I have updated the rankings based on @Time Bandit 's feedback: Repeater On Infiltration model (e.g. Moran) Deployable Repeater Minelayer on Infiltrating model. (e.g. Guilang) Fast Panda on Camo FD model (e.g. Heckler) Linked Pitcher (e.g. Kerr-Nau in Onyx Contact Force) Deployable Repeater Minelayer on FD model. (e.g. Krit) Repeater On FD model (e.g. Pathfinder) Deployable Repeater on Infiltrating Model (e.g. Hunzacut) Deployable Repeater on Combat Jump/Parachutist (e.g. Hellcat) Fast X-Visor Pitcher (e.g. Tsyklon) X-Visor pitcher (e.g. Druze) Fast Pitcher (e.g. Kiss!) Pitcher (e.g. Cyberghost) Fast Panda on Deployment Zone model. (e.g. Inteventor) Fast Deployment Zone Repeater (e.g. Fugazi) Deployment Zone Repeater (e.g. Securitate) For that category, Bit & KiSS! would qualify. The ability to accurately drop two repeaters far into the opponent's side of the table with a couple of orders is really powerful. It is arguably higher, but is limited to some sectorials and CA. EDIT: Added Krit.
To be honest, Sargosh + Jayth haris is not a very strong choice and it's very expensive for what they get. I'm curious about the rest of teh list.
Personally, I'd place the Dartok in MEF right above an X-Visor Pitcher, because it's Strictly Better (always +3 rather than situationally +3, and the Morats Core is easy to refill), but I'm sort of leery of hard ranking, unfortunately. I.e. Repeater Equipment is always vastly better than any of the deployable options for your Turn Zero repeater network, but the value falls off from there. Actually, I don't see Minelayer Deployable Repeater (like the new Initiated Observants or the Krit Kokram) on your list. It's definitely an improvement over the same repeater and FD/Infiltration without Minelayer, and also gives T0 repeater coverage. I can agree with this - and I think the "heavier investment" again is highly variable, as I'm not sure MEF ever really suffers too much for putting together the pure core, though others armies do.
They are glass cannons, they were doing fine put pressure on me and then they died... they cannot handle templates at all...
Yea, they are just bad. The Red Fury is ok, but there are still better options. Sargosh is just pointless. They should have invested that in Calibans and Speculos to be honest, it would have worked a lot better.
@Brokenwolf i think the pitcher game is far more simpler than you think. It's all about order efficiency and opportunity cost, which are easy to calculate. For example, with Bit & Kiss it's not about the fastness of the pitcher. Sure Kiss has a 6-4 move (and those inches can sometimes be important), but reason why people play Bit & Kiss is because of single spent order generates a burst3 pitcher. In a pitcher meta, high burst basically the same as having a higher BS attack. The probability of landing a at least one repeater 24" away with Bit & Kiss using a single order is 78%. With baggage bot nearby and three orders to spare, you can get into 95% chance. Bit & Kiss are 200% more order effective than regular pitchers, because they have burst3 and regular hackers have burst1 and that's the reason why they are so popular. A regular hacker with burst1 pitcher needs to have a BS of 16 (19 if you take into account the -3 range band) to be as order effective as Bit & Kiss. All this with 21p and 0,5 swc opportunity cost. vCA hacking game would be rekt if this order efficiency got taken away and drop vCA from S-tier to A-tier. In comparison Kerr-Nau has effective BS15 in fullcore unidron team. The probability of landing at least one repeater 24" away with Kerr-nau using a single order is 84%, which is only slighty higher than Bit & Kiss. The problem with Kerr-Nau is that it costs 27p and needs 4x14 unidrons to support him. Not to mention using 5 slots for 5 bodies instead of 1 slot for 2 bodies. I mean if you really need that White noise instead of Oblivion and fancy that plasma rifle instead of BTS6, then sure take the expensive Kerr-Nau package. Linked Druze (available in surprisingly many sectorals) hackers deserve to be mentioned because you can put two of them in a same haris link team and do 2x2x9 pitcher attacks to 40" with 91% probility without reloading. This is significantly more effective in certain maps and situations than Bit & Kiss and the opportunity cost (2 slots, 60pts, 1swc) is manageable compared to Kerr-Nau fullcore if the sectoral has access to cheap warbands.
I think another good comparison is the Barid (or Darktok). Because a Unidron fireteam doesn't particularly want to be aggressive, but an Asawira fireteam do, and the Barid are dirt cheap (can be as low as 4 points opportunity cost to upgrade a Ghulam to a Barid, whereas KerrNau is a significant investment). So as you're pushing your Asawira forward, if you were simply going to move at some point, the opportunity cost to get one of your Barid to shoot is just half an order. It's also worth considering how even if you can throw far with decent odds with Bit/Kiss, sometimes the table angles doesn't let you throw in a good spot and you need to go around some terrain and this is where a linked pitcher is more interesting, because as you're using orders to go around the terrain, you can push your fireteam up (whereas the movement you'd spend on Bit/Kiss doesn't really benefit you outside of the pitchering).
Completely out of the discussion, but… Do you play Eve online? I could put my hand your avatar is from that game :)
Oh he knows all of these, but he wanted to experiment with Jayth's, I think his opinion is they are glass cannons, and I agree, they are good as long as they do not suffer mishaps, they definitely need something.
Yeah :) Haven't been active in last couple of months, but I always end up going back. (I did just resub a couple of days ago so that my character name would be on the new monument)
Yea, point reduction & FD would go a decent way to making them usable. I keep wanting them to be decent, but they aren't. Same goes for Dukash.
@Diphoration I mostly agree what you say. In my opinion, Unidrons want to be aggressive sometimes because dogged, remote presense and plasma carbine are best when you are aggressive. 14pts for a "cheerleader" is too much and that's the reason why unidrons aren't normally played in vCA. If you are going for full GML oppression you want to stay back after landing some pitchers, because staying back keeps your guys alive. Most popular* missions can be won by 2 turns of annihilation and 1 turn of button pressing. There are also many missions where Bit gets +3 to WIP and reroll for button pressing, so having her advance might not be a bad idea. Also coordinated orders to move key troopers when missilebot shoots something with GML and impetuous troopers everywhere. But yes, you are correct that pumping too many orders on Bit can cause problems which can be be migigated by having a fireteam pitcher. * Tryhards want to win consistently using the same reliable tactic in every game.
@Rabble Unidrons are in a tight spot in vCA. The cheapness of 9pts Ikadrons and the utility of 14pts Daturazi is a tough competition. While many think that the power of vCA are the aspects, they are wrong. Everything rests on the shoulders of extremely competively priced Ikadrons, Daturazi, R-drones, Bit & Kiss, Imetrons, Taighas, Libertos and Hungries. Having played Starmada, I think that they have a common sectoral weakness of having low availability of <10p troopers. For example, O-12 can field 2x9pts Motorized Bounty Hunters, 1x3pts Warcor, 2x8 pts FuzzBots and 2x7 pts Kyttäs.
To be fair, outside of LT + LT decoy, basically no linetroops see any play in vanilla factions (even when they're 10 points).
LT and cheap Regular Orders are the only real use cases yeah. Aside from decent utility Profiles like the Acon Regular Hacker (which is basically an entirely differend trooper from Regulars and more like a Barid).
