Which would you rather have sitting pretty with a view of the field on the reactive turn - a tough Mk.4 with single burst Heavy Rocket Launcher, or a squishy Zayin with burst 4 HMG?
Dodge at 14 Mk4 better than dodge at 7 Zayin, plus no lost order if it dies, can drop Prone if needed, has an SMG for the odd chance of an enemy inside of her ZoC... Also, ARM 8 after failing the dodge. And 1 dice of FIRE. Got more than one tag AROing with that HRL... And in the last campaign we played I deployed 2 as soon as I was able (yeah, huge dent on SWC, which was the next part I spend points on, but...). Anyway, NEVER ALONE. Even a Warcor or Lamedh give some measure of survival to ARO pieces.
Zayin for covering the backline from AD. Mk4 for firelanes. Lamedhs as support ARO everywhere. Sniper Mk2 for unexpected ARO angles
MK2 sniper in hidden deployment. I've scored more kills with that beast than any other ARO piece, not even Agema snipers or TR bots.
For me? TR bot. The mk4 is 1 swc more, which is extremely important to me. Amd with marksmanship lvl2, the hmg tr bot is extremely terrifying. Most things are actually favored to lose against this beast, even in their active turn. I also valie the other proxies more, 1 2 and 5 specifically amd so have no room for that bodie. The last reason is i play rem heavy and all/most living models have dogged+ so i dont generally run a doctor but i run an engineer. Because of that, the 2 real wounds is far less important to me as i cant wake him back up. But the enemies HAVE to kill that tr bot or the yudbot hiding nearby will revive him under command of the mk1 engineer.
Ideally your ARO should match the game state. A simple myrmidon (or Mac) in supression fire can cause incredible head aches in the right position. Same with the Mk 2, MK 4, a flavor of Agema, TR Bot, etc. I like taking the MK 4 for ARO duty specificly becuase an impact template can do so much damage, and for @xagroth 's reasons. But even then, I don't expose him to the whole field. When you leave stuff out to ARO ideally it can see somewhere important (consoles or approaches), but not be easily visible from the other side of the board. Good AROs tax a lot of of orders forcing you opponent to move assets to be able to engage them first, then tax them more order trying to get rid of it. Other good AROs are; 1. Traps, set up somthing obvious to ARO, and place somthing in hidden deployment that can see likely places your opponent will engage from. Forcing split brust dramatically increase your chances for a kill. 2. Out range, snipers and MLs stand a decent change against HMGs in aro if you can engage them outside of 32 inches, especially if the sniper also has extra mods. Look for very long fire lanes. 3. Against hackable targets, force them to take normal rolls. Place repeaters in locations guarding lof to your ARO pieces. To engage they will be forced to take normal rolls from hackers. If you AROs are killing enemy models, your opponent is either not playing well, or is having a very unlucky day.
My preferred ARO piece is cheap and/or far up the board. The primary objective for it is to waste opponent orders - so to stack up on negative mods - so a daikini/thorakitai in cover on SF is great in this respect, as they quickly rack up modifiers, while their death costs little in offensive power. Setting up short range AROs is also great, as it requires opponents to spend more orders outmaneuvering them - opposed to Smoke+MSV2. Another is the expensive route. Achilles/Patroclus up a flank in SF. These guys can do so much damage once in position - where they get really fast. Opponents will usually be hard pressed to get around them.
I must say, I have trouble thinking of a better 1, 2, 3 ARO cover for different parts of a table than: PROXY Mk.5 (Marksmanship LX) Mk12, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) PROXY Mk.4 Heavy Rocket Launcher, Submachine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 20) PROXY Mk.2 MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 24) 4 SWC | 61 Points
Logged out during writing -.- Why is this one strong in ARO? I find the other MK. 5 Superior in many Situations. Put into suppresive fire, you have a strong ARO. I havent figured out how/when to use marksmanship LX. Any advice?
Mostly it's the solid rangebands and damage of the Mk 12. NEVER use Marksmanship Lvl X is the simplest answer. On the upside it appears to be a free skill so it's not like you are losing anything. If you really like suppressive fire then the Mk 12 can do that too, but it's native rangebands are pretty solid for a medium range lane on most tables (where the Sniper or HRL would be wasted).
SWC costs, Posthuman greatest assets are all paying an SWC tax (0.5 to 1.5 for the TO, 2 for the HI...), that's why the Mk5 FO and the mk1 medic/engineer are seen as "the most broken of all the proxies". Problem with this: 2 SWC for the whole rest of the army. Consider how your MSV2 start at 0.5 (Agema mk12, who makes the Mk5 MMX superfluous thanks to his Visor X on top of the MSV2), follows at 1 (Deva Spitfire) and ends at 1.5 (snipers), 2 (Asura Spitfire) or 3 (Marut)... Yes, you can deploy a Multi Rifle Asura for a 0 SWC MSV3... but really? That lady costs more than this whole Posthuman team -.-U
Hey, the man asked about ARO options. Those are some solid ARO options. Chuck in an aggressive B4 Active Turn shooter and you could build a solid list on that base... especially for an objective based mission.
Hmm. Not a fan of either, as they both can be shredded by various active turn weapons. However, I'd say the Posthuman is better, because of the better overall stats and better chance to dodge. I prefer my AROs to be survivable, so a MK2 or Daysus Sniper are my choices.
Depending on the army you are facing and the table, the marut can be an impressive ARO piece : - very high ARM and BTS, even more in cover - BS 15, DAM 16 EXP ARO - Good at shooting down any warband (don't care about smoke) - Myrmidon is a very good ablative armor. Best positioning : Marut behind a crate/container and mmyrmidon prone on top of it. It make it nearly impossible to do anything to the marut without the myrmidon smoking him. With strategos, you can choose to use him as ARO after your opponent deploy everything (and when you now exactly how much anti-tank weapon he has) I used him twice that way in the French satellite tournament (once against Hassassin Braham and once against vanilla Ariadna) and he performed very well in both case (starting the game against Hassissin in LOF of 3 Ghazi). I also used it this way against Tohaa with success in other tournaments.
