September>December : A New Wave is coming, Tsunami warning!

He is if compared to Sun Tzu who costs so much it out weights any benefits. He's a "take once in a while for certain missions". Saladin more than makes up for his points. He can even be better defensive because he can have one Bashi, now regular, holomask and echo as him.

You use him to fuel troops like Maggy, Asawira, etc.

 

I go second, my Anathematic is in Hidden Deployment but can see part of the board. As an ARO during your turn, it reveals itself from HD to Marker State, now you don't know if it's a Sphinx covering a lane, or indeed an Anathematic Lt (if I have valid Lt options in the table, at least). Once my turn arrives, I'm not in Loss of Lt. Or, I'm not sure if it was possible to make something similar with Alert! in the past, frankly I got the Anathematic just before the non-metal resculpt was released and I haven't painted it yet anyways, so I didn't looked hard into this option.

Now this (risky) option has been removed.

I never mentioned Marksmanship. It's a K1 sniper (with improved PS, however) for 27pts with assault/mobility gear (stealth, emitter, boarding pistol...). The albedo -6 is nice, but... it's a matter of cost, mostly. And Sapper allowed for free placement and stacking Mimetism onto Albedo for universal utility.

Inspiring Leadership becomes a bargain as long as you have more than 3-5 irregular units you want to deploy under 12-13pts. Joan's is the "worst" because MO has very few Irregulars, wallace was broken because he had cheap iregulars in droves and could Fireteam with them. Saladino has access to a lot of desirable irregulars that don't even need to link to be useful (just the Daylami and Muttas make this worth it!), so the cost per order goes down by a lot.
This obviously makes Saladin a prime target, and the limit of 15 units (mind you with this costs... the commlink profile is an option...) poses a hard cap, but this makes several options "free" to take in numbers otherwise a Haqq player would consider unopperative.

Or several!

 

I am in full agreement that this was a significant buff to Saladin. I am just saying that it will require a new approach for some Vanilla Haqqislam list building.

Has anyone looked at the new Sartroids and cyberplugged rules? They are some crazy peripherals you can staple in with Gearheads if you have points available. A disposable BS 13, Mimetism -6 gunner or surprise -6 E/Marat are pretty cool.

 

is it correct that Sartroids provide no order at all but you can still take them? I'm guessing in Auto mode only. But they also take up a troop slot.

 

Sartroids seems to have the power level comparable to puppetbots, with less vulnerability to losing their controller. Like any peripheral, they provide no orders and take no slots. In Next Wave, they put even more pressure on list building, it is hard enough to get to 15 orders without adding them.

I'm looking forward to seeing some renders of the things...

 

Yeah Xi is not going to see the table for me. He's still meh at best.

 

Negative. As a general rule for peripherals when they are included in an army list, they must be paired with a controller.

 

so really it's just a thing that keeps them going should the owner dies?

 

Yeah, they stay a threat even after the controller dies, but with slightly diminished stats.

 

And at ARM 3, BTS 6, Mimetism -3 or -6, and all of then have direct templates, you have to consider them as a threat. Thankfully, they will be hard to take because of the costs associated with the factions and the fact they are S5.

 

Sartroids are peripherals (I think that is the longer rule of the whole book... about 2 and half pages of text!), so yeah, they don't ever provide orders.
If it helps you, think of them as "sepsitorized troops" by the Gearheds... or dr worm!, yeah, the good doctor can use and deploy them.

And you all are missing a critical point of the Sartroids. The puzzle ones have Infiltration and Hidden Deployment. And while the rule states that the controller cannot have a Servant as well, the controller can use Doctor or Engineer through the Sartroid!

So, in vanilla, for 3 times the cost of a single wormette, you can have a S5 gun platform with 1 STR, no Remote Presence, E/Marat (and other things) capable of healing your STR troops. Like the Avatar in vanilla. Caliban engineer utility... with extra steps, cost and reach.

 

Wallace got the skill weeks before, but nobody cares about Ariadna

 

Eh, I mentioned the Scouts and the bearpodes before! It's just that Wallace... well, outside Caledonia, he's there I suppose, but his Inspiring Leadership doesn't shine much in Kosmo Irmandinhos may be AVA 4, but with rokots anyways...)

