I'm not sure there's any obligation to make "standard" HI balanced in Vanilla compared to their Sectorials. By the same rationale, tons of things are broken, and I don't think anyone complains about it. Line infantry heavy weapons are a common example... And as someone who teaches the game a lot, a solo ORC or a Brigada are totally fine in 150-200 point learning games.
This then assumes you've brought a doctor. The alternative been bringing two 1w models for less cost and letting one just die. The net effect is the same or better because you don't have to spend orders reviving the model. Heavy infantry CAN be good, but they're more risky than alternative options. Maybe your brigada does just take 3 wounds because of special ammos like DA, AP or EXP. And in a game about managing risk, this makes them more difficult to play, not helped by an increase in optimised profiles which bring the same or better offensive output. Heavy infantry focused lists are more likely to have bad match ups, because the primary differentiator for them is becoming just survivability. So against jammers, hacking heavy or EM that advantage is eroded. I wouldn't necessarily want to see HI get massively better. But I'd like them to more consistent in their strengths, and potentially pay a little more for it or be less discounted. I think the trend to try make heavy infantry cheaper is the wrong approach. Because they can be very strong pieces.
Again, I don't want to minimise your experience because what you say can be true in some situations, but its not generally my experience. Like generally I dont feel losing 1w from a HI and having 2 LI with one unconcious is equivalent. Firstly, with the LI you have lost those pts if you are not healing. Secondly the second LI is not in the same position on the board, which can be very important (if the model is on an objective, spent orders getting across the board to attack etc). Thirdly, the model might have a special capacity (have a heavy weapon / be a specialist etc) and the difference in losing that or not for 1w is huge. Fourthly, the HI generally has better stats for its wounds, so is harder to wound. Facing EXP or DA doesnt make much difference because then you're facing lower burst (which you're less likely to lose against) too - so generally similar or less rolls to make. Lastly, having a doctor to heal gives you another mission capacity (specialist, classifieds etc) and depending on the doctor it can be a very strong one (eg Sophotects are amazing). I've lost count of yhe amount of times people have spent a whole turn fighting or trying to get around one of my HI MLs to negative or little effect or to the effect of me spending 1 order to their 10 popping her back up again with a doctor. That's making their orders work for me. So in general I find HI more stable (one dimension of risk) than spamming LI. They're much less likely to run across the table chewing orders and fail one unlucky roll, go down and leave me in a pickle for example. I feel like I have a much less swingy list with 5 tooled up linked Riot Grrls than the equivalent LI for example. The LI are much more likely to get a few lower stat squishy key models (heavy weapons / specialists) targeted then leave me with a whole pile of junk who chiefly spend their many remaining orders on getting exploded by a better quality model with a good long range gun, a good position, and therefore reactive board control. Sure HI have some counters. So do LI tho. Templates vs squishy spam can be very strong and lose you a lot of models quickly, for example. I dont really often find its trivial for my opponent to get e/m or whatever onto my HI. I play in a way not to let him. Bearing in mind E/M is often a template that can take away the advantage LI spam gives you too (orders). I'm not saying HI are better than more LI, I play both and they are each better in different situations / factions / missions etc. Which is exactly how it should be. Some HI might be underpowered. As a general category though, my play experience is that that just isnt really true, at least not any more.
Literally just give them frenzy and they're fine. I'm fact, I'm surprised by how little of Morats actually do have frenzy. It seems like it's right up their alley.
They're supposed to be incredibly disciplined (despite the religious trait). Frenzy doesn't really make much sense for them, but it'd be like a 15 point price drop on Suryats so I'm down.
I know this is a precedent that CB has set, but "just give them frenzy" is right up there with "just give them mimetism" as far as workaround solutions that don't address the underlying issues with the points system in my opinion.
You're right but so is @meikyoushisui . As long as we're laboring under the current, flawed points system, it's pointless to ask for anything else.
