Maybe because this same shit has already happened to other games, I. E. Warmachine, and it was sad. I'm also a former WM player and I can tell you CB is starting to go down a very slippery slope since N4 released; I was very sad to leave WM because it had become a shitty list chicken, power crept FotM game and I'd also be sad if it happened to Infinity too. And I can tell you WM had a way more solid rules base than Infinity does.
That's remarkably convenient. Why would it be RP TAGs? It's the fireteams with additional mods that are causing problems too, and Nomads are at the forefront of that (along with PanO).
I just think we don't need a class of hackers that's functional immune to KHDs. KHDs should be real good at killing hackers, even high-BTS ones. And the fact that you called out Remote Presence TAGs is just... more of the same. Of course the Nomad TAGs are fine! Its other factions' TAGs that are the problem!
Top end Hacking also can't destroy a poorly deployed opponent in half an order pool. Also: That's a "top tier" Vanilla Nomad Hacking list including all the support to make the Hacking function (there's a couple of pieces that can be swapped for alternatives, but they're largely in the same price range). Dropping any of those roles is a compromise. This is the required units to support a TAG at the top end, yes you need more to make the list function but it's the "this is in the list to support the TAG" units: Both are in a similar price/order count range. The Nomads being more SWC intensive for a little bit of lower price and some more supporting capabilities. In both cases you're probably taking all the other units anyway and if you're not taking the Dragao you only get back 10-20pts because you're running a 50-60pt HI; whereas in Nomads list you get back ~34pts because you drop the Vertigo and Interventor (picking up a Moderator Lt). The fact that the Nomads list has a good specialist option (ie the Moran) is irrelevant, because the rest of the list is going to be mostly attack pieces, orders and DZ defence. Whereas for the PanO list the rest of the list will be a second gun, midfield defence and specialists ie. those capabilities intrinsic to the Nomad list are those required by the PanO list and vice versa. Which is to say, to get all the capabilities that people are complaining about in a Top Tier Hacking list it seriously constrains list building. Alternatively you can view adding those capabilities to a Nomad list as costing ~34pt and 2 SWC (Moderator > Interventor, add Vertigo), which is not incidentally approximately the same as upgrading a 0SWC HI midfeld attacker (ie a KotHS) to a TAG in PanO. So yes you can say "turning an average Nomad list into a Top Tier Hacking list is trivial" but it's no more or less true that "turning an average PanO list into a TAG list is trivial". Indeed - you can tenuously argue that - turning an average Nomad list into a Top Tier Hacking list is actually harder: it's 2 SWC and 34pts as compared to swapping a KoTHS (or equivalent HI gun) for a Dragao which is only 1.5SWC and 24pts. So saying that "You sacrifice a lot in a TAG list to be able to properly field and support one" is true but misses that you do the same when building a Top Tier Hacking list.
Nomad TAGs could stand going back to N3 prices. But equally they're not meta defining, they're merely good.
Not taking steps to minimise this risk is just asking for a shit time and you deserve whatever happens. Honestly, the only time an Interventor shouldn't be put into Cybermask is when it is in a fire team, which coincidentally is where you take 'tates and probably a pair of them for decoys at which point they are the better option for LT. I don't think I have ran an interventor LT in N4 as opposed to N3 where if I could take one I would. On cybermask itself, it doesnt mean you cannot make use of repeaters or removes it from the game, it gives you control. It allows you to choose when it engages in ARO as opposed to being engaged, and you just need to pick when it is safe to reveal it, this is better when it is working in concert with another hacker. Its not that much different from any other marker state ARO piece. I would take more vulnerable Interventors (but more specifically ANY BTS 9+ HACKER AND NOT JUST THE INTERVENTOR) as a trade off for a more healthy hacking ecosystem. And on more vulnerable interventors, I lost more of them in N3 to conventional means than enemy hackers.
There's two of them in the entire game. The interventor, a 22/24/26 points hacker And the Knight of Justice, a 46 points elite HI with some amazing non-hacker profiles. So, sure, the interventor is only one of the BTS9 hackers, but its almost half the price of the other one. Not that Jazz is any fucking better just because of BTS6, because she has trinity and fireteams with Tinbot -6 and shit. N4 making hackers cheaper, better and harder to kill at the same time might have been a bit too much.
