>>says there is a problem >>posts several good solutions for it in same post What's your problem bro ?:D
It’s a tough decision to be sure. The jammer is a necessary tool to have in Varuna, I think. To help counter the fact that nearly every other interaction you have will be face-to-face shooting rolls. The struggle with speculos is that you opponent will be able to get a kill. The best you can do is make it as costly as possible for your opponent to achieve it. The minelayer profile is 39 points and 1.5swc. Make sure that thing dies as it tries to take out your kamau sniper. Also, make sure that you have at least 1-2 other heavy weapons to use. If your game plan relies entirely on a single one wound model surviving, you need to rethink your game plan.
This highlights an accurate mechanic vs impersonators... It's almost impossible to stop them from getting one swing, especially if your opponent is brave enough to attempt deployment in your DZ. But VIRD's pretty dang good at making sure an Impersonator that reveals only gets one attempt at inflicting damage. Setting up some anti-CC deployment with stuff like Helots really helps here. I think 75% of success vs Impersonators is just having the presence of mind to watch out for them during deployment. Most of the tricks/tools are fairly basic...
Sure! not all the strategy relies on Kamau sniper, but she has a good chance to be very annoying against camo troop in active and reactive turn if she survives, as you know is the only multispectral visor that we have. Using jammers ( two ZC) and pacemaker could be useful too, and as @CabalTrainee said, adding a camo marker inside of the zone of control of the Kamau sniper/fireteam or precious profiles could be a very good idea to protect them against the mine of speculo. I use a pretty "standard Varuna" list with a backbone of Kamau/fusilier link (sniper and HMG) sometimes replace the Kamau HMG for an Orc HMG, and 3 ZC, 2 Helots, then we will see depending on the mission. I like the bulleteer spitfire also and time to time the Echo Bravo.... So there is always two or three heavy weapons, but for ARO the only good and fearsome unit in the long range is the Kamau sniper. And what about to use two kamau snipers? I remember in one battle report @barakiel suggest something like that... would it be too much?
You guys know you can block access to areas with things like helot decoys ect. You can prevent an impersonator getting into b2b with your msr pretty easily by putting either a decoy or camo marker in the way. This forces the speculo to fight a piece of chaff before it can hit something juicy. Or it forces the impersonator to fight a link member directly. As soon as its shooting the speculo has pretty trash odds of succeeding
Redundancy is good, and two Snipers is certainly possible, but whether you do that depends on some factors. For one, the two Snipers are fairly expensive in terms of points and SWC. They may displace taking something else that's also useful, like a Kamau HMG. And since the Snipers really, really want to have link bonuses, it forces your gunfighters to remain in one area. Something like an HMG is very good by itself, without link bonuses. Second, if your opponent is good with White Noise, you'll be in big trouble. A couple of Repeaters in the right areas, and a smart opponent can make sure every move you make will allow a White Noise ARO to be put in place. This can stop you from doing much in your active turn, if you're relying too much on Kamau Snipers as your gunfighters. Third, people hate the Kamau Sniper. You may not make many friends if you use two. The community, on the whole, has become a much more hostile place, inclined to throw guilt at other players, and blame game balance rather than personal fault when a game goes poorly. Even in my area, which is home to 4 of the Top 10 US players, I hear a huge abundance of complaints about using just one Kamau Sniper. I've heard of some VIRD players who have changed factions, because they're tired of the hate they get. So it's important to be aware of such things in your own area, if those opinions are important to you. @daboarder Yeah, it's helot decoy/camo that I had in mind for stopping Impersonator tricks. Very useful.
Wow! I never hear something as you said @barakiel, like people hate you for a mini, crazy!!. Here we just enjoy the game, even in tournaments or leagues ... we are not thinking of being part of a "top 10" or something like that in ITS (which is very valid by the way). I don't think something like this happens here, although if it were, I would surely avoid it. but for us, infinity is a great game, but that is just a game. Regarding the white noise, it can surely be a problem ... I think adding 2 Kamau snipers will surely leave one out of the link, but I think it is compatible with a Kamau HMG and Helots, even with a bulleteer, but surely you have to sacrifice something.
Playing Tohaa for a year was a similar experience. The background noise was usually ignorable, but unpleasant if you paid attention to it. I wish it was something we could grow out of as a community.
