This! Its absolutly no fun. In my opinon its absolutly not necessary. Two people agree to play RF. Why the tax and for what. No benefit. Fluffwise you could just name one of your troopers that is your commlink trooper. Or the cheapest regular troop or just add a bunch of profiles without rising the cost: Zhanshi, Zuyong, EVO Bot for example.
Every user I've read agrees on this. To put a tax to play reinforcements doesn't make any sense. I don't understand why there are still doubts about changing it.
Poor conception of rules. Needs more playtesting and more people telling the designers with bad ideas "this is bad."
This is the feedback thread, and this is what this thread is used for gathering it, I am unsure on what reaction speed you expect any possible changes to be done.
Ran my first Reinforcements event on the weekend. Just a small event, three rounds. Chatted with players through the day, including a few people who were coming at the format pretty much entirely cold. This is what they had to say: Overall reception Overall reception was mixed but overall positive, on the following basis: a new meta to explore and different things to play with and against was nice the game had spikes of drama throughout as reinforcements arrived, which is an interesting change Commlink profiles Reception of the implementation of commlink profiles ranged from weary acceptance, to a couple of people indicating that the they really weren't interested in writing reinforcements lists until commlinks changed. New profiles (except commlinks) People were very enthusiastic about the new profiles to play with, and generally liked the new options and design of the reinforcements they were playing. Apaches and the reinforcements Azra'il both received particular "hahaha this is awesome" responses, and several people mentioned how much they liked being able to put things like chain of command and engineers in reinforcements pools and (maybe) drop them in when it would really make a difference. Reinforcements public information Our long-suffering MRRF player noted that having Margot and Duroc in his reinforcements pool meant that his opponents knew they didn't have to worry about them arriving using Parachutist (Deployment Zone), which made him pretty sad. Tachimotos reinforcements profiles We played with Tachimotos rules applying to reinforcements profiles, which our Nomad player used to maximal effect. His reinforcements pool arrived with something like ten orders. It definitely felt a bit much. Reinforcements thresholds / reinforcements always arriving There was a bit of discussion about the fixed 250pt threshold for reinforcements to arrive (in a 350pt game) and the fact that reinforcements always arrived meant that they didn't really help a player come back if they were behind. We discussed the idea of the thresholds lowering over the game (e.g. 250 / 225 / 200, no auto arrival on round three) or something similar. Reinforcements mandatory in Reinforcements events A couple of players who hadn't been following the variant closely were genuinely surprised that playing reinforcements was mandatory rather than optional in the event and one of them even turned up with one reinforcements and one non-reinforcements list and had to rewrite the latter on the fly before the event started. Time to play a reinforcement game We had only a single game risk being called before finishing three rounds, and it was round one Nomads v Tohaa game between two extremely hungover players (one of whom generally struggles with time anyway). This is pretty promising in terms of how smoothly a reinforcements event can run, but it did raise the question - if a TO has to instruct players to end a game early (e.g. play to end of round two), how does that interact with the reinforcements rule? Do the reinforcements arrive automatically (we assumed no)? Are they considered casualties at game end (we assumed yes)?
No, I mean the playtesting should have been done before. But that's just a rules conception issue, like I stated.
Ok, do you have actual feedback on the rules and any playing experience of reinforcements to share? if not please start another thread and please do not clog the feedback thread with discussion that is not about the purpose of the thread.
On the topic of reinforcements vs non reinforcements lists: In and of itself it's not really that different from playing with about 100pts of airborne troops (not hidden deployement, considering those could ARO), which would certainly be a bit much for a lot of players. However there's already a few options that come over 50pts like duroc and margot, the bokthar hassassin and now the caskuda, so a 50 or 75pts reinforcement pool would be more than conceivable already. There are however 2 notable differences: - Reinforcement come with their own group, and can't swap around, so unlike airborne troops they can't just come in and suck up 10 orders to get the work done. - Reinforcement need specifics conditions to be called upon, whereas you can call your airborn troops whenever you damn please, not all at once, but they have limited deployement options. I'm a bit ambivalent on both issue: - On one hand restricting order pools and conditions of arrival limite potential abuse, which allows more cool stuff to go with the drop pod. Alpha strike is already frowed upon in the game, it would definitely get worse if you can potentially play 350pts vs 250pts from the get go AND drop the mean/cool stuff at mid table. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a squalo dropping turn 1 with a full order pool 12" from my DZ and either rush me to kick my teeth in or, worse, just bombard my DZ with his grenade launcher. - On the other hand, well, limiting order pools and setting conditions of arrival just feel anti-thesis to everything that makes infinity a great game, which is to seize opportunities when they arise (be it thanks to luck or tactic) and pour as many ressources as you want to take advantage of it. It's the first time a game mechanic forces the player to wait for a "greenlight" of sort to use it while playing, and I'm not sure I like it. At all. I totally understand that CB might want to play it safe given how this impact the game, and I look forward to the september online campaign to have loads of battle reports to skim through. But I also reaaaaally wanna see how reinforcements work with less restrictions, and definitely look forward to the reports of the community experimenting outside of the limits set by CB.
