Mindwipe and "Killer Hacker Devices"

Yeah Tohaa and Ariadna are pretty screwed if you end up playing Mindwipe. Spiral Corps has it a little better but not by a whole lot.

I really, really dislike missions that force a certain type of specialist, as specialist accessibility varies wildly between factions. Forcing non-hacking factions to take a hacker, or forcing ISS to try and take an Engineer, etc is only going to make playing those missions feel terrible. Playing a game where you feel like you're already starting 2 steps behind is a quick way to an NPE.

Now, true, you don't HAVE to take a hacker, but considering the Uberhacker gets free Tactical Awareness and the only other way to damage the servers is in CC with a T2, DA, or EXP CCW you're INCREDIBLY disadvantaged. There's also the problem of some factions only being able to declare generic low-WIP LI as their Uberhacker while others are giving it to models like Nourkias.

If every faction had access to a wide variety of hackers, it wouldn't matter. But they don't. So it does.

 

Umm what?

*looks at all of Ariadna's Infil or AD CC AM options*

And even in Tohaa, adding Tac Aware to a triad for free isn't awful at all for what you've giving up.

 

No one is forcing you to take hackers. The servers are poorly-armoured AC2's. You can melee them with DA, EXP, T2, K1, D-Charges....

 

It isn't even Tac Aware though; it's an extra "Irregular Order," which implies that spending it will kick the Uberhacker out of any fireteam it's in as it lacks the extra rules that Tac Aware proper has.

Also the only hacker that Tohaa can designate is the Kamael, who are... pretty poor. Both at hacking and generally being a good model.

... I don't think K1 CCWs exist.

Anyways, I already mentioned that you can still do the objective without needing a hacker. It's just that the other guy who brought an Asura Hacker now gets a free +1 order on it and can blow it up from 8" away without LoF while you need to walk all the way up to it and smack it.

Also does it bother anyone else that a monk with a stick can damage an AC2 but Missiles, Multi-Snipers, and the like can't? Like I get that it's for balance reasons and such but it just seems a tad silly.

 

I think the followup question here is, what armies are both lacking in both Melee ability and hacking ability? I expect the answer will be "not so many".

My bigger worry in this mission has more to do with order economy / rules about destroying servers in Round 1 (and the fluff aspect of "why can't I just destroy all their servers?")

 

You can't destroy Servers in T1.

 

Yes, that is what I am referring to. I am worried that the fact you can't destroy them in T1 will just turn this mission into one round of Annihilation/Hunt the Objective Grabbers, followed by two turns of cleanup. I would be very surprised to see this mission turn out to be anything other than an incredibly one-sided stomp in most cases.

 

Don't Rangers get AM at all?

Huh, turns out not. Honestly that's an easy fix. Give D-Charges to the Rifle and BSG Airborne Rangers.

 

Yeah, I knew that I kinda thought Rangers would have picked it up: it'd work well with them and wouldn't add too much power because it's not like Vanilla Ariadna struggles with Infil or AD AM otherwise.

 

They also have Wild Bill, that's totally enough to make them competitively viable right?

 

This mission was indeed designed in N3. I believe the exclusion of Killer Hackers was because it'd encourage the use of HD and AHD, which had been languishing in the meta somewhat when KHDs were very cheap specialists. The KHD would also find it possibly too easy to strip off hacker defences and mash the servers. That latter part suffers as several HD troopers now have Trinity anyway.

 

T2 Heavy Pistol on a couple of profiles wouldn't be outlandish.

That said, the issue isn't "who doesn't have Hacking?" anymore because everyone has Hacking. The issue is "who has a good active turn hacker that can make good use of a free irregular order?"
Wardrivers, Kamael, Zhanshi, Fusiliers, even Druze aren't it. I'm not sure even a Crane fits here owing to how very much they want to be in Fireteams, though getting to the opponent's DZ is a Crane's wet, coagulating, dream.

Edit: and just as I put down the phone I spot a different kind of wet I almost stepped in - a furball. Thank you, kitty -.-

 

I think using the oldschool DA/EXP CC weapon is the easier way to destroy the servers. Otherwise I have to get my non-markerstate Hacker all the way up into the enemy half of the table to then have B1 WIP12-15 attempt to do D17 DA, while my i.e. a Rasyat spawn next to a server, and CC attack on 24 with AP/EXP. You rather should rather defend that server well against CA.

 

Honestly, making it work exactly the same as TA rather than "here's an additional Irregular Order" would help with that.

 

Why play that mission then, instead of simply the old "monky braek boks!" we alredy had with the PAC 2-3 years ago? And I mean it as an honest question.

Rule designed so the Tournament Organizer doesn't need to add scenery to give total cover to the target.

Which is kinda lazy, but more or less understandable.

I'd prefer for it to have D-Charges for free, to be fair. A MULTI weapon of any kind in Ariadna seems... a little too futuristic.

At this moment, my choice in Aleph would be Scylla (Trinity, ECM hacker -3, remotes with huge bic lighters...), then the Myrm hacker (mimetism -6, stealth, smoke... even with BTS0 and WP13, and can shoot), then a Yadu (veteran hacker with NWI inmunne to shock), then a Deva (good stats, NWI)... The Asura is quite happy being able to go into marker state, thank you ^^U

Tohaa is in the step below: a hacker you won't field unless you have no other choice.
The Kamael Hacker is the new N4's Gorgos.
(lol)

Even if the target were to be limited to be blown solely with hacking or with D-Charges, the charges would be the first option due to simply order efficiency :(