About what? Seriously at this stage I dont know what to say around here other than Git Gud! There are strengths to Bipandra, shes bland sure but if you seriously will "still never run her" or think shes still functionally useless then its being idiotic Quite frankly I'm sick of PanO being treated like crap by CB, its bland and it doesnt get the options or support other armies get. But thats what we've got and thats what we have to deal with. So stop whining and wither learn how to use what we do have or go away. And when I say learn what we have I dont mean make stupid comments like "waaa a DTW can hit all my holos" clearly the correct response to that is to not put yourself in the position in the first place, not "CB must buff holo troops" What does bipandra Do? Shes a WIP13 Doc in a faction hurting for Specialists with a good ammount of high cost MI and HI. She has the ARM2 and BS12 to push into the mid field and make a fight for objectives She sits in the price point between the 2W BS14 MR HDoc, and the 1W ARM1 WIP12 TDoc She has a DTW which lets her hunt Camo and no longer suffers stupid overlap with the Combi range bands She links with Fusiliers if you want her, and while we've lost the B3 LSG in the link we now have a B2 Nanopulser in that same link. Those are her strengths. in terms of using her I have no massive experience as I have only run her once up until now, but she certainly will be an option in lists for me for that WIP13 and ability to push and offd the top of my head I can think of at least 1 use for the DTW in camo hunting, Given the hardest part of the anti-camo game for PanO is popping the damn things out of camo Im ok with this
As to wishlisting about our "broken" profiles. Get over it, CB will not be looking at the old profiles anymore, they are done with it. So we can either look at using what we have or we can not use them, those are the two options left to us and no number of threads or continued complaints are going to change that.
Broadly speaking, I'm with @daboarder here. Bipandra was playable before (and I got mileage out of her) both in and out of Fireteams. While I lament the loss of the Light Shotgun (hell, I'd have rather she lost the Combi) it's fair to say that the Nanopulser is a fair exchange and this too is useful both in and out of a Fireteam. I'll use her, probably more often than I did before (where the SWC would often see her get cut late in the build process from many lists). But she's just BLAND.
In MO she allows us to get a WIP13 Doc for all the HI without having to fork out for a HDoc and either spend out order choice as hospitallers or use one of our 2 special friend knights as a Hospitaller. IE: she makes non-hospitaller MO a bit more viable, which is boon in my books
@daboarder problem with Camo never struck me as a PanO problem. As much as I disagree with @eciu 's random trolling about pretty much anything ever regarding PanO, I don't see a redeeming factor for Bipandra. Not as long as Auxilia, Regulars, Krakots or the Trauma Doc exist a decent chunk below her points and allow to squeeze in another Order, SWC weapon, Techbee or whatever. The updated CSU made it harder then ever for her to pull her linkability as a last resort NCA trump card. Not particulary unsatisfied with any PanO Sectorial at the moment, but some troops sure are the epitome of obsolete. Our Dire Foe characters can make some very mediocre troops look pretty good in comparison. Last time I checked the average Dire Foe was still a lot better than "somewhat situational on a good day". Complete waste of a perfectly fine opportunity on CB's part.
Dunno. CSU just got an unexpected profile buff out of the blue. You could argue that because CSU's appear in the NA2 lists, CB actually took a good look at them. Following that logic, its the profiles in the 'new stuff' that's going to get looked at i.e. Sval/Varuna. But still, I can at least keep hoping for a revise to Bolt profiles/costs XD @Teslarod I'd say that also depends on your playstyle. Given I keep fusiliers mostly hung back till the final round as a firebase/cheer leader squad, having a doctor back there incase the HMG gets picked off is pretty handy. And in the final round, if I've kept them safe, I've got at least 5 orders to drag the specialists to the middle of the board for some hail Mary button flipping.
Any Fusilier FO, Techbee, Auxilia or random Trauma Doc does almost the same thing for a Fraction of the price. Especially the current Combi+Nanupulser Profile is utterly irredeemable. Because it is very likely missing the LSG - Aragoto Combi+ LSG got dropped by 2 points, that would account for the Nanopulser and the 1 point drop. Dropping Bipandra from 24 to 23 for Courage and a Nanopulser while losing the LSG would be negative improvement.
If we are sad about wasted opportunities, I think new Bipandra adds a lot more to her faction than Roastie the riveter. Before she was dead last.
I hear you, but between improved BS, Forward Deployment, D-Charges and that Light Rocket Launcher I'd argue that she is useful as an option for the Fireteam ('though, yes, VERY uninspiring as an individual choice). I'd accept arguments that she is worse, but I disagree (and at least she feels properly costed rather than most of her points being in pure bloat).
My main issue is the hideous lack of synergy between her forward deployment and her cement bag link option, especially compared to Nexus Keanu's linked megaplasma death star laser attack. Grunt links already have good light shotgun options too.
It's not hard to put one model 4" up and stay within 8". I'd wager that ability often makes the Fireteam easier to deploy. Rosie might look sad next to the Nexus dream-machine, but she's not as bad as Bipandra.
You have had noticed that I mostly grumble about missed uninspiring options/theme/design about profiles, and not particularly direct "gameplay" strength (again "noone is saying that Swiss Guard should be Swisser"). Yea, for a marginal "doctoring" increase, and minimal "strength" increase. It's just her main problem is that for her price you can take plain Fusi and Trauma doc (yea, 1 pts more expensive but you get extra order). She technicly could allow to reform full Fusi link, but that's quite expensive to pay 23 pts for just this option (plus require putting around ~2.5SWC in fusi link). While I'm not exactly ok with that, that CB call (being it wise or not), but that's the reason right now I'm not buying new MO stuff, I've old one and I'm apparently done with it.
Like I said, theres a simple solution. Bipandra for the same cost gains doctor plus. A superior doctor option at the expensive of massive point bloat. I'd say she would be arguably worth it then. Either that or give her a heavy weapon like a light rocket launcher. Right now, even if the point costs made sense (which it still doesn't), she a very boring unit design. I can only assume Bipandra was design to be sub-optimal for fluff reasons and not designed around making a competitive unit. Which sucks for Pano players because other factions get dire foe characters that are clearly powergamey. So much so they are practically auto-includes.
.... erm you seem to be forgetting about her being basically a very well rounded Marauder linkable with Grunts. The one time I got to run USA her Forward Deployment L1 proved very useful to get her and 3 other Linkable troops inside an 8" Bubble around the Link Leader. She unlocked a favourable position to bring her LRL's +3 Rangeband to bear without moving. No autoinclude, but a very nice SWC free "pimp my Grunts" solution. Not to mention she makes Marauders a lot less attractive for the same reason a full Grey Core is usually skipped in favour of the mixed link with Volunteers.
I hadnt thought through that actually she now has discover + shoot and intuitive attack with B2 nanopusler, as well as the link +3 wip to discover... she might be decent at camo hunting now actually.
