So I had my first game using the veterans recently. I had 2 units with the CM-093 heavy weapon (plus comms specialist and hq uplink, plus the detachments to go with them). It may havbe just been bad luck, but they didn't seem to add much - I think I only used the critical ability once in the entire game, and the 4 white dice are... well white dice.

I was building a new list, again with 2 veterans, and it occurred to me that 2 93s is the same cost as unit of rebel troopers with a z6 (62 points). Suddenly that's a no brainer - I can't ever imagine choosing the two heavy weapons over a z6 unit, and all the veteran lists I've built so far all have 2 units of them. So, unless I've maxed out my corp slots its unlikely I'll ever take the 93s.

Anyone else have similar thoughts? Or has anyone found the 93s to be a good addition?

On the plus side though, the order shenanigans with the uplinks, coordinate, and defend worked really well. Even better with the commands, complete the mission, and no time for sorrows - 4 extra units got the benefit from them.

Overall I like the vets and the detachments, I'm just not sold on the heavy weapon option.

The vets with a cm093 has a similar DMG to the Z6 trooper unit albeit slightly more for 19 points more cost. The advantage of critical is on getting hits past armor and guardian so the real advantage with veterans is bringing their emplacements but for pure DMG output against other troopers your better bringing Z6 but for balanced units against armor the veterans eek it out

1 hour ago, Ghost Dancer said:

So I had my first game using the veterans recently. I had 2 units with the CM-093 heavy weapon (plus comms specialist and hq uplink, plus the detachments to go with them). It may havbe just been bad luck, but they didn't seem to add much - I think I only used the critical ability once in the entire game, and the 4 white dice are... well white dice.

I was building a new list, again with 2 veterans, and it occurred to me that 2 93s is the same cost as unit of rebel troopers with a z6 (62 points). Suddenly that's a no brainer - I can't ever imagine choosing the two heavy weapons over a z6 unit, and all the veteran lists I've built so far all have 2 units of them. So, unless I've maxed out my corp slots its unlikely I'll ever take the 93s.

Anyone else have similar thoughts? Or has anyone found the 93s to be a good addition?

On the plus side though, the order shenanigans with the uplinks, coordinate, and defend worked really well. Even better with the commands, complete the mission, and no time for sorrows - 4 extra units got the benefit from them.

Overall I like the vets and the detachments, I'm just not sold on the heavy weapon option.

I've just been running double vets with HQ Uplink and double Medium blasters. Without the CMO, they're not terrible points-wise and they pull all of their order tokens out of your bag every turn. There's also a bunch of goofy things to be gad with the medium blasters and Fire Support when they're getting free order tokens.

But yeah, CMO, pretty insubstantial.

Looking at the new stuff with critical x, it seems like it’s a trend that this keyword is probably a little too expensive especially on units already have a surge to hit natively. I’ve seen some saying it’s being under appreciated as a special ability, time will tell I suppose. At the moment this upgrade and several others seem a bit expensive for what they bring.

33 minutes ago, Dosiere said:

Looking at the new stuff with critical x, it seems like it’s a trend that this keyword is probably a little too expensive especially on units already have a surge to hit natively. I’ve seen some saying it’s being under appreciated as a special ability, time will tell I suppose. At the moment this upgrade and several others seem a bit expensive for what they bring.

I agree as well, critical x seems a bit overpriced

Yeah. I was looking at it the other day and thinking, "I'd really like the CM-O/93 for my normal Troopers so they can get some attack surge love and toss the Z-6 on my Vets since they already have surge to hit". I think having the CM-O/93 on the Vets allows you more flexibility with the Mark II. If you are running the Vets with no heavy, you are more inclined to always use the Mark II with the lean Vet unit. If you have the CM-0/93, I think you can get away with saving the Mark II to support a unit of Troopers to add the Crit 2 kw to the pool. Granted, it might end up being a moot point now since they announced the DTL-20A.

I think it's more Critical 2 is more value than Impact 1. Critical 2 is two possible mods, and counters more things, Impact 1 is one mod and only works via armor. There is something to be said for the fact that Impact is much easier to use (converts hit faces rather than crits), but if you actually proc it, Critical is better (no dodges, no cover, no armor, no guardian). That definitely should be worth more.

I would say to think about it this way - Impact is just as "useless" as Critical on a unit with surge, it converts a hit which is already a good result to a crit in a situation where that would be useful. Critical is useful in more situations. It obviously feels better if you don't have surge, because now you have a surge mod period, but I think the intent isn't just to give surges (though stuff like the Shoretrooper mortar totally is) but also because it converts to crit it can help negate many common defensive modifiers.

3 hours ago, Dosiere said:

this keyword is probably a little too expensive especially on units already have a surge to hit natively.

This is part of the problem. Crits are great, but this is essentially converting a hit to a crit. Sometimes that's useful, but often the net result is the same after you remove normal hits to cover, dodge etc.

7 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

I think it's more Critical 2 is more value than Impact 1. Critical 2 is two possible mods, and counters more things, Impact 1 is one mod and only works via armor. There is something to be said for the fact that Impact is much easier to use (converts hit faces rather than crits), but if you actually proc it, Critical is better (no dodges, no cover, no armor, no guardian). That definitely should be worth more.

