Just wanted to talk about that gal a little She is as great as anyone can except, her only drawback is that her hacker counterpart is even stronger / more useful (specialist) / unique. We do have a sort of replacement for her, as overpriced as it is, named the MSR dasyu, whereas we don't have a BSG CH:TO hacker. Except when i had absolutedly bad luck, she always performed well, and even single handedly won me some games. Yet, i tend to field the hacker far more than the sniper. I take the sniper roughly 1 game out of 4-5, often when i plan on defend and i want to surprise the opponent with an unexpected angle of fire, or want some sort of surprise ARO. So, do you happen to play with the sniper Mk2 ? How often and when ? Do you take the dasyu instead ?
It’s not the fact that the sniper isn’t good, it’s more the fact that you can cover all your basic specialist needs, for the absurd price of 41 points, so you focus on spamming orders to support disgusting main attack pieces, while CB removed literally all imaginable downsides to the G:Jumper Skill.
After HSN3 changes to Jumper Mk2 Sniper is pure awesomeness. I haven't use her in a while since I've neglected vanilla Aleph a bit, but she's great. She's a better shot than Dasyu, doesn't leave the HD-shaped hole in your list that savvy opponent might try to read, and since people are conditioned to expect Mk2 hacker almost exclusively here first shot comes as quite the surprise.
I did a bad choice of words. Yeah she's not overpriced, but she's expensive. And being expensive in an already expensive army means choices have to be made, so i'm not sure MSR dasyu see many games.
Yeah, dasyu and naga KHD are both truly good. I think it is my most used dasyu profile (for nagas, i also use the monomine one a lot)
Mk2 hacker is so good that I find very difficult to replace her, but mk2 sniper also is great, specially if the opponent didn't take any MSV, against Intruders and Nisses is a bad choice even shooting though white noise. One thing I love to do and has given me great results is infiltrating her in a side border, specially if there is a high building to stay safe of enemy warbands and let the enemy approach, many times we neglect taking care of cover in the side to side lof in favor of the up down... But never check a horizontal lof before revealing her.
The common problem in my SAA. Please, CB, make them at least AVA 3. We can trade some AVA on the Akalis :P I'm a fan of this tactic as well. Works with all infiltrating TO snipers.
It is interesting that this topic has come up. I recently went through this exact dilemma with building/play-testing a list for an upcoming tournament. I had actually initially added the mk2 sniper in an agressive/infiltrating 10 order list built around Achilles. The thought was to use her to surprise shot ARO pieces, and then serve as ARO in her reactive. And while she always served in her role admirably, I ultimately moved off of her for the mk2 infiltrator (just missed her too much). Additionally I would give a plus 1 to the mono mine Naga. I find myself running it in virtually every list these days (especially with less of a need for specialists). So unique, with people not familiar with it, and provides such a hard counter to TAGs/Heavy infantry.
I find MSR snipers to be poor ARO pieces. 1.5 SWC is simply too much to risk throwing away on a B1 roll. That said, infiltrated TO MSR snipers are pretty good. People usually focus on putting as much distance between the enemy and the sniper, but 16"+ is usually good enough for me (once you add MODs like TO and cover up), and once you're camping on a rooftop, the opponent needs to get really close, to put you in a negative range band ie. nanopulser range. My biggest gripe with the MK2 sniper is more the SWC cost of the MSR; 1.5 is really steep, compared to 1 for a HMG, which in many cases will be more effective due to B4 and the option of suppression fire. Then again, running both a Dasyu Sniper and a MK2 Sniper is great fun – and so this discussion has spawned my secondary list for an upcoming tournament : Sheananigans ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 MACHAON Lieutenant Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 38) PATROCLUS (ODD: Optical Disruptor) Spitfire, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW. (1.5 | 57) DASYU MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 42) DASYU Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 37) DAKINI Tacbot Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) DAKINI Tacbot Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) DAKINI Tacbot Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) LAMEDH Rebot Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) PROBOT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) GROUP 2 4 PROXY Mk.1 Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) PROXY Mk.2 MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 24) PROXY Mk.5 (Forward Observer) 2 Submachine Guns, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) NETROD . (0 | 4) NETROD . (0 | 4) NETROD . (0 | 4) 5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army I could consider dumping the MK5 for another baggage bot (order) and a yud bot for Machaon, but the idea is pretty simple, snipers pave the way for Achilles Light, who will zoom off to do his thing and kill off the enemy, while a bunch of fast specialists follow suit. Both snipers have access to a decent amount of orders to do some killing/repositioning.
