The dawn of a new edition! Everything is exciting and new but also bugged and a little raw. But even now we have already even seen what feels like the first balance "patches" and the first trends are emerging. One of those is Jazz and Billie. That power couple seems to be in every single CJC list I've seen up until now and even most Vanilla lists and I don't even want to discuss why she is so good here. It seems obvious at this point. What I do wanna discuss is the question: "Is Jazz too good?" as in - does she feel borderline mandatory for a CJC list if you don't want to deliberately restrict yourself? This is of course entirely my own opinion but I got the impression that Jazz is not only extremely optimized for her cost and does everything you'd ever want from a CJC hacker, but she also enables a completely new and very advantageous tool for CJC by herself: White Noise. I don't like characters beeing such essential lynchpins in a sectorial army. They should be fun and quirky variations on existing profiles or interesting concepts that further the sectorials theme. Jazz breaks the mold by nullifying one of CJC longest standing and most defining weaknesses - the absence of a Hacking Device Plus. Even without the HD+ I'd argue you would find Jazz in nearly every list. She is just that good but I think the HD+ is too much. She was perfectly fine with a normal HD in N3. That's it from my side. What do my fellow Nomads think?
I think she'd be a near universal pick even with a regular hacking device for the simple fact that she's (almost) our cheapest wildcard. She's the perfect blend of link filler and good candidate for full link support and I think that's the bigger problem if we must find one. We got a taste of HD+ with Corregidor tactics via Starco, and while a nice addition it didn't feel like a game changer. The only real difference I see is the midfield repeater net from the near ubiquitous Morans which will make a white noise shot possible from more angles, but in my experience with Starco if you were planning to leverage white noise then odds are you had a repeater bot hanging out with your dedicated shooter anyway like CJC'sclassic Jaguar/Intruder combo. With MSV1 looking like it'll be more common White Noise's value might climb, but that will have to shake out during playtesting.
I generally agree. I don't like when a character has such a unique and vital role that she will be in nearly every list. She shouldn't have gotten Trinity.
I think she would be close to auto pick almost whatever you did with her, even if she was just an Alguacile with +1 WIP and or a useful skill (eg No2). So it kinda makes sense to give her capacities they want limited to 1 in CJC. On the other hand if they gave HD+ to the Wildcat hacker instead that might balance things out a bit better. I take your points but it's hard not to like her :)
The only thing stopping me from throwing Jazz in every list is a hesitance on what other Lt. I throw in, assuming Jazz replaces an Interventor. Perhaps I am too attached to the Interventor Lt., but the other options don't strike me as particularly appealing. So its dumb, but a point against her in vanilla is that it can mess with your list building by forcing in a Lt. model you might have no real plan or use for.
I'm mainly thinking about vanilla at the moment and Jazz is definitely still a great take. As far as interventor Lt is concerned I'm going to try some lists with both and the e/m grenade launcher Moira. Perhaps not as high odds for spec fire as N3 but much easier to get things targeted.
This is again a thread I don't understand. Nomads complaing about a Nomads unit being too good. Just like you won't find a 6-page-thread about a dropped profile which had a miniature that now can only be uses as proxy outside of the Yujing-subforum, you'll only find a thread questioning if one of the own units is too good in the Nomads thread. On the other hand ... we are Nomads. We are the hacking faction. I don't see a problem with a very good, very affordable hacker in the hacking faction. Would be the same if I'd argue if cheep camo skirmishers or crazy bikers in Ariadna are too cheep or if BS15-troopers in PanO are too good. I could understand if we post a thread if B6 on the Kriza is too good, because we are Nomads, not PanO, but Nomads complaing about their own hackers? Their own core comptence? On another note I think she got HD+ because the hacking devices dropped in price. Mary went down 2 points. Without HD+ she might have dropped one or two points and this would make her even better IMO. Like the Morans got better from their "nerf". So I think she is very good and nearly an auto-take, but so is the Libertos. So if we're to complain about a unit being to good, lets start with some other unit. No, she deserves a KHD-programm, because in N3 she had Maestro and Nomads-Character-Hackers should have Upgrades. Maybe Supportware would have been more fitting for Jazz, but in N3 she also had a KHD-Programm. IMO this only raises the question: Is one KHD-Programm for whole Infinity enough? And this raises the question: Did they simplify the hacking programs too much. I mean, this is no C1, there can be some complexity and having to decide between two KHD-programms should be within the capabilities of an Infinity-player. So while I think she deserves a KHD-programm for being Jazz, I'd maybe prefered something else. Maybe something like N3-Maestro or N3-Lightning. So ... if I look at all the other hackers, be it in Nomads or Aleph or CA, no, I think Jazz is fine as she is. Leave her the f*ck alone. I don't even have her (gorgeous) miniature(s) yet and don't wanna see a nerf before I fielded her WYSIWYG.
