Mendoza is an excellent midfield option, and the best part is he is not the only one available, MO can field a variety of lists and play styles now.
Hell yes, Teutons are the new Tankos now! The only thing they're missing atm is AVA 5, but I suppose, it would be too much. Teutons can now serve as a cheap link team base for the Wildcards like Koni, Infirmarer, Santiago or KoJ - efficient and sturdy. KotHS is unique in its own way, as a Holoprojecting S5 bulldozer that just swipes off all your carefully deployed mines and shoots all your AROs down with his AP HMG and Surprise attack while ignoring your jammers and hackers mostly. NBW in the close combat puts a cherry on the top, making him rather uniqeulygood in CC. Well done! Mendoza is a hell of a midfield rambo that can be really, really strong in the right hands, digging into enemy DZ and burning fireteams with his Burning Heavy Shotgun or shooting stuff down in ARO with BS14 Mimetism-6 Suppressive AP/Shock Burning rounds. Can also dodge on whopping 16s whenever needed. Expensive, but definitely worth it. Order Sergeants are now are cheap Haris platform for any Wildcard that would like to get +1 Burst, ARO HRL or Hacking support - Knight of Santiago Spitfire or KoJ Spitfire being strong candidates. While no Escort Sergeants may enter Special fireteams, there's no word that Escort Sergeants can not be a part of the OS fireteam - if that's the case, one could lug around nice disposable flamethrowers as well (although honestly, it will likely get fixed) Crosiers form a great cheap LI team that you can fill in with a lot of nice options like KC, BF HRL, MOMachinist, KoJ ML, etc. very good if you want to focus on bringing in something else. Having to pay 11pts for a base order instead of 13pts will make a lot of difference. Small disappointments: - the unlikable pariah Black Friar MSR will never see the table now - Sixth Sense on the HRL Black Friar won't be used much either, since he's gonna be joining the full Core team of Crosiers only - Order Sergeants don't have a Paramedic option anymore, it moved to Crossiers who can't link with the Teutons or Hospis (the former being able to benefit a lot from a cheap Paramedic in the team) - Anything but Crosiers and Teutons is kinda expensive for what it does, therefore, making a decent link will still be costly. Infirmarers are still a whopping 25 points/model. Santiagos are still 39-45 points per model and no 6-2 MOV. Heavy guys like KotHS, Mendoza, KoJ, De Fersen are all 50+ points, which means 1-2 of them per list is max. - Knight Commander is not really that good at Close Combat, CC18 + MA2 will bring him to an okayish level. Also, not really a Monofilament weapon as promised during the previous day - which is generally fine by me, it wouldn't get used too often anyway. - HI didn't get 6-2 MOV, besides Teunogisters, which would frankly be easily playable even without it - and now our HI links will keep running ahead of one another. - De Fersen does not get Wildcard, which leaves him in a weird place, considering that Killer Hacker Santiago can do his job arguably better and cheaper, while Mendoza can do solo ramboing way better. - Knight of Montesa still has AVA 1 :( Come on, CB, it's a knightly sectorial, give us at least two! :) In general, I'm happy with this change, happy to swallow my previous words about things becoming unified and fairly mundane too. Overall, this move is in the righteous direction and will make our MO life more eventful. Gracias!
Are we talking about a range band 16 B3 unlinkable character to call him the strongest shooter in MO or PanO?
Troopers with a Peripheral can't enter Fireteams anyway, so they'd have to get the Auxbot killed before joining the Sarge Haris
want to talk about a good new profile ? let's talk about the KotHS CoC he can shoot at range, destroy mines and CK 9 BTS and specialist
I think you are underestimating how dangerous the combination of Damage 14, AP and Continuous damage is.
Going purely off mods, BS 14 ODD is incredibly strong. He doesn't have the B4 or the linkability to truly hit the top-tier (so strongest in PanO was me having a brainfart, I'll admit), but he's definitely up there as far as solo pieces go. Anything he can get within 16" of will have a very bad day.
He also hoovers up the 2 LT orders from Knight Commander who otherwise wouldn't be able to spend them if hiding in a link.
