Hi, let me start with some context : I got into Infinity late N3, starting with MRRF right when they were been made OOP, then I moved to TAK as I wanted an up to date army. One thing leading to another I now have an almost full Ariadna Vanilla range (MRRF, TAK, CHA, USARF, Kosmo). I'm not the biggest player and my Infinity group disbanded mid N4. Honestly I can't blame them, other games hit the market that interest us more but I personaly got quite disappointed over the year with CB decisions. (Personnaly the release of Kosmo was a letdown, as I was expecting MRRF or CHA to get rebooted, and we get an half backed Avenger secto instead out of nowhere, and then sending MRRF and CHA to the grave without rules support/update. Why not just do a NA2 faction that merge both secto so that player can still use their model ? Then MRRF got brought back for Reinforcement, a game mode that was a joke, that is still not supported by the gamedev as of today, cool.) From my casual player point of view the game seems to have evolved toward HI (they received multiples boost over the editions : their MOV has been increase, multiple wounds and virtual wounds, crit change is favorable to multi wounds models, etc ...)TAG, and now flyers, and giving every faction everything. The powercreep feel real and I get it (even if I don't agree with it, it doesn't incentive me to start playing N5 soon), it's part of the fantasy of the game, and CB is a company and need to sell new figures so "let's give the new profile crazy stats and skills to sell more! (we can always nerf them later, coff *Bearpode* coff )". But for Ariadna nothing. Ariadna can't powercreep for lore reasons. Ariadna can't powercreep because CB doesn't know what to do with the faction in the gamedesign space, and that resulted in Frankenstein Kosmo, and I'm quite afraid for the USARF reboot. Ariadna is one wound LI because it's a bunch of dudes in pijamas so no multi wound HI for them. For the longest of time, Ariadna couldn't get a TAG, can't get hacker, got to have lower quality HI because "Lore". So lore wise, Ariadna can't have nice toys aka high tech weapon/equipment, TAG and hackers. Quoting CB website : "Cossack, American, French and Scottish fought each other and they all fought the planet, and from all the fighting emerged Ariadna, where only the toughest survive. Welcome to Ariadna. Welcome to the army." So why does Ariadna is not the faction with the most NCO profile? Should be the same for Number two, Stratego, Chain of command, Warhorse, Counter Intelligence, Sapper, Natural born warrior, BS Attack (+1B), etc ... Fireteam should be more flexible as everyone has military training, let's remove some Wildcard limitations. It's supposed to be a faction revolving around combat units, constant fighting everywhere all the time, so it would make sense to give more of those skills to Ariadna profiles. That would also help bridge the gap over other factions with high tech and would also solve the lack of redundancy some other posters pointed out. Ariadnans might not have high tech toys but they have combat experience. Second point the fantasy for Ariadna was asymetrical warfare. Ambush, drop troop, ambushing drop troop (para dep zone), werewolves immune to bullets, minefield, artillery strike out of nowhere, snipers ... But CB decided to give all factions everything so Ariadna progressively lost the camo shell game as other faction get better profile under camo token, with better deployables. Multi wound HI and TAG doesn't care about shock mines, they can just dodge it with high PHY/dodge skills or tank the hit. Para dept zone was given to other faction too. Forward observer put the model doing it at risk. Even worst, some of the originals posters boys got nerfs in N5 (Dogwarrior losing total Immu)... This one is tricky but essential : CB need to open up new designs spaces. Give back some exclusive skills/equipment to bring back the asymetrical feeling, where Ariadna is going to go for dirty tricks. Example : ⦁ Deployable sniper flag : deployable camo token, that put spotlight to any model entering it's ZoC and in LoS/give a BS bonus to a specific model against the enemy model in ZoC of the flag. ⦁ T2, E/M, Fire, AP mines : shock is not gonna stop HI/TAG anydays. ⦁ Riotstopper, heavy riotstopper : lore reasons won't stop O12 to sell non lethal weapons. ⦁ Hidden deployment + Mim -3 profiles : watch the end scene of Predator. ⦁ Kamikaze drone : a Dozer controling multiple (hackables) flying drone that are AP+EXP in CC. ⦁ Find a way to improve Forward observer to make it fit the fantasy : Forward observe roll doesn't break camo state, but it can still be ftf for discover. ⦁ Low quality impersonator : "We stole/fabricated some uniforms to infiltrate enemy lines". ⦁ Flyer trooper carrier : bunch of dude rappeling from a flyer that provide fire support. ⦁ Bring back burned state. ⦁ Etc ... It's tricky because it mean that balancing it will take more time, but other factions already have specifics (Shasvastii have the Embryo State for example, Tohaa has Symbiont armor, etc). We'll see what CB plan for the futur of Ariadna but honestly I'm not very optimistic, it feel like they lost the faction recipe.