So a big part of what you've overlooked there is the way they deploy. Unlike airborne deployment reinforcements are both reliable with no roll, and very importantly do not trigger AROs. When they arrive reinforcements can arrive and posture extremely aggressively, starting CC powerhouses on target or reliably deploy into positions they can bring high power weaponry to bear in rear arcs out of cover. AD does not put fireteams in people's rear arcs. They generally deliver close range and small arms into short range firefights. 3 AD troops does not give you the punch and flexibility of a B4 HRL and his gaggle of specialists/mine/sensors/repeaters rocking up in your rear arc. I disagree on that entirely. You definitely have some level of agency of when you can turn on your reinforcements by determining what you utilise to ARO with during your reactive turn. There's more player choice involved and that's what I think actually makes Infinity a great game. The depth of choice is what makes it good. Without reinforcements in almost all circumstances you seek to hide high value attack pieces. You can make choices, but really, the best decision is already obvious. Preserve strength so you can hit back on your turn. Without reinforcements I would never in my life consider putting up a Hactao to die on turn 1 a good idea, that would be fucking insane and I have never found myself over the course of two editions where that was a legitimate option during a game. With reinforcements, I've straight up made that play. Reinforcements has given me more value in making a conscious decision to place attack pieces aggressively, to force my opponent to trade for them if they want to attack my lines. Having reinforcements turn up at the right moment can completely swing a game because of how strong their deployment method is. I nearly pulled back a losing game tonight with my reinforcements while in loss of LT. It came down to my opponent just getting lucky and getting a crit dodge roll against the Haetae. Similarly it puts the option to the active player about whether they want to circumvent targets or set off reinforcements. For both players there is more deliberation and choice about whether they want to start trading pieces rather than the regular format which is very much centered around killing high value pieces while preserving your own. Another interesting side effect it has had on player choice is it raised the value on non lethal attacks. Without reinforcements why bother using random Akrylate kannons or Adhesive Launchers, just try to kill the target. With reinforcements disabling a target by bricking it to stop it from triggering reinforcements is an actual consideration sometimes. This is especially true for TAGs given killing them is more than likely going to trigger reinforcements, sometimes it can be better to try brick them to WIP1 and kill its engineers instead.
After playing several games with Reinforcements, here is my feedback: Positive It shakes up the meta. It forces you to play differently, try new thing and think about the game in a new way. It’s valuable to have an optional game mode that is clearly different from the original one, but still feels like Infinity. It’s a pretty good way to encourage playing the mission instead of only killing. This seems to be especially true for missions like Supplies. List building becomes even more interesting. Reinforcements increase the amount of different combinations and ways to build lists (e.g. how many troopers to include in main force/reinforcements). This is enhanced by the commlink (+1/+2) abilities that some factions have. Reinf. also forces you to make more difficult decisions (less points, swc and troop slots available for the main force). These are all great. The new models and profiles look great overall. Also the edits made on the Reinf. profiles of existing models are mostly excellent (e.g. adding NCO, Tactical awareness, new weapon options). Negative The rules don’t work well for all missions: In missions with end-of-game scoring (e.g. Frontline, Acquisition, Power Pack) it is way too easy for the second player to win the game by dropping their Reinforcements in the midfield on turn 3B (to control zones or press objectives). In other area control missions (e.g. Quadrant Control, Supremacy) Reinforcements increase the 2nd player advantage way too much. In normal games, the 1st player can offset the inherent 2nd player advantage by killing enough. Now that will just trigger the reinforcements that can automatically take the necessary zones. Killing missions (e.g. Firefight, Annihilation) can also be somewhat awkward, because the players don’t want to leave anything expensive (a link team, a TAG etc.) near the midfield if the Reinforcement can arrive. Consequently, players often tend to just hide in their deployment zones and use only cheap expendable models that can “trade upwards”. This can make the game boring. This was always somewhat true for killing missions, but Reinforcements exacerbates the issue. The Reinforcements usually arrive only in the 3rd round for both players (in 75% of my games so far), which is too late. The Reinforcement should see more action and have more impact in the game (besides only scoring objective points at the end of the game). --> Ideas for fixes: Having a lower point threshold when the Reinforcements can enter (maybe with 275 - 300 VPs left in a 350 pts game) and another threshold when they have to enter (maybe 250 - 225 VPs). Having different conditions for the arrival of Reinforcements in different scenarios (when they arrive, where they can enter etc.) You can be creative with this. Reinforcements probably shouldn't be open information. Currently it is easy to prepare for the arrival of Reinforcements, which lessens their impact on the game. There is also less room for mindgames and misleading your opponent, which are fun aspects of the game. Missed opportunities Currently commlink is basically only a tax. It’s mandatory and only on profiles that seldom do anything else than generate orders. I recommend adding more commlink options. There are many cool models whose profiles don’t seem good enough for competitive play (many MI troopers for example). Commlink options are a chance to make these models more viable. I would like to see more new Reinforcement models available for different sectorials. This would also be a good and relatively easy way to revamp older sectorials that don’t see that much play currently. It would also boost the sales of the new models. Tohaa feels very much overlooked. I did not expect new models or profiles for Tohaa, but adding some NCOs, Tactical Awareness or different weapons for the reinforcement troopers would be nice. There are still a lot of Tohaa players out there who would like to receive a bit of love. The same is somewhat true for NA2 factions. NA2 factions are a good pathway into collecting new factions and giving them a bit more attention would make them more attractive. Conclusion There is a lot of potential in Reinforcements, but currently the rules don’t seem to be quite ready yet. I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.
