MAG Valor Acquisition Defend Strategy

Does anyone have an overhead map view that shows the locations of the bunkers, mortar, AA, sensor, motor pool, etc that we can use to create strategies on?

The ones on the official MAG forum suck as its just an overhead map but nothing is called out so to me they are pretty much useless. Would also like to know what side Platoon 1 and 2 are on and where each squad spawns at.

I have looked around and have found nothing although I don't know all the best places to look, so any help would be appreciated.

Last but not least, Valor (not sure about the spawn locations for each platoon). Enjoy.

I've been thinking about how to best defend Valor's ACQ, and the key is in EVERYONE'S LOADOUT.

This is what I've thought so far: Each squad is made up of 8 members and the roles should be divided accordingly.

x2 Repairmen with Improved Repair Ability and Medic Kit (everyone should have a Medic Kit, even Repairmen)
x2 Anti-Tank Miners
x2 Rocket & Grenade Men
x1 Turret Gunner with Repair Kit, Med Kit, & Rocket Launcher OR Anti-Tank Mines
x1 Anti-Personnel Miner

This is a lot of gear, and some will have to sacrifice armor or a decked out gun to keep all this on, but you can save some room by using SMG, which is pretty effective in defending since the enemy MUST come to you.

Basically, there are four goals.
1. Destroy enemy APCs quick and easy. AT Mines make short work of APCs and with two or three guys with AT Mines, we got 6 to 9 mines on the field at all times, 3 of which are placed at Gates that see the most APC traffic. Rocket launchers and the turret gunner also must focus on keeping those APCs down and any Transport Vehicles from leaving.

2. Protect those Bunkers. Bunkers are essential for both spawning and for shooting down enemy APCs and any Transport Vehicles that try to get through. AP Mines are great for preventing planting and though I'd like to have more people with AP Mines, they are expensive and only give two per loadout.

3. Repair EVERYTHING. I don't care if its not your bunker, get it back up. Two designated Repairmen seems like too few, but think of it this way, if we have four squads with two Repairmen each, that's EIGHT Repairmen. Plus, each Turret Gunner should also have a Repair Kit, that's four more, making 12 guys repairing.

4. Prevent those Transports from leaving. In the end, something can go wrong. The enemy might just be too good and will bring down the defensive line. But, we still have a back up plan. AT Mines need to be planted where the Transport Vehicles are, right in front of them! Our rocketmen/grenaders also must shoot them down before they can pull out of that crate. If our front line is down, the AP Miners need to mine those consoles so they can't even open the door. Repairmen clearly must get those Gates back up and work on keeping the Mortar Battery up.

Just a note on leadership, Squad Leaders need to save those Sensor Shells. There is no point in wasting them the first five minutes of the game on APCs when there won't be enough time to recharge and fire on fleeing Transport Vehicles. Use the Mortar Barrage to keep the enemy back instead. As for Platoon leaders, ask how the other Platoon is doing. If they aren't doing so hot and get a vehicle loose while their Mortars are down, have one of our guys take it out with their Sensor Shells, it does cross the field.

I'm eager to WIN these Valor ACQ defense rounds coming up. If anyone wants to add/subtract or have any opinions on these ideas, please let me know. We need to figure this stuff out before we get into the games. Its great that we have a lot of players that can run, shoot, and revive, but we have to step up our strategies to get those victories and ultimately those contracts. We probably won't be able to get whole platoons of MoV troops, but if we can get two, two and a half, or three squads together in a Platoon, we can really show the PMCs what we are made of.

