Re: Stun. I'm hoping for a stackable state that persists and adds a -3 penalty to all actions every time it's applied, with MSRs forcing 2 rolls (potentially at full burst). Allowing Reset and Engineers to clear the state would be necessary. That sort of effect would nest neatly with the way IMM-A, Targeted and (I assume) ISO work. With a potential -12 applied to all rolls, it has the potential to be crippling, and builds into the 'soft' counters we're seeing in N4 so far. Those persistent 'soft' debuffs are something I'm very interested in, and am excited about hearing that they are having an effect in the game. Re: Jammers. I honestly suspect these have been over nerfed. I do, however, appreciate the fact they're changing from being "stick on top of building and laugh", so perhaps not... time will tell. Re: Crits. One of the points I'm expecting to see become apparent is how much N4 Crits rewards having 2W rather than 1W+NWI+Immunity. That calculus is a significant change (perhaps only emphasised if Shock changes) that potentially justifies "cheating" the price formula.
From the points made so far i only differ in opinion on these 2: 1 shotguns: never used them before consiously. but in c1 they kinda build themself into the lists. Over 6+games i always maxed out ava on the croc and nokken. It feels really rewarding to get a camo shotgun into the enemy dz put down 2 templates and watch ppl fail their -6(-9?!) dodge... or shoot them in the face if lof is uncooperative. SGs now allow for really good midfield defense whith more meaningful options then before. 2. Midfield hackers on rooftops more or less now do for me what jammers did for others. Gut the enemys aggression pieces. Restrict my opponents line of approach. Yes not for cheap but mostly unopposed and out of lof. With point cost reductions on other units i might finally put a proper hacker into my 15 order taglists instead of the mission clicking bolt/fusi. The other things fall in line with whats been said already. 2w feels better, high arm feels great, hacking feels relevant, ad rolled jumps might become viable, shotguns feel better, msr is a welcome nerf, ap should be buil into the list... Wierd things i cant really sort out or value yet: 3) superjump: fat stupid ugly shit nerf i would hate. But i only played seraph for tournaments in a 15-16 regular order list so im hardcore biased. Never tried that stupid backhead exploit because the hight alone was worth it. Not sure if always cover wont push me towards montesatik. #falldmgpls 4) mi not getting fw1: currently looks like mi wont get fw1. Again biased cause bolts/baghs ended up as my card-units and 4-4 doesnt compensate the fact that a good spread of fw1,2,infil allows for better board coverage. 5) deployment order feels different. Used to deploy aro net first to secure them crossfire and guaranteed cover. But ez partial cover results in me putting down clickers/attackers first and then securing them as its much easier to still find spots for the bigger flashpulsebots 6) bots. Bots in general might become more interesting. Putting them down prone to stack aro lines allows for nice setup and the para ccw can be really annoyng for opponents when you push a bot into them on his last order. Cc 13(?) And giving -3 with immob-risk is no joke for him to deal with on active.
Aside from unnesting with Assault and Assault potentially getting scrapped, Berserk itself is a pretty nice Skill and I'd like to keep it in the game. As much as my JSA hates playing against Galwegians.
