Reposting this from here at @psychoticstorm's request: While the fireteam changes are significant in terms of their impact on list composition, I am honestly underwhelmed by the lack of true rework, particularly with respect to fundamental features such as coherency, order declaration, members rejoining fireteams, and impetous/frenzy suppression. CB split up a few mods and changed the way that fireteam composition is determined, but both are things that I feel could have been released within a few months of N4 launching, rather than 1.5 years later. While I would have loved to see a complete ground-up reconstruction of fireteam rules (which is what I thought we were getting given the amount of time it took to arrive), I would have been satisfied if CB had just streamlined some of the clunkier rules and imbalances: Joining a fireteam should not suppress impetuous and frenzy. These states should exist regardless of fireteam status and using an impetuous activation should cause the trooper to leave the fireteam - just like how it works for irregular orders. These models got a price discount for a reason, so they should not gain +3 arm while also benefiting from improved order efficiency. Requiring all fireteam members to maintain coherency to the fireteam leader is what makes 5-trooper cores so clunky and difficult to play dynamically. This could be relieved by reducing the coherency requirement to "each member must maintain coherency with 2 other fireteam members, with the exception of duos who only require coherency with one another." CB took a small step towards fixing stupid things that cause links to break by changing the rule so hackers in a link can declare any program in ARO without being kicked out, this should be expanded. If the fireteam leader declares a movement skill in the active turn, the other fireteam members should be permitted to declare any other legal movement skill without leaving the link, including dodge. Similarly, if the fireteam leader declares a hacking program in the active turn, the other members should be permitted to reset - or alternatively, hacking programs should not activate the rest of the fireteam since they never benefit from fireteam bonuses. In ARO, all team members should be able to react with reset or hacking programs without leaving the fireteam and members should be able to mix discover, dodge, and BS attacks without leaving the fireteam. The rule requiring fireteam members who went unconscious or were otherwise kicked out of a fireteam to wait until the start of their next tactical phase to rejoin the fireteam is in my mind extremely harsh, particularly given the power and prevalence of the shotgun fork, and ignores the perfectly good states phase that CB introduced to the game. I would change the timing such that troopers who left their fireteam in a given turn may automatically rejoin if they are no longer in a null state and meet coherency requirements during the states phase of that turn - allowing regeneration to kick in if appropriate. This also incentives players to doctor/engineer unconscious or isolated troopers in their current active turn in order to regain fireteam bonuses before their opponent's turn. Please CB, give us something more.
My perspective: I agree 100% that fireteams shouldn't turn off Impetuous and Frenzy, for the reasons @Muad'dib mentioned. It makes their drawbacks irrelevant, leaving units in question with just a discount. Additional option to consider would be to allow wholly Impetuous fireteams to activate using Impetous orders of troops in that fireteam. It would cost 1 Impetuous order per trooper in question, effectively allowing them a single, shared activation, but spending all their Impetuous orders - so no possibility about possible further activation shenanigans to exploit. Given the restrictions of Impetuous order, and the lack of cover for such troops - as per first bullet point - it should be balanced enough. Though I'd like to test that first. Regarding coherency, I believe that coherency to the team leader - while confining - is the best way to go. It makes the team bundled and vulnerable to templates, but it's a balancing tool. Coherency checked to two other link team members would require more checks and would make using fireteam more cumbersome gameplay-wise. Coherency checked to only one other team member would allow fireteam to spread too wide, projecting force over too big of a area. Regarding skill combinations - restricting fireteams to performing same combination of skills is another balancing tool. One thing I'd like to introduce is to allow them to use any Movement skill, so that one team member uses Move, another Climbs the wall, yet another uses Jump, and they all count as the same skill for the purpose of declaring same skill combination. It'd help linkable troopers with Super Jump and Climbing Plus, too; they're usually pricy, and fireteams restricting their special movement options makes them less desireable a choice. Another thing which I'd love to see is expanding the list of fireteams getting small bonuses, like Tarlok getting Terrain (Jungle). I believe this mechanic to be one of the most interesting changes introduced by CB in this update, one that has the potential to improve both internal and external sectorial balance. Right now this mechanic remains criminally underutilized, and I can only hope that this will be changing with upcoming sectorial reworks.
