I played a game of Deadly Dance yesterday and brought two Yuan Dun lists. While a Hsien in a 5-man link is very, very, powerful, I am left wondering a few things regarding how skewed prices become when normal list building assumptions are thrown out. I saw little need to hand over a courtesy list and just gave my opponent a list of my models with LT, COC, and everything showing. How much would you say a hidden/unknown LT is worth? How much is a customized list worth? How much are the, sometimes weird, special fireteams in CBLs worth? I am left in a bit of a limbo that the CBL isn't quite how I'd construct it (it was missing key features and as such have some very strong drawbacks built in), it was aggressively very powerful even against an opponent who only deployed 3 camo tokens, 2 TR REMs and an obvious mine. Once I got to an entrenched position in my opponent's DZ it also started acting well defensively. I guess what I'm asking is "Should CBLs cheat more than they do?"
I'd say yes, they should. I mean, anyone can (and I assume has) read them and know what is the by-rules Hidden Info.
I haven't run a CBL but played against a player in a tourney recently. It came up at the beginning, "Hey, which list are you running?" He said, "List _, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't look at it." No problem man! I didn't remember what was in the list, or who the LT was, so we still had a legit game. If someone wants to spend their free time memorizing CBLs, then more power to them I guess?
To me Hidden Information is worth very little. Mainly because I don't hide anything from my opponent (and usually play a variation of the same list). I'm never interested in decapitating my opponent's list (blame the 80's Cartoons "Heroic Honor Code" of "fighting fair and square and not kicking when they're down"). And I really enjoy when my opponents fight with full power. So if I get to play against a CBL (I've never had the experience) I wouldn't even ask for a Courtesy list. A rundown of what open info I should know of each unit and we're golden. But that's just me.
@TriggerPuller9000 @Danger Rose This isn't a thread about whether to look at the YuanDun PDF or whether to read through the ITS Season 9 document, since that is adamantly the case. However, how much value do you consider this represents and how much value do you think locking yourself to a selection of 5 lists that aren't designed to your playstyle or the scenarios in question represents? I really do not consider making yourself knowledgable about the options an opponent has for list building to be against sportsmanship, by the way, so I really don't understand why reading the CBLs would be against a heroic code of honour. To me, that's like insisting not to know the equipment or statline of a Hsien, and while your opponent is probably trustworthy enough to not play him with the wrong stuff, you're still going to make the wrong moves by intentionally ignoring information open to you.
I think the CBL would have been far more interesting before NA2, which ratcheted up brittle mixed links to a level we haven't seen in the game before. With the likes of StarCo and Ikari, I think the Yuandun lists are a bit less novel or engaging than they would have been, say, 12 months ago. Regarding Hidden Information and an opponent knowing the identity of your LT: honestly, I'm more likely to know who an opponent's LT is in a standard list, compared to a CBL. I don't have every CBL memorized, so I'm probably guessing who is who as far as LT is concerned. That's very different than being able to narrow LT candidates down to 2 or 3 choices in a standard game. As for someone looking up your CBL when you're both at the table... That's purely an etiquette question, and that's for every meta and individual to discuss among themselves.
@Mahtamori what I wrote about the 80's Cartoon Code of Honor was not meant to be taken as a positive. As a matter of fact, by stating that it came from Saturday Morning Cartoons I'm admitting the childishness of my position. What I was trying to do was explaining why, to me, the answer to the Thread Title is: Nothing Because on that same note, I don't see how CBL "cheat"
They don't. Mostly. They mostly just add some non-standard links (how about a Hsien linked with a couple of Wu Ming, a Zhanying and a Crane?) or non-standard profiles (said Crane is LT and Assault Hacker). Occasionally they also reduce the SWC cost of some units (3 of the YuanDun lists have units with lower SWC than their ISS/Aleph counterparts, effectively making them 6.5 SWC lists) Point is, given what a CBL gives up, should those "cheats" be stronger, and in what way? Maybe a full SWC? Maybe more profiles that just doesn't exist? Maybe you'd consider a CB-made list at 350/7 with CBL restrictions to be on par with your average custom made 300/6 tournament list, just because of the innate disadvantage? Maybe nothing because they're meant to be "hard mode"? What would you say CB should take from this latest round of CBL when designing the next set to make them more fun to play with and against, and competitively? (And for the haters out there; "they suck" isn't feedback)
Oh! I got it! Well that would make it tricky if they want to make them potential lists for the Sectorials to come. However, giving them more leniency in SWC, Link Team Composition and AVA would be a great way to attract more players into CBLs. Especially if they remain CBL even after the Sectorials come out. That would make the CBLs more competitive and make up for the openness of their information.
