Going back to the commlink tax, cost and SWC issues aside (it costs far too much on both, that's the end of it), there are plenty of troopers that could make interesting use out of it. If we're relying on it to give troopers struggling for useage a purpose, why not focus on ones that could provide some utility that don't quite hit the bar on their own merits but could otherwise make better use of the slot than a line trooper? As things stand, factions that already make use of their line infantry gain a huge boost in efficiency, but those that don't, or those that don't want to build their links around that one core, are left with a frustrating dead weight and loss of agency in list design. There are more interesting ways to do this that fit thematically as well. Just going through Yu Jing, I see plenty of troopers that would be great recipients of the ability, and similar logic could be applied across the board to other factions: Zhanying Imperial Agents Pheasant Imperial Agents Taowu Tian Guo Sun Tze v.2 (This would be really interesting, and do a lot to make up for the 'loss' of Strategos 2's functionality) Sun Tze (he'd still be trash, but I'll echo the same point as v.2) Tai Sheng (gives her something now that she's pretty much wholly outclassed) Pangguling EVO There's plenty of room to give us actually interesting options that can give a bit more freedom back to listbuilding. For the most part, the less I have to worry about mediocre line troops, the better, I want to use more fun troops.
You know, it would already help so much if a CB staff member at least told us why they thought that commlink tax had to be there. As always, the most frustrating thing to me is CB's inability/refusal to just talk to their fanbase. Explain your thoughts. You must have had some. As much as I love Bostria as a brand ambassador, I would love it so much more if he was joined by someone from the team who understands the game and was actually involved in the design of new units and rules. You know, someone who could explain what CB's thoughts were behind each rule and profile. Oh my god how much the community would love that...
I wish reinforcement to be for an ITS event, two main section lists and two reinforcement lists. Begin with only main section list and decide which reinforcement to come when they drops. The way point is calculated to call reinforcement should be changed, but I think this would open some space for niche reinforcement profiles.
I'm still baffled on why it being open information is even a thing. Like... what is even the reasoning or justification for this? It makes zero sense that an enemy commander knows what the reinforcements are, and if they need to be open information then why are combat jumpers and TO still private?
I am guessing it is a mechanical and not a fluff reasoning, as it has been discussed before, reinforcements have perfect information, perfect deployment and no loss of orders or ARO, and for now at least whoever drops second (not necessarily plays second) has a distinct advantage. Moreover it is not just "a model" relying on an existing order pool that is already on the table and thus susceptible to attrition but they are an entire order pool that is impervious to any attrition. Giving full information of what reinforcements are is a balancing factor that allows the opposing player to plan accordingly. Some players that have already played reinforcements games say that they understand why it has happened and would not wish to see them become hidden information. Again this is something that mostly affects competitive/ tournament gameplay.
One suggestion I wanted to make. I recently played with the old Paradisio Mission. Back then you have 4+ turns to play or even unlimited turns. In these games, you usually have to throw all your army into the fight. In the last turn even the fusilier have to do something which makes for a very different pace in the game. Also the missions were very demanding in orders with a lot of button pushing. All this to say that one way to improve reinforcement mechanic could be that you play 4 turns. And / Or you have a lot of button pushing or objectif control / moving to do.
Bringing it up here as well. Dropping up to 100 points of fairly close combat slated units on last turn of the game currently indicates that a clever second player can score an almost guaranteed win in any missions with end-of-game scoring since it's often impossible to sufficiently protect scoring zones from such a push. Suggestion: Disallow Reinforcements to drop on turn 6 (the last turn) and have the player going second get their reinforcements guaranteed on turn 4 (their second to last turn, or the turn before player 1 has theirs guaranteed)
As I believe has been mentioned before, the assumptions about scoring, etc., are all predicated on the current ITS with the current Classified Deck. From the glimpse given at GenCon, it seems the information used to make those assumptions is radically changing.
This is a valid point, though I'd still like the baseline game length to be extended to 4 turns, for several reasons: It'd give both players an opportunity to try and counter opponent's Reinforcements; aside from mitigating the issue with scoring (assuming it'll indeed be an issue in the next ITS), it'd increase the interactivity between Reinforcements and opposing army. It'd still leave the strategy decision - deploying reinforcements earlier or later - to the controlling player, instead of forcing him to deploy them in a specific turn. It'd give Reinforcements more time to accomplish their objectives Reinforcements aside, it'd give some more playstyle flexibility between focusing on opposing army/focusing on objectives, as well as making game plans more resistant to unlucky dice rolls, giving some more time to recover.
I also believe it won't affect game speed surprisingly; with Reinforcements there's about a third less models on the table at any given time. Should buy time for an extra turn late in the game, as long as players don't get held up with decision paralysis.
