Yep, the problem is that specifically to the Ghazi, LGL counterplay is too costly in terms of orders compared to the benefits that Ghazi provide. The average BS12 LGL is going to be speccing on a 9, vs a dodge on the same value (as Mutts are PH12). This means there's only about a 25% chance of winning the f2f (55% you fail outright, and if you pass there's a 22.5% chance the Mutt beats you) and you only wound 65% of the time, for roughly 1/6 odds to wound. (Double checked in Dice Calc, odds are about 19.7%, so about 1/5.) That means you have to spec 5 times to have a 70% chance of getting rid of the Mutt.
That's funny, because a lot of us on the side you're demonizing want troops that are internally competitive. Some troops get a bad rap for no reason -- for example, Bolts are significantly more playable in NCA after the rework and CB should be commended for both the profile and the fireteam changes that made that possible. Bao on the other hand are obviously outclassed by the Rui Shi, and tons of players have tried to make them work, and all have come to the agreement that Bao are just not competitive in ISS. The Ryuken is another good example of this - the ODD SMG is just so far ahead of the HRL profile, and I don't think you'll see any competitive JSA players disagree with my opinion there. (Although if you look over to the JSA forums, 2 pretty excellent players are discussing some of the shortcomings of the ODD profile.)
All things being said, I think that it's good to have profiles 'in case'. Magic does this with sets when they introduce a new mehcanic. In case the mechanic gets out of control, there are some cards that will counter it. These cards might not be optimal for generic competitive play, but if the new mechanic runs away, they are valuable. I think there are plenty of units in infinity which maybe aren't appealing to super-optimized ITS play - but that's not the only way people play. If you play with maybe two or three people, and get tired of your friend Jill's Fidays eating your lunch, then that Bao trooper might start to look pretty appetizing. If your really want some fire ammo to scare your Tohaa pal Bob, maybe that Ryuken 9 with HRL looks better. I cringe every time someone calls for stripping away unneeded profiles, especially ones that exist for fluff purposes. I want the fluff to tailor the look of the game, and not everyone plays to be super competitive in ITS. Please let us keep the random and weird profiles - you don't have to use them, but personally I love trying an idea because it's dumb and cool. Don't take that away! :D Just speaking personally, I select an army like this: Find cool looking models Come up with a fluff theme around them Try and build a more or less competitive force around that theme and those models (oh, and duplicate sculpts not allowed ;) I hope that N4 includes more material for players like me, who are only ITS players by necessity, as well as the tournament crowd.
I think in both those cases you mentioned the units underperform even in the situations where they're supposed to be a counter. The idea you floated is a good one, but I don't think Infinity has too many actual examples like that.
I liked this post. I've been learning more at Magic's design lessons / approach recently and there's a lot of extremely interesting stuff in there from a wargames perspective. I think a lot of people look at balance approaches for online games (mobas/strategy/mmos etc) but M:tG has been doing it longer and is also a lot closer to sharing the same constraints and drivers as a wargame.
If your meta plays with terrain rules they become much more useful. Also in regards to camo, if more models carried sniffers(especially infiltrators) then creating a sensor net becomes more viable and therefore revealing units and keeping that way is much easier. While I agree with this, I do have a few counter points. 1. The biggest issue with it are the platforms(Sub 10 point warbands) that carry it and how easy they are to fit into a list and how it further idiot proofs those models. If smoke was only on more expensive profiles like Myrmidons, Saito, Zondnautica etc. they are fine and you have a meaningful cost attached to them. 2. Fireteams (this will be a reoccurring theme thanks to them being game warping and degenerate) more often than not engaging an enemy team that is watching a point in a firefight is a losing proposition unless you are applying your own team against them, leaving you with your best option to just pop smoke and ignore them. I have lost way too many games because I decided to engage an enemy fireteam as opposed to just ignoring it. Fireteams in general tend to just fall into the too strong category, especially lately when almost all list building decisions come down to whats the best B4 or ARO weapon platform I can slap into a fireteam. Because why take a solo HMG when I can give him some friends that cover his bad range bands, help him shoot more, hit better and be immune to many aspects of counter play. This is one of those rules that came to be because of fireteams, and as long as they exist in their current form will probably be necessary. The hackable trait is more a reminder than anything else, it's a little green square that says "Oh, by the way this model can get bricked by a hacker". With the exception of spotlight and exile there arent any programs that don't target a model with the hackable trait. reoving the current targetable rules would just make hacking too confusing and unusable as you would people trying to redrum a TAG and possess an enemy hacker. With Ariadna please dont make vet kazaks more obnoxious, and they are still using power assisted armour but it just doesnt have full integration of computer systems making it hackable, and you forget that EM shorts out your radio and isolating you making it the best way to deal with certain models. Yes it is, CB please delete it. It should be, you are potentially removing an extremely threatening piece at little to no risk of yourself, and it being slightly more order intensive is the trade off. As for walking the Hacker away, most hackers that close it would have stealth thanks to a marker state, or you used a repeater and they are so far in the back field that you don't need them to move again, or at least not right away, as you probably hacked it so you could move something else past it without it getting shot or to shoot it uncontested.
