Introduction

The long wait is over! Rules for Infinity’s 5th edition (N5) are out – download the PDF here and check out the online army builder, Infinity Army. We have been running hot trying to take in all the new changes. Many were previewed over the last couple of months, but there are a lot of new little things tucked away into this new edition. The core gameplay remains the same, but there are definitely some new tricks to master. Of course, all of the previewed information (and hypothesising about how the metagame of N5 will emerge) was devoid of context. Now we have the full, updated profiles, and point costs, for all units, including the new and unseen things like vehicles, we can make a proper assessment of their impact.

Everything in this article is a medium hot take – we did not have any early access to the rules, so it has been assembled after the initial rules drop on 16th December 2024. Accordingly, we will run a follow-up article in a couple months to further examine some of our immediate conclusions about the new rules and their impact on the game. If you see something in this review which you think is an incorrect reading of the new rules, or if you think we’ve missed something, drop a comment.

We will review the rules in a few sections: changes to basic game mechanics (these are limited and cosmetic); changes to existing rules; new rules; and finally a conclusion where we try and call out the impact of all these changes together. The other big part of the puzzle is what units factions have available, their profiles and points costs. Those will be parted out into separate faction first impression articles (for overarching factions, e.g. Nomads, Corregidor, Bakunin and Tunguska would be in a single article). 

Wait out for our take on the updated Infinity Tournament System (ITS) rules (essentially the mission pack for Infinity) as and when they release the N5-compatible rules for Season 16. 

Mechanical Changes

The rulebook is written in CB’s usual quite thorough and technical style. It also incorporates a lot of what were FAQs and rule adjustments through the life of N4. There have been a few adjustments to how the basic mechanics of the game works, affecting how some rules are presented and how dice rolls are resolved. These all just make things a bit more intuitive, or easier to teach new players, and none of them affect the actual maths of the game – no outcomes of play will be different as a result. 

• The old nomenclature of short movement skills is replaced by “Basic Short Skills”. These are exactly the same as before (Move, Discover and Idle).
• The Order declaration sequence is more clearly defined in the basic rules, and the Basic Short Skill has to be declared before the Short Skill. This means players have to Move+Shoot, they can no longer declare Shoot+Move. That is a not generally an important distinction, since Line of Fire (LoF) can still be drawn from any point along the Active model’s movement, but it does have situational implications. E.G. an aggressive model, previously, if starting its Order in LoF to an enemy, might want to declare Shoot, and if the only AROs are Dodges, could move forward out of cover. This new way is technically more restrictive, but it will make things simpler for new players.
• Wounds, as a stat on models’ profiles, becomes Vitality (VITA). This is to avoid confusion with the idea of models accumulating Wound Markers, which remains the term for taking damage.
• Damage, as the stat on weapon profiles, is replaced with Possibility of Survival (PS). This is the biggest change for returning players to get their heads around, because now, units that take hits will make a Saving Roll (SR, replacing the old terms of ARM/BTS roll) and that roll works like other Infinity rolls, i.e. equal or under the target number. 
  • Example, in N4, a rifle was Damage 13. A model hit by one, without any armour or cover had to roll 14+ on a D20 to avoid taking a Wound marker. Now, in N5, a rifle is PS7. That model would roll 7 or under to avoid a Wound marker. That is exactly the same odds. 
• When rolling for a target number over 20 (this is usually in close combat), the N4 rules involved adding the excess to your actual dice roll, e.g. if you rolled against a target of 22, and the dice showed a 7, you would convert it into a 9. Additionally, the critical value would be 18-20, ie rolling any of those results would be a critical hit. That has been replaced with a simpler system which gives the same odds: If your target number is over 20, the excess means you count critical hits up from 1.
  • Example: in N5, a model is in melee combat and rolls on their CC stat, after modifiers, against a target of 25. They will inflict critical hits on a 1-5 or a 20. 

All of those changes will take some getting used to, but as already explained, they reflect the same maths and just avoid some confusion. 

• Special Orders from Tactical Awareness will now be shown as special tokens, rather than Irregular Orders. This appears to be aimed at preventing confusion in the Army builder (a Combat Group with 10 models, including 2 Irregular models and 1 model with TacAware, would just show 8 Regular and 3 Irregular Orders) and it gets around the problem that Irregular and TacAware Orders weren’t actually the same thing, proper Irregulars could be, and frequently were, converted into Regular via Command Tokens. 

Major Functional Changes

Close Combat

Martial Arts

The new, shiny Martial Arts (MA) table gives the 5 levels of MA more of a meaningful distinction. In N4, MA2-4 were basically the same thing, with tiny incremental boosts in lethality. Now, an MA2 model is a notch better than MA1; an MA3 model is significantly more reliable than either and has a good chance to beat them in individual combat; an MA4 model is much more lethal than an MA3, although equally likely to triumph in a FtF roll; an MA5 model has a significant advantage over either. These changes reinstate the hierarchy of MA fighters, meaning that super skilled units can probably (although not invariably) beat brawling cheap-warband types. They also make truly skilled (MA4-5) units very deadly, even against big tough targets.

Natural Born Warrior 

Natural Born Warrior (NBW) was conceptualised as a sort of counterpoint to MA. In N4 it simply nullified opposing models’ MA skill. This made it a great equaliser, since it appeared on lots of cheap brawling models, and when a unit possessed NBW and MA, it was automatically a top tier melee combatant, which did not always reflect the background. NBW has taken a big nerf in N5, now it only allows the user to ignore negative modifiers to their CC stat. That does extend it from MA to some other targets, like models with the CC Attack(-3) skill, but, especially with the updated MA table, that negative modifier is one of the less important components of the MA skill. So essentially, NBW will be nice to have but will not let its owners engage the better martial artists on anything like equal terms. When it appears on a high-level-MA model, it will be a significant, but not necessarily decisive, advantage. 

Berserk

Big change here – Berserk no longer avoids FtF rolls, which is a huge nerf, especially to many cheap trading pieces which weren’t spectacularly good at fighting, but were happy to engage in mutual destruction. The skill is now just about moving your total Move stat (e.g. 8” for a 4-4 model) and then making a close combat attack, with an Entire Order. Useful for assaulting things that little bit further away, but no longer a way to punch up at enemies which are more skillful hand to hand. 

Sixth Sense (and Combat Instinct)

The Sixth Sense skill was extremely powerful in N4, and had an unusual, pervasive metagame presence in that not many units actually possessed it – but it was very commonly seen due to being a bonus rule for Core Fireteams. Not only did that bonus become harder to achieve (see the Fireteams section below) but Sixth Sense itself has been split up. Sixth Sense had 3 components:

• It allows models to fire back at attacks from outside LoF, so outside their 180 degree vision arcs or from behind smoke and other Zero-Visibility zones, without any penalty. It still does this.
• It lets models ignore all negative modifiers to Dodging. It still does this.
• It used to let models ignore all negative modifiers from the Surprise Attack skill. It no longer does this!

Instead, a new skill, Combat Instinct, lets the user ignore Surprise Attack. This change clearly devalues Sixth Sense slightly, but it remains a very valuable skill. 

Another big element of Sixth Sense in N4 was that Stealth was useless against it. This benefit now extends to models with either Sixth Sense or Combat Instinct, so either skill is enormously beneficial in that sense, especially for Hackers, who want to be able to ARO against Stealth models moving through their hacking area.

