Theorizing Ensign Katherine Cho, Psi Unit

I would always select a unit that generates a regular order and no impetuous order so that the opponent doesn’t realize what’s going on in the order count. Also bounty hunters don’t work since you won’t roll for booty.

Ideally, the unit will cause the opponent to make deployment and later in game mistakes. A Kappa would not do that as the only reason to have one would be the obvious LT. Kappa LT plus Cho CoC might be an ok setup but in any case the opponent would clearly understand which units to kill to get you into LoL.

That would leave:
Dakinis
Lambdas
Omegas
Epsilons
Devas
Betatroopers
Cyberghosts
Wild Bill
Knauff
Le Muet

I think the most obvious strategy is to fool your opponent into thinking that you have heavy weapons in places you don’t. Betatrooper Spitfire could be great especially since climbing plus makes very safe spots still believeable deployment options. Epsilon sniper can also look very believable if there is a Varangian near by.

The other idea would be to simply hide a lot of points so that your air borne and TO is more of a surprise.

Or look like something hackable or even a hacker to get the opponent to apply a bad tactic.

 

A hiding Lambda without attached Yudbots is suspicious, though. I'd probably go for something that's not an LT option, but that you don't want to fight directly and Wild Bill fits that description real nice - good PH with Hyper-Dynamics to reduce Speculative Fire success, no LT option, good CQB ability, reasonably close in price, and generally believable he's in the list. A KHD Cyberghost might also be a good candidate and generally speaking most opponents won't notice when a Monstertrucker generates a regular order, even those in the top 10 world wide ranking :p (I'd still try and make sure there's at least 1 irregular order in the list, though)

 

Disguise her as an Epsilon or Betatrooper. Another threat your opponent needs to consider, which keeps them on the back foot.

A Cyberghost of some sort is a threat of a different type, also legit.

 

An humble K?

 

My thought on K's;
MSR or ML K is not really believable, not in vanilla, so they'd get targeted on suspicion of being Cho
HMG K is less likely due to access to Dakini, so they'd get targeted on suspicion of being Cho
HD K is a high-value target in their own right due to buffing aforementioned Dakini
Combi K is going to arouse suspicion of being an actual K LT
No one is ever going to suspect me of fielding an actual Paramedic K
That leaves the FO K, which could be a reasonable piece to field

But any K is going to have the "issue" of being in the same faction as Varangians who have smoke and smoke defeats TR HMGs as well as most ODD/TO units. So the only reason to field K that I've found so far is to hide LTs or in the future Cho, so... for some specific lists a humble K will do it.

 

Kappas, like all non-0 SWC line infantry outside Sectorals (and certain exceptions like Dakinis and Ghulams) tend to not see a vast quantity of use. They do have the advantage of being BS 12, relatively inexpensive and having the excellent hacker profile, but generally you won't see a lot of Kappas in lists made by experienced players due to the accumulated wisdom being put your SWC in stronger places and your cheap orders as Varangians or Rozzerdroids. Of course if someone is regularly running Kappa MLs to great effect or whatever that's fair, but you probably aren't going to pretend your Cho is one of them.

 

On the Cyberghost; that's the beauty of the KHD - it doesn't get an ARO against normal Hackables, so it doesn't give anything away, and against enemy Hackers they will either think twice about entering said Repeater or they do and find out it's actually Cho at which point you've probably already made it work. Plus, next time you've created an opportunity to use an actual Cyberghost KHD to murder their hackers!

CoC definitively, but the LT profile is increasingly interesting simply because I regularly run into lack of LT-problems in my lists. The lack of HMG LT on Omega is actually kind of a huge and interesting decision, in most armies that's a load out that gets LT treatment.

 

Not really, if the only thing you have to repair is a TR bot or Dakini sniper, a Yudbot wont be entirely necessary. If you keep close by to that piece you opponent is more likely to waste a few more orders making sure it is off the table instead of just unconscious, and no one would think twice about it. Unlike that cyber ghost that decided not to hack the kriza that walked past a repeater.

 

As mentioned above, a KHD Cyberghost can't hack a Kriza, so won't give themselves away until your opponent is willing to risk getting one of their own hackers into her Hacking Area.

 

Hippolyta.

