On tables that really seem to make a strong ARO presence ridiculously oppressive no less, and with Phalanx also packing plentiful eclipse smoke to deal with that issue.
Don´t know how you all feel, but i don´t need another thread contaminated with the never ending GML-topic...I think it is already exhaustingly discussed and spammed with possible solutions in multiple other threads. I don´t think that repeating all of that again is in any need since most of it is already said. Twice. I don´t think eclipse grenades are a problem per default. Eclipse works in both ways; you don´t see me, i don´t see you. You can not kill me, I cannot stop you doing.,. well...whatever you please. the "problem" i see in the IP-scenario is more like: Most of the missions depend on killing each other. And with eclipse I deny you the possibility to kill me in your active turn when i am weakest. And since there are no real other objectives to claim.... well... poop. To be honest: thats an amazingly poor choice of missions. Together with with an equally amazing ...one sided table design... As i mentioned previously: i don´t think SP has a balance problem. IP has a table and mission problem. Or it is at least very one sided and favors a certain kind of playing/army. In this specific scenario, eclipse was a problem. Mimetism should not be. Novadays i think every army has access to MSV of any kind and going out in the open without is basicly begging for beeing outplayed by smoke. This (imho) also inderectly nerfs SP, cause MSV units have become a common sight. And since a lot SP units rely on their mimetism-6 (and smoke) and pay good money for it, I don´t think that in any other tournament environment the ranking would look like that. I also think White noise grenades can be a good idea, but please not on too much units. And not on units that throw it in ARO! TWICE! ON 17s! White noise hacking is a no-no in ARO, and thats for good reason. Imagine you are a Mimetism-6 unit with access to albedo at any time. Lucky you, now ALL your enemies start with a -6 on their BS rolls. That sounds fun, doesn´t it? And since you are a linked BS13 units there is NOTHING out there that beats you in sheer numbers to roll. White noise grenades should be treated VERY carefully if they every become a thing. I don´t see you disagreeing with me here, i toot the same horn. Non of the mentioned units surprise me, all of them are good and worthy to bring with your SP, especially to a mission setup like IPs. Some of them are so good you can play them in vanilla and they are still worth it. So: highly agreeing here. But with this we just found the solution to the over-representation of SP on IP! If I go to a prestige- and world-tournament like IP, together with partly the best players in the world, than i do my best to not make a fool out of me. Starting with informing myself: How do the table look, what missions are played,what are my future opponents knowen to play. And then there is a spanish YT-channel, that sais "Folks, the missions are killing missions most of the times, the table are open like the emotional wound of a YJ player, and you know which army fits this conditions best? It´s SP! Play SP!" Well, and then i go to IP playing SP. Or even if I just know wich missions are played, and the table-situation on IP is a well knowen thing, I maybe can assume, that linked Mimetism-6 HRLs with SixthSense and a HD MSV2 Missle launcher, combined with smoke and eclipse tend to be a good option to not getting killed. That´s what i call a self-fullfilling prophecy.
Again, possibly my own fault for choosing a low tech faction, but one single loadout in the whole faction with MSV1 in Tartary. Dealing with one or two mimetism -6 models is one thing, but when the whole opponents list is basically -6 mimetism only?
good point, ofc. ariadna always lacked proper MSV (2). But that, to be fair, is not a new issue, same for SP having ODD´s (mimetism -6) since... ever. TAK (ariadna) i experienced to have a very different approach to deal with hard-to-hit units, starting with not beeing hit by themselfes and camo markers that eat you alive. My experience with playing against ariadna was never that i felt a huge advantage due to high tech. but yes, you are right. Not every faction has a lot access to MSV, but at least they have.
If you want to go to Interplanetario, go, you don't need to be an Infinity PRO. About mime -6 remember not only shoot works, templates, mines, etc could do the trick. Against ML guided tactic... Camos can't be shooted. Is something. I don't get your point. You mean Interplanetario tables? At least in Krakens were more than OK, almost all.
