It is a ruling that to have effect the reacting model needs to be in ZoC and out of sight of the active model (probably the safest place to be against a missile launcher). The practical effects makes cheap DTW corner guards less effective and probably getting into silhouette contact safer.
"less effective", more like completely worthless. I firmly believe that since you have to pick the position you shoot from at declaration, you can't pick a spot that you weren't at at the moment of declaration. If you can pick a point that you didn't go through yet, it renders DTW completey useless. And DTW are one of the few things keeping the game balance in check. Not only would this make the most optimal play completely unintuitive, which is in itself a very bad thing for the game. It will also make competitive play a complete joke and make active turn (and the all of the strongest things in the game) even stronger than it currently is.
DTWs are very undercosted at the moment. If anything, this ARO nerf is a good efficiency adjustment. A lot of high cost single wound mimetism Rambos will finally be playable.
Except DTWs weren't over powered. They were over abundant. The problem was turning every shotgun into an alt fire DTW. Turning DTWs into trash doesn't fix the core of the problem. It just guts defense.
Would there be any harm in just removing the DTW option for shotguns from the weapons chart at this point?
We're slowly getting more flame throwers. However my MI and HI like this change since typically their BS is higher than both Ph and CC when responding to a CC threat. So spooling up an ORC with a BSG in Hit mode at +6 inside 8" to watch my corners in a Core at like BS 23 B2...is perfectly fine by me.
That's literally almost every faction. BSGs and LSGs are omnipresent through profile types whereas Chain Rifles are limited generally to warband options. Not to mention PanO has somewhat spammable Heavy Flamethrower options instead of Chain Rifles. WinterFo can run around with a bunch of Heavy Flamethrower and Pulzars on the table. People are still sleeping on Chaksa for WinterFo, damage 14 B3 Pulzar isn't a fucking joke when it comes to clearing out rooms.
Less DTWs in the game is a good thing anyway. They were a problem in N3 and N4 just made things worse.
PanOceania has access to 19 entries of Chainrifle, Chaincolt, Nanopulser, Light Flamethrower and Heavy Flamethrower (not counting mercenaries) most of these self exclusionary since the meatiest category is locked in TAGs, this is the smallest access any faction ahs to DTW's that are not shotguns and none of them is in the hands of a cheap ultra survivable dodging, with or without smoke, warband.
Yeah and this change kicks PanO in the dick harder than other factions. Wanna ARO with an Auxbot? Too bad silly gweilo, superior Yu Jing shoot you with combi rifle from behind a corner! China Number 1!
Is that a bad thing though? it is an edge case that needs some investment to be pulled off and most units effected can still dodge (probably into silhouette contact too).
How bad you are at this game astounds me sometimes. The stuff you say makes me question whether you're much like CB and mostly just play board games these days.
Considering DTWs used to be a big deal, that's more than fine. PanO paid for its optimized shooting profiles with less versatile toolboxes. There used to be a time when having access to a DTW on a trooper was a big deal. Skirmishers should absolutely fear templates. Aggressive pieces, skirmishers especially, are far too powerful without that fear. But that fear should be properly earned with good planning and placement, not simply freely scattered around every corner.
I play NCA the most of all factions I own, I'd gladly trade templates on Bolts, Orcs and Peacemakers if it meant not every enemy I had to walk inside of 8 of had a solid chance of killing my hugely expensive BS-focused infantry. The templates we do have access to- the 1.5W Deva, native Sixth Sense CSU, MSV2 Black Friar and especially the hyper-efficient Auxbot are defense enough. Couldn't agree more, just look at the costs attached to Minelayer. Having a template in place where an enemy needs to move is powerful.
Sigh, This doesn't nerf DTW, this isn't hard to pull off, this isn't any investment, this isn't an edge case at all, this isn't a game balance side effect. Stop trying to justify some poor rules wording that makes no sense whatsoever, and get the people that can fix them to fix them instead. This completely renders DTW irrelevant in ARO versus an opponent that isn't a complete vegetable. There is no way that rendering DTW completely unsusable in ARO is an actual conscious decision. DTW are essential at keeping this game somewhat balanced at the moment. They might be a bit too common, but their utility is pretty damn important to keep stuff in check.
