Firstly CSU isn't competing with Guilangs, Xi in Vanilla is. Second, you still need to waste orders getting him past fire lanes. Instead coordinating orders with your forward deploying specialists and having them set up all over buttons immediately way better than goofing around with Xi. Third, point costs scale based on the model they're applied to. Xi would be even cheaper if he didn't pack Number 2. You're paying for a dead skill in Vanilla. Fourth, yes, he competes for space and loses. You don't need Xi as a redundant source of Mad Traps. I've played with stupid amounts of Mad Traps on the table before, it's not particularly effective and you tend to lose them at a massive rate to suicide warbands (who often avoid the effects with high PHYS) and holo projections. On the Hac Tao, you most certainly can push it hard up the table, cause a tonne of damage, then leave it in suppressive fire to cause trouble while you plan for your next piece to take over next turn while your opponent bashes his face into the Hac Tao or has to spend orders circumventing it.
He is objectively not worth his cost in Vanilla when his role fights with Guilangs who are way, way better at what he wants to do and in the same ballpark cost wise.
Maybe I am the only exception, but I do not see myself taking a CoC Farzan to just sit around and wait for Tarik to die. A Minelayer or a FO are so much more useful in most cases and worth more than that extra Lieutanant Order imho.
This is incredibly underwhelming and a questionable decision. Is the story team gonna give Tunguska the credit for B4ckd00r when Combined Army won it to hype their new sectorial? JSA's sold its first round of releases, time to make Tunguska look like hot shit at the expense of the other factions to move more product?
How is Xi competing for orders Guilang? That doesn't even make sense. From Deconstructing Xi I'd say Number 2 is likely not a full point which makes it disappear inside the cost of CC 14 - however, Zhanying pays 2 points for MadTraps and Pheasants seem to pay 3 (based on that Stun Grenades seem to cost a full point). Xi seems to pay 1 point for them (or they're doing something funky with the cost of ARM). It's not a complete hand-adjustment but I'm willing to bet a small amount of money that - no, he'd in fact not be cheaper without Number 2. But we can all agree he makes a terrible Datatracker I think.
False statement. One does not exclude the other. Because smoke in this game just disappears whenever it suits your argument? Or do you set up tables that have firelanes in your DZ? Both cases it's a L2P issue. Hahahhahaahahah! Sorry, I can't help but laugh when people use such mental gymnastics to arrive to such a conclusion. You're saying that a person who literally pays zero for a skill gets cheaper without it. Don't go full autism because you want to believe your statement was true the first time you said it mate. Yes, you tend to somehow lose 6-8 mad traps in your DZ with Warbands that magically crossed the entire map to take out almost ALL your mad traps (often avoiding an effect means they have pass with only 35% success rate on average. Yeah, such "often"). Just because you suck at placing perimeters doesn't mean it invalidates anything. I don't believe you've ever played a with a Hac Tao in your life. The way you describe its usage is so out of touch with reality. It sounds like a child lying about something he told someone he experienced, so he uses broad statements and weasel words, hoping he's somehow winging it. There's so many ways to circumvent an overextended HI on suppression that it's not even funny. The Hac Tao is deceptively easy to kill when you get close to him, similar to the Swiss Guard. I dare say that this is very common knowledge and anyone hearing that you just throw away such an expensive piece on a tiny attack run (he typically needs 1-2 turns of constant orders and killing to earn back his points + the points for using so many orders, as you can't afford to have him as a cheerleader) will simply get you laughed out of the room. Anyways. I'm out after this post. I've seen your absurdly toxic rants on the Uprising threads and I'm under no illusion that you'll read a word of what I'm saying, I'm mostly only addressing your points for other readers because what you're saying is so demonstrably wrong that I felt like addressing it, just in case that anyone should have the poor judgement of taking your word for it, should it go unchallenged. Kind regards.
Guys, I think we're making this thread really hostile. We can disagree, but we should not make the forum seem umwelcoming. Let's be cool. It's just a game.
I think its a pretty fair choice. E.g. for Tarik this is a substantial buff, but removing him also hurt quite a bit. For others the buff is negligible, but they weren’t popular characters anyways. How would you have resolved the backdoor event? I dont see your point about the fluff. The CA managed to infiltrate the human sphere and cause quite some chaos. That makes them look pretty cool. And who should have uncovered it if not a human faction? I think Tunguska is a fitting choice here. And I would be very surprised if small bits of fluff would change anything about the sales of an infinity product. Different to other wargames, we‘re mostly adults here (at least in my experience).