Guided Missile Interactions

Guided Missile networks were a common sight in competitive play through most of N4. These rules were often complained about, either as being overpowered (we don’t necessarily agree) or as being a negative play experience (we think that was sometimes true). As such they were widely predicted to get a nerf. Well, there are two mechanical changes to the act of firing Guided Weapons: 

• The basic modifier is now +3 (as it would be for any weapon attacking a Targeted model), with no negative modifiers like Mimetism or Cover applied. Clearly this is a step down from N4 on the face of things, but…
• Range modifiers are now applied to the shot. For the normal Guided Missile platforms, this functionally makes them just as good as before if the target is 24-40” away (fairly common given the shape of most tables). But targets which are closer (<24”) will now be slightly less likely to get nuked, and there are real chances for carefully deployed models to be >40” from an enemy missile bot, which means the Guided shots would only hit on 12s. That drastically reduces their effectiveness, so there will be some more interactivity in deploying against the Guided threat, and equally, players using Guided might actually have to reposition to get a good shot off. That in turn can open up counterplay like Hidden AROs.
• Guided weapons now have to use their impact template mode; this replaces an arcane N4 rule where missiles could use their AP+EXP hit mode and Guided made them gain an impact template as well. Functionally, guided missile shots are no longer AP. This is small comfort to targets with 1VITA/STR, which usually have low ARM and are expecting to fail at least one SR if they get hit — but it can make a real difference against tougher things like HI.

Reset Now Face to Face Against Incoming Missiles

Models declaring AROs to an incoming missile can declare Reset (at -3 due to the Targeted state) and that roll will now be FtF against the missile hit. So if they pass their roll and beat the roll from the Guided player, they will dodge the hit and cancel the Targeted state. In other words, in N4, models had to ARO Dodge, which was FtF, and try to avoid that one hit, or declare Reset, and hope to avoid the prospect of future hits. Now, they can attempt to do both. This is a fairly minor change to how things work. It does affect the main risk of Guided as a strategy – costing a prohibitive amount of Orders if things go wrong – but it won’t change outcomes that often. Most models will be making this Reset roll on a 10-11, against an incoming missile on an 18. The chance for a Targeted model to survive an incoming missile is about the same as in N4 (when models would declare a Dodge ARO) – roughly 30% for a 1VITA/1STR model. But this change does make things a bit simpler, by circumventing the Reactive player’s choice to Dodge or Reset, and it avoids some of the feel-bad sting of being bombarded with missiles. The Reactive player can now console themselves that if they are very lucky, their opponent will at least need Orders to Spotlight again before another missile can launch. However… 

Spotlight Program Changed

The Spotlight hacking program is changing significantly. It is now Burst 2, but successful ‘hits’ incur a PS5 roll on BTS/2; failure makes the model Targeted. This is a pretty big change, since its unique status [in N4] of inflicting the state on any hit, bypassing BTS rolls, was a major planning consideration for players using it. The headline reaction from the community is, understandably, “we can’t believe CB buffed Spotlight, what were they thinking”. Our initial reaction here at Goonhammer is this change is sensible and natural to bring the Spotlight program in line with other hacking. But it certainly could be a problem in coordination with Guided Missile play. In the Active turn, by putting both Burst against the same target, a normal-ish hacker has a slightly increased chance to inflict Targeted on a normal-ish model declaring Reset. In detail, assuming a WIP14 hacker, which is pretty standard for builds that like to lean on Guided, and a WIP13 target, without any Firewalls etc:

• N4 Spotlight had a 47% chance to Target, regardless of BTS.
• In N5, against a BTS0 Reactive model, the chance goes up to 56.2%
• Against BTS3, it’s 51%, against BTS6, 48.1%, against BTS9, 41.9%

Clearly, this is a mild Active turn buff against models with BTS3 or 6. It does make a significant difference against BTS0 models, which is interesting given those are usually the unhackable models which are only vulnerable to Spotlight in terms of hack attacks. It is actually a nerf against BTS9 targets (the lower levels of BTS aren’t as significant due to the program halving the BTS stat). 

In the Reactive turn, where the program is back to Burst 1, this is a fairly significant nerf to Spotlight. Against a BTS0 target, it is only 75% as likely to succeed as it was previously (65% against BTS3, 60% against BTS6, 50% against BTS9).

These changes to Spotlight are surprising, because the narrative from CB has been that Guided Missiles weren’t considered overwhelmingly strong, so much as they were a negative play experience – unfun to face. Changing Spotlight to B2 with a saving roll is weakening its use as a defensive hacking measure (with or without Guided Missile support), while strengthening its use in Active Turn. As well as the increased chance against most (non-BTS9) targets, an Active player can now gamble with split burst against two valuable targets, and missile strike whichever is Targeted first. This change seems like it will contribute to what we consider the most obnoxious use of Guided Missiles – enabling a whole-turn alpha strike which only involves moving one piece, a Pitcher or Fast Panda user, forward into an attacking position. 

Pitcher Ranges Changed

The final piece of the puzzle. Pitchers are now a +0 rangeband right out to 24”. Functionally this makes them less reliable at some common medium-range shots, but it removes any onus on the user to finely judge the range, and it makes it easier than before to get an enemy model up to 32” away from the Pitcher-user into your hacking area. Like the Spotlight change, this is baffling. Long-bomb Pitcher offensives were one of the most frustrating elements of Guided play in N4 and this just strengthens that playstyle.

New Rule: Special Dice (+1SD)

We need to discuss this here because it is the skill which Fireteams gain for 2 or more valid members. It also appears on some units, both new and revamped, as a discrete special rule. It allows the model to roll an additional dice when shooting, and discard one after all results are seen. This skill, unlike +1B, applies in the Reactive as well as Active turn. The concept of rolling an additional dice and discarding the less favourable exists in a lot of games (notably as Advantage in DnD) but this is its first appearance in Infinity. It’s very important to understand how it interacts with Infinity’s Face to Face (FtF) rolls mechanic. +1 Special Dice (+1SD) is identical to +1B for the purposes of winning a FtF roll. It’s only downside is that you can’t win with all of your dice rolls. 

We need to break down for a minute how this affects common FtF interactions, because this will be a common skill in N5, more through Fireteams than as a skill on models’ profiles. The key takeaway which might not be intuitive, is that if it is applied to a high Burst attack, and/or applied to low target numbers, and/or the opposing roll is on high Burst or numbers, it is effectively the same as +1B. Our lizard brains tell all of us that it’s not as good because it’s not ‘fully’ +1B. But in any of the situations mentioned above, the chance of getting all your hits through (meeting the target number and beating all opposing rolls) is so low that mathematically the difference is tiny. For a B1+1SD panzerfaust/missile ARO, for example, opposing an attack from a standard TAG, the chance of actually doing Wounds to the Active model drops by less than 1%, compared to a B2 ARO. 

