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Doctors seem underwhelming to me, upon cursory inspection. First your model has to not be "overkilled" past unconscious into dead, and given that the most dangerous weapons are the ones with high burst values or cause multiple wounds per hit (or do both!) that doesn't seem very likely in and of itself. Then the doctor must use orders getting to your unit, presumably after you've somehow dealt with the enemies who obviously had LoF to it, and make a roll with (in the case of a Daktari) 65% chance of success. Their counterpart, the Engineer, has a bigger bag of tricks than just healing (repairing E/M'd devices, removing Adhesive, disarming mines) so seems more useful.

Thoughts? I know doctors are apparently a "scoring unit" (in 40k terms) on certain ITS scenarios, is it worth taking them just for that?

We prefer the term "specialist".

Yes, docs are worth it. as with everything in infinity though, use in moderation.
Generally, you'll have models only blasted to unconsciousness even by full-blown TAGs shooting at them - at times (four shots, three hits - unless unopposed PanO tag, but then you're fethed for other reasons - making two saves isn't all that rare, out of three. having to make more than three saves is a real exception, IME). Don't forget that falling unconscious often also means falling out of LoS (if you were skulking behind a Chest High Wall® for example).
Also, a 65% chance of healing that dude that your opponent was so very, very happy to have *finally* taken out, is pretty good. Even if just psychologically.

Furthermore, my PanO doc for example, for six points over a regular ordermonkey, will let me at least consider this (and force my opponent to do so!), with 3 or 6 points thrown in, usually, for the helperbots (look into those, I generally take them to AVA!). Worst come to, I've paid 5 pts for the specialist rule (11 at worst, usually one or even two bots attach to my eng - I do so love running my dear cutter ) - which is a pretty good deal.
Always consider units' points cost as what they cost over and above your cheapest regular order providing model

Well, doctors rarely cost much more than a normal cheerleader, and if that extra 4 or so points only saves my Mormaer every other game, It is still more than making up for its points.

I play Haqqislam, so I always include one.

As a Haqqislam player, it's hard to not find a place for one. Even just a Ghulam Doctor in place of a standard cheerleader with a pair of Nasmats. Nasmats can be deployed strategically and the cheerleader doesn't have to budge.

That said, I see Doctors like this. I'd rather take one and not need it than not take one and need it. If I don't take one, and model KO'd is effectively dead. If I do take one, even if I might not intend on burning orders getting to a KO'd model to revive it, the option is there.

Given that, as said above, Doctors rarely cost a lot, I'd rather pay a few points to have that option. It's not every game that I've brought a Doctor that I've used it, but every game I don't bring one I miss it.

Also, it's been my experience that models are simply KO'd just as much as they are killed outright. Among my opponents, weapons that cause multiple wounds like DA, or kill outright like Shock, aren't super common. And high burst doesn't necessarily mean enough shots will land and fail ARM to kill outright, especially when F2F rolls are involved.

The value is very faction dependent. For Pan-O, the doctor is minimally effective. For Haqqislam, a Tuareg Doctor (TO Camo and WIP15) is quite effective. Then there is Avicenna (WIP17) with an 85% revival rate.

Their utility is in keeping your valuable units up and running, since there is a difficulty in redundancy due to the SWC. It is worth a few orders to revive an HMG figure, not only to keep its order around in the future, but also to keep that weapon around. Also, the Doctor's helper bots are great for snipers (especially the Lasiq) just remember to keep them outside of template range.

Lanlaorn wrote:
First your model has to not be "overkilled" past unconscious into dead <snip> after you've somehow dealt with the enemies who obviously had LoF to it

If its your opponents reactive turn, they have a much harder time of insta-killing models - and models can easily be out of LoF and unconscious, either because they're now prone behind cover or because they took the hit mid-move (and wounds don't apply until the end of the order).