Might be meta disrepancy, and not sure if krakens or pulpis, but looking at the table and discussions of people who were there yeah they were way too open. Which, to be honest, is kinda to be expected for an event of this size, it's a lot of tables to build so scenery density inevitably takes a hit. But when a unit like atalanta can, on some tables, see all exit point of your DZ, and even if you make it out you still have to deal with agema and phoenix, for some factions it is really oppressing. Not that it can't be played around, but you have to plan for it.
I think people just want to hear CB acknowledge some balance problems the game has. It would be nice. We all love this game, so we care about it, and that sometimes comes across as a bit over the top or aggressive but, really, just some nod to issues like frenzy and gml would go a long long way at this point. The reticence is baffling! It really feels like the community is collectively scratching its head.
- Fix the pricing on NWI. - Don't let Impetuous troopers join fireteams. - Make fireteams not turn off Frenzy. You wound something while in a fireteam, you become impetuous, you drop out of the fireteam. Side benefit: also fixes Mukhtars and Asawiras.
It appears it dominates metas with some of the most vocal forum users, as well as dominating theorycrafting.
As @A Mão Esquerda mentioned, it is defenetly meta in theorycrafting (like nomads), but in reality is played defenetly not as much as this forum wants you to belive. Maybe because it is for both players as fun as fellatio with a cactus. ...and kills every link containing a Knight with a Cross on its chest... together with moiras, cenobites, Riot Grrrls, Myrmidons and nearly all named Greeks plus Thorakitai, Makauls, Domarus, Tankos, Kuang Shi, Varangians, half of scotland including Willys whimsical warriors, Daturazi and the Oznat-Zoo... As much as I love seeing Linkteams crumble like a dry cookie in a toddlers hand, that would be a strong hit against a lot of sectorials down to making them unplayable.
Uh... nope. I assume you are overexagerating, but he, who went to IP with Bakunin, warned about how the missions were very favourable to SP, and that *already* at that time more than a dozen SP players were confirmed. Tables are impossible to predict in the IP, since a lot of them are promotional goods from partners. You throw template weapons and Total Immunity/berserker/natural born warriors at the problem, honouring WW2's communist battle plan, I'm afraid. One inescapable reality of this game is how impossible it is to protect effectively against even most of the common threats, so we have to eat crow every now and then :( The problem is combining MSV2 and Hidden Deployment in a single package, frankly. That is a decision on par with giving the Avatar his second Lt order at the beginning of N4 and then nerf it 2-3 times already by increasing the cost instead of adressing the true issue. It doesn't, but for some factions it's "add a guided ML to the roster, and keep going with the usual list for the most part", allowing it to passively attack the order economy of the rival by forcing them to remove the repeaters, the ML, or go around the enemy Hacking Area. And when a high-value troop gets marked, you can kiss it goodbay more often than not, while you are only capable of looking and rolling dodge (because the ARM roll, unless Total Immunity is involved, is 3 dice at 15...) Not drop out (unless you use the order, that is!) but for certain, to lose cover. There is always someone who enjoys being the cactus, which is why laws are laws and not just assumptions and suggestions ^^U
That´s exactly what I am here for :-D But seriously: i don´t need a YT-channel to see that 4 to 5 of the missions on IP were Kill-Missions. People that play on IP (or better said: spend the money, take the time and the travel to go there) are not the run-of-the-mill casual players. I expect this people to see and understand basic connections and synergies. And if you notice that all missinos look like nails, well... better bring a big hammer. Is it tho? Every year I hear from IP the general echo is that tables are....not what you (want to) expect from a tournament with that size and prestige. But that can also be confirmation bias. I for myself would defenetly expect the table to be on the open side of the spectrum, cause as @Sedral mentioned: the sheer number of tables thin out your stock of terrain. And after the 20th table you build you just want to get over it, tbh.... "f*ck this fireline across the whole table, i don´t touch any more building here." :-D ....oh my god, the pictures....
Terrain has a massive factor on the game and while I'm sure there were plenty of good tables, I did see the /tg/ discussion giving the tournament some shit over the terrain and posted this picture supposedly from the tournament. If that was actually a table at IP it's a failure on the TO for allowing it to exist.