If that’s so, why has this rule changed? The first reason is that the situations outlined above cover some very common FtF situations in serious play – attackers use high Burst weapons at good odds to overwhelm AROs, and that flattens the difference between +1SD and +1B. But that’s not the whole game. +1SD is clearly a whole lot worse than +1B when it is being rolled unopposed, with low Burst, against a single roll (like a Dodge) or against bad opposing rolls. The second reason is the players are irrational; removing the weird outlier results might be good for the game (fewer people quitting forever because a terrible fluke destroyed their favourite Active turn powerhouse) and it has a big psychological effect. Player may be more willing to risk their attack piece against a Fireteamed missile launcher if they know it’s impossible, rather than just exceedingly rare, for the ARO to get two hits through.

Fireteams 

This is one of the most highly hyped rules changes and one with the potential to shake up list design in a big way. With the advertised aim of reducing complexity and confusion, the N4 distinction of ‘pure and impure’ Fireteams is being dropped. Instead, you simply count the number of troopers in the team from the same unit (or which count-as that unit). That determines the level of bonuses the team gets. 

By comparison to N4, this means that teams can never reach those heights of BS+3, and only specific compositions will access the highly valued Sixth Sense, which was vital to protect most ARO pieces from smoke-shooting (or MSV units from White Noise) and in general a very strong defensive utility. 

The change from a Burst bonus to a Special Dice (aka roll an extra dice and drop one) is actually a less impactful change. As discussed above it makes no difference to the chance of winning FtF rolls. In the most common circumstances for Fireteam AROs – rolling a B2 ARO against a quality attacker with B4-5 – it only makes a tiny difference to the amount of damage the attacker is likely to receive. To put it another way, defensive Fireteam players may feel that their missile launcher got a lot less deadly in ARO. But against most enemies which were actually attacking those hard stop pieces, it’s business as usual – the chance of both ARO dice hitting, and both beating all the Active turn dice, was so low that the statistical outcome doesn’t change much, literally a couple percent. 

Where the Burst bonus change can make a difference is in using B1-2 weapons against B1 rolls from the enemy – so either attacking in the Active turn, or taking AROs against enemies who Dodge or throw smoke. Here it really is a significant nerf to certain pieces in Fireteams, and will hurt a variety of units that liked to take Heavy Rocket Launchers (HRL)s, Feuerbachs and similar weapons which could hit hard in ARO and still work well in the Active turn. It also changes the likely outcomes when Fireteams are defending against an all-out assault from a Warband type troop. If a heavy duty Warband (Bearpodes are the premier example) moves to cover 2-4 Fireteam members with a template, under the N4 rules it was far more likely to die in a hail of bullets from the AROs, if the reactive player chose mutually assured destruction. Now, Fireteams are less likely to be able to trade well against template attacks. 

This leads us to the template issue – Fireteam models no longer gain any benefit when using direct template weapons. This is a major nerf to both their defence against close assault and to certain short ranged attack pieces. If your lists involved flamethrower models in Fireteams, those are now much less reliable as Active Turn trading pieces.

Another consequence of the change from +1B to +1SD is how disposable weapons and equipment (panzerfausts, flamenspeers, pitchers) work. These will be as reliable in Fireteams as they were in N4, and much more effective than they are for single models. But now Fireteams can get that reliability without expending 2 disposable uses in a single FtF roll. This is a pretty great buff to Fireteams using the powerful, Disposable(2) weapons in ARO. No, you can’t hit with both shots anymore, but that was always super unlikely. Instead, you get to threaten a really punchy ARO for two Orders, when in N4 you were a spent force after one. Pitchers can’t spang out two repeaters in different places with one Order anymore, but in the more common use case, really needing one repeater in the right spot, Fireteams can do it reliably and still keep the capability for a later turn.

We will discuss the likely shape of N5 Fireteams in the end section, and again in faction first looks, but a rough summary: having 2 ‘pure’ models is now a really important benchmark for bonuses. Having 3 or 4 ‘pure’ models are incremental steps up, players may want them for redundancy and to staple good synergies together. 5 ‘pure’ models are still defensively excellent, there are just bigger restrictions on which factions and troops can usefully build such teams. Fewer factions will have attractive builds for the full 5-model bonus, and even where those exists, players will have to be asking themselves if they are worth the restrictions on deployment. 

Fireteam Master

Some units are gaining the Fireteam Master (X Unit) rule. This just codifies an existing N4 rule which was previously only written down in the Army builder. It covers when forming a Fireteam with a certain Regular troop (the Fireteam Master) and Irregulars, makes the latter generate Regular Orders. So for example an Oznat in the Morat Aggression Force could already do this with Gakis/Pretas, or a Taskmaster in Bakunin could do it with Morlocks. Both are now clarified as Fireteam Masters and some new units have this ability too. 

It was a great faction strength before and it’s great now. Not only is transforming Irregular Orders into Regular worthwhile in itself, those Irregular Orders are impossible to spend in a Fireteam. Fireteam Master lets you leverage those super cheap Irregulars with the Special Dice and Order efficiency of a Fireteam, or even build a cheap ‘Order battery’ Core team that generates Regular Orders at an improbably low price.

This is actually a great example of CB fulfilling their stated aim of cleaning up the game’s rules. It was odd and potentially confusing to have that important list building interaction as a note on the army builder, but not referenced in the core rules.

Impetuous, Frenzy, No Cover and Limited Cover

Troopers can now have No Cover (never gets any Partial Cover benefits) or Limited Cover (cannot use Partial Cover for -3BS to enemies shooting at them, but can get the +3PS mod) on their profile. These skills are now divorced from Impetuous. Impetuous still gives its positive benefit – a free Order with limited options and forced movement toward enemies or the enemy DZ – which hasn’t changed. But broadly speaking, traditionally Impetuous units, like most cheap and/or Irregular warbands, have No Cover. Some really scary ones benefit from having Impetuous and Limited Cover instead, which still makes them unsuitable for dedicated gunfighting roles but is certainly preferable. Frenzy now gives the Impetuous and Limited Cover skills to the model once it activates (in the next States phase after the user caused a Wound). Clearly that’s a big improvement for Frenzy, but both Frenzy and Impetuous have changed in their implications, because:

Fireteams do not ‘suppress’ the effects of Frenzy/Impetuous as they once did. To be more precise, membership of a Fireteam won’t alter whether a model has the No/Limited Cover rule. It also won’t prevent a model from activating its Frenzy skill. This is a big hit to models which relied on Impetuous/Frenzy to stay cheap, but still wanted to be good at gunfighting, which in N4 they could do by staying in a Fireteam. Now, there aren’t any cheats, you have to take the rough with the smooth.

OK, there are some cheats, in that units have appeared with No Cover but also the Nanoscreen skill, which gives them a mod identical to Partial Cover at all times. We also see models with No Cover, Nanoscreen and Frenzy. Presumably this lets them activate Frenzy and then gain Impetuous (the extra activation) while gaining Limited Cover is irrelevant (we assume No Cover takes precedence; otherwise these No Cover/Nanoscreen models would get better protected if they activated Frenzy).

Changes to Climb and Climbing Plus

Climb is now lets the user move 6” up or down a vertical surface, with restrictions essentially the same as in previous rules. Climbing Plus (C+) is still broadly similar to N4 in that it makes Climb a Basic Short Skill, and allows the user to ARO/fire weapons (although not claim Partial Cover) while on a vertical surface. However, it is still explicitly a Climb, so the C+ model needs to be in base contact with the vertical surface to declare it. This makes movement awkward and leads to wasted inches. Models in Fireteams will find it especially frustrating. If one model declares Climb, the others must Idle unless they are also in position to start up a vertical surface. On top of these issues, C+ models lose the N4 FAQ ruling which let them measure from the top of their silhouette when climbing upward. Now they must measure from the base of the Silhouette, as with any Climb. That wipes out a lot of the gains 4-4 Move, S2 models would see from the change to a 6” Climb.

