Here are the changes I would like to see: 1. Sharpening the Distinction in Hacking Network Strengths Cap the current Pitcher's maximum range at 24". Introduce a new weapon, the Relay Launcher: functions similarly to a Pitcher, but reaches up to 32" with better range modifiers. Goal: This solves faction identity issues while allowing most factions to engage with Hacking more proactively than in N4. 2. EVO Hacker Quality-of-Life Buff EVO Hackers should be allowed to activate one Support Device program during Deployment / Pre-game. Goal: Increases player incentive to include EVO Hackers in list building. 3. Re-evaluating Point Costs for High-Point CQC Heavy Infantry Re-examine the pricing for premium (30+ pts) CQC Heavy Infantry (e.g., Mendoza, Ajax, Hector, Jaime). Goal: Unlike budget CQC HI, these high-cost models are hard to justify in list building. They offer no distinct efficiency advantage over unhackable units, yet carry the full burden of Hacking vulnerabilities. 4. Line trooper Optimization & Profile Streamlining Profile loadouts for Line trooper should reflect distinct faction identity/fluff (e.g., the Morat Vanguard HMG profile). Remove obvious "no-brainer" or free upgrades—such as the legacy 12-pt O-12 Kappa Hacker or the current NW Free FO profile—which reflect lazy point-cost design. 5. Rebalancing the Discoball (Accessibility & Power Level) As a "generic utility tool," the Discoball should not outperform specialized equipment. Since the +3 Range Modifier was removed from Smoke Grenades, the Discoball should likewise lose its +3 Range Band. 6. Overhauling the Climbing Skill The Climbing skill is far too restrictive and practically useless in competitive play: Remove the requirement that "The Trooper’s base must be in contact with a vertical surface." Remove the rule forcing movement to immediately halt upon reaching a horizontal surface. 7. Standardizing Doctor / Engineer Protocols (and Medikit / Gizmokit) Allow Doctors and Medikits to target units that are not in an Unconscious State. Standardize the failure state across all healing/repair skill checks to: Receives a Wound loss. Goal: Reduces cognitive load for players while significantly boosting Doctor utility. 8. Streamlining Aerial Skills & Tech-Recovery Erase Tech-Recovery and make any IMM State (Immobilized) an explicit Cancellation Clause for Aerial Skills. Goal: Reduces overall rule bloat and the number of niche skills players must memorize.Additionally, VH should be given explicit weaknesses. 9. Restructuring Rulebook Organization (Moving away from Alphabetical Order) Alphabetical skill sorting serves no practical tabletop utility. Rules should be organized logically by tactical category to improve readability and rule-checking speed. Example (using Sharavaras): Group related rules into practical functional clusters: Post-Hit / Damage Resolution: Courage, Remote Presence Special Deployment: Combat Jump, Parachutist, Hidden Deployment, Forward Deployment (+4") BS Attacks / Shooting Modifiers: BS Attack (-3), Albedo, MSV, Mimetism (-3) Close Combat (CC): CC Attack (-6), Natural Born Warrior Movement / Mobility: Stealth, Super-Jump, Climbing Plus 10. Fireteam Adjustments & Faction Identity Fireteam Incentives: While Duo and Haris Fireteams are currently in a healthy spot, 4-to-5-model Fireteams lack attraction. CB should find ways to incentivize running full 4-5 model fireteams. Linkable Utility Tools: Factions with access to Pitchers and Mine Dispensers need careful oversight regarding whether those profiles are Linkable. Faction Differentiation: In N5, more factions gained access to Mine Dispensers. Differentiating which factions excel at using these tools through Fireteam compositions would greatly enhance unique faction identities. 11. Game Balance, Skill Stacking, and Outlier Units Meta & Win-Rate Monitoring: Factions that consistently hit the top 20% in major tournaments need targeted tuning. Similarly, factions with low pick-rates and low win-rates require active dev attention. Over-Stacked Skill Modifiers: Address units with excessive modifier stacking in a single niche. The issue isn't having many skills, but having too many modifiers applied to one specific action. Example (Stinger): The Stinger stacks up to 4 separate shooting modifiers, making it nearly impossible to gain a face-to-face advantage against it because the tools to counter it are heavily filtered out. Cyberplug & Order Efficiency: Cyberplug units require immediate scrutiny. Their mechanic of not losing an order upon death makes them exceptionally powerful. While similar to Posthumans, Cyberplugs suffer from a glaring point-cost disparity for that level of order resilience. Skill Allocation Flavor (Surprise Attack): Questionable allocation of Surprise Attack (-6). While not inherently game-breaking, other fluff-appropriate units deserve it more. Example (Kitsune): Kitsune could easily have MA reduced from level 5 to 4, in exchange for upgrading her Surprise Attack from -3 to -6 to better fit her assassin theme. 12. Making Deployable Cover and Turrets Viable Deployable Cover Improvements: Deployable Cover has been virtually ignored ever since its introduction and needs targeted buffs to become appealing. Perimeter & Minelayer: Deployable Cover should gain the Perimeter trait so it can function as a genuine tactical tool, and select profiles should receive Deployable Cover + Minelayer loadouts. Turret Cost Audit: Turrets are simply overpriced for what they offer. Their 3-point cost severely limits their appeal, and reducing them to 2 points would make them much more viable.
