Pretty much everybody seems to be down on them. As someone who has literally zero experience with any army other than Tohaa, I'd really like to know why. They seem fine point-wise. A little more expensive than regular line troopers, but with BS12, ARM2 and BTS3 above average in those departments, too. The 5-man link bonus is nothing to joke about, either. Also, they are capable of bringing a lot of specialists to the table as well. In fact, Highly Classified was the first mission I was thinking about when seeing them being in SC. I'd like to discuss whether or not Brawlers should be included in functional lists.
16 points is expensive for basic line troopers, and the WIP 12 feels pretty gross especially if you want them for various specialist abilities. But they are fine as a core for Spiral, hosting a decent MSV2 Viral Sniper. I'm a big fan of rifle LSG even if it hikes the cost, as it makes assaulting your DZ too risky for many options. As unlinked cheerleaders, they're not as good as Chaksa or even Kaauri IMO as the lower cost and direct templates pushes them out of this role. As unlinked specialists, WIP 12 is painful and I feel the Kumotail is a better bet in the Doctor/Engineer roles - WIP 14 is better and personally I like having the efficiency (at least outside of vanilla Tohaa) of having both repair types on the same model. The assault hacker is the obvious standout, but having played Tohaa for so long I'm not someone who can really inform on how good a cheap but below-par Assault hacker is at the moment. Lots of killer hackers around, but perhaps in a meta like that its better to take a crappier and cheaper assault hacker instead of shelling out for a premium one who will just get blasted by killers anyway
In general Brawlers are the new vanilla mercenary line troops who do offer very flexible and useful profiles at BS 12, but pay for it with a bit of bloat in their CC and ARM stats. You could add PH and BTS to the list as well, but I personally feel those are more useful. So paying this tax of being slightly bloated gets you access to an MSV 2 MSR, a HRL/Assault Pistol, AHD + SMG (the only AHD in SC) ,Doctors and Engineers (granted, at WP 12) as well as a Haris unlocker for interesting Wildcard combinations (in other factions only). In Spiral corps, I feel they are still a bit out of place. The biggest draw (MSV 2 MSR) is outshone by the Taagma Viral Sniper who even can form a special Haris with the excellent Auxiliars. The Kumotail and Kosuil make Brawler specialists obsolete and Tri-Core will get you around the necessity to use Brawlers as core fillers. The one niche I see in Spiral Corps is that second Core Fireateam which only SC can field. They do pay full tax for it, however, since SC doesn't have a wildcard option and as such will have to field a full Brawler core, with all their bloat: Spiral Corps ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 5 BRAWLER Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 18) BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28) BRAWLER Doctor (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20) BRAWLER Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) BRAWLER Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) 3 SWC | 98 Points Open in Infinity Army Despite the bloat, this is still a very capable core, but you will be starved for SWC. If you cut the MSV 2 Sniper Brawler (as he is somewhat redundant with the Taagma Sniper), you can also fit in some Tri-Core/Draal/Clipsos/Kiiutan profiles. So overall I think Brawlers are better in other factions as haris and core fillers + wildcard/special fireteam options, but SC just doesn't have those, so they miss out (Taagma Sniper in Brawler Core is an option, but I prefer the Auxiliar Haris or Tricore Triad). They instead get a second core through Brawlers, which is a unique and great thing to have, but it's also a big chunk of your list and particularly SWC which will limit your choices.
