Mercs getting to be too much?

Agreed, there's a reason for mercenary "contracts" like Foreign Company to exist, and that's to make actual mercenary armies

 

Why does it matter?

 

I think the idea is to throw in a little flavor, if you want it, or to fill a gap your choice faction might have left you with. I think those lists are objectively worse than what you’d typically see even a new player run as a “generic” vanilla list. Especially that Haqq list. If you really want to run mostly mercs in a vanilla faction - the option is there, sure. I don’t really see a problem with it though.

 

I completely agree with this sentiment.

 

For me I would prefer if mercs only fit specific roles and are not generally good to take. Liberto and krakot feel a bit to generally useful. But everyone has different preferences so dont think if needs to change

 

Now we have several fully fledged NA2 armies I think we could safely strip back generic mercs when n4 comes around next year.i think you could probably get by with just having bounty hunters, wardrivers etc as "basic" choices with ava1 for vanilla and all the others moved to a sensible home in na2 and the "soldiers of fortune" mod for ITS.
A lot of the generic guys don't even bring any value to factions as they duplicate existing choices in a "same but worse" manner so I'd like them cleaned up

 

I will note that the YJ list would make more thematic sense with a Zhanying LT.

Way back in the day (I'm talking N1/N2), you could make your own mercenary company by choosing 3 vanilla factions to mix, and halve the AVA. AVA:Total went to AVA4, AVA1 went to a special AVA0 where you could take one AVA0 trooper for every 200 full points in your army.

I would really like to see mercs dialed back. Most of the characters can stay in sectorials or NA2, barring specific fluff for each merc. I'd even like most of the Merc units to be limited to fluff relationships. Yuan-yuans will not work for YJ, Druze won't work for CHA (or rather, CHA will not hire Druze), etc.

 

Ah. So the problem is too many choices.

 

Since I think its somewhat like with the punic wars, I'll repeat a post of mine

"... what's really annoying me is that the "Combat"-Factions profit most from the Mercs. There are a lot tool-boxy Mercs that factions like PanO can get good use of, but they are of much lesser use in factions that have their own toolboxes, like Nomads or Haqq.

And there are no Combat Monster-Mercs to compensate this.

Where is the Rogue Swiss Guard? Or the Rogue Aleph-Greek-Combat-Monster with BS 15? Factions like Nomads or Haqq could get good use out of them, but there isn't one. There is not even a BS 14-one.

So the usefullness of Mercs across factions is skewed. And the more Mercs they release, the more skewed it becomes.

Edit: And what's also annoying me is that the Mercs even the differences between factions. If half of the list consists of Mercs it becomes pretty irrelevant if I'm playing PanO or Haqq or Aleph."

"With Soldiers of Fortune this becomes even more apparent, but even without soldiers of Fortune I already faced some PanO-armies with half of the list consisting of Mercs."

So yes, I think there are far too many mercs out there who are working for everyone.

 

You can also make pretty decent Tohaa lists with at least 1/3 being mercs:
Tohaa
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

3 2 2
JÄGER Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 21)
KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)
ARMAND (Multispectral Visor L1) MULTI Sniper, Nanopulser / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (1.5 | 45)

3SWC | 104 Points

Open in Infinity Army


This is the core of a absolutly decent list, muet with draal stratuscloud in front is one of the hardest to kill aro pieces in the game. Now take Mates too to make him even harder to kill xD
If you count Aida and Greif also as mercs you can go up to 1/2 of the army being mercs and having a decent list.

 

One might also say that some factions just have all the toys and so the mercs don't matter to them. And if Armand with a Multsniperifle and MSV is not shooty enough then maybe your faction isn't as undergunned to make up for that as you thinkg. *cough* Kriza *cough*

 

To me? Because sides being very distinctive is the entire point of variety through multiple factions. And I value that kind of variety, both on mechanical and thematic level.

 

Note that most of these models were either tournament prizes or preorder bonuses for faction-unrelated products like books. They are in vanilla factions so that no matter what faction you play, you are able to field them, not for balance reasons.

 

Well, if I want someone like Armand I take a faction-specific troop, called ... Intruder.

Of some factions miss some tools, maybe it's meant to be this way? Leveling everything with Mercs can't be the way to go. And although Kriza surely is one of the new uber-HI, still there are no Rogue BS15 - Mercs. Not even BS14. Where's the logic behind that? Are only toolboxes and close-combat characters going rogue?

Doesn't make sense.

 

I think the faction should loose access to all the mercs and only in special ITS scenarious they should be allowed to take this and this merc.

 

And something I forgot to add: The fact that a Merc like Armand exists is backing my argument, since he is pretty similar to an Intruder and because he is available to all Vanilla factions he is a) leveling the differences between factions and making them more similar and b) showing that the usefullness of the Mercs is skewed. Nomads wouldn't take Armand most of the time because they have Intruders but other factions would maybe. So usefullness of this unit is skewed.

He is making a signature unit (Intruders) available to all other factions. Again I am asking: Where is the rogue signature PanO- oder Aleph-Unit, like the Swiss Guard or Achilles?

Playing Nomads the normal Mercs (except for the auto-take Libertos) aren't of any use. I can imagine this is the same for Haqq. On the other hand other factions are benefiting from Mercs because they offer skills they don't have.