I have a cool (imho) idea how to salvage Repeater for neteods, and also create "framework" for new interseting equipment and such. I present to you: Equipment: Repeater (Your half of the table) hyperlinked to wiki where it explains that the repeater/equipment works only when its completly in your half of the table.
You want to add new repeater-rule? if soo, it's not good decision - because you have-to rewrite rules, and many units lost their features. Instead of AD, you can change this rule to parashutist. In this case you will set repeater-net only on table-edges. Or change AD to infiltration and make PH-10 or 9, soo there will be high risk for player to make steps close to enemy DZ.
Bring back Sniffers and give them that. Gives us another reason to take the excellent Sensor Deva profile.
even more repeater for even more hacking-area. I am very sure, what would be a great idea to totally not pour oil into the already pleasent discussion about the power of hacking :D
No, not new repeater rule. New possible variation of the rule. Just like you have parachutist (deployment zone) changing original rule. This way they could add weird equipment on new and existing units but with limited area where it works.
Combat Jump has some value as limiting tool here. You have 60% to do it and beacon can't go prone. With infiltration all factions with beacons could put it in the middle of the table prone on towers woth no downside. If we want to toy with the idea of beacons getting repeaters and still be deplyable outside DZ you need some disadvantages. Remake of my previous idea, instead of giving them repeaters that only work on your half of the table just give them Combat Jump (only your half of the table). This way you still have to roll, you still can't go prone and most importantly you can't project repeater network on the other half of the table. Or just delete CJ and give them FD+4", now they can be prone and succed 100% of the time but closer to your DZ.
The disvantage is that they haven't MOV,CC,BS,PH,WIP, a weapon or equipment, Why i should pay 6 pt for a single repeater with FD+4 when for only 1pt more i can have a repeater bot with an entire profile, flash pulse, cc weapon, mimetism that moves 6-6?
First: if you're going to reply to someone, quote them or tag them. Otherwise they might not see it. Morans can be a problem, sure, but they cost almost three times as much as a Netrod, are only AVA2, and have to make a PH 9 (45%) roll if they want to start on your side of the board. The price for failure is having a 17 point cheerleader and wasting the Koala. That's a massive difference. Mirage5 - Can be shot in ARO, costs an order to deploy, and is ELEVEN TIMES more expensive than a Netrod. Why would you even try this argument. Fiday - Again; can be reacted to in ARO. IMP-1 makes it pretty difficult, but there's still an element of risk, and you're likely to lose the Fiday on the turn it reveals (though it'll almost certainly take something expensive down with it). Has Smoke to cover its own advance, but again this costs orders. And again, it has 4x the cost of a Netrod. Andromeda - You're making my argument for me here; Andromeda was nerfed specifically because she was so hard to interact with, and you want to bring in something with even less interaction? You seem to be missing something fundamental: the difference between a low-risk option and a no-risk option. Netrods with Repeaters dropping into your DZ during deployment is the definition of No-Risk; no ARO's, no penalty for failing. It's all upside. And that upside is giving two factions with very, very good hacking the ability to start hacking on Order 1. The risk-reward is completely off the charts skewed. I'll agree that Netrods as they are now have some pretty wonky pricing, but putting a REPEATER on them is the height of lunacy.
Look, I get that there are some corner cases where a netrod doesn't lose its order, and if you're telling me that's important to an Avatar list in CA, then I shall take your word for it, fine. However, as it stands, 6 points for a netrod in OSS is ridiculous, mostly because the flashpulse bot, which can actually defend itself and help secure your deployment zone some, is 1 only point more. Also, some of my old, old lists are not grossly mispointed - Posthumans and netrods going up in price has really changed the faction. I'm sure OSS will continue to do just fine in spite of these changes (and the changes to linkteams), it's still possible to build efficient lists But these kinds of solutions, applied with no rules changes (or, for the MK2 post-human, a nerf) is frustrating design, and I tend to expect better from CB.
A Lamedh however cannot contest a ZO in missions like Frontline, Quadrant Control, Supremacy, from turn 0, without the opponent able to do anything about it, nor select the absolute best spot for a seemingly unkillable Regular Order anywhere on the map. And should you fail the roll, you can still place it fairly well hidden in your DZ, it's literally 0 risk all reward. The fact that this exact order is also Veteran is pretty busted at 4 points. 6 is much more fair. I dunno, a Hidden Deployment model giving its order to the pool seems pretty frustrating to play against and a frustrating design.
4 points was reasonable when you had to deploy them in the midfield and also risked scattering to a useless spot or off the table. I don't see how 4 points could also be reasonable without any of those downsides.
To be fair, when they could scatter, you also could go up to 20+ orders. So it's not exactly the same dynamic. Having the chance to misplace a Netrod in N3 was less of a blow to your list than it would've been in N4.
At low points costs there's what I consider to be a "crush of value" where skills and abilities are over-valued in order to produce units that are not too cheap. Mostly Chain Rifle Volunteers seem to avoid the Crush by virtue of this being a stand-offish profile where the default profiles with rifles costs as much as you'd expect (and ironically one of few Volunteers I ever see in use). I don't think it's ever been entirely true that there's a "cheap and shit" sort of deal with Ariadna as I find that point of view is also accepting that mid-range units to the tune of 30-ish points have no place in "real" armies that don't have "cheat codes" built in for them. On the other hand most factions have units like Ikadrons or Proxies; units that are unreasonably good and meant to be there all the time every time. Not to mention that if they scattered too far towards the opponent the opponent could use their baggage bots to take them over.
We're arguing two different things. You're saying CB had to address problems in their design. I don't actually disagree; the netrod had become an auto-include, even after it lost a lot of special rules going from N3 to N4, and hidden deployment on a post-human was likely a bad idea. I am saying that the way they have chosen to go about implementing those fixes is very disappointing. There is then a point of contention that you think a netrod is reasonable value for 6 points. I'm testing that at the moment, but lean towards no.
I always find threads like these really funny because folks, you don't need to look far to see that Aleph is frequently overcosted in comparison to other factions. One of my favorites is the 8 point Probot which is an annoying S4 with no gun compared to the 9 point Ikadron which is faster, has higher BTS, a flash pulse, and a burst 2 flamer. Or another: the Samekh missile bot is 1-2 points more expensive than other missile bots despite having no difference in stats, and unlike other factions, Aleph doesn't even have turn 0 midfield repeater networks (unlike PanO 16pt ML, YJ 16pt ML, Nomads 17pt ML, O-12 17pt ML) OR reliable dep reps/fast pandas (hunzakuts/hecklers) OR better pitchers. Like folks, Aleph just costs more to do less. 6 point Netrods are the price you pay for wanting to play the cool "high-tech" faction that doesn't have any tinbots.
