What kind of compromise you think possible when somebody brings their ready to play list and army and don't have a substitute? Of course I'll play the game if somebody says to my reaction "OK, I also have this other list and enough minis for it, that should be more fun to play against". But that's rarely the case and quite often the issue is not with the list in particular but with the player's mentality. I've long found that regardless of the game system those kinds of players often are also the kind who are unyielding when discussing Line of Sight, positioning, intent, take backs or other such factors. Their intent is to punish the opposing player for all of his mistakes, not to provide everyone with an enjoyable game. I prefer playing with laid back players who will allow me questions, discussion of consequence of applying this or another rule, because that's how I learn, by using rules in context, not reading them dry off the Wiki. I also prefer the air of cooperation, even as opposing players, instead of balls to the wall rivalry.
As noted earlier, my actual experience with Tian Gou doesn't leave me concerned about the profile at all, but for what it's worth I've spent much of the last three months playing Haqqislam and during that time at least one person has asked me to play something different for a game against them because they were a bit tired of the jammers + spec fire noninteractive hellscape I was peddling that I'm kinda glad in retrospect I'll never have the chance to take to an actual event this edition. I was happy to oblige. It wasn't hard. Nobody was asking me to never play something again, they just asked me to switch it up for a game. That was respectful to me, and I extended the courtesy in return. Edit: If they had asked me to never play something, we'd probably have had a problem, because that materially impacts my ability to enjoy the game. But at worst, there are other opponents for those times when I'm keen to try something specific. I can't imagine anyone I know personally adopting that stance, though.
Is Swiss Guard in suppression non-interactive? Is Asura in supression backed by 2 myrmidons and an MK2 non-interactive? Is Avatar non-interactive? people who dont use instruments at their disposal are going to get tabled by all sorts of things, like a Jotum rampage etc
And all I'm asking for is that this is the default and the norm. A bit of understanding on both sides and it's cool. Instead I hear that I call for banning units or other made up weirdness.
I would not personally describe any of those as non-interactive but then I also don't struggle to interact with jammers so I might not be the target audience for your question. Edit: aha, I see your edit :)
Are particulars relevant here? Or are you asking because you're not sure if you're That Guy for playing them? I'd say, for the one example I think I understand, that if you take MSV3 Asura to a friendly pickup game vs an Ariadna player who's likely to have camo and smoke as one of the very few defenses he has at all and you're all "nope!" to those defenses, then yeah, he's probably not gonna have fun.
To be fair, beyond the Asura, I have no idea how anybody could consider any of those non-interactive. Maybe the Avatar, since you're more often than not looking at it be the only unit in an enemy players army that's actively doing stuff, but that's still rather interactive. Asura I can't make a call on since Aleph confuses the fuck out of me as a faction.
That contains an additional trap. I've recently played several Tohaa games vs CA. I expected Speculo or Sheeskin to be infiltrating, so I had to invest a significant portion of the list into backline protection - Biometric SMG Kaauri and Flamethrower / Sensor Chaksa. When neither Speculo nor Sheeskin showed up, those became a handicap and I was at a disadvantage. When I didn't take them on the 4th game, they obviously showed up and ruled my backfield. I'm not really sure what tools the aforementioned Ariadna player has to deal with the MSV3 Asura.
Asura is not that good at waging war against markers - those that stay prone on a rooftop and then use their marker to get around her. Personally I think the usual tournament-meta list of a Dakini team in OSS or Achiless+Dart shitshow of vanilla is way more likely to make a person flip the table. I listed all those as very resilient threats that are pretty hard to bruteforce through - and way more limiting than linked Jammer for the opponent (especially a newbie or a player with suboprimal/friendly game list) to play the game without dealing with them first. (I dont believe any of them are non-interactive, just as Jammers can be dealt with)
"I had to invest a portion of the list into... sensor chaksa" may communicate the most radically different understanding of the game to my own that I've seen to date.
I'll be frank. I'll use Tian Gou, just as I'll keep pointing out what a weird balance Jammers presents. Just like how I think SMGs, as an example, are a bit too cheap, I'll still use them. Sometimes I'm not able to make lists without using miniatures with these advantages because of lack of options, other times I'll be disadvantaged unnecessarily by avoiding them. That doesn't change that there's something up with them. Take the Zhencha, for example, it's the cheapest source of infiltrating specialist for IA and the only Zhencha miniature with mines Take the Tian Gou, it's surprising how AVA 4 on the line infantry limits list building and how Tian Gou is the cheapest way to fill out links and provide extra LT assassination defense. And it's a bit similar for the other Jammer miniatures out there; they offer an area denial tool that is a bit too good to give up and they're all a bit too versatile to avoid taking. Camo sensor? That's good. Camo sensor LT for 0 SWC? FastPandas in a hacking-intense faction? Your best source of smoke and also perfect setup of DTWs? I don't disparage my opponent from playing them, but I do think CB needs to re-evaluate just how valuable this device is for missions where a unit of type X needs to get to place Y to do action Z. Oh, and explaining how Sixth Sense delays and Reset are actually meant to work. *scratches head* So instead of giving feedback of your player experience or how strange and poorly explained a certain set of game interactions are, one should sell ones models and stop playing the game? I mean, don't attack your friends for playing the game, but...
