Seems like every list I make be it for a button pushing mission or a killing mission, the kommandos seem to make it in every list. While I do not deny their power in CC and their ability to circumvent most situations, I start to realize that I am relying on them too much. It seems like most lists I see here do not actually include them. Why would you not use them or are there any weaknesses to them that I have yet to see in my games leading to me to being overhyped with them. In short, reverse sell me on the uberfall.
Its been quite some time since I played Nomads but as far as I remember thanks to their impetious they often wanted to run into enemy aros if placed incorrectly. They need to get up close so need many orders to become effective. these are the 2 drawbacks I remember
Problems: if you get caught in a hidden TO ML ARO, the whole Kommando has good chances to go in your wallet. The Kommando is also the most expensive WB in Nomads and some metas prefers to put a ton of cheap guys instead of quality and headaches. The Kommando is also pretty weak in reactive compared to solo WB because dodging with pupniks forces the Chimera to do so and if you're using your Eclipse, your pupniks will wait the bullets coming for them. The unit hates shotguns and other impact templates like hell. And the Chimera isn't that frightening in CC by herself. She needs her lackeys to be a CC monster. She has a lots of qualities but there are drawbacks once you opponent know how to handle the fox and its fellows.
I would skip her if you have too many other Rambo units or no morlocks to help shield her. I live in a world full of MSV2, so morlocks don't really help me. I eat a regular order to make her wait turn 1 usually. If I don't have a good target for her I might just let her run out and save my orders for the real work horse. She's easily countered. You're trying to win a knife fight with a scalpel. You could do a lot of damage but are starting at a disadvantage. A ML or HMG is reliably better to cover ground and stop your enemy
Eclipse smoke is your single best solution to crap terrain placement at events. They're in every single one of my tournament nomad lists now because of that lol. They're a good toolbox, I don't always use the CC every time but they're enough of a threat that enemy will maneuver to take them out which can be useful in and of itself, especially if you've got a hidden spektr sniper covering them off
I love them. Sometimes I take 2. But they are order hogs, their impetuousness and fast move can get them in trouble and they have to get across the table to their targets to do a lot of damage which can distract you from the mission.
I find they provide good answers to a lot of questions. They have built-in solutions to MSV2, obnoxious Flash Pulse ARO barrages, infiltrators in normally inaccessible places, minefields, and are even pretty good against Impersonators and camo because they can roll multiple Discover attempts at once. The nanopulsar is very useful for getting favourable trades in ARO. They certainly don't provide the brute force solution that a link HMG does, but then again even fairly dumb players like myself can defend themselves from the HMG's most obvious attack vectors. They can also warp an opponent's threat perception because if you get them into the backfield once, your opponent can quickly get paranoid about them and spend a disproportionate number of orders going to root them out--and then, even if the Uberfalls kill nothing, you're winning. They're a complex unit with a lot of tricks. Remember the Chimera has stealth and Pupniks don't. Sometimes you can just run the whole posse in to provoke the change facing ARO and then make a second move order to creep closer, other times you might want to keep the Pupniks behind if there's an easy Combi shot in the spine for the Chimera to take. Using a sacrificial Pupnik to eat a shit sandwich from a deadly barrage of AROs is an acceptable trade if it helps you get somewhere you desperately need to go with order efficiency--just run one Pup into the open, and while he gets targeted, perform a second move action with the rest of them. This can get you an additional 3"+ inches of movement in one order, which is sometimes a must-have to reach a juicy assassination target like a mission-mandatory specialist or a soft Lt. Don't forget Cautious Move! Between the Eclipse, normal cover, Climbing Plus and Cautious Move, you can sneak around pretty well! Use Climbing Plus to get the most number of people into melee as possible. If a chump is against a wall, just run around him with your 6" move up the wall and stick your head into his silhouette. Sometimes it's not to bad to split up and gamble your rolls if there's multiple melee targets in walking distance. I always keep one Pup paired with the Chimera, but going 1-on-1 with the others is a perfectly acceptable risk for me a lot of the time--the Chimera usually punks her target easily, and if I lose those Pups, she can walk over and finish off the survivor, which is the same order efficiency as if I hadn't split them up anyway. If a Pup kills it's target, I've saved a whole order. The most success I've had with them is either using them as my reserve unit when I'm acting first in conjunction with a few Morlocks to help pave their way to a weaker side of my opponent's board with smoke, running in and carving up stuff he thought was safe (eating Kamau snipers who thought a building meant 'safety' is a favourite). Otherwise I actually like to hold them back for the first turn, let my opponent's army extend out a bit so the ARO fields overlap less, and then send them in to attack important individual pieces instead of trying to gobble up their order pool. They do have some acute drawbacks, but remember, they're 24 points and 0 SWC. This isn't a Kriza or Intruder. Don't plan on them as your offensive centrepiece, manage expectations, and practice with them.
