Now, before I go any further I just want to clarify that when I say broken, I'm not talking about the "I-don't-like-this-pls-nerf!!1" type of broken. I'm talking about the "this-feels-like-it-shouldn't-be-a-thing" type of broken. Specifically her MSV1 profile. I don't think it's a stretch when I say that ZoC shenanigans were never a popular thing and was one of the most requested changes when people discussed what they wished to be changed/removed from N3 --> N4. Especially when a MSV2 unit stood inside smoke, and activated inside ZoC of a unit and forced it to Change Facing or Reset as the only ARO options available, meaning you could attack as many times as your order pool allowed with no fear of reprisal. Essentially you could shoot with zero risk involved. While I never enjoyed this specific interaction, I personally I never had any issues with it because it would usually require a decent amount of setup so it would rarely happen and never on an abusive level. Like, a Jaguar would have to across the board and then succeed in placing smoke and THEN the Intruder would have to spend orders moving close enough for ZoC to be relevant, which is why I never opposed this interaction. However, with a unit like Uxia it's actually a different kettle of fish. Take a look a every single MSV2-3 unit in the game and it becomes very clear, from a game balance and design perspective, why there didn't existed a unit that could shoot through smoke while simultaneously carrying their own smoke grenades. Uxia is not only that, she's actually ALSO a trooper that's in a marker state AND starts on just outside your deployment zone with an 80% chance to succeed. 'But haven't she always been like this?', you may ask. Well, yes she has and I've actually never had anything against her or her infiltration but my issue with her is that she will start next to any of your units she wants dead, then she proceeds to toss smoke next to you, move inside your ZoC and you can now only Dodge with a -3 while she will put down either DTW, Grenades or 2 solid shotgun shots with AP. Now, thankfully her MSV1 profiles does not have the Assault Pistols so I fully understand that this will limit her damage output to a large degree, compared to if she had the Assault Pistols but my main focus point is not so much about her damage output than it is on the ZoC mechanic on that specific profile. Picture this: Player with Uxia goes first, he has Voronin and a single combat group so that's 11 orders with no way of stripping orders. After spending his first order on Uxia (which was held in reserve) on throwing smoke, he will now have 10 orders to do what ever he wants while your only reply can only ever be; - "My ARO is Dodge..." *next order* - "My ARO is Dodge..." *next order* - "My ARO is Dodge..." *next order* - "My ARO is Dodge..." *next order* - "My ARO is Dodge..." *next order* Imagine having a new player facing this. Obviously there are factors like your own MSV units and Mines but the majority of those factors can be almost entirely negated by holding Uxia in reserve and there's no longer a mechanic that denies your opponent the option of holding a unit in reserve. These are just my thoughts and I want to stress that I don't find Uxia to be an inherently "OP" unit and I have no issues with her before, when she wanted have a shoot out. My issue is with this new change to MSV1-Profile that semi-breaks the game because it immediately robs the opponent of any agency or interaction with the game from almost the first order. Thank you for reading and let me hear your thoughts.
This just seems like another variant of the CA Speculo/Ko Dali combo. It just feels like something you need to take in account in the game. Mavericks will also be able to do this moving 8-4. Dodging into combat or hopefully out of LoS seems to be the solution (not great, but it is what it is.)
Couple of thoughts: In N4 each of those dodges brings movement, so you can get total cover or try to engage her to stop the attacks Forcing ZoC AROs to deny shooting back is definitely super annoying Unless you’re really tightly bunched up, she probably can’t kill more than one or two models this way - chain rifle range is longer than ZoC, so secondary targets have more ARO options A form of this did exist in N3, but only using intuitive attack, which is probably less oppressive.
I found that although yes, this is a thing, ZoC issues with forcing Dodge-3 is greatly reduced due to said Dodge allowing movement. The attacking piece is facing a FtF that CAN get them engaged, and everybody in ZoC can as well. Last time somebody forced a ZoC ARO on me inside smoke, I passed the roll and was just within Engage range (granted, this was a Dodge(+2in) model so it was kinda stupid but not really, since he could shoot me without being shot back). So it is something that will work for 1, 2 orders max. Then you are either engaged or out of LoS as toadchild said. With Change Facing no longer existing, some old interactions have fundamentally changed.
Honestly on Uxia it's still kind of okay because she suffers the -6 and winning the FTF with the Dodge at some point or saving the single ARM roll is still realistic. It's basically not that different from any sort of Spec Fire Grenades in +3 (especially on a PH16 dog). I still think that whole interaction should go die in a fire. Replace Uxia with any linked MSV1+DTW/MSV2+ Hacker. The Hacker gets to Normal Roll your Dodge with a Hack and Reset with a DTW/BS Attack. Wildcats in a Haris with Lupe have everything right there for cheap and can still slot any Wildcard. Ko Dali group 1 with a Speculo group 2 can use your full 15 Orders on this with BS14, B5 Assault Pistols vs mostly a Dodge -3. Leeching any unconscious model up for extra wounds to mitigate RNG in favor of the reactive player's side. It's okayish where it's hard to set up. But an Asura Hacker rampaging through a TAG or HI link unopposed at no risk after getting a Smoke down sucks as a game mechanic. Haven't even been on the receiving end of it. But it sure feels pretty damn OP on your Core Linked Kempetai Marksmanrifle with another Link Member triggering the Doge. Not like Shinobu's/Yojimbo's Smoke is hard to move into position. 4 dice on 15/18s against a Dodge -3. Linked Missile launcher? Yeah right lol. Imagine my surprise that that is what my JSA have been doing close up instead of using CC. A MSV2 in a Link can keep abusing this even easier than with a solo troop, thanks to how long you can stretch triggering ZOC Dodges from behind a building in Total Cover while your MSV trooper keeps mowing down any position that can be seen while covered by Smoke + Basewidth. You at least used to be able to do something about it with Sixth Sense and it had counterplay outside of other MSVs.
