What Made Ariadna Special Back in the wee days of N3, Ariadna was a very different army on the table than any other. They didn't get access to a lot of the cool spooky tech, but had their own ways of solving problems. What characterized Ariadna was playing the game by the core rules, you had to learn to use all the rules of the game to get around your technical limitations. Need to handle a Total Reaction bot? Coordinate an order, sure one of them will get pasted, but the other 3 will be unopposed. Need to move up the table? Use more cautious movement. Trouble dealing with enemies in smoke, bust out that Intuitive Attack. ODD (mim-6) enemy around a corner? Toss them a grenade! All of these tools required the Ariadna player to know the core rules well enough to know when to use what. Furthermore, they required the Ariadna to make up for their inefficiency in fancy tools, by expending more bodies, and having more orders on the table. The 15 model cap however has effectively made all factions fight with the same number of models, so we can no longer rely on having extra, expendable troops to throw into the enemy, on top of that, we have very little access to multi-wound models (aside from dogs/bears, but the later was just nerfed), even NWI models are rare. Furthermore, Ariadna has the just about the worst access to NCO, Lieutenant +1 Order, and Tactical Awareness in the game. When Ariadna was designed, they had the most wounds and orders on the table, now they have the least. TAK and USARF have had no fundamental changes since they were initially designed, so I don't buy that the 15 model cap had them in mind. Now, I'm not saying we go back to unlimited models, nor am I saying Ariadna should have special access to more minis. The game has changed a lot since N4, and point values have dropped considerably, so I think uncapping it will just make it worse for everyone. Instead we need to look at what can make Ariadna special in the context of N5. What Can be Done in N5? There is a lot of design space in N5, supposedly the unpacking of rules, and addition of new traits, was to increase this space... so why was it totally ignored for Ariadna? Let's dish out some BS Attack (-3) on some of our troops who are known for unleashing hellish amounts of ammunition (Blackjacks, Ohio, etc). Ariadna needs Warhorse. TAK might get an okay amount of it, but another source of BS-3 has been added to the game, and Ariadna is the least equipped to handle negative mods. Warhorse doesn't represent gear, it represents training, which Ariadna gets plenty of. Give up on Ariadna being the 1 Wound faction, or at the very least, give out more NWI. At this point there is no reason Ohio and Moblot need to be as fragile as they are. Tactical Awareness, NCO, Lieutenant +1 Order... again, there is no reason for them to be so limited in this faction. It does not build faction identity. I have no notes on hacking, I'm happy not having them. T2 Ammo has been handed out like candy in other factions, that has diluted Ariadna identity. Sadly, in some cases, I preferred having AP (like the Ojotnik). I'm not sure we can take it all back, but giving Ariadna some AP + T2 would make their bullets very spooky, and a combo you don't find elsewhere. It's really not better than AP+DA anyhow (arguably worse). Stun Ammo and Riotstoppers can be distributed in Ariadna. Stun was classically a tool for handling antipodes (so much so that Loup Garou used to be armed with lots of it), and adhesive as well. Both are interesting, non-lethal tools... It's not like grenade launcher range bands are very good now anyhow, so what harm could it do? Now that Marksmanship can be negated, giving it out a bit more in Ariadna could give them some extra identity. They may not have fancy gear, but they're damn good shots, used to dealing with antipodes in tight quarters and dense terrain. More Minelayers can also help indirectly help with order efficiency, they're tools that both save you orders, and cost your opponent orders to deal with. Finally, the the more I think about it, the more I like giving them fairly broad access to E/M Weaponry. I don't think of it as particularly sophisticated equipment, it can just be frying electronics with microwaves, but it leans into the guerilla, asymmetric concepts in Ariadna. Giving them some E/M grenades & launchers, E/Mitters, E/Marats, more E/M Mines, and Jammers (not E/M but similar), would give them tools to use the enemy's own technology against them, I can think of nothing more Ariadna. Most of these changes do not suggest increasing the lethality of Ariadna, instead they give them more tools to fight on uneven grounds, without resorting to giving them more technological solutions. They will have more tools to handle enemies, but those tools wont be more, bigger guns, visors, hacking, or other fancy tech. FWIW, I thought the Mormaer was the pinnacle of Ariadna design space for bully pieces. It was heavily armored and fired lots of very mean bullets. I wish it was still