The problem wasn't MI... the problem was LI and HI crowding into its design space. MI being your more tooled up more highly trained veteran all-rounder type troops loses its distinction when you have light-HI with special skills and elite-LI with extra armour leaning into it.
Yup. It gets worse when you realise that a Kamau is, in practice, more survivable then most MI equivalents thanks to SI. So you can't even say "MI are more survivable then their LI peers". One of the options I've previously spitballed for MI was granting MI specialists +1B on all "interact with Objective" rolls. Emphasising their role as the combat specialists who do their specialist functions while under fire. Mechanically, this would make them much more efficient at completing objectives, trading off their lack of efficiency in reaching them. It would also benefit MI Fireteams as it improves the relative efficiency of the team. Narratively, it distinguishes them from HI which are assault troopers first and LI specialists which have someone else secure the room first, so they aren't as skilled under fire. I'm not saying that's the best answer to the question of "why is this trooper MI and that trooper LI?" but it does provide an answer. At the moment, there's no mechanical reason that MI and LI are different. It'd be clearer with an LI (Light Infantry) and PA (Powered Armour). A second option is to do away with troop classifications other than "Character". Then make all Veteran, Elite and HQ LI troops "MI" and tie a mechanic to that. Essentially this would get a split between Line Infantry and Veteran Infantry.
Yeah. I think a "Line Infantry", "Veteren Elite Infantry", "Heavy Infantry" split would better represent where we're at now. Kamau, Baghs, Nisse and Bolts are peers and should be the same type. Marauders and Grunts are not peers and represent two different types.
I mean... yes. Yes to all that. And this is probably a hangup from back in the day, but I've always felt that MI represented generalists more than specialists. Used to be they'd typically get a toolbox of equipment and abilities so they had more options for dealing with a problem. Eg. They'd get a BS weapon *and* a DTW, or, maybe a limited heavy weapon like a panzerfaust, and they'd get 2-3 different specialist options, and they'd get Visors or some other special piece of equipment to boost their role. Either that, or they'd represent a fluffy special tactics unit that was designed for a singular specialist use, eg. intruders, sin eaters.
Honestly? MI doesn't need to exist as a classification, neither does SK or WB, and that's a good thing. Units should be judged by their profile, not their classification. Ghazi are LI but may as well be WBs, Streloks may as well be SKs, troopers shouldn't be restricted to fit them in a category, they should be created and then put into the category that most matches them. In a nutshell: Good: A Nisse is 4-2 1W trooper with cool skills, equipment, and a little more survivability, therefore we put it in the MI category. Bad: Nisse is an MI, therefore it should be limited to 4-2 and save multiple skills to bloat it.
Sure. But is that classification meaningful? Yadu are a 4-4 Move 2W trooper with cool skills, equipment and a little more survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Kamuas are a 4-4 Move 1W trooper with cool skills, equipment and a little more survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Nisse are a 4-2 Move 1W trooper with cool skills, equipment and a little more survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Hawkwood is a 4-4 Move 1W trooper with cool skills, equipment and a little more survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Corax Hasht is a 4-4 Move 1W trooper with cool skills and equipment and a little more Survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Govads are a 4-2 Move 1W trooper with cool skills and equipment and a little more survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Muyibs are a 4-4 Move 1W trooper with cool skills and equipment and a little more Survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Prowlers are a 4-2 Move 1W trooper with Infiltration, other cool skills and equipment and a little more Survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Dasyu and Proxy ML 2 are 4-4 Move 1W troopers with Infiltration, other cool skills and equipment and a little more Survivability that is not vulnerable to Hacking or IMM'd by EM. Which of these are MI again? As a taxonomy it's so varied as to be meaningless. So either you redefine it (ie. if it has X-2 Move and is ARM2-3 and is not Hackable and not IMM'd by EM then it's an MI), you scrap it, or you make it useful (a grab bag for "elite" - ie. 'base profile at >19pts' - not SK, WB or HI Infantry profiles is a pretty useful category). Aside: I disagree with Ghazi and Kuang Shi being warbands: warbands are Fury + high CC + not Hackable/IMM'd by EM. Yes this means Krakots are mis-typed. You can make an argument that Warbands should be Fury + not Hackable/IMM'd by EM, but at the moment it's pretty well coherent that if it doesn't have high CC it's not a warband. If you think Ghazi and Kuang Shi are warbands, then equally Libertos, Thorakitai and Pavel are as well.
