Sphinx - The Riddle Of What's Working And What's Not

Hi everyone!

I wanted to start a similar discussion to what happened with the Speculo Killer. The Sphinx is another stand-out unit within Shasvastii that feels to be underperforming. So I wanted to take a moment to note some parts where I see it's got advantages and parts that are disadvantages and open the discussion on what could be done to improve it. Feel free to let me know if you disagree on any points and I'd love to see how people feel about the Sphinx and how it can be improved if need be.

Strengths:
- Hidden Deployment TAG: One of only 2, being itself and the Cutter. And in terms of HD units that have 3 functional wounds it's one of 3 with the 3rd being the Anathematic. Being almost unable to be interacted with until you get to use it is a huge plus to keeping your expensive investment alive. The other 2 mentioned are widely regarded as being excellent units and clearly the Sphinx isn't that far off from being just as faction defining.
- Mim (-6): Same as above. But now you can add the Avatar to that list but it's still a massive benefit to bully your way through many fights that otherwise might be more risky.
- Camoflauge: This really helps dodge a lot of issues such as hacking and getting through some really bad ARO positions. The option to double move back into total cover when the enemy is attempting to discover you allows you the ability to get to most things you would want to attack with relative impunity.
- 6-6 Move: This combined with Camo can also allow access to many spots and even reach your opponent's backline rather quickly. This has always been a strong suit of the Sphinx.
- Climbing Plus (Post Fix): This combines with the 6-6 move very well because while the 6 first movement is common with many Climbing+ REMs, the ability to get a second move that's just as fast to quickly scale obstacles or especially tall buildings gives you a huge amount of access to attack angles. This makes it very difficult to hide from a Sphinx.
- 2B Flamethrower: This allows for some great forked attack options as it makes both the gun it shoots and the templates very deadly to a very wide range of targets.
- Tactical Awareness: With the change of the Cutter to NCO, this puts the Sphinx in a really unique position due to the change to the interaction of Tac Aware + HD and the change to order stripping with a command token. And correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the Sphinx is the only one. This allows it to come out of HD and fully act on it's order, and it immediately gets it's Tac Aware order upon reveal to also still use that turn. This makes the Sphinx extremely well suited to still only showing 10 orders or less on order generation and it will provide itself 2 orders that it can still use.

Detriments:
- Lack of any AP: This normally wouldn't be much of an issue but this is contextual. For the cost you are paying both in points and SWC, having a decent number of attacks saved against HI and almost entirely bouncing off most TAGs makes it really struggle to deal with anything armoured. Which normally wouldn't be an issue if we were talking about a 30-50pt model. But a TAG that takes up almost a full 1/3rd of your list in both points and SWC so getting any ability to deal with heavier targets gets really squeezed into the list. So then the Sphinx has to do almost all the heavy lifting for non-armoured targets so then basically nothing can go wrong for the rest of the game in that regard. Secondly other HD/Camo units for the most part are already pretty well suited to removing lighter targets so it's also not a job that the Sphinx is propping up either.
- 2 SWC: This is a point on it's own because the SWC crunch really limits what you can take to best support the Sphinx to deal with what it's not good at handling. On top of that but the SWC feels slightly inflated. Technically yes the Spitfire is typically 1.5 SWC, but you look at something like the Noctifier Spitfire who is also HD and Mim -6 and that Spitfire is 1 SWC. The Anathematic with it's Plasma Rifle pays no extra SWC cost for being a multi-wound HD model. The Cutter is also inflated in SWC at 2.5 (2 for the LT) but the Cutter also doesn't really need to avoid targets that require other SWC units to deal with. The 2 SWC just feels far too restrictive.
- No Stealth: At first this seems like a sort of "no duh, it's for balance." But you then look at the Anathematic who does have stealth and you really notice how much easier it is to manage AROs once you are revealed. And it's not as if all TAGs don't have Stealth, as you can look at the JSA TAGs who do feature it. As someone who plays a lot of hacking factions I can say having Stealth on a TAG is a decent advantage to help avoid a lot of hacknets. Not having it on an otherwise short range TAG forces the order spent to have to recamo to get past the repeater.
- Faction Pts Cost: So it being 93pts normally wouldn't just be an issue on it's own. The Cutter is a good example where you can spend that many points and be happy to do so because they get a wealth of profiles that are efficiently costed to support the Cutter where it may have issues. The Sphinx arguably is best run in Onyx because you can also run some cheaper links, have access to Imetrons, and otherwise can afford to have cheaper elements to deal with problems. But even in Onyx the need to have a solution for more entrenched targets does require something that is also more expensive. And because of that the Sphinx often just loses to the Xeodron or more actually the Overdron. Said Overdron is also available in Vanilla but as noted with the Anathematic, you have the option for that who is also a WIP 16 hacker and can run as your LT which typically also prevents you going into Loss of LT. And in Shasvastii it's lack of ability to deal with hard targets it's more it's death knell. It's simply less attractive an option for the cost in the 2 factions that are better able to cover for it, and in the faction where it comes from it's almost entirely unsupported since most of the options you would then need in Shasvastii are costed out.
- Speculos exist.

