Hi All, New Haqq player using them for the first time in our league and in asteroid blues. I'm curious about a couple specific pieces on vanilla. Aida Swanson. I like the thematic part of using a cool mercenary, but I'm having a hard time justifying her cost. Viral mines are neat, but it seems like she's a bit expensive for a mid-fielder. Wild Bill. I appreciate that he dispenses a lot of bullets, but does he have a stand out role as a non-linkable hitter? Both of these pieces are hinting to me that they're begging to be replaced with a Namurr or Muktar, but I'm curious as to your experiences. Thanks
As with many Mercs, they work better with some forces, where they are lacking their skills. Haqq already has a lot of good troops that do the same things. Sort of like the Liberto is great for Yu Jing. But in Haqq, you already have the Daylami and other really cheap skirmish troops.
I like Aida. Used her a couple of times in missions where I need to guard something and there is plenty of cover.
Units with visual mods, a suppressive fire weapon, and mines are great to use defensively towards the end of your turn. Alternately, if you're going second they make a decent speedbump.
If you want to go full meme, on defensive missions you can take Aida and 2 Muyib Minelayers and co-ordinate viral mines before dropping everyone into suppressive fire
Absolutely no one wants to mess with Viral mines. That's two command tokens very well spent. That said it is extremely frustrating that we can't drop different types of mines with the same coordinated order.
I'm a player that likes to test all the options and I used most (if not all) of the units in Haqqislam (yet not all of their loadouts, I'm not that crazy :P). So I'm definitely going to try Wild Bill. He is nice with his BS 13 combined withMarksmanship L2, good MOV, and a Rifle. I'm a little more concerned about his great pistols, because getting so close to the enemy makes you vulnerable to Direct Templates. And it's great that he has V:NWI, but still low ARM and BTS can make his career very quick and sad. Still I used Zhayedan Breaker rifle with some successes, so I think that a cheaper guy hitting targets even better has some potential (even though Breaker rifle is much more devastating than a plain rifle). And about Aida, it's a funny thing, because I though that she has nice profile when she came out (despite the nagging of most of other players in Poland). So I took her to a YAMS 250pts tournament, along with Tarik, Hakim smg (then also new) and few other units, 10orders. And I won all the games, vs Nomads, Tohaa and Ariadna, finished 2nd in 12players, but Aida did really nothing. Other guys took the fights, Tarik was ramboing like he likes to do, and Aida was just giving me order. And after this tournament she didn't get into any of my lists. To be honest I'm playing Ramah since it came out, but still it's not easy to win a place in Haqqislam rooster with such cost and stats. She's interesting, that's sure, with 2 SMG and Viral Mines, Scavenger, Martial Arts et cetera, but not an unit that get's played a lot. PozdRawiam / Greetings
I keep hoping that we will see a scenario eventually that will really highlight Scavenger, with something other than Panopolies. It just feels kinda underused. Maybe seeing it on a drop trooper would work out better... kill the enemy HMG guy and take his big guns. "Ho ho ho, now I have a machinegun too."
Aida's main problem with scavenger is that her weaponry tends to kill things dead, she needs to scavenge other people's kills like a hyena. I see bandits getting some good usage of scavenger, Irmandinhos suffer from not being able to shoot straight so most options are fairly pointless.
I take Aida because I like the miniature and the story. There again, I don't play many tournaments and just have games for the story.
Where do you get this miniature? Is she a book exclusive? edit: I know I can google it, but I prefer to interact with you guys
It's currently available in an Aristeia expansion box or out if this season's ITS box. Edit: I am an idiot. Somehow I thought this was about Wild Bill.
Aida was last year's ITS prize, there will be a version with Defiance we've already seen a render of, and hopefully a general release at some point.
So let's go down the rabbit hole... Was Aida not in a position to do anything? Did the opponent(s) avoid her due to her presence? Was she an overall poor choice and ended up far far down the list of things to get done? Did she just have no particular role in that mission/opponent/yadda-yadda?
I've taken Aida a few times, really want to make her work! I have found that in missions where units are funneling to a mid field objective, she does the business for me in turn 2 or 3, not having to move far to threaten basically anything with her loadout. I've not had success with her when trying to 'dig out' something - the Krakot does this better for reasons of impetuous order, weapons, and depending on the meta chem roll, mobility. On the flip side she has to 'stay safe' until later in the game when there's more in the midfield. And about half the time I've used her she's killed before I can spend an order on her. I think that speaks to her versatile load out and how much opponents want her dead!
I would like to point out Cadmus have scavenger and are one of the most precise drop troopers in the game. been using one. Its so much fun.