WiseKensai's Battle Reports

I get the frustration with the loss of all the factions, but N5 feels much better than N4. More units are viable and the meta has been shaken up. I love that Albedo now counters Marksmanship. It is also nice that nearly every faction now has access to Eclipse or regular smoke (including PanO), so you don't have to gunfight everything. Toolbox units are also more common.

For me, while I am sad with all the changes to Vanilla Haqqislam, on the whole Haqqislam got better. Nearly every malignant unit has been improved or have a niche. Maggie, Jannisaries, Shujaes, Ayyars, Khawarijs, Namurrs, Govads, Djanbazans, Bashi Bazouks, Tuaregs, Shakush, and Lasiqs all got much better. Fidays now are incentivized to use their Martial Arts. Vanilla Haqqislam got access to improved Yuan Yuans.

Mobility is so big this edition and everything feels so more compact. I feel that with some minor changes to some of the rules, N5 will be perfect.

I hope you are able to find your joy as I love your analysis and the wonderful stories you tell with our metal dollies.

 

I read your notes at the end of the battrep @WiseKensai , I agree with your points. Speedball is an odd mechanic and the end result was not what was explained by CB. That was definitely a mistake in their marketing or mechanic design. I have encountered it once in a tournament I participated in. Yes, it did make the double TAG assault from my opponent harder to put down, but I still put it down. It plays like I have to repeat the same aims twice (kill / prevent TAGs from moving). Which distracts from focusing on the mission objectives. I think it is more of a mechanic for players who like doing the alpha strike thing. Which only works for some missions.

I completely agree with the stale ITS missions. A fresh change would be nice. Your BAMS stuff is quite fun. You have achieved the aim of objective focused missions. The ones I have played definitely feel as though you are fighting over the objectives, not just shooting the enemy with buttons to push. B-Pong is a mission so far removed from Infinity, I don't know why they invented it. Scoring for Evacuation may make it fun. Perhaps 1 objective point for each successful HVT evacuated, but 2 OP removed for each HVT not evacuated by a player. That way, both players really have to focus on evacuating HVT's, not just shoot each other. CB could easily remove the dominating areas missions for the line up. The whole idea about spec-ops is to complete objectives. Large armies dominate battlefields. Special Forces units complete strategic objectives. Maybe re-introduce the scatter roll for placing mission objectives. For example, Supplies, using the small circular template, a player places the template on the center of the game table with the arrow pointing to their deployment zone. First dice roll determines the direction from table center, second dice roll determines distance from table center. Perhaps this can be done before the Lt. WIP roll. Making deployment a more meaningful choice if the objectives scatter unluckily in one half.

Any more information on continuing Operation Edgelord for this year?

 

I agree the ITS missions need new variety. I disagree some of the missions need to go per se, however, since those allow for low-level tournaments that are more newbie-friendly.

I think the loss of the world campaigns meant the loss of new, crazy ideas for missions that could be furter polished for ITS use, and while I think the resource committment for those campaigns may be too big for CB, there should be an equally interesting, less resource intensive way to implement it.

If I may suggest it, I think this forum could be used as a nexus for it, and the only thing CB needed to do was to review units used (they may give a specific "ITS Code" for the campaign so they can segregate the data in the OTM), provide the missions and background, and some weekly videos, with the community self-policing itself.

To me, B-Pong seems some sort of adaptation of the "move&escort payload" missions in online FPS, with concessions to not having a big thing being moved in a table that may not have the corridors for it.

Unless you "evacuate" your own civilians to your DZ and castle up to negate those points to your opponent. According to Melmak, it was done to him in the semifinals of Valencia's satellite (Nanocional).

I personally find it much easier to block the path to victory to my opponents in this edition than in N3, for example, forcing them to score minimal amounts of points if at all... (and I'm talking about something that is neither my focus when listbuilding, nor my intention, just that I fail to go for the objectives and while biding my time I suddenly find myself we are both locked and neither will score enough to even reach top 3 in the tournament).

I don't disagree in principle, but it was messy (in N3 Supplies was made precisely like that), and had the result of sometimes a player winning in the first 4-5 orders while other times it would be absolutely impossible because the player had no Infiltrators and no way to reach the top of buildings without dying to enemy fire.

I know the dice are important, but I like a game where the dice are not the only ones having a job to do xD.

 

Okay, I thought it was some type of football idea. The scoring made it look like the aim was to nudge a.k.a., kick the beacon into your opponent's table half to score points. Reminding me of football or pong type games.

I wonder if removing "end of game" scoring would alleviate this tactic? I like the BAMS mechanic of scoring at the end of a player's turn instead of the round. It make the game more of a constant battle and reduces the opponent going second to score all the OP every round.

Unfortunately I did not play any games in N3. I was not aware Supplies had this back then.

I agree, not all missions should be removed, some are still fun to play. I guess it comes down to tournament organizers' if they want to include other missions for their tournament. At least remove the zone-of-control style missions and update with new objective missions. This is just my preference though.