I would like to see Sensor/Minesweeper on the Guijia as a counterpart to the Mine Dispenser on others factions.
Then make them like the Jaguars! They are a warband that doesn't warband! They are regular and frenzy but no one uses them to do anything other than to throw smoke on Intruders. Hell make Shaolin Irregular and Frenzy and bump up the price a bit and I'd still take them! Then, like Jaguars, they could make use of cover until Frenzy.
What I'd quite like to see with some of the more expensive units is role consolidation. I find it very hard to fit things like Kanren and Pheasants in, because they don't quite manage the intersection of useful stuff often enough. The fluff and models are great, but they're not quite flexible enough to invest 1/10th of your army in given they're around 30 points. The Pheasant agents have CoC roles that really want to engage with the enemy to get their points & SWC back ... and two roles that do want to sit back on the table that lack CoC. Give the hacker Chain of Command! Give the sniper Chain of Command! It'll still be an expensive hacker and mediocre sniper, but at least it's doubling up duties with CoC if it doesn't do much. Likewise with the Kanren. Perhaps give madtraps to all of the profiles so you can take them and still masquerade as another Kanren. Give the minelayer sniffer to the FO, so you can get a sniffer up table easily AND take a scoring specialist. Maybe give sensor to the sniffer+minelayer, as taking a 27 point model and needing another 16+ point model to activate its equipment is fairly crazy. It's frustrating that you have to choose between a forward scoring specialist kanren or a board control kanren. Why not both? Compare to a Moran FO at 22 points with crazy koalas, and the Kanren doesn't come off that well. He always brings a lot of expensive gear like holoprojector and monofilament, but doesn't always have his useful perimeter weapons and specialist status. ugh holoprojector is the only token state that doesn't have to be discovered or give you a defensive shooting buff. When attacking it, people just split burst and shoot, so best case they end up wasting an order or two shooting echoes. Worst case they choose the right model first time and you have to ARO with no advantage. This isn't too much to ask when you look at profiles like the Tohaa's kaeltar who brings symbiomates AND has CoC for 21 points! Autoinclude! Or hecklers, who bring great combinations of tools and a token state for way cheaper than kanren.
Good opinion, comrade, but I find it hard to agree with Kanren buff. Perimeter weapons are good profile to play with, but you can pull more results when you start to get a hang with Holoprojectors. Try faking him into something your opponent want to hit when losing th initiative - in this case, MadTrap profiles are very obvious to find out. Still, wouldn't mind some sales on Kanren cost though. :)
But he costs 30 points... for a play that requires your opponent taking the bait? Seems like a long shot. Also how does he respond to a model coming over to attack him? You can take sforza to bait holoprojector inside your DZ, and he's way more likely to kill something random coming to get him. If you do this you're giving up the kanren's forward deployment skills.
With around 30 pts, you can soak out opponent's considerable orders with a mere bluffing. Dont believe in killing something in your ARO turn - I admit it is fun to watch the attacker suffer from ADHL, but normally your defender will go down Switching Kanren KHD into something very hack-intriguing units like Wu Mings, or priority targets like Hsiens will blow their mind (Literally) to hell. Works A lot for me. And also, you really want to use FD when losing initiative? It is a good way of thinking by maxing out the skills and gears, but there's a time and place for doing it. I learned this while using Montesa Knight at my early gaming days.. He died at 1st turn, thanks to my obession about placing him despite being the defender.
Please not. The Kaeltar CoC with Symbiomates is maybe the most broken profile in the game. But I agree in general with the problems on the Kanren. It has a toolset he pays for while never be able to completely use it.
If the kaeltar didn't have the symbiomates and was available for 21 points with Chain of Command in ISS, everyone would take it. It's a ridiculously undercosted unit given how powerful symbiomates are and also an example of how much Chain of Command could cost if it wasn't packed onto a fragile close combat and ranged toolbox unit. List building for ISS is a little overstretched, as you typically have to let two or three of KHD ninja, Sophotect & Yudbot, Chain of Command and Kanren go. With all the E/M around, normally for me that means KHD ninja and Sophotect are in, and the other two are out. I need the rest of my points to put some links and attacking pieces together, flesh out an order pool, play to the mission, add a lieutenant etc. It really is a faction where each list has to choose what vulnerability it is going to leave in to get the punch it needs. It's still a powerful sectorial, don't get me wrong, but it feels hard to cover all the things you'd really like in a list.
Ug. Last night I hit a Gao Rail with the equivalent of 5 wounds and he took none because of that little monster. 21pts for that is ridiculous. Then he also has 2 of them with CoC so go ahead and kill his Lt. No big. Yes there's needs to be something done on the Pheasant, again, or make a new troop with CoC. But that's not going to help sales of the Pheasant.
Unless they separate the CoC off of the Pheasant into a new unit and let the Pheasant be a free agent free of the weight of CoC... Or just replace CoC on most of his profiles with Specialist Operative and keep a budget CoC profile? Or even just the Shotgun CoC profile?
Well the High CC is just useless so they can bring that down. Who would even try to bring him into CC unless they had to. He doesn't need MA L2, Make him ARM 1. the difference between 1 & 2 is nothing. I think I've used an E/Mitter like twice and both was only in ARO.
Highly doubt they'll tweak the CC in any direction that is not ''Keep it as is or improve it.'' Also highly doubt they'd change the armor either. Especially since they wear armor that looks near identical to the Zhanyings, stylish trench coats not withstanding. So I am honestly at a loss of simple ideas to improve the Pheasant, beyond y'know... replace CoC with Specialist Operative and have a dedicated CoC profile instead.
Actually moving CoC off a lot of pheasant profiles would make the unit much more playable - CoC is a very expensive skill. Or they could add an smg profile that gave a cheapish CoC option to the faction, that might help. For close quarters defense an smg is all they really need if they're camping your back field and keeping their head down. SMG and x-visor would be great, stealing some JSA tricks.
Not gonna lie guys, you really made me laugh here. You seem to forget that without CoC a pheasant is just a guy with BS12, some gagdets and overpriced CC he can't really use because of his weird statline. Would you really pay 30ish points for a mad-traps pheasant, when you can get a zhanying for 28, or Xi Zhuang for 20? Same with the red fury, why would you ever take it when you can get a rui-shi for 20pts? Right now, CoC is the ONLY redeeming feature of the pheasant agent, otherwise there is no reason whatsoever to pay more than 20pts for a fusillier with a fancy ceremonial sword. If you want to make him worthwhile without CoC, all he needs is to be able to use all his toolkit with some efficiency, and the best way to achieve that would be to make him PH12 in order to buff both his melee and grenade throwing skill (an alternative would be to give him a light stun grenade launcher instead, and give him back his monofilament sword).
Yeah, that kinda seems like removing TO from a Spektr or Total Immunity from a Dog-Warrior: It kind of kills one of the biggest selling points the unit has.