Then get rid of the compartments and make Character, HI, TAG and REM skills or tags (like Hackable). Either the compartments are useful, in which case they need a coherent purpose, or they're not and instead they're just bloat. Even if the only purpose is "let's break up the long list of troops into smaller lists to allow players to sort them easier" you can do it in a much better way than presently. It's the same issue with Classifications straddling the fence between "fluffy and can simply be ignores" and "a game mechanic designation".
Unit Types also make discussion about the game easier when talking more generally about units and unit design. as put by others in thread already the lack of clear design principles thanks to aspects of other troop types either leaking in (Yadu, Lei gong) or the opposite where other troop type steal from them (Brawlers, Kamau). I've always seen LI as just your average dude with a gun, and occasional piece of interesting gear or stat bump. HI, durable beat stick with superior stats, and access to better guns and gear. MI, somewhere in the middle stat and durability wise, but are also swiss army knives when it comes to loadouts with even basic ones carrying a lot of useful gear and able to take on most targets competently.
Look at the Strelok and then look at the Kanren. Which one of those is a skirmisher, and which is not? That whole paradigm of FD1-2 LI with skirmisher loadouts really screwed the SK classification up. Hecklers, Zulu Cobras, Streloks, Kanren, and the Ryuken-9 all fit in that weird class.
If CB were bold enough they could change the classifications to; Light Infantry - all infantry with no special qualities. Bionic Infantry - Lhosts, Dogfaces, bio-enhanced infantry, and Symbionts. Yes, Gorgos goes here. Special vulnerabilities to, for example, viral and/or fire Powered Infantry - all current heavy infantry, probably certain types of units or Lhosts like I think it was Zoe and Chimeras. Special vulnerabilities to hacking and E/M Tactical Gear - TAGs. See above. And then let a few things work behind the scenes such as that all Light Infantry with ARM 3+ get penalties to MOV or that certain gear requires a powered infrastructure such as HRMC. Naturally missions like Show of Force ought to be tied to Silhouette value instead of classification. Hell, I wouldn't be averse if they gated a larger category of weapons behind powered and bionic infrastructure - want a Heavy Flamethrower? Better have the enhanced physiology to carry it. Want an E/Mauler? Are you also carrying a power plant? Alternatively they could just put in the effort and draft criterias for each classification and re-sort them. Probably remove Medium Infantry classification because it's basically pointless. I didn't write that light infantry classification works, I wrote that the skirmisher classification works
Skirmishers lost their rule from n2 to n3. They had less problems with any terrain, as if they had all of "terrain: X" skills. When CB just translated that rule to "multiterrain" for SK, that cathegory lost all meaning of existence. WB are in a similar spot than MI: they had a clear role..until myrmidons appeared, got a MI profile without any of the MI problems, and got LI costs. At the moment, that is something that mainly happens to aleph, but opened the door for other MI-profiles without MI-problems Giving the same rules for all MI for free is wrong. And it is because it will give boosts to the allready used MI, and might bring nothing to other less used. Advance deployment in a prowler is absurd, while on wildcats is a nice touch, makes more useful the MK12 sin eater, and gives nothing to the MSR sin eater.
Why does the game need to define a role for you through unit type? why can't you just look at the unit and figure out for yourself what to do with it?
Well, there is the problem that skirmishers and warbands is more of a role itself, while LI, MI, HI, REM or TAG are more "type of troop", but CB didn't respect the MI niche, so MI could be taken out of the game completelly and there will be no changes (they are like elite LI paying an extra SWC and worse movement)
Hot take: The LI / MI / HI / SK / WB descriptors could be taken out of the game completely and nothing bad would happen. Just leave INF / TAG / REM and be done with it. The same with the Veteran / Elite / Garrison / Line / Headquarters / Spec Trained. Just leave Trooper / Character / Mercenary and that's it. The majority of Types and Classifications are utterly meaningless 90% of the time, outside of Classified requirements and that's a flimsy reason to have so many of them.
Actually, even character or merc are meaningless. Infantry, HI, TAG and remote have a big distinction, because how some rules affect them (hacking, dodge, EM, cautious move, prone...)
but he said to take out veteran in the first place. CB could just take out the "character" label and mark them as veterans (or the type they want for each one)
