Patience, o brothers. The book (and full army list) are, from what I get, to be released at Adepticon. Which is not that far away. We will have the full knowledge then. We can really postpone the purchase of this particular box set till then. Which is what I am going to do, anyway: there are a few other kits to buy, build and paint - for RTF and for my other armies. No need to hurry.
I think it really depends on the model's kit. If you look at active turn dodging, you're more often than not giving up your shooting burst advantage for a single die, and unless you're going up against heavy visibility/range mods or you're a poor shooter, shooting is almost always going to be the better choice, both statistically and because it a positive outcome has a change to remove an opponent's order. In reactive when you don't have the burst advantage it becomes a much tighter choice. The skill is certainly most optimal on things like pupniks that are cc focused and have no ballistic weapons, but is it really any more oppressive than high ph warbands with smoke grenades? You;ve got myrmidons and makauls dropping eclipse smoke on 16s. You've got a lot of smoke on 17s in ariadna. In all of these cases, in addition to saving the unit, if you successfully drop the smoke, your protect both yourself and anything behind from future attack. Being able to dodge in that range is arguably not as good because you can't use to dodge to tactically benefit other units in your force. It'd be a very different game if warbands all had hyper dynamics instead of smoke. Plus at the end of the day, and I think this is an important point to reiterate, if you're dodging you're not shooting.
Like I said ealier, I am going to buy that box anyway, because I like the models so much. And even with the worst pessimism from my side concerning the profiles, every model in that box will be worth it to be taken at least from time to time. Want a Doc with your Tarik in RTF who can follow him everywhere? BSG. Want a MSV Model that is more mobile and has abetter gun...MK12. Want a HRL for little SWC who can advance to get good angles and has a LSG for close quarters...HRL. Want that Spitfire to harass everyone with his FAT 2...nuff said. I havent commented on them so far because I wanted contemplate these profiles for a while...and yes they are expensive AF even more compared to Hollow Men...and its a shame that the base profile hasnt gotten FAT 1...not for effectiveness sake but for Fluff and claritys sake. Although I also would have preferred Hyperdynamics or MA1 or NBW... Here I wanted to start my argumentation, where Khawarij are better than Hollows or Rodoks...but after some thought there isnt much left sadly...but nevertheless: They cannot be easily bound in CC, because apart from the best CC units in the game, nothing really want to get into CC with them, and even if they do, other members from the link have a high chance to Engage in ARO and dispose of them quickly. Btw...has it ever been resolved what happens if you successfully engage and then the opponent wins the CC FTF against the model that engages? Another thing is, they can engage TO or ODD in CC to avoid the -6. Due CC20, Poison and B bonuses they can get rid of most of them easily. In a pich you can use them to clear mines...maybe you dodge them, if not at least Bioimmunity allows them to be brought back by the Doc in the Link. But I wont deny, they really dont look like a good choice as Link right now...and as Errhile says....I have to wait and see, if there is something that makes them shine in RTF.
Tarik with MA3 would be totally criticized by many - even now people whine that he's overpowered :| Upgrading their Dodge is also nothing good, as it won't help them with fighting... And to be honest I thought of a quite different approach - similar to what @emperorsaistone wrote - maybe give them Natural Born Warrior? I know the name doesn't fit with bio-enhanced soldiers ideally, but it would be the first NBW in Haqqislam and it would make them a bit more interesting. They would be much more scary for normal enemies which aren't CC specialists, and even against some tougher CC artists it would be risky to attack them. Tarik could stay with MA1, but I'd also just give him NBW. He's big, scary, and he should be - even against some Ninjas and other Speculos ;) I'll definitely buy the box as soon as I can and I'll give them a try. Mk12 jumper is going to fight in my next tournaments, but still they need some edge, some more flavour, not just all round not bad unit with weirdly high cost*. PozdRawiam / Greetings *) It's easier for me to understand the cost of Zhayedan Breaker than most of Khawarij. He is also squishy, but really deadly with some luck.
