Albedo - It’s rules and how it’s a hang over from N3

I can't comment on the N3 vs. N4 thing, since I only started at the tail end of N3.

But I can say that it never lasted only one turn, but two. Per the wiki:

The Effects of this Equipment have a limited duration:

• When the Trooper is deployed, an Albedo-A Token is placed next to it to indicate that they are equipped with Albedo.
• During the States Phase, the Albedo-A Token is removed and replaced with an Albedo-B Token.
• Lastly, in the next States Phase, the Albedo-B Token is removed and the Trooper may no longer use Albedo for the rest of the game.

Two States Phases = two turns.

I do agree though they could just make it last the whole game.

 

Two player turns, which is one game turn.

 

Interesting. I never read it like that. But now that you're pointing it out, it sounds indeed like it only lasts one turn. Has this been officially confirmed?

 

Two player turns which is 1 game round

 

It's one game round, for sure.
And it's probably best like that, it would be a bit overpowered otherwise.

 

When Albedo was introduced in N3 it was explicitly the first two player turns, the States phase didn't exist.

The States phase applies to both players, not just the active, so Albedo will disappear during the second States phase at the end of the first game round.

 

I wanna say everlasting albedo might be too much, and something like an order or CT to reup it after it runs out might be better, but honestly screw it, go hard or go home. Albedo is rarely an impactful skill right now, it'd be nice to see it on a profile and have a reaction beyond 'eeeehhhh.'

 

Depends on the meta I suppose, a permanent Albedo would make a serious impact on MSV units and many are top picks, a resetting Albedo is a more logical approach, not sure on the balance.

 

I think Albedo would benefit from that for sure, I use Vargars a lot and it is very frustrating having a skill that you cannot rely on for the entirety of the game. Your troop gets worse in turn two just because.

However, I´m not a fan of "you can't see me" abilities. Maybe allowing the MSV troop to discover or something like that might be good. I mean making Albedo work like camouflage only against MSV. Just saying, but I think Albedo needs revising definitely, its a "meh" ability right now.

 

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I think Albedo being permanent wouldn't be that overpowered.
Black Friar multi rifle, Vargar, Drakios, Lei Gong, Gwailos, and Satrah are the only profiles with Albedo. I don't think any of those would become overpowered if their Albedo lasted for the whole game.

Also, sixth sense still bypasses the benefits if shot at, so an MSV user in a core is still a threat. It just let's the Albedo user not engage them.

 

Others have already commented on Albedo as a permanent small Zero Visibility Zone being bad for the game, so I won't elaborate further there.

Seems like the suggestion was for it to be a semi-permeable marker state, however. I think this has more merits, but at the same time it gets weird in how Discover works against it.

Then again, perhaps this works since that non-MSV units being able to Discover non-marker state units could help here.
Might make the state a bit of a weakling, though.

 

The simplest rules change I think would be to just let the Albedo user choose what turn it activates, rather than make it a deployable skill. There's a couple units it's on that I think would be good if they could use it turn 2 or three, but just aren't worth taking for a T1 run against undegraded defenses.

 

Also Overdron Batroid, which has it via tinbot for some unknowable reason. HRMC TAG is great for beating down MSV overwatch snipers in the first turn of the game.

 

So that when it duos with a wildcard both can benefit from the ability.

 

True, although the bonus being on a tinbot dates back to N3, where that was not a rule. Only firewalls (Deflector) were shared by fireteam members, not all tinbots.

Not really sure there are a lot of great Duos for the Overdron, but I guess a defensive buff is a defensive buff.

 

I somewhat agree, it is an underwhelming ability that seems quite dated. A lot of MSV troops now have sixth sense from some manners, which renders the skill a lot worse again. As it does a bunch of other skills, as has been a topic of complaint for a while now too.

I'd propose some kinda alteration to allow it, but yes, some improvements would be needed even if it's just allowing the user to pick what round they enable tge Abledo effect.

 

The utility is still quite nice, but the turn limitation does hamper it.

From my experience, Albedo is most useful against single or core linked ARO MSV pieces. Against the former you can likely just impose a -6 to directly win FTF, and the latter (e.g. Kamau/Grenzer/Epsilon/Rriot in mixed core) you can just move past when they'd otherwise block an entire fire lane or section of the board. Ideally, you can flank said ARO piece and shoot their (non-MSV) link team members with the main ARO piece unable to react.

With this in mind, the problem I see is that Albedo is only on units without FD or infiltration, so in order to make use of it, you need to spend several orders on these units turn 1 to move them out and leverage this advantage, maybe even fully commit to an entire rambo turn with them to get to that linked core fire team and dismantle it.

Being able to "activate" Albedo would help with this issue, as you could pick the right turn to execute your move. Alternatively, you could restrict Albedo to your active turns to make it a purely offensive tool and rein in its utility to compensate.

 

Being able to give Nourkias Albedo is probably the single best use of Albedo in the entire game.