All due respect, I think we've let this strawman go on for quite enough and we should stop trying to justify it. Given the comparison between two hypothetical infantry units, one being a Heavy Infantry and the other being two Light Infantry totalling roughly the same cost, the hypothetical relative value between them are much more fair if we remove Hacking and E/M from the equation, even if not perfect. The strawman is that heavy infantry are unplayable or that they are vastly disadvantaged. Infinity has a small number of these small disadvantages that can stack up; increased vulnerability to Hacking and E/M, high cost on small CC increases for little factual value, and the way ARM scales in price*. These tend to stack up on specifically HI and, with the increase in E/M weapons in recent releases, is the reason why we're having 15+ pages of this. Put bluntly, HI tend to simply be a bit too costly, but this is not quite as much as some people attacking this strawman seem to argue against. There are some very specific problems with MO and IA that are best left for the respective forums. * Belongs to a separate thread, but cost for ARM scales linearly while usefulness scales exponentially, meaning there are a number of values greater than 1 but lower than roughly 5 or 6 (prior to cover) that offers poor value for investment.
I've made a very long rant about why Frenzy isn't actually a very morat thing. But to put things short: they're supposed to be a professional, disciplined, unflinching army. Frenzy kinda goes against that idea. That being said, I think Suryats would be a lot more useful if some profiles got changed around and/or they got some new gear. Regular or E/M grenades and an increased PH of 14 (to put them in line with other HI on the same cost bracket), and maybe a specialist profile like a doctor (should be MAF exclusive) would all make them more interesting in a full core link.
Yeah, I'm not questioning this, but Suryats for example start looking much better if that HMG is 36-38 points instead of 44. And I think part of the reason is that that's what the cost looks like for Hospitallers and Wu Ming -- in fact, it's very hard to reason why the Suryat is so expensive when you look at the Wu Ming... Interesting, I always assumed Morats were basically Monkey Klingons, but it looks like I am wrong.
This I agree with. I don't want to see lots of hyper streamlined CC10 stat lines for HI, but at the same time we need to resolve the fact that many of the bog standard HI are pretty lackluster unless you give them a highly optimised link which can lead to them fighting each other for the same role boiling down to who has the most hyper optimised statline again, we can see that in play with Shang-Ji vs Zuyong. Zuyong completely shove Shang Ji out of the picture because they have a significantly better optimised profile and both only do one job which is brute force stuff down. I don't think it's a widespread problem because many factions don't have that much HI, but for a couple of the higher tech ones it certainly is. There's only a couple of factions that really have this issue of HI getting badly out competed by other inhouse options. Even the bog standard Brigada can look good if they're the only ones doing their job with a half decent link like the one they have in StarCo with core link bonuses for HI, with Eclipse Grenades, good specialists and an inhouse Doctor they tick alot of boxes for decent resilient door kickers. I think the real way to fix Shang Ji and Teutons which are probably the worst two offenders is to keep them in their current price bracket but give them new gear/options that are actually good and not just bloat (read: NOT AUTOMEDKITS KRIT). If Teutons could bring Eclipse to the table or Shang Ji could insert Doctors into links I guarantee those are two profiles that would straight away get people's attention as being both interesting and playable. This problem isn't strictly an HI thing either, Zhayedan have the exact same issue. It's just a simple effect of a unit is: Overcosted/bloated with crapware like Automedkits Doesn't have a link that performs better than the other links of choice Doesn't have any game changing skills/gear to elevate their value It doesn't matter what their classification is anything that ticks those 3 boxes will straight away be garbage that never gets off the shelf.
New skill: Morat Doctor. Puts any unconscious model into NWI and gives them a roll on Metachemistry 1.
