N5 Faction Identity Wishlist and Discussion

A problem with Haqq IMO is the 15-order-generating-model-limit (however you want to call it). Irregular Orders are really hard to justify - either you have a max of like two, or you dedicate your second group to them and never do much actively with that. And you still have to get to 300 points, meaning more costlier units instead of the "traditional" quantity of cheap, irregular troops. Which you can see in the kind of new stuff Haqq has gotten in the edition: Expensive stuff like the Boktar.

I'd wish for N5 that the 15 model limit would at least be different based on sectorial. So eg. USAriadna get's 17 models, RTF 15 and Vanilla Haqq 16 or something like that.

 

Regarding o-12 identity... do you know that "other game" where you have shooty space marines, assaulty space marines, shady space marines, spiky space marines... and the list goes on with any kind of variant of space marine you can imagine?

In that game you have the STANDARD, CHAPTER APPROVED, BY THE RULES, FOLLOW THE HOLY EXCEL OF BUREUCRACY AND LOGISTIC, WE ARE THE DEFINITION OF VANILLA FLAVOUR space marines who happen to have a particular shade of BLUE AND GOLD ARMOR.

0-12 is the ultramarines of Infinity. That's the identity.

 

There's another post going the rounds where a self admitted non player of N4 was making a suggestion to go the 40k route of faction specific rules to help boost faction identity. I don't agree with that as that just adds bloat and gets fiddly while playing but what I think could work is faction specific points adjustments or discounts. Each faction should probably get a discount or "free" skills when using them in their home faction maybe even an extra bit when using them in their home sectoral. We already see some of this with some units i.e. the mentor LT in vanilla CA and the stigmata in vanilla nomads. Something like this could be done across board and be balanced for NA2 (a merc bolt working for forco gets no discount since they are harder to find off neo terra).

Some examples come to mind and are inspired by OP here:

PanO: 1 point discount across faction for any unit using a SWC weapon or 1 point discount to something tag based.
MO: further more when playing MO as a faction 1 point extra discount from the religious skill.
VIRD and SWF: terrain (aquatic) and terrain (mountain) are free skills and all fussiliers and orcs in the sectoral are only the varuna or sval divisions.

Ariadna: just make everything unhackable no cost adjustments for that. Even if Ariadna can into space they are still just using electronics not quantronics no reason a gas powered steam punk machine like a blackjack has sensors or network ports to talk to modern quantronic hacking devices. Other than that I don't really have a current idea aside from a free faction wide skill or something specific to each sectoral.

Haqq: generally has good faction identity with its multitude of doctors and wound based super soldiers to use them on. I guess make terrain (desert) a free skill?

CA: CA already has some of the design ideology baked in, a lot of sectorals have specific profiles like the haiduk or have cost adjustments like the mentor mentioned but vanilla also has its own exclusive units with the EI aspects. There's the possibility of stuff like Shaas getting stealth back on the sphinx when used in sectoral or just stealth a mostly sectoral wide free skill (could be broken on some units could just be free for units who already are supposed to have it), and morats already have their morat skill from n3 brought over just de-nessted.

Nomads: as OP stated above nomads already feel like the "every faction" they need to be pulled back. Mostly from a vanilla perspective. Make morans ava 1 and more stuff just exclusive to sectorals to begin with. Other than that we'd have to be working with a hypothetical "fixed" nomads to begin with before I'd even suggest them getting free skills or points reductions.

YJ: not sure on vanilla YJ to buff out it's faction identity. I've always seen YJ as the actual balanced jack of all trades faction. If you want to play a certain style yj usually has a tool somewhere to use. It's probably expensive but you do have HI super gunners, AD units, hackers, CC specialists, smokey WB, "swissle" types ect. Command type skills (NCO, CoC, Strategos, ect.) seem to be more prevalent here maybe make a few more profiles with them and discount them 1 point.
ISS: not quite sure here either could go further down the command skills identity since they are the emperors right hand could also go more police state-y and make all the visors have a discount dunno not a faction I've touched too much.
IA: easy every unit designated as HI 1 point discount cross board. It was "THE" HI faction and it shouldn't be having a hard time fitting as much HI in lists as it does right now. Also give us back the Daofei it literally has invincibles in its title.
WB: no clue atm.

Tohaa: Tohaa already has a pretty strong faction identity with its weird wounds hacking access to eclipse and unlimited and basically wildcarding harrises. Idk the tri families that harris are very closely grouped so give them purity bonuses make a (tohaa) fireteam tag and slap it on everything. It only gives them plus to discover so it's not gam breaking and from what I hear from tohaa players gameplay wise the faction is in a pretty good state so I think it's pretty stable identity wise too.

