Those really don’t seem that bad to me, as the active player. You may have to develop another piece for 2-3 orders (or even less with an impetuous warband, cheap bike, etc.) to remove the mine risk free, but it’s easily doable. The current boosts to FO-bots with deactivators/Marksmanship shooting make it even easier (also helps make them a soft counter to repeater networks). As the active player you could also just go for a Dodge on the active trooper to escape those deployables, for a moderate amount of risk but not even losing much movement (I do love N4 dodge!). It’s quite fair that cybermines, viral mines, etc. will still leave a bit of a shell game there for the escaping model. IMO this is a totally fair tradeoff for a very useful Command Token, and for the opportunity cost of not doing other Strategic Use (that opportunity coat being mainly if you are playing with only one token Strategic Use: I think the game would be better balanced against alphas if it allowed 2 uses, maybe with the second use costing 2 tokens). Allowing the defending player to inflict a cost of orders or moderate risk on the active player, to blunt alpha strikes, is a very important element of what has made N3 and N4 more balanced than N2. N2 which was a brutal alpha game that didn’t really work. But it’s clear from player feedback that N4’s growth of high-mobility pieces and repeater networks has made alphas even nastier, so they need stronger countermeasures. Expanding Strategic and Tactical uses of Command Tokens to have more options is the solution there, and currently much needed. I would recommend we go further and allow two opportunities for Command Tokens to be spent this way, with the second one costing two tokens due to the possibility of more synergies. @Vaulsc I would be very interested in helping you out with that mission rules design, if you would like a hand. This is something I’ve been interested in since N2. I’ve got some ideas for implementation and balance that might be useful in your own efforts.
Since when did you start putting Jaan on table without Pokemons? :p Depends on what and where you put it. Some troopers are very bad at dodging, particularly when they get -3 on the roll, but also when there's 3+ units all reasonably important that need to make the dodge... I don't think we should attribute that much value to a Command Token itself, it is rather the opportunity cost of choosing one catch up mechanic over another as this is where Command Tokens are the most powerful. That said, keep in mind that you're not going to have a "risk free" method of removing these mines because most "risk free" methods are fairly well telegraphed and your opponent wouldn't spend a command token placing mines like that when they see your troopers positioned for easy mine clearing - unless you're facing CA in which case Taighas still aren't all that expensive and they're probably running a Mentor anyway so... eh. While I have little love for Impersonation as a mechanic, I just don't think the majority of the cases will be people properly boxing in Impersonators using orders like this. More likely, if it works well, it's going to make good harassment units better at harassing - which is why I'd rather see more... bulk use of specific defensive skills like Suppression Fire and Fairy Dust rather than uncontrolled blanket allowances.
