Infinity Unit Review: Authorized Bounty Hunters
Scum for hire, Authorized Bounty Hunters bring an interesting, if unpredictable assortment equipment to the battle. Starting from a fairly standard Light Infantry profile, with a lucky roll you could be toting around an HMG, Motorcycle, MULTI Sniper Rifle, or even an ODD.
Stats and Special Rules
Their stats are fairly run-of-the-mill, 4-4 movement, a solid 12 BS, a point of armour and 3 BTS. Stealth can be a handy tool to help them move around the table, and Fireteam: Duo can make that doubly efficient, moving two of them with a single order. They have the upgraded ISS-style regular order, which tacks on a couple extra points to their cost, but makes them much more usable in many lists.
What really defines the ABH though is their booty...
After Deploying a Bounty Hunter, you get to roll on one of these charts. As you can see, the results are very unpredictable, with 34 different possible results. Overall, Booty L2 has more powerful equipment across the board, I've never really seen a good argument to roll on L1 instead, but I'm open to suggestions! You will generally not want to deploy in a way where you're going to rely on getting a specific roll, so don't put your Boarding Shotgun armed ABH on a rooftop, hoping to roll a MULTI Sniper Rifle, instead you want to figure out the best way to leverage any equipment you end up with.
Profiles
Combi Rifle or Boarding Shotgun. The basic weapons and a simple choice, neither are really bad options, and we all know what they can accomplish during a game. I find myself leaning towards spending the extra point to get a Combi Rifle, though if you're running a Duo, having a shotgun for up-close engagements may be a good call. The major benefit to either of these profiles though is that almost no matter what you roll for Booty, it won't make your main weapon redundant.
Sniper Rifle and two Breaker Pistols. For only 21/0.5 points you get a regular order, a BS12 sniper ARO piece, and potentially some other crazy gear to make him even more scary, I love this profile. Up close he's deceptively effective with burst 3 Breaker Pistols. The only downside of this profile is that when you roll a MULTI Sniper Rifle on the Booty Chart, you're going to be kicking yourself in the butt for not taking a Combi Rifle armed ABH instead, haha. Don't worry though, what you're paying for with the extra 5/0.5 points is the guarantee that you'll have a weapon with strong range bands from 16-48".
Spitfire or Red Fury. When you want to bring some serious firepower, these are the profiles you're going to look at. Both are coming in really cheap, 22/1 for the Spitfire and 21/0.5 for the Red Fury, which by the way, is only available in Druze Bayram. Of the two, I generally lean towards the Red Fury, since DBS tends to be a SWC demanding army, getting a B4 weapon with the +3 from 8-24" range band for a mere 0.5 SWC is a god send.
On the Table
When I'm using Authorized Bounty Hunters, it's mostly because they're a cheap Duo who can pack some mean surprises. My preferred Duo is one with Red Fury, and one with Boarding Shotgun or Combi Rifle. This covers all range bands from 0-24" with some effective firepower. The Boarding Shotgun keeps the team as cheap as possible, while the Red Fury does the dirty work. If you get lucky and roll a longer-ranged weapon on either of them, you can still put it to good use while advancing up the board, and if you get the dreaded ODD or Mimetism on that Red Fury, you're going to make things very hard for your opponent.
If you're looking to add a single ABH to your force, then I'd suggest either the Sniper as a cheap ARO piece, or again, the Red Fury. Both are the same point cost, so it really comes down to how your orders are looking, if you have a big pool that isn't very demanding, then the Red Fury is choice, but if you're running it in an order group with a TAG, or otherwise order-hungry troops, then taking the Sniper to pin down advancing enemies is a good call.