Now I'm imagining an Oznat variant (not an actual Oznat but something else in the same sort of family), with forward deployment and a pair of baby Gakis that work as krazy koalas. As an aside, really wish Aida had a specialist or FTO profile in shas. Either that or an inferior impersonation variant. I love her model and her troop profile but it's a serious struggle to fit her into lists for ITS missions.
its a hard question to answer without knowing what the basic changes of N4 will bring. If i were wishlisting for CA. These would be the things id like to address. Redress combined army line infantry. It appears that there is a design choice that CA line infantry must cost 14 points. If that continues to be the case i recommend something to make them worth that more often. Morat and shasvastii line infantry tend to go from very average to fine depending on the mission they are in (shas) or the opponent they are playing (morat) Ideally id like to see their factions rules be more consistently useful across every profile that pays the points for it. This is more a core thing but i think combined would be one of the primary beneficiaries of it. I would like to see an improved design philosophy when it comes to points cost of units. It is fine that there is a formula that is cobbled together to get the cost of a unit. However I would like to see more frequent use of designers going in and manually adjusting for units that have skills that dont gel well together. A morat yaogat sniper having higher phys is almost irrelevant but he pays the points for it. price the unit appropriately and for that one in one hundred time that he needs it consider it a small unit bonus. For shas the biggest thing I want to see is tweaking units to take advantage of shell game. As it stands your ambush camo mentor doesnt shell game because its the only one in your deployment (unless you waste another camos forward skills) so for instance giving mentor FD would instantly make the rest of the camo units better. This goes across all their marker state pieces. For a sneaky army with so many options for camo it is actually staggeringly common for an opponent to know exactly what is under what. I hope for that to be fixed. For morats, their whole schtick is they are a disciplined warrior race. Valor skills, close quarters dominance and strong leaders is what id like to see emphasized. For an army that should be able to take advantage of ignoring LOL I agonised over a decent LT option. The Sogarat feaurbach full auto for instance, not having lt at least in morats feels criminal. As it stands you either take a nobody in a link ( who doesnt get his lt order wasting the morat rule) or you take kornak doesnt spend his LT order anyway. Solo and great LTs or a change to link rules allowing the LT to spend the order in link the way tac awareness can be. Onyx. its mostly a good army. a reprice of units that dont see use is all thats really needed. In general id like a look over units again, a malignos is borderline unplayable ( i dont say that lightly) outside of the KHD profile. But heres the thing, CB knew that malignos was poor so they put the bandaid on of using the formula to make one useful profile by giving it a SMG. But if they decide to nerf SMGS the entire profile is useless again. CB knew the malignos was poor, So fix the unit dont game your own system.
The radio silence on this topic has been deafening. I'm worried this is only going to increase in N4.
There's little I can add that haven't already been said, but my main concern is this: When I play Onyx, I never take Umbras, even though I love the models. When I play vanilla, I never take Morats (Except Zerat with Red Fury), even though I love the models. So it seems there's something wrong here. Umbras and Morats just seem lackluster compared to all the robots and Shasvaasti.
If you never take daturazi or krakots then you really need to start to :D But in all honesty, there are few Morat profiles that feel like they even have a place in vanilla. That is true.
agreed - in MAF you can link up your vanguards, rodoks, yaogats, etc. I think MAF, the consummate soldier faction, should have more vanilla-options. Duo or even Haris when in vanilla.
wrap Full Auto 1 into the Morat rule, even adding a point to every profile and I think we can call it done. between that, veteran, and religious, I think you cover off what makes Morats Morat-y. don't mess around with frenzy, that's a Kornak thing, dude's unhinged, he's just also really effective at it. the rank and file are essentially that montage from the movie Soldier where Kurt Russel is walking stoically through various battlefields, shooting and shooting and shooting.
I always thought Dogged would be a better innate rule for Morats. They seem pretty dogged by nature. Also. CHARONTIDS, SKIOVOROS, ANATHEMATICS AND THE AVATAR SHOULD BE ADDED TO ONYX. The shas and morats can be scaled back now that shas have their own good sectorial.
Again... I don't think they (the aspects) fit thematically in Onyx at all. Onyx is the initial contact force for new races they encounter. Aspects are when you are bringing the full force of the CA in an engagement. Also, I think Onyx having elite units from each flavor is interesting.
