What story justification for Morat heavy infantry without the Diplomatic Corps? Or Noctifiers, for that matter. It feels a lot more like a bunch of “this style troop was needed, and this profile already existed” choices. That’s probably where the Vanilla Sectorial feeling comes from, when it gets compared to the other two sectorials.
Then story means nothing and I'm left with the boring "play experience" end of things. I'll continue to pass and continue to be disappointed.
If folks would read the info behind the name, they’d see the “why” for Greif Operators in the CA and OCF. And for @solkan, why would the EI need Morat diplomats when it has its own Legates? And considering a large part of an OCF’s role is illustrating the folly of opposing the EI, why not terror troops like the Noctifers?
The argument that Fireteams > Vanilla is based on dice calculations, not actual gameplay. My two primary factions (among others) are Ariadna and Haqq and both play better Vanilla than they do in their respective newest sectorials (TAK and Ramah, respectively). Both cases are somewhat analogous as you have fairly efficient Fireteams starting in your DZ. On the other hand, you have a lackluster midfield presence and missing critical unit choices that are addressed very well by their Vanilla factions. CB has done a great job making Sectorials feel the burn of tradeoffs. In general, I play Sectorials for fun, and Vanilla when I want to win.
There really is no point in having fireteams in a skirmish game. Rather work to make every model count, than be padding to others. I see, how they can add some use to line troopers, so there is a point in using those for your SWC, but 200 point HI links doesn’t add any interesting dimensions to the game, as your opponent just folds, once you’ve taken them out, as they feel incapable of killing anything with a BS12 combi rifle, when they’re used to BS17 B5 HMGs. A good tabletop game isn’t about amassing bonuses for dice rolls during list building, but about maneuvering your troops around to gain advantages. Movement is the only aspect, that players have full control over during the game, so it makes sense to award victory to those who excel at that, so the game becomes more than rock-paper-scissors.
I do feel that the Rasyat should be in Onyx rather than the Fraacta, since OCF is meant to be a "first contact" kind of force, but one of the things that Onyx has as a gameplay conceit is no smoke grenades, and eclipse smoke might intrude into that idea. We do have real easy access to White Noise and a decent Albedo unit with a long-range gun, so that's nice.
I would love to hear a more extended answer than this. Your post seems to recognize the current imbalance between vanilla and sectorials but then also argues that that is a good thing? I am just confused by your line of reasoning.
That's fair enough, and I didn't mean for the reply to be terse. To elaborate on this specific point, In short, I think Sectorials are a blast to play, but I have a much easier time winning with Vanilla. Fireteams provide advantages in terms of raw power when you plug numbers into a dice calculator. They're also extremely easy to kill in the midfield, are susceptible to templating, and generally can be picked apart by a competent player running a strong solo piece. The new sectorials that I referenced (Ramah and TAK) have very strong, extremely efficient Fireteams. They also have inherent weaknesses that their Vanilla factions do not have. When I play Ramah, I'm trading a strong midfield presence that includes infowar for a Ghulam fireteam and/or extra dice with Tarik. When I play TAK, I'm trading Uxia, Chasseurs, Foxtrots, etc. for a defensive fireteam or a relatively weak component fireteam boosting a Vet Kazak that doesn't need the boost for most of his shootouts anyway. In my experience, and your mileage may vary of course, I have a much easier time winning with Vanilla than with Sectorials. I attribute this entirely to the more uniform distribution of power pieces and the variety of unit choice (usually owing to a better midfield presence). I have fun playing Sectorials because sometimes I just want to pound vodka and scream FOR THE MOTHERLAND or run Tarik and his ridiculous crit cannon, but in general Vanilla has been more productive for me in terms of wins/losses.
I agree with @TriggerPuller9000. Fireteams are great, if you like simple Rambo tactics, pile a ton of points on top of each other and whack your opponent on the head. Its good brutal fun - it is also a one-trick pony. A savvy opponent does not fear a fireteam, he merely acknowledges the threat, identify its weakest link and procede to dismantle it on the active turn. When a fireteam has been shot up, its owner will usually lose the initiative, unable to bring the offensive with the rest of the army. While you can go on a rampage among his cheerleaders. So the game becomes very rock-paper-scissors - except the sectorial player declares ‘rock’ openly. In vanilla, you might not have the overkill power of fireteams, but it isn’t needed either. A simple rifle on the active turn is all the odds stacking, that you need. Instead you get variety, meaning that you have a multitude of tools to deal with a given situation. Spamming superior units become less of an issue with the Infinity order system, when you’re able to direct all your resources into the right tool for the job, then it is more a question of having the right tool at hand. - I like fireteams, in the way that they can give tactical purpose to under activated troops/cheerleaders - line troops, that can’t match the comparative punch of the more exotic choices - give a justification for fielding the common ORC. But the SWC/point system and game setup just doesn’t work for some profiles, when you have a min/maxed tournament efficient mindset.
Slightly greater % of Vanilla players than the % of vanilla v sectorials, in fact. Thing that surprised me the most in there was someone playing a CBL (YuanDun, at that).
Variety doesn't mean as much anymore. They've added more than enough. Also there's a big difference between 5 guys shooting one shot in ARO opposed to up to 5 guys shooting 2 shots each at +3 BS, and ignoring your surprise shot! When the first Human Sphere came out, I would have been happy with sectorals that just had different AVAs compared to Vanilla and no fireteams at all.
In my opinion Vanilla Yu Jing easily outclasses Imperial Service (becoming obsolete due to MSV 2 snipers everywhere) and IA (duh) due to Guilangs and Tigers; Aleph is also more versatile than OSS, trading pure power for good deployment protection and also Achiless benefits massively from another CoC option with counterintelligence. It is PanO that still sucks because there are no interesting synergies for them in vanilla (Monstrucker and a single Helot for Joan?..) Active fireteams rule the arms race and make defensive dork fireteams (No1 choice for new players usually) no better than warcors, but it is easy to punish them since they require finesse in deployment and on every move (leave a bad angle and a simple droptrooper/skirmisher ends them). Especially when it is glass cannons like Tariq + ghulams or Rui Shi + bounties. -- Regarding the main topic, I dont even know what philosophy CB even follows at this point in regards to fireteams and balance. Interventor in a basic fireteam - no, but Messer as a wildcard is ok; 6 dice is a hard no, but bs15 fat2 in a basic core is fine; Foreign company is all about hard restrictions for fireteams and mixes, but Dashat is all wildcards etc.
I was thinking to myself the other day actually, I wonder if the game could survive if you add fire team core to vanilla factions to just the most basic of line troopers, and maybe a basic HI if it felt appropriate. No wildcards, no Haris or duo, no specials. Fusiliers and orcs, alguaciles and brigadas, ghulams, zanshi, etc.
Zuyong, Wu Ming, Shaolin, Shang-Ji, Yan Huo, Muttas, Kum... or did I read "line trooper" too literally? The classification thing can turn up some surprises :)