It’s not all bad, once they are at a vertical surface, any Climbing+ model can essentially move 6-6 if they don’t need to claim Partial Cover during that Order. As an (unintended?) side effect, it’s clear that imaginative players can use this to ‘wall run’ along surfaces to gain a bit of movement. 

Changes to Jump and Super-Jump

The Jump skill is now a flat 6” distance for all models. This is specified to be in a parabola, but that’s fairly permissive, e.g. a player is still allowed to jump effectively straight up or straight forward and claim their movement is a very flat arc. This move does level the playing field between models with different movement speeds, short moves of 4” and 6” don’t matter, you just jump 6”. In theory models with 8” moves take this as a nerf, but almost all of those were motorcycles which were restricted from Jump-ing anyway. Several profiles gained Jump(8”) which does extend their long-skill Jump range. Note that Jump movement is now explicitly measured from the bottom of the model’s base. All so far, so good – using long skill Jump is not a frequent occurrence in games – but the real meaty change here is how all this affects Super-Jump.

Super-Jump is the same as ever, it makes jumping into a Short Movement Skill. Because a jump is now 6”, this means that every model with Super-Jump can shift themselves 6” and do something, or 12” if they Jump-Jump. A Super-Jump model using one long skill moves 10” – this would only be used to cross a huge open space, e.g. between two tall buildings. Models can’t claim Partial Cover while Jumping, so this bouncy movement can’t readily be used while engaging in firefights, but it is a big speed buff to Super-Jump models moving while out of contact. We mentioned the measurement from the base. This is to overwrite the N4-FAQ patch which let models measure from the top of their Silhouette, essentially to make jumping up onto terrain more permissive for slower models. That rule being removed also levels the playing field between models with different Silhouette sizes. But bear in mind that a 4-4 Move, S2 model is about as good at jumping up onto terrain as it was in N4; it only gets appreciably faster when moving straight forward or downwards. 

More troubling that speeding up ‘ordinary’ Super-Jump models is the proliferation of Super-Jump combined with Jump(8”). This does let the owner Jump-Jump for a total of 16” movement. That is faster than models have ever moved in Infinity before, albeit that distance can’t be threaded through terrain, it has to be in 2 parabolas. Such rapid manoeuvre can make models very Order-efficient and raises balancing issues, especially when this ability has been given to some models which are formidable firepower pieces.

The bouncing speed of Super-Jump means that mixing Fireteams of Super-Jump and normal troopers is going to be a real handbrake on the former. You can’t declare Short Basic Skill Jump with the non-SJ models, so if the team wants to stay together, they will usually have to hoof it at a lower pace.

Super-Jump (Jet Propulsion)

This skill lets the user move freely around in the air with their Jump movement. E.G. the model could start on the edge of a building, move 3” out horizontally or diagonally, and then 3” back to their starting position. This is extremely permissive in terms of letting models gain LoF to targets which are apparently safe due to the angles of terrain. All the more so because some models do have Super-Jump (Jet Propulsion) and Jump (8”). It is very hard to hide models from something with that movement ability in the Reactive turn. 

Some of us long-term players are a little nervous of what the spread of Jet Propulsion, particularly combined with 8” moves, means for the game. Some readers may recall the days of N3 Super-Jump (models could bounce their full Move characteristic upward, ‘falling’ back down without any injury) and how it was used to gun down soft targets over barricades, on top of roofs, etc. That was not a fun time if you were caught going second on a table which had the wrong sort of cover. We will have to see just how powerful and widespread firepower on these bouncy models is. But initial reactions are that some real power pieces have been spread around which will make null deployment a challenge. 

Changed or New Skills and Equipment

Vehicles

This new troop type isn’t anything too different in itself. Much like Motorcycles, they have restrictions on Cautious Movement, and like TAGs they can’t go Prone. The real meat is that the bulk of them are flying drones, with the incredible mobility of large Silhouettes, Super-Jump (Jet Propulsion) and Super-Jump (8”). Those are shared by some other models, but vehicles are the only ones with this new rule:

Aerial

This is the meat of what makes the new vehicles special. They can’t ever be engaged in close combat, or have the Guard skill used against them. But they can never interact with Objectives and simply aren’t ever considered in Silhouette Contact with models or terrain, unless they are Unconscious. This has some important implications for repair. An Engineer can’t use WIP to repair them, unless they are Unconscious already. That’s something of a footnote, since repairing a model that isn’t Unconscious is prohibitively risky. Players might want to do it to a Remote Presence vehicle, but there is only one of those, the PanO Redeye. Much more importantly, there is no way to Engineer away States like Isolated or Immobilised. Weapons like E/M can effectively soft-kill an Aerial Vehicle and no Engineer can buy that out. 

Veteran Renamed Warhorse & Expanded

For clarity, CB have renamed the Veteran skill to Warhorse, to avoid confusion with the ‘Veteran Troop’ descriptor, which is used for some Classified Objectives. That’s fine and a workable change. CB’s sometimes eccentric naming conventions can be divisive, but we think the name is fine. 

What’s more interesting for the game is that Warhorse has picked up a powerful, if situational, additional benefit – it allows the bearer to ignore negative modifiers from the BS Attack (-X) skill. That skill was previously very rare, only on Torchlight Brigade’s Silverstar Prime, but has now been scattered around a lot of shooting units. It was previously an unanswerable skill, and now Warhorse gives it some counterplay. 

Albedo

Much derided in N4, and also an odd fish mechanically (no other rules were set to work in Round one and then turn off), Albedo now has a real role. It’s Mimetism which only affects units with Multi-Spectral Visors (MSV), or Marksmanship. Inverse Mimetism! 

• Example. A Firefly Unit, from the new Kestrel Colonial Force Sectorial, has Albedo(-6). An Intruder, which has MSV2, shoots at it and must apply -6 to the roll, before other modifiers. A Mobile Brigada, which does not have any such skill, could shoot at it without penalty.

We ruminate at the end of the article at how this skill contributes to a new rock/paper/scissors dynamic of firepower pieces. Clearly, like MSV itself, Albedo is most valuable on units with proper beefy guns, but that combination isn’t quite as common and is unevenly distributed across all factions. N5 has seen a swathe of units added which combine Albedo with either a punchy pocket weapon like a panzerfaust (one shot could be all you need at a valuable MSV target) or a proper Active turn gun. An Overdron isn’t something that enemies can just hide their MSV units from in Round 1 anymore; having the right Albedo units can be a gear check that shuts down opponents who have overinvested in MSV units as their primary firepower. 

Discoballer

This could be one of the most impactful new pieces of equipment added with N5. Essentially it allows the bearer to fire deployable equipment Eclipse smoke templates, using their BS attribute and identical rangebands to Pitchers. This is an reliable and permissive way to control visibility over wide stretches of the board, extremely reliable if (as is often possible) the user is getting an additional Special Dice from Fireteam bonuses. While it is Disposable(2), the Eclipse zone can be turned back on with a Deactivator if your opponent doesn’t take the time and Orders to destroy the actual deployed equipment. 

