Yeah, WIP / PH rolls for deployment of critical and/or expensive units are what I do my best to avoid. I'd gladly pay top points for a guaranteed enemy DZ infiltrator.
It depends on what the risk vs reward is, and what mission. Quadrant missions are ones that I'll regularly take rolls on a Guilang for if I spot an exploitable opening in my opponent's line to bust up a link team or nail an LT. If I fail the Guilang starts on the table edge next to a quadrant anyway and just moves into it to contest, which is what they'd probably be doing regardless just putting points in zones if I didn't take the roll. In that case, low risk, high reward. There's no real negative downside beyond giving away the identity of a couple of camo markers if I botch the rolls. But if pass one or two rolls, huge swing in my favour.
We compare to try to figure out what the N3 profiles might be like. As of now, You can see the base Evader is superior to the base Haidao. Both are 24pts, HI, 1W+NWI, 0-G, BS13 but the Haidao has less skills and lesser weapons. CB has three choices with it: 1. Add skills and/or weapons, (or skills they have are much better than now) 2. Make Haidao cheaper. 3. Do nothing. 1 or 2 will make people happy, 3 will not. And as we can see Evaders even have AVA2 in Vanilla. YJ has AVA1 of Haidao. The same can be said for the Sombras vs. Zhencha. The stats are almost exactly the same except Sombras BTS6, both 1W+NWI. I'm not sure what Sombra would be considered the base. I'm guessing the SO with Breaker at 39pts. The Zhencha at 37pts has less BTS, not Shock Immune, hackable, and much shorter ranged weapons. So they have the same 3 options above.
It's just for a discount, same way 1W NWI Shock Immunity works, same way SMG used to work. You don;t have ability to risk a stupid thing, you loose 4" from the wise thing, it costs less points total. EZ. Infiltration will still be the exact same, maybe slight changes to make us more inclined towards risky game (PH roll - sure).
Well, exchanging Infltration with FD2 to save some points is not gaming the points formula. You get what you pay for. You essentially get 4 Inch less Deployment and save some points (or one point, I don't know). Otherwise BS12 instead of BS13 to save a point or two would also be "gaming the points formula". The only question is: Are the points you pay to get "real" infiltration over FD2 worth it.
In my experience it depends on the unit and the scenario. The first is actually desirable and helps shake up the relative strengths of each faction. The second really isn't; I basically can't take my MRRF into tournaments with exclusion zones because I'm wasting too many points on deployment skills I can't use as I need to. Good units for full Infiltration are things like Locusts and Ninja that can actually use the roll once in a while, and want to start as close as possible to the enemy or the objective.
After the video latest friday I'am a little concern for the rule "terrain", being something "positive" people will be more agree to play terrains, but... what will happens with that amazing troups which now have a really good base movement like "Achilles" or "The Sphinx"? Have someone thought that in N4, if no others changes come, Achilles if terrain will move 7" + 5" (30cm) and the Sphinx 7"+7" (35cm)? This could be some kind of aberration in game terms. They don't need more mobility.
Do we even know whether it's zero-sum for terrain (terrain gives -1" in both values, skill gives you +1", zeroing it out) or it's an actual bonus?
I doubt people will use terrain zones more often. They're kind of a pain - they slow down play and everyone forgets them constantly, especially me. There seems to be a subcategory of TTS tables that use a lot of terrain zones, so I've played with them more than usual recently, and it definitely hasn't made me want to use them more. Although, people almost invariably want to make terrain zones also be saturation and low-viz zones, which are even harder to remember. Pure terrain zones might be all right. Aside from the added complexity and memory work, my biggest issue with terrain zones is that they confer an advantage on a player that doesn't come from that player's good strategy. Like, if we play in a jungle and the table has lots of jungle zones all over it, then I'm rewarded for having decided to bring SAA. I'd rather be rewarded for making good decisions, not have advantages conferred arbitrarily. Hmm, this got pretty off-topic. To the topic, my point is that giving +1mov to terrain units in their home terrain doesn't seem likely to make terrain zones any less rare, so it seems like a non-issue to me.
I'm currently making a table with lots of terrain on it (it's a eco tourisn vacation resort that's been coopted into a black ops staging site - I'm a tiny bit over my head so working slower than usual) and am opting for specific effects rather than zones - forest terrain allows you to freely walk through bushes, water terrain is the most boring one with a bunch of brooks, and I'm planning on letting vines on rocks let mountain terrain unit use as ladders to climb large stone pillar features. When done I'll make an info sheet and use magic the gathering icons for forest, mountain and water key words :D
Depends on your group. Here we have a group that's fairly interested in using terrain zones in the terms of building tables. In particular there's been a table one member has been mentally crafting for some time, essentially like a half and half table on an asteroid, one half interior fire base, the other half zero G asteroid exterior. There's been some long running discussion as how to actually make that work though under N3 in a way that both allows the table to modularise for replayability and flexibility in set up, while also not causing the Zero G to utterly fuck everyone over who isn't a Nomad. With the N4 change though it's probably quite viable and easy to do while allowing the table to still have an impact through its theme.
That sounds like an extreme table, though. 2-3 areas maybe 8” across would be more normal, and you don’t have to/shouldn’t make them all the same Terrain type - have some marshy areas and the Jungle units are suddenly in as much trouble as everyone else. Plus all the usual complaints about MSVs being too situational and too dependant on your opponent’s list disappear if tables usually have 1-2 Low Visibility Zones on them somewhere.
True, I've seen some extreme TTS tables recently which may be skewing my worldview. I agree that if a table had a variety of different terrain zones, the problem of favouring specific armies would be solved. On the other hand, that would make the table that much more complicated. I guess I've never agreed with that complaint. I think of MSV as one of the most important skills in the game, almost an auto-include. It doesn't seem necessary to make it even more powerful by putting up low-viz zones for it to look through. Maybe I'm biased because my two Mukhtars are already so good, when you give them a low-viz zone it just gets gross. I should try putting together a table with a variety of different terrain zones, all of which are only difficult terrain (no low-viz or saturation). I might like that better.
Specifically that was a long running complaint about MSV1, not so much MSV2 because most people who wanted to kill something with an MSV2 gunner brought smoke to combo with. But if you had a forest a Guilang sniper could park its ass behind as an ARO with its MSV1 suddenly gets alot more dangerous than its stats would have you believe.
Can't fall anymore, jump needs to end on a surface or the movement is retroactively cancelled. So pogo shooting got cut in half and being able to parkour dive off buildings for distance basically got removed.
I purchased some thin synthetic fleece and cut it into amorphous shapes to place on the table for different terrain zones. Gradually darkening colors to represent thickening terrain.
And unless there are further specifics to Super-Jump that aren't in CodeOne; units with 4-4 movement can't Short-skill jump over obstacles that they can't also Vault over.
