Full disclosure: I am posting this in Aleph, Nomads, and O-12. What do people think about hackers in N4 and there use? How common is firewall in your local Meta? Do you see it as a problem or have you figured out a way around it? Which hackers do you take an in what numbers? Are hackers in links with firewall a problem for you?
From the vanilla Aleph perspective I think hackers are strong right now, but that ultimately vanilla isnt great at it. We get Burst 3 Oblivion with danavas with WIP 15 and a Dam 16 Trinity on Scylla who has ecm hacker-3 and her own repeater peripheral, but ultimately i think aleph has problems with the midfield and only really works as offensive hackers unlike nomads who infiltrated unhackable repeaters (morans) and jazz who has BTS 6. This means I generally feel that I can't bring Heavy infantry without taking a pretty large hacker tax (typically that means taking scylla AND danavas) as only hector gets a firewall and its only -3. Compared to mobile brigada or jujaks or other tinbot -6 units the HI of Aleph just cant compete with the hackers. To make it more annoying, the HI usually have stealth but that only works again unlinked hackers because those in cores still get 6th sense to hack me. Finally, in the active turn they're just extremely weak in the active turn against an oblivion. Were aleph HI cheaper it wouldnt be a huge deal, but spending an order to throw a pitcher followed by an order to oblivion, it feels pretty bad to lose 66+ point models like Achilles or Hector.
I've found that ALEPH is largely missing out on the hacking game. Without any forward deployed repeaters, forward deployed bots with repeaters, tinbots, or linkable pitchers, ALEPH of all varieties has trouble competing in the hacking game. That said, the Danavas, Scyllla, and the Asura can all be solid, depending on the use and the mission. You just have to learn to operate without a solid repeater net. I've found that fighting against hacking (except for Morans+missile bots, peacemakers+missile bots, or guilang+missile bots) isn't too bad. Most players I play with seem to understand that shooting a pitcher into your back line and picking off your army with missiles is either a dick move or just slightly inefficient. I've also found that Steel Phalanx, with their mix of stealth and fantastic modifiers is great at getting around hacking networks. OSS and ALEPH can use some disposable pieces (proxies or a single Dakini) to get around or dismantle a hacking network in most cases. I find it absurd that ALEPH is lacking so much in the repeater network and tinbot realm of hacking, because they should be really good at it.
So far, i've made my hacking go pretty far, albeit with the caveat that you _have_ to take a Samekh in the list. Turning ARO Spotlight/FO into a death sentence once it swings around to my turn that costs orders to reset out of makes hacking an actual threat against even Ariadna. And giving other ARO's a +3 to BS/ a -3 to Reset is also pretty relevant, but you really need a Guided source to make the opponent realize "if i don't reset i'm gonna die" Luckily, AP+EXP damage 15 template is pretty good at making things die on an 18 vs dodge-3.
I have found aleph to be the second strongest faction for hacking in the game. While true we don't have deployable repeaters skirmishers. We have a pitcher, scylla bots, and flash pulse bots to get a repeater in range. But pitcher is everything for getting that repeater in range. For hackers: danavas, mk2, naga, and scylla are all amazing hackers. A list can expect the first two easy with a guided missle and are a legit hacking threat.
Aleph posthuman mk2 hacker is one of the most powerfull pieces of the game. Anyway i agree that Aleph is lacking behind nomads alot. Aleph is less strong than combined for sure. I would like articial inteligence has something big in own area. Computers and hacking business
I would put WhiteCo, Druze, and Druze 2.0 Qapu Khalqi above Aleph. Repeater coverage is the most important part of the N4 hacking meta and all those factions hurl pitchers and FD repeaters better than Aleph WhiteCo does this while still also stealing Aleph's marquee hacker, the Danavas (for unknown reasons, the sectorial is greasy enough without them). While Druze don't get the advanced programs outside of Valerya, they do get Veteran (Isolation immune) hackers which is a much bigger paradigm shifting deal in N4's meta of "lul fuck u Oblivion". Qapu Khalqi have very similar shenanigans to Druze and they are able to mix this with Corregidor's super strong Tinbot -6 Brigada hacker. This lets them project pitchers with linked KHDs, while still being able to threaten superior firewalled Oblivion AROs at the same time as Trinity through their repeater network without causing fireteams to break up. Something that makes WhiteCo even grosser is that somewhere down the pipeline they 99% have a character Danavas coming, and I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts she shows up with the Aleph inclusion into C1 next year. Some greasy nerd in the design team has what is probably a pet RPG character they're planning to insert into their pet NA2 sectorial, and the N4 book both names her as Cynane (Half sister to Alexander the great, all bets are on her being part of revitalised ASS sectorial) and says she's got a Tinbot (which acts as the company mascot). For the record I also find it absurd that all of those sectorials are better at hacking than both Aleph and CA who represent AI factions.
