External army balance issues in N4

I like N4. Way better than N3. I don't see a balance problem. I see a possible high skill ceiling problem in deployment phase (the most important phase of the game). Good defensive deployment is way more difficult in N3 than in N4. This is great for us neckbeards but not not so good for newbies. Prepare to get rekt for 10+ games. You have to know what kind of attack vectors are available for the enemy faction in the current gametable before any models are put on the table. If you don't, you are vulnerable to potentially crippling alpha or retaliotory strike. In N3 this wasn't a problem, because you could just spam more hitpoints by taking more (possibly corelinked) (FO) cheerleaders.

 

And thats why Achilles + Dart + posthumans lists have been so effective in tournaments during N3.
People think that way but the data doesn't favour the "spam" Armies.

 

Leaving aside the issue of that list not being compenhensive, it is not needed to 100% counter thos problems, but to mitigate them... in a way that won't force your whole list around not being simply done with in the first turn.
If my only viable Lt to avoid cheap assassination plots that I would need to devote at least a third of the list to prevent is to use the same 40+pts Lt, that is a problem (and nothing can protect you from Impersonators, aside from a failed WIP roll on their side, if they are willing to take the risk).

Spam cheap troops with trash weapons and hope to roll crits for achieving kills you shouldn't (like combis against a Jotum or Avatar).

If a one were always a critic, it might have a sliver of mathematical basis, but since the target number changes all the time, you need for two different sets of requirements to concur (that is, roll the specific number, and for that number to be a critical hit).

I agree. The problem comes into play when you have such a hard time to counter certain problems, you need to drop your chances against a few, and when you get to the table you find, simply, that you are facing the worst matchup for the tools at your disposal... or that a lucky roll takes out the only piece you have access to at listbuilding to prevent/mitigate certain tactics.

In other words, sure, you can attempt to harden your list against most common obstacles... but the price is to soften the list against others (and you can't always choose which you harden against, nor which you get softened against).

Rulewise, I agree, and I think the OP hasn't complained about this (I think the only mention of n3 lost mechanics was regarding sniffers).
Faction-wise, problems keep compounding.

We are talking about an ARM5, PH16+smoke, Total Inmunity 2 wounds + dogged furry missile... Sure, statistically it will fail half of the rolls if it's the Bearpode... unless we talk about the Polaris Team, which is a Bearpode changing the Heavy Shotgun +1Dam for grenades and double +1Dam chain rifles that can use cover (so it goes to ARM 8). But you forgot to take into account a base dodge of 16, that can go into 19 with smoke dodge at good range. For 31 pts (lone bearpode) or 32 (controller + bearpode. Which work like Zoe & Piwell or Margot + Duroc, or Jazz + Bille: two different troops that care little for the dead of the other).

And then there is the 2W ARM3 Total Inmunity doggo that pops up in your DZ, to clear a path for his BS14 APrifle+grenade launcher + light shotgun better half. If he needs her.

Which means you need to cover the front, and the back, when facing Ariadna or Kosmoflot. At least with Kosmoflot it's easier to point-guess if Mirage 5 has come to the party, since there are little decoys. But camo rokots at 10pts in a faction with Scots Guards at 35pts tops...

The complaint is about how "actively" can be turned off by the opponent, who already has three advantages over the defender: choice (of engage or not, and with which unit), position (he can move, the defender can't) and Burst. A sudden Dart in your face making Speculative attacks with EM grenades is not really fun.

I agree, and the Alpha Strike tendency comes from the position I'm exposing: there are too many things a list *needs* to counter, and not enough tools to do so in a 300pts/15slot recipe. This forces the players without access, some because of design, to the counters they deem needed to go into the old mirage of "the best defence is a good offence", to at least remove (or attempt to) the scissors to their paper before it can be casted down (for example, killing the ML remote with a DA troop before the enemy has had his first turn).

That can be boiled down to a "If I defend, I suffer. If I Attack, at least I play and have the illusion of being proactive". And, as you say, this makes a lot of lists banking on going first.

That would be the easy and lazy solution... and I disagree it would be good. Because that would make those troops forced inclusions. And why limit the game to 15 slots, to block spam, and then add troops that lets you surpass that limit?

I understand Corvus can't remove said troops, because they have long standing models and they loathe to take the models from the game. But upping the AVA of the UberfallKommando to 3 is something I don't think is conductive to N4 "compactness" (nor is to remove Limited Insertion, and let us never forget the 4 orders Avatar... as if 3 orders were not enough).

And they remove them beforehand from being able to stop Total Inmunity enemies before. Then they remove the Fireteam bonuses from flash pulse (technical weapon), and made the ammo "DA", making the pulsebots (1 pt cheaper in N4) and warcor more valuable, and linked FO troops less...
In a way, it looks like to me there are several tug-o-wars going on in the rules/profiles department.

I agree, Instantkill should not be in a game that promotes interaction (against the computer, I have no compulsions, but against a human opponent... I want to *play*, and I assume my opponent wants that too).

