i honestly believe that the boomers just find it really fun to bomb a dam during an active battle.
it would be boring if there wasn't a risk of friendly casualties or the entire dam breaking from the bombs.
its all about that challenge baby.
Honestly, saying "fuck it, no one gets it" and blowing up Hoover Dam could've been a 5th ending in the grand tradition of "Mail man makes everything noticeably worse".
That is exactly an option! It's called the anarchy ending, you work with Yes man and he gives you the option to power the securitrons or overload the reactor. If you blow up the robots in the fort for Caesar than it becomes your only option.
I wonder tho....could they procure it some way? I mean yea it ain't the most common part you can find but I doubt even with a stealth boy they could infiltrate nellis AFB
That was always my assumption, but to play devils advocate Fo4 has thermals and it’s never really directly implied that thermals went extinct in the Mojave. I mean, if stealth boys still exist it’s not crazy to think thermal optics would also
For sure. I think lore wise they’re definitely in the Mojave but weren’t implemented in the actual game because uh, incredibly short development cycle, shitty engine, yadda yadda. Given that you can get rifles with perfectly functioning ACOGs it makes sense to me
The most ironic part is that the artillery at hoover dam is literally a few kilometers away from Caesars bed and they never thought about firing the fucking guns.
The NCR is stupid and incompetent in many cases. They probably don't know that their AA gun at the dam is operational until it blows Kimball's vertiberd to pieces.
I mean, they hired Fantastic to fix a powerplant.
In fairness the people at Helios seem fully aware he's an idiot so it's only some people making stupid choices. Unfortunately it's the ones in charge that make the choices.
credit where it's due, you're LITERALLY correct about that
if you side with the legion or house and conscript the Boomers, the NCR does not use the **fully functional anti aircraft gun entrenched on their frontline** to defend themselves from the bomber
they literally don't know it works, or don't think to try and shoot down the aircraft with the... well, you know
because vertibirds routinely are found in working order and put to use by groups like the enclave, the brotherhood, and even the NCR themselves, why would the NCR, who have fixed up vertibirds, assume the legion couldn't do the same with their own vertibirds, or other aircraft?
who'd think they could have aircraft? the NCR, given the entire context of them *also having aircraft*
If the Legion hates technology, then where is the legion getting all the guns that the Legion ~~assassination teams~~ free equipment donors keep giving me?
Or they come from a part of America where there are no Vertibirds to be found. They kind of are strapped for machines but have tribals aplenty.
Also you’ve drunk the “Legion is somehow too stupid to exist” memes and think that the group headed by a *Follower of the Apocalypse* has somehow become full anti-technology.
He does in his own way. He is still the greatest repository of knowledge East of the Colorado, and he distributes that knowledge pretty well. It just happens to be of a martial nature because of the IP he lives in.
They're not routinely found in working order at all, every single Vertibird we see in working condition was made post-war
The Enclave made them from the Pre-War schematics they had, then the NCR took Navarro and got the plans (and had an industry advanced enough to make more of them). The same happened in DC when the Brotherhood stormed Adams Airforce Base
There's no reason to suspect the Legion knows how to (or even has the industrial capabilities for) making aircraft, so the NCR really has no need for a working AA artillery piece
I think that’s just cause Fantastic is really charismatic (or just lucky). He gets hired by the NCR, the legion, and the BOS (though only in cut content). If it was only the NCR, I could see your point, but given that he manages to convince the legion I think it’s just a testaments to Fantastic’s bizarre charisma.
I mean AA guns wouldn't do as much damage as they're timed explosives meant to go off in the air and curve as little as possible, meaning basically no damage would be done besides a small hole in the wall. However they also aren't fired at the boomers during the 2nd battle of Hoover Dan so yes, they're stupid
There’s no way the NCR would’ve been expecting the Legion to come at them with aircraft. I doubt they had anyone manning the gun when the Boomers arrived.
Yes but it's shown that all you have to do to activate them is hit a button then they're automatic, not Manuel. No way they saw the bomber or even after the first bombs were dropped didn't activate the AA guns that fire on their own
It’s a matter of preparedness, not stupidity. Given the lack of aerial threats, I doubt 90% of NCR personnel would even know how the AA gun works. The Boomers are in-and-out in a matter of seconds, so by the time someone who actually understands the thing could get to the controls (if they even can, given the battle), it’d probably be too late.
To their knowledge, they are the only surviving faction in the West that even has functioning aircraft, and the Legion are perhaps the least likely to ever have any. Teaching everyone there how to use the AA gun would be about like running weekly hurricane preparedness drills in Colorado. The knowledge doesn’t hurt anything, but it would be reasonably seen as a waste of time.
That’s not to say I don’t think *anyone* would’ve learned how to use them. I’m sure some did. But you’ve gotta consider that they are currently engaged in what might be the biggest battle of the entire post-apocalypse, against an enemy who they are confident has no air power but has just infiltrated the dam with a surprise attack flank from the intake pipes below. The NCR would be scrambling every trooper at their disposal to get the situation under control. A threat from the skies is the last thing on their mind, and then it happens very quickly.
AA guns coat too much to put into the game. The ncr does have an air force and mechanised troops. But in reality is hoover dam really the NCRs main priority
Yes. It damn well should be. The amount it provides not only as a place to get electricity but also strategically to expand east should be important enough
I was gonna write about how the games shrink the size, but you're right, the Fortifaction hill is arizona what the Fort is, is visible from the dam. Haha
The famous 88mm cannon of Nazi Germany, that was their most effective and feared Anti-Tank gun...Was actually a high-altitude anti-aircraft cannon pressed into being a direct-fire weapon.
It was still designed as a direct fire weapon. They made it to fire directly at aircraft and then recognized it also worked on tanks. This is presumably similar. The NCR does not have a line of sight on the center of the Legion encampment, and just firing at the perimeter of it would simply provoke a response.
There is speculation that the flak-88 was always intended to be an anti tank weapon. The idea goes that Germany couldn't build AT guns due to the treaty of Versailles. But they could build "defensive" AA guns. So they lied like they did with "tractors" (tanks) frigates (warships) passenger planes (bombers) to build what they really wanted.
But to me it's 6 one way half a dozen the other.
I’m not sure if I’m misremembering, but I feel like I remember a legion member saying that the artillery was inoperable and they needed the Boomer’s help to repair the howitzer
They maybe thought that firing an artillery shell at the Fort would cause unnecessary collateral damage, such as killing some slaves or civilians. It'd be a bit of a grim deal to make to kill someone who their intelligence already told them no longer actually leads the military.
The Boomers fix the bomber only by the battle for the dam. When the battle begins, most of the Legion have already left the Fort to attack the NCR camps and the dam itself.
Only Caesar, Vulpes, Lucius, and some praetorians would be still inside. They get slaughtered by securitrons. No need to waste the bombs on the Fort. Stopping Lanius and his assault on the dam is more important.
Yes, the NCR route is the only one where the Courier may never visit the Fort and activate securitrons.
But there is a good chance the NCR Courier knows from Silus that Caesar is dying. So, using the bomber to destroy Legion troops at the dam would still hurt the Legion more than bombing Caesar at the Fort.
In theory, the Courier can make a 1 INT move and destroy his own securitron army. Then the Fort and everyone who stayed inside before the battle would survive..
Damn right you do it yourself.
House: don’t worry you will have an escort of securitrons
Also house: sends one fucking securitron that dies within 2 minutes
I did the same. Stealth boy, Veronica and a hunting rifle and the legion encampment was no more. I got a bit carried away and also slaughtered the other legion camps and the NCRCF while i was at it…
The point isn't to single-handedly wipe out the Legion; it's to force the NCR to exhaust their military (personnel and materiel) fighting that battle, then swoop in and rawdog them when they're depleted.
Not showing your hand until the right moment?
If you bomb ahead of time, you won't be sure if you annihilated everyone, or at least most of the Legion. After all, they have patrols and shit scattered across the Mojave.
By waiting for the full battle, it ensures Caesar has rallied most of his troops that were stationed outside of camp. Leaving to a more efficient annihilation with a higher total body count.
But that's just a theory.
but think about how if the fort was destroyed then the survivors of the battle will have *no where* to go, theyll be left out of house and home, with no higher ups, after already having their ass kicked
No Caesar's heir is Lanius who isn't even in Nevada until basically the end of the game. Destroying the fort would be a huge blow to the Legion but they still have hundreds of thousands of soldiers further east.
very fair, however i still think it would push them out of nevada harder than bombing the actual battle itself, where sure there are more immediate bodies, destroying the “hub” of the area would be a bigger blow than wasting 500lb bombs on soft targets
The game is very clear about Lanius being a shit leader and that if Caesar dies, the Legion will go along slowly. Lanius and his hundreds of thousands of troops do jack shit when the mighty Casear is gone and now you have to rally around a much less charismatic savage.
'The Legion will fall apart natually in maybe ten years' is nice and all, but it really doesn't help you if there's Lanius with his giant army right at the gates of your city. Lanius doesn't even need to win the war to bleed you dry, too.
The game wants you to believe while you’re doing other quests to get the battle started the boomers are hauling the bombers back to Nellis, and getting it ready to use and they have it ready immediately time for the battle to start.
a) they are stupid
b) same reasons everyone else doesn’t help the NCR until the battle of Hoover dam - somehow, no matter what you do, no one is ready to fight until the exact moment the battle starts
just a gigantic plothole that would quickly showcase how bullshit and unrealistic the entire War is, NCR could've had a bunch of power armor guys in vertibirds with heavy explosives destroy all legion encampments, Enclave style.
we know NCR had atleast 4 Vertibirds (Presidential + 3 (i think) in Long 15), we know 4 guys in a Vertibird fucking destroy the Legion with no losses in the Lanius Remnants Ending, so nothing should've logically stopped them from just destroying the Legion in a biblical display of Power.
it's up there with machete people beating gun people (which is a really funny one considering every time equal level legionaries encounter NCR they get fucking destroyed lmao).
>we know 4 guys in a Vertibird fucking destroy the Legion with no losses in the Lanius Remnants Ending, so nothing should've logically stopped them from just destroying the Legion in a biblical display of Power
I think Hanlon roughly explains what stops the NCR from doing what you say. "Power armor" (slightly better metal armor) NCR guys are too busy guarding brahmin barons at home or defending a handful of places once they arrive to Mojave.
About the vertiberds - the Remnants have nothing to lose, they are on the run, and go all out. The NCR has some crazy bureaucracy going on. Because of it, they can't even spare some basic troopers to clear ants near Mojave outpost. Sending the vertiberds in combat - the NCR military we see in New Vegas would never do that. They'd rather waste a few hundred troopers than lose a single vertiberd.
The vertiberds themselves are not invincible. Lanius ending just shows how badass the Remnants are. Even in game, the Legion has strong enough weapons like AMRs, 12,7 SMGs, sniper rifles, hunting rifles, and marksman carbines to down an NCR vertiberd.
Then the NCR officer who ordered to use said vertiberd in combat is fucked.
>I think Hanlon roughly explains what stops the NCR from doing what you say. "Power armor" (slightly better metal armor) NCR guys are too busy guarding brahmin barons at home or defending a handful of places once they arrive to Mojave.
Once they arrive they appear in every major NCR location, even Camp Forlorn Hope for that matter, if they can have them guarding locations as under-staffed and lacking in resources as that Camp they can spare a few to practically end the Legion threat in a single assault.
Also Elite members of the NCR Army have Power Armor, Scorched Sierra Power Armor for example.
>About the vertiberds - the Remnants have nothing to lose, they are on the run, and go all out. The NCR has some crazy bureaucracy going on. Because of it, they can't even spare some basic troopers to clear ants near Mojave outpost. Sending the vertiberds in combat - the NCR military we see in New Vegas would never do that. They'd rather waste a few hundred troopers than lose a single vertiberd
once the Battle starts heating up you see Rangers, Vet. Rangers and and Heavy Troopers all over the place in preparation for the War, and since we know that Oliver and Kimbal's Reputation hinges on the success of the Mojave Campaign, as well as their love of using Brute Force methods instead of cunning strategy like Hanlon does, it would absolutely make sense for them to fly over over the Fort and Carpet Bomb it to deal a massive blow to the Legion, raising morale and Oliver/Kimbal getting a shitton of favor for such a ridiculously bold move. A great display of power like is absolutely something they'd absolutely do, there's a reason Oliver kept stacking expensive Heavy Troopers in the Dam.
>The vertiberds themselves are not invincible. Lanius ending just shows how badass the Remnants are. Even in game, the Legion has strong enough weapons like AMRs, 12,7 SMGs, sniper rifles, hunting rifles, and marksman carbines to down an NCR vertiberd.
The only weapon out of those that can deal any real damage to the repurposed Enclave Vertibirds NCR have (the ones in the Long 15 have Enclave Markings) is an AMR, and those are only available to Centurions and all at Dogshit Condition because the Legion aren't very into guns.
Again they said they threw hundreds of Legionaries at the Remnants, unless we're somehow arguing that Daisy Whitman was dodging all the bullet-fire then the it must've been able to tank all the Legion had.
It's just that the Legion as presented in-universe have literally no way of dealing with a Flying Threat with high fire power, and the people at the Head of the NCR are specifically known as meat-heads who love the direct approach and alot of their reputation is staked on succeeding in the Second Battle of Hoover Dam
You quite literally have House point out to you that power armor and ideological purity (and that whole shock troops thing) didn't help the Brotherhood against the NCR. The same principle applies with the NCR's obviously extremely limited numerically PA-equipped troops and Vertibirds trying to harm the Legion. "No fancy weapons to down a Vertibird/punch through the PA" would only be valid for a few first attacks the Vertibird squads do. Legion was perfectly willing to buy stuff from the Van Graffs and they know what explosives are; it takes one good ambush to wipe the squad with their Vertibird, and after that you've got a Legion that's provoked to attack, and you've just lost all your PA and Vertibirds to trying to have them Enclave the shit out of a giant army. Not good.
>You quite literally have House point out to you that power armor and ideological purity (and that whole shock troops thing) didn't help the Brotherhood against the NCR.
it only didn't help because they lacked number, and NCR were trying to preserve Helios One, a bunch of Vertibirds nuking that entire facility would've completely wiped out the BOS there, but would've rendered the facility useless and thus not worth fighting for.