But HI and TAGs got a bigger discount in this edition, and n3 hacking was even not as powerfull to justify its costs Enviado desde mi M2004J19C mediante Tapatalk
But it can zone them out of scoring pretty thoroughly while most TAG lists suck at board control. Anything that leaves Marker state in the midfield against that setup is dead within three orders when your turn rolls around. Different tools for different jobs, as it should be. You seem to run both your Hacking and TAG lists differently to me. I wouldn't consider a Hacking list safe without REMs to guard the DZ against Rambo HI and air deployment, and for Vanilla Nomads I'd likely always take a DepRep Zero instead of a Heckler. You've also built in the Doctor and Engineer, which I find surprising, but probably should have expected to get maximum value out of that high BTS. Meanwhile, you've totally neglected Hacking support and assassination protection for the TAG list, but included Liang Kai as essential for reasons I can't figure. Nice point on the intrinsic qualities of Nomads vs. PanO, though I don't personally find PanO does much to help its TAGs; bottom-of-class Hacking and Engineering plus a severe shortage of midfielders outside Acon can leave them dangerously exposed. I actually tend to find my Szalamandra in Nomads Vanilla fits with the army more organically, but it might just be my playstyle and preferences muddying things up.
Which is why we’re saying that arguing for the introduction of a program on all KHDs that is only really useful for fighting BTS9 Hackers is basically just a way of saying “Interventors need to be nerfed.” When asked why Interventors need to be nerfed the answer is “because they’re practically immune to most KHDs when attacked through their own repeaters”. Which is circular reasoning. I can build oppressive hacking lists in factions that are not Nomads: the issue isn’t Interventors or really Jazz. The issue is that Repeaters don’t have counters that are on par with the efficiency of emplacing them in the first place.
What about KHD get a program to "kill" repeaters? There was one in n3 and could be used against certain units even in ARO Enviado desde mi M2004J19C mediante Tapatalk
“Dead within 3 orders” is overstating things. 1 order to get a repeater into position, 2nd order Spotlight, 3rd order Guided is the absolute best case. It’s most likely 4 or more, and doing that probably doesn’t advance my mission objectives. But, again, that’s the aspect I think should absolutely be toned down: keep Hacking as a suite of soft AROs, not a way to trivially drop ML templates onto people’s heads. Liang Kai is in there as a “can deal with threats a TAG can’t” piece. You can probably sub it for an alternative non-Hackable trouble shooter or other Hacking support. Dep Rep Zero / Heckler is a taste thing. Heckler is mechanically better at getting a single Repeater into position for a Spotlight and Guided Alpha, which is why it was included. I agree the Dep Rep Zero is actually more versatile and is an easy swap. Neither list has DZ defences built in, ultimately an entire list should function as one entity so carving out the “this part is about the Hacker/TAG” is always going to be artificial and miss elements. If I fleshed them out fully those are exactly options that I’d reach for. The Dr and Eng are there to account for the fact that list is literally all 1W and stray crits of things like Oblivion can ruin it. You can probably drop them which does open the gap between the lists up, but I don’t think renders the basic point invalid: it’s not trivial building a Hacking list that can reliably do all the things that are being imputed. What I was mainly illustrating was that a Hacking list has a lot of elements that are necessary to make work: Spotlight through a Repeater into Guided outside of a Sectorial is almost always 3 separate units, and then there’s often a 4th for defensive Repeater placement. It rapidly adds up. Aside re playstyle affecting list design: I recently tried to build a Tik + Dragao ASA list and ended up rebuilding it in Vanilla Nomads because it fit my style better. The Tik + Dragao list probably did TAG things better, but the Gecko + Salzy list had additional qualities that I can leverage.
You’re talking about Blackout. I honestly prefer the Deactivator suggestion. Mostly because it opens it up to units people with Hackable targets will already be taking and which benefit from being close to the Hackable targets.