About lethality, I feel it skewed, because you go from "instakill" to "immortal target" too easily. The inherent randomness of the roll system has a place here, but...

That then won't show up because you lost your first game to another faction you were not expecting, with a strange list. There are more than 40 "factions" , meaning you need, in the end, to try and listbuild counters to the most probable trouble you will encounter...

Anyway, you are admiting there is a level you can reach with forethought, and a limit nobody can. We are discussing said limit to be a little too big for comfort.

A list that fills certain roles deemed needed for a list to be successfull in ITS. Meaning that you need an attacking piece (better to have two), some defensive units and aro pieces (not necessarily all ARO pieces are "defensive units", or the other way around: a minelayer would be a defensive unit, for example, and a flashpulse bot would be an ARO piece but not defensive), specialists that can reach the mission objectives (if any), etc...

That is not the same as "I always start my lists with 3 Posthuman proxies and then...", but always including troops that give a lot for their price (like Parvati) is not cookie-cutter lists, just Core Units.

The problem being that this is not a Zero-Sum game where the tournament winner is the one who lost the less. In my experience, the winner can *maybe* assume a single tie or close victory, and need to maximize the amount of victory and objective points during the tournament... (and even surviving troops sometimes).

 

I would like to chime in to say that this is pretty much bound to happen in a game where most pieces are either unscratched or dead with nothing in-between, and with RNG which at its base uses a single die (causing flat distribution) and the main mechanic that "un-flattens" distribution of practical effects of a roll (F2F rolls, for the most part) doesn't always come into play.

So, this is unlikely to change unless hypothetical N5 choses entirely different foundation or something.

 

Not quite sure what you mean here, nor what aquiles are, but I am absolutely saying that top performers at tournaments were playing spammy (and that poorly performing players at tournaments were not playing spammy). I am, however, saying that the flavour of spam wasn't necessarily regular.

I'm kind of also saying that this type of list would likely still be effective in spite of the alterations to armour and the decrease in cost of (most) heavies.

 

Check the data and see who was performing well in 2019:

https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/2019-in-numbers-its-data-analysis.36359/

You can also check the average ammount of orders per army.

 

Edit actually it's a tangent, it doesn't matter

 

One way of approaching the question: I can't recall a single game of N4 that I felt I lost because of an unstoppable mechanic. Every game I've lost, in my opinion, I lost because my opponent played better than me. Post-game, I've always been able to identify things I could have done differently that I think would have countered the tactics my opponent used.

That's anecdotal, of course, but then, this whole thread is anecdotal.

I guess in the end, I have no opinion on whether the OP is objectively right or wrong. I don't have the data to say whether some factions or mechanics are overpowered, or whether the game overall is unbalanced. I can say that I feel the game is balanced, in the sense that I've experienced my games as being decided by tactics, not by who has access to the stronger mechanic. There are certainly games that I've lost because I wasn't able to counter a strong mechanic, but each time, I felt that I would have been able to counter it if I'd played better.

 

Putting Bearpode in your list is technically a tactic, a very smart one

 

Not sure what your's getting at? Of course list-building is tactical. No "technically" about it.

 

Shooting a Bearpode with a HMG in your turn is also very smart.
Trying the same with a ML - not so much.

I'd say OP is subjectively correct.
If you play your N3 lists, scratch the cheap Irregulars and add another big boi you're not gonna be happy in N4.
Similar to that I know his main army was ISS, which got completely dumpstered, more so than even Haqq, Ariadna and Dashat, by N4. For ISS specifically N4 is a terrible framework.
However that's just not true for most other aspects of the game. You don't get to try to throw a spanner in the works at every corner of the battlefield any more and your interactions with the other guy have much more significant consequences than they had before. You'll only ever have 2-3 full blown ARO pieces that are significantly less expendable than a Monk or Mutt. If you're used to being able to throw bodies on a problem until it grinds to a halt in a pile of inconsequential dead bodies, things are very very different than before.
Speaking for the game as a whole I'm glad that doesn't work any more.

 

Hey you are the one complaining about HI Links walking straight past a Camo midfield in the opening post.

The bear that can take cover is basically a workable take on Musashi. Has to slog the long way from the DZ, got the Smoke, kept the lethality in CC, is tanky and entirely expendable. But that's not really outrageous given it has a 2" higher threat range than the average Warband. It gets silly if you didn't deal with him but want your high value troops to walk up to the enemy DZ.
I wouldn't exactly call it silly cheap.
Would we really run that over 5-6 Warbands for the same price if we weren't limited to 15 slots? It's a very good troop that works (and has some antisynergy having Smoke + Berserk), but doesn't strike me as a problem DAM18 DA (without AP and limited charges) is pretty good vs 1W models. 18 looks like a stupid high number but it's still less lethal than those stupid Skirmishers with D-Charges and MA levels.