I would love some minor tweaks to some Haqqislam profiles: Bokhtar: Put paramedic in the base profile so they are all specialists, which gives them a nice niche. My wish would be to also give them SR-1 as paying nearly 50 points for a HI with PS 7 weapons feels annoying. Sekban: Any rework. Maybe BS attack (+1SD) as it would give them a purpose. Korsans: Complete rework. I have no idea on how they should be used. BS attack(-3) does not work with template weapons and they have a mash of rules that do not complement each other. Why do they have a heavy pistol and a boarding shotgun on the same profiles? Najjarun: Please give them a deactivator. They have always been one of few engineers in the game that never had one. Its time for this to end. Shakush: Rework. CB has made both the Anaconda and Iguana good TAGs. They can do the same for the Shakush. Nadhir: More weapon options. Maybe an Emitter profile. Sunduqbut: Add a no camo, hidden deployment option. RTF could use some more flexibility in their Fire Team options, increased AVA in Hunzakuts, and maybe access to the Sunduqbut again.
Nah - we don´t need another "weapon". Nerv pitchers a bit and good. Some factions have already good delivers methods (infiltrating repeaters, combat jumping dep. repeaters...). Ja - back to the roots ;-) yep I never understand why they not worked the same. NCO, 360 everyone has a template - thats enough for nowadays purposes. Sometime I think CB puts something on a profile, to make it a bit more costly. BS-3 looks not necessary on them, but shotgun and SMG can make use of it at least. Maybe an long term oversight? Whats wrong with it? CD HMG under 60 pts with BS 14, ARM 6, 3 STR and an extra order - thats good.
Here are a few solutions: 1. Strengthen Ariadna. 2. Modify the Engineer skill so it must be used on Unconscious targets. This keeps things consistent as well. In reality, this is just like introducing Thunderbolt in N5—it simply adds finer nuance. There’s really no downside to bringing in this new weapon. This is the only unit change I actually agree with. The other units are honestly pretty good as they are—a simple point reduction would be enough to make them shine. The design of the Bokhtar is really slick; it can cover a wide variety of Classified Objectives without forcing you to field multiple different units just to meet your requirements. It sets itself apart clearly from elite heavy infantry in other high-tech factions. On top of that, its skill set is already packed—aside from a cost cut, I honestly don't think it needs any buff. As for the Shakush, it’s already super useful right now. Against units with ARM 6 or lower, its damage efficiency beats out AP. Against targets with ARM 3 or lower, it's almost twice as efficient as AP.
Honestly, they'll probably add the Spec OPS and that's it. Maybe some little tweaks here and there, but nothing impactfull PS: remember engineer skill can be used on non uncoscious troops to clean states from the models
We should also keep in mind that the Stunned State can be removed by a Doctor, and the target does not need to be Unconscious. This is also another inconsistency—thanks to CB once again for testing our knowledge of the rules.
Increase the cost of every flyer by at least 10 points. They won't. But they should. I'm tired of them trivializing list building, and I'm tired of what they do on the tabletop. The game would be better without them, but at least make them not a hard auto-take for their absurdly reduced costs.
