I’m all for an increase of points. Even though 250+100 is technically more points, I keep making lists that are about 13 figures.
I've really loved reinforcements in the two games I've played so far. I feel like its a much more tempo-based and tactical game as a result instead of "strike hard, strike fast". Only 1 note I would make that stands out to me: Reinforcements coming in need to be mandatory at time of hitting the points threshold. As of right now, the first player already has a disadvantage on player-2-favored missions like zone control missions. Ideally the first player should be rewarded for getting an enemy's reinforcements out on T2, and then counterattacking with their own reinforcements on T3, because the 2nd player still has the opportunity to move points onto zones "for free" in the last turn. Otherwise I've greatly enjoyed reinforcements, I think it makes for a much much better game. I think many of the complaints come from it being a new thing, and therefore a scary thing. Overall, I've felt like the "tax" for commslink is great because it breaks down some of the most aggressive meta-lists. Lists become much more variable because players can no longer afford to just take all of their best units and call it a day, and that's awesome for the health of the game. Over time I would love to see expansion of commslink options etc. but for a brand new gamemode I am extremely pleased with how everything is working so far.
If it doesnt matter if a unit lives or dies, why add an arbitrary rule like 'Commlink' (in its current state)? As it currently stands, lists are now paying a (approx.) 20+ point tax on models that are not always used, while also playing down 50 points from what I assume most people are playing (300pts). 1) If the rule is arbitrary, and the models that have commlink are extremely limited, should it be mandatory you take these models? 2) Would just having a rule where 'Reinforcements' are an event/game option be a valid change (similar to Mercs or Spec Ops)? 3) Would it be game breaking to just have 'Commlink' models just provide buffs to an army for the additional points cost? This would actually add more flexibility in list making. ^^ The above is from my other topic in the forums; adding my thoughts here to keep things together. My opinion hasnt changed after a week of games and marinating on the whole thing. Commlink is not needed in its current state; should/could be used to just buy buffs and bonuses for your army instead of a silly rule that doesnt matter. EDIT: I do want to add, I really like the playstyle of reinforcements and the way it changes the game. I would be willing to play it often. I think the way lists are built is currently the biggest bottleneck for me as it punishes some armies/factions more than others.
Hello! I played more than 10 games with Reinforcements and I have some feedback. I played with JSA, 250+100. Only exeption - in EVERY game me and opponent agree, that we MUST deploy reinf if we lose 100 pts. So, my thoughts - its really good. First of all -New meta, new way to build rosters made it very exiting. I played with roster, that have 3 ninjas and 3 ryukens (And i had totally uselles before Ninja Sniper). And EVERY game was interesting, cause opponent think about new way to play too. Second - new playstyle. Alpha Strike need more skill to kill 100pts firstly, to force enemy to deploy Reinf. But everyone has more cost heavy units, so need to find balance in good attack and take good defending positions. Third - ALL reinforcments are good. So every weak army now has some good models, that can do very much when dropping. Ive used Miranda+Sforza+2xDiggers+Brawler HRL. Do you use seriously Sforza and Ashcroft before? And now they GODD and I can use it in JSA, for example Overall, every game - is tough and cool for me. Maybe ill wine little bit about not having Keisotsu - i think probably every NA2 need to has generic unit with Commlink, not only Wardriver and use wording MUST deploy reinf if lost 100pts. Sorry for bad english, cheers <3
Is that true? In a 300 point, 15 unit list, you're averaging 20 points per unit. If you take 10 units in a 240 point game, that's 24 points per unit - only slightly higher. But, are people taking only 10 units in Reinforcements? The lists I've been seeing having tended to about 12 Main List units - so average 20 points each, exactly the same as in a 300 point game...
