This is a little disingenuous as Nomads absolutely can brute force you AND control. Equally S0 deployable repeaters on rooftops or behind buildings aren't trivial to shoot at and can't be as effectively Spec Fire'd away with GL range nerf. (I'm still not 100% how hacking, fireteams, repeaters, and stealth work but I'm tentative that a hacker in a fireteam can spotlight a stealth unit). "Just reset" conveniently ignores the fact that you're in repeater range with a -3 mod. Likelihood is you've just been Targeted again as you move out of range (assuming you're not hackable). Now this is a good order burning strategy and I'm glad it's viable now. However, it feels oppressive when the opponent can impose it with negligible risk to themselves and minimal investment (points or orders). This all circles back to the way everything interacts and the ease at placing repeaters in the opponent's half with no real risk in doing so. EDIT: The best solution I can see to it is making repeaters a bit more of a double-edged sword. It should be a calculated choice to place one in the enemy half rather than a no-brainer get-as-many-down-as-you-can. How that's implemented has been discussed previously so I won't delve into again.
Spending more than 1/3 of the list and half a group pool order is not what I would call negligible. A position repeater in enemy deployment zone is not so trivial to do, most of the time it needs to face aro pieces an a sucesfull plan in other regards. About stealth v 6th sense. In active (for the hacker) stealth means nothing. In reactive stealth doesn't work against the 6th sense trooper (it doesn't matter ir 6thS triggers, stealth will not work). That has not changed from n3 Enviado desde mi M2004J19C mediante Tapatalk
If you need to force AROs to place the Repeaters you are either a) not positioning your Pitcher-shooting unit properly or b) lucky that you have something your Kriza/Grenzer/Moira/Whatever can kill without having to cross the table to do so. Yes, placing them all the way into the opponent's DZ is a bit iffy unless you use a Sputnik, but this shouldn't take more than about 3 orders to do if you really need to. Not to mention that your objective shouldn't always be placing a Repeater in the opponent's DZ - putting an average of about 4 Repeaters in those 3 orders along the middle of the table is at least as viable. Add in the forward position Repeater that at least Corregidor has access to and you'll have a tactical nightmare for your opponent to solve for relatively low investment. This is, I do need to say, something most factions can't do. But there's a few that can besides Nomads.
I can partly agree with that, but because it depends on the table. Most of tables I've played don't have that access for a pitcher in a rof with so minimum order expenditure. If you want minimum orders, movement will expose the pitcher trower to aros. If there is not that expositure, usually us because it will spend more orders. But if in each game, the pitcher trower can position freely, put the repeater in a good spot, in 3 orders or less, and without having to expose it to aro... Maybe the problem is the tables you play, which allow it and benefit that kind of easy game for the hacker. In the tables I've seen, most of the time is not so easy and need a lot of order and points investment. For example, in 2 interplanetario I've been, only 2 of 12 tables were so good for that kind of hacking setting PD: kriza, grenzer (the MSR linked one, because all other options are just average) or moira (another average one) are not avaiable to linked jazz with morans
That's usually my first rebuttal as well, but the Tsyklon sort of ignores large parts of terrain and range related issues with climbing+ and X-Visor.
Nomads are the hacking faction, guys, you can't expect to win hacking VS them. And the shooting faction. And the gadgets/skills faction. And the HI faction. And the fireteams faction. And the camo faction. And the midfield shenanigans faction. And the REM faction. Working as intended finally, stop trying to encroach into Nomad's faction identity and clearly defined weaknesses. They are being mistreated enough because Armihaul doesn't like their lore.
And the TAG faction, the alternative tech faction, the big bank faction, the ilegal AIs faction, the mad-drugged-convicts faction, the religious fanatics faction, the everything faction! That for sure is healthy for the game... Enviado desde mi M2004J19C mediante Tapatalk
Nope, and I didn't do that. Sure it does. Flanking is attacking someone in a way that you have cover and they don't - the analogous way of using this via hacking is hacking through your own repeater, or, in N3, using a KHD. Nope, it bolsters it, because it shows that Nomads have been given an inordinate amount of goodies compared to other factions that are supposed to be "good at hacking." It's not a strawman. I agree that Jazz doesn't meaningfully expose herself by skeeting repeaters everywhere. I'm saying that's a problem, and she should be forced to, one way or another.
Can I see your math on that? I ran it through the dice calculator and saw that Anathematic using Trinity through Jazz's repeater had like a 16% chance of inflicting a wound on Jazz (and Jazz had about a 10% chance of inflicting one back). EDIT: Actually, looking at it, where I had to make sure to translate the tinbot into cover and lower modifiers to the Anathematic properly, I'm seeing 28.05% for the Anathematic vs. 16.22% for Jazz to inflict at least one wound, which is probably not a good investment during the active turn. You're also eating AROs from every other hacker the Nomad player has, and they're probably using Oblivion instead. And we have to keep in mind the points disparity - 19 points vs. 76.
It's running it through odds calc too. It's a bit rough and ready so I'm sure it's likey we are both making little errors with it that affect the chances. Basically it's B4 (+1B) Trinity on WIP13 (+3, -6) dam14 vs BTS9for the Anathematic vs B1 WIP 17 (+3) dam 15 fVs BTS6 or Jazz, if its through Jazz repeater. Which I agree isn't amazing odds but you also have to consider you are going after a profile that specialises only in the very vector you are attacking it through, in an unfavourable way (through its own repeater). You dont have to chosse to do that, but if you do you still have better odds. Also, that to get all the bonuses you're counting into the equation (Tinbot, sixth sense, long range pitcher) the points are actually pretty close to even, and the Anathematic can do a lot of things Jazz cant, including shrug off a wound. If the Anathematic plays to it's advantage and you don't add all those advantages (Tinbot, Fireteam bonuses) that do cost pts to Jazz then the Anathematic punks hers easily. If the Anathematic attacks a Jazz that just costs her actual point value, especially through it's own repeater (Which combined also have good access to) you have to be unlucky not to remove her almost trivially (B4 WIP19 BTS9 Dam14 vs B1 WIP14 BTS6 Dam15). Or you could just speculo her (or Friday her or Andromeda her or Grief operator her or AD her or Uxia her or Bran her or Mirage 5 her or spec fire her or climb a building with a TAG and drop plunging fire on her or accept a hack and do the mission with other models or any other number of situational solutions). Thats playing the game.
