How they were in N3 was obviously absurd as it reduced beefy units to just as vulnerable as chaff. However, in my experience, the N4 solution is far from ideal either as it makes those pieces complete Order soakers as they can be hard to approach with something to remove the threat and they can take extreme amounts of fire. I've been thinking about what would be a good middle of the road solution as crits have to be dangerous, and in N3 they were more dangerous to elite units than to chaff, and in N4 the situation is reversed in a way that leans too hard in the elite unit's favour. What if critical hits worked like this: - A Critical roll will always succeed (would work as described in N4) In addition, a critical hit on an attack - reduces the armour on the target by half, rounding down, for the critical hit only. - reduces the benefit of Cover to 0 for the hit only. Then add to AP - A critical hit made with AP reduces the target's armour to 0 for that hit only (essentially making it a ghetto K1 hit). This would make getting a critical hit dangerous for elite units since right now, they can in some cases shrug off crits like they were nothing. While still being effective against chaff in cover. In some cases even more so than in N4, and it would speed up the game as the rule would be baked into the effect rather than giving the opponent extra dice to roll.
Critical hits have been working quite well in N4 for me so far. My only gripe is how important PH has become for CC which has caused minor issues for the melee units of my primary faction due to its very low average PH.
I think the crits are fine now, as the entire environment was changed to fit them in the mechanics. I mean, it's true that the heavier units are now order soakers, but it was somewhat balanced by the increase in AP loadout across the various factions. I believe it added a further layer of depth, as now you have to list considering options to deal against armored enemies (something that your idea somewhat rolls back to N3, relying in lucky hits to deal with them). E/M ammos are way stronger, Hacking was buffed (or at least it became reliable so more hackers are present on the field, now), and several units gained AP weapons to offer a brute force option to deal with armored infantries and TAGs. Your idea is not bad at all, but I think it misses the initial point of changing the crits to something more reliable and affordable.
I like the new system much better. Your heavier units are actaully alot more rewarding to take. And are worth their points. Gave alot more value to AP weapons. And a necessity to plan to deal with tougher armored units.
Personally, I'm not a fan of it being inconsistent across different ammunition types as this adds more memory overhead and slows down the game. In particular, some odd interactions with 'ARM' 1 where AP has no effect on the 'ARM' value, crits have no effect on the 'ARM' value, but crits with AP do affect the 'ARM' value. Also, why should crits have no additional effect against low 'ARM' targets, or when using ARM=0/BTS=0 Traits? How do these crits interact with PARA Ammunition, or with Bioimmunity?
Crits as are now is really cool. Played about a dozen games of N4, gone is the feel of stuff getting critted to death with an unfortunate roll. Your proposal is unnecessarily convoluted and unbalanced towards low ARM units. Crits are good as is now.
Crits are great. One of my biggest issues with N3 was crits and I think they smashed it with the new rule change. No problem with ARM units being tanky. I mean, thats what ARM is for isn't it?
The crits change has been an improvement in the transition to N4 IMO. High-ARM targets take specialized tools to take down.
I think the new crit role are great. They make HI feel more playable. I also love that they added a new special ammo types, such as multi and AP which reduce armour value to counter this. Multi on particular is fantastic and has been given to a bunch of profiles that previously only had high burst weapons like hmgs and spitfires.
I like how N4 crits have made cool heavy troops more viable, I also liked how elegant N3 crits were in comparison. I don't like the added complexity and mental load of different ammo types on crits in N4, and I'm wary of how heavy units can kill all the limited number of threats to them, to then lock an opponent out of the game, but I didn't like how by easily negatable ARM was by Crit in N3. I think I'd like something in between better, like: - CRITS AUTO WIN FTF AND AUTO WOUND, ONLY IF THE CRIT TROOP DOES NOT HAVE COVER. - IF THE CRIT TROOPER DOES HAVE COVER THE CRIT BYPASSES THE ARM BONUS OF THE COVER INSTEAD OF AUTO WOUNDING - COVER DOUBLES A TROOPERS ARM - AP AMMO HALVES THE EXTRA ARM PROVIDED BY COVER (AS WELL AS THE TROOPERS OWN ARM) - SMALL COVER (AS HIGH AND WIDE AS S1) PROVIDES COVER TO TROOPERS UP TO S5 - LARGE COVER (AS HIGH AND WIDE AS S3) PROVIDES COVER TO TROOPERS LARGER THAN S5 I think this would continue to let ARM be very desirable, while also allowing it to be defeated if out manoeuvred, which is true in the real world and thematic to narrative sources too ('Hit it in the eye socket!') It also would allow crits to be powerful and not too complex while being able to be countered with careful play.
Unfortunately, it seems like people here are disagreeing with you about the new crit system. I respect your opinion about roadblocks being more hard to kill, but I think that is exactly what they are meant to be. So... I should also agree with others, that the new crit system is quite nice.
Oh man, Cover doubling ARM? I want that to be a thing but I know it would be so bad. Don't care if a combi can't hurt a TAG, but a standard TAG in cover would be immune to everything that lacks AP. That feels like too much to me, but as long as everything was designed around that it would be interesting - if you think about it, Machine Guns etc are not designed to hurt tanks and TAGs are somewhat similar to Tanks.
A combi under that proposal could hurt a TAG, even in cover. It would just have to flank it (crits auto wound without cover) or Crit it and then have it fail a coverless ARM save (crits against troopers in cover ignore the cover ARM bonus). It would be unlikely for a combi to harm a TAG in cover (though always possible, ) but more likely to hurt one out of cover. Wishes and fishes tho. Most people seem to like the current system.
Yeah crit fishing, but your opponent still get their ARM save (so much less impactful if they have cover). Also, AP weapons would act like critting (with different, much less impactful crits) against targets in cover.
Yeah, that's part of the point (at least compared to N3, to encourage heavies). I imagined this without 15 Trooper cap tho.
As I've brought up before, who cares if you can't frontally penetrate a Jotum in cover without special equipment or bothering to move? That's been the case with Moiras (and anything else with ODD/Mim6) since forever against any unit with BS12 or lower and no MSV, and nobody's whining over those overcosted theme strippers denying them even a chance of a hit. Oh, and addressing OP's point about the balance being too far in favour of elite units- take a look at what the actual anti-armour options will do on a crit now. AP or K1 crits will regularly drop a HI completely, removing their safety blanket of an extra wound to rely on in their own active turn, and while slightly nerfed from N3 a Monofilament crit will still kill much more often than not against nearly anything. It's been shifted more from favouring crit-fishing and Wound soaking to needing to bring the right tool for the job, which I like a lot.
