Shas update suggestions

For non-tourneys we play with a few house rules. For Shas the important ones are:

Shasvastii skill includes Shock Immunity
Seeds *may* be S2 and have 2 wounds in the Seed profile

 

Is it? Last I checked they had an armour 6 pseudo light tag and some more expensive sub par Mobile Brigada... phys 14 Suryats nowwww!*

Anyway a Shas HI doesn't need to be Arm 5, I'd settle for a sphinx philosophy on a S2 chassis: Arm 3/4, Bs 13/14, Mov 6-2, Super climb, Camo, FD L2 and some sort of nasty trick like an an E-mitter, jammer or plasma mine and other dirty trick armaments like two ap marksman rifle (so a molotok with no SWC) or a viral combi.

But yes, Shas are all basically the same, currently in the Myrmidon wars show I expect shas are just the recurring bad guy bogey men "ooooh no those meddlesome shasvastii!" and just like all such characters when, after their cowardly ambush fails and they are shown the business end of an actual soldiers rifle run away shouting "I'll get you next time Achillies!"

I find shas skirmishers to be woefully lacking in the ability to actually finish the job and they're all predictably weak to:

• Fire
• Mines
• 5 point warbands
• Any sort of actual CC troop
• a line trooper a third of their price with a light shotgun or god forbid a flamer
• their own ineptitude or a stiff breeze
• Anything capable of surviving a surprise shot

*Will also be willing to accept 15

 

............oh god now all i can see in my brain is a recurring Speculo character that keeps trying to seduce Achilles

 

This gives me ideas... Stupid, stupid and hilarious ideas. Thank you.

 

Yes, I can see how much effort it'd require... :P

 

Maybe that's Sheskiin's villain arc.

 

So, we've settled on a 2W HI with some level of Camo, Climbing Plus and Arm 3-4, possibly with infiltration? I'll take it.

I like the Warband idea too, with Protheion, Hyper-Dynamics, probably Kinematika and maybe Mimetism on that.

And the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Seeds being able to hatch any Seed unit. It both serves to give Shas something truly unique and incentivise going sectorial to get high AVA of Seed units. Only problem is that it would probably be expensive.
A version could also be that during Deployment, for each Shasvastii unit you merely place a marker instead (so claiming positions), but you don't have to decide what unit is in which position until after deployment is done... Though that might mess with TO and the likes.

Aside from that, I believe Seed-Soldiers sre being reworked away from being our line troopers, yeah? (Don't remember where I read it). What do you think will happen to them? Will they become Skirmishers? A cheap MI?

And then I guess the real question, as pointed out: Morats have the whole "Ignore Morale" ruleset. Currently Shas' version of that is the "Unconscious still counts" in the form of Spawn-Embryo. Is that enough to set them apart from every other species? It captures the idea of that Shasvastii are impossible to cleanse away from a place once they've arrived, but we don't have too much to capture the feeling of "Sneaky, treacherous and obsessed with survival at all costs". Automedikits for a all is survival I guess, but that's mostly expensive and ineffective given Shas Phys.

On a side note, can you Coordinate Order Automedikits?

 

I wouldn't say no to a sprinkling of ambush camo either especially for seeds.

Yes to my knowledge, as the noted exceptions are Hacking and special BS attacks like spec fire.

Bit of a side note but I've always found shas to be the most defeatest faction, their special rule being "well, when you die" and their special equipment being "when you are inevitably put out of action"

 

*Opponent shoots my Malignos unconscious.
Me: Haha, YOU FOOL! You just activated my special ability! This was my plan all along!

Seriously though, that's very true. It's really sad that the Shas ability is just "Slightly more useful than dead when unconscious".

Now, for a totally not wishlisty idea... Someone mentioned Civilian Impersonation. How about an Impersonation level X: HVT Impersonation.
This unit is placed like an HVT model, at the same time as the real HVT model. Entering LOF or ZoC of this Trooper automatically reveals it.
(Or any variant thereof. I like the concept but it's hard to balance such an ability)

 

Balance would be hard, but i still love this as a variant of the idea. :)

 

One thing to keep in mind is that CB is streamlining and simplifying the way skills/equipment work, so something too convoluted or complicated won't fly.

