Some general feedback from our group. Prior to release I thought reinforcements would counter alpha striking by taking the teeth out of an initial attack and then giving the victim replacements in a better position, my games however it's been the opposite effect, when I've gone first I've smashed an opponent to the point that we called the game prior to getting reinforcements. In my most recent game I noticed that only having effectively 4.5 SWC meant that after I'd lost an ARO linked HRL (who I expected to probably die) and then in my own active lost a shang ji APHMG to a lucky return shot from a marut that I had no guns of note beyond a combi left in my main group since I'd decided to bring a hacker. From general talks with my gaming group: The points split is onerous, it's hard enough getting to 6SCW and 300, having to get to 250/5 + 100/2 is irritating and complex especially when you don't have the granularity in points in reinforcements to get to 100, add into that you have to take a man tax in main group who's running between 20 and 25pts and costs you 0.5. A suggested change was that you could have some leniency in the points split either side but consensus is that then people would just run as much main group as they can. Commlink dude is just a chore to include, this would be less of an issue if the commlink provider was an actual strategic choice in list building like LT selection is and the most basic option certainly should not cost points (unless there is a penalty incurred for loss). Overall you have less orders to spend, and less freedom in list creation and therefore less agency in the game. The patented 2nd combat group of ablative midfield/warband trash people were taking and have had to cut back on were actually what were sandbagging alpha strikes. 100 pts is too high a threshold, the implied 50 as per the videos seemed much better. Obviously it makes certain missions almost unplayable in their current form. The NA2 player doesn't want to just take 4 diggers despite me telling him how good that would be. People are obviously hyped for new models, but are unlikely to buy them as they won't get to use them if they're just reinforcements as they probably will not be playing with reinforcements. As it stands our group have decided that our standard format will be just that (no reinforcements) until some changes are made. and I doubt I'll be running any events with it.
Reinforcements still feel like they have a bad habit of being a little too hard to show up when you want them, it's still about 40% casualties but you don't run into the same issue of building your list and going "gee, really missing some core shit like ablative warband screens or something". The Commlink still feels bad but nowhere near as bad as when it sucks oxygen out of 250 points. Lists tend to build as Combat group 1 main group, Combat group 2 disposable ARO, then Reinforcements takes the role of an attacking combat group 2 if you were playing 400 points. Personally once adjustments are made to the mechanics I would like to see how a mixed game of 400 vs 300/100 plays out. I would like to try this because if there's one complaint I have about the mechanic is it basically rail roads you into making an attack based second combat group, the reinforcements are built to come in hot and deliver pain for the most part. At 400 points you can build other list archetypes like recursion which allows the game to have greater variation and depth.
How about 350 vs 300+100? The reinforcement group is approximately on the table for about half time (trading for better positioning and worse overall list cohesion).
Would that be 400 vs 300+100 or 350 vs 300+100? Current community tests are done with 300 vs 250+100.
It's possible that's better than 400 vs 300/100, hard to say anything definitive on that until changes for reinforcements settles. Personally I plan to start at 400, test it, and dial it back as necessary. 300 points is frankly garbage. It's a solved alpha strike heavy game and if you set it up so it's 300 points alpha striking 250 points the game is in most cases a forgone conclusion and a waste of time where 250 points gets savaged then 100 points of reinforcements arrives with their own incomplete order pool to get picked off after.
