Hmm ... a Nomads hacker is "too good" at hacking. It's like saying a PanO HI ist too good at shooting. Get over it, Nomads has good hackers. Otherwise the whole faction wouldn't make any sense. Regarding the Gator: Is it good? Looks like it. Is it cheap? Compared to other TAGs (Lizard), yes. Did Corregidor need it? No. But now the really important questions: Does it make Corregidor broken? No. Is it meta-defining like the Wildcard Kamau Sniper was, when it appeared? No. If you ask me, it should have been CJC-only, like the Gwailos is SEF only. This way it would not compete with the Lizard in Vanilla. On the other hand, what's the cool synergy between McMurder and the Intruder? Because of his smoke? It's the same synergy the Jaguars have with the Intruder. Is the Intruder even played anymore? Did not Sixth Sense from Fireteams make him obsolete? Or am I missing a "cool new trick"?
This statement doesn't hold any water. The uberhackers belong in Tunguska and while you are talking about factions themes, you then should agree to nerf Corregidor camo, HI, REM and TAGs as they shouldn't be as optimized as they are because they are encroaching in another faction's themes; or what you are saying is it's ok for Nomads to have optomized hackers + optimized TAGs + optimized skirmishers + optimized REMs + optimized HI? Also, there is no shooting piece in PanO coming close to what Jazz does with hacking. Hell, they don't even get B6, which Nomads do.
I would not try to defend B6 ... heck, CB does not even sell 6 dice in a pack ... And yes, it's okay for Nomads to have optimized Skirmishers, Hackers and REM. And just because one (!) TAG is some points cheaper than it should be, it's still no Sphinx or Avatar or Cutters, so ... no reason to riot. And russian hackers, well Jazz is a named character, so IMO she can be better than non-named characters. And Mary still is better than Jazz (Oblivion +1B and Trinity AP is beating Jazz' Trinity +1 Damage by far), just much more expensive because of ODD and all her other shenanigans. Jazz is just plain hacking efficiency. "what Jazz does with hacking" ... what does Jazz with hacking? Nothing. Nomads always had hacking superiority. To have "more" superiority is meaningless. A really good hacker in Nomads doesn't destroy balance. If you put Jazz in Ariadna or PanO then, yes, this would be troublesome. In Nomads it's just like another BS15 HI or TAG in PanO ... meaningless.
When the answer to "do you really believe Nomads and specially Corregidor should have optimized everything" is "yes because we are Nomads" i don't think i can say anything else. So having "more superiority" is meaningless, should PanO then have a 64 points Cutter or maybe should YuJing get an ARM8 W2 ODD Infiltrating HI with a HMRC for 50?
The real reason people rate Jazz much higher than Mary is because Jazz easily links with a -6 Tinbot which puts her leagues ahead of Mary in a hack fight, plus she has White Noise.
I never said anything like this. If Corregidor is so uber-optimized as you say, why doesn't win it every game then? And no, I don't believe Nomads should have everything. It has no Uber-TAGs, with the Kriza it once had an Uber-HI, but now it's just another Mimetism HI, I'd prefer the Swiss Guard ... or Sheskiin ... I'd welcome her in Nomads. Not comparable. Jazz can not kill your whole army. She is just a self-defence tool to prevent TAGs and HI from running rampant through your Nomads. Even if Jazz would be completely free, she would not destroy balance. It's just hacking. Mostly in ARO, Offensive hacking still is complicated. With Mary you can try to isolate some enemies, thanks to her +1 B. But Jazz ... she is just holding enemy HI and TAGs at bay. Or another example. What if Jazz has some twins? Or triplets? Would a second or third Jazz do any more to hacking? Nope. All what Jazz does is maybe (only maybe) freeing up some points from Hacking that can be used for offensive tools. Nothing more. Mary once won me a game alone, just because of her other skills. ODD, Climbing plus, Dodge+3 ... with Jazz? Not possible.
Jazz is so much more than that. Jazz w/tinbot core link, 2 morans and a vertigo is oppressive. Mary's not in her league...
I guess technically blowing these models off the table with guided missiles does qualify as "holding them at bay."
Only if you are hackable. That's the difference. An HI or TAG can kill every unit on the table, Jazz only the hackable ones Guided Missiles ... isn't every faction capable of doing this? And isn't this higly luck dependable? I don't know, not my playstyle. If Guided Missles are a problem, don't blame Jazz, blame the Guided Missiles.
No, they're pretty consistent thanks to link team bonuses and putting Pitchers where you want them which again, no, not every faction is capable of doing this. Jazz has exceptional Programs, Pitcher access, and with her ability to core into uber Tinbots coupled with BTS6 plus excellent Engineer support she can pretty much brute force dismantle hacking defenses if she desires to eliminate a key target. I've always had a good chuckle at @Zewrath's I assume covid delayed discovery of Nomad hacking being utter cancer to deal with. I still think that quote holds up a solid summary of why you're defending a pretty indefensible position of Jazz not being a serious threat.
