I played a hideous hodgepodge of N3 and N4 so you don't have to (but could if you wanted)

Something I've been interested in doing for a little while is play a game of what I'm going to tentatively call 'N3.5', which is N3 but using some of the rules and changes that are coming in N4. Obviously this is all a considerable approximation.

I lined up a game on Tabletop Simulator this evening with the awesome Jedkar from the United Kingdom. We played the the following rules changes:

• Crits: as noted in the recent videos. Where special ammunition was in play, we just rolled one more save than normal, e.g. a crit from a DA weapon would cause three saves, not four.
• Heavy Infantry: all heavy infantry was 6-2 MOV.
• Medium Infantry: all medium infantry was 4-4 MOV.
• Active turn dodges: during active turn, dodges behave identically to dodges in ARO.
• Shotguns: I had some models with shotguns but they never fired a shot in anger.

Jedkar played JSA:

JSA 2.0
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GROUP 1 9 1 1
SHIKAMI Contender, Nimbus Grenades / Assault Pistol, DA CCW, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 45)
KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 43)
YOJIMBO Contender, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 21)
KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17)
OYAMA Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, AP CCW, EXP CCW. (0 | 28)
KEISOTSU Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)

GROUP 2 4 1
NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)
RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
WARCOR (Sixth Sense L1) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)
PANGGULING (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army


I played Combined Army:

Country and western
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GROUP 1 9 1
CHARONTID Lieutenant (Multispectral Visor L3) HMG, Nanopulser / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 79)
Q-DRONE HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26)
SHESKIIN Red Fury, Pulzar, D-Charges / Pistol, DA CCW. (1 | 54)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)

GROUP 2 4 1 3
DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14)
DĀTURAZI Chain Rifle, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 14)
TAIGHA Chain-colt / AP + Shock CCW. (0 | 5)
VICTOR MESSER (Hacking Device Plus) Boarding Shotgun, 2 Nanopulser, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 28)
MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID (Journalist L1) Submachine Gun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

5.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army


We played Decapitation on the default Tabletop Simulator infinity map. If I'd been thinking about it, I could have taken some screenshots. Maybe next time!

I won the roll and went first; from here on out I'm not going to blow-by-blow, but will instead focus on what about the changes were different or interesting.


Combined Turn One

My first turn went heavy with the Charontid and Sheshkiin moving up the left flank. The Charontid had a very high position on an office block which, after four failed smoke grenade throws before the fifth managed to land it to cover him, the Charontid opened up on the exposed Ryuken and a linked Keisotsu who hadn't seen shots from the high angle coming. A couple orders later the Ryuken managed to get back into cover but the Keistosu was gunned down.

The first notable effect of the new rules came into play as Sheshkiin moved up to engage the Ryuken, passing through LOF of the Karakuri en route. After some tricky engagements she was able to drop the Karakuri dogged (and herself get prone out of LOF of it) but it took multiple hits and if I hadn't caught the Karakuri from a good flanking angle out of cover I doubt I'd have taken it down; Sheshkiin's usual slew of crits was much less effective when it's just causing extra DAM14 hits against a BTS6 total immune model in cover.

I believe there has been commentary from CB that Fatality L2 is changing in N4, but even as is in N3, it's definite wind out of her sails against a lot of her usual targets.

That said, an interesting interaction arose when Sheshkiin closed into CC with the Ryuken. In an ideal world she might have crit here and forced two BTS rolls and so gained two Protheion wounds – she didn't, and had to coup de grace to get to full bottle, but it's an interesting possible positive from the change for a few CC models, which otherwise I lightly expect will not much like the new crit rules (e.g. plenty of PH13 CC models are going to struggle to do damage as reliably as they used to).

With the Daturazi having flubbed his grenades there wasn't a great deal left to do, but with the enemy link compromised and a few decent casualties I did my best to pull the strike pieces back and passed turn.


JSA Turn One

After some impetuous moves and repositioning, most of the JSA turn was focused on Yojimbo laying smoke and then extricating the datatracker Shikami for it to move up on my HVT. It would become apparent over this game that the Shikami, like the Karakuri, is a big benefactor from many of the new rules. On it's first order it moved 6” into trigger area of a mine, then dodged 4” using kinematika. This zesty 10” of total movement aside, the change to active dodges including movement is something I think I'm pretty immediately a fan of. There will be a few clutch mechanical interactions, but I'm mostly looking forward to just not explaining the weird discrepancies between active and reactive to new players.

