The ninja cannot kill the AC2 in 1 order, so it cannot simply do the mission by only doing unopposed actions. If you have a ARO protecting it and they trade their ninja, they'll need to have some other trooper walk up to it. The D-Charge camo infiltrator would not care for any ARO your opponent have and make it even less interactive.
Except you can not reliably achieve it with 1 D-Charge Infiltrator. So even if you do plant it in 2 Orders and Detonate it (3 orders and risking losing a troop). You need to do that multiple times (at least twice, probably thrice) to destroy the AC2. So we're now at 3 Markers deployed within 12" of the AC2 (leaving aside that's practically *extremely* difficult without risking an infiltration roll and entirely telegraphs your plan): * For Nomads that's Prowlers (AVA 2/3) at 31pts EA. * For PanO that's Kon at 29pts but not marker state. (Honourable mention to Locusts but at CC20 can probably just CC it with the D-Charges anyway, so they're kinda already an option for this play, but without a marker state would require support) * For YJ that's Zencha (AVA 1/2) at 34pts EA. * For Haqq it's Farzans (AvA 1, 24pts), Al Hawwa (AVA1, 21pts), Nahab (AVA2, 30pts). * For CA it's Zerat (so no marker state, and on the hacker so likely to die to KHDs on the approach). But OTOH they do have Rasyats for whom the current rule is trivial: AD, Smoke, D-Charges + DA CCW with NBW. * ALEPH don't have an option (not even a bad one like PanO) * O-12 it's Razors (AVA2, 31pts EA). * For Ariadna it's Scouts, Chasseurs, Uxia (who's a good option under the current rules anyway), Vols, Metros and Bruant. You're looking at a budget of 9 orders (particularly once you account for Mines and other issues) and a lot of factions simply can't do it. So it IS trivial for Camo Spam Ariadna (although even then you're looking at 44pts/2SWC for 4 X Inferior Infil D-Charges). It's borderline reliable for Haqq (although with Fidays there's a good argument that it becomes trivial). For almost everyone else it's an expensive option, but not at all reliable. If you lose the LT roll and your opponent is halfway competent they'll either do the same thing to you, in which case it'll turn into a draw. Or have an actually reliable plan and spend T1 gutting your midfield suicide pieces before they can D-Charge anything. Honestly though would it be an issue if most games resulted in both AC2 getting exploded? IF there was a decent tie breaker? Tl;dr fuck Ariadna, they're ruining the game for the rest of us. [emoji14]
Saito actually can kill the AC2 in one order, first of the game, with his Burst 2 EXP CCW with no help from other units or opportunity for the opponent to stop him. Smoke already makes half the play in this mission (and many others!) non-interactive anyway. I'd just like the factions that CB decided shouldn't have CC to be able to compete on a level playing field with the Myrmidons and Morlocks instead of being statistically barely able to kill the AC2 even when the opponent takes no action against them. Even if the D-Charges became too strong, you still have a simple button-pushing mission as a tiebreaker built into the Scenario, which is much more fun then the current gear-check Major Victory.
You know what, you have a good point. Probably the best one I've heard for why planting d-charges wasn't allowed. Sorry I was being dense before. Planting d-charges would add more profiles to the scenario that can accomplish the objective at the highest tier of effectiveness. I will back off my claim that it's not efficient; I was wrong, it very much is. One planted d-charge can easily win this scenario even if you never get another unit there to finish it off. That's absolutely worth sacrificing a unit to do it. Especially a cheap unit. I'm passionate about how bad this mission can be for some factions, I hate seeing it on an event line up especially one with 5 scenarios. I wish it was removed from ITS because of how exclusionary it is. It's unfortunate because I think there is a fun and unique scenario at it's core. I really don't know if planted D-Charges would make L&S even marginally better. On one hand it adds more profiles that can solve the objective and brings more factions into relevance, but on the other hand a nearly unstoppable score the objective mechanic for some factions and not others is the fundamental problem with L&S.
[QUOTE="inane.imp, post: 314923, member: 1800" Tl;dr fuck Ariadna, they're ruining the game for the rest of us. [emoji14][/QUOTE] I logged on just to like this.
Given that Saito Togan exists, this isn't a problem. An MA 4 Infiltrator with smoke grenades and an EXP CC Weapon exists in a few factions, so someone hoofing it from their DZ wouldn't unbalance the scenario. It's clear that you're not actually familiar with it.
@Hecaton you have the Unknown Ranger with CC22, NBW and a T2 CCW who is also a Specialist (so can get a free D-Charge from the Panoply just by succeeding a WIP roll). And he's also a Wildcard. I wouldn't say that an army with a dude who has a 30% chance to crit an AC2 and force another ARM vs DMG 14 is something to sneeze at.
Thought occurred to me: Would dropping the ARM but increasing the Structure solve a lot of the problems? At Structure 5 ARM 4 you need to do 7 Wounds to Destroy it (I haven't run the %s so these shouldn't be taken as final numbers). That's a minimum of 6 orders for placing and blowing and 3 suicide troops to reliably destroy it but it does open up a lot more troops as reasonable options, and beyond any single troop destroying it in 1 order. But within the capabilities of a single trooper with D-Charges once they reach it. Would mean that last order D-charging would be out of the question, but practically that won't happen anyway unless you've already cracked it. This coupled with a decent number of points for secondary objectives and you could probably weather turn 1 Alpha attempts. They'd remain a legitimate strategy for some factions, but hardly the only option. I still don't think that it'll be a good mission (too order heavy) but I think it might be less horrible.
Actually, he doesn't even need to make a WIP roll because he has Scavenger. But that's beside the point; other factions have infiltrating ma l4 dudes with explosive cc weapons.
