You're assuming Spiral goes first. If spiral goes second they may well find themselves with dead impersonators or ones that were forced to deploy too far away to be useful and their options begin and end at a KHD in their DZ to try and do something about this. If I'm going first against Impersonators I'd just be sticking the high value Interventor in spitting distance of a core link. If the opponent is retarded enough to deploy Impersonators near them the core fireteam will just curb stomp them. Cybermask also comes with the limitation of it is very easy to discover and pull the unit out of it (correct me if I'm wrong but TO/ODD/etc still NFBs with Cybermask). If the defenses are layered correctly there's a high chance they'll get wrenched out of cybermask while still in trigger range of shit, or just in a really shit position to try and take a gunfight with a TacBow in general. Trying to run into a DZ with cybermask is still a difficult ask.
It's 8 inches of guaranteed movement, at the least, and usually a fair bit more if the enemy hasn't layered their defenses properly. If ISS could put up ARO more respectable than a Celestial Guard MSR without gimping its whole list, there'd be room for Turn 2 KHD play after the defenses have been pulled out of order trying to develop their positions followed by a Su Jian to the face on Turn 3 to pull out the win. But it can't, because ISS was built for a different era of the game and hasn't seen the overhaul it needs yet. And yes, Mimetism has NFB.
Celestial Guard not sucking doesn't really come into it sadly in this case, your army by this point has probably already been totally fucked by the hacker. An entire MO Crusade team got bricked in one turn by an Interventor at this week's game day. Wasn't much they could do about that.
How many orders did it take? Because Hospis and Joan have BTS6 and there should have been a Tinbot -3 on the team. Not impervious to hacking by any means but still tough to crack.
Regarding hacking and being inside ZoC of a Repeater, I kinda hate how they removed your ability to apply guts roll after a successful Reset. That’s actually a pretty big deal against active turn hackers in many situations, as well as being less oppressive.
Ninjas are 39.3 vs 9.6 with Surprise Attack and 33.8 vs 15.8 without vs an Interventor. That's in line with most BS Attack FTFs, except that there's zero chance of you taking a wound. Against the aforementioned Moderator that's 71.9 vs 7.1 and 65.1 vs 11.3. That's as close to a sure thing as you get in a FTF (ok, I lie: doing this to a Fusi Hacker is closer). Trinity is not bad in active. Midfield Koalas and Mines cost SWC and noticeably limit the amount of guns you can run in the list: a Nomad list Hacking list with both Mines and Koalas is probably running at least 2SWC on just Hackers and Deployables (you can easily find yourself at 3 SWC just on Hackers, AD Repeaters and Minelayers in a Vanilla list). Yes, it is hard to get a KHD into postion to attack a cannily deployed Hacker. But for the vast majority of Hackers when you do it's a death sentence. Marker states is, BTW, one of the major weaknesses of Morans: basically you can waltz right past them.
Cybermask losing NFB would be a buff for a lot of KHDs (still would get Discovered on flat WIPs but being able to benefit from Mimmetism on the Order you're revealed would be huge). But Custodiers would benefit, so 0 chance or it happening.
Keep in mind certain impersonators that Spiral has access to (namely Jaan Staar) can be... very difficult to remove without losing models, due to having 2 wounds, a DTW in his shotgun, and Shock Mines. Nothing you can't clear out with effort, but it's not going to be a "Curb Stomp" if he's deployed correctly and not just out in the open; e.g. behind cover and with a Taagma Sniper and Clipsos in HD covering his backside. At any rate; there's good reasons why anyone taking a Kiel-Saan is super-encouraged to throw an Engineer in the list somewhere. The big boy IS going to get bricked at some point and you're going to need to be able to un-brick him when it happens. Doesn't work as well vs. Missile bots, obviously, but it's something.
Those odds aren't good enough. You have 1 Ninja, and dependant on where AROs are staggered around, potentially 1 crack at this before you get shot in the face attempting it or smacked by another hacker in the same repeater network (assuming the Interventor is standing under a repeater to help protect himself by getting hacking backup). Rolling under 40% for what is probably a single attempt on a must neutralise model that either goes down or it assfucks your army 5 ways to sunday isn't good enough to be considered a balanced option, especially when it takes a shitload of orders to work your way up to the target as well. That game I mentioned that went down with MO and Nomads, with the Interventor spending a turn bricking his opponents entire fireteam, that list ran Mary on top of the Interventor. Good luck for this Ninja having more than 1 attempt at this against that list. We're talking about trying to (foolishly) aggressively deploy them in your opponents DZ when you're not going first. The core link/warbands etc is going to beat the shit out of them. Whether or not you sacrifice some models to do it doesn't really fix the issue of that model no longer solves your "kill the interventor or you're getting guided missiles up your ass in t-minus 5 minutes." And as has been said to death, nobody gives a shit about those basic bitch hackers they're not really the issue here. I really wish you'd stop trying to parade it about as some kind of shitty "proof" that KHDs are balanced because it's got fuck nothing to do with the argument. Nobody cares that Trinity can kill basic bitch hackers good, they want another program to make the BTS9 juggernauts not a fucking nightmare to deal with, and as has been demonstrated you can make a lower burst AP program that doesn't fuck over the basic hackers while still being more useful than closing your eyes and praying against top end hackers.
