FRRM, Druze, QK... this seems to read more like a list of “What armies don’t you see often?” While uncommon, these armies really kick butt. Briscard links with 4 Chasseurs is terrifying. Druze are just mean (less options than Ikari, but vastly better at ITS), and QK plays a lot like Druze, but has heavy hitters like Ikari. I think the only sectorial that isn’t on par with the rest of the game is Shasvastii, but that’s mostly due to out of date rules that will get fixed eventually.
I don't think I could tell you what factions are OP or under powered. Infinity is a game with a lot of soft counters, and tactical flexibility. If you are a component player you can easily make and play competive lists regardless of faction. I've never sat down in infinity and felt I had a good or bad matchup against another player based on list(other then new players who did things like not use swc,etc). I HAVE come to that conclusion after an opponent deploys poorly, but that's a skill issue, not a faction issue. I've been playing a lot of tunguska, which is showing up in the "weak" column, I can see why people might say that, it's an expensive and fragile faction, it's also very powerful. I've been doing very well. Lots of good players opinions are split on this, a lot of the players chiming in have had fairly good its rankings last year...
I disagree. I think things like ideal strategies barely ever even get really discussed by the community. The community can get pretty... intense at even the thought of top list examination.
I think SEF will get fixed early in the new year, and that’s frightening, because I don’t need another army...
^^^No worries amigo. CB will just 'retire' one of your current armies. They're helpful that way. I should add that I do like the idea that ASA is going to get a new and improved. I dislike the idea that I won't get a resculpted Guarda de Assalto anytime soon. Bahram always struck me as the weakest. Too much glass in that hammer.
We could very well see a resculpted Guarda De Assalto, we got a brand new Chasseur when MRRF was discontinued. As for Bayram, I came in a close 3rd place at the Las Vegas Open with Druze just a bit over a month after the rules for them were released... they're a damn good army, one which I think is far more competitive than Ikari in ITS missions, and I've been playing Ikari quite a lot.
I maintain the viewpoint that ITS is not balanced so long as some factions/sectorials have no means of obtaining full Objective Points (ie, 10) in every mission with the correct composition. Vanilla Ariadna, Caledonia, USA, TAK, ISS, and Steel Phalanx still have no TAG with which to obtain max victory points on Show of Force (and the other remaining TAG centric mission). Until these missions are removed, the requirement for TAGs is removed, or TAGs are given to these factions - ITS cannot, imo, be completely balanced.
Huh? About the only thing DBS being better at is infiltration, having AVA 2 Hunzakuts, Saito, and MechDep Peacemaker vs. AVA 1 Ninja for Ikari. It's a difference, but not big enough to counter Ikari having many more tools at its disposal...
Balanced in 24 of 26 missions is pretty damn balanced, not to mention there is an ITS extra which can be used to allow TAGs it if players want. So the only time it's not balanced, by your own definition, is when a TO picks those missions chooses not to allow Soldiers of Fortune. I disagree, 2 Hunzakuts, Specialist Saito, and a Peacemaker is a HUGE difference. It's the difference between having 1 midfield specialists and having 3. It's also the difference between having a strong midfield presence, and nearly none. Furthermore, the link flexibility of the Druze in DBS, compared to the extremely brittle links in Ikari Company is a big deal. The issue with Ikari Company tools, is that they have a lot of options, but they're all options for doing roughly the same thing (shooting things in the face). There is enough of an overlap in models though, that if you're going to collect one, you really should just collect both.
That is my go-to example of the flaws of the design. It goes super out of whack in other missions as well - Hunting Party, for example. Where virtually every model Steel Phalanx can field has an ADHL, and other armies have only 2-3 units that do. Or that every Tohaa in SymbioArmour can simply step out of their armour to negate the objective. Or people can just suicide Lts off buildings -_- TAGs is just the most glaring and obvious one to be in play. Soldiers of Fortune, whilst being a bandaid to fix that, opens up a whole other can of worms for faction balance and rarely sees use by TOs in my meta. EDIT - I will say, overall I think it is a reasonably balanced system, but I also feel that feedback isn't necessarily being taken on board season to season. Especially when we have the same missions copy/pasted over without the errata that had gone into them previously. Either we should be getting new and diverse set of missions every season, or we should be getting a much more polished and professional release encompassing the same missions set as previously.
The fact that CB has a gag order on deconstructing the points formula is all the evidence you need, IMO. My bigger issue with Deadly Dance is the complete randomness for scoring zones. And its not like you can't get a major victory in any of the TAG missions without a TAG. The quick fix should be allowing possess TAGs to score for the player possessing them.
But if you tie for Tourney Points, and it tie breaks to OP... And your faction is incapable of having achieved max OP and theirs is...?
Then you should have gotten more tournament points. And that shouldn't be hard, you didn't handicap yourself by taking a TAG in at least one of your lists.
Yeah, there are no auto-lose matchups here. Not like a couple missions my friends found in Kill Team, where Necrons auto-lose. Yup. Whichever faction I'm playing is the shittiest in the game. Which means that you cannot even begin to analyze for 'optimal list'. I'd love to feed the Infinity rules to one of those supercomputers (or a tactical shooter AI) and try to get it to spit out the optimal list and tactics. Probably give the programmer a nervous breakdown trying it, though. Having a small number of viable lists does not mean that [ faction ] is weak. It's a pretty defensible position to say that 'even when some subset of players try to powergame listbuilding, the more skilled player reliably kicks their ass with a list they thought was weak.' It's a pretty good indication that there is no such thing as a top list when Joe Average player cannot take the Interplanetario-winning lists and reliably win his local tournament.
The fact that skilled players can beat less skilled players with non-optimal lists is an indication that player skill is a factor in the game, sure. No, it's an indication that player skill has an impact on the game. Poor play can ruin the "best" list, of course, I am not arguing anything like that. Given well put together simulator though, we could probably train bots to reliably trounce humans a la the OpenAI Five.
That player skill has a greater impact than army build, you mean. That would be an interesting thing. Would probably have to monkey around with a Tabletop Simulator, though, which would require a lot of programming to get 'right'. Certainly well above my programming paygrade!
Being unable to use the tool or unable to understand how to use it isn't the same thing as the tool being good or bad. Mandatory car metaphor: I'm not skilled enough to take an F1 car around a race track, but that doesn't mean it's not the most optimal way of getting around the track. Being able to predict attack routes, spotting discrepancies in lists to know there are AD troops coming (and where they will likely land), etc. may be a requirement to play top tier lists well. Starcraft metaphor: noobs whine about Disruptors massacring everything in their path with little effort, pros will micro-manage their troops so that Disruptors are a liability to the Protoss player.
Taking a TAG never prevents you from scoring 10 points, but not having one can. F1 cars are all built within the same ever narrowing specs, and recently they've been made less optimal in order to emphasise the driver's skill. Maybe that would work for infinity, a mod where everybody uses a CBL type list for every faction/sectorial that are ballanced within an eyelash of each other, or even a handful of lists that have units from multiple factions that *aren't* optimal...
The idea of pocket TAGs (essentially Geckos for everybody) was an interesting thing being floated last year, but CB seems to have veered away from that. The TAG missions themselves are solvable with the Datatracker by simply slotting in "or Datatracker" for scoring right next to "TAG". Bringing a TAG will give you more options and some fairly durable options. This is a great idea! It'd mean CB needs to step up on the CBL release schedule and take a good look at Pan-O's CBLs and bring them up to YuanDun's level (which I consider to be a good level to aim for where the lists have strong strengths and strong weaknesses), but certainly doable. Hell, if it catches on even slightly it might even merit a book release with thematic story-driven content.
