This 100 times over. Give the Shikami heavy weapons and all of the sudden its crazy good. In fact, there's a bunch of stuff that could make it really good -- mechanized deployment, forward deployment 2, Infiltration, AD1, heavy weapons, eclipse smoke, 6-2 or 6-4 movement -- all of those are things that could make him way more palatable, even if it would bump their cost up to the upper 50s.
Well, he has ODD instead of Holoprojector, which would be awesome on a heavy weapons platform. However, would that be too powerful? And where would it leave the Daiyokai?
The Daiyokai is still ARM5, NWI and BS13 with Fatality. And the Daiyokai already is in a kind of strange place, IMO. Even if they just gave Shikami weapons that did slightly more inside of 16 inches -- a MULTI Rifle, for example, which would be comparable to most pieces that do the same stuff as a shikami in the midfield -- it would be way better.
After Tunguska hit on Friday, and I looked at Hollow Men... I think even just a change to 6-4 or 6-2 move would save the Shikami. 6" caution move is huge. 6" move plus shoot is huge. There's just no real drive to take these as a first pick unit... And they're too expensive to be an afterthought. In all my listbuilding with JSA so far, if I have pts I don't know what to do with it is usually in the 25-30 range. Not 45-47 -_-
Played my JSA vs Tohaa in Armory, just for fun. I decided to bring the Shikami duo to try and experiment with. This seemed like a good setting for them: emphasis on close range, chance for their 2-Wound durability to be useful, panoplies for them to loot with Specialist and score points, Tohaa don't have much infowar for them to worry about, etc. Now I just hate them even more. At 4 different points in that game, I thought "I'd gladly trade away these 90+ points just to have Saito Togan. Shikami make a very standard JSA-style manuever needlessly risky and order-intensive." My Keisotsu, Yojimbo, Ryuken-9 did a great job setting up opportunities and helping to provide general support, and then the Shikami just absolutely failed to deliver in every conceivable capacity at short range. The lack of marker state means they need to be hand-held up the table with Smoke, or waste piles of Orders to cautious move gaps that a TO Camo unit could easily walk across. They fear templates like hell, when (once again) a Marker state unit has many options it can use. Their firepower is nothing to speak of, especially when trying to chew through Symbiont Armor, and even their melee ability feels hilariously bad when there's no Surprise Attack. When you add up that they're even more expensive than comparable TO units, and double the price of a Tanko... Dang. The more I experiment with them, the more I think they're missing something key. Something like Drop Bears or Koalas would give them another threat vector, some utility, or let them do something more than climb a building in order to stay alive. Even 6-2 would be massive, given how much cautious moving they need to do just to get around. Anyway, back on the shelf for them.
Would you have cautious-moved a Domaru or Tanko across those same gaps? I know I tend to play riskier with my HI, simply because I have one Wound I can lose if I flub a roll.
Incoming bias because I love these guys in style, fluff, and function. Climbing Plus and Super Jump are enormous and unique. It's why you take this unit over the other guys, and it's what you are paying for. Mobility skills like these are highly terrain dependent, and have a high skill floor and ceiling. Camo is broken by climbing or jumping, so Shinobu can't get up the building and stay in camo. Nor can she peak over the rooftop and murder their lieutenant without to spend an extra order. Consider this very common target: Ghulam Lt sitting prone in Suppressive Fire in a rooftop corner, far enough from the edge to avoid being smoked. Shinobu has successfully Superior Infiltrated to right underneath the far edge, presumably no one around to deal with first. 1-2 orders to throw smoke on herself, 1 order climb, 1 order recamo, 1 order Move into B2B and Suprise Attack. 4-5 orders! Shikami 1 order climb/jump + Shoot, if still alive then move into B2B to finish them off. Their ability to open unexpected attack vectors is why they are so cool. It can be really difficult to properly control the midfield when a Shikami is present, as fire lanes have to cover so many new paths. Usually I can just plop a guy prone on a bridge and he is holding the fort. Now the Shikami can walk under and climb either side to kill him from behind. They have flaws: - No Infiltration - No marker state Pros: - Unparalled mobility in Climbing Plus and Super Jump - Stealth from MA (ignore midfield hackers) - 2W ODD in Suppressive Fire in unflankable positions above ground (including on the side of a building) - Can fail guts climb or jump (thereby leaping off a building safely, or hang on the side after rolling off) I play Haqqislam and love Tarik for his Super-Jumping (and everything else, ignore the 6-4 Fat 2 Spitfire...). What I would do for Climbing Plus as well! And Tarik doesn't even have ODD, nor MA3.
