Imho Linetrooper costs should mainly be designed around balancing out the performance of a Sectorial's Shock troops and get options from there. Morats are about the least balanced in that regard, having some of the lowers BS & MOD pairings on troops that mainly shine through their access to high stopping power choices that hit hard when they win a FTF. Any half decent TAG can match that with a DAM16 AP/Multi HMG, a lot of them getting MODs or BS15 on top of it, while having access to 10 point Linetroopers, Imetrons or Netrods. If we want to let Morats have their unique way of generating Lt security by the ways of army wide Veteran, handing out Veteran to Imetrons and Netrods for free is mind boggling. Haqq had a similar problem with Ghulams that got finally addressed, yet Vanguards are still 14 points. The second worst remaining offender are Order Sergeants, who at least can finally link their MSV2 Spitfire on top of various Wildcards and have a baseline of BS12 for a point less. If Vanguards are to remain untouched, Morats should at least get AVA2 Imetrons to compensate.
Same arguments I made last time this was a thing - One option - Morats should be, more or less, an identical statline. Baseline Morat soldier should be BS12 with at least Arm2/BTS 3, but preferred Arm 3. The individual roles should then be distinguishing the troops types - Yao with visors, Rodoks with Jump/mimet, etc. Vanguard, as the baseline trooper, should therefore still be rocking generic combi rifles - but maybe with +1 Dam? Or, go all out and load Morats up with AP/K1 weaponry. That and MAF really needed waaaaaaay more flexible Wildcard/mixed link options.
Not every faction needs mass wildcard or mixed links. Its just when a faction does not get it, it needs to get compensatory upgrades in other areas. MAF does strike me as a mixed link faction, if not a wildcard one. No nonsense soldiers who don't lose their cool when the leader goes down are probably all about bringing the right ape for the job and working well with the differently trained apes in their army.
Actually, lorewise I would argue Morats don't mix much, except for characters and Raktoraks. Basically, every combat unit has a rich history and values themselves above the others, so it wouldn't make sense for them to mingle too much. Personally I would have liked to see Vanguard either go down 2 points, go 1 bs up or go up +1 armour on top of the current changes at the very least. Not because it would be super powerful, but because it would fit my view of what they should be. That a race purely dedicated to war and combat doesn't have a standard BS of 12 is weird to me.
We just had a tournament this week-end. The player who won this event played morat with a Vanguard core (with Kornak and a RL Sogarat) in both list. Maybe they are not super balanced for their cost, but they have their use. And imho Morat are a balanced faction now.
I can tell that one of the list was : gloFbW9yYXQBIIEsAgELAIIWAQMAAIISAQQAAIHsAQEAAIHsAQEAAIHsAQYAAIH4AQQAAIINAQgAAIHzAQIAAIH7AQEAAIIOAQEAAIIUAQEAAgMAgfoBAQAAgf8BAQAAgfkBAQA=
Oh the poor old vanguards, guess I'll chip in with some ideas. It seems to me that CB just decided that CA can't have line troops cheaper than 14 points, and it's fine I guess, but it doesn't really matter now for order count balance because there's already AVA 2 Ikadrones/Imetrons/R-drones, which are a lot cheaper if you want just orders. Sure, now Vanguard hacker seems to be the more interresting option with Veteran and BTS3, but there's a lot of better options for hacking that we have. What we don't have though is something for 10-13 points, and that's just kind of annoying when you need to fill one lsast trooper slot in an LI/15 order list and you have to painstakingly try to change something in a list to get that single free point to fit in a Daturazi, or just get yourself a 4/7 points warband and play a few points down, that isn't really a balance issue, but more of a quality of life, just drop vanguards by 2 points and take away their BTS3, and suddenly they have a viable role of line troop but cheaper, which is nothing to write home about, but just makes rounding ot your list a bit easier, while not breaking order balance of the faction, espescially with a cap of 15 troops. It would also help MAF a bit, while not breaking their balance either. Or just make them more expensive USAriandna grunts at 2-3 points more expensive, basically they just need to be moved up or down a couple of points to get them out of the extremely competetive 14 points base slot of CA, they still won't be Daturazi or Ikadron level of goodness but at least there'll be a more defined role for them.