Yes, because getting close enough for those drop bears and grenades is going to take a LOT more orders than just gunning them down with an Aquila HMG. This is a throughly silly counter argument.
Except that you're not the only one to think that. Swiss Guard HMG is quite ineffective against any ODD or TO wielder with 2+W or 1W and NWI like the good old Proxy Mk2 Sniper or another Swiss Guard. He discovers poorly and even Sensors or Kamau Sniper in Core can fail their discover rolls. Aquila never fail and that is something my brother told me : if you want to improve, stop being luck dependant. And for having felt it while playing VIRD in a 400 pts game, MSV2 or sensors are nowhere near MSV3 when you declare Discover. The immunity to surprise attack/shot is useful sometimes too but nothing I'm building on it. Ignoring any CH and visibility MOD (minus Nimbus) and being able to discover everytime is something you love when your meta is all about CH: Camouflage or TO Camouflage, Mines and ODD.
If you look at it this way, then the Aquila is only marginally better. Against a Swiss guard: Active Player 53.13% Aquila Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (1 W) 18.34% Aquila Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Unconscious) 3.58% Aquila Guard inflicts 3 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Dead) Failures 37.40% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 9.47% Swiss Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (1 W) Active Player 46.06% Swiss Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (1 W) 11.89% Swiss Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Unconscious) 1.57% Swiss Guard inflicts 3 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Dead) Failures 45.41% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 8.52% Swiss Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (1 W) his inherent problem is that you're using his piece of equipment (read: gimmick) in far fewer cases to a much less effect than the Swiss. MSV only will ever put you at an even playing field with an opponent while negative mods will actively make you better at gunfighting.
Ok, you want some stats : Swiss Guard IN Cover: Active Player 64.08% Swiss Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Noctifers (Spawn Embryo) 24.84% Swiss Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Noctifers (Dead) Failures 27.87% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 8.06% Noctifers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (1 W) 4.87% Noctifers inflicts 2 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Unconscious) 1.26% Noctifers inflicts 3 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Dead) Aquila Guard WITHOUT cover (because gotcha TO camo): Active Player 64.60% Aquila Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Noctifers (Spawn Embryo) 31.76% Aquila Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Noctifers (Dead) Failures 19.52% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 15.88% Noctifers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (1 W) 9.80% Noctifers inflicts 2 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (Unconscious) 2.71% Noctifers inflicts 3 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (Dead) And when in cover, the Aquila jumps to 40% chance to put the damn Noctifer straight dead. So no comeback and not a threat anymore. Convinced? And I'm not even including Vis MODs from terrain, a thing Aquila is not dependent of while it sucks to play a Swiss Guard if there are some like there were in at least the two last Interplanetario and there is in some other big tournaments (like some in USA). If you plan to not just stomp on troops who have no vis MODs and no MSV and preferably not in FT. Currently, I would say that the MR Swiss Guard is way better thant the Aquila one but this reverses when you use HMG.
So. Seeing how Spiral Corps and QK lost "actively produced" models how do you folk feel about NCA hitting backburner and losing: Starter Box. Hexa. Auxilia.
It's interesting that you bring up a Noctifer – I would argue that an Aquila is far weaker to a unit like that than the Swiss. Because of Hidden deploy, the Aquila actively posses no offensive threat to him on the active turn unless the opponent chooses so. Conversely, that same Noctifer has far less options against the Swiss because of the Swiss' marker state. He has to give away his own hidden deploy just for the option to "Hold" against the Swiss in TO.
Hexa are classic models that have aged really well, so it would be sad to see them go. That being said, I own 5 of them already, and they're easily proxied with Zulu Cobras, Locust, etc so I don't mind so much.
If it happened, it would probably affect a lot more units. But I don't think that's what's happening here.
