Killer hacker strategies

In order to do mean things to your TAG, the enemy will be using an AHD, so your Hexa may end Immobilized or Isolated, but will survive!

 

I could give you some tips and advice BUT I am either a filthy Nomad or a sneaky YuJing citizen, so... should I?

Basically, although you are right there are not such BIG advantages to Hacking in the offensive, do not underestimate a Surprise Hack Redrum to an enemy hacker. They will be rolling one die on -6, vs two dice on your WIP. And each hit is two Strength 16 saves, which means that even on BTS3 they will most likely wound the opposing hacker.

KHD are neat because you can use the opponent Repeaters to reach their own hackers anywhere, and ignore Firewall mods. Unless they brought MORE than one hacker, the above applies. If the opponent hacker has NWI or similar, use Trinity instead (three dice Shock S16 attack).

This tactics we even use with Bandits in Nomad, with WIP12. Also remember that if you are in Camo State, you are unhackable, and they need LoF to Discover. At that point you can also shoot, picking your best ARO. Which brings me to Hacking AROs.

Since Hacking Attacks are low burst, splitting it is a warrantied failure (most times). My recommendation is to have a regular Hacker and a KHD. You typically need the regular hacker for supportware anyway, and if you place a repeater in the path of an opposing hacker (better yet, in ZoC out of sight) any order spent on said hacker will trigger Hack AROs on your hackers. Which typically means, Gotcha! on the regular hacker and Redrum on the KHD. He either resets (and we love wasting their orders, right, plus he is not approaching your TAG) or tries to hack back. Hacking you back through your own repeater imposes a -3WIP on him due to Firewall (unless he is a KHD, but then, he/she was not a threat to your TAG and you should´ve left him alone and engage by shooting or other means), plus at best he is either:
- FtF 1 dice vs 1 dice, or
- Opposing one of your AROs 2 or 3 dice to one, and eating a Normal Hack ARO back.

Either way, your odds are not that bad. And if he hits you through the Firewall, you also get +3BTS to save in case you fail.

I feel hacking is in an odd space between BS attacks (high Burst, low target numbers) and CC Attacks (low Burst, high target numbers). This is low Burst low Target high damage, and the game is leveraging repeaters, Firewalls, and AROs of opportunity with MORE than one hacker.

 

I wonder where are you checking those numbers.

Hexa KHD using Redrum vs a regular HD WIP13 trooper with no BTS (a line trooper Hacker, for example), is 70% vs 14% making a wound before using Surprise Attack. Surprise Hack is 77 / 9.

Surprise Hacking an Interventor:
vs Brain Blast: 53 / 13
vs Sucker Punch: 42 / 23

No Surprise Hack:
vs Brain Blast: 47 / 19
vs Sucker Punch: 35 / 35

And that is the BEST hacker in the game you are trying to kill... or one of them at least.

 

If they redirect the attack on to your hacker they aren't isolating or possessing your TAG so you're only losing 30 points instead of 80 - 100+, being an ablative wound isn't a bad thing. Also if you're going to have a single KHD that's going to sit there for ARO normal camo beats TO as you still get the order every turn, also using something like the Zulu cobra which starts further up the table means it can lurk in the areas you expect the TAG to be operating in to better protect it against non repeater hack attacks, otherwise you will be needing to sink points into peacemakers to get the same passive level of protection but using friendly repeaters means you wont be able to counter anything coming in through enemy repeaters.

If you are going to rely on the ARO hack it's a good Idea to have a second one so that they think they're safe after clearing out one and can start bricking your toys, then you slap them with the second, alternatively have a bolt be the second so as to keep them too scared to really do anything offensive with one of their hackers (people are hilariously risk adverse when it comes to hacking in this game to the point of cowardice). Having multiple SWORD capable hackers in a list means that if someone comes into your network you can dog pile them with all of them.

Generally when it comes to KHDs you want cheap and disposable, so unless you're playing MO probably give the santiago a pass unless you're leveraging other aspects of that model's kit.

Like Willen said the odds are far better than that, but also you do have Trinity if you feel like trading a -3 for +1B and the DT for Shock (very useful against aleph hackers which can and often have NWI or dogged). if they have two (as far as you can tell), this is where having a backup KHD is useful as you can suicide one in to trade with one of their hackers, as they're the one facing a TAG so they will values their hackers a hell of a lot more than you do yours, and given most people only ever run one hacker (maybe two if they feel bold), one will be their defensive KHD (which you ignore) and the other a support hacker like a line infantry HD or an EVO (the one you suicide into).

Don't worry about random line infantry hacker you can melt their brains fairly easily and they shouldn't pose too much of an issue pick off before they become a threat to the TAG. It's the AHD that some crazy person decided to sneak into a list that you need to be scared of, and the one that you need to instil the fear of a KHD into because most people wont or shouldn't commit one to a fight until the opposing KHD has been dealt with (if they do they're either incredibly stupid or incredibly desperate).

AHDs are unpopular currently because people are incredibly risk adverse or don't support them correctly, however if the current trend of HI lead fire teams, REMs in fire teams, or just the general list design that is largely a handful of premium hitters (usually hackable) backed up by a bunch of order generating mooks, then having an AHD lurking on(or off) the table will become a valuable asset (which it already is anyway) for dealing with such things. They are a combo tool in that allow you to brick a thing then blast it away unopposed.

