Hi, I understand limited insertion was created in order to keep games in a reasonable amount of time, mostly for tournaments. Nevertheless it supposes such a huge change in the meta that punish many units and factions (while benefits others), it is obvious that it wasn't an original rule of the game but a patch for the games length (and maybe a patch to the success of the spam meta). I think many of the biggest issues of LI could be softened in a 12 order limited insertion (two groups, 10+2), finding a good place between game length and the original design of the game. - Irregular units, ARO pieces and cheap units are punished in LI. It would be easier to add Irregular units and ARO pieces in the second group. - Command tokens also lost one of its best uses. - Some factions and sectorials relies on cheap units for important tasks like droping smoke, clearing mines and perimetrals or AROing. - It is hard (and narrow) to make effective lists with Haqq, and harder with HB and QK, I asume the same for Ariadna and other sectorials. There are only 7 units in HB with profiles over 30 points, and 8 in QK to compensate for the cheaper ones. There a lot of units discarded because of the forementioned problems, and you can't do the Ghulam core either (guess that happen in many sectorials), otherwise you find yourself with a lot of points unspent. I have played myself LI 12 orders with Haqq and, while it is still hard to find a place for a few units (like Daylami) and you may have a few unspent points, you can spend them improving a few profiles (like changing a camo skirmisher by a Tuareg). - In such circumstances a lot of miniatures goes straight to the shelve, you don't consider buying many others, and you even would discard collecting entire factions/sectorials. If LI is too tied to your meta you won't buy stuff which won't see the table. I'm sure I'm missing many other issues, but you can see my point. I saw a tournament this weekend, there were only one Haqq and one Ariadna player from 18, while there were a ton of PanO (there were even some MO mirror matches). I know it isn't a big evidence but it made me think about it. Regards!
Limited Insertion is definitely very limiting, and hits different factions quite unevenly. It's something I think is fun to do for an event occasionally, but I would never want to make it the default format for events I ran. I also agree with you that it affects people's choices of faction; when an event is announced to be LI, I've heard people explicitly stating that they feel pressured into using or not using some of the armies they own. However, I think that trying to change the definition of "limited insertion" is not a good path, as right now it's very clean and easy to understand. I think it's interesting that after introducing LI they brought the change to the strategic use of command tokens into the general ITS rules for single combat group armies. They're probably going to continue having LI as an option so long as it remains popular enough to be relevant. If you don't like LI, you should definitely let your local organizers know, so that they can make sure they're running events that their players actually enjoy.
I like LI. It removes a large part of the administrative bullshit that a lot of armies have devolved into.
Don't get me wrong, i like LI, it fixes more stuff than the issues that generates: games can be insanely quick, prevents spam lists, and It balance point costs, making affordable stuff which used to be forgotten and stepping aside stuff too cheap (which overperforms and can be spammed). I just wonder if there is a spot where LI issues are fixed, if we can improve LI somehow
I think, the way to "fix" LI is to make sure that all primary factions have sufficient number of costly units to afford some variation. I do not think sectorials need to be catered to with this, nor NA2 (even though basically Druze are the only ones among them that're royally effed because Druze seem to have been left incomplete for some reason) Stuff like Ratnik and Al-Fasid (as in high cost models with a good performance profile) go a long way to make 10-order lists attainable, even viable, but a large hurdle for players of these factions I think is the mentality of "Ariadna can only order spam"
Well, Caledonia definitely needs some help. They don't have any high-cost specialists, and don't have expensive enough troops to take their usual specialists and then some heavies to eat up the points. I ended up making this for a Caledonian 300 LI list, and I don't really like it... Caledonian Highlander Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 1 WALLACE Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW. (0 | 35) WULVER (Fireteam: Haris) T2 Rifle, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 34) WULVER Heavy Shotgun, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 32) WULVER Mk12, Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 37) CALEDONIAN MORMAER (X Visor) T2 Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 33) SCOT (1st Battalion) (Fireteam: Duo, Forward Observer) 2 Submachine guns, D.E.P., D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19) SCOT (1st Battalion) (Fireteam: Duo, Forward Observer) AP Marksman Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24) SCOT (2nd Battalion) CH: Camouflage Molotok / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 30) McMURROUGH 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Templar CCW (AP + DA). (0 | 31) ISOBEL McGREGOR Rifle, Flash Pulse, D-Charges, E/Mauler / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 23) 3 SWC | 298 Points Open in Infinity Army But I'm not sure what you could do to improve it, either.
l Aside from the fact that the heavy 3 in Caledonia oddly doesn't have any form of specialist, that looks like a trade-off that you have to make in all 1-group lists where there's not enough space for specialists and a team of heavy hitters.
