I think the weirdest thing is that all those troops spend their annual leave/vacation time doing Merc work in their official army uniforms and weapons and that their host army is totally ok with that.
That design implementation in Infinity predates "polite men" episode though. It does not predate practice in general which is many decades old at this point though...
They have finished their years of service and seek employment on merits of veterancy just like many US Marines, UK SAS, and more do. What's weird is that Yu Jing is fine with their citizens working for a corporation that's oft used against their interests and that corporations manufacturing their new line of power armour are selling them to private outfits all willy-nilly. The difference to a US Marine signing up with former Blackwater is that those outfits are almost always in the pocket of the US military interests, or at least nominally NATO, which basically explains everything. If Dahshat had been literally swamped with Yu Jingese contracts all the damned time, it would all make sense, but as it is they are neither very loyal to Yu Jing nor are they nominally working for the betterment of mankind to serve Haqq interests, instead it seems to mostly be profiteering off of Pan-O corporate conflicts which in case of the modern comparison would be like the US Navy being happy with their Marines are joining a Russian sponsored Little Green Men outfit to attack NATO interests and members after service because it shows how badass their Marines are...
Correct, those are the only viable lists for IA Zhanshi core and mowang/liu xing/zhencha etc roaming There is like one (1!) meta-viable full heavy infantry core - Riot Girls in Starco or Bakunin and even there it is far from optimal. Maybe Wu Mings in Ikari. Everyone else in the game is in the same boat: instead of good and fluffy units with pretty models you take the limit 8 point bots, crazy frogs and other cheap crap to use as a meatshield against enemy spam and minmax into 1 HI+dorks fireteam (or classic beatsticks in vanilla factions), this is the nature of Infinity that cant be overhauled with a simple points rework.
There's only one truly HI faction. And that's Tohaa. Multiwound troops including 3W HI for a moderate price Always have and unconscious state after loosing their wounds Utra toughness via Symbiomates Heavy CAPless weapons like: vulkan shotgun, K1 Rifles or Viral rifle instead of shitty combis and multis A lot of non hackable 2W troops Ultra polivalent fireteam options Cheap and reliable fireteam protection via Makaul Reforming linkteams like nothing Smoke and eclipse Lots of useful tools Good doctoring options. Including that pesky +3PH from Medkits .... And that's without taking into acount other factors like the the price per miniature. all of invincible S2 blisters cost 15€ and our S5 Big guys cost even more. Meanwhile the last Spiral S5 HI cost 15€ Vanilla beatstick HI fireteams are not reliable without a doctor/engineer and dirtcheap+dirtgood fillers. Since the end of the old Hospitalier+Magister deathstar no other HI fireteam has become so meta. The Hollow men coreteam is pretty close but has no engineer inside. Regarding the rest, Not even the Janissair fireteam With akhbar doctor, the cheap wuming or the Crane+Celestial guard. A good heavy infantry relies on being hard to take down and needs to be a menace even under unconscious state In my opionion that's because the unreliability of ARM. Having +2ARM or +3ARM is not reliable enough by itself. Even with BS13 a HI can't withstand enough orders on reactive to refund consting double or triple a LI. It's better the reliability of symbiomates in 2W models than a little Armor increase.
Shower thoughts time! If we accept that points scaling of PH and WIP is in a good spot (meaning if we take three identical units with only difference being WIP 12, 13 and 14, and the WIP 12 units costs 12, the WIP 13 will cost 13 and the WIP 14 will cost 15), and then look at damage. The most common situation for damage are, I've found; * HMG or Multi Sniper versus unit in cover -> effective DAM 12 * AROed combi or rifle versus unit in cover -> effective DAM 10 * Chain rifles, flamethrowers, light shotguns, or rifles versus units that don't get cover -> effective DAM 13 * Boarding shotguns or missiles -> DAM 14 * Crits -> DAM infinity. Generally speaking I'd say the average DAM value ends up at around 13, but it varies depending on terrain, army, etc etc, but given the huge number of chain rifle/colts and the increasing number of infiltrating SMGs, that's roughly where it's at or possible at 12, because let's face it you're going to spend orders on that HMG or Spitfire a lot if you can. So, here's the actual shower thought. WIP and PH rolls tend to have a failure rate of 35% and when it drops to 30% that's when you start paying extra for each point (PH often has a failure rate of 50% versus templates, but equally often a failure rate of 20% when planting said templates). We see with BS that the same logic is applied even to the game's most commonly used stat, so rate of usage doesn't seem to factor here. Meanwhile, ARM seem to start scaling at 3 (failure rate of around 50%). If we apply the same logic to ARM as for the three other stats, points scaling would start at around ARM 5, meaning it's ARM 6 that would pay extra. This doesn't mean ARM values should increase, but maybe the cost of units with moderate amounts of ARM should decrease through less punishing scaling. Footnote: why is Sun Tze so freaking expensive? WIP, it's the WIP. He's got the WIP equivalent of an Avatar's ARM (but isn't a specialist so can't use it for much). This doesn't necessarily mean that scaling for very high ARM values such as the aforementioned Avatar would decrease. Sun Tze reaches about 51 points (after removing Strategos) with a light weapon and, for a HI, fairly crap stats.
