Today we're talking about the rules updates that dropped as part of the recent OnTableTop N5 Theme Week, including the new rules for martial arts, sixth sense, combat instinct, guided missiles, super-jump and, of course fireteams. We will touch on new profiles but not in tremendous depth (and the video will explain why), and we'll also avoid asking the really big question: didn't Gerry used to have a belt-length beard? What happened, Gerry? Who did this to you?
The Level 2 Fireteam change will make shooting into combat more effective, as misses will hit your own model. Now you can remove the dice hitting your own model.
I really like and agree with what you said about FT changes implications. Duo will be now a thing. Maybe we will go from to not see duos to do it instead of the always there five member fireteam. However, I fear a little that the Active player will more powerfull. A little of Alpha Strike thing... but it will depend a lot of how duos are now done and which troupes. We will need to see the fireteam chart. Happy to hear you happy about N5 :) And really thanks for your kind message about Pano players, which I´m part of :) Greetings from "allende los mares" ;)
No, we dont! Carlos confirmed the Veteran skill is becoming Warhorse, specifically to avoid this confusion. Veteran will now only apply to troop type for classifieds.
I'm still reeling that Dahshat and Ikari survived the cull. I'd already made my peace wishing them fairwell, but they are back from the brink! My wild speculation with the ForCo models disappearing is that there will be a new NA2 sectorial released during N5. They will want to tie releases to the TV series and there are a bunch of mercenaries in that that look fairly different to the existing sculpts, although their helmets look a bit pano. A forco rework to update to tie in with the new models from the series would be ace!
This is also what I heard but I haven't been able to track down where this was actually said, nor have other people I asked been able to. If you've got a video link and timestamp that would be excellent!
@@R0bertShepherd Okay, I've answered twice now, but YT doesn't allow links even to YT 😂 it's at 16:56 in the video about JSA profiles when they talk about the Yamabushi
Putting Sixth Sense on the 5man bonus is interesting to me as it's going to have strong implications for how I build my fireteams. As an IA and WB player I'm a strong believer in the pure Zhanshi core, and so a lot of my Cores in either army is usually an HMG, paramedic, two hackers, and a filler of some kind. Frontloading the Burst and backloading the 6S onto two and five members means I'm going to be a lot more anxious about pitting my HMG up against enemy ARO for fear of losing out on that all-important Stealth detection for my hackers. Assuming that's still part of 6S. ISS, on the other hand -- barring any changes in the rework -- could suddenly get one of the best defensive hackers in the game in the Zhanying (again, barring any changes). The irony of the ISS rework is their N4 incarnation seems like it would do exceptionally well with N5 fireteams.
I also think that weeding profiles and sectorials is important, and that CB didn't push it as far as they maybe should have. It will be good for attracting new players. I found a lot of potential new players wanted to start C1 because they couldn't wrap their head around the 90+ units with 2-7 profiles each per faction, and I think C1 really squashes a lot of what makes Infinity so special. I also appreciate that CB is willing to take risks like removing profiles or moving profiles to new factions for the sake of changing the design space or shifting the narrative. I find the "only add, never subtract" school of thought for game design is what eventually makes a game implode on itself. Have you talked about shotguns using Impact Template (Circular) yet, or are you waiting for more concrete info to speak on it? There's a few MSV troops with a just a shotgun out there, and that particular combo makes much more sense now.
It's a small change but they are also changing how CC stats over 20 work, now the amount it goes over isn't added to your roll but instead becomes a crit possibility at the bottom of the die, so if you have cc25 you crit on 1-5 too.
Yup, I've covered this in previous videos :) One fun thing about that is that it's mathematically identical (at least for single dice CC rolls) to the N4 attribute over 20 rules, but it's easier to visualise and teach. I like it a lot.
@@R0bertShepherd Yeah, it feels like most changes we've seen so far are succeeding in their stated goals of polishing and streamlining the game. At least as far as I'm concerned. Feels like a great time to get back into Infinity.
As someone who is bummed a bit with Acontecimento and Varuna going away since ive played them for a long time: I am gonna like Kestrel with the profiles I am liking so far, being that it has a good amount of DNA from both of those sectorials.
I was waiting for this, a well thought and grounded analyses of the information we have so far. What I think we will see in N5 is a proliferation of pure Duos, and mixed Haris should along with not maxed out cores could become a more desirable, I think this should create more dispersed formations on the table indirectly making templates less powerful.
Mmmm feelsbad times; I like the back stories for Star Co and Fo Co. I finally nearly finished the Cube Jaeger and goofy iguana when N5 was announced so knew to move to other things. But still sucks. But objectively I feel the reduction was not enough: 1 vanilla +2 seems enough. Winding back bloat is very hard to do without losing people. Still Corvus presumably know their stats from sales and army
With TAGs, I’m hesitant about wanting to nerf them since they were so hard to use in N3. Tac aware and the onboard specialist were all ways to encourage their use that CB tested across ITS seasons and settled on as good solutions to how rarely TAGs were taken. They felt like they were in a good place where I wasn’t hurting my lists taking a TAG and I wasn’t as scared of seeing a TAG across the table as I was in N2.
I think there's a strong argument to be made that TAGs were more useable in N3 than people realised (a good friend of mine wrote the Primer on Armoured Operations for Infinity and has been a TAG diehard since N3) - a lot of the best practices from that time for using remained the best practices in N4 and will probably translate into N5 as well. While I don't necessarily fear TAGs (apart from a few of the most aggressive ones, in the right player hands), I do think they're a bit too easy an include in many lists. And especially with many defensive ARO link teams becoming a bit less high watermark in terms of power, I'd like to see TAGs tuned down juuust a little in the same way. Not a lot, probably don't impact their power, just their convenience.
Hoping to see a faction focus on the new JSA sectorial after they release. Just intial impressions and thoughts. Feels like it would go a long way to help seasoned players getting into them and new players!
Agree that bloat kills war games. 42 armies was nuts. So the reduction here makes real sense. Consolidation into vanilla seems to be a better solution than infinitely (lol) growing.
I think the +1 burst is an interesting one, as you say at full burst its barely different to proper +1. But ARO its a more significant reduction in power.