On top of all those benefits, Discoballer has appeared on a variety of units, from cheap line infantry to heavyweight gunfighters and even some do-it-all characters. That’s very impactful and some observers are cautious about the effect on the wider game. Ask anyone who has played against N4 Tohaa spamming Mirrorball (laying Eclipse zone within ZoC via a WIP check). Giving such good visibility control to units that aren’t simple warbands is enormously powerful. The danger is that factions with good access to Discoballer will be able to complete any objectives without attacking or interacting with their opponents’ forces. We will have to wait and see how widely Discoballer gets used and how the meta adapts.

Deactivator

Speaking of Deactivators, these got a range-band glow-up (+6 at 0-8″ and +3 at 8=16″), and most importantly they can be used on equipment within ZoC, even if they don’t have LoF. Of course, most mines are deployed under camouflage, and perimeter weapons like koalas aren’t something you want to get into ZoC of, but situationally this will be handy. The most common example will probably be reliably turning off Repeaters that are completely hidden from fire, at the cost of one round of hacking AROs.

Armed Turrets

This is a new, and damn good, deployable. It is Disposable(1) and Perimeter, so crucially it can be placed anywhere in the user’s ZoC, not just in Silhouette contact. Most factions’ “standard” support engineers seem to have an option for one of these, at the added cost of a few points. Some other options have been scattered around the game, including Minelayer models who can start with one deployed. The actual turrets are identical to the ones we know and love from ITS missions. Basically Total Reaction BS10 models. The weapons are mostly different types of rifle, although the newly revamped E/Mitter weapon is quite a scary one.  

We will watch this space with interest. Turrets aren’t hard for proper gunfighters to clear away, but in many ways they are a better defensive equipment than mines. They reach out further, and they aren’t automatically gone (whether they hurt the enemy or not) at the end of one ARO. Spamming turrets doesn’t seem to have any really cheap or efficient options, but there might be some people trying it in the new-edition excitement, especially using Baggage to lay more down every turn.

Deployable Cover

This equipment is exclusively seen on factions’ basic engineers, as far as we can see. It lets the user lay down a S3 piece of terrain, which provides partial cover, and they then choose which type it will be: either it only gives friendly troopers Partial Cover, it can’t be used by enemies; or it gives +6 to Saving Rolls, but no penalty to the enemy’s BS rolls. Funky. This seems like it would be tactically useful, but it’s restricted to very few troopers, most of whom are trying to avoid gunfights. We can already imagine the arguments this will cause as well. It’s a scenery element and is called out in the rules as allowing models to walk over it (like any other terrain shorter than their Silhouette). But we’re not sure if the intent is for it to be a solid object which blocks LoF, e.g. providing Total Cover to models Prone behind it. Also, it can be turned off with a Deactivator, which would be embarrassing.

Triangulated Fire

This situational Entire Order skill allows the model to fire on a target at their flat BS, ignoring all modifiers both positive and negative. Better than in previous editions (it used to be BS-3) but still doesn’t come up that often. Still can be useful against the odd Mimetism-6 sniper if you can get into position to use it. 

Baggage

Not only is it now a short skill for a friendly model to reload their disposable equipment thanks to having a Baggage model inside ZoC, all models will do it automatically in the states phase of every turn. This makes an unarmed baggage bot a genuinely useful and efficient piece for some list builds. We’re particularly keen to use this to spam out an armed turret every turn. 

TAG Pilots Work Differently

The era of TAG pilots climbing out of their TAG and running around on their own is now gone. Our guess is this just caused too many edge cases and questions, because the TAG was inactive when the Pilot was out, but could come back if the Pilot went back, so there were all sorts of rulings needed for when things happened to either moving part. The new N5 system is that you can include TAG ‘pilots’ as separate units – it seems odd, but really these more like experienced pilots who are in the force, dismounted, to coach and advise your actual TAGs. This leaves a gap in the old capability (getting the Pilot out to do objectives) so almost all TAGs have a new Peripheral rule:

Peripheral (Ancillary)

Basically this lets the TAG split off a little remote to go do Specialist things. That has to happen during the game, as a Short Skill, they can’t simply deploy separately, but there is no required coherency distance between the two models once it happens. This appears to be a straight upgrade from the remote pilots available to Remote Presence TAGs in N4 – it provides the ability for the TAG to do mission objectives, and doesn’t introduce any weird vulnerabilities, risk the remote being killed somehow and thus disabling the TAG, any of that weirdness. TAGs broadly look to stay highly competitive in this edition; if most of them have a clean and efficient way to perform as mission Specialists, on top of their other strengths, they could become even more prevalent. 

Transmutation / Transmutation (Escape System-X)

See the Transmutation rules for the details of how this works, but the only TAGs which don’t have access to a Peripheral (Ancillary) are those which have a high STR value, and when down to their last 1-2 STR, depending, they switch to the Operator model and profile. This is rare, by our initial count only Maximus, the Anaconda and the Iguana use the Escape System, while the Tohaa Gorgos is the sole TAG with regular Transmutation. Our point mentioning this here is that those models are all Specialists once they transform into the Operator mode. But they can’t transform voluntarily, it is intrinsically linked to being heavily wounded, so these TAGs really aren’t as useful for activating Objectives. 

Pilot Units and TAGCom

Every faction seems to have some sort of TAGCom unit available, mostly added in as new. These are all fairly cheap (typically 11-12pt) models with basic kit, line infantry stats, and the odd toy like an assault pistol. All have Gizmokits, which is a good indicator of why they’re here. They are fundamentally support troopers, their raison d’etre is the TAGCom rule and generally supporting your TAGs. TAGCom gives all TAGs in the user’s Combat Group the buffs listed for that model – the most common seems to be TAGCom (Dodge PH+3) and (Gizmokit PH+1). Just having the TAGCom model is making any TAGs in the group that little bit more resilient. We will discuss these in the faction first impression articles, but the jury is still out. It’s a fair price for a regular Order and making a TAG, which is likely to be your most powerful model, more flexible. But slots are precious in 15-model lists and these guys are about support. 

Impersonation 

This excellent and powerful rule is almost unchanged, except now the Discover roll against an Impersonation Level 1 marker is only on WIP-3 (was previously -6). Shouldn’t make a real difference although those very rare models will be a trifle easier for opponents to root out in their own Active turns.

Biometric Visor

This farcical rule is a bit better in that now a successful Discover roll, ignoring negative mods, will reveal an enemy Impersonator straight out of IMP-1 state. That still doesn’t make it an important skill, because ultimately enemy impersonators are a threat during their turn, not your own.

Bio Weapons – Shock and Viral Ineffective against STR

Essentially, Shock weapons don’t bypass Unconscious when targeting any model with STR. This also applies to Viral weapons, but Viral weapons also only inflict a single BTS roll against STR models – it’s just Normal ammo targeting BTS as far as they are concerned. That first change is basically just formatting, most STR units in the game were Shock Immune in N4, and this method saves on profile space. But it’s a hard knock to Viral weapons. Going from 2 SR to 1 is literally cutting their damage output in half against STR targets, and there are a lot of REMs, TAG, now VH, and other troopers which are mechanical and just happen to have STR rather than VITA. 

