You still need to disambiguate Primary and Secondary Targets due to Mods, Template placement, Smodge vs Impact Templates and other issues. I'm ambivalent about whether a crit counts vs secondary targets. I think that making Primary and Secondary Targets explicit is necessary in any case. Once you've done that, you can easily resolve crits however you want for gameplay reasons: both primary and secondary, primary for success and damage secondary for success only, just primary or none.
I'm not saying it affects all things under the template equally. I'm saying that Crits do 2 things: wins the FTF (unless opposed by a crit) and applies the Critical effects of the ammunition. That FAQ tells you not to apply the Critical effects of the ammunition to secondary targets. This means that the Crit still wins the FTF against against secondary targets. If you want to discuss it more, I'd recommend starting a thread.
Now I'm confused what you're arguing. I thought template crits worked the way you do until a few minutes ago when it was pointed out they don't, at least since FAQ 1.6 in Apr 2019. It's now crystal clear that we were wrong.
New suggestion: Delete dodge, incorporate some dodge functionality into MOVE* If a unit moves it may choose to face to face incoming attacks with a PH roll. If it moves twice, 2 PH rolls. In ARO, the MOV is capped at 2 inches as now, with kinematica adding inches. Flow on changes would be to reign in some ridiculous PH values out there, and delete impetuous. Here me out, with these changes warbands will behave impetuously and charge forward under fire because it is the most effective way to use them, not because of a troublesome AI mechanic. *You avoid fire by moving fast and evasively. With CC only being a viable/better choice under perfect low/zero visability circumstances and marker states, there is no reason to nerf active turn dodging compared to reactive turn dodging. In fact it should be buffed.
I would love to see the impetuous order become a model's only order, with the ability to spend a command token to turn it into the next order type (regular or irregular of the trooper). I feel like this would justify the impetuous discount of troops,and take away the feeling that the troops are basically getting a cost discount in exchange for a free order. For frenzy troops this rule might only kick in after they kill something. 5-6 point impetuous would still be taken for their smoke but would bring a large penalty in terms of orders to do so, rather than the current system where players are getting half a dozen bonus orders.
I think a mix is probably best. This was raised in Tac Awareness. But by doing things like giving 'real' guns to just chain rifle warbands and LI you bring them into line a lot more (ie a LSG, Chain Rifle Morlock with EM CCW is 9pts). I think given how they're fluffed, Morlocks retaining their Irregular Order makes sense. Kuang Shi with LSG and Assault Pistol profiles (so 8pts as the cheapest), would also fit as Regular orders. We already see this with Varangian Guard and 2/3 of the Jag profiles. But with Taighas, Gaki and Pretas removing their Irregular order makes sense. Tl;dr the issue isn't really how cheap Impetuous orders are, but rather how cheap no-real guns is.
I don't think it is by much if at all. It's really quite a bad weapon. You're looking at less than 1/3rd (32.5%) odds of doing a wound to a Moderator on active. The pricing issue comes when it's the only weapon on a troop that isn't in the list to use Chain Rifles actively. I think the fact that it's effectively DAM16 is the only questionable thing: but I think that's an issue with the fact the damage system is balanced around the assumption that troops will have cover, and really needs a whole of system approach to changing. But if you don't go do a full systemic change, making all DTWs based on 10 DAM and giving them +3 DAM when the target does not have any cover from the attacker could work. This actually would be a significant nerf to Impetuous troopers, as they would become disproportionately vulnerable to enemy DTWs. You could possibly even do it to all template weapons as a way to emphasise the weakness of Warbands and to make AP more relevant. I don't think it adds much complexity: we already routinely work out cover, the if cover -3 DAM for non-template weapons or if no cover +3 DAM for template weapons. So there's not even an additional step: you just work out if you add DAM, add ARM or do nothing. This is probably a better way of implementing the "cover shouldn't modify ARM" I've been proposing: it doesn't have the same pro-Impetuous effects. For Spec Fire, which is kinda ambiguous, you'd just make it explicit whether you use base Dam or add +3 Dam for no-cover (I'd tend to the latter). Edit: it's been pointed out to me that the better way to do this universally, is just make all attacks without Cover be +3 DAM instead of the current ARM bonus from cover. Then pair this with a damage reduction to template weapons.
