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Isnt it too much?

Discussion in 'Nomads' started by Angry Clown, Mar 5, 2022.

  1. Angry Clown

    Angry Clown Well-Known Member

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    I played with and against nomads many times in N4.

    Unfortunetly i feel nomads became too strong in this meta.

    Jazz and Bill, puppetmaster, chimera, morans are too strong units.

    Even a real classy symbol unit like interventor is out of lists cause of this too optimised Jazz.

    Countless good options. Zeroes, tomcats, heckler, etc. Many units are useful. There are many units that other armies envy but even not used in many lists.

    Wonderful tomcats, hellcats, flying rem and kowalsky. Which army has this much options?

    Spektr, bandit, prowler, sombras and bran are not even used at all cause of the many options above are too good.

    I dont speak about intruder, vostok, riotgirl etc which i believe already good units but seems balanced to me.

    And now they have the diggers, beast master although they have also libertos like almost all vanillas do.

    Am i the only one feeling this way? Isnt it too much?
     
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  2. Brokenwolf

    Brokenwolf Well-Known Member

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    People have been complaining about Vanilla Nomads for forever. And while they have definitely gotten stronger in N4, I do not think they are too much. Right now, I feel like if you look at ITS results, Vanilla Yujing and Combined are doing much better in terms of results. I could be wrong, but if someone could provide numbers it would be great.

    I do feel that people just don't like playing against Nomads. They might just create more Negative Play Experiences.
     
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  3. MattB89

    MattB89 Well-Known Member

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    Not really, sure some models/units are extremely good, but Nomads models on the whole are pretty cheap and die easily.

    When the faction as whole doesn't have the sort of access to abilities such as NCO, Tactical Awareness, extra Lieutenant Orders and Chain of Command, Camoflage/Hidden Deployment TAGS, or big power pieces such as Avatar or Bearpodes, then I think Nomads are in a good spot, but hardly overpowered.
     
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  4. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    When I last jammed Nomads seriously, they felt a cut above most of the other armies I had played with. Unfortunately because of Covid I didn't get a chance to try them out in a tournament, but they felt right up there with the Avatar lists that I have played in the past.

    With regards to "Too Strong", I'd argue the heckler/hacker/GML thing is in that area and the game would be better off without it. There are a few units I'd love to see get nerfed, with some of their capabilities redistributed to other units, but nothing really blatant. Otherwise I lean more towards their being "Very strong" rather than "Too Strong".

    On the flipside, the main armies I have tinkered with over the years (CA, Tohaa, Hassassins and Nomads) are all considered Very Strong and so maybe my tolerance is higher than other players. (Also I swear I did not pick these to be meta, they are just what I liked - my tournament faction list was QK lol)
     
  5. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Nomads sit in a weird situation where they are one of the factions most capable of abusing the shit out of the shortcomings of the Infinity metagame at standard ITS point levels yet at the same time they are also one of the factions also most at risk of falling prey to the exact same meta of being crippled by an over the top alpha strike when going second.
     
  6. Elric of Grans

    Elric of Grans Well-Known Member

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    We have multiple units with NCO and Tactical Awareness. Wildcat Spitfire (NCO), all Reverend Moiras (NCO), Grenzer Forward Observer (NCO), Gecko (TA), Iguana (TA), Lizard (TA), Szalamandra (TA).
     
  7. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    On the other hand, there's no Lt2 to fuel those NCOs, none of the TacAware options can go in a Haris or Core, and there's no Strategos, so Nomads are pretty bottom of the pack when it comes to order count shenanigans.

    Add to that most Nomad Lt. choices are obvious, fragile, and/or expensive. Thankfully Nomads have excellent area denial and defense because their Lt choices and LOL mitigation are pretty rubbish, with no CoC, very little Veteran, no Holomask to hide or feint a Lieutenant, and the only marker state Lt. options have to spend an order to go into Cybermask.
     
  8. MattB89

    MattB89 Well-Known Member

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    Yes we have those options, but to he fair, TAGS don't really count because they can't go in a link, (also the Iguana is just trash) Grenzer FO is not a model you are likely to want to field at all, Moira are also Trash outside of maybe one profile. But even that is super expensive and dies very easily to anything that looks at it funny.

    When you compare Nomads to other factions Luke Yu Jing, CA, Aleph, etc you can see why Nomads have very strong but squishy units, they play an area denial game, not a Gung ho approach as they don't have the order efficiency or tough units to play that way.
     
  9. SpectralOwl

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    As a PanO player, I very much disagree with this. Almost every TAG is a Specialist and capable attack piece, and can move across the table quickly. An extra Order on them is very valuable- especially when you don't have a link in Vanilla, where they're often the only way to move a good gun and Specialist Skill at once outside Coordinated Orders (or the miscarriage of balance masquerading as an EVAder).
     
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  10. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    It's very strong, but it's not the worst offender imo. I think Tohaa, HB, and CA are all stronger personally.

