Hi there, I just played my first 5-game tournament with the tactical window ITS option (as vYJ). I liked it so much that I'd like to advocate and dicuss making the "Tactical window" option the new default for ITS missions and keep "Limited insertion" and "Unlimited Insertion" as options. Some reasons for that would be the following: - It speeds up tournament games - Its good a middleground between "spam" and "LI" lists. - Combat-group allocation (i.e. 10/5 vs 8/7) gets interesting. - More people play LI lists -> speeds up tournament games - Preferres lists with a good mix of powerful units mixed with cheap ones. What do you think?
As someone who recently switched and now mains a faction that is absolutely not affected in the slightest by Tactical Window and thus greatly benefits from it being chosen for tournaments, I really hope this doesn’t happen. Order restricting extras affects factions in wildly unequal ways, some factions are completely unaffected by them and some factions are crippled. If we are to think, and hope, that Infinity as a whole without extras is a balanced game (or at least tries to be) then any extras which creates a big disparity between factions should not be considered for any competitive events.
I find it most interesting how some of the factions people think are crippled by being limited today were factions people thought were best suited for 13 to 15 orders two-three years ago (I only remember Ariadna and ISS being considered viable at 17-18 orders historically speaking).
What @Diphoration says. I personally don't really like Tactical Window because it's a band aid to a design problem(s). From a gameplay POV, I'm happy building lists that cap out at 15 orders: my normal lists range from 13-17. Quite often it amounts to taking a few 'optional' upgrades. So I also don't think it's not too much of an issue. Even factions that often go above 15 orders can be brought down to 15 and do ok. So I don't think Tactical Window is broken either (at least not in the way LI is, where some factions are basically unplayable in a competitive LI format). I think Infinity should be designed to make 13-15 'trooper' lists feel 'normal' and also an optimal choice to play. But I think having the options for non-standard builds should remain. Yup. And that's before you remember that there are a lot more options to 'add' orders in modern Infinity than there used to be. So even a 15 trooper list can actually be easily 17 orders. The more I think about Tactical Window is it's probably actually fine. It's just such an ugly 'fix'. I would be completely ok with max 2 Combat Groups though. Not that 3 Combat Groups are an actual problem, but just by way of going "there IS a limit".
This is a bad idea because it doesn't actually solve any of the problems you list. No, it doesn't. On the surface it looks like it does, but players who practice with and play 18 order lists learn to play 18 order lists in proper time. I have seen players take insane amounts of time with 10 order lists because they need to deploy perfectly and make every order expenditure as valuable as possible with only 10 of them. High order counts give you wiggle room to be able to spend an extra order or two shooting an annoying piece or maneuvering to safety. No, it's not, because one of those things is still allowed with the tac window extra and the other is not. Not any more than it is now. 10/5 is almost always objectively better anyway, or arguably 9 regular + 1 irregular and everything else in group 2. Every 8/7 list gets dumped on by strategic command tokens. I thought we were talking about tactical window? And against, already addressed, does not actually speed up the game. Cheap units are the powerful ones, that's part of what got us into this problem in the first place. You know what would actually solve your perceived order spam problem? I offer three solutions. 1) Enforcing times more clearly in tournaments. Iirc the Germans use chess clocks. I don't think that's a perfect solution, but it's better than telling someone "I will not allow this list". 2) CB making lower point costs units weaker. People take 8 Kuang Shi or 4 Ghazi and 4 Daylami because those units have costs that justify being taken in those numbers. 3) CB not making missions that require outrageous order counts. Two of the last few new missions require some of the highest order counts of any mission in the game, Unmasking and Countermeasures. Unmasking can take a minimum of 9 orders to win, and that's with three camo specialists and 3 impersonators, all of whom pass their WIP rolls and kill their designated targets. In reality, factions with limited camo infiltrators/forward deployment/infiltration could easily be spending 15-20 orders doing the mission, which means it's not viable with less than 15 orders if there are more than like 3 tools in the opponent's list to stop you.
I do like the idea of Infinity running a little faster and with a little more variety rather than the current fairly stagnant list archetypes. But I do agree that restricting lists as a rule isn't the way to do it. Better to address the underlying problems with unit cost and scenario design to make high-order play a more careful balance rather than a safe bet, and LI-style lists a bit more effective at keeping themselves alive.
I talked to some people on the tournament who took LI lists and they said they did this because nobody could play "order spam".