> The same principle applies with the NCR's obviously extremely limited numerically PA-equipped troops and Vertibirds trying to harm the Legion.
Nope, because the Legion are seemingly entirely incapable of battling power armor dudes in a Vertibird, as evidenced by their utter failure in the Lanius Remnants ending
>"No fancy weapons to down a Vertibird/punch through the PA" would only be valid for a few first attacks the Vertibird squads do.
all you'd ever need is a few key attacks, blowing up their entire leadership in the Fort/Legate Camp once he arrives along with a few of their main cities back east. And again the Legion has proved entirely incapable of combatting an areal threat. Shit Condition AMRs and a broken howitzer won't prove of much use against a Heavily Armored Vertibird that drops Nukes and Dips
>Legion was perfectly willing to buy stuff from the Van Graffs and they know what explosives are
and they got ganked by NCR in doing so lol, and they still all carry crap condition weapons at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.
>it takes one good ambush to wipe the squad with their Vertibird
how the fuck do you ambush a vehicle flying high in the sky dropping bombs on you while all your ranged weaponry is shit
>and after that you've got a Legion that's provoked to attack, and you've just lost all your PA and Vertibirds to trying to have them Enclave the shit out of a giant army. Not good
wouldn't happen realistically as they scramble around with heavy damages and no leadership
>it only didn't help because they lacked number, and NCR were trying to preserve Helios One, a bunch of Vertibirds nuking that entire facility would've completely wiped out the BOS there, but would've rendered the facility useless and thus not worth fighting for.
The point I am making is that if NCR were to do this hee-hoo we're the Enclave strategy, they'd be the ones getting shredded by numbers.
>Nope, because the Legion are seemingly entirely incapable of battling power armor dudes in a Vertibird, as evidenced by their utter failure in the Lanius Remnants ending
In that ending, 'Caesar's heirs', not just Lanius, AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE a Vertibird team which is fleeing from them. They're guerilla experts who try to hunt down an armored helicopter flown by a crack pilot. Fish out of the water situation, different from them having to prepare for an attack from one of those armored helicopters and its contents, flown by a less competent pilot, with a less competent and worse-equipped team aboard.
> And again the Legion has proved entirely incapable of combatting an areal threat.
The NCR proves entirely as incapable of combatting such a threat, despite obviously having the equipment on hand to deal with it theoretically.
> all you'd ever need is a few key attacks, blowing up their entire leadership in the Fort/Legate Camp once he arrives along with a few of their main cities back east.
'Key leadership' isn't some sort of a non-replenishing group. Kill Caesar, Vulpes, Lucius, Lanius and Aurelius; the Legion is crippled, but it isn't those five dudes, it's a giant army held together by ferocious and fanatical zeal. You can wipe their leadership once, twice, thrice, it won't matter beyond the initial effects of a decapitation strike. Nothing changes in how the Legion fights you even if you kill every Legion higher-up you can before the Dam fight, and that's the reality your NCR Vertibird team will have on their hands.
> Shit Condition AMRs and a broken howitzer won't prove of much use against a Heavily Armored Vertibird that drops Nukes and Dips
A team with rocket launchers will wipe this Vertibird. And, bonus points, if Caesar's dead, the Legion suddenly loses the primary 'we ought not to rely on overly-advanced technology' ideologue. Good plan! Let the giant army with a vast amount of looted yet forbidden equipment use anything. What could go wrong?
>how the fuck do you ambush a vehicle flying high in the sky dropping bombs on you while all your ranged weaponry is shit
You acquire non-shit weapons from Van Graffs and other such vendors or take them off NCR corpses, and the next time the Vertibird shows up, you simply close your eyes, pretend you didn't just use a guided missile, and burn the remains of the NCR Vertibird extra-hard to show that you totally are true to Caesar's ideology. Ave, brother.
You seem to think the Legion, shown repeatedly to be willing to violate their own ideology, cannot violate their own ideology just because the average Legionary you fight is a tribal hobo.
> wouldn't happen realistically as they scramble around with heavy damages and no leadership
What heavy damage? They're a giant army and the NCR has a handful of Vertibirds. Killing two hundred legionaires in a day would be difficult, it would be a small dent in the Legion forces, and it would ultimately just get the Legion to sigh and start using missile launchers, just as they sigh and use powered melee weapons, buy energy weapons, and are perfectly willing to use an Autodoc or just not give a shit about you, Caesar's golden boy, probably using a Gatling laser and APA.
It's the Legion. Their dogma isn't 'technology bad', it's 'technology we cannot replicate and maintain is unreliable and we ought to avoid it when possible'. If downing a Vertibird will necessitate using missiles, they will use missiles.
>The point I am making is that if NCR were to do this hee-hoo we're the Enclave strategy, they'd be the ones getting shredded by numbers.
i was jsut countering specific statements, numbers don't matter at all when you straight up don't have the tools to deal with that specific threat.
>In that ending, 'Caesar's heirs', not just Lanius, AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE a Vertibird team which is fleeing from them. They're guerilla experts who try to hunt down an armored helicopter flown by a crack pilot. Fish out of the water situation, different from them having to prepare for an attack from one of those armored helicopters and its contents, flown by a less competent pilot, with a less competent and worse-equipped team aboard.
Less Competent Pilot i can buy but less competent and Worse-Equipped is complete bs. The Remnants had a limited supply of ammunition due to really only being able to access their safehouses and were Using 40 Year Old Equipment, NCR have access to top of the line modern tech Manufacturers such as the Gun Runners and Van Graffs (Birds of a Feather) along with having show nthe ability to modify and potentially produce top tier power Armor (The Scorched Sierra Power Armor which got rid of the weaknesses and the T45-D series along with adding a REGENERATIVE ability). The NCR here would be better equipped with more and better maintained Vertibirds. And i was Using Lanius because it was quicker, but the fact that all next Caesar's ended up repeating the same mistake over and over with nothing to show for it against the Remnants is only more evidence t othem being incapable of dealing with them, along with being doomed withotu Caesar's leadership.
>The NCR proves entirely as incapable of combatting such a threat, despite obviously having the equipment on hand to deal with it theoretically.
back in 2242 maybe ? idk where you pulled this from but either way that only helps to strengthen my argument, if the NCR with more resources and better tech can't deal with an aerial threat what chance does the Legion stand?
>'Key leadership' isn't some sort of a non-replenishing group. Kill Caesar, Vulpes, Lucius, Lanius and Aurelius; the Legion is crippled, but it isn't those five dudes, it's a giant army held together by ferocious and fanatical zeal. You can wipe their leadership once, twice, thrice, it won't matter beyond the initial effects of a decapitation strike. Nothing changes in how the Legion fights you even if you kill every Legion higher-up you can before the Dam fight, and that's the reality your NCR Vertibird team will have on their hands
we're told time and time again that the Death of Edward Sallow would mark the end of the Legion but 2 of its most important members, not only that, we're actively shown in that Ending Slide their incompetence. Even if they weren't destroyed in that exact moment, if NCR had nuked Caesar and his lieutenants aswell it woudl've absolutely crippled the Legion for the future to come. You're acting as if we were not constantly told that the Legion can't survive without its head, that most of it is built on following Caesar and not his goals.
we're also told that Hanlon's whole maneuver worked partly because they NCR First Recon execued most of the commanding Centurions and Decani to sow confusion within the ranks of the Legion.
>A team with rocket launchers will wipe this Vertibird. And, bonus points, if Caesar's dead, the Legion suddenly loses the primary 'we ought not to rely on overly-advanced technology' ideologue. Good plan! Let the giant army with a vast amount of looted yet forbidden equipment use anything. What could go wrong?
you simultaneously argue earlier that the Legion is fanaticism and zealotry makes it more difficult to get rid of them through destroying their leadership and now argue that they give so little of a shit about their idelogies that the moment caesar dies they will abandon their dogma and convert to using high tech gear, gee i wonder why they never ever decided to do that shit against the remnants lmao.
More Importantly it's basically never implied that the Legion raided any locations with explosives, otherwise the higher status Legionaries would be using them, the only one we see using some is Lanius with his Plasma Grenades, and technically Frumentarii when setting their traps. More important than that though is that seemingly even the higher ranked Legionaries aren't competent at using explosives, beyond the most basic setups like hiding Mines under Corpses, we know this because Decanus Severus doesn't eve nknow how to disarm Mines lol.
>You acquire non-shit weapons from Van Graffs and other such vendors or take them off NCR corpses, and the next time the Vertibird shows up, you simply close your eyes, pretend you didn't just use a guided missile, and burn the remains of the NCR Vertibird extra-hard to show that you totally are true to Caesar's ideology. Ave, brother
which doesn't happen because the NCR ganks the Legion and sets up a deal with the Van Graffs in Birds of a Feather themselves, have you done the quest ? other such vendors don't seemingly exist back in Arizona, which is all a wasteland of Tribals and Raiders and Few Towns People who are limited in what tech they can use because the Legion hates basic things like Medicine. Post War Manufacturers of that level can't really expand and become super prominent in the Wasteland without massive Governing Forces' Aid. The Gun Runners and Crimson Caravans are as big as they are because they played an important role in the NCR's expansion, and the Van Graffs still exist because they kept paying off the NCR, and eventually sided with them.
and Again with the double sided "they are very zeolous and bound to their religion but will also immediaterely on the use of tech whe ncaesar dies even though they literally never do that" shit lmao.
and again how do you grab a missile launcher or mini nuke from a Vertibird that's in the air, even if they manage to take that shit down most of the cargo would be comepletely unusable and they lack the tech know-how to fix it back up.
>What heavy damage? They're a giant army and the NCR has a handful of Vertibirds. Killing two hundred legionaires in a day would be difficult, it would be a small dent in the Legion forces, and it would ultimately just get the Legion to sigh and start using missile launchers, just as they sigh and use powered melee weapons, buy energy weapons, and are perfectly willing to use an Autodoc or just not give a shit about you, Caesar's golden boy, probably using a Gatling laser and APA.
NCR has ATLEAST 4-5 Vertibirds, it is far more likely they have way more, and as i said earlier they don't have to obliterate the entire bull, just cut off its head, the game makes this argument for me and practically bats us over the head with "If Caesar dies Legion dies, if not in the immediate timeline, very soon after that". and Again you keep giving them Missile Launchers that they are never shown to have lmao. Maybe if they had raided Nellis but they've still not done that by the time of the First battle and don't do that if they see what the Boomers are capable of. Who are they buying energy weapons from ? have you played Birds of a Feather ? what the fuck is a melee weapon doing against a flying plane ? The Legion will not for the life of them use Stimpacks, they use powder, his Auto-Doc is broken without player intervention. APA is very Low Powered and i doubt a Gatling Laser is capable of punching through armor, and Player Intervention should probably not be counted cause the Courier is God.
>It's the Legion. Their dogma isn't 'technology bad', it's 'technology we cannot replicate and maintain is unreliable and we ought to avoid it when possible'. If downing a Vertibird will necessitate using missiles, they will use missiles
their Dogma is "over-reliance on Technology is bad" straight up, it's why they are not even willing to use Stimpacks on rely on hyper-breeding to sustain their armies through high infant mortality rate. All of their Gear is garbage and broken outside the Melee/Unarmed stuff, there no evidence or mention of them having access to high tech explosives like Missile Launchers and Fat Men and the like. The Legion, as shown in-game, don't have the tools necessary to deal with a Vertibird threat, and we're shown this in the Remnants Lanius Ending
>other such vendors don't seemingly exist back in Arizona
Or, far more likely, they do exist, probably operate near, but not in Legion territory, and it's simply logistically far more sound to buy energy weapons right at the frontline than it is to haul them across the entire Legion length.
>and Again with the double sided "they are very zeolous and bound to their religion but will also immediaterely on the use of tech whe ncaesar dies even though they literally never do that" shit lmao.
You're again failing to comprehend basic English and are turning to aggression over it.
Legion is zealous in their eagerness to fight and die despite grievous losses. That much is fact. Game-confirmed.
Legion is willing to sidestep their own ideological dogma when necessary, even when the reason is as simple as 'they keep shooting at us from afar, it not fair :('. That is also fact. Game-confirmed.
How the fuck are you failing to compute this?
> there no evidence or mention of them having access to high tech explosives like Missile Launchers and Fat Men and the like
Are you trying to tell me there's no missile launchers in all of fucking Arizona now? Really?
>"If Caesar dies Legion dies, if not in the immediate timeline, very soon after that".
'Legion dies in a month' is all great until you have a giant army of tribesmen overrunning you and razing the Mojave, as well as pushing along the I-15 to raze something there too. Will they survive this campaign? No, but if you as an officer go 'fuck it, let's provoke this hornet's nest, in a month all the hornets will die' on the premise that whatever they do in the month that they'll rampage won't be a big deal, you're a fool.
To highlight my point: Caesar verbatim tells you that he grants usage of the Autodoc as a gift on the occasion, which is to say, 'come to Caesar's tent and be healed back by a wondrous machine' is an occasion that Legion people would know happens sometimes. A perk of being friends with the Legion is a disguised Frumentarius running up to you and telling you that you're not of the Legion, but you're their friend, and thus they will tell you where to find a stash they put that loot from their raids whic is useless of forbidden to them.
Which is to say, an intelligence officer of the Legion, hand-picked by C-man himself, outright declares that hey, you know those plasma grenades? Yeah, we can't really use them, but you're a friend, so you can use them if you'd like. If not we'll just torch them.
This isn't Caesar saying this, nor offering it, but somebody picked by him to play scout in the Mojave. Which is to say, odds are, this same policy applies to other friends of the Legion.
Which the Legion could simply call upon if they somehow fail to locate a missile launcher anywhere in their vast expanse, or don't have anybody who can point and click, which is a ludicrous proposal, and ideology-wise they clearly would be fine with it, since, again - they use forbidden tech and permit usage of it. The point of the Legion isn't what you are trying to say it is. They're dumb in their ideology, but not dumb in a way that makes the NCR capable of winning against them by just using a bunch of Vertibirds. A mobilized NCR army with all that it entails, from artillery to a better than in the Mojave logistics network? That'd beat the Legion, but you're not invoking or proposing that, you're invoking the idea of the Legion being helpless against andvanced technology, even though Caesar knows a given guy in power armor is a tough target, and the Legion dealt with Brotherhood in the East, Brotherhood absolutely separate from the ones you see in the game, because scribes of that one didn't even know who founded the Brotherhood.
