First I wanna say, the game is very very acceptable as is. This is just my ideas of what I think could make it better. To solve the problem of seemingly unusable profile, Active Turn only Profiles and Reactive Turn only Profiles, I'd make these changes: -Fireteam bonuses aside from movement would go. In exchange for this every fireteam member would be able to fire their full Burst. -ARO would allow to fire the full Burst. -Profiles with Rocket and Missile Launchers would be given the standard Rifle, Chain Rifle etc of their unit just like real life. -SWC and Cost of ARO weapons will be adjusted to account for how effective they are at winning a firefight during an Order Expenditure. -Suppression Fire will allow to split burst up among targets. -Sniper Rifles in Fireteams would be changed to DMRs aka Marksman Rifles just like real life while Sniper Rifles on obvious solo units that are intended to never move up the table will remain unchanged ( how CB still managed to make Sniper Rifle profiles still pay for Infiltration is beyond my understanding). These changes would pretty much completely negate all the "useless profile syndrome", I've seen a ton of complaints over the years about xyz unit/rule is this or that and I've always always prescribed to the philosophy that the best way to fix something is if rules are equally applied across the board to the whole game. That's how I felt about HI movement changes and heavily advocated for them. While some HI did not see the change, I can at least tell that CB put in some consideration as to which should get and which should not. For instance Yan Huo does not need to move up the field any faster, he's perfectly happy hanging back and would be even more happy if he didn't feel short changed in ARO (I don't play Yu Jing but I understand why some players have voiced that opinion). Or say every Line Infantry ARO piece or HMG not being taken over a better kitted option. If they weren't so dead in the then they might see more table time, as someone pointed out in the Vanguard thread, they watched the Meta change excluding more and more troops. Since we as players are always trying to figure out ways to min max this game, maybe we should be thinking how the game could work to make that old saying "It's not your list, it's you" true. Obviously this sort of thing is not happening anytime soon, like at all, and I'm okay with that. But if some how 5 years from now the world hasn't burned down and we are still rolling dice for CB then maybe along that 5 year path enough of us could play test these changes and communicate with CB so we could see the game get even better. Or someone ends up stealing these ideas and ripping on CB becoming competitor :D :D , lets hope not.
This isn't real life and if reactive turn bursts were equal to active turn bursts, there wouldn't ever be any incentive to move forward. Giving the active player the advantage moves the game forward, while still giving the reactive turn player tools to limit it somewhat.
Yeah I remember people saying that before, but think about it, what do we do already, we try to out Burst and out mod the opponent. How we do that now is by lowering B of the reactive trooper, outrange them and outflank them by removing their cover advantage, surpising them, slicing the pie etc... The suggestions I propose will still be about outbursting and out modding your opponent. You'll still be using an HMG and a DMR or 2 to take out standard rifles on corners. No one wants to leave their standard rifle out to see clear across the table, every HMG, DM and Sniper will waste a force by constantly slicing the pie. The active turn still has the the huge advantage of choosing what happens each order.
I think if all models got effective total reaction, it would make high burst weapons like spitfires and HMGs effective no brainers. In the current rules, suppressive fire is intentionally limited by bad range bands, making it possible to defeat even with the penalty it inflicts.
I think the solution is to give more tools to counter fireteams rather than removing the bonuses to fireteams. The idea of having every fireteam member using full burst is ludicrously over powered, and taking 15 shots or 10 templates per order being the norm would result in the game being won or lost in the first turn almost certainly. Personally I'd like to see comand tokens being used to put one model in suppressive fire(or get similar mods) for an ARO, possibly only for the one ARO. That would give everyone the same chance of countering a fireteam without removing the reason for them in the first place.
