that’s how I’ve been feeling about the intruder HMG. Kinda want to just take a sombra red fury or even a multi rifle variant that can be 8” out of the DZ and has better mobility. But I’ve been playing around with the sniper still and seeing if it synergizes with a sombra or a Vostok fireteam.
Because rules are at best in beta and point costs are in alpha stage waiting for testing. N4 should've been released in mid-late 2021 if this is the stage they got after working on it for a year or so. Also note that N4 book lists 36 people in proofreading/playtesting group. So even if all of them are playtesters this means around 1 person per sectorial. Which is bad for multiple obvious reasons. When I get time I will also cross check those names to see if any of them actually achieved a result of note ( or even attended ) on a Satellite tournament or Interplanetary in N3. To me it looks most of them are CB employees that play in closed meta, which is again very very bad.
I wonder if it would be a better idea to spread the transition into N4 over 6 months, release rules as online wiki for proofreading by community and then release a completely working rules and print books. Considering the Covid situation and all that they could even put some notes about online events. Hell, I think they could even go to kickstarter again, split the books into rules+fluff and fluff only, throw some limited fancy book covers and minis, let fomo sink in and get some good sales.
Perfectly said and exactly how this whole product feels. I'm disappointed that I pre-ordered now knowing how many editing errors there are in the books, not even including the army lists, or the to be changed but didn't have time yet Fireteams.
Permanent public beta is just the way of modern gaming. Let's not pretend that prior to easy digital updates games were released in a perfect state; we just didn't have any choice but to shelve what didn't work, migrate to overpowered gak, or cry to our friends until they allowed for houserules. All we wanted was for companies to fix things that didn't work, and now all we do is complain that they fix things.
If they were going to release a permanent beta they could have just said they hadn't gone through their books for errors, or done the work on ARMY or the profiles, and released the rules and what they had for an actual beta and collected feedback before launching the new version. 36 internal playtesters is not enough. Some factions went pretty much unlooked at, and some aren't even released because they didn't have time. If you don't have time to do a proper job, say so, and take more time to do it right.
True. But right now we are very close to a situation when rules get changed even before preordered books reach their owners making it already obsolete. It wasn't even a month since release and It kinda devalues the purchase of physical book (and if you want to resort to an argument that its usually bought purely for fluff - I'd be glad to pay half the price for just the fluff). It's just... it's really annoying to find the typos and parts of rules missing (like repeater description) so quickly and yet there's nothing we can do about it since its already printed.
If it is public beta ( I still think N4 is alpha really with many things missing ) then it should be marketed as such. I believe that is what Wyrd did with their 3rd edition. N4 was marketed as almost finished product with only discontinued armies missing at launch. What we got instead was 2-3 sectorials updated to N4 and getting love, while everyone else got sloppy points update to N4. And even those that did get extra love ( Corregidor ) have so many issues at launch that needed fixing. It's ridiculous. Even the fluff book is incomplete IMO, I understood that in N3 because we knew HSN3 was coming, but again they said everything will be released on launch this time and that is not the case at all.
Intruders cannot kill fireteam cores. They rely on smoke and surprise, and neither works vs cores (more's the pity). The exception is if you can outrange them, and if that is the case, they can be pretty solid but still risky. I remember doing a Brawler HRL in with my Sniper, but even over 32" the Brawler was still B2 on 6s vs B2 on 13s, which is not the best odds in the world.
B2 12s vs B2 6s (or B3 11s vs B1 11 etc) is the point at which a FTF engagement becomes reliable: not fool proof, but reliable. Very roughly a difference of 1B = a difference of 3 Att and +/- 6 Att equivalent results in decent enough odds of winning the FTF. This rule or thumb only works for active B>1 and Att <20 (active B=1 is swingier so you really want at least +9 to give sufficient room to win the FTF). Now admittedly with a 40+pt 1W trooper you don't want "reliable" engagements you want "a close to a sure thing as possible". And yes I know that there is MUCH more to it than that, but it's a rule of thumb mostly around working out what engagements just aren't reliable (anything less than a 6 Att equivalent difference is basically little better than a coin toss on winning the FTF).
