Well, he got hella lot cheaper...and the killer hacker got to keep Lightning, kinda, making him probably the best killer hacker in haqq. I think the lieutenant profile is still tempting, though you'll have to use him more offensively than before, and he'll be more easily killed by other hackers...so he'll take a 28 points Farzan Chain of Command tax to use. But that might not be so bad, you do get an infiltrating specialist for those points after all.
"Tax" isn't a complaint, it's an assessment of the pros and cons of taking a particular unit, useful while strategizing. The game is set up such that sometimes, you can take the tool you want for the point cost you want. Other times, you can take what you want but it will cost some extra points, so you have to make a strategic decision as to whether it's worth spending the extra points. That's a tax. For example, Fidays now cost 27 points each, which is awesome! I can take a Fiday for 27, and I can take a second Fiday for 27. But if I want to take a third Fiday, I have to pay an extra 6-point tax. Is it worth it? Sometimes. I'll have to decide. Pointing that out isn't somehow suggesting that CB was wrong to make regular Fidays AVA 2 or to make Djabel cost 33 points. Similarly, @Natsymir is quite right that we have some Lts who appear to be very cheap, but who in fact cost extra because you need to pay for a Farzan if you put them in your list. It's perfectly reasonable to call that a tax. As for "bloat," I can't recall a single instance of the word being used in relation to N4 in the Haqq forum, I honestly don't know what you're referring to.
If Chain of Command is a specialist in ITS i don't consider it a tax at all. As an added benefit you can spend you Lt order openly giving you more push, while keeping your CoC protected. Even if you reveal your CoC during a specialist action your opponent needs to kill 2 models to cause LoL. I really like the fact the Barid can join the Ghulam link, as it frees up Leila. I like having a KHD in my fireteams to protect my asawiras pointman. Now that the barid does that, I can have Leila body guard in a duo with an asawira or tag.
Assuming you were planning to bring a skirmisher specialist anyway, your other option (in HB) would have been the Farzan FO. So by bringing an aggressive lt, you're paying a tax of 5 points to upgrade your FO to CoC. (You're also losing the rifle+lsg for a boarding sg, which you may or may not assess as an additional tax). No one's saying it's bad, the Farzan CoC is fantastic. It's just a simple recognition of the prices you pay to bring units. An offensive Barid Lt appears at first glance to cost 17 points, but in practice he costs a little more than that.
5 points to be able to actively use your Lt order is worth it. Given the 15 model limit, those 5 points aren't an extra ghazi in your list.
I think we're agreeing, yes. At least, so far in my Hassassin theorycrafting, I've always found it to be worth it. Not necessarily in vanilla. But a tax you're willing to pay is still a tax. The terminology is accurate and useful, which was how the conversation started. Not sure we're disagreeing on that either, I guess we've gotten off the original topic.
Sure, but I only play vanilla. And there, the Hunzakut is much better points value than the Farzan if an infiltrating specialist toolbox is what you're after. Also, with the Farzan CoC, I mostly wouldn't want to reveal it too early to do quick objecting grabbing, because I need it as backup if the Barid lieutenant dies. Whereas with the Hunzakut, I could just go straight for the objectives and sacrifice him if necessary. That's why I felt the Farzan kinda was a tax.
So I guess I'll just post my question in this thread. What does "Trinity [-3]" mean? My best guess is that it's supposed to be a mod for "Opponent mod" column, but damn it's vague and as far as I can tell is not a bad-faith-resistant way to communicate rules. Unless I'm missing something, of course.
P. 28, basic rules on MODs: " A negative MOD [-] in round brackets next to a Special Skill, Weapon, or Equipment will be applied only to enemies."