around, and upgraded it's Dogged to NWI. Controlled Beasts Another way I think CB could address wounds/orders in Ariadna is to put some more thought into all the various controlled beasts they get: Streloks, Antipode Assault Packs, Polaris Teams, Kibervolk Teams, Devil Dogs, and Carmen Johns. These models all give multiple wounds per army composition slot, and in a more interesting way than just slapping wounds onto things. The two teams that seem a bit off to me are the Polaris and the Kibervolk. Both of these units are made up of a controller and a beast, but neither of them operate in a way that feels like that. By making both of these units Peripheral (Control), and giving Tactical Awareness to the controller (much like the Antipode Assault Pack), you can help with the Ariadna order structure issues: fitting more wounds on the table, and more access to tactical awareness. This also helps the tax of taking the controller feel more like a feature, than a punishment for wanting a bear. To take the concept one step further, I’d suggest a new trait “Warbeast” (or something like that), which could be used on the Morat pets as well. Add this to all of the Peripheral Antipodes, Bearpodes, and to the Jayth’s Taigha, Oznat’s Preta and Tyrok’s Skurgot. Warbeast - Automatic Skill Obligatory Activation Automatic when the model enters the Disconnected State. Effects The model may continue to use Automatic skills and Equipment while in the disconnected State. The model gains the Impetuous, and No Cover automatic skills. The model may be activated only with use of its Impetuous Order, and may otherwise not be activated as per the Disconnected State rules. Cancellation The effects are automatically cancelled if the model recovers from the Disconnected State. This is more of a pie in the sky idea than my other thoughts on Ariadna, but I do think it would do a bit to help. Getting more wounds on the table, and more tactical awareness to help them operate within that 15 model limit. It would also just be really cool, and differentiate these beasts which are pressed into combat, from helper remotes which can’t independently operate. Since the controllers can't be linked, it really means the Tactical Awareness order is for the peripheral, so you can't abuse it to give extra activations to other units. Some Unit Comparisons Finally, there are some units that I really don't understand, and sadly make me feel like Ariadna was not seriously looked at this edition. I get that you're supposed to look at a unit in context of an army, but I don't think we can totally ignore the capabilities of similar units in other armies, at the same (or less) points. Para Commando Spitfire costs more than a Tiger Soldier, more than a Rajik, both of which are far more maneuverable now. It is the same price as the Crusader spitfire, which got a ton of buffs. I'm not sure AP comes close to being worth more than combat jumping, with 6" super jump, higher BS, Dogged, or great CC skills... Ohio Minuteman HMG costs more than the Zuyong HMG, or the Wu Ming HMG. Again, not sure AP comes close to the benefits those units get. I'm sure there are plenty more to add to the list, looking forward to other additions from the community.
Things that would improve the situation in my opinion: Core rules (this is a must) Asymmetrical model count per faction, by points, by actual restriction or by special rule like LT + 1 model. Everyone playing with the same ammount of models is dramatically borring. Just with 16 models you are opening a lot of gameplay options like the two 8 model groups. Combined army playing with the same ammount of models than ariadna without compromises is a clear sign that something has gone very wrong with the game not only in gameplay but also in theme. Continous damage has to burn mimetism -6 to -3 again. A risky/limited lowtech counter to mimetism helps asymmetry and the lack of visors. This also reduces the feeling of everything turning arround visual mods and visors. Speedball overall makes 0 sense, an extra wound for a 20 points model doesn't have the same value than the same wound for a 120 points one. Giving high tech gear to ariadna to fix the situation is the wrong way to go and will remove the asimetry and charm of the faction. Profiles (miscellaneous, just random thoughts) Give riotstopers to loup garous to replace their n3 stun grenades already. Remove the the mines of the tank hunters with ML, HMG, AC, those make no sense, or at least replace them with fordward deployment. EM5 should not be able to deploy on the enemy's rear, compensate with other bufs if necessary, it's just not great gameplay design. VetK gets the xvisor and shotgun back. Other very needed sensible changes to make terrible profiles actually playable. For example, fixing minutemen can't be this dificult, those were released in 2015... How can a profile take 10+ years and 2 editions to fix... Vanilla Ariadna feels like TAK with a little bit of MRRF on it instead of being a mix of 4 nations.
