Using Skullbuster or Lightning (since you've mentioned that) over Redrum changes odds by about 5% for one "something happens" result or another at most. Even removing Redrum altogether will change precisely nothing about this situation with KHDs.
That's shocking to hear, although I stand by my statement about the Upgrade programs, such as Lightning, for the reasons I mentioned before.
Things I am liking: * The game in general, still really enjoying the core gameplay (just to put the following gripes in context) * New sculpts are consistently ace, even despite tactical rocks * NA2 on the whole is great * The most recent boxed sets are brilliant * Tagline and Uprising narrative ITS * The ITS buffs to TAGs * Mixed Fireteams (even though NCA should totally have some) Things I am Disliking: * Awkward Communication about YJ YJ players concerns should have been handled better. Nuff said. * Egregious Suite of hacking programs Specifically all the attack programs, I feel they could just be simplified down to some sort of Martial Arts system, perhaps with a +3 or -3 depending on what sort of target you're trying to hack or which device you're using. There are a lot of false choices in the infowar at the moment and I feel it needs cleaning up. * Not participating in the infowar should be a drawback Looking at you Tohaa and Ariadna. * The way Impetuous is costed I think it's designed to be a draw back that is balanced by cost reduction, but when played around it functionally acts as bonus free orders with a bonus of cost reduction. It seems like the role to balance the points calculator and the role to balance the units are two different people who don't talk to each other, so the guy that balances the units trusts the calculator to be perfect and any unit he can make must be balanced. When really you can abuse certain combinations of rules to make units that are more powerful than they should be (whilst min/maxxing stats, taking impetuous but then mitigating the drawback, irregular on units you will rambo with anyway, lowering BS to 9 but then taking chain rifle, giving them frenzy + fireteam core etc etc). This all needs sorting out. As a first stop, I feel Impetuous shouldn't discount points, it should be a neutral skill like Religious. * Irregular not used enough I think irregular is an amazing mechanic and only a few factions have to really wrestle with it. More factions should have more irregular units. This would bring order spam lists into line, 20 regular orders shouldn't be possible. That is too much. More Elite factions should get to keep more regular orders than others, thus proportionately rewarding lower order lists. * Tournament games going to time. I think this comes from the above point. The game is built to reward a long active turn with lots of orders, but this isn't condusive to everyone finishing their games in a timely manner under tourny conditions. I'd like to see a concerted effort by the design team to mould the game into a shape where tourny games rarely go to time, rather than usually. (This one might just be more my experience than an objective truth). * Balance of skills that waste opponents orders Some skills on profiles act as a way to waste one of your opponents orders. You basically trade an amount of points in your list building step to buy an order expenditure from an opponent. This includes Camo states, SymbioMates, Minelayer, and probably some others that i'm not thinking about. The warcor is a perfect example, in as much as he may well be 3pt for 1+ of your opponents orders. This design space is fine in principal but becomes very overwhelming when combined with a faction that has 16+ orders. They already have more orders than most, and spend their points into ways to strip orders from opponents before the game has even begun. There is no counterplay to this, other than having a similarly large amount of orders which plays into my previous issue. * LoF edge cases As shown by a few recent forum threads regarding shooting people in the back whilst stood in front of them from an elevated position. Don't like this. * Profiles that do too much This one is a nit pick, but two profiles come to mind: Kuang Shi Control Device Celestial Guard and Chain of Command Kaeltar Specialists. These guys do 3 things each: 1) Provide access to a faction unit or piece of equipment 2) Fill out a fire team that you were going to take anyway 3) Provide an ancilliary function that benefits other units (CoC & Smoke) I think this is too much, they either need to sit outside of fire teams or lose their ancilliary function but right now they are a faction defining perfect auto-include. Specifically i'd like to see the CG gives its smoke launcher to another profile and the kaeltar lose the ability to go in triads.
I'm typically not when a 21 point Zero, a 16 point Barid or similar can completely murderface my Assault hacker through firewalls, and all while being cheaper in points and swc and having the same weight as far as mission objectives are concerned.
You lose them in your reactive turn? Isn't that normal? I don't throw other guys in the middle of the board expecting them to be able to stop a TAG but not be removed.
But it is a drawback: * No hacking for stopping powerful TAG's or IP's in their tracks without LoS, just creating a "you-better-not-come-here" denial area. * No Markmanship Lv2 for TR remotes. * Hacking/Targeting classified harder to achieve. * More difficulties to use guided weaponry or spec-firing grenades. * No EVO... and no EVO means - No Order-free +3 modifier to parachuist. - No easy Sat-Lock. - No Order-free 1st Turn B2 ARO for cheap remotes. - No Order-free 1st Turn extra protection for IP's. Not bringing hackers Tohaa takes less risks, but looses many tools.
