Post Repeat: Hold the Gates!

This is a repost (and edit) of a classic old post, which I find to still be relevant. I still see SoTA runs where I personally was the difference between a defense and a steamroll, and I've steamrolled the alliance because they didn't follow my advice. The only thing that's changed is now I fight for the Horde.

I've been running some battlegrounds lately, on Rutabega, so I could get some honor. In the new random BG system, I've gotten Strand a lot. Oddly, I haven't gotten EoTS or AB at all.

Anyway. I've been in matches where we rolled to victory quickly and easily, and ones where we were crushed. A few were close contests. Every single one of them had something in common.

Gunners at Purple and Red gates.

The second-tier gates from the front are key to successful defense in SotA. When the blue or green gates fall, if there's still tanks rolling along, it's not possible to get to the the guns at Purple and Red in time to mount a defense there. If, on the other hand, there are already gunners at those two gates, you've got a really good chance at blowing up that wave of tanks before they even fire on your gate. If you blow up that first wave of tanks completely, you've got the game half-won. If you beat up the second wave of tanks enough that they get blown up before taking Yellow, you've won.

Let me repeat that. If I were mean, I'd put this in blink.

When the Blue/Green gates fall....

... it is IMPOSSIBLE to get gunners to the gate before tanks get there ...


... so you MUST start with gunners at each gate.

So here's the basic defense strategy. At the start of the round, put one gunner on Red and one on Purple. Two on Blue and two on green, the rest go and fight on the beach. If you don't have a gun, focus on killing tanks - ignore enemy PCs except in defense of your graveyards. Gunners can also drop rockets right on the graveyard flag as a secondary target, delaying the offense's acquisition of the extra sieges and closer graveyard. If you keep a shower of rockets on the graveyard flag, they'll never cap it, but you need to kill tanks as a higher priority.

If the tanks do the smart thing and focus on one side (people usually focus Blue, I have no idea why), then whoever is on Purple or Red (the side that's not being attacked) should mount up and make a break for the other gate, thus having 2 gunners on that gate. Protip: you can see the tanks on your tactical zone map (hit shift-M), so you know what to do Right Away. If, on the other hand, there's 2 tanks at each of Blue and Green, stay put, as in this case you can probably beat the incoming tanks with only one gun. Use the gun on the "outside" of the map, the one closer to the gate that's being attacked, and eventually someone will fall back and do support gunning. Sometimes it's easier to just put 2 people at Red and 2 at Purple, but this gives you 2 more people to push on the tanks with.

In either case, as soon as the first gate falls, the people manning that gate need to fall back to Yellow ASAP - this is the same problem as before, there need to be gunners at the gate beyond the ones being attacked so they can unload the max damage on the tanks that get through.

Again, if you're not on a gun, focus on the tanks. They need tanks to get through walls. They can do it by running seaforuim, but this is a desperation move, as it just takes too long. The only reason to attack a PC and not a vehicle (if, of course there's vehicles around) is in defense of the graveyards. Most of the time, they only send one or two people to cap the graveyards, good defense here will buy precious minutes without those four extra tanks.

The strategy for offense is just the opposite, of course. Focus all four beach tanks on either Blue or Green (mix it up each time), send three people to assure a graveyard (and tank shop capture), and drive your tanks hard. Remember that you can catapault shoot gates down, so get some damage on the gates before you get into ramming range. If you're really coordinated, have Melee characters drive the tanks, and have ranged characters as passengers. Use snares, roots, polys, and fears preferentially- you don't need to kill the defense, just keep them from attacking your tank.

The most recent SotA I ran, we won. On defense (which we did first), we held off for the full ten minutes because I personally manned the red gate guns which held the first wave of tanks off, and then convinced people to save our GYs and man the yellow guns for long enough to make the courtyard battle a zergfest with 15 on defense because we slowed them enough at the second tier gates to keep them from rolling over us.

On offense, we got the Storming the Beach achievement, because I grouped with two other tanks in an assault on one initial gate (the fourth tank went the wrong way and got killed), and each of our tanks had at least one ranged character riding shotgun. Defense tried to stop us on the beach, and as soon as we rolled through the Blue gate, we kept steamrolling on. I literally hardly stopped moving for the entire BG, except to ram once in a while (and when I did that, I could ram from underneath the single gunner on the second and third tier walls- if either wall had two gunners, we'd have been stopped, probably). We spread out a bit in the run up to the walls, to keep people from AEing both tanks, and we shot boulders at the gates before we got into ramming range. Booyah.

And that's why I love SotA. It's a battleground where mass coordination and tactics will trump individual gear and one-on-one battles all around. Now if only I can find a way to make sure my teammates always learn this lesson and the alliance never does.