But you are missing a point. Well executed boring unit is much better (for a sake of being at least usable), than a great idea which was botched in implementation (also on a ground of seeing the glimps of greatness which could have been achieved causing great annoyance).
Oh, Boyg is fully usable. It's just less optimal choice than KoJ most of the time. I do agree about the annoyance, though.
Everything is usable to some extent in Infinity. The question becomes comparative advantage which the Boyg has issues with. The ML has a small active turn advantage. The mk12 has a list building advantage. The question becomes how well can you leverage this? The Mk12 has advantages in Vanilla I believe where you can bring lots of cheap guns as I demonstrated earlier. The ML has the advantage of not requiring a link to get B2 missiles active turn which can be nifty some times. Ive tried to be positive about this guy, but I'm at my.wits end on it. The thing is, the Boyg baffles as a PanO unit and a S5 unit. It lacks the durability afforded to many S5 is NWI. Its behind the curve in stats and weaponry. It rates poorly next to most other S5 hi. I'll hammer this home again, CB doesnt know what makes PanO high tech and inadvertently makes them look low tech in many places. The al fasid with SS1 makes as much sense with the fluff given as hyperdynamics and is better armed. The taskmaster is more versatile and also has a dodge skill. What the fuck is voodoo tech doing here aside from fuck and all? PanO is burdened with stupid design limitations and I think CB blew their chance to go back and fix it if code 1 is any indication. Varuna was a breath of fresh air and Sval was a drastic recoil against what they did. It's safe PanO design with a few neat units and a lot of meh or retread. The Boyg actually takes the cake by not making any sense in any context, lore, gameplay or army function. Why is PanO risking an international incident for this completely mediocre suit of armor? Dude, just buy some stuff from Nomads or Haqq, it's better than this and you dont risk O-12 shitting a brick. Do better CB. Make PanO competent at something that isnt just shooting a gun a little better.
This is really my big gripe with the way PanO is designed, by comparison with all other factions in Infinity: it is defined more by what it can't do than what it can. You can describe Nomads as expert Hackers and lateral thinkers, Ariadna are heavy on positioning advantages, ALEPH has top-tier elites, Yu Jing does everything and has surprising versatility. PanO doesn't have good positioning, whether from Smoke or Skirmishers. Right now its very arguable firepower advantage simply doesn't make up for that, even in killing missions, because moving burns more orders than anything else. In order to regain some measure of competitiveness this deficiency needs to be addressed or avoided.
S5 has no a direct relationship with NWI. Only a few of the S5 HI have it (gamma, 2 from yj, ajax and the charontids. One in ariadna has dogged, but the others, which are more, don't have it). What S5 usually have is arm5 with no extra cost (due to the bigger sillouette compared with S2 troopers), and in atributes, this dude is a bit over average compared with the others. Most S5 have very similar values, maybe 1 more of phys, but usually worse BS, which is a lot more important, and with hyperdinamics, this dude is the best at dodging, and in C1 will be the hardest one to glue. I am not saying its good or bad. The platform itself seems good to me, what it lacks in my opinion are just weaponship options, so it seems to me just only an average trooper that has no space to shine. Pano has been represented in the game better than most other faction, higher access to high tech (lots of MSV, TO,ODD, smaller TAGs, even if they need to crush the lore of units of other factions), better shotting, but more tech-dependent troopers (lower wip). They have access to almost everything in the game (but normal smoke), this dude even brings full auto. CB has spent more work on pano's sectorials and miniatures than most other factions. And pano is the only faction that in all n3 has got buffs outside a "sectorial update" or a rule update. Other factions are "represented" in the army, but then in the table they don't work as the fluf says. Pano does better than most... and when it didn't (MO in n2 for example), CB manages to change, be it the lore of others, or the rules in pano. Akso, remember that for CB, hi-tech can mean things as putting an HMC in a tag Lots of pano players have been asking for an S5 because they are cool miniatures. But IMO, pano shouldn't get S5 troops because they can get the same results in S2 troopers. So what to do? get an S5 better than any other faction? for an S5 in pano to be liked by its players as much as other HI, it needs to be much better than any other S5 in the game (BS15, NWI, better weapons...how much should cost it?), this thread is proof of that. No, boyg is an average dude, with just not enough options to make it attractive, but the base is not that bad.
You missed the Daiyokai for JSA. NWI seems to be based more on fluff. The Su Jian is based on remote tech like a Pan-O TAG, whereas the Daiyokai was an experimental armour suit and the Mowang based off tech captured from that during Uprising. If the Boyg is based off the Yan Huo as stolen tech it'd make less sense for it to be NWI and more for it to have something shooting related, such as Full Auto.