I main PanO. Paying those points and SWC feels like a mugs game. I can probably blast the HI/TAG to death more cost-effectively than putting my undergrad students with their coding 101 into an infowar. I basically keep KHDs around to safeguard my TAGs/HIs but even then, not super effective :'( I think Fatality was a great start and I agree that all MBTs need a bonus to make them that much more appealing. That being said, I still enjoy fielding them. Yes the squalo is quite vanilla but he gets the job done. But yes, I wish everyday that he was more interesting. The Uhlan kind of sucks in comparison for being almost the same cost but at least its interesting to use... But that's probably just how the beast is built. No frills, no flash, just results. It's a mobile, hardy, lethal gun platform and that's that. I do feel like just 'one extra thing' on TAGs would really help them justify their ludicrous costs - at least in PanO which is supposed to be the TAG faction. Full Auto may be too good on some TAGs but surely Full Auto on TAGs that don't have HMRC or T/O is OK? XD
I actually find all PanO TAGs, including Squalo, interesting to use. Sure, Squalo is pretty vanilla, but it's still a good mobile firebase. Like many units it really shines in sectorial, not vanilla. It acts as long range fire support, while Uhlan is a hunter-killer. And PanO hacking is only weak in MO. In NCA it's pretty decent, and SAA - like someone mentioned recently - "plays like Nomads who can shoot".
Okay, so Individually those points are all valid and I agree that they all represent things that Tohaa and Ariadna cannot do, or do well. However, I will have to question the significance of these points for those factions as well as the implication for competitive play. * No hacking for stopping powerful tags - No, they don't get ZoC hackers but they have tools to dismantle TAGs, which are much more reliable and are also immune to killer hackers and repeater networks. * No Marksmanship Lv2 for TR remotes - Tohaa and Ariadna don't have TR HMG Rems, moot point. * Hacking / Targeting classified are harder - Pick the other card. Ariadna has forward observing camo infiltrators that get the job done just as well. * Guided weaponry and spec firing is harder - Ariadna has its aforementioned camo infiltrating forward observers to set up it's guided fire, and Tohaa can still do it with Clipsos and their baggage bot. But guided fire is no big loss. Spec fire is a more useful thing to have access to, but it's worlds below what aggressive triads with smoke can do, so in terms of hitting things out of LoF Tohaa still has options. Not having access to a skill that is incredibly unreliable doesn't feel like an overwhelming drawback to me. SF and GW feel like gimmicks that only a couple of factions get to do well and only in skew lists. Not being able to skew this way is something many factions have to deal with and isn't related to not playing infowar. * No EVO & Ancillary effects uses- AD troops 90% of the time get walked on anyway because it's much safer, Ariadna having Van Zant in particular is one of the best 'walk on the side' troopers in the game. See my above point about not having access to unreliable skills and how it doesn't constitute a proper drawback. No easy sat-lock, Tohaa and Ariadna don't have satlock on any units, doesn't feel like a thing they are supposed to do anyway, and that's not related to hacking. No order-free 1st turn V2 ARO? Ignoring the clause about cheap remotes, Tohaa has extra burst in spades, whilst Ariadna can put a disgusting amount of camo tokens down which create the effect of 'don't go here' zones. [I'm not sure what you mean by IP so i'll edit this section in if I work it out] These two factions will be built to be competitive despite this "drawback" by buffing other areas and compensating for these tactical drawbacks. What this means is that these factions don't suffer in terms of power level, but you get the nuanced effect where by a Drawback for one faction will negatively affect factions they play against. How is that a drawback? We're going to have a fist fight, but I'm allowed to shoot us both in the foot in exchange for getting to keep the gun? If I bring Nomads to fight your Ariadna, you have no hackers or hackable units and are free to bemoan the loss of all the above points you've made, but the elite hackers i've brought have no targets and are incredibly overcosted for what they are actually going to end up doing (probably cheer-leading). So in this case, Ariadna's trade-off for losing hacking in favour of 20 order lists chock full of camo and mines, has also caused Nomads lose out on the functionality of swathes of their list. So, yes, I agree your points are all valid points technically speaking, but i'm saying that they don't matter in terms of faction balance and that being unhackable is better if it means your opponents waste points and you get rewarded in other areas for your 'drawback'. Sorry to derail, this might be best in another thread :)
Dunno about Squalo, HGL alone makes it stand out. And in my city Squalos is almost the meta, it seems.
I have a general problem with hacking. Overall, it feels like hacking is too order intensive and unreliable and usually can only target a restricted amount of targets. Many times you have to set up repeaters or pitchers to get you in range, and with most of the useful programs having B1 and the opponent being able to just reset. Then he still has bts saves that for most of hacking targets tends to be higher than his armor value or closely similar. It feels like anything you could achieve with a hacker an HMG could do it for you in half the order spenditure. Most of the times, if i spend all of that setup to hack someone i`d rather spotlight him and put a missile into him.
Completly unexpected, don't know what to think about it. Might be good for Transmission Matrix, or for protecting the Gorgos... very weird having a Killer Hacking Device in Tohaa.
Well MO is now one of the 7 sectorials without KHD. Hilariously enough other 6 sectorials do not give (usually) sh*** about being hacked xD
One of the reasons I limit my PanO to SAA for now. Haven't sold off MO yet, waiting to see if CB will finally give a shit about it.
Well I had hopes seeing models being resculped, but apparently (with Warcor backing) no redesign (rules wise) is on the horizon. <shrugs> Well, I still need to firstly sell my Tohaa boxes.
