First of all, because that triggers me most: Sniperrifles and their rangebands (and thats the only thing thats interesting here) are never OP in any way, unless you are playing on a football field or with a sniper turret in your DZ, and then its not the fault of the rifle. In my experience, on a well balanced table with serious LoS blockers, Sniper rifles have their purpose but are not OP in any way. aaaactually: -Gator -Iguana -Agamemnomnomnom -Maghariba Guard -Raicho -Scarface -Squalos Mk1 -Lizard -Stigmata counting seven nine. Still not a lot, but more than five =) Ok, now lets start with the serious business... edit: since the stigmata is a hacker by itself i would count that as "protection against beeing hacked" Wow, i am on vacation for three weeks and suddenly hacking has become useless? Thats a deep fall compared to everything that happened over the lasts months. In my experience, N4 was jumpstart for hacking due to some changes, with Tactical Window as the ITS standard enhancing it even more since beeing limited to 15 units often leads to expensive units that happen to be HI´s or TAGs. I don´t think this is an idea anyone would realy like; one of the very few things everyone in this forum seems to agree on is: Non-interactive gameplay is neither fun nor balanced.Having the option to KILL an hackable unit without having to fear ANY counterplay cannot be something good. The scenario would look like that: Hacker moves into ZoC / throws or shoots a repeater into ZoC of the target. Next order you call idle, target calls reset, you attack with trinity. Repeat till dead, because resetting does not allow the enemy to leave the Hacking area. We are speaking about GML without extra steps. Straight up savings vs. Burst 3 dmg 14 that will be rolled on WIP 12 as the worst case scenario for the attacker! No negativ modifiers except Firewalls (which you have to bring EVO-hackers for AND spend an order to activate AND covers just one unit type AND cannot be used in enemy turn 1), some few units with ECM (Hackers) and Tinbots (which maybe can be targeted first to make every following attack easier) Funny thing, back in N3 KHD´s did actually ignore Firewalls. I am a bit torn apart if i like that or do not, cause on one hand I like the idea of Killer hackers breaking throw a firewall with ease, on the other hand... that´s what firewalls are for, aren´t they? I think from a playing perspective the first would be better as a anti-hacker tool to get effectivly rid of hackers hiding behind tinbots and firewalls and high BTS. Amusingly, with the N4 type of alternating skills and equiptment CB could easily give (special) hackers a rule like "Hacking: (immunity: Fire wall)" or something like that. Spoiler: Trigger warning I think this is, once more, a good time to mention that i once killed Jazz through her own repeater with a KHD Bandit =) Yes. Thats why HD+ are way more rare and come with a plus 0,5 SWC cost, most of the time sitting on over-specialiced hacker units lacking any other proficiency (interventors, jazz, Danavas,...) or compareable expensive units (Asura, Charontide, Sciavoros,...). Exceptions happening. Meanwhile KHD you can find on nearly every run-of-the-mill skirmisher, a lot of them blessed with Camo and therefor surprise attack. I don´t think you understand the raw power and usefullness of markerstates. Beeing a marker means, no one can hack you, no one can shoot you, no one can touch you, until you decide to or you got discovered. That means: You can enter Cybermask and cross an heavy guarded fireline thats up to MOV+MOV inches broad. That also means: if your opponent wants to prevent you from doing that again, he has to sacrifice one ARO piece to discover. Thats one single die on WiP, most of the time. If your enemy has just one ARO piece, he eventually will not even try to discover unless he wants to get shot for free. Some units can pack a punch, others survive because they win F2F rolls. Or you enter Cybermask to protect your units. The common thing for my interventor ltn is to cast Cybermask to not beeing hacked by the enemies to his conditions. And even if the enemy manages to get LoF to the Marker he still has to discover it. That means spending Orders plus in case of failing he has to send another unit to try again. Marker state means mobility in Active and