We have done a live stream on this very subject with comments from the community https://youtube.com/live/W1_s6YrrKqQ?feature=share
First off thanks for the update and new game mode! I like that the game has slowed down a little, and become less killy. The one issue I think needs to be addressed is how we calculate when reinforcements arrive. Currently, you can bring a 150 pt main group, and a 100 point reinforcement group and the reinforcements arrive immediately at the start of the first turn because you are "below the threshold" for reinforcements. This simply feels wrong, and should be addressed. As many people have stated, commlinks feel... weird. I love that we are seeing some commlink +1 and +2 but just showing up on line troopers is a bit boring. Put commlinks on profiles that aren't seeing as much play, and please, let the NA2 armies take something other than a wardriver! I am still not convinced commlinks need to exist on a profile, and many people have allready suggested simply ignoring the commlink trooper requirement when playing reinforcements. I think most of the profiles we got for reinforcements are great, but again, I think NA2 is a little lacking. Final point I don't love is how easy it is to drop troopers in the middle of the table with reinforcements. We all know that positioning is really important in infinity. We spend the majority of our orders moving around the table, interacting with the opponent, sometimes smoking off ARO's or using cautious movement to get to where we want to go. Even Combat Jump units have to drop somewhere out of sight to avoid ARO's, but reinforcements simply dont play by the rules. They show up, halfway up the table, and theres nothing the opponent can do about it, which for me is against the spirit of infinity. For example, in Ariadna, Duroc can show up half way out, and move 6" into close combat with something, and there isnt a single thing you can do to stop it. I'm at least glad there isn't much (if any) berserk in reinforcements because that would make it even worse. What I would like to suggest is reinforcements units do generate ARO's when setup, or you must place your drop pod token during deployment. This gives you a lot more counterplay with your opponents reinforcements, which I think is the core of infinity.
I've played quite a few games of reinforcements now so I think I can actually comment from a reasonable position. I really like the core idea of reinforcements. However I have some issues with bits and pieces. My overall take is that it's flawed but I like it. What I like Playing games at 250 points (in reality ~230 points because commlink) is much more interesting than 300. You can't fit as much in a list and so sacrifices have to be made. I like this. Alpha striking is absolutely less strong because you're hitting the table with fewer slots as the attacker on turn 1. A traditional alpha strike without reinforcements is some kind of group 2 play to remove a few problematic ARO pieces (e.g. a Szalamandra guns down an ARO, or something launches pitchers then GMLs you), followed by an aggressive group 1 play to run over to your deployment zone and remove things (e.g. a Bearpode or Uberfallkommando). Lists are usually hitting the table with about 12 models now, not 15, which means group 2 isn't as stocked with orders. As a consequence of fewer slots and orders the attacker has less flexibility on turn 1 because most of their pieces will be in one group. Any order spent on a Szalamandra to gun down an ARO is an order that cannot go into the Uberfallkommando. This makes turns less deadly. Cool. Good. The idea of reinforcements coming down if someone takes casualties is interesting and leads to more compelling decisions about whether you choose to play the mission or get aggressive. Getting aggressive used to be an easy decision in most circumstances. Now on a lot of missions I simply do not have the slots and orders to grab multiple boxes (e.g. Supplies) and kill you. That's nice. What I don't like Reinforcements are really bad for zone control missions like Frontline. They're bad enough without reinforcements being optional. Now that it's been ruled as optional it's even worse. It's the case in missions such as Frontline that basically whoever drops second just gets an astounding advantage that you can't even counter with AROs. End of game scoring that depends on positioning (e.g. Acquisition / Frontline etc.) is awful with reinforcements because the player with the last turn just lands them and that's it. Ok, maybe they need to spend one order. But that makes the rest of the game feel pointless. Not fun. Please at the very least make dropping mandatory when you lose the 100 pts. The commlink tax is really silly without options. It's the same kind of idea as a lieutenant. 'You have to pay for this troop that fulfils an important purpose in your list'. Ok, that's not an awful idea. But the problem with commlink is that there's no choice, and the troop doesn't even need to live to call in reinforcements, so there's no sense of interaction with the opponent. If commlink was closer to lieutenants (e.g. you had meaningful choices at various points levels) and they had to be on the board to do something important (e.g. allowed you to move any troop you wanted into or out of the reinforcement group without using a token) that would be better. We want the points we pay for troops to represent active choices we make, and for those choices to interact with the opponent. Commlinks are neither meaningful choices, nor can the opponent interact with them. That's boring gameplay.
