Mindwipe and "Killer Hacker Devices"

Because you aren't the TO and everyone else in the tournament/game/club really wants to play a faction that isn't USARF?

Or maybe you want to play a mission where you need to defend 3 points and you won't know which one is important until your opponent pushes a button and where you can't alpha-strike the ***t out of the objective turn 1 and where your opponent pushing a button before you means your choices for where to go to push the button yourself becomes more limited, and then you can move your D-Charge Sakiel who no longer suffers -3 on the melee roll and has a bit more CC into CC with the confirmed target and somewhat reliably blow it up?

Or maybe you look forward to killing the enemy's Überhacker in an awkward position and then watch them waste orders trying to pick the program up with another hacker so that they throw the game away?

I mean, I don't know what mission monky braek boks is and I don't know what mission PAC is (can't find it in ITS 2016, 2017, 9, 10 nor 11), but I don't think I've played a mission with this kind of dynamic at all and I really look forward to it.

Kamael isn't much better than a Zhanshi or Fusilier and Tohaa is no longer the worst non-Ariadnan faction at hacking. Like I wrote in what you quoted; the good hackers for this mission are going to be somewhat rarer than you might expect, as most hackers will need to sacrifice something to use the irregular order, be it being awkward for the link or being unable to enter Marker state.

End of the day, the Servers have an ARM of 4 and 2 STR - that's not hard to break for a Krakot or Makaul

--

Anyway, I'll be playing this mission tomorrow and I likely bring hackers that are worse than Kamaels, I'm sure it'll be just fine.

 

Letting the TO essentially soft-ban factions by picking a certain mission does not seem to be an acceptable state for ITS to me.

I do believe that would be looting and sabotaging.

The difference is that Yu Jing and PanO aren't forced to take their basic LI as their Uberhacker; Imperial Agents, Celestial Guard, Acon Regulars, Nokk, Locusts... there's a plethora of hackers to choose from, some of which you're probably taking in your list regardless of mission. Meanwhile Tohaa HAS to take their basic LI (one of the worst in the game, at 12 points for BS 11 and WIP 13) in order to get the mission-specific benefits, while Ariadna for the most part get stuck with a Merc.

I also question who, if not Tohaa, has the worst hacking in the game, because even a Wardriver has +3 BTS over the Kamael and get Zero-Pain for defense while being significantly cheaper and 0 SWC (still cheaper and 1 SWC for the HD version).

 

If we go that route, nobody would play certain tournaments. Well, unless we all play boys in blue, be it with golden trim or without.

Also, I mentioned Tohaa, not USARF. While I do have some Aridanan models (Scots guard, Uxia Covert action, the TAK Zarya specops...) it's with PanO the only faction I don't play/collect.

I prefer to defend the consoles in the center if at all possible... otherwise, hunt Antimaterial/ D-Charges enemy units. The lack of Panoplies in this mission means you either have AD or Hidden Deployment troopers able to break the target, or those will be hunted down without remorse...

Why? 1 order of DA weapon can bring down a server in a single order, the hacker needs a critic to do so, with a 55% chance of wounding :S

Looting and Sabotaging (season 9) which amusingly is also present on the ITS12 (two biotechvore and two "break only in melee" missions in the same ITS... sigh).

 

Blackjack issues aside, I've seen many people not share that sentiment. USARF's ability to take a punch and hit back hard seems to be well intact this addition, with the plethora of AP Spitfires it can throw around and the incredibly cheap ARO piece that is the AP Sniper Grunt.

But that's risking getting off topic so perhaps we should continue that conversation in the USARF thread.

 

No, my point was that Tohaa would play this mission simply like Looting and Sabotage. Which begs the question of why add both missions to the same ITS, on the one side, and why add a redundant one with overcomplicated mechanics that, in fact, by taking away the Panoplies, can lead to a game lost because the player literally has no means to blow the target server.

Funnily enough, Aleph would deal with this mission with 20 points. A chain rifle Ekdromoi carries an AD weapon, has Stealth and superjump, and is a melee specialist -.-U

 

Honestly that sounds like he built his list into a house of cards, then couldn't handle that going sideways. I've played USARF competitively since their inception and I have been finding them to be more effective in N4. Between not having to over-infiltrate grunts and the overall reduction in cost, they're in a fantastic place. I have never found them to be an army which relied on the link team to deal damage, and while the Unknown Ranger has got significantly better, I'd still be weary of using a 5-man offensive link in USARF. What N4 really does is open up more attack vectors, the Devil Dog with shotgun is bananas, Mavericks are amazing, and the Airborne Rangers work very well now. Yes, the Unknown Ranger in a link can pew pew things, but I think it's a bit of a trap.

That said, Mindwipe is going to be VERY hard for USARF, as is Looting and Sabotage (no more guaranteed D-charges). Aside from having to Rambo the UKR and Rosie up in a link to bash consoles, I don't see many options. It's unfortunate, but Anti-Materiel has always been something which USARF struggled with.