Will write up some in depth stuff later but what the flying Eff am I looking at? At the one side we got to keep stupidly effective Troops like the Montesa Tik, Trinitarians and Dart, got significantly buffed Magisters (well losing Cubes stings a bit). Add in we finally get a reasonably priced LI troop and a useable Lt option in unexpected places (hi there Teuton). On the other side it's, I'm afraid to say it's a bit of a wasteland and that's very surpriseing to say on day 1. Things I find a bit curious: How is CoC still on the KothS, why is NCO on the AP HMG (certainly the one that needed and edge), how is the guy missing a Lt Profile? How do Seraphs and KothS still not have a Lt Profile while Teutons got one? How did OS lose their Paramedic (a very useful export, commonly loved by PH14 HI without Cubes), gained a funky Auxbot Hacker Profile (interesting actually) and were then deemed finished after adding Croziers? Who in CB hates the Blackfriar MSR with passion and what did the guy ever do to you? Could you make up? Who thought Infirmarers were worth keeping like this, certainly the Wildcard I'd want if the sectorial next door has to suffer being burdened with Karhu. Fancy sword + Doctor + MI = ridiculous pricetag is the clearly superior combination, who would even want features or reasonable pricing? Not us, we love to min max the shit out of stuff, yes Sir, thanks for those Teutons. The Knight Commander was a perfectly natural next step to solve the Lt situation. Why would I ever want to enable a HI or TAG to lead from the front in a Knight themed Sectorial. Lets say by adding CoC on literally-anyone-else-but-NOT-the-Knight-I-would-like-to-lead-from-the-front. Or anyone cheaper than the actual Lt, unreasonable, I know. Certainly he needs to offset the great boon to pay for a Mono CCW by getting taxed with the universally loved Combi+LSG Combo. His CC + Suprise Attack is legit nice 21 -6, why not give him Lt only Profile, lock him into the one Link that never wants to move and can't Haris. Okay this is PanO and we like MSVs. I get it, really do. But do we really need 3 separate 1W MSV2 options for the same Link? Couldn't we make Koni into a special Trinitarian or something? The Pyromaniac. Okay everything burns, got it. Gave him Berserk so we still have it after Teutons and Magisters merge, got it. Gave him Grenades, a Shotgun, MA2, Berserk +3 with a real CCW that's also Continous Damage, Hyperdynamics because no Smoke and somehow need to get into CC in PanO. Couldn't do half of that on the last 3 Teuton iterations, I get it. Forward Deployment ODD with CC - certainly still original on the 3rd installment. But why do we have a KoJ, a Hospitaler, Koni, Dart, Trinitarians and this guy in the midfield? Meanwhile the universally loved Crusader was completely unchanged, bold move. With the Wildcard craze it's nice to see that MO still features Link Teams as rigid as you could imagine. Aside from all the Wildcards that can go anywhere and overlap with what can already link with Hospitalers. There's weird stuff I really like: The KothS is terrible for CC and I love it (on the HMG). CC22 NBW, no MA, stuck with a Shock CCW and PH13 (+1DAM in CC tho). He never wants to be in CC, he's miserable there. But the really really nice thing is that everyone else is going to be miserable in a CC with him as well. No CC Specialist really wants to touch the guy in between Holo getting in the way and being stuck with raw CC vs raw CC FTF rolls. Teuton Lt. - Impetuous Dude jumping around all the time, being obnoxious to kill and dangerous to attempt... and I'm basically gonna run 3 by default. That's like Christmas! KothS CoC, Private Information Specialist? A bit of a bummer the somehwat weaker Profile (DAM 14 MMR vs DAM16 AP HMG) doesn't get NCO, but buy that guy is one hell of a Specialist. Just gotta make sure your Lt doesn't croak so your CoC doesn't have to use CoC. Teuton SMG Specialist Operative is another surprising addition. Linkable Specialists with Panzerfausts unburdened by Combi Rifles? Yes please! Crozier E/M Mines + Blitzen. Nothing ruins the other guy's day more than a double dose of random oneshot mechanics in your LI fillers (which don't need to pretend to be Lt options, noice). Haris and Core on Teutons - AVA3 is "3, non negotiable" rather than the usual "up to 3" suggestion I take it? Teuton Firewall is a nice touch, makes the KoJ a bit more attractive, especially the Hacker (gets a bit expensive if you run him + Santiago KHD) As good a time as any to minmax a build out of this (which I can happily say is finally in the cards, more than I can say about the last 3 attempts). I'll gladly take it over the last one, but I'm somehow tempted to decline this rework and ask for a bit more effort, sorry
Still a japanese HI project made with obsolete blueprints and poor resources has better survivability
KotHS is fantastic, yes, but I think you are severely underestimating what a BS 14 ODD guy with an AP+Fire weapon can do, especially since he starts 8" up the board. Seriously, run numbers on an simulator. He HURTS.
I'm whelmed. 19 points Teuton Lt is the piece that was missing to make MO work. Heck we even got a new HMG option, good times. Finally can build a Core Link that makes sense, run something else than the OPOP Montesa Tik, can run the OPOP Montesa Tik with much better support, save a bunch of points on random places, run Core + Haris + Solo Assault piece with 15 slots filled. While a lot of those midfiled options feel wack and unneeded, we can finally utilize AVA on Trinitarians + Dart for missions.
What is wrong with AP/Shock+Fire on FD8 platform ? Especially now with Tikbalang/KotHS clearing a way for him to wreck all the things ? If enemy doesnt have a repeater network setup (with decent hackers) he might have troubles with stopping him. Especially that FIRE ammunition gives you quite strong option for some amazing value if you go just outside of "expected value" of dice rolls.... Damn, in this excitement I've missed that Tuetons/Magisters are only AVA3 ;/ Sad panda.... ALSO: for anyone missing it, Order Seargants are now CC16 and BTS3
