OK, give Hulang Jammers then. Even better, give Kuang Shi Jammers (without increasing point costs, of course)
Frankly, I'm not sure what this background text talk has to do with anything. I personally think this piece of fluff is fairly far-fetched, and even if we play along and say that futuristic communications are so reliable that it takes something rather dangerous to disrupt them on their own playing field, well... Chances are that said comm tech is already equally dangerous by itself. vOv
It's not the jammer itself which is dangerous, it's the fact that you have to get really, REALLY close to the enemy to use it. quoting the jammer background text: So it's probably much more practical to use on black OPS like the ones we're playing than on a real battlefield like, say, paradiso, hence why we shouldn't see it in real military forces like the Invincible Army.
It's not dangerous to your flesh, it's dangerous to your electronic devices such as your cube and commlog, and that's why it is unsuitable for Invincible Army.
But suitable for hypertecnified Varuna or Tunguska. Makes sense. Not. Also, reading the fluff I'm even more convinced, give it to Hulang.
I agree, I've made the same point on the non-partisan forums that Jammers belong with Haqq, Ariadna and Tohaa, not with Tunguska or Pan-O. Hulang getting Jammers would certainly be interesting fron pure gameplay. I'd still rather see them getting more traditional mobility gear, basically ttry and gear them towards digging out entrenched Hackers/Jammers tha being said things.
CB seems reluctant about giving IA suitable close range defensive tools thus far so I doubt we'll get a jammer on hulangs, even though it would be fitting (just like frenzy). That being said, I'm pretty sure they were just paranoid about the new order shenanigans and decided to be overly cautious with ways to keep in check the 14+ orders zuyong paintrain. I think it was you @Mahtamori who said a while back that it felt like they really didn't want to be accused of power creep? The more I play this sectorial, the more I share this sentiment. I wouldn't be surprised that, at some point, once CB realizes zuyongs aren't stomping all over the meta as they feared they would, IA gets the same treatment ISS did when HSN3 dropped. You know, the one in which they introduced the mad traps and the kanren who both revamped ISS defensive capabilities.
...sounds like another piece of gear that would be a great addition to the Wu Ming armoury... But on the subject of Wu Ming, they need a haris profile in ISS.
Um.. I wouldn't put a Jammer on a unit that relies on geo-positioning to keep from being decapitated :p
Varuna and Tunguska have very little power armor (1-3 suits per tabletop force), while IA is (supposed to be) filled with it (6+ heavy infantry per force). You can afford to play interesting games with EMPs in Varuna because you're not very affected by them. IA is kinda screwed, though.
I don't believe that because Dashat exists. They aren't worried about being accused of power creep. Ditto with Varuna and OSS.
Their idea of what's OP and what's fine might be is clearly very different from ours. Either that or they're intentionally making new releases broken to sell more models, but since they didn't do that with Invincibles or Tunguska the former is more likely. Or maybe it's both, they want new releases to be OP to sell more but fail to completely hit the target (I mean, Invincible still has 15+ orders HI fireteam while Tunguska has kriza, hollow-men and jammers).
Might also be that the most recent sectorial designs (not necessarily all of them in the latest wave) are slightly informed by N4 ideas and changes.
I think it's more that there are different people working on different sectorials who have different capabilities and goals when it comes to balancing new content.
Would be nice, but IA seems oddly underpowered in it's most thematic, all-HI incarnation. I suspect that this is what is actually happening. I wonder if CB has internal 'Army Champions', someone whose role in playtesting/idea generating is to come up with awesome ideas for one specific force. We did that when GW stopped supporting Epic:Armageddon, assigned each army list to a champion for them to develop (obviously with balancing happening post-playtesting).
I think it's pretty clear that whoever designed Varuna likes PanO a lot more than whoever designed IA likes YJ. And let's not even get into Tohaa and OSS.
I don't necessarily think IA got short end of the stick more or less on purpose, it's more that designing army on such a premise without messing too much with Infinity fundamentals was quite a challenge.
They wouldn't have to mess too much with Infinity fundamentals, just points costs. They made a HI without shock immunity and only one wound. That was really weird.
Pretty much. Most of us didn't think they could design a heavy infantry sectorial under the current pillars of the game. They did an alright job creating a playable one in spite of that. The more the new rules settle the more I'm impressed by the ongoing efforts of the design team. It's like when you're learning the game and someone uses something and you go "fuck that's broken". Then you play it a bit and realise, oh nah it's not that bad.
