I eagerly await the updated Shasvastii models. I've been kind of avoiding playing a bunch of stuff I own for (checks watch) 3 years.
All you bought is part if Onyx sectorial and actually more playable in that then in vanilla CA as a whole. The only exceptions beiing Anathematics and Charontid. I don't see any reason why you coulden't use them as mentioned Shinx or Xeodrone proxies, if you like the sculpts. They are aspect models on the same base and roughly of the same size and visuals, at the same time not being in Onyx.
And yet, you almost completely failed to do that. :D Rasyat has his important roles. It heavilly depends on what you need. If its utility for reasonable cost, Rasyat is the way to go. I actually started to use him as a replacement of Speculo in my Avatar list. Why? It has NBW and high CC. It makes him the only really capable AD martial artist in faction. You can help your big guys locked in CC anywhere easilly. With EVO, he can jump into the oponents deployment zone on 16, not impersonate on 12. Eclipse grenades solves pesky ARO pieces on 16 for whole board at once, not needing White noise on 14 only for one place. It allows me to spare 8 fps on Kerr-nau too, getting Bit&Kiss instead. He can not only use D-charges for objectives, but he has a DA weapon for destroing scenery items too. He has the same base MOV as Ko-Dali. In addition to stealth, he cannot be isolated, which is huge against jammers. For the extra wounds from Proteion you ideally need someone unconcious already and to spend extra orders. Boarding shotgun Rasyat is 6 - 10 pts cheaper then Speculo/Ko-Dali profiles. If you need utility and not a raw firepower, in this case I already spared at least 14 pts (white noise difference) which is huge for army expensive like vanilla CA. You can invest 3 pts more, get not only combi but e-mitter and with the right placement threaten even TAGs. (One extra tip, he even gets the glue gun in Hunting party too!)
Man, I love me some Ko Dali but I feel the Rasyat has its place in Vanilla. Similar role for cheaper is sometimes the only justification one needs. Eclipse and White Noise are different enough that I can't quite classify them as the same ability.
Well, I settled on Onyx for now...and ordered what I was missing: Sphinx, Kerr-Nau (Missions Box 7), a Rodok ML and a box of Unidron Batroids! Do I need more pretties?
Now that I have an extra box of drones, I'm finding that I field more than 2 quite regularly (instead of awkward proxies). Q-drone is almost auto-include, E-drone is great even if you don't bring AD, M-drone + R-drone is great against camo armies. The only one I haven't really brought is the T-drone, but even that one has a place against players that love to turtle up in killy missions. All of that is to say, I'd get a second drone box just to be able to field more than 2 comfortably.
Bit tangential but this has made me think about it - are there actually any drop troops better in melee than the Rasyat? Ariadnan airborne rangers are close, but against most targets the Rasyat's CC24 is better than CC22 with a -3 to the enemy stat, on top of his DACCW and access to smoke. That's an interesting high water mark. Edit: Diomedes in Aleph is probably the next closest or only model to surpass the Rasyast, with CC20 and martial arts 3, and no wound incapacitation but no smoke. Also a prohibitive points cost. Vanilla Ekdromoi is more cost competetive, but I think not as good in melee; CC19 with MA3 isn't as good against most targets as CC24.
Only Raoul Spector is a better CC AD troop than the Rasyat (tho it is a bit debatable since he doesn't have smoke), with Diomedes and Duroc coming up behind. But yeah, the Rasyat definitely has a major niche as a CC AD troop, much moreso than as a shooting one, where he's decidedly average.
I'd put Duroc as better than the Rasyat on pure melee. He does get smoke, better PH, and gets 2 dtws. Although he is impetuous, which makes him harder to use efficiently.
Nah. With only CC20 and MA2 (i.e.completely lacking the critical positive modifier that makes a good melee trooper), Duroc only makes par thanks to his resilience. He's great at close quarters, but that's a different operational profile to melee.