That's classic CB metronome's behaviour. They hard capped lists at 15 bodies, but removed the "can't remove orders from the first player if their list has a single combat group", and now give back the spam, with a 10pts/0.5SWC point tax that completely locks out several lists options for the "elite" armies, while to the spam ones it costs mostly one body they, in some cases, are capped out anyways... If the gamemode is a must for both players this is ridiculous. If the gamemode is optional and allows a reinforcements Vs normal list, then the amount of strategic pre-game shenanigans will simply skyrocket, and lists designed to alpha strike as hard as possible will have an incentive to hit even harder and esure that unless the reinforcements hace CoC, they will arrive to help maybe 2-3 allied troops and be completely irregular...
I have a few ideas for solutions to commlink. I wouldn't like to suppose how it got the way it is. If I'm building a list though and I have to fit 250pts and 5 SWC and then 100pts and 2 SWC then that's effort enough without locking up 19-23pts and 0.5 SWC in immediate costs. Its hard to make satisfying lists when I have this thing I must take but doesn't do anything.
If the only criticism of Reinforcements that really sticks is that "commlink could do with a second look" (and I agree), then I'd say that's a huge success for the new game mode. That's a hotfix issue, not a structural one. I definitely expect to see commlink change quite a bit in the near future. For example, I'd like to see it on at least two profiles, one more expensive, with a +1 or +2 feature; the other a barebones commlink at very little cost. The bare-bones commlink could even be free, and attached to units that otherwise see very little play right now, eg the Infirmarer, Rodok, Lobos, etc.
Part of the game is listbuilding, and if it feels shit to have to add in a triple tax Commlink profile (SWC, extra points and using up a trooper slot) while list building then I don't need to paly the new rules to know that its shit.
On the contrary, if you have not played games, you do not know anything about the game mod. Theory crafting can get you only so far and theory crafting just by making lists is not the most rounded version of theory crafting, there are few people I trust their judgement without extensive hands on experience and all of them say their initial perception and then go heads deep playing games and revise and refine their initial thoughts to something more useful. If one has not played enough games to see how the game mode with its modifiers affect both players and missions on multiple iterations, find problems and solutions to said problems, how can they have a rounded perspective in order to have a base to form an opinion, suggest and improvements?
I'm not trying to say that the Reinforcements rules or game play is bad, on the contrary it looks interesting and fun. What I am saying, is that an unnecessary points, SWC and slot tax on a frankly useless model, feels terrible while list building, especially because both players are playing Reinforcements anyway, so they shouldn't need to pay for a Commlink just to play a game mode they've already decided to play. Basically Commlink as it stands makes listbuilding feel bad uand unenjoyable, therefore it was poorly implemented. That seems to be the overwhelming consensus in the community.
At its basis commlink is an order to be transferred to the reinforcements group immediately and without use of command tokens, it is also a specialist, the tax can be many things most probably a balance patch on the mod. Regardless a big volume of discussions about reinforcements revolves around the commlink troops and I can see them been the part of the rules than could see further development in the future, but for this to happen there needs to be games logged and experience build in the player base.
How can you have an opinion about Movie “X” if you have not seen it at the movie theatre? Because I have seen the trailer, seen the actors, writers and director involved, read the plot sneak peek and sinopsis, and decide that is a movie I am going to enjoy or not. Good marketing may make me go and watch a movie that may not resonate with me, or it is clear just a silly popcorn movie that I could have waited to watch the stream for free. But I decide to bite the marketing hook and go watch it at the movie. Most recent example: “Barbie.” Bad marketing may make me not watch a movie because I may decide to not give it a pass, or had a bad vibe with it from the start, no matter if it was part of a much beloved franchise I was devotedly consuming so far and has much important parts of the overall plot. Most recent update example: “Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” I am still engaged in the Marvel franchise? I watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and had a blast. It was amazing. But it had a neat package and was marketed appropriately to clearly show you it was the same fun and enjoyment and relatable as the first and second one. I have not see anything else of the lots and lots of Marvel products that had come since Quantumania because the marketing and the offered package did not win over me. I may watch another Mattel movie? Barbie was just a popcorn silly movie, and I may as well just waited for the free stream service for it… but if they are as apt as they were with the marketing presentation I may bite the hook again and go to the movie theatre and spent my hard earned money on it. Sorry for the long exposition. What I mean is that the rules and profiles and the preview videos are CB’s marketing presentation package for making the costumers to bite the hook and purchase beautiful sculpted miniatures. A customer do not have to watch (read: play several times) to decide if something is attractive to his tastes or not given a certain marketing package (read: rules and profiles). Usually you experience the marketing, decide if it is for you or not, and then your confirmation bias usually makes the real experience align to the one forecasted.
I mean I didn't have to play a single game of N4 to know that Camouflaged Moran with repeater is broken as hell within 5 seconds of N4 update dropping in ARMY. Something that 50 or so people listed as playtesters in N4 book somehow failed to see for the entire "test period" of N4.
