Farrow Brigands better than Venators now?

[HannibalTheGreat]

Hi,

am I the only one who thinks that Farrow Brigands are much better now than Venators?

Ok, Venators have higher range and CRA, but Brigands are more versatile with their dug in, point blank and prayers. Statwise they are similar, the Brigands loose one RAT compared to Venators, but they have the better defensive stats.

And Brigands are cheaper, too!

Do I overlook something here?

HTG

[Mig]

Faction buffs?

[Soylent]

RAT4 RNG10 versus RAT5 RNG12

[tomgore]

CRA is an invaluable ability. Without it, ranged units with RNG 10 = useless.

[Kaptain Von]

RAT4 RNG10 versus RAT5 RNG12

Both nudged ever so slightly over the sweet spots in the curve. I think there's a little love left in the Venators.

[Tyrannus]

They fit two different roles.

Brigands look like more resilient Trenchers. They run up on the flank and pick at things for a turn until they get to charge in. With no Advanced Deploy, and SPD 5 they're too slow to go full stall-the-enemy for a turn or two mode.

Venators are our new Long Gunners. No where as good as a pure shooting unit, and the MAT 5 hurts a lot. I think that if they were still MAT 6 there'd be a lot less complaints about their hefty point cost.

One of the better tactics I've seen with the Brigands in MKI was to knock a model down, then unload into it with a bunch of POW 12s. Even Khador 'jacks aren't immune to this sort of treatment, and 10 shots will do something to it. With so many nice slamming options (even paying out the *** for the Bronzeback) and three good heavies with Open Fists, it shouldn't be too hard to pull off this tactic against a light or heavy.

With CRA, Venators get to hit stuff that isn't stationary, and they get to make sweet needly love to heavies. I think a lot of people are missing one important point though: Karax and Praetorians (with UA) both have Ranked Attacks, so Venators get to ignore them completely for targeting.

[thePlotDevice]

We can't CRA into melee, correct?

[Soylent]

We can't CRA into melee, correct?

Nope but ya never know about a UA.

[Sevwall]

Rat 4 -> Rat 5 w/ CRA is miles and miles better.

[Zenassassin]

The brigands are marginally better but still could use a little something else. Not sure what. POW, maybe?

EDIT: marginally better than the mkI Brigands. Neither are even remotely a competitor for Venetors. Brigands would need to drop 2 points for that to be the case.

[cunningweasel]

It's only their cost which irks me; 5/8 would be better.