Compare Moblots or even the Vet Kazak to Kusanagi, and what you get for your points with each of those. It's not even close. Anyway, I don't think messing with the unit cap will fix the issue, nor should it. Infinity is a skirmish game, and it's better kept that way. Having played and won a Free Game event back in N4, it's really not something worth going back to. Ariadna is already built around mid-end troopers that now unfavourably compete price-wise with higher-end troopers that are available to everyone else. Historically, Ariadna has had strong, aggressive trading and troopers that could turn the tide of a game in an instant. Raw stats and equipment were traded for the ability to make sacrifices to ignore those things from others. A lot of the conceptual changes going into N5 removed or severely nerfed this aspect (and partially justifiably, Berserk on sub-20 point troopers probably shouldn't have been a thing). Even now, list building in Ariadna feels like you're tightly wound for points near the end. The absolute low-end troopers in Ariadna (vanilla, at least, although it and the rest of the vanillas deserve as much care and representation as any sectorial with how their new design philosophy has been presented) are more expensive and more limited in number than before, and our mid-to-high end troopers are all expensive for what they provide. If you want to cover all your bases (and you need to, with how offense can be now), you aren't going to do it cheaply. Hunkering down in null-defense with a boat load of templates isn't the answer it once was, even when Ariadna retained a relatively large amount of template access. It costs a lot of points to get things done properly in Ariadna, because you can't rely on godly wundertroopers (anymore). The problem is in getting everything pulling their weight. Anyway, from the games I've played so far, what I'd like to see in a few vAriadna troopers going forward. It's all pointless wishlisting and coping, but that's what I have going for me right now. As it stands, shoring up a few units here and there won't be a wonder-fix for Ariadna, as a lot of the problems facing them run pretty faction wide, but a few trouble spots to start, at least: Vassily Plushenko I feel that he's actually close to being kind of good. He's unfortunately really expensive for what he does. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that he could use a further point cut, but that's pretty unsatisfying reasoning. I'd happily lose Dogged if it meant dropping 3-4 points, it really doesn't help him fulfill his roles all that much, anyway. But maybe that's just me being cynical. •Marksmanship or Triangulated Fire would make sense with his lore, but would likely step too much on the toes of the Spetsnaz. I also don't think it'd be worth increasing his already bloated cost further in service of those. • Foward Deployment 4" on the T2 Marksman profiles would be amazing as well. Just open him up so much. I know it's only 4", but that can mean a lot for a trooper like Vassily and a gun like that. Uxia Mcneill I think the poor girl might actually be the most heinously nerfed trooper in all of N5. She lost enormously on so many fronts, it feels malicious. She lost some important parts from her kit, and got worse at everything she kept. She's not much of a threat in melee, she can't fork with shooting, and she's even worse at providing utility through smoke. It kind of feels bad to take her now, because I feel like she's still required at the listbuilding level to put pressure on threats that Ariadna conventioanlly has a lot of difficulty dealing with reliably, but she's also just bad now. She needs a major glow up, badly. • MA3 and an improved CC weapon would be hardly an unreasonable ask at this point. Right now, she can't reliably threaten much of anything with CC (she's now worse in CC than a regular SAS, and even they're not that scary anymore). A DA CCW would be the bare minimum for her. •If Uxia is going to lose her DTW (and I don't know if she should), improving her shooting ability, even if only modestly, would go a long way to making her suck less. BS12 would be nice. Alternatively, giving her a deployable of some sort, like a mine in lieu of a template weapon to allow her to fork with at least some setup would