This is playstyle dependent but I've always found the spitfire Tsyklon worthwhile. Turn one run up the board, throw out a repeater or two, then stand in the most open area of your side of the board with suppressive fire. Rolling straight bs out to 24" in suppressive is no joke and your opponents can't sneak up on it. Either they waste orders and units contesting that zone or they ignore it and play where most of your army is. If it survives to turn 2/3 then it gets some supportware and goes hunting. High speed climbing plus goes a long way towards digging out your opponent's important weaklings. The Vostok is undoubtedly better in a straight fight but the Tsyklon is a fantastic utility/tempo piece that I don't think the Vostok will replace.
Suppressive ODD with 2Ws and Courage is no slouch at controlling tempo. Yes, you need to have something watching it's back but that -6 compensates for the -3 Range MOD at 16-24". The biggest issue with that N3 Tsyklon tactic is that it really relied on MML2 to make it scary: that's a lot less ubiquitous than N3, which makes the Tsyklon significantly less of a threat. Both Tsyklons and Lunks really shone in N3 when supported by HD+s: the combination of White Noise, Assisted Fire and Oblivion brought a lot of utility. Losing Assisted Fire means that the REMs need to do a lot more of their own heavy lifting now.
The EVO really should have been able to affect more than one remote. Especially since they took away it B2 Reactive buff which really was nice.
I would like to point out that Nomads can do some fantastic mostly-remotes lists, and now that we have Vostoks you could pile them and Fuerbach Tsyklons into the same teams alongside Riot Grrls for example, and have everyone moving 6" while shooting. If you're okay with just moving 4" you could put a Clockmaker or EVAder in the link and you've got some nasty hard-hitting closeness that's hard to get rid of. Lunakhods will still make excellent tools for chainrifle-heaven sections of the board, and DZ guards until then. I will say that I miss Minesweeper. That was a really cool tool, if only occasionally useful. I'm not a fan of N4 removing stuff like that in favor of flatter rules. Very, very much agreed. The flattening of the EVO rules really sucks. Hacking was pruned back too far IMO, my only major complaint about N4 so far (well, that and Fire ammo not existing/not burning off camo or Mim-6).
Enhanced Reaction should really be the old Overclock. Happy with Assisted Fire being only 1 REM. That would make it either all the Repeater REMS B2 in ARO or 1 REM with MM. My biggest complaint (in the REM space) is the fact that you can't spend a Command Token to activate a Supportware program during deployment if going second. "Overclock", single-use Assisted Fire or Controlled Jump up is a massive assistance in weathering a T1 storm. Yes these would be strong: but there's a multitude of ways of dealing with these issues. Personally I don't see a T1 Assisted Fire TR Bot as any worse than some of the Fireteams (and in a lot of ways FAR easier to deal with).
Yeah it'd be a leveler too. Something factions use if they don't already have something better (which many do).
It's also a significant investment: it's 1 Command Token, 1.5 SWC and 32pts. As to it being "too strong" (a complaint I've seen previously): going second you need to be able to deal with an Assisted Fire TR Bot AFTER weathering a T1 Alpha... so if it's too strong T1 with a Command Token then it's simply too strong at all. Maybe worth poking HellLois about for inclusion in ITS? @RobertShepherd (for WhiteNoise: can HellLois lend any insight on why the Command Token spend for Supportware isn't a thing anymore?)
I often used a MM Reaktion Zond in N3. I do not think it ever scored a kill, and my opponents always managed to scrap it. My opponents would often comment about how useless it was and question why I bothered with the investment. Answer: My opponents always had to scrap it, and it would cost them multiple orders that would have been better spent on the objective. I feel it was a good trade-off.
The Reaction Zond is part of almost every List when I play Bakunin, also I had the Clockmaker's ZondBot close enough. So I never even bothered buffing the Reaktion Zond whilst still having the same effect as an order sink since my opponent knew I'll bring that remote back up again.
My opponent yesterday had the same attitude to the Flash Pulse bots. Scrapping one of them by eating a Crazy Koala is still a good trade if it lets your HI Fireteam break out onto the field unmolested. And yet, crits are so much more devastating this time round. I would have never tried to ARO with a camo marker against an HI unless I was desperate or just mucking around, yet the second time I did it, I scored a crit, both ARM rolls failed and broke the link. Just that alone makes me feel like the game is less first-turn, first-move biased, which is mighty pleasant. Anyway, my next game I'll stop fooling around and actually use a Reaktion Zond. Just a pity that Salyuts are still AVA1 for Corregidor; I would've fancied bringing a TR baggage boot too.
Does the increase in Vostok price make the Tsyklon a more appealing option for anyone? I'm still trying to fold in Lunokhods and Tsyklons but the other options available in Nomads and specifically Corregidor are just so good.
I am pretty sure on the picture with the CJC units it was AVA 2. Maybe a case for the error log in army. In N3 I wondered about the limit, because fluffwise I think a baggage bot is very useful for the space engineers, to carry all the tools and stuff. @Topic: I agree Tsyklons look a bit expensive compared to to the Vostok with its two str points and optical mods. Maybe its the still high (for a rem) ARM and BTS values. Anyway the provide unique weapons, pitchers and the x-visor witch is usefull at least on the spitifre. I used it in my first N3 CJC game after the update and shot down a SML Rem on my bad rangeband, in a 5 strong fireteam with active MMS2 :-) still available! But at least they feel outdated compared to their "HI" version.
Well... perhaps it is just the fond memories but I keep going back to the Tsyklon for its linked Pitchers. But Morans are so cheap as well...
This is what I ended up thinking as well, and the fact that Jazz has pitchers as well, and is no doubt in a link already. Makes it hard to bring a fairly squishy expensive gun.
But he has X-Visor (Jazz doesn´t), plus ARM3 puts him on par with my Zuyongs as to be squishy... and he has two UNC levels. The Vostok is straight up better at shooting. The price increase does not change that.
It does have 2 levels of UNC, but with new reduced order count I'm not sure I would even pick it back up. It's become a difficult option with the pitchers available in other places, super cheap Morans, and other available repeaters. I'll try and work them into some more lists. Right now they just feel...inefficient.
What about as part of a Wildcat Haris? 88pts, brings two specialists up, can light up two Pitchers in a flank...
just making vostok a bit worse will not make tsyklons better, they are still a bit overcosted. Vostok was maybe too good, but this change seems made by complaints more than anything else. Is too soon in my opinion to get data about the vostok.
It's not BAD per se, I might run it as a Tsyklon, EVADER Engineer, Wildcat KHD. Still 2 Specialists, still have MSV access as needed, and a bit tougher and shootier Engineer. Will have to give that a try and see if it has legs or if the Tsyklon is redundant in a faction that already has repeaters in the midfield. Agreed. The Tsyklon really could use a cost decrease to reflect the changes in the sectorial.
The two games I played with dual Morans already, the enemy managed to keep his distance and Jazz was too far back to shoot the pitchers effectively. A Tsyklon can reliably shoot a pitcher almost into the enemy DZ. I still think it will be dependant on how to approach the list. The Vostok / EVAder AP Spitfire are very good at frontal engaments, but a Tsyklon shooting pitchers into the enemy half and a couple Hellcats or Carlota arriving after a successful Carbonite can be quite painful.