By that logic it would be considered against the spirit of the game to study Army to learn what your opponent's possible options before the game are, too, and that's such an idiotic position I'm fine with disregarding your entire argument on those grounds.
@Triumph It's not a straw man argument. If information is supposed to be hidden, and knowing it is illegal, than what does it matter if it's your own memory, Army, or notes you yourself have made? There's no rules against bringing notes to the table, or referencing Army. You haven't presented a good reason why referencing Army during a game is different from referencing and studying it before the game; ergo, it's not a strawman argument, no matter how much you wish it was.
I'll tell newer players all the potential LT in my army, and did so before the public WIP roll. I'll tell experienced players if they ask, but they tend not to. Genuinely wondering though, with all the assassination potential in the game, the weakening of defenses via model caps, and now the dilution of LT "shell games", has LT or more particularly Loss of Lieutenant reached a point where we should just take that shit out of the game? Never had a game improved by Loss of Lieutenant, either for myself or my opponent, in nearly a decade of play. While there is some decision making between investing in a combat LT or a backfield LT, generally the reality of the rules is that this simply leads to some games that are non-games, increasingly does so in ways that are difficult or uninteractive to counter (looking at exterminatus strategies in particular), and does so at a rate that I would say far supersedes any possible advantage to including this decision in the game.
There are also numerous mitigation strategies available for players who are particularly worried about LoL, including for all Vanilla factions and most Sectorials. I'll agree that they're not on par with the kill options, Impersonators in particular being nearly unstoppable, but LoL still does add something, especially to more straightforward kill missions.
My argument was that you shouldn't be using outside influences such as Army, your friend watching the game, or yes a handwritten copy of every profile in the game, to give you access to your opponent's private information. You're saying I'm arguing you shouldn't be allowed to use your brain to play the game. That's a pretty simple misrepresentation of what I'm saying, hence, strawman. Your and a few other people's main concern is "well, it's unfair if the opponent has a better memory than me and that gives them a strategic advantage over me." Well... that's part of the game? Some people are better at it than others. If you're concerned about your opponent being able to spot your LT over you can I direct you back to the OP where the point of this thread is that the N4 makes it harder for players to disguise their LTs from opponents who do have a good memory of profiles (or are cheating with the army app as our tangent is going). Also just for context I personally can't remember every profile or even just every LT candidate in the game. I've only got a good working knowledge for a couple of factions that I'm usually building lists for. It's a double edged sword, really hard to say whether it should be removed/diluted or left as it is. On the one hand it's definitely something that can be used and abused in an alpha strike situation. On the other hand it's also very much a potential comeback mechanic for a player who's behind, I've had games I'm losing straight up salvaged because my opponent overextends and neglects their defenses and a drop troop or something manages to buy me some time by assassinating an LT.
That's a house rule. The publicly available lists cannot be private information, or anyone who plays a sectorial mirror match is cheating, due to their being required to look at Army to reference their own list. No. If anything that's in Army that's in the opponent's list is private information, period, then it should be illegal to know - since the rules don't make a distinction in that regard. The alternative that makes sense, of course, is only the specific information in the opponent's list is Private, as opposed to the publicly available info in Army. So, not a strawman. It's called reductio ad absurdum. I don't think it's unfair, it's just stupid. I'm particularly good at memorizing things, but I don't get off on winning a game because of it. Infinity should be about decision making, not how hard you've hit the books to memorize army lists.
It is a strawman, though. Triumph wants the game to be about what what information you bring with you to the game and what information the game tells you - not what you can squeeze out of Army with specifically the context of what is on the table Like how exams don't allow you to bring course literature and lecture notes. Well. Most exams don't. Fear the ones which do allow you to. Looking stuff up during the game in the specific context of the game does remove a lot of cognitive load and as I've written I don't find that cognitive load and information wrangling to be an interesting or fun challenge. It is legitimate, however, to think it is.
I'm not sure that Army counts as an outside source considering I'll have it open anyway for my own list.
To clarify, I don't have an issue with someone using the app to manage their own list, that's fine although obviously for tournaments we get everyone to print out their lists anyway. The issue is if they're using it to try and uncover private information that belongs to the opponent during the game. That's a pretty good way to summarize it. The way Infinity was pitched to me by the player that got me into it after quitting Warmahordes in disgust with how Privateer Press were handling the game, was that it was an extremely dynamic game. One were mind games and tricks were common and both players maintained agency during each others turns, and it was a game that created a dynamic situation were your plans often didn't survive contact with the enemy and needed to be adapted on the fly. To me that was an intriguing prospect given I had just come from a system which at the time extremely predictable. It was very easy to tell exactly how the game was going to play just by looking at both army lists. The private information aspect of Infinity is a breath of fresh air compared to other systems that are way too concerned about streamlining everything in their rule set for the sake of some dick measuring world championship series.
But is the fact that Lei Gong's SMG loadout has CoC private info? Sure, you don't have to tell me that particular trooper on the board has it, but isn't the fact that he doesn't have a matching non-CoC loadout just part of the game? If I see SMG Lei Gong I know he has CoC, if I see a Myrmidon Officer I know they're either the Lt. or CoC. If I see a Bolt with Combi+LSG they could be Lt. CoC, or just a goon. Does it matter that I know this because I've been playing for yonks or because I look at the profile? Likewise, am I allowed to use Army to check the stats of you troopers while you're busy doing something else? Lei Gong's BS is open info, can I check it with the freely available app already open on my tablet or do I have to interrupt and ask you every time I want to know something about your models?
That's kinda my point. If you can remember it, that's cool, well done to you and I am impressed by your in depth knowledge of the game. If you can't remember though and then get outside help to find out what private information I'm concealing, that's not cool. I am here to play against you, not you plus your phone, or you plus your mate coaching you, or Hecaton plus his A4 binder of handwritten notes on every faction in the game. Just you. You're free to interrupt me. I can talk while I move stuff and I have a courtesy list for a reason to answer the majority of questions. For anything that it can't handle dealing with it in conversation is fine, that's part of Infinity there's alot of talking and ensuring consensus while you play. The game plays very much as flowing conversation as opposed to Warmachine in which each player's turn is very much a series of statements from one player.
I think we come back to a disagreement on whether or not looking at the official, freely available army app that I already have open at the side of the table with the official, freely available wiki in another tab, is "outside help" or just referencing the rules of the game.
It's not that he's saying he *wants* that, though, it's that he's saying that's how Infinity is supposed to be played - which is a very different (and nonsensical) position. Sounds like your expectations are running aground on reality. Regardless, there is still plenty of opportunity for mind games in Infinity. So you can play whatever game you're playing, and the rest of us will be playing Infinity.
You're searching for external information you don't have in your head, and the game mechanics deliberately conceal from you, to help you make a strategic decision. That's pretty easy to identify as searching for external assistance in your gameplay.
Where in the rules does it say that you cannot look at Army during play? Where in the rules does it say that knowing Private Information via memorization is ok?
If we're going down the stupid questions route, where does it say you can open up army to look at your opponent's private information? Look it's not RAW, but functionally the only way to make this work is for me to beat you over the head with a maggie in a sock until you suffer memory loss. While I'm sure many people would like to see that happen, obviously I don't think it's a great idea for ease of game play.
Because that's actually impossible, since you can't look at your opponent's army list in Army, only their sectorial list. What rule allows you to know your opponent's private information via memorization? I've been cheating this whole time, OMG!
You know I'm pretty sure there aren't any rules that actually explicitly forbid you from just picking up your opponent's army list and looking at it either, if you're still interested in doing a stupid RAW argument.