Personally, I'd have picked characters based on what, exactly, the bonus is they had in mind. For a special Datatracker order, I would have gone for somewhat squishy characters, preferably on the impopular side, which for Haqq is a shame since the Kum bikers can't be DTs, which pretty much leaves only Yasbir or Al-Djabel, with the latter being an interesting choice since it'd kill their ability to make use of IMP state. Or made the order "if this character is in the list, the Datatracker gains an irregular order etc etc". I.e. take Voronin and have your DT Blackjack gain an extra order. This does make funky stuff happen in particular with Aleph, though, or one of the other true monster candidates for DT :/
What are you even on about? You can't even take Guilangs and CSUs in the same list, that's why they don't compete. Smoke costs orders, needs positioning often reliant on impetuous troopers, and your dice not to crap out on you. Infiltrating camo specialists just start where they need to. It's far superior than having to walk up a non marker LI model, and from your suggestions, burn command tokens on them at the same time just to get up and push a button. A Phys 13 WB like a monk or morlock have a 77.25% success rate against MadTraps. I mean if you're cheating somewhere and making these models only pass 35% of the time sure I guess this might be why MadTraps seem insane to you. Yeah, and it costs alot of orders to deal with him. You park him in the middle of the table with a bunch of monks around him he's a pain to remove because getting close becomes extremely difficult. I usually play with 18+ model lists, he's not alone there's an entire second combat group to hang out with him. Uhh... well I'm not the one posting incorrect statistics, or illegal army lists, or the one throwing around personal insults either. But sure, ok, you do you I guess.
Overall an extremely disappointing conclusion. They really should tried to pick more useful characters for all the factions. I really hope they handle this better in future events. They really should have done profile tweaks. Help revitalize some of the more lackluster characters. All they've done is made the gap bigger
I think you calling it a "pretty fair choice" is missing the point. Balance shouldn't be thrown askew for story purposes; there should be sidegrades and expanded options, however. The difference between Tariq (a powerful attack piece) and Andromeda (trash) is immense, and CB thinking that they can apply the same one-size-fits all modification to all of them and have it be interesting, balanced, and fun is just wrong. I would have introduced an O-12 aligned "alien hunter" mercenary for the season and then had them join the faction that won B4ckd00r, as they could confirm that that nation's command structure was free of alien influence, a la ALIVE group. The issue is this is *exactly* what would have happened if Nomads had won, presumably, sans Kusanagi being in spess jail for a while. A CA "win" would have been something like an ongoing uncertainty as to who the alien infiltrators are. Instead of having it be uncovered by Tunguska, have the fluff piece be a propaganda broadcast by the EI that throws the Sphere into a state of panic, witch hunts for alien infiltrators, etc. As it stands, despite what happened, it comes off as a loss for the CA in the end. What did CA accomplish except getting 10 people tossed in jail for a couple months, only for them to come out with superpowers? There's no evidence that the infiltrator in question did anything to further the cause. It comes off as if CB said "Well, Nomads got 2nd, and they're the faction we really care about, so they get the win instead of CA." CA being unable to get the extra order granted by the benefit, at all, not even by running a sub-par trooper like Andromeda, is another slap in the face. While I agree with you that the age for Infinity players seems to skew older than 40k, Uprising showed that CB is not above one-sided wanking of a particular faction to make them seem like the Best One Ever.
Seriously, every single person I've talked to who heard the "free irregular order" idea for the B4ckd00r rewards had nothing good to say about it, and oftentimes something bad. Does CB focus test these things? Or does hearing complaints only make them more eager to do it; "You're gonna get it and you're gonna like it, dammit!" I've seen complaints about this since the rumor of it started, I think from a podcast where it was talked about... why wouldn't CB reconsider at that juncture? Do they only listen to Spanish-language feedback?
Man, a free irregular order sounds sweet. Rao, Xi, or Kusanagi can be in a link and then sneak off to execute the HVT before rejoining their fire team. Veronin and Xi can use it go go into Suppressive Fire and hide up on a building when they need to survive. Tarik can use it to be a menace in pretty much any situation. Seems like fun.
On the flip side, oppositional arguing tends to produce the best arguments. Friendly is nice however Triumph did make the better argument. As for Backdoor... I do admit I would kill to know the thinking behind this "event". Balance however has not appeared to be a highpoint of consideration.
I think it was an afterthought between the JSA launch and other projects. There are not that many people who work for CB. You can see this with how we were told that the Japanese would remain part of YJ for B4ckd00r and then that was backtracked on. Making it an interesting, well thought-out event just wasn't high enough up on the priority list; since it had such an impact on the ITS balance I wish that wasn't the case.
[Sarcasm mode on] Oh my god! The accusations were false, and the responsible was a Shasvastii infiltrator! What turn of events! Who could ever think of a plan with so many layer! Definitely worth of an intergalactic multi-millennia alien intelligence! [Sarcasm mode off] Srsly?
I think Kasym Lt. can be one. But that's a questionable profile IMHO. Erm... Not all DT get access to B4ckd00r buff.
Looting and Sabotaging? Smoke cover from other warbands, impetuous order + Lt order and you're halfway throug the map with explosive CCW? IDK, seems like that could work! xD
