To those that are not up to date N4 is coming and is scheduled for Summer of 2020. This tread is created to discuss Combined Army and its sectorials in the upcoming edition, Suggestions, ideas, wishlist's, opinions, things that work, things that do not work all are welcome if done in a polite manner. Now the most basic rule of the thread, be polite this is not a thread to be dissolved in arguing who has the correct ideas and who has not, all ideas are welcome and all comments and criticism is appreciated, as long as the tone is polite. For a more generic discussion of the upcoming N4 please use this thread Thanks.
There's a couple of things about vanilla CA that most definetly need a change: give Lt profiles to EI aspects for all loadouts, because otherwise non-Lt versions see the tabletop mostly just in meme lists with 2-3 of EI aspects and a bit of support. another one is just to remove the sepsitor and sepsitor plus separation, currently the normal sepsitor exists only on anathematics and this really only adds unnescessary complexity without much of an impact on balance. P.S. also give at least some of the gwailos to vanilla CA, seriously, the lack of it there is just annoying.
Hi, I'm Ariadna player then i don't know in deep CA merits and flaws. Yesterday i was talking about the last MRRF sacrifice against CA invasion with my CA club mate. We thinked about CA is a colinizing alien force (like startrek Borgs / starcraft zerg)... I think a presence of absimilated humans (like the lost troops of Paradiso campaign) can be nice. Even a not absimilated human presence, like supporters / worshippers of the alien race. From the outside i see the CA race not like the big threat they have to be. Is possibile whole humanity hate and fight them, but that assimilation capacity is not feeled in army lists. Inviato dal mio MI 5s Plus utilizzando Tapatalk
A reevaluation of the morat rule could be great. It is also weird that you need a hungry control device in MAF and not in Vanilla to field hungries.
Some kind of overall Morat sectorial reevaluation is in order. Morat rule should probably be cheaper and Morats could get access to aggressive LT solo options to make use of it (Sogarat / Raicho maybe). Whole sectorial is not compensated enough for it's big weaknesses in lack of camo and overall pricey units. Also PH14 Suryats when?
Disclaimer: I'm not a top player in a highly competitive meta, so I can't speak for the fine balancing that CA may or may not need. I'd say that Combined are in a pretty good place generally, though there are systemic overhauls that we'd benefit from greatly. Hacking and TAGs are hot topics and CA can certainly play that game with the best of them, so fixes/cleaning up there would be great. Going though Army and looking for profiles which stand out: Vanilla (non-sectorial profiles): Everything is pretty good! Skiavoros: How about a profile with G:Jumper LZ, for running REM-centric lists in Vanilla? This is pure wishlisting, but its a cool skill. EI want. Morat Aggression Force Morats are in a much better place thanks to their latest updates, but a couple of profiles could still use a little love. Kurgats: Well, the Autocannon profile. Its not worth it, even with the Haris. Not sure what to do with this, but it a decent model, so I'd love to have a reason to buy one. BS 12, Mimetism, maybe sapper? Vanguard: These guys need a reason to exist outside of backfilling a fireteam for a Suryat. Maybe bump them up to MI, the 4-2 move could be traded off for ARM 2 or 3? Also, the K1 Sniper rifle. DAM 14 please. Suryats: PHY 14! PHY 14! But seriously though, these chaps are expensive AF compared to modern HI. If we're going to pay a premium price the profiles should have the quality to match. Onyx Contact Force Honestly Onyx just gets shit done. They will benefit the most from hacking or TAG improvements, and are generally solid. Umbras (both types): NWI and no Shock immunity used to be painful, but we lived with it. Recently however it seems those skills are stapled together when new profiles are designed. By modern standards these guys are bloated as hell and die super fast. A full revision would be best. Maakrep Trackers: Much like the Umbra, they want shock immunity, but only because they are carrying the expensive automedikit which is points wasted when you get shocked off the table. If the intention is to make them pseudo-tohaa, give them NWI+Shock immunity. Otherwise make the AMK cheaper. Suryats: Hey, how about a HI+drone duo/haris like all the other cool kids get these days? Fits our drone warfare sectorial theme. Xeodrons: Some sort of duo option would be sweet, again possibly with an M-Drone FTO. Shasvastii Expeditionary Force Welp, the Shas don't need much help, being the newest kids with the latest toys. They should really be used as the standard to raise Morats and Onyx up to, rather than needing any tweaks themselves. I will say though that camo is also hotly debated right now, so any major changes to that system will effect Shas' whole playstyle. Its unlikely, but obviously something to keep in mind.
