I've been getting into PanO more and more lately, and the Akalis are a unit that somewhat stood out to me due to its visual design and flavour. They are a decent gunfighter at PanO BS 13 and a rare PanO WIP 13 specialist, with Religious for flavour (and possibly a tiny discount?). Compared to similar AD troops like Ragik, Hellcats and Tigers, they are a cheap compromise for an AD gunfighter that is otherwise no-frills. Except for one: E/M CC weapon. And that's where I'd suggest to take this profile into N5 or whenever SAA is due for a remake. This ammo type is currently very strong and a really nifty sidegrade for an AD trooper. You could come in, tag someone with your combi rifle and engage a crucial piece in CC to go for that isolation and/or IMM. To realize this potential somewhat more reliably, however, they are lacking a few tools at a mere CC 16. This is where Kirpal Singh comes in (via parachutist, most likely). He comes with CC 21, Stealth, MA2 and PH 13 to really leverage that E/M CC. He also comes with a light shotgun, heavy pistol and NCO/CoC, which puts him at 33/35 points and well into the elite AD price segment. So my idea is to elevate Akails to something inbetween, so they sit at around the 24-25 point mark for the basic combi loadout. Give them CC17, PH 12, MA2 and Stealth across the board to make them a more reliable CC threat. CC17 + MA2 will have them always hit non-MA/NBW troops while giving them a better chance to win the FTF. They'd still drop off against NBW and stronger CC troops, which leaves them with accessible counters. PH 12 gives them a bit more punch in CC and leaves the option for a combat jump attempt with a slightly better chance to land. Stealth would enable them to sneak past threats to push that button or engage that one juicy target you need to hit. Leave out the rest of Kirpals tools to keep the cost down. Maybe consolidate his profile into Akalis to reduce the overall unit count and convert him into corresponding CoC/NCO Akali loadouts with increased prices. Leave the hacker at 28 points with the changes included, it's not going to be oppressive and PanO needs more options for objective play. This is all, thanks for your attention.
I agree with much of what you've said. Akali's should have CC be an option in their toolkit, but should also stay within the mid-twenties for point cost. I think boosting their CC up to 19-20 would be fine, as many HI and TAGs sit between CC 17 - 20. The rest of your suggestions are on point and fit the spirit of the unit without overdoing it. Since we're talking about combat jumpers, how would you adjust the Crusader Brethren? They're also in an awkward spot.
I'm not sure, I haven't dabbled in MO at all, so I don't know what roles they need filled. Generally, my approach would be something along these lines: AD troops need to come in and do something that directly leverages their superior deployment flexibility. - Echo Bravos can land rocket launchers, panzerfausts and wild parrots behind the enemy lines. They can also pick up a downed ORC or Montesa and complete objectives with their paramedic/hacker loadouts. This works fine because they have two very clear roles that directly benefit from being parachutists. They also offer much needed forward force and utility projection in a sectorial that tends to be focused on defense first. - Akalis could have the niche I described above - Crusaders seem to be in a similar spot to Akalis, as in they are solid gunfighters and not much else. D-Charges offer some utility in objective play, e.g. in looting and sabotaging. So maybe expand them along those lines to cover more classifieds and mission objectives. But then again, I don't know how well this is covered by other units in MO, so I'm not really the right person to ask.
As a former player of both SAA and MO: I always saw Akalis as an opportunity to have some semi-decent CC in SAA, while Crusaders are pretty ok in MO being simply good gunfighters able to get in from an unexpected angle. Especially with access to template weapons.
The few times I used the Crusaders, they are a surprisingly tough firepower unit to drop in, not sure the niche they fulfil is enough.
Make them much worse. MO is a severely bloated faction; the Crusaders are way too expensive to have a place. Ditch all their armor and BTS, dump their CC bloat, then give them Mimetism (-3). That doubles down on their role as a a drop gunfighter, and should cut their price enough that they can squeeze in somewhere. Tiger Soldiers but even more ghetto. They also could use a specialist profile - Paramedic, or Paramedic but with a GizmoKit, could be interesting options. There's a case to be made that Combat Jump is also bloat and you'll always deploy them with Parachutist anyway - I think that depends on how cheap you make them. If this is intended to be a 2024 Power Creep Unit™, then give them BS Attack (AP) and a rifle/chain cold profile, a hacker with one of those Nomad HDs that's also a +1 Hacking Device of Killing, and a Marksman Rifle (+1 Burst). I don't know if that's a good idea, but that seems to be the state of things.
