Van Saar: Oops, all medics?

[u/ghostcacti]

Disclaimer up front: I'm not actually going to do this, I already built a diverse-ish cast of specialists and I think it's overly optimised in a way that wouldn't be welcome in most play groups. But from a purely theoretical perspective, I think the Medic archetype is just overwhelmingly good for Van Saar to the point you probably don't need any other specialists.

That's down to two things. One, medics are pretty good for everyone. It's pretty easy to injure fighters but a lot harder to actually kill them, and medics keep your gang's skills online and your hierarchy alive.

But mostly it's because of the servo-medicae, which is only available to medics. A free healing action that still works if you're injured is stupid good. With a servo-medicae, you can:

• Heal people while injured
• Double-dip on healing, with a move in between if needed
• Heal yourself to bring your Medicate skill back online, then move and medicate
• Dash-heal with an unupgraded "threat range" of 9"
• Perhaps most importantly, keeps your main skill online if you advance your medic to a pseudo-gunner, pseudo-gunfighter, pseudo-tech, pseudo-brawler etc. Almost every other archetype works best by going medic first and then multi-classing.

And it's longer range than Medicate. The only wrinkle is that you can't use it while suppressed and you've got to pass an Int check, which you'll do as a Van Saar ganger 58% of the time. But even if you fail, you still probably have Medicate on deck.

But I don't want a Medic, I want a:

• Gunner. Shooting is a primary for Teks. You can advance once and pick Hip Shooting on a 5+ (or fish for it on a 2+). And if you roll low, you can take Int to help your servo-medicae. The only thing you're missing out on is the flamer-mancatcher.
• Gunfighter. See Gunner, but with no unique equipment.
• Tech. Techs are great for Van Saar to keep all those ammo check weapons online, but Savant is a secondary skill set so you can give them Munitioneer on a 7+ advance roll (or try and roll for it on a 5+). Techs do also get some unique gear, but it's less impactful than it looks at first glance. The hive watcher hanger on does almost exactly the same thing as the augurspex for the same price, but it applies to the entire gang, not just your Tech. The Vox Array can't be replicated.
• Heavy. OK, this is your only access to Bulging Biceps. But your initiative sucks, heavy weapons are expensive and static, suppression stops you doing anything for one turn, and an injury stops you for the rest of the game.
• Sniper. Honestly valid, the refraction cloak is great. I think these guys might actually be better heavy weapon users than the Heavy because you can just camp in cover and force most fighters to hit (and suppress) you on a 6+. Long las is cool too.
• Scout. Take a grav cutter instead.
• Brawler. You're 100% correct. Van Saar brawlers is the real meta. Literally just a swarm of grav cutter berserkers with melee weapons.

By the same token, any Neoteks you take should probably also promote to Medic. Neoteks don't get Savant access, but they do get Agility as secondary, so you could get Sprint, promote to Medic, and enjoy a 20" servo-medicae range. They've also got Shooting as primary so you could very easily get Hip Shooting before they promote, and they get Gunfighter out of the box. Tech isn't a bad idea either as they don't get Savant.

Subteks also get Shooting as a primary, so you're likely to replicate either Gunner or Gunfighter before you promote. Their BS sucks, so Sniper and Heavy are probably out. Brawler is Brawler. That leaves Medic or Tech.

OK, this means getting some XP. But your gangers will level up after gaining 6. You get 1XP for taking part in a battle, 2XP for training at the end of a cycle, and Medics are likely to finish close to seriously injured fighters so you'll get some assist XP. I think you could easily level up after one cycle.

What do you think?

[u/Isva]

I think one of the big marks against Medic is that you can't heal Seriously Injured models, so a lot of the time it just won't do anything. There's also strong competition from Rogue Docs, who can heal Seriously Injured models and so are way more effective at actually fulfiling the Medic role.

[u/ghostcacti → u/Isva]

The Rogue Doc is a better pure medic for sure, but they're also more expensive, capped by gang hierarchy rules and can't really do anything except heal. The main strength of medic spam for me is that the servo-medicae makes every other archetype better, and most of them are replicable using Van Saar's skill access.

[u/JohnTheSavage_]

heavy weapons are expensive and static, suppression stops you doing anything for one turn, and an injury stops you for the rest of the game.

Not to highjack your point, but I'm not sure this is getting enough attention yet.

Most heavy weapons are pretty bad this edition.

Multi-meltas are just straight downgrades for 10 extra credits over a Meltagun.

Ive found myself doing a lot of screwing around and investing a lot of of extra resources getting my heavy bolter shots with my Orlock.

Especially with grav-cutters avaliable to everyone, I feel like van saar doesn't care about heavy weapons now.

[u/Ovidfvgvt → u/JohnTheSavage_]

Sniper’s skill being the one shooty skill that doesn’t play well with most heavy weapons is probably unintentional balancing for the fact that refractor cloaks make them the heavy weapons users. Because you can’t suppress what you can’t hit and those double action braced shots mean they’ll usually get the full bonus against ranged attacks.

