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Command Token Strategic Use Suggestion

Discussion in 'Rules' started by Diphoration, Sep 22, 2022.

  1. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    Greetings!

    I have a suggestion for a Strategic Use of Command Token that I think would be interesting, fix some perceived balance issues and bring back some mechanics stuff that people enjoyed.

    Allow the player to Activate a single Trooper (no fireteam, no coorrdinated order) and perform one Order of their choice, without the possibility to Target an Opponent. This Order does not trigger any ARO (or maybe it does?).

    What would this allow?
    • Put a Trooper in Suppressive Fire (we already have that one, it's the baseline, we're expanding on this)
    • Move a Trooper into a better position (either to have better ARO, or to body block a path)
    • Throw a Smoke Grenade
    • Place down a Mine
    • Put a KHD into Cybermask (This would give a very strong Guided Strat counterplay, both because the KHD is in marker state to threaten the enemy, but also because the KHD can stay near your most valuable trooper and prevent the templates)
    • Activate a EVO Hacker supportware (finally bring back that feature)
    I think these would be powerful enough that they could be interesting, but not overwhelming (you're basically letting the opponent have 2 more orders if you do that instead if stripping orders).

    They would offer a much higher skill ceiling than the alternarive use of command tokens and would make going second in a alpha-heavy meta a lot more appealing. (Especially with the new ITS giving multiple extra orders that stack in the same group)

    Let me know what you think!
     
    #1 Diphoration, Sep 22, 2022
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2022
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  2. burlesford

    burlesford Sheet guy

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    I love this idea.
     
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  3. tox

    tox SorriBarai
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    Move an infiltrating unit and activate a Consolle or Scenario element
    Move a Fireteam
    Drop a Repeater in your face
    Drop a Mine

    There are A LOT of things that feels an abuse in that... And I don't even thing through it...

    Maybe we should limit to a single model (and peripheral) and no Attack at all.
     
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  4. anubis

    anubis sarcastic exaggerator

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    Although i realy like the idea @Diphoration had i also see a lot options of "abuse".
    Preventing the movement of a whole fireteam to a single Unit sounds like a necessary restriction, also maybe like "you are not allowed to place deployable equiptment in trigger area/ZoC" like it works vs. markerstate.

    I wouldnt completly negate the option of placing mines/repeaters, but i think it must be limited in some way.
    Also no hitting buttons or doing objectives with that order. Otherwise we have this "No interactive gameplay" all over again
     
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  5. Rabble

    Rabble Well-Known Member

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    Activate a SupportWare, I like this option. You would see more EVOs around, and the R2 supportware being in use at reactive.
    Put a KHD in Cybermask. The only reason I think this is fine is only to allow a counterplay to the Pitcher/FastPanda + Spotlight + Guided Missile extremely boring tactic.

    Personally I think that any kind of movement is a big NO NO NO.

    Throwing smoke, place a mine, place a deployable... NO NO NO. Every one of these is abusable. For example, do you think it is healthty to face a linked Haris Epsilon with MSV2 and MSR that have a neat smoke template on him with no counterplay from your part? Or having a BSG/Zapper infiltrator with any kind of deployable putting you into a bad fork thanks to his new 'unexpected minelayer'?
     
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  6. Alithear

    Alithear Member

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    This proposition look totaly unbalance. If you can move something with command token you need to rework all lieutnant from all faction.
     
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  7. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    Is this an issue? This favour the mission over shooting, forces the first player to go re-activate console in case of end of turn scoring (which mitigates the alpha). But the active player also has 2 extra orders (because you didn't strip order) to re-do the console. I highly doubt a button will cost them more than 2 orders.

    (Not only that, but it reveals your camo infiltrator to be an easy kill, I think this would be a very poor play)

    This was not part of the proposition, sorry if the intention wasn't clear. I mean it to work like how Suppressive Fire work with a Command Token now. Only a Single Trooper.

    How many net negative orders does this mean for the active player? 1? 2? Maaaybe 3?

    If it's 1 or 2, this is worst than stripping 2 orders. If this is 3, it means they succeeded in gaining a little bit more value by having the appropriate tools. I think it's a lot more interesting than "remove 2 orders".

    The Repeater or the Mine would also obviously reveal whoever placed it, making it a much easier kill (probably takes at least 1 order less to kill for the Active Player, because they lost marker state. So the total net negative order is probably closer to 1 or 2 than to 3.)

    Could you elaborate?
     
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  8. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    The order could also trigger ARO. (Still with no possibility to target an opponent during that bonus order).

    So it allows for more counterplay.
     
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  9. kinginyellow

    kinginyellow Well-Known Member

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    I like a regular order but cannot target an enemy model and cannot end in engaged state with an enemy model. No aros are permitted.

    That would be a strong boon to defensive tricks but can't actively hurt anyone.
     
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  10. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    No, I think this must come at the price of AROs if you're leaving the door wide open to just about anything. While limiting it to the second player only does cut down slightly on the Impersonator abuse, there's a few units with (Viral or Monofilament) mines that are really potent that are kept in check because they don't have Minelayer.
    No ARO should be movement only if so, with other skills cherry picked similar to Suppression Fire

    It'd have been exciting to see what sort of shenaniganery could've upset games if you allowed just a free order with no limits attached out of sequence, but due to how melee works by being really really certain outcomes on the units that are charged more than a Hacking Device amounts for it and how often good melee skills are found on units that can deploy across the mid-field, that's really not a good idea.
    (Though, other than Jaan, the worst of this could be limited by denying Markers from being used in this way.)
     