@Koni made another splinter thread specifically for discussion on reinforcements and their interaction with specific missions
Just going by the numbers game for kill oriented missions since they're easier to look at objectively. A couple common scenarios for reinforcements. Player 1 is the one that got first turn. Scenario 1 - Player 1 has the advantage of Alpha strike and "counter to the counter" so to speak. Reinforcements are very overextended on deployment and easily reachable for countermeasures on the next enemy turn by default. If you do enough damage to trigger early reinforcements you'll also be in a position to very easily lose the 100 points needed to get your own reinfocements. Which then in turn means you'll then have those reinforcements available to wipe enemy reinforcements and absorb whatever damage they can do with a big advantage in body count and Order economy. Scenario 2 - both players are rather peaceful and no one gets reinforcements until turn 3. Player 1 gets a full turn do do stuff and a full ARO round out of their Reinforcements. Player 2 just gets the full turn, no opportunity whatsoever to gain anything in reactive from their reinforcements. Scenario 3 - Player 1 does enough damage to trigger Reinforcements for Player 2. Player 2, even with reinforcements doesn't manage to deal equal damage to Player 1, who will not get his Reinforcements early, but generally in a good position to wipe out Player 2's Reinforcements now. Scenario 4 - Player 1 doesn't trigger reinforcements and Player 2 stomps Player 1 hard on their turn. Player 1 then starts their 2nd turn with Reinforcements and gets to recover a bit, before pushing Player 2 over the threshold. We're assuming basically the inverted situation as in Scenario 3 - with the notable difference that Player 2 has to do the same thing while still having taken a turn worth of damage, making it significantly harder to achieve the same outcome. Scenario 1 and 2 are bad for Player 2. Scenario 3 is only good for Player 2 if it was somewhat close. If Player 1 overwhelmingly stomped them early and they either lost multiple key pieces or much mure than 100 points, the Reinforcements didn't help with anything. Additionally they'll be also facing Scenario 2 in turn 3 when Player 1 gets extra value for the last turn, while Player 2 is already behind. Scenario 4 is the only one clearly in favor of Player 2, with the addition that it's flat out more difficult to achieve than 3. Overall this doesn't seem to benefit Player 2 overall, on the contrary. Well what could be done to make this work? I'm out of ideas how to fix it without adding some sort of complicated asymetric component. /Edit: Almost forgot - paying for Commlink is weird. Both players HAVE to do it. Same as LTs, Datatrackers, Xenotech or whichever special tag we have for troopers. Just make it free instead of taxing an already smaller point/SWC pool. Also why are there no real options for who to run as your Commlink?
Even in a kill mission this is good for player 2, see people reporting those sorts of missions forcing them into reinforcements chicken. If reinforcements drop turn 3 player two can attack as hard as he wants with the reinforcements, they don't have to worry about getting killed in the reactive turn and giving away points. A game like Decapitation you can literally run at the enemy lines and try to pick an LT off without having to worry about the reinforcements now stuck in the enemy DZ and getting shot. Even if you fail the run you don't get punished for making it and any models you kill along the way contribute to scoring points.
Not sure what selective reasons you're been doing or which post you refer to, that's not what I've been reading as the overall perception. If Reinforcements drop turn 3 in a kill mission you might be playing a different game. Core issue appears to be that Reinforcement don't have any positive impact on the go first go second dynamic, on the contrary they make the problem worse than it already was and I can only agree. I'd rather kill 100+ points early (big emphasis on the + being possible and making Reinforcements a lot less of a solution when that happens), deal with Reinforcements, get my own reinforcements and already know I win by turn 2. Reinforcements alone don't do shit against a mostly intact 200-350 points army turn 3. Games where largely intact armies of roughly equal size face off in turn 3 do happen but aren't exactly how that normally plays out. Kill Missions tend to be swingy and that's if you have 300 point 6 SWC pools to fit AROs.
Finally managed to play. When you deploy 250 points in a table 48x48, you feel strangely naked. Sure we'll need to re-think our list building habits... Reinforcement arrived for both at third turn (we both lost around 80 points during the first turn, so no choice there...). My opponent (going first) managed to fit a full Reinforcement Core Fireteam, and with the 6th order given by the CommLimk operator, he managed to almost wipe my forces off the table. My Reinforcement were not so incisive, despite the 5 orders at their disposal (needless to say i also failed two consecutive WIP rolls). Summing up: Commlink tax feels a fraud while list building. And having a full zero effect in game, I really don't see the reason for the cost. Dropship and Reinforcement being afflicted by Exclusion zones is also really weird. I can understad exclusion zones during deployment, but once the game starts they should be removed entirely. Reinforcements are good. Some better than other, probably. I sure need a couple more games to get a real grasp of their efficiency. For now I like them. I would really like them more if they were even a "standard force" for the faction... Some models are WONDERFUL and i already want to play them more than 5 orders...