A few orders later and my HVT was bleeding out in an alleyway, but there were some solid mercies from the turn; the smoke Yojimbo had laid had saved an Imetron from being mineswept, and Victor had isolated Shikami during its terminal run on the HVT.


Combined Turn Two

First impetuous order of the turn and the Shikami's heavy infantry armour showed its quality when a Taigha berserked into it, crit, and all three ARM rolls bounced. This was a bit of a showcase of the effect on PH13 melee model that the new crit rules have, but I don't think I can be mad about a 5pt model failing to wound a 45pt armoured melee expert. It's also important to think about these things less in terms of the changes to fail saves after the crit was made as it is to think about the overall chance to cause a wound – and a berserking DA CCW Taigha failing to cause a wound against a Shikami isn't too unlikely even in N3.

The Daturazi didn't stuff the pooch this turn, and after an order repositoning managed to drop smoke down on the TO camo marker that had moved up suspiciously close to Victor during the enemy turn, but declined to reveal itself.

Taking full advantage of its 6-2 MOV, the Charontid barrels down out of the building, cutting through a Chaiyai flash bot to get up to the TO Camo marker, which it then discovered and shot down through smoke. The rest of the turn was all Sheshkiin, who ran across rooftops putting fire into an alley containing a lot of JSA troops, eventually taking down another keisotsu, Neko Oyama, a pangullung and a wounded Yojimbo. She then made a dash across the open to engage and kill the enemy HVT.


JSA Turn Three and Onward

With much of the JSA force now in tatters or isolated, the rest of the game resolves pretty quickly. A bold Kempei MSV2 marksman rifle manages in a single order to both wound the Charontid and put two wounds on Sheshkiin, and then with its single isolated order put a volley of assault pistol shots into her back and drop her unconscious.

In my turn a hero slave drone makes the ultimate sacrifice to cross the board and revive her, but she mostly moves just to get to hefty 54pts to safety. Along the way she has a face to face roll with the Shikami who downed her and she hits him once and crits him once, but at ARM3 in cover he passes all his saves. Canny readers will note that this is the second crit the Shikami has survived.

With everything on my side of the field legging it, lieutenants and HVTs bagged and tagged, there's not much left for the JSA player to do but take spit attacks with an isolated Shikami and so ends the game.


Overall Thoughts

Obviously a single game using a hodgepodge of N3 and N4 rules isn't some determinative sample, but I really enjoyed the game, the new rules were a definite breath of fresh air, and Jedkar was a fantastic guy to play with.

There have been a lot of concerns and discussions both ways about the new crit rules, but after a single game I feel like it's a buff to things that needed buffing and a light nerf to things that maaaaybe I might concede warranted a nerf (like, for example, 5pt melee warbands). That said, it's also a tap with the nerf hammer to a few expensive melee models, which makes me hope that either they recost melee slightly or hand out AP CCWs relatively freely (e.g. like they've given Jing Qo with her DA+AP CCW). One of the hypothetical concerns people are worried about is having a model like the Shikami die in a single crit roll thanks to needing to make two saves, but at least from a single game the light increase in resiliency to the game's more expensive models like a positive change. I may change my tune on that the first time I play against a Jotum.

Most of the other changes were only of light impact on the game, but the change to active turn dodges was both nice from a consistency perspective and tactically interesting in conjunction with the 6-2 MOV HI. Speaking of, the 6-2 HI felt really solid although I wonder if it'll extend to the bigger silhouette models. It didn't feel unreasonable on the Charontid, but it feels a bit less unlikely on a model like a Mowang or a combat form Su Jian.

One rules question was whether active turn dodges made by impetuous models would be obliged to follow the path toward the nearest enemy. I assume so, but something to look for when the new edition drops.

If people are willing I'll probably play a few more games with the new rules, including trying out some of the game's chunkier TAGs with the new crit rules. This was a good time, and an interesting experiment.