Title. I remember there being a brouhaha about this last year, and here we go again. There seems to be a pretty major disconnect between the scenario writers and what the ITS community (at least in my experience) wants from these missions. Given that they walked back the "ADS zaps d-charge users" last season, why was it changed this time?
I'm not a fan. Its a lot to get through someone's defense to CC the antenna and then fail on a 4. I'd rather the antenna not have ADS and leave the defense up to the players.
I love it, adds a hint of randomness to the scenario to keep it interesting and fun. Edit: Given rules staff are ITT, I'll drop the act. This post was just fishing for salt and the ADS rule is pretty bad honestly.
Respectfully, I think it adds too much randomness to a game that already uses dice. Like you can control the table, set up a run on the objective, and then just roll poorly even if your opponent left it wide open.
I like it in Frostbyte (but not at all in L&S*) Since it adds some risk to the blind destruction of heating units. That said all the stuff can be destroyed like last season just that your trooper gets zapped if he's lazy. The stunned state is no null state and can be cured by a Doctor/Engineer thus a well planned approach will keep the attacker operational. * in Frostbyte destroying the HUs is an optional, actually more easy, way to kill the opponent's chaff troops a player can follow whilst in L&S it's the main goal to destroy the AC2. Thus tripwireing the easy way is a more interesting mission design than tripwireing the already fortified main target
The current ADS is better than ITS13 ADS, but it's still not good. When we are talking about an "immobilized TAG" that needs destroying - no. Not at all. When we're talking about an "immobilized Fusilier Angus" that needs destroying - it's okay. The big difference is that when the ARM gets high enough there's a bunch of units that are designed for melee and where missions like these should be their moment to shine, but their PH and as such their damage is so low that they need a lot of orders just to deal enough damage. As a consequence of how N4 deals with damage and how a lot of units were left unchanged from their N3 version, there's a lot of units that need to make use of the ITS14 Panoplies that allows you to pick up D-Charges as a result. But at least they have this option. Plus you can just get a huge bunch of units pick those D-Charges up and line them up in a queue to get zapped. No need for quality when you can just make human sacrifices and it's a bit sad that this may probably be a better idea than designing your list with mission capable units for a large number of factions.
I personally think it's very poor. I'd be much happier if you could hack it to disable the ADS if you have to have it in the mission. Either that, have a server node somewhere that can be shot/CC'd to disable it.
I didn't like it before and don't like it now because it favors particular factions over others to a bigger extent than it should be. All factions are good or bad at some missions but this is too much, the bar is too high on this one. First you need to have the weapons to hurt the things and then you need to also be skilled enough not get zapped by it. The factions with infiltration/combat jump with the weapons have a big advantage over those that have very little.
Honestly, I think that the objectives in L&S should randomly move towards one of the player's troopers throughout the turn, with a speed of D20. If the objective makes it into base contact with something, it automatically inflicts the hit on them. That would make the scenario more fun as it becomes more like a cooperative effort to tame the predatory beasts that are the AC2s. You can enhance the fun by having a suspenseful horror movie soundtrack playing while the game is going.
He, I remember players saying before the ADS, that destroying the AC2s without opposition was shitty xDD That's why it get the ADS, its was a community idea ^^. During testings it have a fixed CC roll of 7, and it looks to be not enough, that's why it gets an 8. What would you think if we set the ARM to 4, the BTS to 6 and set the fixed CC roll to 7 again?
Frostbyte Heating Units have ARM 2, BTS0, they are even too weak but they are not military-grade equipment so it is understandable. L&S AC2 have ARM 8 and BTS 9, they are TAG-like. Without an AP ammo they are almost indestructable. So you need DA+AP or EXP+AP or you just waste orders. T2 is also anti-materiel but without PH/Damage14+ it is a lottery... What about ARM 4, BTS 6, Immunity (AP)? They would still be a challenge without being too trivial.
