HI

The quote goes the other way "When everyone is special no one is."

This is the situation that we have now since the specialness of HI is compared to MI rather than other HI and save for the super-special pieces both are special and thus neither of them are.

This would also make some HI pieces more valuable compared to the other choices.

An example just at the top of my head is the Charontid.

The Charontid with HMG is HUGE value since it's highly efficient with the long-range fire it can provide.

The Charontid with plasma rifles is significantly less so with one aspect being that getting into the range where the plasma rifle can do something takes a lot of effort.

The Order efficiency of the former is big and the Order efficiency of the latter is bad compared to the cost. Changing its MOV from 4-4 to 6-2 would do little to improve the Order efficiency of the former since it's already skulking at long-range where there's no need to move unless you want to reposition yourself. It would vastly improve the Order efficiency of the latter since it would more easily be able to get close which is where it wants to be. Would it be better than the HMG option? No, and at least there would be a niche for it.

 

The speculation on the ORC and the church falls apart the moment you compare the ORC to the KoS, which is a church HI. They both have the same BTS and the same ARM. So, the BTS hypothecation falls flat there as it's clearly possible to make fast-moving HI without it taking up too much power.

Any fluff reason has long since lost its meaning since it's dolled out arbitrarily based on viability rather than anything else. Any lore only provides handwaving to this.

An example of this is the Asura. The new model is fairly identical to the old ones and yet the profile now has MOV 6-2 rather than 4-4 and as far as I can see it has only changed since otherwise it would be unable to keep up with the other models that can go into the Harris team it can form.

At this point, just give HI base 6-2 and then work your way backward so that the models with 4-4 will stand out and have a clear function, like the Yan Huo. There's nothing in the rules that suggests it's anything other than backline defense. So, MOV 4-4 would be suitable.

The opposite of this is the Silverstar Prime who I suspect only has MOV 6-2 so it's able to keep up with the other models it can be linked with as everything on its design says that it's a backline defender. It's virtually identical in bulk and design elements to the KotHS. That model has no Linkable options and is MOV 4-4.

We can talk about lore and try to find justifications there as much as we want. The reality is that, as I said, it all comes down to viability.

It's the same reason you're unable to take a Varuna or Vinterfor Specialist in Vanilla PanO. They would make any similar specialist simply unviable, more so the Varuna ORC I suspect.

Giving all HI base MOV 6-2 and then working backward would in no way make MI unviable since HI is generally a lot more expensive. It would give them a niché and improve the viability of some choices, as I explained earlier, so people could take other options than the HMG HI without feeling that it's a massive handicap since the heavy weapon option would be better.

 

That's a strawman. If you have an issue with my suggestion that HI should all have MOV 6-2 then provide arguments for that rather than providing ridiculous strawmen.

 

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If the argument is bad then explain the reason they think it's bad. What they did was say "Well, what about oranges?" When I was talking about apples.

And there are ways that their speed could be simulated because right now it's that there are some profiles you seldom see as the alternative is so much more effective. The Charontid example I brought up is one. In N3 and before I would never hesitate to take the Asura with Spitfire, now that it has MOV 6-2 then the MULI rifle options look tempting to me.

Is there any need to simulate that? If CB released N5 next week and all HI had MOV 6-2 as base save for a few I doubt there would be much complaining. The change in MOV has, lore-wise, little to do with them being faster, especially given that models that always have been MOV 4-4 are suddenly 6-2 for purely rules-wise reasons. It has everything to do with the being viable rules-wise though as in the 4-4 HI bracket, you always see the same profiles while there's much more diversity in what you see in the 6-2 HI bracket, save for the gun-emplacement style HI.

That way it would also be
LI/MI: MOV 4-4 (with a few exceptions) (This is where most Ariadna HI should be since they're already unhackable)
HI: MOV 6-2 (with a few exceptions)
TAGS: MOV 6-4 (with one exception so far)

Rather than
LI/MI: MOV 4-4 (with a few exceptions)
HI: MOV 4-4 (with seemingly random exceptions)
TAGS: MOV 6-4 (with one exception so far)

Theoretically, power armour is meant to provide the soldier wearing it with some effects, They're stronger, which is represented by a higher PH. They're more resilient which is represented by higher ARM and Skills, and they make the wearer faster, which there's no general representation of. The only HI that ticks all the boxes for what power armour should theoretically provide are the MOV 6-2 units.

