Vong Ground Combat Question

[Imperial Overlord]

Okay, I know I'm going to regret asking this question because the answer is assuredly biowank on such a scale as to make Travis's Mandowank look tame but:

I have only a limited exposure to the Vong part of the EU. According to to snipets of information that have come my way the Vong go into battle in living crabshell armour (mandatory roll eyes emoticon here) and wielding amphistaffs which are biowank poisonous snakes.

My question is: if this is correct, why in the name of the endless Tyranid Hordes are they not mercilessly gunned downed by guys with blasters (or better yet droids or AT-AT walkers)? If there is any enemy which Mando superwank soldiers could manage 200,000 to one kill ratios against or whatever Travis's ridiculus numbers are, these boys would seem to be it.

[Lord Revan]

it's that biowank armor they wear, it seems absorb blaster fire in insane amounts making normal blasters (almost) useless against them or that's the impression I got

[Starglider]

Just look at the Wookiepedia pages on amphistaffs and Vondunn crab armour:

'Vonduun crab armor had crystalline properties, and was resistant to blasters, slugthrowers, and even lightsabers.'

'Power glands in the serpent's body could emit electrical impulses that reorganized the creature's semicrystalline cell structure. This field extended a millimeter from the amphistaff's body and created razor-thin edges capable of slashing through prey. Only vonduun crabs rivaled the amphistaff in rigidity.'

'Hand motions from the warrior coaxed the amphistaff to either harden or become pliable, for each had its own purposes. Occasionally a Yuuzhan Vong would hurl the hardened amphistaff as a spear, further increasing its lethality. Amphistaffs were, quite possibly, one of the most durable objects known, as not even lightsabers could cut through them. When used as a heavy staff, the serpent would endure blow after blow from the Jedi weaponry and remain unfazed. The amphistaff's edge — measured in atoms — slashed through flesh with no resistance. In the blink of an eye, the amphistaff could soften and wind around the lightsaber's blade, its venomous jaws snapping and tearing at the unfortunate victim's face. Because of its organic nature, these creatures were capable of recovering from virtually any wounds. Nigh indestructible, an amphistaff could only be killed by repeated blunt trauma to or removal of the head.'

'Psychological damage was rampant in Republic soldiers that entered ranged combat with amphistaff-armed Yuuzhan Vong. When directed, an amphistaff spat venom at a distance of 20 meters. This spray was aimed directly at the target's eyes and instantly blinded them. Poison seeped through the pores and entered the victim's bloodstream, interfering with circulation and choking off the oxygen supply. Excruciating pain accompanied twenty hours of suffering until the victim finally died.'

Truly a pinnacle of biowank.

[Cykeisme]

What a fucking ridiculous load of drivel.

[Stark]

I want to throw in my +1 'what the fuck post' here. I mean, christ.

[Marko Dash]

How effective would disrupter weapons be against them? they're supposed to break matter down IIRC.

[Anguirus]

Wait, their effective range is 20 meters?

Who cares? The OP has it right, walkers should just run these guys the fuck over.

[Starglider]

How effective would disrupter weapons be against them? they're supposed to break matter down IIRC.

Back in the day (e.g. the original 'essential guide to weapons and vehicles', disruptors were just massively overpowered blasters that traded off ammo capacity, range, fire rate and often reliability for maximum shot power. Looking at the Wookiepedia entry there seems to be some game fluff about 'nonharmonic energy pulses that excited a target's molecules to the point that it destroyed the bonds that held their constituent atoms together, painfully'. But such minimal wanking of an essentially sensible weapon surely cannot compete against the unstoppable pinnacle of biowank. Only Lando Calrissian's sacrasam-trained war droids could stand a chance against that.

[VT-16]

In the New Essential Guide to Droids, a unit of B2 battle droids won against YV Firebreathers. Are those better or worse armored than YV themselves?

[Shroom Man 777]

On the YVH-1. Wow, Star Wars Terminators!

[Noble Ire]

In the New Essential Guide to Droids, a unit of B2 battle droids won against YV Firebreathers. Are those better or worse armored than YV themselves?

That's hard to say. Firebreathers are essentially motile, sac-like flamethrowers. Of course, they are also the size of AT-ATs, so I would presume that they have armor at least comparable to Vong infantry.