It's not necessarily a reduction in power per se because what you'll often want from an ARO, you'll still get. But it makes the possibility of those truly catastrophic AROs a non-occurrence now, which is interesting.
Great messaging around the bloat it is without a doubt the most important business (stockist/production) and onboarding (availablity/barrier to entry) point that CB has not handled as effectively as could be hoped in the past. Losing profiles and armies hurts but losing physical stores, stock and the ability to onboard new community members hurts a lot more can't play a game if no one plays it with you. 👍
Thanks for the content. 2 thoughts: Often, the face of infinity and the cool thing that gets people invested are the Tags and HI. So, I don't mind if tags are a little easier to use and a little better than maybe they should be. I think nerfs are warranted and wouldn't ruin the game, but having them be cool, fun, and awesome for more casual players isn't bad either. In regards to the black air; I don't think it's the end of the world that Pano gets some good shooting/aro pieces. They get a little nerfed in the specialist department with the fireteam changes, so having their strengths get buffs and their weaknesses get nerfed just makes them have a more well-defined flavor, IMHO. Happy to be wrong, though. While I am sad my HRMC brrrt tag is gone in Pano, I'm putting my faith in CB to make a good fun game we can all enjoy.
The really strict paring back of all the S7 TAGs apart from the Cutter from generic PanO was a bit of a surprise to me. I wonder if we'll see any of them added back in or not over time.
Aside: the wording in the slide for Jet Propilsion is "retrace their path" which has a specific meaning... I hope this doesn't stay and it's explicitly "any direction".
To be honest I read that as a bit of spanglish/summarisation since a model that jumps straight up and down retraces its path - so the artwork was more informative than the actual words in this case.
N3 6S has 4(or 5) effects. We're only seeing 2 of them in these rules. 360 degree LOF to attacks we haven't seen (possibly removed in favour of just using 360 vision). Stealth vs 6S we don't know how works. Very interested in how this all plays out.
It was in the hard copy N5 books that many people have gotten their hands on. There are photos floating around, but it's never been in a video. It includes a lot of the staples, as well as most KCF stuff, most varuna stuff and a smattering of other things but many units are gone and most of the mercenaries aren't available. It also notably cuts basically every S7 TAG except the cutter.
Some really great changes coming and cc is going to feel a lot less risky now you can have more burst. Fireteam changes are great too lots of smaller teams spreading out across the board I’m betting. Thank goodness you wasn’t in charge of the cull or I would be saying goodbye to my qk. lol Still absolutely no reason they can’t have an archive section in the army builder for the old sectorials for friendly games. Crazy to me that they think it’s ok to say your collections are useless now have fun trying to squeeze them into vanilla.
If I was given carte blanche and chose to cut QK it would only be to make way for the Khanate, which would be a fair trade dammit! But I'm happy for other people that QK is staying - there are a few people it's very dear to.
Now khanate would be cool to see but don’t make me choose. >_< I suppose (depending how armies end up in the army builder when it releases) with new fireteam rules it will be very easy to make themed armies work in vanilla factions like nca or varuna or even QK if I had to. So bring on the khanate I guess xD
Yeah as non-ideal as it might be I think you can just proxy kestral with SAA models and it’ll feel like an updated SAA from what we’ve seen so far. Might’ve been a better marketing move to have a name that reflected a reformed SAA like the Aconticimeto Colonial Army or the Kestral Shock Army or something
This has been a great week for general N5 news. The only sad thing is that we probably will not get any Haqqislam news until release. From the limited information we have, how do you feel about Haqqislam, Vanilla or otherwise?
Honestly we *really* don't have any information to go on. The fireteam changes are likely to work fairly nicely in Hassassins and will need a bit of testing in Ramah, but that's still thinking about N5 through the prism of N4. Given what's been said about Haqq, Aleph etc, it seems like we might get a lot of attention a bit further down the line.
@R0bertShepherd I hope we hear more about Vanilla Haqqislam. It looks like some Vanillas will get one Haris and 2 duos. If that is the case, some units like Muktars, Lasiqs, Muyibs, and Khawarijs could have some useful pure duos if AVA and link options stay similar. (EDIT: a lot of ifs)
Fifth edition in a row, and Corvuses still didn't change the mouthful that is the "Bio-Technological Shield" into an RPG staple "Resistance", that abbreviates just as well
I still don't get why the fuck did they add new PanO sectorial just to remove 1 more... They could have just cut SWF and Acon, leave VIRD, NeoTerra and MO as sectorials and use Acon and SWF best toys as 90% of vanilla with some stuff from staying sectorials.
If we apply Occam's razor and simple answer is the obvious one since they return to PanO in the two player starter they had to give it a new sectorial as selling point. All the other ones are perfectly fine, full list really thematic great ways of diversifying your collection and play styles but you rarely sell the same Barbie twice but you can give her a new hat. 👒
So, is there a sectorial list for Kestrel? Bit difficult as a pano player to commit to a preorder not knowing what units are in the new sectorial. Edit: nm found it on beasts of war.
There is, but we don't know what all of the units are yet. You can find it in the video they did on kestrel at about this timestamp: th-cam.com/video/rcIa-pfIwxg/w-d-xo.html The fireteams chart is later in the video.
I think two reasons. Firstly, saying "martial arts" is cool. De-nesting rules has served the game pretty well, but there's still a place for rules with evocative names. Secondly, and this is something I talked about in a previous video, the use of a rule like Martial Arts is to put rules into the game that can't easily just be tacked into a profile as e.g. CC Attack (-3). I don't think the current MA table fully takes advantage of this, but especially levels 3 and 5 do to an extent, since capturing the discard die mechanic would probably have added a bit too much text to the profile rules.
Hm I do not know why TH-cam keeps eating my reply about the request for a timestamp about Burst and templates, third times the charm? th-cam.com/video/Jn2y4Q8HRcY/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared&t=956
what do you think will happen to tohaa? From Carlos interviews I get that it will be years before we get new content. What profiles from spiral you think will not make it into Tohaa? Will we have more troops with shared toop type (like Aelis keesan being currently Sakiel & Kamael) than other factions? Will there be an extra bonus for Tohaa triads instead?