 

I am not sure how widely is understood that Cyberplugs prevent the operator to execute any of the orders (perform idle instead) the plugged unit does (with the exception of doctor/ engineer for obvious reasons).

 

Yes, they are heavily based on the puppetmaster's rules as they first showed up (for the controller).

I would like a clarification, however. Is it mandatory for the controller to always be "plugged"? I have seen no mention to this, in one way or another, so while it's stated that if you deploy 2 sartroids one is with Connected profile and another with Autonomous profile, but it doesn't say anywhere if the sartroids force the controller to always be plugged.

If you can choose when to plug or not as part of your (first) Order declaration, then I'd say the Sartroids will be seen despite the cost (yes, they have a big kit, but so does almos everything in CA). As in, I can deploy my Dr Worm and use him normally, then spend an order, show the HD Sartroid, and use it, then go back to use Dr Worm normally (for example).

If they essentially nullify their controller until they are in a Null State, then they may be seen in niche cases, but much, much less, since Dr worm is both the only doctor and cyberplug in vanilla (you have the Nexus and Exrah engineers as backup) and in Next Wave you simply have too much to pay for to also fork for a gearhed engineer to control a sartroid and Dr Worm.

Also, the HD Sartroid (puzzler) is "not in the table" until we reveal it, so even if case #2 is right, Dr worm (in blind, RAW reading of the rules) would be free until the HD puzzler is revealed... it could be ruled that in that case, the Dr worm is "plugged" even if the only sartroid is not yet in the table, but that seems extremely harsh to me (you are revealing its presence, if not its location, and have a useless model in the table until you reveal the sartroid).

 

Cyberplug breakdown

You have GearHead and CyberPlug A and B.

You spend an order on GearHead. You place a Connected token on CP-A and an Autonomous token on CP-B.
GearHead do Idle. CP-A is activated as normal. CP-B is not activated.

You spend a second order on GearHead. You place an Autonomous token on both CP.
GearHead moves and do things. CPs are not activated.

You spend a third order on GearHead. You place an Connected token on CP-B and an Autonomous token on CP-A.
CP-B moves to friendly broken model. GearHead roll for Engineer and fix through CP-B. CP-A is not activated.

You spend a fourth order on CP-A that is in Autonomous mode.
CP-A do things. GearHead and CP-B are not activated.


The same goes with reactive turn.
If GearHead declares ARO, CPs go into Autonomous mode.
If ANY CP declares ARO, you can switch the Connected/Autonomous token.

Bonus point, if GearHead goes "null", CPs go Autonomous (and you still can spend orders on them).

 

I wonder how you did this, I mean, to go from HD to Camomarker, if the "Anathematic" did some ARO to get out of HD will be revealed, no camo state, so, I would know for sure is the Anathematic. Or I´m missing some rule interaction? As Pano player this sounds interesting for Cutter Lt.

Regarding the changes...

For CA I have doubts how it will impact. I think maybe they went too hard in somethings. It will change too much list building, which could be an stopper for some players.

For Pano... Most changes affect only to MO, which was in a serious need to. About Redeye, now is better, but for those "seeing this flying thing as too OP", I think they should see Haqqislam ones.

Haqqislam... following my previous statement, we paid too many attention to Saladin, but fliers are now really powerful, and in vanilla you can have both.

Nomads, let´s see if the small changes on triggermen and gruppa help them to be on the field. Yujing, pretty much same as Nomads. Aleph and O-12 and Tohaa, really small changes if any.

And, to close... Ariadna... Well, welcome back to N3 camo spam, but with higher firepower... some HI are now a joke, pretty much inmunity to everything but to be shot... And welcome back to Bearpode N4 with a new guest... McMurrough... and many many people with templates. Damm, they even have discoballer. I almost will be feeling to play N3/N4 instead of N5 when I face Ariadna, TAK, Kosmo... I said almost because surprise attack will be more effective, same as mimetism due not having dame FT bonuses... so in many cases it will worse now than then.

 

I feel this is a significant change to Vanilla CA as basically all list have gone up 4 points (Ikadrons) and they have lost Lt mentors, Pandora, Teucer, Dukash, and Samaritans. Charontids and Anathematics look terrifying.

We will see at the next big event.