So, the Turing Test continues processing forwards!

First up is some heavier support for my army in the form of the automated carrier. Continuing my habit of naming vehicles this has been named “The Turk” after the famous fake chess machine.

This is a great little model and has sparked off many ideas for me in terms of automated vehicles! (Pay no attention to the Churchill Meteor on my painting table)

Next up is a new project of fun – AI Small teams.

As I said last article, I wanted Turing to be the only human in my force, and as such to have small teams they’d need to be robots.

Background:

With the automatons proving to be successful in minimising frontline casualties, especially in riskier battlefield roles, Turing decided to try equiping them with differrent weapons to test the limits of thier programming.

He specifically identified two high risk/high reward weapons – the PIAT and the infantry flamethrower.

Automaton Anti-Tank Team

Regular, 40 points

Weapons: 1 PIAT
– Team Weapon

– Shaped Charge

Unit special rules:

– Large Infantry

– Resilient

– Slow

– Automaton

– No NCO in unit

Unit consists of 2 automatons, 1 armed with PIAT and one loader/spotter. The loader is unarmed, but can fight in the hand to hand phase of assaults as normal.

Automaton Flamethrower Team

Regular – 50 points

Weapons:

1 Infantry Flamethrower:

– Team Weapon

– Flamethrower

Unit special rules:

– Large Infantry

– Resilient

– Slow

– Automaton

– No NCO in unit

Unit consists of 2 automatons, 1 armed with infantry flamethrower and one loader/spotter. The loader is unarmed, but can fight in the hand to hand phase of assaults as normal.

Designing notes:

Yes, the points are the same as usual. When you look at the automatons vs regular infantry and do some maths, the automatons work out to be 10 points each unarmed same as a regular infantry.

My assumed logic behind this is that the automaton rules are a double edged sword, especially for small teams. With they needing to close, though they are slow and a couple of pins can be crippling for them. Whilst Resilient means they are more likely to still be there, Automaton makes them much harder to activate reliably.

Also, bear in mind Automatons do not ignore command checks for losing 50% so small teams are very risky!

I’d love some feedback on the rules as I’m hoping to get them accepted for the Barrage Tournament.

So please, pass your order check and let me have your feedback!