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...
@Tanan you definitely do not read as a person that in enjoyable to converse with, I am assuming this is a problem of the written form, so maybe take it into consideration in writing. Personally I do not have issues with WAAC players or players choosing to play as optimized as they can, from first edition it is in my opinion that game balance and improvement comes from these players braking things up, from there on its response time, and yes, I will admit late N4 there as issues with it, but hindsight is it was because N5 was been worked on. As far as fluff goes, Araidna do not import almost anything to have their own self sustenance, a logical proposition as especially for weapons you cannot rely on somebody not you if yo ae a super power, history has time and time again illustrated the problem with enough examples, the only thing Ariadna are steadily importing is medikits and medical knowledge/ equipment that is not overtly specialized. And no Ariadna do not need, in my opinion, to be special and become the only faction that has 20 models or 30 or however many the Ariadna players crammed in 3rd edition to take advantage of the most important resource the game has, orders, what they need is to get in line and in harmony with the rest of the factions in been a 15 orders capable group and not rely in weight of numbers to attrition the opposition to extinction.
We'll never be in line and in harmony with the rest of the factions, because they have tools that we will never be able to use, so, under equal conditions in the number of orders, we will always lose because we have worse equipment and skills. We even lost the exclusive access to T2 ammo, an Ariadna trait since day one. How a faction specialized in ambush and guerilla warfare doesnt have a single Hidden Deployment option, even with mim 0 if needed? How a faction, described in the fluff as resilient and always fighting for their life, is basically composed of paper towels? How a faction that is heavily militarized, has the least access to NCO or Lt + orders? Want to keep the 15 order cap? OK, Then made Tac Awa WIDELY available through all the faction or cap tech factions to even less orders. Ariadna is not designed and never will be to play in equal conditions against the other powers. At this point, CB must choose. Losing Ariadna's identity and Ariadna players or admit they fucked up big with the faction. Man, it was such a joy in N3 to play Ariadna. We could compete head to head to every faction, even if we never won big tournaments. Ariadna players were feared in every tournament. But N4 came, order cap hurted a lot and powercreep skyrocketed, but not for us. Is not fun anymore. Every match is lost at start, except if the other player mess it. People only played one list. Bears with Unknown Ranger. Always the same boring list with little to zero variations. Ariadna simply cant play Ariadna style anymore. Other factions can play with more orders than us. Other factions can bring more camos than us. Ariadna is not fun to play anymore. Ariadna is forgotten in every rule update. Ariadna is dead. Ariadna was killed. (And im even not talking about discotinuing 2 of the most iconic Infinity armies to make space to a poorly executed frankenstein sectorial no one asked for or expected, that now in N5 could be replaced with Vanilla Ariadna)
Personally, I'm happy with a model cap, but at this point the genie must be stuffed back into the bottle by force on feature creep to avoid either imbalance or homogeonisation. CB clearly doesn't worry that much about invalidating physical models anymore, nor rulesets, so even the "change is uncomfortable" argument doesn't hold much water here. -PanO needs good combat performance, and needs to not have good counters to assymmetrical warfare. PanO has always been the faction with the straightforward plan of "fight your way forward and score over their dead bodies". To do this, it needs good shooting modifiers, decent damage, enough durability to not fold to a bad crit and at least some DTW trading or melee ability. To counter this strength, it necessarily needs a pronounced vulnerability to indirect combat- vulnerability to Hacking, statuses, slowdown on scoring with bad WIP, the famous smoke ban, etc. -Yu Jing needs broad versatility, and needs to not have efficient profiles. Yu Jing's faction identity was an absolute mystery to me for years after Uprising, but I think they've settled on the jack-of-all-trades approach. This means wide access to non-unique skills and equipment across the board, often on broadly capable profiles, but this comes at the cost of efficiency; Yu Jing should need to adapt to their enemy and strike where they're weakest, yet meet with failure when forced to match strength with strength. -Nomads needs mobility and interesting equipment, and needs to not win a head-on slugfight with anyone else. We've known it for three editions, Nomads are at their most fun for both players when they're using Smoke, deployment tricks, Hacking, movement skills and expendable distractions all at once to make a Medium Infantry with a BS12 Combi Rifle take down an Avatar with total confidence. The Kriza Borac and its consequences have been a disaster for Infinitykind. -Ariadna needs stealth and hard hitters, and needs to not have technical options. Ariadna's faction fantasy is grit and practicality taking down the showy toys of the wider Sphere, and its players love big guns and sneaky knives in equal quantities. Also, there's werewolves for some reason. Wide access to Camoflage, high-damage weapons, and deployment tricks are a must here, and the faction gets more Immunities than pretty much anyone else to shrug off indirect warfare like Hacking. They want to bully tricky armies and sneak past bigger bullies. But neither they nor