That's the problem. We have 3 troops affected, and two of them (Asura and Hector) are already considered a bit expensive for what they do, so not being immune to shock makes them even less appealing. The other is Ajax, but since he is rather cheap for what he does, this is less a matter.
Even my rose colored glasses would like to see asura/hector get shock immune, or a reversal of that ruling. It really hurts them. I do disagree that the Marut requires smoke. What you get in a sectorial, extra firepower from fireteams, at a reduced point price point, can be used as extra ablative armor or point defense to help protect your tag from other threats. You just have to be careful where you leave your tag come end of your turn and budget your orders accordingly. Try to keep other models between the enemy and your tag, try to keep appoaches to your tag covered by appropriate linked dudes. Use pitchers and repeaters to deny other approaches from hackable ramobos etc. You don't need smoke/odd/arm 10 to use a tag, even an expensive one.
Be careful where you leave your tag ? that is, if the board gives you a safe place - you're not garanted to have even one place when a S7 can have full cover. And everything you say won't protect you from an AP-HMG, if anything, you're just exposing your rather expensive order troops to the opponent, which in a 10 orders group (since it's a Marut list, i guess you won't have many more orders) will hurt as much as losing the Marut herself. And don't forget the Marut is not just a tag, or even an expensive tag, it's also most probably your lieutenant, you may have a CoC (but many marut lists don't use a coc since they are rather expensive, maybe the new coc will change that), but it's unlikely you have another long range attack piece, maybe a zayin ? For many armies (every list including an ap-hmg of some sort, or an AP linked weapon, or simply high burst weapons if you have enough orders), the best way to kill the marut is just to shoot at it, no need to use some short ranged troop to try some shenanigans. Or you just kill the orders since there won't be that many orders and some of them will be easy kills (netrods, lamedhs, probots ...). Or you use Emily and throw some E/M grenade on the Marut, or whoever has E/M weapons. If it is exposed, it's not that big of a threat.
Yeah terrain matters. Though I've never played on a table locally where the terrain was so small you couldn't hide an S7 in total cover if you wanted to. Metas may vary, but I'd hazard a guess that metas without taller blocking terrain are probably being overly hard on Tags.
Even if you can hide a TAG from ground level, it's not garanted it will still be on full cover from some troop on the roof of an even levelled buidling. A TAG is not only tall, it's also large, so the rear of the silhouette can still be exposed to long range shoots like linked ML, snipers ...
What buildings do you use, as last check all the standard companies buildings are slightly shorter then the S7 template?
@DarkBlack I agree, it should be pretty much expected that there are at least a few places where you can hide a S7, maybe not everywhere, but at least somewhere! My personal table is shark mounted lasers, but it easily stacks to 2 or 3 stories. My LGS (portland game store) has lot of skratch built terrain, with a large proportion of it being signficantly taller than S7. The other LGS that I play in tournaments at (Glimpses in Sherwood) again has different skratch built terrain, mostly significantly taller than S7. The other LGS in the area that ocassionally has events (Fate & Fury Games) uses a lot of top down terrain, which is either stackable to as many stories as you like, or is tall to begin with. The local club, ordo fanaticus of the raindogs rampage (the prize is a freakin sword) notariety, has room filled with terrain, so again taller buildings are not a concern. My old meta Des Moines Iowa, home of Muse on Minis, (an official partner) has a lot of strompost alpha, which stacks, or kit bashed Op Icestorm terrain with 2 and 3 story varieties of the buildings. You can see lots of examples at @WiseKensai 's bat reps hosted in this forum. https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/wisekensais-nomad-batreps.294/ https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/wisekensais-haqqislam-batreps.385/ https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/wisekensais-na2-battle-reports.9266/ https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/wisekensais-ariadna-batreps.3112/ You can also check out the Rose City Raid pics to see a fair example of what terrain in my meta looks like.
Always interesting seeing other player terrain. While you have height, you have like 10% the scatter our tables locally have, so its an interesting trade off.
