These days, I have difficulty actually filling the 15 bodies in Ariadna with how the faction's foundation is structured. It's not exactly a cost-efficient faction anymore. Even if the cap got increased (which it shouldn't), the problems wouldn't be fixed.
Me, personally, playing CHA in 8+8 or 9+8 format, never used more than 5 camo markers, and still felt strong against most of the N3 armies. Yes, Wallace converts irregular in regular, but thats especifically his work and designed to do that, with the drawback of being the OBVIOUS Lt. That's why he was never allowed to be Lt in Vanilla. Regarding hordes, yes, all faction can play hordes, trying to mimic Ariadna style, but our hordes are usefull and efficient, many figures in the list could be especialist or bring useful tools to the battle. Other faction hordes are like you said, hollow orders to fuel the heaviest rambo they could fit in the lists. Same same, but different.
I don’t think being able to take one or two troops more would change much for Ariadna. But I do think they need a few other things to be a bit more competitive. While this might not be correct, I always thought of them being the better PH faction. PanO had BS, YJ had CC, Haqq had WIP. The Line Kazak had PH11 while the other factions PH10. This could be something they could lean into bit more in some way. Dodge +3 for example. +1 to medic rolls? Also, more PS -1 or more on more CC weapons. I can understand not wanting Ariadna getting super techy like the others but there are different things they can do to get around camo/mimetisim. Triangulated fire is one. They currently have no one with it. It’s a skill that’s not on many SWC weapons. The only one I can think of is Major Lunah and recently the Fenics got it on a Thunderbolt but it’s no SWC. Sensor can also be a “poor-mans” MSV. You get a better chance to discover but after that it doesn’t help with the mimetisim. Right now, they only have it with Antipodes. It would be good if they had another troop with it. As mentioned, Tac Aware would go a long way. They don’t need to put it on many troops. Just some elite and vet troops. Vet Kazak, Minutemen and Moblots for example.
Lets get this stright. The "N3 CHA list with over two full combat groups" has allways been a meme and has never won a serious tournament. Somebody played it in the interplanetario and it didn't perform well. I was in quite some tournaments during N3 and the factions that won the most were factions with less models like aleph, tohaa and to some extend combined army. I have the 2019 stats, those are still posted in this forum and that super crazy CHA performance is a simple 51,22% winrate, the highest result of the ariadna factions. A solid performance but definitely not game breaking. Additionally the average model per list for cha was 16. 18 for the top 33% players, definitely not 20+. Now that this is out of the way. Nobody is asking to have the possibility to field 3 combat groups again, not even 20 models. 16 models was great because it allowed 10 model lists, 10/2, 10/5, 8/8 and everything in between, with that N3 was quite varied outside of the most competitive lists. For ariadna it was way more varied than N4 with the bear list. Back then usarf played totally different compared to cha or CA, aleph, nomads etc. Nowadays everyone plays 15 and it's extremely boring. The loss of gameplay variety and faction identity is incredible. Increasing the cap to 16 and making it way harder to reach for elite factions while adjusting profiles to keep everything balanced would be very beneficial for the game. Would that fix ariadna? Probably not but it would help a lot to have a way better game. I want to add something regarding hordes. Most people use that word like some sort of brainless exploit tactic, when in fact it was not the case for usarf. People who played that faction knows that it didn't had a big scary model to carry the list like the unknown ranger was during N4. With usarf you had three separate dudes with some mines a flamethrower and a hmg to emulate what other factions could do with one single model. You had to combine your troops for everything and every single troop except UR and Minutmen had a important role in the faction. And you know what? It was GREAT, and it created quality gameplay full of interaction. It was by no means competitive but it worked and it was fun.
As someone who usually played 12-15 order lists before the cap got put on I'd like the option to field two full combat groups again, for the additional variety it can provide and I'd also like to see Limited Insertion lists get their protection from order stripping back as well for the same reason. Anything past 20 models/orders can get bent though, played into the half billion Daylami list once and that can never see the light of day again no problems.
