Mmm, to be honest my experience with VHs hasn’t been as bad as others are reporting, even with Caledonia or FRRM. I do share the opinion that there are three VHs that desperately need a nerf (Aleph, Next Wave and Zeybek in Haqqislam) as they have a combination of factors that bring them to excessively high levels of threat and pressure. With Caledonia the challenge is (and with Ariadna in general) that cc does not work against them, so for me it’s always a matter of keeping my Mormaer(s) safe until my active, and then I go hunting. No VH can survive a Mormaer. With TAK is with who I find it easier to cope with them as Tankhunters with autocannons and Scouts with Ojotniks being in camo marker allow me to choose, even in reactive, when to engage. I’m still loving them. I have a satellite next week (with Team Ops) and Caledonia is one of the candidates. I believe Mormaers are still the best shooter in Ariadna thanks to the perfect mix of survivability and damage, but the access to Scot Guards, Cameronians, cheap orders but dangerous…it’s really helping out pressure through the game. The problem is the same as always, with Caledonia it’s an exhange of troops, so it’s rare I finish a game with 200 points alive haha. On the Team Ops, I feel I don’t really have that many options…but it provides me with another scary shooter (Mk12 AP+T2) on a Mim-3 BS13 guy that in turn 2 becomes Immune to AP, that has one or two specialists with him. The problem is it makes me have to worry about hacking (heavy team ops is hackable) which I don’t normally with Caledonia. So summary would be…I appreciate having them, they can be useful, but don’t feel mandatory at all.
I see more likely to bring the others to par with them... marketing. Also: if a VH could not survive a Mormaer... imagine the pilot: bring 'em down. Axel won (and the 2nd place too) without a VH. Are they an auto-include? Definitely not. A costly trooper that is not an auto-include is self limiting (Marut?). For example Hatamoto is the only trooper in the faction of that level, which ends up to be an auto-include (even 2 in Shindenbutai) in JSA armies because of miniature range issues. It may require nerfing and back-up (not of the kind of the Daiyokai that costs more and are not auto-include) from a significant new trooper. Just nerfing brings people to stop playing, even altogether in some cases. Nerfing and providing alternatives or back-up improves the game for everybody.