Who cares? The OP has it right, walkers should just run these guys the fuck over.

It seems that Imperial-era walkers are very rare by the time of the Vong invasion, just like other heavy weapons of the Civil War. IIRC, I can only recall them being mentioned in a New Republic ground force once.

[Crazedwraith]

The Vong did have Walker Equivilents of their own, which were fully stocked with plasma cannon and black hole shielding. And poison spitting wasn't their primary ranged weapons, through razor and thud bugs was. Which isn't really that much better I suppose, except for being self guiding.

Vong armour was highly resistant to blaster fire but once you start equipping your troops with really big guns you could still blast through them.

And I seem to recall unsupport Vong infanry getting raped by Anakin Solo's Jedi commandos in Star by Star when they were using liberal amounts of grenades and heavy repeater blasters.

[Master_Baerne]

How would a blaster-resistant crab evolve, if it's truly a Vong creature, and therefore not exposed to blasterfire until the invasio of the New Republic?

[Anguirus]

Well, I'll admit that from what I know of tech-Vong-ogy, those heavy armor units would be nasty to deal with. But I still can't figure out how their infantry competes. I don't care how great your bugs are, the rifles that they give to grunts in the Star Wars universe, as shown by every movie, are long-range, super-powerful, and rapid-fire.

Did the Vong avoid using infantry on anything like a level playing field? Seems inconsistent with their warrior ethic, but I don't see how they succeed at all against heavy blasters.

[Noble Ire]

How would a blaster-resistant crab evolve, if it's truly a Vong creature, and therefore not exposed to blasterfire until the invasio of the New Republic?

Its not like the armor is coated in some special substance that diffuses blaster bolts. Odd as it sounds, their armor is simply dense enough to resist blasterfire.

Did the Vong avoid using infantry on anything like a level playing field? Seems inconsistent with their warrior ethic, but I don't see how they succeed at all against heavy blasters.

The Vong used infantry a great deal, regardless of their battlefield odds, and they often took massive casualties because of it. Their commanders just didn't seem to care about loss of life, and thus could deploy thousands upon thousands of troops against better-equipped forces and "drown them in blood", so to speak. They also employed suicide rushes of completely expendable troops, like their enslaved Chazrach soldiers and captured, mind-controlled Republic soldiers and citizens.

[Anguirus]

Bah. Now I don't feel so bad about not finishing the NJO...or really getting very far at all.

[Lord Pounder]

I don't think ATAT's really fit with the NR's idealology, they had enough apprehension using Star Destroyers.

[Batman]

Bah. Now I don't feel so bad about not finishing the NJO...or really getting very far at all.

Trust me, unless there was a MASSIVE shift for the good towards the end (I think the last one I read was Force Heretic II-Refugee so I may be doing the series a disfavour) you didn't miss much.
The Vong should have been obscenely out-everythinged by the NR. Instead we got a NR that was run by complete and utter retards, having nowhere near the size and numbers even the minimalistic Thrawn books indicated, hating the (admittedly utterly incompetent, too) Jedi despite millennia of the Jedi being the Old Republic guardians (AND the New Republic much feeling the same way until NJO), the Vong being a threat to the Jedi one-on-one due to writer's fiat...
AND the utterly pointless death of Chewbacca, of course.

[TC Pilot]

Of course, if they lost a battle on a world, they would just drop a moon on it. So psychological impact had a lot to do with it, I'd imagine.

[Starglider]

Its not like the armor is coated in some special substance that diffuses blaster bolts. Odd as it sounds, their armor is simply dense enough to resist blasterfire.

It can't be dense in the usual sense as it's light enough for humans to wear and relatively bulky. I suppose there could be a thin layer of extremely dense material in there, but that blaster bolt energy has to go somewhere, and it will vaporise and/or shatter any normal material light enough to be non-powered personal armour. The fluff seems to talk about 'crystalline properties' (how that's supposed to harmlessly dissipate the energy I don't know, though there's a suggestion of an energy field 'a millimeter' from the body - certainly conformal personal shields are the only sane way to rationalise such all-round resistance to weapons). Maybe it uses the same class of wank that Sun Crusher's 'quantum crystalline' armour uses, you know what these EU authors are like for latching on to each other's poorly-thought-out buzzwords.