That ship sailed when they added TAK and Kosmoflot. No matter what though, the tech-base for Ariadna should at LEAST be slightly better than "dudes with AKs and ARs". They were able to keep a functional civilization at least on par with today, there's a tech base that needs to be discussed.
How? Tak has one (bad) msv1 visor. Usarf and mrrf had way more access to those. Also two slightly better remotes which are mediocre.
Yes, unlike many other Infinity players I don't try to gaslight people how the game actually works. I'm playing optimized profiles just like everyone else from the beginning of Infinity. I think we are getting into weird territory if you should feel shame for playing optimized profiles. In my opinion, shaming people for playing optimized profiles is only acceptable if you are playing narrative campaings or some other special event. And don't get me wrong, people should play more narrative campaings and special events. Just be open about your intent. This is an interesting discussion. Does meta and game thrive more if new broken profiles are steadily released and old profiles are nerfed? Or perhaps the game should be so balanced that there is no need for players to buy new plastic crack? Personally I'm in the camp of releasing new broken troopers to shake up the meta and invalidating those purchases after a let's say 1-2 years. There is a difference but people are most of the time lying to everyone (including themselves) about it. For exampe bearpode was borken but that was fine for Ariadna community because that was their trooper. Ariadna players milked that bearpode to the last drop and gaslighted everyone that it was balanced. I think that Ariadna has the right tools to win matches. They just need to win those f2f rolls like everyone else. The no-risk shotgun forking (which was essential in those crippling N4 alpha strikes, which were also totally fine for Ariadna players because they were the ones doing it) is gone. Everyone should get over it. But I can see that some players don't actually like Infinity if they can lose a game on a first turn because of well placed reactive crit. In my opinion, those players should play a different game like warcrow which where swings are a lot smaller. I was fine with Nourkias getting nerfed, but I would have liked to enjoy him for a year. It's not that Nourkias would pulverize enemy on turn 1 like bearpode who dominated the meta and curbed newbies for two years. Nourkias was more of a second or third turn piece.
But everyone else win that ftf rolls with a 2W HI with high BS and high ARM or with a high BS high mimetism trooper, things that Ariadna doesnt have. And they negate Ariadna advantages with more common visors or bonus to discover. Practically, every other faction can play the Ariadna game if they want, so why bother to play Ariadna in first place? It is possible to win matches with Ariadna? Yes, but is far more easy with other factions. Damm it, last week i played against White Banner and he came with a full camo list. In the past, that was only posible with Ariadna or Shasvastii
@fari If we disregard the physical models and focus solely on the profiles (which you should never do in Infinity), then the reason for playing Ariadna (or any faction for that matter) are the unique profiles that the faction has. Then the question becomes what counts as a sufficiently unique profile. My TAK opinion is that Spetsnaz and Antipode assault pack are pretty unique troopers. If I'm not completely mistaken, there are no other camo or parachutist troopers that have native marksmanship and there are only two peripheral control troopers in the entire game.
You're talking in-game. I'm talking lore. They made a big to-do about TAK and Kosmoflot being "THE MOST TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES EVER". FRRM also had weapons that were literally manufactured by the Praxis Black Labs(the ADHLs they carried were manufactured by Praxis, per Infinity Art Book One). USARF is the one which should have tech. That's what the initial intro for them even was! Admittedly it ignores the fact that being descended from NASA scientists doesn't mean you know a damn thing about it, but c'mon! This is a setting where ninja clans still run around, and there's a super-secret cult of assassins that protect knowledge for reasons. Is it exclusive to them? If yes, then I hate to break it to you but...