TBH I personally feel like when a lot of people say "hacking is too powerful vs TAGs" what they mean is "I don't like it when my TAGs get hacked and I want TAGs to be able to effectively resist being hacked by themselves" which is not the same thing. TAGs should absolutely be vulnerable to hacking. But you have to support them right. And that includes having an engineer to clear off isolate, having a hacker to clear off possession, having a KHD to kill their hackers etc. Which is fine, all of these things are things you want anyway. But TAGs need support. And if they are unsupported, they die. Fortunately if they are supported, they are really fucking good.
I'm sorry you felt that way. Not intended as a personal attack but in response to what I perceived as the deliberate misrepresentation of my original comment. However, I'm aware misinterpretation abounds in this format. I'm genuinely interested in what your response was going to be and your thoughts on what's the main issue with these hacking interactions (and there is definitely a game feel one, if game balance/competitiveness is up for debate), and what suggestions you would make to change it (if you would at all)? (My aim with my suggestions was to avoid direct nerfs or alterations to rules, units, factions, fireteams, equipment, for example). Equally, the thread is becoming rather circular with entrenched views talking past each other's points (forums gonna forum, as you so succinctly put it) so I understand if you'd rather not or use a different medium.
Again we have "Nomads have really good hackers, really problematic shooting, and everything else" And again we have "But Nomads don't have CoC or Marker state on our LT so it's fine!" Here's another one for the list; Is it actually healthy for the game how mandatory Marker state LT and/or CoC has become? How many tools there are to directly kill any one or any two units of the opponent's with little ability to defend against it.
2 nomads units are "above average"in terms of shotting. Kriza and markmanship grenzer. Anything else is or non linkable, or just average. And those 2 are not top in their fields neither. Kriza got a nerf in this edition while maintaining cost, and he was not even as gamebreaking in n3 for all the fuss it generared, what more do it needs?, and need an expensive ft to get that frightening b6 (something that has been hinted that will change when ft rules get their revision). Grenzer is the most expensive of their similars while far from the best. MSV1 with markmanship... Vs MSV2 and mimetism? Sorry but even when MSV1 and markmanship is a powerful combination, the second ones, being cheaper, are a bit more dangerous. What we could arge is if markmanship for 3 points is not enough or not compared with 2 for msv1 or 4 for msv2. Some people also put vostok in the list... But he is on the same costs as a bs14 HI...+2bs is huge to say that he is top. So saying that nomads are top at shotting, when they are capped at bs13 (except for a not so used character and TAGs) with not so many visual mods, is just overstating things.
Funnily enough, those soft AROs are by far more dangerous in my estimation. Carbonite and Oblivion keep powerful alpha strikers and essential support at a distance and locks a good portion of the enemy list out of reliable midfield scoring, while Spotlight is capable of nullifying the precious MODs most Skirmishers rely on even before taking the Vertigo and its 2-order Reset tax to not die into account. Half the time when chasing off a Skirmisher I'd opt to just Move-Shoot with the Moran against a Spotlit target, I'm pretty sure the odds are actually better. I quite like N4 Hacking at its theoretical base rules level, especially the more pronounced active-turn bias for the KHD and extra importance of positioning. I don't like how unevenly its execution affects different factions and playstyles, and wouldn't be against Hacking actually being buffed against assassin lists.
Q1. No. Loss of Lieutenant isn't a fun mechanic, but playing around it can be due to the tradeoff between risk and the reward of an extra order for the defender, and the high investment in an attack run for a chance to cripple the enemy for the attacker. Being able to reliably cause it without major restrictions in factions able to do so removes all the value the mechanic brings. Q2. There's three factions worth of Impersonators, ninja elites, Bran, Andromeda, Duroc, Uxia, any faction with Pitchers and a GML, and maybe the Climbing Plus Skirmishers or some AD on a good table. Emily Handelman in a Core gets an honorary mention for being able to E/M anywhere on the board, which can be as bad as death on many occasions. I think I'm still missing a few, but wow, assassin options are actually a lot more common than I remember.