I think jsa might be sadder about not being able to trade a 26 point domaru for crit em weapon on high end tags
@RobertShepherd Thanks for the good insight, as usual. Gavin mentioned you've been busy with TTS, and it's great to hear your track record and experience so far. Your opinion that the game maintains iuts fundamental bones of maneuver warfare and risk management is a good reminder. The alpha dynamic may rise once we see the changes made to TAGs and HI, as you mentioned. Building from N3 Army Lists, I notice it's still pretty tough to prioritize those kinds of units, let alone use them in such an aggressive and potentially risky way on Turn 1. I'll be curious to see how the cost reshuffling affects that. I particularly like that specialty ammo types will be on the rise. I've noticed myself that the Red Fury no longer feels like the cheaper, preferable alternative to the Spitfire. Suddenly, you want your weapons punching as hard as they can. I worry a bit about the health of the Infinity Food Chain though, when it comes to such things. With the Combi Rifle as the baseline N3 weapon, I certainly didn't engage that much using Combi Rifles, but I killed plenty of targets with them and they got work done. I worry a lot that weapons of that nature will be relegated more and more to the sideline, with the focus on elite troops. A Combi Rifle wasn't particularly flashy, but getting an Airborne Unit into an opponent's backfield allowed a Combi to shine when engaging light, vulnerable targets. I'm curious of that phenomenon will persist or not. I do like Teslarod's point though that outranging the huge amount of direct templates is going to be a nice advantage. I'm definitely curious about the specific wording for QoL improvements too. I'm especially curious about forcing subpar ARO reactions via use of Stealth, White Noise, etc. and then following with dangerous attacks. I think veteran players recognize the value of that mechanic and have learned to live with it, though many players think it's awful, counterintuitive, manipulative, etc. @Teslarod I think TR Bots were already a good N4 choice. The interaction mentioned by you and RobertShepherd is definitely a boost. I agree too about the impact that Hacking rules and point costs. That's going to be big, and it's still a big unknown. The MSR burst nerf remains inexplicable to me, and I have to assume it was just acknowledgement of the negative feedback from the Kamau Sniper. Your notion about Irregular units showing up in Top Heavy lists is right on. Padding out your TAG list with those cheap defense/denial pieces is significant, but I haven't felt much inclination to include those units in other, more balanced types of lists. The Camo cost increase does have a big impact on units who rely very heavily on Camo as a core mechanic. Obviously Ariadna, but it has the ability to impact PanO as well. Antipersonnel mines remain a good tool, but they may not be the deterrent that they were when opponents primarily fielded 1-Wound units. I'm certainly more inclined to reach for a Scout with E/Maulers than a Strelok with mines, and that's just one example of an interesting lateral move in listbuilding. Medium Infantry remain an interesting question. I think they will retain usefulness when they can jump into mixed links and provide superior gunfighting capability. 4-4 on lone fire superiority pieces also carries potential. But I think Medium Infantry will continue to be loners, or (at best) a Haris Team for Sectorials that can't field a Haris of comparable Heavy Infantry. That choice will be heavily influenced by what those Medium Infantry can do... A Burst 5 AP Spitfire dragging a Specialist around is decent. But they'll have to be pretty special to compete with Heavy Infantry in N4. @Urobros Varuna was designed with specific game mechanics in mind. Those game mechanics have been interfered with for N4. Yes, you can still Jam, MSV2 Snipe, and use Helots. That trio of units helps each other. But the big challenge is that you're not only defending. You also need to do the mission, and fulfill other goals on the tabletop. I won't be using Helots anymore, because I don't want to give up one of my 15 valuable slots to a unit whose goal is to simply die. I'll be trading Helots for a Sierra instead, or something similar. Similarly, I don't know that I want to pay 29 points for a Zulu Cobra Jammer who can only make two attempts, when I could have a Crocman with mines, or a Peacemaker and a Fugazi. I don't think anyone is saying Varuna won't do well, but we are saying that the Sectorial will need to be played very differently from what it looked like in N3. For example, Teslarod has pointed out that Varuna Division ORCs could now be exceptional in N4 thanks to their Stealth. If they keep Stealth, and their cost goes down, we could see many more ORCs appear in lists. @inane.imp The challenge I see with stackable penalty for Stun is that I don't usually win multiple f2f rolls via ARO. I'm not that confident I could repeatedly stack -3 penalties on a hard target, particularly if it can be Reset or Engineered away. That feels decidedly "soft" as an ARO. If I have a 3 Structure TAG attacking a linked MSR, and I was either rolling ARM11 or Resetting out of a -3 penalty, it wouldn't slow or deter me at all. I'd attack relentlessly. Regarding Jammer, I think I agree with it being overnerfed. I would have been fine with a change or a nerf, but I'm not sure Disposable was the way to go. I think Jammer would have been a really great opportunity for the Stacking Modifiers you're describing... Stacking -3 to Attacks from a Jam, or limiting an opponent to one Short Skill until they reset, etc. would have all been fascinating alternatives. If Jammer just slapped on a penalty, rather than full Isolation, that would have been very interesting. I don't think any player who uses Jammer was necessarily married to the idea of Isolation; they just want a way to deny area and make the opponent stop and think for a minute using a tool other than a Chain Rifle or a Mine. Jammer already had a lot of in-built counters: Veteran, Stealth, Marker State, etc. I'm definitely annoyed that Jammer didn't receive a more creative change, especially in an edition where conditions can be wiped and a lot of area denial will focus on Resets, Spotlight, and other creative "soft" solutions.
