She's still a nice addon. CC wise - there's a lot of units sitting in that very space. It's not that bad. There's around 30 units with MA>3, with majority of them contained in SP and JSA. While getting her into CC isn't a first choice, it's a good deterrent against many units. How Commander Vimes would put it: "(...) several feet of edged weapon is quite threatening enough when wielded by an angry amateur. Amateurs sometimes get lucky". her point cost isn't high. 24 is a lot only if someone thinks exclusively in terms of hypercompetetive horde lists, where unit costing more than 20 pts. needs to be a first rate fighter to get included. She's not, but she's a nice midfield toolbox. Bottom line is that complaining that her CC isn't first class, MA is below 3, and FD1 isn't Inflitration is in fact complaining that she's not perfectly optimized. Well, most units aren't. What matters is that she's something new and fun to play.
I really like her! My initial impression: While 24 points isn't exactly cheap, I think its worth it when her only other contender for the pseudo skirmisher spot is the Locust. Mimetism+dual SMGs can give her the edge in gun fights, even in her zero range. She's a great zone denial piece, combining Viral mines with her suppressive abilities. Her CC capabilities aren't anything to go crazy over. if she was at least 20, I would be more excited. 19 MA2 is more of a deterrent for enemies than any place you'd actually want to see yourself. the problem is, anything she could feasibly fight in CC, she would have a much easier time to shoot to death. Scavenger is funny imo, it isn't something that's on your mind very often, but for missions like firefight, or anything with a panoply, scavenger just makes it a little easier to score. Who knows maybe you'll be able to grab something cool? (probably not). Anyway, I'm a huge fan of skirmishers and all their imitators so I'm certain she will become a staple in my lists for a time. I'm very much looking forward to getting some table time with her.
I like that there are more and more alien mercs, it does a lot to show them as actual people, rather than monolithic faceless groups I also really like the fact that she is Shasvastii, as that confirms they are not going the way of the Deauxdeaux (badum-tss) Now the really interesting part is that she can work for NCA, there are a lot of lore implications there!
She’s an odd duck for sure. Though it must be said, she’s not really Pano. She’s every generic and two sectorials. :P I couldn’t care less about her CC ability. It’s the fact that she has MA is what I like, but would probably have preferred her at MA1 for cost reasons. The stacked skills for stealth in particular and courage are far more valuable to the piece than the CC advantages. Being able to peel around corners and blaze away with dual smgs is quite nice though I don’t know if we’re the best faction to capitalize on that where as CA for example could pair her with a witch doc for smoke to cover tricky areas. In some ways she’s competing with bulleteers but offering a different make up and the advantages of being a person vs a robit. In others she’s competing with Krakots in a similar role for less points. I think the problem with her lies in her skornergy. Medium low CC ability with MA to drive up points. All ammo is lethal except one mode and scavenger. Ultimately the most desirable part of her is her mines and we’ve seen what CB can make out of a unit like this with Ryukens. It’s makes her a head scratcher due to the bloat. Her load out is fine for representing a character, just not perhaps the most streamlined for gameplay. She’ll see the table for Neoterra and perhaps vanilla Pano because I can’t think of a faction that is desperate for a unit of her style outside of those. Shas have shrouded for about the same cost but specialist. All the generics have krakots or some other cheap camo to start further up. So I guess in a sense, maybe she is a Pano unit? :P
As far as her being a PanOceanian unit is concerned, she's in a Sectorial and in our Vanilla. That's as much availability as iconic units like the Swiss Guard, but then again I am an advocate for the inclusion of ALEPH units in our Sectorials and the like, so I have few issues with this kind of integration. Mostly I'm just bemused by this coming out only days after I argued with @ijw on Facebook about how much infiltration of the Human Sphere had already happened in the setting. This unit pretty much proves the point I was making in that discussion (about the RPG).
CC19 is good enough to deal with any mooks out there, but you'd be screwing up by the numbers if you get into CC with anything CC20+ (well, they're also screwing up by getting into CC with someone CC19). The one lesson from 40k still applies: Shoot the CC monsters, CC the shooty monsters. She's effectively both a CC and shooty monster, if a low-end CC monster and short-ranged shooty monster. I'm OK with that. Acon is the more interesting sectorial to me.
Meanwhile all us Shasvastii players are losing our s**t in excitement over how cool she is. But tbh I think she'll see a fair bit of action in general play in vanilla forces more than in NCA.
Traitor? I think I'd have to have expressed a loyalty to PanO first... And I've been playing Yu Jing since 2006.
Oh boy, seems that Church will have yet another conclave crisis (due to lack of election Cardinals.....)....
Seen a lot of talk about how her Shock/Viral doesn't synergize with her Scavenger. Like you can't just use AP ammo... The option is sitting right there... Or just let another model score the kill so she can capitalize on it. As a PanO player, I've never bothered paying attention to the non-lootable characteristic ever. Suddenly it's a lot more relevant and interesting.
Scavenger is such a fun skill. It may not be valuable every game, but when it is it's a blast. Best example I've witnessed, the unknown ranger looted a motorbike from an aragoto and proceeded to go full Captain America on a domaru link.
Burst 4 is still going to wind up killing a lot of LI outright. If she at least had a cc weapon to not murder with that would be great.
You can always opt to make Unarmed Attacks. She can literally beat people Unconscious and take their loot. @xammy That's just regal. Love that.
True, burst is an allowance I see after checking the rule book. If she can’t get under 8” then how is she going to scavenge? I get that it’s a very corner case skill, it’s just that she works against her own corner case situation.
