I'd second adding more trees and nature to balance MSV2. That shit is way too expensive to be primarily a foil for another skill. And I say this as a Tohaa player who fuckin despises trees and what they do to my links in ARO
IJW isn't CB, and even if he was, "an expected mechanic" doesn't mean it's going to be on every table.
I'm not here for a legal debate. If you think msv1 is strong enough as it is just keep low vis off your tables.
Trees, low viz zones, saturation zones etc should be ideally on every board is the line from the playtesters, yes. Incidentally, US boards do skew the game for US players. Lots of terrain and blind angles, it's a cliché but I've seen boards in the US and I think it's real. Less terrain and more varied terrain is important in rebalancing. Chain Rifles are not supposed to be very good!
I disagree. Profiles like Umbra turn from useful (not powerful) to garbage as soon as you introduce terrain rules. This is a case of CB not knowing their own game.
The first one to finish talking isn't the loser that's not how this works. I gave all my points. I'm not gonna repeat it for 6 pages because being mad gets you hard.
If you won't back up what you're saying I'll assume you're turning tail to save face, since you care more about that than actually getting to the truth of the matter.
I'm sure if you actually knew what you were talking about you'd be able to point to where it says in the rulebook where it backs what you're saying up.
Have you tried playing on tables where special terrain is terrain features instead of all-overpowering jungle all over the whole freaking board? You should be able to walk around or in case of Samaritan jump over most of these terrain features; they should exist as minor benefits to units with the corresponding terrain skills, not so much that they become mandatory. It's like everything with terrain; too much and too little creates bias and skew.
No. Typically when terrain comes up in ITS it's either because of Rescue, or because a TO makes one table that's just terrain zone hell, with every other table basically having none. Also generally my opponents insist on treating terrain zones like ponds etc as infinitely high so that my units can't super jump over them.
Yeah, that's... I mean it's never going to be a solvable problem if your meta is actively working to make the situation worse. I can understand why in this situation you don't want terrain rules, truly, but there is a middle ground. I think CB needs to update their terrain recommendations, including the special terrain defaults, 'cause infinite height special terrain is just... dumb... in most cases.
The terrain rules are on the same 'level' as Hacking or Command Tokens, and every faction has units that pay for terrain-dependant Skills - even if it's just Multi-terrain on Skirmishers. That doesn't mean that entire tables should be Difficult Terrain or anything absurdly extreme like that - as Hecaton rightly points out that gimps 6-2 MOV units extremely hard. But adding some areas of terrain to most tables is not hard to do, adds tactical depth to the game and appears to be considered in the costs of some abilities in the game. To be hyperbolic for a moment, refusing to use the terrain rules is a bit like telling people that their smoke grenades have no effect once they've landed because 'we're not using Visibility Zones today'.
Yeah, we've discussed that in the past. Using the terrain rules doesn't mean abusing them, or being unreasonable about how they're used. Being able to specify non-infinite height is in the terrain rules for a reason. :-(
As an Onyx player, I'm down. /s. There's a thread somewhere in this subforum with some good ideas about setting up some terrain zones so that they affect the mission but don't determine it. I've never seen terrain implemented like that though, it's pretty much always nothing or the whole board with saturation and low-vis zones to match, usually curiously little cover with the assumption that the terrain rules will substitute for that, and whoever gets a TO sniper/ML in a good position will be able to box their opponent in. The terrain zones with infinite height bit is in the rules, basically that all terrain zones have an infinite height unless "otherwise indicated", and a lot of times players who don't have a good way to move vertically have no incentive to allow it to be otherwise indicated. I played in a tournament recently where the TO stated that things like ponds are infinitely high terrain zones unless both players agree. Luckily I didn't run into a who tried to pull that on me, but in one game where I suggested that the rocky outcroppings be desert terrain my opponent basically said that the terrain rules were rules bloat and he was going to forget them anyway. I like the terrain rules myself, and am currently working on making sure they have some terrain on each of them to spice them up (including an arboretum/hydro garden in the Combined Army orbital platform indoor board), but most people just don't want to bother. Plus there's basic questions that need answering, like does light vegetation modeled on provide cover because it's technically terrain, on top of being a saturation and low-vis zone? That seems excessive and it's weird that someone behind a bush is harder to hit than someone inside a bunker.
I think it's hyperbole to say no one is, but I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it's rare because people find it slows the game down and that they are complicated.