Total Immunity Split and Renamed

What was Total Immunity is changing, with many units which had it in N4 being downgraded to Immunity (ARM) or Immunity (BTS). These are about what you’d expect. Immunity (ARM) means the model treats any ammunition which targets that stat as Normal ammo, and it ignores all non-lethal effects which that ammunition would inflict. Immunity (BTS) is the exact same for BTS. Immunity (Enhanced) is both effects together, and various other Immunity (Whatever) skills exist to cover niche things. There are some interesting effects on the metagame here, especially since the most common and notorious Immunity units, at least in N4, prestige heavy warbands like Bearpodes or McMurrough, are moving to Immunity (ARM):

• Immunity (ARM) units are normally affected by flash pulses, E/M mines etc. This is a massive defensive boost to players who may have been plagued by such warbands in N4.
• None of the normal types of Immunity cover Adhesive ammunition, because it keys off PH rather than BTS or ARM. Glue away!
• Plasma Ammunition does still appear to bypass Immunity by inflicting one normal roll against each stat. 
• None of the normal types of Immunity cover Comms Attacks. Note that some models do have Immunity (State), e.g. the Avatar’s Immunity (POS) and that does work against Comms Attacks. 

Transmutation

This ability is extensively reworded and formatted, which does make things clearer, and it has become a category that covers a few things which had different names before, like Battle-Ravaged profiles and Escape Systems on TAGs. Transmutation covers any model that has multiple profiles and changes between them, and comes in the following flavours:

• Transmutation (Auto) means the user can choose which of their profiles to enter, every time they declare a Movement skill. 
• Transmutation (X) means that when the unit has taken X Wounds, it transforms to its second profile at the end of the Order. VITA/STR is now a shared number between both profiles, so watch out when looking at units with your N4 goggles on. Once a unit has activated Transmutation(X) it can’t change back, but it could, if STR, be repaired up to its full number of Wounds.
• Transmutation (Escape System-X) exists on a couple of TAGs. Once the model has taken X Wounds, it transforms into the second profile, which is typically a smaller TAG Operator, so you replace the model, at the end of the Order. You then must place an Eclipse zone centred on the model. This is a broadly positive change to previous Escape System units, because in N4 the rule was normal Smoke, and that meant they got eaten alive if the enemy had MSV units available. 
• Transmutation (WIP) is incredibly rare (we didn’t see any units except the Nomad Switchers which have it) and means that to transform into its second, better, profile, the model must make a successful WIP roll. That happens every time it declares an Order or ARO, and you can make that roll before resolving the Order. At the end of a turn, in the States phase, the model reverts to its lesser profile. So, if you are activating this model and doing an attack run, it will be helpful to have at least one run-up Order before actually FtF-ing enemy models, to see if it transforms into its better self. If the model is attacked in the Reactive turn (and didn’t get any AROs immediately prior, e.g. for enemies activating in its ZoC) then it has a 35% chance (at WIP13) to take incoming fire without the benefit of its better profile. A crazy rule which injects some randomness, meaning the model can be cheaper in points, at the cost of being potentially vulnerable in Reactive turn, or, more rarely, refusing to perform well in the Active. 
• Transmutation (Hatching) is for Shasvastii Seed-Soldiers, allowing them to turn from Seed-Embryo markers into their working profile.

Bangbomb (+X)

God that’s a stupid name. This rule, which currently only exists as Bangbomb(+4), is essentially Dodge(+X) with extra restrictions. The model must be Dodging in opposition to an enemy attacking them, and it can’t be used against template weapons. These are meaningful differences – the user doesn’t enjoy near-total safety against templates, and can’t use Dodge movement in the Active turn to reliably shift without provoking AROs. But it’s hard to see why this needed to be a whole separate skill, since Dodge(-X), which inflicts a penalty on enemy rolls opposing a model’s Dodge, exists already. That accomplishes the same balance and functionality as Bangbomb with slightly different math. In a further irritation, this is literally the only rule in the game which gives a +4 modifier. Every last other skill gives +/-3/6/9. CB won’t shift BTS off that increment of 3, but they will do it for this one niche skill? Baffling.

Weapons

Changes to Existing Weapons

Pistols

Most pistols no longer have a close combat profile (the lone exception is the Kobra Pistol – see new weapons section). This removes the realistic but unnecessary detail of models with low PH (or Heavy Pistols) using their handgun in melee combat rather than a CCW. More importantly, it deals with some jank where models with +B on their pistols could become unwarranted terrors in hand to hand combat. 

Shotguns

Shotguns were absolute gold in N4. Their ability, once within 8” of a target, to choose B2 shots at a great range modifier, or B2 direct templates, made them the weapon of choice for close assault, because it created the ‘shotgun fork’, blasting advantageous FtF rolls at enemies who Dodged and trading efficiently against enemies who shot back. A cheap trooper with a shotgun could work wonders, as exemplified by the ubiquitous Libertos (RIP). The direct template option also made them a key piece of defensive kit. Models which featured a shotgun with a Burst bonus, either natively or in a Fireteam, were even more fearsome. 

Alas! Nothing gold can stay. Going forward, shotguns retain their FtF mode unchanged, being B2 weapons which are accurate (+6) at point blank (0-8”) range, but no longer have templates. There is some doubt/confusion here. Previews for N5 (specifically the quick start rules) did state that shotguns would have B1 circular impact templates as a firing mode. That fit the fluff of futuristic shotguns firing micro fletchette bombs and seemed to track with the aim of reducing shotgun power and direct template availability, while still maintaining some flavour. But in the initial Army release, shotguns are hit mode only. We will await a final update but there aren’t any impact templates available in the rules as written now. 

It’s not all bad! Shotguns are at least cheaper in N5. That leads to some edge cases where trooper who weren’t being brought for their weapons anyway (like an Interventor killer hacker, which has a boarding shotgun) got more efficient. Overall the shotgun changes are a big hit to cheap troopers that leveraged the fork to trade upwards, and to anything that valued the template in defence. Troopers with high enough stats that they wanted to leverage hit mode more, to attack single valuable targets, are less affected, as are those with an alternative direct template weapon on their profiles. 

D-Charges

An often mocked determinant of close combat power in N4 was whether a unit had d-charges. Themed as plastic explosive type equipment for blowing up objectives, while they were used for that too in relevant missions, d-charges were also capable of being used directly as a weapon in melee combat, like any other CCW. This meant their use synergised with skills like Martial Arts, which is a ridiculous mental image. That interaction does still exist, and D-charges are still AP+EXP (having been rumoured to go down to AP+DA, as presented in the quick start rules. But, when used in melee combat, as opposed to against an innocent piece of scenery, their use will incur a -6 penalty to the CC stat. So combat between melee-specialist units will be slightly less likely to be decided by the fact that one of them is an engineer, and therefore carries d-charges and is vastly more lethal hand-to-hand. Still nice kit to have, and a melee-specialist model still might use them against a heavily armoured victim. No word on whether certain aliens can still activate the vampiric Protheion skill, and simultaneously suck the life force from their enemies while blowing them up with explosives. 

Stun Ammunition (Flash Pulses)

These notorious attack-run-stoppers are moving down from inflicting 2 BTS saves, to just 1, on a successful hit, while still inflicting the non-lethal Stunned state on a fail. This slashes their actual chance of affecting their target in half (while still providing a relatively accurate ARO for contesting FtF rolls). A deserved change to a very efficient defensive weapon.

