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After a few games with BS Attack(Guided)...

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Ugin, Apr 18, 2021.

  1. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Alot of the things you are listing are basically "Hope you built your list with these or you fucking die." That's not good for the game, forcing ever more specific gear checks leads to list chicken and a heavily reduced amount of viable lists and profiles for factions.

    For example, new player in my area picked up Caledonia and has really taken a shine to Wallace. I haven't broken it to him yet but guided fire basically makes Wallace a dead profile, he has no reasonable way to defend himself against it.

    You are making the mistake of assuming that just because something has counters and can't always win a tournament, it must be balanced.

    That is not a good way to approach this at all. For example, any list that plays with guided fire will find the guided fire (and their hackers) next to useless against Shas camo spam, a faction that can easily and fairly flexibly have themselves a counter list built without even trying. That doesn't change the fact that other factions either straight up can't really build an effective counter, or have exceedingly limited options to do so such as JSA who can't even put a Tinbot in with their HI.

    The way in which guided fire (and hacking in general) impacts different factions is wildly unfair in balance right now. It heavily impacts some factions more than others, and not in a good "this is just variety" kind of way.
     
    #121 Triumph, May 3, 2021
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
  2. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    And also, Nomads are *so much* better at this guided BS than other factions that it's a notable asset they have that other factions don't, despite the otherwise sameification of a lot of the game's factions.
     
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  3. Hachiman Taro

    Hachiman Taro Inverted gadfly

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    CA are a lot better than Nomads at Impersonation assassins too. That's good at killing obvious Lts. That isn't balanced and heavily impacts different factions wildly differently, particularly Nomads with their usually obvious squishy Lts. Lets nerf that until it's ineffective while we are at it then.

    And hold on, some factions aren't as good vs TAGs which just got a lot better...

    JSA can Banzai charge (with an engineer in their HI link to heal hacks) with Oniwaban to open a hole and destroy an opponent before they act...

    We could get quite a list of horribly imba things that are wrecking the game if we tried. Especially if we ignore actual results in favour of anecdotes.
     
    #123 Hachiman Taro, May 3, 2021
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
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  4. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    I haven't seen that kill an obvious Lt in ages. If someone has an obvious Lt they deploy it far enough back in their deployment zone that an Impersonator has to chew through multiple things to get to it.

    >We could get quite a list of horribly imba things that are wrecking the game if we tried. Especially if we ignore actual results in favour of anecdotes.

    For me, it means that I can assume anything I put into the midfield that isn't in a marker state is going to get killed if my opponent wants to. It's a meta-defining ability, and even if it's not winning every game it's still constraining the game space dramatically. As a hypothetical example, a list could not be winning overmuch, but forcing *everyone* else to tailor their list to deal with it, as a meta-defining element. The argument is how closely the Guided stuff resembles that.
     
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  5. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    I'd contend this point slightly - I'd put Nomads and CA on very near equivalent tier here. I've played both in events recently with similar-ish list archetypes and in each case I've had games that I had to scrape out with guided strikes after plans A and B went belly-up somehow. Nomads have more mobile native repeaters and actually viable direct forward observers, but Combined pay a lower overhead for their pitchers and have higher WIP spotlights.

    There are also a few NA2 factions within spitting distance of the guided top spot thanks to linked pitchers and WIP14-15 hackers but it tends to be more challenging for them to afford the SWC and group slot investment and they have other tools to do the work, so there's less incentive for them to include those elements. But if e.g. white co wanted to play a guided game they absolutely could, very nearly as well as nomads.
     
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  6. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Thinking about it a bit more over lunch I'd also say vanilla Haqq can weave a guided strategy into their lists very well - although as with all Haqq hacking, it's more 'very good for cost' than it is very good in absolute terms. But you don't get much better buy-in to the hacking game in terms of bang for buck than a pair of barids and a shaytiniyah remote.
     
  7. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    DBS does it with very little opportunity cost and are about as good as Nomads and CA at pulling it off.
     
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  8. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Ayup. Historical inertia compels me to grimace at the idea of Druze being good at anything but they do undeniably have a plethora of linkable pitchers (including with X-Visors), passable hackers, the cheapest guided missile remote, skirmishers with deployable repeaters, and a peacemaker to top it all off.
     
