Zentraedi - Wave One Mecha

The Zentraedi Armada is primarily, but not obligately, a swarm army. Unfortunately, it's harder to win - the UEDF player just has to show up. The Zent player actually has to think. Zentraedi have weaker weapons, shorter range, and more fragile mecha than the UEDF, especially in Wave One, but they have the advantage of numbers.

In Wave 1, the available models are the Glaug (officer pod), Regult (battle pod), Quel-Regult (recon pod), Quel-Gulnau (recovery pod), and three different flavors of artillery pod. This limits us to the Regult Attack (9 battle and 1 officer pod), Regult Attrition (12 battle pods), Regult Recon (1 recon, 6 battle, and 1 officer pod), and Regult Artillery (4 light, 2 heavy artillery pods) Squadrons.

Outside of Wave One, the main stars are the male and female power armors. We'll get to those later.

 

Glaug Officer Pod

The officer pod is key to your success as a Zentraedi player, because it's your main source of Command Points and resurrects lost battle pods. It is pretty dangerous, too, with an Accurate, Inescapable, Overwhelming MD 6 128mm CPC and the MD 8 rail cannons. Don't waste its missiles on offense; you'll want the Anti-Missile Missiles and their 4+ shoot down for incoming fire. Getting an extra officer pod in a given squadron is impossible, so be careful with the one you have. The UEDF player is going to go after it, so protect it.

Keeping a battle pod or three within 2" of the officer lets you shuffle off damage by splitting it.

Cover is a double-edged sword. You can't bring back regults that the officer didn't have line-of-sight to (unless you're Grell), but keeping cover between your enemy and your officer keeps it alive. Good news! Those battle pods you're keeping next to your officer pod are cover for the enemy, but not for you.

Between the ability to spread damage and cover, bubble wrapping the glaug is pretty much mandatory.

Target saturation is another layer of defense. Your opponents aren't terribly concerned about the battle pods, except as they interfere with his efforts to kill the officer. Regults aren't really targets, just dangerous obstacles to maneuver around. Give him something else that he needs to kill, like another officer pod or an artillery squadron.

Battle pods move 12" a turn, so try to keep your officer within 20" of your deployment zone. You don't want a spawn-camping enemy to permanently kill them.

Basically, the officer pod is the centerpiece of the Zentraedi army. You win or lose by how you use it.

 

Regult Battle Pod

Surround the enemy and kick him to death.

No, seriously.

If the battle pods are in melee with an enemy, he can't Dodge. Even the papier-mache pods can destroy an outnumbered enemy. Don't forget that +1 bonus to hit for outnumbering an enemy mecha, and you have no reason to not outnumber your enemy. 

They can do that at range, too (which is a good way to make the enemy burn CPs), but their Gunnery is awful. Keep them close to each other to take advantage of the close formation rules, both to spread damage around and to improve your chances to hit. Crossfire and back strike are your friends.

Battle pods can be upgraded with Veteran Warriors. You'll rarely regret doing that. 

 Ultimately, battle pods are disposable. They're an ablative barrier between your enemy and your main offense. So long as their officer is still around, they'll come back.

 

Quel-Regult Recon Pod

Recon pods provide a much-needed boost to your Command Points - and a use for them. They're completely unarmed and fragile, so you'll need to protect them with terrain, battle pod bubble wrap, and something bigger and scarier.

Of course, a Veritech can still kill one with a single shot, and unlike the battle pods, the recon pod won't come back.

The recon pod's Advanced Reconnaissance Suite gives the most bang for the buck, giving friendly mecha within 12" a +1 bonus to hit. Use it to boost artillery, if you have them; using it on battle pods requires the recon pod to be too close to the enemy. The other option, the Electronic Attack Suite, gives an enemy mecha a -1 penalty to hit in ranged combat for 1 CP. You can debuff multiple enemy mecha like this at a cost of 1 CP apiece, but that gets expensive. Use those CP to get an extra attack out of an officer pod, and you've done more to harm your opponent. I would hold off on activating the recon pod until late in the turn, and burning unused CP on it if there's no other use for them.

 

Quel-Gulnau Recovery Pod

Recovery pods are useful primarily because they're dirt cheap and have a big pile of hit points. If that sounds like damning with faint praise... well, it is. They extend the officer pod's bubble to 12" instead of 8" (they still have to be in line of sight) and are otherwise largely ineffectual. This might be useful in bigger games, but... why are you letting your battle pods stray that far away from their officer pod?

Gluuhaug-Regult Artillery Pod

There are three varieties of artillery pod: the good Gluuhaug-Regult, the bad Telnesta-Regult, and the ugly Serauhaug-Regult. None of them have Life is Cheap, so at least they give you Command Points.

The Gluuhaug, the light artillery pod, has a shorter range than the heavy pod. That's okay; 24" is plenty for your army. It's a little slower than your other regults, though you'll probably not want to put it out front. It's still faster than the UEDF's destroids.

You don't care about the artillery pod's speed, though, except for getting into firing position. You care about its rack of missiles. Each light arty pod can fire a volley of six missiles four times, potentially dealing fifty-four damage a turn. Realistically, you'll probably see half that.

Remember what I said earlier about giving your opponent more targets to worry about than just your officer pod? A pack of Gluuhaugs will definitely do that.

Unfortunately, they only have four shots. That will probably last you most of the game, but after they've emptied their magazines, they're basically slow-moving battle pods that don't have anti-missile beanies.

Telnesta-Regult Artillery Pod

Cannon pods are cheaper than the light artillery pods, but they deal less damage. Their range is the same as normal battle pods.

A cannon pod will best serve you not by standing in the back with the gunline like the other artillery pods, but by acting as a heavy weapon guy in your swarm of battle pods. It's cheap enough that you don't have to be afraid of losing it, and its cannons can end most enemy mecha. Best of all, the cannon pod's attacks can't be shot down.

Concentrated fire from close formation is a big help with this one.

Serauhaug-Regult Artillery Pod

The only reason you should take this is if you're grabbing an Artillery Squadron.

The heavy artillery pod has double the range of its light counterpart, but at almost double the cost. It has Volley X, meaning it can fire up to four missiles per game.

But at least they have Blast?

For the same price, the UEDF has the Phalanx - which is better in every way possible. I've seen this defended with people claiming the Zentraedi find the heavy artillery pod more useful, therefore it should cost more.

I guess I missed where the UEDF was a swarm army full of fragile mecha.