Limited Insertion order stripping protection is back in N5: https://infinitythewiki.com/Command_Tokens " Remove two Regular Orders for this Turn from their opponent's Order Pool. The player may choose which Combat Groups these Orders correspond to. This option may only be performed during the opponent's Tactical Phase, right after the Order Count, but only if the number of Orders ( Regular + Irregular + Tactical) is higher than ten. The Orders of Troopers in Hidden Deployment State, or off table via Airborne Deployment Skills, are not counted for this limit. "
You are giving the evidence for the more orders are better here. I really hate late N3 meta which 18+ orders was the way to build proper lists for any faction. Just take more bodies, opponent will run out of order killing dummies, and then shoot with high burst and crit does all the job. It was meaningless to bring elite troopers at that time. Many Ariadna players here cries about “Ariadna didn’t catch up power creep”, but they forget pretty recent things. Ariadna WAS the power creep in N4, especially Kosmo with BS15 Volkolak and Bears. Were they one-trick pony? Maybe. But weren’t they THE power creep? The bright side is, they (Volk and Bears) got fixed. PanO cried a lot during N4 for them losing the “firepower superiority”. N5 and Kestrel fixed it and many PanO players are happy with it. We don’t know the plan of CB, but from my experience, they will do something at least controversial or OK for USARF. The reasons make me hopeful are N5 rules update (N5 1.0 to the most recent fixing to climbing+), Kestrel, Trinitarian Killer hacker, 6-2 move for de Fersen and Mendoza, and Nourkias change. Also, there are still ways to keep Ariadna inside 15 orders cap and have more bodies. Peripherals and deployables. Antipodes are peripherals and they are Ariadnan design space. I don’t have firm idea about how to fix Ariadna, because I’m PanO player. But there can be better ideas than “just let Ariadna break 15 orders cap”.
Then should be better ideas than "let Pano have firepower superiority again", right? They are the new guys and have the mission to sell a lot and make money, but KCF is overtuned AF and need a nerf, probably when the next operation box appears and the new guys will be other guys. Killing powercreep with a bigger powercreep is not the way. Volkolak and bears got nerfed after an ENTIRE edition, with people, warcors and testers complaining. But CB did nothing. Why? Because Kosmo was the shiny new thing and they wanted them OP to sell more. Infinity is not about balance anymore.
Nope, I just gave you evidence how the sectorial designed to take the most bodies in the game was in fact not taking those meme 3 group lists. And not only that I gave you evidence that even then that specific sectorial had a 51% win ratio so basically it won as many matches as it loose. The others had lower win rates and models per list in the supposed golden age of model spam, which the data clearly shows that it wasn't the best way to win games. Vanilla 46,55% MRRF 46,55% USARF 44,70% TAK 49,28% You know who was wining the most? Aleph 58,48% average units 15,19 Shasvasti 57,09% average units 13,26 Spiral corps 57,31% average units 15,06 SSS 56,62% average units 15,24 Varuna 55,31% average units 15,19 So yeah ariadna was such a terrible threat to the game with 16 models and a win ratio below 50% while all the elite factions were winning all the events time after time. Regarding the n4 powercreep and kosmoflot situation, yeah no. I hated it to the point to stop playing. I hate the bears, I hate how redundant all the models and profiles are compared to older ones, like wulvers and volkolaks, bears and dogs, kosmosoldat and mormaers etc. I really disliked the sectorial, and on top of that it barely has any astronauts. The transition between N3 and N4 felt lazy. Instead of proper balance changes and redesigns we got a couple of must have profiles to carry the whole faction and thats it. That was terrible and a good reason to leave the game.
i tried Kosmo, back in the day, and was ok. But never used bear (didnt like the concept or the figure) or Ranger. I used Kosmo for Mirage 5 and Pavel. But in the end, i realized that i was having more fun playing CHA
I remember that year, i faced like 3 aleph players of 5 rounds possible (2 greeks and 1 SSS, maybe one of the greeks was vanilla)
Where you take the data? They are a little different from the ones on https://infinitythemeta.com/factionWinrate?season=16 Or what I´m missing?