Purely rules-wise a lot of HI is nothing more than MI+ and that's a shame, especially for sectorials that use a lot of HI, unless they're Invincible Army or Torchlight Brigade.

Ariadna 3rd Highlander Grey Rifles have MOV 6-2 and is HI. What's their lore justification when it's a further development that has made HI faster?

There's already a profile bloat, some profiles have no justification to exist other than they've always existed. Again, I'll bring up Jean d'Arc. The standard has ARM 5, BTS 6, and MOV 4-4, the Mobility Armour has ARM 3, BTS 6, and MOV 6-2.

The Knight of Justice has ARM 5, BTS 9, and MOV 6-2.

If there was any lore reason for this then it would be better lore-wise to shove Jean d'Arc into a KoS armour, delete the mobility profile, and call it a day.

 

Regarding Karakuri that's due to their Immunity (Total) which is something that was given to them in N4 iirc.

As for the rest, it's the slippery slope fallacy. There's already a consistent system in place for BS, Line Troopers have the base, Veterans +1, Elite +2, and Highly Elite +3. There's no exception to this as the BS denotes what "rank" the model has, regardless of their ISC Classification.

Your argument bolsters that there should be something similar for HI as most HI are just MI+ in everything save for the additional vulnerability to hacking.

 

How so? You can go into any faction and usually the line troopers have the base BS, the MI has +1 as does veteran LI, the HI has +2, exceptional HI and TAGs have +3. It's rather consistent with the same sequence being applied everywhere. There are exceptions to this in the form of especially well-trained/geared units and it's still generally consistent enough that those stand out. Whereas the MOV just seems randomly changed for no rhyme or reason save in the cases where it's clearly for viability purposes, like the Silverstar Prime and the Asura who would both be slowing down their Fireteams unless they had MOV 6-2.

The base profile for the Silverstar Prime and the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre are exactly the same save for the additional CC on the KotHS. If you look at the render for the prime it looks pretty similar to the model of the KotHS. Where they differ is in the skills and equipment and the major difference is that the KotHS has a Holoprojector. If lore should affect rules then I'll acquiesce that the KotHS should have MOV 4-4 while the projector was turned on and that's it. When turned off, the MOV should be 6-2 if it was consistently applied.

KoS = Knight of SANTIAGO. The ARM and BTS on those and ORCs are identical. The important differences are that ORCs have MOV 6-2, KoS has 4-4, and the latter trades 1 PH for 1 WIP. KoS are better button pushers than ORCs and ORCs are still cheaper and more versatile. KoS even has a point discount for Frenzy. The only advantage the KoS has is that it has Stealth and the 360 Visor, which it kinda needs with the Frenzy, which when compared within the sectorials that use them the Varuna ORC has Stealth as well.

Even within the sectorial, the KoS only has a KHD option and the one that can use that best is the Combat Jump option due to Cybermask and that's 45 points WITH Frenzy, with the recent reshuffle of abilities on Hacking Devices this reduces the versatility considerably. For a pure HD, the KoJ comes in at 46 and DeFersen at 51 though he has Trinity as an upgrade which makes a huge difference now as it's the only program that makes you able to kill hackers.

I just went through all the MI that PanO has access to and those are BS 12 or 13.

Their LI, without mercenaries, ranges from 11 to 13 BS with 12 being the median and only the LI that's supposed to be the hardcore vets having BS 13, which is the same as the vets within the MI classification.

Their HI, again without mercs, has a median of 14 with four profiles out of 16 having 15 (counting both Joans as one profile), and a few at 13.

All of their own, mercs excluded, TAGs have BS 15.

They're consistent with the vet -> elite -> elite+gear/highly elite classification.