Yay Icestorm ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 BOLT Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) KAMAU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) AKAL COMMANDO Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, E/M CCW. (0.5 | 28) NISSE MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) SWISS GUARD HMG / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 68) ORC Lieutenant MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40) FATHER-KNIGHT Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 50) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
Disagree, in between the Drop Bears and the Aquila setting up SF you're probably as safe as you can get. Sheskiin showing up around the corner will still wreck you but you're not afraid of midfield Skirmishers and have the means to ward off Camo Markers and CC troops. This really isn't a defensive Link tho. You run that into the center of the table to kill everything that is there. You can't get screwed by non Eclipse and still have Drop Bears and a Nanopulser to do something about those anyway. They're also pretty handy in an Objective room fight. The Bolt+Doc helps dealing with next to anything that could chip you down from Mutts to casual Chainrifle and Mine hits to Hacking. They'll probably die after that but should have taken out everything close to them and will soak at least a few Orders if you leave them dug in properly. That said you could have the full Core of Aquila +2 CSU +2 Fusiliers instead for the same price, so it certainly is far from an autopick. You'll most likely be running the Fusilier Core together with them. The Fusilier Core is another thing - they have easy access to DTWs, LSG/BSG now, which really opens them up to do Active Turn duty later in the game. The 2 spares make the SWC Fusiliers much, much better as well.
Your argument here requires set-up, which is far from bulletproof. I think the current update of the game heavily favors alpha strike, or an overwhelming amount of offense before your opponent has that chance to set-up. Impersonators, units with climbing plus/super jump, units with FD1/2, infiltration, ect. All of these skills let high BS/visual mod troopers bypass traditional ARO methods like that Fusilier team you mentioned, it lets them engage them in such a way that's favorable to them instead of you using fewer orders than traditional methods, like throwing smoke or navigating through a part of the board that isn't covered. This update makes me think that bulldozing your opponent as quickly as possible, before they can do it to you, is going to be the play of choice more often than not. even you recognize that in your last two statements: That active turn role is now more important than ever.
Hm? Not sure what we seem to be disagreeing on then. In Active Turn that Link is very reliable. You can add a Garuda to Drop in and support them or utilize the corridors they open up. You'll still have your Auxilia, Fugazi, Warcor, Techbee wall to keep them safe in case you go second. That said I can seem myself running a solo Aquila FTO (+Swiss HMG) now. Being able to clear out Camo, Smoke, CC Troops and push buttons with a second wound on a single S2 foot print is very nice. And he doesn't die to the ever present KHD and is 10 points cheaper than the Swiss AHD. NCA simply did not have a piece that could walk, shoot, take a hit and push buttons before. You'll always had to do a sweep first and then move up the Specialists. That is unless you wanted to run one of the godawful Orc Links or a TAG(WIP10(11)) to bring a Specialist to the midfield. I have a good bit of experience with double Swiss lists including a Swiss AHD depending on the mission but stopped running him a long time ago. Main issue with the guy is that he gets stuck a lot. He can bounce of very resilient stuff, can't deal with Smoke and has trouble clearing Mines and Camo (which often can have Repeaters and/or KHDs). Other things the Swiss AHD really struggles with are Myrmidions (B2 Smokes on 16s are kinda tough to beat), the Avatar (you really need to get lucky with Oblivion). A NCA midfield troop doesn't get much support has to be self suffient and will mostly die alone and deserted after doing his job. Not sure if the Aquila FTO is the best thing ever, but it's new and mission relevant for ITS.
To be honest, I don't think we are disagreeing, just viewing the changes from adjacent perspectives – I like the Aquila FTO, I don't love him, but he plays into where to game is going. Smashing your opponent's active turn pieces before they can get yours. I can easily see him going after Mukhtars and Cutthroats before they have a chance to do the same to him. I just feel as though due to the shift in viable strategy that this update brings, on a whole traditional ARO gets a lot weaker. Meaning your linked Fusilier covering a lane with multi sniper just got a whole lot weaker. Part of the PanO strategy, for me at least, was using these superior BS ARO troopers to force the opponent into moving where I wanted them to or slowly tightening the vice on them throughout the game with AROs which made easy pickings for my active turn pieces. Due to this shift I just feel as though PanO on a whole got a little weaker, this was a major part of my game plan with them. I may go back to JSA for a while. I think you put it rather nicely here, the current ITS missions even incentivize you into using units like the Aquila and the Mukhtar, they're both incredibly dangerous to your opponent while also able to score objectives.
I really like the following addition to the Nca toolbox obviously it doesn't have the raw power of the Aquila but boy do I love albedo. Neoterran Capitaline Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 3 BOLT (Fireteam: Haris) Boarding Shotgun, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 19) BLACK FRIAR (Albedo, Biometric Visor L1) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser, Drop Bears / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28) MACHINIST (NCA) (Bioimmunity, Veteran L1) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) 0 SWC | 63 Points Open in Infinity Army
Plus, if we really want to, combining the Black Friar with a mate in a Fireteam allows us to force unopposed shots on any MSV armed ARO piece. Or dodges, of course.
It's still power creep when any change isn't applied across the board at implementation. Say, points formulas and Bolt changes.
Isn't it ? Funny enough Bipandra is still overcosted ;P (just imagine someone saying half a year ago that NCA will have a Haris of Machinist/Bipandra/Bolt or Aquila/Bolt/Bipandra) The Haris of Aquila/ORC/Bipandra is most "unimaginable" thing which now exists ;P It's like "rejected guys team" xD
As near as I can tell, everything with Total Immunity got either explicit vulnerabilities, a points increase, or maybe both. Karakuri got a 3pt increase for no-vulnerability TI, for example.
Well, you could call most new 40k codex as 'change in design philosophy' where new stuff is usually better than old stuff, so that you buy it...and we all know that 40k is not ballanced at all, and there is evident power creep. Well, they learned well from GW. What can you say xD...at least there are no profiles in infinity you will almost never use unless you wanna shoot yourself in the leg or wanna play gimped, like in 40k...oh wait...
It´s funny that everyone is talking about power creep, al this over the top buff and mechanics, all at once, it looks much more like a jump that creeping. Before it was a bad and frustrating experience going against Tohaa, but everyone keep at it because was only one small faction, now we got Dashat, Ramah and Shas too ad to the list. Don´t know what CB expected from this, but making the game increasingly frustrating to play is a great way of loosing players.
I think Infinity playerbase is too small (and has not strong enough for "fluff playerbase") to support such carnivorous behaviour.
If they fully adopt the 40k model the game will collapse. I only play infinity because I love the models and it isn't 40k. But I stopped playing 40k despite liking the models, so I can easily drop another game. They are already losing a chunk of my gaming budget the moment obsidian protocol mech game comes out
