"Did I record this entire video rather than playing a game with an Uhlan?" is, of course, a question I choose to leave unanswered

I'll definitely mention specific mercenaries when they're core to a faction - but since I've mostly covered sectorials so far, there's not been a ton of occasions yet.

Much like wip13 on the Jotum the ECM hacker-3 is an easily missed but impactful rule to keep in mind when comparing the relative resiliency of the Squalo MkI and MkII as the MkII lacks this upgrade.

Channel supporter requests will generally get priority for these, and after that it'll be a matter of what I'm most familiar with. For this reason, Invincible Army might be a little way down the list - but I'll see what I can do. :)

Realistically it's that I played two games today of Torchlight Brigade and need to line up a game with QK so it would just take too long to get to- -ok yeah no I didn't want to play an Uhlan.

I'm always reluctant to trust in BTS/ECM/firewall to protect against hacking attempts, but much better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Especially against attempts to go after your TAGs in enemy active turn and score a mobility kill, it's very useful. But still better not to risk activating in repeater networks unless you have no other choice!

@@R0bertShepherdyeah it’s true you very much don’t want to rely on it for your active but when linked/buffed with a firewall putting the enemy hacker at -6 can heavily dissuade hacking attempts against him or make your opponent waste a lot of orders. In vanilla him duo’d w a Santiago KHD is pretty powerful but I’m not sure if NCA has the same tools to make it pop

I had a lot of fun with the K1 Rudra and the Yadu NCO last year

This is probably an overly simple take but I think he fits best in factions that otherwise are at a bit of an SWC squeeze getting all the toys they want. Varuna definitely fits into this mould thanks to the 0.5 SWC helot profile, but there are Svalarheima lists making heavy use of Karhu that can potentially spare the points for the big guy and appreciate a zero or 0.5 SWC gun. Outside of PanO, I think he slots well into OSS for a similar reason. They even have a WIP15 engineer which, I dunno, maaaaybe you risk the repair on a non-remote presence TAG at that point? But probably not. Still, much like Varuna, OSS are a bit SWC-constrained so appreciate the option.

ECM (hacker) isn't a firewall in that it doesn't reduce the damage of enemy hacking attacks - but it's a nice to have. And it can stack with a firewall if you're inclined to arrange one, which can be nice but is never a substitute for stopping yourself being targeted by hacking in the first place!

@@R0bertShepherd Oh right, Firewall is only a semi-Cover now. That makes the ECM: Hacking -3 even better since it protects you against being hacked while a Firewall just improves your defense and there are so many ways to manipulate the BTS save these days. I noted that you said, "If it's common in your meta to do Oblivion." Since Oblivion is default on a HD now it should always be since at least one hacker is a good specialist option since they can also do other things.

@@nielsjensen4185 firewall is effectively full cover against comms attacks (-3 to enemy attribute for the roll, -3 to enemy damage) whereas ECM is just -3 to enemy attribute for the roll. Firewall is therefore much better than ECM, but they stack and both are still nice to have. :)

@@R0bertShepherd I read too quickly, so you do.

Mostly it's that they're a *really* good example of a piece you can't quite ignore (because of the repeater and a deployable perimeter weapon) but which have a wide variety of answers (because they aren't true camo models). So they serve as a proxy in discussion for a lot of other things (guilang deployable repeaters, any deployable weapons, any threatening midfield piece etc).

In the same way I'll often refer to a Libertos rolling a shotgun up on a light infantry piece, but really there are loads and loads of pieces that can do this.

Also there’s a lot of Nomad players locally. So there’s background trauma :p

Yup. Canonically Australian regiment :)

Mim-6 suppressive fire pieces with a single wound are generally fairly easily to engage using template weapons, but can sometimes be just the ticket. However if you're looking for that in Neoterra, a Bulleteer is cheaper in terms of both points and SWC, and is very easy to recover with your Blade-Ops Engineers if it goes down.

Although all three of the scenarios are fairly different, I would be leaning toward Squalos Mk2 & Blade Duos quite heavily for all three. In Evacuation, you can synchronise HVTs with the TAG and then either hand them off to a better specialist or pop out the helper bot to actually extract them (becoming a REM doesn't break civEvac state even though you can't initiate a civEvac state with a REM) and generally highly mobile duos can at least get models to civilians even if then synchronising breaks the duo (leave the blade in a safe place or maybe fling him off toward one of your rear civillians). In Last Launch these duos are just very solid and self sufficient and get hit the launch room effectively. You can do things like use the Blades to pick up extraction passes and then hand them over to the Squalos if needed. But any solid generalist list with a decent specialist quantity and some room-storming ability (auxilla!) works well in last launch. Heck, you can make a lot of progress in this scenario just with some Auxilla FOs. In Looting and Sabotaging you *definitely* want these duos as the Squalos have Multi Pistols +1B, which means they can make B2 DA Antimateriel CC attacks, and of course the blade has D-charges which you can use Place Deployable to place and bypass the automated defence system. Just deliver these guys to the target and you should be good.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.@@R0bertShepherd

The models are at least partly out of production but they're very playable and have had some great recent additions.

I'd go something like this. You have to drop a few things but you still get three hackers including one with sixth sense, one KHD and the Deva, you get an absolute *ton* of orders (19 orders spendable on link teams!), and multiple credible gunfighting pieces: aBluZW90ZXJyYW4tY2FwaXRhbGluZS1hcm15ASCBLAIBAQAJAAEBBQAAAQEGAAABAQoAAAEBAQAAAQEJAACGcwEDAACG1wECAAAWAQIAAG0BBAACAQAGACMBAgAABAEIAACG1wECAAAWAQIAAIOnAQIAADIBAQA%3D

@@R0bertShepherd Wow! You have completely outdone a list I spent ages crafting and trialling, this is a pure upgrade in almost every sense. The main loss is Shona's melee capabilities but I don't care for her anyway. Would you consider vastly different CGs? In particular, swapping the TAG Duo (and maybe the Deva) into CG2 in exchange for the Haris? This would give the Haris more Orders and it's the main mobile offensive piece, whole the Squalos will usually clear anything left standing (of anything is) fairly quickly, same with the Deva Oblivioning something.

@@CamR331 CGs will always be to taste - I tinkered with them a little before I posted that but so long as you can do meaningful active work with both groups effectively, you can set up a couple different ways. So yep, consider the change you suggested.

Atalanta is lovely but she's not hitting on 19s. Bolts surpass her thanks to the access to composition bonus link teams.

@@R0bertShepherd ok fair, with the link team bonuses they have no competition. Well, wild bill goes in a pure link with grunts... But good luck sniping with a multi pistol 😂