I mean, I really like the 15 order limit. If order spam factions can't function right at 15 orders then they are not balanced. Theres only so much you can do to buff elite armies. At some point you have to conclude that order spam factions get orders for FAR too cheap.
You have several armies balanced around low cost, high order count, is the problem here. Nobody denies it's an issue with the game, the problem is the solution they've come up with is both lazy and honestly, fucking shit. The solution is make the elite things that die too fucking easy to an idiot with a chain rifle/light shotgun significantly harder for the idiot with the chain rifle/light shotgun to bring down. Give them an extra wound or whatever. Instead we have this hamfisted result which is armies balanced around having low cost models are just fucked over and we pretend they don't exist. That's a terrible effort in terms of games design.
It will be «exciting» to see how they handle armies like adriana, haq and our ISS, which has been tailered around having lots of orders. The brandmark of ISS have been the insane cheap orderbattery of 8 kuang shis. Im unshure how to solve that. More core linkpossibilities and weaponchoices for links ?
Unit stats aren't the main issue with the game. Its the fact that having more orders is such a large advantage. How exactly would you buff Elite armies that would solve their primary issue that a 20 order team has a lot more orders to maneuver around and grab objectives than a 10 order team? I think thats being hyperbolic. Theres no reason ISS of ALL factions can't win at 15 orders. ISS can easily be run as an elite army as well with 20 orders. The 15 order limit is more problematic for secotirals like USARF that lack more elite units.
I mean the problem is Kuang Shi also need to fundamentally change to work under this, as do alot of warbands. Ghazi, Moorlocks, Monks etc are all under the microscope here.
Unit stats are 100% the issue with the game. The main problem that "elite" armies run into is that quite simply they are more likely to get run over and get bogged down. They don't kill fast enough nor are they survivable enough. You can have a 200pt link team of HI, yet an Inferior Infiltrating Grunt who costs 11pts is an existential threat to them because one flamethrower hit is entirely capable of gutting that entire link. It's a quirk of Infinity that it is a hyper lethal game, but the result of that hyper lethal design is that "elite" units can and do die very suddenly to things that cost a fraction of their own. And I'm not just talking about getting hit by crits. Your opponent puts an 8pt retard Daylami on the table, but he's armed with a Panzerfaust. If he hits your 50+pt HI odds are its ass is grass, yet you cost 5-6 times the amount he does. Because of how lethal these units are elite units can't afford to play aggressively against them. If there are 3 daylami on the table you have to fight them 1 by 1 because you can't run the risk of losing a single firefight to them and that burns your orders. If you make the elite units both harder to kill and more capable of murdering low cost models (think Terminator gunning down Imperial Guardsmen or the like) then "elite" units can play more aggressively with their orders.
And what solution were you hoping to see that would somehow make up for the fact that elite armies are at a huge order disadvantage? If the new units for Haqqislam is any indication, they seem to be giving tougher units to more fragile sectorials. This could mean that the sectorials that are the most dependent on order spam to win will be getting tougher units to help them compete in a 15 order limit tournament. So this could be a non-issue once N4 full comes out.
The first thing I would do to address this issue? Try making anything that's supposed to be durable tougher. Give them more wounds, make the order spam armies simply need to burn more orders to bring them down. That would be the first thing I try.
The problem with that solution is that say a Swiss Guard with 3 or 4 wounds is going to be incredibly tougher. I have to wonder at one point such buffs change Infinity from a game where everything dies fast to a game where Elite armies just tank attacks. I think I prefer a solution were order spam dependent armies are given the tools they need to win at 15 orders. That seems far better than having some factions only able to be competitive if they can spam 20 orders.
I have the feeling they will be few or no changes for that factions in N4. If we go by what we have seen about rules changes and the new sectorials, N4 has been either rushed or a lazy work or both. And yes, at least ISS has other builds even if the most effective one was KS spam; I ran Wu Ming link so not very worried about this.
That's the medium you have to find. Right now, it's way too skewed towards cheap units thrashing expensive units in firefights. Whether your make elite things have more wounds, have more armour, or simply fight way better in ARO the fix is to make them take more orders to kill than they do right now which means their stats/rules need to be better. Well that requires complete faction identity overhauls and reworks. I'm not opposed to that being a solution, but given that they've said there are minimal changes to existing armies I'm not confident that they've done this.
So elite units keep being mediocre at best but now they just force you to play them or waste points. A really shitty and amateur decision that causes ripples across the entire game I'm not sure they even acknowledge, let alone fix. Every time they come up with on of these solutions they just seem like a house rule a casual player would enforce for his games, and I don't think that's healthy for the game.
*shrug, honestly a lot of games I've played have between armies at 14-16 orders so this isn't a big change to me. ISS and TAK works damn well at 15 orders. Its more some super squishy order spam dependent sectorials that will struggle. Such as USARF and Hassassin Bahram and we already know that Bahram is getting new units that will certainly help it compete at 15 orders.
Oh, I have been playing just because I like the miniatures for a long time, all my games are beer and pretzels so I'm not overly worried.
To be fair, the changes to MSV1 and Crits do add more value to some of those medium/high cost units. How that is going to stack up against coordinated hacking and the hacking device consolidation remains to be seen.
I am the same way. Which is why I have played 15 order lists with even Ariadna factions. Just to see how they do. I still say my preferred solution is to go through order spam dependent factions and give them tougher units. Barham is getting exactly that which is exciting. So hopefully other order spam factions like USARF can get some help in the future. That said, I am more patient about this because I find it unrealistic for them to retool all the tons of sectorials in the game right when N4 is released.
So the question we're running into here is if everyone is an elite army, nobody is. If we need to give Haqq Pan-O level shooting units to compete with Pan-O... now we've lost game diversity and we've just got green versus blue Pan-O. Well that's where opinions differ, and those who utilise such armies are probably more in the mindset of "well it wasn't fucking ready to release then was it?"
I don't think going down to 15 order is such a drastic change that everyone needs to function like Pano. I'd say even most factions in the game already perform well at 15 orders. Factions that need help, like USARF, are already overshadowed by TAK even when they try to order spam. So the factions that need help the most are already overdue for a rework. Also, we've already lost game diversity because order spam is so dominate in the game that most people take 16+ if not 20 orders already. Every faction in the game does it. Even the most expensive armies try to get to 15+ orders. Thats not healthy for game diversity either.
