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Spec-ops rules are still available via PDF and army builder app(s) AFAIK. It's the campaign rules you can only get with the Paradiso book.

Spec ops aren't in any PDF I've seen and while you can build a spec op in the builder, the rules aren't there. (when can link, no double weapons, gear restrictions, etc.)

I actually quite like the background story section with Campaign Paradiso.

It advances the story a little from the main rulebook (or at least, it did before N3) and the bit when the Human Sphere AI (Aleph basically) squares off against the Combined Army EI is cool beyond words.

 Pacific wrote:
I actually quite like the background story section with Campaign Paradiso.

It advances the story a little from the main rulebook (or at least, it did before N3) and the bit when the Human Sphere AI (Aleph basically) squares off against the Combined Army EI is cool beyond words.

It didn't "advance the story". The main rulebook was set post-Paradiso.

What it did was flesh out the story.

 BobbaFett wrote:
Troop profile for the Airborne Rangers:


and new troop prfile for the Domaru Butai also:

Can someone explain to me why these guys are mv 10-10 as it makes no sense to me??

It's in CM, so they're 4-4 move in inches. They use CM in Spain and they creep into the profiles occasionally.

 Formosa wrote:

 BobbaFett wrote:
Troop profile for the Airborne Rangers:


and new troop prfile for the Domaru Butai also:

Can someone explain to me why these guys are mv 10-10 as it makes no sense to me??

Hurrah !

 Formosa wrote:
Can someone explain to me why these guys are mv 10-10 as it makes no sense to me??

Metric system.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Can someone explain to me why these guys are mv 10-10 as it makes no sense to me??

Metric system.

Lingering thoughts from early Autumn...

Any word on the release of N3:HS? I know it was pushed into next year, but are we talking Jan/Feb? or ever later than that?

CB is slowly getting the older TAGs refurbished.
Guija looks great.
Any word on a new Szalamandra? I love the old one, but it has huge potential with what they can do now.

Just going through my youtube feed on the TV and it looks like Leland has left Miniwargaming and he was the Infinity guy apparently. They'll no longer be covering Infinity (news and/or battle reports) and were considering that even before he left.

There goes one of CB's "Video Outlets" then!

I wonder who will replace them?

IIRC Guerilla Games started doing previews last week or so for the first time that I noticed (and was founded and is frequented by ex-MWG'ers). That'd be my guess.

The only sensible reason to stop making infinity videos is that they don't get enough views. From a quick look at their channel, it looks like most of the infinity batreps get 3-5k views comparable to Warmachine whereas 40k typically gets 15k+ (frequently 20k+) and even AOS is around 10k. I guess for the effort they put into it, they'd get more clicks/views/ad revenue devoting it to GW stuff.

For me personally, I stopped watching their infinity games as they just didn't appeal to me. I'm a fan of stompy robots which obviously would be TAGs for this game and I rarely saw them. It was usually tiny truescaled 25mm normal infantry versus other tiny truescaled normal 25mm infantry. The figs would frequently get lost in all the excellent terrain that you see on infinity games. The quality and quantity of the terrain combined with tiny figs and very few zoom ins turned me off visually a bit. I watch videos for the painted mini eye candy and I didn't really feel like I was getting enough of it once the army list discussion was over 30 seconds in. Add in the likely sensible lack of TAGs (from reading this thread, it sounds like they're not generally worth it in game despite the impressive looking models).

Ash at GMG have been doing Infinity reps for a fair few months now, and now MWG have packed it in he's got the best production on them by a long way, which is one reason I back the channel on patreon.

From what Matthew said on the same video MWG were looking to increase quality at the expense of quantity, and Infinity being one of their lesser popular brands they cobvered it made sense it would make room for (*gulps*) more 40k. It makes business sense, but is a shame.

That leaves GMG, Gaming with the Cooler and (when he releases them) Micky Ward for my Infinity batrep fixes.

 warboss wrote:
...Add in the likely sensible lack of TAGs (from reading this thread, it sounds like they're not generally worth it in game despite the impressive looking models).

