Hello, I couple questions came up after a game I had with some friends a few days ago. Firstly, one friend claimed that camo tokens having mimetism was open information, since mimetism is a trait that camo token itself has not the trooper (his claim), and he could therefore ask me after I deploy whether every camo token has mimetism, hoping to reveal if a camo token was a liberto or similar trooper with camo but no mimetism. Is this something you can do? Secondly, the N4 rules no longer state that a model's silhouette must be at least 1/3 obscured to claim cover. Does anyone know how much a model must be obscured now in order to claim cover mods? Can a tag have a sliver of its silhouette be covered and still claim its +3 ARM and -3 mod? Thank you in advance for your replies.
1. Camo Markers must have their level of Mimetism printed on them. See the second Effects bullet of Camouflaged State: Camouflaged Markers can possess the Mimetism Skill, so Camouflaged Markers indicate the MOD level that Mimetism applies, if they have it. 2. Partial Cover applies if the scenery in Silhouette contact blocks any part of the Silhouette. See Partial Cover: The target is in Partial Cover when they are in contact with a piece of scenery that partially obscures their Silhouette.
WOW, that is a -big- change to camo. I like the ways in which N4 has been balancing out the incredible power of the camo shell-game. It's also going to mean a whole lot of people are going to have to buy/make new camo tokens (or use former TO tokens as the -6 Mim, camo as -3, and create something new for no Mimetism).
I've got the Customeeple Ariadna and PanO camo silhouettes and use the Ariadna (green) ones as Camo -3 and free PanO (blue) ones as Camo -6. The Kaldstrøm scenery packs also come with a bunch of Camo tokens of both types, I think there's even at least one Camo (no Mimetism) token.
The mimetism makes sense, but the cover change seems iffy to me. Did CB really mean for models, especially big models like TAGs, to claim cover with slivers? Cover is such a huge advantage in this game, especially when you have ARM 10 Jotums that become ARM 13 and practically invulnerable to most conventional weaponry. It seems like yet another advantage for TAGs that already seem too strong in N4. I wonder if they'll clarify how much of the model should be obscured- until then I'd probably chose to try to to houserule it back to 1/3 covered with my local group.
The cover change is from the experience of 11+ seasons of tournament play where by far the most common dispute or TO call was whether something had enough of the silhouette obscured for cover, the new one is much simpler. I don't think TAGs are overpowered now, I think they're actually good for the first time in 4 editions! You don't defeat a Jotum in cover by shooting it with combi rifles, you use flanking, CC, AD, AP/K1/EM ammo, hacking, or any other of the various tools the game gives you other than "gun goes brrrrr".
I think a big thing to TAGs being too good is the crit changes. I personally liked how in infinity everything could hurt everything, how even a Fusilier with a combi rifle had even a chance of hurting a TAG. Now it feels more like 40k in the sense you need to bring specialized weapons every game to deal with things like TAGs- it just takes away some diversity and choice in army lists. Now it's like 40k, where I know I'll have to bring as much anti-tank as I can possibly cram into an army list to make sure I don't get steamrolled by something I can't hurt. Given there's tools like hacking but from the games I've played hacking feels relatively easy to prepare against, and some factions don't even get access to effective hacking. That's a little off topic, but it's one of the main reasons I feel really ambivalent about the change to claiming cover.
I suggest that you play the rules as written for a while, until you start house-ruling things. You may find that you actually like the changes. There was a discussion of this in a News and Rumors thread, of all places, about the Maghariba Guard TAG and a fire hydrant. Ah, here Maggy and the hydrant and it continues for many pages, as per the usual for the News and rumors thread. HellLois even weighs in on the subject further down the page. TL:DR: simply designate small terrain pieces as decorative elements, which won't give cover.
The issue to me isn't so much small decorative pieces (this doesn't usually come up when I play) but angles and being able to claim cover when you're silhouette is covered by a sliver. Maybe I'd have to see some examples but I could see ways of abusing this or pretty questionable cover being claimed.
That only applies to like... 3 TAGs, though, and only if you can't get rid of their cover which is still possible in this new age where every street, back alley, or forest path has a fire hydrant every 3". In 40K you could have about 15 of your 70 miniatures have the possibility to have anti-tank weapons, unless they picked infantry-fighting choices instead or cheap-skated and didn't buy too many upgrades, and this wouldn't be strange In Infinity you tend to have about 10 of your 15 units to have anti-TAG weapons in some capacity whether you made that choice or not. There may be more effort making use of them, but you can also choose not to fight that particular TAG and go for soft targets instead. I would make a comparison between a Wraithlord and Jotums, but in fact a Wraithlord is actually more difficult to handle due to what T8 means for S4 (Space Marine) weapons. Or was back when I played 40K.
I think the way SWC and list building is set up the game pretty much insures you're taking some type of weapon to deal with high ARM targets - out of 6 possible SWC one of those weapons is bound to be a multi weapon, hacking device, template with high damage/multi saves, or just something with straight AP.
It's much easier to evaluate cover now. Given that most terrain pieces are made of straight walls, just extend a line from the wall the unit is hiding behind. Has the enemy crossed that line? Then you don't have cover. Much much easier than arguing about 30%. So far I can't recall a single instance in my N4 games where a unit has gotten cover in a way that seemed either narratively silly or tactically unfair. I'm sure there will be the occasional case, but so far they've been nonexistently rare. The new cover system has felt quick and intuitive, but not otherwise very different from N3.
I have not played much with TAGs now in N4 (I have 4 games on my sleeve and in one game I downed a Brigada with ARM 8 in cover with HMG and Combi-Fire in ARO) but I learned that everything can still die in Infinity. Crits are sometimes more deadlier than before, but sometimes they vanish, this is a luck thing. One TAG that can have ARM 13 in Cover (and is AVA 2 in SWF;-) will not make the game unplayable. There are many ways to get a situation solved. If you ran out of big guns, hackers, special guns, fast movers, CC Pros etc. yeah then you are on the loosing end already ... You have to adapt. Leaving old habbits is not easy, but this is still a new edition! Game On!