safety in ARO. oh boy... where to start? First of all: Yes, dead enemies are always great. Now it comes that some units realy dont like beeing killed, and therefor have equiptment to prevent that: letz take Omega Unit for example: Mimetism -6, ARM4, 2 wounds, BS 14 to shoot back. Killing this guy with a cheap unit means a lot of effort and setup and, most important: a lot of risk. Unless you have some MSV of any kind he almost always will shoot better than you. The more specialiced a unit is to kill Omega, the more expensive it becomes. Since he mostly will stand behind cover (if not in total cover) its quite hard to get rid of this guy by shooting. Enter: Al Hawwa hacking device. Move, enter ZoC, start hacking. Counterplay? He can reset. Risk? None. Cost? 26 / 0,5 (thats midfield price for such a unit) Isolated or IMM is not a fun state for this unit to be in, especially if it just can escape via reset-MOD as F2F against the hacker. That is, admittedly, a very simple scenario, but i think one gets my point, and you can adjust this scenario with basicly everything that has high BS modifiers, ARM or multiple wounds. And yes, an engineer can fix this state. Here i want to recall a good friends approach: Orders are the single most valuable ressource in this game. Every order your opponent has to spend sending an engineer on a safe route to a hacked unit is an order he does not spend killing your units, pushing buttons or playing the mission. The value of a crippled unit your opponent has the hope to safe is sometimes worth more than a dead unit. Same goes for a dense repetear network. Every inch a unit has to move around it to avoid beeing hacked is a order he does not spend doing something useful. He is also equipt with a flash pulse, a weapon that shoots 24 inches on +3 on WIP 13, as well as a Pistol. I fail to see were this is "a limited threat range", unless you deploy your ikadrons as overwatch units with a LoF of >24´´ edit, since i am unable to read and count.
I merely said that I'd seen them and never anything about the context of their use. This also makes the Stigmata more vulnerable to hacking attacks since you can use stuff like Triniti on it and give it the Machaenya treatment. What you describe is for most an investment since for everyone save Nomad it requires a severe point investment into models who only really can do one thing. The Opportunity Cost is rather big. The only exception is the "cheap" drones that everyone has access to and they're S3 and REM which makes them a lot more vulnerable to some stuff than others. I can see the concern that everyone would just hunker down with as much hacking as possible and I doubt that in reality, it would pan out like that since as it is now Carbonite is effectively near useless as it allows for unlimited resets to get out of it. If it was limited to one attempt at a reset per turn then it would be a different matter. You practically need a Pitcher or a deployable Repeater to make it useful since unless you have a Repeater model with Stealth even moving it away will trigger the ability for the target to Reset. And it would be an unopposed Reset unless you made a Combined Order with the REM and the Hacker. Your example is inconsistent as your initial example includes "heavily guarded" and the next is "usually only one model to ARO. "Heavily guarded" is a phrase that implies more than one model. I've no idea how to respond to this one example as it's two in one that you lay out as somehow having a relation to each other even though they're unrelated. Also, if you regularly can walk 8" from LoF obscuring cover to reach LiF obscuring cover it sounds like you're playing on tables with way too much terrain where long-range fire is impossible. The Al Hawwa has Stealth. It's one of the few units that can Immo-B a target without giving it an immediate Reset when getting out of its ZoC. Anyone moving across its LoF also gives it a Reset so you have to shoot at it to make the roll Opposed unless you're sure that you can reach LoF obscuring terrain. Carbonite would be more useful if it was STUN ammo rather than giving Immo-B. A Flash Pulse is mostly useful in ARO when you have nothing else, it does have its uses in opening up attack lanes in the Active turn though. Your argument makes it sound like it's some amazing multitool.
