Eviscerators and 'New Shaltari' are here!

Well looky looky what we have here then. They are not released until the 27th but Hawk have deemed us worthy of their new rules early. 

I'll give a quick overview and my initial thoughts on the units. I think it will be a bit of the good, the bad and the ugly. I'll bet you can't guess which is which!

I think I'll start with the good:

The models are even better than the renders, and they are so huge, see below

In a nutshell these are destroyers that are a lot older and have gone completely insane. They are uber-killy-monsters (Zombie and Techboy keep arguing about who called it first, obviously it was me! we all know I delve into the fluff, feet first). 

Background aside, what will they be like on the table-top. They have a few interesting stats that immediately jump out. A CQB of 6 is nuts. 36 attacks will absolutely ruin all standard infantry and most exotics too. The next is the cost, 50 points per base - the same as Destroyers. This makes it easy to swap in and out for a squad of Destroyers. We all know that 2 is a basic minimum for Scourge. I think we will start seeing 1 squad of Destroyers and 1 squad of Eviscerators (not everywhere, but enough). I think the cost is about perfect as they balance out due to their drawback which is their ability to find (or not find) objectives and intel. A +1 on the roll needed to find objectives and a -1 on your roll when searching for intel. 
It may put some players off fielding them at all, but they are not for the normal infantry role. They will be used for giving opponents hard choices. Put them in an objective building, whose gonna come in and try to take the objective? 
Go after an opponents basic infantry, if they have less, they can do less. It's not easy but with Scourge it's very achievable. 
The Eviscerators will dispatch basic infantry in one bloody sticky gooey go, then they can move on to the next. 

This is how you deal with Freeriders who hid inside a building Mwaa ha ha

On to the bad and the ugly:

I like the look of these, a lot. 

I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. Erik over at DzC Sweden has a pretty good write up on these guys - go check it out here, I almost completely agree with him on the Ronin.

I really don't like the name (that's the ugly), but naming is something I can and will have to live with. I'm a big boy I can cope.

Parts of the rules for the 'new Shaltari unit' (ok, ok I'll stop being childish..... Ronin) are really good. They are cheap, can be taken out easily but can can pack a bit of a punch too. They can be transported by normal gates and fine mass gates which is a nice addition. The Ronin have the capacity to be a successful unit that will make an opponent and owner think. 
Then it all got a bit silly with the Alpha Strike special rule (The BAD - part 1). It is not needed at all. It is a ridiculous rule, especially for the Shaltari to have. If it stays, and I pray to the almighty Hawks that it doesn't, there would be no reason not to have this unit in your army. It guarantees that they will get their shot off. You can place them last with complete impunity, right in the open in front of an enemy unit knowing that it can do absolutely nothing. Then next turn pre-activate them, shoot, then move away 6" - oh yeah part 2 of the bad: Why the hell do they move 6"? 
4" would be a more acceptable move characteristic. 
There is very little guaranteed in Dropzone, you can set-up situations that mean you get the upper hand, but that can all be scuppered by not winning activation, even if you have CV5! 
This unit breaks that. 
I'm not a fan. 

These are experimental rules and the units need to be tested and tested some more. We as a community need to break them to fix them (not just the Ronin, all units that get released like this). 
When I read the rules for the Ronin, all I can think of is really powerful ways of destroying enemy units with no comeback. You can fit a fair few units in too.  

I will re-evaluate them after I have had a chance to play some games with and against them. So for now that's it........

P.S. I think they look pretty