Is the 15 unit limit a good design choice?

Points costs have been adjusted. It didn't get a flashy graphic that could be shared across the net*, but it was discussed during the Livestream.

*And it really really should have!

 

Don't know, but I think TI/SI and NWI aren't a good sign for N4.
And nobody say's, that new point cost couldn't break the balance. But you adjust through iterations. And if CB would let the community help, unbalanced elements could be found relatively quickly with Beta Rules.
But we even don't get the exact point costs for attributes, abilities and weapons and fanmade list where shot down with friendly words (ment as written) from CB.

And 15 orders breaks the balance in favour of costly faction like Aleph (Disclaimer: I hate how unbalanced and undercosted Achilles is).

 

It'll never be adjusted in a way that will satisfy...

 

Here's the question I have though, doesn't this further hurt the already hurting low tech factions in conjunction with a 15 unit cap? I can't see this helping at all if we have a say general ARM cost rebalance and suddenly Blackjacks, Ratniks and Al Fasid all got cheaper. That's the exact opposite of helping the situation.

You have to do stuff like put more skills and stuff on them to bloat the cost, and now if everyone's got a BS15 TO camo heavy what's the point of being Pan-O with a Swiss Guard?

 

@Ben Kenobi have you watched the livestream? They specifically mention tweaking things more actively, during N4.

 

I like the change. Playing Infinity at different formats I've found that LI and low order count games are most fun, while standard format is the most mind bending and competitive. With 15 orders cap I now see an option to take one LI list to a tournament and actually play it. I see more options to field stuff that I would generally never use otherwise. On top of that I feel less pressured to have answer against some extreme cases like 32 orders Highlanders list. Don't get me wrong - I like competitive play and like a challenge. It's just that recently I feel much more fun comes from lower order count games. Maybe I'm just getting old.

In the other hand I pity all the cheap warbands that are not borderline broken Jammer Shotgun wielding math garbage. There's suddenly not much incentive to field these, as there are usual other options with more utility and not that much more expensive. Good news is that suddenly Impetuous Irregular becomes a real deal drawback instead of a minor inconvenience at times. No more filling the list witch cheap warbands. Now when there's not enough room for everything you will think twice before including an irregular speedbump.

Overall - even though I'd prefer points to be adjusted accordingly instead, I like the change and hope it'll stick around permanently.

 

Yes the question being if they go down this route by having restricted their design space can they keep the factions sufficiently different or are we going to wind up with simply different coloured Space Marines fighting each other?

 

I don't actually think there's any faction that particularly has to go over 15 Troopers. Some, like Shasvasti, are able to get supreme benefits from doing so, but the more orders you get the more similar lists start looking and it's more of an optimisation thing where a 16+ Troopers list will be better for those factions, but their 12-15 Trooper lists won't be particularly worse than other lists with the same restriction.

 

I'm not so sure the jump from "less warbands" to "everyone is just different colored space marines" is fair. Heavy infantry have gotten more unique over time - see Hassassin Ayyar, Hollow Men, Zencha, etc. I'm not going to touch the NWI + shock immune or hackable debates with a 10 foot pole here, but there's still some flavor to be preserved with Infinity's rosters of heavies.

Additionally, it's not like having a 15 model cap stops warbands from being taken, even in meaningful enough numbers. Just means you may need to take pricier stuff like TAGs, medium infantry, elite skirmishers, and so on. This change does tend to hurt Caledonia the worst and Haqq and Ariadna more generally but to say more than 15 models were their only unique and good playstyles is a bit hyperbolic. There's still plenty of interesting and flavorful units out there - and using language like "optimized" in regards to how N3 looks to N4 is not fair since "optimized" in N4 looks very different, if by virtue of this model cap alone seeing as we have very little on remaining on-launch changes.

 

Probably the worst hit are USARF, Haqq, Bahram, and CHA. USARF in particlar was already a super limited sectorial in options of raw unit and profile count (pretty sure they have the fewest in the game), and now they're just being restricted in list comp even harder by denying their main schtick of cheap spam units like Hardcases, Grunts, and Bikes that attempt to trade up.

Also Dahshat, but honestly fuck Dahshat that sectorial was a gross mistake made to peddle miniatures.

Morats and ISS have "options" available to them but it's probably aggravating given that the hyper cheap link teams were supposed to be the draw card to those two sectorials. At the very least garbage like the Bao are even more in dire need of a rework to help open up alternatives. They're also both sectorials that sacrifice mid field skirmishing for the option of raw brute force fueled by cheap orders, so they will probably both need to receive buffs in those departments to help them with mission oriented play.

On the other end of the spectrum Yu Jing, White Banner, and Invincibles possibly all stand to benefit the most from this change as they are all able to cram more orders than you're supposed to be able to in the cap, especially if Zuyongs and Shang Ji are dropping in cost.

 

No, it won't. In my mind, all the more reason to not fully disclose it.

And one thing folks are missing/ignoring/eliding is that CB may want/need both a lower model count each game and those low cost profiles. Needing both, a wholesale change to the pricing formula needed to get the "organic" shift to lower model count armies would undercut the needed existence of low cost Troopers.

 

Well. I meant more than even on these forums, with all of it's accompanying game design genius, can't agree on which way the sun comes up.

 

My standard CHA list is around 16-17 models. Playing at 300 points will be manageable, but at 400...

 

Oh, I understand, and agree, and apologies for not being clearer in that. And despite so much of the unsolicited advise and counsel we see being so clearly offered in a sense of humility and altruism, funny to see the interactions between those possessed by that genius.

 

I imagine most TOs will choose to run 400 point tournaments with Unlimited Insertion, in fact for all we know the ITS bundle might encourage it, we've literally only seen one picture from the new season.

The again, people already ran 400 point limited insertion tournaments when 3-4 sectorials can't even get to 400 points in 10 minis.

 

For the votes, the players who actually play factions designed to be played with 15+ 16+ orders are the minority because there are less factions designed to be played this way.

In my opinion, some armies will loose the charm.
USARF is designed arroud 16 / 18 regular orders because more troops combined have to do what elite factions can do with one single troop.
Their expensive troops are meant to be supports for the weak troops, not spear heads. The devil dog is the tool against to / camo and the blackjack clears the way for the others with long range weapons.
There is no point on playing USARF if it's going to be redesigned to be played like any other elite faction. And for them to work properly this way they have to change dramatically to the point that they will no longer be the same sectorial.

This extends to the rest of armies designed this way. Warbans will still be present but we will loose the diversity of the armies designed to work with a combination of weaker troops.

Best case scenario those armies become competitive after being redesigned to play like the others.
Some not redesigned troops can become useless if they don't find how to fit everyone in the new design.
Worse case scenario they are not competitive in top of loosing their flavor and become irrelevant on the table for the next 6 years.

 

I like the end result but not the way they went about it, but shotgun to the kneecaps balancing tools are pretty par for the course here (This is basically exclusion zones again), now if they didn't rework the factions most impacted by this (which I'm pretty sure is just CHA, which has other internal balance issues), by either re-costing things or adding a few extra expensive toys then forced Tactical Window was a mistake.

what would have been nice is removing the frenzy/impetuous discounts, make large template DTWs cost the same as a combi, and use either wip or bs while ignoring mods, then then give any sub 15 point profile a serious look at to see if they really should be that cheap.