@Hachiman Taro The only real way you're landing a repeater on Jazz cross-table in Combined Army is if you're firing it out of a fireteam, which means you don't have an Anathematic. So I really think that's a red herring. Saying "that's playing the game" is condescending and inaccurate considering the situation. Hackers like Jazz and Interventors need to be assailable through hacking (at better odds than 28.05 vs. 16.22 %) because other factions are supposed to be able to compete at hacking as well, and you shouldn't have to rely on diving your opponent's DZ with an impersonator turn 1 to advance into the midfield. If you lean into a hacking-heavy (or TAG-heavy) strategy it shouldn't be a matter of "Oh, I ran into CJC or TJC, guess I'll lose now because my hackers just can't compete." The old paradigm - where even high-tier hackers had to be wary of KHDs - needs to be brought back to a certain degree. Either other factions have to be given hackers which are equally bullshit, or, preferably, the availability and quality of tools to counter enemy hackers' ability to molest your troops needs to increase. A few factions are balanced around the idea that they *can* deal with problem hackers through hacking, but it's not true in practice because of how strong some of these high-BTS hackers or hackers protected by Tinbot-Bs are. The whole situation needs another look, because currently it's too safe of a strategy to sit behind repeaters using Spotlight and just killing any enemy hackers (including KHDs) that are in the area. I understand why Nomad players like this fact, for the same reason that Tohaa players like Symbiomates, but removing interactivity is not good in game where everything else lives and dies by it.
Bit+Kiss has 78% chance of sticking at least 1 Repeater down across table just inside the opponent's DZ from her starting location if the table is moderately generous. 57% of sticking 1+ down just about anywhere they can gain LOF. She can repeat this 2 times across 3 orders provided you have one of your obligatory Ikadrons near KISS, after that reloading takes 2 orders. Consequently, Combined is just about the only vanilla faction where this is doable. Nomads have to make use of camouflaged Panda carriers to do stuff like this reliably.
An Anathematic vs Jazz in its own active turn through its own repeater has way better odds than that. If it's deliberately hacking her through her own repeater (which it doesn't have to do, even if its near one, because of marker state), you're doing it wrong. Like trying to out shoot an MSV sniper through smoke when you don't have MSV wrong. And you still have something like double the chance of winning, and triple the wounds to try it with. The Hacking faction does have some good if squishy hackers though, sure.
Since when being "the something faction" warrants absolute supremacy over that something? Let's gloss over the fact Nomads are not sacrificing anything to be "the hacking faction" and are in fact "the everything faction", can you tell me what the "something" is for the rest of the factions and how that gives them an overwhelming advantage when using it? (spoiler: it doesn't) If faction identity is supposed to define the strong points of a faction, why does that only happen for some factions while others either don't have a faction identity or it's been trampled to the ground by giving it to other factions? Why can Nomads shoot as well as PanO but PanO is not allowed to hack for shit because they are not "the hacking faction" but "the shooting faction"? Should PanO completely dominate shooting to the point Nomads dominate hacking? I mean, it's only fair, right? Then we can go faction by faction to check what each one should dominate too
What??? One BS14 non-TAG hero troop now means being on par with Pano? How about an assortment of BS15 G:remote Presence TAGs? Or dirt cheap BS12 fusiliers (who can then showball their BS even more in link)? Are you seriously comparing one Grenzer MSR Marksmanship in link to the whole Pano in terms of shooting?
In practical terms, it's damn close with the current meta of many Order cheerleaders and about 5-6 troops as active elements of the list plan. Especially for the faction built to be explicitly poor at direct confrontation when compared with others, relying on skills and equipment to create indirect options for attack. I wouldn't be anywhere near as annoyed about the current situation if NCA could access something close to, but slightly inferior to, the Nomad Hacking infrastructure the way Nomads loses about 2 BS compared to PanO shooters. We're halfway there with Peacemakers but with no dedicated infowar troops at all it isn't feasible to put more than token effort into defending the network.
Calling Nomads the "everything faction" seems exaggerated for dramatic effect. Look no further than the Nomad command structure. It's nearly comical how far they are behind when it comes to things like lieutenant choices in general, Ltd's with +1 Order/Command Token, Ltd swc tax, Strategos, Chain of Command and NCO. I do agree though that when it comes to hacking the game seems skewed heavily towards a few factions so there is definitely room for improvement but there are two things that are happening right now that might have a big impact on the whole hacking in N4 topic and faction identity in general: 1. The fact that Military Orders got sectorial specific troops. Not Characters or mercenaries, no, actual stand alone troops with their own profiles exclusive to the sectorial. That opens up a whole bunch of possibilities when it comes to vanilla/sectorial balance as well as faction identity and flavour. 2. The coming fireteam changes. I know that now all hacking issues right now are fireteam related, but a lot of them are. Be it giving those Pitchers B2 and and a higher chance to hit their mark, or supporting hackers with Sixth Sense. Either way - the fireteam changes will have a lasting impact on the hacking sub-game and the balance in general. Because of those reasons I'll withhold judgment for now and see what the near future brings.