Caliban? Malignos? Shrouded? It's not like CA lacks in Camo / TO Camo infiltrators / FD2 that I might need to sweep.
Your takeaways from what we're saying are really strange and seem to find a shade of suggestion and then take it an absolute extreme. Banning units? Selling models? Stopping to play the game?! Wha?
Briefly running by what Ariadna has overall, I'd count these into a list of ''stuff I'd use if the local Aleph brought an Asura'' assuming it's a Spitfire Asura we are worried about: A Blackjack can quite feasibly outrange the Asura, and has T2 ammo, which hurts multi-wound units like the Asura. Assuming we manage to pull off a good AD:Parachutist maneuver, Spetsnaz/Airborne Rangers can outflank the Asura and have Stealth. Doggos. Laying down a bunch of mines can help in two ways: exploding in the Asuras face AND potentially making her waste short skills revealing them. The ancient arts of spamming inferior infiltration Grunts with Flmathrowers right in front of the Asura is an option, albeit up to chance. Linked AP HMGs are not a rarity in Ariadna. Camo snipers ( Whilst the Asura still gets to ignore the negative MOD for the Camo, you can still enforce a surprise shot MOD AND manipulate the rangeband to your advantage. ). But really just clog it up with more camo markers than they have orders revealing. TBH, I can understand the sentiment of ''Jammers are non-Interactive'' due to how Reset works, where you can't declare it without being under Attack, which does lead to many ''un-interactive'' interactions. But I don't have any idea how ''big hard to shoot dude in cover'' is non-interactive. There's a big dude in cover: go shoot him. >:v TBH I'm also confused by most of the examples. Yeah, that seems like a good reason to bring those around honestly.
It's the last sentence. "Play a different game" has a cultural context of "and don't come back" unless you clarify it further
Your post suggested that you took 10pt baggage chaksa and 12pt kaurii to deal with the possibility of speculo killers, and when those speculo killers failed to materialise, your investment was wasted (a 'handicap and disadvantage'). Whereas almost every tohaa list I write begins with four chaskas because they're cheap, reliable orders. They can do absolutely nothing the entire game and still be worthwhile (and highly valuable in a tourney setting where VPs are a tertiary tiebreaker, which can matter for placements over multiple rounds). There were a bunch of other issues with the example as well (sensors don't work on impersonators, a tohaa backfield should generally never be savaged by speculos if you're deploying carefully and reserving your libertos, there's nothing wrong with a single kaurii as a tech piece even if they don't do anything, but relying on tech pieces like biometric visors is a bad idea because it's inefficient risk management and usually an inferior solution to learning how to more effectively play the models you have into the situation you're presented with), but the idea that chaksa are somehow a handicap really stood out to me.
To be clear, I don't think anyone is going to quit the game over the Tian Gou. I was listing the options from least to most extreme. The point being that if someone really can't deal with the fact that Tian Gou exist, they have lots of options that don't involve demanding that their opponents stop playing well. You're right, "give feedback to CB asking that the rules be adjusted" is another option which could have gone in the list.
I have yet to see people take the T2 Sniper one instead of the "OP" HMG one. And USARF only. That Asura is protected on the flanks and that's hanging the game on a single PH roll. Bad tactics IMO. Doggos do not exist w/o smoke dodge. How do I get the mines to Asura who sits back on a high perch? Only if you play USARF and that takes away other options. So "just get into a shooting match with a 2W NWI Muti Rifle BS14 ARM8 in cover while being at a disadvantage"? Asura completely ignores Surprise Shot mods. MULTISPECTRAL VISOR LEVEL 3 AUTOMATIC EQUIPMENT Obligatory. REQUIREMENTS EFFECTS The user of this piece of Equipment automatically passes all WIP Rolls to Discover an enemy with any level of the Special Skill Camouflage and Hiding (CH). When engaged in CC Combat against an enemy with the Special Skill Camouflage and Hiding (CH), the user of a Multispectral Visor L3 ignores the -6 MOD to his Roll imposed by the Special Skill Surprise Attack. When fired upon by an enemy in LoF with the Special Skill Camouflage and Hiding (CH), the user of a Multispectral Visor L3 ignores the -3 MOD to his Roll imposed by the Special Skill Surprise Shot. That's playing for a draw, at best. Not a winning tactic. I've literally been at -12 recently vs some Albedo or ODD models and I literally could not shoot them with my BS12 models or was left with a 1/20 crit chance at BS12. That's how they're non-interactive - "just shoot them" is nice on the forum but doesn't match table realities.