Nah, if that were true they wouldn't have put it in Tunguska. Sectorials need *something* to balance them against vanilla.
I really don't agree with this. I think some recent Fireteams have pushed the limit, but the fact that we still see armies in old fireteam paradigms performing very well, and vanilla armies still scoring very well in ITS (Aleph and CA), I really don't feel like Fireteams are a huge problem. I agree there's been a kind of arms race that's left about 1/4 of the armies in the game behind in terms of Fireteams, but I feel like it's more about efficiency than firepower. Fireteams are a really core part of the defensive and offensive game for sectorials, and I disagree with much of your analysis about how their removal would be healthy. I would like to see Fireteams more in a place where they are treated as a tool rather than an auto-include.
I would gladly see assisted fire go if TR bots got their base BS bumped up to 12. This would also make that stupid CA TR bot cost bump up to 28 points for the HMG which feels somewhat more comparable to the utility it would have at that point.
That's probably true. I feel like Dakinis already overperform a good deal, but Unidrons are a bit overpriced to start with.
I feel pretty good about Unidrons assuming you can give them Marksmanship. Dogged synergizes extremely well with Remote Presence. Then again you basically never see them in Vanilla, so...
Basic ideas: Don't know if they've been mentioned (don't want to scroll through 34 pages). Contender - seems like a punishment to give a model a contender. Even increasing to B2 would make it better. It's only use is as a ARO weapon, it's terrible in active turn without any big benefit. Tac Bow: give it +6 at 0-8"? Might make it a bit better of an option for models like the Ninja. I'd use the pistol in active turn over the Tac Bow. Gives it a bit of a cool feel to it too, sneak up from camo, and aim carefully for a silent kill. MSV2 and smoke: building a list? Make sure you have smoke and MSV2... It's boring. Make it similar to how it interacts with Camo - a -6 to shoot through with no MSV, -3 to shoot through with MSV1, and no penalty for MSV2. This at least gives a model the option to shoot through smoke, so it doesn't completely block LOS and allow models to do whatever they want behind it, just makes it harder. Also allows DTW's to work in smoke, as they should. TAGs. Lots of ideas to make the big guys work in this thread, i assume! I love TAG's as models, and they're cool on the table top, but when you lose one to a guy with an SMG, it makes you wonder. - Give them all TacAware. - +1 (or more) Damage on their guns. Scalewise, it feels like they should be firing guns normally mounted on vehicles (like 20mm cannons). Shouldn't really have the same gun as a 15 point grunt. Multi-HMG is close, but not enough. Maybe give them all MML1, to represent the bullets simply smashing through cover. A big enough gun isn't concerned that you've hidden behind a barrel or park bench. -Repeaters - although this might make them too powerful, as they would get protection from hackers from their own hackers at that point. Engage: give bonuses to MA models for this skill. Having a Ninja (or equivalent) engage a cheap models gives the advantage to a cheap model - PH12 vs CC 14
It was in vanilla first and only there, until TJC dropped. As far needing something there are far better ways to do this like sectorial only models and profiles, increased AVA, and merc options. If I understand things correctly the (in)famous line "PanO was a mistake" was due to the native stat bump of +1BS in a shooting game was very strong, Fireteams are essentially that cranked up beyond reason. They have also lead to many problem pieces in the game, wonky rules interactions and general confusion(Emily, Kamau, Sheskin, Dakini, Hisen, Frenzy, Tohaa, mixed teams, etc.), and warped most peoples line of thinking to just fireteams and how to leverage them. Also with the advent of the new mixed teams it makes knowing what is and isn't a legal team exceedingly confusing especially for new players. The defensive and offensive game for sectorials can always be changed. That's fair I can see why people rely on them so much, I just personally loathe them in their current iteration. The concept of fireteams is fine it's just that their current bonuses are a bit much, especially with core where they get them for free where as Haris and Enomotarcos have to pay SWC and give up a slot in the team for the dedicated profile to get their bonuses. Not really, they are sitting in the place where the elite LI are and seem fine. Their BS is on par for most line infantry, they just get the bonuses of the 2 levels on unconscious, mimetism, 6-4 mov and the Apsara for the Dakini, the Unidrons seem to be paying mostly for the autotool.
