Just gonna point out that Tigers were supposed to be in IA but it seems they were deemed too good for the Sectorial. It's starting to seem clear if you want to play N4 you better play Ariadna, PanO, Aleph or O12 (maybe that's what N4 means); I dunno if they don't have enough people to play test and design things or they have stretched too thin with a gazillion sectorials to keep selling minis but it sure seems there are factions nobody cares about in CB and I see no reason to think that's gonna change with N4.
Where can I get one of these crystal balls people are using to judge the viability of entire factions from about a half dozen O-12 profiles?
Wouldn't mind much if most of them did something, at this point they're mostly useless clutter and distractions aside from the standout autopicks (who are their own problem). Dire Foes are fine, they're not excessively good but at the same time transformative for i.e. their respective LI Core Links. They're also not "yet another Aristea celebrity" with a Profile for having a Profile's sake.
For something only written the way they are to fill some lore space, they sure raise too many questions exactly from the lore standpoint, like how comes not a single of hundreds of ops taking place on several planets that this force conducted could happen without this guy's or that girl's involvement. And by the way, most of the time they get shot and not all of them have cubes or even access to cloning tech. I mean, I know some people like the "your dudes" approach, but these aren't even "your" dudes exactly because they are already named. Named characters are lame.
At the end of the day it's not different from Mortarion showing up for every single little skirmish in the 40th Millennium
BS12 on pseudo HI - well we'll call it original. Just kidding, Kosmoflot looks dope compared to Starmada.
I love the idea to put Shock Immunity together with NWI and give "Vulnerability (Shock)" to the few that don't have both
I think we have to admit, this is also a selling point and fluffwise O-12 should have elite units. We will see, what price we have to pay for Liu in N4.
NWI with Shock Immune is pseudo two wounds, but slightly worse because you can't take two wounds and be healed by a doctor. Which seems Fine? To me?
Gameplay-wise it's a useful distinction, but until Hackable gets a discount it's not fair to the Heavy Infantry class. Being able to take a hit and carry on is definitely the lion's share of the usefulness of 2W, and with the NWI/Immunity combo becoming so common (even on HI themselves) it's getting increasingly arbitrary who has to suffer from the powerful Hacking rules. As a result it's usually unambiguously more optimal to bring the Character of the week in place of Heavy Infantry filling the same role, which annoys people who want more even balancing or just like HI for whatever reason. The moment Hackable gets some kind of counterbalance to its crappiness, I'm right on board with more durable LI and MI to counter out the order spam and Warband dominance. Until then, I'm going to be unhappy about it.
I think that we're talking about two issues here Issue 1) Should Shock Immunity and V: NWI cost slightly less than 2 W because it's mostly just as good but actually a little worse in that you can't be KO'd and healed by a Doctor after that second Wound (and Viral being an extra weakness)? Yes, and as far as I can see, that's the case. So that's not actually a problem. Issue 2) Being Hackable is actually quite the weakness but it is not a discount in terms of points. Well, that may change in N4 and I am not 100% sure from memory how it went in N3, but typically I would say yes Hackable should be a discount because it is strictly worse than non-Hackable. That a lot of Hackable Troops have 2 W is a confluence of these points but they are not related. The problem with V: NWI and Shock Immunity isn't that it's pretty close to 2 W without typically coming with the Hackable Trait, and the problem with 2 W HI isn't that they're pretty close to V: NWI and Shock Immunity but with the Hackable Trait, the problem is the Hackable Trait. Anyway without seeing the new profiles and rules I feel like we can't really assess balance issues without having to wildly stab in the dark and talk past each other re. assumptions. Which I am sure that this thread will do lengthily and with great joy, but for me, there's two issues and the resolution is unclear given that we are going into a new edition of the rules soon.
NWI+Shock Immune HI are about 1 or 2 points cheaper than a plain 2-wounder. Keep in mind the 2-wounder isn't Courageous by default and that a Liu Xing by virtue of being very far from the closest Medikit won't actually care much for being recoverable. So in reality I think he's got these two problems: 1. Hackable - Heavy Infantry that drops in the enemy zone, but is hackable so can be denied a large drop zone that all other Combat Jump would not be denied. 2. Generic HI cost increases - Heavy Infantry seem to pay extra for Infiltration, Forward Deployment and Combat Jump, so a medium infantry with a very similar stat line to the Liu Xing's (e.g. Crushers) are cheaper or have better gear (or both).
