KHD were better than AHD in N3. They had spotlight to run classifieds, were combat pieces, and cost no SWC. They still cost no SWC, so its probably a good thing they were neutralized. If they buff KHDs in anyway, they need to make it a real HD in cost.
In truth, I exaggerate partly because it is difficult to concatenate what usually happened. I had big problems playing IA due to hacking when my opponents actually fielded AHDs. What actually tended to happen when neither player opted out was that one player would manage to park enough hackers in the opponent's network and then the losing opponent wouldn't get to activate any of their hackers. It wasn't very fun or engaging. Very one-dimensional in what's otherwise almost a four-dimensional game. Maybe the very tail end of N3 when it was getting difficult arranging stuff because of hype build up for N4, but there's certainly been an increase since then both to new and old units. Always to factions that already had them, of course. Can't let factions have distinctive strengths when it comes to hacking, the tall have to be wide and deep while the short have to be kept narrow and shallow. I don't think they did and only a madman would use hacking to do the forward observing classified when getting a forward observer to do it was so easy by comparison. Spotlight was a Claw-1. AHDs had the Claw programs and regular HDs had the -1 programs. KHDs had Sword programs and Cybermask
Yup! People wanted a noninteractive "delete or disable powerful piece through wall" button. And that's what they kinda got in N4. But the people who were crying out for more powerful noninteractive options shouldn't have been listened to.
Yeah you couldn't Spotlight with a KHD, so that precluded one Classified, but you could still do the Hacking-specific Classified (Data Scan, off the top of my head?) So yeah it had some niche utility application, on top of crazy strong programs and a 0 SWC Special.
I wouldn't say that, it had a massive power drop on losing the ability to delay the ARO. Units packing templates can actually bully fireteams with them now as opposed to before where they could always Dodge against them..
I am catching up on this thread and using this as light reading over the past few days. But I do want to say thank you for the story as it's still very interesting and I appreciate the design perspective into the sectorial. Which also then puts the other sectorials into a unique light as now it makes it more clear how do they differentiate from CJC and how I might be able to best leverage those sectorial advantages when building lists. I may have more comments to follow in general depending on how this discussion goes by the time I get to the latest posts but wanted to stop to say thanks for this :)
22 Pages are to much to read, sry guys. My 2 cent Nomads have an advantage against Alpha strike/shooty lists. The have enough options for pushing buttons that you can’t eliminate that capability. The can deny shooting if they don’t want to with smoke and white noise, they don’t need open aro pieces, they have other possibilities of areal deny. They play without problems or limitations in other areas the hacking game, that targets most of the heavy attack pieces. Vanilla Nomads are strong! But not rather of the units, then of the play style, that would effort to build your own list accordingly. It’s imo the same discussion that was with Gazi in N3. The weren’t too strong, but they didn’t let play you your common strategy. And therefore it is more likely that you make mistakes and we all knew, in infinity it’s the mistakes you make that let’s loose you a game.
I have played WH40K and WM&H and each time I chose a faction that appealed to me. And each time I played an underpowered faction or had the power drained so hard out of it it was a husk and left for dead, but because the models looked cool right. I chose to stay, observe, learn, brute force a solution, and overcome my challenges. I even applied this to MTG Modern. I then moved onto N and again chose two factions that appealed to me Haqq and Nomads in 2016-17 time frame. HB, being my main, had a very high learning curve which is not fun overcoming as a new player. I stuck with them for years learning the ins-and-outs when all I ever heard about was Toha wound spam, Arianda cammo spam, and YJ and CA playing footies for who was the third best. Now, I finally get a bone thrown my way. Shoot, two bones! How many years have I played these silly little games? 15 years?! And, I’m supposed to complain about the good life of playing factions that were under powered for YEARS…I’m over that now. I want my time in the sun. Everyone else can put up or shut up, sell off and join up, or rage quit. I finally got mine. My time in the sun after 15 years of playing these games. Thank you Gutier! B)
The objective should be balance, not cyclical imbalance. Certain factions getting privileged access to tools that avoid key aspects of gameplay with little or no downsides isn't good for the game.
Swings and roundabouts, they always happen. Some forces will be a smidge better than others, some will be a smidge worse than others, it's simply the way it is. You can make any force work when you know it inside and out. Beyond that, many of the "issues" folks seem to find game-breaking and world-ending here on the forums seem to be rather scarce on the table. Most of the forums' bugbears didn't even make an appearance at SLS a month ago. Kind of interesting, that... Beyond that? Yeah, it's a very healthy thing to simply enjoy the game, whether your personal force is "top" tier or not.
I agree with both you guys. Sorry, I just snapped. I didn’t mean to go so far, but I feel better! Haha
I mean I love lore dumps as much as the next guy so by all means keep it up but to answer the original question: I've played Nomads for a long time, and Vanilla has been strong my entire (rather lackluster) Infinity career. There have only ever been two moments where I feel like it crossed into "this is too much". The first was Jazz and Billie, which has been hit a little so I can live with it. The Vostok profile was the second, and reducing to a single profile came off like an very intentional joke.
I'd add the FA2 Kriza, if you were around for it. The thing was among the best FTF shooters in the game, even beating out the likes of Swiss Guards and heavy TAGs against many targets, thanks to its unavoidable MODs and rare extra Burst. And it was introduced back when Nomads' lack of a hammer unit was a fairly consistent faction weakness and active-turn killing power was lower across practically the whole spread of armies. Jazz and Billie getting switched to a Combi Rifle and impeding links is a very good start for bringing them back in line, but I still think we need a year or two of stuff like the Dartok getting sprinkled into other factions before we start seeing consistent, interactive Hacking play making a return. The level of extra power in Nomad Hacking for very few points makes proper Hacking-oriented lists in many other factions a much riskier proposition, since even a 50pt elite HI Hacker still loses to the far cheaper Nomad Characters 90% of the time. We're seeing dedicated Hacking troops and better support slowly creep around to the other factions, letting them have a fighting chance, but it still feels too slow.
You are therefor ordered to stop all this infighting and I need to see if I should remove the last two pages from existence or not... I should but then everything past post 430 must go because otherwise it will be devoid of any context.
I think FA2 Kriza was the start of the whole 'Nomads get too many toys' diatribe. That model was one of the few stuff in this game I looked at and genuinely said 'Yup, this is broken'. Compared to it, the Gator is just "a bit too good for its faction", which IS annoying, but nowhere near the 'This motherfucker will dominate every single table' effect the Kriza had. That being said, I did abuse the crap out of the Kriza myself. Which I think is a bit of a part of the problem. Players WILL abuse stuff, and if one faction or tactic is too easy to abuse, it leads to a perception of imbalance that might be even bigger than the actual imbalance going on.
