The ecosystem the original fireteams were created and the ecosystem Infinity has now are two entirely different worlds and fireteams need to deliverer different solutions to different problems, two equal but different formations of fireteams is a good direction to be heading towards.
Not since you can easily have a HI with BS 13/14 in a cheap LI fireteam. Power creep had them gone. But back in time HI were usualy ava 4 to prevent 5 men HI. Also if you invested in a 5 men medium infantry that meant a lot of point and less tactical flexibility since it was the same troop 5 times. That is why people usually tended to have LI in a core. Because having Medium or HI core was too expensive. Usually a sectorial list would be strongly defined by which core fireteam it chose to field. It added a lot of flavor to the list imho. Also having 5 identical trooper was super nice from a hobby perspective. Much more coherent than now.
It's not really a case of there being "better" units to slot in, though. Outside of some very specific basic line trooper options*, there's not much room for long range ARO from basic troopers simply because they are too easy to defeat and too costly to buy into - and it's always been this way. Being the better option in a Fusilier link doesn't mean it's a good option compared to a Kamau link to just name one comparison of almost countless. (The silver lining is that a missile launcher's splash damage has a quality that a sniper can't ever replicate) * Ghulam snipers can make weird things happen at very low investment.
I've tried, but they died a horrible death. Same for Alguacile multisniper in QK ghulam core. Its just too easy to challenge them with a high BS trooper who has mimetism and burst advantage.
So what is the sweet spot for an ARO piece? What is reasonable for how difficult a linked sniper or ML should be to remove in the active turn?
If the best BS in your army is 14, even with an HMG it's not so easy to challenge a BS 14 burst 2 ARO, especially if the ARO piece has a range advantage (like being beyond 80 cm / 32" with a sniper or missile launcher). It's far from impossible but not as easy as today except with a few trooper.
I'm certain JSA will not use core fireteams as often if they were reduced to mono teams. I know CB wants their system to be as plug and play as possible but since they even throw that idea out the window when they restrict certain attributes, skills, equipment and weapons in various factions and sectorials, I really wish they would just fully consider the depth of each army instead of superficially and universally applying rules. I'm also certain it would be good for the game for fireteam rules and tactics to actually suit the sectorial they're applied to.
We've been told the bonuses will be different, not what the respective bonuses will be. We are just assuming the "pure" teams will have objectively better bonuses.
Will be interesting to see. I’d not mind if wildcards only got one of the bonuses for being in the fireteam for example but I’m eagerly awaiting confirmation of the changes, particularly how those that count as a “pure member” of the team will interact.
I like the idea of the comback of the "pure" fireteam. For example all Fusiliers (and count as Fusilier for fireteam composition) gets the usual boni, we know today. Put in a Orc and you don´t get the BS upgrade. Orc shot on 14 (Brigada etc. 13) but can withstand dangerous AROs. Rest of the Fusis are down to 12 but have 6th sense etc. No 40 points Fusilier powered "über"-Kamau or hit on 19 Grenzer without paying premium cost. Back to the roots but more flexible. I never liked the idea of a Zuyong team, that contain only one Zuyong. I hope the new rules will go in this direction.
I'm actually curious what counts as 'Pure'. Are 'count as' models part of pure If you reform a fireteam after losing a wildcard, does it become pure? Or does it need to be pure from the start. Do haris and other fireteams have the potential of being pure. As an HB player I tend to live off my Asawira pointed core. But if a Haris can get bonuses for being pure, I may try 3x asawira to have options of using a Mixed core + duo, or an Asawira pure Haris.
Has the idea of "pure" fireteam actually been confirmed or is it purely speculative? I have a very hard time seeing how they could change it to make them relevant. Sectorial are already in a dire spot at the moment, restricting them to be forced to take 5 mediocre profiles instead of only 2~ seems like a step in the wrong direction. With the 15 orders cap, being forced to commit a third of your list to mediocre stuff is a sure way to have a bad list. I really think making fireteams more flexible would be a lot better for the game. (And probably have bonuses that are more interesting than flat bonus to shooting)
Good questions that I hope will be answered in the upcoming rules. Now if there was more than one Asawira to buy that didn't look an awkward chunky hunchback mess, I will be very happy :)
I use the new janissaries instead. I used an old haqqi spitfire on the boarding shotgun one to make the asawira with spitfire. Got to say though, those janissaries don’t look like they should be S2…
One idea we had was that a pure fireteam would get an extra bonus for five man teams such as courage or something depending on what they act as in story (so perhaps a pure morat one would get pluses to CC for example). This extra bonus for a “pure” team would be lost if a wildcard trooper was introduced however the wildcard trooper would bring their own bonus to the team. In this way it would be advantageous to take either a “pure” or mixed team. Sixth sense needs to be looked at though overall.
The list below is absolute speculation, But some idea for the bonuses. I'd assume this is in addition to the regular bonuses. Move +1/0 +1 WIP for specialist skills or objectives. All team members count as specialists. May include a ServantBot attached to the entire fireteam. Or do we think there will be a different set of bonuses for each level of pure fireteams?
You could just do away with rigid fireteam compositions completely. Give troopers access to duo/haris/core, and if they have the associated skill, they can join the associated fireteam. All troopers with the core skill can join a core team, and so on. No more wildcards, no more special fireteam construction (if anything, you could impose limitations on certain units as necessary).