What about ODD and TO Camo stuff? Could Cheerkiller MSV and Spotlight and maybe some Mines take Intruders place for dealing with those? I still find it uncomfortable writing a lists without him, even if he does something useful only in 1 out of 2-3 games.
I will say with the changes to perimiter weapons like the morans crazy koalas, it does make a pretty good combo with the intruder. Deploy a koala in activation range. Move camo’d intruder into LOS of model(s) that can be boosted by the koala. Delay doesn’t trigger them, but hopefully it’ll make the opponent think twice about engaging an intruder. But as always chose your fights carefully still. Of course this can be used in tandem with other units as well. At first I was unsure about the koala change and how they don’t follow you. But now that I’ve played it with the new perimeter weapon and boost rules I love it! Now if only fast pandas were 2 use like repeaters lol.
Good point. My general rule with an Intruder (which I always regret when I break) is never shoot at anything that can hit you back, 'cause if they can hit you they'll crit you. Active Koala (and new crits) does change that equation a little at times I guess. That is an interesting heuristic. Generally I feel pretty uncomfortable in my active if I don't both out burst and have a higher target number than my opponent (if they can hit me), and have a back up plan to boot. Which I suspect works out fairly similar. In reactive you take the highest number you can get, or just hide I guess.
My most basic rule of thumb is that the only acceptable enemy ARO is turn-to-face, but realistically you need a plan B. I use a similar spread as @inane.imp Trying to think on my last game I had one time when I was matching cover to a supp fire Friar with my Gecko. I did have it in bad range, but still that was the most dangerous ARO I was willing to take. Other than that my only active F2F was killing an out of cover engineer with the Tomcat that happened to be facing me... PanO is so frustrating, I can almost never find a F2F I find acceptable.
Generally, it's easier to out-burst you opponent than to odd MOD them (particularly once you start looking at linked AROs), so in most circumstances where you get to choose the engagement you go with both. But there's notable situations where Burst doesn't matter as much: active MLs are one, but a Tsyklon Feubach with MM is one you're familiar with (vs another Fireteam you're on +1B and +3BS - which results in good enough odds of winning the FTF that the Feurbach's punch turns it into a very reliable option). There's a couple of really basic scenarios - IE so basic that we teach them to new players - that illustrate the break-point: A. an active Alg in cover (B3 BS11 DAM9) will relatively reliably win a FTF against a reactive Alg in cover (B1 BS11 DAM9) B. an active Alg (B3 BS8 DAM10) is not enough to reliably fight a Zero in cover (B1 BS12 DAM9) - the Alg will usually win that fight, but they have high enough odds of losing that you can't really call it 'reliable', so use the B4 gun in this circumstance. Intuitively we know this: firefights where you're merely +1B or just +3BS are nerve-wracking (unless you have a good plan B for failure). Another interesting (but less basic) one is a Cateran Sniper within 36" vs TR Bot (both with cover): B2 BS12 DAM12 vs B4 BS6 DAM12. You're basically looking at a coin toss there (but you start to see the effects of higher Crit odds coming into play). You can test the rough equivalences by firing a Combi at <8" and the same FTF but with a LSG at <8": B2 +6BS ~= B3 +3BS. But this the minimum FTF odds: it's basically the point below which you're throwing away orders taking the engagement. So if you can efficiently get better odds than a 6pt spread then you should. Hellcats vs Fusis are also an instructive comparison. A Hellcat Spitfire can reliably beat a Core-linked Fusi, provided that you either outrange them (B4 BS12 DAM11 vs B2 BS12 DAM8) or get them out of cover (B4 BS15 DAM14 vs B2 BS15 DAM8). If you can't get the Core-linked Fusi out-of-range or out-of-cover then you're facing relatively high-odds of failure (B4 BS12 DAM11 vs B2 BS15 DAM8) and for a BSG under those circumstances it's a coin toss (B2 BS15 DAM11 vs B2 BS15 DAM8). This is also why the Combi Hellcat is a comparatively bad 'link breaker': you don't have the option of outranging a Combi/Rifle-armed link filler, so HAVE to get them out of cover, which limits where you can attack from. There's other points, like being on BS18 vs BS12 is noticeably better than being on BS12 vs BS6 - BS18 has very little room for failure, so usually you'll get at least 1 hit which significantly increases the reliability. So the heuristic starts to break down when you're looking at Success Numbers that are outside the BS5-15 where most FTFs take place.