What? If I hit a moderator with a chain rifle, he saves at 13 or more. That is 40% chance yo survive. So 60% to wound. Not bad. And i can hit multiple enemies with a single template que without facing with my terrible BS. DTW are horribly good
Moderator is Dodging on Normal rolls with PH10 (50%). But if you hit they need to roll 14 or more (65%), not 13. They're pretty much the squishiest non-REM target, which is why I used them: most other things have increased PH or ARM so the odds just get worse. The fact that you can oppose DTWs on Normal rolls decreases their active turn effectiveness significantly.
The issue is that weapons need to be priced differently depending on who's holding them. Having a Rifle on a Yuan Yuan should be cheaper than the Chain Rifle.
I don't think that's entirely right. By large, I think a HMG is worth roughly 8 points regardless if it is a Ghulam or a Hac Tao holding it. Yes, the Hac Tao is a lot better, but it's also more than 6 times as expensive prior to adding cost of the gun. You'll never be able to mitigate the issue that a certain set of abilities will make a certain set of weapons better than others for a unit and that a unit in a specific faction might be regarded as more or less a valuable asset due to what's in the faction. I think a system where a gun costs the same regardless of the user is good, but that doesn't change that there are places where it breaks. E.g. when you place a cheap auto-hitting gun on a cheap unit who doesn't pay for ballistics skill and when this auto-hitting weapon is the primary weapon. I would like to see a unit's weapon to be priced according to what it brings an unarmed soldier, and currently it seems some guns, primarily DTWs, are priced according to if they're a backup "good to have" gun for a more competent unit (after all, a Heavy Flamethrower is less useful to a TAG than it is to a Baggage Remote/Chaksa). Let's nominate a lowest value for discussion purposes; 3 points is the cheapest any unit's most expensive gun may cost. At the same time, a second gun should only cost according to what extra it brings. Light Shotgun on a unit with a Rifle? That's actually a pretty big boost. Light Shotgun on a unit with a Combi Rifle? That's a fairly miniscule boost. Those two should probably have the same or very, very, close to the same net cost because there are very, very, few situations where either loadout would prefer to not use the Light Shotgun when at 0-8" range. A Heavy Flamethrower on a unit with a MHMG? Err... I guess it deters some melee units and you'll occasionally use it to "discover" a camo marker - more likely you'll do your best to stay away from where it's needed.
Well you can. Variable unit pricing: apply a market rate mechanism to all units, at the end of each season increase the price of units that appeared more commonly than is intended and decrease the price or units that appeared less commonly than intended. ;)
a weapon on a BS10 dude should not cost the same for a BS15. Yes, the BS15 one will pay for that attribute, but the cost for that should not be the same for one weapon or other. That's where CB system fails and creates better or worse profiles. An exagerated example, a dude with BS13 but only DTWs will have a little overcost compared with a BS11 with a combi, for example, and the same way, a dude with BS9 but DTW will be more optimized in points than the BS11 with the combi. And all of that can be applyed to lots of skills. A dude, non-specialist with wip 12 and courage will be cheaper than the same dude but with wip 15, but in game, the one with courage will be better (Because will be cheaper) almost all the time (only looses on discovering). Then, becoming a specialist makes the cost of wip worth it (and then, other kind of comments arrive). For a lot of troopers, the clasical way of using a fixed formula is ok, there will be no much difference, but for a some others this system means that those will be underpriced or overprived compared with their real performance in the game. But there is another problem when using a formula: those "faction tweaks" that not all factions have, and don't have the same impact.
Yeah, and you'd have to do that on a per-profile basis as well as dope the costs according to faction "attendance" as well as make better players' results have bigger weight. It'd probably end up with some pretty damned weird situations where a Fusilier FO costs about 9 in Pan-O while it costs 14+ in Varuna... it'd be obfuscated as all hell. And then in the next season there's a new ITS deck with fewer Engineer cards and all missions with Engineer bonus removed and all those Engineers that suddenly got more expensive also lost all meaning...