The biggest issues I see with Tohaa are that: 1. They need new fluff and they need to advance from their constant state of war against the EI since they were never for something, they were only against something, and with the EI no longer being the BBEG Tohaa loses their justification for being the HS since they only work as an opponent to the EI if the EI is hostile. 2. Their visual design over the entire line is a mess as each new release changes elements of the design. If you squint you can vaguely see the the Kamael in the Sakiel and the Sakiel in the Extros, and from there it spiralled out of control. Neeme Satar in no way looks like an Ectros despite being an upgraded Ectros. The super-jump Kotail has the skinniest legs I've ever seen. The Rasail looks nothing like the Kamael despite them both being LI and even the basic design of the Tohaa in the suits has changed as they no longer have the artichoke-style hair and, instead, have more hedgehog-style hair. While each "generation" of each model looks fine, when put together they look like a mob rather than a military. There's also the question of how they fit in the setting now that the EI is no longer the BBEG. What I can imagine is that the Tohaa will have a societal revolt since the EI literally has no reason to fight them anymore as they have access to a Digester. Any war against the Tohaa would be costly and unnecessary. The Tohaa also seems to lack the means to go on an offensive against the EI. If the EI want the war to end the war will end. This would remove the glue that held Tohaa society focused because nothing works as effectively as a common enemy for people to put aside their internal issues. Without a common enemy, I imagine that the Tohaa will be lost and without purpose, which would allow for powers to rise organically. I could imagine that when they're brought back in the setting they'll be as a foil for Haqqislam since Haqqislam is in dire need of one, and the Tohaa would fit perfectly since they would directly interfere with Haqqislam's main income, biotechnology. With every faction in Infinity, you can draw a line to another faction that's their ideological opponent, except for Haqq. Haqq only moves if someone attacks them or the Old Man says that they should. Haqq never really wants something from the others as their technology is so divergent that none of the other factions can provide it. Tohaa would be able to though as they would be direct competitors in the field of biotechnology and Haqq would have a reason to go after Tohaa and Tohaa would have a reason to go after Haqq since there's some diversion in the biotechnological style of what they've developed.
I would expect a similar modernisation pass to the one they got in N4 (which left them in a very good state), plus probably a few refugee profiles from spiral corps. The door is open for Tohaa content in future, but I don't think they need it necessarily and I don't think CB thinks it would be a commercial success.
@@nielsjensen4185 just going to say the EI is still the big bad. Might not be in a state of true war atm but like the EI is playing nice for now but key word is playing. Tho I've seen people saying humans already lost thanks to letting the EI in and maybe.
@@coldrage20t8 The EI is just an antagonist rather than the villain of the narrative. That's the difference between then and now. Humanity would have lost anyway, it's just a matter of how much was left when they did so. There was no way the HS could even approximate a draw since even with about 50% troop loss the EI was still slowly beating humanity back. With the EI just an antagonist, there's no room for Tohaa to oppose it as they would be able to if it was the clear villain since if they did so it would create a diplomatic incident and they would be booted out of the HS anyway for trying to instigate a conflict and it would be unanimous. Besides, if the EI had won like some say, there would be no reason for it to go on a charm offensive as it has.
@@nielsjensen4185 I still find every design cohesive, but it may be just me. I do love every tohaa mini they release. very interesting insights never the less!
I gotta disagree with your fireteam analysis. Of course it all depends on the fireteam charts, but in a vacuum all the troopers that relied on fireteam bonuses have now received a significant nerf, most importantly in the bs department. It's all well and good for factions like haqqislam that don't mind dragging around a queue of ghulams each carrying some useful tool and buffing an innately powerful unit like an asawira or a zhayedan. Not so much for anyone that actually wants their line troopers to do the actual shooting. The example you cited as ridiculous is quite literally true almost no matter what else happens with n5. Barring a global power reduction to _checks notes_ everything else in the game, your basic line trooper dudes in a core trying to fight a random powerful solo piece are straight up depowered compared to n4, and that's without even talking about trying to fight silverstar prime or the absolutely cracked black air neuro KFC is getting. Speaking of blair, I really can't wrap my head around how someone goes "yeah mang, riot grrl and suryat cores on aro are hella cringe, let's bust that up" and then for their brand new army fresh off the new edition prints the combination of that neuro multisniper profile and that fireteam chart. All that we seem to have accomplished is nerfing death star cores a little bit and annihilating line trooper cores. All the annoying stuff is still going to be there, it's just been moved over to different profiles/models.
I am definitely waiting to see for sure if N5 Neurokinetics drops neatly into fireteams or if it has some limitations we haven't seen yet. In the battle report on OnTableTop - which is always something to take with a grain of salt, of course - they didn't link the Black AIR so we didn't get to see specifically if or how the rule interacts with link bonuses. I think it's reasonable to assume it will based on the information we have right now, since we don't have anything really to contradict it, but it's something I'm keeping an eye out for. As for the fireteams take, well, having something to disagree with is part of the purpose of ~content~. :)
Point of order, multiple sectorials *are* being reworked as part of N5 release. I know with the edition change it's common to want something to complain about, and I'm certainly sympathetic to any complain that can be rendered down to 'capitalism's a bitch, huh', but as far as being a company that needs to sell product to survive goes, they're not threading the needle too badly here.
If only Corvus Belli understood "Bloat kills wargames" Releasing a new sectorial, KCF, on launch of N5 for the faction with the most Sectorials just so you cancel a relatively new one, VIRD, is pretty anti-consuner . See also, spending N4, bloating out the factions with mercs and models from your side board games. Or the panic addition of the Reinforcement units to factions and sectorials (proxy these btw, they didnt sell well, they arent here gor the long haul.) Seems the game plan is to continue to abuse customers by bloating out their line with stuff they want players to buy, and then remove what you bought because they need to make room for the new bloat.
For the people who played Spiral (which had all of N4 pretty much as it's run time) there's definitely a likelihood that some stuff will just be gone from the game, but if you're a PanOceanian player you should absolutely be able to use your existing miniatures via the existing sectorials and generic PanO. Especially if you're a VIRD player.