The reason Tac Window is available as an option is so that players can utilize it if it's a good fit for an event. It sounds like Tac Window is a good fit for your event. So you should use it. I'm not sure it needs to be any more complex than that. ITS is designed to put agency in the hands of tournament organizers. On a broader note, we'll have to see what N4 brings as far as pricing. N2 => N3 reduced the cost of units quite a bit, so increased the typical order pools that players were using by 3-4 units (in my experience.) N4 may make further changes.
Infiltration means nothing on Unmasking due to the exclusion zone, and while not everyone has access to inifl specialists they often have access to one that can at the very least forward deploy.
Which just makes it more Order intensive. I've built a Bakunin list that can push all three buttons and kill all three civvies in 1 turn, based around triple Zeros and Lizzie. You need 16 orders for it: 2 on each Zero, ~8 for the HGL and two stripped. This is highly reliant on decent dice rolls though, and if you want Morlocks you're going to need to flip Irregular orders Regular. But the thing about Unmasking is it doesn't really rely on you pushing all the buttons. It's significantly more about killing your opponent's Datatrackers before they can kill the Designated Target. If you can do that, and get the Designated Target kill yourself that's enough to avoid a loss. So overall I think it's a good mission. There's probably room for improvement though. It becomes ridiculously order intensive if you take 3 guesses to discover the Designated Target. Reducing that dynamic but preserving the character of the mission would help (perhaps by making the second 'failed' guess also reveal the Designated Target, that way you only NEED to push two buttons). BTW, here is that list fitting inside Tactical Window Spoiler Jurisdictional Command of Bakunin ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 2 2 LIZARD MULTI HMG, Heavy Grenade Launcher / . (2.5 | 87) LIZARD PILOT Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. () MODERATOR MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 17) MODERATOR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9) MODERATOR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9) MODERATOR Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9) MODERATOR Combi Rifle + Pitcher / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 10) MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6) MORLOCK Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0 | 6) REAKTION ZOND HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26) GROUP 2 6 ZERO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21) ZERO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21) ZERO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21) ZOE & PI-WELL undefined. (0 | 47) ZOE (Hacking Device. UPGRADE: Stop!) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28) PI-WELL Combi Rifle / Electric Pulse. (0 | 19) TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
Could you elaborate a little? Do you mean nobody could play it like people playing poorly, or nobody playing it because of a soft-ban on it? I took the exclusion zone into account in my order count figure (each specialist needs to move-move then move-button, for six orders pressing buttons.) The only units I can think of that can do it in less than 6 orders are Zondnaut and Aragoto. And that also assumes perfect terrain.
He's talking about Tactical Window, so I guess it's the second option. Basically saying that since people couldn't bring more than 15 orders, they were more inclined to bring an LI list.
That sounds very unusual to me. If I was capped at 15 orders, you better believe I'd bring every single one I was allowed. I don't think I've ever played an army that performs well in limited insertion, nor has limited insertion ever suited me as a playstyle.
I agree that part of the solution should be mission design. We have recently played a bit with the 20x20 mission pack, where one mission has scoring based on number of models killed (as opposed to number of army points killed). This radically changes the dynamic between high and low order count lists in a way that Tactical Window does not. Of course, it can be argued that spam lists still retain their advantages in order economy, but on the other hand it makes piece trading less attractive and punishes players for filling their DZ with chaff. I am not saying that this is the only way to fix the discrepancy, and neither is it something that should be imposed as a blanket change, but I think that including such a mission in an ITS event would make players consider approaches that are a bit more conservative with human/alien/dog-person lives. Don't get me wrong, I love playing with large order pools, but I do wish that there were missions that actively encouraged an alternative mindset. My point is not that scoring per model killed is superior, just different enough to make different strategies viable. Right now I think Infinity as a game supports a variety of playstyles and strategies, but ITS as a mission pack does not.
As much as I think the overall order count in Infinity needs to go down, I'll echo what many others have said in that it needs to be done organically. Cheap bodies get far too much for what is invested.
If you put this alongside a relatively broad coverage button pushy mission for the other 6-7 points (ie something that typically rewards spam) you have an interesting dynamic that organically rewards balancing resilience and orders. Say: 1pt for same number of enemy combat-group troopers killed as your opponent (at least 1), 2pts for more enemy combat-group troopers killed than your opponent, +1 for a >3 difference. 1pt for having your DT survive the game. 6pts across 3 rounds for pushing buttons/doing classifieds. Where 'combat-group troopers' are troopers that take up a Combat Group slot (ie. Not Auxbots).