Nice write up Hero. A couple of my thoughts (and these are not criticisms to your comments, just my opinions):

(1) The dedicated turret gunner (TGR) should only leave the turret gun (TG) if the bunker is being planted on and there is no one else to take care of it. Even as the TG is about to explode, keep shooting. The 2 repair men should be keeping an eye on repairing the TG (although the TGR should keep them appraised to the condition of the TG). Also in response to Hero's recommended loadout's, the TGR does not need heavy armour as in the bunker, but little point I think in him having a rocket launcher (as would need to leave the TG to fire it which you do not want to have happen). I think if possible the TGR should have anti personnel mines to plant by the bunker bomb planting point and maybe if there is a blind spot (on the TGRs 6 for example) to prevent being flanked (or even plant a spare mine at the AA).

(2) I agree that if another bunker is getting hammered it is good to try to help out, but with only 8 people, potentially 2 of which are off repairing, that leaves only 6 to defend your own bunker. If you send 1 or 2 to help out then can leave your bunker vulnerable. While having 2 bunkers up is better than 1 (obviously) the situation needs to be weighed up by the SL on a case by case basis to decide if a couple of guys can be spared to go help out with the other bunker.

(3) The 2 mobile repairmen are key, and if anyone goes to try to help out at the other bunkers it should be them. 100% agree with Hero on this, repair everything, but the SL does need to be communicating with them and directing traffic. If your squads turret is down, prioritise that over other bunkers. Same as if the AA goes down, prioritise that over everything except your own bunker.

(4) I have found every time defending on Acquisition, if the bunker stays up for most / all of the game, then the attacker struggles to get the AA down and only once (out of 5 times of the bunkers staying up) have they got a win. If the bunkers go down, then I think I have only had 3 wins (out of maybe as they steam roll past the bunkers to the AA and once they have their choppers spawning forward its all downhill. What I am leading up to here, is I think there is a weigh up between trying to put up a solid defense at the transport (Alamo time) and trying to sneak a squad or fire team around / past the enemy and get 1 or 2 bunkers up. Once you get 1 or 2 up then you can possibly push the enemy right back. But, you could leave your platoon short handed on the defending the transport. Have to ensure that either a SL has sensor shells to take the transport out or the bunker / multiple bunkers are ready to do the job.

Anyway, that is my 50 cents.

What I was thinking about with the Turret Gunner was that there are times when the turret is down or the bunker, so it would be good to have an extra repair man working on getting it back up. As for AP mines with the turret gunner, it would have been too expensive with Repair Kit and Med Kit, so I went for AT Mines or Rockets.

As for the concern about Repairmen leaving the bunker to help other bunkers get Repaired, the AP Miner is meant to help alleviate that problem by making it difficult for anyone to come and plant a charge. It is extremely satisfying to get a mine kill near the bunker (an equally frustrating to be killed by a mine near a bunker).

Fair call, my loadout suggestions were not based on actually using a loadout calculator to check if it was possible

Yeah I was using the calculate from MAGGameTools, which I'm assuming is accurate. I wanted to create some general loadouts that allowed troops to be able to have a gun they like with some add-ons or some armor. I've thought about all the other equipment available like Acoustic Locator, Poison Grenades, ect., but wanted to also keep it basic enough for levels below 40 could have some of the equipment while still have the Skill Points needed for other abilities. Ideally, we would all be level 60 and have all the abilities and equipment unlocked, but that's not a practical expectation, especially if we don't always have a full squad to begin with.

I do appreciate the feedback needswall. SLs and the PL need to help coordinate what bunkers need more help or where the enemies are coming from. I remember one DOM games where the OIC gave some good advice when all the bunkers came down, but the AA was still up. Basically, when this happens, everyone in the platoon focuses on one bunker from either the left on the right to repair, but once it gets about 3/4s, 3/4s of the repairmen move to the next bunker so that they can come up around the same time. I wasn't on the Platoon to see this happen, but we did have a Major Victory with none of the pumping station activated. Sometimes it seems like people who play ACQ don't realize that bunkers are repairable and would rather just pull back instead of trying to push forward.

Very good discussion guys, let me weigh in with some comments of my own:

1) I agree with the loadouts suggested by Heero. As I stated in my AAR from last weeks OP I need guys with AT mines. My though is the dedicated Turret Gunner should either carry AT or AP mines and then remain in the turret at all times.