NBW does grant Stealth/Courage. NBW grants +3 which is usually more useful due to increasing crit chance compared to MA1's -3
Just to tag on, if any haqq unit deserves NBW its the asawira, remove MA2 and give nbw so it fits the fluff better
My brothers and sisters of the new faith, I worry that we are beginning to sound like the infidels of Panoceania, whining and clamoring about units that are not just so. The Khawarij may not be the power piece of the Kamau, but we should not let this depress us. We are Haqqislam. We find ways when others cannot. 1) It should be first noted that, regardless of the power potential, the Khawarij are gorgeous models. The new box is beautiful and will reward patient, thoughtful painting. This alone makes them a win in my book. 2) Haqqislam, as a faction, is defined by relatively weak gunfighters. These new profiles help shore up a rather weak part of our lists. The question is not whether not they are as strong as Rodoks or Hollow Men, but whether or not they are stronger than Zhayedan or other midcost shooters in our lists. In RTF, the question is not how expensive they are in an absolute sense, but rather whether or not their cost prevents other essential units. 3) Despite the fragility, they bring some strong tools to the table. BS13 is powerful, especially relative to the rest of our faction. MSV2 pairs especially well with our sources of cheap smoke in vanilla. We don't know if we'll have cheap smoke in RTF and so can't respond to that issue. FAT2 allows for very strong rambos. Superjump is our defensive mod. Kill things on active turns, hide on the roofs in reactive. This gives them a fun hit and run identity. 4) Everything in Infinity is squishy and can die if left out on ARO duty. The Khawarij may be especially vulnerable, but that just exaggerates game norms and encourages us to respond accordingly. 5) The ability to drag along fast, dangerous specialists to the midfield is hard to overrate. Getting a Khawarij Doc+ (or CoC, or FO) with BSG to the midfield can help secure objectives and then become quite the deterrent to others.
When you have that predator classified, your probably happy with a cc 20 link ready to hunt your opponent :-)
People forget too, that with the prevalence of shock weapons and MML2, bioimmunity allows you to take shock saves on your bts of 3 which adds some solid defense against the current meta.
Keep in mind that MML1 and MML2 are optional skills: You can always opt not to use MML1 when firing and still use MML2 because are different "tiers" of the same skill. So yeah, bioinmunity is kinda meh skill in practice. But regardless, as other ppl have stated before, I'll probably field them because the minis are soooo badass. And also, I think it's better to wait for the new book and see the whole picture before being dissapointed: Maybe they aren't the only linkable superjumping dudes we'll gonna get wich can link with the Khawarijs.
Can we though? Minis are still good. @ambisinister Of course the plan is not to dodge in active turn. Unless you need to risk a mine, you can usually just avoid going wherever you will have to dodge. Or, indeed, just shoot once you're there. Probably one scenario when it will be needed is a HD missile outta nowhere. The reason I've mentioned scenery and mission details is because sometimes killing folks who can end their turn on the rooftop is a real PITA. And if your guys can dodge on a high roll, one of ways to remove them from there, spec.fire, will be much harder to execute. How does he declare CC if engaging model is not in base contact with him yet? What am I missing? Other than that, being fair, I think certain profiles are okay for solo work, it's just links that are quite questionable. That's provided RTF will have means to build a decent order base aside from cheap-ish core and maybe extra Naffatuns.
The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen"--which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.
One big advantage of Khawarij is Super Jump. Super Jump is really, really good. Using the Hollow Man link? Super Jumo can be crazy strong if used right.
I think I might just not be able to use Super-Jump well. In my experience, jumping exposes you to a lot of enemy line of sight unless the table is very dense and very tiered. I would be interested in seeing tables in which Khawarijs have used Super-Jump effectively. It is also hard to compare to Hollow Men too IMO, given the latter jump higher with 6-2, have better defenses, and a second wound. If Khawarijs can bring along cheap dudes like Ghulams or Naffatuns with them, that would help (Hollow Men can bring Kriza or sensor bot).
Just stopping in to ask a quick question: Is RTF going to have smoke? Because getting shot in the back from the front through smoke by linked Khawarijs sounds really un fun to play against...
Gross. I guess in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if they have smoke or not. But it would still probably feel like getting double dicked.