@@R0bertShepherd Sorry I came by dropped salt on your channel, you don't deserve that. I am a Spiral player and the guy I regularly play against is Pan-o. I thought Spiral was a bad idea initially, as it could only make Tohaa as a faction seems less likely. I bought the Tohaa 300 point box from a shop like a month before Tohaa went out of print. I bought heavily into the Spiral to show my support I had a son two years ago and I've had a lot less time to play infinity but last year took a trip to Orlando to play in the Dogfinity Charity tournament. I brought Spiral and rush painted my lists just in time (why yes I ran two Traktor Muls for the ITS bonuses, good idea? Who cares, fun as hell... And also I think kinda good idea lol). I got the absolute joy of playing a mirror match against Spiral on the absolutely beautiful city table Warsen.al brought to show off their new pre-painted terrain set. My buddy had to play Onyx instead of VIRD as his entire bag was stolen from the hotel and a local player graciously ran home and grabbed him the Onyx he had. After the games I figured why not show my support to the local company. Got some spiral obj tokens, tri-cor token, I think some helot camo/decoy markers, a marked down spiral corps starter (foreshadowing) to be able to run double kuitanns, double imposters, a third keilsaan for a big dumb Haris. I also picked up the two missing items on my list, the amazingly sculpts but rules terrible Longarms and Anaconda. Well I didn't get much gaming in after, bc of life, but fast forward to this Autumn and my buddy is getting me hype for N5. We're playing through all our factions and I dust off and finally build those Chaska and Anaconda. Kinda weird a new faction like Spiral is already is "out of catalog" in army tho. A week later in hear through the grapevine that Bostria causally mentioned Spiral Corps is gone in N5. Ah well my buddy suggests we both get ready for N5 with a new order. I grab all the White banner stuff and he rebuilds his VIRD ... Did you know you CB put that on sale FOR the N5 release? Anyway, that's all just bad luck. Except for still selling VIRD, that's just.... I'd like to trust CB, because they are small and I love infinity , and I'm very invested time money and passion wise, but they don't really have a track record that shows they really intend to do right. They put Tag Raid models in every vanilla just to sell those models, not because it was good for the game. They added free Bashis, CSU and motorized bounty hunters to ITS to sell those models not because it was good for the game. Now they are gone from vanilla hopefully no one bought these things. Killing a new faction like ViRD to release the 6th Pan-o sectorial because you gotta sell models into hype doesn't strike me evidence of a fight against bloat, when they easily could have just released a massive overhaul to the VIRD rules and profiles. Sounds like cutting bloat will be a rolling release of hype minis with the existing sectorials being scrapped for new ones so you have to buy them or be content with owning a massive collection of proxies. Which I get itz it's everywhere, I can just proxy, best proxy rules in any game system sure. But I didn't buy them for proxies and I can't get value on the second market for un supported minis. Also, it's extremely clear CB hid this info intentionally. They were more than happy to post and sticky their forums with 'dont worry, OOP just means we'll be back to sell those models again later, for now pick em up in last chance cause the rules support.' No head ups on this for N5 though. As an aside building hype around 'wait until Nov 18th to find out which of you models or sectorials got cut from the game' doesn't seem like a great marketing strategy. More of a way to build anxiety? Okay the final rant: I get that CB had to kill spiral corps cause they didn't sell despite having and amazing lore and miniline. That I at least understand, not like VIRD. But you just know they are going to fuck me on the Longarms and the AVA on the kuitanns and Keilsaan. And tohha don't have S5 models cause they went OOP in N3, so that extra Keilsaan is a waste. Also my precious tri-cor marker. (You know I'll be elated to eat my words here). Sorry again Robert, I didn't intend to rant, it's just, I started typing and it came out. Honestly I have way more respect for you then I do for corvus belli right now. Hopefully Tohaa days sold we'll, I'll probably get pulled back in when they relaunch MRRF as an inevitable Spiral Corps successor Tohha sectorial. I can dream right.. Also sorry for the typos, I wrote this in one go on a phone screen and won't bother to proof it. Edit: lol I did immediately edit the first line cause the typos were bad enough that it did not convey my intended apologies at all. Didn't check the rest tho
@@RR-jz9sw no need to apologise mate, it sounds like you've been caught pretty squarely in the crosshairs and if so that's a reasonable emotional response. Nothing wrong with a vent. Just to touch on one thing you mentioned - if it still exists in N5, tri-core will go back to working properly (like it did before the fireteams update) quite easily with the new team rules. Still not hugely powerful, but it'd be a nice addition to any team. But I'm not holding out that much hope, I admit.
Today we're talking about the rules updates that dropped as part of the recent OnTableTop N5 Theme Week, including the new rules for martial arts, sixth sense, combat instinct, guided missiles, super-jump and, of course fireteams. We will touch on new profiles but not in tremendous depth (and the video will explain why), and we'll also avoid asking the really big question: didn't Gerry used to have a belt-length beard? What happened, Gerry? Who did this to you?
once a decade whether I need to or not I go for a trim, but it's harder work keeping it short and I get bored then let it grow again
@@GerrcinnI think it looks better. Less Santa Claus stand-in or seller-of-duck-calls and more professional.
@@RattlerNxt yeah but, you have to comb it and stuff. really seems like more hassle than it's worth ;)
The Level 2 Fireteam change will make shooting into combat more effective, as misses will hit your own model. Now you can remove the dice hitting your own model.
Ooh that's a very good point. Nice catch.
Cheers for all the N4 content. Looking forward to more N5 and hopefully dusting off the intuder!
I really like and agree with what you said about FT changes implications. Duo will be now a thing. Maybe we will go from to not see duos to do it instead of the always there five member fireteam. However, I fear a little that the Active player will more powerfull. A little of Alpha Strike thing... but it will depend a lot of how duos are now done and which troupes. We will need to see the fireteam chart.
Happy to hear you happy about N5 :) And really thanks for your kind message about Pano players, which I´m part of :)
Greetings from "allende los mares" ;)
Can we all agree that 'roll 2 drop 1' is just advantage?
I will keep calling it "tearing", as i have for years.
Your content is great, man. I just came back to the game and binged the CA I4 stuff, can’t wait for your I5 content.
Thanks for the roundup, here's hoping i can pull out the full TAK shell game in N5 without beating my face against a full link.
Wooo! My plan of not watching the videos and waiting for Rob to do a Tl;dr worked!
