I'm not critiquing PanO in particular here, but rather the way points are handled across all factions. Surely you've heard of players asking CB to stop cheating their own points formula.
I want OSS to go into almost-full robotic lineup, plus tons of drones, leaving only Devas, Asura, Danavas, Apsaras, Dasyu OR Naga, and Sophotects. And move the rest of "organic" units to a new PostHuman sectorial, possibly with completely new profiles and rules, like no matter how many bodies you have, you are "stuck" at 15 orders or things like that.
You kind of do when you say that PanO does not have the better firepower in the game, changing to the new point, yes, I do have heard it a lot and does not make much sense as to cheat the formula you need to artificially change it, what players complain is CB optimizing profiles so that the formula gives a particular result.
Mimetism doesn't lower the enemy's BS by 3. It lowers enemy's BS by 3 IF that enemy doesn't have MSV. That's a big "if", considering a lot of the lists include one or several MSVs. Of course it's not priced the same than an actual BS increase that nothing can cancel. Hecaton's usual bad faith. Even when on the ignore list, I have to suffer his pointless comments because the forum keep logging me out...
What should not even change but just finally make it into the wider faction as "hightech" is the availability of high tech equipment on elite troops. Lack of equipment/Skills is a prime problem that makes PanO lean on the pure minmax onedimensional gunners or the rare exception to this rule that have 3 or 4 more features than the closest in Faction competition. Cutter/Swiss Guard as an example for the first case. Karhu, Krakot, Digger, ABH as example for the second one. The Smoke meme is also completely wrong. We do have the hightech version of Smoke and had it forever - on one forgotten trooper across 5 Sectorials the GDA. It just got gutted from 13s to a coinflip, but still exists. There's absolutely no excuse why there shouldn't be at least more Eclipse GLs. - It's perfectly alright to not have any throwable Smoke, could be argued that's a low tech thing. Even though we obviously have regular Grenades, so I'm definitely not married to this limitation. - No Smoke on CC troops with guns who don't directly need it just for balance reasons, it would be mechanically strong and a new direct tool to the offense arsenal we don't need. If self supporting Makauls, Myrmidion Characters and any existing CC capable or MSV+Smoke combo supporting combination is fine, an Orc setting up a Knight for CC with Eclipse (Grenade or GL, doesn't matter to me) should be fair and balanced. - Of course no low tech Smoke, that would enable MSV schenanigans mechanically. But why is this tool available only in principle, but not in reality available at reasonable point and opportunity cost for tactical use at all across the wider faction? Eclipse Smoke is just the first of many examples. There's only one MSV3, one Jammer as well as only 2 Wildparrots between Vanilla and 5 Sectorials. Blank profiles with just baseline + gun sitting everywhere to slap Mine variants, Drop Bears, secondary weapons or utility equipment like Firewalls, even if we somehow want to lock PanO out of lots of Skills for nonsensical "Faction identity" reasons.
I guess +1" has been added to keep Zhanshi more expensive than Fusiliers. A dodge +3 or a flat Dodge (PH13) would give them a great unique skill that is not too powerful on PH 10. The Doge +X" is mostly useful on units, that realy want to dodge ... mostly with the purpose to get close to an enemy and stick the pointy end of their weapons into them.
Something we need to always keep in mind is that it's usually not good to compare one to one. Sure there's probably troops that are fantastic in comparison to another, but the rest of the force may suck. For instance, taking a really good expensive piece means the rest of the force will suffer. You have a great gun but couldn't afford great specialists. Other forces have it differently. BTW you can also make good judgement by constantly playing AGAINST a force, instead of playing it yourself. I don't play Nomads but I've played against them enough to be able to judge some things about them.
The only place PanO can’t get that MSR/MSV combo is MO, and the only one of PanO’s Fireteam options that comes close to the same cost as the Grenzers is Nisses, but even then you have a Machinist to lower the costs and almost certainly some other Specialists in that Core. Beyond that, when you can reliably hit BS15+ in your Core and BS13+ in your Haris, you can conceivably lose a gunfighter, but then you always have another to step into the breach.
Good judgement yes, but a better and more accurate picture comes when you start making army lists for the faction and even more accurate when you play them.
Not a faction identity issue, but I wish they would add images of the models in the Infinity Army App. It's hard for new players to identify models with just symbols or names. Sure, cheatsheets help a lot, but it would be really appreciated to have that feature directly in the app.
I would like to see some love for horde identity armies: A skill, that allows to add 3 order units to the given 15, if no unit of the 18 units costs more points than the trooper with the skill.
I don't get it about the 15 thing. Just play tournaments with Free Game extra. If you are playing for fun, you can do whatever you want!
I think if there will be a skill to break the 15 unit cap, it must come with a significant cost (point, swc, or something else) like commlink. In N3, most competitive armies were hordes (~18 or more orders) and it was good because it gave you more orders and also soaked up opponents' orders. I don't think that advantage is ever reduced in N4, and also will exist in N5.
