There seems to be more Hidden units in N4 than there were in N4. I find it curious that this skill is not more expensive as it is super useful. What is the best way of dealing with Hidden troopers? I know I could run up the Antipodes and sensor the centre of the board. Slightly more difficult when I use armies without sensor or a single trooper with sensor. I find it hard to guess where the Hidden troopers are or even that they exist. If there are several ones, it becomes obvious that they must exist, but I am not as good in mental calculation that I can look at the opponent's troopers in a glance and know that there is one Hidden trooper.
Sensor isn't an ability you want a lot of, so I don't think the number of AVA that armies have on the Sensor REMs are all that important. It's more an issue that Sensor can't do anything to the likes of Nadhir or Noctifer since they have to cross the board to do it. Baiting. That's the only real effective solution at the moment. A trooper in hidden deployment isn't doing much, eventually it has to reveal to earn its bread.
Yeah, the antipodes can cover a lot of ground in a single sensor. The problem with all the other sensor units is simply that the sniffers were removed (a sniffer is exactly like a deployable repeater, but only for Sensor activations and not usable by the enemy), so in the end you can't do but what Mahtamori says, because aggresive HD hunting is giving an advantage to the enemy anyway. At most, I would use Sensor troops to advance before the TAG or other expensive troop that enemy Hidden Deployment troops could melee-butcher or menace with hacking. And using troops with Marker states gives much more efficient protection against such surprises anyway :/
- When your opponent deploys, count their order generators or ask them for a count. If they have fewer than 15, they probably have a drop troop or a hidden deployed troop. Be aware that minelayers and decoys could alter your count. - Know what to expect from your opponent's faction. E.g. if your Kosmoflot opponent has fewer than 15, deploy against paratroopers not hidden deployment. - If you expect hidden deployed AROs, consider throwing preemptive smoke to block potential firelanes when you advance. - If you expect hidden deployed template weapons, be careful moving fireteams. Consider advancing single troopers instead to limit the damage. - Advance with camo troopers, and always declare your short movement skill before your short skill. If the hidden deployed trooper wants to ARO, they will have to declare a Delay and put the trooper or marker on the board. Then you can change your plan and not reveal your advancing trooper to avoid the ARO. - If you expect hidden infiltrators (usually button-pushers or ninja assassins), mines are very useful. Sensor can also be useful against these troops (as @Mahtamori says, it's not useful against hidden ARO pieces). - Ultimately I agree with @Mahtamori , one way or another your opponent's Noctifer or whatever is eventually going to get its shot. But until it's revealed, it's not doing anything, and after it's revealed, you can deal with it like any other piece.
thanks for the useful advice, everyone. What I am surprised about is how cheap some of the hidden units have become, eg. the Pano Trinitarians. They cost the same as an SAS who merely has the advantage of some more melee power over them. I played against military orders the other day with three trinitarians. It was pretty tough to counter this. A more experienced player would have demolished me with that. I think i have to carefully follow your advice next time I play him.
Predict and prepare, that's about all you can do. More often than not, trying to sniff them out is going to be a greater investment than just trying to mitigate their impact. As others have noted, keep gaps in your opponents' army list in mind, watch out for obvious openings that are too good to be true. Covering your advance through questionable locations with smoke is, as noted, a useful strategy. The only HD trooper with MSV is the Hundun SMMR, which isn't even the Hundun people like. Additionally, AD/Parachutist troopers can be good for dealing with hidden deployments, since they can often strike from angles that most HD troopers might not be set up to deal with. This here brings up the main weakness with HD troopers, especially if your opponent is using so many of them. HD troopers eat into your order count quite heavily, as they don't generate orders until they're revealed. Additionally, those Trinitarians are not cheap. They're well optimized and offer a lot of utility, but they're still paying for all of that. Even with their cheapest variant, he's paying a minimum of 69 points and pulling three regular orders out of his pool that could otherwise be spent on pushing his main firepieces prior to revealing them. If you can cut into his order pool before they get a chance to reveal, you can deny your opponent much of the order efficiency they might need to enact their plans.
Throw cheap dangerous impetuous things forward and make your opponent decide whether to reveal or get his more expensive stuff messed up by your cheap ones. Once they reveal, you can deal with them.
