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The Joy of Invading Savage Planets: A Guide to the Onyx Contact Force

Discussion in 'Combined Army' started by gamma ray, Nov 29, 2017.

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  1. Sergei Simonov

    Sergei Simonov Well-Known Member

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    Where was this confirmed? Because that sounds way too good to be true.
     
  2. Melkhior

    Melkhior Doing filthy things for EI

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    Sergei Simonov likes this.
  3. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    I wonder how much of a pain in the ass it's going to be to deal with the Kamau sniper in N4 given that using the white noise + distraction Unidron trick probably isn't going to work anymore...
     
  4. Lesh'

    Lesh' Infinity LATVIA
    Warcor

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    how so? there's something in c1 rules regarding forcing ARO, or it's more about plasma losing impact template?
     
  5. SpectralOwl

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    It's mostly Hecaton being pessimistic. As far as I know there has been no information regarding changes to ARO timing in N4 or any details about Fireteams beyond their continued existence. It's very possible that the Kamau and its brethren could eat a nerf in a Fireteam rule update as well.
     
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  6. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    I mean, White Noise is still a great solution, to get someone in position to attack the rest of the fireteam or make a run on an objective. The "distraction Unidron" trick seems pretty gimmicky imo.
     
  7. Sabin76

    Sabin76 Well-Known Member

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    I dunno. Gwailo can do the same thing and that's a fairly fresh sectorial. It's not in CodeOne, but then neither are fireteams at all, so I wouldn't take that as an indication that they are dropping it.
     
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  8. Daireann

    Daireann Well-Known Member

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    Is Onyx still playable? I’ve got starter box and one extra Fraacta.
    I know, it is not enough for an army, but still...

    What’s next?

    Actually I was not thinking about Combined Army, but first it was a picture of unidron for a friend, and then a good sale... Is this how sepsitor works?! (I was trying to gather Invincibles, but now I have a box and a blister that is out of plan)
    And I wish more Sigmaa units.
     
  9. Sergei Simonov

    Sergei Simonov Well-Known Member

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    Onyx is still playable, but it's definitely a lower tier sectorial in need of a rework. With that in mind, there is only so 'bad' a fireteam of dogged 3 wound plasma slingers can get or the absolute units that are Xeodrons or the unholy horror that is the Sphinx.

    Must have units are fairly similar to CA. You get 2 Noctifers in Onyx and will want to bring at least one. You get Q Drones, R Drones, E Drones, Ikadrons and Imetrons and typically you will run the maximum of each given how expensive your 'real' troops are.

    You need to contest the midfield, and that's where Onyx suffers hard. You get a Grief Operator at reduced SWC, which is incredible, and the impersonator profile lives up to its name. Ko Dali can also fill the role as a solo murder rambo, but not nearly as effectively as in vanilla.

    Hacking and Infowar are one of Onyx's only remaining strengths. Bit&Kiss create a minimum of 3 hacking areas and can throw down more. Kerr Nau is a linkable plasma rifle with white noise, which is pretty good when you are throwing 4 templates down range.

    Finally you need a choice of bruiser, and that's where your haris comes in. The Xeodrons bring very resilient muscle with their bioimmunity rule, and with the damage and range buff their guns are very effective. You can run Ko Dali in a haris if you want that B5 MSV2, and Suryat's are surprisingly useful finally as a LT option with an extra couple orders. Suryat/Kerr Nau/Nourikas covers most range bands, threatens everything and tends to look cool.


    What does Onyx bring to the table?

    Nomad tier hacking
    virtually universal exotic and murderous ammo types
    cheap and devastating TAGs

    the flip side is whether this is worth the losses. Compared to other sectorials, we are missing:

    Smoke
    Mid field disruption
    Long range good MSV
    Warbands of any sort
    LTs that aren't blisteringly obvious, fragile liabilities
    affordable camo
    any serious assassination defense because impersonators and infiltrators+ will put you in LoL on your first turn every game

    Without a rework of the sectorial, I am in the camp that the fireteams do not make up for the losses and you should proxy them as vanilla Combined Army for the foreseeable future, but they are still playable.
     