This. Honestly, this was the one thing I'd hoped for in the rework. Great idea; it utilises a game mechanic which was created in N4 that covers exactly this situation, why not use it? Being a fireteam member is a state even if it's not a currently defined Game State. It could easily be defined as a Game State. Super Jump should make Jump a Move skill declaration, as Climbing Plus makes Climb a Move declaration. Any short movement skill should count as the same order for fireteam members; team leader coherency bunches troopers enough without the additional burden of forcing troopers to go around obstacles they could otherwise climb or jump with a single order. I wouldn't like to see entire order movement skills shifted down to short movement skills though by default - move-move-BS attack is too far imo.
The two-person coherency seems problematic. If Fighter A was a member of a core team that had exactly two 'coherency buddies' losing one of the buddies would cause them Fighter A to lose coherency, which could potentially chain to other members losing coherency. You could avoid this by bunching up more, but then you're right back where you started with a tightly packed Core team. It would also cause a Haris to lose integrity completely as soon as anyone went null. Big fan of the other points, though, especially the one regarding Impetuous and Frenzy
Foe Haris, the simplest next to the duo, if troopers are at each node of slightly off equilateral triangle, you have to measure from two troopers because one being within ZOC of other two DOES NOT guarantee the others are within ZOC of each other. This will be four times in the case of equilateral pentagon for core. Lastly, you have to measure this every time you move fireteam. That's why I think this 2-person coherency is problematic.
Could just say the whole team has to stay within a 17" diameter circle, and add a new template that's a 17" diameter circle. To check coherency, just hold the template above the whole team and if you can place it so they're all inside, they're in coherency. Also eliminates the need for having a team leader at all, which is a mechanic I've always hated.
I was very satisfied with the link rework until Muad brought up the time period that we waited for it. Yeah, I think with that much preparation, some fixes for problematic elements were a fair expectation. I dislike 'balancing elements' that make the team unintuitive, weird or clunky to play with. There is always a... balancing act to these balance choices, and I don't think something that is shitty to use, but which makes the teams weaker, is necessarily a good 'balance mechanic'. I notice that five man teams very rarely do anything relative to smaller teams or solo models, and that is a huge let down and a major reason why most cores are immobile, boring castle links. I would love to see coherency requirements relaxed. Two models rather than leader would be a step in this direction, but whether its actually any easier to use would come from playtesting. An alternative would be to relax the punishment for breaking coherency. For example, models out of coherency become disrupted. Disrupted models do not count for or recieve link bonuses aside from movement, cannot make attacks or press buttons, and leave the link if their next order does not bring them into the link. Something along these lines, where the models that step 8.1 from the leader are pretty useless, but you can simply and efficiently remedy the situation on your next move order. Or, another alternative, would be to simply allow full premeasurement between the link leader and each link member during the course of a movement. What makes moving these teams tedious is not just coherency, but the major penalty for accidentally breaking it, combined with restrictions on ZoC measurement that just lead to pointless, feelbad mistakes. I agree with most of the OP suggestions. I don't know about giving link members free reign on choice of actions that differ to those of the link leader, but at the moment the restrictions feel clumsy and not realistic. I don't see any issue in particular with allowing all members to reset while a leader does any action whatsoever.