We tends to play with rather dense tables, so this is not really a problem for me, but it can really limit the places where you can put the TAG - and depending on the board in the opposite side, it's not guaranted to be a safe place either, because if the scenery is just a bit more tall than the S7 is, the opponent may be able to see it from the roof of a similar building. Or the opponent will be able to put some linked ML or sniper at like 90 cm from this safe place, expecting you to put your marut in it - sure the marut will be safe, but it won't be able to move without taking some ARO while outranged or out of cover - neither being a good situation. Smoke bring some flexibility in dealing with the terrain or the opponent. I will certainly play Asura without smoke (well, i already did it just fine), but i'm reluctant in playing the marut in the same situation.
Well, I wouldn't really want a LI-only sectorial (I already have Nomads, CA, Aleph & Haqquislam... Aleph & CA go to the expensive side, and now both Nomads, with Tunguska, and Haqquislam, with Hassasin, have an "optimized for 10 models" sectorial... I like to go from tea to coffe, not to switch from one tea brand to another :( ) There is one, indeed: they must be the best, or else Aleph would have already got them. Or they are the second best, Aleph already has them, and has a vested interest in keeping them thinking they are better, so she plays the part of a "I'm a fish, but you swim better than me since your water is of different color" (or salinity). In mechanics, having a wider repeater net coverage and more hackers means denying the enemy the possibility to do stuff in the table: when most of your forces (that is, the non-Deva ones, or the greeks... everything else is hackable but the mk5 & mk1) have to maneuver around enemy repeaters or eat 3-5 hacking AROs, then yeah, no matter how much BTS and wounds you have, you are outgunned and outmaneuvered. Turning it into a "both sides are filled with repeaters/pitchers and hackers" just means that whoever can take the enemy piecemeal or avoid being hacked to death for sniffinf the wrong WiFi channel has the advantage. Having MSV might be (give her MSV1, for example), but she is the "mirror" unit of the Charontid... and that one has MSV only on some profiles, not on all (plus it has like 2-3 more profile options... and its basic weapon is a plasma rifle, not a combi rifle...)
I think Aleph should have at least the same hacking coverage Nomads have, especially taking into account its vulnerability to hacking
No. First of all, only the Nomad "viewpoints" insist Aleph wants to absolutely destroy Nomads immediately, now, wipe them out of existence. Everything else, while indicating Aleph is fighting Nomads, and would prefer them under its influence, they're just a nuisance that needs to be contained rather than a mortal enemy that needs to be destroyed under every case. Not to mention that Aleph has quite limited resources, so even though it's hackers are best, there may not be enough to overcome the greater numbers Nomads can field. First of all, that's reall shitty game design there, "oh, I get to stop you from using all but a few units of your own without lifting a finger". Nobody asked for that. But Aleph can have the best Hackers ala Asuras without that destroying Nomads immediately since Asuras are super expensive. Same for repeater nets; Aleph lists on average have much less orders than Nomad lists, especially if Aleph player is bringing stuff like Asura Hackers. Even if we have same access to Pitchers or Deployable Repeaters (Which is not what I'm proposing, I'd like to have a few more repeaters and that is all), we are still at disadvantage due to everything costing more. No. They are broadly mirrored, yes, but not very directly and thank you, but NO. Asura is Asura, keep her being Asura.
Oh, sorry, I meant if they made Asura the best Hacker. Right now she's quite good in pure Hacking power, but due to price and in-faction hacking support not as good as a few other options in Nomads and/or CA.
If she really gets the Multi-Rifle, the Asura Hacker will be a very interesting (albeit expensive) choice, a trooper capable of holding the middle of the table and taking objectives with just a little bit of support.
I have the mini. She is getting that MULTI Rifle. And yeah. She's still super-expensive (too expensive), but at least now she can fight. :) With plenty of support she's gonna do work. ^^
The Asura is not the best hacker but she is essentially behind Interventors alone in the Sphere, and also a top of the line assault Heavy Infantry.
Aren't interventors & Danavas almost the same thing in terms of hacking / profiles ? I agree she is a top of the line shock troop though (see what I did there ? shock troop ? see ? alright I'll see myselft out)