This isn't the right context of that line -- the problem with PanO having higher BS was a problem created by the fact that there weren't missions except Annihilation at the inception of the game. If fireteams were really that oppressive, we should see PanO overperforming, shouldn't we? And it turns out the only PanO sectorial that really overperforms currently is VIRD, which has the most oppressive linked ARO in the game. Acon is still good, but it was good even before it could link Bagh-Maris with Regulars. Do you have any strong vanilla players in your local meta? Because Vanilla CA and Aleph are absolutely as oppressive as VIRD. Fireteam strengths are easy to quantify, and while their cost in terms of points has received buffs (mixed links make it cheaper to get 5-man bonus, flexible links make it easier to keep 5-man bonus), the drawbacks of fireteams (positioning, loadout issues, clunkiness of navigating the table) seem to be much less concrete and harder for players to grasp. This is something I would absolutely like cleaned up in the next edition. There were a lot of suggestions how in some previous threads, and I honestly think it might just be easier to have 1 chart per unit with FT core of what is required and what is optional. I'm really opposed to this personally if Vanilla is going to stay in the game. I already have conceptual issues with the idea of ALEPH loan-pieces in ISS and NCA/ASA when there could be more unique things in similar roles already, and Vanilla not getting access to the best versions of something is just a way to inflate the power level of sectorials in ways that are often imbalanced. At least the Fireteam bonuses and requirements are the same between armies, even if their composition rules are different.
There is one regular Vanilla player in my meta, there were more and then OSS dropped. I expect there may be an up swing of vanilla players when wildfire gets here though but I doubt it will last. This is already happening with things like the KHD Spektr, LT2 Asura and Gwailos. Which seems like a much more interesting way of handling it to me.
Actually, in n2 when firing through smoke with suppression fire was the standard -6, and some people complained about that "use" (mainly from some faction that has lost os MSV and CB seem to hear only them) That deppends on the meta and the rules, I've seen people using rules as saturation zones instead of visibility for example. And most time spending as much points for a tool that only work against that kind of trooper and once effects are in, removing them are absurdly easier than applying them. If removing had at leas the same order consumption, it could be worth. Supposing that they can move away because stealth is giving hacking an effect from another hability, but I can agree with repeaters (you just needed more orders to place the repeater there if it's a position repeater, or try and not-to-fail with a pitcher. There are a lot of drawbacks there for something that has not so much power and is supposed to be a big counter against that kind of trooper I will not say that pano under/overperformed in the past or not, because that "overperforming" is refered to the expectation and results CB had from them. But they have been at the top almost allways, only the 2-3 ITS after LT-specialists were taken off were bad times for them. Them problem was paying the same for BS and WIP, when WIP was almost unused. Though now that seems is changing
what I mean, is that only using zones is not enough, the type of zone is important, and not all the people like it the same way Time ago (in n1 and n2), we had some tables designed to use visibility zones. One around a thick fog, which make floor level outside buildings low visibility zone all the map. But from inside buildings (we had then a few "big" ones, with some doors, windows, rooms and corridors from building to building) or from rooftop to another, there was normal visibility. That was pretty hard in reality, because the objectives we used were allways outside. Other table was paradiso themed, with lots of acuarium/fishbowl plants that were partial cover + low visibility, or total cover (the bigger ones). Was less taxing, but there was no building there, just plants, some cliffs with plants, and rocks (attached to more plants), was very open, but you could bypass going prone. And there was the chemical plant, with 3 "destroyed tanks" that were dangerous terrain and null visibility zones, that was the least liked of all the tables we designed, even when its only special thing was the 3 smoke zones and was the less taxing overall, but also was the most extreme in a certain way.
