Is the 15 unit limit a good design choice?

Confirmed I fucking suck at infinity.

 

Just quoting this to say it rings very true for me.

 

Not only it is important whether you were successful with 16+ orders, but if you consider this ability as part of having fun while playing Infinity.

Ariadna might turn out to be the most competetive N4 faction in IW and I'd still be grumpy about being limited to same list size as others. Especially when others, like Aleph, have ways to bypass that limitation anyway. I can get some antipodes and that's it. Can't even spam them, 'cause they'll lack orders to do anything much.

 

Judging only based on N3, Ariadna lists can put more game elements onto a table without a material compromise to list cohesion than just about any other faction. There'll be some loss of variety in the first few months, but Ariadna are amongst the best in the game at exceeding the implied limits of tactical window once you start considering that it still costs your opponent resources to interact with mines and ambush markers - and that those resources will be diminished for your opponents thanks to their own order restrictions.

One thing that will be key in N4 is CB adding models and profiles that allow Ariadna to run archetypes in addition to camo spam. That's something to watch carefully.

It'll also be important to keep an eye on how the current high water mark tactical window armies (like OSS) are treated by the edition change. Whether or how proxies change, for example, is something I'm waiting on before I firm up my opinions on the next edition.

 

Proxies are a bit "heavier" game pieces than ambush camos though, they're bodies with wounds and can shoot people, hack or do objectives. Ariadna doesn't have any kind of bullshit piece like this, aside from the pack of Antipodes or a K-9 that doesn't shoot, can't click stuff and starts becoming problematic or useless once the pack starts dying.

I mean, I can do that for "moar bodies" in TAK, but is this of any use at all? Is it of comparable annoyance as the Aleph list?


Tartary Army Corps
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
GROUP 1 7 2 1
COLONEL VORONIN (Sensor) Lieutenant T2 Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 21)
FRONTOVIK (Multiespectral Visor L1) AP Sniper / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1 | 31)
VETERAN KAZAK AP HMG / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 47)
LINE KAZAK Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 17)
LINE KAZAK (Forward Observer) Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
CARMEN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades + Bâtard / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 22)
BÂTARD Trench-hammer, AP CCW. (- | 5)
ASSAULT PACK . (0 | 25)
HANDLER Rifle, Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (- | 10)
x3 ANTIPODE AP CC Weapon. (- | 15)
TANKHUNTER (Chain of Command) AP Rifle, Adhesive Launcher, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)


GROUP 2 4 1
ASSAULT PACK . (0 | 25)
HANDLER Rifle, Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (- | 10)
x3 ANTIPODE AP CC Weapon. (- | 15)
STRELOK K-9 Submachine Gun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines + 1 K-9 Antipode / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)
K-9 ANTIPODE Trench-hammer, AP CC Weapon. (8)
STRELOK K-9 Submachine Gun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines + 1 K-9 Antipode / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)
K-9 ANTIPODE Trench-hammer, AP CC Weapon. (8)
STRELOK K-9 Submachine Gun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines + 1 K-9 Antipode / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24)
K-9 ANTIPODE Trench-hammer, AP CC Weapon. (8)
4.5 SWC | 300 Points
Open in Infinity Army

 

Yes.

I think the list you've suggested could be tuned up a bit, mind you.

 

Would you PM me your ideas, please? Trying to learn all the time, but I don't want to do more off topic here.

 

@Nuada Airgetlam I think the minelayer strelok is more frustrating in terms of giving your opponent a lot of targets they have to waste orders on.

 

@Nuada Airgetlam looking good! Personally, I don’t like long range fireteam AROs in TAC. Lack of good healthcare* and the attack pieces you are facing means that anyone not-antipode is dead very quickly. You also have to decide the ratio of stoppers/rambos/specialists in regards to the mission. But your fundamentals, they are correct.

* Ariadna medical** school aka “The Death Angel school”.
** This is unfair. They are actually somewhat good at patching up animals from long range, so perhaps we should call them para-vetenerians?

 

PM sent :)

 

So, the paramedic lethality is basically the wounded Kazak going "WHAT?! That antipode butcher is coming to 'help me' with an AXE?! I'll better off myself!" :D

Cheers :)

 

One perspective someone shared with me a few days back is the idea that there is some virtue to the simplicity of the tactical window change. It has a very low 'design debt' (that is to say, it makes very few impositions on possible future changes that they might want to make down the line). It's comparatively very easy for them to manage or expand on the possible interactions they have off this simple base.

I still don't particularly like it as a player, but it's a good argument for the approach from a design perspective.

 

One thing I'll say is, there are certain missions (Rescue and Looting & Sabotaging come to mind) that can take an *extraordinary* amount of orders to complete. While in theory this puts everyone on a more even footing, it might make those missions much less fun/playable. I'm not a fan of those two missions in particular, though, I'll admit.

 

To be fair I don't blame shit ITS mission design on the base game, Biotechvore for example, actually just unplayable for Vanilla. Why is that even still in the mission pack? Needs a total overhaul.

 

It would be fine if they banned the strategic use of command tokens to restrict the 1st player's command token use on active turn, or made it a crawling zone.

They should pull the classified objectives back out of it, though; it's not a mission where people should be playing Solitaire.

 

It's off topic for the thread but I could stand to sink my teeth into an argument about this :p

 

Its not unplayable for vanilla, just HEAVILY disadvantaged due to the lack of the innate order efficency, especially for the armies that rely on forward elements that are now more or less trapped in the DZ and need to shoot their way out.

Its also in the mission pack for the exact same reason why we have 3 copies of more or less the same mission with only minor changes between them, as opposed to keeping something interesting, like frostbyte.

 

I think this solution ist OK, If it is the desired setup. This way the low point units work as Point fillers. And spam lists were never planned to exist. Making them cheap units weaker or more expensive might lead to the same result, but would Not weaken the Option to have them as point fillers.

Those Army Lists that only rely in these spams to bei competetive obviously need something else.

 

I only tested it a little but I got some very promising results from a vanilla Ariadna list designed to force the issue and make enough infiltration rolls for the law of large numbers to land you with enough models in the safe area to both get you the order advantage to push forward without links and also make the enemy's advance into the safe area hell.

It was obviously susceptible to just mass failure at the game start, but provided you rolled anything up to about a third of your infiltration rolls on 10s (50%) chance it felt super viable and unique.