They are worth it in non ITS scenario games. CB knows that they have a problem with selling TAGS at the moment. It seems that they think newer and shinier will help. Revising the ITS Scenarios would help more. If ones plays YAMS or 20x20 then TAGs become useful and fun again.

The interesting question would be how many play ITS vs other types of game? I would hazard a guess that there are more casual players, or people who just want to buy a TAG to paint or because it looks cool.

I own several TAGs for instance in factions I don't even play! And, people have commented in threads that they buy them even if they don't play Infinity.

Guess it's very hard to tell without having access to the sales figures, but I wouldn't take a lack of presence in some website AAR as an indicator that TAGs aren't selling.

 Pacific wrote:
...Guess it's very hard to tell without having access to the sales figures, but I wouldn't take a lack of presence in some website AAR as an indicator that TAGs aren't selling.

This pretty much. In the meta I play in, TAGs aren't usually taken because players don't feel they are 'worth' the points costs. A large chunk of points seriously cuts down on orders, and even though TAGs CAN wreck face, there are also plenty of counters available for them.

It's a fine-line, though, making them 'worth their cost' without going overboard and making them dominant. I have zero interest in playing a game where TAGs/dreadnaughts/walkers/etc dominate the game. Resculpting them definitely should help sales - I'm one of those people Pacific alluded to who bought some 'just because they look cool'. It will be interesting to see where CB goes with them.

I'd be more than OK if T.A.G.'s became...'more worth taking' in Infinity!

And re-sculpting them (or just finally getting them models in some cases) certainly helps.

Though oddly enough I really do love the Lizard and Szalamandra as is too!

I think T.A.G.'s show up a lot more in 'friendlies' than in ITS tournaments - though as noted they apparently appear in non-ITS tournaments a lot more too, though I can't speak to that!

I recall folks in the N2 era complaining of rambo'ing TAGs being too powerful. Experienced players usually responded with "leArn 2 play n00B!" and instructions to just kill everything else and do the mission but maybe Corvus Belli were listening to the complaints from the "average joe" player. I know they expanded the hacking rules which obviously affect TAGs primarily in N3 but I suspect that was part of their solution.

Did the pendulum swing too far in N3 maybe? I don't play personally but I watch lots of video reports and I very rarely see TAGs being played regardless of whether the mission is specifically labelled ITS or not. I will admit that I myself can't recognize an ITS mission from one that isn't except maybe by the presence of an HVT (are they only ITS?). Either way, I purposely look for the TAGs in videos and have for a while skipped reports without them so at least online they're very few and far between.

Ah, I believe you've hit it - the biggest 'issue' for T.A.G.'s in N3 was the expansion of Hacker Powers, I think?

I have no local INFINITY scene whatsoever though, but if I did, I imagine we'd be able to figure something out in order to field T.A.G.s and have fun doing so!

TAGs stop showing up in ITS games when Lt. could no longer take objectives.

Hacking isn't really stronger, or the game more balanced toward killing TAGs, I think Noir is correct and it's a symptom of objective based gameplay.

Before Achilles or a Jotum or a Cutter could walk around taking objectives while being a murder machine because they are Lt. choices. Now they're "only" murder machines.

Depends on the mission though, doesn't it? Quadrant control seems to like a good mission for TAG's, especially when they can usually dominate a zone by themselves. Other than that, I rarely see TAG's though I still use my Iguanna, as Corrigedor still allows me to squeeze 14-16 orders in, with several specialists.

Lanlaorn wrote:
Hacking isn't really stronger, or the game more balanced toward killing TAGs, I think Noir is correct and it's a symptom of objective based gameplay.

Before Achilles or a Jotum or a Cutter could walk around taking objectives while being a murder machine because they are Lt. choices. Now they're "only" murder machines.

Hacking absolutely is stronger. Hacking went from something which was a part of the game but not always seen in lists to something that is a necessity.

