Yu Jing elements and N4.

Same as you don't kill the Jotum with Combi Rifles figure out a better way. GL Spec Fire, AD, Camo Marker walking up and killing it, destroy the Repeaters, get rid of the Firewall... I know we're all used to just walk into the Repeater and click Redrum, but it's really not that hard to find a solution. Where you can Smoke the Jotum, you can just not walk into the ZOC of a Repeater and find another way or activate another piece.
KHDs are only vulnerable to other KHDs,

If the mere option that any S2 dude anywhere could be a Jammer with a DTW isn't at least okay in your book okay, your oppinion. Has a place in any defensive Core and those look pretty good atm. Protecting your Lt while pretending to be a Lt candidate alone should be worth some consideration.
Holo is 100% effective for the first turn if you go 2nd, be a little creative. Just pretend it never moves and you should be able to figure something out.

As I said, going without Hacking still looks completely viable. Having to kill Repeaters eats Orders and isn't unique to unhackable armies. Having to care about Repeaters or risking a Spotlight here makes sure Hacking at least isn't worthless and has an effect. Spotlight isn't exactly a hard counter, but it's something where there wasn't anything before.

Ofc a token KHD never could dismantle enemy hacking defenses alone by walking into a Repeater. That's silly, why bring it up?
What a single dirt cheap Zero used to be able to do is engage any non Sixth Sense enemy Hacker one on one with Surprise Shot and no matter the defenses, was likely to win that engagement in a lethal manner.
That doesn't just work anymore, you're not just likely to win an engagement against another Hacker 1 on 1 just because you're a KHD. You very much want to have your own Firewall and want to deny the same to the other guy.
With N4 you also don't need a Marker State to be relevant in the Hacking game, that Tinbot doing jack shit to protect your HI Hacker in N3 vs Redrum, now does its job.
The N3 dynamic of just kill the Repeater with something unhackable and then walk your Rambo through the gap still works but at least the unhackable dude risks a Spotlight now. Better than N3.

Frankly I don't know how to best use a basic bitch KHD right now.
I do know it's very different than N3, where I'd just want one because Redrum can reasonably take on anything one and one and I need something to unlock REMs anyway.
Ideal scenario right now is a KHD that waits for a Repeater like an assault REM to be close to a vulnerable Hacker without a Firewall and then kill that guy while having a Firewall yourself. Or just win the Hacking war if the other guy brought a Token Hacker. Rather than up the field close and personal in ZOC of enemy Hackers or walking inside Repeaters under even conditions I'd honestly want one that hangs back or just sits in the midfiled waiting to use his gun and pushing buttons away from enemy Repeaters or sitting in a Marker State.
As I said, looks like a choice rather then the path of least resistance. Better than N3.

The most common Hacker is going to stay a Linetrooper, basic HI Hacker or Skirmisher. Basic bitch KHDs work fine and are highly lethal against those. Given you find a way to negate their Firewall you're fine against BTS6 with DAM14. And that's what's going to run around on most tables, not core Linked KoJs in a Core with a Tinbot you can't magically approach in other ways than with Hacking.

Given the lists I've seen, the vast majority went ham on heavy troops, not Hacking. What a KHD does for you is make sure a basic bitch Fusilier isn't going do stop your HI, REMs and TAGs with his DAM16 Breaker AROs. Your opponent will have to invest a little heavier into Infowar to make you invest Orders into Spec Fire or walking around. If you're really concerned about Hacking vulnerability and load up on Hacking yourself, you definitely will want a KHD to kill off opposing Hackers after you managed to Isolate them.

None of that is news, KHDs always had trouble against other KHDs, the point is NOT, NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST AND ABSOLUTELY NOT that the KHD is a Combi Rifle. The point is that the Trinity is the only damage dealing thing in the entire hacking game and vastly more Order efficient against the majority of Hacker Profiles in the game. It's not Redrum's brainless point and click, but it still does the job it is supposed to do.
You trade 2DAM vs a +3 MOD on the least good program. But so does the other guy.
You don't ignore Firewalls anymore, again, other guy also doesn't. If anything KHDs are less likely to die or getting disabled by opposing Hacking than before.

I don't know where you missed that a Jammer is a tack on to the trooper rather the sole purpose of that trooper or where you got the funny idea that a Jammer should be moving around the battlefield at full speed or at all. Just annoy the people who want to assassinate your Lt with the Holo one game and the guy dropping in AD in the next. Or just don't bring one, the other guy doesn't know you didn't. Still getting value out of the Sectorial having the option, same as Shas could run Noctifiers even when they don't.