2) Communication is key. If the Gate falls, or someone is planting we need to know. Being a SL as much as I'd like to think I know everything that is sadly not the case. I need people in the squad to tell me when the gate is down or if turret has been destroyed. ALSO very important as the Turret Gunner I need a sitrep every so often. As in hey im at 50% or 75% or about to be blown up. Keeping the turret operational is critical when defending. What isn't as helpful is finding out too late that the turret was destroyed, I need to know when your taking damage so we can address the situation.

3) Keeping the AA up is critical. I like having a 2 man mobile repair crew but I think we need 3 guys with the repair tool at least. 2 for the mobile repair team and 1 at the bunker minimum. The mobile repair team should focus on keeping the AA up at all times.

4) Here is a new wrinkle I have been thinking about. When the bunkers fall we make the same mad dash to get the bunkers back operational. I se what happens is we get strung out and picked off as we make like lemmings towards the bunkers. Let's try this, if the bunkers fall and the other bunker is also down then we frago the APC's and pull back to actually guard them. Put AT mines in front of the damn things and hunnker down. We can then try sending the 2 man repair team on an end around to get the bunkers or AA operational. If we do make a final stand where the APC's are then I want people with Rockets and AT mines as well as AP to put in front of the APC's. I have never actually defended our own APC's and TBH never seen where they are parked. So if we do get pushed back lets see what we can do to protect them.

5) I have also learned that it is possible to blow up the bridge leading towards the APC's on one side of the map. Whichever team is there should look into blowing that up as the attackers will need to repair it or go around it causing them to lose time.

Please post some feedback

Just a few thoughts of Brashin's post.

I have seen successful defenses of the Transport Vehicles once the Bunkers were down and lost for good. It really just took a squad of Rocketmen and AT Miners to get anything from leaving the Transport Area. There also was good defense of the Mortar Battery since that can be used to slow the enemy down. Also, those Rocketmen on the Platoon that have enemy Helicopters can take those out, slowing the enemy further, especially if we can't get that AA back up.

As for the Bridge, I'm surprised if that isn't blown up on our first spawn. The only problem is that there is a way around that bridge. But if we can keep a strong 2nd Defense Line near the Transport Vehicles, then it shouldn't be an issue, as the Platoon with the Bridge also only has one Gate that gives access to the Transport Area.

It is critical that we practice this tonight during the OP. We need to better communicate and ensure our squads have the right setup to make things better for us. We need to ensure those AT miners are in our groups planting at the gates, blow the bridge, have rockets/repairmen and the turret gunner must be someone who can communicate clearly and often.

Let's put this to practice and kick some ass tonight.

OK So based on last week's Op I believe we need to do a better job of looking at the map when an APC is capped. We should look at the map and the SL's should make the determination of if everything is under control at their bunker (relatively speaking) then can they spare a FT to head over to the other side and bring up the bunkers. I for one am tired of saying we did a good job defending our side and the other side failed us. I still look at it as a loss. We should be able to keep our bunkers under control and be able to send some guys to help bring things back online.

We should try this and put this into practice as well...Thoughts

Great topic and posts. Just wanted to put my two cents. So far I've never played ops with brashin (brashin ur doing great job with that) however for what ever reason, we had a full platoon playing acquisition yesterday (sunday).

We lost, but we manage to almost hold it of till the end. Adding on what brashing previously said, if ur engineer; it all about repair repair repair. Are focus was not this, we managed to focus on apc and sver goons, but ones they overwhelmed us they got are vehicle and drove past blown up gate, then are down air defenses, and are blown up front gate. If somebody would focus repair does stuff we would have had a chance. But again we did better then the random s. So a little focus, comunication and discipline. We got this!

