I think it's grossly unbalanced that factions such as yu Jing, combined army and ariadna get 6th sense hacking whlist the so called hacking faction languishes. Factions like these have bit or kiss shooting pitchers everywhere exploding our interventors whlist thier sixth sense hackers shut down meta defining builds like the JSA banzai list. How can we stop a banzai list without sixth sense? You tell me.
Forcing a unit to use basically anything that isn't Move will turn off their Stealth for the order. Revealing an inconvenient Spektr, putting Morlocks, Puppets or Transductors out as bait for a BS Attack, covering an Objective (all the various Activate scenario skills lack Silent) or using a Minelayer to force a Dodge will all enable your Hackers to act, and Nomads aren't likely to waste their chance due to generally high quantity and quality of Hackers.
One of my friends has actually made a TAK Guided list with the thing. Nobody expects the Ariadnans to try for Hacking supremacy! They're also nasty guards against AD, since they pack the Sixth Sense shotgun even hitting them from behind will probably cost you a Wound. On the topic of getting a SS Hacker for Nomads, it's probably not a bad idea if the Fireteams update takes Sixth Sense away from Fireteams. Otherwise it's accessible enough that actually paying for the quite-expensive skill is almost enough to make a unit uncompetitive by itself. In the event CB does go that way, I'd nominate Wardrivers for Vanilla and adding the skill to Custodiers for a full Nomad quality option- it'd help the latter stand out against Interventors as well.
Well... Mines (dodging breaks stealth). Speculative/intuitive attacks. Heavy stuff shooting (geckos, Brigadas...). CrazyKoalas... Frankly, stop crying. Nomads is not the strongest hacking faction because it has the best hackers (the CA does, with WIP 17 hackers for example...), it is the best hacking faction because it has: Cheap, efficient hackers VERY good and specialized hackers Enormous amounts of repeaters they can deploy with ease Lots of remotes/STR units and engineers Adding 6th sense on top of that won't solve a thing, aside from forcing everyone else to move from troops with stealth to troops with marker state... Besides, Nomads are supposed to be the foil of Aleph, the "colonists" who can thrive against a what is essentially the Genius Loci of Maya... and I struggle to see them having anything close to a hard time laughing and the Big 'ol bunny.
Not sure if OP is serious or this is some kind of meta troll but you realise you can get a Sixth Sense Hacker by putting them in a 4 trooper+ core fireteam right? Which all Nomad sectorials can do, typically with a Firewall Tinbot to boot. It's pretty strong in defence played right. Vanilla is a different kettle of fish, but then in Vanilla you can take things like Morans + Interventors. Crazy Koalas ignore stealth, often forcing an opponent to dodge and take a normal roll hack from the Interventor, or take a dam 15 hit from the Koala. I wouldn't object to a Nomad hacker having Sixth Sense natively - it might be an interesting differentiator for a new character or something. But I don't think it is essential. Also, one of the best N4 players of 'Banzai charge' JSA in our meta advised me that the best way to handle it is not to hide, leave everything out to shoot (in an intelligent way, overlapping LOF and to advantageous ranges ofc). That seems like OK advise against something that wants to charge across into CC with you.
To be fair the old 'Tates were over costed and awful. I feel like that played more a role in why they weren't taken.
To be fair paying for Sixth sense when other line troops could get it for free by forming fireteams is a big part of why too though.
Isn't a line trooper hacker in a 4 or 5 member link what the original post is asking for? or is it specifically about nomad vanilla ?
Offtopic Would you mind to give me an example of a list for banzai charge and some rough ideas how it's played? I don't have JSA Players in my meta and have heard of this term several times now. I would really like to know what to expect if I should ever encounter one.
Haris, duo, or even core of cheap, short-range, melee-bersker included HI troops with EM (Tanko, Domaru...), probably with smokers (Yojimbo, Kuroshi Rider), and some Big Game Hunters hidden (Shinobu, Saito -who also carries smoke-, oniwaban, ninjas...)... I think "Banzai charge" is used as a Japanese evocation of a Leeroy Jenkins charge... and since more or less the only units that charge into melee in JSA are the HI, well... (the other melee-oriented ones, those do not charge. Those ambush).
Slapped together in 5 minutes. BANZAI ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 1 2 OYAMA Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, E/M CC Weapon, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29) DOMARU (Lieutenant) Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (0 | 21) DOMARU Spitfire / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (1.5 | 33) TANKŌ Missile Launcher / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 27) TANKŌ Missile Launcher / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 27) DOMARU (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, E/M Grenades, Flash Pulse / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (0 | 29) SHIKAMI Contender, Flash Pulse / Assault Pistol, AP + DA CC Weapon. (0 | 45) GROUP 2 4 1 1 SHINOBU Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 44) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 9) YOJIMBO Contender(+1B), Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, Crazykoala / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 18) 5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
Yeah basically a link of their cheap CC monster HI that charge across the board and dismantle anything in their path. Which is especially dangerous in a meta that tends towards null defence (no long range AROs, everything hides). If the HI have stealth they can bypass the forward hacking nets many such defences use to slow an advance if the defending hackers do not have sixth sense. Thats the basic idea but a couple nice features that help it work are: their cheap wildcard engineer that can go in that link to repair states (and is non hackacble) and Oniwaban / Shinobu who can remove key pieces if you do stand them up. A decent way to deal with it according to my friend who has won a few events with it is to leave out more carefully placed mid ranged AROs so they have to negotiate interlocking fire to get to your key pieces. For Nomad sectorials I'd definately recommend both a hacker in your core link (to get sixth sense) and a repeater net, plus maybe a core linked HI ML out to slow them. Vanilla can make a much more distributed defence - basically spread out and take things that are annoyingly inefficient to kill like camo (esp with e/m templates), puppets, pupniks, morans, flashpulse bots etc.
The Reverend Custodier would be the perfect candidate for 6th sense. I mean she already costs enough to justify some more special skills without a price raise