Funny that you argue that way, cause this is exactly what would happen to every other TAG out there if your idea of "Trinity damaging everything hackable" would become reality. With the slight drawback, that Stigmata can hack against to prevent further attacks, whilest every non-hacker TAG/REM/HI just can reset...and wait for the next attack. You basicly advocated against your own idea. Wow, we seem to have a totally different sight on nomads. For me nearly every unit is a multi toolbox, especially everything skirmisher: Gunfighter, hacker, specialist. Naming Morans, Zeros, Bandits, Intruders, Sombras, Evader, MaryProblems, Zondnautica, Puppetmaster, Custodiers, .... the list goes on. Ofc, nomads has overspecialist troops (Kriza, interventor, morlock, ...) but not to the numbers some other factions have. For example: HI that shoots good with MSV3 HI that shoots good with Mimetism and Camo HI that shoots good and can CC Units that are defined by one - single - equiptment. I see it like that: in this very moment, a lot of player seem to run a quit solid amount of hacking units, mostly one or two hacker (plus), and most of the time (to my experience) one killerhacker. Its not like they "suddenly start hacking", its "now they have even more options to hack you". And now it is not just a temporarly nuisance like IMM-B, its a wound. Damage. Dead units. yeah... because nomads totally lack those. (other factions don´t have such an exaggerated setup but still can pull out the hacking network game if forced) are you serious? Let me just show you something: Spoiler: le pictures From the 97 loadouts with hacking devices 39 units have Stealth (marked by the orange X ) Thats not "a few". Thats slightly above 40%. lets not take into account that this list contains units that are basicly filler loadouts that nearly no one weill ever pick and that the most units who engage into close range vs. an enemy unit mostly HAVE stealth in some form.... And with all this we are still just speaking about Hacking in active turn, we didn´t even scratch just dropping a repeater and wait till your non-stealth unit wants to move and has to face beeing hacked. Sorry, maybe I did not seperate the 2 scenarios well enough: scenario one: your unit wants to cross a fire line, well guarded by 3 enemy Aro pieces: your unit wants to cross the area ALL 3 UNITS can see. Since you are no fool and like your units very much alive, u picked a position you can enter total cover from at least 2 of the 3 enemys. Since your opponent isnt a fool either, he does not place 3 ARO pieces on one building so all of them look down the same alley. They are placed on different positiones, each of them able to look down the alley but in different LoFs. Even if you cross the Firelines you hopefully picked an area where, at the end of a MOV-MOV, not all 3 still can see you (unless, as previously mentioned, your table looks like an open field.) Marker state offers you the option that, in case you get discovered, at the beginning of the new order you dont have to deal with all 3 of them, but maybe just with 1. Maybe a ARO piece you can realisticly match. Ofcourse, if you open this scnerio with a bandit killer hacker with boarding shotgun, entering cybermask state and walks cross 3 enemy firelines without leaving ANY of them in the prcoess, whilest beeing 40 inches afar....yes... thats defenetly a scenario where your markerstate will not be useful. The second scenario you cross the same alley, but there is just one ARO piece. You realy wanna go to the other side, but its 12 inches and the Locusts little feet can just walk 8 inches at best. So he enters Marker state and walks 4 inches. The ARO piece, a sinister Sin-Eater, with its MK12 locked and loaded, sees the marker, and.... well.... he knows, thats a Locust with breaker combi rifle. He also nows, thats roughly 14 inches distance. He defenetly know: he shoots better than this little panO pickle. But he also knows: he has just one wound. And he is expensive. And if he tries to discover the little Locust, there is a chance the sin eater dies to a deadly case of combi-rifle-bullet. So he waits. And Locust just walks by. Next order, Locust is behind total cover. Thats the power of Marker states. Spoiler: Clarifing my own post I hope a clarified my point in the example above more clearly. Each table has spots you can cross with 8 inches somewhere. It´s not about crossing from house to house, its about crossing Firelines. And if you tables allow it to place multiple ARO-pieces so they can cover they same firelines equaly about an area that you cannot cross with 8 inches movement, without neglecting the rest of the table.... to be honest, i don´t know which table then is the more problematic. And you don´t even mention it as it isnt worth more than an idle. What do you think is the power of flash pulse? The stunned state? No, thats cherry on top. It is the OPTION to F2F on a proper level. 24`` +3 on WIP. Even if your enemy has mimetism-1, thats a 50% chance to negate some enemy rolls. That means: the units does not just wait for an enemy to kill it. It means it can be a threat to everything that comes by (except total immunity, ofcourse) Nothing is worse than having your alphastriker getting stunned in its advance. Even if you dont stun him, it means he has to use another order. And orders are the most valuable ressource. The moment you have to spent one more order to get rid of a 8 point units.... well... i think this unit did his job. Why you think are flashpulse bots the most played REMs out there? (ok, to be fair: they have mimetism). just to not mention Ikadron has flashpulse is leaving out a part of its uses and it´s defensiveness and leaving it like a glorified Netrod/Imetron. I understand that there are different metas, different playstyles and different approaches to play the game in a success orientated way. Everyone with his own style, so he enjoys the game most. But some of your points i feel realy hard to follow, cause for my understanding and experience they feel a little odd, to say the least.
