Sigh ...

At least I won't need to spend money on playable JF units, there won't be many. :(

BAD!! BAD!! BAD!!

We will soon see armies featuring all frickin 3 special factions, incorporating 9 stupid special rules all interacting with the 25 or so special equipment. This game has truly lost its way. Not to fear, they will explain it all with an extra 20 FAQ pages.

Gone is the simple, elegant game. Why does every game I play end up in this kind of rules quagmire???

Well after taking some time to digest the new abilities here is my opinion ;)
Jade Falcon
Zhellbrigan - Not that big of a deal unless your opponent's army is centered around 1 or more elite units.

Merciless - Nothing like trying to get my low defense Jade Falcon mechs into DFA range without getting blown to bits. Again not that game breaking or useful

Improved imagining - The best and IMO the only useful ability the Falcon's get. But it is funny that even their lowly second line units have been given this dangerous treatment :ermm:
Sea Fox
Renegades - Ouch that will hurt later

Scavenger - Since they only get mechs this round this is a wasted ability,heck with mechs the way they are this is still a wasted ability. In most armies there is at most only 1 mech in any army so trying to kill it for the 2 clicks of repair just sound like a waste of order's and units.

Predator - Sounds good until you get to that pesky unit most reach Salvage before this kicks in. But all and all a good ability

Seems Wizkids is following form since Liao received Faction Abilities
2 so-so abilities followed by 1 playable ability

I do not like Merciless. It makes DFA the ONLY tactic to use as JF. Why? It's expensive and one of the only ways to ensure you use your PV to its full potential. Add in the fact that the Jade Falcon paradigm is for slightly shorter-than-average ranges (Trovic was a red herring there).

Attack 11 + 1D6 is like attack 14-15. That means you hit a 22-23 defense with a DFA 50% of the time. A 20/21 defense will be hit MUCH more frequently!

I do not like Zellbrigen. It should apply to Uniques and Elite. Or it should apply to anything with the same Speed type. When is the last time you saw a Falcon Mechwarrior pass up a shot at a bloodnamed warrior to chase an Elite infantry unit across the field?

The Sea Fox abilities look powerful. Let's just wait and see what their ranges are like.

Its possible to almost automatically hit 16-20 defenses, as well.

Tru Stumpgun especially since in this set defense values seem to be on a reverse power creep.

not great abilities, but not broken. I am farly happy with them. Like, i think JF will be a difficult faction to play pure, but if you can master it, you will be deadly.

I do wish however that they had a FA that needed faction purity (or like %50 elite or something)

Im excited about this set

Everyone is already complaining about merciless and the only thing you have to do to avoid it is stay out of jumping distance and use ranged combat.

Since ranged combat is center-dot to center-dot and Close Combat, Charge and DFA are base to base, it really depends on speed. If you have a mech with only a 12" Range and a DFA'er with a 10" speed, they are both in range of each other's respective attack.

But here the other part of that nasty Merciless combo. If you succeed, the target doesn't get a free spin. (Per DFA rules as they stand) So, you tie up your target with 1 unit and move your DFA'er into position and BAM jump into their rear arc -- crushing them and then the target has the choice of either break away or take a rear hit the next turn following.

Brutal combo. Merciless = Bad. Boo!

So, we went from complaining that the Jade Falcon units weren't worth their points to complaining that they're abilities are too powerful?

Looking at the units, I think it's clear that they're paying a lot to get those abilites. Now if Tovic was only 120 points, I could see why people were up set, but he's 230 points!

If Jade Falcon units are that scary, just charge them with a mjolnir and you won't have to worry about them. They're Defences are so low, you cold scare them with some Gnomes.

I think that some of you are forgeting that the Zellbringen ability only kicks in when a JF unit successfully attacks an elite unit. Until you attack that unit, JF can chase any unit around the board starting with the biggest threat and working to the elite unit. It just means that you need to determine when the right time to attack the elite is.

Liao pure armies that are built to get AWE will have to be weary of Jade Falcon armies.

And whatever people might say, Mercilessness is a amazingly powerful special ability. DFAs will become a lot more common.

*facepalms*

When I heard about Merciless a few months back I said to myself "surely not. surely they'll listen to their playtesters and this wont make it into actual use".

Silly me.

So with the new faction abilities do people think the Gyrefalcon is worth 230pts now? It can do a DFA outside of 12" range guns and has a pretty good chance of hitting too. Put him behind some blocking and he can threaten Long range energy weapons as well. Of course there are a ton of things that could just charge him while he sets up a DFA. Or he could just take a shot from 14" away. So it doesn't seem like Merciless will be all that great. And I am still hesitant to use Trovic because of that 18 defence. I am probably just spoiled by playing RotS where infantry have that much defence.

We know how Zellbriggen will work since Liao already has it. The thing is that now only Veteran and non-liao uniques are safe from the faction abilities.

Enhanced imaging rocks. In HC and MK there are nigh-identical abilities and they are quite powerful. In those games though it is used to target stealth figures and eliminate any cover bonus they have. In MW it knocks out Camo and the cover bonus which as has already been stated makes certain people a lot easier to hit. I think I will try out the Falcons just for this ability.

The one thing to note about the new faction abilities is that they don't promote faction purity like Liao did. Renegade actually discourages faction purity. But it is nice to see Mercs getting a faction ability.

Oops. my bad. Trovic can only DFA from 11" away. I switched the move and attack when I looked at it. So they will need something to hide behind as they try to pull of a DFA