Problem is that first Knight to get rather extensive and radical rework is a Montesa who actually had his niche and uses ;P If they had started with Tuetons that would be different story ;)
Carefull opinion here: Well new Montesa "in vacuum" has his own sets of problems, he has no "smoke" for a +6 to dodge comparing to most of his bike equivalents, and has no high burst long range weapon (to use his BS13), heck all his weapons are close range ones. Which makes him not a 1st turn assault piece, and also dependant on other units to allow him to leave DZ. We still don't know the whole picture, but it is interesting how he will interact with other units. Whats almost sure right now is fact he is not a first turn attacker, more of a sweeper during 2nd turn (when a lot of WB comes close or SK drops camo) or a 3rd turn fast rambo piece which can endager enemy units holding objectives, push buttons (paramedic) or assault objectives (AC2/Heaters etc.). As a last mention I just hoped that we will be somewhat "hi-tech" (comparing to other bikes), but now I think that Engineer would be lovely on this profile (instead of paramedic) but hey that would be some sweet sweet icing on a cake. The cherry on top would be a fact that HI Engineer would make Yu-Jing forum explode ;P
This is true, but as you've said, we haven't seen the full picture yet. I'd also prefer the Teutons to get this treatment, or for Montesas to keep old MechDep choices and use bike as a 2nd regiment, but I'm not going to complain. ASA have Nagas, true... but they're AVA 2, and with Montesas and Dart in the picture we can use them in a more flexible way. Previously it was hard to make place for a Monomine or Minelayer, not it might be easier, with fast specialist backup available.
It will be interesting to actually use the Paramedic. There will probably be situations where he doesn't need to use his second short skill to MOV , and he may have LoF to Unconscious friendlies that are too far upfield for a Doctor to reach them. Throwing a hail-mary Paramedic attempt at a unit in the midfield as the Montessa races towards another goal is decent order-efficiency. @Stiopa Good point about using the Montessa to fill Specialist slots and let us take some of the other fun Naga profiles. Dart and the Montessa really help take some pressure off the Nagas.
I think we can take it for hard truth now, that part of the PanO faction design is not having access to engineers outside of the Machinist (and most of the time them being AVA 1).
I’m thinking of some potential combos in SAA now and the one topping my list is using this guy alongside a Tik. 2 very fast, lethal assault pieces working in tandem can clear out a lot of stuff with minimal order expenditure. They cover each other’s weaknesses remarkably well. Tik shoots a path out of the DZ, Montesa tangos with the war bands in the midfield while the Tik focuses on being Spider-Man and shooting people who thought they were safe. Both can be specialists which adds a whole additional level of order efficiency, and neither lose any combat effectiveness for it. And you still have 180 points left for the rest of your army, undoubtedly including 2 Nagas for additional backup on the objectives. It should be pretty easy to hit 15 orders with a Tik and Montesa which should be a sweet spot.
If this is actually a design trend then I, for one, will be thrilled. But I must add my voice to those who are somewhat dismayed to see the Montesa go this way. I agree that this would be 100% improvement if it was the Teutons, but losing our Mech Deployed HI AND our midfield LGL/LRL options in a stroke will hurt.
Yeah, it'll open new possibilities. I wonder if he'll be able to join Haris as well, because this is what I'd use to advance. Though I might as well try to go forward with a Core. I'm also holding my breath until tomorrow to see the actual changes. Especially regarding AVA. I highly doubt Montesa suddenly get WIP 12 when mounting their bikes, so there might be more mistakes in there. Back to Varuna speculations: Squalo getting Zapper makes me wonder if TAG DTWs won't make a comeback of sorts. Cutter might get flamethrower back, presumably a light one this time. Or a Zapper of his own. We've also seen a Kamau BS in one of the artworks in the video. Might be just an artistic license, might be that new loadouts are incoming. And I really dislike the new Croc Men design, ever since I saw the new sniper. It's a good thing I already have old hacker and sniper, now just to get a BS/hacker blister and make some conversions.
I was skipping Varuna because it looked so hum-drum. Even with the fish monsters I budgeted to go into OSS and avoid Varuna. Now it seems Varuna will have more interesting, hi-tech toys than my NCA. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.
How does the new montessa get access to capabillity and versatillity the old variant did not have? As i see it it trades strengths for nothing to gain It certainly still has to fight past everything which has always been the major issue with non big gun pano. Only now it cant do thag
For one, the Montesa can now grab objectives. 8-4 move objective grabber, thats a strength. This bike also punishes people who like to hide everything and therefore lack strong AROs. Aradina and Yu Jing seem to hide the most. 8" mov + CC seems pretty good combined with stealth. Note the perfect synergy the new Montesa has with the assault guard's eclipse LGL. Pano can finally smoke and CC pretty well in one of its sectorials. The original Montesa was a downgrade from the Daofei. Now the Montesa is a very different unit from anything Yu Jing has. Poor Yu Jing, they lost their only bike and Pano has just gain the only HI bike in the game. Must hurt.
Outsidr of the objective grabbing (which infiltrating camo still does better not the least for lack of smoke) the montessa mechdep did all that already, punishing turtlers and being able to realistically fight those who did not turtle due to bs14 and heavier weaponry. The mechdep is also approximately equivalent to a bike so at most its a wash imo.
Not that MechDep Montesa couldn`t do this... To get to the edge of enemy deployment by the straight line biker needs to spend 3 orders, while MechDep needs 1 and half orders... That's the only good thing in a new one. Because bikes can`t take cover it is not that much of the difference, oh wait MSV can ignore you mimetism, but not cover. And arm6 > arm4 Suicide charge on Suppresion... How will you clear camo units with CC? Old montesa had lgl, lrl and chain colt to deal with them. With Dart, Bagh mari and sensor is another camo dealing unit is really needed?
More like 8" mov + CC with stealth. Using stealth + CC to outmaneuver units in suppression is pretty common. I'd say the montesa is now Pano's best CC unit. If they can just give a unit in MO eclipse grenades....