Después de 3 partidas con este formato habiendo probado diferentes tipos de misiones con diferentes reglas y recogiendo las impresiones de los jugadores de mi zona que también han probado este modo, las conclusiones que tengo y espero que puedan ayudar para mejorar el formato son: -Aunque lleves la ventaja en la partida debes estar preparado para un contragolpe del oponente que puede cambiar la partida. De igual manera aunque vayas perdiendo sabes que tienes aún opción a remontar. -En mi opinión, el alpha strike se dificulta. Aunque puedas meter un punta de lanza potente el resto de la lista se resiente y no es tan efectivo, siendo también más arriesgado ya que si el oponente acaba con tu punta de lanza no tienes muchas más opciones en tu lista principal para hacer un ataque fuerte. -El precio del commlink se siente como un impuesto. En mi caso no tengo esa impresión, pero me lo han dicho algunos jugadores y es justo ponerlo también. -Otro punto que también me han comentado es el tipo de tropas disponibles en refuerzos. Hay jugadores que cuando juegan X sectorial lo hacen porque quieren poner en mesa y jugar las minis de ese sectorial y no las de otro diferente. -Las listas basadas en acción directa sufren menos el hueco que dejan a los refuerzos que las que necesitan diferentes tropas para realizar sinergias. -Para mí todo lo que sea forzar listas diferentes que supongan a la mayoría de jugadores tener que renunciar a algo es un punto positivo en el juego y más con la escalada de poder que se observa en el juego. -Pero en relación con el punto anterior, hay varios perfiles en refuerzos que son muy desequilibrantes como los Apaches y otros tantos con plantillas +rafaga por pocos puntos. -El formato no tiene la misma relevancia en misiones de puntuar o controlar zonas que en aquellas donde para puntuar necesitas moverte por más puntos de la mesa y realizar diferentes acciones. -Colocar los refuerzos en segundo lugar en el centro de la mesa sin restricción ninguna optimiza mucho cada orden que aporta y casi anula la posibilidad de establecer una defensa contra ellos. Mis sugerencias: Limitación en el despliegue de los refuerzos. Ya sea que en lugar de tener infiltración sea despliegue avanzado +10cm, que tenga que entrar la plantilla de humo a ras de suelo en una zona sin escenografía u otras medidas de las que ya dispone el juego. Reducción de la escalada de poder. Aunque es necesario para varias tropas de todos los ejércitos en los refuerzos también es evidente que hay opciones de armamento y reglas que es mejor no poner en mesa. Plantear misiones específicas para este formato que se adecúen a la nueva forma de juego. Sugerencia de frikismo y no racional: Ojalá colocar el marcador fuese poner un vehículo con una peana del tamaño de la plantilla de humo que proporcione cobertura y sea un diseño diferente para cada facción. Para los que buscamos un juego más narrativo sería un añadido muy agradecido.
Haven't played any reinforcements yet, but from reading other people's feedback: Would it be good to remove the rule that Reinforcement always come in at round three in case you haven't lost the 100 points? Seems like it would still fulfill the purpose of mitigating alpha strikes and incentives more ARO pieces (if you lose them, reinforcements arrive), but removes some headaches of end game scoring. Maybe in combination with reduced points for bringing in reinforcements to 75. Or 100/75/50 for round 1, 2 and 3?
So I tried reinforcements at 300+100, game feels slow and grinding, many expensive units that are hard to die, making reinforcements even more certain to come on the last turn, inexpensive units tend to disappear given the game still has slots for only 16-17 models. With so many hard to die units, reinforcements tend to feel blunt in contrast to 250+100 format.
played a 300+100, felt much more balanced, I killed some of my opponents SWC but they still had a hand in the game, when their reinforcements came in they didn't manage to save the game for her but they were at least impactful. The game took slightly longer but my opponent was also on the newer side so I think that's on experience rather than points etc.
