Ye, but there is gonna be one character removed, not all of them, so basically steel phalanx wont be hit any harder than any other army only because of its abundance of (and reliance on) characters. if it loses the 1-2 overoptimised characters everyone is using, thats harsh on it, but thats just like any sectorial that has such characters and would feel the loss
So let's remove Thrasimedes the Specops Character from Aleph: suddenly Steel Phalanx wanting to place a Thorakitai link (of which the SWC weapons box comes out in february) has to choose between Hector (70 something points!!!!!) or Alke (1.5 SWC!!!!!) for making a thorakitai link. I've been asking for a Thorakitai subofficer (based on Alke's profile, without spitfire, maybe Multi rifle and Boarding Shotgun profiles only, no other gimmiks) for months now precisely because every time we run a Paradiso Campaign the SP players either don't care about casualties, or field a double Myrm fireteam list against CA (myrm officer LT/CoC, myrm spitfire, 2 more myrm, and 2 supporting whatevers). It gets old after a single game.
There's a difference between having an army that's designed to rely on characters and having an army that relies on a few of its characters. Surprisingly enough, Space Wolves was an army that I felt was fairly well designed in that respect, for a 40k army, it was designed to rely on characters but none of them (from memory) were so powerful that they were the defining feature of the army that everything revolved around (unlike some of the other GW armies that weren't designed to have lots of characters...) Here's the thing, if Phoenix or Machaon is temporarily disabled, Steel Phalanx will suffer because those two are very important to the army, and from the receiving end I'd say Phoenix is probably the one to remove that would make facing Steel Phalanx easiest. I argue that this is not good; Phoenix and Machaon (and to a lesser extent Achilles) are all a bit too good while specifically filling roles that are too unique. It's a bit theoretical, Phoenix, Achilles and Machaon aren't all that terribad of design, but they're the reason why Steel Phalanx often feel like a 40k army to me, rather than an Infinity (or, really, Other Game Than 40k) army. So a question for people who play Steel Phalanx; how bad would losing Phoenix be? Edit: Regarding Space Wolves, all 40k armies have something that's broken and when I played 40k that something were Long Fangs for SW - not characters, but for those who didn't play 40k; think Yan Huo if the Missile Launcher options specifically were priced at roughly 30-34 points and 1 SWC.
Remember that Phoenix was "nerfed" not so long ago (HSN3 I think?), since before he was 35 points with Frenzy and a better pistol than nowadays. IF the Proxy Mk4 HRl would not have shown up nearly at the same time, then it would have been a case of "slight nerf to greeks, usable unit to Vanilla", but... Mind you, I totally agree Phoenix is a troop who shouldn't have Frenzy (by background he is one of the oldest of the sectorial, and teacher for Achilles among others), but the change didn't struck me as hard. As for the removal of phoenix, I don't see it as a serious possibility by background (Thrasimedes is easier to suspect since he always is out there meeting his lover Lupe Balboa), but it would mean max range for myrmidon weapons would be the Spitfire, which is cheaper in SWC (half the cost) but you save 9 points and lose NWI in the primary shooter...
I agree with both previous statements regarding ALEPH & Characters. Loosing Phoenix / Machaon / Eudoros / Ajax / Achilles would not be completely disastrous considering you still have tons of options. Xagroth is right however regarding Thrasimedes : Removing him would be crippling Since to run a Thora link you would need Alke and her 1.5 SWC in an already starved SWC (I don't even consider a thora link with Hector to be interesting).
I don't see the big deal. With as many profiles as many Infinity factions have available, a temporary restriction should just be an exercise in exploring other options for building a list. That is normally considered a good thing in games. Especially if they manage to restrict something that some people might be crutching on pretty hard. Like if JSA had Kitsune and Saito take a break then the JSA player crutching on smoke has to re-think their approach. It also might open up some options where other factions could make different choices about lists when playing into JSA if they know their list drop won't have to deal with infiltrating TO smoke covering the JSA advance. Card games do this all the time on a larger scale and not doing it is considered weird/bad for the game. Would CB be technically 'wronging' someone by rotating out a model from tournament play for a period of time? Sure, I guess, if you REALLY want to claim an oppressed victim status to lock in your moral/spiritual purity. Might be healthier to let that one go. This isn't like when all the HSN3 rules were MIA. You have the rules for the model, you can play with your model in casual formats, you know how your model will play when it cycles back into the format. If CB removes one character and your entire faction really does come crashing down around your ears, that is a GOOD thing because it would force CB to realize your faction lacks options and they need to fix that. In reality, this is the opposite with CB saying: we did our jobs at this point and we can remove models and you still have a viable set of options.