be at least a compromise that I'd be willing to accept. Moblots I think CB were making some steps in the right direction with the infiltrating Moblot profiles. Especially with EM minelayers now no longer being off the table, that on the Infiltrating EM mine profile could have been something real special. Based on their lore, Moblots strike me as something that should be weird and obnoxiously toolboxy pseudo-HI. It's frustrating to see that the cool stuff was all removed and they were left being mostly just boring and mediocre. • Give them either Dogged or NWI • Bring back Infiltration • Get weird with it. Funky deployables. Weapons and equipment that Ariadna doesn't usually get. Go for it. MRRF is the most commerce-involved part of Ariadna, and Moblots are their most elite troopers. It makes sense to give them the good stuff. William Wallace • Either remove Inspiring Leadership, or provide a Lt profile in vanilla. Easy fix, it's not like Inspiring Presence in the N5 format for vanilla is going to be causing the problems it once could have. Or just remove him from vanilla and replace him with something else. • Remove his LSG and replace it with the LFT he used to have. The loss of the LFT made sense going into N4, as it got rid of his redundant DTW. But now it's relevant again, and if he's going to go up in 3 points for no reason while also getting worse at everything he already did, the least you could do is give him his template back. Polaris Bearpode I think the nerfs went a bit too far reaching on this one. It shouldn't be discounted that there was a mixed bag of changes that make their situation a lot less one-sided than the initial nerfs they received might make one think. I don't think they're actually too far off from being just right. At this point, I only want one thing corrected for me to happily shut up about bears. As it stands, Bears have No Cover, but aren't impetuous. Either let them take cover, or let them benefit from the Impetuous order at the cost of No Cover. One or the other. You could even split it like before so that only the HSG bear has Impetuous while the chain rifle version gets cover and a jar of Xanax. But 'paying' for impetuous while not getting impetuous sucks. Caledonian Mormaer It's still in production. Toss him in, he's not hurting anybody (and he really should be). As I'd posted in another thread, he doesn't need much to really make a name for himself, his kit was actually in a position to make some impressive gains on its own going into N5. Give him BS-3 and he's a glass-cannon god-king. That's all I have to type off the top of my head for the moment. There's more out there, but I feel this is dragging on as is.
I have to ask, what is so great about 8+8 models that 8+7 couldn't do? I see that you are about this on and on and on and on, but why does that 1 single modell makes such a big difference?
Role redundancy and playing with two capable groups instead of one main group and one support group. That model of difference is enough to make the group actually independent and able to take a couple of hits. Also it's just enough to mitigate the -2 orders of the command token. I have tried it with 7 as you are saying and it just doesn't work for ariadna. It was a valid play style during n3 and I don't see how can it be bad for the game. I don't know man, maybe I'm the blind one for seeing a problem about the game having 38 factions all playing with the same model count. At the end of the day I would like to see all types of model counts from 10 to 16 and not everyone being great at every model count. Elite factions doing great with 10 to 12 models, cheap factions doing great with 15 to 16. Maybe this way we can stop requiring bufs and gear that ariadna was never designed to have.
For Ariadna, an extra model is actually a big deal, especially with how cheap a number of our better units are and our plethora of good, cheap, irregulars. Pretty much no other faction has this problem. Additionally, with how limited Ariadna's access to extra orders is, it's an even greater difference.
Thanks for the explanation. As for the other factions, I always struggle to even get to the 10th modell , so I don't have an idea how can a panO or YJ army have a 15 model list and not just having 10 Fusilier / Zhanshi and suck.