How is that advocating against my own idea when I've already explicitly stated that TAGs should get some protection against Hacking? And your example is essentially the same as a model shooting at an unfavourable range band against a target with Mimetism and Cover and choosing to Dodge. And on that note, the rule for Resetting against an attempted hack could give a Dodge move to try and clear the ZoC. Some models that can be hacked also come with a Repeater, granted, they're mostly Nomad and they do exist. My advice is to really think if the other person has argued against themselves before you declare it since if they can coun ter it you just look silly. 1. Can only shoot things and all four of them cost a lot. That's an opportunity cost. 2. Cost a lot in points and also SWC if they're heavily armed. Are usually only really good at shooting things. 3. Mostly limited to Yu Jing and JSA Meanwhile, a unit, such as the Masaii is a Specialist, a movable barrier for both HI and LI/MI, and in as an infiltrator for 17 points. Meanwhile, the Initiated has one profile that can be a Specialist and the rest are one thing only while costing between four to eight points more. I can understand they're absent from the Vanilla Nomad list as the internal balance between these two units is so completely off that it would be a daft choice to ever choose an Initiate over a Masaii. And those are both options within the same faction. How can it ever be unitS in plural unless the opponent allows their army to have vulnerabilities against it? Haq should mostly be loads of LI/MI with a few HI, if any to back them up, since that's where their strength lies. An entire faction is immune to hacking. And only one faction can lay down the extensive Repeater network at a cheap cost that allows them to have plenty of other tools. yeah... because nomads totally lack those. (other factions don´t have such an exaggerated setup but still can pull out the hacking network game if forced) This is the most useless argument ever. An army is never made of "well it exists." It's made of "how can I get the points to fit and what opportunity cost does it have to include this? That's an extremely different scenario than your initial argument that only specified "fire lane" as in singular. Your first example is multiple overlapping fire laneS, plural. Be consistent in your argumentation as that example is unable to be countered by Stealth while your initial definition implied it was. That's again an extremely different scenario than your first definition which implied that there was enough cover to walk from LoF-blocking terrain to LoF-blocking terrain. I said that and your elaboration now contains a different scenario. This also directly goes counter to what you said earlier that getting someone to waste Orders is the biggest Boon in the game. Unless there's a specific case the Locust has just wasted one since if they both shoot at each other from cover with that distance the Locust is a better shot: Locust BS12 -3 for Mimetism, -3 for Cover. +3 for distance = BS 9. SinEater BS 13 -6 for Mimetism, -3 for Cover, +3 for distance = BS 8. The only reason to avoid shooting the SinEater is if there's a plan or if the NeuroCinetics is something to be avoided. [/QUOTE]I hope a clarified my point in the example above more clearly. Each table has spots you can cross with 8 inches somewhere. It´s not about crossing from house to house, its about crossing Firelines. And if you tables allow it to place multiple ARO-pieces so they can cover they same firelines equaly about an area that you cannot cross with 8 inches movement, without neglecting the rest of the table.... to be honest, i don´t know which table then is the more problematic. I understand that there are different metas, different playstyles and different approaches to play the game in a success orientated way. Everyone with his own style, so he enjoys the game most. But some of your points i feel realy hard to follow, cause for my understanding and experience they feel a little odd, to say the least.[/QUOTE] I'm used to that as I have a fundamentally different thought process than about 80% of the population, which is how I could so easily find holes in your examples.