    The game is about using busted stuff and overpowering opponent more than ever before in N4. Fair units are just not good enough anymore.
     
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  11. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
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    Comparing PanO's selection of TAGS with nomad's selection of TAGs is kinda unfair though. Nomad Tags are less resilient due to not being Remote Presence, are worse shooters due to lower BS and/or lacking visual mods, and Nomads have a lower selection to pick from (4 options vs 7 options in PanO).

    It was said before but I think it really can't be understated: Nomads' command and control selection is very much rubbish. This makes them as vulnerable to decapitation tactics as they are good themselves in delivering decapitation tactics. And playing Lieutenant shell game in nomads means you're not doing like other factions who can pick a brutally agressive or effective support lt and not worry about having them be killed off in turn 2 because they have safety nets.
     
  12. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I hate that you are correct about this, but each faction update makes this more and more correct :(

    I do think TAGs count, but Nomad TAGs also are S7 with the smaller Gecko being comparatively slow where Pan-O has several good S6 TAGs that don't sac movement speed for it. It's not much CB can do about it, but I've had a feeling that since N4 (and the lockdown enforced TTS plays) it's been hard to find appropriate cover for S7 TAGs where most scenery seem to be roughly 2.2" tall which is half an inch shorter than the TAG. Not having the Marker state or Mimetism to operate as a competent ARO piece does a lot to detract from a bunch of TAGs'... usefulness... compared to smaller stuff.

    Eh. I think this disadvantage isn't as unique to Nomads as people would like to make them out to be.
    We've got several factions that also do not get camo LTs (or JSA/Tohaa's cheap CoC) that doesn't get to play to the edition's meta strengths and many lists I see will have a model or two that's as important as the LT if you can kill it before it is used for effect. Hell, I often feel it's not even an issue if you're playing a faction that's not among the top rated ones.
     
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  13. SpectralOwl

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    Not sure if this is just a difference in the local tables, but I typically find S7 an asset these days as long as the cover isn't so bad the enemy can draw LoS from their DZ. S7's tall enough that it doubles as Climbing Plus in lots of cases thanks to the vaulting rules, and N4's elevation-grants-Cover is good for it as well since you can deny Partial Cover to the many Prone-on-a-roof troopers. MBT ARM is also usually good enough for midgame ARO duty, though it must be said that the enemy can't have good AP weaponry still on the board if you want to use a TAG for ARO. While my Nomads haven't left their case since before COVID I've gotten good results from a Guijia as well as NCA's TAG options, though I can't claim to have played against any top players.
     
  14. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I disagree that Nomads are squishy. If you play all the squishy profiles then sure, everything in your army will die to one shot. But there are a ton of multiwound units you can take and some are really above-par.
    • Puppets concentrate 6 'wounds' in one location, as well as spreading that across multiple bodies to mitigate overkill
    • Krieza is a mimetism HMG Super-HI with the firepower of a strong haris or weak core in one unit.
    • Evader is an ok gunfighter but also a really useful specialist with 1.9W
    • Sombras is a budget Daofei, being a 1.9W camo midfielder.
    • Kusanagi is a 1.9W combat specialist with -6. In the right circumstances she is nuts
    • Riot Grrl Missile is a real ARO piece and a very strong pick against certain factions or missions
    • Taskmaster is a strong combat LT option, though admittedly I found it a hard sell because I don't like hackable LT
    • Vostok is very capable with EVO support, and still a solid 0 SWC piece without it.
    Beyond the capability to get hit and not die, we have excellent speedbumps - Libertos, Beasthunter, Chimera (which I found way more useful defensively than offensively). And of course, the best defense in the game - zoning an area with bullshit so nobody goes there to shoot you, which is better than being durable most of the time.

    The main Nomad list I played as prep for Intelcom was by far the toughest, most durable list I'd ever played when you consider all metrics. And the other list, filled with shooty 2W guys, felt hard as nails as well but in a more traditional way.
     
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  15. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
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    Oddly enough, I prefer to use the chimera agressively, but on turn 2.

    However, I will disagree the Kriza is as strong as you say. In fact, after getting nerfed from N3 to N4 I often feel the Kriza is kinda meh. Mimetism-3 is way weaker than the older Full Auto 2 skill, to the point the kriza ends up outshined by stuff like the Szalamandra, which can put out more hurt (same burst, more damage, more BS) or the taskmaster (less burst, but has more varied weapons and brings area denial.

    However, you make good points on nomads having durable models and I mostly agree with the stuff you said, just pointing out this specific instance.

    I still think nomads biggest weaknesses right now are their lieutenants and the lack of order shenannigans, and both of these weaknesses do push them a little below stuff like CA, for example.


