Help making a 300 point advanced demo list?

[Vertrucio]

I need help making a list, and choosing additional purchases to make a good, 300 point advanced demo list. With 3rd edition coming out soon, some players at my store were interested and they already tried a basic demo to get used to the rules. So, now it's time to try something close to a full game.

Here's what I have from CA so far:

3 Morats Vanguard Infantry (Combi Rifle)
1 The Charontid (Plasma Rifle)
1 Daturazi Witch Soldier (Combi Rifle)
1 Malignos (Combi Rifle))
-Caskuda TAG
-Speculo Killer (Monofilament CCW, Combi Rifle)
-Rasyat (Combi Rifle)

Looks like this was an old sale I picked up, I think they were clearing out older and less used minis. Here's what I just threw together. I've got 2 left over SWC, not sure if I need to fill it up.

COMBINED ARMY
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 7 0 0

RASYAT (Martial Arts L3) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges, Zero-V Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CCW. (35)
MORAT Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (16)
MORAT Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (16)
MORAT HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 25)
MORAT Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (16)
CHARONTID Lieutenant (Multispectral Visor L3) Plasma Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (81)
CASKUDA MULTI HMG, Heavy Flamethrower / . (3 | 111)

4 SWC | 300 Points

Open with Army 4

[Section9]

Well, to be honest, 300 points is bigger than I'd want to make an "advanced demo." 300 points is typical tournament level.

I'd want to run my "here's some of the really cool units" demo at about 200 points, and do EITHER AD troops, TO Camo, OR TAGs. Not all of the above.

Second piece of bad news, the Caskuda is officially getting discontinued in N3. No rules, no further sales of the model. Same with the rest of the Exrah (no great loss there, IMO). Caskuda is still an awesome model, just use the model to proxy for an Avatar or Raicho in games.

Third, 7 orders is too low, especially when two models could start off the board.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good feel for what models would make a good Combined army. I find myself trying to make a pure Morat force, which is tough at 200 points because all Morat LTs are 2SWC.

[Vertrucio]

Latest word seems to be that there will still be legacy stats, just no further releases. This info was from someone who asked directly at a convention.

If they just straight up discontinue it, I'm not sure if I can recommend the game to friends since the reason why they're switching games is that they're tired of the GW shuffle.

Anyway, I guess I'll do 200 points.

[Melkhior]

Hello everyone. This is the list of Q4 2014 discontinued references:


-References discontinued to reduce the size of the catalogue (you can find them also on starters or compilation boxes):

 

• 280207-0020 Fusilier (Hacker).
• 280210-0028 Fusilier (HMG).
• 280507-0052 Alguacil (Hacker).
• 280510-0060 Reverend Moira (Shock CCW, Multi Rifle).
• 280319-0093 Wu Ming (Boarding Shotgun).
• 280218-0101 Fusilier (Sniper).
• 280323-0118 Keisotsu Butai (Combi Rifle).
• 280423-0134 Daylami Infantry (Rifle, Panzerfaust).
• 280333-0184 Kempeitai (Boarding Shotgun).
• 280531-0194 Moderators from Bakunin (Combi Rifle).
• 280235-0203 Fusilier (Light GL).
• 280238-0221 Acontecimento Regulars (Combi Rifle, Combi Rifle + Light GL).
• 280631-0223 Seed Soldiers (Combi Rifle, Combi Rifle + Light GL).
• 280806-0238 Dakini Tactbots (Combi Rifle).
• 280141-0262 Métros (Rifle, Rifle and Light Grenade Launcher).
• 280152-0337 Zouaves (D.E.P. Assault Pistol).
• 280264-0415 Knights of Santiago (Combi Rifle + Boarding Shotgun).
• 280237-0489 Knights of Santiago (Boarding shotgun, AP CCW).

-References discontinued due to the release of N3, PENDING OF RENEWAL (their profiles will remain at the Army):

280421-0124 Ahl Fassed (Boarding Shotgun)
280426-0149 Halqa (Rifle + Light Shotgun)
280705-0174 Avicenna

-References discontinued due to the release of N3 FOREVER (no Army profiles):

280204-0013 Akalis, Sikh Commandos (combi rifle, HMG).
280302-0009 Invincible (HMG).
280306-0022 Invincible (Multi Rifle).
280304-0016 Tiger Soldiers (combi rifle, HMG).
280411-0057 Hassassin Ragiks (HMG, Rifle).
280616-0125 Caskuda (TAG).
280607-0085 Iskaller Jump Operator (Combi Rifle, Light Shotgun).
280618-0136 Void Operators (HMG).
280615-0123 Vector Operator (HMG)
280626-0187 Vector Operator (Hacker).