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  10. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    @Sergei Simonov Onyx does not have Nomad-tier hacking in N4. If it did it might be more powerful.
     
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  11. Sergei Simonov

    Sergei Simonov Well-Known Member

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    Then we really need a rework and I won't touch the sectorial until we have one and will just use unidrons as vanilla troopers. Proxies now, proxies tomorrow, proxies forever.
     
  12. Daireann

    Daireann Well-Known Member

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    Actually it sounds sad...

    And for now it looks like CB moving things to the point where “bad evil aliens should be beaten”.
    But I hope, it is not. It would be a little sad.
     
    #52 Daireann, Mar 6, 2021
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2021
  13. Knauf

    Knauf Transhumanist

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    Please be aware that these differences in power level tend to manifest very differently depending on your hobby environment and are often overstated when it comes to isolated discussions such as this one.

    If your gaming group is not particularly competitively minded, you can pretty much play every faction/sectorial without having to worry about relative power too much. OCF is perfectly fine if you are not planning on consistently winning tournaments with them.
     
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  14. Rejnhard

    Rejnhard Well-Known Member

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    If someone is really worried about LoL, they can always take Noctifier Lt.

    I also wouldn't exactly call Umbra Lts fragile.
     
    Daireann likes this.
  15. HardDisk

    HardDisk Well-Known Member

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    Even with NWI, 1-2 armor is not "die hard" material
     
  16. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    You might be waiting a while. Unfortunately Onyx's good strat right now seems to be "jam in Nourkias."
     
    #56 Hecaton, Mar 6, 2021
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2021
  17. Daireann

    Daireann Well-Known Member

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    So, Onyx isn’t the best of the best, but they are fine for home comfortable games, right?
    And they have some tricks to show. That is fine for me, actually.

    If they would get something in future - I would be happy.
     
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  18. bloodw4ke

    bloodw4ke Well-Known Member

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    I've come to think Dr. Worm is a major issue for Onyx, being that he's the only engineer in a tag- and rem-heavy faction. That's a big liability when he can't hide behind nurse worms to hit objectives .

    I'd suggest that adding a Nexus engineer option, plus some add'l hacking defense (i.e., Unidron with tinbot upgraded to -6) would present a much needed improvement to the baseline. Calibans w/ just the engineer option would also do the trick - protheion fits the flavor, as it were...
     
  19. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I think I did reasonably well in our recent TTS tournament with Onyx, especially considering no prior Combined experience other than on the wrong end of the plasma rifle, but the one thing I was missing wasn't more Engineers or better hacking, but what I was missing the most was Calibans.

    I think that unlike Nomad sectorials, Onyx has a bunch of limitations that you need to play around so it's not unreasonable to have a decent CoC in the sectorial. It's possible to play around Dr. Worm's big butt (which I found harder to deal with than the low AVA) and hacking was just fine*, but LT choice was terrible.
    Specifically how several LTs are designed to be aggressive high-risk LTs or they were utility LTs and that's cool and all, but I'd like to not lose the game if they catch a Spotlight to the face when they're walking around with their complete absence of Marker state. Ended up resorting to Noctifer LT in almost all games which worked fine, but I wanted to play with double Noctifer ML, damn it!

    I'm sure Malignos are good and all, but a switcharoo from Malignos to Caliban (or just adding Caliban) is probably the biggest impact QOL alteration you could make for this sectorial. Or, well, adding a CoC profile somewhere that is not Nexus Operatives (they have enough on their table as it is, IMO)

    * Which is an understatement, but I don't really want a lengthy argument about it here
     
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  20. Daireann

    Daireann Well-Known Member

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    Oh yes, I realised that. I can't choose LT for the list. The hardest part.
    What is you choice?
     
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