Operation Para Bellum: New Operators Revealed

With the end of a another fantastic LAN competition comes the beginning of a new adventure in Rainbow 6 Siege. Operation Para Bellum brings us to the Italian countryside on our new map Villa, along with two new defensive operators who are sure to make an impact. With abilities focused on acquiring information for your team, we see some potential for available counters of the current attacking onslaught.

 

We first go to Alibi, who is our 3 speed 1 armor roaming threat. Alibi has the ability to drop up to 3 holograms of herself on the map, confusing her opponents and gaining intel in the process. She may also pick them back up and replace them in a different location.

 

The holograms, while being a copy of Alibi, are still distinct in their own right and are completely stationary. They will always wear Alibi’s standard uniform and hold her primary SMG with no attachments. When an attacker comes upon one they have a few choices on how to deal with it.

 

You can shoot them from a distance, use a Twitch drone to destroy its base, or use Thatcher’s EMP grenade to temporarily disable it. Glaz also holds a strong advantage here, as the decoys do not glow in his scope, which will allow him to spot the real Alibi fairly easily.

 

However, destroying the hologram by simply shooting its body will ping your location for 5 seconds, similar to Jackal. To avoid this, a single bullet or Twitch taser to the decoys base will leave you undetected. Now, while destroying the holograms may assist you in hunting down Alibi herself, killing her does not remove any remaining holograms from the map. So even though Alibi may have died early, any holograms she was able to place will still be there and will still reveal your location on destruction.

 

On top of this, Alibi does still have some information denial that her whole team can employ. If any of the defenders run outside of the map, their identity will not be revealed. Their location is still live pinged as it always has been, but instead of seeing the icon of  which operator is aggressing onto you, you will instead see “Identity Hidden.”

 

 

For her kit we see her use the Mx4 Storm, which is a high rate of fire SMG with somewhat low damage, and some decent recoil control. Her other primary weapon is shared with her counterpart Maestro, being the ACS12, which is a fully automatic shotgun that offers high wall destruction.

 

For secondary weapons we have two revolvers with two wildly different uses. The first is the Bailiff 410 which is essentially a revolver “shotgun”, and allows for some decent sized murder hole construction, but not anything you could move through. The second is your more standard idea of a revolver, which will be useful for those crossover McCree mains. With these assortment of weapons, she is also provided with a ballistic shield and impact grenades.

 

Moving on to Maestro, we get a new style of camera on a 3 armor 1 speed anchor. Angle holders will also rejoice, for he gives the defenders another ACOG scope. But that’s not all.

 

The coveted ACOG comes on the first non-gadget defensive LMG this game has to offer. Let’s get started, though, with his new cameras.

 

Maestro is given 2 “Evil Eye” bulletproof cameras that allow you to safely gather intel on the attackers. The cameras are placed similar to Jagers ADS devices, where you can place them on generally any accessible wall or floor. They are multi-functional, as you can firstly just look through them, in which you also have the ability to see through smoke, but secondly, Maestro can also use a taser on the cameras to destroy attacking gadgets (such as drones or even a carelessly placed exothermic charge).

 

The taser can also be used to damage and annoy your enemies, however it does not stop them from planting the defuser. The weapon is able to overheat with too much use, and goes to a roughly 5 second cooldown until it is ready to fire again.

 

 

In order to destroy this bundle of joy, you cannot simply shoot on sight or try to punch through the lens. The camera is bullet and melee proof at all times except when it is actively firing the taser. To avoid this you must either blow it up, whether that be using an Ash charge, frag grenade, or otherwise.

 

This can either be a direct hit, or done via the destruction of the surface it is placed on. Sledge can also give it a smack with his hammer to destroy it. Thatcher and Twitch can also temporarily disable all functions of it, but only for a few seconds.

 

Finally, Dokkaebi is able to hack the camera as she can with any other, but she will not have control of the taser, as that responsibility sticks solely with Maestro.

 

His loadout consists of the ALDA 5.56 LMG, which has a decent rate of fire and an 80 bullet magazine to really allow for some suppressive fire. This can be used on walls to give yourself additional sight lines, but you won’t be able to traverse those openings.

 

He shares the rest of his kit with Alibi with the shotgun primary and revolvers, and may be a good choice if you are looking to bring some additional destruction. Maestro also has a ballistic shield, but substitutes the impacts for a couple rolls of barbed wire.

 

These new operators are sure to bring some excitment into the upcoming season, and we are eager to see how the community is able to use them to their full potential. The new content goes live on Thursday June 7th, so get out there and give it a try.