I can plop it in advance. There you have it. Jammer + hack, is it op now? I just wanna see that line when everyone suddenly get batshit crazy how op one model is. One model that needs 3+ hackers to be that good and not so impressive otherwise. I played a lot in N3 and never maganed to get my hacking zones that fearsome. What about meteor? He can jump on the inacessable roof near enemy DZ. And rems now go prone! And any other Climbing+ rem can do the same. And securitates can wear repeaters too, so you FtF + hacking.
Yeah it's far less problematic if you can see the hacking zone is there. The current issue with the Moran is you can't tell it's there until it's too late and you're standing in the middle of the hacking area and you're trapped. Then on top that it's still camo'd and it's very difficult to remove. You can see these other models so you know the repeaters are there, so you can deal with them by moving around them if you can't fight them. Morans give you the issue of every camo marker needs to be avoided which in Nomads can mean alot of camo markers. They're AVA 2 in Vanilla after all as well as those minelaying Zeros.
You know, I have that same problem with no counter play to TO models. How can I even plan or avoid a model that can be almost anywhere! Outrageous I say! Curse you Noctifier missiles!
How would you like them to not be revealed from Hidden Deployment after they shoot? IMO that's the real problematic bit with Magic WiFi Morans, considering one of the other markers in the shell game could have been a Hacker anyway- or a random spot in midfield could be a Spektr. At least those guys have to activate to do their thing.
Riiight. Cause Spotlight or Isolate in 8 inch midfield (could be anywhere! but you can't even place koala or you'll ruin mindgame!) is totally the same, bah, It's even worse than invisible missile somewhere on the table. Poor HI, they are almost unplayable now. Almost makes you want to play some camo heavy lists.
I haven't gone through the rules in great detail, but don't you have to measure range from repeater, so even if the Moran can't be seen you know which one it is?
I can only assume that yes, you do. The comment above was referring to an issue another poster had with the Moran's power in the camo shell game. My point was that the same threat exists had the marker been any of the other Hackers, the problem inherent to the Moran is that you can't subsequently do anything about it since it won't break Marker state- if you could get LoS for a Discover, you wouldn't have gone into ZoC anyway, so odds are you still can't remove it from Marker in any other (convenient) way.
I doubt I would ever successfully shell game with the Moran unless I was faking it as a Heckler Jammer, severely limiting my deployment and preventing the Koala. I would love to hear anyone report on trying to deploy without the Koala and see if it felt worth it.
I feel there's a strategy here in vanilla, deploying the obvious Moran to cover an 16" control area, redirecting the opponent into the zoc of the hidden spektr/Prowler. This strategy would be at its best if the hidden model then hacked the opponents heavy infantry/TAG while prone on a roof, with the camo revealing as a Prowler spitfire and not a repeater at all.
I'd be inclined to save the Koala anyway if I planned to use the Moran aggressively, Perimeter weapons can be deployed in ZoC even after the start of the game and can trigger in active turn now. That basically allows the mine-around-a-corner trick, but working at 16 inches.
