As long as you can perfectly guess ranges, a rifle+lsg has about the same effectiveness against a single target in cover as a combi rifle. The shotgun's lower burst is offset by the higher mod and the fact that it ignores cover to end up at a fairly similar level of lethality to the target.
The difference is the effectiveness when linked and the impact template, both of which are strict advantages over the combi. In either case, I feel like the value of an LSG isn't far enough below a BSG to justify the price difference between the two.
But then combi rifles become too cheap compared to other weapons, imo. Multi rifles, swc weapons, etc. You need to adjust more costs after that. Probably better to fix what's really broken, not break more things.
Hypothetically an edition change would be a good time to do broad, sweeping, comprehensive changes of this nature.
I dunno. I mean, it would require a lot of re-balancing if pretty much every profile got a -2pt cost adjustment, because I think most of the weapons are pointed about right when compared to the combirifle. So it would be a lot simpler to only adjust the prices of the SMG, even if Combis are a little overcosted.
Of course. But changing the baseline down rather than bringing something up into a more coherent cost seems simpler overall, so making combis as cheap as subguns should be will lower a lot of prices and make it pretty complicated to rebalance the whole system - taking time away from other things that arguably are more urgent. It just seems to me that it's easier to take the path of least resistance.
The other problem of lowering costs is you further trend the whole game to more orders and spam. An issue whether you think needs fixing right now or not certainly doesn't need to get worse.
N2 to N3 saw an overall point decrease, and a massive shift towards two Combat Groups. I wouldn't wan that again.
Yeah, I hope that doesn't change much. 10-20 models seems like a good balance. Infinity can make its money from their existing playerbase by releasing cool new models and factions, not by making players field more lol.
Yeah, about 10% overall, and all off the middle and upper end of models. What was a 300pt list in N2 ended up about 270pts in N3. Bumping combis (and everything properly scaled to them) down a couple points would be a roughly equal shift, 2-3pts per model across nearly the entire range. I'm not sure that is a good idea at all. Yes, some sectorials would definitely be helped by something that would drop the average cost per model 2-3pts. IA comes to mind. But for the entire game? Not a good idea.
LSG is more costly than SMG, except for on profiles with Rifle+LSG and on the Aragoto. But yeah... I've had the same thought that rifles in general are a bit costly.
Until you run into the case where you cannot shot a target because the mandatory template of the LSG would hit an invalid target. It's really situational, but you enjoy having a direct hit - no template option that time :)
Yep. A light shotgun cannot shoot into melee (assuming the melee includes one of your own troops), for example.
Yep, just to add to that CC is actually the only case this applies for. Range is always shortest distance in between Silhouettes. So you can always angle the shot from the very top of your S to the very top of the target's S to angle it into the ground.
I haven't done the geometry on this, but I assume it cannot apply when targets and shooters are prone?
The angle won't be useful, you can nearly always angle it side-ways or even down into the ground, but let's just say engineering a situation just to be safe from Light Shotguns is hard with very low returns.
Combis are maybe slightly too expensive, but orders are maybe slightly too cheap. If combis went down 1-2 pts and orders went up the same line troops would cost the same but a bunch of other things might be better balanced relative to them. And order counts would come down slightly too I think. You'd prob have to do a couple more things (like maybe same adjustment on weapons that are well priced relative to combis right now)
Actually, I don't think you'd need to change prices on everything if the cost of providing an order went up by the same amount (combi)rifles went down. If I'm doing the mental math correctly, what would change the most would be warbands like Shaolin, Kuang Shi, Morlocks, etc. They'd all go up a couple points (since they don't carry rifles to drop their points back down).
I think if the SMG stayed the same price but lost AP it would be ok, and if it lost 1 point of DMG it would be perfect (Just because I feel like SMGs should be using pistol calibers like real ones)
Eh, I never really understood this sentiment. The DAM numbers in this game are all over the place. Pistol is 11 cause it's weak. thats a fine baseline. Rifle is 13. alright. Assault pistol, which is like an uzi, is 13, as strong as a rifle. okay....? A sniper rifle is 15, the highest you can get for ballistic weapons. fine. A missile is 14. A Heavy Pistol is 14. uh..... Of course this simple analysis discounts ammo types – which are arguably a bigger indicator on what something supposedly is and how it's represented in the game. IMO its tougher to rationalize how an SMG round and sniper round cause the same, unhealable wound, or how a missile and an SMG round penetrate armor in the same manner.