If you behave I do not mind you staying around. Things have changed, you may notice some posters are not around. The advantage of a living rulebook is that it can be amended and expanded without consideration of physical products, it is a new direction, lets see how that evolves.
Can you clarify this? I'm unclear on how American feedback has adversely impacted the game. If anything, the limbo status of USARF would indicate CB has shown less interest in directly appealing to US market vanity, right?
It's nice that things can be amended and expanded, as desired/necessary. However, that doesn't address the concerns some have expressed. In the absence of specific communication from CB regarding their plans and intentions, we're left to speculate. On the one hand, CB can leave the reinforcements game mode in the oven until it's done cooking. On the other hand, it's not unreasonable the wonder whether the exclusion of an N5 reinforcements game mode is intended to be permanent. Like many other things (e.g., the fate of the sidelined sectorials), solid communication would eliminate most of the heartache in these forums.
Can someone explain the taigha nerf to me? Why take one now in a list? It's the worst wb in the game. Why not just remove them from CA instead? Most CA players I know preferred hungries by the end of n4 anyway, and so will be utterly unaffected.. SEF have taken a hit, and were a middling army already. It's baffling in terms of game balance. Finally as Infinity trivia, does this make them the only unit in the game without any kind of ranged weapon at all?
Gakis don't have one either, unless you count Explode. Taighas were possibly overnerfed - I'd really like to see templates back - but SEF got better overall. They always were harder to use and remain so, but I see more flexibility in how to run them now
Were for games workshop. My bet is usarf is used more outside the US than in the US. The stereotypes are strong and I only know 1 person who chose them because of American cheesiness and only seen a handful in all of the events and games I have seen. US was just another melting pot in the mess aeoadna was ...Russians, Scottish, French etc. My only note is yes it sucks that people lost factions. No I don't think US is going away...but most likely should it is a pretty weak style and rework would be heavy. I kind of like a frenchy merican combo could open some doors. Having said that cb messed up years ago. Na2 was a good idea that got way out of hand and profile spam was just too much. Something had to be done to help the matter and honestly they likely didn't go far enough. If they release the pdf like they have mentioned than cool...in non organized events play with your soldiers the way you want. When gw killed warhammer it wasn't because they hated the players or got too greedy. Whfb sold less in a month with all its skus than a single 40k box set...in $s not just volume of boxes. The game was dead and they made the tough decision to kill their darlings. If we want infinity to stay viable and keep playing this game we love they have to have a secure successful business. So we should have our rant share our pain and move on. Hope warcrow is a huge success, celebrate when they make a partnership and understand a business has to make unpopular decisions some times and not take it all so personally.
Taigas are still the murder torpedoes they always were, berserk and template are a minus, maybe because they cut down on most of non interactive gameplay, Viral on the other hand is a plus especially now that Immunity ARM is quite proliferated.
Sure, but would be nice to see them being more reliable in CC, maybe by giving them Berserk (+3) instead of a template. All in all I feel complains about SEF changes stem mostly from the usual autoinclude tools - Calibans, Taighas - getting a nerf, and the removal of two characters, while upgrades other units received haven't yet been tried. It'll take some time for us all to adjust and come up with new ideas. I'd like to see some more changes, while some others - like removing Vulcan Shotguns from Jayth - we could do without. But overall I repeat, I believe SEF to still be perfectly capable, if not the easiest army to use.
"not rushed" I do not understand why, as well, since USAriadna was NOT OOP when the N5 rules & Army were released, Belen stated to me in the Telegram however that USArianda would be OOP in January. Also not being in the list for a rework is something I find counterintuitive, I know IS needs it too, while Onyx by its own nature as a mixed sectorial requires little effort (besides the shoehorning of Achilles & Co, if CB follows up with that video in which they placed them in Vanilla EC & Onyx, for me it's a 50/50 bet). For what I heard at conventions in Spain, adress the problems that the game was not very friendly for new players, making it hard to replace leaving ones. It saddens me to see how little wrong I was with the extra amount of gear and rules and strange dressing, like the Hellpods being quite useless as a field-leveling tool and more as a get out of jail card for high cost pieces like the Avatar or others with the healing and statuses removal options. To me, Kosmoflot seemed like it started with an idea (a good one, and very risky, since it would break out of the trope for Ariadna) but the execution fell through the chute because it ended being like a hodgepodge of units that would sell or resculpted ones that someone wanted produced because they were too cool to let banish (which I don't disagree with, but in the end produced that feeling of Vanilla+ to me). Not to be contrarian, but the forum was offline for more than a week (while people hang around Discords and Telegrams), and there is little that can be done if someone wants to make trouble anyways. Are you sure some posters are not, let's call it, recycled users behind a VPN or using TOR and a new account? The things that are asked the most from USA distributors mean there is an interest in said models. Mind you, this is raw data that does not separate people who buy the models for Infinity, of for other wargames that would use current era looking models (that is, you could use USAriadna models in a Predator jungle wargame alike to the first movie for example...). We can say the same for several profiles in other factions, like Hawkwood in Aleph. Troops so nerfed or expensive or hard to fit in a list, the only thing they are there is dead weight. I'm sad Speculative fire was not reviewed as well. That coupled with the Burst changes from fireteams would have brought the Eclipse grenades from Greeks better in line, specially since its availability wasn't reviewed for other factions like Tohaa.