the problem with all that "foreseeing" is that with nomads, seems that everything has been said to become gamebreaking during N3. Grenzers when appeard? "better than nisse". Kriza? "please nerf", taskmaster? "stealthed koala-guarded HI, they are OP", and so... none of them were gamebreaking. Lots of those people that foresaw kamau sniper, dashat or OSS, failed to assess nomads because nomads were not so strong in the first place. That "they can be strong in the right hands, they need experiecne" is just excuses to justify it. Even looking at the numbers of the top players make nomads not good enought compared to other factions. Nomads were strong at the beggining of N3, but at late, their rules couldn't keep with ITS changes (things of being rushed and underworked) the camoed repeater will be very problematic, I know. But I cannot see how that little interaction that any faction can counterplay it in a way or another, can be so broken that will bring nomads to the top. Is not as if nomads put other problems anyway, camo has been their only "fear tool". We are talking about an investment of 60 and 1,5 SWC for 2 morans and 1 hacker... that hacker can be killed by a single KHD and we have no more interaction. Stealth will be ignored by the hacker unless we put a fireteam in, then we will be talking about more than 100 points directed to delay the enemy advancement. Delay. Not killing... and just looking for a way to not get the "targetted state"! bring a non-hackable specialist, do mision, go out and reset, done. There are ways to deal with it, of course. But rest assure, I am sure CB will nerf it (of course, apart of being a rule headache and an strong interaction even if it needs a lot of investment, is a nomad thing lot of people is allready complaining, is not like undercosted proxys, or tournament-bending kamaus). some people need to think deeply in the real options, not theorical interactions. If you climp and get a shot from the moran... then the moran is not hidden anymore. If "it can be a heckler and put a fastpanda" (Which means he moved from advance deployment, not infiltration) then he had LoS, so he could be discovered. Same if he puts a koala (unless he put it before for example, which helps to show where te repeater might be, and how to advance). If there is nobody prepare to shot to the place of the console, why bother about the targetted state anyway? it can be resseted later. If it is someone... do smoke or the firefight before going for the console, and so. Most of those "over the edge" problems are there if some of the cases I explained before are in. When there is so much variables needed for an interaction to be so problematic...maybe the problem is more teoretical
It's very good and might become a link buster for me, but it's probably based on initiative. In either case I'll either have used my Moran's camo or want to deploy it during deployment. Not having it out on my opponent's alpha strike will usually end up with a surprise spotlight on a warband, not as useful. Could be worth it if you see your opponent deploy with a certain force but you need a serious head for bluffs to not be obvious which are deployed like a Moran and which are Bandit/Sombra/Zero.
Well, if it's not true that Nomads will win everything then it is not "game-warpingly strong". Choice of words is important. Is it strong? Sure. Is it something new? Yes. Is it something you have to adapt to? Maybe. But "game-warpingly strong"? Nope. It's not Kamau-Wildcard-Crazy. It doesn't Hard-ARO your units of the board. You can walk around it and it won't do anything to you. Yes, it can be under any camo-token. So what? In N3 every camo token could have been a Jammer (Heckler, Zulu-Cobra). No Risk no fun. Or just walk around them. Or avoid them completely and use the three (at least) new units with Parachutist (Deployment Zone) ... And you or them know everything? Why not give it some time and let's see if it really is that much worse than a "normal" repeater on a rooftop. Yes I know, the normal repeater doesn't surprise you. But like @AmPm said, you get surprised by TO (or better, Hidden Deployment) as well, with possibly more severe consequenses. It's a difference between "powerful" and "game-warpingly strong" … Choice of words. Powerful? Yes. Need a nerf? Wait and see. Is the Kamau "meta-defining" (again, not my choice of words, but it was used). Did the Kamau get a nerf? You know what I think? If Infowar turns out to be strong, then the new Moran will be really powerful. If Infowar fails to keep the dirt-cheap Stealth-HI and dirt-cheap TAGs in place, then the new Moran will be only a better repeater. Or an Infiltration Camo-Specialist.
Everytime a thread about hacking comes up, it becomes more and more painfully obvious that some players have had VERY different experience with and against hacking. I don't know if it's because of meta variations, overall player levels or board set up, but when I read stuff like this I simply don't understand it, it's as far away from my own experience as if you were talking about a totally different game. Oblivion has been a royal pain in my ass since I started playing right at the start of N3. Back then I used to play the crane hacker a lot in my ISS, simply because carbonite was a better option than reset to get through against opposing hackers. Even heavy fireteams with tinbot-B and fairy dust were not impervious to hacking, and on more than one occasion I've had such fireteams completely dismantled because one oblivion got through and all hell broke loose. KHD indirectly brought some relief to my ISS, indirectly because ISS doesn't have very good KHDs but their appearance pretty much erased all AHDs from my opponent's list. Still, while the occasionnal AHD usually wasn't much of an issue, everytime I faced some heavy hacking lists with a proper repeater net (and I did faced them) it has been a major challenge. Even with my Invincible Army and the utterly ridiculous haidao KHD wombo combo. ... Then again, when I read this I also think peoples have very different opinions of what are acceptable numbers and tactics regarding order expenditures. Throwing in a non-hackable WIP13 specialist to push the button, get spotlighted in the process and then spend orders reseting on 10 to avoid getting blown up by the missile bot hiding in the back is an absolute no-no for me. Likewise, speculative fire is very inneficient, and just not a fun way to play the game. Parachutist and combat jump are not THAT easy to solve problem with, and while hacking is an investment it's a lot less of a sucker game than it used to be. I think spotlight in ARO will most likely be good enough to warrant the expenditure, especially if you don't let the guided ML bot on the shelf.