Love the video. We STILL have Veteran Skill and Veteran Troops for some godforsaken reason ugh.
No, we dont! Carlos confirmed the Veteran skill is becoming Warhorse, specifically to avoid this confusion. Veteran will now only apply to troop type for classifieds.
Let's pour one out for the Varuna starter box I just started painting.
Oof is that the box that's mostly Kamau?
@@R0bertShepherd that's the one
@@seanborgstrom4689 yup, pour one out indeed.
RIP Kamau... gone too soon. 😢
I'm still reeling that Dahshat and Ikari survived the cull. I'd already made my peace wishing them fairwell, but they are back from the brink!
My wild speculation with the ForCo models disappearing is that there will be a new NA2 sectorial released during N5. They will want to tie releases to the TV series and there are a bunch of mercenaries in that that look fairly different to the existing sculpts, although their helmets look a bit pano. A forco rework to update to tie in with the new models from the series would be ace!
Hopefully get an "ISS glowup" video from you when the update drops.
30:00 Carlos said that the +1B will not be for templates. He sounded to be sure of himself. In one of the last OTT videos. Easily trackable ;)
This is also what I heard but I haven't been able to track down where this was actually said, nor have other people I asked been able to. If you've got a video link and timestamp that would be excellent!
@@R0bertShepherd Okay, I've answered twice now, but YT doesn't allow links even to YT 😂 it's at 16:56 in the video about JSA profiles when they talk about the Yamabushi
Putting Sixth Sense on the 5man bonus is interesting to me as it's going to have strong implications for how I build my fireteams. As an IA and WB player I'm a strong believer in the pure Zhanshi core, and so a lot of my Cores in either army is usually an HMG, paramedic, two hackers, and a filler of some kind. Frontloading the Burst and backloading the 6S onto two and five members means I'm going to be a lot more anxious about pitting my HMG up against enemy ARO for fear of losing out on that all-important Stealth detection for my hackers. Assuming that's still part of 6S.
ISS, on the other hand -- barring any changes in the rework -- could suddenly get one of the best defensive hackers in the game in the Zhanying (again, barring any changes). The irony of the ISS rework is their N4 incarnation seems like it would do exceptionally well with N5 fireteams.
I also think that weeding profiles and sectorials is important, and that CB didn't push it as far as they maybe should have. It will be good for attracting new players. I found a lot of potential new players wanted to start C1 because they couldn't wrap their head around the 90+ units with 2-7 profiles each per faction, and I think C1 really squashes a lot of what makes Infinity so special.
I also appreciate that CB is willing to take risks like removing profiles or moving profiles to new factions for the sake of changing the design space or shifting the narrative. I find the "only add, never subtract" school of thought for game design is what eventually makes a game implode on itself.
Have you talked about shotguns using Impact Template (Circular) yet, or are you waiting for more concrete info to speak on it? There's a few MSV troops with a just a shotgun out there, and that particular combo makes much more sense now.
I'm waiting on more info for that one. The quick start rules had some irregularities, so just holding out for more concrete info.
It's a small change but they are also changing how CC stats over 20 work, now the amount it goes over isn't added to your roll but instead becomes a crit possibility at the bottom of the die, so if you have cc25 you crit on 1-5 too.
Yup, I've covered this in previous videos :)
One fun thing about that is that it's mathematically identical (at least for single dice CC rolls) to the N4 attribute over 20 rules, but it's easier to visualise and teach. I like it a lot.
@@R0bertShepherd Yeah, it feels like most changes we've seen so far are succeeding in their stated goals of polishing and streamlining the game. At least as far as I'm concerned. Feels like a great time to get back into Infinity.
@@shobooknight definitely :)
As someone who is bummed a bit with Acontecimento and Varuna going away since ive played them for a long time:
I am gonna like Kestrel with the profiles I am liking so far, being that it has a good amount of DNA from both of those sectorials.
I was waiting for this, a well thought and grounded analyses of the information we have so far.
What I think we will see in N5 is a proliferation of pure Duos, and mixed Haris should along with not maxed out cores could become a more desirable, I think this should create more dispersed formations on the table indirectly making templates less powerful.
Mmmm feelsbad times; I like the back stories for Star Co and Fo Co. I finally nearly finished the Cube Jaeger and goofy iguana when N5 was announced so knew to move to other things. But still sucks.
But objectively I feel the reduction was not enough: 1 vanilla +2 seems enough. Winding back bloat is very hard to do without losing people. Still Corvus presumably know their stats from sales and army
With TAGs, I’m hesitant about wanting to nerf them since they were so hard to use in N3. Tac aware and the onboard specialist were all ways to encourage their use that CB tested across ITS seasons and settled on as good solutions to how rarely TAGs were taken. They felt like they were in a good place where I wasn’t hurting my lists taking a TAG and I wasn’t as scared of seeing a TAG across the table as I was in N2.
I think there's a strong argument to be made that TAGs were more useable in N3 than people realised (a good friend of mine wrote the Primer on Armoured Operations for Infinity and has been a TAG diehard since N3) - a lot of the best practices from that time for using remained the best practices in N4 and will probably translate into N5 as well.
While I don't necessarily fear TAGs (apart from a few of the most aggressive ones, in the right player hands), I do think they're a bit too easy an include in many lists. And especially with many defensive ARO link teams becoming a bit less high watermark in terms of power, I'd like to see TAGs tuned down juuust a little in the same way. Not a lot, probably don't impact their power, just their convenience.
Hoping to see a faction focus on the new JSA sectorial after they release.
Just intial impressions and thoughts. Feels like it would go a long way to help seasoned players getting into them and new players!
Agree that bloat kills war games. 42 armies was nuts. So the reduction here makes real sense. Consolidation into vanilla seems to be a better solution than infinitely (lol) growing.
I do think it will be easier to get into Cc as multi-damage AROs will be much rarer since you will drop one dice in ARO.
Seems like the price reduction for Reinforcement troops may have informed the price reduction for HD and AD.
I think the +1 burst is an interesting one, as you say at full burst its barely different to proper +1. But ARO its a more significant reduction in power.
