Yeah everyone who wants to nerf HMGs needs to think of it in terms of the Kamau existing. I'd rather the active player not get even weaker than they already have in the past year. Also HMGs stengths are more of a deployment thing in my experience. Hiding more of your units and forcing the HMG to come to you (and be out of good range) is a viable tactic, whereas a spitfire is far more dangerous on top of you.
I've honestly never thought an HMG was *too* good. At most we could shift the ol' -3 up to 16" for the HMG and sniper if we thought they needed balancing vs other weapons. But I don't think burst is a problem. Overall, I'm still quite happy with how range bands are working in the game. I'd like DAM, ARM and BTS to be more granular though. Everything hangs around pretty much a 2-3pt spread, and it seems like a waste for a d20 system.
Oh, I support nerfing the linked Kamau too. But looking around at list building here and elsewhere, the Gamma and Epsilon are toting HMGs 90% of the time. The HMG Seraph and Anaconda might as well be the only profile now, it's by far still the most common SWC weapon to see on the board. It's not really affecting external balance because pretty much all factions get a good selection of HMGs, but from a game design point of view it feels like many other weapons don't get a chance to shine because the HMG is just that little bit better.
When the majority of discussions on a faction almost always end up specifically call out it's HMG platforms over anything else you may need to rexamine the power level of the weapon.
I think there are case by case reasons for a lot of these. The Gamma and Epsilon are carrying them because you always want the beefiest gun on our beefiest piece, and in the case of the Seraph, defending a midfield S7 TAG is really hard, so the HMG helps it use its mobility without crossing the table. It definitely is the most common SWC weapon though. I think part of the problem is its the only weapon that can reliably deal with a MSR or missile launcher from your DZ. Nerfing the HMG in burst just makes strong missiles and snipers even more oppressive than they can be now, and encourages non-interactive play (smoke, white noise, eclipse, etc.) even more than we have now.
To be honest, that's simply because it's the one serious attack weapon that can hit the enemy DZ in its good range without moving, and that's a very important job when moving costs the same resource as the actions that make you win. You can play without one reasonably easily, but then you get the MO problem of risking being trapped in the DZ by long-range AROs.
Feuerbach, your own MSR, and a B3 HMG is still enough to get the job done against an enemy model only throwing 1 die. Bring in an AD spitfire near it either dropped or from a board edge. Get a Camo Shotgun or combi up close and blast it, or just cautious move past it and get on with your life. Coordinate fire at it with chaff weidling disposable weapons. There are other viable options that don't require the HMG. How does MO have this problem with the Hosp. HMG in a fireteam and access to cheap and solid TO snipers?
Don't play it myself, but apparently MO is usually hurting for points and SWC and that prevents them from spamming TO MSRs (which you want to use in reactive for best effect), and a non-Hospitaller or Seraph list doesn't have access to the weapon. Compounding this, the only things which can start outsids the MO DZ are TO Spec Sergeants, which are a bit under-gunned to clear heavy resistance in most circumstances, and Crusader Brethren, which have apparently been disowned by the MO community for being horrible. This leads to a persistent issue where strong or lucky reactive lists can keep MO stuck in their starting position for most of the game.
Did link bonuses just disappear all of the sudden? Even in ideal circumstances, Feuerbach are B3, MSR are B3. Even if the enemy is only throwing 1 die, that's still waaaay more risky than shooting your B4-B5 weapon at it. (Also just FYI, a B3 HMG in its -3 range has about even odds with a B1 MSR in its +3 range if BS is equal.) Those other options are viable (some more than others) but honestly if they all work, then why nerf HMGs? If there are already so many solutions to this problem, are HMGs really too good? The problem I have is that people seem to believe they should somehow be able to win the game in the reactive turn. I absolutely disagree with this. ARO should continue to be about slowing down the opponent. This is why I have an issue with link teams that fundamentally alter this balance -- the Kamau for example. Spiral Corps for example has an absolutely oppressive reactive turn -- stratuscloud, minelayers, dazer, impersonators, and helots -- but I'm not relying on any of those things to win the game, I'm relying on them to be annoying for my opponent. Making the reactive player stronger makes games more reliant on deployment and less on turn-by-turn decision making. I don't want to play an automata, personally.