I know, we can go further and state that the way to fix games length and factions balance would be redoing the entire ruleset simplifying the game, and rework all the factions. But let's face it, considering CB possibilities and their roadmap that would take years, like making sure all factions have sufficient costly units. That's why I wonder about a shortcut. I disagree, I dislike to put this on the players. Some factions were designed in order to be played with, at least, 13-14 orders. And there wouldn't be spam if CB were managed better the AVA of many units (maybe also doing shared AVAs). ps. in HB the most expensive unit is the Asawira, profiles run between 35 and 45 points. And you can't just list the most expensive stuff and think you have a good or competitive list, you have roles to fulfill and many of them are cheap
I'm not putting the blame squarely or even mostly on the players, but a large minority of the problems does lie in group thinking getting in the way of creative list building. I'm thinking primarily about how some people will loudly shout about for example ISS can't be played without 8 Kuang Shi. However, that said, this kind of group think didn't just occur haphazardly - there is a small problem where an order is worth more than the quality of the troop providing it. The key with LI is getting over that kind of thinking because no one else will have more than 11 orders, either. For LI you need to give the players the ability to make more than three sufficiently different lists where the average cost of each unit entry is sufficiently close to 30 and also accomplish missions. This is where CB should perhaps do another round of balabce efforts, and for some factions this is a very real concern. That said I don't personally consider a sectorial to be entitled to performance in LI format lists, just like neither MO nor IA should be entitled to being able to efficiently order spam. Section 9's list is a good example since Caledonia has several 30-35 troops (Mormaers, 3rd, Wulvers, Cameronians) and therefore should be able to compete here, but where none of them can accomplish more than kill army points or a small handful of classifieds. There adding Paramedics or Forward Observers simply to game the ITS system would make sense - not unlike how they updated ISS in general or Riot Grrls specifically. It would be fairly interesting if they sat down and had a Limited Insertion workshop where the goal was to make small (or even trivial) updates to vanilla factions and some specific sectorials (only those who are identified as being "less about spam") to diversify the 10-order format.
But wasn't LI heavily critized from "tournament" perspective, I mean that player going first have had a serious/big advantage, resulting in many matches being decided by simple initiative roll ?
If you'll excuse me asking, but how is this a problem with LI and why would you not have this problem when fielding a 10-man list in non-limited games?
Because LI list against non-LI list has this difference that LI must shoot many more people to cripple enemy order pool. Not to mention list without-LI can field some good roadblocks (Auxbots, chain rifles, ghazis) etc. I was stricly reffering to LI vs LI (in a LI event).
Sorry. Other way around. Why doesn't my opponents manage to punish my 10-man lists like that when I go second more often?
Dunno. I've got punished quite hard every time I've fielded LI vs non-LI. (except this one game with Jaon link, while going 2nd)
Well this is a big issues which you cannot easily solve withour breaking the game (probably). Though I must say that a decision to make LI list immune to "-2 orders" was an excellent choice which I hope will stay for good. (this is extremely visible when you hit LI list vs 20 orders NCA or ISS list ;/ )
That's it. That's why I never showed up the order count as a problem, 10 is fine as long as the other player will have 10 orders too. I said 12 orders because I think every faction can make good 12 order lists. I showed up the problem as a point cost problem, which steps aside many units or you'll be having a lot of unspent points. Adding some specialists would help, but as I pointed out before, that ain't the only issues of LI. There are many other tasks performed by cheap units like droping smoke/clearing mines, aroing is more punished, and units with some features like Irregular are discarded. I think that's unfair, sounds like "spam is unbalanced, so let's make a mod where spam factions will suffer". Why don't we find a mod where all the factions can be comfortable? I would like to make you a couple questions, do you think all the factions can make 12 orders lists comfortably? what are the cons of a LI 12 order pool over the actual LI? Would be bigger than the pros? I mean, I'm not discussing if changes in the army would fix the game (that would definitely work), I'm just guessing if 12 order LI would be better than 10 order LI
Because people are obsessed with noninteractive button pushing missions and, based off of the xenotech rules, CB seems to be gung-ho on that too.
I'd like to see Light Infantry costs increase across the board to drag down the number of orders each player is able to bring. Making sure Light infantry doesn't go below 12pts in any faction, basically. Edit : This also lessens the points cost between MI and LI making MI seem more viable in comparison.