 

Basic KHDs are fine, their platforms are awful for YJ. The Ninja's clumsy shooting and the Kanren's lack of effective protection actively work against YJ's usual advantage of versatility, but there's nothing wrong with the device inherently- a Tiger KHD would likely be excellent, and even a Zhanshi KHD would be quite useful due to its low price.

 

I’d say I’m pretty pleased with WB’s hacking game tbh.
You can basically have 2 Morans with a pretty annoying link to handle ARO’s, while maintaining mines in the DZ.

 

Then why have them at all? As a piece of equipment is has an incredibly narrow focus, which is provide an internal counter to the hacking device and as it stands unless you are going against the low end chaff that you wont see that much it doesn't. The KHD was introduced to be a threat to the HD it is no longer a threat and that is a problem, both in the internal balance within the hacking mechanic and in a wider sense when it comes to inter factional balance in regards to hacking.

With wildcards being what they are is there such a thing as an unprotected hacker? As it wont matter if you can stick a repeater near them as more often than not they will have an internal firewall thanks to the tinbot thats nearby, and a lot of solo HI probably wont see much table time going forward unless they have stealth or their own tinbot, this quite quickly takes the BTS 3 hacker to point were engaging with trinity is really not a great idea, and the linked BTS 6 hackers (which will be the majority of them) are verging on damn near untouchable. Skirmishers don't care they have the marker to hide under which is fine. The KoJ like the Interventor and a few other pieces are outliers in this regard and even if the KHD firewall change was reverted they would still be incredibly difficult to take down, but as it stands it is virtually impossible to take them down reliably by their designed counter is asinine, and stl;eat the interventor can quite easily just be shot, the Koj can't and considering it is HI and also meant to countered by hacking and that isnt exactly reliable either is a little bit of a problem.

In regards to bring a wip 15 HD with oblivion and its own firewal, that is something that is incredibly rare and reinforced the first point that @Triumph made of The HD is king shit and can operate with impunity. Again the fact that the best counter for something is itself and not the specifically designed counter piece for it, and that it is better at taking down it's counter than the other way around is again incredibly stupid.

The fact that you can no longer suicide a KHD to scalpel out a high value hacker is the a major problem when it comes to interfactional balance in the hacker space as the mid to low tier hacking armies can no longer get rid of that one problem hacker to clear the way for their heavier list elements, and in an addition where these elements are more than likely going to be the norm and the mid teir hacking armies rely on very quickly means those armies are going to get USARF'd

Why though? The Zero KHD is basically a dead profile now. The standard HD is by far more effective against a wider range of targets, and if Trinity is needed it is available on better hackers as an upgrade with extra abilities tied to it (Jazz +1 dam and Mary with AP)

You don't, you upgrade it to a hacking device that is actually worth putting on the table.




I'm not sure you aren't seeing the argument being put forward or just straight up ignoring it. The core of the Issue boils down to a few key points.

1. The internal balance with in the hacking mechanic are screwed such that the specifically designed internal counter piece(the KHD) is unable to effectively fulfill it's role.
2. The HD/+ is far more effective at attacking other hackers and removing them as a threat including killer hackers.
3. The use of Trinity as an upgrade program on the HD and HD+ and often an upgraded version of that program has lead to the KHD being made redundant, especially in the top end hacking factions.
4. Given that stock KHDs are no longer effective at taking down the majority of enemy hackers especially enemy hackers in the top end hacking factions means that factions with average hacking can longer provide a legitimate threat to the higher end to lessen the gap between the haves and the have nots.
5. For the average to low end factions investing in a KHD or two to protect your heavy strike pieces that they rely on is no longer a meaningful option as they are unable to be used to clear the way.
6. Under enforced tactical window being forced to try and clear out repeaters in hard to reach places can be nightmare as not everyone has access to the tools to so or do and those tools are likely to get bricked in the process and you are then required to expend even more resources fixing it.
7. With the KHD you adding a vulnerability to a piece to virtually no gain what so ever as the the focus of the equipment is incredibly narrow and largely ineffective.

 

Now that you say it I can see the overlapping defense nightmare you can make with White Banner

Its certainly not how I'd like the sectorial to be, but at least in that regard it actually si better than vanilla at something, which is nice.

