their APC.

Every factor is working against you, really. The cloak doesn't work when it is too close to the enemy. The Contaminators don't move fast enough nor do they have enough hit-points to do little more than cross the gap between APC and enemy much less not get killed even before they get out and fully mobile from the APC...

In short, there is a very good reason hardly any member of this board would hold Contaminators as anything more than a waste of money.

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Another fair point; however, stealth and Contaminators aren't that possible. Especially since in most games the Fog of War is not in play.

Also, the extra armor on a Contaminator isn't that spectacular (And some might go so far to say it outright sucks donkey; loads of it.). In fact, during a single-player Atry mission, I do believe you're forced to mow down entire ranks of them with nothing but Light Infantry and paltry sum of snipers. I don't know about you but I haven't lost a single time during that particular mission, no matter the difficulty setting (The ego throbs! ;D ).

Now! If you are distracting this hypothetical group of Sards with cheap Light Infantry or Chemical Troopers, again, this probably won't work. It only takes a single volley for a Sard to kill Lights and Chems, and they only have to turn around and mow down the Contaminators and their APC.

Every factor is working against you, really. The cloak doesn't work when it is too close to the enemy. The Contaminators don't move fast enough nor do they have enough hit-points to do little more than cross the gap between APC and enemy much less not get killed even before they get out and fully mobile from the APC...

In short, there is a very good reason hardly any member of this board would hold Contaminators as anything more than a waste of money.

Yes, i agree. But if you outnumber the sard with light infantry you can hold them off for a short time. They are slow and a waste of money. But you can still get them to attack a group of sardukar and take a few of them out. I've done it many of times. the "smaller" the group of sard the more of a chance you will have. Its not worth trying against a lot of sards. And i agree with harkdawg, put a engineer in the APC instead of contaminators.

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I still believe that the contaminator would be much more interesting and useful if it were a fast instead of a slow unit, like the leeches. (Tleilaxu would then have an anti inf and an anti vehicle unit.)

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I still believe that the contaminator would be much more interesting and useful if it were a fast instead of a slow unit, like the leeches. (Tleilaxu would then have an anti inf and an anti vehicle unit.)

Every decent player puts some tanks near his inf so even if it was faster it wouold have much use since it wont get close enough and if he does just move ur inf a bit and kill them with tanks, i think the idea of this unit is great but it isnt effective wenn playing.

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Every decent player puts some tanks near his inf so even if it was faster it wouold have much use since it wont get close enough and if he does just move ur inf a bit and kill them with tanks, i think the idea of this unit is great but it isnt effective wenn playing.

I didn't say that the contaminator was to become invincible or even up to par with the stronger units in the game. Speeding it up (both movement and attack) is just a suggestion for making it more effective, like you requested :)

The leech is often able to reach its targets and this makes it necessary to defend against it without it being a game winner (but still it is useful/fun sometimes), why couldn't this be the case for contaminators as well?

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I didn't say that the contaminator was to become invincible or even up to par with the stronger units in the game. Speeding it up (both movement and attack) is just a suggestion for making it more effective, like you requested :)

The leech is often able to reach its targets and this makes it necessary to defend against it without it being a game winner (but still it is useful/fun sometimes), why couldn't this be the case for contaminators as well?

Welll a leech can take over tanks now thats a great differnts becuz 1 leech can kill a mino, and most important it can mess up ur economy by leeching ur harvs. A cont can only take out infantry and for its price it wouldnt be worth buying it even if he was faster.

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i believe a contaminator can kill *any* infanty in one hit... which puts the contaminator up there with the sard elite's knife which can slice any infantry in one hit.

However.... there is one catch ... i believe a sard elite has to slice another sard elite twice.... while a contaminator can kill a sard elite in one hit. Heck a fremen sniper has to shoot a sard elite 4 times !!

So a contaminator is still the ultimate infantry as far as firepower goes... i know they suck due to armor speed and range... but their "contaminator slap" hits the hardest of all infantry weapons.

Does anyone know if a sard elite can slice a contaminator in one slice  or does it take two ?

if it takes two ... then that means the contaminator beats everyone hands down.

ps- what happens whe two enemy contaminators kill each other?

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Hm... the contaminator is indeed expensive compared to the other subhouse inf units.

Just wondering if the contaminator could be tweaked to be a counter against the all favorite fremen and sards  ::)

lets say the speed of a leech, the contaminator attack and cost 150.

I know that this would be very impopular, as people tend to be very emotional against not having their all reliable, all purpose sards and feds  ;)

But wouldn't it make tleilaxu a nice "annoy-the-hell-out-of-your-enemy" subhouse? good for diversions!

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I'm tellin you man, 10,000 Harkonnen engineers - bam.  8)

Someone should make a mod allowing them to -pistol whip- other units for an instant kill. The Harkonnen would have a whole new dimension about them.  ;)

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Sard elite kills a contaminator in one hit and it's animation is faster meaning it hits first. If a contaminator hits another contaminator it does nothing and causes minimal damage. While the fire power may well be impressive, they are useless against vehicles and are expensive/slow to produce, slow moving and far too weakly armoured.

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ok this is something i forgot to mention....

its a old trick .. kinda silly... but it actually works....

get your partner to make like 50 scouts

you build 1 contaminator.

he puts the scouts by your contaminator.

then unally and watch as the scouts are quickly converted. and you just got 50 contaminators for the scout prices. which is what 50 bucks?

then ally back

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