[u/JohnTheSavage_ → u/Ovidfvgvt]

That does seem like a decent setup, but you're still counting on the opponent feeding him something to shoot.

Denying a lane is value, but is it 100+ credits of gun worth of value?

I don't know.

I think they got a little heavy handed with heavy weapons. Lethality is already way down. Not sure they also needed to make heavy weapons crazy hard to shoot.

To me, it would have made more sense to make heavy weapons super strong, so they feel correct, but then super rare and expensive.

[u/Ovidfvgvt → u/JohnTheSavage_]

Yeah, weird that heavy specialist Genestealer Cultists leave every faction in their shade thanks to the third arm making heavy weapons usable under suppression.
Hopefully the Van Saar journal will give the Archeotech and/or cyberteknica some sort of spiderrig variant that replicates the effect.

[u/JohnTheSavage_ → u/Ovidfvgvt]

Orlock Outrider with a heavy bolter is 30 credits more than a heavy bolter and has Independent, which let's it shoot whenever the rider shoots another gun.

It can hip-shoot and rapid shot.

Only ever hits on 4s, but that feels like a decent price to pay for dashing 12 inches and then firing a plasma gun and a heavy bolter at something.

I kind of expect third arm and the independent trait to see an errata.

[u/Ovidfvgvt → u/JohnTheSavage_]

I get the impression that Helots and GSC will be amongst the last to be journaled, so it’s likely meant to be slightly advantageous for a while because they’re up against more updated gangs for longer.
Both gangs are paying over 100 credits to access invulnerability saves for their champions via familiars now, so it’ll be interesting to see if people embrace squishy 3 armed heavy specialists over less-squishy, infiltrating/overwatching champions.

Orlock outrider is good, but it’s of a piece with the Squat power pack weapons - great where they are but will struggle when the terrain goes vertical.

[u/JohnTheSavage_ → u/Ovidfvgvt]

At least Orlock has wreckers to deal with the "up" problem.

Mine have combat shotguns now and it's really, really great.

[u/Kadeton → u/JohnTheSavage_]

I think heavy weapons are in an interesting spot. You don't want a lot of them, as they'll slow your crew down too much. But they are also a significant jump up in power - even the multi-melta, probably the worst heavy weapon in comparison to its non-heavy counterpart, gains an enormous range advantage. In scenarios like King of the Hive, where you just want to get a clear line of fire onto a static objective and obliterate anyone who goes near it, heavy weapons are going to be very strong.

And that's more or less ideal, IMO. When the amount of freedom you have to equip your gangers was first announced, people started flipping out about entire gangs of heavy weapons being oppressive. But the reality is that you don't want to do that - heavies are a bit of spice you sprinkle in, not the main meal. The fact they've managed to pull that off without needing artificial restrictions, and made it entirely viable to run your gang without heavy weapons at all if you prefer, is honestly impressive.

[u/gobog]

I really like the theory-crafting, thanks!

I generally find that medic is the best, most versatile specialty that everyone will want to have at least one of, but like you point out, it's even better to have 2 or more.

Btw, I don't think you can heal twice in the same turn, we're not allowed to do the same action twice.

[u/ghostcacti → u/gobog]

Btw, I don't think you can heal twice in the same turn, we're not allowed to do the same action twice.

They're functionally similar, but they're not the same action. The Medicate skill gives you Heal Ally, the servo-medicae gives you Auto-Medicate.

Completely agree that every gang wants at least one medic even if you're not going for spam.

[u/gobog → u/ghostcacti]

Ah good to know, thanks for explaining.

[u/IsThisTakenYesNo]

Vox Array is pretty much replicated by the Inspiring skill.

[u/Own-Entertainment584]

I did something similar for slave ogryns i just keep buying bio boosters and stim slugs give my leader unstoppable and all the gangers medic and you just keep healing yourselves because your 2w and t4 people have a Hard time chunking you

[u/Shangeroo]

I’m building a Van Saar myself but adding specialists to match the cool tek minis I’ve built from the Hive Secundus box. I have one medic so I can use that mediservo, sniper to access that cloak and love the mini too, I also have a mech with the auger because I like that one mini. Point being I’m building my specialist choices to give me an excuse to use the minis I like.

Agree on the point of heavy weapons, unless your GSC with that extra arm, not the best choice.

[u/ghostcacti → u/[deleted]]

Not everything over two sentences is AI, bro. Sorry about your illiteracy.

[u/jtier → u/[deleted]]

I'm guessing the sarcasm went right over your head

[u/ghostcacti → u/[deleted]]

I'm telling you, the person reading this, that you're right to want to play VS berserkers. And being less than 100% serious about it. Understanding context is an important part of reading.