That's not the point, and you'd do well to remember that. The point is that one of the ways of dealing with TAGs (getting close with a warband or similar troop) is much less effective against it, to the point where it seems that whoever designed the Gator thought it was badwrongfun to outthink or outplay the Corregidor player.
It is stronger than before. 1st by one die on DMG 14 AP, 2nd due to the loss of the hacking program U-Turn (-3 on guided BS per Hacker declaring). IMO this tactic doesn't need a "nerf", I'd rather see some similar interesting / useful alternatives. Like Grenade Launchers (which are already there but somehow turned into mostly useless gimmicks). This could easily be solved by e.g. letting GLs ignore the spec fire penalty when used against targeted enemy troopers.
Guys, can you stop trying to have another thread locked? As much as the last few days made me tired of the subject, I'd really like to have a place where it can be discussed in peace. GML in itself isn't broken. One simple thing one can do to not have one's Lt. killed by it from turn 1 is to not have an obvious Lt. in the first place, and have CoC unit present regardless. If you run an obvious Lt. without CoC there are multiple units which can punish you for it. What's approaching the point of things getting broken is the amount of Nomad weaknesses getting eliminated. As I've stated in the Gator thread, no faction is supposed to be good at everything, and Nomads increasingly are. That's lazy design and favouritism. If someone wants to employ a playstyle that Nomads can't deliver, they should look elsewhere. Yeah, GL it's an SWC weapon that got largely defanged.
I agree it is more survivable to be taken down by a dedicated CC specialist than most TAGs, but it has no special protection against BS attacks, or any novel way to deliver its BS attack.
It doesn't need to have every aspect improved to be considered close to top of the pack. Having one of main TAG weaknesses shored up is enough. And I would argue, that having a high burst, large area DTW is novel, as TAGs go. As a Sphinx user I can tell how deadly it can be.
...mine dispenser. Drop a mine beside a squishy target from out of LoF. Move in, fire and force the target to either dodge or eat shit. Just compare it to the Guijia. Very similar MBT profile with anti-CC measures, and then compare the costs. There's no reason the Gator should cost less.
Another small advantage, which brings me again to my point; balance doesn't die by a single strike, it suffers a death of thousand cuts. By itself, Mine Dispenser on a TAG isn't game-breaking. By itself, higher burst DTWs aren't, either. Neither is some CC defence system. But add small upgrades here and there, price the full package very competetively, place it in faction and sectorial which weren't actually wanting before, and you drain a bit more fun from the game.
Ok, so why isn't the Lizard even cheaper by comparison? Because Corregidor deserves better brute force than Bakunin? And better hacking, and better fireteams, and...
You may be right, I have a feeling though mine and most others will be mostly taken down in the usual way, by been shot by a unit or fireteam specializing in taking down hard targets.
Have you played super jump in N4? You know how it's almost useless, right? The Guijia can't even jump over things that it can vault over with its S7 silhouette. Seriously, it's like we have to talk you through all the things in N4 that we were figuring out last year.
And when Bakunins rework comes it will probably get the same treatment given the trend we get from the recent focused sectorial reworks. Does Lizard need to be a point cheaper, does Gator need to be a point more expensive? are the CC skills who usually people complain that are just points bloat worth two points? I don't know Jazz got rebalanced from feedback, maybe Gator will be. And no I am quite aware of the complains for Superjump and how people miss what they did in 3rd edition when they claimed it was utterly broken and a threat to game balance, nobody will be happy, it is a skill that has more utility in shooting though than passive CC skills, if it is costed correctly or if it needs utility change is another discussion.
What, with undercosted, overoptimized profiles that take away all of the sectorial's character in favor of BIGGER NUMBERS and CHEAPER POINTS? Why would anyone want to wait for that when they could play extra-powerful Corregidor NAO? Jazz was not rebalanced to any meaningful degree.
So, in this comparison, the Guijia gains superjump. In exchange, the Gator gets ECM (hacking -3), a strange yet slightly better CC profile, a mine dispenser, a point of PH, and an arguably better DTW. In this exchange, you're saying that superjump is worth all of those previously listed things and an additional 8 points on top. And we haven't even brought NCO into the discussion (which it also pays less for than the Zeta). Now, unlike Hecaton, I'll vouch for the value of superjump on the Guijia. I don't think it's an absolute mind-blower of a skill, and the skill's utility has been heavily nerfed with the move into N4's conception of it that I'm not a huge fan of, but I've managed to get some use of it crossing gaps on the typically terrain-heavy boards that I and my group favours. But in what world is superjump worth that much? In what world is that fair?
Do you understand how much of a deterrent to other CC units those skills are? And even if they weren't, does the Gator have them or not? And it's absolutely appalling how you are ok with "don't worry, Bakunin will be OP when it's time to sell it". Funny how not even that worked out for a lot of Sectorials when "it was their time" because they don't have CB people playing RPG characters from that faction.
When we're questioning the direction of the design for the sectorial, faction, and game, no, it's very relevant.