My HMGs like walking to the middle line these days and start laying into things on the right side of the board, from the left side of the board. Without all the Warbands you can finally do that with a TAG that isn't the Tik and even a HI Haris. Especially if you're playing against an Ariadna list that's all Camo Markers and Bearpodes without a single point spent towards actual ARO pieces.

Said it 100 times, will say it again. Loss of Lt is a stupid piece of shit mechanic that should die in a fire. Some armies have easy ways to ignore for virtually no cost, some can do it with a bit of an investment and others are just playing LT shellgame shuffle and pray. I refuse to play anything without a Lt solution for now, because why shoot myself in the foot when I can play Tohaa or Aleph without a second throught. Some Factions, like Nomads, can compensate by merit of the rest of their kit being bonkers. Still eternally annoying to deal with.


What you describe, I have seen dozens of times now.
People put down a single Linked Sniper or hide their entire army behind Markers and pretty much just sit out their Reactive turn or run Avatar+Speculo+Ko Dali lists and end up surprised they easily lose half the time. Most lists that I've seen didn't have the faintest intent to ever do something about a potential Rasyat walk over their entire backline.
That's not an N4 problem though, that's people playing like N3, where you can see every threat coming from the front and have an ablative layer of expendable bodies with high risk AROs (DTWs, Jammers, Engage-> CC, Smoke, Flashpulses) slowing things down without having to actually plan for anything.
I'm immensely enjoying figuring out how to defend yourself at the moment.
TR Bots locking down not the midfield, but my own deployment zone. TO Snipers Infiltrating to the middle line (thanks to Infiltration being basically free for Snipers now). Running 2+ basic bitch Hackers because 2xB1 Oblivion AROs at WIP 12 or 13 are going to be annoying for the best of Hackers. Putting a couple Caterans and Tankhunters up on the roofs and faking their positions by also deploying Decoys and Mines like ARO pieces. Also growing fond of the "Gecko roadblock".
As someone playing Nomads you do that every game because Nomad makes it easy. With Puppets, Überfallkommando, Morans and active hacking always having been a thing, and they're basically still playing by N3 rules and don't have to adjust that much beyond cutting the Morlocks without crippling defenive capabilities.


Can you honestly look at the outliers and claim N3 wasn't worse?
If we consider the bottom feeders unplayable and irrelevant for balance - what precisely would be the actual problems N3 didn't have and N4 introduced? N3 was pretty awful between top 3 and bottom 3, that's not really something N4 invented or made any worse, mostly just shifted around.

 

You didn't do that in N3? How did you win games in N3? What were your enemies doing to let you get away with this and can you ask them to sign up for the Swedish TTS tournaments, please?

 

Bearpode is a pretty naked example of the powercreep that has come with N4.

As someone who plays with a lot of dog warriors I can't imagine why I would ever bother to take one in Ariadna now that that bearpodes exist.

It's like they designed Polaris Team to be a synchronized peripheral. Then changed their mind and just let you have a super dog warrior that can get cover for one point cheaper than a dog warrior.

If your not playing an army that has access to viral, breaker, or plasma you could have some very one sided games.

 

I play Military Orders since Third Offensive and played a few games after N4, so I don't have much experience to say about current N4 balance. However, in N3, I felt like floundering into a swamp when I face armies with 16 or 18 orders with my 12-13 orders list. Some say elite armies could follow up to 15 orders, but it required sacrifice in other parts.

Now, back to the OP, OP says the top tier lists are rock-scissors-paper game and those lists cannot counter the predator. And expands that idea to factions and sectorials. I haven't played or faced every factions, so what I only can do is read those examples, read those profiles and check army to find some ways to counter it. I could find some attractive profiles against those match-ups OP presented. For example, Shas has Taighas, heavy weapons with MSV, plasma rifle TR remotes, and melee specialists to face Bearpode. Tohaa has bunch of K1 weapons to kill Avatar and impersonators and infiltrators to kill cheap order sources. Nomad can now spotlight non-hackable units and Lt problem looks more like a problem in playstyle and defense setup. Sure, those I mentioned may not be "efficient" or "optimised", but there's a way to counter those matchups look unfavorable. You may say that's grinding down their strength a lot and slightly mitigate the weakness, but I would say that is the balance.

So in summary, my opinion is this. There may be hard rock-scissors-paper lists, but in factions and sectorials, they have at least a few tools to counter their weaknesses whether efficient or not. Replacing better units with those sub-optimised units to mitigate the weakness is your choice in tailoring lists. Of course there may be some serious balance issue in N4, but I think we still have much more to find out and try in N4 games.

 

Are we forgetting there was only 1 Van Zant in the game and you could totally run 8 Warbands and backwards facing Linked Flashpulses in your DZ?

B2 ARO Puppets, Helots, Warcors.. you name it. It would have never occured to me to do something as wasteful as dedicating a TR Bot to AD screening when I could have 3+ troopers doing that for the same price in N3.