Irregular models are often cheap and have an impressive set of abilities that makes it extremely easy to use them as a missile and when they finally die (of they die) the point-cost loss is limited. How would it affect the game balance if Irregular models in return for being dirt cheap and having an impressive set of abilities could only use 2 or 3 Regular Orders pr. turn in addition to their Irregular one? Right now, there's no downside to taking a few cheap models that are deceptively good for their cost and sending them straight into the enemy. If they kill something they'll usually have made their point-cost back regardless of what they kill, and if they die the loss is negligible. Throw-away units should have something that limits their efficiency. A clear example of this lopsidedness is that a Krakot Renegade with Boarding Shotgun is 2 points more expensive than a Beasthunter whose tactical options are a lot more diverse than "run towards the enemy as fast as you can!" In addition, they also have no benefit of cover.
Having irregular order is already a massive downside. Regular orders are only as good as your best trooper, if you end up in a situation where your best trooper for the moment is an irregular, you either have perfectly lined up its niche (which is nice that you get rewarded) or are in a terrible spot. If your best trooper for a given situation is a regular trooper, the more irregular order you have, the more it plays against you. The first irregular trooper is very good (especially in current ITS, it's pretty much downside free). But every other you had is a very significant cost. I don't think adding an arbitrary restriction to irregular troopers would improve the game.
Have you seen the profile for the 15 Point Beasthunter? With Forward Deployment +8 there's nothing niche about it being in a good position, It also has Camouflage making getting the strike on it severely conditional. I also heavily implied in my post that there would only be one or two Irregulars and then you responded as if I had said that the entire Army should be made from Irregular models. That you use this kind of rhetoric tells me that you're aware of the issue because it's severely dishonest.
The 15 point camo Beasthunter is 1W and 4-4. It does have super-jump, but it's not some ultra mobile close assault piece, and is likely to trade in for a template as soon as it reveals. It's fairly order intensive to use it aggressively most of the time, at least considering what the likely pay off is - and this goes even for the YJ Beasthunter. Frankly I think the Krakot Renegade comparison is kind of nonsense? The Krakot is a (nearly) DZ bound CC warband with a DTW - it doesn't really strike me as either being an ARO piece or close assault piece in the same vein as the Beasthunter, it's more of a defensive corner/DZ guard ala the Digger. Compare it to stuff like the Camo Infil Metro/Rokot and I think it looks reasonable. I'm not really sure what the issue is with Diph's point regarding most lists running a limited number of irregs. Yes, they are most cost effective, but you can't run too many without damaging your order pool. Also look at the stronger factions right now. Some do run a lot of irregs (Kosmo, vAri, vHaqq, HB), others absolutely do not (vCA, SP, Starmada), while some run a moderate number (BJC, vNomads, Tohaa). I don't really think you can point to an overall trend.
the problem is not being irregular. The problems is all the promo profiles that are too overpowered. Diggers, beasthunters, zellenkriegers libertos... No one care irregulars when you are a Morlock or a Warcor...
I don't understand how my comment is at all dishonest. I don't think there is any issue with the Beasthunter if you have it as the only (or 2 only) irregular in your list. That's pretty much part of the cost, you can only have so many. I think the beasthunter is fine, it's great if an opponent is within a few orders of it, but if you need to spend 4+ orders on it to do work and that is your best play, you're probably in a mediocre position. So I don't think there is any issue in being allowed to spend multiple orders on a Beasthunter, no. Most irregular are in the same position, where they're happy to spend their own order, they might want to spend a few irregular orders if their toolkit lines up well, but none of them are troops that want to just eat up half your order pool to accomplish something. - - - - - Irregular Troopers are just premium low-end troopers that come with a pretty significant downside to your list, and I don't think they need another downside. (Though the suggestion is extremely superfluous and would rarely ever matter anyway imo, which is another reason why I don't like it.) If they represented the high-end of your list, I could understand the argument, as then their irregular order would not be a cost since you'd actively want to use them every turn, but I don't think it's the case at all (and if you do make a list where you somehow actively want to activate all of them, then you're playing right into the restriction and get rewarded from the fact that you underpaid for their roles, which is a good thing imo).
I think people care a lot about things being irregular, Warcors have been largely pushed out of list building because of how taxing the irregular order is to listbuilding.
Most irregulars are just fine and perfectly balanced (of course with a lower cost because an Irregular order is a severe disadvantage). The "problem" is just about a bunch of irregular profiles that end up in tons of list because they are overoptimized
How is the Zellenkrieger better than a Morlock? A Morlock is a better and cheaper Zellenkrieger on most occasions. On the actual topic I think irregular profiles are fine, yes, they pack a severe punch, but are fragile and usually their order is more precious than the potential attack potentiality.
A 15-point midfielder is an excellent option, especially with those abilities, as you just need to place them out of LoS in a place where the opponent will have to pass through to optimise their Order performance or force them to go the long way around as the lane is effectively denied to them, which in a tight Order economy is also a win. It does make them vulnerable to Sensors and if they're Prone behind something you still need to get them in LoS to deal with them and if your only option for that is getting close then you'll have to trade the Large Teardrop template with Continous Damage at some point unless you get a Dodge off when you enter melee with them. Even then going into melee with them is risky even for a dedicated specialist as they have excellent melee abilities as well. That is a good argument as well. Those profiles need to be significantly reduced in power and versatility. Because it was phrased as if a large portion of the enemy army was made up of Irregulars. What downsides? If you use them as Strikers then they would have gotten the Regular Order that the Irregular Order fills anyway. As a deterrent or ARO piece, it makes no difference other than they can easily be used as those since their cost is low. Irregular on one or two models is only an issue if you take them as cheerleaders That's the difference between hypothetical downsides and practical downsides. If something is only a downside in the hypothetical and gets compensated for that hypothetical then it's a vast improvement in practice.