Honestly, i don´t know what I am most scared of here: The lack of formating your answer properly which makes it realy hard to read, your tendency to forcefully misunderstanding my examples because of slight grammatical errors and points left and right the road, or this visualized horror of open tabs in this screenshot attached to your post for.... some reason. Ok, than I would like you to clarify your argument, like you demand it from others. You´d like to give KHDs the option to damage Units with STR, but also give them (or at least TAG´s) more protection against it, plus you want the reset (a non-Movement skill, unlike dodge) to give a dodge-move. And this is to make KHD units (which are very cheap specialist, with the option to enter marker state and are focused on killing enemy hackers) more useful overall on the field. Plus: it would give KHD´s the option to attack Ariadna HIs, which are famously immun to hacking, but can then be killed by anti-hacker hacking? Still thinking even with a buff vs. hackers, that would be a huge downgrade for TAGs and everything else with STR, what now is even more vurnable against (killer-)hackers from a position they still cannot counter them except reseting and hopefully leave Hacking Area. Oh thank you very much. Like pointing out that Al Hawwa hacker is which is untrue unless you count 40% as "few". With the exception of Ariadna (no one should wonder about that), Druze, Tooha, SC and Starmada every faction and sectorial has at least one Option to field a hacker with stealth. From this point on it is a decission of the player to pick a unit with this combination of skill to be able to hack with stealth, like the decission to bring MSV to counter smoke or albedo to counter MSV. Your quote that Al hawwa is one of the few options implies, that there is just a handful (maybe six or seven) of units overall, limited to some handpicked sectorials (about two or three), which is not true. 40% of all hacking loadouts have stealth, and 40 out of 50 armies have access to at least one of them (thats 80%, defenetly not "a few") We defenetly have idfferent understandings of "extremely different", but that´s nothing to debate about, which why i clarified it. At no point I even mentioned Stealth, since both scenarios where focused on the use of Cybermask, which does not grant stealth unless the unit itself has it. But.... That's what you took away from the example? Ok: change the locust to Interventor KHD. Or change the Sineater to Aquila guard in Supressive fire. Maybe that makes my point more clear for you. Also: let´s asume, that, while passing the sin-eaters fireline, the interventor does not have cover, since you already pointed out, that this would be a way to dense table (i thought that was clear, but lets work exactly now) Spoiler: and now with color =) The second scenario you cross the same alley with no partial cover on the way, but there is just one ARO piece. You realy wanna go to the other side, but its 12 inches and the Locusts Interventor KHD little feet can just walk 8 inches at best. So she enters Marker state and walks 4 inches. The ARO piece, a sinister Sin-Eater, with its MK12 locked and loaded, sees the marker, and.... well.... he knows, that´s a Locust Interventor KHD with combi rifle. He also knows, that´s roughly 14 inches distance. He defenetly know: he shoots better than this little panO pickle Interventor KHD. But he also knows: he has just one wound. And he is expensive. And if he tries to discover the little Locust Interventor KHD, there is a chance the sin eater dies to a deadly case of combi-rifle-bullet. So he waits. And Locust Interventor KHD just walks by. Next order, Locust Interventor KHD is behind total cover. Interventor: BS11 + 3 range - 3 mimetism - 3 Cover = BS 8 SinEater: BS13 + 3 range = BS 16
Potzdonner! Shame on me and all my unborn inherits of my muddy bloodline. Stigmatas hacking blinded me, and lizard... well...we don´t talk about bruno Lizard....
Wish list - Add Blockers, Blades and the 46 pts Swiss Guard, the Multi Rifle Pathfinder option to the NCA main inventory. Also let ORCs link with Bolts and Pathfinders be Wildcards.
Locust with Cybermask is solid. The fact he has stealth also allows him to leverage this infowar component to enhance his other skills. Like being able to bypass all the mines that might be used to defend a target. And his stealth preventing AROs from non-Sixth Sense units.
In regards to Immune to Hacking. This is a bit of a misnomer. Spotlight’s targets means that no unit is “immune” to hacking. What it means is that they are not subject to the Oblivion and Carbonite Programs. And if it’s a TAG the Total Control program. List building for everyone is an exercise in compromise to get the most suitable fit for purpose list that mutually supports each other as best able. You are never gonna be able to achieve a strategic victory in list building within Infinity as Orders allow you to prosecute targets with things against things that pose a threat to another component of your force.