Why is being bricked by EM considered a major drawback, but not being able to heal up from unconcious (true unconcious not NWI) is not? there is a lot of EM going around, but there are even more bullets. There is no "Heavy Infantry problem" and this thread is baffling to be honest
I agree, a couple of small fixes to the point formula would help a lot to many vanilla HI: - Make CC under 19 cheaper - Make ARM under 5 cheaper
Being bricked by E/M is considered a major drawback because it's an attack that bypasses what was until recently the main selling point to HI, having a second wound. The same way Symbioarmour is considered kinda trash on the multi wound Tohaa stuff because of how Fire essentially bypasses the extra wound on an Ectross in the same way.
In general I think: The survivability afforded by ARM is not fully reflected in the price The degree of optimisation of some modern units compared with older ones, specifically around dump stats and superfluous loadouts, makes them unattractive options BTS scaling seems off given the increasing amount of BTS-targeting ammo/effects The method by which penalties are applied just to give a discount and then ignored by army-specific rules (frenzy/fireteam) is an inelegant solution to the problem That said, none of the issues preclude taking HI; eating a theoretical 1-2 point penalty on a couple of figures is largely irrelevant in 300 points. I don't run MO or IA, but I could see a situation where 7-8 figures, each contributing a 1-2 point penalty could stack up sufficiently to have a notable/quantifiable effect.
Models must sell. And otherwise Hospitaller link would be totalyl dead (and overshadowed by everythgin else). But in general this "change" shows even more how cheap Hospitallers must be made to be even taken (and "new" Hospitaller are no longer a often sight in MO lists).
Hospitaller Doctor and HMG are still excellent. But I think the Hospitaller link is Haris or very niche specific. Too many points invested only in active hurts a lot. You could always put a HRL OS as 5th member and long range ARO though. Thing is, they are excellent but more as a Haris team or solo second wave units. As an example, I think De Fersen is better in solo or in a Haris with a Santiago KHD than in a full Core. About the Suryat problem, I think that there isn't enough excellent profiles like the HMG+Tinbot or HMG TacAw ones. I think they could be really interesting if they could get the same kind of crazy toolbox loadouts Wu Ming have. In a Morat way, of course. They are pretty resilient for now but they lack a bit of impact in active to really match what they cost. And Hector says "hello there" here too. The problem I see with Shang Ji is that Zuyong appearance pushed them away from the "Yu Jing ORC" niche to an undefined one. That's what kill the best a unit. You can define a troop as a toolbox or a more focused one. You can play on a lot of things but you need to find out what will they bring that other units in the contest won't. They have LFT and HRL. Yeah, nice, but this is a bit short. There is something around that to exploit in order to change the existing loadouts in order to make the Shang Ji a real option outside of juste a more resistant Zuyong with a LFT. Teutons could use some help too. A lot of players ask for Eclipse, I ask for more 8-24" diverse and effective loadouts. Combi+LRL, Mk12, Red Fury would make them very distinct from Santiagos while not changing the profile. Overall, there are really few HIs I can see in need for some help and among them, some come from Ariadna (which seemed to have been completely forgotten). Sometimes, AVA and frenzy are enough to create some space for everyone.
Exactly. EM and Glue are threats that, with one failed save, take that model out of the game. They don't have the challenges that Mono (the other one-failed-save weapon) does getting to a place where the EM/Glue weapon can affect the target, and EM/Glue is carried by much cheaper troops than MonoCCWs are. Uh, could you explain that? The phrasing you used implies that you think ARM is too cheap. Or at least that's how that phrasing is used in the modern business world. My thinking is that it's not 'just' 1-2pts per model. I'm pretty sure that Hacking and EM vulnerability are more like 1-2pts each, plus ARM being overcosted, means that it's more like 3-5pts per model. So a 10-model list of HI and REMs is 30-50pts light.
Its not necessarily that being bricked by EM is a drawback. More that it seems more and more Heavy infantry are PAYING for the luxury of potentially being bricked. Having the HI tag doesn't just give you disadvantages, it automatically makes skills like infiltration, camouflage and AD cost more.... for reasons.
