Well, yeah, but at the same time, even if the Tian Gou KHD is artificially 3 points cheaper, would you take it? What about the Red Fury profile? It's kind of funny how they've done their best to tack on somewhat pointless abilities to make this unit artificially more expensive to compensate for the Jammer. Just increase price of the Jammer and make sure mid-tier units aren't such a bad cost-efficiency proposition, CB. I mean, if your point is that the Tian Gou isn't really paying 1 point for it, but more like 5 points (my (very quick) estimate is that 360 visor is roughly 4 points on this unit), then I can agree to that.
Yeah, or better yet, abandon their formula and price units based on overall utility instead of summing set numbers for individual pieces of equipment. The jammer is obviously a lot better on a linkable light infantry with holo1 than it is on, say, an extreme impetuous warband. It doesn't make sense to price the two units on the basis that the jammer adds the same value to each of them. Which is kind of my point. When the WB player puts a TG in his list, he's not paying 10 points for a body, 3 for a combi, 4 for a visor, 1 for a jammer, or whatever. He's paying 24 points for an overall unit. The unit is either worth 24 points, or it isn't; it doesn't make sense to break it down and ask whether the jammer potion of the unit is underpriced, because the jammer isn't severable from the rest of the unit. Further, for a unit like TG which exists to go in a fireteam, it doesn't even make much sense to ask whether the unit by itself is worth 24 points. Rather, the question is whether the fireteam as a whole is reasonably priced.
Oh no, it absolutely doesn't. The Fireteam isn't there to prop up the Tian Gou, the Tian Gou is there to prop up the Fireteam. Fireteams exist to in some way compensate the sectorial for missing out on a bunch of other units that would allow you to min-max your list better. The Tian Gou must stand up to inspection regardless of the Fireteam or not, and even beyond the question of whether it is correctly priced the question must still be asked "is this emergent mechanic of not being able to defend against it even fun?". And while I'd say that for Tian Gou they've loaded them up with so much trash that it's actually surprisingly well balanced compared to the other more optimised Jammer units, I'd say it's a big no-no on the latter question. Plus, what it does to the meta where it encourages players to load up even further on some very un-fun sets of units and abilities is... not great. I am also of the opinion that CB's point system works really well. E.g. HMGs are largely speaking worth the 15-ish points that they cost, regardless of which unit they are on. I don't agree with all of them, but generally speaking I find that when I disagree with a price, I'll see a pattern repeating itself across multiple units. I've never been a fan of touchy-feely approach to unit prices because of the way it tends to promote biases, both intentional or unintentional, like "we made this really cheap because you're meant to bring this unit" - no, let the players decide whether the unit offers a tool set they need, don't penalise them for thinking outside the box.
Hmm. I'd been assuming one wouldn't normally want to set up a line infantry core link in the midfield. I think my experience tends to be that sectorial players use line infantry teams for defense - put a ML/sniper or two on there and hide the rest of the link, maybe put your Lt in there as well. When I see a core setting up in the midfield it's usually something more robust like an Invincible Army HI link. Maybe I'm wrong, and people are already aggressing with line infantry links? If so, then I'd agree that the cost for the WB player to upgrade his aggressive line infantry link by adding a jammer is about 10 points or so, which is very cheap. I think I shan't weigh in on that right now. I jumped on to question whether the notion that "the TG pays 1 point for a jammer" is a meaningful way to evaluate the unit's cost. Whether jammers are fun is, as you say, a different question.
You can get a decent assault link for 118pts / 3 SWC. 2 TGs (KHD, Jammer) 1 HRL Shang Ji 2 Zanshi (LGL, Paramedic) That compares very favourably to 'assault' MI cores (which largely are supposed to do the same thing): most of the cost is in the Shang Ji (which costs 22pts more than a Wildcat HRL). Not something I'd push into the midifeld T1, but solid for a T2/3 push. It's not like WB doesn't have decent early game midfield options. Writing off an LGL as a 4pt/1SWC tax for dealing with Warbands misses how useful they are in a list generally. So emphasising the usefulness is hardly broken. Equally, Libertos and Warbands feature heavily in lists even when Jammers are not an issue. So again, they're generally useful tools that the proliferation of Jammers emphasises but didn't create.
