First: Great reply. I knew as soon as I hit okay i'd get remark about the vanilla Ariadna. However, even your compare down to USARF has 5 different troops with FO and of those 5 they have an AVA of 4-Total. True Malignos has a great advantage of TO camo and infiltration and hunting him down is easier said than done. But as said by @TheRedZealot they have made many rules that put some armies at a disadvantage. I know it well from playing ISS and not having a TAG. I guess these are the reasons why you just don't see some armies in some ITS. If I know the missions, i'm not going to be playing a force that just can't do them.
Alternatively, we could say: There are many different people that enjoy games for different reasons and its a game developers job to find a path that upsets the least amount of them possible.
I still feel there is some serious "The grass is greener" situation going on here. Comparing the clipsos to the malignos is a good example. Malignos has more armor, more BTS, more WIP and more BS than the Clipsos. It sure costs a lot more, but it is not a completely unjustified cost (the automedikit is kinda meh, I'll give you that). It is not that hard to slot a malignos on Onyx. You could field something like this: Onyx Contact Force ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID (Journalist L1) Submachine Gun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) UNIDRON (Forward Observer) Plasma Carbine / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) UNIDRON (Forward Observer) Plasma Carbine / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 15) UNIDRON Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 20) UNIDRON Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 20) UNIDRON K1 Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 17) GREIF-OP (Inferior Impersonation) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 21) XEODRON Red Fury, Blitzen / Heavy Pistol. (1 | 63) STALDRON Flash Pulse / Knife. (0 | 0) IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9) ÍMETRON . (0 | 4) GROUP 2 5 Bit Hacker (UPGRADE: Expel) Submachine Gun + Pitcher, Deployable Repeater + KISS! / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19) KISS! Adhesive Launcher / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) NEXUS Lieutenant Hacker (EI Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nullifier / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24) MALIGNOS (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 36) R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) ÍMETRON . (0 | 4) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army And still have a load of orders to do stuff. Sure, the profile is not perfect, but I am not seeing how the ruling screws up onyx any more that it screws up Spiral, for example.
I think just an observation. I think the Liaison officer isn't that bad since it's usually only one pt. in the missions that use it. What's worse is show of Force that makes you loose out on 3pts for not having a TAG.
I mean, it's a mission that is tailor made to get you to bring one. And they fixed it so that Ariadna can also get those 3 points (by bringing a Ratjack). They have the same BTS, but the others are correct.
And ISS still doesn't get something. I believe some others too. To me all other comparisons don't matter. It's the AVA that matters. Both have one troops with FO, both have AVA2.
Just so no one wastes time looking it up. There are currently 37 playable sectorials/vanilla factions in the game. 4 (~11%) of which currently cannot score the TAG/Heavyweight points. They are: Imperial Service Caledonia Hassassin Steel Phalanx
You have to look at what that AVA does for the force as well. If it's a unit that typically gets used for FO anyway (similar to Guilang), then it's not a massive problem, but if it's an AVA that desperately needs to perform a different role then that's a bit of an issue. I don't think we truly have the latter anymore though... I sure hope they don't fix that by adding Fat Yuan Yuan to the available for all merc roster :p (I own 3 of the bastards somehow)
Thats fine unless... Caledonia also only has two options for forward observer, so I guess we'll go sit at the ITS hates us table with Onyx...
If everyone could do everything with no opportunity costs in list design, we would be playing chess. And then everyone would complain about white going first screws black.
Making it harder or easier to do a thing is fine, even to the point of having a single viable unit that can do it, so the Liason officer's 1 point being more difficult is basically just something you have to accept, but there are 4 sectorials that flat out can't get the full whack of points in show of force...
I'd be more upset by Show of Force if those bonus points from the TAG/heavyweight were liable to produce a difference in the actual game result. As it is, they're usually not, so the importance is chiefly a matter of tiebreaks in subsequent rounds. Which definitely can matter, but it's also a palatable risk if e.g. playing without a TAG might be beneficial in the rest of the event.
Yeah to be fair the only problem I really have with Show of Force is that not all of the S5 Heavy Infantry count. It'd be fun to see Yan Huo or Su Jian dashing into the center of the board to score late in the game. But what are you going to do.
Hmm. ITS theoretically allows custom missions now. 'Show of Force (but replacing all references to TAGs with references to S5 or larger models)' is a viable option. Even if it would still get complaints from the ISS players.
