To be fair, the Wardriver can "hack back" with its Zero Pain or at least can defend itself. I also think that this choice is not optimal. Forces without access of a WD now have to include (buy, convert or just proxy) one. It would be not so much more afford to make a Brawler Commlink and a Keisotsu Commlink profile, while the others still exist. For the Reinforcements a alternative could be: JSA - gets its own choices from existing profiles (Tohaa style) Druze - gets the actual NA2 treatment Ikari - Yu Jing Dashat - Haqqislam Starco - Nomads Forco - PanO Whiteco - can choose Pan O or Yu Jing Sprial - Tohaa Finish!
You really don't need to play the game to understand that a tax is a tax. It's literally basic maths.
What I meant is that the Wardriver is pretty easy to kill because it's a hacker but can only defend itself. The other commlink can't atleast get hit by a Pitcher + Trinity combo.
You, sir, are a gentleman. Thank you, this sums up a lot of my concerns and opinions and sounds very, very professional. Awesome work, mate.
If only we could have an official CM as communicative as @Rabble. Hats off to you for that I just wish that kind of community data gathering was not left to only the community.
Don´t get me wrong, I am the first one in line of the "Biometric visor is way to situational for what he´s ment to do"-counter, but let´s keep in mind, that the equiptment is not just a anti-impersinator-impersination tool, but also able to look through Holoechos (which are dumb) and Killer-Hacker-Impersinations (which are plenty) But yes, still questionable in round 2+. Well, in the good days, back then when Limited Insertion had an actuall right to exist, that was a common "problem". Since 15 Units is the go-to standard for nearly everyone, beeing boiled down to 10 orders "feels" like you lack a lot of options (well, you are down by at least 5 orders, so it´s not just a feeling). The thing is to "re-learn" to get most out of the orders you are given. No critic, just that most people arent used to play down on 10 orders anymore, it seems. There is justified whine. Even imporant one. Best whine is the one thats well put together, cause it has a point and someone is able to use words to articulate properly, what it´s about, just look at @Rabble (well, that´s not whine, that something companies normaly pay money for). The problem is the loud, subjective, insulting, childish whine. The one that has a good core, but is not put in words others than "boohooo, thats dumb shit". And then theres whine for whines cause and the one that culminates in personal assaults, the pinacle of social interaction on the internet. There are points, that are important to put together. Lack of choice in terms of commlink-units for example. As a nomad player I have no idea how to handle auto-include units, especially if the cost around 20 points 0,5swc. BTW: can someone plz help me with basic maths? Everyone is talking about having to spend a tax of 20 points 0,5SWC for playing a reinforcment list. At the same time, the points in this gamemode go up to 250+100 points / 5+2SWC = 350points 7SWC. If i counted correctly (and i was close to even use the praised Dice-Calculator), that makes a plus of 30 points and 0,5 SWC. It´s like having a raise and now complaining about having higher taxes due to getting even more money. (needless to say that´s sarcasm) Actually a good point. The Main-problem people seem to have atm is the commlink, which could be changed in the blink of an eye. I realy love the idea of giving commlink to underrepresented units to motivate people (me included) to playing them, because,...lets be serious: Infarmers? Why? As someone beeing childishly uninformed about the company structure of CB I wonder if they have someone like him that is just not the transparent or communicative to the forum as an actuall user/player. It seems to be very useful having someone like that amidst their ranks. But, as said, i lack the insight on CB´s payroll.
High quality post! It'd be lovely if it actually did anything beneficial against IMP-2 and Holoecho besides ignore Surprise Attacks, just like it would be lovely if Holoecho was playable and worth the effort. Might be sarcasm, but from what I've experienced and heard so far the tempo and the lists of a 350 point reinforce game is lower than a 300 regular game. A bit more like getting a raise, but due to taxes, inflation, and the coffee machine now charging money per cup you're left with less disposable income - or at least this is what it feels like at list building. Game's been fun and different so far.
At 250 points infinity is an entirely different game, it is amazing how 50 points and 1 SWC change the entire gameplay, reinforcements too are balanced on 100 points offering quite the restriction when building the list.
