1. is true, though table dependent and, crucially, somewhat irrelevant when comparing ARO pieces. Every ARO piece is vulnerable to range mismatch. What’s important is how much it messes with your opponent’s plans, and how much you spend on it. The first is how effective it is, the second is how efficient. My post was specifically addressing the former. 2. is true but very order intensive. 7 orders for the Spetsnaz HMG on average, and he's never going to make it there, because he's taking 0.48 wounds per order. The "expected outcome" is for the Spetsnaz to die on Order #5 with the Hektari having 1 wound left. 3. This is the English board, so please use WIP, not VOL. Low WIP is definitely a downside of PanO in general, and one of the reasons this guy is not invincible. Still, you have to actually beat him in the BS game before you can force him to roll WIP, and that's a bit easier said than done. 4. This point is about efficiency, not effectiveness, but still: Overdron Duo is minimum 114. Yaogat core is minimum 91 but generally comes in closer to 110-130 because you want toys like Hacking. Firefly Haris with a Minelayer, Hektari ML, and Bipandra comes in at 91 (assuming Bipandra didn't get a discount in N5). I'll revisit this point later. 5. is their biggest downside, though hardly one unique to them as an ARO choice. Lots of no-MSV linked HRLs and MLs in lists, and not every faction has Smoke (OSS, Onyx, Torchlight, any PanO Sectorial). My point was about them being effective in ARO. There's an entirely separate discussion about them being efficient. Any ARO piece that's too strong for the opponent to deal with is going to be avoided and/or smoked off, that's pretty universal, and honestly any ARO piece that makes my opponent completely avoid a firelane has done its job. Of course, you're paying a pretty penny for this Fireteam, so its important to look at what the Haris as a whole can do once the ARO job is no longer relevant on Turns 2-3. He's going to waste orders, and he's going to survive wasting those orders (often through a failed Guts check, intentional or not). And then you have to deal with the BS 17 Better-Mimetism ARM 5 SMG in the midfield 2 turns later. Hackable, Smokable, bad in CC, but we've all been there, late in turn 3 with the desperation plays, where the Noctifier ML makes an attack run with his Assault Pistol against Armand Le Muet with his Symbiont Armor Inactive. Or where the 4 members of the Fusilier Core that were just there to buff the guy with the Missile Launcher are now trying to push up with BS13 Combis into a Frenzy'd Asawira. And when the 1-wound Hektari that survived and failed Guts limps up the battlefield with his two specialists in tow and then drops into Suppressive Fire near an objective, well, that's where the real question gets answered as to whether he's worth his cost. I don't think it's an almighty god of ARO, but it is absolutely a piece that demands specific counters that a lot of lists, quite frankly, don't have. Lists with Unknown Ranger, or an AP Spitfire Evader, or a Feuerbach Karhu as their main attack piece. And those lists absolutely do not want to fight this guy. So they won't, and when they don't, he gets a free Firelane to walk into the midfield with his specialist buddies, where he continues to cause problems. Not insurmountable problems, but problems. The biggest thing this guy does though, in my book, is simply exist. Just by existing he makes opponents account for the possibility he's going to show up. The PanO player deploys two Fireflies in his DZ near a tall building, declares he's holding a model back, and then passes to you. Is that going to be a Hektari Red Fury that is going to come barreling toward you bottom of Turn 1? Or is that going to be a Hektari ML that you have to Smoke off? Or maybe it's a fake-out, it's actually just a Firefly HRL, and your opponent spent those extra points on a Banshee that you now have to look out for. He's not invincible, but he demands specific answers, and his Haris has a lot of play left if he gets ignored. I don't know if it'll end up being worth those 91 points, but it's at least an option that your opponents have to consider.
Of course, but Hektari is an Alpha Strike, not an ARO piece. In the active turn it is a medium range at 17 in most cases, and it can be linked. The problem is the modification at BS, but at least the designers choose a multi redfury like his weapon and not a HMG B+1...
It's scary to shoot at so like, don't shoot it. Stab it, burn it, hack it/ E/M it etc. Everyone's gangsta till bear rips them a new one. It's infinity. There's lots of answers. One of the best is often; Ignore it, do the mission. Kill around it to cripple it's orders. Roll well brothers and sisters.
Didn't noticed I wrote VOL instead of WIP, obviously I was aware I was on the International side of the forum, but I will try to pay more attention next time. Well, if we focus only in numbers, of course, they looks scary, but lucky us, not only numbers is what we have. Raw numbers and data without setting the context could guide people to conclusions not as accurate as someone could think. Btw,you don't need to run a full core Yaogat now to improve that face to face, a 4 members fireteam will do the same, lowering the cost. I mean, to do better the comparison. Example not going for the cheapest option. You could have 4 fireteam members, plus even a guy with smoke to deal with this guy. However, we will have to wait until we see the whole picture. Love to have this kind of interesting discussions about something related to the game.
Funny enough, even if we are focusing in shooting him down from his frontal arc, instead of using a lateral solution to the problem, is to just coordinate attack him down with special ammo weapons such as EXP, E/M, PARA, AP+DA,Continous Damage, and whatever new tools N5 provide. That markmanship and that BS attack (-3) does nothing against a coordinate attack... apart of possibly taking one of the attackers down with him to the grave if he choose to not dodge. It is incredible the amount of problems that can be easily tackled with if you built your list with coordinate attack vectors on it.
This is something I'm going to use a lot in the future... because it's what PanO was told in the past. How many turns life takes.
This was definitely an old favourite for handling Kamau in their N3 heyday. Four Panzerfausts are probably killing anything without Mimetism -6 backing them up, and were an affordable and available option for the factions with the worst chances of outfighting such a piece. Not sure about in N5 yet, given the sheer number of cuts and weakness of Irregular Orders.
New English video is up: Not sure it has been confirmed elsewhere, but video explicitly stated that Marksmanship ignores the BS penalty to nanoscreen. Should be a fun unit.
Because the two have now been separated into different skills, so I guess people thought that marksmanship would now not apply on nanoscreen anymore?
Yes. There has been some discussion in the News thread. It is a solid replacement for the Hexa with the exception of no specialist profiles. It is a wonderful gunfighter and gives even more access to WildParrots. The Shock Marksman profile really needs to be a specialist or a minelayer as it really brings little. Maybe as a backup gunfighter.
I think the SMR is actually the more useful one over the MSR. The latter is in direct competition with HRL, which will be a better choice most of the time. SMR might be actually quite useful as a hidden gunfighter to use in active and punish troops which stray too close to PanO DZ, and Hidden Deployment helps with that a lot.
I would even say the SMMR can stay HD unless really needed the first turn, then punish in ARO the second turn and move up to clog a lane with mines.
It is clear the HRL will be the popular option, then it diverges, in my opinion, MSR is a refined option that will be selected only if the local environment calls for it, SMMR will be the option for the lists that are starving for SWC.
I suspect the MSR will be represented more than it really should be- because there are few to no HRLs in the three discontinued Sectorials. The Blink is going to be very heavily proxied. I'm really going to miss the Hacking options if reactive Hacking is usable in N5; the HD/KHD on a hidden-deployment, yet fairly cheap platform was really handy in N3 and N4. As a pure gunfighter though, it will outperform the Hexa, and I for one will appreciate the late-game defensive power of that Suppressive Fire MSR.
But to be fair, the Blink HRL is a beautiful model and might sell the box. It looks like it just committed a massive violation of the Concilium Convention. It and the Japanese side of the Beyond Box are stunning. With the confirmation that Disco Baller can used to set up an Eclipse Smoke template, the 12 Point Fennec (Forward Observer) might be very common to see. Woot!