E/Mitters

Previously one of a despised class of B1, rifle ranged niche weapons, this got a big glow-up. It now has B2 and long (16-32” +3) range bands, while keeping the devastating power of E/M ammo to neutralise hard targets. Honestly this is one of our picks to shake up the weapon meta a bit. It appears in a few places with +1B mods or on proper gunfighter models, while not costing SWC or as many points as a technically lethal weapon. But this is a weapon which can get one hit through against a TAG or formidable HI and freeze it in place, completely neutralised, so it can be exterminated, when it would normally laugh and Guts Roll out of sight. Excellent bit of kit.

Contenders

These used to be a cheap way to give close-combat oriented models a weapon that could ARO decently at rifle range, but was basically useless in the Active turn. Well, they got better. Contenders are now B2, and their +3 range band is a very useful 8-24″. Especially in Fireteams or where models have +1B, that’s a handy weapon. They were always DA ammo, but have switched to T2. That makes them less reliable against single-wound targets, but a bit more efficient when trying to take out 2-wound models like HI.

Pitchers

As mentioned their Range Bands are now flat +0 out to 24”. Less certain at their previous preferred range, but if anything it makes fairly long bomb shots less risky.

Smoke and Eclipse Grenades

In a giant change for a number of warbands, smoke and Eclipse Grenades are now a +0 mod at short range, a significant downgrade in reliability and no advantage over a Dodge when trying to avoid shots. This one is going to affect the value of smoke a lot – still vital capability for controlling visibility, but not as reliable or advantageous to the user as it has been. In a way this makes Fireteam smoke relatively better; that +1SD is one of the only ways for most troopers to get the templates down reliably. 

New Weapons

Boarding Pistol 

It’s a PS7 pistol (normal B2 and pistol range bands) or a PS7 small template, Normal ammo. This is great and very useful on models which have been given it, but quite a fine difference between just having a normal pistol and a chain-colt, things which existed already and still do. At least the PS is a bit better than a normal pistol? We don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but like Bangbomb, this is more bits of kit that do very similar things.

Kobra Pistol

Well this is also a PS7, B2 pistol in terms of shooting. Its niche is that it can also be used in CC, at B1, PS7 with Shock ammunition. That is slightly more impressive than it sounds to N4 players, because other pistols can’t be used as melee weapons any more. 

Silenced Pistol 

The is a pistol which inflicts its SR at PS8 and BTS/2, with Shock, so it’s strong against single wound targets. The Silenced (-6) trait imposes a -6 penalty to Dodge rolls against this weapon, when the target is inside ZoC and doesn’t have LoF to the user. Pretty good at ensuring shots outside LoF go through. Bear in mind that by our reading, the Sixth Sense skill will still nullify this penalty. Overall, this isn’t a piece of kit which will carry whole games, but it will situationally almost ensure the kill on an enemy skirmisher caught out of position (it’s exclusively available on Stealthy skirmishers, as far as we can see) and you will feel cool as hell using it.

EM Carbine

It’s a B2 E/M weapon, with combi rifle range bands. Very handy for closing with hard targets, the more so because CB have been pushing the envelope and giving it +1B on a lot of profiles.

ADHL Rifle

Few weapons were less appreciate than the N4 adhesive launcher. It was B1 with rifle range bands, and Immobilised-A is a relatively easy state to escape from, at least compared to those inflicted by E/M. Here it has improved to B2 at least, and there is a niche for PARA ammunition as none of the general Immunity skills stop it. 

New Command Token Uses

Broadly, the uses for Command Tokens are the same as in N4, and the divisive ‘O-12 Prestige’ rule from ITS 15 has not been taken into this new edition. There is a new caveat on the Strategic Use of Command Tokens to strip the first player of 2 Regular Orders: it can’t be used on lists which contain fewer than 10 Orders (Regular, Irregular and Tactical combined). That seems a bit of a moot point, some players might want to go off-meta and build a single Combat Group list, but if your opponent has no more than 9 models and none of them are TacAware, you probably wouldn’t even want to use a Command Token on them, it would be cruel. 

The real headline for a new Command Token use is the rather videogame-like SpeedBall mechanic. 

Speedball

Either player can use a Strategic Command Token (ie before the start of the game) to gain 2 Speedball Tokens. This lets them, at some point in any Active turn, ‘Request a Speedball’. They take the 2 tokens and pick a type for one; the other has to randomly generate its type. Both then deploy on the table using Combat Jump (PH=14). We assume an EVO hacker using Controlled Jump would not improve this, because that program specifies Troopers, but we do assume that if the roll is failed you have to place the token on the board edges of your DZ just as with a failed trooper. Once on the table, any friendly trooper can pick up the Speedball automatically by moving into contact with the token (no need for a Skill); no single trooper can carry multiple Speedballs. These types of upgrades all give some slightly unique benefits:

• VitaPack, AutoRepairSuite & Switch On are all one-use ‘get out of jail free cards’ for types of damage. If a VITA model has a VitaPack it can ignore one Wound suffered (the slightly clunky language is that it regains that Wound at the end of the Order). AutoRepairSuite is the same for STR models. Switch On ignores the infliction of any/all Immobilised, Isolated and Stunned States inflicted in an Order. All three of these Speedballs can be used on an Allied trooper in Sihouette contact, as a Short Skill, giving them back a Wound or curing those States, respectively. These are all pretty sound; an extra Wound on a powerful model seems a damn good use of a Command Token and it’s not hard to set up. 
• Jetpack lets the bearer (S2 only) use the Super-Jump (Jet Propulsion) Special Skill during one Order only. This seems far more situational, we can see picking it if there is a spot that you really need one model to get to, and there’s no other efficient way, but it doesn’t seem as powerful on the face of things. 
• Overkill gives the user two options: they can reload all their Disposable weapons/equipment for free (‘at the conclusion of the Order’), which seems pretty sound if you have a necessary bit of kit like a Discoballer, Fastpanda or a turret. Or it can choose to activate BS Attack (SR-1) for one Order only. That is hilariously minor and in no way matches up to the other boons Speedballs can bring. One to avoid unless every opportunity to use something else has fled. 
• NanoShield lets the user add +2 to their SRs in the next Order when they have to roll any saves (they can’t choose to hang onto it, it’s automatic). This seems decent but we can’t see why you’d generally pick it over VitaPack/AutoRepairSuite; the certain gain of a 1W buffer is better than a chance at passing more rolls, since it’s very uncommon to roll more than a few SRs in one Order. 

If nothing else, Speedball seems like a super obvious way to try and fortify your best attack piece with an extra Wound. Just choose VitaPack/AutoRepairSuite, call the Speedball, and if you can drop it along the route of advance, boom, your push piece got tougher. The other token can go somewhere a good model will be able to collect it, and see if it rolls a relevant type. (unfortunately you place the Token, then determine what it is, then roll the Combat Jump)

While it’s nice to see some innovation and fresh ideas, we’re not too sure what CB wanted to achieve here. The pitch for this idea sold the concept of getting your force out of sticky situation. But the actual types of Speedball are mostly upgrades you want your model to have before they get into a fight, to ensure you survive. There seems little reason not to call the Speedball in Round 1, and we can’t see any rule against that. We will have to wait and see how the wider community seizes on its use. 