Looting and Sabotaging is going to have issues almost regardless of what you do because it is a mission that asks you to defend a single unit in a game system where defending single units is deliberately designed to be near impossible. I want to remember that the complaints were primarily focused around how a) some factions have very limited access to anti-materiel (this has been resolved through the panoplies), b) some factions had access to infiltration/impersonation units with access to D-Charges and most importantly c) Andromeda could do this from range (this has been resolved by making Andromeda unreliable over the middle line). Frostbyte and Mindwipe as missions are better designed within the game system because the ability to damage the targets are both conditional and the "hit points" are spread out, meaning they are much harder to "burst down". I would argue that the way forward is more likely to make the AC2 immune to "burst damage" rather than have it deny weapons, abilities or make retaliations. Either by limiting the amount of damage it can take per order or even limiting it to the amount of damage it can take per turn. For example, instead of ADS, have the AC2 go into "reinforced mode" until the end of the turn upon taking a point of damage, forcing you to deal damage to it over each of the three turns for full points. Sounds too harsh? What if ranged anti-materiel could damage it (and let players decide if they want to put a LOF blocker for the easiest shots or not).
The problem with the ADS is that it adds randomness instead of tactical play. It doesn't make it harder to damage the ADS in the sense that you have to play better to succeed. It only makes it harder in the sense that no matter how well you play, there's a small chance of random failure. The only good thing about the ITS13 ADS was that it made Place Deployable D-charges more important by making CC Attacks (including with D-Charges) worse. It went about it badly, but at least it had some limited positive effect. With that gone in ITS14, the ADS is just 100% bad. If you want to make it harder to damage the AC2, make it tactically harder - i.e. make the player do something extra that requires tactics, not just rolling above a 7 or 8 (changing the target number doesn't change the issue in any way). The ideas above that you have to hack the AC2 or destroy a defense node before you can damage the AC2 are good ideas. Another would be that only D-Charges taken from the Panoplies can damage it. I'm sure there are other options too.
I don't get it... Rolling for under you WIP for Hacking is tactic, while rolling CC above 8 (same way it were done for years with N3 Electric Pulse) is bad. Spending MORE order forcing a player to get special D-Charges from Panoplies is tactic, while let there be destroyable is bad. Not sure if serious...
Forcing you to bring another unit with the pre-requisite abilities to that one spot at the opponent's DZ in order to try again makes feel bad or playing a game where opponent accomplishes 80% of OPs on order one with the only push-back you can achieve being a draw makes feel bad. You can say that L&S has two outcomes, both are feel bad.
You can just try again if you fail a WIP roll for most other objectives, and the issue is compounded by the fact that some factions have very few units that can innately attack the AC2 without a trip to a Panoply. Not to mention that most units are more likely to be stunned by the AC2 than hit it even if they do get D-Charges. Seeing L&S on a tournament scenario list is enough to make me not attend these days, because it forces me to construct cookie-cutter lists built around ~2 units per faction I own (overwhelmingly Characters, with their limited AVA and tendency to rely on specific Fireteams) that can actually score OP. It's a genuinely unenjoyable scenario if your opponent has the tools to play it well and you just don't.
So it's better strip some units of their utility, I see. And with D-Charges can always be placed with CC Attack, so you are not passively being hit. L&S is one of my hated missions too, but it is far to be the worst!
Yeah, but unless you've got a dedicated CC specialist, your dozer/wildcat/clockmaker/LI specialist etc is probably swinging on a 14 to hit it in CC mode. Very high chance of missing or not beating the ADS. If you place them in deployable mode, you take the hit regardless. There are certain factions with some tools that work fine for it, others that really don't. That's the issue. It's a bit like in tagline where most of the factions had access to good tags, others had none at all That's not a great situation to be in.
If you are resorted to bring a model from your DZ to the other side on a 4-4 footwork, then I higly doubt the problem is the ADS... Almost every army/sectorial can deploy a FD/Infiltrating/CombatJump with D-Charger or Anti-Materiel, come on. Please be serious.