I want the Shikami to be viable and I hate to point out an inaccuracy to someone excited for and supporting the profile, but unfortunately your order economy is off because the Shikami needs to spend 3-4 orders running across the table to get to that LT on a roof, which is one of the common criticisms of the trooper. I very much agree that ODD and super jump provide for a lot of sideways tactics in the midfield, which is where this guy wants to shine, but the Ryuken has cut into this turf hard and undercut his role a bit.
Everytime I play a game there is some stuff I want dead sitting on a roof. Everytime I die a little inside because I didn't bring a Shikami. Everytime I remember he starts in the DZ, can't deal with Camo, and doesn't do damage to hard targets. Being Hackable doesn't help either. I guess he would be pretty great to deal with a Hollowmem Link sitting on rooftops in the middle of the table.
You can't ignore the 6-4 or spitfire though -- either of those would make the Shikami much more playable.
Certainly, or perhaps a Forward Deployment ability. Saving 1 or 2 Orders to get the Shikami into the action would do a lot to help their Order efficiency, and ultra mobile Superjump/Climbing Plus, non-marker state units are a great recipient for this since they can hide on top of a building when they Deploy. Ryuken-9 SMGs help too.
I feel like the Shikami has two things holding it back: the first is that it's identity is kind of muddy, the second is its in sectorial identity and competition. To the first point, if we look at other mobile, jumpy, two wound troopers, we see that they're all faster and either better armed (Tarik) or cheaper (Any werewolf) or both (Hollowmen, Kotails). Even if the Shikami doesn't get a speed boost, I feel like it either needs better equipment to further define its role, or it needs to be cheaper, and both of the points lead into my second point which I feel is the bigger issue facing it. In JSA, the Shikami is competing against ninja/oniwaban, bikes, and ryuken, all of which are cheaper. Were the Shikami a chinese unit, in the post uprising landscape I think it'd do much better. It'd still be competing against things like the Hac Tao, Dao Fei, and Su-Jian, but I feel like it'd be slightly more appealing there than in JSA. Even in that hypothetical scenario it runs into load out problems. It really needs something else Give it regular grenades or stun grenades to take advantage of its PH. Give it a shotgun or a direct template weapon to take advantage of its extreme mobility. Give it a spitfire or a Mk12 or even a marksman rife so it can fit in that 24" rangeband and leverage its ODD a little better. Give it perimeter weapons, or a non mine deployable, or blow everyone's minds and give it a G:sync partner. Give it a utility function like sensor or FO. Heck at least give it Nimbus+. Where I'm getting with this is even if costs more, that would be worth it to me if it the result was it having a defining role to fill in faction.
I did not know how much I need a tiny little S1 Ninja until I read this comment. plz make cute ninja REM CB
I appreciate that the Shikami is not a perfect unit to do everything, but they certainly have a profile which is unique, which allows it to fulfill a unique role (highly agile close range + CC killer who is also a tough specialist). Ryuken have 1 wound, no stealth, aren't specialists, no CC, and no agility. Ninjas have no agility (no climbing plus or super jump), 1W, and the specialist most often taken can't go into suppressive fire. Bikes have huge silhouettes, need to dismount to go prone, 1W, and can't get cover due to impetuous (also no agility) Shikami is a great specialist to come up to midfield turn 2 and 3 to remove an opponent off an objective and then hold it. For this role the main competitors are Domaru and Karakuri, both of whom lack ODD and agility. Dislodging a ready-to-pounce Shikami from the midfield objective can be very difficult as he can hide in such hard to reach places, and move in ways that are very difficult to control (run along the outside of a bridge wall, when anyone else would have had to crawl across the bridge) Stealth largely allows the Shikami to bypass hackers (although in my meta everyone and their dog runs a KHD so midfield AHD are a bit rare) Starting in your deployment allows you to adapt his role according to the battle, and prevents you from overextending or getting caught by Sensor like overconfidently placed TO can. Obviously your experience may differ from mine, but I've found them great units with lots of potential that really challenge your opponent considering their unique profiles.
Soz - only just spotted this example. Shinobu used superior infiltrate to get within threat range of this Ghulam Lt. How did the Shikami get there to do it in 1 order? U_U Or are you advocating for a bs12 Combi Rifle/Contender to simply leap in the air from the backfield, draw fire from every enemy ARO piece and somehow sniper the dude out? (this, of course, ignoring the part about then moving into btb)
You're all very correct that the Shinobu infiltrates and the Shikami doesn't. My example was trying to illustrate the amazing order efficiency of super jump/climbing plus when compared to a unit that relies on camo that doesn't have it. Using the Lt as an example target was misleading, I should have mentioned a more reasonable target like a Moran Maasai prone in the midfield on a building. A Shikami is also better at surviving Crazy Koalas/Mines than Ninjas, but does rely on your KHD having taken out their hacking threats before the Shikami can strike in close range with impunity. The Shikami is not a first turn assassin like Shinobu. They're midfield assassins/objective holders.
