I frenzied a Sakiel the other day. Could probably count on my fingers how many times I've triggered Frenzy in like 11 or 12 years of playing. On one hand only if you discount all the libertos that somehow survive their attack runs. A few ideas or comments to add to the thread or suggestions here; Biometric Visor prevents Impersonators from deploying within its line of sight, in addition to other effects mentioned ITT. A small change that makes it a more proactive option in defending obvious LT from Infiltrate rolls. Fold Jump and Climb into the Move skill. 1" of jump or climb movement costs 2" unless you have SuperJump/C+. Makes movement, especially of teams, more fluid. Removes wasted orders moving the last 2mm to the base of a wall etc. Movement should only be expensive if it makes sense for it to do so. Cap pitcher range at 16". Seen this suggestion come up in a ton of these types of discussions. I feel GML play needs alterations that allow it to be interacted with, and forcing a would be attacker to close the distance plays into that. Repeaters generate an ARO when utilized by the enemy. Some variation on this approach would be a good way to make GML play more interactive. It forces the attacker to find angles and positions that are out of sight instead of simply 'wherever the fuck you want' in order to make multiple spotlight attempts. Just my 4 cents worth.
Wow LI Tunguska with only 10 models? That sounds pretty tough given they don't really have access to extra orders.
It´s defenetly not easy mode and you have to deal with some disadvantage, but its managable. Me and 2 friends all ran LI Tunguska in the last breaths of N3 on a tournament with an avarage order count of 23+ orders just for fun. Mostly dirt cheap stuff with 1 or 2 hitters. Not my most succesful tournament for sure, but top midfield was fine for that. The lists mostly depended on high mobility and being a hard speedbump that could take a punch or three for everything what to come. And puppetbots are annoying little shits ^^
The only data we have that is not strictly anecdotal is from N3 during the brief period when people were interested in this extra and SP took everyone's lunch money to an utterly silly degree. IA was the only faction that performed to an expected average. Generally outside said extra, everyone is always better off with more than 10 units, even with the CT protection. Having it is essentially a trap - with a small risk that a run away list that can do it well risks doing it too well.
but LI, as I understood, was never a "one for all". Ofc some factions did preform way better than others, thats due to their nature. Just compare vanilla to sectorials: if you can move half your list with one order, that´s something i would call an advantage to "one order, one modell". I did not visit or remember one tournament with LI as the default for everyone, it always was the compensation for limiting yourself by the most important ressource this game has: Orders. Facing 2 full combat groups with half the orders is always challenging, and preventing the enemy to take away nearly 20% of your ressources is a big thing. But without that it just isn´t worth it
Limited Insertion was an ITS extra similar to Reinforcement right now. There were a bunch of tournaments running it. And we're not talking about a small difference of about 10 per cent units between the neglected sectorials (not necessarily corresponding to current OOP) and CA here (which if memory serves was best performing vanilla), we're talking how SP snagged more than 65% win rate average and everyone but IA (50% iirc) sitting at 45% or lower with large number of factions barely not even competing (which is as expected of course). Again, since there is no large data set for N4, this is N3 data which showed very clearly that more units more better. Aleph and SP had some of the lowest unit counts (once you accounted for the skewed data due to proxy), but they also showed a clear trend towards more units more better, especially among the better performing players. The outlier was IA which managed to both sit at close to 10 units and not drop too far below the average win rate, if memory serves. Essentially, when faction design is done right, TacAware and NCO are catch up mechanics. When done wrong* they are get ahead mechanics. As a final edit: yes, old data. Many of the trends we saw are still there, however several factions have been more drastically changed. I wouldn't feel even remotely confident using that data to talk about Bakunin or ISS, f.ex. * tangentially it may be time to review which TAGs still need TacAware.
The other thing with LI is what happens if you run into someone with Counterintelligence - they knock off 4 orders from you and your active turn 1 is in a rough spot. Overall, there doesn't seem to be much logic with what factions/sectorials get Counterintelligence. Frankly, vanilla shouldn't have access to it. It's more of the "some factions are just better" stuff.
That's not how Counterintelligence works. It doesn't allow you to spend a command token twice pregame. It reduces how much the other player can limit your command token usage if you go first. https://infinitythewiki.com/Counterintelligence
... What? Counterintelligence only works if the player with it is going first, it does absolutely nothing if you're going second. If they choose to dock you 2 orders, Counterintelligence reduces it to only 1. If they choose to limit you to only 1 Command Token available on turn 1, Counterintelligence bumps it to 2.