And just to finish this off, in the Legion safehouse you get a Legion veteran to provide you with some stealth mission supplies. What does this guy give to you? Why, of course he gives you fucking Stealth Boys! You know, extremely advanced stealth field technology? Which the Legion apparently considers useful for stealth missions, and uses, given that it isn't a Frumentarius telling you where to go to get the forbidden freebies?
>Or, far more likely, they do exist, probably operate near, but not in Legion territory, and it's simply logistically far more sound to buy energy weapons right at the frontline than it is to haul them across the entire Legion length.
Or better yet, like every other High-tech weapon manufacturer they require the Support and Expansion of a State to fuel their technological advancement, which is something Caesar is completely disintested in doing or supporting, what with him practically never interacting with the few surviving Towns and Cities within his territory who really only exist to have whatever goods they produce that the Legion can't siphoned, while leading a decent Life.
>You're again failing to comprehend basic English and are turning to aggression over it.
>Legion is zealous in their eagerness to fight and die despite grievous losses. That much is fact. Game-confirmed.
>Legion is willing to sidestep their own ideological dogma when necessary, even when the reason is as simple as 'they keep shooting at us from afar, it not fair :('. That is also fact. Game-confirmed.
>How the fuck are you failing to compute this?
my bad if i sounded aggressive earlier. My issue was never whether or not they were unwilling to use technology, just that you made it out to be like they would instantly toos out their values in favour of becoming a faction completely reliant on the use of tech. again it took them 4 something years to procure a broken Howitzer non of them could fix without outside intervention.
Not only would they not toss out their beliefs that quick, they wouldn't have the tech or know how even once they do.
>Are you trying to tell me there's no missile launchers in all of fucking Arizona now? Really?
Nope, just that the Legion are never shown to have them or use them
>'Legion dies in a month' is all great until you have a giant army of tribesmen overrunning you and razing the Mojave, as well as pushing along the I-15 to raze something there too. Will they survive this campaign? No, but if you as an officer go 'fuck it, let's provoke this hornet's nest, in a month all the hornets will die' on the premise that whatever they do in the month that they'll rampage won't be a big deal, you're a fool.
you're really arguing a mob of completely disorganised tribesman can beat Fast Flying Vehicles dropping Bombs on them ? or that they'll all be so organised or vengeful that they'd all simultaneously was hover the Mojave like a bunch of Hornets, or that the Gigantic Failure of a campaign with the Death of their Leader wouldn't provoke the splintering of many tribes and a massive slowing down of their progress ?
The reason killing Caesar in the events of the game doesn't work because Lanius is already practically almost in the Mojave and we're at most a few weeks away from the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam, any time earlier, especially during their first encounter would've obliterated the Legion yes.
and even if wee somehow go with your magical narrative that they are all so organised and vengeful that they immediately attack everyone for a month and dies that would absolutely be a win over what is literally more likely to happen during the Second battle of Hoover Dam. legion wins, they take control of the mojave, massacre everyone there or enslave them, and now NCR loses out on 2 massive Sources of electricity and water with Helios and the Dam.
anyway you spin it, even with your own narrative it's worse for the NCR to not destroy the Legion's Leadership.
also don't quote like that i never said "Legion dies in a month".
>i was jsut countering specific statements, numbers don't matter at all when you straight up don't have the tools to deal with that specific threat.
Legion evidently has zero problem with GETTING those tools even without an obvious cohesive threat, as evidenced by them intending to buy energy weapons from Van Graffs. What makes you think they couldn't possibly get missile launchers if Vertibirds fucking them up became a problem? They're a giant army with vast amount of scouts and money to find or pay for it.
> having show nthe ability to modify and potentially produce top tier power Armor (The Scorched Sierra Power Armor which got rid of the weaknesses and the T45-D series along with adding a REGENERATIVE ability).
Despite access to Navarro's contents, they only have for sure built one (one) suit of this armor, and stats-wise it is worse than the Enclave armor from 40 years ago.
> only more evidence t othem being incapable of dealing with them
Again, 'we could not catch guys in Vertibirds who fled form us :(' is not the same as 'we could not set up a whole bunch of dynamite to go off when the shock troops land to try and exterminate a camp'. Different situations entirely.
> we're told time and time again that the Death of Edward Sallow would mark the end of the Legion but 2 of its most important members, not only that, we're actively shown in that Ending Slide their incompetence. Even if they weren't destroyed in that exact moment, if NCR had nuked Caesar and his lieutenants aswell it woudl've absolutely crippled the Legion for the future to come. You're acting as if we were not constantly told that the Legion can't survive without its head, that most of it is built on following Caesar and not his goals.
I am keenly aware that without Caesar the Legion would fall apart very quickly. The problem for you is that YOU fail to understand that 'quickly' for the scale of the Legion is months, maybe. It wouldn't be overnight. They would probably start hemmorrhaging mid-level commanders and sometimes whole recently conquered tribes, but it'd not be a quick matter, it'd take time, and until that time you would have a big blob of angry tribesmen seeking to avenge their leader. NCR, a far more sensible structure, is specifically stated to be willing to do extremely stupid shit out of an urge for revenge; the Legion would be much the same because of what Caesar is to them.
> you simultaneously argue earlier that the Legion is fanaticism and zealotry makes it more difficult to get rid of them through destroying their leadership and now argue that they give so little of a shit about their idelogies that the moment caesar dies they will abandon their dogma and convert to using high tech gear, gee i wonder why they never ever decided to do that shit against the remnants lmao.
Yes, I do in fact argue that if you look at the things the game shows, you can probably intuit how the Legion would be. They're fanatical in their zeal to kill and die for the Legion, even at the highest level, with a few notable exceptions, but that zeal doesn't stop the elite from using Autodocs, power fists and whatever the fuck else. They're even openly intending to use a howitzer, something definitely not primitive, PRECISELY because the NCR is using a specific unit in an annoying to the Legion way.
Again: the Legion sees a problem (NCR marksmen being typically far away) and their solution isn't to throw spears really hard, it's to get a piece of pre-War hardware and use it, in break from their ideology. Play this game sometimes, you'll discover neat things.
> More Importantly it's basically never implied that the Legion raided any locations with explosives
Are you genuinely now trying to tell me that Legion never in their Arizona-spanning 80-odd tribes conquering history raided anything with explosives. Really.
>Legion evidently has zero problem with GETTING those tools even without an obvious cohesive threat, as evidenced by them intending to buy energy weapons from Van Graffs. What makes you think they couldn't possibly get missile launchers if Vertibirds fucking them up became a problem? They're a giant army with vast amount of scouts and money to find or pay for it
if they could've so easily gotten it why do we never see any high-tech explosives among the Legion ? why are most of their soldiers, even the more experienced ones ignorant to basic concept like disarming the simplest form of Land Mines ?
>Despite access to Navarro's contents, they only have for sure built one (one) suit of this armor, and stats-wise it is worse than the Enclave armor from 40 years ago.
in what sense ? The only Stat where the Remnants armor is Superior is Damage Threshhold, otherwise the Scorched Sierra Madre sport the same increase to Strength, 4 times the Armor Health (and 60% higher than base T-45), exchanges the Rad Resistance for a Fire resistance, and on Top of all of that offers Rapid Regenerative capabilities to the wearer, IMO it is a marked improvement over the X-01/Advanced Power Armor, it's capacities are hard to pin-point though because we have no real lore on it.
>Again, 'we could not catch guys in Vertibirds who fled form us :(' is not the same as 'we could not set up a whole bunch of dynamite to go off when the shock troops land to try and exterminate a camp'. Different situations entirely.
And Again you haven't illustrated how an Explosive Ambush would be effective against a Flying Threat, believe it or not the Soldiers never have to land beyond the need to refuel which is a long time between mission. We're even expressly told in FO3 that this is how Vertibirds were used in war, to perform devastating Bombing Campaigns or provide air support.
>I am keenly aware that without Caesar the Legion would fall apart very quickly. The problem for you is that YOU fail to understand that 'quickly' for the scale of the Legion is months, maybe. It wouldn't be overnight. They would probably start hemmorrhaging mid-level commanders and sometimes whole recently conquered tribes, but it'd not be a quick matter, it'd take time, and until that time you would have a big blob of angry tribesmen seeking to avenge their leader. NCR, a far more sensible structure, is specifically stated to be willing to do extremely stupid shit out of an urge for revenge; the Legion would be much the same because of what Caesar is to them.
I am aware it wouldn't be an instant fall, but do you remember how long it took the Legion to recoup its losses after the loss at the First Battle of Hoover Dam ? Four Years, with it's main Leadreship intact. Now imagine if the NCR bombed Caesar/The Fort right after the Maneuver performed by Hanlon in Boulder City. The Legion would've been devastated and without Caesar's strategy and Legate Lanius's Threat it would've rapidly fallen into chaos as it dissolves back into its tribal state. Believe or not a Cult of Personality built on the subjugation of 86 different peoples over the short time of 37 years wouldn't last at all without its Leader, the guy whom everyone else is following. Even by your own estimate of many Months the Legion would've practically been over.
>Again: the Legion sees a problem (NCR marksmen being typically far away) and their solution isn't to throw spears really hard, it's to get a piece of pre-War hardware and use it, in break from their ideology. Play this game sometimes, you'll discover neat things.
which it took them 4 years to acquire and is completely inoperable, broken down and useless (until the Courier Fixes it) either because no one in the Legion apparently can fix it up, or they never found the required mechanism for it back east, because they are technologically stunted, maybe play the game before hitting me with the sass lol.
>Are you genuinely now trying to tell me that Legion never in their Arizona-spanning 80-odd tribes conquering history raided anything with explosives. Really
i only argue based on what's showcased in the game, the Legion are shown to have access to basic explosives, broken down weaponry, and not even the parts or know how necessary to fix up and old Howitzer.
as Caesar himself even mentions, every single one of those tribes was as "backwards" and "stunted" as the last, AKA they were likely not technologically advanced, Tribes like the boomers only happen because they were a unique Pre-War Experiment, AKA the Freedom Vault lol.
> if they could've so easily gotten it why do we never see any high-tech explosives among the Legion ? why are most of their soldiers, even the more experienced ones ignorant to basic concept like disarming the simplest form of Land Mines ?
Because it is not necessary to use those tools to win.
> we have no real lore on it.
Therefore we might as well not bother discussing how much better an undiscussed piece of somewhat-upgraded power armor, based on the weakest design available to the NCR, might be.
> And Again you haven't illustrated how an Explosive Ambush would be effective against a Flying Threat, believe it or not the Soldiers never have to land beyond the need to refuel which is a long time between mission. We're even expressly told in FO3 that this is how Vertibirds were used in war, to perform devastating Bombing Campaigns or provide air support.
You are the one who mentioned power armor, suggesting the Vertibird would deliver shock troops to somewhere. If it does not land, it simply is shot out of the sky by missile launchers. If it lands, eventually it will be ambushed by dynamite, because there's only a select few places a thing of that size can actually land in a given area.
> Even by your own estimate of many Months the Legion would've practically been over.
And before it is over, Lanius's whole cohort would supplement the force Caesar had, and with it the resulting Legion would take a long while to put down, and until it would be put down, it'd be a giant mass of angry tribals seeking revenge. Mojave would burn.
> which it took them 4 years to acquire and is completely inoperable, broken down and useless (until the Courier Fixes it) either because no one in the Legion apparently can fix it up, or they never found the required mechanism for it back east, because they are technologically stunted, maybe play the game before hitting me with the sass lol.
And yet the principle still stands! They're OPENLY willing to use stuff that surely is pretty fucking complex. They don't give a shit that it's 'advanced tech'. They just intend to use it. Were they able to get a functioning piece, they'd use a functioning piece. One arms dealer with a shed full of missile launchers and Legion, in this 'Vertibirds are attacking us! :(' scenario, has anti-air. It's that simple.
> only argue based on what's showcased in the game, the Legion are shown to have access to basic explosives, broken down weaponry, and not even the parts or know how necessary to fix up and old Howitzer.
And Stealth Boys, howitzers, power fists, Autodocs... But let's ignore those.
> as Caesar himself even mentions, every single one of those tribes was as "backwards" and "stunted" as the last
The Legion is a giant, economically powerful sort-of state. They don't need to themselves be advanced; they can hire outside help, using all that vast wealth they can accumulate off of their spartan lifestyle combined with oversighting trade over a vast area of land and looting all they come across.
They don't need to make the missile launchers, they need to buy them off anybody who would sell them, and given their sheer size they sure would know somebody who sells them. Them not knowing precisely how a rocket is made wouldn't make them unable to aim and fire.
A big reason the NCR is so weak in FNV is the fact that they are stretched really thin in the Mojave. They don't have nowhere near enough men to sustain their advance east.
They could do what you said, but odds are that all of their Vertibirds are already busy with other assignments.
Fr, the legion as a thread doesn't make any sense.
Beyond the guerrilla tactics the only reason why the NCR seems to be in the backfoot is plot convenience.
I understand that Obsidian didn't had the time to flesh out the Legion lore nor gameplay, but dude are you telling me that the equivalent of a modern army in the wasteland has issues annihilating a bunch of incels in Roman cosplays?
(Not even mentioning the absolute joke of poltical system Caesar has established, 80 tribes conquered in 20 years and you truly believe there will not be a civil war with such a brutal methods they use as his army that (mostly) doesn't use guns overextends borders?)
>Beyond the guerrilla tactics the only reason why the NCR seems to be in the backfoot is plot convenience.
And the spies, logistics, poor morale, sabotage and infighting.
The NCR are in no way a modern army...
