I don't think that Nomad players aren't seeing the drawbacks of Hollow Men at all. Glue doesn't overly bother me, (low burst, not on templates, not on spec fire, pretty rarely seen anyway), E/M does because templates and spec fire, but HM are cheap enough, tough enough and good shooters so the weakness is tolerable. CC is something that Tunguska can do aggressively quite well, but lacks a cheap warband for screening. Solution is yet to be found, but very playable without.
I have to agree with this^ Unless TJC starts dominating often I can't imagine players are going to place a greater emphasis on EM, glue, or CC. Those weapons still need to land hits and CC troops still need to find their way into base to base. Against some of the most mobile HI in the game i might add. I'd consider most HI already susceptible to CC anyway and I've never noticed them in much danger at this moment. So while I agree with others that TJC has weaknesses that can be exploited... players still have to bring lists with these counters and find openings to use them. How many other sectorial weaknesses can one player effectively account for? That is part of the environment in ITS. I don't expect HM will run into anymore problems than usual. Which is why I'd happily make the same trade offs
Hollowmen, Grenzers and Krizas all get Glue Guns, counterbalanced by being a bit weak in area denial and defense. I'd say they're in pretty good shape.
Krizas were already a good choice for Hunting Party. Mary's Zapper and Heckler's E/Marat will be useful. Securitate LT & specialists ignore isolation.
The worst mission. Also, @inane.imp thanks for the "Only when conscious" comment. That just sent me down a rules rabbit hole that made me realise a few things about Unconscious I'd had wrong in my head or had played wrong. Including, somehow, thinking my Unidrons/Ikadrons hit the deck when they were taken out - instead of remaining in place as statues... Somehow I had it right for 40mm rems but my brain took a wrong turn when they were on 25mm bases instead.
Tbf - we've kind of had some inkling of this in recent times. There were some alterations to ISS link options. Then Druze brought a shakeup to the mercenary profiles (including Specialist CSU, which directly benefited ISS, again, and NCA). Whilst also being more of a thematic change, the JSA separation also saw a few tweaks to alter the balance of JSA vs YJ - paying more SWC for Rui Shi and the TR HMG bot, for example. These changes obviously haven't been across the board... But I think we might be heading there. Mixed links are the new hotness, and are present in a lot of the new stuff but completely missing from traditional Sectorials. I'd expect this to be something that gets a review in the next book release, at the very latest.
You both also play Nomads. Hunting Party is fun as a Nomad player because you can use lots of cool profiles that are otherwise sub-optimal. Combi+LFT, ADHL Prowler is soo good, for instance. And Carlotta is legitimately a game changing piece. I don’t think Nomads are the best at Hunting Party: but it’s a blast playing it with them.
I have a hard time believing anyone is better equipped for that mission than Tohaa. Zero V smoke one cheap MA 3 stun pistol jerks and symbioarmor completely negating glue/EM induced statuses is real strong.
HP is a very faction-biased mission. Some factions/sectorials have a wealth of really strong Veteran/Elite/HQ troops to benefit from the special rules. For example, every single freaking myrmidon getting an adhl to go with it's linked ODD BS12. Whereas others are really niche options or picks that are considered, widely, to be sub-optimal unit profiles that rarely find their way into lists. It was certainly an interesting idea to use the unit type to influence the mission objectives - but failed to consider the fact that not all factions are equal where that is concerned.
I don't disagree with you, but the same might be said about TAG-centric missions, like Show of Force - Guija or Gorgos are hardly "optimal" choices for their respective factions, and Ariadna has no TAG at all (for now, at least =D). Yet the reaction to getting one of those is rarely "let's roll again, I don't want to play this".
You can say the same about L&S or HC as well. It's significantly easier to write lists for those in some factions rather than others.
I think HP is trough the mostly uncared subtype really unbalanced for many armies. I don't think, the subtype is an major issue when playtesting things. It's seems more like a fluff element. PS: HC ist hard too, but there are not so much weeknesses for the most armies. And Tohaa and Ariadna are natural strong
While some missions favor certain factions/sectorials I don't see an easy way to solve this without sacrificing the fun and variety they create. You'd have to almost flip the current system. Making classifieds or other generic objectives be worth the most VP's while making the mission objectives worth less. I can't speak for everyone but I wouldn't want that. I'd rather see tournament organizers take more care in not stacking the missions too far in favor of one faction. Which of course is subjective.