Right, that's been changed from the book wording. Good. The wording before July of this year implied you could use it as I described.
tbh I think Spotlight is fine and provides some counterplay to units with Mimetism or skills like Dodge (-3), while also inflicting a -3 to Reset. It can help weaker units stand a fighting chance at the expense of some setup, and making that form of counterplay too hard to activate is a bummer even if it’s a little niche. I’d prefer if Reset could FtF a Guided attack roll; it’s still at -3 and the Guided is still at +6 but if the Reset goes off then the missile loses lock-on and Targeted goes away. My concern with Spotlight allowing a BTS roll is a) that will make it much harder to inflict against targets that you really need it to affect, and b) you can already Reset against it, but if you also have the opportunity to just tank the save then the incentive to Reset goes down. re: Frenzy, I agree that something is off, but I also agree that addressing it properly will probably require more than just a blanket nerf to the skill or to Impetuous units in fireteams generally. Impet fireteams aren’t really a problem for the most part, and losing the ability to claim Cover in a link is going to hurt the non-offender factions a lot more than it will the ones that are at fault. As a midpoint, rule that being in a Fireteam doesn’t suppress Frenzy, but allow it to suppress Impetuous as it currently works. That way if a linked Grrl does a Wound she will always become Impetuous regardless of what happens, but as long as she remains in the link it doesn’t apply. This won’t entirely solve the issue, but it might take some of the sharp edges off.
Regardless, however, counterintelligence should be removed from some factions (Nomads) and given to others (PanO, YJ). It's both a fluff and game balance fail the way it's implemented.
Right, on Taowu, so not in all their sectorials, and not on their actual counterintelligence agent unit.
So? I guess you want to imply every playable army list should have counter intelligence then? Or, every army should have access to every toy? Still YJ has counter intelligence. Period. It's known that sectorials don't have access to everything from it's vanilla part.
Hey guys, OP here. Thank you so much for all your feedback, thoughts, ideas, and constructive discussions. There are some really good ideas in here that are better than mine. I had planned to write a detailed reply, incorporate the best ideas into the first post, and participate in the discussion. But the continuing tone-deafness of CB, demonstrated by the utter lack of effort to improve Reinforcements or the rest of the game with ITS 15, and their ongoing refusal to show even a shred of interest into any feedback the community is giving them, had me finally realize that I was much too invested in this idea that CB cares about improving their game beyond the absolute minimal effort. My tipping point was reached when @psychoticstorm started deleting posts in the Reinforcements feedback thread because he personally doesn't think they were relevant feedback. That just took the last remaining gust of wind out of my sails. For the last two years, I have been following the conversations about how this already really good game could be improved, getting into them myself repeatedly, discussing it with others, trying to get CB to listen — all culminating in creating this thread. But I have been disappointed by CB's lack of response, respect, and even simple reactions so many times now that I realized it is healthier for myself to simply stop caring so much. This doesn't mean I will stop playing this wonderful game or buying and painting more wonderful miniatures (and posting them here). I will just stop expecting CB to listen when it comes to rules and balance problems, and also stop participating in these discussions that are built on the hope that they do. I'll focus on the part of the hobby I enjoy, play the game that I like, and simply accept what CB throws our way. So, feel free to keep discussing whatever you want in here. But I, for the foreseeable future, am out.
I am sorry you feel this way, but a constant and repeated barrage of "you do not playtest your game" in one variant or another stops been feedback.
Maybe, just *maybe*, it's because it's been years since it hasn't looked any other way to people. On the good side, CB released Reinforcements a month or so before ITS15, unlike the Xenotect mechanics from ITS10 (that lovely thing that let you Syncro a civvie, who could not get attacked but would generate an ARO, with an MSV2 with smoke in the middle, so the target would have to choose between declaring Dodge at the Moving civvie while the MSV2 were under smoke, or lose their ARO. It only took like 6 months for CB to patch it. And it's not like the testers were unaware of said idea for the ITS before the Interplanetario... /heavy irony). On the bad side, ITS15 has been released and there was not a single nod from CB in the feedback thread Koni himself opened. Not even a "yes, we are aware of how underwhelming the Commlink skill is, we will rework it or remove it", for example. Then again, CB has been focusing more and more and more in the next big thing coming, the best limited time release, the next... FoMO pure and simple. That's no way to make a lasting, quality game, that's a way to make a game akin to fast food, but with rising prices... I don't see many people paying 100 bucks for a Big Mac menu.