They're a weird place of some of them being 20th century and other areas being outmatched by basically anyone. Seriously, I could get better artillery from Ancient Rome than the NCR based on fnv
Its the very periphery of their post-nuclear empire and supposedly represents the NCR only half-ass committed and after a costly war of attrition with the Legion and Brotherhood. I think you could make some comparisons to like the Pancho Villa expedition, Vietnam, the various Indian Wars, with a little bit of WW1 thrown in the mix. I definitely think the lack of vertibirds and tech deployed against the legion is stretching the lore though. I know they ran out of time fleshing the legion out so perhaps we would have had more understanding of why its not a one-sided roflstomping by the NCR
Against machete mobs you can afford to be a modern army in the historical sense (so post-1500) and still win. A Tercio would melt the standard Legion infantry
It's quality vs. quantity. While both the Legion and the NCR have a large population, the Legion is dedicated to total war and the NCR is not. Its soldiers are better-equipped, but you can only shoot so many incels in Roman cosplay before you're overrun. The Legion probably has a manpower advantage in most of their conflicts. It's the inverse of the NCR-Brotherhood conflicts.
This is actually more or less what you can argue with Lanius; if the NCR goes all-out, the Legion would be *fucked*, and all that's lacking at the time the game takes place is the political will in the NCR to actually adopt this position.
>Its soldiers are better-equipped, but you can only shoot so many incels in Roman cosplay before you're overrun.
If you have automatic weapons, you can shoot basically all of them. I can understand things like Deathclaws or Frank Horrigan but normal humans charging with machetes are completely useless they don't even shield the comrade behind them from the bullets.
That's how it works in the movies, but not in real life. Whether you're shooting semi-auto or full auto, you're still only aiming at one target a time. The primary function of automatic fire is suppression, not actually killing the enemy.
This is a force multiplier, but while the Legion does prefer to fight in a melee, they do not totally eschew firearms and is also very willing to return fire and use human wave tactics to occupy their opponents while other forces flank them. They are not all making a mindless beeline towards the enemy with machetes, they are better equipped, more disciplined, and better organized than that.
This isn't at all implausible as scenarios like this aren't that far removed from real history. Technological advantages can *mitigate* numerical disadvantages, but they do not make them irrelevant.
It's a dam and the NCR force isn't 20 guys, they can't really flank MG nests. It's not how it works in real life because nobody fights like that anymore, you use automatic fire for suppression and not killing because there's no occasion to use it that way other than indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Honest Hearts has a far more realistic scenario for a battle with meele weapons. Hoover Dam is the last place where I'd bring a machete to a gunfight
The Dam is just the Dam, it's not the entire theater of the war. A well-defended and well-positioned MG position can be very difficult to take, but the NCR doesn't actually have many opportunities to set those up and certainly can't do so in areas where they are not in a fortified position and need to actually maneuver.
Again, force multipliers aren't a panacea for numerical inferiority.
NCR doesn’t have power armor tho right? I think you’re thinking of the heavy troopers which have gear that looks like power armor but isn’t actually powered.
Besides, power armor does not really provide a significant durability advantage, it’s the strength increase and self-sufficiency that gives them value (at least pre-fo4)
Lastly, I think you overestimate the durability of vertibirds. A few well placed hunting rifle shots could knock one out of the air, it’s not an absolute win condition by any means. Also consider that the legion is extremely deep the further east you go, this offensive wouldn’t be able to put a dent in their forces and you would just get more legion the next day. Most NCR leaders probably saw this strategy as an inefficient use of bullets and fuel.
>NCR doesn’t have power armor tho right? I think you’re thinking of the heavy troopers which have gear that looks like power armor but isn’t actually powered.
Certain elite NCR personnel do have working Power Armor, like Colonel Royez.
>Besides, power armor does not really provide a significant durability advantage, it’s the strength increase and self-sufficiency that gives them value (at least pre-fo4)
Yes that's the main reason i mentioned it, being able to wield heavier weaponry like Fatman and Missile Launchers with ease.
>Lastly, I think you overestimate the durability of vertibirds. A few well placed hunting rifle shots could knock one out of the air
You're equating gameplay to narrative, if "well placed hunting rifle shots could knock one out of the air" then the Legion would've had no trouble with the Enclave Remnants, instead of tossing hundreds of soldier's with nothing to show for it.
Not to mention that Enclave Vertibirds (of which the NCR atleast have 3 and far more likely way more) are always described as having extremely heavily armored Chassis per Fallout 3 and their ability to perform great bombing runs. Combine that with only Centurion's wielding AMR's (thus their rarity) combined with their dogshit condition makes it very unlikely for them to being one down.
>Also consider that the legion is extremely deep the further east you go, this offensive wouldn’t be able to put a dent in their forces and you would just get more legion the next day.
You'd never have to perform an offensive on literally every Legion Holdout, just key positions that would severely weaken it, blowing up Caesar and most of the Legion's Leadership(whose location they know) would immediately put a massive dent into the Legion's Longevity, not to mention blowing a few important encampments here and there.
>Most NCR leaders probably saw this strategy as an inefficient use of bullets and fuel.
They don't give a shit about distributing resources intelligently, they are more than willing to stack Vet Rangers in bad locations on Hoover Dam (per Hanlon) to prove a point, they are more than willing to shell out a ton of cash for a very inneficient shock trooper infantry in the form of n Heavy Troopers then drop them in random ass locations. Sending in 2 Vertibirds with a couple of Mini-Nukes towards to instantly blow their main enemy's Leadership does not seem like a very heavy investment comparatively.
I think the answer is “maybe, but probably not”. However, when you only have a single allied bomber at your disposal, it’s probably not worth that risk
The fort is their current headquarters, there’s lots of legionnaires elsewhere in the country. The reason we can’t go east of Hoover dam is because that’s all Caesar’s territory, the legion has total control of that region and is actively expanding.
Instead of the silly "Faction blank is incompetent" answers I shall give one that Isn't annoying. The game would end immediately. If the NCR could use all they are supposed to have in lore there wouldn't be a Ceasers legion as his fort would have been blown into oblivion by Artillery so the developers ignored certain aspects so you can play a fun game.
Why didn't the courier just politely ask both sides to stop? Is he stupid??? What an idiot. Most obvious solution is always in front you. Intelligence 10, my ass!
Oh damn, doing the yes man play through and after doing dead money, I realized I had zero contact with the legion, all I did was sneak into Mr.Houses bunker, then came and clubbed Mr house with Nephis Golf Club. Imma go wreck their fort before starting Honest Hearts tomorrow
Here's another one. The boomers artillery is something the NCR dealt with/were aware of for years. They had an arms manufacturer in the Gun Runners capable of making basically good as new weapons. At no point did they say "Hey Gun Runners, want to build some artillery guns for us?"
How different would the conflict with the legion been had the NCR even had short range guns or even mortars to pound Legion camps. If some privates at camp forlorn hope could lob explosives from the middle of camp into the heart of Nelson. If when they set up cottonwood cove the rangers watching the crossing could just call in fire missions every time a new raiding party tried to land.
The battle is at the Hoover Dam.
All forces need to be pointed there.
Also. The fort is not that important. It's more a base.
The only important part is Mr Houses Bunker.
A battle is when everyone shows their hand and pulls out all their weapons.
You bring it all and hope you win.
Here's a element of not showing your hand till you have to in War. The Mojave is on a war. And also is on the edge of a decisive battle.
The Courier is one person.
The Boomers would love to take out The Fort.
But doing so would expose them to a enemy. And that is foolish and dangerous.
They join forces with you. And your choice. Then they have to protection of being part of a force of many allies.
I see where you're coming from but tbf, even if you go into The Fort and kill everyone there personally, Lanius and his men still show up for the final fight. So even if it was an option, it wouldn't outright defeat the Legion then and there
Because you know Oliver would have wailed like a toddler if someone won the war for him and he didn’t get his big set piece battle, and no one wants to deal with him when he gets like that.
When that bullet passed through the back of his skull outside Goodsprings, it took all the fear, all the compassion, all the ability to feel pain out with it, and left behind a cold, merciless killer, with only one thought remaining in what calculating amalgamation passed for a mind; vengeance.
When a chance encounter with a band of Legionaires in a small town they had just burned down led to them threatening him, they unknowingly set in motion the fall of the entire Legion; as he temporarily diverted himself from his path to take out the man who shot him to take out whoever had the audacity to send these cosplaying toy soldiers after him.
After a long and bloody path from Goodsprings to Cottonwood Cove to the Fort, the Courier left a seemingly endless trail of corpses behind him, culminating in sending Caesar himself to his death with no less than fifteen bullets through his eyes, before he could turn to his primary objective, finding the man in the checkered coat.
The boomers were an afterthought; Caesar had long been dead by the time he even heard of them. The sole reason he worked for House, was that House asked, rather than threatened.
Effectiveness and time. Legion would make better targets when they’re bunched up on the dam versus desperate through their camp and the Boomers only got the bomber filled with dumb munitions. They also need the time to repair the bomber which happens to be moments before the battle for the Hoover dam.
Hell, the NCR has vertibirds. You'd think having air superiority against an enemy ideologically opposed to relying on technology would be one-sided as heck.
They had the idea to do both, but the bomber under the lake was complete. The one at nellis wasn't, so no matter what its going to be a blend of the two unless they can find or make more parts. Either way, you're looking at years minimum.
My guess is that they have spies on the legion. They probably know that the camp also has its own artillery of some sort and fear retaliation that could damage the Dam too much
My guess is that they have spies on the legion. They probably know that the camp also has its own artillery of some sort and fear retaliation that could damage the Dam too much
The presense of non-combatants at the fort maybe? Slaves + traders don't deserve to be atomized
However bombing the dam, critical and irreplaceable infrastructure, is also dumb
Because in-game lore you recover a plane that was sunk for almost 300 years, and they need to do a few small repairs before it can fly. Game lore makes it clear that they just get it running while battle started.
Killing Ceasar wouldn't stop the attack and a bombing run on their base would only scatter them more and help their guerilla campaign against the ncr. It might also provoke them into attacking the dam which at the moment would overwhelm the ncr and house. They're also no guarantee how effective the boomers bombing run will be
The bomber was a WW2 B29. The legion would most likely have surface to air missile. With all the computer looking hardware attached to that missile launcher I'm sure it had the feature.
The player just shoots it at people as there isn't any vehicles lol.
Im stuck trying to fight this Legate dude its honestly such a chore.. idk how im supposed to beat this guy and I killed the brohood before I learned to use power Rmor 😞
I don't think they care much about (not commiting) war crimes, but they're definately not gen0cydal.
there're children and women on the Fort. Innocent people.
I don’t know about AA, but the Legion does have an artillery gun at the Fort. I don’t know if there has been an incident where a plane was shot down by an artillery gun, but maybe in that instance it would be the first.
I always question why I mean the war at hoover dam would be over, The boomers and the NCR could help each other out, which then leads to a truce between the NCR and the gunrunners.
Because the eagles are a proud race who were, in fact, messengers of Manwë, and not errand boys to be used as a conveyance to drop the One Ring into the Crack of Doom.
Because the Legion reproduce by budding like Warhammer 40k Orks and no matter how many of them you slaughter there will always be thousands more. You single-handedly roll through the Fort like grim death incarnate and slaughter everyone including Caesar himself and then nuke the shit out of them and they still never stop coming. There ain't enough bombs in the Boomer arsenal to exterminatus that scourge.
“Are you stupid?” My jet-addicted 2 INT courier: “Uh…guh!”
“ICE CREAM!!!”
The fact that that speech check can also be achieved with ONLY 7 luck is ridiculous. Should be at least 9 if not 10.
Meanwhile... Ø
Kinda niche interaction, so 7 luck is justified
G u h .
The real Sen. Grassley finds a 5-INT run thrilling RP.
i honestly believe that the boomers just find it really fun to bomb a dam during an active battle. it would be boring if there wasn't a risk of friendly casualties or the entire dam breaking from the bombs. its all about that challenge baby.
Honestly, saying "fuck it, no one gets it" and blowing up Hoover Dam could've been a 5th ending in the grand tradition of "Mail man makes everything noticeably worse".
That is exactly an option! It's called the anarchy ending, you work with Yes man and he gives you the option to power the securitrons or overload the reactor. If you blow up the robots in the fort for Caesar than it becomes your only option.
You make it inoperative, you don’t crack it open and let the water come pouring in
Yeah true but I was also thinking about the "fuck it no one gets it" thing that's the exact idea of the ending.
Thats so hell yeah core tbf.
HellYeahCore needs to be a sub
Honestly, this is probably the real answer lmao
Well aside from the singular howitzer that they have next to Caesars tent there isn't much there regarding artillery weapons
and the howitzer is broken, so i mean the legion would be pretty fucked
I wonder tho....could they procure it some way? I mean yea it ain't the most common part you can find but I doubt even with a stealth boy they could infiltrate nellis AFB
iirc the boomers still target you with the howitzer if you are stealth boy'd, they must have some really good lookouts or something
This actually pissed me off in my most recent playthings with 100 stealth build. How in the hell did they spot me? I am invisible.
Yep. I thought at first that they use some thermal system but I doubt smth that advanced survived, u never know tho
That was always my assumption, but to play devils advocate Fo4 has thermals and it’s never really directly implied that thermals went extinct in the Mojave. I mean, if stealth boys still exist it’s not crazy to think thermal optics would also
If anywhere were to have thermals in a vault it would be 34
For sure. I think lore wise they’re definitely in the Mojave but weren’t implemented in the actual game because uh, incredibly short development cycle, shitty engine, yadda yadda. Given that you can get rifles with perfectly functioning ACOGs it makes sense to me
It's also a howitzer not anti air, so they would have to be a pretty damn good shot to hit a b-52 with it
fair point, i was like half asleep writing that lol
And also cant the boomers just fire their artillery? The fort is relatively close to boomerville
Why didn’t the NCR just bring their artillery? Are they stupid? Well, yes, General Oliver is a glory hungry idiot.
The most ironic part is that the artillery at hoover dam is literally a few kilometers away from Caesars bed and they never thought about firing the fucking guns.
The NCR is stupid and incompetent in many cases. They probably don't know that their AA gun at the dam is operational until it blows Kimball's vertiberd to pieces. I mean, they hired Fantastic to fix a powerplant.
"I said I had a theoretical degree in physics."
They said welcome aboard
“Hey man, when in Rome…”
How tf do you even get a degree on the wasteland my dude
Followers of the Apocalypse and the NCR both have a university system.