That's exactly the point. Baiting. I prefer to show an Aquila as a bait and get rid of the Noctifer as soon as I can rather than being f.cked by him during turn 2/3 when I don't have that much orders, objective to score and maybe not the Swiss Guard available to deal with him. I find the Hexa Spitfire or Bulleteer Spitfire effective enough to kill non VMS, non visual MOD troopers.
eerrrr... I wouldn't exactly advise using your 50+ point model as bait against a missile launcher. Besides, an intelligent opponent would simply wait for you to engage something like a linked unidron or a TR bot and reveal against you then, forcing you to split your burst. I wouldn't call this baiting your opponent so much as willfully walking into their trap. The Swiss doesn't have this problem – he always knows what kind of fight he's going to get into before the rolls happen. If he walks up to a corner expecting just to shoot up a single trooper and the opponent holds with a camo marker, he can just opt out of that fight. You're touching on reasons why the Aquila is.... kind of junk. There's so many other, better, or more effective options for cheaper in the sectorial. Think about it – outside of the 3-4 key troopers your opponent is bringing that have visual mods, your Aquila is, give or take, just as effective as any of those cheaper, more effective troopers you've listed.
Alright let's talk stats if were going to talk stats. You've assumed the notifier is good range of the HMG. Let's break that assumption: 32-40 everyone in cover. 49.48% Aquila Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Noctifers (Spawn Embryo) 16.69% Aquila Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Noctifers (Dead) Failures 24.63% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 25.89% Noctifers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (1 W) 15.52% Noctifers inflicts 2 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (Unconscious) 4.14% Noctifers inflicts 3 or more wounds on Aquila Guard (Dead) 30.17% Swiss Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Noctifers (Spawn Embryo) 4.45% Swiss Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Noctifers (Dead) Failures 50.66% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 19.17% Noctifers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (1 W) 10.54% Noctifers inflicts 2 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Unconscious) 2.47% Noctifers inflicts 3 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Dead) The swiss guard has a much better survival rate and is likely able to remove himself from the situation. The most likely outcome for the Aquilla is he gets to roll the dice again and has a good chance at getting blasted and if it's a surprise shot: 32.77% Swiss Guard inflicts 1 or more wounds on Noctifers (Spawn Embryo) 5.10% Swiss Guard inflicts 2 or more wounds on Noctifers (Dead) Failures 58.25% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 8.98% Noctifers inflicts 1 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (1 W) 5.35% Noctifers inflicts 2 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Unconscious) 1.36% Noctifers inflicts 3 or more wounds on Swiss Guard (Dead) The swiss guard is very unlikely to be threatened at all.
Well, I take Aquila pretty much because he has a role I want covered and that I was given a wedgie by my opponents to not have covered in a lot of previous games. The Swiss Guard HMG can have his role covered by cheaper troops as either they have the same device and a similar heavy weapon while not being hackable or shoot as good as his once MML2 is on. And this for less than the half of the price. There is no other troop in NCA which has an autodiscover and BS15 with MSV and HMG (Deva Spitfire needs help to reach his good rangeband). I have played a lot a list prepared for the last interplanetario and played it agains LI and non LI lists. Aquila always did what he should each time unexpected FtF outcomes happened (like being oneshot by an Anaconda critical hit). This list had even faced a Swiss Guard ML, Achilles, Marut and other nasty stuff like that a lot of time and against some of the last year top 50 ITS players so I'm not talking about nice games in some local non competitive area. In huge events, you have 5 games and a lot of armies and tables to handle with only two lists. Aquila will never be screwed up by any of them. Not everytime optimal but never suboptimal. Swiss Guard is too much dependent of what army you're facing and what are the terrains the table brings to be a trusty long range fighter. With ML or MR, yes, he is really good. But with HMG, there is too much "but if" to accept to just say "Ok, in this case, I just have to use this troop to cover this particular problem".