I didn't say it was easy or necessarily good, but it's doable. :p More or less optimal profiles is actually a good thing for the game: this is what provides a lot of the faction flavour and interest. It's only an issue where things are so far off the power curve that they displace other options or otherwise fundamentally distort the system away from what the player base wants to play and is profitable for CB. I think Chain Rifles as Primary Weapons does that, I don't think universal 8pt HMGs does. If everyone wanted to play 15+ order count lists, if we didn't think that "a small elite group was why we got into the game" and if certain models CB has invested a lot in don't work well particularly well if the game heavily favours high order counts then "high order counts" would not be a problem at all. Look at Libertos. Everyone agrees that they're a ridiculously optimised profile. Mostly they're a problem because their widespread availability means that they're everywhere and displace options 'native' to their faction: if they were in only one faction to fill a particular hole in a relatively limited way, they'd be fine. Helots are an example of that sort of approach. Optimisation and sub-optimisation allow you to influence faction aesthetics without hard locking that faction out of an option. This is why I dislike the Kriza HMG: not because it's a well optimised top tier gunfighter, but because I feel that it unnecessarily displaces options that better fit the faction identity.
A BS 15 unit is paying more than 10 points extra for just the BS. And do take a look at the internal balance of for example Hospitaller who have access to both Multi Rifle and Combi Rifles - simply being better at shooting isn't all that informs whether a gun is useful. There are no such units as this fictional BS 13 unit. That's not saying your argument is pointless, but it's saying that there's a different approach to handling it; identifying when a combination might be too good and avoiding it entirely. CB has historically been doing this; it took them over 5 years of N3 before they released a unit with a heavier gun than a Multi Rifle that also have Sensor (specifically Rafiq with Shock Marksman Rifle) even though they had ample opportunity to do so before (Crane Agent profiles without Sensor are in minority, but it's specifically Spitfire which doesn't) So, CB has correctly identified that a unit with as prestigious BS as 13 is going to be too costly to not have only a Chain Rifle so they added SMG (Wu Ming) and as such the comparison is moot because it is not happening, not because it isn't mechanically possible. WIP 15 is a curious thing. Again, it's a bit like with high BS. The reason to have a WIP that high is that the unit actually have a use for it, or that they are supposed to be your LT. In either case, they're never comparable to a Keisotsu because the Keisotsu's best quality is that the base price is below 10. It's also curious how most WIP 15+ units have Courage. Oh absolutely. Didn't mean to imply you did. Someone might, though, so I thought I'd complicate it a bit for someone who would ;) I don't actually mind Libertos all that much in a void (as in, together with Domaru I think they're the most reasonable Frenzy units out there), it's only the fact that they offer a large supply of "disposable irregular ARO pieces" to everyone and I don't think everyone should be designed as Haqq. Helots might be a good example of how to avoid having a unit displace native units, but they're even more ridiculously optimized than Mimetic Libertos. And incidentally a good example of how one specific profile can be bananas when the others aren't - and that this profile has an SMG is mostly happenstance
sorry but I have to disagree in that "CB have identified" anything. There have been issues with some troopers this N3, and they told us in N2 that the new systems (then they were talking about N3) will let them to retouch profiles. But there have been not much of those "touches". Full auto was nerfed because some comunity rants (and with an excuse that were a bit contradictory then, and also with the later releases with FA), while there is only one profile that got a "buffed" outside a faction revision (during the only true rules revision in the entire n3, total inmunity), factions with profiles on the same boat/problems as that one that didn't get any revision at all, and we still have the posthumans thing (wich was an issue known pretty much since the beggining of N3 and never addressed). If they have identified them, they have ignored them About BS and WIP, at the moment they cost the same in the formula, but their impact in the game is far from beign the same. That creates some discrepancies in what a profile is worth. Also, the wounds are multipliers, so is absurd to talk about the high cost of BS in a HI, when that cost is multiplied. BS 15 doesn't cost 10 "per se", for example. Another example of bad costing is that, for some skills/equipment, its cost is based on the troop type arbitrarly. That's why V360 costs 5 to MI or remotes, 10 to HI, 20 to TAGs, on the other side, the MSV2 maintain lower costs for its types while also more impactful