-References discontinued due to the October releases:
 

280406-0038 Janissaire (HMG).
280112-0054 Dog Warrior + Dog Face (2 Chain Rifle, AP CCW).
280353-0329 Tokusetsu Butai (Doctor/ Engineer).

Read this post by CB staff member. It seems that CB in the end discontinued Exrah. It was probably hard decision for CB, but there is many reasons why they in the end discontinue Exrah. The reasons was pretty good summarized by Tamrielo on official forum. Also it is first time CB discontinue something and It is also probably last time.

[Vertrucio]

The reasons are understandable, but the actions are not.

As someone making their own miniature game, I also understand the need to discontinue a particular unit entirely to preserve the balance of the game. My hard drive is littered with the corpses of unit idea documents that ultimately will never see the light of day.

However, a miniature is a miniature. As a business/consumer relationship, you sell a miniature with the idea it can be used in your game.

I think that at the very least they should provide an official proxy list, so that in ITS, a player who has paid good money for a miniature can use it in the tournament scene as another specific model. At least then people could do some modeling to make these units WYSIWYG.

I've already come up with my own contingency plan for when I have to do this, and besides official proxies, I'd write up a new "living" stats block specifically for deprecated units. These stats would not guarantee any of the original functionality, nor would they be guaranteed as competitive or useful. But people could use them in an official capacity as the unit they are. Then, if they somehow find a slot back in the meta, do a new official stat block and resculpt.

[Melkhior]

I disagree with you. CB in the past stated that Exrah models will be discontinued, because of their low sales, high molding cost and shorter time of usability of their molds. With new rules they choose also scratch profiles, because investing time and money to create and test rules for units without models and without future plans (new models, new units etc.) is meaningless and would be confusing for potential new players. Also CB in 2012 stated that they don't have any future plans with Exrah.

Also Exrah are not totally written off infinityverse, Gutier already mentioned that in N3 rulebook will be fluff about Exrah and what happened with them. So there is posibility to reintroduce them in the future if CB change their mind about making them and their sectorial army.

Last thing. I am CA player and when I started with Infinity I had plans to play Exrah sectorial and I was looking for future Exrah releases.

[Vertrucio]

I still disagree. You don't need to agree with all their actions and still like the game. Blindly agreeing with a company's poor and anti-customer decisions is how we get monsters like Games Workshop.

All I'm seeing are excuses, not actual justifications.

First, Exrah not selling, or mold costs being high are not the fault of the players that bought those products, instead it's CB's fault for making poor or costly sculpts and expecting players to blindly purchase them. It's a middle finger to the face of people who bought these products early on.

And it would not take that much effort to provide living legacy unit profiles. They already have rules for the models, all it would take is small changes. I know this first hand since I am literally making my own miniature game. The development time was already done, the stat block is known, just plug in the numbers they have for all of 3rd edition.

The profile is already there, and many units already share similar profiles. Heck, it's identical to the Raicho, it would take no effort to declare, "The Caskuda can be used as a Raicho in all official games."

I've decided that's what I will do, and use the Caskuda as a Raicho in all games if I need a TAG, and if anyone gives me a problem with that, CB included, I will tell them off. Same way I'm giving CB crap for this decision.

But back on topic, all the business talk aside, what would you recommend as a 150 point starter list for Combined Army now? I found an extra Morat HMG model, so I've added it to the list, and I guess I'm still willing to buy more models if you think there's better stuff out there for a demo army.

3 Morat Vanguard Infantry (Combi Rifle)
1 Morat Vanguard Infantry (HMG)
1 The Charontid (Plasma Rifle)
1 Daturazi Witch Soldier (Combi Rifle)
1 Malignos (Combi Rifle)
Raicho (aka Caskuda) TAG
Speculo Killer (Monofilament CCW, Combi Rifle)
Rasyat (Combi Rifle)

The speculo killer is out since impersonation is complex, and the Daturazi too. It seems like the Daturazi would need something with a sepsitor, which is not something that fits into a demo. The Charontid is just too many points.