Except that sometimes, often even, you don't want to spend your orders on a striker. Or maybe your striker is stuck in a position where you can't play it at all. Or you want to spend them on another striker (Irregulars are very rarely your main attack piece). In these conditions (non-exhaustive list), you're just losing an order or have to spend a precious command to turn it into regular. Over a full game, that can be 3 orders. 6 if you have two irregulars. That's huge and very practical
Doesn't this belong in https://forum.corvusbelli.com/forums/rules-suggestions.246/ rather than rules? There's no actual rules question here
On the topic of Warcors, seriously, for 3 pts it's an easy in most of the time, not because of his order (O12's Prestige makes turning irregular orders into regular ones a suboptimal redundancy we cannot afford, unless there is a Tactical Awareness troop in both combat groups, or the much less likely you need the regular order in the group with the only TA troop which also contains the Warcor), but because of the annoyance of the Flash Pulse (in N4 it was changed from fireteam FP > non linked FP to make them equally valuable, by removing the fireteam bonuses to FP). All the other irregulars are assault troops anyways that want their order to always be used, so... However I agree that you can't fill more than 2 slots with irregular orders (leaving aside Inspired Leadership, which removes the Irregular Orders from the equation altogether) whitout suffering in your order pool, and that limiting model counts to 15 troops in a list helped balance this (which Reinforcements flipped over entirely with the Commlink +1 and +2 for the spammy factions XD) For +2pts you get: +3 to CC that can't be negated like a Morlock's MA 2 Natural Born Warrior (negates enemy MA) Leave wounds, get Structure => Inmunne to shock ammo BERSERKER RERROLL to metachemistry. Do not underestimate this. +3BTS Keep: Courage, Dodge +1inch, smoke, impetuous (for some reason, stated in the Morlock's skills list, but not in the zellenkrieger's, at least in bakunin). CC23, PH13, ARM1, S2, and a single "hit point" Lose: -1 to BS (kinda irrelevant for templates, kinda relevant since they won't shoot past ZoC... but Morlocks shouldn't either), -2 to WIP (worse Discover, worse chance to remove Marked state) Access to melee EM weapon Change: gain Heavy Pistol on all profiles with AD melee weapon, the only DA melee weapon in morlocks costs 12pts with other main guns (BSG and 1SWC extra cost because combi rifle and smoke grenade launcher) or 6pts with a regular pistol. Also, all but the Light Shotgun zellenkrieger have +1B on their heavy pistol. Base weapon is either a Pulzar or a Light Shotgun, instead of chain rifle. Do note that a Light Shotgun is like a Chain Rifle +1R, and a -1Damage no AP BSG, so they really get an extra in active turn against chain rifle morlocks (and a chance to FtF with base 10+6 in ZoC, so if faced with a midfield hunter they can FtF instead of trading or dodging at 13 if they face a MSV1 one like Dart, for example) On the "balanced" side the Zellenkrieger get a Cube, which is a minus against the CA but irrelevant to a plus against the other factions (depending on your needs about doctoring them up). Also while the Pulzar option is a BTS chain rifle, considered by many suboptimal, it is however quite useful against Ariadna (specially bearpodes) and other midfield troops that tend to have low BTS (usually 0 BTS and 1 ARM, despite being some ARM1-2 and BTS3) Major gain: 8pts smoke in Tunguska (irrelevant to the comparison, but relevant to the differences, and how does it change Tunguska) So, do I think the Zellenkrieger are better? Unless you face CA Aspects, or can't afford at least 2 points extra, YES, without a doubt. Now Denma Connolly would be another beast entirely (Regular, but costs like 2 Morlocks, but can do Secondaries since he's a Character => veteran troop, his melee weapon is AP+DA, PH14 and MA 1 means melee damage is 15AP+DA...), but while the Morlocks won't be completely phased out by the Zellenkrieger, instead of seeing 2 morlocks now it's much more likely to see 1 morlock and 1 Zellenkrieger.
Your meta doesn't use warcors? That's wild. Here, Warcor goes into any 14 order list to make it 15, there is almost no better way to spend 3 points if you have the extra free spot.
In my experience, Warcors stuns or wastes the orders of attack pieces frequently enough to make them almost auto includes for 3 pts.
Warcor is autoinclude in 300/6 gamemode but neverinclude in reinforcement games. In reinforcement mode each slot needs pull their own weight or be assigned to reinforcement force.
None of the faction I play, or play against has any issues getting to 15 orders with 15 quality trooper. They all would have a very hard time justifying their inclusion. Warcor was auto-include in N3 because 3 points for a body that you can convert their order was good. But taking a slot in list building makes them not worth it for a lot of factions in N4 imo. Also, in ITS15.1 with O-12 Prestige, its irregular order is even less relevant because your can convert 1 order per turn from thin air. I haven't seen a list that could justify a warcor in a long time.
