Every other impersonator does, and it's not like Haqq and especially HB is suffering in other ways that means they need those. Balance-wise, it seems like HB just got too much good stuff in their update - they've got great defense, great alpha strike potential, a severely undercosted and powerful fireteam pointman in the form of the Asawira - their balance seems very out of wack.
Because Haqqislam is THE army of Impersonators. It's their thing. And wanting to give SWC cost on units like plain Fiday with AP CCW and rather mediocre most of the stats seems unreasonable. Just like you'd want to change Doctor Plus in Haqq. And you have to remember that Speculo for example has Mono CCW - which makes it cost SWC. TBH I'm not sure why Greif costs 1 SWC - could've been a bit cheaper. PozdRawiam / Greetings
Kiuutans cost SWC too. In any case, saying that Haqqislam is THE army of impersonators falls flat when it's not particularly deficient in other areas, and traditionally CA/Shas has had the best Impersonators.
Do you think that balance is not worth discussing? Do you think that people should just pretend that certain factions don't have unearned advantages in gameplay?
I understand it’s a long, drawn out process involving capybaras, wombats, and tanukis. Details are still sketchy, though, so obviously folks can be confused at times.
Players have them when they use a particular faction. And right now HB has a lot of upsides, and little to no downsides. "Unearned advantage" in this context would be when a given faction option is overpowered compared to its competition, when you walk in with a higher chance to win than your opponent given equal skill. We can parse this out into the whys and wherefores, but the important thing is that faction choice should have minimal impact on your chances of winning the game, and right now there are factors which make that not the case.
Your endless complaints about overpowered factions would be a lot more credible if they didn't conspicuously leave out vanilla CA.
I don't play them myself, and I worry a lot less going up against vanilla CA than I do many other factions. I'd be interested in looking at tournament data as the season goes forward, but I have a sneaking suspicion that vanilla CA is not going to be a powerhouse, at least in the sense of having "unearned advantages" as I described. Is this where I say that you have a self-serving motivation to pretend that HB is not on the high end of the power curve?
Oh, HB is a strong faction, for sure. Although I'm going to abandon them for a while to test the hypothesis that vanilla Haqq is even stronger. Making the Fiday 1SWC would probably actually be a reasonable balance for Vanilla. Vanilla seems to use less SWC generally (thanks to the Mukhtar Red Fury being only 1 instead of 1.5, not using the Ghulam NCO or Muyib HRL, and Fiddler being 0 SWC), so paying 1 SWC for the inevitable Fiday would restrict, but not strangle, list-building. Whereas making the Fiday 1SWC would strangle HB, which already struggles with the SWC limit. It would also make the AVA2 Fiday, which narratively is a defining feature of the sectorial, meaningless since one could never fit two of them in. I could see making the Fiday 0.5SWC, although there would probably be better ways to rebalance HB. In any case, I'll take your bet: I predict that at the upper levels, vanilla CA will perform better than HB in ITS13.
I disagree with that; it would force HB to make meaningful choices in listbuilding, like most factions. Opportunity costs should exist for powerful options. I guess we'll see.
Meh. It's the two-stage Discover that's the biggest issue. I also don't think Fiday are the primary reason for HB being such an incredibly strong sectorial, as much as I hate playing against Imp-1s.
So I'm usually one to critique impersonation in its current state across ever faction that has it. But not costing SWC in Haqqislam does not perturb me given the factions inability to fight conventionally in the manner of combined army or tohaa. Jaan makes fidays look like a piece of shit in any case.
As a Tohaa player, I love my Impersonators as they are powerful but don't feel broken: - They have SWC cost (from 0.5 to 1). - They are not CC beasts. - They do not carry smoke to approach unopposed. - They just need to be discovered once. Years ago I speculated and wished on the forum for a Tohaa Impersonator geared towards killing light troopers, armed with light weaponry like Viral Pistols. Some wishes come true :p
I don't think it's any one thing, it's a combination of things. There's no element that's in HB that other factions don't have - IMO HB just has too much good stuff. How exactly doesn't HB fight conventionally? BS 14 HI and MSV2 BS13 in fireteams isn't enough? The reason Jaan is good is he has a template weapon - which is what Fidays have too. Give Kiiutan shotguns or nanopulsers and it's a different ballgame.
No. Those are definitely no Avatar, Sphinx or Sukeul commando. And to a pan-o player I see a faction that fields relatively mediocre gunners, like Asawira or hadad whilst crippling its order economy with irregulars. BS13 visor, 24 inch burst 3 dam 13 gun with no vis mod? That may as well be a JSA unit. Kind of made the example of Haqqislams ineptitude right there without me needing to do anything. Jaan has two wounds and can take mates and bombs. This is why he is so much better lol.
In order for that trick to work you won't be deploying Jaan as your last miniature and it won't deploy in Impersonator state, so the oponent will be able to counter deploy it. It also costs more points than a Fiday, costs 1 CAP, can only use Imp(2) state, doesn't carry Smoke to cover its approach and it's worse in CC. I'd say it all balances out.
Burst 2 Viral pistols significantly help his Active Turn CC. Probably still don't want to be going after enemy martial artists though.
It shoots functionally as well as the Sukeul in a fireteam, and is more durable in a lot of ways. The gunners in that fireteam are good enough to beat pretty much anything active turn. They deploy closer and have smoke to cover their advance, so the range is unlikely to be an issue. Except no marker state when you do that, so he's easily removed. His tech actually allows counterplay.