Interesting - off topic but worthy of discussion. I guess what I meant partially by 'take the highest number you can get, or hide' in reactive is partially referring to manipulating (much in list building) an actual high number (<15) for the closing out failure thing ('if you miss I hit') for AROs partially again bc burst is a bit harder to come by in reactive. I guess that is partially why reactive tower links can be so scary if you don't have a good plan around them, since they get that important that +1B where + burst has diminishing returns at the margins (B2 on 10's increases your odds of a success over B1 by 25% compared to +3 BS at only +15%) whereas mods are better at the margins (+3BS from 17 -> 20 decreases your chances of a failure more than +1 B). Add also you can plan for them to have sky high hit no's and good LOF to their positive rangebands. There probably should be a primer on basic infinity odds on here somewhere. Something that's a bit more nuanced than things you often hear like 'Burst is king' or whatever.
Burst IS king. Playing with dice calculator, with an unopposed normal roll it seems that without any modifiers, B1 BS20 DAM15 against ARM0 is roughly equivalent to B3 BS10 DAM15 against ARM0, roughly 76% vs. 77% chance of causing at least 1 wound. If the target is dodging with PH10, then B4 BS10 is roughly equivalent to B1 BS20. Of course there's a diminishing return on the number of dice rolled, so the BS to burst conversion isn't always fixed. Going from B1 to B2 drops the required BS value to get an equivalent result by about 5. From B2 to B3 -> ~3 B3 to B4 -> ~2 B5 to B4 -> ~1 etc.
yeah, except when it's not. Exactly. Which is more or less part of what I was saying. Hence why the +1B in reactive of a fireteam is quite strong, the bump from 1 Burst to 2 Burst is generally the strongest bump in burst. Whereas say B5 to B6 doesn't increase your chances nearly as much percentage wise. But a target No# of 19 vs target No# 22 sure does. So in many circumstances you would rather +1 B and +3 mod rather than +2 B. Hence some of why I said both outbursting and out target numbering (I should have said by +3, the standard mod) is where I start to feel better about taking FTF rolls as a rule of thumb. Still need a plan B though.
Yeah - as I say it's a rule of thumb and not granular enough to provide accurate results. But accuracy isn't actually required. +1 B and +3 MOD, +2 B and +6 MOD don't all return the same result, but they - generally - all return the same type of result: "I can expect to win the FTF significantly more often than I lose, if I can efficiently get better odds I should and losing is not unexpected so I need a Plan B". Below that (+3 MOD, +1B) the type of result changes: "I can expect to win the FTF only slightly more often than I lose - so once I account for lethality I'm probably not doing much more than winning the FTF; I should only take this FTF if I'm desperate, or don't care about effects on target." (This is an Intruder HMG in Cover vs a Core-linked Kamau MSR in Cover (B4 BS13 vs B2 BS16) or a Hellcat Spitfire in Cover fighting a Core-linked Fusi In Cover (B4 BS12 vs B2 BS15). We all know people who've taken those FTFs and won, but they're desperation plays that you go to during the match when you're out of other options.) As it does above that (+9 MOD, +6 MOD +1B, +2B +3MOD, +3B) the type of result changes gain: "I can expect to efficiently win the FTF and while losing is not anticipated it's still possible so I need a Plan B". Equally, B2 BS15 vs B1 BS13, B2 BS15 vs B1 BS12 and B2 BS15 vs B1 BS11 isn't significantly different across a single roll (a few % points once you get down to it): in all cases I'm happy taking that engagement. It's also why I say " roughly +/- 6" is about right: it gives room for rounding errors without leading you astray as decision making tool that you can use mid-game. Thanks to @Icchan for running some of the underlying maths. It gives some numbers to what I already knew: only use it for active B6<>2 and Success Numbers of roughly 6-15. I'm pretty certain that it's accurate enough within that range to be useful; and most FTFs fall into that range.* * But feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I find discussing how we think about the game is as useful as how we think about profiles.