Why not just at a profile with commlink without applying pts and swc if you want to play a mod? If it is to balance a RF player vs a non RF player its still questionable to pay this tax, while the non RF player may wipe out half of your force due to pts overwight in T1. The rules pdf says nothing about, that both players have to play RF. Other mods also not suffer a tax, with the sole exception of the merc extra. Why a tax after all? And its not only a 10/0,5 it also forces you to include a basic line trooper into your list. Make room for that in IA while you try to play HI only. Put a fusilie in your Varuna Kamau theme park etc. Newer players can not even buy basic non-SWF Fusiliers without 2nd hand market. This looks not fully thought through (<- does that work in english?). 10/0,5 for moving a order in my RF group upon arrival ... if my trooper is not long dead and gone, if my trooper is not in a fireteam (will he broke out or is he not able to leave the group?). Ah it also give us - in some armys, YJ for example - a 16 slot ... where my taxed trooper already sits ;-) so its okay, when the tax is my trooper itself without the extra costs. I make to quick lists. On with a CG that I did not put into a FT because of the rule above (also it could break my FT if it is down to three) and one with a Zhanshi where I also had to leave it out of the FT. Is hat the promised new meta? To beginn your list with a 20/0,5 dude that is not welcomed in FT or better put in G2 or 3 for later use. Anyone missing the N3 rule, that you need to field a hacker or a TAG to fit REMs into your list?
I would say it works in English, although I am Spanish so it may be biased toward such speech construction. On the other hand I agree with the ideas you presented in this thread. And more than N3 hacker to enable REMs/TAG, what I am missing most from the N3 era is EVO hacking pre-game program and execution. And I have not played N3! But it would make such EVO hackers much more attractive to include… while at the same time alleviating some alpha strike issues such as “pitcher into total control to your TAG… o you failed the TAG counter-Total control from the nearby hacker / repeater? Please enjoy your army being obliterated from your DZ by your own TAG who has killed such nearby hacker/repeater and now there is actually 0 counter play you may do until your active turn.
Of course we don't know how it works exactly before we play several games. Also there could be very careful balance decisions to make these commlink profiles. However, it feels bad. No matter it goes to reinforcement group or not, most of them are expensive linetroopers that nobody would take without reinforcement. And most of all, there is almost no other choice and I think this is the main reason that people feels bad about the commlink tax.
Agreed, the high fixed cost and low variety of the commlink troopers doesn’t really add any interesting decisions to the process.
The high cost and swc tax of the comlink unit would make a lot more sense if it could be spammed, or if you could choose between different profiles (0swc for standard, 0.5 for +1, 1 for +2, you get the idea) but since you have only one choice of comlink unit and can only field one, I have to echo the sentiment that a point and swc tax, in a game mode that ALREADY strips unit slots, points and SWC from your starting force feels unecessary at the moment. The ability to switch specific troops to the reinforcement group for free is pretty interesting though, I'm curious to see how it could play out with something other than a barebone cheerleader. Otherwise I'm still at the list building stage, first game tomorrow, but I already feel the same way that I do whenever I have to build lists for low-point games: you can't have the tools to deal with everything, so all you can do is pray that your opponent's list isn't doesn't have too many things in your blindspot, or skewed his list in such a way that your one tool to deal with it is overwhelmed. But again, that's just a low-point game thing, this wouldn't be as much an issue in a 300+100 format (and with less expensive comlink as well...). I kinda apprehend the way it'll impact the flow of the game, but I'll see that for my self soon enough and will report!
I find the movie analogy deeply flawed, this is not a spectacle to watch but an interactive game to play, regardless Ill bite I do not dislike Kafka as a writer because I saw the book cover and read the synopsis, I read his books and formed my own opinion. What I said is that without practical experience on the game mode guts feelings and theory crafting on the army builder is not really important and when data and opinions will be evaluated, those that put the effort to play the game mode and form a personal experience, positive or negative, will be of higher feedback value than people who theorize and have no practical experience.
No one's arguing about the need to playtest the game mode of Reinforcements. What people are saying is an arbitrary 10pt 0.5SWC 1 basic model tax for the privilege of trying the game mode, with no strategic choice (or any for that matter), is going to be bad no matter how many times you playtest it. Because it has no interaction with the Reinforcements rules as currently rolled out.
As I said, and I do not believe it can be considered a disagreement in any shape or form, commlink will be the item with most discussion debate and probably development. But for this to happen practical experience needs to be build up, I know from past experience that for most of the ideas suggested the answer would be "we already tried it and it did not work out in practice"...