Yeah he's Inna really weird spot. That total immunity makes him rock solid but he's a "meh" gunfighter and can't do much in the midfield as he's no specialist
He hits targets in the open on 20s, thats quite a lot Mimetic superwarcor that is tougher than TAGs is a force to be reckoned with
Which, again, isn't much. And completely off topic. Sun Tze was a points comparison, not a performance comparison.
This mindset, plus the fact that almost every single special ammunition goes in detriment of ARM (reducing it's effectiveness or just bypassing it), are the main reasons why Armor price is considered too high and even an unwanted atribute in some cases... even if 1 point of armor costs 1 point, It's too much In my opinion at least the first 3 points of armor should be free for Heavy infantry just by being Hackable. The big price of the Heavy infantry is granted by the stat jump. BS12-15, PH12-16 and W/STR 2-3. I don't thing it to be such an advantage compared to other hackable troops Remotes are soo good because they get a bunch of free points for being utterly weak on their CC Atribute. in my calculations, almost 1 point for each point they go below CC 13. That's Why troops like karakuris or hollowmen seem so cheap for all the stuff they get. I think that should be recalculated, specially taking into account how the electric pulse works compared to having CC14. Hacker device prices should drop down a little. we've seen a hacking revolution this last years. With the inclusion of the KHD the cost of a Hackind device droped from 7 to 4 points and no caps. The old devices need some of that love too. specially the EVO. And TAGs... well their attributes are on other scale and recently they've got a lot of free stuff, like remote pilots, fatality and TA
Well, it's okay on a mini you want to be a bit more durable. But I think such WIP is there not because of Flash Pulse (more like thanks for having it with that WIP), but to use it in Lt roll... Which is, I guess, not enough reliability for the point it costs anyway. Dodge penalty and inability to go prone could've also contributed to that.
And it's quite funny how Electric Pulse is better than CC 15 as long as you don't need to complete the kill-in-melee classifieds? :) It's almost certainly for the LT roll, yes, but I think we'll have to agree that WIP 17 on a specialist is massively more useful because that's what wins you games. Ditto Impersonation, higher consequence rolls, quite simply. Dodge and Prone absolutely factors into REM prices as well, yes, and at least Prone is very noticeable when comparing a Su-Jian to a Rui Shi and their respective abilities to not get shot during reactive.
Building around Sunny is just so punishing. I tried taking him to a tournament as ISS and got absolutely bodied using him partially because it's so hard to fit in a strong secondary fire piece if your first one bites it early. I want to love him, but he relies on a lot to go right to get the most out of him, since he really isn't a good enough fighter on his own to fit with the price.
If you're talking ARM2-5 (basic infantry and HI levels of armor), then yes, I absolutely agree. This may also apply to TAG-level ARM, though I think the Avatar, Szallie, and Jotum (ARM9 and 10) are pointed about right for their defenses. It's the ARM6 and 7 models that may be paying a bit too much still. Yup. ARM is grossly overvalued in the points formula compared to it's in-game effectiveness. In other words, you think that being Hackable should give a points decrease equal to having 3pts of ARM? Based on the comparison between Line Kazaks and Grunts, that's only ~2-3pts. (Line Kazaks are WIP13 and ARM1, while Grunts are WIP12, ARM3, and Shock Immune). I think being hackable is a larger penalty than that, but it's a place to start!
I think there's one things that are generally very clear; we don't need more TAGs with ARM9+. That said, I don't really know about TAGs. It's really hard to get a good feel for how very high stats scale, so whether they pay an extra-obscene amount of points or not for their stats the way ARM 3-6 models do (I don't think most ARM 2 models pay for scaling) is something I can't really analyse. Shooting from my hip, though, the way CB has had to tack on Tactical Awareness and Fatality 1 on TAGs for free; they probably do, but now that they have these abilities, maybe they don't need their scaling fixed anymore.
It's probably 3-4 points per ARM point, tops. Base Jotum is exactly 10 points more than a base Squalo, and gains WIP, PHY, BTS and a bit of weaponry as well as the 2 ARM. Personally I don't mind the high-ARM TAGs; they eat half of a 300pt list so their resistance to stock Rifle firepower is basically fine as you can play around them due to the enemy being unable to flood the midfield with 150+ points invested in TAG and TAG support. Not to mention this is the IA thread, and IA have access to excellent Hacking in their links and to the Yan Huo, which can outperform most of these heavy TAGs in a firefight handily with its MULTI weaponry.
