My friend and I played a game of Firefight the other night, and the match really came down to the wire. In short, I was able to score the Rescue Classified Card (with it's bonus point) by Casevacing a friendly Trooper, but this eventually ended costing me the game because the points of the unconcious model were just enough to give my Opponent the "more points killed" Objective Points required to close the game. This got me thinking! As of now, you pretty much never Casevac anyone, unless you're specifically trying to accomplish the Rescue Card, but that doesn't make any sense now does it? Elite career soldiers don't just save their squad mates' lives when spesifically ordered to do so by the higher ups, they do it always when they can! On the otherhand, Infinity operatives really must suck at this whole Casevacing thing if every single wounded trooper evacuated ends up dying anyway... So my suggestion is this; in order to incentivise more Casevacing, and in order to make it more intuitive, a model being Casevaced at the end of the game should not count as killed for the purposes of Mission and/or Victory Point scoring purposes. In a best case scenario, such a change might lead to a situation where a close fought game would come down to whether a last ditch effort to save a wounded squadmate succeeds or not! What do you guys think?
I really like it. It's an incentive to do something that in-universe should be done, and is an option to score points in some missions without directly killing something (which the opponent can counter by securing his kills).
This is a brilliant, characterful idea. It would allow one to balance action economy (orders) against conserving victory points in another way besides Doctors: a way most troops can do. A really fun way to try this out would be to introduce it as a house rule (variant mission I guess) for Annihilation at a small tourney.
I approve. Shasvastii units seem to have this specific advantage in killpoints missions with no real drawback, this rules amendment would give other factions a way to achieve the same thing. It would be really meaningful in some games.
I like this idea and would like to see it and some way to incentivize leaving the battlefield during Retreat (double VP for escapees?) to be implemented.
wouldn't this make a last player more advatageus? Last player has a good aproximation on how much he has to kill in order to come on top (especially if you let them use app to count enemy cost - I don't, but that is not part of the conversation). Now instead of killing the enemy, he will come up to his units get them back. And on top of that - he is not risking healing roll. Good Idea, but not perfect.
Nah, it's fine. If this only affects victory points, then the trooper will still be counted as killed when you score the missions that count points killed or zones controlled, meaning for most missions it won't have an impact and be more about adding a bit of roleplaying to normal games or maximization of tie breakers in tournaments. Plus, a doctor, engie or paramedic doesn't need a high PH stat to do their job, can potentially bring back more than just one trooper per turn, and the more expensive troopers tend to have a fairly high PH value while the troopers left at end of the game tends to have a much lower PH value than at the start.
It’s almost like every faction gets some sort of buff, and this (extremely mission-specific and kind of watered-down) one is the Shasvastii buff. I mean, what’s next for factions, a free +1 BS, or Veteran and Religious?!? /s
Heh. Well, YJ have always had an uphill battle. That’s why they’re the real heroes of the setting. ;)
I really love that suggestion about Casevac and of leaving the board in reatret that @Mahtamori suggested!
Please keep in mind, gentlemen, that Infinity has less in common with a real life that one would sometimes expect. So using RL analogies doesn't always work well, and therefore shouldn't be a go-to point. I believe the idea is interesting enough to warrant some playtesting in friendly games. And reporting the results here. Perhaps CB could do some playtesting in their designated playtesting community. And as a step #3, introduce it in an ITS season for a community-wide, official test. But we have to start testing iton a houserule status. Note: I don't say I consider it a good idea. I say I consider it an interesting one. May just as well turn to be bad for the game - but that's something I won't know before it gets adequately tested. As for @Mahtamori 's idea - I'm not sold on it, sorry. Being in Retreat means, rules-wise, that you have taken extensive losses, and apparently your morale is in shambles. After all, in most ITS games, if you start a turn in Retreat, the game ends at the end of your turn, right? If I were to interpret it in RL terms, that would mean that all your troops withdraw from the area of operations at the end of your turn (or, perhaps, surrender / commit suicide (in case of fanatics). Being in Retreat means (in game terms) that most troops are combat-ineffective (save for some really hardcore ones), and your chances of achieving any more victory points are severly limited. If you haven't achieved mission goals before (and if you did, you apparently lost a lot of troops idoing so), you don't have much (having lost 75%+ of your Army points value, and undoubtely, a lot of models, thus their Orders) to achieve them now with. Not to mention if you Retreat off the table and get Victory Points for it, I feel it to be unjust towards your opponent who will not have another turn anyway - so on chance of winning any VP by achieiving mission objectives. I have a strong belief that the "retreat ends the game" was actually the mechanism implemented by CB (because it wasn't present is some of the early mission systems!) to make the players concentrate on achieviing mission objectives, rather than killing out the opposing force. We did pla that way for a time in my meta, assuming that, after all, if you've won the day and expeeled enemy form the area off operations, youare now free to do whatever oyu wish in there, eventually grabbing all the VPs still there. Even if we assume a limited timeframe (3 turns, or 4 turns in some of the 20x20 or YAMS missions, if memory serves me), forcing the enemy off the table by the end of your turn #2 gave you an entire turn #3 to do whatever you liked. Under current ITS, you have to achieive your objectives, while not forcing your opponent into Retreat before that happens (because game ends at the end of their Retreat turn etc). This brings into my mind another problem I have seen happening, although mostly with inexperienced players - getting tabled on your turn #1 before you even had a chance to go after any mission objectives. Still, unless it is a straight-up kill-out game, there's a good chance the player doing the tabling out has spent all or most of their Orders on a number of things but not on fulfilling the mission. So, while deeply frustrating for the tabled-out player, it has a good chance of ending in a draw (or even a win, if the "loser" manages to avieive any goals on his retreat turn - but I consider it higly situational). Note - such a "fool's mate" might be a great thing in a competitive game of chess, but I consider it deeply unsatisfactory in a game of Infinity. I mean, I have carried my minis to the LGS, spent time preparing a list, setting up the table - which takes quite a while - and carefully postioning models in deployment. And now I have played a whopping 1 turn, wiped the floor with my opponent, and the whole effort I took to come to a game turns out to be worth mere 10 minutes of playtime...? No kidding. That's not fun, and absolutely not worth the effort it took to do all the stuff I mentioned.
Victory Points is the sum total of what troop points cost you have left, remember? Victory Points isn't what wins you any of the ITS missions (outside the basic dumb non-mission that I'm not sure is even part of N4). They're tournament tie-breakers for when Tournament Points and Objective Points match. Moral victory in friendly games, essentially. When you're in Retreat you are able to take non-Religious troopers off the table. In N2 I think it was you used to be forced to move units towards actually saving them, but in N4 you don't have to do any such thing. Also keep in mind that under current rules you are actually encouraged to stay and fight even if you are technically routing. Many missions have Objective Points to gain by keeping routing troopers in aggressive positions, controlling areas, etc. That said, I'm not fond of games ending after a player turn of Retreat and would like to see more satisfactory resolution that doesn't rob either player agency nor force them to stick around to be a prop in a lost game - I just have no idea what that would be.
Grotnib, you seem to be suggesting that casevacing should be a means of saving troops from counting towards the scoring of the mission. Are you suggesting that a trooper's army points also wouldn't count as killed for the purpose of the scenario? So if I have a Swiss Guard in casevac state during Annihilation, my opponent doesn't get to count the Swiss Guard when figuring out what objective points they earned, and I would count the Swiss Guard as a surviving model when figuring out my own objective points. Is this correct, or am I misunderstanding things? I'm asking because people (which is to say, me) have thought Victory Points and Army Points were interchangeable terms, and now that I've looked both up, I realize that they are distinctly separate terms describing different (but very similar) things.
Yes, my suggestion is that Casevacing should not only conserve victory points, but it should also stop evaced troops from being counted as killed by the enemy for the purposes of Scoring Objective Points! This would mean that Missions that revolve more or less around destroying enemy forces would have additional points of decision making and/or planning decisions involved in them, such as: - It's the last turn of the game and the Opponent has decimated my strike potential, but they have not otherwise inflicted crippling casualties, could saving wounded models by Casevacing them be a way of outscoring the enemy? - Can I afford to leave unconcious enemy models lying around in order to press my attack? As of now, there's no meaningful decision involved unless there's an enemy Doctor/Paramedic nearby! - Should I be inclined to use Shock weapons in order to make sure there are no unconcious enemy models left to save towards the end of the game? I'm NOT saying that these Rescued (pun intended!) models should count as "active" for the purposes of giving points towards securing Zones of Operations or anything like that, just that they don't count as killed, and thus they'd: 1. Count towards the Victory Points you have left at the end of the game. 2. Count as survining troops in Missions where simply surviving is rewarded. 3. Not count as killed by the enemy for the purposes of the Opponent's scoring when calculating their OPs. This would also mean that unconcious Lieutenants would become high priority targets for both sides in some Missions - who will get to the downed officer first? Very nice discussion here guys, I'm glad this topic has gotten people thinking!
I like this fluffy idea. It not only allows cinematic hero moments, it gives some counter-play. The cost in precious orders and PH limitations of CasEvac balance it.