You're missing that the Swiss HMG has TO. Which means Hidden Deployment, unlike the Aqulia he'll pretty much never will die to your opponent's turn 1. It's tricky to position an Aquila in a position where he can start his own turn in an effective manner while also staying safe from your opponent. The Swiss also tends to find more favourable matchups staring him down, as you opponent is never quite sure where he is deployed. You pick when and against what you pull the Swiss and BS15+TO can take on 95% of all troops frontally and casually walk past the remaining 5% as a Marker. Combine that with the ability to put things at -12 to shoot back. Nothing sucks as much as a couple bad dice rolls against a lucky ARO piece. A Swiss will usually last longer than an Aquila thanks to the one pip of extra arm and Dodge AROs instead of BS Attack ones. Marker State also is the answer for too dense or too light terrain. Honestly, the Swiss is PanO's true Swiss Army Knife for all problems that require killing. Even in bad matchups you're usually looking at a TO dude with effective BS12 anyway.
@Judge Dredd Yes, but you're not solving the problem with your Swiss Guard. You're just showing that the Aquila is the most effective at dealing with this kind of stuff. I'm going to spend about two orders to either force the Dogged State or the Spawn Embryo. Not solving definitely the problem but still better than using 3 orders for the same outcome. You have limited amount of orders. 2 is always better than 3 as this order will give you opportunities to do other constructive stuff. Proxy Mk2 Sniper at least for sure. I was showing what could be the worst case for an Aquila against one of the most known ORA piece in HD.
One other tricky component is the Aquila may not even be the best MSV bargain in NCA. You can get two Deva MSV2 Spitfires for the same cost as the Aquila, which is pretty great. Auto Discover is solid, HMG is great, but Spitfire and Nanopulser are great too. If, for some reason, you were in the smoke+ODD mega-TO Camo meta from hell, you may not even want HMG rangebands. Double Devas means double MSV table coverage, two more Nanopulers that could run around with CSUs for Intuitive Attack, plus WIP15 is good if you decide to attempt those Discover + Shoots which are good for making opponents nervous.
I don't agree about the 95% as there are a lot units we are taught about which are damn effective due to their visual MODs. And as I said, the Aquila is not terrain dependent. I have understood that you don't play with them in your meta but believe me, fighting Ariadna or Aleph (for example) in jungle terrain sucks very badly without MSV. Swiss Guard is no help against Chasseurs, against Myrmidons, against Achilles, against Kamau in FT, against Dakini in FT, Tankhunters and so one. Swiss Guard is good against a lot of TAGs (if you're into hammering ARM11 with DMG 15), Grenzers, Riot Grrls, FK ML and other stuff like that. Not something uncommon but this is when the army you play against has no better options. But those can be handled by Hexa or Bulleteers. While his performances are excellent, we have units which are not that far of this excellent level for more than half the price. Except that Deva shoots only at BS12, Spitfire needs help to go in effective range and Deva hates Shock and Viral ammo. I can't count the times when a Deva missed too much shots to be effective where an Aquila would have done the job. I see Deva Spitfire as a complement to Aquila, never a replacement. And to have played it, the Triple Guard with two Swiss and an Aquila is pretty effective if you like to play LI lists. EDIT : and sorry guys, it's late now, I'll answer further tomorrow. Have a good night or day
I don't think I can just give you a pass on "the role of a Swiss Guard can be done by a Hexas Spitfire or Bulleteer" without reminding you that in NCA there is the Deva MSV2 Spitfire, which does "the role" of an Aquila for half the price in both points and SWC. (oops... should have refreshed the page and read the other new posts before replying) ... ok, to develop on this because my core point has already been "dismissed" (however questionably), for an active turn MSV hunter piece the Spitfire is actually a BETTER weapon because the ability for the enemy to hide and force you to advance into closer ranges before engaging makes leveraging the bands of the HMG more difficult. After all, NCA doesn't lack for long range power pieces (hell, a Fusilier HMG in Core will do the job even against a Noctifier) but can struggle a little more when it comes time to get in closer.