    I agree it's not unique to nomads, but it doesn't make it any less of a disadvantage. And I think it's much bigger when it's a faction-wide disadvantage rather than a sectorial-wide, as sectorials, in my mind, can and should have bigger, more glaring weakness as a tradeoff for bigger, more glaring strengths
     
  16. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Yeah what results are you talking about? From N3? There hasn't been much. People keep pointing to one tournament where one Vanilla Yu Jing player did well and seem to turn that into all Yu Jing.

    Nomads are the most tool box of tool boxes. They have something for every mission. The only specialist they don't have is Chain of Command but they have more of everything else. Actually if you do a pure add up of specialist vs. others they seem equal but they tend to have better AVA of them. AVA 2 Evader ENG vs. AVA1 Haidao ENG for instance, AVA3 Wildcat Hacker vs. AVA2 Ye Mao Hacker. I wish their lack of numbers in story showed up on the table. They have a very small military but somehow can fields just as much or more than others.

    Sure they are not tough but they can shoot well and have a button pusher to back up their button pusher. They are not a generalist force but then unfortunately none of the missions are not generalist. As long as you know a mission it's pretty easy to make a Nomad force.

    It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have firepower but they have that as well. Also some of the best CC in the game.

    I think if they lower some AVA to reflect their smaller numbers you might see some of those other troops that are not used. You just don't have the choice but to use them.
     
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  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Definitely terrain dependent, but it isn't something you can ignore because of it. Anyway, just noting an observation about how terrain has been causing TAGs to perform worse than in "simulation" because of it.
    I agree that it is a disadvantage you don't expect to find in vanilla, but I honestly think it is a stronger disadvantage for a sectorial which will typically be dependent on fireteams to perform and will have even less access to the veteran skill or other skills that compensate. Not to mention that sectorials often have higher turn over rate on command tokens.

    But that's still assuming your opponent is playing a faction that has the requisite skills to exploit it, or that circumstances made you leave an access to a much more order hungry approach.
    Don't get me wrong, N4 has really cranked those number of units and factions with such abilities up, so it definitely is a bit of an issue to deal with, and ironically enough all Nomad factions belong to that group of factions.

    P.s. fully agree on the Kriza.
     
  18. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I think you've spoken more into my argument than what I was trying to convey. Maybe I was unclear so I'll try straighten it up
    • We're looking at playable or above-par multiwound models, not necessarily superstars. Some models on that list are superstars but its not like a hierarchical ranking or anything
    • My less specific claim is that the Krieza is "playable or above-par" which I think it is. If B5 BS13 Mimetism for 50pts is not at least worth considering then this game has power crept far more than I imagined!
    • My specific claim here is that "BS13 B5 Mimetism HMG is the firepower of a weak core or strong haris", which is different from saying that "this is a terrific amount of firepower" or "an amazingly strong unit" etc.
    • BS13, HMG, mimetism and burst 5 is the number of dice, rangebands, stats and mods that a strong haris or weak core will have. IE a Sukuel HMG Haris (exact match), Rodok HMG Haris (-1 BS), or a Fusilier Core (no mimetism, +2 BS).
    • I've been a bit less involved in the game in the past year so maybe a "strong haris HMG" has a different definition, but if its stronger than that then power creep is very real. I've also seen the game go from a state where I felt that a Sukuel triad wrecked everything to situations where it does barely anything quite often.
    I'm well in the camp that general power creep is a thing, and that this has made the Krieza a distinctly "decent" or "above-par" gun rather than a really kick ass one. Anything less than B5 mimetism and I watch it fail and die against flash pulse bots let alone the rest of the field. But all those negative marks against it do not push the Krieza down from a meaningful multiwound piece for Nomads which is why I added it to that list.

    Re; the Chimera it has game as an aggressive unit I've just mostly found it seems to zone large areas to certain unit types and lean on it for that or as ablative bodies. I go hard into defense with Nomads because of how vulnerable they are to LoL. I tried using it for skirmisher hunting and found it expensive in orders and failing wip rolls a surprising amount of the time. If anything short of a large, tough target ended in the midfield it was usually more efficient to shoot or hack it but it would be very efficient against certain stuff.

    Re: the Salamandra. Everyone seems to love it, but man, I can't get anything done with it ever. I find it really embodies the issue I have with non-visor/mimetism guns. I've had it lose to flash bots, or fail to shoot up an exposed infiltrator so it ducks to safety, things like that so often that I find it is more of a mobile gun than an effective one. There is plenty of room for a mobile gun in the Nomad arsenal but its too expensive for what I can achieve with it.
     
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  19. Brokenwolf

    Brokenwolf Well-Known Member

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    Have you been looking back at the Intruder? I know it is no longer as popular, but it still have a nice mix of shooting skills that offers something unique.
     
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  20. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I love the intruder and think it is pretty damn solid at what it does. It's a nisse with a points hike and marker state to keep it from dying or to stack mods. I ran a "PanO with smoke" list in Nomads a number of times recently as prep for an event (which died to covid) and thought both that playstyle and the intruder worked well, but never got to test it in an event.
     
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