Wow, an objective and reasoned argument. Colour me surprised. Care to provide me with some tournament info (as in more than one) where IA has done better than TAK/OSS/VIRD? Maybe some ITS stats?
It's about as good as an arguement as just stating that IA is objectively weak. Are you really going to say that ITS tournament results are the best was of seeing which is the best faction? ITS tournaments are good at determining who is the best player, not the best faction.
So how do you determine the best faction if you don't take ITS into account? Best shooters? Not IA. Most flexible faction ? Not IA. Best specialists? Not IA. Best midline presence? Not IA. In fact, Dashat does what IA does (link teams fueled by more than 10 Orders) with more flexibility and support than IA. Also, when some factions keep cropping in on the top places even when piloted by different players and others don't even when piloted by different players that should give you a clue. And this is all I'm gonna say because we have gone very off topic and it's mainly my fault.
Pretty sure you could find actual arguments on that in those earlier threads about IA. This thread is not about that, quite honestly. Then congrats to us I guess, we're playing Infinity, probably the only asymmetrical game in the world with near-perfect balance in which it doesn't matter what toolset players have to work with to win! /s
Yeah, three problems: - You are forced to include an irregular order, which may sometimes (LI) be a considerable drawback compared to those factions that have regular journalists. - The warcor is weak - it has a really hard time surviving till the end. Dr. Worm, Thamyris and Tensho are much stronger. Even the Diplomatic Delegate at least has a Nanopulser. - a frew factions can have two Journalist (CA (+ Shasvastii), Aleph (+ Steel Phalanx), Spiral Corps, Foreign Company), which might translate to "twice the chance" to fullfil the objective. So we either need more (regular) profiles with the Journalist L1 skill, or the standard warcor needs to becoome regular and get a weapon (maybe a riotstopper), or just add another warcor profile that is more expensive, but regular and armed.
I dont see any of those as problems. Just something plan for when picking faction and building lists around it. If I was going to a tournament that only had missions with concillium watch I would probably pick Forco since they can take 2 warcors. If you dont have those factions or you dont want to proxy a bunch of stuff then I would make lists designed around killing a journalist model. Or I would make lists that can achieve the other objective points.
If you don't see a problem when you have to choose your faction depending on how good you can acomplish this objective, then you have just proven one of my points: There are quite remarkable differences between factions concerning Journalists. And the same is true for Liaison Officer: What 'choice' for FOs do Onyx or Spiral have?
I mean it's an asymmetric game and that's one of the things I like about it. I dont want all of the factions to feel samey and have equal access to all of the same stuff. Ariadna and sectorials had a really tough time during tagline and when hackers used to get alot of bonuses for objectives. I'm completely fine with players having to think outside the normal box when building lists. Also let's keep this in perspective. Its 1 objective point out of 10. More often than not that 1 point won't make or break you. I like the challenge of immobilizing a target and then trying to get a warcor in range. I like it from a fluff perspective too #kanyeshrug
There is a difference between "all factions have different objectives they are suited for, thus being all asymmetric" and "all factions have the same objectives, but some factions are best suited to accomplish those than others". First option: asymmetrical design (and quite hard to accomplish) Second option: design needs improvement, since the logical conclusion is for all players to use the same factions, or not be interested in the objectives part of the game.
Okay, this is something I take issue with. You are looking at the rules in a vaccum here. When you say you can make predictions by looking at the rules you are not considering that you must look at the whole picture, not just an isolated case or an isolated objective. There is a new modifier in the ITS document that makes it so armies are locked at 15 order generating models. Now consider that this means the 3 pts irregular order of the warcor impacts a lot less if they are in a 15 order army, for example. This might mean there are enough orders left at the end to complete this objective, or might not. This is not different from any other objective in the game. This thread is a knee-jerk reaction. If this was made after a few weeks, after people had had the chance to play it out and it turned out the idea was not well implemented, it would have more weight. However, right now this is just a prediction, and just because you think you are right that IA is a bad army, doesn't mean the prediction will come true again. Play the game, give it a try, then either complain with more weight behind your arguments, or don't complain at all if you find out the rule isn't as bad as it looks.
And it’s not in every mission, and even where it is, it’s not 1 point out of 10, it’s a bonus point that can make up for a point you may have missed.
Do you think that IA, soon(-ish) to celebrate its birthday, is too young of an army to make correct judgements about it or to begin verifying initial predictions about its capabilities?
No, but I do think that whoever made that pre-mortem thread before the army rules were even out was complaining prematurely. As I think that complaining about concilium watch less than a day after it's been released is premature. Play the mission a few times, try to break it if you want. If after that you still feel like you need to complain, then by all means you are right to do so.
I think the OSS and Varuna arent really standard. They are able to make really strong links with some really strong gun fighters like kamau and mml2 dakinis. Most other sectorials can't match that kind of straight up firepower in a fair gunfight.
I'm talking about the overall power level of the sectorials, and the seeming care given to making them meaningful to play.