Also, if I wanted to expand up to a full 300 point army, what are some good purchases?

I'm also picking up a Haqqislam force, mainly to use the Kum Bikers and the Maghriba guard not in the same army, just in general, even picked up the great Maghriba Pilot sculpt. My main army will be Merovingian RRF with the Anaconda TAG. This CA army is mainly leftover old stuff.

[Melkhior]

You relly need read this post by Tamrielo, because right now you don't see clearly
what happened and why. You don't know how many Exrah models were sold over the time. You ignore that Exrah would need total redesign for N3 (from redesign of Exrah rule, to redesign all Exrah units and balanc them within faction and test them) All of that takes time and money and it is also very risky and without miniatures to sell for them CB as firm would lose money on that.
Also don't forget that they probably choose this option really recently, probably because they didnť have time to work on Exrah without changing release date of N3 to next year and that would have much bigger impact on them than impact of losing 4 units.

So, a bit of behind-the-curtain game design secrets:

Many, many things are uncertain until fairly late in the process, in ANY game, and nothing is immutable until the discs are etched and the books are sent out to the printer, and even then it's not set in stone.

Here's, in my opinion, the most likely sequence of events regarding the Exrah, taking place over (almost certainly) 2+ years:

First: Caskuda and Vector Operators determined as "potentially problematic", for a few reasons:
Caskuda prevents CA from ever getting an EVO Repeater, due to the interaction between AD and EVO Repeaters allowing a Caskuda a perfect jump every time. This causes the Caskuda to be watched more closely in general, as a potential "problem piece", particularly because it constrains the design space of CA. Any designs that make EVO Repeaters more appealing, perhaps in line with an expansion of Hacking in general, would necessarily exclude CA, solely because of the Caskuda.
The Vector-Operator is also flagged as a potential "problem piece", due to being a near-perfect expression of a particular type of model (the mobile, offensive MSV unit). The power of the Vector constrains the design space for CA, as it means both Smoke and MSV units have to be considered against the Vector.
Consideration of Caskuda and Vector leads to consideration of Exrah as a whole.

Second: Exrah is considered as a whole, in terms of potential sectorial and in terms of design space.
The Exrah base rule is almost certainly considered problematic. Exrah, as written, is a balancing rule, like Irregular, which confers some downsides to a unit in order to reduce its cost. Passing straight to dead reduces/eliminates the usefulness of Doctor models, and is otherwise largely unnoticable. E/M weapons are too rare to significantly affect Exrah, possibly as a result of other design decisions made previously or in parallel.
Exrah creates some issues regarding interactions with other factions (Forward Observing Unconscious models, Coup de Grace), nullifying the downsides to the pass-straight-to-dead rule.
Exrah, as far as models go, don't sell well compared to the rest of the line. This could be a result of any number of things, but fixing likely requires work on the sculpting side, a risky gamble to restore interest in models with poor sales.
Third: Evaluation of the "Exrah problem" begins, as well as consideration for Exrah as a sectorial.
To ameliorate poor sales, Exrah models can be resculpted; this is expensive. Additionally, an Exrah Sectorial can be created, likely requiring resculpts of the Exrah line, a large number of new sculpts, and new rules.
New options for Exrah are extremely limited; the four existing Exrah units cover a lot of the design space for 6-2 Super-Jump units; new units will be hard to differentiate in interesting ways, with two exceptions: Camo and cheap LI.
The Exrah rule, by its nature, prohibits any Exrah with multiple wounds, so no HI of any kind. Further limited design space.
Likely, at this point, the Exrah rule is considered, broadly, a mistake, but not an easily fixed one.

Fourth: Potential solutions to the above problems are considered.
The Caskuda can get significant nerfs in N3, to allow CA access to EVO repeaters without harming balance. Likely, the kinds of nerfs that the Caskuda would need to take in order to be viable would have made it little different from, say, a Raicho. It's also highly likely that the end result of discussion was "AD TAGs were a mistake, we should never do them again".
Exrah can get a massive rewrite as a rule, as well as complete revamps of all of the profiles currently using them to accomodate the new Exrah rule. At this point, the entire concept of the Exrah rule is being thrown out the window, and all existing profiles are being wholly revamped. Losing Super-Jump or 6-2 MOV is very likely in this scenario.
The Vector-Operator specifically can get nerfs, to broaden the design space of other models in the range. MSV2 to MSV1 is likely a consideration here, reducing the value of the Vector fairly significantly. Super-Jumping MSV2 in a faction with easy smoke access is also likely considered a mistake.
Finally: Solutions are chosen.
Significant nerfs to Exrah troops are the minimum changes necessary, and are going to irritate Exrah players.
Revamping Exrah entirely is going to take a significant amount of work and incur significant costs, and will still irritate Exrah players.
Starting from scratch, removing Exrah entirely, will also irritate Exrah players, but will incur no additional costs and will allow for a much broader, much more expanded CA presence. This option offers the least risk.