It's not just TO camo anymore - it's the Prowler, who can do it without paying for the -6 Mimetism! OP, OP plz nerf I say. And a "Moran Curtain" isn't even effective. Pick a camo marker that happens to be hiding on one of the six unreachably high buildings. Walk past it with an HI specialist. There's a 33% chance of something happening. It's a psychological bogeyman. If your gaming group agrees that Morans are totally breaking the game, make all the buildings 8.1" tall. That's when someone from another faction gets salty that they can't field their Minelayer Repeater spam or their Super-Jump TAG is now pointless (it actually isn't, it is still tall enough to wail on a rooftop).
maybe yes, different experiences. I've yet to see someone in live (because I have heard/read a lot of stories, but never seen it happening in real) a game lost because a successfull oblivion made it the change (maybe I am not the most tournament guy, but I've been in a few big tournaments and talked about games after it with a lot of people) . Most of the times, hacking worked because the player miscalculated and wrecked himself (the same way is not fault of a TRbot to move send a zero BSG against a it, and get wrong the rangebands, is a mistake from the zero), or because he was allready losing and needed risky moves (the most usual cases I've seen, make and suffered from), or was overplayed in other areas (in which hacking has not so merit), not because "hacking did the job". Hacking was easy (maybe too easy) to ignore (zenchas, daoying or hylang will get into possition without much problems ignoring non-LoS hacking areas for example). And the wasy to ignore hacking are still in the game. Something also people tendet to forget is that successful reset allowed for guts move, so, unless inmobilized, the HI in active would most of the time be hacked only once in surprise, because most of them would move out of hacking zone with those 5" (I see difficult to be near than that to the repeater/hacker in active HI turn). Most of the problems I see, come from teoretical situations where the hacker has the upper hand in deployment, orders and points, and in theoretical situations like that, allways will win the one with more troopers, better possitioned in a table better suited for him against a single unprepared trooper without nobody else backing him. Hacking was not working, maybe against HI-full lists...which, surprise or not, hacking is meant to be a big, BIG, problem, but was only true if the enemy player spent a lot on hacking and here you put an example of what I mean. You want to win a console against at least 3 dudes that get more than 60+ points (a hacker, a repeater dude and a missile ora) in a theoretical situation where the repeater is in the best possition to control the console without possibility to be seen from other sides (its the only rooftop in the table? and seems to me it doesn't matter if its camoed because speculative is a no-no you say). That is not realistical, and both of us know it will not happen so easily for the hacker like that. We showed a few options that were ignored anyway because none of them is an instawin against 3+dudes which count to 60+ points and 2,5+ SWC with one single guy... throw smoke, send a nonhackable camo dude to do mission and then get out of there. The enemy has as many oportunities as you need to control the console to make you targgeted, but will be safe and get you outside range, and if he moves near you, you resset to take out that targgeted. Or go hunt the ML first from outside hacking range first, or go to another roftop to discover and hunt down the moran with other dude, or... options are there
Maybe to those guys, going with your sensor(if you have one in your list) from your DZ to mid table to discover some camos and expending like 6 or 7 orders on it is a great play, for me its just a bad joke
I miss the old days when I would deploy a Moran on the nearest tall building (the largest on the map so I can't get sniped), within 8" of the objective***, and wait for the enemy to waste half an Order to avoid getting blown up.
Generally I find putting the tallest buildings in the middle of the table to be a mistake. It makes a great sniper nest from which Ariadnan yokels can dominate the enemy half of the table. As said earlier, some actual game experience with this will be great.
