This post has 2 parts first; Am I correct with how the rules work? Second; How to we use our new Kanren? First Do the decoys get the mimetism -6? When the Kanren moves the Decoys don't and even though basic move action isn't enough to meet the cancelation cause they might as well be removed because it is now obvious what is what. Second Seems that they are really only useful in defence but don't have great weapons for the job, a Jammer or something would have really helped. Best I can think of is to put one in suppressive fire mode if you are going second with a command token and then not actually AROing even with the real trooper unless you think they have a good chance of hitting you to try and sap as many orders as possible from them and then when you do finally Suppressive fire ARO you'll have cover mimetism and sup fire for a -12 modifier.
Yes, one of the red boxes in the Decoy State rules explicitely lists Mimetism as a MOD thar the decoys replicate. Move is allowed because you are in a "marker state" so you can move + surprise attack. The minelayer with madtraps would be the speed bump, I'd consider the KHD a trap (that is, not interesting enough for a defensive piece) and the regular hacker with the cybermask upgrade a great "big guys" deterrant. Considering how linked ARO has been nerfed, and how many troops got modifiers to further ignore most or amolst all of the enemy fire, I'd say a regular hacker imposing IMM or ISO states can be a great deterrent, and the strength of the kanren, in theory, would be you having a line or so of potential hackers to force the enemy Rambo to weave through somewhere else, or risk multiple AROs, some being bullets and the others being at least a hack. Mind you, I'm not sure if it will work, but I can imagine this was the idea behind the skill combo for the troop now.
The hacker really looks like the most viable option: threaten a big area turn 1 with (potential) hacking, and if he's still alive he can go for objectives with cybermask. Also with mimetism -6 and BS13 he can duel skirmishers, and he still packs a template to trade if he's going to be killed anyway. All-in-all just treat him like your standard issue skirmisher hacker, except you trade T1 camo state for decoyn so his real weakness is pitcher-wielding-nomads: a well placed pitcher can allow a killer hacker to target multiple decoy at once and kill him in few orders.
First Yes the decoys are mim -6. But once hit, are gone. Once canceled they all go away. Second Agreed. The first two games I played with them, I went first. for one of them I had one near a QAZ creature. You can Idle and make them choose which one to attack and then use the actual. But other than that, better in defense. Both of the hackers have cybermask to help but sucks you need to spend an order to do that. The hacker is good for just hacking. I found the SMG is too short ranged to do anything meaningful. The BSGis good if you can get it to something with 8". I'm going to try the KHD next just for the combi rifle.
Both hackers with cybermask can use surprise more than once. Shame it's not in Vanilla, would love to put it with Long Ya, Gudan and Libero.
So far, I have not even had a chance even get into cybermask. My Kanren has been eaten or shot first turn by Sheskin two games in a row!