Although I like Nomad forum's capability of self-purification from being overly-salty, I agree to this point. Being Nomads, which is a hacker faction, it's not weird to have some dope hacker characters. The argument might be "it's not good to make something too good since it makes the army monotonous", but the balance between making a faction 'well balanced but no peculiarity' and 'peculiar in some characteristics' is also important, IMO. So the main point is: It's good to be self-purifiable, but sometimes we need to accept some legit advantages. In case of Jazz, I think she is legit and acceptably strong+affordable.
Yes that's the issue. She has basically the entire KHD advantage+. I'd like it to be a choice between her and Wildcat KHD. If a full KHD had some other program (that worked in a link) that would give it an advantage and I would be making a choice. I care a lot more about internal balance in a faction. Like I said before I thought the Moran repeater camo sounded unfun, but I wasn't asking for it to be changed. I think now that it's way too cheap, and maybe that would be a problem in Vanilla against Zeros, but for me it doesn't matter because that doesn't overlap with why I take a Bandit. I think the Hellcat AD boost is way too good for its cost, but I'm fine with that (I grinned telling my opponent that only I get it) because again, that can't change when I want a Tomcat. But Jazz is affecting that type of balance a lot. I don't expect her to change thou. The only reasonable time to take the Wildcat instead is for the terrain skill and better gunning, probably in a Haris. Anyways, everyone has heard the comment "how come Nomads players complain about their good stuff?" by now. I'm sorry if it annoys people. Something about the faction attracts people that would prefer their faction be a slight underdog than the OP of the month.
Is she also a good gunfighter like Wildcat KHD? Can she do missions like Wildcat KHD? No, she pretty much trades everything to focus solely on hacking. Is hacking op now (you don't have to answer, I get that some people just cant get around that almighty 8" zone around camo marker or repeater)? Should every hacker in hacker faction cost 50+ points? Will you stop whining then? Yes, she's optimized, yeah Billy is the cheapest order around (though you can't take him with FTO and tactical window makes him too fragile to take now that we have to balance unit spam). Is she op? No, I disagree. She trades the ability for direct fight to be a superior hacker. It's the current fireteam rules that make her too good to pass.
In vanilla it comes down to what I feel like I want in the rest of the hacking suite for the list (generally a 1/1/2 split HD, HD+, and KHD), but she does allow for multiple roles to be filled competently with one slot, like Mary. Billie is really only useful if you have 6 points left over and a spare order slot and you arent intending to link Jazz with anyone and cant shave the point to get a transductor, better off leaving him at home. CJC is interesting, the adition of HD+ is huge, especially when it comes to dealing with/ ignoring Visor ARO pieces, Jazz is pretty much an auto include. However if she wasn't a wildcard I think while you still see her a lot in lists she wouldn't be in every list. She also helps make the iguana somewhat playable too. I mean we could start a YJ style bitch thread about losing the HMG Hellcat if you want. No, it muddies the role between dedication KHD platforms and hackers that randomly picked up the Murder.exe program from the internet, also Trinity really sucks at taking on high BTS targets, a second program with breaker a +3 mod and b2 would have really helped in this regard. Very much so yes, though the changes to how they are handling upgrades has mitigated things a little, but the lack of options can get a little irritating.
