Edit: I goofed and missed Mimetism-3 from the Intruder, it's at 73.6% vs 6.13% Intruder has roughly the same chance as a Szalamandra of taking out a flashbot (64.3% vs 63.7%) but much more likely to get stunned in return (10.72% vs 2.31%), both assuming that the firefight is at 16-24" so both sides get +3 range. Szalamandra is obviously better against anything with armour due to AP ammo. Intruder is better against enemies with Mimetism-6 or if smoke is involved thanks to MSV2.
AVA of Wildcat Hackers is a terrible comparison as no one is taking Wildcats at all in competitive play least of all the HD or KHD profiles.
I sincerely N4 dropped, and the meta shift towards null deployment, that the Intruders main targets have disappeared, and have been replaced by HI ARO pieces in a core fireteam, something that the Intruder just can't compete with.
Its funny, because every time I hear this I agree, but then in my next game there are non-linked ARO pieces galore. Hell half the time that is you running a TR bot lol The intruder is not kitted out to fight a core linked HI for sure. But there are not a ton of unlinked gunfighters that are good against the various castle links. And against most other things they work well.
Yes that is me playing badly and leaving models out to ARO at long range. On the whole though I generally find that there are not the right kind of targets to justify its cost.
I think a lot of the pieces that were classic opening plays on t1 (smoke and shoot with morlock and intruder) have moved back a turn or two in the running order now. Intruder can't take on a linked HI but that was never it's schtick, turn 2 and 3 when stuff has moved up and spread out a bit is when it'll find it's role
Looking back at the OP, I noticed this. I think it echoes a common sentiment that mercenaries are making the game too homogeneous and maybe less fun. And day after day I agree more with it. Most merc units end up filling a nice or bringing something better than their army counterparts. And most of the time they're cheap enough that they don't even factor into the actual army list. It is something that makes me twist my nose at.
It's fine as a direct comparison to the Ye Mao. Also at MI with MSV. Also part of it is that Nomads DO have other, better options. They Ye Mao is actually one of the better hackers. Wildcats also have D-Charges on profiles other than ENG. Making them flexible for missions. Again, they have the tools for the job where others struggle. The same with Evaders. D-Charges on EVERY profile. Haidao has one.
Putting TR out to get shot is kind of what they are there for. I haven't noticed any issues in how you play them. I see Intruder targets fairly often. Helots. Caterans or other unlinked camo ARO pieces in Ariadna. Revealed Noctifiers. New Beasthunter, or Daylami Panzer - though it is a pain to have to dedicate a unit to killing those. Punishing the ubiquitous flash bots if they are put too far on defense. Things like that. It is frustrating though to move out an Intruder to take on a camo dude and just fail the save even with MSV... but in theory thats his job. I'd agree that the main paradigm of ARO is area denial, chaff/camo chaff and sixth sense, and Intruders only bust one of those. But the same is true for any traditional "HMG sweeper" that isn't paying a premium to be an assault unit. He also does a good job of denying areas of the board if placed in a commanding position - not in ARO, but by popping out on active to clear them. Overall super happy to have access to it and I consider it a real strength of the faction, even if it is not the peak gunfighter it was in N2 I feel the Mercs, particularly Liberto and Beasthunter (I am in the camp that does not care about diggers) are symptoms of a greater problem. Forward chaff, suicide attack piece, and camo ARO chaff are all such fundamentally useful profiles that the armies in this game that lack them are at a serious disadvantage. As to whether this means those units are too good, or that they should just be widely available in some form, I'm less sure.
I would also add Krakots to that list. But I think you made a very asute observation that points to CB knowing the power of those profiles and thinking the best path balance is to make them available to everyone.
Oh yes, I just forgot about Krakots since I only play armies with good warbands already. A solid warband is a key capability too. It's either as you described, or they don't understand how effective these units are and don't understand the effect of adding them to most factions. I like to hope they know what they are doing and are going for the even playing field approach.