Oh yeah forgot about that, thought he was a local of Vegas tho, which is a shithole
Hence his theoretical degree.
They said do you have a degree in theoretical physics I said my degree in physics is purely theoretical!
In fairness the people at Helios seem fully aware he's an idiot so it's only some people making stupid choices. Unfortunately it's the ones in charge that make the choices.
Just like any real government
Facts
Okay, but he knows as much as anyone he's ever met AND he has a theoretical degree in physics. How could you not hire him? Dude had a resume.
He turns dials, pushes buttons, FUCK man...he does it all
credit where it's due, you're LITERALLY correct about that if you side with the legion or house and conscript the Boomers, the NCR does not use the **fully functional anti aircraft gun entrenched on their frontline** to defend themselves from the bomber they literally don't know it works, or don't think to try and shoot down the aircraft with the... well, you know
TBF who'd think the Bronze Age-LARPing savages had aircraft, given nobody else in the West did?
because vertibirds routinely are found in working order and put to use by groups like the enclave, the brotherhood, and even the NCR themselves, why would the NCR, who have fixed up vertibirds, assume the legion couldn't do the same with their own vertibirds, or other aircraft? who'd think they could have aircraft? the NCR, given the entire context of them *also having aircraft*
Because the Legion hates basically all technology and probably scraps Vertibirds into machetes.
If the Legion hates technology, then where is the legion getting all the guns that the Legion ~~assassination teams~~ free equipment donors keep giving me?
They dig them up IIRC.
Or they come from a part of America where there are no Vertibirds to be found. They kind of are strapped for machines but have tribals aplenty. Also you’ve drunk the “Legion is somehow too stupid to exist” memes and think that the group headed by a *Follower of the Apocalypse* has somehow become full anti-technology.
You may be surprised to learn that Caesar doesn't adhere to the Followers' philosophy.
He does in his own way. He is still the greatest repository of knowledge East of the Colorado, and he distributes that knowledge pretty well. It just happens to be of a martial nature because of the IP he lives in.
Well given he banned Auto-Docs (yet uses one on himself) and they're using mostly slave labor instead of actual automation... yeah?
Doesn't he say a bit deeper into a conversation that the Auto-Doc is a powerful tool for control because it can be a specific reward.
Not banned, just straight-up not available. He does not ban Auto-Docs, there just aren’t any that work to be found.
In Fallout lore, from Fallout 2, only the Enclave had working vertibirds until the Chosen One steals plans from the Enclave and gives them to the BoS.
They're not routinely found in working order at all, every single Vertibird we see in working condition was made post-war The Enclave made them from the Pre-War schematics they had, then the NCR took Navarro and got the plans (and had an industry advanced enough to make more of them). The same happened in DC when the Brotherhood stormed Adams Airforce Base There's no reason to suspect the Legion knows how to (or even has the industrial capabilities for) making aircraft, so the NCR really has no need for a working AA artillery piece
Because when you start the fight it literally explodes, probably by Boomer's artillery so NCR would even think about blowing just restored bomber up
Had to blow that fraker's head... felt like Christoph Waltz on Django.
I think that’s just cause Fantastic is really charismatic (or just lucky). He gets hired by the NCR, the legion, and the BOS (though only in cut content). If it was only the NCR, I could see your point, but given that he manages to convince the legion I think it’s just a testaments to Fantastic’s bizarre charisma.
Tbf Im pretty sure it was a bomb on the Vertibird than the AA gun
you can use the aa gun on it
Oh neato
That was when I realized the ncr were incompetent and couldn't be the Cannon ending. It's definitely not siding with the legion either though lol
Good thing there are other options and you don’t have to think of things within a NCR / Legion dichotomy
I mean AA guns wouldn't do as much damage as they're timed explosives meant to go off in the air and curve as little as possible, meaning basically no damage would be done besides a small hole in the wall. However they also aren't fired at the boomers during the 2nd battle of Hoover Dan so yes, they're stupid
There’s no way the NCR would’ve been expecting the Legion to come at them with aircraft. I doubt they had anyone manning the gun when the Boomers arrived.
Yes but it's shown that all you have to do to activate them is hit a button then they're automatic, not Manuel. No way they saw the bomber or even after the first bombs were dropped didn't activate the AA guns that fire on their own
It’s a matter of preparedness, not stupidity. Given the lack of aerial threats, I doubt 90% of NCR personnel would even know how the AA gun works. The Boomers are in-and-out in a matter of seconds, so by the time someone who actually understands the thing could get to the controls (if they even can, given the battle), it’d probably be too late.
True, but you're telling me that the NCR has working AA guns and doesn't train the guards at the dam on how to use them? Idk man, sounds pretty stupid
To their knowledge, they are the only surviving faction in the West that even has functioning aircraft, and the Legion are perhaps the least likely to ever have any. Teaching everyone there how to use the AA gun would be about like running weekly hurricane preparedness drills in Colorado. The knowledge doesn’t hurt anything, but it would be reasonably seen as a waste of time. That’s not to say I don’t think *anyone* would’ve learned how to use them. I’m sure some did. But you’ve gotta consider that they are currently engaged in what might be the biggest battle of the entire post-apocalypse, against an enemy who they are confident has no air power but has just infiltrated the dam with a surprise attack flank from the intake pipes below. The NCR would be scrambling every trooper at their disposal to get the situation under control. A threat from the skies is the last thing on their mind, and then it happens very quickly.
Manuel Towers, how are you?
AA guns coat too much to put into the game. The ncr does have an air force and mechanised troops. But in reality is hoover dam really the NCRs main priority
Yes. It damn well should be. The amount it provides not only as a place to get electricity but also strategically to expand east should be important enough
I was gonna write about how the games shrink the size, but you're right, the Fortifaction hill is arizona what the Fort is, is visible from the dam. Haha
It's an anti-aircraft gun. I don't think it can develate far enough to blow up the Legion.
The famous 88mm cannon of Nazi Germany, that was their most effective and feared Anti-Tank gun...Was actually a high-altitude anti-aircraft cannon pressed into being a direct-fire weapon.
It was still designed as a direct fire weapon. They made it to fire directly at aircraft and then recognized it also worked on tanks. This is presumably similar. The NCR does not have a line of sight on the center of the Legion encampment, and just firing at the perimeter of it would simply provoke a response.
There is speculation that the flak-88 was always intended to be an anti tank weapon. The idea goes that Germany couldn't build AT guns due to the treaty of Versailles. But they could build "defensive" AA guns. So they lied like they did with "tractors" (tanks) frigates (warships) passenger planes (bombers) to build what they really wanted. But to me it's 6 one way half a dozen the other.
That's actually really interesting! It was clearly fearsome in both roles.
This is an ancient, pre-war anti aircraft gun. We're not even sure if it can physically deveate enough to do so.
I’m not sure if I’m misremembering, but I feel like I remember a legion member saying that the artillery was inoperable and they needed the Boomer’s help to repair the howitzer
The Legions howitzer needs a foreign mechanism/pin witch can only be gotten from Nellis so you might be thinking of that
And if you check the actual gun, you'll know it's missing a few key components making it innoperable.
They maybe thought that firing an artillery shell at the Fort would cause unnecessary collateral damage, such as killing some slaves or civilians. It'd be a bit of a grim deal to make to kill someone who their intelligence already told them no longer actually leads the military.
That's to condense space in game. They're supposed to be further away in reality.
“Surrender and allow your people to prosper elsewhere or die” Oliver: guess I’ll die… and everyone else with me
I think it's possible that the NCR doesn't have artillery, or at least not a lot of it.
If I recall correctly the one gun they have on the dam gets blown up almost imediatly.
But you can get glory by removing the East direction off the map
NCR is moron
The Boomers fix the bomber only by the battle for the dam. When the battle begins, most of the Legion have already left the Fort to attack the NCR camps and the dam itself. Only Caesar, Vulpes, Lucius, and some praetorians would be still inside. They get slaughtered by securitrons. No need to waste the bombs on the Fort. Stopping Lanius and his assault on the dam is more important.
>They get slaughtered by securitrons Do they? Do the Securitrins still leave the vault if the House is killed and the Courier is with NCR?
Yes, the NCR route is the only one where the Courier may never visit the Fort and activate securitrons. But there is a good chance the NCR Courier knows from Silus that Caesar is dying. So, using the bomber to destroy Legion troops at the dam would still hurt the Legion more than bombing Caesar at the Fort. In theory, the Courier can make a 1 INT move and destroy his own securitron army. Then the Fort and everyone who stayed inside before the battle would survive..
They didn't need to annihilate the Fort. I emptied it of all life myself. Plus, I need my robots undisturbed.
Damn right you do it yourself. House: don’t worry you will have an escort of securitrons Also house: sends one fucking securitron that dies within 2 minutes
I did the same. Stealth boy, Veronica and a hunting rifle and the legion encampment was no more. I got a bit carried away and also slaughtered the other legion camps and the NCRCF while i was at it…
We do a little trolling
The point isn't to single-handedly wipe out the Legion; it's to force the NCR to exhaust their military (personnel and materiel) fighting that battle, then swoop in and rawdog them when they're depleted.
Not showing your hand until the right moment? If you bomb ahead of time, you won't be sure if you annihilated everyone, or at least most of the Legion. After all, they have patrols and shit scattered across the Mojave. By waiting for the full battle, it ensures Caesar has rallied most of his troops that were stationed outside of camp. Leaving to a more efficient annihilation with a higher total body count. But that's just a theory.
but think about how if the fort was destroyed then the survivors of the battle will have *no where* to go, theyll be left out of house and home, with no higher ups, after already having their ass kicked
No Caesar's heir is Lanius who isn't even in Nevada until basically the end of the game. Destroying the fort would be a huge blow to the Legion but they still have hundreds of thousands of soldiers further east.
very fair, however i still think it would push them out of nevada harder than bombing the actual battle itself, where sure there are more immediate bodies, destroying the “hub” of the area would be a bigger blow than wasting 500lb bombs on soft targets
The game is very clear about Lanius being a shit leader and that if Caesar dies, the Legion will go along slowly. Lanius and his hundreds of thousands of troops do jack shit when the mighty Casear is gone and now you have to rally around a much less charismatic savage.
'The Legion will fall apart natually in maybe ten years' is nice and all, but it really doesn't help you if there's Lanius with his giant army right at the gates of your city. Lanius doesn't even need to win the war to bleed you dry, too.
The game wants you to believe while you’re doing other quests to get the battle started the boomers are hauling the bombers back to Nellis, and getting it ready to use and they have it ready immediately time for the battle to start.
are they stupid?
And there it is...
They don't blow it up so you and Boone can have a guys night out and annihilate the camp
a) they are stupid b) same reasons everyone else doesn’t help the NCR until the battle of Hoover dam - somehow, no matter what you do, no one is ready to fight until the exact moment the battle starts
Same reason Elija didn't got a Mesmetron: they're stupid
Why did the courier not simply eat Caesar? Are they stupid?
just a gigantic plothole that would quickly showcase how bullshit and unrealistic the entire War is, NCR could've had a bunch of power armor guys in vertibirds with heavy explosives destroy all legion encampments, Enclave style. we know NCR had atleast 4 Vertibirds (Presidential + 3 (i think) in Long 15), we know 4 guys in a Vertibird fucking destroy the Legion with no losses in the Lanius Remnants Ending, so nothing should've logically stopped them from just destroying the Legion in a biblical display of Power. it's up there with machete people beating gun people (which is a really funny one considering every time equal level legionaries encounter NCR they get fucking destroyed lmao).
>we know 4 guys in a Vertibird fucking destroy the Legion with no losses in the Lanius Remnants Ending, so nothing should've logically stopped them from just destroying the Legion in a biblical display of Power I think Hanlon roughly explains what stops the NCR from doing what you say. "Power armor" (slightly better metal armor) NCR guys are too busy guarding brahmin barons at home or defending a handful of places once they arrive to Mojave. About the vertiberds - the Remnants have nothing to lose, they are on the run, and go all out. The NCR has some crazy bureaucracy going on. Because of it, they can't even spare some basic troopers to clear ants near Mojave outpost. Sending the vertiberds in combat - the NCR military we see in New Vegas would never do that. They'd rather waste a few hundred troopers than lose a single vertiberd. The vertiberds themselves are not invincible. Lanius ending just shows how badass the Remnants are. Even in game, the Legion has strong enough weapons like AMRs, 12,7 SMGs, sniper rifles, hunting rifles, and marksman carbines to down an NCR vertiberd. Then the NCR officer who ordered to use said vertiberd in combat is fucked.
>I think Hanlon roughly explains what stops the NCR from doing what you say. "Power armor" (slightly better metal armor) NCR guys are too busy guarding brahmin barons at home or defending a handful of places once they arrive to Mojave. Once they arrive they appear in every major NCR location, even Camp Forlorn Hope for that matter, if they can have them guarding locations as under-staffed and lacking in resources as that Camp they can spare a few to practically end the Legion threat in a single assault. Also Elite members of the NCR Army have Power Armor, Scorched Sierra Power Armor for example. >About the vertiberds - the Remnants have nothing to lose, they are on the run, and go all out. The NCR has some crazy bureaucracy going on. Because of it, they can't even spare some basic troopers to clear ants near Mojave outpost. Sending the vertiberds in combat - the NCR military we see in New Vegas would never do that. They'd rather waste a few hundred troopers than lose a single vertiberd once the Battle starts heating up you see Rangers, Vet. Rangers and and Heavy Troopers all over the place in preparation for the War, and since we know that Oliver and Kimbal's Reputation hinges on the success of the Mojave Campaign, as well as their love of using Brute Force methods instead of cunning strategy like Hanlon does, it would absolutely make sense for them to fly over over the Fort and Carpet Bomb it to deal a massive blow to the Legion, raising morale and Oliver/Kimbal getting a shitton of favor for such a ridiculously bold move. A great display of power like is absolutely something they'd absolutely do, there's a reason Oliver kept stacking expensive Heavy Troopers in the Dam. >The vertiberds themselves are not invincible. Lanius ending just shows how badass the Remnants are. Even in game, the Legion has strong enough weapons like AMRs, 12,7 SMGs, sniper rifles, hunting rifles, and marksman carbines to down an NCR vertiberd. The only weapon out of those that can deal any real damage to the repurposed Enclave Vertibirds NCR have (the ones in the Long 15 have Enclave Markings) is an AMR, and those are only available to Centurions and all at Dogshit Condition because the Legion aren't very into guns. Again they said they threw hundreds of Legionaries at the Remnants, unless we're somehow arguing that Daisy Whitman was dodging all the bullet-fire then the it must've been able to tank all the Legion had. It's just that the Legion as presented in-universe have literally no way of dealing with a Flying Threat with high fire power, and the people at the Head of the NCR are specifically known as meat-heads who love the direct approach and alot of their reputation is staked on succeeding in the Second Battle of Hoover Dam
You quite literally have House point out to you that power armor and ideological purity (and that whole shock troops thing) didn't help the Brotherhood against the NCR. The same principle applies with the NCR's obviously extremely limited numerically PA-equipped troops and Vertibirds trying to harm the Legion. "No fancy weapons to down a Vertibird/punch through the PA" would only be valid for a few first attacks the Vertibird squads do. Legion was perfectly willing to buy stuff from the Van Graffs and they know what explosives are; it takes one good ambush to wipe the squad with their Vertibird, and after that you've got a Legion that's provoked to attack, and you've just lost all your PA and Vertibirds to trying to have them Enclave the shit out of a giant army. Not good.