This sentence suddenly gave me a flashback to VaulSC's videos. I think this specific combo and interaction has been his pet peeve for years now IIRC, lol.
For some reason he runs that in Avatar lists though, which doesn't strike me as the ideal combination when you have a plan for all your turn 1 Orders and like to pick second turn after winning Lt rolls with WIP17. Avatar is too expensive to use as +1 Order Monkey, I'd rather take my points and bulk up my ARO game and make sure I have 15 Regular Orders to defend. Think he ran a 5 round tournament that shows pretty well why I do not think TAGs got any more survivable in N4. If I remember correctly it includes a game where Ko Dali shredds a Cutter and a Kamau Sniper kills the Avatar in return. Tables simply not supporting S7 is not an edition related problem. But that's enough offtopic. When I slotted that Kempetai in a Do Tanko Link I had not the foggiest idea of what was going to happen. Just added it because it was the best FTF gunner that can go in there. Playing vs OSS going first with Yojimbo being the Reserve piece. When it dawned to me I had a free path to Smoke up the Dakini Link and get close I had still no idea what was gonna happen. Ran into it on accident just because the Kempetai is slower than his HI buddies while I was thinking about Spec firing, Hacking etc. Turns out you can still just shoot all game in N4 and it got better, who knew. MSV+Smoke+ZOC is even good vs Hacking. The Kempetai was Spotlighted all game, and it didn't matter for his entire Active turn, nothing ever got to shoot him after all. Maybe that could be an alright counter play - let things draw LOF through Zero Vis at troops in Targeted State? Keeping the -6, so essentially granting the same interaction with Smoke against targeted that MSV1 has. Probably not anywhere close to a good solution either.
The -6 in smoke really doesn't matter for her shotgun. Since she can also just template attack after they declare dodge. I think this can be a powerful tactic. But i never even look at her MSV1 profile, I think her assault pistols and spec op skill are much stonger. The B5 shooting and B2 CC let her push up the board better and even push buttons and plant D-charges too on the way up.
ARO baits should die die and die for good The aro legality check step in the rulebook that, at very liberal RAW reading, lets you declare illegal shooting that MAY become legal after second short is declared is very janky and counterintuitive for newer players, but fixes it at least. But it seems that the rules intent is against it so enjoy many games of hearing noise in smoke and dodging into oblivion.
Pretty sure they confirmed you can't do this with attacks, as during the declaration of an attack you choose your weapon and assign burst, and you can't assign burst to someone who doesn't match the requirements of the chosen weapon (aka not in LoF).
ijw did confirm that. However, he's since said that the whole question of declaring AROs before they're valid needs clarification from CB. So it's not impossible that he might be overruled on this one. Until we hear from CB, the best info we have is that it can't be done.
You should try to open fire outside ZoC. You'll roll on 11s, but now it is Picture this: Player with Uxia goes first, he has Voronin and a single combat group so that's 11 orders with no way of stripping orders. After spending his first order on Uxia (which was held in reserve) on throwing smoke, he will now have 10 orders to do what ever he wants while your only reply can only ever be; - "My ARO is a Saving Roll..." *next order* - "My ARO is a Saving Roll..." *next order* - "My ARO is a Saving Roll..." *next order* - "My ARO is a Saving Roll..." *next order* - "My ARO is a Saving Roll..." Getting caught so unprepared for something like Uxia, TacDrops, Andromeda and so on are errors of youth. And should NOT BE abused without prior explanation to newbies... BTW, in this case, ALERT is your friend... https://infinitythewiki.com/index.php?title=Alert
Not being able to order-strip against a single combat group is an ITS11 rule that may go away in ITS12, we'll see. Also, Ghulam NCO + Khawarij in the same Core was a thing in N3 as well, so we've been there for a while now. We just have a few more combos that can do it with a -6 to shooting now. Keep in mind though that eventually the opponent will be able to Dodge into a more meaningful position.
If Uxia shoots from outside ZoC, the target gets to shoot back at -6 (or at -0 with sixth sense) which negates the purpose of the trick. The idea is to trigger an ARO by moving/idling within smoke while in ZoC so the opponent’s ARO triggers, only allowing dodge/reset, and then shoot them.
Unnoposed shots at BS5 though, because if you're out of ZoC then you're also out of range with your shotgun so you're just at -6 for the smoke... so not really good if you ask me. You might be very VERY good at eyeballing that template range though, but in this case you're triggering a dodge anyway sooooo.... might as well force that dodge in the first place?
Even if you perfectly line up the shot, after the first attack, enemy models get to start turning around. ALERT! AUTOMATIC SKILL Optional, No Roll. REQUIREMENTS ► The Trooper CANNOT have been activated by an Order or ARO in the same Order. ► The Trooper, or an Allied Trooper within their Zone of Control, has been the target of an Attack. EFFECTS ► At the end of the Order, during its Conclusion, and after performing any Saving Rolls, Troopers that meet the Requirements may turn on the spot, without changing position, to modify their LoF angle as their player chooses. ► This movement is automatic, it does not require a Roll and does not generate AROs, since it happens during the Conclusion Step of the Order.
Why the hell do you need a smoke down if you are going to shot things in their backs? That is the way.