To be frank, Annihilation should never be a consideration in balance or feedback, it's not a good representation of Infinity as a game and it still drives me insane that it persists in the ITS mission packet. It should've been relegated to rulebook filler ages ago. I think the issue you're making note of is less of a problem if the reinforcements arrive earlier when there are more forces of the main group on the table. It's easier to posture more aggressively if you have more forces able to protect each other or threaten to engage on an enemy that goes after them. Right now though with the 40% casualty requirement I agree it can force players towards being defensive in Firefight.
Sorry if this has already been suggested, its a long thread, but what if Commlink was an assignable skill at the start of the game similar to data tracker? Seem it would remove the list point tax and still allow for some play in choosing which model may be able to move to the reinforcement pool.
While I originally liked this idea, I feel like it would be like "the rich getting richer." I like the idea of using it to promote maligned profiles.
Simple fix for Commlink troopers' arbitrarily high points/SWC cost: Make Commlink a basic gear profile like FO, costing 1 point on the basic-ass trooper it's assigned to. Makes the unit a Specialist, and allows Reinforcements to be used. But does -not- allow you to shift the Commlink trooper into your Reinforcements group on the turn that group arrives, nor does it increase your Troops number cap of 15. Then have the a more-expensive Commlink (Upgraded) profile for the same trooper. Does everything Commlink does, -and- allows you to shift it into the Reinforcements group to gain that extra Order, -and- increases Troops by +1 or +2. Costs 0.5 SWC and more points. Just make the costs and benefits more granular, and allow people the choice of whether to use them or not. PLayers like options, not being forced to buy deluxe things as the price of basic entry to a playmode. [I do think only having Commlink available on the most basic of Light Infantry was a good choice, forcing people to play basic LI in a single slot is an acceptable price for Reinforcements' flexibility.]
[Similar comment made by @RobertShepherd and others] Reinforcements -can- be Hidden Information just until reinforcements arrive without having to be Hidden for the whole game. Just make all Reinforcements info Open Information once they arrive, but not before. (With the usual caveats, like Chain of Command being Hidden, etc.). This is the best solution, allowing an element of surprise (and drama!) without allowing the Reinforcements profiles to be... uh, "conveniently rearranged" by less-ethical players. The only downside to this is that Courtesy Lists will need to be set to print a separate page for Reinforcements. That's a software issue that is surely pretty manageable though.
Sidenote: It's really cool to see the devs asking for input on this new rule, and to know that all of this is in flux. It's great to read this comment thread, to see hotfixes for profile/balance issues coming out, and see ITS experimenting with unit-type-balance and modes of play. Great job CB, this is why I love this game. Keep taking risks and trying complex stuff!
Interplanetario. I *hope* we will hear something before sept 1st. I certainly hope they apply some changes to the idea before they send it with the ITS15 pack. I don't want another Xenotech fiasco... I have found that regardless of Tachimoto rules, sometimes we are forced to grab them just because they are the cheapest option we can fit in the list; them coming with extra orders for what usually is a haris (for the core is either hard to fit, impossible to get Pure, or risks displacing the starting one...) The more I play the more I'm convinced that the conditions to drop Reinforcements (and it needs to be mandatory, not an option) are the most critical piece of this puzzle, because in a 3 turn game entering on turn 3 is quite meh (sure, for the second player can turn into an undisputed victory by quadrant control, but it still is boring) and in turn 2 it's an even bigger incentive for the starting player to alpha strike. In a pinch you can make it as a separate list, it wont be "valid" by the Army, but you would be carrying the private one anyways.
