Honestly it's less the capabilities I'd want to see and more the price: if there was another suitable option I'd have suggested it. SMGs fill a need for a high-tech discount weapon (the low tech discount weapon is a LSG). Personally I think they have too many advantages for their price, but absolutely think a weapon in that price range is desirable. (Off topic, but my personal desire is that Shock gets removed from the game entirely and replaced by, effectively, Nano ammo IE. a normal BTS roll. This would allow SMGs to be Normal/Nano, Suppression. Which I think would work well for their price: it'd also keep their feel.)
I wouldn't mind a cost reduction for Combis too. I do find the SMG to be an inferior weapon in most games. Yes, it's cheap, and that's why it stands out, but needing to be within 8 inches of an opponent to gain that +3 is extremely debilitating. If Combis saw a price reduction also, I think we'd be more aware of how useful that extended +3 rangeband is compared to the SMG.
Less of a points reduction for combis and more of a refocusing of them as a baseline IMHO. They're are too many budget options used to save points at the moment, SMGs, Chain Rifles, LSGs, etc. The 10 point Alguacile is a pretty good baseline for the game, and many troopers that overshadow then benefit massively from not having a "proper" gun, by such as Jaguars, Varangian Guard, and pretty much and Impetuous irregular smoke toting warbands. A restructuring of costs to make no weapon more than 2 points cheaper than a combi would do a lot to refocus the game. Units like Galwegians and Monks become specialist troopers that you include one or two of, rather than spam because they're cheap. Look at the Alguacile and Kappa, these should be the baselines for their factions, but they're never seen outside of filling up slots in a mixed Fireteam because there are troopers that bring more utility for fewer points.
Lol SMG is 5 points cheaper than Combi. For a slightly worse range band, better ammo, you can still go into suppression when it actually gets better than a combi. 5 point discount means you can have SMG and infiltration for the price of combi alone. I don't mind SMG staying as is, but then it should have same price as combi. And since CB wants it to be cheap weapon, well then they have to nerf it. A lot.
While the rest of your points are valid, Infinity is not a one dimensional game and the SMG's +3 rangeband covers only a quarter of the area of the Combi's, which is more than "slightly" worse.
For me, the 8-16 band of the combi ends up less used than the 0-8 one - simply because there are usually better weapons in my list that cover that band better. its also important to remember what usually packs an SMG and which profiles it shines on – infiltrators, FD troops, or back field cheer leaders that will never engage in a gunfight anyway.
I actually find SMGs can be a pain on infiltrators because it means getting into DTW range if you want the +3, not as much an issue for Dart and her effective 2W, but Malignos really feel the pain of it. Still too cheap though, if they were the same price as a BSG they'd still get taken.
I think it would be interesting in N4 if CB just got over themselves and started giving select units no guns in order to reduce their cost.
If you take into account that basically all units that have SMG have it either as pdw, additional weapon or have FD/infiltration skill and you pair that with the fact that in supp fire it has exactly same range as combi, it affects weapon and it's users slightly if at all. And it gives them hell of a discount.
Like I just wrote, it seems great on FD or Infiltration, until your Ryuken/Malignos/Strelok has to fight something with a DTW and you're forced to choose worse rangebands or a guaranteed hit on yourself. Sometimes you also come across opponent's that are smart enough to deploy with 8"+ firelanes between your infiltrators and their defensive pieces, but getting a full 16" firelane is much harder. Even if you Cautious Move or let yourself be discovered to get into +3 range it's still less order efficient than the Combi would have been. They're great for back line troopers because they're cheap and they can suppress, and they're too cheap, but range is a downside, which is why I said they should be BSG priced.
Depending on how long the time skip is, it could be that several units are amalgamated,or just used as proxies for other units, for example order sergeants, regulars, and fusileers are pretty much the same thing already... On the one hand, it makes sense that anyone can hire certain mercs for a job, on the other it would be more politically expedient in most cases to hire a mercenary company through shell corporations and intermediaries for deniability. Unless Ariadna develops some alternative to the cube, a 10-15 year time skip would put most of them into retirement anyway. That said if CB wants to make Jean Cluade Van Dam and Dolph Lundgren minis I'm totally on board with MRRF Universal Soldiers... "not 2020" is a very forgiving timeframe...
And they could do the same with Guards and ORCs, just moving their loadouts to ORCs and enabling only some options to sectorials. This way, YJ could recover its "HI faction" identity while we would lose few in term of gameplay (but that would still hurt me a lot to lose those nice units). I wonder if Peacemakers will stay and if they will still have their Mech deployment. I can see CB change it to FD2 as well. I can see Trauma Docs and Machinists becoming the same unit (the same as in JSA) with different loadouts. So, if you merge Regulars and Auxilias with Fusiliers, Guards with ORCs and Trauma Docs with Machinists, it's already 6 units disappearing from Army while still essentially here. Possible that the ORCs stats change a bit in the process too (just like what happened to Haramakis). EDIT: and as you can see, only NCA and ASA units are affected by those changes. I don't see any VIRD or MO unit disappearing for now (even if Teutons could be retired too). That's what they will sell for now with SWF after all.