Copping flak or hearing a complaint about a unit once or twice is part and parcel of war gaming. But when it becomes consistent and overbearing I absolutely empathise with it becoming hard to enjoy when you are constantly copping grief for success.
Alternately, if a wide range of people consistently express they dislike problems with particular game elements, maybe that's an indication there might actually be a problem with those elements.
Often, yes. Decoys also don’t block mines. So there’s that. Also remember that you can use easier targets to bait your opponent. Alternatively, if it’s a mission with a data tracker, you may be better off if your opponent goes for the Kamau instead. I think there’s a little hyperbole there. Barakiel is a great guy. It can be a little limiting to have to plan on how to deal with a Kamau every game night though.
I have a couple issues with this. Some of this might be talking past you, so don't read it as an attack on you in particular, more me trying to frame why I think we could all do better in terms of how we approach this stuff. The first issue with your comment is that it isn't really an 'alternative' position at all. You can be right, and there'd still be a real negative impact on people who play the game that materialises when it becomes acceptable/normative to attack or otherwise direct negative attention at the things they play. Even if, for example, it was correct that Tohaa were a faction that were unacceptably above the general power curve (for the purposes of this conversation I make no judgement on that), the background noise expressed by the community regarding tohaa and by extension tohaa players for the last few years has had the potential to produce miserable experiences for people who aren't good at filtering that noise out. Secondly, and more generally, an opinion in the vein of "I believe this game element is too powerful" is a useless opinion. Just apart from the specifically negative connotations when directed toward the armies other people play (that is to say, the implication that any success a person might have had was not the product of their own efforts), it's useless to the person expressing it. There is no capacity for growth when you deny yourself the agency to solve problems by framing them as external to yourself and something that the designers rather than the players have responsibility for resolving. In short, the statement "Kamau snipers are overpowered" is useless noise at best and negative to other people at worst. Much better would be "my opponent is performing very well with Kamau snipers and I'm struggling; what should I change about how I play to adapt?"
This, a hundred times this. I hope this comes across as non-prescriptive but if you get the chance take the time to read David Sirlin's 'Playing to Win': http://www.sirlin.net/ptw
I'm honestly a bit mixed personally on Sirlin, and I wouldn't want all of his attitudes to be imported into the broader Infinity community. But there's certainly a decent bit of overlap between his core thesis and 'it's not your list...'.
While I do completely agree with your sentiments about useful feedback, in this case I think @Hachiman Taro may be right in saying that the Kamau MSV2 Core Linked Sniper needs another look by the developers- the complaining's widespread enough (even if it is largely "Kamau OP" quick complaints instead of full critiques) that it indicates that the unit isn't fun to fight, just like with Jammers. It's worth a good examination at least if it really is generating outright hate as @barakiel says, I haven't seen that reaction to anything in Infinity except the Uprising, and that basically cost Yu Jing players a few hundred dollars of investment. Back on topic though, funnily enough most of the best ways to take down a Kamau Sniper do actually work on other threats with modifiers. Achilles won't have fun if you can get a Flamethrower close enough to burn off his ODD, and Coordinated Orders with damaging weapons such as rockets are great at sneaking wounds onto targets that rely on winning FTF rolls to be effective. Light and Heavy Rocket Launchers are the best for this as they can burn and hit hard at the same time, as well as having a template to let you get markers as collateral damage, and the Echo-Bravo can even do this from AD. Getting behind an Avatar or Cutter with that guy could make your enemy's game a lot harder.
Indeed. He's worth reading if only as a general primer to some of the concepts of high-level play and understanding how preconceptions and ego-preservation can be barriers to genuinely improving your gameplay.
@RobertShepherd With the Kamau Sniper, Tohaa and similar things there is always more than just simple "powerlevel." I for one do not believe the sniper is dramatically overpowered (Unless you play against JSA but that is another discussion). There are alot of ways to deal with him. Nethertheless, i think he is a very boring way to play the game. Most play i have there as a Varuna player is deciding where to deploy my link. After that i just wait for my enemy to make mistakes. I try to play more NCA right now because the games are way more different to each other that way. Even though i highly prefer Varuna if i really want to win. The addition of these kind of things simply makes the game less fun for me. To be honest i enjoyed playing Infinity way more a year ago. (Even though the FAQs are actually becoming good now)
