I personally hate the idea of fire teams running around with guys who only have a ML and a pistol or something similar. Shit makes no sense and a MLs, FBs or RLs would never be a primary anyways... Snipers in real life are not part of fireteam but fire teams do have DMs so hopefully CB will make changes like those I'll suggest below to every faction in the near the future. Linkable troops with these weapons like Keisotsu or Tanko should have their Sniper Rifles turned into Marksman Rifles. Their Missle Launcher troops should carry, regular rifles, LSGs, SMGs and contenders so when they go forward with the rest of the team they arent a hi ference by not being able to provide a positive range band. In truth, many should replace their pistols since all have a ccw. Solo troops with these weapons should be looked at as well but given more consideration. Skirmisher snipers or cheap mimetism troops like the Ryuken 9 are fine to keep as is but a Swiss should also have a secondary weapon like a rifle. Yeah some of you dont mind, but other just simply dont wanna bring some troops cause of this or feel like they should leave that troop in the DZ breaking the fireteam in order to make sure that one model stays useful by remaining in their good range.
Swiss do have a Light Shotgun, it's the biggest difference between them and Hac Tao, as does a lot of units with Heavy Rocket Launchers and Missile Launchers. Assault Pistols (which are more like personal defence weapons or submachine guns than pistols) are also common secondary weapons on these units that their non-noobtoob counterparts don't have. Tanko don't have sniper rifles and I do think it's appropriate and even important that the missile launcher profile doesn't have the contender that the other profiles with disposable toobs have. But for the most part I agree that missile launcher and rocket launcher troopers should have what is essentially a primary weapon as it's mostly the game's abstraction that makes these toobs valid primary weapons.
Ah, fluff against crunch, the oldest battle in abstract wargaming I enjoy the design of ML and HRL troops having a close range sidearm like SMG or shotgun, especially because it lets CB do sculplts of them carrying both Troopers carrying an entire arsenal on them without a cost drawback is bad for the game because units having a zone of bad rangeband and only high burst or low burst/high impact weapons is very important in the game. Turning everyone into a universally capable operator would turn Infinity into more of a tactical RPG than a wargame where every piece has a role
Exception is that these small arms arent going to break anything. Giving a Keisotsu ML a Combi Rifle and actually charging him for the cost is something I'd be fine with and because it isnt night burst or high power it's fine, likewise the ML is not even medium burst. And this argument is mainly moving troops and what would an army really do, no a cool factor. Operatives would not be sent on missions that they have to stay put or impractically try to defend themselves with these weapons. If they survive or get resurrected, they're gonna chew their CO out and if they have a next mission they're gonna bring small arms not a pistol. I mean pistols arent normally brought by anyone. I get many of these troops might actually have it but th er y shouldnt. I'd support CB making these two weapons, two pistol weapons so troops sculpts still make sense. These along with the preexisting small arms would guarantee each troop with a ML,FB, RL would have a higher burst sidearm. B2 D13 AmmoN SMG Ranges Normal Ammo SMGs Linkable Snipers changed to multi and normal marksmen rifles means they dont have to break the fireteam.
I didnt look, I just remembered from the past. How an expensive Murderer like the HacTao doesnt have see something better than a nanopulser doesnt make sense. 1-4 points more is not breaking the bank.
Nanopulsers were different than shotguns in previous editions, and it fits with YJ's whole schtick of "the Concilium Convention is just guidelines, really."
I too hate the absence of weapon loadout realism in my alien-mecha-furry-hugearmoredguys scifi game :p (sorry, it was too tempting. Didn't mean to troll <3 )
Even if you were trolling, let's say fuck the realism for a moment, some people are paying 50+ points for a troop who shoots 3 times or less or not at all and just sits on a rooftop...
OTOH I've seen a well-placed Hac Tao pin down an entire army so bad that the other player quit Infinity.
Eh they are designed this way for gameplay reasons. You see how 'realistic' the profiles ate when you compare them to the rpg based characters who all carry a small arsenal and a giant toolkit of abilities. In reality every hacker would be Jazz and every fusilier would be packing msv and smoke grenades etc
Fusiliers are standard grunts. No msv for them, they're lucky their rifles improve their BS. And naa, not every hacker would be Jazz. If fusiliers are standard grunts, TAGs, HI and REMs are all common place, it means the piece of equipment is actually doing the majority of the work. Infinity labels things with program names for tasks, in reality, there would be a series of programs ran as a trial and error attempting a task. Ex: immobilize HI, program A is backdoor, program B is sandbox, program C is brute force etc etc. I think there is also a miscalculation on value of argument. Yeah, it is a game, but lots of complaints from players would disappear if troops functioned more realistically, cause then you really get what you pay for and not just some builds are optimized over others. Like the Boyg argument. One profile is meant to dish it out and the other is meant to get lucky. Which is another argument I've made. People firing an RPG or Javelin etc generally are trying to flank the enemy so while their buddy's using rifles are drawing fire they can pull off this B1 shot. If that's the case then how do you better translate that realism to the table. Cause current fireteams dont do it. Coordinated orders are damn close. But that's another thread and people are so split when talking about it but I think the real truth is, if CB made intuitive changes, people would chill out all on their own.