Article by Gutier Lusquiños with the collaboration of Fran Arjones.
"Clad in their servo-powered armor, no foe could oppose the team as they took and secured one location after another. Hours of grueling and intensive training allowed them to advance in perfect coordination, moving together as if they were a single body."
Excerpt from "The Helheim Protectors", an exclusive Mayadocumentary for Sabot! Your war channel in the front lines!
Ever since its first appearance in Human Sphere (Infinity's first expansion as a wargame) Fireteams have become an essential tool for every veteran player and one of the main reasons to choose a Sectorial Army to play in tournaments. Facing the variety and versatility of generic Armies, Sectorials offered this rule that allows moving up to five miniatures with a single Order, with one of its members receiving bonuses granted by the number of teammates in their Fireteam. The Fireteams Order economy and their raw power boosted the presence of more thematic armies on Infinity game tables.
As expected, a revision of the rules of N4's caliber couldn't leave such a fan-favorite tool behind. However, the Fireteam rule has always been considered "advanced rules", aimed at those who've already mastered the basic ruleset. For that reason, to prevent the players' brains from melting with a sudden change in both the basic rules and the Fireteam rules with N4, we decided to progressively phase in the changes to fireteams. The release of N4 presented only slight modifications to Fireteam rules that didn't stray too far away from the original rules. The publication of the book Infinity Raveneye would mark the arrival of new Fireteam rules that gather the experience gained throughout all these years of ITS and also the feedback from the player base.
Initially, Fireteams were made up of Troopers belonging solely to the same Unit, which made them powerful, but inflexible. More versatile and inexpensive Fireteams based on basic Troopers or Light Infantry were often vulnerable to enemy fire due to their light armor. On the other hand, Fireteams based on more resilient Troopers such as Heavy Infantry, were costly in-game points. This resulted in the fireteam consuming a sizable portion of the Army List points.
Nevertheless, in some cases, there were certain special characters or Units that allowed these Fireteams a higher degree of flexibility - either by granting different Skills or Equipment or simply by lowering the fireteam's overall cost by joining it. Sectorial Armies grew as Infinity moved forward, increasing the number of mixed Fireteams that combined power and adaptability. The issue at hand wasn't simply the tactical predominance that these Fireteams could unleash, but that they closed the Army Lists to other configurations, which in the long run, detracts from the fun of making a list.
With all this in mind, and in the spirit of N4 making Infinity more player-friendly, we focused our efforts to revise Fireteams for this new edition
N4 Fireteams have a back-to-the-basics approach. We wanted to take the pure Fireteam concept, being made up of Troopers from the same Unit, and empower the Fireteam without renouncing the mixed, flexible, and multidisciplinary features that players have become accustomed to. This time both types of Fireteams will be set apart by the bonuses they have access to.
"Mixed" Fireteams will have their bonus table determined by the old and trusty number of members method, with the exception that five-member Fireteams will have a +1 BS Bonus instead of the previous +3 BS Bonus.
In addition to the same table as mixed Fireteams, "Pure" Fireteams will have an additional table with Bonuses that stack with the other table, granting more Bonuses overall than N3 Fireteams. This provides these Fireteams with much more power, which is still constrained by the +3 BS maximum that one of these Fireteams may have if they have five members.
"Mixed" Fireteams remain versatile, ideally set to accomplish missions, while lacking the punch and raw power of a "Pure" Fireteam. In this way, players can choose what kind of Fireteam is more useful when deploying their miniatures on the game table.
This new Fireteam order comes with a full revision of every Sectorial Army, adapting them to the new system, keeping most of the existing Fireteams (although many have new setup options), and creating new ones.
Keeping in mind of N4's aim to make the rules more accessible, the new Fireteam rules bring Fireteam Orders and Fireteam ORAs to the table, doing away with the support, evasion, or movement Skill categories and eliminating one complexity layer from the rules.
The new rules also define what happens to Pilots and Motorbikes that may be part of a Fireteam to facilitate their integration, since they have become more common.
Likewise, gone are terms such as Fireteam: Triad, which now becomes Fireteam Haris without a limit to their quantity in the Army List, just like Fireteam: Enomotarch, which has become a Fireteam Core of no more than four members without a limit to their quantity in the Army List.
Now that Fireteams are determined by the Chart, having the Special Skills as Fireteam: Haris, Fireteam: Duo, and so on is no longer necessary. They disappear both in the rules and in the Unit Profiles, decreasing the volume of text and information therein.
The Fireteam Chart becomes the main reference for players - easily accessible through the Army platform, they may now create their Army List and build their Fireteams in a more streamlined and visual fashion.
Therefore, identifying mandatory Troopers or Troopers required to build a Fireteam becomes more simple.
On the same line, both Wildcard Troopers and all those that were previously mentioned as "can be part of [...]" or "counts as [...]" can now be identified quickly and conveniently.
The new Fireteam building system allows you to provide certain Fireteams or Sectorials with differential characteristics, adding fluff references without requiring extra rules or exceptions.
The new N4 Fireteam rules and their support through the Army platform seek to facilitate the process of creating Fireteams so that players may check at any moment and in a simple manner how their army's fireteams work and the bonuses they have can access.
Rule-wise, the number of rules the player must learn has been reduced, since it just involves small changes to well-known rules. The same goes for Fireteams that players are accustomed to from the Sectorials they play. That being said, their performance will now be different and the player has new Fireteam options to choose from and experiment with. The meta has undoubtedly changed and new and exciting times are coming to Infinity game tables. You’d better get ready!