Aleph and O12: haven't brainstormed them yet but I'm sure some free skill or discount could work faction wide for them.

JSA: my main faction and one I've poured the most time in. Make Courage free and slapp it on everything mechazoid having religious was a stab in the back CB before all the ITS and merc groups available if you filtered by courage only the warcor dissappears.
Oban: since I suspect the new sectoral is going to be a bit more of a traditional future japan with more guns, mechs and cyberpunk, I'd wager to guess oban is gonna keep the sneaky sneaky stabby slicey parts of JSA and probably should get a points discount for all MA units inside it.

 

To emphasize the main point I was trying to get across in my previous post. I think faction specific rules could be a way to increase faction identity but realistically I think faction specific discounts in what is supposed to be their faction identity works better. It's behind the scenes with the points calculation and doesn't make a huge impact balance wise while suddley encouraging playing to faction type.

 

I feel that people misunderstand Nomads faction, they always were a faction of overperforming and expensive MI and extremely specialized troops with obvious LTs.

Yes, if somebody looks at the paper Nomads do everything, this is not the case when someone tries to make a list with them and play them.

Were faction identity has been lost in my opinion is the Generic faction lists.

 

Over half of Nomad MI are bakunin specific units and tunguska just got it's 3rd MI with the kulak. Obvious LTs are an identifiable weakness of the faction (and have more redundancies and defenses for it now than ever before) not a faction identity. Aside from "The hacking faction" nomads can effectively field shooters on par with PanO, excellent tags (and support for them), smokey warbands, CC specialists, AD units either airborne or infiltrators, decent doctors and engis in spades. Nomads have all the tools in the shed they don't always need all of them cause they are optimized towards some more than others but they have all the tools.

 

Nomads problems aren't really balance wise cause they aren't exactly OP. It's that I can count the things they can't do on one hand and those three thing effectively come down to "they don't have alien tech". If you wanted to you could start collecting the nomad C1 collection pack and the newest bakunin pack and work your way towards a full faction collection and never have to play another amry to experience anything else aside from the weird alien stuff. You can if you wanted to make nomads the warband smokey list, nomads the stealthy punchy list, nomads the nuns with mim -6 shooty lists, nomads the Tags lists, and oh you want to play hacking or GML welp you are already in the best faction to do that.

 

They have the Hai Dao. But he's only in IA and used to be a staple. But since he ruins link purity, not many take it anymore, he also has a BTS 0, so gets hacked first. In White Banner there's the Jujak ENG. He's ok but expensive. Sadly YJ doesn't have the best or cheapest HI. They just have the most.

 

I agree with the first post. Want just to add that in my wishlist (and as a Spiral lover and player) I hope that not only JSA, but also the other Non-aligned armies will get as some point the spotlight they deserve. As it is now looks like they are forgotten by CB.

 

I wouldn't say it is a problem with Haqq.

It is a problem if one wants build a faction (or faction identity) around cheap, expendable troops and assymetrical trades.

Can't do.

• If the troops are to be cheap, they will be numerous for the same points pool as an army bulidt around expensive elite troops. We hit the 15-model-cap very, very quickly. And are left with a lot of points.
• If we center the faction around Irregular troops, in a game with Infinity mechanic we are - as you have rightly pointed - left with little to no Orders. Meaning - without activations. Orders, I keep repeating, are the lifeblood of one's force. No matter how badass your model is, you can't do a thing if you can't activate it. And well, cheap, irregular models will do even less if they can't act.

So, sorry @burlesford but the "faction identity" you have described for Haqq above isn't going to work. Slams right into a. "horde army" and b. "a bunch of dudes who can't teamplay".
Please, give Haqq "assumed faction identity" another try.

 

So perhaps this is a somewhat contentious opinion, but I actually think CB should give all factions (maybe not all sectorials though) access to 'standard' tools like smoke, hacking, long range guns, and close assault. White noise/eclipse at this point isn't a standard tool, but I think it should become one and be more widely available.

My opinion is that in infinity, factions are less defined by what they don't have the ability to do more so than they are by what they are really good at. Take PanO, the faction is probably at this point most defined by what it doesn't have. When you think of what makes PanO the faction that it is, what do you think of - their lack of LOF blocking and lack of close assault tools? No, what you think of is their unique TAGs like the Tik and Cutter. When you think of Haqqislam, you don't think of their somewhat mediocre long range gunfighting and lack of high end options, you think of the Fiday, cost-effective supersoldiers, and powerful irregulars.