The problem of Brawlers are threefold. First they lack HMG. This is the number one heavy weapon all across the game, the weapon of choice if you have the choice. To win gunfights you need visual MODs (Brawlers lack) or high Burst (Brawlers lack) on a high-range weapon (like HMG, Sniper Rifle or Heavy Rocket Launcher). The more boxes the fireteam checks, the better. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Bagh-Maris!) The problem Brawlers face is they lack high Burst and visual MODs. The decent BS of 12 is not bad but not enough to tilt the scale in your favour. Outranging (+3 for me, -3 for you), visual MODs (-6 for you) and burst (I roll 5 dice, you roll 1) would do the trick. Brawlers are lacking in those departments. The secound problem is they are caught in the middle. They are not elite troopers but not basic infantry - and that leads to increased cost. A pip for this, a pip for that, then another pip - but for all memebers of the fireteam. You end up with a rather expensive fireteam that is doing slightly better than fireteams consisting of basic line troopers for much more points, but will be outperformed by elite (although more expensive) fireteams and even solo troopers. A fireteam that is only able to murder basic line troopers is not a good investment, because one elite trooper will do the same job for half or third the price. The third problem is the faction they are included in lacks real cheerleaders. Our cheapest troopers are Chaksas clocking in at 10 points. That is no 6-points cheap Caledonian Volunteers to round out a secound group (chaff). If you want a decent sized (5) secound group, you have to average 20 points per trooper. (15*20=300) If you add a fireteam that cost more than 100 points for the 5 troopers, you will have problems inserting 40 points expensive troopers (Neema, Draal, Rasail) to accomplish one-man-tasks. TLDR They lack HMG, too expensive and the faction lack cheap order monkeys. @Knauf Brawlers are AVA 4 in SC.
It isn't valid thing. You can take only 4 Brawlers + Taagma. And i can said that you want Taagma everywhere. You want take Taagma tri-core, taagma with Chaksas so you need replace Brawler with MSV for Taagme MSV. And you still need LT option and you want take Taagma Lt too.
Holy shit, they are AVA4. That makes things worse. Yeah, so the question remains whether you want that second core or just the Taagma Auxiliar Haris, and I tend to favour the latter. As for LT, I think I'm a fan of Neema in that role. Anyway, Taagma are AVA 3, so you can have the LT, Tri-Core and MSV 2 Sniper.
In my opinion Taagma + 2 Chaksas is our cheapest link orders 36 points for 3 orders is good for spiral.
Keep in mind that the Taagma count as Brawlers for Fireteam Composition. If you want to be annoying you can have two or even three Viral Snipers in that core. How many people would be expecting three Taagma in a core?
good thing taagma is AVA3 and not too expansive it seems. Sniper is 3 pt less than brawler, and bonus that you can holo as a brawler HRL letting your enemy think a regular smoke will block your ARO piece.
I don't understand the thinking of somehow fooling your opponent with a Brawler core with a Holo1 Taagma. If it's a core your opponent definitely knows one of them is a Taagma so any trap you lay would just be avoided I would think. I would think most would just assume whatever you left out was the Viral Sniper. If you leave multiple out then it's probably best to just avoid it altogether anyway. Just seems very easy to play around unless I'm missing something. Holo1 seems much more useful to me in the regular triads.
Means you can skip the viral sniper and leave a regular brawler standing up. It's a very easy shell game that saves you 1.5SWC and will be basically as effective as the actual ARO piece in terms of how many orders your opponent will use to manuever around it.
I just don't like em' Didn't like them in Druze hypothetical list and I really don't like them here... They can only go into a full fireteam with Taagma. So you're not going to be able to really trick anybody it makes her Holo useless... And for me I'd rather bring all the Tohaa gimmicks and Troop types instead of those human Mercenaries... every brawler is one Helot, Monstrucker, Kaauriii, Reex etc... So just from theory list building that units 100% no go for me... I know it's kind of negative or not helpful I just I think they're there for flavor so that they can say they "bought a mercenary company" in the human sphere... As Back Ground...
I just think if I'm leaving a guy standing up to get shot and killed the Helot seems better suited. I still think the Brawlers have value I just don't know that the value for me is trying to exploit holo1 to get someone to shoot at them. I think the closest shell game for me would be a 3 man Core with a Taagma Sniper pretending to be the third Brawler HRL to draw out a Smoke/Visor shot but that seems pretty situational.
I've only ever really used a brawler harris. And I found them generally clunky but they aren't terrible. Taagma actually do a lot to help make them less clunky. The Taagma provides a relatively high quality specialist or subtle Holo 1 tricks. Remember Taagma in the Brawler link can let you show missing points when there aren't any, or make up for hidden points that you otherwise spent. They also provide some reasonable weapon options and potentially hidden Lieutenants. Another interesting use or Taagma would be to try and bait out Killer Hackers by pretending to be an assault hacker. A brawler link is also a nice place to stash your LT and gives you 5 different models that the LT could be. You also don't need to invest in a full brawler core, you could take a brawler core as a 3 man, or even take a 3 man and a haris if you were so inclined.