Teucer: now that the markmanship LX is gone, I hope in normal markmanship and +1 burst. SWC 2 is too much. The K1 Profile is never used, need a big discount or replaced with another weapon; t2 sniper? . Should be linkable in agema fireteam Acmon: I would lower the cost to 25pts Drakios: too much expensive. Thamyris: Evo device; should be linkable in fireteam Atalanta : should be linkable in agema fireteam Nesaie Alkè: I would lower the SWC cost from 1.5 to 1, or add a profile with lower swc. Patroclus: too much expensive Phoenix: I would add another profile with lower swc Eudoros: needs an update cost/rules-equip Hippolyta: she is practically eudoros with other equipment, she should be have different rules. She should be have atleast another profile. Characters: many of ours characters are practically identical, they only change in weapons or equipment. Hippolyta for example is an Eudoros with different weapon and few other, Phoenix it's simply a myrmidon officer with an heavy rocket launcher, Machaon it's simply a myrmidon officer with doctor, Thamyris it's a deva hacker with pitcher, etc. Please differentiate our characters with some personal rules and abilities (also with things that now ALEPH haven't), and not only with a different weapon. Furthermore i think that most of them with only one profile need atleast another profile (and some hoplite versions); and we should have atleast one impersonation profile ***Heroes character***: the steel phalanx has been abandoned. Please add some new greek character! Why Aeneas doesn't exist in Aleph? We have many secondary greek warrior and we don't have the best trojan hero Aeneas and the protagonist of Aeneid epic poem? And Theseus! And Paris, the killer of Achilles. And the best Herakles (or Hercules). The Greek side it is the best peculiarity of Aleph, please increase it.
I'd really love some more midfield options too. Dart, Andromeda and Thrasymedes are currently SP's only infiltrators. I'd love to see some forward deployment 8" on some of our other troops. Like Drakios, Ajax or the like. To have a bit more presence outside our DZ at the start of a game.
As much as I'd like this in a technical sense I'm not a fan of it from a theme sense, with Achilles being essentially THE rambo piece. The wild super warrior who will just throw himself into battle. Hector has always been the fireteam leader. That said, I would like to see an Enomotarchos of Achilles, Patroculus, Ajax and Hector just for the lulz.
My take is that Starmada lives in the same design space as Steel Phalanx. Same concept, but less specialized (the same way Kosmoflot ripped off chunks of Caledonia. And a Volkolak is a Mormaer with 20% more slav thrown into it). Think about it: sectorial with no camo and limited long-range options, Varangian Haris with Shona or Parvati are just myrmidon enomotarchos with a different hat, etc. The tradeoff is less CC and less mimetism for a bit more flexibility and ARM. They even have their own gaggle of uncanny characters to place on the table. And some of them are even from Steel Phalanx, because the Space U.N. can't leave other people's stuff alone. Why I'm saying that? Well, part of it is ranting, but the other is that the "traditional" design space of SP has been preyed upon, so now the sectorial needs a little change of concept. I think the general vibe is going to be: - Army full of rambo pieces, but no camo, no positionable equipment (mines, pitchers, etc.), limited long-range, mediocre hacking. - No TAGs, no generic HI (that's what characters are for). - Characters with hitherto unseen rule combinations (example: Atalanta TR, Penthesilea DDO monofilament bike, etc.), possibly leased to other factions (more than now, anyway) - 4-man link teams and some duos. Triads are for Tohaa, cores are for everyone else. No mixing "types" of greek troops (not the flavor of the sectorial per se and, again, that's what characters are for) - Brittle yet elusive profiles. Wouldn't count on much NWI+shock immune. Maybe one or the other, but not both. Think 40K harlequims. Very vulnerable to bad luck, capable of doing some insane stuff if dice rolls your way.
