So remember how when you first met brutes, they mostly kinda just died unless you had a shotgun front row? Yeah they basically do that.

The buffs are actually quite usable and it costs about as much as a 1 star prowler. Will you actually use these? Who knows, but they can help melee units a fair bit. The thing about SF units is that half the time, you can braindead your way through 99% of encounters using Manticores.