 

My preference is going with 4 Zhanshi Hackers+Tinbot in a high-investment Hacking list, to get around this same problem with ARO declarations. It really eats up SWC, but if you put the Shang Ji in the middle of the link odds are that even a Pitcher or DepRep is going to cover three Hackers if they want to snipe the Tinbot, and even the most stupidly unbalanced of Hackers like Tinbot Jazz don't want to be dicing off against three Oblivions. Camo Hackers run into the problem of being revealed if you do anything with them, so I'm not over the moon about them in an infowar superiority list- in a generalist list they're great, though. The Guilang Hacker in particular is awesome now with its high WIP.

For the problem of Pitchers specifically, there's the Kunai ninja. All Pitcher carriers save the Tsyklon are stuck at Combi rangebands or worse, giving the Sniper decent odds of shutting down the threat in ARO from an angle people probably aren't expecting out of White Banner or Yu Jing. Vanilla or IA could even try the Hac Tao ML for better odds of countering a Hack-focused list, taking out its anti-armour Pitcher option in ARO and then just leaving the Hac Tao standing around, Swiss Guard-style.

 

Honestly forcing shitty choices like that are part of the game, especially more so now. Your best option is to either A hack back and try to tank it on the tinbot, they will either need to respond to your hacker then which means a face to face under firewall or they ignore it and take normal rolls and if the tinbot gets bricked then you just repair it after making their hacker combat ineffective because it took a handful of normal rolls to the face. Or B reset and try to guts out of the hacking area.

 

I’m confused. Are you actually putting easy to reach repeaters on the ground? I mean, isn’t your friend a Nomads player? Is he aware of the fact that there’s a thing called rooftops etc. Specifically so a cheap warband won’t come in and clear everything out? I mean, that was my number 1 consideration when deploying Morans but I might be playing Nomads different than your buddy then.

your second scenario is not as much you describing an issue, as it is you describing to me an opponent wasting a massive amount of orders to combat a link, he is most likely to lose against anyway, considering the fact that the link is hiding a 3rd hacker, who is a killer hacker, under a Holomask.

Idk, so far the list is a massive deterrent to annoying shit like the Avatar, although truth be told I’ve only had 2 games with variations of this list so not enough to say much more than that.

 

Providing roof tops are an option, and that they are an option in an useful area that worth contesting, Morans are also specialists so they may be required to be at ground level in order to do mission things. or there is a real nice short firelane at ground level to contest while in suppressive. There are other factors that make just slap it on a roof not necessarily the best option.

How ever with the change to fast pandas, just throw that little shit on a roof somewhere from 8" away and watch your opponent squirm.

 

Kunai has no infiltration, unfortunately you're stuck with the same firing lines as most other hidden troopers in the DZ. The SMR gets FD4", but that's it. Unless you're planning on banking on Climbing+, but that's more of an active-turn use.

Also, all the hacking changes has me super disappointed in Kuang Shi losing their biolocators. Hacking defense in ISS is looking to be a real obstacle for list building for me at the moment. With such limited repeater access, it's looking like things will be pretty stressful for a faction that wants to push hard into the midfield without marker states.

Poor Su Jian, with no tinbots to help him is one of the hardest things for me to consider at the moment. I was really hyped up for the improved HSG profile, but he presents so many challenges just to even get out of the DZ.

 

Main mistake with my above statement is that I forgot Hulangs exist. They should absolutely be used instead of Kunai for ambushing Pitcher carriers, unless you need the Kunai for another purpose, since +2 BS is a very big deal for this role.
Edit; Hundun should be used instead of Hulang.

 

I can't really think of a circumstance where Yu Jing, ISS, or White Banner would ever actually want a Kunai. It's funny, because the old infiltrating sniper Ninja would actually have been pretty useful to ISS with the state of the game that N4's given us. But at least we have FO now, which might be enough to get me using my Ninja again.

Kunais are dead in the water for me. Chalk them up as another Yu Jing trooper made for other factions, like Liang Kai, and the Jujak (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Zuyong).

 

They do have one valuable role; LT hunting. C+ unhackable Markers are very strong in Decapitation and I'd heavily consider an SMR Kunai in case the enemy brings a Daoying on a roof, since the only way to clear one otherwise is with Sensor and Speculative Fire or using a sacrificial piece to Climb and get shot, then Spec-Fire.