There are enough super-salty Ariadna players out there that I bet at least 1/3rd of tourneys for season 12 have whatever extra lifts the Tac Window restriction. We'll still have spam lists available for that format (and useful as always vs. chainrifle horde players... I love beting them at their own game with Kuang Shi -and- MSV2...)
I'd agree, but MMR is a nice compromise. They're really not CQB guys. I just hope there's still a Tinbot option.
I'm personally not running any of my events with Tac Window until I'm happy the balance is ok. I think the Haqq changes, while bad for the game overall, probably do enough to make sure that they can play that format competitively. Still remains to be seen what they do for USARF though.
I hope you're not talking about the Mutt-muzzling or the nerfs to Jammers. That was very, very good for the game as far as I'm concerned. Make Maruaders even more badass via visor changes, and lower the cost of Blackjacks as ARM got cheaper? Those things are both pretty well-confirmed at this point.
No I'm talking about proliferating BS13 ODD gunfighters into a faction that was supposed to be about an asymmetrical playing field. While it'll make them competitive it's homogenizing the game by putting more high tech with ODD, MSV2, and TO into low tech factions that traditionally had that gear either entirely or heavily gated from them for game design reasons. To quote someone else from a facebook discussion about the topic and his HB army: "N4 is coming and that list I took can't be played. That's fine, but means the army can't play that style anymore. It just can't, not as effectively. So CB knows this and rightfully gives them new tools. That's great. But these tools essentially mean they are playing a similar game and style to Pano. Bs13 odd forward deployment skirmisher specialist and a core link of line troops backed up by a BS 17 heavy infantry. If I said that you'd have thought I was talking about sval. "
For what it's worth, the poll I ran on FB had more than 700 people voting, and only 25 Ariadna players saying they dislike it.
can you tell us something about future of iss fireteams? can we wait in pease or better for iss players forget about competitive play?
There's neither any backing numbers for the claim 1/3 of all tournaments won't use the default, nor large numbers of "salty Ariadna players" nor the Hassassin rework being bad for the health of the game. If anything the nerfbat for Mutts went too far, their new troops make great use of the N4 framework and HB can finally join in on the party with Shasvastii, OSS and the other Sectorials on the better end of design philosophy. Haqq already had TO Camo in N3, neither of their new Mimetism (-6) troops is a break from their tech level or their concept. Hassassins already had access to above average BS anyway. Asawiras being fairly numerous but BS14 in a "low BS" Sectorial. Hassassins had excellent training compared to the rest of Haqq to begin with. Funny enough there's yet another BS13 "Dire Foe" Character, while PanO still has 0 - if you want to complain about something, try that (I find it hilarious as far as design goes, but I'm not complaining). Edit: Lol forgot PanO even has two now, Qinn the hopeully-N4-relevant-boring-guy and Gunnar, "what do you mean this guy costs almost 40 and is a Dire Foe?".
Oh thanks for reminding me Quinn exists, Gunnar legit fell off my Dire Foe list due to his pricetag. Here's hoping at least one out of Konstantinos, Quinn, Bipandra, Rao, Gunnar or Agnes will have a somewhat decent Profile in N4. :P
Well, YJ has 2 Dire foes characters in total, while you complain only 2 of PanO characters are 13BS :)
If I wasn't playing YJ I'd trade 5 for 1, but since it doesn't matter who has which one, I'd rather have all baggage be useful rather than dead Profiles. When was that supposedly the case? N2? Also we're not looking at a HMG, both Shujae and Nadhir are stuck with B3 main armament. That's the Draal approach of stacking heavy MODs to compete with the B4/5 volume of fire approach and I'm glad there's more of that in the game for everyone involved. "Hose it down with moar bullets" has been a nobrainer for 2 editions now (maybe 3, wasn't around for N1), stepping up the game for the B3 competition is great for the health of the game.
I'm hoping the Crane will get a cost reduction. I don't think they should cost the same amount as a Mowang, Yan Huo, and almost as much as a Su-Jian. Then we might see people taking more than one. CRANE IMPERIAL AGENT (X Visor) Spitfire, 2 Nanopulsers / Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 54) MÓWÁNG (NCO) Spitfire, Flammenspeer / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 59) Open in Infinity Army
N3? Filter for TO, MSV2, and ODD for Bahram. They get none of the above. There are better ways of making them table top threats without handing out Pan-O tech, especially after CB has taken the time to granulate the rules. Hidden deployment Noctifier lite Flammenspears are great and fit right into the ambush theme, but did they need to get the TO MOD component as well? Really? They could've stacked other useful assets onto them like minelayers, repeaters. A HD repeater that can ambush and pop up on a rooftop as a link tries to move below it in N4 would be huge, especially to Bahram which are pretty competent hackers. The -6 Mimetic MOD was just lazy and encroaches on the wrong factions.
Crane definitely needs a price reduction and wildcard functionality. Compared to the Knight of Justice, it's not got a lot going on to justify the price it currently sits at. The profile is a poster boy for those that have nothing inherently wrong, but have aged very poorly. Thankfully, it has a lot of the more maligned features set to see cost reductions, so hopefully that will come through.
For me it's more a case of there being 0 Zhanshi (i.e. most basic trooper of the faction) Dire Foes and both IA and WB could really use a Zhanshi with a similar price tag as Zhuang. Hell, straight up Zhuang would be glorious for IA.
Zhanshi are fucking weirdly overlooked and underdeveloped in the faction in more than one way. For a trooper that's supposed to make up the bulk of the armed forces they have heavily constricted AVAs, and their support versions have 0 links in any sectorial. EDIT: And they have no native special links, completely reliant on Wildcards no counts as zhanshi buddies.
Su Jian is having its N4 profiles spoiled on Loss of Lieutenant podcast in about 3 hours if anyone wants to catch that.
Im really curious about Su Jian. With most of our HI getting 6-2 main selling point of Robocat is getting less compelling now, ajnd I wonder what cool stuff he could get to mitigate that. Super Jump would be nice and natural thing.