Regarding the MSR change, I can think of two reasons: Consistency: It was the only Multi weapon that had its anti-material mode not at burst 1 (using Heavy Multi versus Light Multi). This could lead to confusion. Feuerbach: With the MSR change, this weapon has a more unique and clear role.
That's a really good point - one of the ways N3.5 experience won't translate directly to N4 is that we're still playing with all the old costings. Based on what we've seen so far, N4 is going to make it much easier to include pieces like - well, for example, the Su-Jian, which is pretty much the platonic ideal of an alpha piece. Based on what we've seen so far they still exist, but they've been moderated by the dodge change to the point where the most manipulative interactions become much less reliable. MSV shooting within zone of control, for example, was pretty egregious in N3 if you could pull it off because it produced a nil-risk, guaranteed success if you just had enough orders. This isn't the case any more. Successful dodge moves can get enemies away from smoke, into cover, or into melee. It's a small change, but it's the difference between 'guaranteed success at no risk' and 'highly likely success at some risk'. In particular it restores the game's promise that the two players are in some capacity always interacting and that the reactive player always has some agency. We might also see more aggressive changes to tamp down on it, but those will need to wait for the N4 rules in full and sight of how much access players still have to tools that allow for ARO manipulation. I'm quietly hoping for a clean-up to Stealth but I also don't know exactly what that would look like.
After some practice games I've definitely found dodge ARO movement enforces a 'use it of lose it' to the board state on an attacking run. You can no longer set something up in which the only change is from you successfully murderising something.It also means spending more orders while in close range can result in the enemies re-positioning and you potentially losing the advantage, potentially forcing less than ideal engagements.
It's intentionally soft as an ARO. I would see it in a similar space to Targetted: a -3 CC/BS/WIP/PH vs a +3 BS is actually a similar outcome. At -6 (or -3/+3) most attack pieces struggle to reliably win FTFs (at B4 7 vs B1 13 its a pretty even chance of winning the FTF), which forces an opponent to consider shifting their focus of effort: either to clear the states or to another attack vector. The ability to stack them (and stack it with Targetted) means that it's possible to get up to a -12 MOD relatively quickly (indeed a single linked MSR can - albeit with relatively low odds - do this in a single ARO). Now, I haven't seen this in play yet because I haven't had an opportunity to get on TTS to try it out, but it seems to suit what we've seen of N4 so far. That being said, the other option for Stun - and probably the more likely one - is -3 to all rolls, prevents attacks, non-stackable, persistent, is cancelled by Engineers or Reset which still fits the design space we're seeing and will leave Flash Pulse and Stun in a similar space to Isolated in terms of utility. Has anyone playtested with N3.5 versions of Stun? If so, what rules did you use and how did it go? That's my take on the driving factor. I personally have no issues with that, it's an entirely reasonable way to streamline the weapons... but I'd like to see it married up with a resultant reduction in cost. N3 MSRs were hardly unbalanced; in fact, I'd argue they were one of the most balanced weapons given the lengthy discussions about MSR vs HMG or MSR vs ML profiles I've seen and engaged in on these forums. For N4, MSRs at ML prices would provide a decent balance point. Template + EXP / AP+EXP vs AP/DA/Stun with an extra burst and better range bands seems to me to be a tough decision that would shift based on largely meta and internal list requirements. Saving 3 points for losing a B of DA seems fair (particularly in light of how much more valuable MLs got). I assume with N3.5 MSRs players have been taking them less in their lists? Or just regretting it more when profile constraints force that as the best option for a given role?