Ariadna is fine. Players just need to find better strategies than shotgun forks of N4 to win in N5. If anything N5 has given a big buff for all non-bearpode Ariadna factions because alpha strike has been severely nerfed.
I'm intrigued how you came to that conclusion. If anything, alpha strikes have been made stronger with the lack of easy fireteam burst and sixth sense ARO presence, combined with cheaper punchy duos.
While there are cheap, fast, durable and punchy duos (I'm looking at you Roadbot), they are nothing compared to N4 GML alpha strikes, fishdude shotgun forks, beapode shotgun forks, cheap smokes and total immunity Jaan Staar shotgun forks. There are plenty of cheap and durable heavy infantry (Cenobites, Kaitoks Shang Ji etc) to make crippling and low risk alpha strike very difficult and risky to pull off. The right mindset for N5 is that everyone is playing N4 PanO. What did you do against N4 PanO? Null deploy.
Alternately, let's lean into vehicles. Other factions have their fancy-pants Gundam suits, give me some MRAPs. Let them mount/dismount troops. Give me a top-mounted APHMG and TOW system. Give me an aesthetic-enhancing piece that gives mobility, durability and firepower that helps differentiate ariadna visually on the board. You should be able to fit a sensible model piece onto an s8 template which we already have in the game. Unicool would help make this doable as well, lighter and cheaper! Glow up for Bikes, rework points and skills on AD troops, add MRAPs and general QoL changes to key camo pieces (as detailed in posts above) would really help give ariadna more attack vectors and better visual aesthetic on the board
Hard disagree from me. Big models are a real chore to paint, and start to creep the scale of the game in a direction it shouldn't go. I'm really not a fan of the expansion to fliers, we don't need the scope to get bigger yet.
Really? Military vehicles are dead easy, rattlecan desert yellow/olive drab/dunkelgrau, wash, dry brush, Sponge chipping, decal and weathering powder to finish. Could do an mrap in an evening tbh
That's going to depend on what sort of aesthetics you're building your army around. That's not a workflow or toolkit I would use.
With me practicing for an upcoming satellite, between getting games in when I can and playing around with list building both before and after, I've noticed that one point of frustration that I think could be more easily addressed to help round out a lot of vAriadna's problems (but certainly not all of them) is just how bad the fireteam comps are. I understand that vanilla fireteams are meant, even under the new paradigm from which vanilla factions are now governed, to be less potent than sectorial teams. And that's fine. And understandably, not every vanilla faction can have as impressive an array of options as vPanO, vNomads or vCA. But there seems to be an especially glaring lack of coherence in how the Ariadnan teams are meant to work. I think that vanilla fireteams at this point shouldn't just be put there for the sake of fulfilling an arbitrary obligation, but rather to open up novel team interactions or efficiencies that go beyond raw power bonuses. There are a few troopers that I think would pair well with others for some great efficiency boosts that could help get them over the line of viability that would really open up the rest of the faction. The Bad, the Obligate, and the Mediocre As things stand, you can just straight up remove Loup Garou and Briscards from the listings entirely. They're absolute trash troopers right now, and exist solely to give the models a place to exist because CB feels obligated to make the reinforcements sets have some place in the game. These troopers, as with Moblots, need some serious readjustment before they can be considered to be serious entries in any roster, let alone in Ariadna. Bruant's FTO option in general just feels pointless, and I imagine it mostly just hangs around for legacy purposes. I believe his camo profile is still fairly good, even if his point hike was too large and unnecessary (yes, I understand that he now gets surprise shot, no I don't think that justifies a whole 3-points for a one-use ability that costs three times as much as his actual limited-camo). Voronin and the Doctor don't really strike me as doing much in teams, although I imagine people brave enough to run Voronin may appreciate the ability to 'castle' him to another hiding spot on their turns. Ratnik still strikes me as a trap option. But if you are going to take one, I'm sure his tagalong will appreciate the tactical awareness order's extra efficiency. Frontoviks in haris present a solid