their opponents want them to have showy tech options, so Ariadna can't do much status play. -ALEPH needs durability and technology, and needs to not have redundancy. ALEPH is tough and pricy. Back in N3, pretty much nobody else had NWI at all, let alone on half the roster. Personally, I wish it had stayed that way; ALEPH was an intimidating opponent when Shock was rare and even a Deva needed more than a lucky shot to put down. ALEPH tends to invest enough into each trooper that a player shouldn't afford much redundancy however, and a lost key troop should be a big wrench in the plan. -CA needs access to top capabilities pretty much everywhere, and needs to not be able to treat anything as expendable for the privilege. Oh boy. Combined Army. The faction that I argue should probably just lose Imetrons and Tactical Awareness as concepts, and eat a price hike on Ikadrons. Let's just face it, this faction is CB's golden child for some reason and gets access to basically every piece of kit in the game and can use it as well as its home faction. This isn't necessarily a dead idea, but I think we can all agree this concept should not be able to put even equal (let alone more) Orders on the table than Order-hungry gameplans like Ariadna, Nomads or PanO, EVER. -O12 needs its miniatures to be focused and efficient, and needs to not have versatile or complex options. I really liked O12 on its release; every profile was focused, efficient, and obvious, a perfect beginner's army with room to grow for advanced players who like to stick to their gameplans and have the skill to pull it off against opponents who would attempt to disrupt them. Starmada and Torchlight sadly failed to continue that trend, with bloated and weird units everywhere- though I believe their best choices are still those that do one thing and do it well. Probably somehow the army closest to its original identity still; all it needs is CB to keep the skill list to two rows for once. -Tohaa needs miniatures, and needs to not have a bunch of broken profiles and rules (in both meanings). Yeah. Tohaa are in a state. What's good is stupid good, what's bad is stupid bad, and faction identity is actually still intact for once. Congrats, Tohaa; you have been forgotten enough that Sales forgot to kill your soul. -I don't know what Haqqislam does; I haven't seen them since N3, maybe nerf Ghazi? /j
oh, am I? Then why Ariadna started to decay when we were forced to play with the same rules than the other factions? Thaks to that mentality of harmony and making all the factions work similar, Infinity is heading to a really boring near future, feared since N3, where players simply play the same thing, but with diferent colors, losing absolutely all faction identity.
I would like to see Ariadna have options to run with +1 or +2 trooper caps; It is not like the design space doesn't exist (in Reinforcements, but still), and it would fit the theme well (IMO, of course).
I think this may make Ariadna more playable against the high tech. factions. These rules fit in with their lore well and could offer a unique playstyle for their fireteams. It is not difficult to update some of their profiles with these rules. I do not play Ariadna, and those I have played against are not worse off. But with these suggested rules, they could become more competitive.
I would not be opposed to specific Lt. with the ability to take a few extra troops. The drawback being that you must take that Lt., it evens out a bit.
Indeed you seem to remember N3 with rose tinted glasses, yes, indeed Ariadna in N3 did quite well with the carpet of camouflage markers (that forced the rules to be changed and forced all camouflage markers to state in which combat group they belong) or the hordes of irregular troops made regular by Wallace, fueling the few strong models with uncountable orders, but, other factions could do "horde like" army lists and that was the degeneration at the end of N3, army list that were blobs of cheap miniatures fueling orders to the few elite units in the army list. I would rather see Ariadna be Ariadna in the new format that see the format degenerate again in 18-30 orders per list, all experience we have show that orders advantage is paramount and giving that advantage to a single faction is not a wise choice. And yes, Ariadna can be a faction of tough fighters they do not need to be the hordes of doom meme.
Vanilla Ariadna played with 16, sectorials sometimes reached 18. Any list with more than that was a meme and not competitive. And even then 18 was with usarf and caledonia which were not the definition of strong. Those lists were not wining tournaments, the aleph mono list with aquiles dart and posthumans was the one wining tournaments, or tohaa and those were not spaming orders. Against new players? Maybe but in tournaments thats just not true. 16 is a particularly great number because it gives gameplay variety, you can still play 10+5 or go 8+8 and the gameplay style is very different with the same troops.
At the very tail end of N3 CHA lists with over two full combat groups were very much not a meme, and people hated playing against it. I don't see a need for Ariadna to get extra Orders above the game's hard cap given their capability increase since N3, but I do see a need for a comparative increase in Orders over "elite" factions. CA should probably need to make compromises to even have a second Combat Group given the calibre of their units, ALEPH, Haqq and Yu Jing should struggle to hit the cap (making up for shortages with TacAware for more elite builds), and PanO, Nomads and Ariadna should be priced for the full cap due to their more Order-intensive gameplans and need for redundancy. Yes, I might be biased in favour of Small List Infinity. What can I say, I like varied squads of specialised soldiers instead of Rambo and his backup dancers.
