There's been a lot of thought about the primacy of fireteams vs. TAGs in terms of offensive power, order efficiency, and so on, and I think the consensus is that one should almost always field a core fireteam when available, but that TAGs are very much situational. And TAGs have several hacking programs that they are uniquely vulnerable to. Shouldn't the reverse be true? If fireteams are so much more powerful for the points in most cases, shouldn't *they* be the ones with unique vulnerabilities? Assault Hackers should probably get this program, since they are under-represented atm imho.
I think your comparison is more apples to oranges. In all cases I can think of to get a CORE fireteam you need to play a sectorial and pay a hard to quantify tax of giving up tools available to the vanilla. If you are paying a tax for the ability to use a fireteam it doesn't make sense to me to forgoe using it. You don't pay a TAG tax other than arguably taking a tag. (Fwiw I think tags are fine). Though for what it's worth I don't disagree with the idea of making assult hackers more versatile, as is they are expensive and very narrow in focus.
I really disagree. Oftentimes people taking them are gimping themselves. Like the Gorgos - who runs that?
Your free to your opinion, it's common but not universal. For what it's worth I played against a gorgos at a tournament in December.
The Gorgos is far from the worst TAG in the game. A TAG with a get-out-of-jail-free card is pretty decent as a baseline
I've played against Gorgos in tournaments too, but they're either run because the player is trying not to be competitive or they're going for a mission like Deadly Dance. It's run very infrequently, however.
You're also free to move the goal posts and assert things as fact without any evidence. I doubt you'll find a consensus that tag = bad.
Aight. I'm sure successful Tohaa players don't run the usual Sukeul + Kaeltar + Makaul triad spam. Well, maybe not. But the consensus is clearly that fireteam = good.
I think consensus is that if you can take a fire team you should. I don't think anyone would say that it's a weak mechanic. It's also not a mechanic that costs points, so if you can take a powerful mechanic for free, .... Well why not? That said I don't think you'll find a consensus either that sectorials (fireteams) are better than vanilla (no fire team). That's precisely because of the other costs you pay for fireteam access. It's not really that fireteams are good, or not, it's that by playing a sectorial you already paid a significant portion of the cost to use a fireteam already.
So balance is not just anout whether taking a thing is worth it (and the opportunity costs to do so, like reduced variety of troop choices)... It is also about counters that the opponent can then field. It's a good point that TAGs have lots of counters while fireteams have fewer. Coming from 2nd Ed curbstomp TAG rampage days, erring on the side of fairly ubiquitous counters to TAGs seems wise to me. No need to reduce those. Rather, -also- adding Exile to Assault devices seems wise too. It expands the interesting sub-game of hacking, gives counters to power creep from mixed links (yes you can kill the squishy dudes, but that's hard to do in the reactive). And tactics that revolve around non-directly-damaging use of orders are interesting and kind of underrepresented in Infinity. Like 1-2 punches with Immobilization and attacks, this will require foresight and encourage interesting counters to itself as well. The solution doesn't have to rob Peter to pay Paul as they say. Just increase the availability of Exile.
But isn't fair to say that over the past year or so that fireteams have gotten far, far better? I mean, this time last year outside of a few options like the MO pain train you basically had core fireteams consisting of 5 cheerleaders who would usually have been just an order battery hiding a lt., that were now a ARO piece hiding an Lt. And then we started getting all these crazy wildcard options where we can mix and match combos of elite specialized troops (like tohaa but, ya know, better). What have TAGs gotten to keep up over the same timeframe?
Nothing since uprising true, but prior to that, pilots that we're worthwhile and generally speaking specialists? +1 damage on weapons? KHDs which scare the pants off assult hackers? (To the point where some argue that assult hackers are bad). I think you shouldn't look at it like a zero sum game.
Most competitive players agree there is a subset of TAGs that are actually strong and not just "good for a TAG". In fact, that the phrase "good for a TAG" even exists is pretty good evidence that TAGs aren't in a good spot right now. That said, I see AHD so infrequently that it's not really a worry I have when I want to field a Tikbalang, with the exception of a few of the newer heavy hitting hackers in Aleph or stuff like Mary Problems. I agree though that AHD needs buffs, and that giving it a weaker version of Exile would be a good start.
I actually agree with Hecaton. This is mental. Overall, I think possession of TAGs is one of the jankiest interactions in the game. Its very swingy for, and only more so with the very good TAGs. Its a tough pick whether to go for possession or isolation On the flipside, exile is very punishing on fireteams, and I wouldn't like that particular program becoming more mainstream. But a similar program which affects fireteams similar to immobilise, or just kick a team member out. This would provide further utility to assualt hackers who are otherwise wasted point liabilities against non-hackables, or ubermensch if theres a juicy TAG to possess. Further, I'd then reduce the cost of assualt hackers a tiny bit.
Yup, perhaps if the AHD version just broke the fireteam, rather than isolating anybody, so the controller could reform it more easily. Or whatever. The overall thrust of the ability remains the same.
A temporary isolation state program (maybe to the end of the turn like IMM1) maybe that is reset-able might be cool for AHD's vs fireteams. So you could use it to dump a member out of the fireteam to temporarily drop a fireateam bonus (depending how many members left). Certainly would up the scissors paper rock utility in hacking a bit, which it needs IMHO
No where in there am I thinking of it as zero sum. The question isn't tag or fireteam, the question is why is the answer usually fireteam? I think @Hecaton has an interesting proposal to shift the balance toward tags in more cases (make fireteams more fragile). I think another way would be to make tags more viable. Look at what IA has done for heavy infantry. Look at what season 10 has done for drop troops.What if most tags had tac awareness or NCO, for example? Everything you mentioned about TAG upgrades in season 8 helped TAGs, but that was a long time ago, and we are looking at now.
@Vanderbane I always liked the idea of TAGs granting 2 orders, one for the TAG, one for the pilot, and when you took out the TAG and the pilot was still around you still got that order.