To be fair the two characters removed were not really used at all, sad as I liked Boarding action Sheskiin model, overall I do not think Shasvastii play significantly different from how they used to, but I have yet to look at their structure in depth. We keep an eye for that, have indeed found a few. Speculative fire has been significantly reduced, not only fireteam changes has educed the median BS, but grenade launchers have been removed from many troop choices.
Oh, I agree on both accounts. I'm also of the opinion that the amount of characters in the game got ridiculous and we could easily do without quite a few more. I might prefer say, Sargosh, to get incorporated into Jayths proper as a specific weapon option, but it's not like the sectorial will feel his absence. Same goes for HI Sheskiin. I also expect N5EF to play the same, and to actually benefit from access to Sixth Sense getting reduced across the board.
As a point of order: Viral also ate a nerf, particularly that it no longer functions at all against STR units. Additionally, Taigha's lack the "PS=X" modifier to their CC weapons, which means they lost a point of damage relative to their N4 profiles. This means that Taighas went from Damage 13, 2 rolls vs ARM to Damage 12, 1 roll vs. BTS, which is a pretty hefty nerf to their damage output vs. things like TAGs, Remotes, or Eudoros. Even a humble Flash-bot has a 55% chance to survive, and Eudoros and most TAGs with their BTS 6 or 9 barely get scratched. And considering the -1 Damage, the new Viral is only better vs. VITA if the opposing model has 2 or more ARM than their BTS (or Immunity (ARM)); otherwise it's equal or worse than before (unless Shock comes into play). So better vs. Ariadna, but worse against factions like Nomads, Haqq, or Tohaa.
My gripe is less with Grenade Launchers per se, and more with E/M Grenade Launchers, and how E/M Ammo automatically sends HI (and REM and TAG...) into WP-12 resets, specially since the ISO state gives a -9 (so hard to hit the reset button while the comms are down, it seems) while IMM-B gives a -3 (so it's easy to hit the reset button when the power armor is locked)... (also, fun times if the IMM-B troop gets hit with a PARA weapon too...). Remember Gizmokits are unable to remove states. Bakunin still has the moiras and kusanagi with it, and so does Emily (now present in other NA2). Otherwise, yes, it was nerfed as a result to other changes to the rules, I simply would have preferred to the number of Speculative attacks to be limited, like the Guided ones are, which would have also limited the impact of smoke and eclipse grenades without removing so many eclipse sources from greeks (which, incidentally, has only served as a reason to run double Myrmidon Officers in lists...). BTW, I can tell Guided was revised with more care by seeing how it is now mandatory to use the template version of the weapon if it has any. Taighas are another example of overnerfing. I would have preferred for them to be a Shas exclusive unit, specially since now there are no "controllers" in Vanilla EC for them (and add the oznats instead to keep the Hungries there) and keep them in a somewhat cheap bracket, since most of the problems with this unit comes from its pairing with the Avatar and other gunning monsters.
Taighas not being Shas exclusive is hardly the problem (though if CB is concerned about that then yes, I agree just make them Shas exclusive), because there's a 0% chance they ever get taken in Vanilla over a Gaki or Preta. IMO they should've kept their Chain colts and thusly served as a nice in-between option for the Hungries; they'd have Berserk like the Gakis, but a worse Template than the Pretas and no access to either Explode or Dogged. As they are now they're just a worse Gaki (okay, sure, Viral CCW > AP CCW, but winning the Berserk roll in order to use it is a real problem for both and they're 50% more expensive) and their role as a cheap troop you'd send out to waste AROs and try and get favorable trades is almost completely dead.
The issue is that they allowed sef to have good defence, and apply pressure with trades. Sef still have 2 ikadrons and an r, so they can build, but they can't do camo half as well. Stiopa is also incorrect on camo game getting better in n5; as its14 sef players know, the proliferation of tacaware sensor bots hits sef hard, and sensor is now on a lot if other new hotness (Adil, helot/Joan haris, fennecs, faiquan, etc) too. Cali and Spec rules nerfs are fine, but taigha nerf is massive to defence, listbalance, pressure and tempo. New Victor is good, but he aint *that* good.
Like Delta says, taighas are now dead. You might see one in sef list, but hungries just completely out class them now. As does every other wb in Infinity. It's a mistake, basically.
Allow me to elaborate: In vanilla, they compete for a slot with the Hungries and have gone from winning before the first nerf to taighas and AI beacons to still viable due to how strong the Avatar was (4 orders) to simply be a non-option taking a slot in vanilla (which are now limited, only it's not the "it's a new playstyle option" or some sort of 4th sectorial as I was imagining, but a "let's shoehorn here the newest big boxes for now" in most situations... which worries me regarding the next Operation box, I see it as painting themselves in a corner, at least for now). This non-option is not only because the huge indirect nerfs to the Taighas (changes on Berserker for example) but also because of the removal of the weapons... and the nerf to the Avatar (which has gone to N3 levels of capability... it makes me wonder about the "points formula" however). Opposite to this, if placed in Shasvastii sectorial as exclusive option, then the Taighas need only be balanced against SeF and themselves, and may had not gotten direct nerfs.