Imagine if CB would scrap four fifth of all missions just because of an OPTIONAL Extra. I'm sure Frontline and Acquisition will still exist in ITS15. And unless hidden objective cards account for 5+ OP; I think it is a safe bet that the non-classified mission will continue being the most important aspect of the scoring; and will be what guides your list building and what makes bottom of turn 3 reinf an easy win (not an auto-win). And for those mission card, we still don't know if the players draws one, if it is the TO that draws one (TO are sovereigns of their Tournament, they can do what they want), or if the player can actually pre-select the one he wants (and thus build his list toward that). Imagine having 5+ OP coming from a last minute random draw of a mission objective !? Assuming those mission objective cards are worth at most 3OP, that leaves with most of the OP still coming from the actual player-agreed mission itself, and we already know 25 current missions and a few older ones as well; and most are not compatible (as in not balanced between player A and B) with Reinf. Reinf is an optional Extra, so it is not like CB would have time to massively change the mission line-up by September. Just adding Reinf and internally testing it must have already taken considerable man-hours of work (yes, my assumption that they actually played several test game to gather proper data), in addition to the time involved with just making a new season every year. My assumption is that scoring will be more or less in line with how ITS always worked, even with the addition of new classified deck, you score based on the mission; and my assumption is that CB don't have time to scrap over half the missions and make brand new ones for a rule that is merely an optional rule extra. I know I'm not right, but I can't be wrong by much.
No. It come to mind first, because its the lowest cost Lt. apart from SWC Algua. I use the NCO Spitfire often in haris with Jags. Sometime the KHD in a mixed link and sometimes even the Engineer as the third man for Geckos. Will also try haris of them when I paint the new ones up, so maybe at N5 ;-)
Ok, agreed, fair enough. Did not ecpect anyone else but me running wildcats others than the no-cost ltn, for i did not see one in the last.... 4 years? But at the end, just coming back to the initial point: give underrepresented units a option to (a better) commlink compared to the basic ones on LI´s and i think this would become a enjoyable thing to build an army list around. The problem is not to having to build an army around a special rule or equiptment (we do it all the time with leutnants, and we did it back in N3 with hackers or TAG´s to be allowed to field REM´s), the problem is, that it is an autoinclude of a single unit load out. Everytime if something like this comes up I ask myself if I would to want to do this job, and depending of the saltlevel of a release, pre-release, amount of nomad in it or just an unhappy moon cycle, I defenetly wouldn´t. Giving the community a person with a bullseye on its head that has to deliver the information WHY morans got cheaper or panO REMs get more expensive turns the "what the hell is CB thinking" from some of the more ...expressive members of this community into something way more targeted. I would love hearing the thoughts behind changes. I would not be the messenger of them.
But do you only think that because of the seeming lack of logic behind these changes? Point is, someone who has a high understanding of the game should be using logic and data driven research to make these changes, and should therefore be able to fully articulate why they've made them. Even if it's an unpopular one, I know from every other living video game and TCG I follow that people will be more receptive. Hell, the most blatantly evil thing CB could fully explain would be saying "Hey guys, we decided to remove the S7 squalo profile because we want the chumps who own that model to be incentivised to buy this new S6 one" and I honestly think that would get them less flack than just doing it with no explanation. Pretty much everything else, if it's a horrible explanation that just upsets the playerbase, they shouldn't be making the change. This shouldn't be a situation like magics Maro having to gently explain why the greedy parent company with no interest in card games demands they squeeze even more out of the cash cow players at the cost of the game.
This. In my experience, most of the anger comes from people automatically assuming the worst (either incompetence or pure insidiousness). Any explanation will be better than that. So... I would, gladly. If I have a good explanation as to why I'm doing what I'm doing, I don't mind the flak. If I don't have a good explanation, I deserve the flak.
I would like to point out that Ian was chased out of the forums and the wider Internet because some community members were not agreeing quite vocally with his in depth explanations and reasoning of why the rules are the way they are and why they changed. To some extend the community has shaped the communication, if your in depth knowledge and insight is not appreciated and mocked just because you do not say the words one wants to hear, why share it? In any case if and when more interactive communication is established again, be certain it will be closely monitored.
Well, once again it shows CB would be better off - at least in the eyes of this community - having a speaker / press secretary / public relations specialist of some sorts, communicating such news to the customer base. The issue here being - such a person would need to know the game well, and know where the changes are going and why. That'd allow them to avoid some of the traps you see in the news, when one or another speaker for a government or a political party keeps talking stuff that was already proven nonsense by the actions of someone else. I'm not saying that CB's speaker will tell us truth, all the truth and nothing but truth: it would be a company's employee, not a sworn witness in a court. But there's a certain form of art in telling people stuff that isn't exactly 100%, and in telling them stuff they don't like to hear. As the saying goes, a diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way you feel exctiement about the journey awaiting you. Bostria - with all due sympathy - doesn't really do that, and some people apparently take his tongue-in-cheek comments about, say, PanO / Yu Jing rivalry (with Bostria himself being, for years, a declared YJ supporter) very seriously.
Ignoring other problems I have with this, this makes it sound like you don't think the company has a responsibility to the players who keep the company afloat, pay their salaries, spend their hard earned money on this game under the understanding it'll continue to be playable, balanced and fun. Imagine if the prime minister decided he'd no longer discuss policies because ~40% of the country didn't vote for his party and complain about them.