Impetuous units inside a fireteam could simply fire off their Impetuous activation individually without interacting with the fireteam at all. It is not spending an order on them so it shouldn't hit any of the prohibitions. Once any member receives an order or ARO next you will check coherency. Another option is to simply consider these units to be a sectorial (fireteam) specific discount and set the discount to a level where it is strictly cost inefficient/liability to have these units outside of fireteams. Given how massive of a difference the hackable discount at between 5 to 10 points (either as discount or extra QOL abilities) were for heavy infantry, that's probably a good level to look at. This would not really affect the cheapest units like Morlocks, but units like Asawira or Tanko/Teuton would get significantly more expensive - basically they'd only get their martial skills for free and not just paying for the basic statline without CC as they do now. -- In either case. More sectorials with two Haris! I think roughly half of the sectorials are likely (pure guesswork! I couldn't tell you which ones) in need of a small but impactful benefit like that. Far from everyone are, there's a lot of sectorials with great diversity in roles and few built-in drawbacks. I'd also like to explore a few more sectorials switching to unlimited Haris at cost of the core. I'm biased, of course, but I think IA is a good candidate.
One thing I would love is the ability to change 1Core+1Haris to 1Core/Haris+1Haris. Right now in WB i would like to try 2 monk Haris teams supporting a TAG. Even though I could run monk Haris and 3 man core of most units, shaolins don't get to core and they cannot be used this way. Or you know, just give WB 2nd Haris xD
I never even considered this, since in the armies I look at the other haris I want is core capable. This should 100% be an option. Anything that opens the design space away from "mandatory big core" is a good design decision IMO
Given the proliferation of Duos to Vanilla, I'm not sure if just making some Frenzy/Impetuous profiles more expensive would actually balance things into the sectorial's favor. Yeah, this is what I'm aiming for. Some way to reduce the clunkiness of larger links and make them mobile - because mobile is fun and static is boring.
Adding to this request to fix the clunky Super Jump interaction with links. The whole link shouldn't idle because one model short skill jumped. Super Jump should read that if the model declares a move, it my move following the same rules of vertical movement as a jump and with the same drawback of not being able to gain over if it doesn't stay in contact with the ground for the entire move. It should retain the ability to declare the Jump action, but it's allowed to use both of it's mov values combined. Simple. Elegant. How you would expect super jump to work in a mixed link.
What would be the impact on the game if linked models could just declare any ARO and not break? People say this rule is there for balance reasons... but i feel it might be there because it's always been there.
I think it would primarily mean people would run solo hackers in person and hackables in general a lot less. Heavy infantry and such wouldn't really be able to approach a fireteam with both a hacker and something about to pose a threat because you'd both get a bunch of potent shooting, hacking and potential melee when moving in. It'd severely devalue SMG, shotguns and above all else melee for these units. Hacking, of course, already does this, but at present you'll at least disrupt the team temporarily. I think the game already punishes you for trying to move a hacker to the enemy rather than bringing your hacking area to there instead, and I think hackables in general are in a good spot with pros and cons, so not sure this is quite the targets you want to punish.
It'd take away the ability to force difficult decisions when approaching fireteam with a unit able to use multiple attack vectors. Right now, if you want to preserve the fireteam you have to choose: is it shooting back, resets, uses dodge? Should every member of the team be able to react on their own you could mix the reactions to significantly lower the chances of negative outcomes for you, while increasing risk for the active model. This means that smart play, in which you're able to bring a multi threat unit into position from which it can do a lot of damage, is actually penalized, instead of rewarded.
I don't know which is more ridiculous, claiming that an impetuous activation isn't subject to all of the mechanics of spending an order, or thinking that allowing fireteam team members to have impetuous activations would be a good idea. From the FAQ, for starters (emphasis added): Do Impetuous activations generate AROs? Yes. The Trooper counts as having had an Order spent on them, and the normal Order Expenditure Sequence applies.
Activating a fireteam requires the spending of a regular order as per the Fireteam Order... meta-skill and getting kicked out of a fireteam requires the spending of an irregular order according to the Fireteam Integrity rules - or any sort of order that works in that says they work in the same way. Activating through the use of an impetuous activation would neither activate the rest of the team nor kick the unit out of the team as the rules are currently written, provided the rules were changed to allow such activations meaning it is a minor alteration.
