I believe OCF is purposely weak on the reactive turn and this to me seems to be evident through the faction's inability to deploy any camo markers and a relative lack of direct template weaponry. Camo markers, whether they're mines, decoys or actual models slow your enemy's movement down as they attempt to nagivate around or force their way through. OCF doesn't have camo markers but instead has several really powerful hidden deploy options. The Noctifer, Malignos and Sphinx all need to be accounted for when your opponent is moving but there's nothing for them to do but attempt to brute force their way through. OCF offers a different kind of uncertainty and one that relies on knowing the proper time to spring those traps so you don't reveal too early, nor miss your opportunity. If thirty some odd points and one to two SWC are missing from the board your opponent needs to wonder whether there's a noctifer waiting to drop a template onto a vulnerable link, or a fraacta waiting for them to overextend? Beyond the hidden deployment threats there's the best TR bot in the game to contest long firelanes; the linked plasma sniper got better since REMs can fall prone now Unidrons are much harder to completely ill in ARO; And if your regular opponent likes to use MSV equipped attack pieces the Overdron tag isn't bad (but isn't great). For close range defense you have Ikadron's to watch corners with their flame throwers, or hope that your link team is able to stave off that initial attack. When melee threats or models with smoke get in close OCF really is just going to have a bad time. Specifically against Ariadna - obviously your own hacking defense becomes less important in this match up, which means that killer hackers are less important. Standard hackers (malignos, whomever through a repeater or picture) tossing out Spotlight while your opponent walks up the board to engage you will either slow them down as they attempt to reset, or will make it easier to win those inevitable face to face rolls. all that being said, Yes. Onyx as a faction struggles fending off an alpha strike on turn one.
Onyx is also not amazing on active with the creep on gunfighting modifiers over the course of the game, and they're not top-tier at hacking anymore either. It's quite the conundrum.
Eh, "mimetism-0" mines kind of put a damper on much of the camo based defense. Between Noctifiers, Q Drones, Unidrons and Dr Worm Onyx looks very strong in reactive. But then I haven't much experience with them, just with Noctifiers and Q Drones in vanilla. Noctifiers themselves are a fantastic form of defense in that they limit the type and paths of aggression for your opponent even if you've only taken a Noctifier shaped hole in your list
I gotta disagree. The Unidron sniper isn't going to win FtF rolls with anything in reactive, and you need that to attack. Rodok ML is the only meaningful long-range ARO piece in a fireteam, IMO.
How's that though? Relative to a Unidron PSR, the Rodok ML costs 7 points more, loses dogged, and gains +1 BS and mimetism-³. The mim-3 doesn't matter against an attacker through smoke, or with an MSV1. ML ranges are more restrictive than the PSR. It's nice when you can kill an opposing unit in reactive, but realistically isn't the point to waste your opponents orders? Under that thinking, a 5 man PSR dron with an option for dogged, plus an R drone (7 pts) flashing away make for a pretty good couple of ARO pieces. I also think OCF does best when it can layer AROs, and it has good tools for doing so. It's not that hard to deploy in a way that lets a PSR dron synergize with a Grief-op, for example.
Sure, but not everyone has MSV. The Unidron oftentimes can't do well against a basic HMG attack. Onyx can't do that without FtF rolls. Good way for your opponent to spend 1 order to take away 3 of yours, you mean. I disagree, this isn't going to work against a player who knows what they're doing. You can do it with the ML Noctifer, though.
It does appear that OCF has very few turn 1 defensive strategies. It seems like you have to just take FtFs on the chin and then be prepared to call the dr. I’ve been wondering if a malignos HD to spotlight in the midfield would be some deterrent in combination with the standard things like a linked unidron, noctifier ML, Qdrone. Taking on any of those while targeted seems super dangerous.
They're going to be able to attack the Greif-Op without getting simultaneously cacked by a long-range ARO.
Maybe we have differing philosophies on what constitutes an effective ARO piece. I like a piece that is strong enough to force an answer, but then survives the firefight without necessarily winning. I'm less interested in paying the points to get an even stronger one that will simply win the firefight varuna-style.
Sure, and one of these is more effective than the other. Also, the Unidron won't necessarily survive.
I don't see the point here. Rodok's are generally stronger than Unidrons. Models can die when you shoot at them. These facts are pretty self evident, I don't see what you are getting at?
My point is that one strategy (winning FtF rolls) is more effective than the other (just taking up space).
In my experience Unidrons forced an opponent to spend at least two orders due to dogged, which is good, as every time you force an opponent to roll a FTF, things might get hairy. Haven't played that much with OCF in N4 though, so potentially unidrons are no longer THAT good as they used to be, but still, I'd consider them as a core with ARO, as Rodoks are just too expensive, not to mention that I sincerely detest ML rangebands. Another issue that Plasma Sniper rifle might encounter in N4 is that enemy active models are now beefier, and that ARM+BTS save might be not the best option.
I think if your aim is to win face to face rolls in reactive, you're playing the wrong faction - there aren't that many Kamau-level ARO pieces in this game and I don't believe that the Rodok is one of them. It's a better gunfighter than a unidron, but at a different price point with different capabilities, while having their main advantage in F2F situations (mimetism) mitigated in many situations. I feel that most of the value of a linked ARO piece is to force the expenditure of orders in moving an answer into position, with considerably less of the value coming from the possibility of killing that answer in ARO. Will have to agree to disagree I guess. Ablative ARO over gunfighters any day, and doubly so when these are the contenders. This is the idea. Be cheap. Force movement of a sweeper to clear the unidron. Roll the dice, maybe get lucky, probably not. Get hit, go dogged or get hit, go KO with an engineer nearby to come back next turn based on the circumstances. Or go down totally and be cheap enough that it didn't matter too much.
Isn't that moreso the case with Rodoks? In isolation, yeah, the odds of winning in the reactive go up, but I'd still put this in the expendable results category. Look: This assumes good (+3) ranges for the PSR and ML, respectively, against a generic "good" attacker (an imagined HMG BS14 HI w/ 3 ARM & BTS in +3 range), with both being in a 5 unit fireteam. The Rodok's advantage falls apart fast when things happen like, a unit with an MSV1+ is shooting, or a spitfire is used in the ML's 0 band. There's also the context to consider. A 5 unit Rodok team costs a minimum of 123 points / 1.5 SWC, but that's a trash team that has 4 23 pt BSG Rodok's. A more realistic team probably costs closer to 140 (HMG, a specialist, etc.). The trash Unidron team with 1 PSR dron and 4 basics is only 80 pts; a more realistic team is probably around 100pts depending on composition. That's a huge amount of overhead for a very conditional 17ish% increase in winning reactive FTF rolls. Of note, the Unidron only eats 3+ hits about 5% of the time, meaning dogged is very relevant here (with remote presence allowing 2 hits to be tanked in a single volley). This is not to disparage Rodoks. I just don't think that they carry a big marginal advantage in ARO over Unidron PSR's, all things considered.
I have had my Unidron AROs obviated by smart players far too often for me to rely on them. The ARO game in N3 was Overclock; they took that from us, it's not clear what we're supposed to do to compete now. Probably lots of hidden units. The other thing with them is that it's possible to catch HMGs outside of the 32" range band in most missions; obviously this is true with both the PSR and the ML, but I find this is where you can create the best denial with them.
Proxy all your onyx as vanilla units for 3 years until the faction either gets overhauled or frenched