The Sphinx feels like it should be some kind of back-line destroyer and assassination's piece. And technically it's not bad at that job. But due to the nature of Combined Army being a faction of a large number of singular powerful pieces, it just feels to me to be extremely underwhelming. I play it in casual games at game nights to have some fun with it but most times I've fielded it, it actually saps away space from other elements in the list that can do virtually the same job. A good example is that you can take 2 Speculo Killers for the same SWC cost, half the pts cost, and in many ways can be just as annoying to deal with and also just as capable of cleaning up backline models. And this was before the Speculo buffs that made it's CC and fork-shot options a lot better.

What I would like to see:
- Honestly hard to say, but 1.5 or wishlisting 1 SWC could honestly give it a lot more action in Shasvastii. The sectorial is extremely SWC crunched and that can open up more room for Speculo to be in the list without completely eating space from defensive elements.
- Personally I'd like to see it have Stealth. This would give it a bit of order efficiency once you have revealed by being able to get through mid-board hacknets once you are revealed. Even as a start this would probably be a good first step in my mind
- If you keep it at the same cost, and regardless of if you give it Stealth, giving it an AP Spitfire would make the cost you're paying for it significantly less brutal. You still won't have any sort of strong ARO shot like the Multi-HMG so it's still going to be decently vulnerable on defense but even if you just gave this option to Shasvastii only that would really breathe new life into it there. And I still don't think it would completely dominate the sectorial either because everything else you are taking is so expensive and Shasvastii doesn't get Imetrons as an extra source of cheap regular orders. With Nox being next at 14pts a piece.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say. I could be completely off base and feel free to call it a skill issue. I have been playing Shasvastii among both Nomads and Torchlight in ITS events for the past few years but I havn't played a large amount of time with Onyx. And it basically doesn't see play in my lists in Vanilla due to the Anathematic existing. But I am 1 person at the end of the day and I personally value hearing other opinions on the topic.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

 

So this can be another potential way to look at this situation. If you keep it's kit and loadout exactly the same, at what cost would you consider taking it as a competitive option?

My conservative gut estimate tells me either 85-90 and 1 SWC or closer to the Anathematic costing at 75-80 and 1.5 SWC. Although even at the lower say 75-80 + 1.5 SWC I don't even think it really runs afoul of overshadowing the Overdron or Xeodron in Onyx and the Anathematic still has plenty of reasons to be taken over a Sphinx. But you could run a Sphinx instead of an Anathematic if you were going for a more aggressive strategy and it atleast feels at first like a mostly even trade. And in Shasvastii that savings pays for most of Corax Hasht which helps the AP front. :)

That price for the Sphinx in most every other faction would be balance shattering though. It really feels like CA is the only place that can make it that cheap and go "yea, that seems just ok now."

 

It was a really interesting listen. And I'd love to hear Brooke's comments on the state of the Sphinx in a more holistic view. I personally had noted that there was a lot of air given to being resistant or otherwise not particularly vulnerable to Guided which feels to be much more prominent in IGL then any meta anywhere near me (North-Eastern NA for reference). It is important to note it was run in Vanilla Combined which does have much better access to cheap order filling then Shasvastii does. And when I did listen to the interview, I had noted how much more important it was to be very good at making the chaff overperform more then the Sphinx itself being an extreme highlight. With the Climbing+ fix the Sphinx does really get it's mobility back, but I'd also be just as curious to hear the particular reasons for avoiding taking the Anathematic in a similar capacity as you can also just take the Anathematic as a non-LT model if you wanted to reserve it in a similar manner and that Plasma Rifle will drop people. But if you can get to 15 models anyhow and atleast have the Tac Aware order on the Sphinx then that is still an order up on the Anathematic. As at that point the only real value of taking the Anathematic would be to upgrade a chaff unit into something else, and something presumably to use that SWC you also saved.

And this is not to say I know more then the person who won the event, clearly not. But genuinely it would be a good learning moment and on top of that it would highlight design elements that are still working in the model and see where in it's design it can be tweaked to be a little more universally friendly as that showcase piece. And if you can't really tweak it that much in Vanilla or Onyx in fear of breaking upper level balance, then an exclusive profile for Shasvastii would be just as welcome to be that place where if you allow it to be a little more dominating but it's reigned in by the sectorial it's under.

But I think I share a similar sentiment as Storm in that of a model is a1/3rd of your list it should have a little more wider player access for effectiveness. Likely what saves it from being really damning in that comparison is that both Vanilla and Onyx have plenty of more generically effective centerpiece models that really in my mind I only feel that it's in SEF that I feel the greatest sense of disappointment and missed opportunity. If I am building a list that isn't going to make full use of the Sphinx in Vanilla, then there are multiple other TAGs and all the Mnemonica models to choose from as another centerpiece to fit that role.