Hacking absolutely is more interesting, but not really stronger. In the active turn it remains inefficient, the Reset ARO hurts and the standard GML "dirty trick" was heavily nerfed as Spotlight is a really bad program.

Plus more and more armies either give you swarms of cheap infantry with nothing to hack or a few HI with shockingly high BTS values.

The value in hacking IMO is in the reactive turn, supportware and objective taking.

So what you're saying is that...hacking is stronger?

Noir wrote:
TAGs stop showing up in ITS games when Lt. could no longer take objectives.

This would be my experience as well.
Sure, hacking got better, but in my experience a shotgun to the 'nads will still happily retire said nuisance from your opponent's order pool. It's good that there's a bit more of a threat around, and it's certainly not something I take lightly, but it's hardly a reason not to take TAGs anymore - just a reason to be a bit smarter about their usage. The Lt. thing, however? that just means it's very, very hard to still take enough specialists while taking a TAG.

Revising that ridiculous tournament system of theirs a bit seems like a better solution though; the resilience of a TAG meant you could often just risk dashing for an objective that was, otherwise, pretty well-defended. That really shouldn't be happening either.

Hacking got better, not stronger, but the TAGs problem was the fact they stopped been objective grabbers.

Admittedly people could use a TAG is kill based missions, but the mentality of making two entirely different lists has not hit the wide player base yet.

The HMG adjustment also made the TAGs to be a long range unit which creates its own problems, overall TAGs became a more skill based unit and that maybe intimidates people.

The first game I took my Squalo in was a friendly ITS tournament mission of Biotechvore, with the hope it would be an easy chunk of points to get out my deployment zone, while picking of my opponents troops as they tried to escape forwards. My opponent had first turn and with his first order moved one of his troops out of the way of it, so I ARO'd with my MHMG. He decided to fire back on a whim with his Panzerfaust, which has explosive ammo. Some really bad rolling and my Squalo died in flames. I'd also made it my LT, which meant I started my first turn in loss of lieutenant, which meant none of my troops could escape the Biotechvore zone, and I was in retreat by the end of the turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Postscript: I really like ITS and the mission system, and think Infinity would be considerably weaker without it.

The idea of the tournament system, including its format to keep players in contention for winning even after losing a game*, is a good one. The current abundance of scenarios is nice. The scenarios, au fond, are still based on N2 Infinity. Revise and update them.

Hacking needed to be better developed from N2, but in N3 it is perhaps too much, 25 hacking programs at the moment-- and more rumored to come with the revises to EVO and such ( this is a N&R thread, eh?)-- of a game within a game. There are of course ways to protect your TAG from hacking with counter-hacking. Or just shoot the enemy hacker. Or burn them. Naffatun FTW

*Since TTG tournaments are not elimination based, like a proper winner takes all tournament, they ought to be structured to give all participants a reason to continue playing, or to give people who have lost a game some reason to continue playing in the tournament. ITS does this.

Any word on the Nomad mini for the months. A bandit?

xowainx wrote:
The first game I took my Squalo in was a friendly ITS tournament mission of Biotechvore, with the hope it would be an easy chunk of points to get out my deployment zone, while picking of my opponents troops as they tried to escape forwards. My opponent had first turn and with his first order moved one of his troops out of the way of it, so I ARO'd with my MHMG. He decided to fire back on a whim with his Panzerfaust, which has explosive ammo. Some really bad rolling and my Squalo died in flames. I'd also made it my LT, which meant I started my first turn in loss of lieutenant, which meant none of my troops could escape the Biotechvore zone, and I was in retreat by the end of the turn.

To be fair, this really is just bad luck. You were using a strategy you had in mind, but were in what is widely thought to be the worst scenario of ITS 2015 and had the bad luck to lose what should have been a fairly easy firefight - high burst (presumeably in a good range band) against a low burst weapon. Then proceeded to fail 3 armour saves which.

This isn't an indictment of TAGs in ITS, it's just plain bad luck.