I think a big change, maybe the biggest, will be ARO dodge in ZoC. Its a total paradigm shift that affects many elements of being aggressive in the game, though mainly in terms of attacking a crowded space such as a deployment zone with a fragile model. Impersonators, Aerial Deployment etc will see a shift or a major shift in how they are fielded now that each action can potentially turn into multiple ARO on the following order. Big Boys like Tarik or TAGs or especially big stealthy models like Achilles are much less affected, but even they could succumb to "attack one dude, three heavy flamers declare dodge towards line of fire". My poor Fiday minelayer and the dirty Speculo minelayer are pretty heavily hit due to ARO movement when deploying a mine, not to mention the crit changes and CC. All offensive skirmishers are hit somewhat due to the frequency in which they wield mines. Moving anything near the enemy is now a bit of a gambit, particularly using second or third rate pieces which might deliver more to the opponent in free movement than the value they generate or the damage they do. None of this is necessarily a bad thing though, god knows that Impersonators could take a hit to their effectiveness and be fine. I especially like how dynamic the reactive turn could be, even by Infinity standards, when the reactive player has the legitimate option of repositioning models fairly regularly and totally changing the layout of the turn. Yikes, didn't even think of that. No prone is pretty much the main reason I stopped using them, aside of course from how good just spamming roadblocks was. And not so much the any% cover but the elevation cover is going to be a big deal for them, as this is the type of unit that loves vantage points and I don't know about everyone else, but my meta has a lot of flat rooftops or more often random crates that lack rooftop cover under N3.
Had a talk on Discord about the Changes to Shotguns and Mines and their impact on Skirmishers. Notably there's 3 sources of a -3 baked into Dodge vs Templates now and all of them stack. -3 for being a Mine -3 for getting hit from outside LOF (only works on ARO) -3 for getting hit from outside LOF but from inside ZOC. IJW also pointed out that Surprise Shot works on DTWs in N4, so that's another -3. Overall there is some potential to sneak up on something using Stealth and drop a B2 BSG with -9 on them from behind. It's a little abuseable with Small Teardrops being 8.5". If you're good at guessing you can deploy a Mine from >8" away into ZOC of the Defender, then start shooting from outside of ZOC next Order assisted by a Mine from inside ZOC inflicting -9 on a potential Dodge. Pretty niche, but that hasn't stopped me from abusing other stuff before. Sixth Sense will be the main factor on how good that will end up at.
Camo troops with shotguns got scray. Its not " i bs20 1 unit and hit 3 more" scary. Its more a case of sneaking into position, suprise template someone with -9for their dodge. Atleast in c1 this feels significant but c1 has bad aro game that allows for such attacks far more often than n3/+
Well since I can't be bothered NOT to look at the leaks: Won't share anything specific but extrapolating some general things. Boy we're gonna love this. Faction internal balance is an absolute mess. There are some genuine attempts to fix stuff, but not for everything and not enough next to the HI/TAG changes turning some of these up to 11. I'm concerned this is actually going to be 90% accurate, mostly because that's what I was expecting and this matches CB's usual obliviousness about game balance aside from happy accidents. Some of the reworks are subtle, elegant and streamlined and I really wish the whole friggin thing was done that way. For anyone who cares, MO is definitely back in the game at this rate. (IA not so much, JSA looks about to take over as "the HI spam faction" lol)
The Studio Update showed that Hacking will be different and streamlined. They also mentioned that Cybermask (and marker state in general) doesn't not automatically give you surprise shot. I think it will take some play-testing to figure out full effects of how the new hacking will change the meta.
The studio update also showed that the "leaked" Domaru profiles are 100% accurate. So at least some of what was on that Beta N7 was up to date.
Got the Cutter on the table (er, TTS) yesterday. It's fun-ish. But as I told some ITS vets, I think I appreciate the game more when it has a diverse toolchest of fragile, finesse-oriented choices. Certainly using a TAG requires precision and finesse of a different kind, but focusing every resource in your list on protecting one unit definitely changes the flavor of the game. This was even moreso than the N3 Tikbalang, which I've played 50+ games with. The Cutter worked great, did its thing. I noticed it ate a couple of crits and shrugged them off pretty handily. It was kind of terrifying to see, even considering I wasn't the one who had to fight it. I imagine I'll spend more time with Heavy Infantry though, just because I think it feels more rewarding to play.
