You're right, something that only happens in two specific matchups is somehow comparable to how my faction excels in the most basic mechanic in the game. Stop complaining and adapt my playstyle? That's basically saying "don't play PanO" to all PanO players. Some armies appear to be balanced around being better at shooting and worse at button pushing, but again, the button pushing armies are never penalized for doing it too much. And Tohaa certainly does not stop a steam hammer from working -- the only way to deal with Tohaa is to overwhelm them with firepower so much that they are taking several wounds per order. Otherwise they just run over you.
No, the best way to deal with Tohaa is to kill the linkteamfiller who have only one wound. A good played infiltrator or AD-trooper with a boarding shotgun can wreck your day. Or for PanO the Auxilia with its Bot. That is, what I ment with adapt. If you try to take the way through the frontdore, you will have a problem, undoubtable.
You're right, because people frequently leave the fillers in places where they are vulnerable to that. Why is it that your solution is somehow the only acceptable one? Would you say it's poor design that CB gives PanO BS15 + Mimetism shooters if they intend for everyone to solve problems with cheap templates and boarding shotguns? (And also a BSG is just another example of several wounds per order.)
Think, you are right with your assessment with the 3 tiers of armies. I only miss in the top tier Vanilla Aleph and Onyx and I'm not shure, if Nomads and IA belong to this categorie with your definition to make no mistakes. FRRM is in the mid tier I would say, never played against them, but they have not so bad options with Equipe Mirage-5, the four Chasseurs and the CH-II Metros. Druze is well played also not so bad with their EM-granade launcher and their remotes. Tunguskas Hollowman link is verry strong, but has problems against some opponents. And what the update to Morats and MO has brought can't I say till now.
An Akalis cost you 21 points, an Auxilia FO 15 points and a Crockman FO 32 points, who has TO and HD, can make the same trick with his mine and can push buttons with wip 13 too, are not that expensive to not take them with. If you are not able to build your lists in different ways and only want to play the same things over and over again, than is that your problem. You can have both your BS15 + Mimetism sladgehammer and your plan B units if you want. I don't say that it is an easy game against Tohaa, but it's not your list, it's you, is in this situation also true.
This is literally an admission that Tohaa is outperforming PanO. And again, talking about lists is distracting from the main point about balance. Sometimes it is an issue with what is available to your army (see Morats and old MO, for example.)
100% this. Options will always exist that are better than others. I will say, however, infinity is not chess or go. There will always be an inherent imbalance. Now, can you take a “great” list and instantly win? No. Can two equally skilled players face off, one with a top tier, optimized list, the other with a bunch of unoptized trash units in a low tier list? Yes. Will the first player described have a much higher chance of winning? Yes. To say otherwise is plain foolish.
The Kaeltar has terrible internal balance. It’s the ultimate safety net model - each one gives you 2 symbiomates to protect your Symbiont troops, plus it’s got Chain of Command to give you security against LoL. Since on top of that it’s also cheap and linkable, it’s really hard to argue that you shouldn’t always take two of them, unless you’re only bringing two symbiont troops to begin with. The closest comparison I can give you is G: Mnemonica models in Combined Army, but they are expensive beatsticks that you could legitimately not want to build around. Although I think someone here already mentioned, in that case you’re frequently better off playing Onyx. And I could agree that EI Aspects (and non-aspect Lieutenant costs/options) do cause a pretty bad distortion to how vanilla CA is played. Kaeltar are part of the reason I stopped playing my Tohaa around HSN3. I just didn’t enjoy the direction the faction was being pushed.
Updated note on Kaeltar - I would have found them more interesting if bombs were on the CoC profile and Mates were on the other so that you had to choose what kind of defense you wanted.
@Ben Kenobi I hope you realize you're setting up a rather big strawman with your BS15+ argument since you're comparing what is ostensibly a vanilla faction to what is essentially cherry picked traits from any given Sectorial. Assuming all things are equal and that you pay for what you get (let's be generous and not analyse the suspiciously low cost of f.ex. Ectros), a single wound saved by a SymbioMate is sufficient to more than make back the price of two Kaeltar and you get four chances of doing that (since it's likely you'll be sticking them on figures that'll end up in a firefight). As it stands now, Tohaa is literally smack middle between ISS and IA (Ariadnan sectorials are smaller than IA with more profiles but no generic REMs) in number of profiles, so it's in sectorial territory - and I'd argue Tohaa isn't as focused as most sectorials and instead have less repetition than them. Sectorials make up for this lack of diversity with fireteams and as of 3O it seems vanilla are the big, big, winners and none of those have BS15+ with attached +1B. So. Comparing Tohaa to sectorials in terms of what a Triad can do compared to a Core risks being very dishonest and since not only does Tohaa likely have a diversity pool to choose from that sectorials typically don't, but the likelihood of future Tohaa releases is a lot higher than any given sectorial. Or is it? Maybe Year of Tohaa failed to make an appearance because they're meant to be kept at a near-sectorial level and further releases risks making the faction take an unacceptable hike due to Triads and Mates.