What has Jazz to do with Guided Missle Fireteam Boni? Valerya has a Pitcher as well, as does Mary (only in Vanilla though, cause you are talking Fireteams) what does the Tinbot do during active turn Guided Missle Attacks? I don't get it. Maybe I missed something important here and this would be an easy way to finally blow PanO off the table, but like I said, this is not my playstyle. Okay, if it guarantees a victory, I might try it, but ... I doubt it. Yes, Jazz is a great hacker, but I doubt she is improving Guided Missles in Fireteams. Does she help the Guided Missles in any way? And wouldn't Valerya do the same thing? She's linkable as well, with Pitcher and all.
...she's an insanely good and cheap linkable hacker profile that can't effectively be assailed through her repeater net and will dominate any enemy hackers that try. It's pretty hard to miss just by looking at the profile and the fireteam options.
Yes, one of the downsides to Guided Missiles is they have a list footprint in that they take up several slots to get it going. Jazz is highly optimised, she fits any link, brings high value support ware (white noise), also doubles as an enhanced KHD so you can fight off Veteran Hackers, brings her own pitchers, and has above average stats to win infowar fights so you can hit people with missiles. Jazz is dead simple to work into any list because she's a wildcard while being almost autoinclude because she has White Noise. Comparatively Mary the Uberhacker cannot link with a Tinbot which both makes her easier to pick off for an opponent as well as less likely to manage to punch through defenses to get missiles flying in her active turn. She takes up more real estate in your list because taking Mary means you don't get a slot for something else, whereas Jazz was always going to turn up as a 22pt fireteam filler member. As an opponent who has to play into this, Mary is a difficult but plausible lone target to kill. Jazz is close to impossible without extreme rules like Impersonation. Castled inside a core link with a Tinbot means the only way I kill her before she has an opportunity to drop a missile on me means I literally have to table my opponent and break their entire core link over my knee with extreme violence because hacking her is out of the question.
And .... Valerya does the same? Only because you "think" you could win the Nomads Infowar when talking Valerya doesn't mean that's the case. But I see your problem is more Linkability as well as Guided Missles. Maybe you should adress this, not that Nomads have a good and cheap hacker. On the other hand, there are lots of other things that are not easy to deal with. I admit, I neither played against nor with an army using Guided Missles, but as far as I remember this is highly luck dependable. If it isn't then maybe this is the problem. Again, Nomads having a cheap Hacker like Jazz is no problem. It's the same problem as PanO having a Swiss Guard or SEF having Sheskiin. Except that Swiss Guard and Sheskiin work against everything on the board. I once had a game against Tohaa, Tri-Core in the middle of the board, mid to late game. I had nothing in active turn that had better stats than the Artichoke's in ARO and I had no chance to walk around them. Does that mean Tohaa are completely broken (okay, I think Tohaa are, but that's another point) A single lost game doesn't mean anything. And LOL is not the end of the game. I won several games although I went LOL in the middle of them.
I think you're utterly missing the point. Yes Valerya can do it to, but Jazz is better. To the point where I'm making fun of the fact you're trying to pretend that Jazz isn't a deadly unit and that she "merely keeps high value expensive units at bay." I played against Pan-O today, the Bolt Hacker's repeater network I was working around is an example of a hacker that defensively zones an enemy and "keeps them at bay", Jazz is a constant existential threat. She literally facilitates blowing your opponent off the table or otherwise utterly crippling them through debuffs to the point where they're practically useless. She's such a high impact unit that if you are lucky enough to get an early kill on her it produces a wildly different game, her presence on the table is that game warping. Your offhand comments about how so-so Jazz is as a threat is as ludicrous as a CA player blowing off the Avatar as a "an OK TAG, nothing special", you're both underselling star units that badly. This kind of refusal to accept reality is why people keep clowning on Nomads as a faction, not that they're an OP faction, but they're making fun of people sticking their head in the sand and pretending they're not god gifted some of Gutier's most ludicrous creations to play with. I imagine this probably annoys the shit out of the Nomad players who do realise this the most though.
Is "Guided Missles Link" the new meta? Is everyone using it these days? Then maybe this is the problem? Not a single Hacker? And if not and only one in ... ten or twenty games you run against a Guided Missile Link and then this Link only wins around 50% of the games, then this isnt a problem either. If you run against Guided Missle Links every single game and they always win, then this is a problem. Not a problem with jazz, but with the Guided Missile Links. I don't have enough data to answer this. If Valerya can do it, but Jazz is better, than this is no real problem, because hacking is the core competence of Nomads. Oh and I wouldn't say that Jazz is not a "star unit" but that it doesn't matter, because she's in Nomads. A star hacker in Nomads doesn't destroy balance. Like already said, in Ariadna or PanO this would be another case.
Funny. So you say Guided Missile Links are fine. Only when combined with Jazz it's a problem? I think I am not the one missing the point...