Sub 40% odds on causing LOL from inside ZOC with the most basic Marker State KHD going is reasonable though. Interventors are built to be a broadly viable LT options, so this is a consideration. It's one of the reasons I'd prefer to see Carbonite and Oblivion's damage profiles swapped around. I DO think Oblivion is too easy to get off right now. I honestly wouldn't be opposed to giving Ninja KHDs Trinity (AP) certainly to JSA/Ikari/ISS and maybe to YJ. It would be entirely characterful. I am also a little surprised that the Kanren Sniffer didn't get replaced by a Kanren Dep Rep Minelayer. Would have been in character and would have paired well with ZY and Crane Hackers. I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that certain factions have been left behind in the Hacking game, I just don't think that widespread access to a program that invalidates BTS as a defence for Hackers is a good idea.
Not when I must kill this fucker in one shot or he is going to destroy me utterly. Flat out without question those odds are insufficient, I'm on the clock here. Mr Interventor has an entire game to fuck me over as I my tools don't trivially reach across the table and destroy him without LOF. I need his ass dead turn 1 or I have bricked fireteam like some poor MO sod who thought they could run HI links into Nomads and not get fucked over. Unfortunately that is the current status of the metagame for people who play lists that aren't built from the ground up to be hacking resistant.
Me: so basically you just want to nerf Interventors Hecaton / Triumph: no it's not just Interventors Me: OK, so then an low burst AP program won't help because I can cause the same issue with Moderators Triumph: nobody gives a shit about those basic bitch hackers... they want another program to make the BTS9 juggernauts not a fucking nightmare to deal Me: oh so it IS just Interventors that you have a problem with.
Pan-O also have a BTS 9 hacker running around, the inability to project repeaters makes it less ball busting though. More the point is the Interventor-esque profile as a baseline is a problem balance wise. Who's to say Haqq, CA or Aleph don't pick up a BTS 9 hacker in the future.
I'll take that as a yes then, you literally just want to nerf Interventors. Cool. Good that we've got that settled.
No, I want to nerf BTS9 hackers in general in the sense that the game needs more widespread available tools to deal with them the same way the game needs tools to deal with ARM9 shit as well. The Interventor being the most common problem causing one that exists right this instant is irrelevant. Trying to deflect this as a factional argument is sad, knock it off. If the Interventor taking one for the team in the process of getting better game balance is collateral in this process? Oh well, talk your woes out with a USARF player I'm sure they're in a great mood to listen to how hard you'd have it.
I think this is something that needs to be addressed on the ISS side. Baseline Ninja aren't exactly meant to be on level with Fidays or Shinobu for assassination duty anyway, they're more reliant on being sneaky and picking soft targets or exploiting mistakes, so the faction needs to not be screwed over if their one discount assassin blows its shot. Kanren or Bao being able to quickly take out midfield Repeaters in active combined with general Guided nerfs might do it, but I'm not familiar enough with the army to be sure. I am pretty sure that having less assassin play in the game is generally desired though, so I try to avoid proposing them as solutions.
It's the long range offensive repeaters being hurled all over the table that cause the most pressing issues, they're the things that put the massive impetuous on the hacking vulnerable player to need to rush down his opponent's hackers. I still think repeaters should trigger AROs when used.
If you can find a way to make that work smoothly in the game it will rocket to the top of my list for potential solutions. I'm pretty sure there's a reason CB haven't tried to implement it though, probably granting a bunch of unecessary Dodges or making Troopers with Repeaters awkward to use.
TBH I don't think it's very difficult to implement, just treat it the same as activating another trooper at the same time as the hacker. I mean troopers with repeaters are normally hiding out of LOF when they're using them, not usually standing in front of an opponent as none of them have marker states. Unlikely they'd get shot. As far as giving out dodges for ZOC ARO, I'm ok with that it's thematic and probably wouldn't break the bank. Let it happen. Think Outrage during the mission, the team is scrambling about trying to shut down the repeaters to help Uhahu shut down the Druze hacker before she can fuck over Beba any further.
I might give it some playtesting then. I'm planning to write up a short narrative campaign for friends to play in a league, might be a fun scenario to run a Transmission Matrix variant under those rules.