We have very different opinion on what constitutes bloat. For me Combat Jump is a core skill, even if I'm not using it most of the time. It gives me options for when I need them. And I don't think making them as barebones as possible would be a good fix. The issue is that they don't have a clear role, they're plain gunfighters in sectorial choke full of those. They need focus on specific set of targets and tactics and tools for the job.
That is a perspective dichotomy, for some the option and potential is what is important, for others the reliable repetition is important. Given that Infinity rewards risks been risk averse creates a tamer gameplay experience.
I have a hard time seeing what would add to make them actually worth the (increased) cost of improving their capability beyond generic cheap skills that improve every trooper (Mimetism, TacAware [iffy for airborne troops], that sort of thing). Taking a step back, they don't need to be distinctive as gunfighters; they're fundamentally defined by their positioning skills. Their issues are that Combat Jump is unreliable, basic parachutist doesn't always do what you want, especially if there are buildings on one or both edges of the deployment zone, and they're massively overpriced for a body that's barely better than an Order Sergeant. Maybe something like Suppressive Fire (+3) with the idea being you can land them and park them in suppressive fire in close proximity to the enemy. I think this defines most of the bloat skills/equipment in the game. Stuff like moderate CC skills, small BS improvements on noncombat specialists, or the Other Visors that's nice (but not outstanding) when it comes up, but usually doesn't. Yes, that's why Repeaters make your hackers more vulnerable to enemy hackers in exchange for giving them greater board control, Impersonators don't exist, and camouflaged units aren't perfectly safe. Honestly, Combat Jump is one of the few mechanics in the game that don't reward risk-averse gameplay, but that's undermined by the existence of superior options like Parachutist (deployment zone) and deploying Impersonators right on the line.
An example idea: making Crusaders focused on taking out heavy targets. MOV 4-4 | CC17 | BS 13 | PH 12 | WIP 13 | ARM 3 | BTS 3 | W 1 | S 2 BS Attack (+1 Dam), Combat Jump, Parachutist, Religious Troop, Terrain (0-G) Boarding Shotgun, Panzerfaust, D-Charges (Engineer) Boarding Shotgun, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Palbot-B (Engineer) Multi Rifle, LFT AP Spitfire Feuerbach, AP Mines With these changes they'd have a clear role, would be better at it than most other MO choices, while still being limited enough to not crowd others out. They'd also provide MO with second Engineer choice, and forward deploying one at that, which I'd argue that HI-centric sectorial could very much use. For me there's a big difference between stuff like Combat Jump and, say, +2 CC on a non-CC unit, or Biometric Visor anywhere. The latter indeed come up maybe once a year. The former gives a completely different deployment choice. But I guess this boils down to differences in personal opinions on what risks are worth it.
Well if you use all the skills you described in a risk averse way you will not gain the rewards of playing them risky.
Not to be back on topic, but the current way this is done is with the CC Attack (+X) and CC attack (-X) skills. It's like Martial Arts, but immune to NBW and apparently free. In light of that, I suggest CC attack +1 B, because Zellenkreigers are good game design. Making the Akali good at CQC would make their E/M CC weapon a lot more relevant, and give them a fairly clear niche as drop melee-capable troops. Alright, this is good, I like seeing the concrete example. In particular, I like the idea of the (I assume) Engineer + Parachutist Palbot - it's a nice hedge to be able to still participate in combat as an engineer with the palbot, though I worry about the cost, looking at the Hellcat engineer with same. I'd probably rather see him with a Submachine gun + Panzerfaust, as that would pay for a large portion of the upgrade. That being said - I'm not 100% sure that Military Orders needs the ability to assassinate heavy targets behind walls. Heavy tarrgets often need to come out in order to do things, and you have the Tikblang, Teuton Pfausts, KotHS, and various other units specialized in close assault. If they go back behind the wall, Knights will beat most TAGs in melee, as long as they aren't zoned out by hacking (warbands are a complicating factor, but less of a no-sell). Unfortunately, on further reflection, I'm not sure the sort of target specialization that I'd want to see exist, because what I'd want is dedicated Hacker hate piece, and those don't really exist. Killer Hacking Devices try to be that, but they suffer from the fact that they are used through the normal hacking minigame, so the best way to use KHDs is to be good at hacking in general, and the the best Killer Hackers are Nomads who get Better Trinity for free on their Hacking Device (Plus). The closest thing to it is building your list around a KotHS + EVO hacker and hoping you