While your words are right, you do not adress two critical issues here: first, some factions are DESIGNED around characters (hint: the greeks, and to a lesser extent two whole listbuilding strategies from Caledonia and Military Orders), and second, we are not talking about "CB removes on character", but four, of which one will most assuredly be precisely from the Greeks, because there are not enough Aleph players, and Vanilla has no characters to ban. This means that, essentially, CB will have to choose between irrelevant "bans" (for example, Tamiris, the 24pts Myrmidon hacker with a pistol, unable to link, no ODD and who is the only N2 reporter in the game, who has little to no presence in the fluff) or critical (the aforementioned Thrasimedes, who is not THE choice for a Thorakitai Enomotarcos because of his ODD and light rocket launcher, but because you save either 1 SWC or nearly 50 points... and is the one with more fluff reasons to be selected as the mole, thanks to his "missing time from record" spend kissing his lover Lupe Balboa). So the gripe is not that the tree is shaken, but that CB has chosen an approach one would call "cowardly": by making it all hinge on the amount of victories a faction manages to get, the least played factions will always lose, and CB can claim "the players decided it", kinda like a GM who says "sure, you can try to kill Emperor Palpatine. The difficulty is XX, but if you fail you die" (XX being essentially you needing to roll 2 consecutive 20's in 2d20).
Am I the only one who assumes its not going to be a huge deal? Like -1WIP and BS as the recently "revived" characters return to their new Lhosts or something like that? Maybe Irregular status? I dont think anyone is talking about permanently removing Machaon or tossing Yoriko.
I like the idea. This will keep the fluff moving gives the games a bit more narrative sense. Why not, its only temporary. I case of Thrasimedes I hope CB will be smart and not build an obstacle for the Thorathikai SWC Box
Hellois has confirmed it won't be a crippling ban, just a small "thorn", and that the banned characters would return more attractive. I think they have just looked at the meta, selected a list of characters from all factions who barely see the gaming table (for example, Tamiris, Pentesilea, etc...) and decided to modify them to make them more attractive, integrating the change in an event.
And not seeing much use, sorry... So maybe Saito will be banned from YJ and come back as specialist operative, who knows XD
I thought you wrote that they'll select the character from a list of characters that don't see much use? I am fairly sure that Saito (he's not available to Yu Jing, so he's exclusively Druze and JSA) see more use than (Marksman) Sun Tze V2. I would only guess Bipandra see less use than Sun Tze V2 and even then I'm not certain.
Well, yes, but Sun Tze has 2 entries, and the HI option is used. I doubt they will remove one of his profiles, but look at the global use of "Sun Tze" as character instead of "Sun Tze HI" and "Sun Tze sniper".
If this is true, then I can see the merit in it. Improving lesser used characters while having a bit of fun with it.
That'd be a shame. Sun Tze V1 is very solid while Sun Tze V2 is much harder to justify (suffering from all the YJ Sniper issues of being both expensive and lacking MOD-stacking). I can't actually think of any YJ characters that need alterations beyond Asuka, and she's fairly popular. Saito would be a good candidate, provided Saito got added to YJ vanilla, but if we're looking at JSA mercs like that I'd say Mushashi - simply making him regular and one of the Fury skills and I'm sure he'd see a lot of use. Preferably available to Vanilla would be nice. How would you say the chances of some factions receiving more than one character upgraded are? You listed two Aleph characters up there (though I think Penthisilea is solid (a.k.a. scary), only out of place as the single AVA of motorcycle in faction)
This could be why the Tohaa were going to be exempt. Neema is fine and Aelis will get updated when the rest of the old Dire Foes characters get updated.