Elite units from each flavor is usually the domain of generic army lists. We'll be having a time skip in N4 anyway, so the first contact force for the human race will anachronistic. I mean they could make us both happy and simply make a new sectorial list that was like onyx but with less Morats and Shasvastii but more EI aspects. Only problem is they don't seem like they can do that without adding 10 new units nobody wanted or asked for and deleting morats to make room for them.
Onyx's fluff is really kind of haphazard; they made a sectorial to throw all their new releases into. It really should have Rasyats in it, but it doesn't, because they wanted to put the Fraacta in instead. Kind of like how IA should have Tiger Soldiers.
Also, Fraacta and Makreep were obvious replacements for some of the Exrah troops. They'd feel more in place if CB would follow up with a proper sectorial for them, but they had no idea where to go with Tohaa, regardless of allegiance.
Full Auto Lvl 1 doesn't stack with fireteam bonus. This would make most MAF heavy weapons profiles useful in vanilla, but would pretty much cripple MAF as a sectorial, as everything would cost more for no actual gain. Giving them stuff like Dogged or Berserk as was suggested before would be way more useful. MAF needs to be able to trade troops, and right now they can't do that very well. Also, they need more good aggressive lieutenant options like Kornak.
Regarding Onyx - a Suryat rework would help them quite a lot imo (atm they're just absolutely not worth taking, cause there are plain better options) and Onyx is lacking a proper HI choice (Charontid would fill this hole up, but, as stated above, it wouldn't make any sense fluff-wise). I think giving Suryats a slight point drop and maybe a fd L1, specialist profile with mimetism (I know, I know, that's not the Morat way, but it's the Onyx way :P) that could act as a data tracker would help I also really hope for a slight Umbra readjustment, they desperately need shock imm and maybe even a slight point drop - Legates is just a more expensive Kerr Nau that does less, and letting him roam around on his own will get him shocked off the board rather quickly Another one in need of some help is the Maakrep - I quite like Fraacta, she's really good (competing for the drop troop spot with Ko Dali, but it's even ground imo), but the Maakrep is, again, just too easy to blast off the board - take her automedikit and SS L1 away, give her a survival form and she should be quite a cool piece in Onyx
I see your point, but, but I think we could potentially work within the ~N4~ thing. change the 3 man fire team bonus to "Full Auto Level 1" and the Morat rule, much like the MI rule in ITS X+, "provides Full Auto 1, and if you already have Full Auto 1, grants Full auto 2" but worded better.
@Sharrankar I think the Umbra need multiterrain or 6-4 move rather than shock immunity. Handing out shock immunity like candy to nwi troops is a problem; it's because shock is too accessible. It needs to be removed from knives and smgs, and then also possibly sniper rifles and antipersonnel mines.
Sniper rifles and AP mines without shock would lose a lot of their value. I agree SMGs could do with losing their extra ammo types, and I haven't seen knives be used enough to really feel their impact. The big deal is Assisted Fire, though. Because that means any REM in the game can sling shock ammo and THAT is quite powerful.
@Hecaton - very good point, I instinctively tried to solve the consequence, not the problem. SMGs having shock is a bit too much, I deffo agree, esp combined with their abundance. Not sure about multiterrain tho - it may just be my playgroup, but different types of terrain almost never come in play and it just feels like a completely dead rule to me. @DaRedOne - I don't think Assisted Fire is a big problem (again, it might be just my group, but we do have some OSS and Onyx players, aka the factions that, arguably, make the biggest use of aggressive REMs (aight, there's PanO and Yu Jing as well, but they are rare where I play and they need to build their lists around REMs to make them effective). Also, take in account that for AF to happen you need to spend an order and have a hacking device (or the plus one) - while it's fairly easy for Onyx (Nexus lt. hacker ftw lol), it gets quite tricky with OSS (I'd argue that, given their hacker profiles, Apsara is better), and requires a build-around for PanO and YJ Also agree that sniper rifles and mines are good as they are - when you aro with a MSR you probably always pick DA instead of shock, and normal sniper rifles are quite rare. Regarding the Umbra Legates - maybe giving him camo would work? Give him 6-4 move and FD L2 as well, keep the cost as it is, and you have an interesting specialist profile that murders things in the midfield. But this kinda is the role of the Samaritan, right? So probably a whole rework would be neccessary for our lovely, angry friend to see play lol
Love the Jayth models. Would really like to see some adjustments to them to make them more attractive as aggressive pieces in n4 or just glancing over their link options a bit. Am I out there what's your thoughts?
