B3 Marksmanship Mimetism -6. Yes, possibly broken because it’s very, very hard to contest that. At 19 points. I’ve been using him already, and he’s crazy-powerful this season. With B 3 Marksmanship and a -9 to hit, -6 at best range for most troops, and him hitting on 15s or 12s, the odds will be in Pi’s favor most of the time even on defense. The other overpowered case with B3 AROs is the Rafiqs with Red Fury. Limited to Haqq though so not the end of the world. I see that you guys have a good point about B3 vs MM being a choice now, good points thanks. I still think B3 is the clear winner there.
I'm actually pretty OK with Bakunin and QK getting the strongest options for this, neither were setting the world on fire before and both are still ARM0 STR1 DTW bait.
Very true. Gotta say that Pi and Zoe alongside 2x Riots and a Moderator medic is one hell of a potent swiss army knife right now. Pi murders LI or even HI in 2-3 orders max (no cover, B4, his -6 Mimetism), is highly repairable when anything goes wrong (B3 Gizmokit from Zoe or old fashioned Engineer), has Tinbot -6 protection in the link, and can bring repeater coverage to most of the board in 2 orders. Then the Riots have either a visor Dam 15 Spitfire or a visor ML, and a visor HI shotty to intercept DTW troops. The Riot shotty is good at facing most things that Pi Well isn’t good for. They even deal with mines nicely thanks to the Riots and/or Sensor. This team wrecks face. The only thing I really miss is Courage on the Riots and some sort of Melee threat. Everything else I love about deathstars is in that link.
With a Combi Rifle? Dam 10 vs ARM 4 or better? It's not so reliable to inflict wounds... You need A LOT of effort to kill a HI. Do you remember that Marksmanship get only rid of BS modifier for Cover and not the damage one?
Combi Rifle is a Deadly Weapon. I just run the scenario suggested of that linked Pi against an unlinked Bronce with Red Fury. Each order Pi has a 64.50% 59.35% of causing 1W, 25.52% 20.96% of causing 2W, and 5.6% 4.13% of directly klilling the Bronce. So it seems pretty reasonable that in 2-3 orders the mentioned Pi will probably make the Bronce to be unconcious/dead. EDIT: I stupidly added the full team BS mod to Pi, when he is not pure link. Edited the odds with the reals one when both linked Pi and unlinked Bronze are in Cover. The point stands though, and Pi will reasonably put the Bronze in unoncious/dead in 2-3 orders.
Would you be so kind to explain how Pi-Well gets a B3 ARO with Marksmanship? Somehow I am not able to get this: Pi-Well in a Link is B2, then gets Enhanced Reaction from a Salyut EVO Hacker for B3 - but where is Marksmanship coming from??
You mean 2-3 orders on average? That’s not much. @Rabble already summarized the stats well (thank you Rabble). The game is literally built around the odds of combis. They do okay work. We tend to favor special weapons and ignore the run of the mill here on the forums. In actual play, combis do a decent bit
yeah, except they bronce is shooting on 7s except dodging on 13s, but it works to point out that CombiRifles aren´t that bad as sometimes assumed. Rifles of any kind are very decent weapons. The problem is not the B3 or the DMG13. One or two DMG more or less isnt that much of a deal. The downgrade of Rifles is the rangeband. You have to walk a decent amount before reaching the sweet spot, unlike Spitfire/Red fury/MK12, meaning the efficency of the Rifle depends on movement, terrain, smoke and positioning
In this case Pi causes 1W to the Bronze with a 49.20%, 2W with a 15.44% and Kills the Bronze with a 2.85% with absolutely no 'total failure' scenario where a lucky crit of the Bronze dismantles PI On the other hand I agree fully with your rangeband opinion. It depends on the tables and the scenery though, in my local meta tables the sweet spot rangeband usually falls in the 16 to 24 inches. But in the two Satelites i attended so far this year the sweet spot rangeband of most of the tables was the 24 to 32 inches.