White Banner and Invincible Army don't have normal Wildcards, theirs are max one per link, so you need to replace one of them.
Ah, missed that. I see your point now. Given the way TGs are designed and their AVA they really do feel like you should be able to put in more than 1 per Fireteam.
I feel like there are basically two arguments at cross purposes going on here. One side is more or less arguing: 1. The Tian Gou Jammer specifically is overpowered for cost and not in a fun or reasonably easily counter-able way by itself (when linked). The other side is more or less arguing: 2. The Tian Gou does not appear to make the sectorial it appears in overpowered in context, due to a variety of other factors, and is reasonably counter-able in that context. And in fact, CB appears to balance factions this way (with some 'faction bonus' or 'auto pick' like troop profiles, where they combine things that are very powerful together without adjusting the cost of the individual components for the synergy, whether we like that or not). Those arguments don't actually contradict each other. Both can be true. To me, for something to be 'super broken' it would have to adversely affect faction balance - i.e., the faction taking it would have to be able to be demonstrated to have a significantly better chance of winning, independently of player skill. I don't think that is the case here, or at least I don't see any evidence of it from actual play so far. We've also seen the claim something will do that quite a few times before, without it actually coming true (at least not for long, in the specific case of VIRD, IMHO) outside of a general actually slowly creeping sense of power creep. Infinity has an inherent set of balance stabilisers built into its design, that help a lot with that, also IMHO. I accept if your definition of 'super broken' is something more like: this particular profile is clearly a lot better for cost than the great majority of other things (and perhaps in a way I don't enjoy) then you could validly come up with a different answer. But to me that's a problem with a design philosophy more than the Tian Gou specifically. The Tian Gou (like Post Humans or Ghazi) is just a pointed example of it. And overall, despite some gripes, and some things that seem like they could definitely be improved, the design philosophy in Infinity works pretty well overall.
The only thing that is broken is the Sixth sense interaction. Having a broken mechanic doesn't automatically make an army OP. I suspect marksmanship skill with breaker rifles is another broken, unplanned interaction, but that doesn't make Rammah Taskforce OP. That said, game design should not balance broken things, it should fix them. There's no need to argue if the Tian Gou jammer is too good or not, you certainly won't get around to proving it in this thread. The issue is core linked jammers aren't working right. Does anyone seriously think that you shouldn't be able to declare Reset against a Sixth Sense Jammer ARO?
I mean sure, but the title of the thread isn't 'The interaction between Sixth Sense and Reset is super broken: and now in White Banner' I feel like 'Troopers can declare Reset whenever they are granted another valid action or ARO' would be a reasonably good thing to have in the game. Hopefully that's exactly the sort of thing they clean up in N4
I'll believe it when I see the notes. What's special about linked jammers other than that interaction?
You mean apart from B2 and WIP17? ... and all the other things about non linked Jammers people complain about constantly anyway? ... and the not knowing which one it is because of the holo?
OP didn't even know for sure they got the WIP and Burst Bonuses when he made the thread. Emphasis added.
So you think people would not lose their minds over the linked Jammer if you could always Reset against it?
They probably would but “You may always Reset as ARO” would be a reasonable comeback, if it were true.
There's the other subtext which is that a Jammer w/ Fireteam bonuses is a crazy powerful ARO. Jammer should really be its own action.
Doesn't mean it's broken in N3 gameplay. Does mean that's its broken from a design POV ie. it works against design goals. Which has been my point. I think Jammers should be changed for N4 but that they're basically fine at the moment. I just accept that low order count elite lists without warbands is N3 on hard mode. But that would still be true if Jammers were removed from the game tomorrow, and was certainly true immediately before WB dropped. You appear to be using the second (proliferation of Jammers pushes the meta in an overall undesirable direction ie. Jammers break design goals) to argue the former (Jammers cause unmanageable gameplay imbalance ie Jammers break gameplay). I think making the distinction between the questions "are Jammers broken to play against? " and "are Jammers bad for the game?" is useful. They don't necessarily have the same answers.
