My guess is, that the DF chars will also be mixed with new pairings. Anyat with Shas and Konstantinos with Nomads. But to be honest I am not so eager to see new Bipandra. Old mini is nice. By the way, if I got it right we got four Pan O DFs - thats a lot. And only Bipandra is the one who never get a foothold in form of a appealing rulesset.
Let's get back to that YJ HI comparison shall we? The major thing here that's tone deaf is the claim that YJ has "better" Power Armor than PanO. They obviously don't. The standard YJ HI has worse stats than an Orc, nothing in YJ is quite as good as a Swiss Guard or Aquila suit either. N4 is the first edition where a lot of YJ HI gained 6-2, which mostly makes Hsien/Aquila and Hac Tao/Swiss more distinct and scews the MO Knights who are stuck at 4-4. Ofc the MELEE HI are the ones who'd stay 4-4, not Orcs, nope. The naval/orbital mobile HI that would be designed for mobility. Or the shitty 2W S5 suit that PanO should be able to miniaturize into S2. Let's think, what would be a good reason to make it bigger? Maybe to fit servos that make it faster? What YJ is actually better at is mass producing HI in large scale. Which PanO simply counters with having a bigger budget to begin with.
To be fair, some of the melee HI in Yu Jing have the exact same problem. Looking at you, Crane. In the case of the Boyg, given its utterly mundane armament and armour, the only real defence is that it is actually still in development and they haven't worked on miniaturising it enough yet- which is quite plausible.
Personally I am really fond of the new Konstantinos miniature over the old one, no clue on old DF rework, but it can happen. New mixups is a given as they are already happening, personally I am really eager to see a new Bipandra model. Personally I would take a Hac Tao over a Swiss any time, Yu Jing HI are practically better, yes a line infantry HI is less armoured than what PanO gives to their veteran troops, and mind you even Shang Ji are bog standard Line troops and not any "elite formation" I think the fact that almost all move and dodge more and have a wider skill set, specialists options and tactical awareness should make it clear they are on average far better HI than what most if not all factions bring to the table. That is correct Boyg is supposed to be a S2 HI, but PanO cannot replicate the technology Yu Jing have to bring it to that size.
Yeah, I thought it was a little optimistic but I’ll keep on hoping! Oh, I like it too, I just prefer the stance of the older one. Rushing forward, attacking the enemy that are in the way. It’s a very characterful older mini. The new one will be bought as a must to sate my Pokémon syndrome. Also to stop the old Konstantinos’ sword from bending when I pick him up.
This! A hundred times. Konstantinos´ toothpick is the weapon i am most afraid to be broken like....for years now. I love the pose, as u said; the advancing strike, but hell it is a pain to transport him, unless you´re working with magnets. And even then.... I do not dislike the new pose, although it feels me a little to similar to the santiago KHD. Defenetly. Hac Tao has so much more for just the lack of BS15; 6-2 MOV, Dodge +1, NCO (backed up with the best Lt +1 options), Nanopulser on each profile,...not to mention a CC stat that is not mirroring the BS :-D
Exactly why I prefer the older pose and why the new mini will be bought to replace him! I currently have him in his own bespoke cut foam. Still the sword bends. Love the older pose, hate the toothpick. The new one, as you said reminds me of the Santiago KHD and it’s the main reason I prefer the older pose over the new one. On the state of the Hac Tao over the Swiss guard… tough one for me. They’ve both been incredible units on the battlefield. Think the hac tao hacker has more points gained than my Swiss guard though due to his button pushing being slightly better.
The Swiss is the better gun platform, the Hac Tao can get more done on the field. I think current wisdom has the Swiss ML as the better of the two thanks to its shotgun while the Hac Tao's Specialist profiles and HMG are better regarded.
Nomads are more consistently given fast HI than PanO. I seriously do not understand what the boyg is supposed to represent at all.
Including characters, PanO has more "fast" (6-2) HI than Nomads (6-5), not including they're even (4-4). Using some kind of Dodge bonus (+3, 1', etc.), PanO comes out ahead 6-1 w/characters, 3-1 w/o. And the Bøyg represents, both on the table and in the fluff, what it is. An attempt (flawed and not quite up to scratch) to catch up to the Shang Ji, or even the Zuyong.
I’m currently prepping lists for Panic Room, and am reminded how much Objective Room holding teams are strengthened by units with very high Dodge rolls. The Boyg is good at that. Teamed with Shona, Hospitaler, maybe Gunnar they would be very hard to shift.
Shona, Bøyg, and a Karhu specialist have been great for me. For Panic Room, you could even look at shifting to the E/Marat Karhu to provide yet another option.
The ratio in faction is what I'm referring to. Nomads have 2 s2 profiles that are not 6-2 the evader and diablos. This representing a light suit and a command suit. PanO has 4 not including characters and they're all supposed to be standard frontline suits. The boyg doesn't represent anything that translates from the fluff. Its not fast. It doesn't dodge better than other suits of HI that are out there. It doesn't shoot faster than other suits of HI. It doesn't translate what ever CB thinks it does.
Given the fantasy-correlation of the name/background (Trolls iirc?), maybe just focusing the Boyg on durability would make sense. In fact maybe that’s what the +3 Dodge was meant to represent? If emphasizing durability, adding Immunity (critical) or even Immunity (Total) would be a pretty cool addition. Maybe even drop the +3 Dodge for those (though that’s the real durability bonus mechanically imo, decent Dodge is the secret sauce for amazing HI that can tank unfavorable firefights). It would also make sense, given that the tech for Bronzes and Hoplites to have same exists.
How Pano being "the most technologically advanced" faction doesn't have the most technologically advanced HI in the game is beyond me. Maybe it's another case of "the best shooting faction in the game" For some time my gaming group and I thought that the "YJ has the most technologically advanced HI" statement applied to mass production. While YJ can efficiently produce thousands of HI, each Pano HI is carefully crafted but it has better quality overall than their YJ counterparts. Apparently that's not the case. Regarding the Boyg, I don't know what the faction that has the Swiss Guard, the Aquila Guard, the Teutonic Knights and the KoJ was trying to achieve that wasn't already achieved by one of this units. But going back to "the most technologically advanced faction" in the game, Pano doesn't have the best HI, Pano's hackers are crap and Pano's weapons are exactly the same as any other faction in the game. Are they going to make any use of this technological edge in the near future or are they going to save it to make coffeemakers, mixers and blenders?
I wish they leaned into the voodoo tech aspect and did something weird with it. I think 6th sense and total reaction would do a lot better to represent what they're trying to get across than dodge +3 +1"
