My internal balance puts Spektrs at 8-9 points more value over a Hexa, so I'd deduce either one is over-costed or the other discounted somewhere. WB BTW Kan :)
Hexa was one of the earliest units which, for me, proved the lie of the claim that there is a never-altered formula. But that's only been cemented recently by things like Tariq. And let's not turn into Yu Jing, scrabbling for every good ALEPH profile to be added to our existing sectorials. I suspect there will be enough once the full sectorial drops for us to enjoy as flow-through effects without adding anything else. Dart is a classic PanOceanian, loyal to the faction to the point where she transcended humanity and now linked to us but more involved with the digital entity with which she now identifies more than with us mortals.
I don't think its that Dart is more loyal to Aleph than mere humans. Rather, I think shes now a super elite special forces agent thats been assigned to the shock army. According to the RPG book, Pano organizes armies based on planets for the most part so Dart only being in the shock army isn't that odd. I'm not sure if I posted this, but one of the units I wanted to see for Pano was a skirmisher with forward deployment lv 2 and SMG. I sort of got my wish even if just for one sectorial.
If you extended that logic to its end then there would be nothing in Vanilla at all. And Dart is certainly an excellent example of a "modern template" skirmisher. It is a pity we don't have more access to them.
We have Hexas and Locusts that could certainly benefit from that 'modern template'... Locust with SMG, Cybermines or D-Charges. Hexa Killer Hacker with SMG Heck, it wouldn't hurt SAA, NCA, and Kamau to have a Hexa character that gets shared between the three.
Why would PanO roll something out with a stand-alone SMG when a Combi, Breaker or MULTI is going to be better? As a supplement to an SWC weapon as on the Kamau makes sense, but for the role a Hexa or Locust fills, the Combi and Breaker fit better, with better accuracy. And considering neither of those troops has a long range weapon, the SMG would be a poor utility trade off and a poor thematic trade off.
To game the system like we know they do and give them some more playable and interesting profiles? PanO does not exist, so wondering why they would give a fictional trooper some weapon instead of other is irrelevant. CB, on the other hand, does exist and should maybe care to have all factions treated more or less equally and not develop "Codex Syndrome"
Because it will make units cheaper and don't make me started how SMGs are better then the combis in close range.
Everytime I look at the Locust my brain reminds me Ryuken are a thing now. With that comparison in place the Locust simply fails to hold up. With the BSG being the one noteable exception as he gets a really nice kit that is rare in PanO. Affordable, versatile and even packs a BSG that synergizes very well with Drop Bears. The Breaker/MMR Profiles fail to impress next to already expensive Croc Men Combi + X-Visors, Hexa Spitfires and TOFO OS. Infiltration doesn't do you much if you're yet another Rifle wielder. Same for the Blackfriar, love the MR Profile but the MSR is just a huge questionmark. Dart on the other hand is hands down amazing. C+ and a second wound gets me giddy.
Back to the topic at hand, I had a chance to take Dart against a 150 pt Corregidor list with a Gecko, in my first few orders, she e/m'ed the Gecko, then sat as a deterrent for most of the rest of the game. What have your experiences with her been?
Alright, that was extremely fun. It was my first time playing Acontecimento, as well as using Dart. She's really fun to use! One of the really refreshing parts about her is that all her weapons are in the same range band. This could be seen as a weakness to some people, but for me it just meant that I didn't feel penalized for using any of the tools she has! I didn't use the viral bow too much, but the smg performed well coupled with the EM grenades. In ARO, she's hitting the same with all three of her weapons since her BS and PH are the same, so I could choose what worked best for the moment. Caught a few Alguaciles in a link that weren't expecting a grenade to be thrown at them. Sure, they didn't die, but isolating them meant they broke the link. After that, they were easy kills. She excels in midfield camo hunting. I paired her with a Bagh Mari Haris who helped discover some of the camo markers I suspected to be mines. They worked together wonderfully. The nice thing about Dart is that even if she does get caught in a mine, she's resilient enough to still be standing afterwards. I know I'm rambling, but I just wanted to say that Dart is an incredibly fun tool to use in this army. I'll definitely be using her in the future with Acontecimento.
I played her tonight at a three round tournament. She only came out in the final round and it was a total blood bath, so not necessarily the best example of her skill set. She proved to be a total sand pit for a pair of mutts and a farzan boarding shotgun. Looking forward to taking her again, as I can certainly see the potential.
I played her in a tournament this weekend, and she is an absolute gem! Singlehandedly won me a losing game of unmasking! Camo with climbing plus and SMG, walking through an ARO riddled field climbing over a wall and killing the designated target in 4 orders, fantastic. Her bow is also a great ARO weapon, nicely disposed of some specialists in the other game, surviving a shotgun with NWI. And in the final game, elegantly isolated a haris with hsien HMG with some spec fire E/M grenades. And at the end of the game isolated a specialist/LT to score me a hefty 6 points (if I'm not mistaken). Fantastic!
Finally tried her in two games yesterday. I'm in love! In Deadly Dance, she was able to cross the table to reach the Datatracker (Proxy Engineer) and gunned her down with SMG. Nobody else could have done that, mobility is a key feature of her profile. In Unmasking, I revealed the true HVT who was protected by an Asura Multi Rifle. Once again, Dart made a rush and executed the HVT (sad she can't be Datatracker though). I had too few orders left, so no order intensive spec fire grenade. She put herself in SF instead. The Asura litterally impaled on AP bullets with something like 5 orders (my mate went mad...), losing 2 wounds. Then Dart eventually took two hits, passed the armour rolls (!), but was forced to hide (failed guts roll). The overconfident Asura moved around to ignore the cover, but took an E/M grenade in FtF that let her dumb for the rest of the game... In Acontecimento, Dart is the profile we needed to hunt down isolated centerpieces. She's fast due to camo / climbing plus, has the tools to do her job (SMG is golden, E/M grenades are unique for us). And NWI + Bioimmunity is the insurance she will do the job and that you won't lose a 34 pts mini to a mere crit. That's a 9/10 (10/10 if she were Specialist Operative - though that would be too cheesy...).
She has Valour: No Wound Incapacitation, which includes all lower levels, that is, Valour: Courage. She never needs to make guts rolls, she can always choose.
