Hi, Sean,

I agree with your argument but I disagree with your
conclusion. I think your line of thought comes from
your experience with IG artillery companies. I am afraid
I think squats work very differently.


Since you do not form a bubble and your range is smaller,
you count on partial protection from hydras and on 
sheer numbers. Since the range of the bombers is small,
you spread out to deny targets, rather than stop the raid.
I have seen your company be spread 50 to 60 cm long.
You do that since the basilisks move 15cm and have range
of 90cm, so you need to and can move forward and spread out.


In comparison, goliaths move 5cm and have range of 25-125cm,
which means they cannot and would not want to spread out.
As far as they are concerned, the best thing to do is sit
on the edge of the table on overwatch for the entire battle.
In that case, triple density is beneficial to them, since much 
smaller area is much more easily protected with interlocking
thunderfire umbrellas and much fewer units would establish an
effective assault and flak bubble.


Now since you have that highly flakked area anyway, you might
just as well put support artillery for ground protection and
before you even know it you end up with the proverbial squat
arillery patch at the end of the board. After all, what is the 
point of forming a line, when then you will be vulnerable to 
bombers, and besides, all you really want to protect is the 
goliaths anyway. The 45cm guns form a nice snapfire belt against
even the best bombers and the thunderfires protect everything
with those beastly and scary 45cm three attack dice.
Small fast containment detachments are an additional layer you
have to break your way through before you even get a shot at
the goliaths.


This is pretty much the squat line of thought. It is completely
logical and inevitable when you start from goliaths and work
your way down the gradient of efficiency. Thus it can be seen
how one completely unreasonable unit corrupts the entire 
military thought of an army when the primary consideration 
is efficiency.


In one of your games against Jon, your bombers vaped his goliaths
coming from behind. In the same way, my phoenices killed two out
of five goliaths again coming from behind. In both cases, the 
squats had advanced forming a line rather than a crescent. 
Thus they got punished for doing the right thing, since the madness
of the goliaths made it inefficient. I do not know about Jon, but 
Eugene learned his lesson. Now he invariably has his crescent. Last 
time six Thawks lost two damaged and one dead before finally reaching the 
goliaths and managed to kill only one, since it was the only one in 
range. To get them all in range, I would have sucked up at least another 
twenty dice worth of flak and snapfire. This is total madness!


The conclusion that I draw here is that you are right about vulnerability
in general, but squats very easily get rid of it, so they do not suffer
a weakness they are richly paid for, instead they get other benefits
from the way they eliminate that weakness.


The way to deal with all this mess is to cut the knot in its center
by either completely discarding the goliaths or making their price
reasonable, i.e. unattractive. This however takes a certain degree of
self-discipline and magnanimity, which I am afraid I do not see present.
Eugene looks upon all things in life as a business deal subject to
compulsory haggling, even when it comes to self-evident and 
non-negotiable things. I am afraid I have no currency to offer in 
return to making the squat army reasonable.


Next time, there will be strafe bombing, holding back out of range,
and three deathstrike launchers. This is the only way to make goliaths
inefficient and/or force them to advance.


I am inclined just not to say anything about squats to save myself 
the trouble since they are not an official army anyway, but if you
agree with the afore-stated arguments, perhaps it will be beneficial
for everyone to include the section and add the vulnerability discussion.


Emil