I would argue the opposite as you get access to surprise shot meaning most things are either unable to return fire or do so extremely poorly meaning they can be picked off trivially. Nor should they be able to win in reactive. but thanks to certain new releases fireteams and the like people start to get that mentality. no-one does but when one weapon dominates active turn play by just being point and click as most of the time it comes down to how do I apply a (normally linked) HMG to the face which is just as boring as hiding behind an aro doom squad. It makes list building and army design brainless as it normally comes down to what are my best HMG platforms. To promote the use of other 32" weapons and lines of play that are more interactive beyond I throw 4 to 5 dice down range lets see what happens. Nerfing it would in theory make for better discussions about other options as it sits currently it is the Redrum of BS weapons as it out performs every other weapon that why would you bother with other options or tactics. I thought we were just talking about the weapon? But in the context of fire teams then it would still get end up at B4 +3BS and be immune to surprise and out of LOF attack penalties and still a deadly weapon.
The trick is to use Hidden Deployment to catch enemy troops by surprise on their second short skill, against non-lead link members or when they are facing down another strong ARO, especially after they've already spent several orders moving into position. You only get burst 1, but a well-positioned MSR with its DA ammo has a good chance of putting down anything short of HI in one ARO. Sometimes you can even use Hidden Deployment to prevent troops from re-entering Camo by revealing when they have LoS, entirely wasting that enemy order and leaving a valuable piece exposed. Pulling these kinds of tricks can net you a win in the reactive turn with good luck and better planning, and it's hard enough and taxing enough to do that I consider it one of the few exceptions to the "Active Turn for Winning is More Fun" principle and hope Hidden Deployment shenanigans stick around in N4, no matter what happens to Camo.
Alternatively, you can use it to knock out enemy pieces that have my attack pieces pinned so they can move forward, then re camo as area denial, someone is less likely to move through a spot that they know is being watched by a TO sniper meaning you can some what herd them towards other areas, or watch them burn orders discovering.
My wishlist goes like this : Dumb it down : complexity shouldn’t be a goal in itself. Something like CC doesn’t need three different tables, but could make do with a Martial Arts table, Guardian could be more interesting as G:Synch and Space Vampire MA could be a simple weapon type allowing you to heal, when causing damage, that could be combined with MA. Balance Smoke : instead of smoke blocking LOS, except when active player shoots, just apply the -6 penalty. Leave the blocking of LOS to Eclipse, that works both ways. Sort out fireteams : they’re a great way to give subpar troops a role to play in the game, but a bad idea, when they just serve to tag on cheap bonuses to already good models e.g. Kazaks w. Vet Kazak. Mixed fireteams aren’t doing model collections any good. Reconsider ‘Hidden Information’ and Markers : e.g. When a camo minelayer is revealed, the enemy can easily deduce, that the second camo marker is a mine. When Achilles/Patroclus link up, you’re telegraphing their nature, due to either putting down 3 or 1 link Leader marker. Games with full or no knowledge works, but N3 was somewhere in between, allowing you to play a shell game in some instances but not in others. Make the ‘ONE BOOK’ : splitting the basic rules of the game across a number of books is widely impractical for reference, while introducing rules mid-game seems more like GW sales tactics, than game development. Confine new armies to work within the existing framework - then continue using ITS packs to mess with the format, that works great. And keep up the good work, as you’re making an awesome game.
There should be a trait that keeps certain pieces of equipment as private info even when a troop is revealed. "Concealed" would work as the term for this, except it's already being used for mines to have camo... In either case, equipment like mines should fit into this category.