It's not necessarily a reduction in power per se because what you'll often want from an ARO, you'll still get. But it makes the possibility of those truly catastrophic AROs a non-occurrence now, which is interesting.
Great messaging around the bloat it is without a doubt the most important business (stockist/production) and onboarding (availablity/barrier to entry) point that CB has not handled as effectively as could be hoped in the past.
Losing profiles and armies hurts but losing physical stores, stock and the ability to onboard new community members hurts a lot more can't play a game if no one plays it with you. 👍
That's absolutely it. But it stings in the short term.
Fuck yeah, the og is kicking it off
I just bought a ton of vird 2 months ago. Feelsbad but at least they’re still usable in vanilla
Thanks for the content.
2 thoughts:
Often, the face of infinity and the cool thing that gets people invested are the Tags and HI. So, I don't mind if tags are a little easier to use and a little better than maybe they should be. I think nerfs are warranted and wouldn't ruin the game, but having them be cool, fun, and awesome for more casual players isn't bad either.
In regards to the black air; I don't think it's the end of the world that Pano gets some good shooting/aro pieces. They get a little nerfed in the specialist department with the fireteam changes, so having their strengths get buffs and their weaknesses get nerfed just makes them have a more well-defined flavor, IMHO.
Happy to be wrong, though.
While I am sad my HRMC brrrt tag is gone in Pano, I'm putting my faith in CB to make a good fun game we can all enjoy.
The really strict paring back of all the S7 TAGs apart from the Cutter from generic PanO was a bit of a surprise to me. I wonder if we'll see any of them added back in or not over time.
Aside: the wording in the slide for Jet Propilsion is "retrace their path" which has a specific meaning... I hope this doesn't stay and it's explicitly "any direction".
To be honest I read that as a bit of spanglish/summarisation since a model that jumps straight up and down retraces its path - so the artwork was more informative than the actual words in this case.
N3 6S has 4(or 5) effects.
We're only seeing 2 of them in these rules.
360 degree LOF to attacks we haven't seen (possibly removed in favour of just using 360 vision).
Stealth vs 6S we don't know how works.
Very interested in how this all plays out.
*3
I'd forgotten the respond-without-LOF effect and am glad to see that gone.
I can't wait to have a meme army of 7 ARO pieces with 7 paramedics in fire teams now that duos get the "extra" burst.
They still need to be of the same type
As a morat player, it is a pity the suryat hrl costs 1,5 swc and therefore this is unplayable.
Not going to be that straightforward as they seem to be sticking to basic LI not having duos
*smiles in haqq due to having doctors of pretty much every troop type and plays ARO heavy armies*
That won't happen
I can see Norkias getting MA 5 since he effectively had it before, only better.
You mention the vanilla PanO unit list, but I can't find it anywhere online or in skimming the preview videos. What did I miss?
It was in the hard copy N5 books that many people have gotten their hands on. There are photos floating around, but it's never been in a video.
It includes a lot of the staples, as well as most KCF stuff, most varuna stuff and a smattering of other things but many units are gone and most of the mercenaries aren't available. It also notably cuts basically every S7 TAG except the cutter.
Some really great changes coming and cc is going to feel a lot less risky now you can have more burst. Fireteam changes are great too lots of smaller teams spreading out across the board I’m betting.
Thank goodness you wasn’t in charge of the cull or I would be saying goodbye to my qk. lol
Still absolutely no reason they can’t have an archive section in the army builder for the old sectorials for friendly games.
Crazy to me that they think it’s ok to say your collections are useless now have fun trying to squeeze them into vanilla.
If I was given carte blanche and chose to cut QK it would only be to make way for the Khanate, which would be a fair trade dammit! But I'm happy for other people that QK is staying - there are a few people it's very dear to.
Now khanate would be cool to see but don’t make me choose. >_<
I suppose (depending how armies end up in the army builder when it releases) with new fireteam rules it will be very easy to make themed armies work in vanilla factions like nca or varuna or even QK if I had to.
So bring on the khanate I guess xD
Shock army was so utterly cut it didn't even make the section of cut sectorials
Based on the profiles for Kestrel I'd say ASA has been issued new hats, rebreathers and desert fatigues.
Yeah as non-ideal as it might be I think you can just proxy kestral with SAA models and it’ll feel like an updated SAA from what we’ve seen so far. Might’ve been a better marketing move to have a name that reflected a reformed SAA like the Aconticimeto Colonial Army or the Kestral Shock Army or something
This has been a great week for general N5 news. The only sad thing is that we probably will not get any Haqqislam news until release. From the limited information we have, how do you feel about Haqqislam, Vanilla or otherwise?
Honestly we *really* don't have any information to go on. The fireteam changes are likely to work fairly nicely in Hassassins and will need a bit of testing in Ramah, but that's still thinking about N5 through the prism of N4.
Given what's been said about Haqq, Aleph etc, it seems like we might get a lot of attention a bit further down the line.
@R0bertShepherd I hope we hear more about Vanilla Haqqislam. It looks like some Vanillas will get one Haris and 2 duos. If that is the case, some units like Muktars, Lasiqs, Muyibs, and Khawarijs could have some useful pure duos if AVA and link options stay similar. (EDIT: a lot of ifs)
Fifth edition in a row, and Corvuses still didn't change the mouthful that is the "Bio-Technological Shield" into an RPG staple "Resistance", that abbreviates just as well
I still don't get why the fuck did they add new PanO sectorial just to remove 1 more... They could have just cut SWF and Acon, leave VIRD, NeoTerra and MO as sectorials and use Acon and SWF best toys as 90% of vanilla with some stuff from staying sectorials.
If we apply Occam's razor and simple answer is the obvious one since they return to PanO in the two player starter they had to give it a new sectorial as selling point.
All the other ones are perfectly fine, full list really thematic great ways of diversifying your collection and play styles but you rarely sell the same Barbie twice but you can give her a new hat. 👒
Cause they need to sell boxes for the new release
Also... +1 burst discard lowest dice, how will this work with templates?
Sorry, I posted this before you asked the question! My bad.
@@OliverOusley we've since received faaaairly good confirmation that direct template weapons probably won't benefit from link bonuses.
So, is there a sectorial list for Kestrel? Bit difficult as a pano player to commit to a preorder not knowing what units are in the new sectorial. Edit: nm found it on beasts of war.