So... I was having a weird idea, that instead of having a ML drone with Guided (and some Shas nox in their sectorial too), what about: Select one single type of HI per sectorial (for example, Brigadas in Corregidor, Hollow Men in Tunguska, Riot Grrrls in Bakunin, in Aleph some leniency here would be needed, for example Thorakitai and Yadus, etc...). they should be AVA 5. Add a new weapon, Panzerfaust (Guided) to some (1, 2 or even 3) of their profiles (more or less for free, Disposable may remain at 2 or be downed to 1 in this instance). Select one of those for Vanilla to have that addition. Remove (Guided) from all ML bots and the Nox profile, give them instead Triangulated Fire +3 (so they effectively shoot without penalties no matter the distance or penalties... in active turn) or something similar that lets them have an interesting, yet already existing, effect. Modify the Guided rule so all Guided BS attacks are B1, BS18 ignoring all mods to everything (fireteam, visual, range, cover...) and keeping the cap of 5/turn (which I would make common with Speculative fire, including smoke grenades of all kinds, thus limiting the usefulness of Eclipse smoke). This makes it so it's easy to adjust the Order Efficiency of the Guided attacks: With Disposable 1 you would be limited to 1-3 profiles on the HI troops, which are also as a whole much more expensive than a single ML drone, but are harder to remove (and even if you lose one, you could have others); this is because you would need a baggage bot and orders for it, taking 2 orders per shot on average besides of the marking (which can potentially be done in Reactive anyways). Another weird idea, a new Supportware program: Purge Systems, allowing to remove all, or one, type of Hacking-induced Debuff to all units of a certain type (for example, all HI get the IMM state removed, and/or the ISO, and/or the Marked...). The softest change would be add the program with the ARO option to remove Marked state in lieu of the U-Turn (so the EVO can remove future Guided attacks, and the target troop can Dodge) with the other two options as supportware for the Active Turn, I think.
Hello everyone! I'm sorry if I'm bringing up a topic that has already been discussed to death, but I'd like to make my case in the hopes that somebody at CB goes through this thread... GROTNIB'S WISHLIST FOR UPDATING THE NINJAS (Note on terminology: When I'm referring to Ninjas in this post, I'll be refering to Ninjas, Saito Togan, Oniwabans and Shinobu Kitsune - a distict grouping of units that share a great deal in common not only in their actual profiles, but also in their backround.) People know me mostly as an avid RTF player, but I've also been playing JSA on and off for some time. I've previously told some in our gaming group that "the correct number of Ninja -type units in a JSA list is at the moment zero" due to how outdated the profiles feel. I've decided to do my best to try and disprove my own rule in my latest tour with the Faction, and thus I've been playing alot of Ninjas lately... I mean five Ninjas in a list alot of Ninjas. While I have found ways to make good use of these legendary killers, using them does still feel like an unneccessary steep a hill to climb. What follows is my humble take on some of the ways that could be used to bring the Ninja profiles "up to speed". I'm only making profile alteration suggestions, and I won't be offering any related points costs - I'll leave that to people who are far more knowledgeable than me! 1. Give all Ninjas BS 12. These people are supposed to be highly trained professional killers, and CB has made the decision to arm them with various types of ranged weapons. If Ninjas of the future use firearms (and Tactical Bows), surely they should be atleast ADEQUATE shots with them? I'm not asking for BS 13 or 14 here, just a point above your standard Ghulam! In game terms, I've found that despite my best efforts to apply katana to the problem, the Ninjas end up engaging their targets with BS Attacks more often than with their swords. They already lack some of the attack vectors available to other Skirmishers, surely this change wouldn't break anything? 2. Give all Ninjas Dodge (-3). Surely we've all seen the movies, read the books and/or leafed through the comics? The staple of popular culture is, that Ninjas are able to evade the shots from firearm armed opponents to almost superhuman extend, and duck under the most powerful of strikes? But nah, not Infinity Ninjas - these assassins suck at Dodging! Most Heavy Infantry units Dodge better than the Ninjas, and most Skirmishers are atleast as good at it, if not downright better... I get all the servo systems and pushups, but really; Ninjas aren't actually that good at Dodging? Giving the skill I'm proposing to the units in question would give them a unique (and a totally defensive!) shtick - they'd be extremely evasive when they'd be able to leverage Partial Cover, Mimetism (-6) and the Dodge (-3) to avoid foes trying to engage them with face to face shots! At the same time, Ninjas would still be relatively susceptible to Direct Template Weapons (that would be effectively ignoring this Skill) and especially threatened by Mines! 