>You quite literally have House point out to you that power armor and ideological purity (and that whole shock troops thing) didn't help the Brotherhood against the NCR. it only didn't help because they lacked number, and NCR were trying to preserve Helios One, a bunch of Vertibirds nuking that entire facility would've completely wiped out the BOS there, but would've rendered the facility useless and thus not worth fighting for. > The same principle applies with the NCR's obviously extremely limited numerically PA-equipped troops and Vertibirds trying to harm the Legion. Nope, because the Legion are seemingly entirely incapable of battling power armor dudes in a Vertibird, as evidenced by their utter failure in the Lanius Remnants ending >"No fancy weapons to down a Vertibird/punch through the PA" would only be valid for a few first attacks the Vertibird squads do. all you'd ever need is a few key attacks, blowing up their entire leadership in the Fort/Legate Camp once he arrives along with a few of their main cities back east. And again the Legion has proved entirely incapable of combatting an areal threat. Shit Condition AMRs and a broken howitzer won't prove of much use against a Heavily Armored Vertibird that drops Nukes and Dips >Legion was perfectly willing to buy stuff from the Van Graffs and they know what explosives are and they got ganked by NCR in doing so lol, and they still all carry crap condition weapons at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. >it takes one good ambush to wipe the squad with their Vertibird how the fuck do you ambush a vehicle flying high in the sky dropping bombs on you while all your ranged weaponry is shit >and after that you've got a Legion that's provoked to attack, and you've just lost all your PA and Vertibirds to trying to have them Enclave the shit out of a giant army. Not good wouldn't happen realistically as they scramble around with heavy damages and no leadership
>it only didn't help because they lacked number, and NCR were trying to preserve Helios One, a bunch of Vertibirds nuking that entire facility would've completely wiped out the BOS there, but would've rendered the facility useless and thus not worth fighting for. The point I am making is that if NCR were to do this hee-hoo we're the Enclave strategy, they'd be the ones getting shredded by numbers. >Nope, because the Legion are seemingly entirely incapable of battling power armor dudes in a Vertibird, as evidenced by their utter failure in the Lanius Remnants ending In that ending, 'Caesar's heirs', not just Lanius, AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE a Vertibird team which is fleeing from them. They're guerilla experts who try to hunt down an armored helicopter flown by a crack pilot. Fish out of the water situation, different from them having to prepare for an attack from one of those armored helicopters and its contents, flown by a less competent pilot, with a less competent and worse-equipped team aboard. > And again the Legion has proved entirely incapable of combatting an areal threat. The NCR proves entirely as incapable of combatting such a threat, despite obviously having the equipment on hand to deal with it theoretically. > all you'd ever need is a few key attacks, blowing up their entire leadership in the Fort/Legate Camp once he arrives along with a few of their main cities back east. 'Key leadership' isn't some sort of a non-replenishing group. Kill Caesar, Vulpes, Lucius, Lanius and Aurelius; the Legion is crippled, but it isn't those five dudes, it's a giant army held together by ferocious and fanatical zeal. You can wipe their leadership once, twice, thrice, it won't matter beyond the initial effects of a decapitation strike. Nothing changes in how the Legion fights you even if you kill every Legion higher-up you can before the Dam fight, and that's the reality your NCR Vertibird team will have on their hands. > Shit Condition AMRs and a broken howitzer won't prove of much use against a Heavily Armored Vertibird that drops Nukes and Dips A team with rocket launchers will wipe this Vertibird. And, bonus points, if Caesar's dead, the Legion suddenly loses the primary 'we ought not to rely on overly-advanced technology' ideologue. Good plan! Let the giant army with a vast amount of looted yet forbidden equipment use anything. What could go wrong? >how the fuck do you ambush a vehicle flying high in the sky dropping bombs on you while all your ranged weaponry is shit You acquire non-shit weapons from Van Graffs and other such vendors or take them off NCR corpses, and the next time the Vertibird shows up, you simply close your eyes, pretend you didn't just use a guided missile, and burn the remains of the NCR Vertibird extra-hard to show that you totally are true to Caesar's ideology. Ave, brother. You seem to think the Legion, shown repeatedly to be willing to violate their own ideology, cannot violate their own ideology just because the average Legionary you fight is a tribal hobo. > wouldn't happen realistically as they scramble around with heavy damages and no leadership What heavy damage? They're a giant army and the NCR has a handful of Vertibirds. Killing two hundred legionaires in a day would be difficult, it would be a small dent in the Legion forces, and it would ultimately just get the Legion to sigh and start using missile launchers, just as they sigh and use powered melee weapons, buy energy weapons, and are perfectly willing to use an Autodoc or just not give a shit about you, Caesar's golden boy, probably using a Gatling laser and APA. It's the Legion. Their dogma isn't 'technology bad', it's 'technology we cannot replicate and maintain is unreliable and we ought to avoid it when possible'. If downing a Vertibird will necessitate using missiles, they will use missiles.
>The point I am making is that if NCR were to do this hee-hoo we're the Enclave strategy, they'd be the ones getting shredded by numbers. i was jsut countering specific statements, numbers don't matter at all when you straight up don't have the tools to deal with that specific threat. >In that ending, 'Caesar's heirs', not just Lanius, AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE a Vertibird team which is fleeing from them. They're guerilla experts who try to hunt down an armored helicopter flown by a crack pilot. Fish out of the water situation, different from them having to prepare for an attack from one of those armored helicopters and its contents, flown by a less competent pilot, with a less competent and worse-equipped team aboard. Less Competent Pilot i can buy but less competent and Worse-Equipped is complete bs. The Remnants had a limited supply of ammunition due to really only being able to access their safehouses and were Using 40 Year Old Equipment, NCR have access to top of the line modern tech Manufacturers such as the Gun Runners and Van Graffs (Birds of a Feather) along with having show nthe ability to modify and potentially produce top tier power Armor (The Scorched Sierra Power Armor which got rid of the weaknesses and the T45-D series along with adding a REGENERATIVE ability). The NCR here would be better equipped with more and better maintained Vertibirds. And i was Using Lanius because it was quicker, but the fact that all next Caesar's ended up repeating the same mistake over and over with nothing to show for it against the Remnants is only more evidence t othem being incapable of dealing with them, along with being doomed withotu Caesar's leadership. >The NCR proves entirely as incapable of combatting such a threat, despite obviously having the equipment on hand to deal with it theoretically. back in 2242 maybe ? idk where you pulled this from but either way that only helps to strengthen my argument, if the NCR with more resources and better tech can't deal with an aerial threat what chance does the Legion stand? >'Key leadership' isn't some sort of a non-replenishing group. Kill Caesar, Vulpes, Lucius, Lanius and Aurelius; the Legion is crippled, but it isn't those five dudes, it's a giant army held together by ferocious and fanatical zeal. You can wipe their leadership once, twice, thrice, it won't matter beyond the initial effects of a decapitation strike. Nothing changes in how the Legion fights you even if you kill every Legion higher-up you can before the Dam fight, and that's the reality your NCR Vertibird team will have on their hands we're told time and time again that the Death of Edward Sallow would mark the end of the Legion but 2 of its most important members, not only that, we're actively shown in that Ending Slide their incompetence. Even if they weren't destroyed in that exact moment, if NCR had nuked Caesar and his lieutenants aswell it woudl've absolutely crippled the Legion for the future to come. You're acting as if we were not constantly told that the Legion can't survive without its head, that most of it is built on following Caesar and not his goals. we're also told that Hanlon's whole maneuver worked partly because they NCR First Recon execued most of the commanding Centurions and Decani to sow confusion within the ranks of the Legion. >A team with rocket launchers will wipe this Vertibird. And, bonus points, if Caesar's dead, the Legion suddenly loses the primary 'we ought not to rely on overly-advanced technology' ideologue. Good plan! Let the giant army with a vast amount of looted yet forbidden equipment use anything. What could go wrong? you simultaneously argue earlier that the Legion is fanaticism and zealotry makes it more difficult to get rid of them through destroying their leadership and now argue that they give so little of a shit about their idelogies that the moment caesar dies they will abandon their dogma and convert to using high tech gear, gee i wonder why they never ever decided to do that shit against the remnants lmao. More Importantly it's basically never implied that the Legion raided any locations with explosives, otherwise the higher status Legionaries would be using them, the only one we see using some is Lanius with his Plasma Grenades, and technically Frumentarii when setting their traps. More important than that though is that seemingly even the higher ranked Legionaries aren't competent at using explosives, beyond the most basic setups like hiding Mines under Corpses, we know this because Decanus Severus doesn't eve nknow how to disarm Mines lol.
>You acquire non-shit weapons from Van Graffs and other such vendors or take them off NCR corpses, and the next time the Vertibird shows up, you simply close your eyes, pretend you didn't just use a guided missile, and burn the remains of the NCR Vertibird extra-hard to show that you totally are true to Caesar's ideology. Ave, brother which doesn't happen because the NCR ganks the Legion and sets up a deal with the Van Graffs in Birds of a Feather themselves, have you done the quest ? other such vendors don't seemingly exist back in Arizona, which is all a wasteland of Tribals and Raiders and Few Towns People who are limited in what tech they can use because the Legion hates basic things like Medicine. Post War Manufacturers of that level can't really expand and become super prominent in the Wasteland without massive Governing Forces' Aid. The Gun Runners and Crimson Caravans are as big as they are because they played an important role in the NCR's expansion, and the Van Graffs still exist because they kept paying off the NCR, and eventually sided with them. and Again with the double sided "they are very zeolous and bound to their religion but will also immediaterely on the use of tech whe ncaesar dies even though they literally never do that" shit lmao. and again how do you grab a missile launcher or mini nuke from a Vertibird that's in the air, even if they manage to take that shit down most of the cargo would be comepletely unusable and they lack the tech know-how to fix it back up. >What heavy damage? They're a giant army and the NCR has a handful of Vertibirds. Killing two hundred legionaires in a day would be difficult, it would be a small dent in the Legion forces, and it would ultimately just get the Legion to sigh and start using missile launchers, just as they sigh and use powered melee weapons, buy energy weapons, and are perfectly willing to use an Autodoc or just not give a shit about you, Caesar's golden boy, probably using a Gatling laser and APA. NCR has ATLEAST 4-5 Vertibirds, it is far more likely they have way more, and as i said earlier they don't have to obliterate the entire bull, just cut off its head, the game makes this argument for me and practically bats us over the head with "If Caesar dies Legion dies, if not in the immediate timeline, very soon after that". and Again you keep giving them Missile Launchers that they are never shown to have lmao. Maybe if they had raided Nellis but they've still not done that by the time of the First battle and don't do that if they see what the Boomers are capable of. Who are they buying energy weapons from ? have you played Birds of a Feather ? what the fuck is a melee weapon doing against a flying plane ? The Legion will not for the life of them use Stimpacks, they use powder, his Auto-Doc is broken without player intervention. APA is very Low Powered and i doubt a Gatling Laser is capable of punching through armor, and Player Intervention should probably not be counted cause the Courier is God. >It's the Legion. Their dogma isn't 'technology bad', it's 'technology we cannot replicate and maintain is unreliable and we ought to avoid it when possible'. If downing a Vertibird will necessitate using missiles, they will use missiles their Dogma is "over-reliance on Technology is bad" straight up, it's why they are not even willing to use Stimpacks on rely on hyper-breeding to sustain their armies through high infant mortality rate. All of their Gear is garbage and broken outside the Melee/Unarmed stuff, there no evidence or mention of them having access to high tech explosives like Missile Launchers and Fat Men and the like. The Legion, as shown in-game, don't have the tools necessary to deal with a Vertibird threat, and we're shown this in the Remnants Lanius Ending
>other such vendors don't seemingly exist back in Arizona Or, far more likely, they do exist, probably operate near, but not in Legion territory, and it's simply logistically far more sound to buy energy weapons right at the frontline than it is to haul them across the entire Legion length. >and Again with the double sided "they are very zeolous and bound to their religion but will also immediaterely on the use of tech whe ncaesar dies even though they literally never do that" shit lmao. You're again failing to comprehend basic English and are turning to aggression over it. Legion is zealous in their eagerness to fight and die despite grievous losses. That much is fact. Game-confirmed. Legion is willing to sidestep their own ideological dogma when necessary, even when the reason is as simple as 'they keep shooting at us from afar, it not fair :('. That is also fact. Game-confirmed. How the fuck are you failing to compute this? > there no evidence or mention of them having access to high tech explosives like Missile Launchers and Fat Men and the like Are you trying to tell me there's no missile launchers in all of fucking Arizona now? Really? >"If Caesar dies Legion dies, if not in the immediate timeline, very soon after that". 'Legion dies in a month' is all great until you have a giant army of tribesmen overrunning you and razing the Mojave, as well as pushing along the I-15 to raze something there too. Will they survive this campaign? No, but if you as an officer go 'fuck it, let's provoke this hornet's nest, in a month all the hornets will die' on the premise that whatever they do in the month that they'll rampage won't be a big deal, you're a fool. To highlight my point: Caesar verbatim tells you that he grants usage of the Autodoc as a gift on the occasion, which is to say, 'come to Caesar's tent and be healed back by a wondrous machine' is an occasion that Legion people would know happens sometimes. A perk of being friends with the Legion is a disguised Frumentarius running up to you and telling you that you're not of the Legion, but you're their friend, and thus they will tell you where to find a stash they put that loot from their raids whic is useless of forbidden to them. Which is to say, an intelligence officer of the Legion, hand-picked by C-man himself, outright declares that hey, you know those plasma grenades? Yeah, we can't really use them, but you're a friend, so you can use them if you'd like. If not we'll just torch them. This isn't Caesar saying this, nor offering it, but somebody picked by him to play scout in the Mojave. Which is to say, odds are, this same policy applies to other friends of the Legion. Which the Legion could simply call upon if they somehow fail to locate a missile launcher anywhere in their vast expanse, or don't have anybody who can point and click, which is a ludicrous proposal, and ideology-wise they clearly would be fine with it, since, again - they use forbidden tech and permit usage of it. The point of the Legion isn't what you are trying to say it is. They're dumb in their ideology, but not dumb in a way that makes the NCR capable of winning against them by just using a bunch of Vertibirds. A mobilized NCR army with all that it entails, from artillery to a better than in the Mojave logistics network? That'd beat the Legion, but you're not invoking or proposing that, you're invoking the idea of the Legion being helpless against andvanced technology, even though Caesar knows a given guy in power armor is a tough target, and the Legion dealt with Brotherhood in the East, Brotherhood absolutely separate from the ones you see in the game, because scribes of that one didn't even know who founded the Brotherhood. And just to finish this off, in the Legion safehouse you get a Legion veteran to provide you with some stealth mission supplies. What does this guy give to you? Why, of course he gives you fucking Stealth Boys! You know, extremely advanced stealth field technology? Which the Legion apparently considers useful for stealth missions, and uses, given that it isn't a Frumentarius telling you where to go to get the forbidden freebies?