Problems and Apparent Errors

We didn’t really find much in the rulebook which we concluded must have been a simple error. The Booty table has some results of the D20 are only for TAGs, and others only for ‘other troops’ – clearly an editing issue, since otherwise it hasn’t changed from N4. 

So What? Predictions for Changing Play

The New Rock/Paper/Scissors of Shooting Mods

Interplay of MSV/Mimetism, Warhorse/BS Attack(-3), Marksmanship, and Albedo. There are now more varieties of gunfighter, all with their various counters. Players may have to build in different options for countering different targets. In N4, sometimes MSV was unnecessary, but it was only strictly punished by White Noise, which was restricted to rare Hacking Device Pluses (most factions couldn’t even take one) and required Orders and hacker/repeater position to set up. Now, using a high-quality ARO piece with MSV can be aggressively counter-played, and an MSV attacker may find stumbling blocks in their path. Lists will want to at least try and include a variety of shooting mods amongst their primary firepower pieces, and pocket Albedo on back-up shooters will be very handy. The key to this puzzle is availability of those key gunfighter skills across factions – most Sectorials had access to at least some Mimetism and MSV. BS Attack(-3) has been spread around new and revamped units liberally, but it’s still not quite as common. Albedo is still a rare skill. Warhorse is rare, outside the Morat Aggression Force, and is on a lot of profiles which weren’t considered gunfighters (because of its history as the Veteran skill and other effects). We will be watching this space with a lot of interest. 

Hyper Mobile Units Are More Widespread

In N4, not many things could equal the hyper-mobility of the Su-Jian or Roadbot – units which could move at motorcycle speeds, but also had Climbing Plus – and so those were prized capabilities for the relevant factions. Not only has N5 made all Super-Jump units essentially 6-6 Move when not in contact with enemies, Super-Jump(8”) now makes some units 8-8 Move out of contact. That category includes some units that are powerful, resilient gun platforms. Not all of the new flying vehicle models fit that description, but all have the hyper-mobility and sufficient Active turn power to bully support units which try and survive by hiding out of LoF. These tools look great at punishing null deployments. It remains to be seen how lists will change to protect from such threats. Some commentators have opined that tables will also need to change. Buildings with large flat roofs are now potential killing areas for vehicles, in the way they always were for TAGs with Climbing Plus. It’s not a brand new threat in the game, but it can be much more widespread going forward.

Core Fireteams, and thus ‘Hard Stop’ AROs, Are Weaker

The changes to Core Fireteams will be most obvious in the reduced use of ‘fort kickass’ teams which bunker up with one great shooter on ARO duty, watching a huge swathe of table. That strategy relied on Sixth Sense, which is harder to get, since few factions can fit 5 of the same (or counts as same) troop, while having at least one be a top notch gunfighter and coming in at a workable points cost. Without Sixth Sense, such compositions are extremely vulnerable to smoke-shooting. Some of the best units for the role were MSV, and that is no longer the sure advantage it was in N4, due to the presence of BS Attack(-3) and Albedo. Sixth Sense itself no longer ignoring Surprise Attack modifiers is also a big knock. The other vital incentive to build a Core team, at least to factions which had the right options, +3BS, is also unavailable. With those changes, there are just too many weaknesses and ways to leverage or brute force the ARO piece. Core teams, at least those built with 4-5 models, primarily for defensive play, are going to be less common, at least as the playerbase deal with their natural revulsion toward a nerfed playstyle. In the long term their use will probably be determined, as it was in late N4, by the specific faction options. We could see players including the models for such a Core team in their lists, faction depending, but choosing to deploy it as two smaller teams, or holding it back from obvious AROs and seeking to use it in the Active turn instead.

Duo Teams Have Improved and Fireteams Will Look Different

The logic in N4 for teams was fairly solved. Core Teams generally went to 5 models, for the bonuses and the redundancy, whether they had Composition Bonuses or not. Duo and Haris teams did not care about Composition in the least, players just threw together anything that had synergy. In N5, impure Duo teams still exist and could be seen for Order efficiency or where a great synergy exists, like a TAG supported by an engineer. They will likely also be used to chain up TacAware or NCO Orders on key pieces, or access Tinbot Firewalls. But there is a major incentive now to field Duos that are matched. At least in the early days of the edition, we expect some players to go heavy on a lot of Duos. There is a strong draw for players to capitalise on a new mechanical benefit.

Haris teams (or a 3-model Cores) will basically need at least two of their models to match to be worth taking, which is going to make certain builds, which are still legal, obsolete. Core Teams will need 4-5 of their models to match to be worth taking at all, but as mentioned, that leaves a lot of questions on whether they will be popular at all. 

Points and Balance Changes

We don’t want to steal our own chips from the forthcoming faction first impression articles, but there are some trends in units’ points cost and balance updates. Broadly, most things got cheaper by several points. The exceptions were basic line infantry, the cheapest Warbands, basic utility Remotes, and the odd profile here or there (and of course some units got relatively minor equipment tweaks which slightly increased their points cost. But the vast majority of expensive units got cheaper, and while that holds true for more elite Light and Medium Infantry, the change was biggest for premium Heavy Infantry models. Now that trend in itself is fine. In N4, big HI often fell into a gap where a TAG wasn’t too much more expensive, so they got shelved. But did we mention that TAGs also got slightly cheaper in most cases? Usually by a similar amount (2-4pts) as Medium Infantry types. Skirmishers by and large stayed exactly the same price. Airborne troops dropped a bit, so we can see the logic, as Infiltration was largely preferable to Combat Jump/Parachutist in N4. But the old patterns apply where if everyone gets cheaper, everyone stayed the same. It’s good that other units have moved closer to the level of the ubiquitous cheap models. But most competitive players of N4 would say that Light/Medium Infantry needed to be brought up in comparison to the better HI. Only those best HI profiles were comparable to the average TAG. CB seems to have a vision of making the game cheaper and more elite units easier to fit into lists; we’re not sure they have an accurate vision for balancing different categories of trooper.

On a more micro level, the rebalancing and redesign of profiles (and factions) is also frustrating. Some units got amazing glow-ups, some changed in purpose, in interesting or confusing ways. Some stayed the same despite being (in our opinion) well behind the competitive curve. Similarly, some Sectorials attracted floods of added units (White Company got about 10 special characters added) while others got diddly squat. It’s impossible to please everyone, and we are determined to withhold judgment until the great engine of online discourse and continued play has ground down this information into digestible chunks. But some informed commentators are already a bit alarmed by how some units (new and revamped) push the competitive envelope, and how far those have diverged from the units which got no work done.

Conclusion

Well, there you have our breakdown of the new edition. “Polishing the diamond” is definitely underselling it in our books. While the bones of the game are the same, so many details of how skills, equipment and weapons work have been changed, and so many new unit designs added, that the N5 meta is sure to develop differently to N4. We will crack on with analysing the factions and bring you as much in depth commentary as we can, as fast as we can get it done. Our parting message to all readers is, don’t just breathe this stuff in online, get stuck in and play with it. We don’t mean just getting the reps in, try to experiment with things that have changed and new formats for your lists. Good luck out there!

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