Ok, cool, where can I find the data for older ITS? What is the source? Do you know it @fari or @MATRAKA14 could you share it, please? However I think @MATRAKA14 put a really good argument, if we compare the data he provided with current ones on infinity the meta, ratios aren't, in general too distant. Which I think is a good thing. Saying this, I recognize I'm cautious with this kind of data, since many information is lost due not all people upload the list, so we have too many Unknow %
I do need to remind that at the tail end of N3, to prove the point, one of the playtesters did win a big US tournament with a 4 combat groups Bakunin list. I regularly fielded 18 models Varuna and it was a nightmare to be dealt with, not as bad as the carpet of camouflage markers Ariadna fielded, but still. The point is while I get what is been discussed, I much more prefer Ariadna be made to fit the limitations of the game than see the hard cap be changed or removed.
Oh, so the problem is not Ariadna having too many orders. Is other factions having them. And what happen with Invincible Army or Torchlight, where you can field 15 miniatures, and have 20 orders thanks to Tac Awa? (maybe not that much, but you get the point) That's not a problem as far as i can see. Again, Ariadna was never ment to fight against other factions in equal terms, because they never have equal equipment and skills to fight technology. You keep saying that you prefer it that way, but that's not Ariadna, that's not what Ariadna players think and want (and you are not one of them) You can keep saying it, but that doesn't make it true. Ariadna got punished because other factions exploited the system. Wow. So fair... Such justice
Hi the data is from this thread which is absolutely fantastic, make sure to download the latest version of the excel because it's way more complete, if it's not available I can share my copy. I checked it again and Dashat was the only that got excellent results with 18 models, no big surprise considering the profiles the army has available, even then the sample is smaller than the other factions with only 200 games. https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/2019-in-numbers-its-data-analysis.36359/page-6 Ok nice, but a couple of wins on some events is not something to handle the balance of your game. And once again nobody is asking for 2+ group lists. I'm bringing solid data (some of the most detailed data this game has ever had) that proves that factions with 15 models were wining most games, and ariadna with the supposed advantage of the N3 "spam" era was actually loosing more than wining. So with the data to support my claims, ariadna was in fact not a problem with 16 models or N3 camo availability. Regarding the camo spam, it can be hard to face if you are a new player but I have been playing for many years and let me tell you some points: The more camos you play the less content they have, less scary guns etc, to the point most camos are harmless. The ariadna player doesn't want to reveal his camos on the reactive, and if he does he is going to loose models very quickly. If you play regularly against camos they become very easy to mitigate. Camos are easy to read just by deployment. Many factions have gained ariadna levels of camo presence on the table or at the very least on particularly good profiles, camos are no longer the defining factor of ariadna. Players hate to take it on their lists for some reason but SENSOR shreads camo lists specially with middle board camos. It's clear that you don't play ariadna, maybe you don't even like them and thats ok. But we are trying to be constructive here, not because we want ariadna to be the most broken powerful army in the game but because we want all the armies to be distinct and enjoyable at the same time and ariadna is clearly not working right now. It takes time to give well thought feedback to just see how you dismiss it entirely just because you have another point of view. For you burnt state was the worst thing ever because it afected your expensive troops, but for ariadna was the only hope against super optimized mim -6 troops when your visors were dead or not existent. Even more it incentiviced playing with multiple troops instead of abusing the centerpiece model game after game, I want to combine my troops on the table, I don't want to play the bear or UR or nourkias or whatever ramboing through the table all alone game after game. That was the ariadna way, we don't want more visors, we want asimetry, without it there is no point in playing ariadna or infinity. So maybe things are not as black and white as you think and maybe infinity needs some serius work to fix the game before other games in the market make it irrelevant as it has been happening during the recent years.
CB decided they didn’t like the ‘hordes’, period, so they limited everyone to the number of Troopers they have built the game around. Accept it or move on.
Ok, then modify the Horde faction properly to make it competitive in the actual game, or allow them to go horde.
