People lost their shit when a sectorial was just moved. What do you think the reaction will be if you literally remove the armies being used by two thirds of the playerbase? And this still doesn't answer the question. Why would you want to remove sectorials at all?
This is personal bias, but over my 7+ years of play, Fireteams have not really changed in power level. With mixed teams coming, new units have come out that are a danger to them. Jammers are now on units in 3 separate factions, more units have direct or impact template weapons. It has always been my experience that fireteams punish new players, but once you understand their weakness, they lose a good chunk of that edge. Vanilla lists still have power, they can still intermingle units for combinations sectorials do not have. That has always been the advantage of Vanilla, and it still retains that advantage. This is very noticeable in Ramah, TAK, and Varuna. These sectorials all have a good amount of wildcard links but have noticeable strengths and weakness. Even with the mixed fireteams. Over this last year or two, with the increase in unit types, and mixed links lists have been forced to change how they are built. You got Leila making a cheap Jannissary link? Killer hacker her. You got a Rui Shi taking advantage of a cheap wildcard link of Zuyongs? The Rui Shi is the weak point, AHD it. You got a Kazak HMG in a Line Kazak link? AD and hit it with a boarding shotgun. The new link options have only added layers to the game from a tactical view. Thats just my opinion though and observations.
Exactly this. Just ask Nomad players what’s the strongest Nomad build, most will answer with some type of vanilla build. Achilles is more home in vanilla than SP,... The overall balance between vanilla and sectorials is really good and keeps me personally interested to explore different way of playing my factions.
As a Nomad player I generally play vanilla as I find the range of models I can use allows for more enjoyable lists (and arguably stronger lists though this isn't my usual rational for playing vanilla). A newer player in my group was complaining about fire teams as OP the last time I played him, and I spouted off the same answers I was fed when I first started, and see here, and I could tell he wasn't convinced: I think that a lot of this realisation only comes from experience I don't mind all the bonuses of link teams, however am not a big fan of them in a skirmish game like infinity as they add crazy order efficiency which can often feel OP. While I'm struggling to get 1 or 2 key models into position, a good sectorial opponent can bring up 5 or even 8 models for a similar number of orders positioning specialists with great heavy weapon and defensive cover. While I've played enough to be able to adapt and deal with this, it remains a part of the game I would be sad to wee go.
But what if a player who understands tactics were to play an army with fireteams? They'd be unbeatable!
Yeah, a lot of the replies in this thread seem to indicate that vanilla players are somehow tactical gods...
It's definitely too late to actually just remove them now. I like sectorials as a concept, changing the way an army works. Either by changing AVAs or adding units you couldn't normally take in vanilla. Like QK being able to take some Nomads and YuanYuan etc. I just don't like the feel of fireteams in a small scale skirmish game like Infinity. It's not that I think they are too powerful or anything. It doesn't stop me from playing and enjoying the game.
If anything I find Vanilla easier to use. Just have to manage one unit at a time, mostly non multi purpose and good at one thing. Makes it easier to not screw up and overall fewer mistakes combined with more options. Lack of access to certain aspects of listbuilding is what usually defines a Sectorial. Vanilla Factions are more about flavour than actual limitations
I guess they could introduce a real that lets you choose if you want to use Fireteams or get extra command tokens or something in that line, if you choose not to go the fire team route. That way sectorial without link teams would be viable too. Not sure if that would be a good option for vanilla too. Might be a bit to powerful there.
Infinity's fireteams are a little odd, but there are a pretty significant number of Infinity-scale games that have had a small team of mooks that all moved together in addition to the heroes. I think I can actually start with the old Trinity Battleground game by White Wolf, then shift to Mordheim. Not sure where next.
Amusingly I tend to play vanilla to cover for my poor tactics. I mostly use fireteams as defensive troops, depending on mission. I find a good Rambo can do the work of a five man offensive fireteam almost as well, and when they kill him on my reactive turn I am only down one order as opposed to 5 orders. Fireteams are very powerful but I trip over them or otherwise use them poorly, so I tend not to use them offensively.
I didn't look at Dashat before, but jeez, you can have an actual Authorized Bounty Hunter Core with Miranda/Gromoz/Sforza as long as you say it's a Ghulam/Brawler/Zuyong Core. What happens if all of them roll Motorcycles though? Can Biker troops even be part of a Fireteam?
Dynamo's duo indicates so. It might look awkward to use on the table, which must be the reason there're still no cores and haris composed by bikes, but as long as the biker keeps the rules of link coherence there should be no problem.
Maybe too many miniatures activates with one unique order? I really don't have idea if this really could be unbalanced or not. Depends, I guess, too much of the table and will be hard to compensate "in Game". Maybe useless or maybe too hard. But... a haris could be nice?