On the YVH-1. Wow, Star Wars Terminators!

Not as cool as the YVH-M anti-Vong mouse droid.

[PainRack]

Wait, their effective range is 20 meters?

Who cares? The OP has it right, walkers should just run these guys the fuck over.

Bah... Its better than AT-AT losing to methane-breathing firewalkers.......

Not to mention antilaser aerosols;;;;;

[Connor MacLeod]

The first discussion of the properties of Vong armour came from the novel traitor, in which it described the Vonduun Crab armour and the amphisataff.

Amphistaffs have some magi-vongwank tech that generates some sort of super-strong forcee field around it to make it sharp (some noncense about "atomic diameter" edges or some such.)

It also mentioned that the Crab armour also generates a protective forcefield (which helps it blunt damage from the amphistaffs). It also, apparently, made them highly resistant to both lightsabers and blaster fire. The fact its resistant to lightsabers tends to suggest high MJ/low GJ energy resistance, so its small wonder they can resist blaster fire (which is for the most part single or maybe low double digit MJ in most respects.)

All that data was later reiterated in the EGW&T in some form, I believe.

They do have some half-assed ranged weapons - the "thud bugs", 'razor bugs' and 'blast bugs' (basically varieties of exploding, cutting and impact type throwing weapons that have organiwank homing properties.) So they're not exactly helpess at range.

Basically they're just uber-wank warriors (stronger and tougher as I understand than regular humans, but still.) with uber-wank armour. So for the most part they can survive to get close and do damage.

[Shadowtraveler]

I don't think ATAT's really fit with the NR's idealology, they had enough apprehension using Star Destroyers.

Tell that to the Death Star plans they decided to keep on file.

[Pablo Sanchez]

What exactly would the Vong have done if they had been faced with massive deployment of incendiaries and chemical weapons? Let's say a huge carpet of various toxic gas shells, followed up by armored vehicles and infantry, fully NBC-sealed and carrying flame projectors and incendiary grenades and rockets. Even if they had armor that could resist blaster fire, being coated in burning napalm, struck by a thermobaric RPG, or having a gust of VX blow across your cheek isn't something that a magic breastplate will even come close to protecting against.

Since the optimum engagement range for a YV warrior was apparently around 20 meters, the short range of flamethrowers wouldn't even be that much of a problem. You're a super-warrior killing machine equipped with a staff made from a snake and magic crab armor? Here, try catching three gallons of jelly burning at 1200 Centigrade, genius.

[Starglider]

Let's say a huge carpet of various toxic gas shells,

Unfortunately while chemical and biological weapons work great against sane biotech, they are useless against no-limits biowank. They merely adapt, or have biological pathways that are immune to all known agents, or have antidotes for everything already in their bloodstream and hyper-immune systems etc. Incendaries won't affect the armour if it can resist lightsabers, but they should cook the wearers. It would take some truly ridiculous 'energy absorbing armour' to survive direct hits, though I expect the biowankers to shrug off such minor inconveniences as smoke inhalation, oxygen depletion and blast waves from fuel-air explosives.

carrying flame projectors and incendiary grenades and rockets.

Grenades and rockets aren't likely to do any more damage than blasters and slugthrowers; the later might kill be sheer impact (regardless of armour penetration) but I'm sure the biowank warriors are ultra-toughened against that.

Even if they had armor that could resist blaster fire, being coated in burning napalm, struck by a thermobaric RPG, or having a gust of VX blow across your cheek isn't something that a magic breastplate will even come close to protecting against.

Napalm and thermobaric RPGs yes. VX definitely not; it's specific to mammalian neurochemistry and is unlikely to work on most alien species. However presumably the SW forces are very familiar with multispecies chemical warfare and specimens can always be captured for experimentation if required.

You're a super-warrior killing machine equipped with a staff made from a snake and magic crab armor? Here, try catching three gallons of jelly burning at 1200 Centigrade, genius.

That should work against the enemy as described, but there's no obvious reason why this magic crab armour can't be made as a full body suit (with a pressure suit/NBC layer underneath if required), so I suspect the Vong would start doing that if your tactics were successful.