"High Tech Factions": CA, Aleph, O-12, YJ, PanO, Tohaa, JSA "Slightly lower tech Factions": Nomads, Haqq, Ariadna "High tech S5 HI": Anathematic, Charontid, Ajax, Gamma, Sujian, Mowang, Yan Huo, Boyg, Kiel-Saan, Daiyokai, Kriza Borac* "Low tech S5 HI": Taskmaster, Azrail, Al Fasid, Blackjack, Ratnik NWI, Dogged, 3W(Symbioarmor) As you can see the only "High Tech" HI's without extra durability are the dedicated weapon platfroms of Yan Huo and KB(*if the suit itself is high tech still being debateable). We have some resemblence of a theme to extrapolate from. "High Tech" doorkicker S5 HI always had some extra durability so far. Leaves us with the question - Is the Boyg supposed to be a a doorkicker or a gunplatform? He has "Full Auto", suggesting a gunplatform, but MK12 and Hyperdynamics suggest he's kitted out for close quarters, 4-4 move is in line with most other S5 so unfortunately doesn't help. So what's the Boyg? The PanO take on Gamma, Kriza Borac or Yan Huo? Wouldn't they straight up use TAGs or TAG tech for that, leaning closer towards the Gamma? If it was a gunplatform wouldn't they slap in the good aimbot mounted on TAG and Guard troops (BS15)? I don't know, there is some designspace in between the existing S5 guys, but we're either missing something that will show up in N4 or CB missed the mark. Definitely closer to speculation than complaint at this point. The new Profiles we got for N3 didn't get a retrofit, new stuff was just removed, anything can happen with the mix and match N4 enables. Everything that got disjointed from a nested Skill is on the table, as well as everything impossible in N3 and not included in C1, new "levels" of disjointed Skills (like higher Full Auto BS MODs) or novel Skills altogether. Still holding out on a single missing piece that will change the whole kit. Looking forward to see all the possible options N4 adds on top of splicing the existing ones, even minor additions can enable exiting possibilities.
well, I didn't said the anathemantics because they are S6, even bigger (And bigger S is worse, and the sogarats are missings, but they have arm6). The kriza armour is like taskmasters, but with lots of stuff for extra shotting (coolers, bigger magazines and so). I also haven't put simbio armours in the same group as NWI because they are other kind of tech (nothing humans do at least, and has the same amount as ectros, so the S5 is not the reason)...So I still don't see a relationship between S5 HI and NWI. Only 6(+1) of 16. There could e if there were more than half of them with it, but only if you take all buffs (and not the downsides, as the arm4 in the kiel-san), then you get that half of them have some kind of extra durability...only half... hyperdinamics are not exactly for close quarters (thats more kinematica). That's what the game has made into the end for optimized CC troops, but not the fluf itself. This skill is the durability helper this unit has (like in riots).To me, after seeing the changes to adhesive, that skill seems that CB put in him also to have a little better defense against glue without having to put him a too high phis ( that would increase its cost). But in the end, we get to the same point: his weaponship options are not much... he lacks a high burst long range SWC weapon, which is the main reason for all of this in the end. He has a good weapon for aro that he can even use in active (some people dare to use taskmaster with rocketlauncher...and this dude is better for that), and he has a 0 SWC without extra taxes as the mk12 kriza has
But isn't this, what PanO is all about? SCNR And since shooting is such a big deal in this game, I think this is more than enough for PanO.
The Karhu are only missing a Harris, if you could have a B4 Feuerbach with the utility other profiles bring on the side he'd be fantastic. Still hoping they get it in N4. But it's an interesting unit, shows CB can still come up with them for PanO, even if they don't end up being the most competitive choice. Boyg stays weak and boring. S5 does usually mean more survivable than the other faction counterpart. A Kriza or Taskmaster don't have top of the line stats, but comparing them with Mobile Brigada or Riot Grrls they do seem a lot more formidable and heavily armed. Morat HI are like that as well, comparing a relatively baseline HI with a Arm 6 Full Auto 2 model. Boyg is just missing that one strong rule to justify his existence and there's a lot to choose from.
I second the notion that Karhu are an interesting unit, definitely something new. And I look forward to seeing how their loadout will translate into N4.
Orcs are 6-2 in C1 that sets them apart further, while PanO has a plethora of other HI, unlike Nomads, to make direct comparisons with. But maybe I'm wrong, in any case, the Boyg doesn't make much sense to me from a fluff or game perspective.
That's not even a favourable comparison in N3 where the ORCs are rarely worth taking outside mixed links. A HMG or Feuerbach on the same BS and Burst are an easy match to the Boyg's weapons barring a rare chance to catch multiple targets under a Missile, and 3 BTS and +2 to Dodge aren't worth an extra 10 points. I'm a big fan of trying to make profiles that are usually considered poor options work, but there's just no niche at all for the Fat ORC even given his relatively limp competition.
You forgot the task master. EDIT: Oh wait it's under low tech. Not sure if I'd classify it as low tech. What's our bar here?
Guesstimate. Bakunin is still using Manned TAGs and nothing about the Taskmaster strikes me as requiring S5 (so could fit in S2 with better access to technology). Baseline for "High Tech" is a main feature that doesn't exist on (non Lhost) S2. Yan Huo and KB have "S8 TAG level weaponry". The others have ARM5, BTS6 +NWI or comparable which only exists on Lhosts otherwise, not on meatbags. Taskmaster, Azrail, Al Fasid, Blackjack, Ratnik either don't have features covered by S2 troops or are literally Lo-Tech (as in have the Skill). Actually forgot the Sogarat. Which lands in "High Tech*" since it's CA and ARM6/PH15/Full Auto L2 Feuerbachs doesn't exist on S2. *ends up next to the Kriza Borac in the somewhat debatable area.