Not disagreeing. But it hits the same issues Zondnautica do in TJC as a warband replacement: too expensive for any significant degree of coverage. She really needs an at most 15pt partner non Specialist partner. A 12pt (Discount weapon) + Auxbot profile would add a lot to MO and Vanilla PanO. An interesting option would actually be a Hacker specialist on that. Would be a seriously cool backline unit built that way. It'd give a solid 'warband role replacement' in a very PanO way. The other interesting option would be to give OS Combi + Auxbots an 0.5 SWC Auxbot B option. But I tend to the view Auxbots BS are just going.
Our warbands are HI. We have a bike and magisters. The paradigm of pseudo warbands is different in MO.
VIRD is new, with new sculpts and fairly popular, they're here to stay for N4. Even more so for MO, their numbers easily beat Varuna in terms of popularity. Good point on Trauma Docs and Machinists merging into some kind of singular support troop type. PanO stuff that is likely to make the cut form NCA/SAA: Swiss Guard & Aquila Guard - Both have great current sculpts, are iconic PanO troops (BS15 and TO/MSV3) important to faction identity. Pretty sure they're also fairly popular and doing alright in sales. Hexas - The MSR has been a very popular sculpt for a while now. PanO stuff possible to be axed: Regulars - As mentioned in a different thread Fusiliers and Regulars merging is a very easy choice to make for SKUs, keeping the SAA special loadouts Sectorial only (and getting rid of their version of the FO). You can still use the models exactly the same way or reboot Regulars as reskinned Fusiliers with a reboot of the Sectorial in 2022. Auxilia - Again doesn't need to be its own troop, can just be Fusiliers with Auxbots (yay for +1 BS). Akalis & Crusaders - About the blandest AD troops there are, they're even both Religious. Can see them merging into one troop by fluff means. Like the remaining Sikh's consolidating their training facilities with the Church out of pragmatism (or whatever, I'm in it for the game mechanics). I'm all for it if it gets us a redesign and some more inspired Profiles (Echo Bravos are a great example). Guarda de Assalto - doesn't do anything Special ever since most HI are 4-4 and that Auxbot can move anywhere. Consolidating it into an Orc Profile would make it a bit cheaper and Eclipse Smoke a bit easier to access. Could also be cut altogether to go with a "PanO doesn't get Smoke" theme. Locust - Giving NCA an Infiltrator might have been unnecessary and the result didn't turn out too well. With NCA getting retired he's a very possible candidate. Here's some more radical thoughts: Montesa - Still no sculpt for some reason. Might be CB preparing to correct the mistake of giving PanO a bike. Cutter & Squalo - With the Squalo surprisingly (to me) showing up in Varuna the Cutter could easily be moved to be a Varuna only Profile of the "Cutter" Squalo. They already have the same statline. With a new Cutter sculpt on the horizon it could also serve as the new Squalo. Teutons - Gone for now to return in an interesting way with a Paradiso Sectorial at some point.
While there are examples of profiles going away in their entirety (exrah and a few characters) I seriously doubt that we’ll see much completely disappear. I suspect that we’ll see a couple of profiles go away in the same way that the Haramaki and Raiden were removed from the game. We may see some shifts in profiles within a unit. They may change the nature of Acon Regulars, but they already are fusiliers, just fusiliers assigned to acontecimento. I seriously doubt that CB will completely scrap a sectorial. Even when MRRF was completely anihilated and the Tohaa completely lost access to the human sphere, we still have access to the sectorials. That’s been a diplomatic and thoughtful way to reduce SKUs while also not pissing off their customers.
1. The only one of those models that might be safe is the Aquilla. The hexa is old and both swiss models are in products that will go away. Regs: possibly but also maybe not. It's not uncharacteristic for factions to have multiple similar line troops. We shall see if they change that for all factions though. Auxilia: I would rather hope not. They need a resculpt badly, but the extension of your logic here is just to bloat the fusilier profile in each sectorial. Akalis/Crusaders: I would rather they focused on making these guys distinct and worth a damn rather than just entirely too similar and basic. I dont mind the Akalis being standard because hes cheap, but the crusader bro leans heavily on that MR/LF profile to be of note. Guarda de Assaulto: worst smoke platform in the game. Would not miss. Really needs some kick if it sticks around. Mulit-Marksman rifle would be nice and frankly a point drop. Otherwise, yeah it's an orc with a smoke bot more or less that shoots a little better and has worse armor bit that's because its plain HI with attachments. Locust: it's an odd duck, but I dont think it's worth scrapping. It needs an overhaul of its profile to bring the cost down primarily. *cough* CC padding *cough* Montessa: give it a spitfire, a red fury or a molotok damn it. It's never performed well for me unless a bizzare situation showed up where it actually worked out okay. It's too expensive to be afraid of the table because its defense isnt really that much better than a fusilier with 2 wounds. Upgrade it to ODD or give it eclipse smoke. Cutter: Bostria already mentioned it as a resculpt that needs to be done when he mentioned the Zeta sculpt. This again seems like bloating unit profiles to accommodate merging. Teutons: the only profiles performing well are the NCO and LT, and neither are super stellar. I dont know why CB is so resistant to changing them.