I, and a lot of others people, really have serious problems for create a list. I think would be nice, like somebody wrote, change the classic format to 300 for the main group and 100 for the reinforcements. With only 250pts it's impossibile to start the game with the necessary. Or atleast remove the tax from the commlink. I think also that invest 100pts in a group that in most case will not enter until the last turn isn't the best method for enjoy the reinforcements
For the sake of confirming that I agree with the points made before I'll reiterate some: 1. Zone scoring is not too balanced with reinforcements - way too many drops you can't counter well. 2. The comlink tax is about 10 points or so and +0.5 SWC, which feels too steep. It would have been okay, if comlink could be taken by other units, so there was a meaningful choice in the list building. You have a good opportunity with Lavochkina that will come with the new comic book. Give her to NA2 and allow her to take comlink and counterintel. 3. The way reinforcements are calculated is gameable. If you abandon your pupniks or puppets they go temporary in a null state and count for reinforcement points, but you can bring them back. I'm not sure it is intentional and if it is, I don't think it feels good. 4. Reinforcement profiles are very fun for some armies, but for others are weird or boring and break some important aspects of the faction identities. Nomads get chain of command, OSSSSS sssssudenly gets a seriously threatening melee fighter... Meanwhile Tohaa gets a disappointingly low effort, but otherwise mechanically strong update (despite some concerns about point prices) and the only positive feature of the NA2 reinforcements is the bug. Speaking of the bug, giving a lot of armies access to plasma is interesting. People will probably enjoy playing with this rule more. 5. Games did become more chaotic, with more heavy units and less irregular units making the rosters. Calculations of average points are a bit misleading, since the order numbers of turn 1 are more limited and encourage for many armies getting elite hitters and a hefty ARO dude. Ironically, the heaviest hitter, the Avatar, got a big hit itself, as it can't rely on its warband bodyguards and has less points for T1 friends. 6. Map layouts are becoming more important. You can't really smother your opponent in their deployment zone any more and you start with less models, so managing a weaker starting zone is a bit easier. In the same time, dropping a 7-order group in the mid field can absolutely dominate the late game if their big gun can spend 1-2 orders and park himself with an overview of 75% of the board. It was strong having FDs and infiltrators and what not starting in such locations, but you could counter that with similar units of your own. Now you have very limited counter options for this. 7. Part of the previous point really, but placed separate for reasons that it may be an unintentional interaction - you can mark the DropPod with a token or a terrain piece. Sounds cool, lets you bring a fun piece of terrain with you, yay! Definitely very cool, indeed, but said terrain piece also provides cover and blocks movement. It can block pathways really nastily. I'm not against, but it is an extraordinary interaction.
I have played 3 games with reinforcement so far. Our conclusions : - reinforcement have dropped on turn 3 in 2/3 games (and should have in the last game if we had played more smart). - 250 pts only allows for a small main group and maybe one or two aro piece. I like it because that means you really have a few order and need to focus on the mission. Especially because you don't want to destroy the ennemi to avoid the reinforcement to drop. - when reinforcement drops we always wanted to split the force in two to do things on different points of the battfield. - we need more commlink troop option to make list building more interesting. - some missions about zone controle (Frontline and suprematy for example) are completely pointless with this mode. 2nd player just have to wait for last turn and drop 100 pts to win. The mission could be reworked or just ban from this mode. Some like supply are very interesting. But overall it's a very nice and interesting game mode. Thanks and I hope you will find ways to make it even more interesting. Édit : we removed the marker after landing assuming it was just where an helicopter stop for a few seconds before moving.
I feel that if CB wasn't greedy with monetisation of Reinforcements, they could've just made it simple tournament extra where players can keep up to 100pts and deploy them in turn 2 from a drop pod like now. Let players build Reinforcements from the entire roster.