For the factions that do lack some of these important tools, those traits tend to end up feeling more frustrating than anything. It's not especially fun to have to always be reliant on gunfighting your way out of your DZ as PanO because you don't have access to LOF blocking.

This isn't to say that every faction should get Varangian Guards and Jazz, but rather that all factions should have a baseline level of access to tools, and that the focus given when it comes to be designing their defining traits should be on their respective unique and/or exceptional tools. For example, I think PanO should get access to smoke via a just 'ok' unit - something like the Myrmidon would actually fit pretty well by my measure. I'd give Haqqislam access to white noise on a rarely seen, somewhat inefficient hacker like the Govad hacker, or maybe even on a more expensive platform like a hypothetical Hortlak hacker - they don't need eclipse/white noise access as good as Eudoros/Jazz, but just having access to it in some capacity would make the BJC matchup way less miserable.

I think to an extent Arianda already has this going. The faction is low tech and has limited access to hacking - but it still has access with a few units here and there. I'd even not be adverse to maybe making some unit that gives FRRM mediocre hacking projection (something like an FD+4" camo unit with a dep rep?). The Kulak imo is also a good example of how to do this. Yes it's CoC for the Nomads, but it's also pretty mediocre CoC. It's 29-30 points and 0.5 SWC, has limited fireteams in TJC, and almost no utility (you are really desperate if you have been forced into running around with a B4 combi with 1W and 4-4, even if it's shooting stats are decent in isolation).

 

*leans in* I'm listening...

In all seriousness, I like the direction you're going. Faction identity being defined by degrees and ease of access to gameplay mechanics rather than stark absence feels better. Taking PanO as an example, I periodically will take Guarda de Assalto because it lets me experiment with smoke. He's not good at smoke, nor do I feel the need for smoke, but it gives me a new way to experience the game without having to collect, build, and paint an entirely new faction. Plus his approach to smoke feels unique overall, and certainly uniquely PanO.

 

Well PanO got access to Eclipse other than guarda on two occasions, Father knights and Patsy and on both cases it was considered powerful enough to be taken away.

 

Interesting. Do you feel that would still be the case in N4 today?

 

Didn't Patsy just have the relatively useless -1-burst-grenade (don't remember what they were called)?
And I don't recall Father Knights ever having smoke grenades.

 

She had nimbus grenades yeah.

 

I mean, I did get into PanO specifically to shoot as many things as possible.

On the Smoke-in-PanO thing, I cannot possibly see how the faction getting Smoke/Eclipse access could be overpowered given all of its current units were released before O-12, which has a "Nisse" with Smoke access, or White Company, which has an actual Nisse with Smoke access. Considering PanO totally lacks an MSV TAG of any kind, I can only assume the single point of BS an Aquila Guard has over a Hsien was just too much.

Also, yes, like everyone else has said, Patsy had Nimbus Grenades and they were removed across the board for N4.

 

Honestly I think the bigger issue PanO has is it's pretty poor selection of close assault tools. In terms of good options, the faction has Teutons, which are great warband HI, but imo are more in the defensive Digger vein opposed to the run across the table and stab stuff vein. The Montesa Knight is a pretty fantastic close assault option by my measure, but gets shut out by basic hacking networks, even the ones that are entirely DZ bound. There is Dart who is pretty decent, but limited in access. I guess there is also Liang Kai who by my measure is mediocre, but he can get the job done.

Outside of those options, PanO close assault options tend to be pretty bad. Shona does hit extremely hard - if you are able to actually get her into anything, which in my experience seems very hard if your opponent doesn't make a mistake. Uma is unfortunately a necessity in a lot of PanO lists so you can have some kind of midfield presence, which is rough because paying 30 points for a 1W SMG - even with C+ - is just kind of not good. I've seen some PanO players talk up Auxilia for this kind of role and I just kinda don't see it. Not to say Auxilia are bad, I think they are great defensive units, but are they really the kind of unit that can walk into a Haqq/Ari/BJC DZ and expect to get a lot of value?

I'd give PanO some LOF blocking tools, but the main area I'd expand on in the faction is their close assault tools - as it is right now, I will happily null deploy vs PanO basically every single time.

 

Seems my memory is bad looked at the archive and both had Nimbus not Eclipse and even then the Father knight lost it mid edition.

Difficult to say, personally I think PanO would benefit a lot from Eclipse maybe more than they should, PanO have the best firepower, if they can ignore the trades that are unfavorable to them maybe this is too much.