glow-up for themselves, but their costs can begin to stack up very quickly, faster than the firepower that they might bring to the table. Defensively, I'd rather pay for a Vystrel. Offensively, I don't think that they actually stand to play all too well with the stuff you actually do want to be spending orders on. Talking About What Works So, on to a bit of meat into what is actually here. Veteran Kazak is our rock. This guy goes everywhere. Both the APHMG and FO profiles are solid profiles in their own right that appreciate all sorts of helpers. Both greatly benefit from taking a Varangian, Irmandhino, 45th, or Apache to shore-up their defenses against close-range assailants (I especially want to play around more with the Apache buddy, since the ability to just have one jump up to deal with those hard-to-reach enemies is at least theoretically interesting). Dynamos are also another obvious pairing, either adding a specialist to drive up with the APHMG, or a disposable spitfire for the FO to follow up behind until he can get into a good rangeband to leverage that terrifying T2 Rifle. I don't think that piling on bodies for the L2 bonuses are worth it on either variant, however. As mentioned above, Briscards and Loup-Garou are jokes, and Frontoviks end up pouring enough points into a team that doesn't feel like it'll move around too well. I'd also like to point out the two existing Veteran Kazak options available under the Duo listing. Obviously, this is an error, but double Kazak would help a lot for missions like Frostbyte. Just saying, wouldn't hurt. Dynamic Dynamo duo mostly speaks for itself. You take a solid trooper, and double down on it. It doesn't make up for losing their best profile, but it's not a bad way to get a specialist and a main gun up the table for good cost. Dropping their impetuous action means that the efficiency gain is mostly a wash unless you plan on pouring multiple orders into them, making them less an ancilliary trooper than when they're on their own. Czernobog x Irmandhino is a fairly obvious pairing. I'm not a huge fan of the Czernobog myself, but if that's your thing, it's probably the best way to do it going forward. Talking About Potential Here's where I want to talk about existing entries that present opportunities for broadening vAriadna's options and viability, with the chance for great impacts with minimal adjustment of profiles. Dog Warrior in duo. I was so excited when I saw this option... and then disappointed when I saw that it really doesn't sit well with much of anything at the moment. For 24 points and being stuck with his irregular order, I don't think he makes a very good supportive pairing for a Vet Kazak like our other warbands. Especially since he doesn't really do a good job of keeping up until after he transforms (man, what I'd give to either let them start in doggy mode, or get Cameronians back...), and he's secretly not actually that good at CC. However, I think there's some real potential here. All they need is a buddy that plays well with them. Enter the Apache. Just unlocking the ability for them to duo (or, heaven forbid, haris) with an Apache would be amazing. Their movement would compliment one-another. The Apache would appreciate smoke coverage from the Dog Warrior, and the Dog Warrior in turn would be happy to have the Apache on hand to make up for his own mediocre CC ability. It'd also be pretty fun. Moblots have a lot of issues in their own profiles that need correcting, and as a preface, I don't think just making their fireteam allowances better will be what it takes to make them relevant. I've already mentioned this in previous posts. However, I think it's a real missed opportunity that these guys are stuck to AVA1, and thus only fireteam max availability of 1. Frail and expensive they may be, being able to set a pair into a fireteam would go a long way to improve that viability, making them into glassy little cannons with some built in order efficiency and utility. TA HMG/Spit and Engineer is a pairing that could really stand to get some work done. More for these guys is absolutely needed, but this would be such an easy start. And it'd be an excuse to release more Moblot sculpts, which is great, because their design is amazing. Cadin Donn would love some fireteam access. I think he's got potential that's really being missed out on with him stuck in vanilla as a solo piece, but being able to join up with a Vet Kazak or other primary attacker would do a lot to help make the investment required to get him into position hurt a lot less. Alternatively, it would provide an avenue for smoke access that he also undoubtly appreciates.