well, in my opinion, she is too good, too cheap. Cheap enought to make interventors or Mary look a bit expensive (And custodians a lot more). I don't see it as a big problem because nomads is the hacking faction, but inside nomads, CJC has gone to have the best repeater network but worse hacking, to have both the best networks and hacking, leaving the other 2 in a weird spot. when I go vainilla, I think she will become a recurrent option (I change a lot my lists), but one of the first things to try is Jazz+Zoe+Mary. They are 5 orders, 4 specialists (2 with old ODD, which are highly mobile), 2 repeaters, 2 pitchers.. looks very solid to me, 1/3 of the orders in 1/3 of the points and only 1 SWC, leaving place for morans to complete the repeater network
Agreed with these. The bit that hasn't been talked about yet is exactly how good her face-to-face options are. She can easily link under a Tinbot-6, or hack through Repeaters for Firewall. Trinity gives +3WIP, meaning before Firewalls she's on 17s to hit in FTF against enemy Hacking attacks. A Zero KHD trying to hack such a protected Jazz, to clear the way for HI or REMs or anything that doesn't want to be Targetted, is doing so with three dice on 10s vs. Jazz's 1 on 17s, or 14s if the Zero somehow got a Repeater in place. This is pretty bad odds, especially considering WIP13-14 standard KHDs are the best that factions such as PanO or Yu Jing can do. Furthermore, a Firewalled Jazz saves against Trinity on 6s and up, giving her strong odds to survive the odd crit or bad roll. And the above is all in reactive turn. Interventor and Hassassin Barid KHDs can put the odds in their favour with Trinity[-3], with the Interventor being the only Hacker in the game that can actually get a higher target number on this face-to-face than Jazz. Mary Problems under a Firewall using her upgraded Trinity gets three dice on 11s against against Jazz's lone 14 and wounds on 8s and less, which is finally looking like numbers you might actually want out of an active-turn fight, and the Asura comes in a little worse thanks to not inflicting the extra -3 WIP. +1B Oblivion carriers like the Danavas or Skiavoro have worse but still reasonable odds. Every other Hacker or Hackable in the game is effectively wasting Orders when under a Corregidor Hacking Area, and that is an insane degree of power for a Fireteam that barely costs more than the hated Kamau link. Note that Core Jazz will never be on a worse target number than 11- Trinity[-3] will push her that low no matter what, but againt a normal heavily-protected hacker like you would find in a Shang Ji Haris, for example, she can Reset for her full WIP14. She's also so dominant in active turn I'm not going to bother running the numbers; I don't think anything else gets BTS6, Tinbot-6 and Trinity all in the same spot, or even really close to that. Nomads certainly deserve the best when it comes to Hacking, but good grief, I'd like to actually play when I bring Hacking lists in other factions- Bakunin included! All of my Hacking lists nowadays have at least one AD trooper to try and take out enemy Hacking infrastructure, because I can't trust non-special-snowflake KHDs to handle a few particular edge cases- Coordinated Oblivion, combined with active Dodge on Repeater-caddy bots, is at least worth a shot sometimes but isn't really reliable when you're forced to use Fusiliers or the like thanks to having to pay separately for the ability to play the non-Hacking part of the game, too.
Well, I think KHD were too powerfull in past edition to the point that hacking was lacking a lot. Now KHD are still more dangerous and cheaper than normal HD, but are toned down a lot, which was needed. Going with 3 dice against 1, even if its a higher roll, it has still nice odds to succeed. also, in the killing enemy hackers role, any camoed hacker with suprise attack will have better odds than both mary or jazz to win the roll, because the -3 and +3 (neither mary or jazz have surprise attack so...). It will not work against linked hackers, ok, but not all hackers can be linked. The main problem I see, is that interventors, mary and the custodians didn't get as much discount as other devices got, but jazz did, which creates a little gap between them.
I lost my most smugly used unit, the True Patrician AD, Hellcat HMG, RIGHT when they got AD+3, which would have made him so good. I no longer have my Hellcat that says "The biggest one." without thinking when picking his loadout. "Sir those E/M mines are not for your unit. It's not even safe to drop with that much-" "I have two hands!"
I think the last mission of that guy went stupidly wrong and the had to REALLY get the HMGs out of Hellcats' hands. On the topic of hacking and Jazz, I tried this all in my first N4 game, against Military Orders (which should have been a good matchup). But the problem is that a lot of things can engage from outside Repeater range and if the table is open (like it was) it is almost impossible to hide the link. Jazz IS very very good, but if she is not hacking she is doing nothing.
As far as Jazz, she's fine. If you're opponent is investing in a MB Tinbot to keep her safe why do you think a cheap hacker should be able to get through? It's no different than running a Fusilier in front of an ARM 6 model with ODD and hoping you win the fight. Hacking is the same (other than range) as any other combat now and contains some risks for your cheap attack piece. You don't get a free "I ignore your defenses" card with the KHD. You might need to bring more than 1 to deal with a hacking heavy faction. What they need to do is start to introduce new weapons and equipment (hacking programs) that aren't just superior in every situation. And bring back more Supportware!
Or the 2-CR-Gecko ... But no thanks. Just like I don't like such a bitch thread, I don't like a thread from Nomads complaining about a good Nomads unit This! Again: This! Does Jazz deserve a Killer-Hacker-Upgrade? IMO yes. Is it necessary that with this Upgrade she gets the whole KHD-range? No. It would look much more balanced (or reasonable) if either the KHD had more than a single Killer-Hacker-Programm or if she'd gotten a different programm than the one normally provided by a KHD.