I'm going to throw in my own observations here as well: Vanilla Combined: - Give us a cheap, backline lieutenant Aspect. Then buff the agressive frontline ones out of the wazoo (or at least redo the profiles with some of that new optimization we've come to see everywhere). This goes double for the Avatar. It is worth all the points it costs, except it ends up not really living up to it's reputation. - I second the idea about sepsitor. Just make it a template weapon that wounds with WIP and causes the sepsitorized state, no need to split between sepsitor and sepsitor plus. - Sepsitorized humans are cool. Give us more of those; MAF: - Do a look over on the suryats. These guys are almost great, they just need a bump in PH and maybe a true specialist profile (suryat doctor?); - Do a look over on yaogats. These guys are okay, but they need something to make them a choice other than rodoks; - Do a look over on vanguards. Yeah, these guys kinda suck. There's often no reason to pick them other than link filler for the Suryat, raktorak or Anyat; - Fix the mess on the Sogarat profiles. Either give the FA Feuerbach an LT option, or just man up and give all the profiles Full Auto already. Yeah, they'll get more expensive. We don't care. Onyx: - Look over their fireteam options, specially the umbra options. The Xeodron fireteam is cool, but the Samaritan should be able to do more than just that. - Umbras are at a bad place right now. Maybe give them shock immunity, or give mimetism to the Samaritan. - Give us more Ur based units. these are cool. Shas: - Sheskiin is a bit too good. Maybe look over Fatality to make sure she isn't so dominant. - Maybe add in another fireteam option? This is an odd sectorial with so little fireteams. Please note that I think Combined Army is in an overall good spot, so while I would like to see these changes, I don't believe they are strictly necessary.
Morats - according to fluff, those are the beasts who fight effective and till last drop of blood. I think "Dogged" rule should be included in "Morat" rule. Muscled red faced morat guys should be more resilient! Not just having a +1 to PH! Maybe add frenzy to keep the costs on same level? There is no feel of playing elite military faction, Morats have an average bs attack pieces with elite costs, which is sad (. Kurgats - autocannon is such a strange profile... ;( sapper\marksmanship lx\ full auto \ holoprojector l2 - he needs smth more to justify costs. He has a destructive attack, but small chances to fulfil it... In our local meta he never see the table ;( and still ... if he is buffed with special skills he will become even more expensive... So why taking him, when there is 5member linked Rodok Missle launcher? Maybe kurgats should became wildcards, like raktoraks(then why would we need raktoraks :)..)? Overall religious rule shouldn't buff the cost. Not always you wish to stay open.
The lack of command and control abilities in MAF has always bothered me. Free Agent, Advanced Command, and LT2 should all make an appearance in MAF.
I agree it doesn't make sense from a rules perspective. It's one of the better examples of fluff influencing rules - if you go look up the fluff around this, the story/lore reasons for it are pretty clear-cut. Mostly I'd like to see the units that were added/updated in N3 and left untouched since get some reworks. The EI aspects and the Sygmaa troops in particular. For example, I really like the skiavoros, but it's quite vanilla and boring so it would be neat to see it get an additional weapon option or two, and maybe remove Strategos from the troop and just put it on the LT profile(s). The Anathematics is a fantastic model, but it sees a lot less play because the Charontid is usually the superior choice (because higher stats + cheaper), so it'd be cool to see it get a little differentiation in terms of maybe faster movement or forward deployment, and maybe access to the Executive Order skill.
I only really play Onyx. My only meaningful complaint about the whole faction is the Umbra. Take that as a compliment, because there is a lot to love about this faction. The Umbra are so damn cool, but....there are just better choices. They're moderately too expensive while being ultra vulnerable, and the payoff for that is good but not good enough. Minor complaint: The Suryat is just kinda pointless in this faction. I can't think of a real way to make it attrative without making it linkable with Rodoks, which doesn't seem likely to happen.
I was wondering the same thing. While I'm looking into MAF, both Onyx and SEF are really appealing to me and seeing them update or make them better is a plus.
I think you can make a case for the TA HMG Suryat in Onyx, but then again I haven't been list building for Onyx in a long time (switched to Vanilla/MAF as I started collecting those minis and now to SEF).
The big thing for Onyx is that the lieutenant choices need to be looked at. I guarantee that they intended for Umbra to be the Lieutenant choices in that sectorial, but because of no CoC and a lieutenant that's typically obvious, you take a cheap Lt and hide them (i.e. Nexus Specialist). And then there's the Legate K1 Combi Lt option which has an SWC *hike* for taking an obvious, fragile trooper as your Lt.
I actually disagree. Onyx is a weird sectorial in that it seems like it wasn't really designed in a top-down way, more of a "shove everything we're releasing for CA over the next stretch into this sectorial." The Umbra are supposed to run the show, but they make suboptimal lt choices compared to Nexus, sometimes even with an SWC hike. If it's intentionally designed that way, it's very clumsily designed, as there are other factions like Tohaa who get LoL protection for a negligible cost.
Definitely agree regarding the Umbra. They look amazing but I so rarely take one as they cost so much and die so easily. I can totally see they were meant to run the show in Onyx but I find it too much of a risk with no CoC. Fluff wise I always imagined the Umbra being the Lt with the Nexus being ready to take over or assist, so basically CoC. As for Vanilla, the Skiavoros. I just can't find a reason to take one as it stands. If it's meant to be a back field command and control piece then it needs to be cheaper.
I was very surprised to see the SEF update add a Chain of Command model (even available in vanilla!). At this point I think Onyx really needs some better Loss of Lieutenant protection than access to a handful of Morats, since that also locks you into a somewhat restrictive set of list builds. I still don't think vanilla needed CoC, but there's no excuse at this point for its total lack in Onyx.
What about giving umbra lieutenants Mnemonica? It would let you run an aggressive umbra lt. without disproportionate risk. Sure, they aren't aspects, but the fluff doesn't put them too far from it.