Let say that there are still 4 types / their stats in BB2:
Brawler (pincer+shield) / 11 HP, 2 armour
Grenadier (pincer+grenade) / 11 HP, 1 armour
Gunner (gun+grenade) / 10 HP, 1 armour
Tank (gun+shield) / 15 HP, 2 armour
But now all of them can have normal or better “spitter head”, they can or cannot have carapace (actually it is better for them to have it), or can have heavy (more hp and armour) or agile legs (more move).
Before BB3 it was quite easy to deal with them. Brawlers were loosing their legs, Gunners were overall easy to kill, Grenadiers were something between Brawler and Gunner, and only Tanks were tougher, but you could destroy their gun and they became useless.
Right now all of them lost some HP as all will vary between 6 - 12, but all of them could become more armoured making them more tougher (average of almost 2 armour everywhere, except small head and arms). Their gun now has more HP so it is not so easy to remove it (1 shot from sniper rifle won’t do that). Carapace also get more resistant so their most exposed to gunfire part won’t get eliminated so fast.
Brawlers and grenadiers with heavy legs won’t be stopped so easily, gunners with carapace will bounce some of your fire, and tanks have more resistant gun.
For me now the most feared variant is armoured gunner: machine gun + grenade + spitter head + carapace + heavy legs. Quite many armour and HP, with exception that their grenade arm is their weakness in armour, but if they will surround you and will start shooting with those grenades then you are screwed. And every one of them will return fire with their gun in your turn.
I wasn’t sure I would like the mutations idea when I first read it. Now playing against just a few of them, I can see it is a great idea. It means there is no ‘standard’ strategy to beat each alien type. Once you work out how to easily beat an alien type, in other games, you just repeat until game end. This Mutation idea means you will always be fighting something slightly different than last time.
Just started my first round, with today’s patch, clearing out a scavenging site. Loads more aliens (at least double) and they seem a little stronger. Looking forwards to this!
In BB2 I never played more than 3-4 battles, mainly because I played only random and I always had to face a large force of Tanks with scarse ammo, no Armadillo (it was on the other side of the map) and on a limited time before the Queen came and screw everything.
I love BB3 both because I can relax about ammunition and because I don’t have to face always those Carapace +Shield + Machine gun Crabs that were extremely difficult to kill without explosives. With all that armor around them, with assault rifles, and PDW it was difficult to do damage to them (the heavy needed at least one turn for moving into close position). And their return fire was deadly even from the other side of the map. Now, not so much.
About that spitter head: I never saw it actually spitting something, what kind of attack is it?
So what combination of their equipment you hate most (because is most dangerous or just annoys you during killing them)?
Pincer + Shield
Pincer + Grenade
Gun + Grenade
Gun + Shield
And I don’t ask about other combinations because it is quite obvious that Spitter Head is better than regular, it is better for them to have carapace than not have it and Heavy Legs are better than Agile ones (maybe with the exception that Agile let those with Pincers stab you after making quite nice distance run).
I wonder. In right hand definitely I hate then they have a gun. That return fire and ranged attack can be definitely more dangerous than Pincer melee attack. I hope that guns will be introduced as later mutation than pincers.
For shield vs grenade I’m little bit confused. Shield is really tough and can be sometimes hard to overcome, but still explosives and sniper can pick crabmen using it. Other weapons need flanking which with crabmen wielding a gun can be dangerous. But grenade can disable your soldier. Maybe not a single grenade, but if there are more than one crab wielding it, they can be devastating. And they will use it each time your technician will stay near your other soldier. It is easier to kill grenade crabs than shield crabs, but if they hide well and cover each other with return fire, I think I hate most combination of gun+grenade.
I did a map yesterday with gun+granades, and most of the problems came from mindfraggers. The crabmen always preferred to shoot rather than to launch a granade, and while the explosives can’t really disable the gun arm in one shot, they are rather effective in bleeding the target to the point of getting a one granade kill (and of not you ususlly have a crab with 3 hp and 2 bleeds). Cover can be destroyed with explosives, although not that effectively anymore (havens especially have building that are tough to break down), and crabmen can granade themselves in heavily covered positions (cover can also be an obstacle to the launch).