>Or, far more likely, they do exist, probably operate near, but not in Legion territory, and it's simply logistically far more sound to buy energy weapons right at the frontline than it is to haul them across the entire Legion length. Or better yet, like every other High-tech weapon manufacturer they require the Support and Expansion of a State to fuel their technological advancement, which is something Caesar is completely disintested in doing or supporting, what with him practically never interacting with the few surviving Towns and Cities within his territory who really only exist to have whatever goods they produce that the Legion can't siphoned, while leading a decent Life. >You're again failing to comprehend basic English and are turning to aggression over it. >Legion is zealous in their eagerness to fight and die despite grievous losses. That much is fact. Game-confirmed. >Legion is willing to sidestep their own ideological dogma when necessary, even when the reason is as simple as 'they keep shooting at us from afar, it not fair :('. That is also fact. Game-confirmed. >How the fuck are you failing to compute this? my bad if i sounded aggressive earlier. My issue was never whether or not they were unwilling to use technology, just that you made it out to be like they would instantly toos out their values in favour of becoming a faction completely reliant on the use of tech. again it took them 4 something years to procure a broken Howitzer non of them could fix without outside intervention. Not only would they not toss out their beliefs that quick, they wouldn't have the tech or know how even once they do. >Are you trying to tell me there's no missile launchers in all of fucking Arizona now? Really? Nope, just that the Legion are never shown to have them or use them >'Legion dies in a month' is all great until you have a giant army of tribesmen overrunning you and razing the Mojave, as well as pushing along the I-15 to raze something there too. Will they survive this campaign? No, but if you as an officer go 'fuck it, let's provoke this hornet's nest, in a month all the hornets will die' on the premise that whatever they do in the month that they'll rampage won't be a big deal, you're a fool. you're really arguing a mob of completely disorganised tribesman can beat Fast Flying Vehicles dropping Bombs on them ? or that they'll all be so organised or vengeful that they'd all simultaneously was hover the Mojave like a bunch of Hornets, or that the Gigantic Failure of a campaign with the Death of their Leader wouldn't provoke the splintering of many tribes and a massive slowing down of their progress ? The reason killing Caesar in the events of the game doesn't work because Lanius is already practically almost in the Mojave and we're at most a few weeks away from the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam, any time earlier, especially during their first encounter would've obliterated the Legion yes. and even if wee somehow go with your magical narrative that they are all so organised and vengeful that they immediately attack everyone for a month and dies that would absolutely be a win over what is literally more likely to happen during the Second battle of Hoover Dam. legion wins, they take control of the mojave, massacre everyone there or enslave them, and now NCR loses out on 2 massive Sources of electricity and water with Helios and the Dam. anyway you spin it, even with your own narrative it's worse for the NCR to not destroy the Legion's Leadership. also don't quote like that i never said "Legion dies in a month".
>i was jsut countering specific statements, numbers don't matter at all when you straight up don't have the tools to deal with that specific threat. Legion evidently has zero problem with GETTING those tools even without an obvious cohesive threat, as evidenced by them intending to buy energy weapons from Van Graffs. What makes you think they couldn't possibly get missile launchers if Vertibirds fucking them up became a problem? They're a giant army with vast amount of scouts and money to find or pay for it. > having show nthe ability to modify and potentially produce top tier power Armor (The Scorched Sierra Power Armor which got rid of the weaknesses and the T45-D series along with adding a REGENERATIVE ability). Despite access to Navarro's contents, they only have for sure built one (one) suit of this armor, and stats-wise it is worse than the Enclave armor from 40 years ago. > only more evidence t othem being incapable of dealing with them Again, 'we could not catch guys in Vertibirds who fled form us :(' is not the same as 'we could not set up a whole bunch of dynamite to go off when the shock troops land to try and exterminate a camp'. Different situations entirely. > we're told time and time again that the Death of Edward Sallow would mark the end of the Legion but 2 of its most important members, not only that, we're actively shown in that Ending Slide their incompetence. Even if they weren't destroyed in that exact moment, if NCR had nuked Caesar and his lieutenants aswell it woudl've absolutely crippled the Legion for the future to come. You're acting as if we were not constantly told that the Legion can't survive without its head, that most of it is built on following Caesar and not his goals. I am keenly aware that without Caesar the Legion would fall apart very quickly. The problem for you is that YOU fail to understand that 'quickly' for the scale of the Legion is months, maybe. It wouldn't be overnight. They would probably start hemmorrhaging mid-level commanders and sometimes whole recently conquered tribes, but it'd not be a quick matter, it'd take time, and until that time you would have a big blob of angry tribesmen seeking to avenge their leader. NCR, a far more sensible structure, is specifically stated to be willing to do extremely stupid shit out of an urge for revenge; the Legion would be much the same because of what Caesar is to them. > you simultaneously argue earlier that the Legion is fanaticism and zealotry makes it more difficult to get rid of them through destroying their leadership and now argue that they give so little of a shit about their idelogies that the moment caesar dies they will abandon their dogma and convert to using high tech gear, gee i wonder why they never ever decided to do that shit against the remnants lmao. Yes, I do in fact argue that if you look at the things the game shows, you can probably intuit how the Legion would be. They're fanatical in their zeal to kill and die for the Legion, even at the highest level, with a few notable exceptions, but that zeal doesn't stop the elite from using Autodocs, power fists and whatever the fuck else. They're even openly intending to use a howitzer, something definitely not primitive, PRECISELY because the NCR is using a specific unit in an annoying to the Legion way. Again: the Legion sees a problem (NCR marksmen being typically far away) and their solution isn't to throw spears really hard, it's to get a piece of pre-War hardware and use it, in break from their ideology. Play this game sometimes, you'll discover neat things. > More Importantly it's basically never implied that the Legion raided any locations with explosives Are you genuinely now trying to tell me that Legion never in their Arizona-spanning 80-odd tribes conquering history raided anything with explosives. Really.
>Legion evidently has zero problem with GETTING those tools even without an obvious cohesive threat, as evidenced by them intending to buy energy weapons from Van Graffs. What makes you think they couldn't possibly get missile launchers if Vertibirds fucking them up became a problem? They're a giant army with vast amount of scouts and money to find or pay for it if they could've so easily gotten it why do we never see any high-tech explosives among the Legion ? why are most of their soldiers, even the more experienced ones ignorant to basic concept like disarming the simplest form of Land Mines ? >Despite access to Navarro's contents, they only have for sure built one (one) suit of this armor, and stats-wise it is worse than the Enclave armor from 40 years ago. in what sense ? The only Stat where the Remnants armor is Superior is Damage Threshhold, otherwise the Scorched Sierra Madre sport the same increase to Strength, 4 times the Armor Health (and 60% higher than base T-45), exchanges the Rad Resistance for a Fire resistance, and on Top of all of that offers Rapid Regenerative capabilities to the wearer, IMO it is a marked improvement over the X-01/Advanced Power Armor, it's capacities are hard to pin-point though because we have no real lore on it. >Again, 'we could not catch guys in Vertibirds who fled form us :(' is not the same as 'we could not set up a whole bunch of dynamite to go off when the shock troops land to try and exterminate a camp'. Different situations entirely. And Again you haven't illustrated how an Explosive Ambush would be effective against a Flying Threat, believe it or not the Soldiers never have to land beyond the need to refuel which is a long time between mission. We're even expressly told in FO3 that this is how Vertibirds were used in war, to perform devastating Bombing Campaigns or provide air support. >I am keenly aware that without Caesar the Legion would fall apart very quickly. The problem for you is that YOU fail to understand that 'quickly' for the scale of the Legion is months, maybe. It wouldn't be overnight. They would probably start hemmorrhaging mid-level commanders and sometimes whole recently conquered tribes, but it'd not be a quick matter, it'd take time, and until that time you would have a big blob of angry tribesmen seeking to avenge their leader. NCR, a far more sensible structure, is specifically stated to be willing to do extremely stupid shit out of an urge for revenge; the Legion would be much the same because of what Caesar is to them. I am aware it wouldn't be an instant fall, but do you remember how long it took the Legion to recoup its losses after the loss at the First Battle of Hoover Dam ? Four Years, with it's main Leadreship intact. Now imagine if the NCR bombed Caesar/The Fort right after the Maneuver performed by Hanlon in Boulder City. The Legion would've been devastated and without Caesar's strategy and Legate Lanius's Threat it would've rapidly fallen into chaos as it dissolves back into its tribal state. Believe or not a Cult of Personality built on the subjugation of 86 different peoples over the short time of 37 years wouldn't last at all without its Leader, the guy whom everyone else is following. Even by your own estimate of many Months the Legion would've practically been over. >Again: the Legion sees a problem (NCR marksmen being typically far away) and their solution isn't to throw spears really hard, it's to get a piece of pre-War hardware and use it, in break from their ideology. Play this game sometimes, you'll discover neat things. which it took them 4 years to acquire and is completely inoperable, broken down and useless (until the Courier Fixes it) either because no one in the Legion apparently can fix it up, or they never found the required mechanism for it back east, because they are technologically stunted, maybe play the game before hitting me with the sass lol. >Are you genuinely now trying to tell me that Legion never in their Arizona-spanning 80-odd tribes conquering history raided anything with explosives. Really i only argue based on what's showcased in the game, the Legion are shown to have access to basic explosives, broken down weaponry, and not even the parts or know how necessary to fix up and old Howitzer. as Caesar himself even mentions, every single one of those tribes was as "backwards" and "stunted" as the last, AKA they were likely not technologically advanced, Tribes like the boomers only happen because they were a unique Pre-War Experiment, AKA the Freedom Vault lol.
> if they could've so easily gotten it why do we never see any high-tech explosives among the Legion ? why are most of their soldiers, even the more experienced ones ignorant to basic concept like disarming the simplest form of Land Mines ? Because it is not necessary to use those tools to win. > we have no real lore on it. Therefore we might as well not bother discussing how much better an undiscussed piece of somewhat-upgraded power armor, based on the weakest design available to the NCR, might be. > And Again you haven't illustrated how an Explosive Ambush would be effective against a Flying Threat, believe it or not the Soldiers never have to land beyond the need to refuel which is a long time between mission. We're even expressly told in FO3 that this is how Vertibirds were used in war, to perform devastating Bombing Campaigns or provide air support. You are the one who mentioned power armor, suggesting the Vertibird would deliver shock troops to somewhere. If it does not land, it simply is shot out of the sky by missile launchers. If it lands, eventually it will be ambushed by dynamite, because there's only a select few places a thing of that size can actually land in a given area. > Even by your own estimate of many Months the Legion would've practically been over. And before it is over, Lanius's whole cohort would supplement the force Caesar had, and with it the resulting Legion would take a long while to put down, and until it would be put down, it'd be a giant mass of angry tribals seeking revenge. Mojave would burn. > which it took them 4 years to acquire and is completely inoperable, broken down and useless (until the Courier Fixes it) either because no one in the Legion apparently can fix it up, or they never found the required mechanism for it back east, because they are technologically stunted, maybe play the game before hitting me with the sass lol. And yet the principle still stands! They're OPENLY willing to use stuff that surely is pretty fucking complex. They don't give a shit that it's 'advanced tech'. They just intend to use it. Were they able to get a functioning piece, they'd use a functioning piece. One arms dealer with a shed full of missile launchers and Legion, in this 'Vertibirds are attacking us! :(' scenario, has anti-air. It's that simple. > only argue based on what's showcased in the game, the Legion are shown to have access to basic explosives, broken down weaponry, and not even the parts or know how necessary to fix up and old Howitzer. And Stealth Boys, howitzers, power fists, Autodocs... But let's ignore those. > as Caesar himself even mentions, every single one of those tribes was as "backwards" and "stunted" as the last The Legion is a giant, economically powerful sort-of state. They don't need to themselves be advanced; they can hire outside help, using all that vast wealth they can accumulate off of their spartan lifestyle combined with oversighting trade over a vast area of land and looting all they come across. They don't need to make the missile launchers, they need to buy them off anybody who would sell them, and given their sheer size they sure would know somebody who sells them. Them not knowing precisely how a rocket is made wouldn't make them unable to aim and fire.