I don't say Tohaa is a weak faction, I only say, that there are limitations too. Would never play an Ectros, cause of the lack of Hacking defense. You are missing the repeater for this game and Aelis Keesan is lacking the BTS of 6 or 9 for a proper self defense when she is your only offensive hacker. Not having REM's is very limiting, cause you don't get things like a buffed Bulleteer or a Q-Drone and have not unc2 state. And all of that is totally legit. Our TAG can't be healt back to his maximum structure cause he has wounds. All people seems to be blind for the weaknesses other factions have. The complaining only about the "advantages" of other factions, what I can see at the PanO forum with the question what to do against Mutts. When you play a one trick pony who's only strengths is the direct confrontation, then don't complain about other things! Each army or sectorial has the tools to beat every other factions! Have you to leave your usual path? Perhaps. But it is possible. Therefore: Stop complaining! Start playing!
Ectros also has the advantage of being hackable in a faction that doesn't play the hacking game. And Aelis might be lacking BTS 6+, but on the other hand not every faction is Nomads and some will have to make do with BTS 0. I have no doubt Ectros fails to properly impress, they have the same profile and price (on their HI wounds) as you find on HI that typically struggle to make a name for themselves without Frenzy nudging them down to a price category lower. I doubt it's because of hacking exposure, though. Still, Tohaa wasn't exactly rated poorly in terms of strength prior to getting Kaeltar.
That's true, but they have more than one real hacker. It's the reason why I don't give them a try. Risc to profit is too bad. Overall you Whould be as good as a HI with Frenzy discount due to your "third" wound. Can't say anything about it, I'm playing only since March this year.
Edit: Changed my mind. I dont want a part of this. Too manu people that think they know all. Balance of the game is good.
Current external balance is excellent. Game rules slightly favour order spam, camo and -BS modifiers over other builds. Chain Rifles and SMGs are slightly too cheap for what they do, most Hacking Devices slightly too expensive. Nearly everything has a niche if the terrain is wacky in the right ways. I'd give Infinity 9/10 for balancing effort; it's unusually excellent but the new wave of mixed links still hasn't gotten to the oldest Sectorials, providing a minor advantage in flexibility and cost to the newer factions, and several old bugbears are still hanging around in the form of significantly efficient or inefficient troops that haven't been updated to match newer iterations of the ruleset.
You know, while I don't like the "tier" idea, I think you're right there. The 'worst' armies are the ones that don't let you make a mistake. If run by someone who doesn't make a mistake, they're very hard to beat. But if you don't know how to use them, or typically make more than one mistake per game (like me, I always make at least 1 mistake per turn!), you're hosed.
I don't care about linkfiller if the only one who stops me from doing objective is the other one. Isn't bsg still a shooting option? You should still make 2 wounds in order to kill tohaa. Nomad for example could just smoke the objective which is more reliable and costs less orders. Auxbots are great, but they have limited range so it may take some orders to get them into position and there is no guarantees of killing. That is why I hate theoryfinity. "Why won't you use auxbot on tohaa?" "It will take a lot of orders to take him into position" "But it has 6-4 move" "Yes, but the path can be blocked by terrain and there is tr chaksa and sukeul covering this path" "Just use aquila/bagh-mari/whatever hmg to take them out" And the conversation goes on and on and on... Well, this list is my subjective point of view. Unfortunately, not all armies are represented in my meta and I can't be 100% right about them. I would agree on vanilla aleph, but onyx is in the middle for me. Nomads have everything except for CoC, so you can make any list you like. Strong midfiled presence? check. Good gunfighters? Check. Smoke + MSV2? Check Best hacking? Check. IA are strong because of their ability to have more then 10 orders. They are definetely autowinners in LI, in usual games I am not sure. However it is still better then any other 10 unit army, such as MO, Steel Phalanx. I remember on release the got a lot of hate. I only played once against them, not good not bad. Hollowmen are strong but they are mostly LI option. Even then, now they are outshined by Invincible, 10 or less orders vs 11-16 in IA. I already played some games with MO, and nothing new reaches old level of hosp+mags, backed up by fusi lt and a decoy. You live in constant fear of losing satiago or have to invest into 50+ CoC, which while got better is still not the best unit.
