Greetings all! I haven't played a game of Infinity since the first edition of the game, and as such most of my ALEPH collection are old models (Asuras, Devas, etc); the only Steel Phalanx stuff I have are Myrmidons and the officer. That said... 1) How's the faction doing? What are some good picks nowadays in list building? 2) Has Steel Phalanx practically replaced "regular" ALEPH? I recall when they were initially released (especially since they had sectorial rules) they seemed a lot better than regular ALEPH. 3) I'd appreciate any updates to the game/metagame's state as well. Thank you!
Came in at beginning of n3 So unable to compare what used to be good compared to now. That said i started as steel and am full time vanilla aleph. Aleph has a little less concentrated power than steel but still quite strong rambos (such as achilles) available to do a lot of the heavy lifting. For vanilla, sadly asuras are not very good atm. They used to be the only model in our faction with hacking device pluses so had that niche market but we git a new hacker called danavas who is a third the cost with maestro (one of the strongest anti hacker hacking programs in the game). Deva spitfire or deva sensor is great. The deva with bot aint bad, but sensor or bot is cheapest LT so can still find places in lists. Our biggest pick for vanilla that is almost mandatory to bring as they are super strong and stupid cheap is our jumpers (most commonly called posthumans or proxies). Also nagas are very popular as well due to cheap camo infilitrate that has dogged. This means that they can take a wound and still continues its mission before its ultimate death. As for question number 2, no. Posthumans and the flexibility of nagas and dakinis + danavas give vanilla its own seperate playstyle from the powerful straight forwardness of steel.
Thanks for the reply! I haven't had the chance to look at the new rules yet, and noticed that Posthumans have a lot of different variants now. How do they roughly work this edition? Thanks!
Steel Phalanx stole the show for a while modelwise, and although their options and tactics have gotten more variation, they’re still rather limited and ‘bland’. Vanilla is for all armies regarded as the stronger choice, as most players quickly learn to deal with a fireteam, and then sectorial lose their strengths. Vanilla Aleph is in a good place. 10order armies have been given a helping hand, and as we’re THE elite army, that gave the faction a boost. And with posthumans basically being an extra bonus 30 points, we’ve got the tools to overcome our low order handicap. Oh.. And Patroclus has gone from zero to hero. He is really, really good.
Post humans have recieved a number of buffs since you probably last used them. Mainly most* of their draw backs have been removed, but they have retained excellent stats and abilities for a low point cost Gone are 1. Each proxy taking up a slot in a command group, now all proxies count as one member 2. You can surprise shot with a MK 2, going active proxy no longer drops camo 3. Even if all proxies are killed you retain thier order so long as you have netrods The vanilla to sectorial comparison is similar for all factions. Sectorial gets free stat buffs when guys are linked, but you lose out on a variety of units. Missing out on camo, infiltrations, HD +, post humans and other toys can make actually accomplishing missions more tricky. Generally I view the vanilla option as slightly more powerful, at least in Aleph and Nomads, which are my play experience. Infinity is remarkably well balanced, I have yet to feel like a faction is over powered or underpowered. At least not like I have in other games. Aleph is doing great, as is everyone else.
Essentially broken and autoinclude. Only limit is the SWC (which is the hard limit on the faction). They also need only 1 slot (instead of 1 per body) and have received a cheapening in cost. Mk5 is a great specialist (10 pts), and MK4 is a great Rambo piece with both setups, or ARO piece with the HRL. Mk3 is still little used, and Mk2's only disadvange, like the MK1, is that you have to choose 1 profile. Vedic (non-greeks) is scheduled to be released this year, and the only resculpt we got was the Garudas. The greeks have some more tactical options but their strategy still is to "ASSault". Also, we got a new troop, the Danavas, a cheap H+ that paliates the "nerf" the Asura has gotten from the Maestro hacking program (2 EC characters who are, at least one, autoinclude have it now) and the Shock ammo upgrade: Maestro sends the Asura H+ to Unconscious and 0 wounds, no NWI activation. Shock ammo prevents the activation of NWI if it sends the Asura to Unconscious. Aside from that, mostly the same as 2-3 years ago.
Also, Dakinis are still a pain in the ass to assemble (pun not intended). We're all hoping for a resculpt of those friendly robots we like and love.
Why? Since NWI is an state of unconscious I thought she would go to NWI... We played it like this around here (maybe we are wrong?).
It's a recent (and in my opinion very disappointing and uncalled for) nerf, the new rule directly mentions the Asura in the example, NWI is not what it used to be, which hits us very hard
The new rule is about shock against the asura. Where is the rule of maestro against the asura brings her unc and can't use nwi?
As @kinginyellow said, Maestro is written so that the hacker goes to Unconscious state or its equivalent (I guess they should reference here the Dogged and or NWI states). So far, NWI is weaker now against shock ammo (which has become more common recently) but against everything else it behaves the same.
In my city there's a saying, roughly translated, which says "the more sugar, the sweeter" meaning that even if the information is redundant, the more info you have, the better