Pre-update I loved the Shikami. He was my star player. He's a fantastic Rambo piece that's worth 0 SWC letting you take even more long range weapons to support him with, he can push a button, shoot just as well as any light infantry, and CC like an animal. A boss in suppressive and an all around hard to hit target. He was my go to, after a couple games of practice with him I included him in nearly every list I wrote unless I was playing Domaru Haramaki link or an O-yoroi or something like that. That being said, since the update, I find myself never writing him into lists. I'm not sure if it's because I am eager to play with all the new toys or because of all the order efficiency with every link team under the sun a one man Rambo piece is now a little weaker relatively. His button pushing asset is now mitigated by Domaru - who you're almost always taking in some type of link. Even his CC ability is over taken by the Domaru getting Dual wield. He's outgunned by the Yokai in the 0 SWC department, and his board control ability has also diminished due to the introduction of the Ryuken. Now I'm not saying the Shikami is bad now. in no way shape or form is that what this post is about. But the introduction of various harris options makes it so hard for me to justify taking him. What are your thoughts? is the Shikami still making it into your lists? has his role changed for you? are you incentivized on taking that sweet sweet 0 SWC duo now?
I've been trying them, just out of a determination to make them work, but I'm finding their success to be shockingly situational. If you have extreme three-dimensionality on your tables, they're stunning. If you don't have those kinds of tables though, the value falls off. If they were 6-4, so that their mobility advantage was strong in a 2-dimensional sense as well as 3-dimensional sense, it would be easier to make them universally useful and applicable. That being said, there are some missions where they really shine. Missions like Frontline or Supremacy, where you need to plant a chunk of points somewhere to contest zones, is a really good setting for them. While they may not have marker state to protect them, being able to just get on top of a tall building and go prone in Suppressive Fire is amazing. They're really good when you can dig them into the midfield, force your opponent to expend extreme Orders dealing with them, and disrupt your opponent's plan because they don't want to achieve the mission with Shikami as part of the equation. Similarly, if your opponent tries to create a static defense to keep you away from an objective, this means very little to Shikami... They can crack pretty much any tactical puzzle, given enough Orders and support. So I think it's that intense order consumption that's my problem. With Oniwaban/Saito, you get inbuilt Order efficiency as well as the capability of solving problems. Ideally, you can spend just a couple of Orders and be impacting the game in a meaningful way. Shikami can do some things that an Oniwaban/Saito can't do, but they always require an extreme amount of Orders to do it. If you want to apply Shikami to a broad range of missions, then that lack of Order efficiency is a problem. I think this distills down to having a meta with terrain, mission selection or matchups where the Shikami can make meaningful contributions. For me though, if the terrain isn't built up enough for their ultra-mobility to come into play, they're challenging to get the most out of.
the super jump climbing plus combo is highly board dependent. agreed. I've had great success with the Shikami as my Datatracker pre update. He can push a button that needs pushing, he can hunker down on a building for a dominant quadrant, and he can kill the shit out of an HVT very very easily. but now I feel as though a Ryuken may do it better aswell. I feel as though the ninja or oni is still better at contesting zones simply because they not only start in them, but are also untouchable in HD, so if you go second its easy to dump a ton of points into an area with very little orders and with impunity. I may try writing lists with the Shikami again, force myself to play it and see how he feels. Perhaps if he had D-charges I would be more inclined to take him.
Personally, I find him harder to take as well since there are more efficient options for getting into zones or scoring the objective. That and not having Smoke Grenades instead of Nimbus makes them less than an attractive option, but I might try to go about making a list around them again sometime.
One thing he has over ryuken and oniwaban is durability, so he can survive holding down areas a little longer and makes a much more durable datatracker.
I still don't like them, but I didn't like them too much before either. The lack of infiltration/forward deployment is such a hard sell for me in a faction with Ninjas that cost 2/3 as much and can be in marker state. I think they're just highly situational. They were really good at Armory and they're good at some of the Datatracker missions (the ones where datatrackers need to stay alive/not die, for example) but the investment feels so big without weapons that shoot further than 16 inches. In missions with some midfield objectives you can recoup some of the cost by duoing them and breaking the duo at a midfield objective, but it never feels good to me.
I will probably only field one when I can count on 2 story buildings. I'd only do 2 if I was going very strong defensive link. The ninja and oniwaban have difficulty with buildings. The climbing and jumping breaks their state making them vulnerable. Anything entrenched on a roof is difficult. Given enough lof blocking terrain and the shikami is safer and about the same with orders. It only costs 3 or 4 to cross the field safely and that will be close to the cost in orders for our tocamo to safely get on a roof. Add an extra wound and some armor and that's close to even. I like the nimbus grenades as an option for fireteam vs fireteam shoot outs. Taking the +1 burst off a missile launcher is great. Use a spitfire or hmg to roll off and the dice penalty won't hurt so bad.
I actually got some access to a small JSA army so I'll probably be using them. I don't actually have Shikami but they're by far my favorite aesthetically of the JSA forces so I'll probably be proxying for them. Anyways I think they have some use cases depending on what else you bring. If your table isn't 3d enough in the mid board you're missing out on a lot. Getting a useable troop without paying SWC is for sure a boon although the MULTI Marksman is another good option for that*. But being a specialist with gunning capability like my Geckos is right up my alley. *edit: not to mention Karakuri Haris...
With super-jump, Shikami can do some obscene things on tall buildings. [ edit 8" is enough to get on top of the 3rd story of MAS District 5 buildings (counting the floor on the table as the 1st floor) ]. Or they can jump 8" horizontally.
They are very situational, and I too struggle putting them in my lists, though I REALLY want to as I simply love the models and the idea of them. Maybe the new ITS Event with the "Banzai" deployment will help them out as it mitigates the "no Infiltration/forward deployment" problem a bit?
I measured the MAS buildings we have. 8" Superjump is enough to get from base-to-base with the bottom of the building to standing on top of a 3-layer building, inside the parapet.
Having faced them a few times (including at the Rumble), ODD stacked with Cover MODs stacked with Nimbus MODs makes the Shikami a misleadingly-good marksmen, especially if facing Fireteams or other ways of getting increased Burst in ARO.
It might be worth pointing out that with Nimbus you can get TR bots down to 0 BS to get rid of that annoying crit chance.
Having tried my Shikami again tonight in a game of supplies - I don't know why I ever considered dropping this guy. He's practically invaluable as a skirmisher killer/ button pusher. choosing him is a commitment though - as you usually don't have the orders for him AND a domaru Harris/ yokai.
But, for that to work, you have to get at least into the +0 HMG range band, and that means you have to get VERY CLOSE to a weapon plataform that is probably in the enemy's Deployment Zone. And not only that, you are shooting back with one dice and hitting on 9's (using Contender). To make things worse, if the enemy got the Markmanship Hacking Program you'll only get to the magical -12 if you are even closer, inside the -3 HMG range band.
I just noticed and came back to edit. So yeah, unless you have the Duo it would be the Contender. Still a possible solution, I've had games where you can't take down a TR bot and that's good enough to manage. Remember the dodge will be on PH 4. edit: In case anyone is wondering about 30% chance to wound with no consequence other than orders for failing.
I want to like the Shikami, but when I look at the profile and it's cost I always feel like something is missing. And I just hate Contenders, very expensive weapon for just a B1 DMG13 (albeit DA ammo) with a very small +3 range band. Corvus should have given the Shikami one of those extremely powerful yet extremely cheap rules/equipment that they give to some profiles to improve them (like Fatality nv2).
Shikami is a very cool mini with cool abilities and poor weapons. 47 points for a combi with BS 12...
