Morans’ and other Pests’

The Nomad Moran is a well known unit.  It is a staple of most Nomad Prime/Vanilla and Corregidor Jurisdictional Command lists.  I have heard people refer to them as oppressive and unfun to play against, they sure can be annoying when they burrow in, like a possum in a garbage can.

A Reader of the Blog “Ben Satyr” asked: how do I deal with Morans’? So here are my thoughts on the Moran, Maasai Hunter.   

I’ll be solving the Moran problem in 2 parts.  The first step is to deal with the Crazy Koala that they bring with them.  It’s a small exploding robot that runs at enemies.  It seems scary but the Koala is much less dangerous than you might think.  It is not harmless, but here are some ways to deal with it.  

1. Shoot it at range.     
2. Use a Deactivator to avoid the armour save
3. Dodge it (without penalty) 
4. Send a sacrificial droid (try to set off more than one koala if this is how you use your Palbot)
5. You can also walk past it in camouflage or as an impersonator. 

The second part of the problem is removing the Morans from the board.  There are so many solutions for this. A Bad solution is using expensive hackable units to go in and dig them out. Even if you have a support crew standing by to repair your attack piece this is a bad idea and although it may be successful it will take most of your turn.  Trying to counter Hack through the Morans repeater Vs the Nomads is not a good option either as you may be facing multiple AROs and BTS up to 12 strong.   There are very few hackers that would have a chance at this, even a piece like the Anathematic or Scylla will be at risk, but your average KHD is just going to be wasting its time or worse.  If you can get a repeater within range of one or even both morans, then it’s time to use a good solution like Guided Missile fire. You can also throw grenades, although this can be difficult, for example if your digger gets within range of the nomad repeater then he won’t get a chance to spec. fire his grenade to catch the moran in the blast area.  Dog warriors and Camaronians however are not bothered by this.   Other good solutions are: 

1. Any template user (eg. Crusher)
2. Close combat (eg. Varangian or Myrmidon)
3. Camouflage or impersonation (eg Guilang or Fiday)

Stealth will not work vs the crazy koala but it will get a unit past the repeater so that you can get into the Moran’s back arc and take it out.  Camouflage and Impersonation will protect your units from the hackers as well as the Koalas.  Sometimes it is better to move past the Morans altogether using speedy units such as Motorised Bounty Hunters or combat drop troopers.  It is also important to remember that you can reset out of the targeted state, or you can get an Engineer to remove it.