View source for ACS - Faction: Iron Coalition

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{{Title|Faction: Iron Coalition}}
{{center|[[image:Iclogo.jpg|Iron Coalition]]}}
{{center|''Punch them in the face and kick them in the back}}

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==Faction basics refresher==
''Information taken from CC_03''
{{:Iron Coalition/Stats}}


==Tactics==
===General Philosophy===
This is not a sneaky faction. This is a bruiser faction. The only way to win is to be super aggressive. You cannot allow the opponent time to do anything productive. Tactical is your worst enemy. You must push constructors and take/hold sectors adjacent to opponents miners. Be forceful! IC is the heavyweight boxer of the allegiance world. Don't dodge! Just shove things down people's throats. 

===Ideal settings===
Medium total money. Normal Resources.

===Expansion===
Expansion is played the most and likely should be. You have two options
# Push one outpost, hold that outpost, and upgrade Expansion as fast as possible. Once you have hvy ints, get HTTs as soon as possible and smash one in your opponent's face. You will succeed.
# Push a second outpost, or even third, and be aggressive on miner/constructor offense with basic ints and mini2. This is likely to be more successful. It gives you multiple launch points for your HTTs when you eventually get them.

The weakness of Expansion: large maps. If you're playing IC on beachball, you picked the wrong faction altogether. The strength of IC is the ability to swarm and hit hard. With a large map, you cannot swarm and cannot expand for your life; your miners are just not fast enough to compete with Giga or other expanding-minded factions. The large map also gives the enemy the time to go Tactical (if they have any sense) and kill your miners instead.

===Supremacy===
DN 4.6 improved IC sup by making the models smaller and using the adv fig gunmounts for all figs. While most people will go IC exp, IC sup is actually pretty good. You cannot be galved off the map, but you sure could galv the other team. You benefit from missile and shield perks. Your miners can rip, so you can buy Enh Miners and expand with multiple Teleports. That said, I don't offer sympathy when you are being gunned down by Rixian Heavy Interceptors or the like. Against factions such as giga, IC sup is ok.

===Tactical===
The Tacspansion strategy is most often used with IC. When you build your Tac, you immediately have Stealth Fighters. They're not super stealthy, but they can get the job done in the early game. If you plan on committing to Tactical as a primary tech, I wish you luck. You have the worst stealth fighter in the game. If you're not getting the job done, you can try to get Stealth Bombers to end a game. The missile damage bonus in some ways can make up for your unstealthy bomber.

===Tacspansion===
If the enemy doesn't look as though it's going to bomb rush you or go on an aggressive streak, go tactical and rape their miners. The effect of loosing all miners will cause the enemy to bomb. At this point, you need to have mini2 ints to stop any bombing runs in their tracks. If the enemy is aggressive and hitting you pretty hard, go expansion to hold them off. Get your mini2 ints up to defend, then get a tac going so that you can destroy their economy. Idealy, you want to go tac first to hit their econ as fast as possible, but go exp first if it's the only way you're going to be able to stay in the game.

Anyone can command IC and win. It takes an aggressive commander to win with IC consistently. I cannot stress this enough. You will lose if you do not take charge on the offensive and hit your opponent on the chin. '''You need to knock them out.'''

===Supyard (Supplemental Material)===
This is the way IC shipyard works: if you buy a shipyard without having a tech base, you get nothing until you research medium class for 18k. By buying medium class, you obtain all light class ships (corvettes, attack carriers, and freighters) along with medium class ships (frigates and assault ships.) If you choose not to upgrade the shipyard to medium class and purchase a tech base instead, you immediately get the light class ships when the base builds. You will still need an additional 18k to get the medium-class basekillers. While this seems an overwhelming nerf to the once-dominant IC MF rush, it grants you the following opportunity.

Buy a supremacy center as IC, followed by a shipyard after your initial outpost and TP are built. Continue building (and expand with) teleport receivers across the map, and make sure you run an efficient economy. Use your supremacy and shipyard to expand further if necessary. By purchasing both a shipyard and sup, you gain access to IC enhanced fighters, which (despite the hitbox) are great swarmers with their high energy, PW damage, and missile damage bonuses. So what do you do? 

You dispatch attack carriers. IC attack carriers also benefit from the faction-wide energy perk, which make them extremely effective small rip receivers. Dispatch one attack carrier to their mining sectors, and support it with enhanced fighters. Your fighters should be all over their miners, forcing the enemy team has to make a very, very costly decision. 

They can try to defend their miners against enemy reinforcements constantly ripping in to a skycap-turreted carrier (with IC damage bonuses). At best, their miners will be trapped in base and likely die. If they decide to focus on the carrier instead, they have to overwhelm the turrets, large shields, prox and fresh fighters and scouts are ripping in. Even if they kill the $3,200 attack carrier (easily replaceable), they lose all of their miners. It's a win-win scenario. It makes IC devastatingly powerful in pick up games, where it's very easy to get your team in fighters and swarming with the promise of easy miner kills and boosting kill bonuses. 

Comparatively speaking, missile frigates are far easier to stop, far more expensive, and significantly less devastating than such a drastic blow to a team's economy. Corvette's the only benefit a corvette has over an attack carrier is the pilot's access to better weapons, along with a higher speed and reduced cost.

Credits: Weedman, Shiz, Night (supyard strat)


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