A few thoughts on Fireteams: Fireteams are a bad design crutch to start with. If a unit is supposed to be worth it’s points and SWC it should not need all those bonuses to be put on the table. This has been allright for line troops, even if a simpler design would have been to reduce their SWC cost but it has really just blown up since the mixed Fireteams became huge. They are an absolute pain to explain to anyone getting into the game, the rules are clunky as hell and again balance wise they are a joke. How is a Brigada HMG balanced with +3BS and +1 Burst? Is it too good? No? Then why isn’t it almost that good without the crutch? Because it pays a tax in goons? I thought those goons are supposed to be worth their points? At the moment fireteams are what Formations used to be in 40k. Free bonuses for taking a specific combination of units. And just like those it is super hot for the people who get them right at this moment. But it also screws over any semblance of game balance and makes getting into the game from a chore to almost impossible. Shoveling free stuff on units is not a solution. Adjust the damn points formula, find unique roles. Yeah I know there is a lot of units out there but it can’t be that hard to make something that’s at least an alternative to the Kriza. Right now you shove something into a fireteam and people go “blam fixed it’s good now!” and not it isn’t. It’s clearly not good or it wouldn’t need that fireteam. At this point I have armies I don’t even want to touch. They’re a mess. I didn’t get Corregidor to play McMurder and his rando Alguacil team with no Alguacil. Damn that guy deserves his own post with how much he defines any sectorial he is in. To me the last year felt catastrophic. We’ve been bleeding players here like crazy because they just can’t keep up. Maybe it created short term sales but it’s a scorched earth strategy and I really hope N4 takes a radically different approach than this rapid fire release/redesign rando powerboosts/formations nonsense that defined 2018 and 19. This came out way more ranty than intended but the sad fact is I’m too annoyed and have too little faith that it would do any good to write a properly structured suggestion. I have no faith the game will take a direction even remotely in a cleaner, more clear direction as every release recently showed the opposite is the goal.
If this is your approach to the purpose of fireteams (to encourage play of all units), then yes, your analysis is correct. However, I view fireteams as the balancing factor between vanilla and sectorials, and in this, they are fairly successful. Things can be balanced both against their base cost and their cost in a 5-man. If anything, I think the Brigada could be buffed in both of these things. I think one issue is that you aren't considering any of the drawbacks of fireteams, such as the increased risk when manuevering, the smaller amount of places to safely pass on the table, etc. Units that are good situationally are still good. Fireteams just increase the number of situations where a unit is viable. This is the point I disagree with the most with. Vanilla factions are still very good. We see Vanilla Aleph place high consistently, we're seeing an uptick in CA performance, we have 2 sectorials who can play viably without fireteams (TAK and Shas), and the vanilla faction that was previously in a really poor place is looking better than ever (PanO). The fact is that they are strong, and definitely skew internal balance, but haven't really shown to be an external problem -- otherwise we wouldn't see vanilla factions placing as high as they do as frequently as we have in ITSX. As for rules, yeah they're clunky, but I think that's largely an organization problem.
Not going for all of this but the point wasn't that Vanilla factions are weak. They are clealry not. It's that some units are good and some are not. And the ones that are not get bandaid fireteam fixes. Vanilla Nomads don't care if the Brigada is good or not. Or even that the Taskmaster is better. They just take the Kriza anyway. Some units just stand far above others and they can shine in their sectorial but that can't be it. Because even then you take what? The MB HMG? What about the other four? Do they have a role? I'm hammering on the nomad example here but that's mostly just because the Alguacil without Alguacil link deserves an award for most clunky construct of all time. The reasoning goes for all fireteams.
Unless you're talking about for specific individual models, then this is already possible in the rule's current framework. Simply adding the Private Information label to AP Mines and Minelayer would achieve this, but it seems like it is the intention of the developers that this should specifically not be the case
That's a fundamental unit design problem. Un-linked Missile Launcher on a line troop is basically never worth it.
And for some units (such as line troopers), I think it's fine that they don't have even power levels in vanilla. Like, I would absolutely agree that the difference in power level both in their respective factions and in vanilla between the Kriza and the Taskmaster, or between the Mobile Brigada and the Riot Grrl is a problem, but I don't really feel the same way about low cost order monkeys for whatever reason. The reason the missile line trooper exists is because it's a boon to sectorials who absolutely need the defensive bonuses that link teams provide. Vanilla already has plenty of variety to not necessitate a fireteam.
