O12 has Epsilon Pano has Nisse YJ has Lunah Aleph has truly premium MSV2 pieces in Atalanta and Teucer Nomads can take the nutty Grenzer but are better off sticking to active turn MSV2 of Intruder; same for Haqq and their MSV2 units He is at home in Ariadna because there are no better MSV units there
As HMG, he is MSV2 helps you actually hitting things through smoke and not just stacking mods, and B4 is better than B3 cant imagine taking Knauf in Nomads
Knauf will outperform an Intruder HMG if he's able to take advantage of his advanced ammo, especially his automatic Shock. If playing into lots of ALEPH or Ariadna locally he could be a nice pick. Otherwise the Grenzer would be better.
Epsilon and Nisse are only better versus Mimetism -6 units, Atalanta has a similar performance profile to Knauf and is significantly more expensive, Teucer is worse against light targets (Hexa snipers) and better against heavy (Sphinx), and Grenzer, Bolt and Lunah are just straight up worse in a direct comparison. Atalanta, Teucer, Epsilon and Grenzers can pull ahead significantly by shooting through smoke, but that requires an external order or two to place and a unit that may or may not be alive when needed, and Lunah (who exists to pop werewolves) and Intruder sniper can get close (safer but less likely to harm) by using Surprise Shot. Last but not least of the special modifiers I can think of Grenzers and Bolts get comparatively better versus targets that are Mimetism -3 or worse and that have MSV1 or better - so primarily against Bolts and Grenzers :p . Intruder HMG blows everyone out of the water, when shooting at stuff within 32", and is probably the only one on that list I'd concede is more cost effective without external support, even if more expensive. Telling you, Knauf is good and more people should try him out. Don't forget that he's AP+Shock if you do.
Been playing against the French a bit lately and I can tell you that Knauf is a ruddy pain in the posterior.
You're assuming that I'm fighting a low ARM target without SSL2. There's lots of options that can deal with that sort of threat and Intruders are usually overkill (Daylami and Helots are examples). Realistically you need a vs High ARM and/or SSL2 attacker: Knauf is pretty much just as good or better in that situation for a lot lower cost and better if I can get the shot outside of 32". Admittedly (srsly this time) I'm probably taking a Hacker + Vertigo to do that "delete high tier ARO" role in Nomads right now.
B3 is not what you are looking for when fighting linked ARO Intruder is not an overkill against Daylami and Helots and TR bots because he safely imposes -12 eliminating the chance to crit him back So can Knauf with outranging but not every table would let you
I think Knauf is a good example of a merc done right. His active turn sniper shtick gives him a real purpose without just being a statcheck sniper like the Kamau.
I think most of all, Knauf feels like he fits snuggly in the game and in the narrative and he fills a fairly generic role as "hero" sniper that only conflicts inside a faction if there's another sniper that's meant to be used for that role (e.g. Atalanta) or if the faction has something against mercs (IMO, O-12 and Aleph). By comparison, Libertos, Lunah, and a few others seem like they should be more partisan to specific conflicts or, in the case of Krakots, seem like they're a bit too specialised to be generally available. As is, several choices feel shoe-horned - a bit like if you could choose French resistance fighters as "native" mercs for both Finns and Soviet in a WW2 game. So, back to the Libertos, specifically. Maybe the key here is to nuke all non-mimetic Libertos and then treat them like Helots by making a deep-dive among which faction(s) are both antagonistic to Pan-O on Varuna (or reckless) enough to play dirty there and could benefit from a mimetic suicide skirmisher without gaining too much from it? Dahshat and... anyone else? Ikari and Yu Jing, would they benefit too much from Mim-bertos? Nomads?
He's also expensive enough that he's a deliberate choice rather than just something you throw into every list. Really we only complain about the sub-20pt Mercs.
It's not friday yet but no one has said anything else on this since monday. How about the 5th Minutemen 'Ohio' these guys have been so plagued with problems since even back in N3. 1 wound non-NWI heavy infantry are terrible and in N4 practically unusable. They are MI in every respect but name. And worse is the Mauraders have dogged so they can agressively tank a hit and still push forward or stall for time. The only reason the unit exists now is to put a single Grunt+ with a big gun in a Grunt link. Which largely invalidates the rest of their profiles. Which are mostly ment for close quarters HI, which the lack of a second wound makes it hard for them to accomplish agressively. The +1 command token Lt option feels insulting. Chain of Command would have been much better since the Unknown Ranger lost his. Regeneration has been floated around as a possible upgrade to these guys, as bump in staying power. I still would love to see them get NWI (since 2 wounds just won't happen.) USARF could use a more pricey agressive linkable unit. I love the UR to death. But I do dislike he has become almost mandatory to take. Both for how powerful he is and because you need something to fill out points I think the NWI upgrade would keep a nice progression with their main combat units. And give Grunts, Marauders, and Minutemen all more distinct roles.
Give them NWI+SI and no-Mimmetism. Cost them appropriately for that. They now have a reason for existing other than just "add gun to Grunt link". Non-Hackable NWI+SI HI is a decent place.
If they were to stay as their current number of wounds, moblots aren't a bad example of making them useful. Having them be wildcard specialists like doctors and engineers would make them at least very useful for ITS missions that require those skills.
1w HI always havebeen and will continnue to be a thotoughly stupid idea and is a form of unit design that needs to die. At wip 12 when you have either camo or cheaper options available this profile is dumb They should pick up NWI as a bare minimum, and regen would be an interesting twist to it, but something I've always thought would be to give them transmutations wounds, and have them be essentially miniature crapjacks, then fix the crapjack.
Really surprised no one has mentioned 6-2 MOV. That would be my starting point for a fix for Minutemen. With all their close-assault kit and a 1” dodge bonus already, making them the fast-movers would make sense. They’ve basically got the accelerator exoframes from the GI Joe movie. It would also give them some commonality with the UKR (Howling Commandos, anyone)? Other than that, up the armor and give them a built-in Paramedic profile, and you’ve got a winner. Regen or Dogged feel like a bit much for these guys. Leave tenacity to the Marauders: the Minutemen move in fast, hit, spring back.
Well, they work, and we'd be taking them happily if every second Warband and MI weren't more survivable for less points due to optimised skill choice. As for the Minutemen, other ways we could play around with that exoskeleton could include a PH boost and a bit more CC to let them really hurt up close, or by upping the weight of their standard loadout and switching out the Rifle for a MK12.
6-2 would be great, but dogged would not be enough, like mentioned previously you need at least NWI (this is across the board for all non vet kazak ariadnan HI). 1w HI just don't cut it especially when cost as much as most other armies HI but have none of the benefits. They need that added durability, otherwise they are just MI which really aren't in a good place right now, it would also go a long way to alleviate some of the issues with USARF at the moment.
Moblots are actually more interesting. I'd honestly make them Hackable but 1W+NWI and give their Alg Hacker (Fairy Dust).