Hi guys recently got back into the game with Yu Jing and finding ninjas with KHD's to be really useful. Couple of questions regarding the KHD. Why would you ever pick sword 1 as your hacking program? Does anyone ever use the impersonation program rather than recamo?
When having KHD ALWAYS use Redrum. Unless hacking low WIP NWI model then use Trinity. Mines do explode when approached as Camo marker, they cannot explode if Impersonator comes into their explosion range.
Camo (as a TO) gives a -6 to discover IMP-2 (it is NOT IMP-1) gives no modifiers to discover, and a single success is enough to place the model. IMP has the NFB label.
Skullbuster is useful for attacks and AROs that are expected to be normal rolls. Trinity is probably the least useful Sword magi- hacking program. Mindblast is there for legacy reasons. Access to Sword 3 means access to Sword 1 and 2.
Agreed with @eciu Mines are one of the game's best counters to maneuvering Camo tokens. Impersonation lets Camo units slip through minefields without danger. TO Camo is still better for most combat-related applications, but Impersonation is a nice tool for letting you reach where you need to go. If you have to park the Ninja near a friendly model as well, it can stop the enemy from "splashing" your ninja with a template weapon like a shotgun or missile, since you can't place a template where it touches an active Impersonation token. It's that exact reason why most template weapons come with a non-template firing mode in this edition.
RedRum is great... however there are times Trinity will be better than RedRum. If you have to hit hackers with NWI like an umbra. Shock ftw. If you're surprise attacking through an enemy repeater and there are 3 enemy hackers on the table. You can split the higher burst and spread the love. It'll save you eating a face to face roll. Also gives you best damage potential, if you're rolling hot. If something surprising reveals in ARO after you move... as above.
Point 1) You are much more likely to win that ftf with Redrum than Trinity. (53% for 1 wound, 35% for 2 with redrum, 45% for killing with trinity, all assuming a carbonite ARO). That difference is not insignificant, even if it means spending more orders. 2) Yes, assuming you can win at least one ftf. Spreading burst like that is *very* risky, as it almost certainly means you will loose your hacker, but the dividends can be worth it. 3) This is probably the worst case possible, but redrum will possibily gives you a better chance of winning the 2 ftf ( original target + reveal ) than trinity would. Depends on what was the original target and what revealed though. Redrum is pretty much the go-to program on a KHD. Trinity is *very* situational.
My point is that winning the face to face roll is not what you're trying to do. You're trying to knock an enemy model out so it can't respond. If you do that in one order with the benefit of surprise attack you have the best chances of doing it overall - that's what the shock ammo of trinity buys you. If you win the face to face roll versus an Umbra but don't kill it, you're in a worse place trying to kill it with a second order. You're less order efficient and you more than double the chances of the Umbra winning the face off. Also, your assumption of a carbonite ARO is only good for a samaritan here. A Legate hacker has an EI hacking device plus, so can use breakwater for the first ARO reducing your chance of killing it and negating your surprise attack. Then it can use suckerpunch for the second ARO and have a great chance of killing you.
Trinity buys you lower standard error (SE = SD/SQRT(N); 3 dice gives you almost a 20% reduction in SE versus 2) by virtue of rolling more dice (i.e., a more reliable result, even if on average it has lower probability of success). Averages aren't everything. This is a statistical fact. That said, I'm sure someone who doesn't understand probability and statistics will come along to argue against this fact. Not saying Trinity is better, only that more dice translates to lower standard error. Whether you want this in a given situation is up to you.
That's an interesting point, but one that's hard to quantify. More dice definitely adds more chances to crit, which can have really unintuitive effects on the outcome with Infinity face to face rolls. Most of the time when we're having these discussions we're looking at the infinity dice calculator, which gives probabilities based on the outcome of a monte carlo simulation - it plays the roll 1600000 - 3200000 times so you don't have to and reports the statistical outcome. The extra dice of trinity always gives you an enhanced chance of surviving if your opponent crits against you, as you have a greater chance of a bounce crit... but that still washes out in redrum's favour in most KHD scenarios. Anyway, I'm sticking to my guns here. Having an increased chance of killing an opponent with shock in one order is definitely better than a slightly increased chance of doing one one wound in two face to face rolls in a row. You're giving yourself two chances to screw up, lose your ninja or do nothing and have to plough more orders into it.