Sure you can, you just vault on and off it. Happens all the time. Lean out was a notoriously unneeded skill.
MI vs kitted out LI has been a confusing and unclear line since basically forever. Lat N2 at least, possibly before. Part of the problem has always been that the defining characteristic of MI was a disadvantage - the only good thing you got for being MI was a conceptually larger gear budget, but there’s nothing mechanically preventing an LI from having the same loadout but with a 4-4 MOV. I kind of agree with others that at this point in the game, any of the unit categories that don’t have actual rules attached to them are pretty redundant. Why are Kanren SK but Nøkken and Zulu-Cobra are LI? Why are Dakini and Unidron Batroids REM instead of LI, but the Medchanoid is LI, not a REM? Etc
I came to agree with this point of view, but my conclusion is that instead of MI classification being removed the distinction between them and LI should be made more meaningful. Possible solution would be making MI more durable by default. ARM 2/BTS 3 as baseline, plus some Immunity (Shock, AP, Critical, depending on unit) as a standard skill. From fluff point it'd represent increased protection MI gear provides, from metagaming perspective it'd protect the point investment. At the same time there should be a cap on LI protection. Your examples regarding SK/REM/LI confusion are spot on, the entire classification is a mess.
I’m not opposed to strengthening some of the distinctions, but it would require design discipline from CB.
For me the first and most important thing is bring back BURNT - like it was already said, many Mimetism-6 guys got big discounts, to only name Avatar, and they should still have some disadvantages. And then the weird thing with Naffatuns being more expensive than Ghulams would be a little less irritating. That and giving back +3 for grenade launchers. Why they're worse than throwing grenades?... PozdRawiam / Greetings
There’s the rub. Code One is a better game than N4, because the limited rules accidentally enforce design discipline.
I used to get huge mileage out of being able to downgrade TO Camo to regular Camo. Really miss that. Also to the reverse of the thread's question of what rules I want back, rules I want to fuck right off include the open information on LT WIP rolls.
N4’s big problem is alpha strikes. Things that exacerbate that (open LT WIP being one) need to go. Things that reduce alpha potential, like more camo shell games and more defensive uses for command tokens need to come back/be added.
Open LT WIP is a tool for faction design. It is applied well in some factions and less well in others. Certain units are promoted because of it, other units/profiles lose a bunch of the value. I would argue it's a problem with faction design or even individual units, and not a problem with the rule itself. Haqq which tends to have flat 14 WIP has beneficial design thanks to it, but when fielding Saladin it's not going to be much of a secret now is it. Meanwhile on the other end of the spectrum, Nomads with their limited LT selection and their rather overt attempt to design awkwardness into the chain of command have this awkwardness reinforced by this rule. What's left is the scattered other factions where it seems like the rule has unintended or "couldn't care less" consequences where the faction itself doesn't seem to have a stellar reason for having this weakness built in but still has it because e.g. Brawlers and Druze had their founding design drawn up when the WIP on LT wasn't visible.
Sure, Lt. choice variety and vulnerability are an important part of faction design true. However having the WIP be known has far more negative impact on the game than whatever positive value for some factions which got lucky with WIP spreads (which were mostly created before open Lt WIP). It exacerbates the alpha problem quite a bit. It also feels like a random choice, one of those crucial points that didn’t get playtested well or was made as an almost capricious choice and then stuck to, like some order-resolution choices etc. that came out in FAQs in N3, proved to be terrible ideas, but were kept out of stubbornness.
Does it exacerbate the problem, though? Wouldn't the problem be the actual alpha strike? It's not that the LT is your only vulnerability or mission critical piece. Anyway, we're straying off topic a bit, but if Lieutenant choice is the cause of too many hard choices when list building then why even have a Lieutenant - or maybe Loss of Lieutenant is the one that is the issue? This is not to say I don't agree that Lieutenant choice (or in case of Weathercock's cursing, the pretend LT) seem like pure chance if it is easy or a compromise for several factions, but some factions they do seem to have put some thought into the LT WIP values and made intentional designs around the value being public Anyway, it's straying from the topic. Just want to say that I appreciate the additional layer of mind game and list building compromise this forces in some places (while in other places it seems like they just let a bunch of sectorials be a victim of happenstance) Lean Out is (almost) pointless ever since the introduction of silhouettes, though. Burnt, though - can't support than enough. Bring it back!
DTW mode on shotguns. bring back the old shotgun rules, they were straight forward enough (if you read the FAQ)
I miss MOV4-2 discounts on some medium infantry. It was bad sometimes, especially mobile haris teams, but sometimes it was really nice to have that little discount in exchange for a downside. Grunts are one of my favourite Ariadnan troops just because they kept it (and are ARM3 models at low low prices).
Am I the only one who misses "extremely impetuous"? The current iteration just doesn't seem like a huge tradeoff for the discount it provides honestly.
There's a bigger functional penalty attached to being irregular now in regards to combat group limitations, which was what most of the extremely impetuous troops were in N3 so personally I think it mostly evens out.