This is the criticism right here. The majority of posts that I read in this thread are "this thing A is stupid, Nomad bias, my faction sucks, why comlink only on cheerleaders, I don't wanna pay SWC tax". The problem with those complaints are exactly what they are - they are worded poorly and focused only on negatives most of the time, while ignoring positives some or all the time. As my post was a reply to a person prior to me, and as a HR specialist myself, I have a lot of expirience of people complaining. Your department works hard for several months to impliment new and easy to manage holyday policy. Everyone needs to register their desired dates, the system is transparent, easy to access and have in-built features like accounting for total people on vacation leave and the like. It allows you to quickly change or place your own vacation leave and it staggers the placements from the bottom to the top, so lowest grade workers get the first picks and the vice-president of our branch picks dead last. And the only thing we heard for months are complaints as to how we pester the people all the time to register, they can not get the perfect dates they want, and what if they missed the deadline and not register for two months, how is that their problem? It is obviously our fault for designing this crappy system in the first place and if they did it, it would be perfect. And while noone is beyond reproach, and we implemented improvements to the system, the majority was just that. Whining. You can not take negatives without the positives, you can not adress negatives if everything you hear are negatives and the only argument is "this is stupid". Hence my comment on whining. Most posts were whining. They offered zero sum criticism. Only closer to the 4th page it finally develops to a propper discussion on the game mode, with arguments and counter arguments, discussion on changed profiles and the like. Anyway, I applaud you for your summary nevertheless and excise myself from the discussion. I am yet to have any games in the new mode, so my commentary can not add much of value. That is exactly the problem. A lot of comments here prior to 4th page were exactly that. "Boohoo that's some dumb shit". They offer zero anything except channel negativity. If it is dumb shit, explain, why. Provide arguments, counter-arguments, negatives and positives. The argument, that there is not enough variety in comlink profile is viable. Argument, that "+10 pts and 0.5 swc tax" is dumb is unviable. By paying this tax you allow yourself much more force on the board, albiet delayed force on the board. It is like arguing that it is dumb for your car to use petrol, why did it not use magical faerie dust from your imagination? Comlink is needed to allow new mode. Petrol is needed to run a car. If we accept petrol, why do we not accept comlink? Anyway, as my post was an answer to the previous post, I see myself as getting negative value into this thread, so I will shut up and extricate.
Note that I have yet to play a game with reinforcements (my local meta is short of players available to play this week :( ), but 'd like to know: Is the 250+100 format balanced to play against a regular 300pts format? Or this is meant for a Reinforcements vs Reinforcements gameplay only? Are there smaller (than 250+100) formats at which Reinforcements can be played? Perhaps CB is going to address these questions now - or maybe they'd consider handling that at a later date. Also: narratively, there are some missions in (at least current) ITS that prevent or penalize deploying outside of one's Deployment Zone. How does that interact with Reinforcements?
The free PDF will answer both of your questions. It is meant to be played as a separate game mode where both players use a Reinforcement vs Reinforcement list. The recomended 350 (250 + 100) size game is only one of the possibilities. It also includes you a handy table that gives you a range of 'Request Reinforcement' for games that range from 250 (150 + 100) to 400 (300 + 100) for your convenience. But there is nothing stopping you to play a 200 (100 + 100) game for example.
Reinforcements is an extra extras are game mods that are supposed to be played with both players playing with the same game mods, that been said there is an extensive testing by the community for 300 vs 350 reinforcements, initial reports are positive, but I expect further testing and reports are required to have a better picture of how that would really behave. I have no information on anything official for mixing normal Infinity with the game mode at the moment.
Then let me make a viable argument against that tax: If it were a tax on something that gives you a bonus over your opponent, it would make sense. But since both players are forced to play the same game mode and pay the exact same tax, it becomes arbitrary. Its cost could be anything, since both players are paying the same price anyway. As it stands, all it does is restrict your listbuilding options, which are already more limited by having 250 points and 5 SWC you need to fill instead of 300. Personally, I have also found that listbuilding for Reinforcements at 350pts is a lot more cumbersome than building for a standard 300 points game. Maybe it's just me, but the fact that I now have to effectively balance out two army lists towards their max pts/SWC cap is pretty tricky. I repeatedely found myself thinking "great, I have 14 pts and 1.5 SWC left, let's put in this troop", only to realize that 4 pts and 0.5 SWC were from my REF group. Were I was frequently able to get my lists to a smooth 300pts/6 SWC before, I now often have a bunch of points and/or SWC left in both groups, with no way to effectively fill them, and that just feels bad.