Wow. Why was there such a difference between the Kraken Masters versus Pulpi Prodigies in the diversity of armies?
I can´t talk about Pulpi´s side, since I didn´t even take the stairs to that part of the tournament, pauses I was mostly on the phone this time, but in Kraken´s side most tables were OK. I know that a few player complained about a particular table being playable at all on friday and TOs changed it for another one. My table experience was good. For my 4 match I don´t have any photos, but it was one of Acid Terrain, I think, really really dense. For other 5 I have it, so you can see for yourself. Yes, they could be more dense, for sure, but more or less you could reach spitfire range. I don´t think it dominates de game because is, literally, playing random. Same as speculative fire as a base for a plan. If you don´t expected, or table don´t allow you to deploy with space between miniatures... If you go second, probably you will over soon. Without being able to do nothing. I played several times against Guided ML. Sometimes they ended the match, others did nothing. Never was fun to play against. Some factions almost has the option to play guided ML for free. REM is cheap but SWC expensive, but for armies like haquisslam is easy to put the REM on table without almost no sacrifice. Balance is delicate there, as others pointed you, a lot of fireteams will be affected. Hospitallers isn´t a thing right now, but sometimes you put then on the table... If worked as you said, it will be impossible to play with. Mukthars don´t even have frenzy. Asawira is too good, but isn´t an auto include on hassa or haquisslam. If you do that, hassasin will need others thing to supply the asawira´s rol. I guess it could be enough if frenzy was activated even being in a FT. This will change a lot how this profiles are played, because if you did casualties and FT is broken for some reason, you will lose covert... I can´t count how many times my FT was broken but Asawira was still there with covert because he didn´t activate frenzy because he was talking with Fireteams friends. I will go further, frenzy shouldn´t wait until state phase. As others states you should have at the end of the order you did the wound. If for some reason you left the FT, you will have no covert. In my local meta players didn´t play a lot Guided ML because isn´t fun, only. Yes, it has.
I guess we should check pairings to understand better. I don´t know it as a fact, but for what I heard in pulpis were more Guide ML strategy. Plus it has a little more variety.
To help people see the result difference between Kraken Master versus Pulpi Prodigies: Kraken Masters Results: Top 10 SkyKnight (Steel Phalanx) Iro (Vanilla Combined) Dementor (Steel Phalanx) Nyper ((Steel Phalanx) KamCord (Steel Phalanx) Rolc (Bakunin) SIRXXI (Steel Phalanx) StorJaan (Steel Phalanx) Alfa037 (Steel Phalanx) gravitypool (Bakunin) Pulpi Prodigies Results: Top 10 Weran (Vanilla Nomads) Cayren (Vanilla Combined) Arkhos94 (Vanilla Haqqislam) Melmak (Kosmoflot) Sir Leirbag (Vanilla Combined) Arenikus (Bakunin) cobraprime (Steel Phalanx) Axel (Vanilla Aleph) Zergash (Corregidor) Morph (Vanilla Haqqislam) It looks like they had the same mission lineup but with wildly different results. Just looking at the player ELOs and ITS 14 rankings, both tournaments were stacked with very accomplished players.
Having Frenzy be a drawback does NOT have to include breaking linkteams (agreed, that would make many sectorials difficult to play): Let Frenzy/Impetuous units remain in in links (as they can now), but have the inability to claim Cover apply whether linked or not. Just disallow Impetuous movement for troopers that are in a link. Simplest, best solution. RE: Eclipse Grenades, Making these White Noise only is also something that should have shades to it. For troops which are very important to their faction's function (Makauls for example), add a profile with normal Smoke Grenades, and keep another with White Noise. Simple fix, and makes armament choice and toolkit use more important. For other troops (characters in SP for example) which already have tons of normal smoke on the troopers around them, keep it White Noise/Eclipse grenades only. This will be the mild reduction of SP's insane order efficiency that they need, without an actual nerf. [BTW @anubis sorry for not crediting you on the make-Eclipse-grenades-just-White-Noise idea. It's the other fix that N4 really needs, and it's a very good idea.]