  11. Vaulsc

    Vaulsc Well-Known Member

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    @Diphoration When we talked about this on discord I was under the impression that the proposal was to allow the unit to move without provoking AROs, but not actually take an action. That would be my preferred version of it because it gives the reactive player that extra bit of agency to improve their position before they defend against a whole alpha strike. Having an action makes it more likely to spike in usability for certain tactics.

    You're right in pointing out that it creates a thoughtful decision where the downside is allowing the enemy two extra orders.

    Rather than building this into the core rules though, I think the move is to include it in a custom mission (which I plan to do in future) as a way of building up community comfort and familiarity with it. I do think the concept will catch on.
     
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  12. Jumara

    Jumara Well-Known Member

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    I do quite like the Idea.
    I would allow all non-targeting and also deployables but only if there is no Enemy model in the trigger range. I would allow Dep. Repeaters cause they deal no damage but that could be too much.
     
  13. Rejnhard

    Rejnhard Well-Known Member

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    I like that but I think that situations were that would be better than removing 2 or even just one order from an opponent would be very limited.
    I don't know bout you guys, but I stubbornly tried to make strategic use suppressive fire work, but I always came away wishing I removed order(s) instead. (maybe I'm just weak at this game)
    How about merging two things?

    Strategic Use - you can put one trooper in SF *and* you can move one trooper (not into engaged). This can be, but doesn't have to be the same trooper.

    Personally I think it would start coming close in power to order removal.
    ...actually I might try it as a house rule.
     
    #13 Rejnhard, Sep 22, 2022
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2022
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  14. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    I've considered Suppressive Fire exactly once, versus Nomad (because of counterintelligence). I'm thinking that with at least a very wide array of options, at least one oughta be interesting once in a while.

    But I still agree that stripping 2 orders would probably be better the vast majority of the time.
     
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  15. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    If the Suppressive Fire strategic use was either:
    a) A coordinated order so that you can put up to four troopers in it
    or
    b) Tactical use so that it isn't mutually exclusive to removing orders.
    I think it'd be used more often

    The option to limit CT use is equally anaemic; it's basically only decent versus vanilla in Biotechvore. In other missions it'd have to at the very least prevent command token use completely during the first turn, possibly even to pre-empt the reserve unit usage.

    Activating Minelayer skill an extra time could be an interesting use of Strategic use, btw. It's not good for most minelayers, but there's a bunch of minelayers that you go out of your way to deploy and it might be enough on those.

    Equally, deploying a unit with an Airborne Deployment skill could also be an interesting use of Strategic use for the player going second.
     
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  16. Savnock

    Savnock Nerfherder

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    @Diphoration the individual measures you list are great- they would rebalance the game to make alpha strikes way less frequent.

    But there’s no need to allow an order to allow most of these. (Agreed with others here, allowing a pregame order is way too hard to contain the consequences/interactions on: definitely going to lead to exploits/unfortunate interactions).

    Instead just expand the options for Strategic or Tactical Use of Command tokens to include a few more well-limited options (ie not movement) from among those you listed.

    This could easily be done with either a custom mission as @Vaulsc suggests, or better yet “special terrain rules” that happen to apply to every table at an event.

    These ones are good:

    Also good:

    Given how limited all of these options are, use of up to two tokens seems balanced.

    Two troops in Supp Fire? Two more mines/deployables? Starting with 2 EVO programs running? All seem about right, not super useful offensively (saving an order at most) but a big measure to blunt a runaway alpha strike.
     
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  17. Alithear

    Alithear Member

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    Could you elaborate?

    The most valuable ressource in this game is order. If you can move with command token you create a new masked order.
    And if you creat new masked order you need to rebalance all lieutnant from all faction because you will creat a new asymetry between faction with lieutnant with more command token and the other. And at the actual states of the metas faction that are good have +1 command toakn lieutnant option ... (ghulan, avatar, etc) and other more difficult faction have not...

    And in other things.You will provoque 2 concequences in my point of view. In stastistic it's always more valuable to agress during your turn to defend. Defense in this game is not suppose to win against active player. Your just suppose to gain time. If you can move with command token you will never see anymore command token use for defense. It will be always more valuable to use it in active turn.
    The second one is explained previously yet.
     
  18. Savnock

    Savnock Nerfherder

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    Could you name which ones please? I really can’t think of any that would be overpowerful, especially when facing nasty alpha strikes.
     
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  19. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Primarily thinking about Nagas here, but sticking a(n extra) Shock Mine next to a Fireteam with Speculo or Jaan at no risk of ARO can be worth a lot more than just two orders. On a slightly less devastating note, we do have a bunch of non-Marker skirmishers of high value who would typically be locked down quite hard by a Shock/Viral/Cyber Mine deployed next to them without them being able to correct their positions through ARO.
     
  20. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
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    I think as the first player, I'd much rather face a revealed Jaan, Speculo, Impersonator with a Mine than one who's still in marker state.

    A mine is guaranteed to be cleared in an order, and it will be placed right next to the model, so any disposable template trooper can clear both at the same time.

    Not only will the player have 2 extra orders (from not being stripped), but they'll deal with the impersonator in less orders as well.

    Though allowing the first player to ARO would make sure that these situation are kept in check even more.
     
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