Hello! I wanted to see how people are using saladin? Is he mainly for Starmada? In vanilla, I feel the Alpha might be a little stronger but maybe you can do some interesting things with his repeater?
I haven't played Alpha or Saladin yet but... [emoji6] If you go first I feel the Alpha is better with counterintelligence. If you go second, Saladin seems more survivable, being smaller and having a repeater to prevent some of the strongest units to get too close to him. But you don't really get to choose to go first or not...
I haven't played him either, so this is pure theory crafting but he is a little bit tougher than the alpha. His repeater gives him another layer of protection, too. So for me Saladin could be an option for any mission that involves killing the LT. He is not as tough as Hector but he is also cheaper, so he is some kind of middle ground between the squishy alpha and the tough as nails Hector.
The Alpha is way more resilient. Anything that walks around a corner to deal with him has to fight a CC 24 unit. For straight leadership ability he's top notch. I think Saladin is better played agressively with Cho on backup. Letting you either play the shell game where it doesnt matter if they pick right. Or get Saladin up to forward rooftop or corner where you can maximize his repeater. Saladin has the problem of being the weird middle option. Where in Vanilla the Alpha is cheaper and does his job better. Or in Starmada for a few more points take the superior Hector. I really wish they'd done a bit more to shake up Saladin. I think he'd be quite a bit better if he had a cheaper non Lt option. His new dossier had a spitfire option which makes me feel they were playing that option.
Okay, the odds of survival of Saladin vs alpha are a bit situational. The alpha may have the superior face to face rolls at 8 inches but guard does nothing against a direct template wepon (besides killing the user, but that's normally to late). Saladin on the other hand can at least take one hit. Because of the abundance of temple weapons that's something I would always consider during list building.
Saladin is not worth the extra 10 points unfortunately, hes a bit tougher but you can't really do anything with that extra toughness and he doesn't have counterintel. Any time you're thinking about Saladin in Vanilla you're better off with the Alpha and Cho IMO. Or an aggressive LT and Cho
For every mission that doesn't involve LT killing I totally agree. For decapitation CoC does nothing. But Saladin is the only Model Cho can effectively copy out of the three strategos LTs (alpha is the wrong size and Hector has his Tinbot). So with Saladin and Cho the opponent has a 50/50 Chance to go for the wrong model first.