I like seeing the design team take really big swings at new mechanics. :) I like Reinforcements as a "new thing". Other companies drop "new things" all the time. I like new things. I also like the alternate Swiss Guard profile with CC Attack +6. That's cool. I like that he gets to use his sword. PLEASE relay that info to the team. I like that a lot. I like close combat. I like using Diggers, Armored Prospectors in close combat. I like that the Reinforcements start up closer to the enemy so they can use fists and knives. That's good.
No interest as they dictated the use of use of units that either a: dont interest me/don't belong in my sectorial or b: I've actively chosen not to use. I hope others enjoy it, but I'm passing on this extra.
So far I've played a total of 3 games and a 3 round tournament of a whole 6 players who were ready to test out the new hotness the weekend of release. Five of those were with vanilla CA and one with OCF, all against various sectorial armies (CA vs White Banner, Morats, MO, Bakunin, White company and OCF vs Svalarheima) In general I feel pretty positive about the update, but I'm not sure how much of it is the novelty of the experience, and how much of it is from the reinforcements being a better way to play than the standard 300 ITS format. What I can say for sure though is that it's definitely not worse, despite some issues. Speaking of, the first one in terms of how annoying it is, but not how impactful, is the commlink. The idea of having a model that can add an order to a reinforcements group asap is great, it's a useful tool to have if you want to fuel a reinf. TAG or squeeze out just a little bit more of the cheaper troops. However, it being a mandatory thing to take puts further constraint on list building that is frankly a bit much, in just about every faction there is a better model to take for the same price as the commlink, and for me the ability to have one more order in the reinforcements group is absolutely not worth a tax of 0.5 SWC and 10 points from my main list. (24 points in reality since I play CA and wouldn't bring any of our basic line troops if I had a choice, even in morats and shasvastii the basic troopers are a questionable choice) Of all 6 games I played it was better for me to leave the commlink in the main group, usually there was something to do in the main group but enough damage sustained that I would be better off with 1 more order in the main group rather than in reinforcements. What I would like to see is the commlink becoming an optional thing to take, so that if you want its ability to add an order to the reinf. group and/or more trooper slots you take it, and if you feel like there's a better way to spend your points then you aren't forced into taking a thing you don't want to use. Ideally combining this with giving the commlinks to some more interesting profiles than it is now with those being expensive fireteam fillers at best, or at the very least make the commlinks cost just 1 point more than the normal version of the same trooper as it would with any specialist operative. Another thing is the drop pod giving you a choice between it being either a token or a scenery piece that would provide cover, it would play more smoothly if it was either one or the other, with a good compromise being making it a S3/5/6 token, so that it would be the same in terms of cover for both players while giving the freedom to model whatever drop pod you want onto a 40mm base. Now, onto the bigger problems, to get the first one out of the way: there's already enough said without me about how much reinforcements negatively interact with end of the game scoring missions like frontline, acquisition, etc., and I don't have much to add to it except that to me personally it does feel a bit too strong of a play as it is now in ITS14, but I'm willing to wait for the new tournament season to drop before coming to any conclusions about it being too strong or not. The second one is the points threshold for the arrival of reinforcements, having to lose 100 points feels too much, but it might actually be okay. Let me explain: needing to have 250 or less VPs between your reinf. groups and the surviving models on the table can often mean that reinforcements only arrive at turn 3 in a lot of games, and it lets you control for your opponents ability to drop reinforcements way too easily, if you play a roughly even split of +-25 points per model you could lose 3-4 models and end up with too few orders to accomplish anything with your main force AND not be able to request reinforcements even if you wanted to. You could also lose almost any TAG in the game turn one and still not be able to use your reinforcements, which aside from the balance question is just a feels bad moment even in casual play. The reason I doubt that lessening the threshold for requesting reinforcements is100% needed is that as of now there's a few models that can just bombrush your opponent turn one and trade themselves for a lot of damage and guaranteed reinforcements next turn, so lowering the reinforcement threshold to 275 or 263 victory points might mean more alpha strikes with TAGs, which might be bad for the game, but with