It was hinted at to play before commenting. I'm not sure which thread is best, but at least this one is in Human Sphere sub-forum. I played yesterday, it was different. Not sure if better or worse, but after playing several years, at least having something different is already a good thing. Anyway, so I rolled Lt and the mission favor going 2nd so I chose deployment. Neither of us did much killing with only 250Pts (and mostly because of crazy dice rolls and/or lack of tool to deal with ARO pieces). Therefore, we both got reinforcements on our turn 3. I feel like having reinforcement last was very advantageous. Which makes me feel like my opponent should have tried (even more) to force me to get reinforcement dropping on turn 2 (assuming you are not allowed to delay the call: if you can you must). With the end result being that in this mission which traditionally favor going 2nd, with player 1 having to play a kill them all style; the addition of reinforcement actually doubled down on it. I thought reinf were going to solve that problem of objective missions being played as an annihilation by player 1; it did the opposite! (Well, I suppose it partially fixed it by making it harder for player 1 to do any major killing; but the rule chart allows to play 300+100 instead of 250+100 and at 300 you have tools for everything.) PS - If I'm wrong, if on turn 2 I can call but can also chose to not call; then I'll just pick deployment every time and always wait bottom of 3 to drop my fireteam, for any mission that favor player 2. ITS15 better scrap half the missions. Although the new card system might be interesting in changing the balance. Also, I thought reinf would eventually get identical, but I feel they will actually depend a lot on the mission. More than just kill mission vs end of game scoring. Even between two end of game scoring mission, I now expect that my reinf will be different.
I don't need to play a game to form an opinion because the actual Commlink points already affect all factions during list building. So what does the Commlink points do? Let's take a look at a few examples: MAF Morats mostly play a core fireteam and use vanguards as fillers. Quite often a Vanguard Paramedic is used to give the filler atleast some uses. This vanguard is now replaced by a Commlink. This means 8 points more, 0.5 SWC, less utility in the core link. That's not too bad except that the 0.5 SWC might block more useful weapon options. SEF Shasvastii avoid taking Nox troopers because they don't fit the high camouflage gamestyle or because Sheskiin is used with a haris. So we are forced to take a single Nox trooper for 24 Points and 0.5 SWC which sticks out like a sore thump, however atleast in theory we can link it somehow and drag it around the field. Will this affect the listbuilding? Yes 100%. SEF suddenly is left with 226 points and 4.5 SWC. This means a mentor, shrouded or a Q-Drone out of the list. NA2 So the Mercs and non-aligned armies , they are forced to take the Wardriver at 22 Points and 0.5 SWC, no choice at all here. Is it linkable? Nope not at all, it's a Hacker with Zero Pain, which is pretty bad to be honest. Being a Hacker without any way to hack back leaves it more vunerable than the Commlink of other factions. So what happened here? Instead of using the standard troopers of that faction (like Brawlers, Druze etc) all these factions are forced to play with the Wardriver. Conclusion The Commlink tax affects factions differently, some might atleast link their Commlink, but wait : I am supposed to pull my Commlink into the reinforcements group if it's still alive. So I am left with a choice : break my link or get an additional order for my reinforcement group. Other factions are missing their standard Commlink trooper and are forced to use the Wardriver, which feels like that those factions are like second class in terms of gamedesign. Meanwhile factions with a specialized playstyle are suddenly forced to take a profile that limits their unique options but also sticks out. This doesn't look like a balancing pass at all, if we are being honest the whole NA2 sectorials are not the strongest in a competitive environment. Overall the reinforcements will shake up the meta which is always a good thing im my opinion. The rules how the Reinforcements get placed and how they are triggered also look good. However the implemention of the Commlink leaves a lot to be desired. So how could this be fixed? Either a free REM/trooper for all factions that is similar to the Netrod or Imetron or a tinbot (Commlink) that can simply be added to Lieutenant profiles or specialized troops.
Remove that then. Depending on th ereinforcements group's contents, the commlink unit may very well be a prime target just to negate such order, and you cannot claim "the cost is fair because it can do two things" when one of those demands the troop to expose and possibly be killed in ARO, while the other demands to keep the troop alive until the reinforcements arrive, in any one turn from 1 to 3 depending on external factors... (if they arrive in turn 3, then they were hardly needed at all, I think...) To be fair, this was removed because KHD made the tax irrelevant, and despite that basic hackers could do a lot that nowadays have been given exclusively to EVOs, and their anti-hacker basic damage attack was removed. I disagree. Anything that adds further constraints and limitations, just for the heck of it, and with a "one size fits all" mentality, is BAD. Frankly, you can defend the commlink idea all you want, forcing a player to autoinclude a troop in their lists when the game has so far hinged heavily on the "it's not your list, its you" mindset is, for me, a very wrong move. Again, unless the ITS allows for Reinforcements Vs non Reinforcements lists games. In which case I will have to ask if the 2 lists rule will allow one reinforcements list and one without, and if you need to say if you wring reinforcements or not before rolling Initiative, the same way you have to say which faction and sectorial you will use...
