I actually think OSS does need it to help make Yadu or Asura focused lists viable. Those builds can find it hard enough to go beyond limited insertion, so having protection if you take a 2-4 model support section helps a lot. On the off-the-board Lieutenant issue, Making it so the list Lieutenant being off the board doesn't cause Loss of Lieutenant probably allows you to eliminate the Executive Order skill. There's no need to steal command if you've had it from the beginning. Fluff wise, just explaining it as "Remember, the old man will be dropping in behind them after we have them distracted." should make enough sense for most players.
Wait, do we want people to be able to be immune to Loss of Lieutenant by reserving a Hellcat Lt. and never dropping it in?
He's got a SWC cost, but you could also add something about the LT has to be on the board by the end of Turn 2 to avoid LoL turn 3.
Compared to making your units all irregular if they target your LT? Not really a loss in the big picture
You could possibly do something where if you end your turn while your Lt. is in reserve they are no longer your Lt., triggering CoC or going in to LoL the following turn. Basically paying to defend against alpha strike LoL. But being able to just hold it off until turn 3 doesn't sound good to me.
New suggestion: No critical hits with impact templates Edit: turns out it was an old suggestion that was pretty much taken on board a year ago
Depends on the faction, I guess. I'd rather have a Daoying or Zulu Cobra in camo on a rooftop who can actually contribute.
You could potentially make the AD LT thing workable if you had to spend other resources- for example, adding LTs off table not causing LoL to the laundry list of things EVO devices can do. Expanding that to allow things such as Chain of Command and Counterintelligence might even make Singh good. However, that means you could be put in LoL if the enemy takes out your EVO, which is usually pretty easy, if they figure out you have assets off the table.
Sure. It makes them a good choice if factions that have access to them. But is that a bad thing: In Nomads they compete with Interventors and Securitate. Effectively you lose 2 orders per turn in T1/2 compared to them by running a Hellcat Lt. That's good, but with a 0.5 SWC tax on top, it's really doesn't replace either choice. In CJC, you're largely looking at replacing an Alg Lt. This is a strict buff to CJC, but hardly revolutionary: it's usually easy enough to keep their Alg Lts alive. I'm also still probably taking the Alg Lt if I want to be able to use my Hellcat aggressively earlier than T3. In YJ they compete with Daoying. Honestly, to my mind they strictly lose out in that exchange and that's before you consider the prevalence of NCO. In Onyx, well you probably still need to find room for a Nexus hacker anyway so you're now down 24/1 SWC that you wouldn't have use on a Combi Noct. You also use up one of your Noct AVA. Useful, sure. Broken, not even close. Shas is a little bit better off, but Mentors give you an SWC 0/22pt option that isn't too dissimilar. The addition of Counter intelligence is probably far more useful. Aleph gets 2/SWC Dasyus. If someone wants to pay that much to sit a non-Spec Dasyu in HD for 2 turns in a faction where CoC and good active Lts are a thing, I certainly won't stop them. Several of those factions have a strong resistance to LOL anyway (hard to kill Lt + easy access to CoC). So it's not like giving them another path to that will cause stupid results. I'm honestly not seeing a downside other than "but they're immune to LOL". So what?
They currently don't, When an impact template weapon fires and crits ONLY the main target is crit as though it was a normal shot with all other models under template treating it as if it wasn't a crit. For example a Hardcase rounds the corner on some myrmidons in cover and decides to blast the closest one with a LSG, and the myrms declare Dodge. The HC crits the lead myrm on 8 putting it down, however the other myrms that dodged 2 manage to dodge because they rolled better and the one that didn't still can take an armour save. Though this is a moot point what with the crit mechanic changing in N4.
I was going to say that I think you might be understating the effects of an HD Noc Lt in Onyx... but then I realized that even a Noc on the board as a TO marker is hard to dislodge and I never consider it for the LoL protection.
That's not how it works unless it's been clarified recently? It's still a Crit, it just doesn't do any the Crit damage.
Q: What happens when a troop rolls a Critical with a Template Weapon that affects more than one troop? A: The main target of the attack suffers the Critical effects of the Special Ammunition, weapon, or rule, for example Normal Ammunition will cause the target to lose one Wound/Structure, bypassing the ARM or BTS Roll. The Roll will not count as a Critical against the other troops, instead counting as a success that can be beaten by higher Rolls. http://wiki.infinitythegame.com/en/Criticals If a crit affected everything under a template equally that would be all kinds of dumb.
Honestly, a decent explanation of Primary and Secondary Targets as game nomenclature would fix this and several other related issues.
5 guys aren't being critted at once, the only way that could happen is if you split burst with a B5 weapon and get obscenely lucky.