Heavy Armor, or maxes as they’re more commonly known, are something that WNx as a whole have not had a lot of work, or use, with.  Max Night, on its first time out had a tremendous turnout and its partly due to this that I’ve decided to incorporate this underused armor type into the ShadowS basic structure.  I had never truly liked the limited role of a recon squad doing ONLY cloaking work.  I felt that after a short time, except for the invisible diehards, that it would become monotonous and boring to the squad and they’d find other things to do.  Also, having 5+ cloakers inside an enemy base is great however, the maximum amount of damage they are capable of doing, once there, is minimal, which I always saw as a limitation.

 

In comes the Max.  With the addition of this single piece of equipment, the recon squad turns into a force to be reckoned with from WITHIN the enemy base itself.  Like a disease the ShadowS will now sneak their way deep into the very heart of the base, and once there, they will hijack the weapons terminals and bring out upwards of 10 maxes from right inside the base.  A max crash has just been created, from within the enemy base, not from outside it.  After that, the carnage they will inflict will be three things

 

 

 

Heavy Armor

Heavy Armor

I’ve already listed in the previous page the RECON aspects of the ShadowS, and expect them to already be known by the time you get to this page.  Once the ShadowS don their heavy armor, they will change their fighting posture accordingly.

 

Here are some basic facts about fighting with maxes that you should know.

 

 

Max as the bullet magnet:  People tend to shoot at the largest thing they see.  It’s the easiest to hit, firstly, and secondly, it’s most likely the most dangerious thing in the battle so they tend to want to take it out as soon as possible.  The simple equasion that goes through the enemies minds are as follows: 

 

The larger the object, the bigger the threat, the greater the need to destroy it. 

 

This means soldiers, when presented with a max, will switch out their primary weapons for secondary ones that deal much better damage to maxes.  This leaves them open to standard attacks they can no longer defend against because of their switch.  For this reason, along with a half dozen others, we come across the next major rule that has been stressed before

 

Maxes go first in ALL situations.

 

There is no reason for any soft target to get in front of a ShadowS team member once they are armed in a max outfit.  It’s one of the few places where the ShadowS take precedence over the Sentinels and have the right to tell the sents to fall back, which they most likely will anyway.

 

 

Max as the rushing trickster:  People tend to shoot, not only at the largest thing they see, but also the first.  Vanu are known for clogging up at back doors and other such fatal tunnels where the enemy spam holds them back from pushing through.  This is where the max really shines.  Once the word is given, the max team will go into RUN MODE and push through the enemy line and move behind them, only slowing down once it has been breached.  When this happens, the enemy will swing their weapons 180 degrees and focus on the first and largest danger in the room (see point above)  When they do this, and do it with switched out weapons, then the Sentinels, or anyone else for that matter comes rushing in BEHIND (always behind) them and mops up.  The maxes may or may not survive, but the stalemate will have been broken, and THAT is the victory in and of itself. 

 

Maxes are important as much for the firepower they DRAW

As their own actual fighting ability

 

 

Max as the guardian angel: When in lockdown situations (CC’s, Gens, etc) the max should try and find  VERTICAL places in which to take up defensive positions so as to give the enemy a target SO far away from the rest of the squad, not only are they a bullet magnet, but even area affect weapons become less effective because of their height advantage.

 

Maxes should always take the high ground in defending

 

 

Other quick max tips are all pretty basic sense stuff, but should be stated just for the record.

 

When you are being repaired, face AWAY from your repair man, even if there is no enemy threat

When you are deciding on a target, ALWAYS aim for your primary target that you can damage the most (i.e.  Quazar = Softies, Comet = AP, etc)

When you have a single spot to attack (door, corner, etc) and you are a Quazar max,   Remember that you are most likely carrying over 400 rounds of ammo.  Don’t be shy about shooting at NOTHING so as to spam up the corner or doorway and force the enemy to take a few hits even before they get in firing range.  You have the extra ammo, use it.

 

Always carry extra med/repair juice in case no

one else was bright enough to bring one.

1.   Even an ’unsuccessful’ ’max implosion’ run will still take out dozens of enemy targets including equipment terminals, spawn tubes, and soldier targets.

 

2.   The amount of enemy manpower it would take to unseat such a force means that the front lines will have to fall back to help get them out of the base.  Which creates a hole in their line where the Sentinels, or anyone else for that matter, can get in.

 

3.  REALLY, REALLY fun to watch.  If and when something like this goes down, from INSIDE the base?  Sit there and say you wouldn't want to be part of THAT train wreck on Prom Night boy.  I’ve Never seen it done, and it will take lots of work to get it running correctly, but once everyone is on the same page, it will be Art in Motion not unlike the heavy tower takedown.

Purple Line

of Death

Heavy Armor