And that’s better... but... Achilles were introduced as the optimum warrior humanity had to offer. His CC skills were only surpassed by an Oniwaban and Musashi. His Spitfire were the best all-round gun at the time. And he combined this with being the toughest and fastest HI piece in the game. Since then his CC skills have turned commonplace - heck even an artichoke sniper like Le Muet can karate chop Achilles. The Spitfire is far from the greatest gun in the game, where all the cool dudes combine it with AP ammo or special skills to get a lethal gun these days. His move is now commonplace. Sure he has a couple of extra inches on a MOV-MOV order, but what matters is the MOV-shoot. So its not like he isn’t good, but its that he has fallen behind the tech curve. His toys are outdated. Even his resilience is compromised, as anti-armor tech has become more prevalent. - So I’m just asking for a B5+ Plasma Spitfire, an MSV2, MOV 8-8, ARM/BTS 9, Total Immunity Lt. (+5 orders) with an Explosive Monofilament sword - or at least something to make him fit the fluff.
Hey CB, listen to this guy. He sounds reasonable. also keep his points cost the same :) (Edit: realizing this sounds sarcastic. It is not, you make good points I hadn’t considered.)
I super agree with this sentiment. While our golden-haired champion is still good, he has definitely fallen behind on the arms race and now seems a little too "vanilla" to feel destinct and interesting in this new landscape of wordsalad rule text units. He's a guy with great movement, good CC, good armor, one piece of very valuable visual modifier equipment, a small low-damage template weapon and a decent gun. He's a tough cookie. I don't think he would need anything to make him harder to hurt, nor should he have leadership skills. That's not his role. He is, however, the embodiment of murder and his kit should reflect that. As a midrange skirmisher he's very fast, but i really think they could give him something to get around. Climbing plus or super-jump to help him get around, SP is generally pretty bad at approaching rooftops for being such a melee-focused army, we need more tools to engage enemies in tough positions. He's fine but not really one of the apex fistfighters in the game anymore since all the modifiers has gotten bottom-heavy. I don't see the harm in him being the 4th good burst 2 fistfighter in the game, it'd support his role admirably. Mostly i'd like to see him get a rule that could support his role as a gunfighter. BS(+DA) would be super scary, but might actually be the right thing for him. Would make his spitfire a terror to behold and make his nanopulser actually viable and good. That change alone would make people really fear him again.
Lol wut? Patroclus was an incredibly effective solo piece so much so I found myself using him more than Achilles, he was also incredibly expensive and stupidly fragile for those points especially once the cancers of mixed fireteams and shock spam really set in. Even then Patroclus was one of the few troops being able to natively -12 a target without need of assistance from another piece thanks to holo 3 not having negative feedback with ODD. The fireteam duo was a worthless meme at best. If the few greek heroes we have seen so far in N4 are anything to go by we should expect him to drop a few point and pick up shock immunity. SP never had Dart, and a lack of infiltrators has been a purposeful design choice. how ever the sectorial desperately needs access to perimeter weapons, and making FD4 baseline for all their MI would help them to a considerable degree, last season it was the largest boost to their competitive viability. A lot that has changed in transition from N3 to N4 is what is going to have the biggest impact on SP. The CT to sup. fire a model is huge especially on something like the MK12 Agema (please give this thing FD4), and the tac window change is also massive for their competitive viability. The changes to dodge such that you can now have everyone dodge and still have one myrm engage that single shithead warband that tried to template you as well as being able to dodge move in active. The hacking changes mean that the hacker Myrm is no longer a liability if you take it, and you no longer need to spend points on a KHD which frees up an army slot for things that will have more impact in either the hacking space or normal table. However, there are also a number of changes that screw SP pretty hard, the biggest is the change to shotguns, now that large amounts of models are now running around with inherent B2 DTWs is a colossal kick in the head for the faction. SP is fairly fragile and relies on the ODD to not get just scooped off the table but with the shotgun changes and the proliferation of incidental DTWs on models and probably the main reason why it will probably never see much of the table this edition. Next up is the removal of delay from sixth sense, which hurts but its good for the overall game and helps with taking on opposing fireteams and getting the handful of HI we have past linked hackers. For specific changes to SP. FT Enomatarcos: keep it generic, keep it so you a character or equivalent to start it (pretty core to the theme of the army) but don't restrict the types of teams they can create. for example that way you could have a Phoenix lead Kite team or Thrasymedes in with myrmidons. Wildcard on Dactyls Ekdromoi: Combat Jump +3 and/ or Assault pistols on the hacker/CR+NP profile. and don't remove the HMG profile or at least make it an AP spitfire. Thorakitai: FD4 baseline. Scylla: Replace the HD with a HD+ Agema: FD4 Baseline. With mines and minelayer on the MK12 Hippolyta: Shock immunity and FT: enomatarcos, NCO Any character with NCO/officer in the name: NCO, this may be a bit much to be honest. New Units: Thorakitai officer, cheap character alternative with either mines or perimeter weapons and minelayer, and is generally just an upgraded Kite. Hoplite Heavy Infantry, that armour looks too cool to only be used on two models.