There is, but we don't know what all of the units are yet. You can find it in the video they did on kestrel at about this timestamp: th-cam.com/video/rcIa-pfIwxg/w-d-xo.html
The fireteams chart is later in the video.
I don’t get why they keep MA table with attack mods when they keep breaking down other stuff putting it front and centre in the profile?
I think two reasons. Firstly, saying "martial arts" is cool. De-nesting rules has served the game pretty well, but there's still a place for rules with evocative names. Secondly, and this is something I talked about in a previous video, the use of a rule like Martial Arts is to put rules into the game that can't easily just be tacked into a profile as e.g. CC Attack (-3). I don't think the current MA table fully takes advantage of this, but especially levels 3 and 5 do to an extent, since capturing the discard die mechanic would probably have added a bit too much text to the profile rules.
Hm I do not know why TH-cam keeps eating my reply about the request for a timestamp about Burst and templates, third times the charm?
th-cam.com/video/Jn2y4Q8HRcY/w-d-xo.htmlfeature=shared&t=956
Thanks PsyStorm! It's a bit indistinct but I think that's as good as we've got, information-wise.
what do you think will happen to tohaa? From Carlos interviews I get that it will be years before we get new content. What profiles from spiral you think will not make it into Tohaa? Will we have more troops with shared toop type (like Aelis keesan being currently Sakiel & Kamael) than other factions? Will there be an extra bonus for Tohaa triads instead?
The biggest issues I see with Tohaa are that:
1. They need new fluff and they need to advance from their constant state of war against the EI since they were never for something, they were only against something, and with the EI no longer being the BBEG Tohaa loses their justification for being the HS since they only work as an opponent to the EI if the EI is hostile.
2. Their visual design over the entire line is a mess as each new release changes elements of the design. If you squint you can vaguely see the the Kamael in the Sakiel and the Sakiel in the Extros, and from there it spiralled out of control. Neeme Satar in no way looks like an Ectros despite being an upgraded Ectros. The super-jump Kotail has the skinniest legs I've ever seen. The Rasail looks nothing like the Kamael despite them both being LI and even the basic design of the Tohaa in the suits has changed as they no longer have the artichoke-style hair and, instead, have more hedgehog-style hair.
While each "generation" of each model looks fine, when put together they look like a mob rather than a military.
There's also the question of how they fit in the setting now that the EI is no longer the BBEG. What I can imagine is that the Tohaa will have a societal revolt since the EI literally has no reason to fight them anymore as they have access to a Digester. Any war against the Tohaa would be costly and unnecessary. The Tohaa also seems to lack the means to go on an offensive against the EI. If the EI want the war to end the war will end. This would remove the glue that held Tohaa society focused because nothing works as effectively as a common enemy for people to put aside their internal issues.
Without a common enemy, I imagine that the Tohaa will be lost and without purpose, which would allow for powers to rise organically. I could imagine that when they're brought back in the setting they'll be as a foil for Haqqislam since Haqqislam is in dire need of one, and the Tohaa would fit perfectly since they would directly interfere with Haqqislam's main income, biotechnology.
With every faction in Infinity, you can draw a line to another faction that's their ideological opponent, except for Haqq. Haqq only moves if someone attacks them or the Old Man says that they should. Haqq never really wants something from the others as their technology is so divergent that none of the other factions can provide it. Tohaa would be able to though as they would be direct competitors in the field of biotechnology and Haqq would have a reason to go after Tohaa and Tohaa would have a reason to go after Haqq since there's some diversion in the biotechnological style of what they've developed.
I would expect a similar modernisation pass to the one they got in N4 (which left them in a very good state), plus probably a few refugee profiles from spiral corps. The door is open for Tohaa content in future, but I don't think they need it necessarily and I don't think CB thinks it would be a commercial success.
@@nielsjensen4185 just going to say the EI is still the big bad. Might not be in a state of true war atm but like the EI is playing nice for now but key word is playing. Tho I've seen people saying humans already lost thanks to letting the EI in and maybe.
@@coldrage20t8 The EI is just an antagonist rather than the villain of the narrative. That's the difference between then and now.
Humanity would have lost anyway, it's just a matter of how much was left when they did so. There was no way the HS could even approximate a draw since even with about 50% troop loss the EI was still slowly beating humanity back.
With the EI just an antagonist, there's no room for Tohaa to oppose it as they would be able to if it was the clear villain since if they did so it would create a diplomatic incident and they would be booted out of the HS anyway for trying to instigate a conflict and it would be unanimous.
Besides, if the EI had won like some say, there would be no reason for it to go on a charm offensive as it has.
@@nielsjensen4185 I still find every design cohesive, but it may be just me. I do love every tohaa mini they release. very interesting insights never the less!
I gotta disagree with your fireteam analysis. Of course it all depends on the fireteam charts, but in a vacuum all the troopers that relied on fireteam bonuses have now received a significant nerf, most importantly in the bs department. It's all well and good for factions like haqqislam that don't mind dragging around a queue of ghulams each carrying some useful tool and buffing an innately powerful unit like an asawira or a zhayedan. Not so much for anyone that actually wants their line troopers to do the actual shooting. The example you cited as ridiculous is quite literally true almost no matter what else happens with n5. Barring a global power reduction to _checks notes_ everything else in the game, your basic line trooper dudes in a core trying to fight a random powerful solo piece are straight up depowered compared to n4, and that's without even talking about trying to fight silverstar prime or the absolutely cracked black air neuro KFC is getting.
Speaking of blair, I really can't wrap my head around how someone goes "yeah mang, riot grrl and suryat cores on aro are hella cringe, let's bust that up" and then for their brand new army fresh off the new edition prints the combination of that neuro multisniper profile and that fireteam chart. All that we seem to have accomplished is nerfing death star cores a little bit and annihilating line trooper cores. All the annoying stuff is still going to be there, it's just been moved over to different profiles/models.
I am definitely waiting to see for sure if N5 Neurokinetics drops neatly into fireteams or if it has some limitations we haven't seen yet. In the battle report on OnTableTop - which is always something to take with a grain of salt, of course - they didn't link the Black AIR so we didn't get to see specifically if or how the rule interacts with link bonuses.