don't run into one of the characters with AP or extra damage on Carbonite. I'd want to see something like a Grenade Launcher of Hacker Slaying which makes speculative attacks against Hackers without penalty in exchange for only being +0 out to 16" (so it can hit them from outside their own hacking area) and loosing some maximum range, or having reduced damage aginst non-hackers, something like to that. To be clear - I'm not saying that exact example is what I'd want to see on the crusader; more that I envision this unit as being mostly use to kill null-deploying hackers, and the tools I envision it wanting to be specialized for that roll don't really exist. E/M exists, but that is mostly for punishing hackable units, who don't really need it. Here, maybe a flamethrower that imposes heavy dodge penalties on hackers and units with repeater-type equipment, to allow you to get relatively safe trades into models which will usually cost less than a flamethrower Crusader but potentially have much more impact on the battle (Mary Problems, Intervenors, Bit & Kiss, Dartok, etc). So in terms of what exists in the game, I think what is required is something that's very good at killing cheerleaders and warbands, as the latter tend to feature prominently in null deployment builds. The best way to go about that would probably to start with the Multi-Rifle + Flamethrower build, then give it Dogged and Remote Presence* for a very high chance of getting two activations. The idea would be to trade one of your order-generators for multiple enemy activations, even if killing three enemy Line Troops isn't going to always add up to the price of one Crusader. If that's too good, you could even strip it down *It doesn't make sense, but we can workshop that part. HI are still healed by doctors, and HI is too strapped for points to bring a doctor and engineer. However MO is really a TAG sectorial so the engineer would be much appreciated. Huh? You park a hacker in the back and have them only attack through pitcher/fastpanda/infiltrator repeaters; this is far better than relying on their own 8" bubble of hacking coverage and spending orders to move them around. You are safer from physical attack, get a free Firewall against hacker attack, and can impact much more of the game state. An Impersonator can easily go on a rampage as long as the dice allow after using ablative layers of Impersonator state to get into a priority target, or spend two orders double moving and then re-applying Impersonator state for two more layers. Camouflage is pretty much a perfect shield during your own active turn; you always have one order of warning before loosing it unless you voluntarily drop it. Risky tactics in Infinity generally accomplish the same thing as safe tactics, except they spend fewer orders and have a chance of costing you your model and not accomplishing the goal. Fundamentally, Infinity is a game which rewards avoiding risk, because the gap in capability between units tends to be extremely large as a consequence of the Order system. As an extremely implied example, instead of 10 Knights pieces of roughly equal capacity, an Infinity army will usually look more like 8 pawns and 2 queens. So where in most games, making an un-safe play with one of your ten units will mean you put 10% of your army's capacity on the line, making an unsafe play with one of your active models will commonly be risking one-third, one-half, or potentially even more of your army's offensive capacity. That's neither good nor bad. But it does encorage plays which have a low risk, either by removing or minimizing chance of retaliation (Guided missiles, hacking, smoke + MSV or melee), or by minimizing the downside risk (cheap irregulars which have a minimal impact on the army when lost). And N4 balance heavily favors hackers, which are the antithesis of a risk-rewarding unit. The entire system of repeaters rewards risk-aversion by protecting you, extending your reach, and letting you gang up on AROs. Basically the only mechanic which encourages risk-taking that I can think of is Protheion, which actively rewards you for getting into close combat (and winning). Even if the best way to use that is to prey on line troops who can't fight back, getting to CC is still a fundamentally risky proposition for everyone except maybe the Caliban (who has camouflage and mimetism). To extend that concept, a mechanic which actually rewarded risk-taking would be something like a Skill that refunded the first order you used to win a Face-to-Face roll against an enemy that can actually shoot back. Or gave you a Booty roll for killing a 'worthy enemy' (needs defining) under the same conditions.
Immunity (Direct Template). Scare the bejesus out of the entire game by requiring the opponent to actually roll a face-to-face BS Attack.
The Hellcat Engineer with Parachutist Palbot? Sorry, but such a profile doesn't exist. It never existed. There never was a Hellcat Engineer. Perhaps you meant Tomcat Engineers with their Zondcat assistant remotes, who are indeed a thing, but Tomcats are not Combat Jump capable, and in general a different beast than Hellcats.