 

There are plenty of missions that do a harder "soft-ban" on select factions than this one. And yes, there are factions that are better than others at some missions, that will always happen. I'll share an unpopular opinion with you; it's nice to see a mission that doesn't soft-favour factions that play like Tohaa or Ariadna for once.

JSA has it worse in this mission as far as a hacker goes, but just like for Tohaa you basically have to actively sabotage your own list in order to not make one that's not at least some redundancy for completing this mission. You're blinding yourself over stats; price, linkability availability and extra utility are all more important than WIP and BTS, and Kamael have total availability, are Tohaa so have good link options, an okay price, and thanks to how CB changed the faction for N4 can actually get some external utility from them.

I write about USARF because that's the only faction I can accept is disfavoured in this mission. Like I wrote above, you need to actively sabotage yourself to be bad at this mission as Tohaa.

Pull that one about how you can just kill the LT easily as well. It's easier said than done, particularly if your opponent is aware of how important a certain piece is.

The hacking program is Double Action. It is unfortunate that it's burst 1, but an average WIP hacker (14) will has about 20% to bring a Server down in one order which are decent odds depending on how the terrain around the servers look like.

Ah, yes, Looting and Sabotaging. In a season where we have both Capture and Protect as well as Rescue, I don't think Looting and Sabotaging makes much of a blip. And not like my dislike on principles that I have towards Highly Classified and Biotechvore, but Capture and Protect and Rescue are probably the least fun games I've ever played in wargames and I've faced double pre-nerf Hell Turkey in WH40K -.-;;

 

There's actually an interesting set of mission s for tournie in:

L&P
C&P
Mindwipe
Unmasking
Decap

They all fundamentally ask you to do the same sorts of things but with slightly different emphasis. So there's diversity without really going "this one mission is very different to the rest".

Yes, some factions will struggle with that line up. But fundamentally it's easier than having to build 1 list that does 4 missions and the other list for this one mission even for factions that struggle with the "DZ/near DZ penetration" archetype.

 

Yes, I'm not defending an alpha strike. Looting & Sabotage could easily implement the "can't break the target on turn 1" the same way Mindwipe does.
In Mindwipe, those able to deploy 2 AD troopers on turn 2 can break 2 servers with some ease... Aleph, I think, is one of the most prepared for that because of the Ekdromoi (40pts for 2 Combat Jump troops that carry Antimaterial melee weapons is not a great sacrifice. And you have access to Scylla, the only EVO + Trinity hacker with a Pitcher and 1-2 peripherals, giving you yet another good option...). On the other hand, other factions can't afford those 2 AD troopers, have limited access to Antimaterial melee weapons, or depend entirely on D-Charges.
Considering there are no Panoplies, that can lead to a list with no chances of being able to break any enemy server.

As I mentioned, I can see this mission heavily favouring Aleph's tools (the Greek part, but I've always been a vanilla player first).

I would make it so that consoles can be activated as Panoplies to get D-Charges (just that, no other gear options). That would normalize the situation more.
As for the AD Trooper dropping and swinging, the only options are placing cover so that it has total against an AD Trooper (with a slim wall to the front), or for it being in the open but providing no cover at all (as a marker, for example), and even there, it is possible for 1-2 AD troopers to get in and move, thanks to not needing to place the circular template anymore.

I wasn't talking about Tohaa being unable to win the mission, since as you say they have other tools. But this is a case of "new game, but you play it like the old one while the others enjoy the novelty". Which sucks.

Uh... I'm more of the opinion that the average WIP in hackers is 13, frankly. Even considering there are one or two with WIP 16-17 (CA), and several with 15 (Nomads & Aleph mostly, but O12 skews the graph).
Not relevant to this, of course.

To be fair, I consider there has to be a "tax for new players" in the ITS mission lists: Annihilation should always be there, and Supplies could rotate with the 3 antennas & control 2+ as the "button pushing for newbies".

Capture and protect was a little more balanced in its first incarnation, when it was needed to activate a console before the beacon was "stealable", now it's just a Capture the Flag. Rescue is simply an order hog, now that we are limited to 15 troops and nothing prevents you from losing 2 regular orders if you go first (so if you are playing a LI list, you better win the initiative...).

 

Having now played the game, my reactions to this mission is just about the same as all missions that sticks objectives down in respective deployment zones; move those objectives out of the deployment zones and they're good. The over all mission design is actually great. The dynamic of denying your opponent choices by having consoles be activated only once and only once per side is great. The dynamic of having several points to defend is great. The dynamic of having the target objectives inside opponent deployment zone, having a very high ratio of points rest in those targets, and needing to get into base contact with it is catastrophic.

Since you can't shoot the objectives, this means you need fairly specialised gear to do get past your opponent's defences or a very cooperative opponent; that is to say one who deploys all their defensive assets for shooting across the table - which does happen, but this doesn't make it good design.