It's a choice between two roles that have hidden deployment, a good visual mod and doesn't add/remove from the order pool. Which role makes better use of those features? Because both can be replaced with a weaker non-posthuman. Specialist Jumper can stay hidden deployed without missing an order each turn. Since specialists often prefer to act later this is good. But if it was a Naga it could have been filling out the CG with another order at the loss of a surprise. If it was a Dasyus it could have a KHD, but it won't generate and order for the CG. How much does the hidden deploy help you? Do you just use it to stay safe and press a button? Is that worth using a Proxy slot? It should also be good for an AHD trap. How much does the visual mod help? It make it a good link breaker, but links that move up the map are getting rarer, especially links without DTW. DTW and KHD can attack you ignoring the TO. On the MSR as well Jumper prevents the order loss when hidden. You could replace it with a Naga but the role usually acts on turn 1, often before you even get a turn, so it probably won't generate more than 1 order if that. A Dasyus might lose out an order if you have initiative, but it also might not because you often use it on your initiative. In either case, when you lose it in ARO you will drop an order without proxy. The intended target for snipers are troops with basicially no shot back. With hidden deploy you get to trick your opponent in to actually running in to it instead of just a threat. I consider it the strongest use of Hidden Deployment. TO greatly narrows the troops your opponent can use to beat you, and give you a much wider range of good targets when active. There is a weakness to MSV, but unlike DTW they are less likely to accidently have a good option in a good spot. If you want a specialist to use hidden deployment to safely stay near an objective until later in the game, the MK2 can't be beat. Proxy and Hidden Deployment are used at max potential for that. Personally I think that role is overrated in current ITS. Too many objectives score per turn, or need to be held at the end, requiring turn 2 to make full use of the HD specialist. Holding territory feels like the rare type of specialist, button press feels cheap to me. Dasyus also gets the advantage of the safer, no SWC KHD. And on a TO troop, I prefer the Combi for Suppressive Fire and for shooting DTW outside their range. The MSR takes away the main weaknesses of the role: cost (especially for annihilation) and order loss. If you want this role it is hard to replace despite the Dasyus MSR being great. Overall I want the HD sniper role and don't care about the HD specialist role, so the choice is obvious for me.
Sniper: costs 1.5 SWC Hacker: costs 0.5 SWC, same cost as AD trooper (exact for Garuda boarding shotgun, +-1 point for Ekdromoi chain rifle/garuda combi) The Sniper I wanna use, the hacker I can leave alone until the last turn if I want and sacrifice much less points and SWC. It should be noted, however, that the Mk2 wins by +1 on both BS and WP over the Dasyu, but the Mk2 hacker has a boarding shotgun, which a Dasyu does not. For me, anyway, the mk2 hacker is the only option, since I prefer the mk4 for ARO and hunting duties :S
I am not fond of the mk2 sniper as much as the hacker due to atalanta is a significantly better shot (bs 17 vs 13). With smoke thrown in front of atalanta they have the same penalties. This is only true against non-ssl2 models.
You are comparing 2 totally different miniatures, with different purpose. Atalanta is a marksman, a crack shot. The MK2 and the dasyu are hidden threath. Atalanta may have the same modifiers, provided she has smoke, but she is neither hidden nor infiltrated: the opponent knows where she is since the very beginning of the game. The main selling point of a CH:TO sniper is the surprise, and infiltration allows you to position in a good sniping position. You usually won't be shooting at 100-120 cm, even if the weapons allows to, you are mostly shooting at 40-60 cm, often in the flanc or back of unsuspecting enemies who moved ignoring the danger.
I take both atalanta and the mk2 sniper, since they do very different things. TO VNWI is very durable- atalanta isnt. TO gets to make funky angles, atalanta doesn't. Atalanta murders camo and has a hard time missing, which the mk2 sniper is significantly worse against.
i remember days that i took atlanta from cover and march in the room in the mid table, and use pistol to kill malignos.
