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Infinity: Mercenaries - a skirmish campaign framework for Infinity N4

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Lareon, Nov 13, 2020.

  1. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    A question about being tabled. With units recovering after the order count phase and with retreat roll being made every round, the scenario diverge from ITS where the game ends at end of retreating player turn, and is more in-line with N4 rules about being able to recover from Retreat.

    If I understood, when I'm tabled during my reactive turn, the game continues. Then on my turn, I fail my WIP check "at the start of the round" (auto-fail as every possible Lt is unconscious). Then, after order count, I can roll to recover my Unconscious models. If I do, great. If I don't, then the games ends because all my models were "lost or evacuated". Do I have this right ?

    Similarly, if I get tabled in my active turn (say, as the attacker in Backstab!), then the opponent still have an occasion to move up his guys (to try to cross the table half as Defender in Backstab), before I start my turn in retreat and trigger the "lose/evacuate" everyone clause.
     
  2. Lareon

    Lareon Well-Known well-knower

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    What's under a token is still considered a private info. So if the LT (the captain) is in camo, impersonator or holo state, that information is private until it reveals itself.

    I need to revisit the rules on this mechanic. To summarize the changes I'm going to add:
    • The game ends earlier if no units are active on the table (I still analysing the best solution, if at the end of the player round, or at the end of the turn);
    • Retreat will be voluntary: during the retreat state, the retreating player may decide to end the match and save all the units on the table (or continue to play)
    I'm still working on it, and I'll fix the issue in the next version of the document
     
  3. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    Thank you. I'm worried about being tabled as our first mission rolled is Backstab!, where the game start with the Attacker having almost full points and Defender having none. The defender will try to escape which gives them OP while taking some OP away from the Attacker. The stake are therefore high, encouraging higher risk taking, and I could see how a few unlucky rolls could table either player before the 4 games rounds (as we are only at 60RP).

    I'm a bit worried also as Robert was saying how his group played games #1 and #2 and (almost) none of them went to round 4 (which I read as every game played that night ended in retreat, and I figure some of those retreat were 0% survivors cases and not 50% survivors).

    I'm less worried as the campaign advances, once everyone has a full captain+5 units on the table.
    I guess having a full company with 60pts is feasible too, and may be the path taken by some players.
    Personally I went with 3 or 4 guys (including the captain). Ex:vortex+zondnautica+cheerkiller.
     
  4. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    So I played two games of Backstab, round 1, with two different company vs the same player's two different companies (we allow players to have non-ranked additional companies).

    Retreat worked fine.

    The opponent instead of smoke + escaping, focused on smoke + kill my units (admittedly, I had tough units). My opponent had a full team with morlock and chimera plus all the irregular orders, I only had 2 units and got tabled and it ended in a draw.

    Next game was 3v3 a fair match and we flipped roles. On turn 2 i think, he killed my 3 unit, and so on my turn i was in retreat and all 3 revived. I only had 1 order (the spare order, but no Lt order as i had no Lt alive when generating orders). Once I killed 2 units, he went in retreat but Courage ignored the effects so he just kept fighting. Finally one of my model escaped on turn 4 and my opponant killed my captain but couldn't get to my escaping model in time.

    Balance wise I have 2 suggestions.
    - There is a problem right now, game-wise, with Bioimmunity specops having BTS12 and thus auto-passing almost any saves. While I could suggest capping it to 6 or 9 bts, maybe it would have more weight if it was ruled in your pdf. Also it prevent only knowing about it after a player make a BTS12 bio-immune Deva.
    - Secondly, E/M CCW got crazy powerful in N4 and should be worth a lot more than 2RP. It now does AP+DA targeting BTS, causing Wounds + Iso/Imm if the target is still standing after taking W. There is only 3 models with AP+DA CCW (1 MI character and 2 HI). E/M CCW is more common and I know it can get quite cheap too, as melee specialist those units don't even cost SWC. KUM bikers gets it at 10-11Pts (their more expensive combi/shotgun loadout). And morlocks has it as option on their 6Pts chain rifle loadout. (Coincidentally, EM CCW is the only way to kill a bioimmune BTS12 specop)
     
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  5. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    In our local campaign I just hard stinkeyed anyone who suggested running a bioimmune BTS stacking spec ops until they agreed not to. A callout box or something rather than a hard rule ('hey, it's possible to make nearly unkillable special ops troops by taking the bioimmunity skill and putting your other points into BTS. Please don't do this') might honestly be more effective than setting some sort of maximum cap or limit that suggests tacit approval up to that level.
     
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  6. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    agreed. but if we find other broken specop, we could also put in that callout box. as a warning for other groups that will be playing a 12XP specop campaign. (is not as bad in ITS as at 300Pts an invincible specop is not a highest concerns - you still have fireteam, Noctifiers and other TO, smoke/msv2, TAGs, to worry about, plus the mission itself)
     
  7. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    I was looking at some possible tweaks for the table when considering reciprocals.

    The squares on the diagonal I would keep for the best outcomes. Outcomes where if you had to pick between A and B, you would always take A. The diagonals don't have reciprocal choices so stealth, marksmanship and +2/+0 MOV are perfect.

    For the other square I'd look at the reciprocal and try to make an option better for a type of troop and the other for the other type. Or match similarly strong options. For example, +2BS/BS(+1Dam); Super Jump/Climbing Plus; +2PH/+2WIP; Mime(-6)/Camo+Surprised are interesting choices.

    The only choice that is not interesting is the MA L1 vs MA L2, I'd swap one of them elsewhere
     
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  8. Hansolo

    Hansolo Well-Known Member

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    Why this topic dropped down to page 2? It doesn't deserve it!

    Right now we are in the middle of local Mercenaries campaign and we all agree: it's the best thing that happened to Infinity since Infinity itself!

