For me, having an ability like that which is one use only is more tactical than many other parts of the game. The wrecking ball example you gave is interesting - for it, you still need to get your Gorgos close, on a good angle, not hacked or hit on the way in, and then for some reason wanting to inefficiently engage five models rather than effectively engage one at a time, not be crit by the 10 ARO attacks from the link team, and then being stranded at the end of turn to be killed by the second attack that comes its way. With all those conditions, yeah, you don't roll a dice, and get to bounce one attack, but theres a lot of set up and you don't get to auto-survive the second attack. A strong analogy would be camoflage. It can walk out past any number of models without dying, and always takes two orders to blow one away. It trades the sheer invulnerability of one turn for other tactical advantages in the form of information and hit modifiers. You can't walk it in front of a whole link team to engage them all at once, but why would you want to? The clincher for mates IME was when I played someone new to infinity but experienced in wargaming, against my symbiomates at a recent tournament. In his words, the answer to this incredibly busted rule was "just shoot it again". After that I've found it impossible to take the complaints of symbiomates in general seriously. Theres issues about costing and availability on an optimised profile, but the rule itself is solid in my book.
The costing and availability are intrinsically part of the equation though. You can make any rule you want to so long as it's costed appropriately.
Many people are talking about rule changes, not just costing/availability. That seems to be the more popular solution. Rules and mechanics can be unfun and bad for the game at any cost.
I think generally from watching the thread is the real problem with mates as a rule, not cost/availability, is their application on the active turn, where they can be used to tell 89 different things to fuck off at once. While on reactive they are a wasted order.
If a Kaeltar costed 42 points, I probably wouldn't complain about the rule but would still encourage Tohaa to use them.
This shows a misunderstanding of the order economy of the game. A mate is a guaranteed waste of a single order if used reactively -- 2 Kaeltars costs 42 points, and can guarantee the opponent wastes at least 4 orders through the course of the game, even if only used reactively, and also pretty much guarantees you'll never be in LoL. That's far too good for the cost, especially considering it also packs CoC. 21 points of Chain of Command in JSA gets you a boarding shotgun and Number 2. Clearly something isn't right here.
He also gets better BS and doesn't cost CAP. And being able to participate in 5-man Fireteams, that BS15 Boarding Shotgun is truly scary even outside the +6 range, If it were me I would make the Kaeltar slightly more expense, like 25 points, that would also make the Symbiobombs see more play; I don't think the Kaeltar and its mates are so overpowered, usually they are just a minor inconvenince for the rival one he gets used to them.
Most of those don't even figure into point costs though -- the way I see it, the Kaeltar is a Celestial Guard with +1 PH, but somehow also gets a flash pulse, electric pulse, chain of command, and 2 Symbiomates? That means symbiomates have to cost almost nothing, in exchange for their power to completely eliminate the outcome of an order. What is the counterplay to that? And a linked boarding shotgun outside of the +6 range is just a linked Combi inside of it's +3 range, nothing to really say is scary. Edit: And I would add, how many units in the game are able to do this literally just by existing? You don't have to spend a single order on a Kaeltar to get 90% of his utility out of him.
Your experience of Infinity may be vastly different to mine. As might this new player. But not every faction has the right tools to get X job done. Some matchups see certain abilities, weapons, etc be skewed to be more effective. Sometimes even just listbuilding hamstrings you to a slight degree. Sure, you can blame me and say I didn't bring the right tools, but I've found myself at a tourney stuck trying to deal with a linked Sukeul Missile Launcher at long range and in cover. 2 dice AROs and me actively firing at -9s. "Just shoot again" isn't words of wisdom. It is downplaying the effectiveness of the tool and looking at it in a vacuum. Saying "Just shoot again" implies that any active turn shooting is always 100% likely to result in a successful hit on your part, and a failed save on their part. It isn't simply 1 Mate = 1 wasted order, because that stats aren't always in your favour - luck isn't always on your side. 1 Mate could mean 2, 3, 4 other orders needing to be spent to accomplish the task, and that task may have already taken 2 or 3 in the first place.
Well the real bullshit is that they can use guts to get total cover after throwing a symbiomate. If they made it so you couldn't use Guts the turn you through one it would be a useful debuff.
Like I tried to frame in my post - didn't have the available tools to get better than that, and had to deal with the ARO piece. Regardless, point is... People keep framing Mates as though active turn shooting always results in successful hits and failed saves. Which it doesn't. So even to frame it as "it only costs you 1 order" is complete rubbish. N3 did a lot to remove rules that were, plainly, negative player experience. Things like Camo and MSV/Smoke being one-sided, unopposed rolls was anti-fun for the person being on the receiving end. The draw of Infinity is the "it's always your turn" mentality. The idea that, even when your opponent has stacked odds, at least your dudes are doing something. Mates break that. They allow you to play through all of the opposed dice rolling, and then just negate it. They are a negative player experience. If mates were adjusted to be "+1 Wound", they'd be fine. If they were adjusted to be "ignore 1 hit from a successful attack before rolling saves", they would be frustrating... But they'd still be ok. Hell... even just making the use of the Mate only block attacks from 1 source would make them something you could plan around and invest resources to circumvent.
However another common thing is blaming Mates when you deserved to lose. I would have used an example where that isn't that case.
So you want to argue semantics and ignore the argument. Cool. So i had my Bs15 Aquila firing his HMG in good range bands and managed to roll on 19s and 20s for 3 orders straight. When i finally scored hits, he used a mate, and it took another 4 orders before i scored another few hits to kill the model. And now you can just discount the example based on "just bad dice", the Mate is irrelevant. Please focus on the point of people's posts rather than the semantics of examples. I was providing an understandable situation where you would expect winning a FtF to take more than 1 order (several, in fact) to be achievable.
Yes, as far as we know the Symbiomates and Symbiobombs are almost free. The way CB balances factions is giving certain units rules/equipment and combinations of them that are very good for almost no cost. Likewise, you have units correctly costed but considered expensive for what they do. For example, the Gorgos compares very bad against most TAGs in the game, or the HMG Chaksa compares very bad against the typical TR HMG Remote or the Sin-Eater. That's why units cannot be compared directly outside their factions. And that's why Symbiomate-Kaeltars need to be a little more expensive, so they don't break internal balance and give the competition (Symbiobomb-Kaeltar) more room.
Judging from the HSN3 rewrite, there's at least one person on the design team with a massive hardon for artichokes. I think CB is more tolerant of negative play experiences and imbalance from Tohaa than they would be from another faction.
In Tohaa's case, though, they have amazing fireteam order efficiency, cheap and easy access to Chain of Command, and the best durability in the game, with no drawback that I can see. (inb4 hurr durr fire vulnerability).
Low ARM and nearly no Hacking are currently Tohaa's weakneses, the Sukeul singlehanded fixed the Crappy BS and no anti-ARM ones. Fire Vulnerability weakness is a big one for its only HI and its TAG, that happens to be the only non-repairable TAG in the game and one of the few that once you get out you cannot get in again.
Except that we do know there is a costing formula for how many points a models is worth (swc seemingly notwithstanding). Which means that a Chksa is worth the number of o Points it is worth. A TR HMG Remote is likewise worth points equal to the sum total of its abilities, stats, weapons etc.