All CA "signature" skills have to do with keeping them in the fight. Morats ignore Isolation, LoL and Retreat. EI's Mnemonica keeps the Lt. around no matter what. Shasvastii indeed works only when they're actually down, but it's by no means weak. It slows enemy down, because they can't ignore the possibility of our units coming back. When planning their turn and positioning they have to take into account that unconscious Malignos on the roof, or Speculo in that building, so they either have to spend orders to finish the job, or position themselves in a way that keeps them safe from units that we might heal back up.

The only change I'd really like to see is Shasvastii skill including Bioimmunity. It makes the skill reliable in face of all that Shock ammo flying around, it's cheap, and it's perfectly viable given Shasvastii fluff.

And give us Automedikits+, healing on PH+3 :D

 

R3generation*
Just give sheskiin bioimmunity or +1wound

 

Why stop there? Why not let them pass to Spawn even from Dogged? Give the Noctifiers a reason to be Shasvastii!

And yeah, with Shas physique being what it is... Getting back up on -3 is sad.

 

Automedikits work on basic PH. Paramedics heal on target's PH-3.

 

Oh they do? My mistake then. That sounds pretty nice then! I'm satisfied.

 

A Shikami-like nasty Shas CC unit would be interesting and thematic: a froggy super-mobile close-combat killer besides the Speculo. Ot differentiate it, make them specialists. If you have a good one of those, I think the warband idea would then not really fit.

I still think true 2-wound HI should not be a Shasvastii thing. So No Wound Incap for what would normally be HI would make more sense.

As for the generic Shas ability, here are a couple more ideas:

1. The mine ability that the Cadmus has right now is really cool. What if all Shas in Seed form had that ability? And/or what if they also had it in Spawn-embryo form, like you kill them but then getting in to clean up the bodies (burn them!) is really, really nasty...

2. Shock Immunity -plus- a crappy regen, like at -3.

 

Oh, and it would be cool to see Shas use Sensor instead of visors. Maybe they're not so great at visual sight, but have other (probably gross) ways of sensing what's around them very accurately? Putting Sensor on a Forward Deployed unit would be really thematic, useful, and not overpowered.

Finally, a thought: If we're two years out, maybe if enough people ask for a minor fix in the meantime we could get one. Like upping the AVA of M-drones to make up for no visors, or maybe a single Shas profile?

If whoever won the Interplanetario this year asked for that instead of an army, they would be basically a god among men. Okay, maybe ask for the same for MRRF... just one unit added and some mixed fireteams could make each of those abandoned sectorials a lot more playable for the several years they have left before an update!

I'm hoping Tom wins again, with MRRF this time. Surely CB would take that as a sign :)

 

I am surprised nobody mentioned info about Shas Bostria gave us on Adepticon.

- shasvastii should still be sectorial with strong alpha strike, but not that good after it.

- still glass cannon army

- because of the fluff seed embryo will still be in the army, CB like the idea of the Aliens that came from the egg

- they know that Seeds don't work very well as line infantery and new Shas line infantery will be more standard.

- we will see new tools and toys for the Shas.

Odesláno z mého Redmi Note 3 pomocí Tapatalk

 

I would like them to feel more alien. Sure there's lots of camo, but there's hardly any alien 'tech' beyond seed embryo, 2 units with protheion, and 1 unit with morpho-scan .
Where's the plasma (Aleph has it, but SEF only gets it on a drone?), hacking device plus (or any UPGRADES to our hacking devices for that matter...Bit & Kiss doesn't count they aren't Shasvastii), sepsitor, mnemonica or other 'voodoo tech' from the EI?

I think SEF should also get from vanilla:
Ko'Dali
Imetrons

 

That doesn't make much sense. Imetrons are AI beacons and Shas don't get AI lieutenants. Ko Dali is a human. Okay, so is Bit, but unlike Bit, she isn't a propaganda piece.

I do agree Shas needs more alien stuff, but I would rather see the seed embryo rule reworked or them be given some new, interesting and unique toys than just make them another 'CA lite' sectorial like Onyx.