I can see two ways of making this mission great (pick one);
1. Deploy the servers like HVT and with an exclusion distance between each other. This gives the players a small amount of agency over the particulars of the server positions while forcing them out of the DZ and onto the map where it is reasonable for your opponent to be able to make it even after one approach has been foiled.
2. Allow anti-materiel ranged weapons to harm the servers. The mission seems designed for this anyway and this also reduces the sectorial design impact significantly allowing factions that struggles with deploying sufficient amount of decent anti-materiel CCWs to compete better. Also increase the burst of the hacking program to 2.

My own game ended 4-4 after I was basically tabled by a Zeta NCO, having deployed my Guijia poorly. The O-12 player simply couldn't push any Anti-materiel weapons into my DZ with a handful of Zhanshi and a Pango Shotty guarding access. Ultimately I think I threw the game (that I could've won by 5-4) simply by trying to get a repeater near the Zeta instead of just shooting it to death with a K1 Combi or by conserving my orders.

@xagroth depends on how you count it, it really does. Most people will deploy tactical hackers with a WIP of 14 or 15 while I think the weight of numbers hackers with WIP 13 will be ever-present in this edition, so it's a matter of if you consider the latter to be part of background static or not.

As for the "new game old design" kind of deal; Tohaa are discontinued. I think most of the discontinued factions got a bit more than you could reasonably expect and I think the subtle change to make Tohaa hacking possible makes the faction interesting.

 

I agree the OOP factions, at least at this moment, have received impressive upgrades. Some are direct, like the AzRail, but some (like the hacking in Tohaa) are indirect, a consequence of change in basic rules; for Tohaa, the reduction to four types of hacking device (normal, plus, killer and EVO) means that what before was a white or defensive hacking device, gets upgraded to a normal hacking (on the other hand, changing the Nullifiers to deployable repeaters is a nerf, not as big as in N3 because of the Flash Pulse not getting Fireteam bonuses, but a nerf nevertheless).

There is a fear here, coming from the table design in tournaments and the extra difficulties of preparing all tables for all missions; making all objectives that need to be destroyed by Antematerial weapons inmunne to ranged damage is an effort to simplify the TO's live, I assume. Inelegant, but functional.

This is so true, and has the extra problem of "kill too much, and it's retreat and you lost your podium chances", something that also couples with the "get +1 tournament point if you finish the game with almost the same OPs as your opponent" (while I think it's a good idea, I fear a lot of people will try to achieve at least that, and lengthen the games by thinking how to).

 

Slap on a "Point Defense" rule that doesn't let attacks outside ZoC hit Servers and that issue gets a lot easier. Hell, even leaving it as CC but removing the specific requirement to bring relatively restricted Anti-Materiel CC weapons would make it a fair bit easier to handle.

 

How does it simplify a TO's life?

The issue right now is that the game's design doesn't really allow you to get across the table into your opponent's DZ unless your opponent chooses to let you do so (either by deploying in a way to give up one whole side of the table or by letting you take some really favourable trades so that all you need to do is move-shoot, killing one enemy per order). I really mean it when I say allow ranged AM weapons to kill the servers; I do think it should be possible to use a missile launcher from across the table to destroy a server or two if the servers are located in the middle of the opponent's DZ.

Or have them be located outside the DZ and let the players decide where.

Fair tables aren't equal tables or even equal sides, but the more of the table to force the players to move over the harder it is for the table makers to set up or make interesting and fair tables.

 

Honestly, giving them a Sat Zone effect would help balance the issues quite well: it'd reduce most AM BS Attacks to B1 (*looks meaningfully at the Karhu Feurbach*), significantly reducing efficiency.

That and allowing the player to place them like a HVT would balance the efficiency between CC and Shooting.

If you don't want to let the player place them then adding a Reflective Low /Poor Vis effect (al la Albedo) would also serve to reduce efficiency.

Point being that there are options for reducing the efficiency of ranges attacks that are significantly less blunt than "you can't shoot this!"

 

that is precisely the "can only be damaged in melee" rule, with some fluff slapped...

If it were expected from the TO to provide scenery with total cover to each target that the ITS document has ruled as "can only be damaged in melee" or let the player that goes first to annihilate those targets with any antimaterial ranged weapon, the missions would be much harder to see in tournaments...

 

Whut? I think you're going to have to expand your entire thought process here. Like all of it.

1. I'm arguing that the mission puts a huge amount of strain on the game's order economy by placing the objectives so far back
2. Giving the players the ability to choose where they go gives agency to the mission and makes even tables that look the same every time they are set up play very differently each time.
3. I'm also arguing that the fact that so many scenery items accidentally ends up in front of where the servers go simply to make the game at all playable for the player going second, you don't need to make any terrain alterations if they can be shot with missiles.

Defending the servers is actually very easy because they can't be alpha-struck, they are so far into your DZ, and your opponent can't really pre-deploy to reduce order inefficiency if they don't get lucky on the server roll.

As such, I am of the opinion that this mission can go from what's currently arguably somewhere in the bottom half of the list if you ranked ITS missions for playability, to much closer to top 3 if you made one of two suggested alterations.
There are absolutely more ways you can improve it, and I love the premise of the mission but this is not a new Frostbite or Unmasking as it is currently. More like a new Capture and Protect.