Of all your wisest and revered post, this is by far the most retarded thing I've ever read lmao. All the above mentioned Narnia scenarios about "easily" removing an Avatar is based on the assumption that the CA-player is; An idiot A person who have no agency of his own and won't position himself properly Besides, the Avatar isn't actually busted because of his firepower (there are far more deadly examples of this). The Avatar is busted because you can field a godlike unit, have Ko Dali + Speculo (and unlock the retarded smoke ZoC combo) + Bit & Kiss + Noctifer and still easily reach 15 orders or you could do away Ko Dali and reach 17 orders easily, while being almost immune to LoL. That's why the Avatar is so god damn busted but worst of all, he also invalidates a large section of his own army's Lt. options, because he outperforms them to a laughable degree. I was okay with him when he could barely fit in list that could bust out 12-13 orders max... I'm less okay with him performing YJ levels of order spam, while having an elite army, good ARO AND really good specialists all at the same time. I mean, if I recall correctly this was the exact same paradigm under which you mocked and criticized Aleph in N3, for being an overtuned army that could bring an Avatar-esque unit, a swathe of high tier specialist, efficient and too cheap gunfighters, while easily pumping out 16-18 orders. Edit: And don't forget, the Avatar brings the ability to bring up to 3 models in reserve (with a command token). This VASTLY affects your ability to counter deploy him if he goes first. Furthermore, this flies under the radar by many people, but having essentially a free command token to move a unit each turn is quite good and makes your combat groups absurdly flexible when factoring in the extra command token as well.
Counter argument: only an idiot would play and Avatar Ko Dali Speculo list in a 5 round tournament and expect to win. That's so many single point of failure rolls to make it work the way it can under ideal circumstances it's not even funny, before any participation from the other guy, who has all the reasons to throw a spanner in the works. It's complete and utter shite vs a Nomad castle, which is one of its main competitors. Nothing in an Avatar list can deal with the mix of Camo, Koalas, Pitchers, ablative bodies and mobility options. The list you propose can't even properly threaten the average list with a few barebones hackers and a couple rooftops to hide on, let alone Ariadna/Haqq/Nomads who can spread out to every raised surface up to the middle line. Honest question what happened to your game sense man? Sure that interaction is broken, but the proposed list is some weapons grade noobslayer trap. Avatar being "almost" immune to LOL is wild statement man. Amusing in N4's world of free E/M2 for everyone on top of the conundrum that you desperately do not want that awfully fragile 3rd of your list to die. Or that thing with the Pitchers where you press a button and roll Oblivion vs BTS5 till it works (not my preferred way to deal with one though). Did you perhaps miss the part about like bog standard AP guns and CC troops? Vs a proposed army that has about zero ways to stop a funny Dog for hire with Scottish accent? Rolling over and dying to a predictable floorbound one trick pony is precisely what only a more inexperienced player would easily fall prey to. Or as you put it so eloquently, only an entire tournament filled with "idiots" and "people who have no agency of their own and won't position themself properly" would get curbstomped by an Avatar+Speculo+Ko Dali joke list. Most importantly WIP 17 LT rolls aren't exactly reliable vs WIP12, not to mention WIP15. To make that list work 3 or 5 times in a row the way it has to not fall apart is laughably unlikely. Sure you'll probably ruin 3/5 people's days with that shitty list. Twice because you got the RNG and once because you do get someone who never played against it on a terrible table. Definitely a learning experience. That Avatar List is N4's Exodia. A win condition that puts Skill second under the right circumstances and just grants you a free win sometimes. You can do much better in N4 than that.
This is why you have 2 lists. 1 for counters 1 for non-counters. It amuses me that you omit this part. :)
Weird statement. So whenever I meet polish players and they bring 100% optimised lists of only s-tier units that can deal with multiple threats, I can dismiss them as weapon grade noobslayer traps? Hmm... seems every top table in satellites are all noobslayers by that standard Aww come on Tesla, I enjoy our occasional banter, but you’re better than this. Speaking of game sense tho, is vanilla Nomads really that prevalent in Germany or something? How are you avoiding LoL with that army? There are so many DZ assassin with frail glaringly obvious Lt’s that it’s borderline trolling. We have a local joke running with Nomads starting their 1st turn in LoL but I guess people are just noobs or something and things like Duroc isn’t a thing against an army that has Lt. options that dies to a stiff breeze lmao.
