I must admit, Rudra comes back into my thoughts a lot. I tried other lists, but Rudra solves lots of questions... Today I read that in sanscrict rudra means ginger... Now I HAVE to put her in every list;( More ideas in progress xD She would be bane of my challenge with vanilla Achilles list in next tournament;P
I'm thrilled none of my Vedic opponents have figured out how easy it is to use Climbing Plus to pick apart a defense. So please, proclaim how bad this unit is from the rooftops. The longer that Vedic players rely on lists that get shut down by a few AP mines, the less I have to worry. The Rudra actually reminds me of a discount Tikbalang. Medium to long-range weapons and the ability to attack from unorthodox angles, letting you either flank hardened targets or simply pick apart hiding cheerleaders who weren't expecting anything to get LoF to them. A little durability to survive bad luck, minelauncher to splash those hiding line infantry link teams or REM-heavy backlines, and even some armor-cracking with K1. I'm surprised we're not seeing this unit used more often; I'd love to have it in PanO.
I really need to find a way to fit it into my 400 point Powerpack list. That mission is almost perfect for them to go to work
What long range weapons Rudra has?? Also Tikbalangs mimetism changes math a lot. Rudra is more like YJ transforming cat than Tik;)
I once won a Decapitation match with a Daleth, climbed all the way to shoot Sun Tze in the back, and for a damn change the dice didn't screw me up, worked wonderfully
It's cause it won't link with Dakinis. 2 Combi Dakini + 1 HMG dakini + Deva AHD + rudra with the apsaras giving her magic would be too much XD Nah, they get compared to Riot Grrrls, and lose (by range in the cheaper option) and are 3-4 pts more expensive (that WIP point instead of PH... or the Veteran N1 instead of the MSV1...) We are too used to having olny the Total Reaction for that. Mind you, most of the 3D units are used as cheerleaders or left behind in Aleph :S
Finally got to play with a Rudra yesterday and it was the best of a "worst case scenario" situation as my opponent and I were playing "Acquisition". I had deployed first and put my Rudra (armed with a K1) in cover at edge of my deployment zone overlooking a fire-lane. I figured I was going first, so it wouldn't be that bad to be "peaking out". Well my opponent deployed a 2 sniper 5-man Grunt Team looking at the Rudra (damnit). Keeping cool my Danavas threw up marksman on it since either way I was going to have to shoot my way out. His team was as far away as they could be which was going to put me in my bad range band. I just figured I would slide back out of LoS maintaining cover and do my best to weather the 4 sniper shots coming at me. I ignored 1 of the snipers and used my b3 to FtF the other sniper hoping for some lucky dice. With marksman having me ignore cover I was on 9's to his 14's. Miraculously I beat out his dice due to his poor rolls and the other sniper double hit me. He made his ARM and I passed 1 of mine so I was down a Str, but not dead. I moved around the building to get another angle/cover and ended up throwing it into suppressive fire as it watched another firelane. On the following turn my SF Rudra managed to take out a desperado and maybe another unit, I can't quite remember, but it was placed practically and helped take out a couple Ariadna units. When it got back to me, this is where things got "silly". It was top of 2 and I was trying to move up the board to stand on a console for Acquisition. My Eng was nearby and I wanted my Rudra at full power, so I went in to top it off with some Eng rolling. Well my dice were angry at me and since I needed a 15 they rolled a 19, so I spent a command token, and they rolled a 16, spent another command token(my last one) and rolled another 19, landing my Rudra into unconscious. So I had to spend another order to successfully repair it back to 1 Str and called it good and left it where it was. Stood around on my opponents 2nd Turn and didn't do anything. Turn 3 though it raced up the board with it's 6-4 MoV to stand on a console with a Naga in an attempt to hold the objective and keep away anything coming at it. My opponent had last turn and was low on orders and units, with the Rudra and a Naga both standing on the objective he could only do so much. If it was just the Naga or just the Rudra, maybe, but he attempted anyway and the Rudra did the blasting it was meant too and held it's ground w/o going unconscious. Considering how wonky a start it was for my Rudra, I will say the 2 things I took away that were awesome: 1st it having it's own repeater so I can buff it or hack through it whenever I want. And 2nd, it's just durable as all hell, even though I knocked it out, it was worth it to put it back together. ARM 4 and that K1 is just deadly enough that your opponent can't ignore it and heavy enough to stop just about anything from getting through. As a Vanilla ALEPH player I've really longed for a 40-ish point brusier/toolbox/rambo-esque piece and even though it had a tough game, it just showed me how much more it can do in future games! Can't wait to get my hands on one.
Just played on the Brazil open ITS last week. Picked 2 lists with Dakini fireteams and no rudras ( even though I had a list in mind for the k1 because of Deadly Dance). Ended up feeling exactly what I thought I would. HMG dakini is enough to deal with TAGs as long as you can get it in the good range, even without Marksmanship lv2. At the same time, not having a repeater means you need either a babysitting hacker, one of the other repeater bots or spend orders throwing a pitcher to keep your dakinis covered - that means that *many* times your dakinis are without Marksmanship. Climbing plus is wonderful ( I *really* love Dart, and that is one of the reasons). But yeah, firepower wise, Dakinis are enough. Rudras are however much more versatile, and versatility is a fantastic thing to have in a unit. So, to my conclusion about the bot is still the same. It is not fantastic on either killing heavy armor units, light armor units or in denying terrain. But it is good enough on all 3 that it is worth taking a look at.
For repeaters, there are 8 pts flash pulse drones. For better BS there is also Aspara. Rudraa is cool toolbox, combining skills of few different units in OSS as You say.
I'd say this is totally intencional, since the Deva AHD+Lightning seems to be the "protector" against enemy hackers. I think the Nagas needed a deployable repeater + something, however, in a new profile :/