I would say to think about it this way - Impact is just as "useless" as Critical on a unit with surge, it converts a hit which is already a good result to a crit in a situation where that would be useful. Critical is useful in more situations. It obviously feels better if you don't have surge, because now you have a surge mod period, but I think the intent isn't just to give surges (though stuff like the Shoretrooper mortar totally is) but also because it converts to crit it can help negate many common defensive modifiers.

True, impact in general is useless unless your opponent is running something with armor. But as far as the converted crits from critical negating defensive modifiers, that's only true if you roll no other hits for them to negate. Because of this, you might get more use from the 93 if you split fire at something else altogether; have the vets target something in the open where their shots wont be wasted, and the 93 hit something in cover or a vehicle, as 2/3rds of all its hits will be crits.

More on the point, someone said before that FFG doesn't know how much critical should cost, and I agree. Vets just have the misfortune of coming out first, so bear the brunt of FFG's overestimation. To see where the trend is, note that the shoretrooper version adds range 4, a higher damage output (thanks to more efficient use of critical), and a red armor save for only a single point more. Or that the stormtrooper T21 upgrade coming out is the exact same profile on a red armor save model for 4 points less. On the bright side, once FFG makes an upgrade pack for the vets, since they already have their dud weapon, they will gain some truly terrifying heavy weapon upgrades.

Playing with Clones, I've found Critical to be an amazing keyword. Maybe my dice are wonky (and considering how much people on here rave about red defense dice when mine struggle to block 1/3 of incoming fire, that's probably the case) but I've pretty much always got a few surges in my attack pool. Even playing a small, 500 point game, I think I only had 1-2 attacks where critical didn't help, and one of those it was the difference between pushing damage through cover or not doing so. Haven't had the opportunity to test out the Rebel Veterans and their Space Chauchat, I mean, CM-093, yet, but I don't really see it being a big of a step down from the Z-6 as reading this thread would make it appear.

43 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

Haven't had the opportunity to test out the Rebel Veterans and their Space Chauchat, I mean, CM-093, yet, but I don't really see it being a big of a step down from the Z-6 as reading this thread would make it appear.

Its not a big step down, but it costs a lot more points (9 points more, or 7 if you take out the costs of the actual person).

As I mentioned in my original post, having two of these costs the same as a unit of troopers with a z6 which is a much more efficient use of points: an extra activation with good damage output (compared to an overpriced heavy weapon that doesn't actually add much to the unit).

I wouldn’t say it’s a big step down from the z6, but it’s not worth 9 points more either. Aside from the absolute value itself, I think the opportunity cost really shows badly for it. It doesn’t add anything unique (like range 4 of the dlt, dedicated anti armor of impact or ion, or reliability of things like sharpshooter or blast), and is only 7points cheaper than the emplacement trooper itself - a unit that synergies with veterans and has everything the cmo has and much more aside from mobility. Statistically, you are going to average 1 surge from a full unit of veterans with the cmo equipped, and about 3.5 hits or so. Against most units, that means it’s not adding much considering that surge would be converted to a hit anyway without the critical keyword. Cover and dodge are going to cancel the hits anyway. If it converted hits to crits or something more reliable I’d be on board, or placed on a unit that didn’t already have a native surge.

I think it’s just a case of the keyword being overvalued, like arsenal and ion was at release. It’s not a bad weapon or useless, it’s just not a good use of points in this game when activations are so valuable and expensive upgrades on vulnerable units like all the rebel corps need to really bring something to the table to justify their cost.

2 hours ago, Dosiere said:

is only 7points cheaper than the emplacement trooper itself - a unit that synergies with veterans and has everything the cmo has and much more aside from mobility.

that's a good point. I hadn't considered that as I already had the detachments in my list.

In conclusion, whilst the weapon isn't particularly bad, there are just much better ways to spend the points.

Obviously vets don't have a direct comparison, but there's some interesting math with Stormtroopers and all their new options on reddit - the short version is basically when combine with aims, the Critical on the T-21 (which the CM is very much alike) means they have a very good projection for crits to punch through a variety of hardened defenses. If you're not shooting at anybody where those crits benefit you, it's not as efficient compared to the new RT-97C which is just more dice longer. In this case I think the veterans "weakness" is they're probably not comprising your entire force anyway (to say nothing of Rebels not being as hardcore about aim tokens), so you're not likely to "sprinkle in" just one or two CMs as your critical guys, if you fully loaded on vets you'd probably got 50/50 with the medium blaster. As time goes on, we may find, especially as keywords go around, people may actually like to sprinkle in a single unit for the critical, but Rebel Troopers are about to get the DLT-20A for that similar effect. I still like the gun, doubles your damage cap and critical mods are good, but I can definitely see how players may feel most of the time they aren't getting their money's worth.

The emplacement is worth it though right? I was having a hard time justifying vets at all except i often take a 4man squad of troopers bc my Z6s do nothing all game anyway. Defense is just as bad, but the surge to hit and maybe a free dodge token. I don't lnow if it's worth the 8 extra points

Id the emplacement counts as a corps then id probably take minimal corps and fill up on Tauntauns or acouts and pathfinders and try to grab and hide objectives foe the win

In a recent game against rebel vets I would say that the critical keyword was used at least once every attack. And it helped push damage through cover. On most rolls critical 2 is functionally the same as surge to crit.