Personally I don't build a list without one unless I have a good reason as since the release of OSS and the amount of OSS, YJ and PanO in my meta means it is one of the best way to deal with things like Dakini snipers and asura, Yan huo and hai dao snipers plus the handfull of HI/REM attack pieces, and for locking down MO pain trains, Orcs, TAGs and the usual array of pano attack REMs.

 

I think in the situation with the Tik you are a little too afraid of what's coming at you. Interventors have high WIP, but Overlord is pretty slow. If you deploy something like a Fusilier in BTB with your Tik, a first-turn attack cannot deliver adequate returns. Possessed TAGs are almost useless in CC.

An AHD is a different story and Total Control is very fast. The game can unravel very quickly if an AHD gets at the TAG on turn 2. For me, I bring a Zero AHD most of the time, just to punish TAGs. I had one in the game we played last week as my only hacker.

My thoughts for Pan-O, where your KHD choices aren't the greatest, is just to play very conservatively. The Bolt has decent deterrent value at 21 points and BTS 6. You can hold him aside to counterattack if there's an opening. That Hexa at 27 points and 0 BTS is just gonna break your heart... Hexas are happier running around daring fools to discover them.

 

Run SAA, that way you're rocking some serious hacking defence (Scylla, Naga), a defensive repeater/sniffer net (3xFugazi) alongside your monster TAG.

 

Hell, I sometimes run 4-hacker Acon lists. It's actually the best PanO sectorial when it comes to hacking.

 

"A lot of hacking" is relative. KHD are "cheap" specialists, especially if they can infiltrate to the midfield, one regular hacker is always great if you are using some attack remotes or an EVO for drop troops.

I was looking at PanO (please forgive me my Emperor! Aleph lies!), it is tough with BTS0 hackers, but still doable.

About TAG protecting in particular, think about this: you are only looking at defending against AHD. Those are not super common due to cost, and everything still dies to bullets. Infowar is doable, but not very efficient. Try it out; it is a good tool to surprise people sometimes since it is not that common, and many times a specialist KHD runs into a repeater not even thinking about it and BAM! Hack ARO from a couple mooks.

Tourniquet point is valid though, with so many HIs and REMs these days, looking at bringing an AHD can be a valid strategy, and it can still ARO Gotcha! if needed.

 

While BTS is nice to have, it's like armour if you are rolling on it you're already screwed anyway, especially if it's DT ammo.

 

Scylla is one of our most brutal KHD hacking pieces. Her 2 flamethrowing repeaters help with the coverage and being marker state to boot. Nagas are fantastic. NCA's deva is damn good for us too.

 

It's more about the impact of risk/time (in orders) than effectiveness. How many AROs do you know that have a 20% chance to win? And a 60% chance to either win or for shots to bounce is insanely high.

Ignoring the special hacking devices, there are two types of hackers who can go after your TAG. AHDs and HDs. If you are an enemy hacker in this situation, you have three options:

1) Go for the TAG and risk facing normal rolls against Redrum.
2) Go for the Hacker and at best IMM-1 them.
3) Reset.

For a WIP13ish AHD, option 1 works about 50% of the time, with a roughly 60% chance of taking a wound, option 2 has the odds you gave above, and option 3 has maybe a 65% chance of resetting successfully (but you're still in their hacking area for subsequent orders). The odds for options 1 and 2 are a lot worse on a regular HD.

Problem With Option 1: If you pick option 1, it fails, and you take a wound, you've not only lost an order now, you've lost all orders that your hacker produces later in the game if you don't try to doctor the guy back up (spending more orders).

Problem With Option 2: If you pick option 2 and it works, then every order you spend hacking a TAG that is using Reset is also an order that the Hacker you immobilized is getting to Reset until you move out of its hacking area. That's at least one reset -- which means you spent at least 1 order doing nothing.

Problem With Option 3: You've wasted an order and only put yourself at risk. And if you spend another order on the model, you're in exactly the same situation.

As bad as it may sound for your KHD in this situation, it's generally much worse for the AHD/HD here.

The advantages of hacking are primarily in the reactive turn. No one wants to activate a hacker in a repeater and eat 3 AROs.

 

The only time when there are advantages in reactive is with multiple hackers and something activating under a repeater net, which isn't really something a lot of factions can do easily nor are most players willing to. The active turn has it's own advantages, like setting up combo take downs with other units and creating safe areas for other models to operate, leveraging Surprise attack and extra burst. I find that a lot of people severely underestimate the value of active turn hacking.

 

It is not really a thing a LOT of factions can do, but many can with varying degrees. And for some players, facing multiple ARO Hacks under a repeater is as strange as facing Tohaa, which means they don´t account for that, they never thought of that, and suddenly they have a hackable HI or TAG (or even a KHD they took because it was a cheap specialist) pinned down. I feel hacking is the only "main" tool that still remains a mistery to quite a few players due to lack of use, which means you can pull surprise combos easier.

Agreed on underestimating the value of active turn hacking, under the conditions we enumerated above. We typically think highly of using Surprise Shot with an active B3 shooter even when the chance of dying to an ARO is big; active hacking can give you some similar odds. Or when we consider nice to Flashpulse a rambo HI or TAG, when an ARO Gotcha! can do the same thing while having that same HD doing buff duty to your own remotes. Even better because if you pull an Active turn Gotcha! and then can take shots at the thing, it is one of the few instances where you can shoot unopposed at an enemy model save for crafty positioning on the back arc.

Well used, hacking can be a good tool.

 

its probably due to it being hidden away in the advanced rules with terrain and with godawful layout which turns people off (That and a hacker isnt a BS13+ linked HMG).