Oh, I forgot to add, my favourite part of the YuanDun List D: 8-point Baggage REM with Flash Pulse and Heavy Pistol pro bono - though I'm hoping this'll get standardised.
The first thing CB should do is hand the CBL design task to a hypercompetitive player (ideally the same guy whose playtest job is to break the game), not a fluff bunny. Write fluff for the lists after they're put together. I think that if the lists were fully optimized for competition and still had their unique units and links, that would probably be enough to make up for the fact that everyone has the ability to know who the LT is, or if there's a Hidden Ninja.
Is it really? I think that punishing someone for knowing the CBL would be poor form on the part of a TO, but the mere fact that there's ambiguity on this point is a fail on CB's part.
Some players frown on using Army as a game play aid. The same, I assume, would apply to opening up the CBL PDFs during deployment to view your opponent's list. I personally don't agree with that standpoint, because I don't think you can (or should) police how someone uses publicly available resources. I think that if you are playing a CBL, you simply have to accept that you're using a list that's common knowledge. It's part of the deal. And just as a veteran might memorize the contents of Army to deduce who their opponent's LT is, I'm not opposed to a new player trying to put himself on comparable footing. As for this issue being CB's fault, I don't really have an opinion on that one way or another. I'm more interested in playing the game, less interested in having CB hold my hand through issues of morality and pragmatism.
@barakiel Its not a matter of hand holding, it's a matter of them being the only ones with the authority to say one way or another.
How would you police such a rule? How would you enforce it? How do you tell the difference between a player who is rebuilding your list, checking stats for his own army, or text messaging his wife? Do you verbally challenge them? Ask for proof? Notify the TO that you think someone is using Army or a PDF without your permission? What if I'm teaching a new player and I give them permission to check any profile they like? What if my opponent claims that his Have Tao missile also had a light shotgun, and I'd like to fact check him on that because I think he may be in error? Would I be cheating for trying to verify data that simply stems from human error? When you try and police how and when players access publicly available tools, you create a slippery slope, one whose nuances can't be addressed by a blanket ruling. I'm glad CB isn't trying to govern how players resolve these issues of etiquette. I just don't think they qualify as game rules.
I think you misunderstand me. I agree that putting a ban on, say, accessing Army during the course of a game is unworkable. I'm very much of the opinion that all of the tools that are publicly available should be available to a player during a game (as long as they don't hold play up). It's an issue, though, that some people think that those tools *shouldn't* be available, and are interested in penalizing players in tournament play for accessing them. That kind of ambiguity in terms of rules should be avoided, I think, with a clear statement from CB.
@HellLois took responsibility for Yuandun in his White Noise interview, and said Blizzard Force was very much fluff focused and this was a mistake for something focused on ITS (that's me paraphrasing, though)
They should just use whatever Tohaa fanboy on the design team made Sukeuls and the N3 incarnation of SymbioMates.
I should note that I'm all for CB writing up alternate army lists that give different link options if there's an easy way to add things in Army to support that. Say, a non-ITS mode, with a couple option-boxes below that for CBL-like setups with alternate link options or units. Or, hell, just a whole set of CBLs that are scored from "fluffy" to "hypercompetitive".
