So this happened: https://its.infinitythegame.com/challenge/b4ckd00r-crisis Resolución The Combined Army prevails as the winning faction of the first Challenge ITS. The following characters cannot be used in Army Lists for ITS Leagues or Tournaments until further notice. Outside official ITS games, these characters can be used normally. PanOceanía: Lieutenant Stephen Rao, Bagh Mari Unit Yu Jing: Guǐ Fēng Xi Zhuang Ariadna: Col. Yevgueni Voronin. Haqqislam: Tarik Mansuri Nómadas: Reverend Superior Cassandra Kusanagi ALEPH: Andromeda I had a small panic as I thought there was going to be one of the French figures was going to be nabbed. But I can see how this might be problematic for others. How is this going to affect your lists? Supposedly he will be coming back with a buff, what do you think/hope the buff will be?
Every time I have taken him in a list I've entered loss of Lieutenant that game. Haha It is difficult to justify not bringing a camouflage lieutenant in a faction with so many easy ways to do it. Bringing veronin in a limited insertion is certainly a nice idea but it leaves you so vulnerable. For me personally when Tak comes out he probably does need a buff for him to really be playable. Something to improve his survival rate, or access to a cheaper chain of command model.
I'm not sure this will really bother anyone. The major application I see for Voronin is if you're playing Limited Insertion, in which case his particular ruleset has quite a bit of value. Other than that, not sure I've seen anyone take him over two line Kazaks, or a Camo LT as @macfergusson mentioned. For the future, linkability with Line Kazaks to give him 6th Sense L2 would help him survive a bit more easily.
I use him quite a bit in free for all 200pt limited insertion. That extra order does a long way in the late stages. I just hate the massive silhouette he has. [even though I didn't use that base on the model] I really hope that he'll move to S2. I dislike that guard is an ability tied to having a pet protect you. I was more hoping for it to be a way to give some CC ability without also giving out stealth and courage I will greatly miss him, until his name is cleared and he returns anew to lead missions in the new 'Kazak Sectorial' !!!!!!! [please.....]
Cleared his name? No they just won't allow him to take his emotional support animal into combat anymore and he'll actually have to take a trained k9...
Nothing lost if you ask me, I don't like the profile his niche is LI like the others say, but even then its really easy to kill.
Get rid of guard, give him a G-synch K9 like the devil dog *as an option*. Yes getting a new base will be annoying, but seriously, being on the same base sharing the same wound as the Antipode is much more annoying...
I just play USARF so no impact on me. Still dislike the entire idea of the event taking things away from people. If I lost Van Zant I would be boycotting ITS events since just knowing he isn't there for my opponents would have in game effects for me. As it stands I hope my local events ignore this thing for the sake of players who did lose access to their models.
That's an interesting approach, I could see that being a little more functional, but I'm still not sure it would beat out the durability of a camo LT in practice. I'm amazed at how often people down-play the buff to survival that a marker state gives.
I don't think he's really supposed to be more durable than a camo LT, but he'll benefit from the Antipode's sensor and being able to block off line of fire with it's S5 silhouette etc, so he'll be protected from a few of the more sneaky assassination methods.
That's my point though, in this faction you CAN take a camo LT at an extremely cost-effective price point, without sacrificing anything, so why wouldn't you? If that is what Voronin has to compete with, it's an up-hill battle, where in another faction Strategos L1 for that cheap on an LT might be enough of a pull all by itself. To me I have to think of it from the perspective of "how do I prevent an alpha striker like Uxia or Bran from putting me into Loss of LT before I even get a turn?"
"By putting him prone on a rooftop" is probably the go-to solution. It's a tradeoff between Strategos Lvl 1 and his relative vulnerability and it's a tradeoff that is not entirely unreasonable if you are in the position to protect him with good deployment/mines etc. Anyway, I'd love to see some changes for the Guard mechanic. Making Misha a companion Antipode is an interesting idea.
I take it you've never been the recipient of a Bran alpha strike haha, this wouldn't even slow him down...
True, not too many Bakunin players in my area :P I reckon Chasseurs are a must have when faced with the Monkeyboy.
I've found lighting him up with as many flamethrowers as possible to keep him dodgeing instead of shooting works too, but then the Chasseur can have a flamethrower as well so it's not mutually exclusive...
Sorry bare with me, Voronin is not a unit I have ever taken... So he has Guard 1 which gives him this Antipode guard dog in essence. But in reality all it does is increase his silhouette. I guess I hate to be the persons that gripes about point cost put look at Andromeda (another Backdoor Crisis removal) the amount of rule bloat on that is bonkers in my opinion and she is only 7 more points, she has soooooo much more going for her. As far as I can tell she is not a common piece to take. But compared to Voronin, damn he is a schlub, compared to what she brings to the table. I understand thats a not necessarily a fair comparison because high tech vs. low tech, but wow does there seem to be some disparity. I guess my interest is in the development of Voronin into something better based on his point cost since I am guessing he re-release is going to coincide with Kazak. Going to keep my fingers crossed that while CB continues to brutally violate Yu-Jing while leaving poor under represented Ariadna alone. (we were the third from the bottom for the back door crisis event not including NA2 which barely existed for the event and covered nearly 1/3 our number. And we barely beat out Tohaa, by a whopping 13 " DATA POINTS" (the only faction nearly as neglected as FRRM.)
The answer could be "because of unique benefits of having Voronin", which just aren't there. So yeah, I do hope this event will be used as an excuse to remake some characters.
The guy running the ITS narrative stuff @HellLois has confirmed on Facebook that they are NOT gone for the rest of the season. They are also NOT getting profile changes or updates. There WILL be some kind of bonus added for them when they do come back, as part of the next "stage" of the Season 9 narrative.
Yeah, it's not about SSL2 or something. The issue is absolutely flat: he's basically a line trooper (give or take) Lt. that can't have decoys, provides 2 regular orders for a price of 2 line troopers, and has nothing interesting for reactive turn.