3. Make all Ninjas PH 13. Firstly, this change would make standard Ninjas and Oniwabans slightly better at Dodging, while also giving them a slight boost in their close combat killing power (although in the Oniwaban's case, only when not using the Monofilament CCW!). Secondly, this would harmonize the over-Infiltration rolls of the assassins! As things stand now, with the Success Values being Open Information, the Opponent will have a teetering on superpower knowledge of the type of Ninja trying to penetrate their lines once an over-Infiltration Roll is made: a success value of 9 will be a standard Ninja (PH12-3), a 10 will be Saito Togan (PH13-3), a 15 will be an Oniwaban (PH12+6-3) and a 16 will be Shinobu Kitsune (PH13+6-3). Stardardizing to PH 13 would mean that the Opponent wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a standard Ninja and Saito or between an Oniwaban and Kitsune from the get go, which surely would feel both thematic and a bit more optimized gameplay wise? 4. Give all Ninjas Climbing Plus. A couple of games ago, I was able to advance a Ninja to the foot of a one storey(!) buidling, at the roof of which Total Reaction Atalanta was positioned. Movie logic would dictate that the situation was critically dangerous to the Sniper posted on overwatch - surely we would soon see the big gun silenced in a truly cathartic fashion? But alas that was not the case here - the only set of ladders leading to the roof was full three MOV-MOVs away, and the only other choice available to the poor Ninja was to declare a Full Order Jump, attracting AROs from all who could see the assassin's trajectory, while also giving Atalanta a chance to Dodge to change her facing... What's even more chafing, is the fact the latter option was only available AT ALL was because the building happened to be one storey - two storeys? No chance! What actually happened in the game, was that Atalanta was able to calmly hold her position and maintain her overwatch, and then proceed to peek down from her fortress to gun down the Ninja in my Opponent's turn - with next to no threat to her safety with the Ninja having no Direct Template Weapons and BS of 11! And that's really it! I don't feel like I'm asking for the sun and the moon here, nor do I feel like it's neccessary to do so either - I do believe that with few relatively minor changes we could make Ninjas worthy of ther i(un?)hallowed reputation! Who knows - maybe we would see less people quit Factions like JSA so relatively quickly after picking them up too... Have a great day everyone!
I think you mean Dodge (+3). a minus 3 goes against the opponent's dodge. What I think would be appropriate for them is Surprise (-6).
No, I think he means what he said: DODGE (-3) means that when the model dodges, opponents get a -3 penalty in the FtF. Pandora and the Rindak both have versions of this rule.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. I would however go one step further and make them PH14 with infiltration +6 on all of them. If you're already paying more for infiltrators that are worse at infiltrating than impersonators, make it at least slightly more reliable. The number of times I've seen my JSA friend roll 17s on his Kitsunes infiltration roll has left me heartbroken for him.
The problem is that much of the things mentioned bring the price up. I can't see them keeping the same price. They are already fairly expensive. The low BS is one of the things that keeps the cost down since a good BS combined with Mim-6 is very good. Then combine that with a weapon already in +3 range due to Infiltration and it’s almost broken. There’s very few Infiltrators with a good BS and a good weapon. I can only think of Daofei, Prowler, and Caliban. None of them have Mim-6. A few have a MSR.
After some thought, I fully agree with @Grotnib. The only additional general changes would be that NBW should not work on MA 4 and 5, and for at least Kitsune that her Monofilament weapon should be affected by Martial Arts (Maybe add that to MA 5?)
I would also add the silent trait to most of their CC weapons (or flat out give them CC Attack (Silent)). You're still almost always better to just shoot, but at least this would give the option for them to feel like assassins of myth and legend.
