While browsing YT, I came up with this idea for a potential Umbra Legate rework (not Samaritan, although they'll probably be molded into one unit in N4, considering the new box) Give him a new deployable item, called a totem (or whatever) - placing it is a short skill, give him two of these Now, the fun part: Umbra, after losing his first wound, doesn't go unconscious, instead returns to his totem (the same as Revenant does in Apex Legends, I took it from there). Basically, he can be a missile that absolutely deletes things without worrying about "I'm an expensive model and die to a random whatever" It isn't part of the fluff, but nothing says it can't be added in N4 lol what do you think about this potential rework? Would add super distinct flavor to Umbras and imo make them really good Edit: realized Legate has NWI - it should probably replace NWI then
Nah. Both umbras, shock inmunity or second wound, additionally, an specialist lt. Maybe wildcard in onyx
Would you field Legate then? I wouldn't - he'd be just as bad as he is right now. Specialist lt. profile wouldn't change a thing, cause in Onyx you have Malignos, who's cheaper and does the job better, and in vanilla you have a ton more options Wildcarding them in Onyx wouldn't help either (they already have sorta wildcards), it'd make them even worse - they are 40 points of "I sit here wanting to get into CC and do nothing" They need complete reworks, although Samaritan not so direly as Legate, in order to even be playable
Agree on shock immunity. Disagree on wildcard, they don't need it. Only things that would allow that it currently doesn't is bringing a Legate with your Xeodrons (y tho?), a Samaritan with your Unidrons (meh), and an Umbra with a Suryat (maybe ok?). Hmm, also a Rodok haris, but you're already paying for the haris profile and Umbras aren't exactly cheap...
Personally I hope that both Umbras drop in their cost, because if we look at Code One changes to HI (6-2 Mov, there are also some speculation that they will be cheaper). Maybe add some small changes to their profile like immunity or 2 wounds like CB changed Sheskiin.
Both Umbra are correctly costed for the kind of monsters they are according their stats and myriad of skills. Asking for shock imm or 2 w just shows you don't care about balance. 40 points is still aceptable for a 1W unit, specially having NWI and one of them being able to gain additional wounds. Right now they are correctly balanced, you just need to learn to play them. If you want them cheaper then the "rework" should need to remove skills, gear and stats, nothing of the non sense of shock imm or 2 real wounds. Look at YJ, they just received 2 characters that are close to the lethality of umbras and within the same range of points. Should umbras get shock imm or two real wounds as you ask then absolutely they should become HI hackable. And don't try to refer Sheskinn, that's not a balanced unit and is more of an exception. .
Samaritan is doing fine, he doesn't really need much help - I suggested that he could get an ability to change cautious movement to a short skill (to represent his smoke form) - while it does sound powerful, keep in mind how open tournament tables usually are Legates, on the other hand, is plain bad - it's not a case of "learn how to use him", 'cause you won't get much use out of him, compared to other options in Onyx. You're comparing him to the two new YJ characters (and that already is a no-no, as these are two completely different factions + links in WB are way more flexible than in Onyx) - Adil's role is to support his link, clear out potential jammers and flip buttons. Jing Qo's role is to run around with a monk (or Liang Kai, but that gets a bit expensive) and wreck things reliably in melee thanks to smoke. Legates, on the other hand, can go on 1. solo mission and get murdered either by a long-range sniper (bad at dodging) or get significantly slowed down by mines/jammers/whatever is in the mid-field, as he has no option to reliably clear these things out 2. drag a 5-man link (either Unidrons, which don't really want to get too close or Rodoks, which are so-so, compared to Unidrons) with him - and this gets complicated, as with all 5-man link teams He NEEDS buffs if we're to keep his cost. Let him yolo into the enemy without the fear of getting blased off the table on-route. Fireteam duo might help, but it'd have to be with a strong mid-field unit, which Onyx kinda lacks (we got Greif tho, so maybe with him)
for me, the problem with Umbras is that they were supposed to be the first choice of Lt, an agressive one, at OCF, but the lack of a skill that mitigates LoL like Morat/CoC/Mnemonica allied with how soft they are and expensive (everything have shock this days...), made them a poor choice inside OCF... They're fun as hell and the samaritan can be a monster when things go nice, but if you reached this point, you have already won the match by a mile
It's been said to death but both umbras massively overpay for what you get in a very fragile platform with no protection. What I would like to see though is less extra wounds and tankiness and more ability to position itself (and its fireteam) to do something nasty. Would a skill like a smoke version of albedo be broken? You have the first turn to zip up the board and start CCing things that need it, charging up wounds for the following turns and it's thematic with the billowing shadow they seem to be made of.
I strongly disagree here. A specialist lieutenant option couple with a CoC option in Onyx would make legates baller. High risk, yeah, but still baller. I would use one even in Vanilla if I needed a cheaper option than an Aspect. Wildcard would probably open up some link options as well, so that can help, although less so than a specialist LT. I do think Umbras are a little too fragile for their cost and could use a bit of a defensive boost. Ahahahahaha, yeah, this would be super broken. Albedo only works against MSV, which is an expensive and not very common piece of equipment. Smoke works against anything BUT MSV. If you had an one turn blob of smoke that moved around a model as it walked, it would be so insanely powerful people would be losing their minds over it. Seriously, an umbra would be able to run across the whole table unmolested with a skill like this and just eat half the enemy backline with little chance to recover.
Maybe not one that moves with them, but an automatic smoke template where they deploy could be an interesting feature.