Think about it. She's stronger in melee than Speculos, equal to Al-Djabel, has ODD so they are less likely to want to shoot her with their BSGs, decent PH so most speculative fire would be a waste of time, and even though she's a high threat target she's also a right pain in the ass to kill so a Hippo hiding in a corner waiting to pounce is not really all that suspect nor do you want to suicide anything on her... Sure, she won't be generating impetuous orders in the active turn, but if you keep enough Varangians around that also don't move you'll not immediately give her away since those orders aren't required to be placed next to the generating troop.

 

It might be meta dependent, but I always generate all my orders on my order board at the start of my turn. I then go through all my impetuous orders and use them one by one. If a unit omits the order since it is normal impetuous, I declare that that specific unit doesn’t use the order.

To be more concrete: not putting down any markers anywhere, moving two out of four Varangians and then declaring that my impetuous phase has ended since I don’t want to use any other orders is bad play to me. As I’ve said, meta dependent, but to me it breaks the rule of transparent and traceable play.

 

I reviewed the rules for Impetuous again and I have them confused with Irregular Orders. Impetuous Orders are required to be placed next to the generating trooper.

I still think Hippo is a great model to pretend to be simply because of her abilities, but I'd probably only do it if I was afraid of Speculo/Fiday or with CoC Cho. One turn should be enough to remove any critical threats to her

 

You'd definitely want something that can go Prone.
From there it's mostly a choice of what you can sell to your opponent and his army of choice.

Personal favourite would be 1.Omega HMG/FO 2.Beta Spit/KHD/SO 3. Epsilon HMG/MSR depending on the point/SWC holes in my courtesy list.
Might even bait your opponent to waste a hacking run against it.
Going 2nd vs Impersonators/Oniwabans i'd go Varangian Guard - these guys are really bad risk/reward for your opponent and there's probably at least 2 more for turn 1 shell games.
Hyppolita is still a high value target and dies to Surprise Attack MA3+ or the usual Mine +CC a Fiday or Speculo can pull off fairly easy.
The biggest risk with going for an Impetuous trooper + Holo 1 is honestly the O-12 player cheating by accident. You'll have to actively reveal that model is not Impetuous at the start of your turn - When it becomes open Information that that specific troop doesn't generate an Impetuous Order and you are obligated to notify your opponent about that. But at least you should be safe for the initial Alphastrike.
You'll also have to prepare multiple courtesy lists and keep track of them.

Things will be somewhat obvious due to Kat Cho being by far the most convenient Lt choice in O-12. Running another potential Lt alongside her means we'll have to squeeze in a Kappa to tuck away into a corner somewhere as well. And even then speaking as an opponent I'd always suspect her by default, just because she is the virtually best choice.

 

While I don't agree that you have to notify your opponent about her not generating an order, it would be notification by omission. Very strictly speaking that she isn't impetuous and doesn't generate an Impetuous Order is strictly Private Information, even though the fact that there will not be an Impetuous Order next to her will give it away to any opponent who actually pays attention - this is entirely similar to how you don't need to point at a Kanren KHD disguised as a Kanren FO if that's your only Hacker or inform your opponent you have a Ninja Hacker that validates your REMs.

However, I do note that disguising her as a Kappa with Combi could be a clever double-bluff in order to gaslight more competent profiles that are what they actually are simply because she is such an effective LT choice. It does require you to get your opponent thinking about this so it'll probably only work occasionally within your home meta

 

I just played two missions back to back with a single K on the field. The Lieutenant. And he survived both.
And one was Firefight.

 

A Varangian is definitely a good anti assassination idea if you're going second.

 

It's not in "her" Profile if she pretends to be a Varagnian, so the second there is a discrepancy from the Profile you're pretending to be you'll have to point that out on your own.
Same as only having 3 Mines on a Minelayer Holo1 needs to pointed out by you during deployment. People don't really point out that their Acon Regular Sensor starts the game with 2 Mines as it's not all that important as long as you don't run Holo troops. But if you are a Holo trooper pretending to be a Regular Sensor next to a Zulu Combra you absolutely should take care to mention that he has 3 Mines left.
The Open Information Rules for Deployment even mention that you have to disclose Information like the number of Mines left as part of deployment.