Also, I would make one more addition to this excellent collection of feedback: Army Update Feedback (- - -) There has been a negative reaction to the continued lack of explanation coming from Corvus Belli as to why they have implemented certain changes, why other units have not received any changes, and what their thoughts behind their strategy towards changes is in general. People were and are still hoping that the company starts looking at profiles in a more wholistic way. Examples for that would be: adressing (or at least discussing) issues with certain units and loadouts frequently raised by the community, looking at profiles and loadouts beyond ITS statistics, actively talking to the community and listening to their experiences, and consistently giving developer notes to their changelogs.
I do not mind the points lost because they are from another group, what I found challenging is predicting what role the reinforcements group will be called to fill in.
Your own reinforcements or your opponents? Given that Rwinforcements are public info from the start of the game, it really shouldn't be too hard to determine what role they will take, based on profiles taken.
My own in list building, if you want to make a more specialized reinforcements group and not a jack of all trades group you need to predict what elements you expect to lose before they come in and balance the kill and objectives completion power between the two groups. For example I recently made a three Gecko list with reinforcements made to support them, then I realized for the reinforcements to drop in the Geckos would need to be in null state making a reinforcement list to support them not viable.
I played my first game of Reinforcements tonight. Mission was Capture and Protect, I played Starmada vs Vanilla Aleph. Observations: 1) Losing the LT roll and being forced to go first is super difficult. Not only are you playing with a reduced model and order count (likely only 10 Regular orders), but when the opponent can still spend a command token and reduce those orders down to 8, suddenly you're not capable of making a meaningful attack. At 8 regular orders, I struggled to make a meaningful attack and kill even 1 model as null deployment is a thing, and 8 orders runs out fast when you need to spend several orders just crossing the field, not to mention having to deal with any enemy AROs. Honestly I think this is a format which could do with removing the ability of opponent to spend a command token to remove orders, it just felt like I was unable to do anything meaningful with my first turn, despite having Roadbots and Lawkeeper as fast attack units. 2) Given the low order count, it is very easy for models to get stuck in the midfield, which then die in the opponents turn. I had 3 models die bottom of turn 1, over 50 points worth but under 100. Top of turn 2 I was down to 7 Regular orders which felt even worse than Turn 1. To make it worse the opponent hadn't even killed 100 points of models so Reinforcements were not coming on either when they could have helped. The problem I see here is that a good opponent can do some basic math and cause significant casualties when you're only starting with 10ish Regular orders that it feels like you're not even in the game anymore, especially if you get unlucky of the first turn. A way to make this better would be to reduce the casualties required for Reinforcements to 50 points as was originally previewed by CB. 3) Missions that have scoring at the end of the round or end of game, feel like an auto-win for the player going second, even more tha they do for standard 300 point ITS missions. Usually for these missions if forced to go first trying to alpha the opponent and reduce their order pool is a way to help balance out the scoring advantage of the player going second. The ability of the player going first to attack has been very reduced with lower order count, to the point where it feels like you just don't have a chance to play the mission. I really hope that ITS missions get a big shakeup otherwise if we continue to see end of round/end of game scoring missions then the player going second will have a massive advantage over the player going first. Also the ability of second player to literally deploy their Reinforcements into a zone without AROs on Turn 3 in a Zone Control Mission and essentially automatically dominate a key zone for the win feels way to strong as there is no counter play that the first player can do to prevent this. Missions will need a large changes made to accommodate Reinforcements as they now stand. 4) What's up with Rwinforcements not being able to deploy into an Exclusion Zone for mission which have them, being forced to deploy a 5 model combat group essentially just outside your DZ, where you only have a few orders to spend on them, feels like it is going to suck.
