I know what I could do. Crash it into the side of a building 4 inches off the table edge and lose it the second I tried to deploy it.
That's fair, but I mean more "frustrating the play against" rather than "frustrating to play with". And I 100% agree that Jammers on a 30-ish point frame would be totally balanced, even if it did start mid-table. But it'd still be frustrating to play against.
AD Geckos were hilarious. And broken. But also hilarious. Oh I see you have placed a line trooper to cover AD troops coming on from this side of the board. I'll just put my Gecko here and... oh, you'll ARO with a combi rifle? It appears to have bounced off my ARM 5 TAG! Hahaha! Now I'll kill you all!
French Satellite tournament seems to be going to have CB's representatives, they sent none to Valencia's Satellite. Or... Intruder... Sadly Hellois ruled against the rules and said that 0-G troops only were to get the benefit, the Multiterrain ones (who have ALL the terrains, but must select one before deploying and get that one...) selecting 0-G wouldn't cut it... Then again, Achilles says hi! near your deployment zone on turn 1... XD
well... a faction whose tactic were not "charge the enemy, but not by much, since you are not melee HI", or MSV2+Smoke, or "place rocks in front of the enemy" would be nice... xD
When the Fatality L1 ITS boost goes away they will be up there. Most of the time my frustration with Geckos has boiled down to not being able to kill things with them, but something that extends the range or helps them get into the middle of the table would be most welcome. TAGs have enough drawbacks that 99 out of 100 times I am either going to take a Taskmaster or Kirza instead, or find the extra 17-18 points for an Iguana. It wouldn't take much, imo, to get them on par with their slightly smaller BJC & TJC cousins.
I don't think Geckos need any help. They could be better but most Corregidor troops could use a touchup first.
The Iguana, Bandits, Morans, Jags, Algs, Intruders, Tomcats, Hellcats, and even the occasional Wildcat (19pt BS13 w/ DTW and D-charges!) all make their way into my Vanilla lists regularly. Brigadas and Carlota are the only CJC units other than Geckos that I think really need anything.
Most troops are within the "could be improved but don't need to be" range. Only units like Bandits, Jaguars, Hellcats, Tomcats, and Moran are ahead of them. Even Intruders could use the profiles other than Lt MSR and HMG changed. Geckos are in a good place they're just unintuitive and a bit niche.
Definitely niche, but their unintuitive nature is their main advantage in my opinion. An enemy who sees a TAG on the table will often tunnel vision on it, but the Gecko is just HI pretending to be a TAG. Ignoring the real profile for a second, it's a 3W HI with some range and a template weapon. That's fine in its own right, but its hidden stat is that the thing is an absolute idiot magnet. It's a damage sponge that looks scary enough to draw attention. If you're against enemies who don't know Nomads well, they'll often assume the gecko cost more pts and SWC than it does, making it really easy to hide a HMG or Spitfire Hellcat in your list. As far as I'm concerned this thing has Holoprojector: TAG. Only McMurrough comes close for wasting enemy orders. They're both big ugly bastards that the enemy focuses on while you focus on the objective or sneak your SWC profiles into position. Tough as nails but cheap and expendable. Then again, for the cost of a Gecko you could have a 5 combi alguacile link with 1 FO. The extra orders and suppressive fire are tempting, even without link bonus. Still, the Gecko's low pick rate works to its advantage for the reasons above.
I don't know about main advantage but I have also noticed this. Should have a name like "excitement trap", something for stuff like Oniwaban to play with that leaves you only one order and no vital units down should your opponent have assassination abilities. They can do a lot of stuff and when they are stopped the rest of your list is hardly touched. Good momentum keepers.
Elsewhere, such a tactic is known as a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX. Has to be all caps or it's not a distraction any more
With the caveat that proper DISTRACTION CARNIFEX would actually require opponents to sink a ton of activations* into him rather than just tempting him to do so. If anything, Gecko as described is closer to the concept of proper distraction*. * - that is assuming you don't do opponent's job for him, placing any of those things close to hard counters available.
Since I've become decent with Geckos I don't really lose them efficiently that often. Except that time 1 HFT did every wound.
I find that Morans work great with Geckos The Moran provides a repeater so your Bandit KHD can nail anyone trying to mess with your beloved dinky warbots, and the Koalas zap warbands that also attempt to run up and stab them in the face. Intruder Sniper from the back overlooking their position and both Geckos on suppression and you're going to struggle to get through that!