    More feedback after we finish the campaign, but for now thank you @Lareon for your work!
     
  9. Lareon

    Lareon Well-Known well-knower

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    Thank you for the support :)

    Sorry if I didn't updated the project in a while. With several things running in my life (mainly renovation and relocation on my new home) I had to put the new release on hold for a bit. I'm eager to go back to work, and I count to gather all the feedback I received until now and publish the new version of the rules within October.

    In the meanwhile keep the feedback flowing! I will try to answer you as fast as I can :D
     
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  10. Hansolo

    Hansolo Well-Known Member

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    Question about Praxis Rampage:

    Neither Omega or Alphas have 360 visor? If not, I'm wondering if it won't be too easy to just go into their backs and shoot out of LOF
     
  11. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    This is what our group found too. 360 visor was suggested but i think SS1 would work better. 360 allows to aro against movement in your back but Sixth Sense only allow to ARO if you get shot.
     
  12. Hansolo

    Hansolo Well-Known Member

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    But then Sixth Sense negates also Surprise Attack - I think it would be too much.
     
  13. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    oops. you are right. i was happy sixth sense doesn't allow to delay aro anymore (that would be too powerful), but negating your one shot at doing a surprise attack might be too much. In the two games I played there were no surprise attack on the table, only shots in the back, CC combats, and shooting into CC. I felt bad having multiple free shots into an engaged Omega that could not even Guts. SS1 would allow it to dodge at least and break CC.
     
  14. Hansolo

    Hansolo Well-Known Member

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    And as for the other feedback:

    Right now we are after two rounds (The Heist and The Mole), with third (Praxis Rampage) ongoing. Plan is to have six rounds (there are four of us, so will play two times with everyone).

    From the bright side:
    - I see this campaign really ignited the Infinity spark back in my community. People were tired of playing ITS over and over again, and this kind of small skirmish is perfect "distraction"
    - Low model count, extra regular order and retreat and Lol mechanics are removing the "I have no orders to do anything" issue. Even with one model. Even with one model on the table you can have 3 orders (LT order, regular one + extra) and still put up a fight. Last round I played 2/3 of rounds with lone Rokot. Still it was a really close game.
    - I like the fact that even when I lose, I still get RPs and downtime event. Makes failure less sad.
    - And I just love how the story is writing itself through missions, injuries and events. For example, in my current company:
    --- Strelok "Wolf" is becoming the de facto leader of the company (after first mission she found Viral Rifle, after second got promoted and learnt Hidden Deployment)
    --- Frontovik Paramedic "Witch Doctor" got null'ed (Dead state) twice, but both times walked away without any injury. Tough as nails that one.
    --- Rokot "Udarnik" was recruited before mission 2, on his first assignment fought alone turn 2 and 3 (see above), and after mission got Shell Shocked. I'm writing this down as "after realizing with whom he is working right now, Udarnik got mental breakdown".

    And maybe not negative points, but things we thought may be imporoved:
    - General: rules about ending the game are not quite clear. What happens when one company have all operatives in null states? Right now we are playing that if one player doesn't have active models on the table, the game ends at the end of the turn.
    - General: Underdog mechanic. My players have concerns that it would be too easy to get lots of RPs and left rest of the group far behind. We made a house rule: "If you play against the company with at least 50 renown more, you roll twice on Downtime event table after the game". We'll see how it goes.
    - The Heist: Here the Defender has a major advantage, being already locked with the valuables. Proposal from the players: Defender shouldn't be able to deploy inside the vault.
    - The Mole: shame that two of the twists can be nullified before the roll. Would be much more interesting if all of them would have an effect.
    - Praxis Rampage: as mentioned above - feels weird that experiments don't have 360 visor or Sixth Sense.
    - General: we need more missions ;)

    Overall I'm completely in love with this campaign. And I hope one day CB will have a look here and make of official. After all - is there any better way to sell more minis? I'm already thinking of buying Tunguska starter for the next company :D
     
    Daniel Darko, Wizzy, Lareon and 2 others like this.
  15. Lareon

    Lareon Well-Known well-knower

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    I agree on all these points. I aleady have something on queue (I'm working on refining the ending rules) and I'm going to work on the other feedbacks. Thank you!
     
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  16. Perzan

    Perzan Friendly neighbourhood Fiday

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    I am one of these four Hansolo mentions; we already have another player eagerly waiting for this campaign to end to join the next one (Jezus @Hansolo)

    This campaign evokes all my teenage memories from Mordheim and Necromunda in a good sense; great work!

    The lack of deaths means a team imbalance might be a real issue at some point. We'll see how our Underdog bonus works.

    I was getting tired of flicking through all the pages post game so I made a two page Post Game Sequence cheat sheet:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zfbe459a8buXpIJQDXVUlSIjJatxc7Yr/view?usp=drivesdk

    Infinity Mercenaries Post Game Sequence v31.jpg

    Infinity Mercenaries Post Game Sequence v32.jpg
     
    Daniel Darko, Robock, Wizzy and 3 others like this.
  17. Lareon

    Lareon Well-Known well-knower

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    @Perzan thank you for the effort! That's really a great work (I admit my information management skills are somewhat... *cough* lacking ).
     
  18. Moxie

    Moxie Well-Known Member

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    @Perzan thanks a bunch, was thinking of introducing my group to it next weekend and these will help a lot.
     
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  19. Perzan

    Perzan Friendly neighbourhood Fiday

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    #99 Perzan, Sep 3, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2021
    Lareon and Moxie like this.
  20. Moxie

    Moxie Well-Known Member

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    Just making sure I get the idea here but the Spec Op follows the rules for the rest of troops once create when it comes to advancement?

    Thanks for the extra mission ideas @Perzan planning on starting my campaign next week so will give them a try sometime this month.
     
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