Held off on this post for a bit since I’ve been busy drinking my liver into submission at Gen Con. :P I was honestly relieved when Army updated. O12 has some strong units but their overall play style is not PanO. They can’t bully their opponents like PanO can. They don’t have the absolute dominance in F2F (yet... just waiting on wildcard Omegas...) that PanO can do. Sure the Epsilon is a cheaper Nisse and the Omega is a cheaper worse Swiss, but they aren’t army linchpins like in PanO. I’m seeing O12 as a more elite Nomads with fewer tricks. Their top end pieces are roundly worse than PanO’s top end, and they lack some of the strong cheap support that PanO can bring. Overall it feels like the army is a lot more “centered”, focusing on medium cost medium capability units. Things in the 20-35 point bracket, Gangbusters, Epsilon, Sirius, Betatroopers, etc. I’m not concerned about the Varangians at all. Optimized to the gills at what it should be good at, and completely incapable of anything else. I’m overall pretty satisfied with the way O12 has a niche and doesn’t step on PanO’s toes.
Actually it's more about players. Terrain rules for some people tend to feel "gimmicky" using them (marking on game table) isn't that easy (though it can be made much much easier). There is almost no way of "enforcing" a good/interesting terrain rules on every game (though to CB's merits they do try to do that with missions like Rescue etc.).
Bull. It's about the fact that they might not be able to game it. Sure there is: tying it to specific missions. Or since they're so obsessive with "seasons", just make the following ITS rule:
Same thing and the switch from NCA to OM was good breath. Not having everyone falling like flies and having 2W good ARM and CC skills was really helping.
Must come from what our top players are into. My brother is #1 in France and was #4 in the world last season and play Aleph really aggressively. He might have a cold head, though he wants his hands in the entrails of his opponents and plays accordingly, meaning Achilles going for cheerleaders murder time. The only units Achilles has problems to deal with in his active turn at good range are HIs, TAGs and TO hackers in unreachable places. For the last ones, he has Scylla who is pretty effective. For the two first ones, only shooting them since PanO heavy units are so high in BS that ODD isn't really enough to him to ensure to rush out of cover for a too long distance without huge risks. So, yes, ARM, W and high BS are attributes I value a lot. Takes him more orders for him to just put one model unconscious if he ever can. I tend deploy so that failing guts gives space to see an unwounded guy before seeing the wounded one. Though, Auxilias are good against Achille but not against Scylla and her drones.
I also have great experiences with 2w and am looking forward to testing an Orc link in NCA, but that could also just be my meta. @Ayadan Agreed on playing aggressively. @gregmurdock played an NCA list recently where the focus was on going first and striking hard, and he won the event. There's a lot to be said for running lists that dominate Turn 1, especially with how some metas set up their tables.
There are events where having a 2 Wound model meant placing 30 or 40 places higher than if I'd just had a 1-Wound model in that circumstance. At both Rumble and Rose City Raid, big Satellite events, I had games that I won strictly because I had a 2-Wound Datatracker. I would have lost those matches otherwise. Multiple Wounds don't let you play stupidly, but they do give your defense and support units more traction for success. 2 Wounds helps deter or stop a lot of those suicide attacks, template trades, Crits, and other gambles which are very good for taking down 1-Wound units.
In essence i agree with you. Specially in situations like a data tracker or xeno caddy, where you require that specific model to stay alive . But there are plenty of situations in area control and denial missions, where having two one wound models that match the price of the single two wound one is much more advantageous. Forcing opponents to either try to split burst and dilute their chances or have additional orders spent on the endeavor. I think to me it boils down a bit to personal preference. I like 2 wound models aesthetically, i like the control of LI lists and how solid it feels to have large parts of your army have two wounds.
@Skoll Definitely, Datatracker and Xenotech have forced players to adopt a lot of those units types. I agree though, 2 units tends to be better than 1, especially in something like Varuna where the 1 wound units are exceptional and typically much, much cheaper than an ORC. Something like Acon is a bit more balanced... The 2 Wound models offer more unique roles/abilities compared to 1-Wounders. An Acon ORC with 4-4 MOV and BS14 is different than a 4-2 Bagh Mari with BS12. VIRD ORCs are hurt a bit by just how excellent Kamau, EBs and Zulu Cobras are.
In defense of Pano's Nisses, when facing the Shasvastii and their dazers, your going to love having multiterrain. Having full 4-2 move is far better than being crippled with one short skill 2" move. Crocmen, Zulu Cobra, and Locust have multiterrain as well. Which makes those units excellent picks when facing the dread SEF.
I recently packed my stuff and walked away from a tournament table because my opponent claimed he could shoot me through solid acrylic windows since they are see through. I'd never even seen anyone try to pull that. If people play see through signs etc. like that in their local meta that's a whole different thing though and might be interesting to try out.
To be fair a lot of buildings have solid windows in them, which we do allow people to shoot through. So it could be that people get used to the rules in different contexts and then extend them inappropriately. But adding different terrain types to tables is always interesting and worthwhile, in my experience.
Alternatively you could have quoted the terrain rules that make it abundantly clear acryllics are considered opaque.
Well I was already packing by that time so there wasn't much they could do. I had gone for the "not spend two hours of my life with this person" option rather than calling one. To be fair I'm not good enough to play for high spots anyway so it's not like there was anything on the line in a mid table last game. Sadly I rarely remember the exact place or rule if someone tries something like this. I mean you know it's nonsense but I hadn't remembered an exact rule or there to find it at the moment.
I've actually had a chance to play with @Nemo No Name and we counted transparent walls and stuff as 'blocking shooting, but allowing LoF', so in practice you could Alert / Discover / Flash Pulse / Dodge etc., but all the solid projectiles as bullets, missiles etc. were blocked. It turned out quite interesting.
I don't mean to be rude, but why did you just quit? Why not discuss with the TO, resolve the issue, and move forward with the game? I have a feeling this was a "straw that broke the camel's back" situation, but I figured I'd ask anyway.
Yeah, we've played that way too, and it is an interesting variant. I think I'd go so far as to say that I even like it. But it's not the rules.
