What the title says. Is there any balancing reasoning behind this? I was just looking at a bunch of other factions who actually get SWC *discounts* when they put sweet weapons on their lieutenants.
Good question. Group one is all 0.5-2SWC extra for the LT profile. While group two has no discounts. There is no group three. Onyx Contact Force ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 6 NOCTIFER Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 24) UMBRA LEGATE Lieutenant K1 Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 40) MAAKREP TRACKER Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 29) RODOK Lieutenant Combi Rifle, 2 Light Shotguns / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 26) SURYAT Lieutenant MULTI Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (1 | 41) MALIGNOS Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 35) GROUP 2 7 NEXUS Lieutenant (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) NEXUS Lieutenant Hacker (EI Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nullifier / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24) NEXUS Lieutenant (Nanoscreen) Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 26) UMBRA LEGATE Lieutenant Spitfire, Flash Pulse / Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 41) UMBRA SAMARITAN Lieutenant Breaker Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Vorpal CC Weapon. (0 | 40) UMBRA SAMARITAN Lieutenant Spitfire, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Vorpal CC Weapon. (1 | 44) SURYAT Lieutenant HMG + TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, CCW. (2 | 45) Open in Infinity Army The only LT I've ever used from group one is the Noctifer because it's reasonable value for that single SWC. I've never even considered the other options.(EDIT: oh, I did use the Suryat Multi before, which was respectable, but damn that SWC hurts.) I don't have an answer to your question unfortunately. To me, the Umbra's should be the common LT in Onyx and for that reason I often play the Samaritan Breaker profile. I'm ok with this situation but I'd certainly like to see some love for Onyx's LTs in the future.
Swc as a penalty for being lt or just having lt or profiles that already cost swc? I spot checked a few lists to compare Total lt profiles available / number of which do not cost swc above the base profile/ number of which grant bonus swc Jsa 7/3/0 Corregidor 5/3/0 Bakunin 7/4/1 Nca 10/8/0 Maf 8/7/0 Onyx 12/7/0 Ikari 3/2/0 I didn't keep track of how many already cost swc on the base profile, but looking at onyx it is only the k1 umbra that pays a swc lt tax which that I would not expect. Onyx look to be slightly down on 0 swc lt options but do well for shear number of lt options. Edit: Mo are an outlier on 10/10/3
To be fair, it's kinda a Combined Army thing, not just an Onyx thing. The only way to get a LT in Vanilla for 0 SWC is take the more plain charontid, skiavoros, or anathematic profiles, and I think it's just because they wanted Mnemonica to be a pretty integral part of CA design. Onyx actually gets a few discounts compared to vanilla, on 16 point nexus specialist and samaritan breaker combi.
Apparently it's to discourage you from taking Umbras, as if the fact they already are overpriced wasn't discouragement enough. Nexus are the real poster children for Onyx, not Umbras. Iow, bad design, which I'm sure you know already.
I was under the impression that LTs without SWC equipment but with visual modifiers, infiltration style skills, and AD cost extra SWC. It doesn't seem 100% consistent but there's enough, especially older profiles, to make a pattern.
I don't get it. Umbra lieutenants with spitfire are 1 swc. That's average cost for a spitfire, isn't it? I can see why the 1 swc cost on suryats and rodoks would be annoying, and there really is a 0,5 on the k1 umbra that doesn't make much sense. But the nexus and the spitfire umbras seem normal costed.
To be fair, Tohaa players had to suffer through years and years of playing an uncompetitive army before they become the alien overlords they are today.
The primary pattern to SWC is what Corvus Belli wants to push players to run as their Lieutenant. To a smaller degree, it represents the fluff of who the army would be likely to respect in command. Professional/homogenous armies tend to have fewer SCW-taxed Lieutenants, whereas mixed and non-standard training armies tend to have more SWC-taxed Lieutenants. But in general, it's probably because Corvus Belli just wants you to run the Umbra/Nexus as your Lieutenant in Onyx.
The lts that don't have price hikes are the Nexus, spitfire Umbra, Samaritans, and the HMG Suryat. Seems pretty eclectic, I don't quite see the conscious choice of design. What's more, only two of them (Specialist Operatice Nexus and Breaker Combi Samaritan) don't cost swc. Then I look at other factions where there seems to be a consistent thread and scratch my head.
tbh the only one that messes with my head is the K1 Legates. The others I can accept - they're not regular commanders or leaders, or they have heavy weaponry. But that one, and just that one, having a 0.5 bump? Just bizarre.
The ones costing 1.5 or more SWC get Lt profile "for free", while the Nexus cover the needed "cheap Lt" niche, with both Umbra options (Legate and Samaritan) falling in the "risky Lt" option... I'd say Onyx is considered a "Umbra Command", with the Nexus being "honorary Umbra" by virtue of surviving the training. On Vanilla, as the true "gimme all the warriors", the EI is the leader.
My issue with Onyx Lts is that I really want to take an Umbra as my Lt but it's just too risky. They are very aggressive pieces that are not all that durable. As such I find myself taking a Nexus Lt every single time I run Onyx. I find it a bit mono-build in that regard. An Onyx only Nexus CoC profile would really open up the options and be thematic.
For what it's worth, I've been running the Samaritan Spitfire LT in about half my lists recently, often backed up by a Rodok Fireteam: Core for some Loss of Lieutenant mitigation.
Yeah I guess if you are building around a Rodok core then you have enough orders to get some things done if the Umbra goes down. A Unidron core kinda railroads you into a Nexus Lt imo.
Aye, its a risk/reward thing I guess. I don't see it as worth the risk but obviously peoples mileage will vary depending on local meta, skill level, degree of recklessness etc.
In either case, Spitfire costs normally scale with the cost of the unit, it usually costs 2.0 on units that cost more than 40 points or so