Brashin, if we are going to use the maps whereby each squad member has a print out of the map, and the SL or FT leaders are requesting people to move to certain objectives, would you like me to update the maps with numbers on each bunker and gate and maybe letters on each objective (ie. bunker 1, bunker 2 - gate 1, gate 2, objective A (or mortar A), objective B (or Triple A B). If you want this how do you want the numbering / alphabetizing (what format) and do you want it top to bottom of map (makes most sense to me). Just let me know.

Hey Needs that a great idea. ALso if you could put a legend so that if we do print the map out we need a part that tells everyone what part of the map is the TOP. Maybe just a little compass rose on the bottom of the page so everyone can have the map facing North.

Will see if I can find the time today or tomorrow to sort this and for the other maps, but if I don't I will sort it early next week.

Much appreciated Needs, will also start needing this for DOm maps as well

Will get to DOM maps some time next week:

Bunkers are B1 thru B8 (going top to bottom down the map);
Transports are T1 & T2 (going top to bottom down the map);
Objectives (AA, mortar, etc.) are A thru K (going left to right and down the map);
Gates are T thru Z (going left to right and down the map);
This is the only acquisition map with a bridge (objective Hotel);
'Enemy APC' locations to the left of the map are I assume the spawn point but not 100%.

For those of you who don't know them, and assuming in game we use the phonetic alphabet for objectives (to ensure clarity), it is as below:

A = Alpha
B = Bravo
C = Charlie
D = Delta
E = Echo
F = Foxtrot
G = Golf
H = Hotel
I = India
J = Juliet
K = Kilo

T = Tango
U = Uniform
V = Victor
W = Whiskey
X = X-Ray
Y = Yankee
Z = Zulu

Would suggest for clarity the SL / FT leader / whoever is calling the shots for movement makes a statement like "move to objective Echo" or "secure the sensor array at objective Echo".

just had a look and a think, and domination maps may take a lot more effort and possibly time to sort, but will get on it and get something done when I can.

This is great thanks Needs. I will make posts on the Dom maps and I also found a page that has what you did on them so double sweet

I also think we should start the map with a couple guys bringing at least 1 humvee up to the bunkers to provide fire support

Would that be a Humvee in addition to the Humvee with the repairmen in it, ie. from a squad of ( have 1 Humvee with (2) repairmen in it running around repairing and helping out where needed, have (1) permanent bunker turret gunner, (2) guys on the left of the bunker, (2) guys on the right of the bunker and the final (1) guy in a second Humvee positioned somewhere strategic so that we in fact have 2 turret guns? Sounds like a solid plan to me, so long as no douche bag from another squad decides to drive away in the second Humvee. Could also give a spawn point if the bunker went down, might get a few guys spawned before a major assault could take out the Humvee, also if the bunker went down the second Humvee with repairmen could come up and catch the enemy in a crossfire between the two Humvees.

Edit: the smiley face just after the 'ie.' is supposed to be an 8.

Well I figure we drive up a hummer and possibly both that way the mobile repair team can help defend bunker for a little while before we send them off. That hummer would be parked a little further back from the bunker. As for the other hummer maybe we park it about 10-20 meters behind our own gate so when the gate gets blown up we have a turret gunner in the hummer ready to cut loose. I'm not sure if we can drive our own hummers up to a position to actually help the bunnker turret gunner but if so I would like to give it a try.

I also want to make sure that ALL SL's know that should the other platoon have all Bunkers go down that we send a FT over there to help get them back up and running. Yes it will cost us valuable manpower but I like our chances defending a resource constrained side rather than put faith in the other platoon getting their act together. Im not saying its impossible to do but it is our job to help them out and thats what we are gonna have to do.

I think you can get a vehicle right up behind the bunker as seen someone do that once before (although no idea how). Like the idea of having it as a fall back though, if the enemy gets the gate or bunker down then the HV is there as a last ditch fall back or a way to lay down fire upon enemy troops trying to come through.

Only one way to find out if it works or not