On the Sekban, IMO, suffers from N4 medium Infantry issues and pale comparison to other available Haqqislam units, specifically in vanilla Haqqislam. NCO is a great rule, but you usually want to spend it on something that will be a spend it well, like utility or shooting. However, the Sekban is not a great shooter in comparison to other similar priced Vanilla Haqqislam options as it is single wound with no mods, especially compared to other linkable models. 2.5 shots with an HRL at BS 13, while cheap, does not feel reliable to utilze orders on. The RF pings off a lot of models, and if i wanted a linked RF I would pay the additional 7 points for Mukhtar which is a superior shooter who can smoke shoot and has NWI. For the Spitfire, I hold TacAware to be more consistently valuable than NCO so the Muyibs feels superior as a linkable gun with similar stats for some price difference. 4 points seems worth it for the ability to go dogged if the unfortunate happens, D-Charges for objectives, and a X-visor. Or I can go one point and 1.5 SWC cheaper than the Sekban and get the Odaliques Viral Marksman which has Marksmanship, DA ammo against organic targets, better templates weapons in two burst Pulzars and NWI. The current niche i find a use for them is the Sekban doctor. A NCO doctor is helpful as a linkable specialist or with a nasmat for healing. But the other profiles just don't feel worth the investment to me. On the Shakush, its ok. Just hard to recommend when I can take Jannisary HMG for 20 points cheaper. It is linkable, more likely to win the face to face roll with BS Attack (-3), and only S2. Its a similar issue with the AP Spitfire versus the Asawira.
The Thunderbolt is also a weapon that was not necessary. I would guess that at least 50 % of all TB in the game have B-modifier. Highlight here is Maximus "I am basicaly a HMG with better rangeband" Thunderbolt. The nuance for the TB is not worth the rules around it. You have no HMG? You have to go into 24 for your Spitfire, you can not walk unseen with your Combi? Take a TB! Before you had to dodge or spend a lot of orders to reach a better position, call in a combat jumper etc. Now we have a niche weapon, semi low burst HMG. Carbines and Rifles. The different here is the burst. And then we have troops with carbines and B+1 ... put them together. Infinity has already enough weapons. That is a general problem that will never be realy solved. There are too much profiles that differ in nuances. Mukthar is the best shooter here with MSV and mime. Also brings NWI and FD 4". Its most expensive of the three and the weapon is weaker. Sekban has up to two extra orders, has good arm and can not be shot in the back (with LoF block etc.). 6 pts cheaper then the muktar, no vis mods except 360. Vetran troop opens up for classifieds. Muyibs bring TA and no2 to the show. Dogged is a two sided thing. Situational useful. Shooting is a bit better vs Sekban bc of the x-visor for far targets. While having D-Chargs, Muyibs are one special trianed troops. So Sekban is cheapest and most order efficent. Muybis follow up with their TA on the SWC weapons. Mukthar are the best choice when you pick for shooty and surviablitiy. I still not see Sekban need a update desperatly. You can throw in Khawarijs, the AP-Spifre has the best damage potential, is the most expensive fromt these MIs but suffers from their CC abilitys on a more or less glass cannon. Movement on the other hand is superior.
Good discussion. Sekban is the cheapest, but I would not argue that they are the most order efficient. That only really happens if you pay the extra points for hafza +1 Lt order Lt. If you use any other Lt or the popular Saladin, that advantage decreases. I think you are correct, however, when you use them in QK, though. But in vanilla, there seems to be better options. On the classifieds, while elite is nice, Djanbazan or Mukhtar hackers are nearly as linkable and generally more survivable. Plus they both get the benefits of being a hacker. I really want to use Skeban as they got wonderful fluff, but I just get disappointed. I am also still sad that my HRL lost its assault pistol in the N3-N4 edition change. I love Khawarijis, but they are definitely a sometimes food and I feel that N5 has been their best iteration as they are an extremely fast glass hammer. The doctor is amazing at provisioning/supplies and the shooting profiles can do some awesome things. And the NCO can be used as a expensive, but decent, flyer hunter.