I am only used to n3 druze and haven't gotten any games in against the n4 version. But you make a point that the good hackers in druze are still solid. I just found that (n3) druze was a little awkward of a sectorial and so kinda found them something I didn't focus to much on. As far as whiteCo and Qapu, i haven't really looked on them, which seems to be a shame because what you are describe does seem quite legit and can absolutely understand that as a counter argument.
I think a neat way to go would be to have EVO programs more a feature of Aleph hacking, blurring the line between EVO support and field hacking. Scylla being a perfect example of that with her Trinity on an EVO device, but something like Laxmee with her Fairy Dust would be a good example of adding the program onto a regular device. Suggested changes: The KHD Apsara gets Assisted Fire to keep that unit on a theme of rem boosting. A Deva hacker get Enhanced Reaction Probot Hacker gets Zero-Pain, the ALEPH EVO should be better than others. Naga hackers get White Noise Shakti getting Total Control. A Myrmidon hacker getting Fairy Dust For the issue of repeater coverage, while they obviously don't want to give Aleph the networks of other groups, something like making all Devabots repeaters would be a way to encourage taking them and playing an active repeater push game.
As someone who plays QK regularly, I find it quite surprising to hear QK mentioned in the same sentence as WhiteCo and Druze when it comes to repeater coverage and hacking power. While the mobile brigada hacker with tinbot is nice (I bring it often), its inability to link tends to limit its reactive capabilities - no sixth sense and no ability to extend its tinbot coverage to other units. To me, the mobile brigada is first and foremost a durable specialist, so the tinbot helps keep them alive long enough to press the button. QK lacks the midfield deployable repeater skirmishers that make Druze and white company so oppressive. Druze pitchers are your only real repeater projection, and its not that common to bring more than 1 Druze (as Druze links are quite expensive), so you are likely placing 2 repeaters at most. My primary opponent runs Aleph exclusively and I find that they are largely able to pick the and choose the match up of any hacking engagement. The Danavas with +1B oblivion is brutal, and Scylla's combination of ECM and portable repeaters (Charybdis) give her a significant mod advantage while also forcing a fork if she so chooses. Even though Druze are immune to oblivion, they still get their brains melted by trinity.
QK doesn't have the same passive spread of their repeater network that Druze has, but their hackers can defend each other better. It's hard to penetrate a network that's stacking hacking AROs in that include a -6 Tinbot on one of the hackers. The low burst values of hacking make it sketchy as hell to work. You can definitely see more than one Druze in QK too, a full core can come in sub 130 points because QK has a couple of decent wildcard characters you can sub into it. Once you have that link of Druze they pitcher to 40" on 12s which puts QK in the category of sectorials that can reach out and alpha strike the shit out of whatever they want with a guided missile. For hacking vulnerable factions needing to play around defending against the hacking (missile) alpha strike is far more oppressive than worrying about penetrating a defensive network. Most links these days are LI/HI split and there'll be some dude available in the link that can handle repeater removal. I play IA into Aleph frequently, their hacking is slow and not really problematic as it takes alot of orders to develop which gives alot of room to counter play. Armies like QK and Druze that can hurl the ultra long range pitcher absolutely put me on a turn 1 timer to break their wombo combo by force, which is oppressive as it very much forces my hand in terms of engagement. As for pitchers, baggage bots are 8pts and well worth it.
For what it's worth I think it's a lot more likely that next year we'll see the release of Trish N33 and the Doc from defiance. I agree a new steel character makes more sense, but CBs recently been very willing to just dump new characters into sectorials for"reasons." And a character steel Danavas only makes slightly more sense than the cross deployment of Trish like with Andromeda.
Sometimes while reading these forums I feel I play some totally different game. Hacking threats...repeater networks...guided missiles. Holy moly, what a game..but it's definitely not Infinity, which is still mostly about efficient midfield specialists, value-for-points warbands and heavy long range brute force. IMO with N4 hacking was made slightly more relevant and worth investing in _some_ armies, not even specifically because of hacking changes, but rather because of a moderate rise of hackable targets. Still, it can hardly be called OP now, if anything it's actually in good place now, given the fact it should be relevant in a game about far future spec ops. The only issues with hacking I've seen are connected with very specific armies and combinations. I.e. Corregidor with linked Jazz and Morans covering the table. And even there it would be fine, but Corregidor is just a tad too strong in everything now. Tunguska, on the other hand...yeah they have really cool hacking combos (and naughty Grenzer sniper)...but what else do they have. TLDR - overall the game is fine, please stop the hammer approach. It's time to balance with a scalpel, and address some very specific armies, units and combos. How about addressing Corregidor (I have it and play it btw, and it feels dirty) or Svalarheima (a brand new faction which is near useless and lacks key models still)? How about resolving this ARO baiting debate once and for all and including it in the actual rules? The guided missiles and hackers are not our major issue ATM. Polishing the N4 ruleset and armies - that's what I'd be happy to see CB do. Cheers.