    #128 RobertShepherd, May 3, 2021
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
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  9. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    They have WIP13 Isolation immune hackers that have a reasonable BTS value. That's higher than passable.
     
  10. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    Druze actually ran REM-heavy lists in N3 quite well, and they weren't as bad as people say.
     
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  11. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    DBS don't have much in the way of good gunfighters for low swc. I find swc runs high in many lists. So the SWC cost is actually a pretty high opportunity cost.

    So they can pull it off and I often do include guided (even though it makes me feel dirty). But I find the cost to the rest of the list higher than I have in combined or nomads..
     
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  12. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Druze has a surprisingly good toolset for this because they both have pitchers and can link their Guided REM so they can Move-Guided their specialists up the table if given a chance.
    That's a very weak tactic to be classed as "horribly imba" right there ;)

    --

    I'm not saying there aren't counters to the tactic, I'm saying that
    a) the tactic is fairly universally useful and comparatively risk free
    and
    b) the counters are too costly and risky, and some are faction-dependent.

    It isn't that you can't stick a KHD in IMP state next to your LT or in the middle of the link, it is that an IMP KHD can't be part of the link, has a minimum price that's quite high to just babysit a unit passively and needs to be positioned quite well to prevent the splash - making the tactic horribly order inefficient and highly terrain dependent, not to mention requiring you to go first.
    It isn't that you can't use an Engineer to clear the state, it's that putting the state on your trooper in the first place in ARO is quite cheap given that the enemy hacker will be using an attack vector in which your trooper can't retaliate against. It's also that your Engineer needs to spend a short skill and succeed a WIP roll to clear it, most likely using the other part of the order to cluster up, after spending orders getting out of the zone of control that allowed the hacker to put the state there in the first place.
    It's not that Firewalls don't work against it, it's that only half of the Firewall's protective effect works against it, that the presence of firewalls on the units that really need them tends to depend on playing the sectorials that can link them, and that Firewalls are always tied to units that are susceptible to the broader arsenal of hacking.

    The bottom line is not the lack of counter-play, it's that the counter-play isn't effective enough or that the tactic is too universal or that the problem being mostly confined to a smaller set of factions become too good. You can tweak any and several factors of this equation; nerf pitchers, remove Guided from factions with pitchers, nerf Spotlight, nerf Targeted, re-introduce guided-specific hacks, nerf hacking through repeaters, seriously buff deactivator, nerf Guided etc.

    And as I've written before, there's only a few factions with the tools good enough to make this become an issue. Removing Guided from Vertigo and T-Drone, for example, would go a long way to reduce the most abusive part of the tactic. IMO, Guided isn't nearly strong enough for factions that can't toss pitchers around to be an issue.
     
  13. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Spread out: eat the 5 hits, pray the marked units survive or are not critical at all
    Marker states: not all units have it. Not all factions can. And the KHD require an order to go camo, becoming unable to protect key assets if they ARO to kill enemy hackers, or to stop enemy hackers if they are on "umbrella duty". Aside from not all factions being able to place several on the list.
    ECM Guided is only present on TAGs.
    No model can survive 100% for sure against an EXP+AP hit, specially since you may need to survive 3 or 4 (if crit) hits of STR 15 without cover bonus to ARM (meaning ARM 5 has a 50% per dice to take a wound).
    Having multiple threats with redundancy is great and all. But you know how is that called? Spam. We've been reduced to 15 troops at most in N4, so it's not as easy. And the ease of HI and TAG into the game thanks to points discounts means the opponent can have 1-2 "cheap" pointmen with high ARM (let's say Brigada) and simply blow your AP troops.

    I fail to see your argument "there are enough counters" as a convincing one. And consider that Speculative shots are still not limited, like guided (I would have preferred for both to share the 5 order limit, frankly. If I deploy my models is to use them, not to spend my turn suffering a Spice Girls hit).

    For a lot of nomad lists, the only cost is +16pts & 1.5SWC for the ML bot... and you get a regular order too.

