September>December 2024: Nuclear winter has struck, leaving room for the N5

Well, at least this one is expensive.
On the other hand, that impossible to avoid BS -3 on a tough model will be difficult to overcome.

 

Depends on how Hacking and some of the Warbands turn out. It can't score at all, or protect itself from assymmetrical attacks, or (unlike nearly everything else in Kestrel) see through Smoke. What it does do is punch through hard ARO very efficiently, and make a substantial roadblock against typical gunfighters when the Orders can be found to put it into Suppressive Fire. The Red Fury's rangebands will also force it to move closer than a typical PanO gunfighter would like as well, opening up sneaky counterplay. It'll need some backup to keep it alive in reactive turn, eating up points and Orders to protect that expensive shooter, leaving opportunities to mess with scoring more easily. Certainly a powerful profile, but hardly a dominant one unless most of the (already heavily favoured) indirect play gets gutted going into N5.

 

And bear in mind that from what we've seen so far MIs and HIs will probably get cheaper in N5, which puts Hetkari in context.

It's certainly a very good unit, and peak PanO - in a good way - to boot. It does one thing, but it does it very well. With proper support it'll be a very good vanguard unit

 

It is definately a unique Pano-type unit. I like that it, the Swiss Guard, and Aquila Guard can all do different things while being peak Pano.

The pricing also makes me hopeful for the revised Father Knights.

 

Jeez. This guy is quite the shooter! BS14 with Marksmanship and BS attack -3! Then big weapons on him. Then the armor of super HI with the size of a normal HI. Only 48pts! WTH? He’s definitely peak PanO. Of course the first model is RF when you probably want the ML lol.

Can this guy be in fireteams?

 

ARM5 isn't that rare for S2 HI: Mobil Brigada, Father Knight, Swiss Guard, Hac Tao, Achilles v2, Asura.

I'm glad CB have returned to the habit of making ARM4-5 HI-s with true 2Ws Silhouette2 and not S5 (or S2 HI-s with pseudo 2W-s).

Edit: And I'm extra glad to see that high PH HIs keep their melee strenght: Kestrel's CCW is PS=6 which is the equivalent of his/her PH14.

 

One can be in a Haris or Duo in Kestrel. No extra keyword though, so if you want the 2-man purity bonus you need to bring either a pair of Griffins too, or some combination of Redeyes and Wildcard Characters. Probably not much of an issue if their cheapest buff comes from taking both Quinn and Bipandra, though they'll really like having at least one Specialist tag along to actually win the game.

 

Bipandra would be good for bringing him back should he go down!

 

Too bad that BS -3 is still in N5. It was to be expected because TBL was designed with N5 in mind, but still I think its a poor design choice unless wo got a counter for it.

I still wonder how Silverprime Overlord got so much more for nearly the same price.

I am courious if other units will also get BS-3. Kriza want it back. Yan Huo could use it.

 

I think you did a really quick analysis... and a good one i think.

 

Minor correction, but Fireflies, not Redeyes.

Bipandra + Engineer Firefly to un-glue him sound like pretty solid squadmates for the MRF Hektari

The Missile Launcher Hektari + a couple of Minelayer Fireflies also sounds like a pretty solid defensive Haris to keep the DZ safe as well.

Heck the Fireflies basically have every specialist option you could ask for available; pick which 2 you want and go nuts.

Firefly + Hektari Haris looking like a real staple of Kestrel lists.

 

So far I like everything I have heard about N5. :)
Speaking as a PanO player the changes to the units specifically that they have shown so far seem really good for this faction. To those dreading PanO to be oppressive in N5 I would just recommend to wait until we have the full picture of unit costs and rosters for N5 :) nothing exists in a vacuum. Maybe PanO will become the new top dog, but my guess is (especially looking at the changes to shotguns as a way of simple DZ defense and how dedicated melee attack pieces got a buff) they try to not only increase the shooting power but also to increase the potential of other attack vectors aside from simple shooting things until they are dead (like the risk of someone rushing your DZ and smashing everything in melee).

Also as an aside, I have just bought the new triphammer at my LGS. Even though I dont see much use for the Triphammer, the model is bonkers goodlooking imho and I had to buy it. But what really blew me away was the quality of the cast. Everything is so crisp and clean. I went over the railmounts of the shotgun mutliple times with my fingers in disbelief. You could grate cheese on that (probably). Admittedly at this scale such details arent really microscopic anymore, but still.
I havent followed their recent production changes, but did they change their way of casting bigger models again? I thought CB was using Siocast (whose quality was okay-ish in my expirience, but pales in comparison to the Triphammer). The material it is made out of seems at first glance to be similar to the plastic that GW uses, but the stiffness of the material makes me believe that this is some kind of resin.

 

Probably they have the Siocast machines at full production for the warcrow launch, so the last plastic miniatures were produced in china (Unicool)

 

I think this the first time I’ve actively disliked one of their figures! Her head looks huge! Everything looks mis-shappen. It looks like a head has been badly photoshopped on a body. And what’s with the wooden spoon?! Inside joke?

 

Kinda. A few tournaments give a Wooden Spoon to the last place finisher. It is in good fun.

EDIT: Wikipedia on the practice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woode...oon is an,to other English-speaking countries.

 

Not a cross-cultural thing lol.

 

I'm with the Laughing God for this one. Looks like a really ghetto penitent and everything is weirdly misshapen. It is more at home on Necromunda than in the Human Sphere.

 

I thought the wooden spoon was something internationally accepted as a prize for last place.

 

Having something as a reward for last is common but what exact object it is varies wildly. A I tournament I frequent gives out small anchors for last place for example.