Immunity[Template] on Myrms and their variants would be a fantastic help to them. More practically, really good Hyperdynamics for active Dodging could also put the faction back into a competitive niche with their CC, since Enomotarchos instead of Core means they're 3 BS worse than any other Sectorial save Tohaa, and their mix-and-match gimmick is everywhere so they'll need to use that CC to stand out. Also would love to see a generic Thorakitai Officer. Back when I was getting started with Infinity I considered SP, but was put off by the fact that you were borderline required to take particular Characters in every list. Having a more standard option for the Shooty Boys of the Phalanx would be nice for variety's sake. Mines don't really fit a television-friendly officer though, I'd shift those to a link-filling extra and give the officer something heroic.
Depends if they're the asshole second in command that does their own thing. That being said I can think of some television heroes whose entire thing was hidden chunks of high explosive to take down the more numerous and stupid goons of the enemy. It's all about how you spin it. It was more a way to try and get a very useful and needed tool into the army in an amount that actually has an impact on the table.
Everyone talking about Hoplite HI, but I would mostly love an Aiodos hacker troop that can go into fireteams, or even better some kind of skirmisher journalist hackers that take pictures of our heroes while in hiding. Need more specialist in my SP. Also, a TAG for the Phalanx could be hilarious. A lion-headed Heracles TAG striking a pose for the cameras.
Nah big quadrupedal Tag like the Maggie but shaped like a horse instead of a scorpion that has impersonation that allows you to deploy a few other things with it.
Ooh, i'd love a Trojan horse TAG. Though, maybe it should have Enomotarchos and Strategic Deployment or whatever it's called instead. That's the only rule I can think of that could represent its lore. Dropbears or madtraps could also represent the carried troops. My gosh, I want that so bad actually. When CB starts looking at the Phalanx again sometime in the future I will absolutely pester them for a pony. (Heh, hackers trying to isolate the Trojan horse.)
I still think we won't be seeing generic HI or TAGs in SP, since the sectorial is the most character heavy there is and they would be the ones filling that role. Then again, Hassassin got a TAG, so what do I know... Regarding Achilles, I think Spitfire in V1 and AP Spitfire in V2 are fine. What I would do if I wanted him to be "blonde missile of pure murder" is to give him immunity (total) and berserker (+3). I'm talking about minimum tweaks here. You could also increase the armor a bit, throw in NBW and Dodge +3, but I think that little package of ignoring ammo type and landing an unopposed EXP hit to the face is good enough to have the opponent worrying. However, if you want him to be Brad Pitt the Bringer of Doom, fine. Make him a compact Jotum that knows Moai Thai, but then that's a price of +/- 90 points that I don't know I'd like to pay in an otherwise expensive sectorial.
Honestly total immunity would make him actually feel like achilles to me. But i worry that is a bit too good. berserk would be fun too.
Total immunity would be incredible on Achilles, but I think it's probably too strong. Still, I agree that he needs something. In N3, he was able to cut through most units, but with other good HI and TAGs being so prevalent in N4, he just isn't able to do as much work.