    Uh... CA has only 2 pitchers (Bit & Kiss, BS 11 each, and Kerr Nau, BS 12 who links in Onyx), aside from that, they have the deployable repeater of Bit & Kiss, and the standard remote repeaters (the difference being that the Baggage bots are S2 15-5 pyros, of course).
    Nomads has... 6 pitcher options (Corregidor "only" has the autoinclude Jazz, Tunguska has Mary Problems and a Hollow Man profile) but one is the x-visor Tsykons (BS 12 remote Wildcard in all sectorials, so it can fire 2 pitchers in a single order at BS15) => up to 60cm (24') with no range penalty, or up to 100cm (40') at -3.

    It's a little like in CA (they can compensate "lower" ceiling WP with more numbers), because the Barids won't link, but the Druze can really bore your opponent between the pitcher (with X-visor and BS12) and the E/M grenade launcher.


    In DBS they can have a "hidden Core" with 2 hackers, the ML remote, an EM grenade launcher and 2 other units for extra compactness, yeah. However, it is a deliberate list choice, while Nomads mostly add the ML bot and that's it.

    The investment, even if you don't have the chance to use the combo because your opponent is careful to stay the hell out of yout Hacking Area, is minimal in orders to deny the enemy position, with a heavy weapon (EXP+AP) on a cheap but hard to definitely remove (16-18pts remote with 2 KO states), and for some factions it's not even a big deviation from their usual lists (which I think is the main problem).

    A "hard limit" would be to forbid more than 1 missile per marked target per turn, meaning lone units would need to survive only 1 attack, while linked ones would see the enemy hackers spreading the marker state instead of trying to secure one marked to counter the whole link.
    Making the Marked State to be "consumed" after each Guided Attack could be another solution.
     
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  14. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Not really sure what your point is here - do you regularly include four or more pitchers in a list? I've found that adequate coverage for more lists is one to two good quality pitcher or pitcher-equivalents (e.g. fastpanda), plus native repeaters on troops where practical. More than that and you're at risk of over-investing, less and you're a little too susceptible to failure or scalpeling.

    When you drill down into the comparison, Combined Army might have fewer pitcher options than Nomads but nothing in vanilla nomads and only their core linked options in sectorials can outperform Bit&Kiss in terms of establishing a repeater network - and even then it's close; the Tsyklon only outperforms in absolute terms, not for points cost or per-troop-slot, and a model like Jazz is really in a very similar ballpark if you want to extend your network beyond one offensive location. The fact that B&K carry potentially ten separate repeaters on them before either of them needs to reload, and both can be put in a marker state to advance upfield, really makes them pretty unparalleled outside of a slim few competitors.

    Basically, I'd argue that Combined Army have the high watermark piece for cost- and troop-efficiently establishing an offensive network, whereas Nomads have the highest performance in absolute terms. The number of options isn't really a germane consideration after that - if you have the best of something, who cares who has the fifth- and sixth-best?



    FYI Kiss is BS10, not BS11 - but is burst 2.
    Edit: no he isn't, I'm totally wrong. Whoops! I played five rounds of RAL playing it with lower BS.
     
    #134 RobertShepherd, May 3, 2021
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
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  15. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    They're both BS 11 as of N4. The REM got bumped up.
    The 3D TTS miniatures have the incorrect value last I checked, if you're a TTS user.
     
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  16. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    I'd definitely rank Druze near the top of the list. Linkable x-visor Pitchers, Hunzakuts, and linkable Guided bot. The significance of the linkable bot is that the tactic doesn't cost any of your 15 slots - the bot replaces one of your link filler pieces.

    HB is up there as well - we get linkable Barids, and are probably taking at least the KHD anyway because his upgrade program is so good. And the link they're in probably already contains Yara who improves the pitchers' rangebands with Strategic Deployment. And we don't usually max out SWC so the guided bot's cost is less important. I do feel the loss of 1/15 slots to the bot, though.

    CA for sure, for the reasons @RobertShepherd has already discussed.

    Nomads do it well, of course, but I wouldn't put them in the top tier. Corregidor I guess does it best with Jazz's linked pitcher. Bakunin has linked Moderators but, BS10. Nomads' other linked pitcher options are all expensive, which is fine but doesn't compare well to factions that get linked pitchers basically for free. Morans can walk up, but have no marker state and cost more orders than a pitcher. All perfectly good options, just not as good as Druze, HB, or CA.

    Where Nomads stand out is in their defensive hacking network - anyone who walks into their half of the board is going to get missiled on the Nomads' next turn unless they do something about it. That's a separate capability from active-turn guided assassination, though.
     