I think it's reasonable to assume it will based on the information we have right now, since we don't have anything really to contradict it, but it's something I'm keeping an eye out for.
As for the fireteams take, well, having something to disagree with is part of the purpose of ~content~. :)
"Bloat kills wargames". Proceed to create two totally new sectorials instead of reworking existing ones
Point of order, multiple sectorials *are* being reworked as part of N5 release. I know with the edition change it's common to want something to complain about, and I'm certainly sympathetic to any complain that can be rendered down to 'capitalism's a bitch, huh', but as far as being a company that needs to sell product to survive goes, they're not threading the needle too badly here.
If only Corvus Belli understood "Bloat kills wargames" Releasing a new sectorial, KCF, on launch of N5 for the faction with the most Sectorials just so you cancel a relatively new one, VIRD, is pretty anti-consuner .
See also, spending N4, bloating out the factions with mercs and models from your side board games. Or the panic addition of the Reinforcement units to factions and sectorials (proxy these btw, they didnt sell well, they arent here gor the long haul.)
Seems the game plan is to continue to abuse customers by bloating out their line with stuff they want players to buy, and then remove what you bought because they need to make room for the new bloat.
For the people who played Spiral (which had all of N4 pretty much as it's run time) there's definitely a likelihood that some stuff will just be gone from the game, but if you're a PanOceanian player you should absolutely be able to use your existing miniatures via the existing sectorials and generic PanO. Especially if you're a VIRD player.
@@R0bertShepherd Sorry I came by dropped salt on your channel, you don't deserve that. I am a Spiral player and the guy I regularly play against is Pan-o. I thought Spiral was a bad idea initially, as it could only make Tohaa as a faction seems less likely. I bought the Tohaa 300 point box from a shop like a month before Tohaa went out of print. I bought heavily into the Spiral to show my support
I had a son two years ago and I've had a lot less time to play infinity but last year took a trip to Orlando to play in the Dogfinity Charity tournament. I brought Spiral and rush painted my lists just in time (why yes I ran two Traktor Muls for the ITS bonuses, good idea? Who cares, fun as hell... And also I think kinda good idea lol). I got the absolute joy of playing a mirror match against Spiral on the absolutely beautiful city table Warsen.al brought to show off their new pre-painted terrain set. My buddy had to play Onyx instead of VIRD as his entire bag was stolen from the hotel and a local player graciously ran home and grabbed him the Onyx he had. After the games I figured why not show my support to the local company. Got some spiral obj tokens, tri-cor token, I think some helot camo/decoy markers, a marked down spiral corps starter (foreshadowing) to be able to run double kuitanns, double imposters, a third keilsaan for a big dumb Haris. I also picked up the two missing items on my list, the amazingly sculpts but rules terrible Longarms and Anaconda.
Well I didn't get much gaming in after, bc of life, but fast forward to this Autumn and my buddy is getting me hype for N5. We're playing through all our factions and I dust off and finally build those Chaska and Anaconda. Kinda weird a new faction like Spiral is already is "out of catalog" in army tho. A week later in hear through the grapevine that Bostria causally mentioned Spiral Corps is gone in N5.
Ah well my buddy suggests we both get ready for N5 with a new order. I grab all the White banner stuff and he rebuilds his VIRD ... Did you know you CB put that on sale FOR the N5 release?
Anyway, that's all just bad luck. Except for still selling VIRD, that's just....
I'd like to trust CB, because they are small and I love infinity , and I'm very invested time money and passion wise, but they don't really have a track record that shows they really intend to do right. They put Tag Raid models in every vanilla just to sell those models, not because it was good for the game. They added free Bashis, CSU and motorized bounty hunters to ITS to sell those models not because it was good for the game. Now they are gone from vanilla hopefully no one bought these things. Killing a new faction like ViRD to release the 6th Pan-o sectorial because you gotta sell models into hype doesn't strike me evidence of a fight against bloat, when they easily could have just released a massive overhaul to the VIRD rules and profiles. Sounds like cutting bloat will be a rolling release of hype minis with the existing sectorials being scrapped for new ones so you have to buy them or be content with owning a massive collection of proxies. Which I get itz it's everywhere, I can just proxy, best proxy rules in any game system sure. But I didn't buy them for proxies and I can't get value on the second market for un supported minis.
Also, it's extremely clear CB hid this info intentionally. They were more than happy to post and sticky their forums with 'dont worry, OOP just means we'll be back to sell those models again later, for now pick em up in last chance cause the rules support.' No head ups on this for N5 though. As an aside building hype around 'wait until Nov 18th to find out which of you models or sectorials got cut from the game' doesn't seem like a great marketing strategy. More of a way to build anxiety?
Okay the final rant: I get that CB had to kill spiral corps cause they didn't sell despite having and amazing lore and miniline. That I at least understand, not like VIRD. But you just know they are going to fuck me on the Longarms and the AVA on the kuitanns and Keilsaan. And tohha don't have S5 models cause they went OOP in N3, so that extra Keilsaan is a waste. Also my precious tri-cor marker. (You know I'll be elated to eat my words here).
Sorry again Robert, I didn't intend to rant, it's just, I started typing and it came out. Honestly I have way more respect for you then I do for corvus belli right now.
Hopefully Tohaa days sold we'll, I'll probably get pulled back in when they relaunch MRRF as an inevitable Spiral Corps successor Tohha sectorial. I can dream right..
Also sorry for the typos, I wrote this in one go on a phone screen and won't bother to proof it. Edit: lol I did immediately edit the first line cause the typos were bad enough that it did not convey my intended apologies at all. Didn't check the rest tho
@@RR-jz9sw no need to apologise mate, it sounds like you've been caught pretty squarely in the crosshairs and if so that's a reasonable emotional response. Nothing wrong with a vent.
Just to touch on one thing you mentioned - if it still exists in N5, tri-core will go back to working properly (like it did before the fireteams update) quite easily with the new team rules. Still not hugely powerful, but it'd be a nice addition to any team. But I'm not holding out that much hope, I admit.
@@R0bertShepherd It's weird to come back to this post two weeks later and feel how insignificant this all seems now
@@RR-jz9sw I feel that.