There's three reasons I'm fairly big on Doctors. They're 4 points over a basic model and:

1) They're a fall back plan. Sometimes a model really is worth spending a few orders to get up and running again.

2) It immediately gives your an opponent a sense of dread - the doctor could get that model up again. So it often pressures an opponent into spending extra orders to make sure a model is permanently down. A doctor instantly multiplies the value of all of my expensive models, because it keeps my opponent fearing them after they're down.

3) They're specialists in many scenarios.

But to be fair, I do play Haqqislam, which doubtless has the best selection of Doctors in the game - nine different choices including invisible Tuaregs and regenerating Asawiras! (Although one can't help that imagine that every time a Doctor regenerates, it's played by a different actor).

It's a rare game my Doctor doesn't check for someone's pulse or perhaps manipulates a console. In short, yes.

I find it largely depends on faction, and crew composition. In PanO, my Dr rarely does anything. This is partly cause PanO dr suck, but also because, due to the "few elites-masses of cheerleaders" structure of PanO, my Dr is usually very far away from the action with my cheerleaders in my DZ, and the chance of reviving my Guarda de Assaulto or Knights is simply not worth the orders required to get him and his bots there. He HAS saved my game on occation by reviving my Aqulla guard though.

On the other hand, on the Steel Phalanx sectorial, Macharon seems a great pick. This is because the faction is full of high impact models with 1 wound, like the Myrmidons, that tend to not get overkilled due to defensive tech like ODD, and ofcourse Achillies, who is generally worth all the orders spent to revive him. In addition, this Dr is actually usually in the thick of the action anyways, since he can be part of the linked team.

To CB's credit, they have priced the drs acordingly. There is a reason why Macharon is very expensive yet the only decent doc in the Steel Phalanx, or why the PanO dr is extremely cheap. However, I'd still pick an Auxilla over a dr in PanO any day.

Doctors are good as they are cheap

doctors are better if:

They are in a link team as they can move with half your army not wasting orders being in the thick of it to get models back up.

A five man link team with say an HMG and a doctor, the doctor sticks to the hmg like glue so its very easy to get him up.

Theorius wrote:
Doctors are good as they are cheap

This... really isn't rue outside of a few exceptions - mostly in Haqqislam. Doctors in most factions get pretty pricey, or if you're unlucky like PanO, attractively cheap but pretty terrible at actually being a Doctor.

Doctor costs a flat four points regardless. Doesn't matter if it's a WIP12 Trauma Doc or a WIP14 Ghulam.

 IJW wrote:
Doctor costs a flat four points regardless. Doesn't matter if it's a WIP12 Trauma Doc or a WIP14 Ghulam.

Well yeah, but you're not adding a 4 point skill to your list.

Sure, but outside of Haqq HI Doctors or Doc/Engineer outliers like the Sophotect and Med-tech, what pricy Doctors are there?

Avicenna? Though I'd be willing to pay every point for such high willpower privilege.

Sorry, my personal experience with my own games has only exposed me to CA (Med Tech), Tohaa (Kumotail), various Haqqislam doctors, Aleph (Sophotect/Machaon) and Ariadna (112), which has given me the impression they're either a bit (or a lot) pricey for what else they bring, with a couple being flat out bad but cheap, with the exception of Haqqislam which has some reasonably priced Doctors, since they're just 'combat unit+doctor'.

Ah, I can see that giving you a bit of a skewed experience.

The Sophotect, Med-Tech and Kumptail are all Doctor/Engineers and in the case of the first two have WIP15 and 6-4 move, they're worth every penny.

Machaon is a full-blown Myrmidon Officer who happens to also be a WIP15 Doctor.

More typical Doctors would be the Tokusetsu Butai, Kazak Doctor, 112, Daktari and Zanshi Yisheng who are basically all line troops + Doctor skill.

Isn't the Tokusetsu a double as well? From memory he's still a line troop +, but he's got both doctor and engineer.

edit: ignore me, 2 profiles. Each has one of the skills