  17. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Aha! Yes, I've been fooled by TTS, although I suspect that's an N3 artefact in my own brain as well, but either way I'll take a buff to my most used unit. Thanks :)

    (Also I meant kiss, not bit, but still - wrong either way.)
     
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  18. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Not really, the Haqq/DBS list needs to be built around the Druze with pitchers, the Nomad list only needs to add a Tsyklon to any Core (which are quite good ARO pieces, hard to remove from the table, and the 360ยบ visor they also have means the opponent needs to dealt with them for safe landing of his DA troopers, be it jumpers, parachutists, or the dreaded parachutists that can enter from any side, like the Mirage-5). For Pitcher spam, the Moderators (at 10pts each) are the best option, but as you say it would be overkill.

    Moving standard repeaters is not as efficient (aside from the infiltrating/DA ones, like the Zero, the panda heckler, the noncamo Moran, or the hellcat/tomcat profiles, etc...) since the strength of the missile spam strategy is not limited to rain 5 missiles per turn on the enemy troops, but to force the opponent into a string of bad choices: sacrifice a piece to remove the pitcher while spending more orders than you did setting it up (revealing an infiltrator, exposing a cheerleader, etc...), be marked, avoid that pitcher's ZoC, etc...
    In fact, if you can force your opponent to spend 6+ orders just avoiding your ARO spotlights, it doesn't matter if he succeeded and you were unable to Mark any enemy troop, you are winning the order economy game (which was not present in N3 because of non being able to mark as an ARO).

    Also, Nomads have the biggest amount of repeaters (deployable or not) of any faction (in fact, repeaters, deployable repeaters and pitchers), bot in AVA and variety...

    In sheer burst, yeah, since you can fire 3 pitchers (choosing the KHD Bit) in a single order, but all three at BS11 and no Xvisor, meaning they can "safely" attempt to place the pitchers midfield. So the enemy can do a move+shoot with some ease.
    A single Tsyklon can do so at the enemy deployment zone, meaning activating the Core there would avail full marks. And can use Climbing Plus to boot...

    Also, a linked tsyklon can deploy 2 pitchers, then recharge. Bit & Kiss would need a recharge after each volley (since KISS gets unloaded every time, and a Baggage can only reload a single model inside his ZoC), so their "efficiency" is in truth 1/6th or so over the Tsyklon.

    Bottom line: it's not that other factions have no options in this strategy, but that Nomads dominate it with ease and without any kind of heavy sacrifice.

    I'd try to place the missile bot in the 2nd group, since I intend to burn his orders (with some secondary pieces too, ofc), so I don't impede my main group, but it's not easy to.

    I would, not because of sheer power (but the Interventors are among the most efficient hacking troops, albeit fully focused there), but efficiency. The point is, sure, you pay 30+pts for a Tsyklon, or 44 for a Vostok, but you have 18pts WIP18 clockmakers to raise the ARO remotes, all have repeaters, and they top it off with easy access to hackers (but O12 has the cheapers hacker of all thanks to the SMG aberration).

    Sure, CA & Aleph place high quality hackers that also shoot well (or are close to an interventor's level of specialization/efficiency, at least), but they are limited in their Repeater (and derivates) net options, and more importantly, Nomads can do it with all three sectorials and vanilla. CA can only do so with Onyx and Vanilla, and Aleph with Vanilla (thanks to Tamirys and Scylla) and, to a lesser degree, OSS (where the only pitcher is in the BS11 Danavas), and Aleph has the minimum amount of repeaters (common bots) plus the Rudras...
     
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  19. Hachiman Taro

    Hachiman Taro Inverted gadfly

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    Yeah, ignore wildcard linked in sectorial Tsyklon BS15 Xvisor that gets buffed 2 different ways by an EVO at your peril in a comparison of active pitcher delivery.

    Its not cheap but damn is it dangerous (in concert with good hackers and a guided bot and already mentioned EVO) to enemy keystone pieces if it gets to go first.
     
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  20. fatherboxx

    fatherboxx Mission control, I'm coming home.

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    Why would you pick Tsyklon in N4 when Vostok exists and every sectorial has better wildcard ARO and Attack pieces
     
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