dropping reinforcments second being stronger in a lot of missions I'm not sure if it's that bad. (Avatar and Sphinx enjoyer bias might be showing here, however that alpha strike play is already available to those and Maruts, but not many others without playing a significant chunk of points down) The last Negative with a capital N thing from the reinforcements update for me is how unevenly the new units were distributed outside of the reinforcements themselves, it's disappointing to see the vast majority of all these cool new shiny toys being reinforcements only, I would really like to see them added to all generic armies as well as sectorials where appropriate, it's perfectly fine to have the reinforcements-only profiles for those models like for example the heavy shotgun Azra'il, but not being able to play with cool new toys outside of the special game mode is a huge miss for me, and I at least got a Caskuda. I'm not sure what exactly is the reason for it, but I really hope that at some (preferably not too distant) point in the future all of us can play with these new units, most of those aren't even super strong outside of reinforcements, even dawons got preemptively moved from REM to LI to avoid the remdriver (+9CC) interaction, and it's a shame that the reinf. moblot profiles didn't get added into the merovingian sectorial. And to end on a positive note, because of the new troops from reinforcements the QK seems to be in a good place now, a few new units plus a few profile updates for existing ones and a second haris breathed a new life into this sectorial, and I know at least 2 local players who want to get back to playing their QK armies, that's great!
You can buy a single 'spec-ops' miniature from CB and use it as your faction's spec-ops when using the spec-ops optional extra in ITS. But if there are no ITS events near you that use the spec-ops extra, it's fairly reasonable to expect people to use their spec-ops miniature as a proxy miniature for something in their normal army list. Let's say you're buying several exrah miniatures though. These aren't usable without the reinforcements extra, and I don't think people are going to be satisfied with being told that they are going to need to proxy as other CA units because the locals don't want to use the reinforcements extra in events. For this reason, I don't believe reinforcements will be sidelined in quite the same way that most ITS extras have been. In the long run, it'd probably be fairer to give all of the new reinforcement profiles a secondary version that works in the main army list, as has been done with cascuda/maximus. We're severely bloating the game with profiles that perform similar roles at this point though.
I'm planning to play my first game this weekend, but I want to restate some list building concerns that have been mentioned. I'm primarily a QK/Dashat player, so I do want to say thank you to the design team for introducing new QK profiles and refreshing some of thd old load outs - it's made me excited to play QK again. Commlink being locked to a single unit is really frustrating during list building. I was super excited when Bostria mentioned Hafza as a commlink profile, only to have my hopes dashed when the Army update dropped. This issue is exacerbated in sectorial armies, where players are usually trying to build around fireteam compositions. At best, the commlink troop is an overpriced specialist that takes up space in a link, but many sectorials don't have good line infantry fireteams (either due to limited allowable pure compositions or lacking a strong wildcard gunfighter). This effectively handicaps the player when trying to build a list. It would be better if more Commlink profiles were available (on different troop types), or even if they were combined with the old spec ops rules, where you could buy a spec ops unit that can take Commlink as a skill. I strongly support keeping the 250+100 format. 300+100 would take the problems of the current 300 point format and amplify them. I have long been a proponent of reducing alpha strike through limiting the number of models in a group, and I feel reinforcements is a novel and interesting approach to this. That said, the separate point and SWC caps do create some awkward situations where you are 5-10 points short in the reinforcement group due to the minimum trooper cost that appears to be intended to prevent horde spamming in reinforcements. At a minimum, I feel that SWC should be shared between groups, with the reinforcement group capped at 2 SWC. If there was a way to allow a limited sharing of points between pools (again, maybe up to 10 points), that would also make list building feel less constricted. I'll revisit my thoughts on this after my game, but reading the suggestion in this thread and the previous thread, I like the ideas of having to place the dropped marker during deployment and/or forcing reinforcements to drop earlier. As people have mentioned, reinforcements arriving at the bottom of turn 2, immune to ARO and deployable anywhere on their half of the table, feels like an oversight in the playtest and antithesis to the "it's always your turn" design philosophy that makes Infinity unique.