I think the biggest thing is that while the Rifle group of weapons will do a significant portion of the kills; this is not something that you will, nor should, plan around doing. It's what you do when the good options are unavailable, either as a response to your opponent's positioning or as a response to your opponent's successes.
The rangebad problem is especially visible in aros (and that is what we are discussing in the thread). Rare is the situation when you have a place where your rifle aroing unit can't be easily outranged but also can't be yolo-chainrifled. There is a reason most people take HMG q-drone instead of plasma one. And positioning a unit with the same rangebands, but also a link team attached (again, subject of this thread) will be more difficult than positioning a plasma q-drone.
The discussion started with AROs, now we’re talking about both active (positioning) and reactive. You’re pointing out the downsides of a link without the massive upside, which is at least 4 other weapon choices on other team members, and often options for repair. To take the Pi-Well example of a B3 Marksmanship ARO-bot, in a link he will often have Riot Grrls with him. Linked MSV1 Missile Launcher and/or Spitfire will be covering the longer approaches. Basic smoke is also less useful, one of the major ways to avoid AROs. Riots are also awesome for ARO duty thanks to their amazing Dodge when their other options are bad. For the Rafiq, it will be teamed with an Azrail, again the longer or shorter ranges very well covered. True that DTW proliferation makes things harder for short AROs. Pi Well is more vulnerable to those because no one wants to mess with Mim -6. Having a B3 gizmokit behind him helps make ARO duty more appealing though so I still risk it. Taking a chainrifle to the face but eating 2-3 opponent orders required to position that chainrifle unit seems worth it, especially if you get a hack on the unit as well (see below). DTWs rarely have B above 2 so repair is usually possible later, assuming Zoe survives. With Pi shooting at B3 Marksmanship the DTW guy is unlikely to survive, unless HI or NWI/Dogged. That said, it’s not hard to find 16-10” areas to guard with AROs, easier even than covering longer ranges (where opponents often have more options to avoid the shot and short-range you, or at least move into their own positive range as well). Regarding chainrifle warrens, remotes are also nasty at close range thanks to repeaters. Attackers under 8” and short DTWs have to deal with an unopposed hack if the reactive player has a second hacker (I usually do in Bakunin).
Things that carry DTWs and/or smoke, tend not care about getting hacked and have (irregular/impetuous) orders to spare. If your LoF is under 12 they gonna move 4'' (or more) and chain rifle you. Sure, if you put a: 1. good, ava1 unit 2. that got a temporary, seasonal buff 3. in a link team 4. and put it, together with the link team, in an optimal location 5. and make place for an extra support unit in your list 6. and spend an extra order ...then, yeah I would expect it to have significant capability. But all you need to destroy the above plan is an 8pt liberto with a light shotgun. Maybe that's because I'm a casual, and don't see all the angles, but I remain unafraid of Pi-Well led Bakunin trampling the World (of Infinity), thanks to getting one die more in aro for his combi if you take an evo and spend an order.
The problem with been a strong ARO piece is the terms are dictated (or should be dictated) by the active player and the engagement normally will be at his terms not yours.
You guys have got me convinced that the few B3 AROs are not a problem. Thanks for the largely respectful discussion and good examples. I definitely think the link with Pi-Well is nasty this season. I’ll be putting it up against CA and Haqq again tomorrow and we’ll see. I usually hit the Easy Button against a decent CA player and go for Corregidor, but Bakunin seems equally strong this season thanks mainly to this one unit getting buffs. We’ll see!
This is the issue with all AROs. Setting up nasty forks is the Nomad specialty though. HD Prowlers, koalas, and Pi’s own abilities with decent F to F and a repeater plus his link give some good damned-if-you-do situations. If you don’t take Oblivion seriously, you may not be playing enough in N4. Smart warband players saving Irregular orders for close work is the biggest issue out of what you list. The fact that there’s a visor in the link and often koalas nearby tends to cut the warbands’ options down a bit though. If the guy’s likely to eat combi shots when he chainrifles, not having spent that Irregular order is a raw deal.
Not sure how Prowlers set up forks though, is that just due to being able to reveal and shoot an enemy model that is trying to deal with something else?