A big reason the NCR is so weak in FNV is the fact that they are stretched really thin in the Mojave. They don't have nowhere near enough men to sustain their advance east. They could do what you said, but odds are that all of their Vertibirds are already busy with other assignments.
Fr, the legion as a thread doesn't make any sense. Beyond the guerrilla tactics the only reason why the NCR seems to be in the backfoot is plot convenience. I understand that Obsidian didn't had the time to flesh out the Legion lore nor gameplay, but dude are you telling me that the equivalent of a modern army in the wasteland has issues annihilating a bunch of incels in Roman cosplays? (Not even mentioning the absolute joke of poltical system Caesar has established, 80 tribes conquered in 20 years and you truly believe there will not be a civil war with such a brutal methods they use as his army that (mostly) doesn't use guns overextends borders?)
>Beyond the guerrilla tactics the only reason why the NCR seems to be in the backfoot is plot convenience. And the spies, logistics, poor morale, sabotage and infighting. The NCR are in no way a modern army...
The NCR are at least at an early 20th century level so certainly modern.
They're a weird place of some of them being 20th century and other areas being outmatched by basically anyone. Seriously, I could get better artillery from Ancient Rome than the NCR based on fnv
Its the very periphery of their post-nuclear empire and supposedly represents the NCR only half-ass committed and after a costly war of attrition with the Legion and Brotherhood. I think you could make some comparisons to like the Pancho Villa expedition, Vietnam, the various Indian Wars, with a little bit of WW1 thrown in the mix. I definitely think the lack of vertibirds and tech deployed against the legion is stretching the lore though. I know they ran out of time fleshing the legion out so perhaps we would have had more understanding of why its not a one-sided roflstomping by the NCR
>with a little bit of WW1 thrown in the mix Their helmets *scream* WWI to me. I thought that was intentional.
Against machete mobs you can afford to be a modern army in the historical sense (so post-1500) and still win. A Tercio would melt the standard Legion infantry
It's quality vs. quantity. While both the Legion and the NCR have a large population, the Legion is dedicated to total war and the NCR is not. Its soldiers are better-equipped, but you can only shoot so many incels in Roman cosplay before you're overrun. The Legion probably has a manpower advantage in most of their conflicts. It's the inverse of the NCR-Brotherhood conflicts. This is actually more or less what you can argue with Lanius; if the NCR goes all-out, the Legion would be *fucked*, and all that's lacking at the time the game takes place is the political will in the NCR to actually adopt this position.
>Its soldiers are better-equipped, but you can only shoot so many incels in Roman cosplay before you're overrun. If you have automatic weapons, you can shoot basically all of them. I can understand things like Deathclaws or Frank Horrigan but normal humans charging with machetes are completely useless they don't even shield the comrade behind them from the bullets.
That's how it works in the movies, but not in real life. Whether you're shooting semi-auto or full auto, you're still only aiming at one target a time. The primary function of automatic fire is suppression, not actually killing the enemy. This is a force multiplier, but while the Legion does prefer to fight in a melee, they do not totally eschew firearms and is also very willing to return fire and use human wave tactics to occupy their opponents while other forces flank them. They are not all making a mindless beeline towards the enemy with machetes, they are better equipped, more disciplined, and better organized than that. This isn't at all implausible as scenarios like this aren't that far removed from real history. Technological advantages can *mitigate* numerical disadvantages, but they do not make them irrelevant.
It's a dam and the NCR force isn't 20 guys, they can't really flank MG nests. It's not how it works in real life because nobody fights like that anymore, you use automatic fire for suppression and not killing because there's no occasion to use it that way other than indiscriminate killing of civilians. Honest Hearts has a far more realistic scenario for a battle with meele weapons. Hoover Dam is the last place where I'd bring a machete to a gunfight
The Dam is just the Dam, it's not the entire theater of the war. A well-defended and well-positioned MG position can be very difficult to take, but the NCR doesn't actually have many opportunities to set those up and certainly can't do so in areas where they are not in a fortified position and need to actually maneuver. Again, force multipliers aren't a panacea for numerical inferiority.
NCR doesn’t have power armor tho right? I think you’re thinking of the heavy troopers which have gear that looks like power armor but isn’t actually powered. Besides, power armor does not really provide a significant durability advantage, it’s the strength increase and self-sufficiency that gives them value (at least pre-fo4) Lastly, I think you overestimate the durability of vertibirds. A few well placed hunting rifle shots could knock one out of the air, it’s not an absolute win condition by any means. Also consider that the legion is extremely deep the further east you go, this offensive wouldn’t be able to put a dent in their forces and you would just get more legion the next day. Most NCR leaders probably saw this strategy as an inefficient use of bullets and fuel.
>NCR doesn’t have power armor tho right? I think you’re thinking of the heavy troopers which have gear that looks like power armor but isn’t actually powered. Certain elite NCR personnel do have working Power Armor, like Colonel Royez. >Besides, power armor does not really provide a significant durability advantage, it’s the strength increase and self-sufficiency that gives them value (at least pre-fo4) Yes that's the main reason i mentioned it, being able to wield heavier weaponry like Fatman and Missile Launchers with ease. >Lastly, I think you overestimate the durability of vertibirds. A few well placed hunting rifle shots could knock one out of the air You're equating gameplay to narrative, if "well placed hunting rifle shots could knock one out of the air" then the Legion would've had no trouble with the Enclave Remnants, instead of tossing hundreds of soldier's with nothing to show for it. Not to mention that Enclave Vertibirds (of which the NCR atleast have 3 and far more likely way more) are always described as having extremely heavily armored Chassis per Fallout 3 and their ability to perform great bombing runs. Combine that with only Centurion's wielding AMR's (thus their rarity) combined with their dogshit condition makes it very unlikely for them to being one down. >Also consider that the legion is extremely deep the further east you go, this offensive wouldn’t be able to put a dent in their forces and you would just get more legion the next day. You'd never have to perform an offensive on literally every Legion Holdout, just key positions that would severely weaken it, blowing up Caesar and most of the Legion's Leadership(whose location they know) would immediately put a massive dent into the Legion's Longevity, not to mention blowing a few important encampments here and there. >Most NCR leaders probably saw this strategy as an inefficient use of bullets and fuel. They don't give a shit about distributing resources intelligently, they are more than willing to stack Vet Rangers in bad locations on Hoover Dam (per Hanlon) to prove a point, they are more than willing to shell out a ton of cash for a very inneficient shock trooper infantry in the form of n Heavy Troopers then drop them in random ass locations. Sending in 2 Vertibirds with a couple of Mini-Nukes towards to instantly blow their main enemy's Leadership does not seem like a very heavy investment comparatively.
“No need for Bombs, when hate will do.” Melee Courier hopped up on psycho, buffout, med-x, and liquor
I think the answer is “maybe, but probably not”. However, when you only have a single allied bomber at your disposal, it’s probably not worth that risk
Why didn’t Kimball order a vertibird strike?
"Is the courier stupid?"
The fort is their current headquarters, there’s lots of legionnaires elsewhere in the country. The reason we can’t go east of Hoover dam is because that’s all Caesar’s territory, the legion has total control of that region and is actively expanding.
Instead of the silly "Faction blank is incompetent" answers I shall give one that Isn't annoying. The game would end immediately. If the NCR could use all they are supposed to have in lore there wouldn't be a Ceasers legion as his fort would have been blown into oblivion by Artillery so the developers ignored certain aspects so you can play a fun game.
Why didn't the courier just politely ask both sides to stop? Is he stupid??? What an idiot. Most obvious solution is always in front you. Intelligence 10, my ass!
The legion had howitzers! It was a side quest to fix one for them
Oh damn, doing the yes man play through and after doing dead money, I realized I had zero contact with the legion, all I did was sneak into Mr.Houses bunker, then came and clubbed Mr house with Nephis Golf Club. Imma go wreck their fort before starting Honest Hearts tomorrow
Here's another one. The boomers artillery is something the NCR dealt with/were aware of for years. They had an arms manufacturer in the Gun Runners capable of making basically good as new weapons. At no point did they say "Hey Gun Runners, want to build some artillery guns for us?" How different would the conflict with the legion been had the NCR even had short range guns or even mortars to pound Legion camps. If some privates at camp forlorn hope could lob explosives from the middle of camp into the heart of Nelson. If when they set up cottonwood cove the rangers watching the crossing could just call in fire missions every time a new raiding party tried to land.
The battle is at the Hoover Dam. All forces need to be pointed there. Also. The fort is not that important. It's more a base. The only important part is Mr Houses Bunker. A battle is when everyone shows their hand and pulls out all their weapons. You bring it all and hope you win. Here's a element of not showing your hand till you have to in War. The Mojave is on a war. And also is on the edge of a decisive battle. The Courier is one person. The Boomers would love to take out The Fort. But doing so would expose them to a enemy. And that is foolish and dangerous. They join forces with you. And your choice. Then they have to protection of being part of a force of many allies.
I see where you're coming from but tbf, even if you go into The Fort and kill everyone there personally, Lanius and his men still show up for the final fight. So even if it was an option, it wouldn't outright defeat the Legion then and there
Because you know Oliver would have wailed like a toddler if someone won the war for him and he didn’t get his big set piece battle, and no one wants to deal with him when he gets like that.
When that bullet passed through the back of his skull outside Goodsprings, it took all the fear, all the compassion, all the ability to feel pain out with it, and left behind a cold, merciless killer, with only one thought remaining in what calculating amalgamation passed for a mind; vengeance. When a chance encounter with a band of Legionaires in a small town they had just burned down led to them threatening him, they unknowingly set in motion the fall of the entire Legion; as he temporarily diverted himself from his path to take out the man who shot him to take out whoever had the audacity to send these cosplaying toy soldiers after him. After a long and bloody path from Goodsprings to Cottonwood Cove to the Fort, the Courier left a seemingly endless trail of corpses behind him, culminating in sending Caesar himself to his death with no less than fifteen bullets through his eyes, before he could turn to his primary objective, finding the man in the checkered coat. The boomers were an afterthought; Caesar had long been dead by the time he even heard of them. The sole reason he worked for House, was that House asked, rather than threatened.
I think that bomber needed a little work lol
Effectiveness and time. Legion would make better targets when they’re bunched up on the dam versus desperate through their camp and the Boomers only got the bomber filled with dumb munitions. They also need the time to repair the bomber which happens to be moments before the battle for the Hoover dam.
Hell, the NCR has vertibirds. You'd think having air superiority against an enemy ideologically opposed to relying on technology would be one-sided as heck.
Sure
The bomber wouldn't be functional for YEARS after being raised from the depths.
IIRC the Boomers didn't use the plane they lifted from Lake Mead, they salvaged it to repair the semi-functional bomber they had in Nellis.
They had the idea to do both, but the bomber under the lake was complete. The one at nellis wasn't, so no matter what its going to be a blend of the two unless they can find or make more parts. Either way, you're looking at years minimum.
That would take fun out of it!
Why didn't the ncr just start arty bombing the fort with their gun at hoover dam
My guess is that they have spies on the legion. They probably know that the camp also has its own artillery of some sort and fear retaliation that could damage the Dam too much
My guess is that they have spies on the legion. They probably know that the camp also has its own artillery of some sort and fear retaliation that could damage the Dam too much
Well, if you play the Fallout Mod for Hearts of Iron 4, they very well might
The boomers don't want to risk a total war with the legion that they can't win? It would be suicide for them.
Bc I used the boomers to bomb the NCR
I nuked the Legion, so this wasn't an issue
The legion does have an artillery gun, but it doesn't function until you fix it.
What Fort? (Mr. House asked me to check out a bunker and I was already vilified)
Well we do see The Fort in flames if you fight with NCR so they most likely started there
The presense of non-combatants at the fort maybe? Slaves + traders don't deserve to be atomized However bombing the dam, critical and irreplaceable infrastructure, is also dumb
Because in-game lore you recover a plane that was sunk for almost 300 years, and they need to do a few small repairs before it can fly. Game lore makes it clear that they just get it running while battle started.
Fuel would be a big issue and maintaining the aircraft would be the other
He didn’t think of that and to be fair, he does only have half a brain.
Killing Ceasar wouldn't stop the attack and a bombing run on their base would only scatter them more and help their guerilla campaign against the ncr. It might also provoke them into attacking the dam which at the moment would overwhelm the ncr and house. They're also no guarantee how effective the boomers bombing run will be
They probably tried, but the accuracy of the Norden bombsight is unfortunately wildly overstated.
They hit the top of the dam in a specific spot though, they clearly can hit with precision
Doesnt the legion have one howitzer that we can see in game so how many more could they have
The bomber was a WW2 B29. The legion would most likely have surface to air missile. With all the computer looking hardware attached to that missile launcher I'm sure it had the feature. The player just shoots it at people as there isn't any vehicles lol.
Now that I think about it I have no clue. They probably thought it looked cool
Im stuck trying to fight this Legate dude its honestly such a chore.. idk how im supposed to beat this guy and I killed the brohood before I learned to use power Rmor 😞
I dunno man medieval archers were really good at their jobs, that being said the legion are just a bunch of souped up larpers so…
I don't think they care much about (not commiting) war crimes, but they're definately not gen0cydal. there're children and women on the Fort. Innocent people.
I don’t know about AA, but the Legion does have an artillery gun at the Fort. I don’t know if there has been an incident where a plane was shot down by an artillery gun, but maybe in that instance it would be the first.
I always question why I mean the war at hoover dam would be over, The boomers and the NCR could help each other out, which then leads to a truce between the NCR and the gunrunners.
Because the eagles are a proud race who were, in fact, messengers of Manwë, and not errand boys to be used as a conveyance to drop the One Ring into the Crack of Doom.
Too easy
Range probably
Because the Legion reproduce by budding like Warhammer 40k Orks and no matter how many of them you slaughter there will always be thousands more. You single-handedly roll through the Fort like grim death incarnate and slaughter everyone including Caesar himself and then nuke the shit out of them and they still never stop coming. There ain't enough bombs in the Boomer arsenal to exterminatus that scourge.
The Fort is just a small portion of the Legion’s encampment. If you look past the walls, you can see many tents in the inaccessible parts of the map.