I think both of you are barking up the wrong tree and the real reason that they're widely available generic models was to help boost customer interest on the luxury items they were attached to. Same reason Octavia is widely available, but we just don't talk about her because CB did a fairly poor job of making her an interesting choice for people to take.
I feel that is it way too much of a coincidence on the power level of the Krakot, Liberto, and the beasthunter. Plus, the limited edition Liberto was the SMG, which is by far the less used one. The freebie pre-order models usually are not that powerful (with the exception of Mozart). Edit: I could be wrong, but it feels to me LE preorder models are rarely super useful. But they are fun to paint though!
The more tools you have the harder it is to know what tool to bring and how to properly use it. I agree that in a vacuum vanilla is really strong, and changes may be warranted. However, actually putting it on the table and using it well is still quite a challenge.
These thread was on before the release of gator lobos and diablos. Situation is getting worser each day
I feel much the same with Hassassins. I used to really like them - they sucked, but they were weird and nobody else played them. Then they got Bulrog'd really hard and had all the capabilities in the game, and they just don't feel interesting to play. The issue here, is that people have differing opinions of what "dominating hacking" should look like. Being a 'hacker faction' does not mean that any level of powerful hacking is automatically balanced. Like, if Jazz had BTS12 and (Trinity+5 Burst, Total Reaction) would that be fine too I've always felt Tunguska felt more like PanO. Corregidor is way too warband focused to be a PanO faction. 100% this. If the best GML tools are taken, essentially most games* boil down to 90% "does the GML player fuck it up" and 10% what the opponent does. Its the most cancerous shit I've ever seen in this game. (*Most, because camospam is pretty much immune to it.)
+5 Burst would make Hacking finally worth spending orders during active turn ... IMO Jazz wouldn't endanger balance, even if she would cost not a single point. Right now Mary is better (except maybe for some Link shenanigans that could be pulled off with Valerya anyways) and even if Jazz would be better it would not be broken. Because you don't hack a hacker, you shoot him/her. I found Achilles or an Orc Point man of a Core Link or Jeanne d'Arc or almost any TAG almost impossible to kill. But guess what, I just don't shoot them, I use hacking to keep them under control. That's the reason something like the Kamau Sniper in a Core Link was completely OP, because nothing worked against it. You could not hack it, it outshoots you, mimetism or smoke doesn't work, even sneaking up on it and using skirmishers doesn't work because of Sixth Sense. It's as much fun as Guided Missile spam. IMO active Hacking is still too weak. Only with Mary I would try an Oblivion. Or with coordinated orders, but they are limited. So no, I don't think hacking is too strong, I don't think Jazz is too strong. It's the only defense against HI or TAGs who got a good boost with N4. If Guided Missle is a problem, then this is it. It's a problem with Guided Missle, not with Jazz.
I think this is a very narrow perspective to take on it, as you are bypassing an entire element of a game here - hackers keep hackables 'in line' while killer hackers keep hackers 'in line'. Its a similar situation to the Kamau, which I agree was bullshit btw. The Kamau was a super ARO piece. ARO pieces deny areas of the board to most pieces, sweepers specifically keep ARO pieces in line, but many sweepers could not eliminate a Kamau leading to shit gameplay. Jazz is doing the same thing through Morans. She eliminates large swathes of the table to hackers and hackables alike. And the usual deterrance piece - killer hackers - do very little to phase her. She is the Kamau of hacking. And thats only with her current high level of strength. If we use your argument above, where her strength is irrelevant because you are not supposed to fight her with hacking, she would be able to impose her immortality on the entire table and eliminate huge categories of units while the only counterplay would be to somehow bypass this (not with a hackable unit btw) and assassinate her deep in the deployment zone surrounded by linked guards. You'd narrow the range of strategies down to how well or poorly you and your list can perform this assassination, or if you take an entirely hacker immune force. Thats not good or interesting gameplay. I don't fully disagree here. But the question is, how strong do we want an I attack you through walls while you do nothing ability to actually be? Tohaa's pheroware is notoriously shit gameplay and upping offensive hacking risks heading into that design space too.