Any solution to the problems Exrah had were going to irritate Exrah players; the final choice is the one that incurs the lowest cost, the least risk, and offers the broadest design space for the game as a whole.

No matter what choice they made, they were going to take a hit. It appears that they chose the path of integrity and simply corrected the mistakes they made in their earlier designs. Rather than nerfing existing units into oblivion, or making them effectively carbon-copies of other units, CB's choice admits that they made errors and seeks to correct them entirely, as opposed to taking half-measures.

The loss of Exrah sucks. I think that, overall, it sucks less than having Exrah units nerfed so far into the ground as to be useless while every other army (and the rest of CA) gets a bunch of exciting rebalancing. It speaks to the integrity of CB that they would take the PR hit from removing some units from their line for the good of the line as a whole, and it speaks to their apparent desire to make profiles as equally viable as possible that they would take pains to remove ones that, from their perspective, can't be reasonably balanced without wiping the slate clean.

Consider that removing the Exrah may well be a precursor to a complete revamp of Exrah as a part of CA, but it takes time and will require a more complete understanding on CB's part of the impact of N3. If the Exrah re-emerge in Infinity, you can be assured that they will be better-designed, better-supported, and better-integrated into the game.

[Vertrucio]

Remove the Caskuda's AD in a legacy profile, or just announce that the Caskuda is an official proxy for the Raicho.

Second, they've already stated that Exrah will be removed FOREVER. There can be no talk of any sort of revamp, and that's what I'm basing my opinion on. You cannot hold out for any notion of a revamp, nor should you have to.

I'd say a nerfed legacy profile, available only online, not in the book, without any of the problematic rules. Or an official proxy status, is still a better option for long time fans. Official proxy status would be best overall in terms of usability.

I've already said, I'm well aware of the costs of development, I am a game designer. I do see it clearly.

The true path of integrity wasn't to just kick Exrah and Caskuda users to the curb, but keep the models in play in some role. The real, true ugly secret behind game design is that you can honestly just dump stuff if your game is popular enough, people will come up with the excuses for you.

They're still expensive models that their customers bought, despite how badly CB did their job in making the models awesome enough to buy. All I hear in response is just bad excuses and wishful thinking from fans. This is a game, and a product that involves relatively expensive miniatures, it's not a military operation where it's okay to have acceptable losses.

[Melkhior]

Sigh, You still ignore the facts. Did you read that post from Tamrielo, what I posted? That are not exuses but facts. You ignore fact that Exrah will be still part of fluff. You ignore economical impact of existing Exrah models. You ignore that for exististing Exrah model CB would need start from the scratch and totally redesign them. Cascuda without AD is another Raicho and CA don't need two totally same units from design perspective it is bad decision. Also Cascuda without AD would create same situation and it would made Exrah Players also angry. Look at units that CB redesign (suryats for example)

Other thing why to invest time and money to please really small minority (Exrah players) within another minority (CA players)? Most CA players are sectorial list players. Also until resculpt of Morat CA was worst selling faction and Exrah sells are much worse than anything else. Also many of Exrah players don' own existing models and use proxy.

Saing that CBs reasons to take out Exrah from game are excuses without being part of CB and knowing all their reasons and why they choose this option. Without knowing all info is really stupid. Yes I know that CB is not perfect firm - they create mess with Icestorm, they have problems with communication.

Last thing Gutier (main designer) also said this:

Hi Seratonin,

I really hope you can realize the huge amount of reasons why I cannot reply to that at the moment.

But I can assure you the current situation of the Exrah will be totally explained in the fluff of the 3rd Edition

I'm sorry for not being more open with this...

Thanks for your care!

So that means they are still part of fluff and there is still posibility to revive them in the future (depends on the fluff reasons)