The Uhlan was incredibly close to greatness. I always thought he could have been fixed with the easiest tweak: instead of giving him two main guns (HMG & Feuerbach +1B), give him just the Feuerbach and a close range weapon (Heavy Pistol, Pulzar, HFT, anything) and drop his costs by 10 points – done. You now have an incredibly unique TAG that does something no other TAG does. I never understood why they didn't do that.
Wow - nice and detailed post. As a collector I buy many minis at release which also has the downside (as a slow painter), that some get retired and were not even properly used. I think CB don´t want to sell miniatures in different packages at the same time. So setting a DF OOP and put them in so called expansion boxes. A solution would be a way to buy single models over their webshop exclusivly. So you pay more for selecting a couple of single models but you can get your favorite without the bulk of an actionpack. Just want to mention MK3 is out of Army and Fusilier ML was part of the SWC box, do we have the other 3 somewhere else? A curiosity is Hactao HMG. While making it the the most wanted loadout in N4 (and still) they discontinued it and only make the Hacker available in the WB pack (which has the smell of an error on it, while Hactao Hacker was not available in WB it is now ... but only the Hacker ...
I would love it if you could buy individual models that come sent in minimal packaging - like just a baggie in a bubble mailer - to keep shipping costs low. Essentials PanOceania Action Pack.
You would think so, but then there are currently two different Ariadna packs that have the 112 in it...
I'd risk sounding like a broken record: CB's "packaging strategy" is a mess. I get that they need to juggle between having a bit less than 40 playable armies (2 of them being out of catalog), having limited number of SKUs their logistic / retail ecosystem can carry, and planning for future releases. Not to mention having legacy models-to-be-eventually-replaced, and a horde of dissatisified players breathing down their necks. And I can't with all certainty claim I would've done it better myself. I don't know all the facts. But - with all the sympathy I have for CB - at the end of the day, it is still a mess.
I loved the uhlan. Such a good load out on such a good profile. Marker state made it very survivable too. It had its weaknesses and dead-bands. Dam 16 Hmg was good enough for clearing chaff and the FB +1B made it a great big-game hunter. Lack of cqb kit made it very role-specific and meant it had a clear weakness to offset its strengths, gave factions like JSA a good vector for dealing with it with clever play for example. I think it was a very balanced bit of kit and miss it dearly
It was a very useful piece sadly held back by CB's points formula; two main guns about as useful together as a MULTI HMG that wound up costing much more than that weapon. It performed very well in my dual-TAG NCA list alongside a Squalo, but cost so much I could never afford all the backup such a TAG list needs- I always had to skimp on close support or Hacking defense and leave the Squalo exposed in order to enjoy its powerful synergy with the Uhlan. ...man, I really need to get around to compiling that N5 NCA document so I can play that list again. I'm not in tournaments anymore, I don't need CB's say-so to bring an Uhlan.
How about something like this? I just guessed the point value, and for me it's still bit too high but it feels hard to justify it being lower either. I also agree that if one is not playing tournaments it really doesn't matter what rules you play by as long as opponent is cool with it.
God, I just looked at my old N3 tournament list printouts to see how bad the prices were back then... A Squalo with HGL was 95 points and I know the Uhlan was more than that (it's usually been a Fusilier or two off buying a Cutter), and this was before the Uhlan got the extra Burst on its Feuerbach! Were I to take a crack at a modernised Uhlan while still faithfully following CB's formula, I'd probably have a profile with HMG and a scary upgraded Panzerfaust to represent the old model and a profile with a boosted Feuerbach and SMG to more faithfully represent its intended battlefield role while having appropriately-costed "primary" and "secondary" weapons.
