A friend of mine who is far more of a mathematician than I am, he actually has a degree, worked it out at the time. I don’t remember the actual figure but it was preposterously small probability. Any more unlikely and with a nice hot cup of tea I could have created the Heart of Gold. As for the rest. I’m don’t want to start another potentially acrimonious debate so I won’t go back to that. All I can say is that hopefully this Sunday will start a different statistical trend.
On a semi related note I just fielded the Aquila Multi Rifle Lt profile in a game of Recon and i loved the crap out of him. Might have to give him a shot with some Bolts and play the unloved children a little bit.
Bipandra, ORCs, Bolts, Aquila lt, Garuda... all this guys, girls and remote are quite unpopular and rarely seen each time you want to win a tournament. My own problem is more about Bolts and difficult terrains more than anything. But the "unloved children" are very powerfull when used properly. Because a MSV3 with a MULTI Rifle seems weak to many, because many things that let a lot of people say they are suboptimal in most of the time. The fact is that it is less obvious to play them well and that they don't do all the stuff on their own.
Recon──────────────────────────────────────────────────8 AQUILA Lieutenant MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 58) FUSILIER HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 18) FUSILIER (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) AUXILIA Combi Rifle + AUXBOT_1 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 1 SWC | 150 PointsOpen in Infinity Army The unloved children being an eventual game with a Bolt core! Drop Bears, e/m grenades, Spitfire, Missile Launcher, all the CQB fun.
If they would have some terrain skill, I would surely play them more than I actually do. Because scenarios like Rescue just say "No" to MIs that don't have terrain skill. I love them but as my club, following my wish, plays more and more tables with terrains, Bolts are harder to move through the table. But they're still wonderful in case of Exclusion zone scenarios.
Really it's CQB combat that they excel at, with some long range options for taking out enemy overwatch troops so they can close. But a proliferation of Shotguns, Drop Bears and the ability to Spec Fire E/M Grenades is their whole deal.
And if Missile Launcher would get replaced by a Feuerbach, MSR by a Marksman Rifle, and Veteran by Forward Deployment L1, I'd have zero reservations.
Advanced Deployment L1 would be cool but Veteran L1 is actually really useful. The Marksman Rifle and Feuerbach... eh, both are good, but so are Missile Launchers and MRS. A Feuerbach rather than a ML would be funky though, I'll give you that. Just would feel flavoursome.
So this is one I've always had trouble with and been curious how other folks handle, so the Bolts move up to the midfield and will win FtF rolls with their shotguns etc. without too much issue. But they're not very good against chain rifles/HFTs, low ARM, 1 W, average PH means that my whole CQB link just gets murdered by a pair of WBs, even if they kill the WB they're still eating a template. Theoretically drop bears should help with this but WBs tend to be decent at evading them and then lack of a marker state makes drop bears easy to pick off from range.
I regularly use and play with Ghazis and indeed Riot Grrl links, Haramaki links, Xeodrone links and various skirmishers we E/Maulers are common around our area. Veteran L1 is basically immunity, E/M and that's actually really strong. Bioimmunity is also more useful than you think, as Viral Weapons are very strong, Red Furys are seen more and more these days, Shock Marksman rifles, AP Mines etc, and it forces your opponent to use AP ammo with MULTI Rifles where actually you'd probably prefer to put them down permanently. I don't play PanO so much these days, but the last few times I used Bolts there was always several things on the table which made Bioimmunity useful. If you take a Trauma-Doc and keep her with them too, they can be very tough to put down, and they absolutely mince things in CQB with the variety of weapon options. Even if I could take them with Advanced Deployment L1 over Veteran L1, I wouldn't.
Well I just had my first N3 game with a Doctor, Hacker and engineer. Well, I can say that none of them did any good. However, to be fair, it wasn’t their fault. The hacker died to literally the first shot of the game and the eng died trying to get to a REM that I walked right into a mine. (Is there a MSV that can compensate for the player being blind?). And as for the doctor. Even Doctor Kildare can’t do much when every casualty goes directly to dead do not pass unconscious do not collect 200 karma. I will have to see how they go next month.
Walking into enemy fire is what PalBots are for. 'though, to be fair, in this case they are even BETTER at just clearing out mines first rather than risking combat units! But I think the key thing to keep in mind is that, while N3 made Doctors, Engineers and (especially, thanks to Supportware) Hackers better at "what they do" the ITS missions is what makes them REALLY valuable. Although Season 9 has dialed down on both Classified Missions AND "button pushing" these are both still important elements of ITS play, and your TraumaDoc, Machinist and Fusilier Hacker are all cheap Specialist options which offer good "mission support" and ALSO bring their specific skills along for when those are relevant. So don't measure your TraumaDoc or Machinist only on how much Structure they repair or how many Unconscious models they recover, but instead on the overall balance between those, the Classified Missions they complete AND the mission objectives they score as Specialists. And trust us, between those things they are WELL worth their cost.
Personally I measure my Machinist's success by how many models he has wounded (since he shoots just as well as a Fusilier/Regular). Also unlike other models, he has some degree of BTS so he is better facing certain weapons that cause you to save vs. BTS. But more seriously, he is almost a necessity in a REM-heavy or TAG list. That extra level of unconsciousness on a model with STR is something to be exploited as the game has seen a proliferation of shock and other straight-to-dead ammo.