MAJOR ISSUES Reinforcements arrive too late. Reinforcements tend to arrive at the denouement of the game - wrapping it up - rather than their arrival being the climax of the game. The result is that the arrival of reinforcements concludes the game. A more satisfying structure is when you have 3 acts to the game: a pre-reinforcement development, the arrival of reinforcements as a climax, and then post-reinforcements to close the game out. This also works better with Zone Control missions as it means reinforcements are not just arriving into zones and not interacting, but there is an opportunity for P1 to counter and remove them. Recommendation: Reinforcements should arrive with 300 VP remaining for a 350pt game (ie ~50pts lost). Their arrival should be mandatory. Reinforcements as Open Information. Having the composition of reinforcements be open information at the end of the Deployment Phase rather than when deployed severely limits options for composition ambiguity. For instance, if you know that your opponent does not have a second engineer as a reinforcement it provides clarity about how you prioritise targeting their loan engineer. Equally, with reinforcements being open, it eliminates ambiguity about the potential existence of Hidden Deployed to Air Deployed troopers, this limits the value of these already expensive and niche units. Recommendation: Reinforcements should remain Private Information until deployed. COMMLINKS. Mandatory expensive and uninteresting commlinks are unsatisfying. The mechanic of expanding Trooper slots and automatically transferring across to the reinforcement pool is interesting and useful and is occasionally worth taking this ability; however, their cost and mandatory nature reduce the room to play other interesting archetypes. Appropriately costed, COMMLINKS would be taken for these 2 functions (expanding Army sizes and adding an additional trooper to Reinf Combat Groups). The design aim should be to make COMMLINKS a player choice to use or not as part of their list building decisions. Recommendation: Make COMMLINKS optional and able to be used in general play; review their cost. MINOR ISSUES Lunokhods. Reinforcement Lunokhod profiles are boring. Minelayer Koala Lunokhods were already managed appropriately by the V2.0 rule change that made deploying the Koalas with an enemy in Trigger Area Illegal (this means that they can't deploy and immediately fork an opponent with a Koala). Koalas are an iconic element of Lunokhods, removing that from them essentially removed any reason for playing Lunokhods in reinf; even with Koalas they will remain a very marginal profile. Recommendation: Reinf Lunokhod should have their original profile. REBUTTAL Use of VPs to determine reinforcement arrival. Use of VPs vice points-lost to determine the reinforcement threshold has several advantages: this is already calculated automatically by the app, it's required to be calculated for retreat anyway, it provides ambiguity about the precise threshold (an Army of 346 total points only needs to lose 96pts before hitting the threshold). These advantages, however, need to be offset against the community distaste for the strategy of deliberately taking an army with less than 250pts to trigger reinforcements on T1 while going first. Recommendation: Continue using VPs as the mechanism add a limitation to reinforcements to limit their arrival until after the completion of the first Turn of the Game.
Current experience with Reinforcements is limited to list building with PanOceania. The comm-linker is increasingly remaining unlinked in my Main Combat force squirreled away in G2 ready to swing over into the Reinforcements combat group. Allowing me to rest assured that I can lean on order efficient profiles and bulk up the overall regular order count. Deployment onto or near intended targets or objectives speed up this efficiency. Main combat groups builds are favouring the process of selecting units who can keep a Drop Zone Clear for later use and get those initial tasks done knowing there'll be a back fill coming in at a later stage to re-claim if it's lost. The knowledge that I have redundancy dropping down especially if a Squalo falls over in some fashion. Especially if it's just fallen unc as this reinforcement Squalo will allow me some breathing room to get the second Squalo operational again if able to especially with the Blade Ops Engineer deployed in base contact and prone with a Tactical Awareness order to just chuck a cheeky repair it's way.