In which universe is a rigid preset list with no wiggle room to adjust for mission requirements optimized? Doesn't matter if you use it 1 game or 5 in a row, the failure chance of it just not working is the same every game. It's not Crusader Deathstar Link or Limited Insertion levels bad, but it's far from the best you can do. Still waiting on the N4 ITS Numbers for definite numbers, just went through the last batch of N3 data 2 weeks ago with our friendly forum stats guy and there was barely any N4 ITS data available yet :/ Ever played against Worstcase? There's a bunch of other good Nomad Players around here, that particular guy sits comfortably on top of the overall ITS rankings for a reason and plays like 90% Nomads Vanilla. LoL is an issue and it happens ever so often to Nomads, unlike a lot of other armies you're not crippled by being Irregular for a turn, most things can use their Order to do something useful while you flip the few Order Monkeys you have with Command Tokens. If you ever get a turn on Nomads your Lt likely is a Interventor, hiding in Cybermask while being a potent Hacker behind a wall of Mines, Perimeter, Repeaters and bodies is as safe as it gets nowadays. Duroc is solid if you're playing the French, not really too worried about people fielding him in general with the cancer lists I tend to run. Vanilla Ariadna or Kosmoflot can do better. AD (DZ) is one of the many challenges you have to have an answer for these days to be S tier, don't like the odds of an Avatar list on the receiving end of that at all.
@Teslarod I'll resume our conversation in a PM, after work, and don't worry I'll drop the blunt tone, so nothing gets lost in sarcasm or percevied sleights.
Sure, looking forward to it. No worries mate, wasn't under the impression this turned into a heated discussion xD Blunt is good.
Thank you. These are good points. Will try. I kinda feel they may not be as good as you make them sound, but I'll try.
Do bear in mind that any hyperbolic tendencies I have I is often greatly exacerbated, when I adress Teslarod, lol. All things considered, I don't regard CA as an extremely strong army solely because of the Avatar, rather it's the collection of very strong units that have been gradually implemented in the army over a long period of time, as well as the fact that the 15 models order cap greatly benefits them, as it levels the playing field of other armies attempting to overwhelm with orders and cheap warbands.
I've been enjoying a lot of success with Vanilla CA recently. But usually my LT options are either a Charontid, Anathematic or Sheskiin. The Avatar hasn't worked out yet for me. I kinda feel he doesn't do enough to justify the points cost.
I'm not sure I've ever actually used the Sepsitor on the Avatar (or if I have it was so inconsequential I don't recall it) so I'm not sure this FAQ will have much bearing on the game either way. Fluffwise TI has always been rather jarring anyway (I mean a wolfman or genetically altered person can survive a direct hit from anti tank ordnance....) so again I'm not too fussed. As for the Avatar, I haven't run it in N4 yet but my main gripe in N3 was the binary nature of games it lends itself to. I must have fielded it maybe a dozen times and most of the time I've either won big or lost big. I dust it off occasionally for a change but I don't find it creates particularly compelling games on the whole. I will note my perspective isn't based on a very competitive outlook. I have attended tournaments but just for a run day out, not in any expectation of winning.
I think Sepsitor needs to be evaluated similarly to how several units' martial arts are evaluated. E.g. just because Sheskin seldom gets to eat people while they're still conscious doesn't mean she's bad at melee or that melee is necessarily bad, it means she's good enough that people go to extra lengths to keep her the heck away from their troops. So with the Avatar, people will use a BSG/HSG REM or Cube-free unit instead of their typical heavy hitter if they need to deal with it up close, so that the Sepsitor is ineffective - that in turn means the attack piece they choose is going to be less specialised at dealing with a range of other situations.
I don't know about total counter, keep in mind the thing is still a Damage 17 DTW that's gonna pretty easily stick wounds on shit.
Less that it's "DAM 17", more that your saving roll is against the Avatar's WIP17 to avoid becoming a zombie.
Well it's not listed as non lethal, so if you just treat it as normal ammo it's gonna be a damage 17 hit from an Avatar isn't it?
Not gonna pretend I knew this before I had to piece it together just now, but... Sepsitor doesn't have an ammo type at all, so it won't convert the Sepsitor as Normal ammo, Sepsitor will just be a DTW that has no effect and no ammo and no ammo means no way of causing wounds.
Sepsitors don't have an ammo type to be treated as Normal Ammunition. All it's going to do is potentially force a Guts Roll.
One of the Avatar's bigger weakpoints too. Not knowing about that is gonna upgrade it by quite a bit. Any cubeless CC dude can merrily walk up to an Avatar around the Corner and smack it in the face without fearing a DTW.
