Which is why i just posted i get bored of my faction. Varuna. Which is my most played sectorial right now but is loosing ground now for NCA and Haqq.
Thats fair it was a general comment. Personally i like Varunas general inversion of the active/reactive strength of lists. I find it offers something unique to play and a good supplement to PanOs other strengths and styles
In my locale meta I hear a lot complains about the Kamau snipper but, in the end were more jokes as other thing, still, at first a lot of players go into Varuna, but after a few months most of then stop playing with it, some even shell in the second hand marked all his Varuna miniatures. I'am pretty sure the main reasons to do this were the tools against Varuna, dazzer, stratocloud or they find Varuna style boring. Nothing more. Against most of impersonators a Palbot can do the job, if he shoot the palbot, with mimetism the chances to "success" will be reduce, and we can fight back with good chances to success, in the case of a fireteam. :)
This is because you have never faced someone able to put up a real aggression on you. A lot of excellent players I know play passively and defensive just like you because you can easily capitalise on the mistakes your opponent will make. In France, Shas'O Kassad had dominated the competitive scene for a long time just by playing 1 Swiss ML, 1 Swiss AHD/HMG and a fusilier FT by default, waiting for his opponents to eat all those missiles and waste orders at trying to get rid off a Swiss impossible to kill easily. He just played some deniable aggressive pieces like Albedo BF in order to soften his opponent's frontline and that was all. This was until Arkille came to Lyon. Arkille is a very aggressive Aleph player but was prone at that time to make many mistakes. The first time he faced Shas'O, he lost terribly and said NCA was OP etc. but I gave him hints to how take care of this guy. After two new encounters where Arkille was gaining ground in the score each time, he found out how to deal with the Swiss and to defuse the defensive set up of our now former top player. And this forced Shas'O to change his mind. Because once you get the trick about how to destroy a bunker like Nomads, VIRD or NCA can set up, you can pass any defensive gameplay and lead the game because being successfuly aggressive gives you the ground automaticly, which isn't the case if you play defensively. I know Arkille is grumpy about Kamau and VIRD but, tbh, I know it won't be such a difficulty for him. He already proved it to me. In the same time, he finds that the Shukra was an error because he's not forced anymore to be cautious with Achille. So, all this talk to say that you have this feeling because you never faced someone who is able to bring a good aggression because this is how he like to play and he took time to improve to a level that you need to think beyond standard set up. If you have someone like this in your local players but not at the good level, train him, learn him all the tricks to beat you and you'll see how he'll shake up your view of listbuilding and your meta. If you want interesting games, you need interesting opponents and it is also up to you to ensure this happends at some point.
Well it was more funny comment that bragging about players's skill or anything :) For me it's just funny as imho VIRD is only "slightly" behind ASA when it comes to having tools against camo (which ASA has most of/best of).
No problem. I think it's good if we can talk about looking at things in conflicting ways without seeing that conflict as a personal attack in either direction. Thanks for the thoughtful response. I similarly have a couple of issues with the point of view you express here. I do believe what I expressed is an alternative way to look at the issue than yours, that is, rather than looking at people consistently noting a game piece as unreasonably strong as 'copping grief for success' or wishing 'it was something we could grow out of as a community', it's just information. And as information, it something we can potentially learn and take productive action from. Feeling victimised by information is really a choice you make in that situation. This isn't too dissimilar to how you feel you can react better to a Kamau Sniper than to feel victimised by it (you can take a productive action towards it instead). It's just on different level. I disagree that having an opinion that a game element is too powerful is necessarily either useless or negative. It can be the truth. Ignoring the truth, even if it is unpleasant, isn't productive. Rather, more often the opposite is true, in my opinion. You can do both though - acknowledge a potentially unpleasant truth and take productive action too. They're not mutually exclusive. What I suspect we agree on is that projecting a negative opinion of a game piece onto a player using it personally is fundamentally destructive. I'm not really a fan of calling certain things dick moves or whatever - whether it's about taking a Kamau or expecting to play the shotgun rules correctly when that template's gonna hurt. In fact, no surprise the person I play most often happens to take the Kamau a lot. I don't blame him, in fact that's good practice for me and a good choice for him. I don't like the Kamau much in terms of design, but I still prefer playing him, because it's a challenge which I enjoy (Kamau or no Kamau). However I think that if we consistently aggressively take the most effective things whether that makes for a fair game or not in order to beat people consistently who are not really doing the same in a game of toy soldiers that's meant to be fun, and we feel the problem there is that we might feel bad if other people point out in general that some pieces we've taken are unreasonably strong when they likely are (because that's why we chose them), well, maybe we're not wrong per se, but perhaps our priorities could be better adjusted. It's not terrible to just admit a piece is really strong when it is. There's nothing wrong with being competitive of course. But I teach my 7 year old games aren't really about who wins, so I'm not sure why I find it hard to remember that myself at times, but I believe it's something I'm better when I do remember. But telling people it's wrong to say what they believe is the truth because it might 'make' you feel bad is literally gatekeeping the truth. Speaking the truth as you experience it has several important productive effects. For example it generates feedback, both for the game designers in a system where one of the best features is good balance, and from other players to your experience. If everyone simply ignores things that aren't balanced and just exploits them instead you remove an important feedback loop. If no one speaks when they think something seems too strong for fear of being called a whiner, they don't generate a conversation that might change their mind or help them learn. I agree excessive or unwarranted complaining can be frustrating or a net negative at times. But then often the people claiming something is that are guilty enough of complaining about other things themselves (in the PanO forum that might be Kriza, or Tarik, or Bolts, or MO, or whatever). So maybe it'd be better if we listened to what each other had to say, and took from it what we find useful instead. Sorry if that's too long or preachy. TLDR: Telling the truth is OK, even if the truth is that the Kamau is a bit strong.
