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N4 ARO game theory

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Teslarod, Oct 13, 2020.

  1. barakiel

    barakiel Echo Bravo Master Sergeant

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    @herod1204
    Definitely not bad. I'd probably be more worried if it dropped the Repeater, then just went prone on a rooftop without actually engaging me. Having to spend orders to dig it out is likely a greater hassle for me than going after it with your best gunfighter. Definitely a scary prospect to face.
     
  2. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    Yeah Tsyklons are going to be a problem for that. 2 shots on 11s (worst case) with baggage right there isn't bad
     
  3. SpectralOwl

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    Agreed, this actually really worries me as an NCA player. Linked Tsyklons in a list with a Vertigo Zond are going to be LT killers to match Fidays, and I'm going to be really annoyed if it turns out the only defense I get is taking three dull-as-bricks Combi Fusilers for shell game purposes, and that's before accounting for how it messes with all my REMs and HI. I think the Swiss Missile Launcher might wind up as autopick in one list for every tournament for me, just to counter Pitchers with an accurate Missile- the Hexa just misses too often for such a critical role.
     
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  4. herod1204

    herod1204 Knight of Santiago

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    Definitely another option. My thinking is more to put it so it needs to be engaged in repeater range. Vile for links that it lands near (so hey have to activate units in repeater range but engaging with the gunfighter) or heavy infantry.

    Also turns out, spotlighting a speculo makes it a lot easier to kill in reactive!

    Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk
     
  5. barakiel

    barakiel Echo Bravo Master Sergeant

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    I've been reflecting on this a ton with Gavin from White Noise. We're both longtime NCA fans. And having a Sectorial with so many hackable targets, and very little in the way of midfield flexibility or midfield options, is a really intimidating prospect for the health of that Sectorial.

    His suggestion (one I really like) is giving NCA very strong access to Tinbots to help deter casually hacking everything in that army. It keeps with their strength-through-tech theme. Something like the Swiss Hacker to have a Tinbot -6, just to make him a very serious contender compared to just taking a strong big gun, would really help that profile contend in the current hacking meta.

    I'm not sure we're going to see that kind of thought put into revising those old Sectorials though, so we may just have to wait and see.

    @DukeofEarl
    I'm very impressed with the Fuerbach Tsyklon. The Fuerbach's a great N4 weapon, that unit is Core linkable for easy 5-man bonuses, and obviously the Pitcher is more relevant than ever. Crazy, crazy good.
     
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  6. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    Surely you mean 18's right?

    Then there is also the meteor to consider that can drop onto a roof go prone and cause some issues.
    The Fast panda heckler can also get a repeater into an obnoxious spot more or less uncontested.
     
  7. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    I'm glad that many factions can't do this, but I'm hoping to experiment with my druze lists. At the least, leaning into hacking enough to make this a reliable tool is looking expensive and leaves some pretty glaring holes in my lists at the moment.

    That said I can see nomad sectorial that can bring this playstyle for very little overhead. Watching a nomad player destroy an avatar list the last weekend with this very strategy was terrifying. It wasn't used to hit the avatar, just nuke the key supporting pieces.
     
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  8. herod1204

    herod1204 Knight of Santiago

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    18 if you bring an evo.

    Yeah, meteors have the potential to be very nasty. I have used the fast panda heckler just like that, and it is viiiiile in the best sort of way!

    Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk
     
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  9. Hachiman Taro

    Hachiman Taro Inverted gadfly

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    You'd EVO to drop on an 18 first.

    But mostly why bother when you can fire pitchers reliably instead

    I mean Nomads are the hacking faction, so fair play. There's also 87pt Jotums in the game now.
     
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  10. herod1204

    herod1204 Knight of Santiago

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    In vanilla pitchers are a lot less reliable, and you don't then get a piece on suppressive fire in their dz. It's a nomad speculo!

    And yeah, you could Evo to guarantee the drop, but not sure I would necessarily.

    Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk
     
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  11. SpectralOwl

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    If the enemy has an EVO and you don't you're landing on 12s. It's worth it to bring one for any Combat Jump list worth its salt.
     
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  12. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    Maybe I should start working on something similar for changes to our Active Turn.
    Would gnenerally have to focus on kill missions here, due to how variable Missions can be outside of it

    Hacking so far is exactly as annoying and nasty as expected for ARO duty.
    But significantly less strong than estimated in the Active Turn.
    Oblivion hits harder with AP, but can be reset out of, -9 is less bad than absolutely requiring an Engineer. Especially if you're in a good position and enemy troops in your proximity need to waste Orders to tiptoe around to avoid giving you Resets.
    With some TAGs having a Firewall and all of them still bringing their own Order and Tac Awareness to atleast attempt a lucky Reset twice Oblivion alone is far from a permanent solution, especially on Marut and Avatar.
    Carbonite persists instead of going away end of turn and inflicts a -3 Mod to Reset. That part is a clear improvement. Losing the +3 MOD and again Firewalls being more common pulls it's teeth a bit.
    To really get rid of something via Hacking you want both Imm-B and Isolated on that thing, and that's still not guaranteed given WIP13+. You still need to follow up and kill it or kill the Engineer supporting it. You're looking at an averager of 3+ Orders to make both Programs stick with average dice, likely more against a TAG with higher WIP and built in Firewall.
    In constrast to that N3 had B1 Oblivion without Breaker, but you were done after that stuck.