Oh I'd keep the range bands the same for Sup Fire, The better the platform, the better the sup fire, not just B 3 for everyone, thet being said, SOME profiles will get the notorious B5 obviously... Try it out. Because think about this, an HMG or Spitfire vs a Rifle in it's bad range. Changing an active linked Keisotsu HMG vs a linked Fusilier Rifle brings the the kill down from 71%/10% to 57%/15% win ratio. Considering the Fusilier is the better platform, it would make sense. Now ask me if I think the Pano Player will leave all of their troops out in the open like that? The answer is no, cause then the JSA player would slice every piece of that pit as small as he could till their was nothing left of that Pan O blueberry Pie. The deployment is going to be very very similar... Except, this time HMGs and Spitfires will be left out the same as Missiles, Rockets, DMs and Snipers... How does an opposing force deal with those things in real life. By overwhelming Fire, this is where TAGs with their superior platforms and Camo troops will actually be able to sneak up on a Fireteam that isn't looking the right way... Again, I'm aware there is no need for any serious discussion on this since we just got a new edition that looks great by all counts, I'm just addressing some aspects of the game that some players aren't happy about and that's the fireteam bonuses skewed profile useage.
I agree with the fireteam bonuses being a problem, but to fix it it would be easier to change the fireteam rules, not the entire game around it. For example, instead of just giving them flat bonuses, maybe increase their dynamism. Maybe allow all members that didn't declare an ARO to make a free 2" move instead of giving them sixth sense. Instead of giving them a bonus of +3WIP to discover, allow all of them discover with one activation, maybe even at different targets. Instead of giving them +1B or +3BS, allow them to try to heal or fix their downed teammates within LoF and ZoC for free during the States Phase. Something like that.
This is literally the same thing I suggested only removing everyone shooting... Also, what I suggested isnt just addressing bonuses but also supposed useless fireteam profiles...
I don't see the problem you are attempting to solve. what un-useable profiles are there? secondly, why is that an issue at all if there are profiles no one takes? For example, I don't see myself ever taking the Mobile Brigada with just a basic combi rifle. Why would I ever do that? On the other hand, someone might see a use for it (like busting down doors, being the cheapest MB profile when you just need a 2W model, going into supression in the armory... ) and by existing, what problem does it pose?
Hey man, calm down. No one over here is upset or saying anything MUST happen, I'm personally happy with the new edition, okay. But you just asked a question and then answered it your self... There are plenty of profiles with corresponding models that people aren't going to use over some other option, especially after people just got a lot of mixed links. The other aspect of this is when people complain about fireteam bonuses. I was trying to solve two problems(IMO minor problems given the new edition) at once.
Pretty sure they tried that full burst all the time thing back in 1st edition. There's a reason it didn't survive that edition.
Really? Any idea where I can find rules for first edition? I came in the 2nd half of 2nd ed right after Human Sphere dropped.
I’m not aware of that having been a first edition rule. I never played that edition, but I was under the impression the changes from 1st to 2nd were pretty minimal, and were mostly just setting up the groundwork for Human Sphere.
I remember a lot of talk about the working getting cleaned up, I dont remember anything about of this caliber and it would have been worth a mention.
1st edition was a ling time ago, and I’ve never actually read the book. It was probably just half-remembered stories; no need for such a callout.
He also said it was dropped as if it actually happened... if someone gonna kill the thread like that, I'd at least like to see some proof.
why are you telling me to calm down lol. I am just replying to your post with my thought, I don't think I said anything strongly or passionately. and then, yes, I did answer my own question. The conclusion I arrived at is "there is no issue", and you have still not explained why having extra profiles is at all an issue. Would you like to have it that we have 15 profiles per faction that we take every game? I really don't understand.
Hey man I see where this conversation is going and all I'm gonna tell you is I hope you do well in N4.
I don't think it's an issue of "countering" fireteams, per se. We've already seen vanilla Aleph and vanilla CA perform very well despite lacking specific tools to counter fireteams (Nimbus, Stratuscloud, etc) It's more an issue of having other tools to asymmetrically even out the difference. Fireteams are a tool to make up for inherent limitations of sectorials -- if vanillas aren't getting enough flexibility to make up for it, it's not an issue of tools specifically to counter fireteams, but tools in general. Aleph and CA both substitute with wide access to higher tech equipment and skills as well as higher WIP across the board on specialists, and Aleph also gets 50 free points in every list with proxies.