The reason I don't like to blame units or armies that are overpowered for me personally is simple. If I do it lets me off the hook for how the game went. I'm sure some others are better equipped to say yes this unit/ army is overpowered and still be able to look at what they could have done to win. But for me personally, back when I used to blame external factors out of my control I didn't look at what I could have done to be better. I lost because Kamau wrecked me didn't allow me to grow. Ill give an example: I played Daboarder in more events than I can count and our games are always incredibly close games and nearly always they have been on top table. He is an excellent player and has been working hard to develop his game too. Anyway he played Vird V Cha at our recent event. With four orders left in his turn I was still winning against Vird, even with Kamau locking down a big chunk of the board. He ended up winning by a late turn echo bravo stealing a box in supplies. It would be easy to say well that Kamau was so dominant I couldn't get the boxes and its true that the kamau stopped me from getting one of the boxes and was also protecting a big portion of the board I couldn't attack as a result without going through the sniper first. The reality however was I didn't need to kill anything. Where he was deployed I got one box first order, and within four it was incredibly well protected. The second I could have gotten almost as easily if I didn't try and engage his haris to kill strike pieces and the one the sniper was locking down? I could have moved moved. His Kamau would have blown my specialist away but the box would have been out of lof and within a short skill of a friendly model to pick up and hide. With the strength of CHA being up close fighting and that being a weakness of vird. I could have had all three boxes protected and bunkered top of turn one. It would have been incredibly difficult for Vird to get through that. I lost because I tried to bully the bully. I tried to brute force through and remove his teeth instead of play the mission. Sure if the mission was a kill mission this is irrelevant but in the mission we played I absoloutely could have won if I didn't try and kill the Kamau. It for sure is strong, it for sure impacts games, but i need to change because the unit isn't likely to. CB have shown they are very slow to nerf or buff units. Ghazi are (wrongly) one of the most maligned units in the game, And they got buffed in HSN3. I agree that Vird is strong, I agree that its incredibly difficult to remove, I just think the faction overall has alot of up close deficiencies that if you just refuse to "play their game" you can win still. I dont get mad when an oniwaban smashes me in CC, I don't get mad when a kamau sniper out shootshoots me. (I am not suggesting JSA is anywhere near as good as Vird) Anyway that's my two cents. Not trying to flame, or say you are wrong. Just explaining why I personally do my best to avoid focussing on individual units (which in the heat of the battle is easier said than done)
I mean I don't disagree with you. Focusing on what you can do to achieve the result you want is an undeniably smart way to act. And VIRD is far from invincible, I agree. Fairly accepting the truth is also a good way to act.
Standard examples of Gaslighting. It gives the impression that you're only interested in manipulating others into agreeing with a subjective premise. It also gives the impression that hammering this point home is more important to you than helping other people enjoy the game, either by letting them play the way they want, or by having constructive discussion about tactics. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
I wasn't trying to gaslight anyone, I don't think that word means what you're using it to mean here either. And I'm not trying to manipulate anyone into thinking anything (or insult anyone either). I think this comment is pretty insulting though, in that it makes an unfounded accusation of malign intent where there is none. If I expressed myself poorly I apologise. I've had two main points here: 1) If a lot of people have a problem with something, it might be an indication there's a problem with it. 2) Saying something is overpowered is not necessarily a bad thing, if it is true. Neither of those are 'gaslighting', manipulative, even mildly controversial IMHO, or add up to "kamau msr is broken" or "my opinion is the truth" which I neither said nor meant. Have an excellent day.
Love this, as it’s so easy to forget! I recent played TAK as Corregidor and very nearly lost a game because I was so used to having a strong mid field with Moran’s and Bandits etc. Turns out TAK Streloks and Scouts (with Camo, SMG’s, Mines, K-9 unit, BS, Marksmanship etc) of all variety’s are much better at the mid field game! Who knew?!