    Add in several excellent (unhackable) Engineer choices that only got better in N4 (Kowalski, Parvati, Karhu NCO Wildcard, Caliban, Yuriko....). Deactivators and Gizmokits add more utility to most Engineers and you're looking at something that does significantly more than hanging back to fix the TR Bot and occasionally walk somewhere to fix a HI or TAG. You can easily fit an Engineer that wants to walk across the board to use his kit in N4.

    Taking over a TAG is yet again harder with Firewalls and Crit changes and less permanent with your opponent likely having a Repeater in range and Hacker behind it somewhere to get his WIP11 TAG back. Old AHDs couldn't do that.

    The most impact on Active Turn Hacking appears to be Spotlight. available against every target outside of a Marker State on a straight WIP FTF with no save. Persists through turns and will likely get your opponent to actively reset to get rid of it if you have the ML Bot as follow up. This right there is the Order sink you want to keep your opponent busy and waste his Orders. I can think of more than a few cases where you'd want to Spotlight over Oblivion, especially on your own turn.

    Lastly KHDs, I've seen claims that KHDs can't kill shit now. That's rubbish and you'd know it if you had played actual games. Yes there are BTS6+ HI Hackers running around with Tinbots. And I like that they can be almost impervious to hacking and need another way to deal with them.
    The vast majority of Hackers has a worse FTF roll against Trinity than they had against Redrum in N3. The most common Hacker remains the token Linetrooper or midfield Skirmisher. Both of which are very killable by Trinity, Firewall or not.
    Hacking Balance overall is looking good aside from a few rather stupid outliers muddling things. Either way much, much less problematic than N3 with KHDs ignoring Firewalls on top of Maestro and Redrum largely punching simply too hard to make defenses viable. Hacking interacting with the rest of the game via Spotlight has noticeable impact.
    Automatic Cybermask in line with other Marker States is a good tactical tool, rather than another gamble on top of pushing the button.

    Not perfect, but pretty happy with things overall after playing a bit.
     
    #32 Teslarod, Oct 18, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
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  13. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Yes they could. You could always counter possess possessed TAGs with AHDs.
     
  14. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    That's not the same as getting your TAG back completely. Still needs a Command Token or Exorcism follow up.
     
    #34 Teslarod, Oct 18, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
  15. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Functionally achieved the same result. Anybody who wanted to play Grand Theft tAg had to either deal with the repeater or the AHD first.
     
  16. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    In the active turn, a WIP 14 KHD has a 36% chance to wound an Interventor. That's not great, but it's decent if the target is an important model you're willing to spend some orders to kill.

    Doing it through a repeater increases the odds to 42%. And lots of KHDs have upgrade programs which help too. A Barid with Trinity(-3) hacking through a Pitched repeater is 46%.

    What you really want is Trinity(AP). I think there's a faction that gets that upgrade, can't remember where I saw it though.

    But for anything less than BTS 9, KHDs are absolutely murderous in N4.
     
  17. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    You should probably also include the opponent's chance to affect you in your statistics. It's important to show how much risk you accept in executing an order.

    Teslarod struggles with reading and is referencing things out of context, don't hold it against him. What he's actually read is that many basic KHD platforms (such as the Ninja) in medium to low hacking prowess factions aren't worth taking over their non hacking variants because the game is heavy into firewall and repeater useage now and these units aren't particularly efficient at scalpling out hard targets and it's a far better option to simply take a non hackable profile and attack the repeater than to take that 1/3 chance of fighting a superior hacker (which comes with something like a 1/4 in return of failing and getting bricked). In the case of skirmisher hackers who hide under marker states, you need to go discover and kill them anyway so not being hackable is still better, and against the line infantry chump hacker if you delete his repeater(s) he's unlikely to spend 6 orders to jog across the table to try and hack you either.

    The complaint about KHDs on the other end of the spectrum from premium hacking factions is that their uber hackers invalidate the KHDs because Trinity is used as an upgrade program to HD profiles. Why bring a KHD Zero when Mary, Jazz, etc can provide better versions of Trinity (AP, +1 damage) and also threaten scary as shit Oblivions as well, and some like Jazz can sit in -6 Tinbot fireteams. Setting up repeater networks for these uberhackers is a better use of your orders as it increases the efficiency and value you get out of them plus defends them better by making it far harder to engage them alone.

    @Tourniquet summed up the issues around KHDs pretty well.


     
    #37 Triumph, Oct 18, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2020
  18. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Mary Problems.

    Does seem like KHDs now forces you to do the hacking through your own network instead of hitching a ride through your opponent's
     
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  19. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    No-roll cybermask is a decent compensation for that right?
     
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  20. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    As has been pointed out to me owning pitchers is becoming ever more critical to being able to offensively take charge of the infowar game on the table.
     
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