We already have a thread about what we expect from the Zhencha. A thread full of hype for the Liu Xing. But... I see no thread for our third new HI, the supportive bois, the Hai Daos. So I made one. Now, as much as I thing having an SMG HI Skirmisher is amazing, and as much as I love HI and Tigers, so the Liu Xing is a perfect embodiment of the PB&J concept: Take two great things and put them together. But personally... I find the Hai Dao to have caught most of my curiosity ( And no, it's not just because I think he's the coolest looking one out of the new HIs we've been shown. That said... just look at him. Stylish boi indeed. ). First things first, the weaponry. The weapons in this dossier have truly piqued my interest. We've already had time enough to drool over the D-Charges on the Zhancha and Liu Xing, so I won't mention them here. The Breaker pistol seems pretty interesting. I like pistols, they've saved me a bunch of times, so I'm glad to see the Hai Dao getting a nicer sidearm. But the two SWC weapons we get to see here is what's got me the most interested... Now, the Red Fury is nothing new to us. We already have one in the hands of a Pheasant Agent ( ISS players could further elaborate on how good or bad it is, I trust. ). Still, it's a neat gun IMO. A Spitfire with -1 DAM but gets to have Shock Special Ammunition. Useful, a nice sidegrade and change of pace from the standard tried and tested Spitfire. But that MULTI-Sniper though... now that interests me. Perhaps mostly due to it being, well... our first HI to have a sniper weapon and the third HI in the entire game to have a sniper weapon ( Haqqislam Ayyars and Ariadnan Blackjacks beat us to it... that said, we do get the first HI with a MULTI-Sniper Rifle. ). I personally really like sniper rifles in this game. The 32'' long +3 MOD window that reaches out far beyond what an HMG, HRL or Spitfire could ever hope to reach and even beating out the Missile Launcher by 8'' ( And it beats out the HRMC, but... HRMCs only get a 0 MOD as opposed to a Negative MOD like all the other weapons mentioned here, so it is the best off in sniper battles. ) is pretty nice. And I've been getting pretty good mileage out of my snipers, so I can't say I dislike the possibility of another one. That, and the name of these HI, the ''Hai Dao Special Support Group'' really sounds to me like a good dose of useful specialist options. Engineers in particular. Perhaps even a doctor profile, maybe even a neat Hacker or two. And as some might tell you, we did lose a certain Specialist centered HI a good 8 or so months back, so it's nice to have that void potentially filled. And I'm not even done gushing about these things. I feel like they probably will end up being very prevalent in our mixed fireteams for the Invincible Army. One thing I think would be pretty awesome in particular would be a Yan Huo MULTI-HMG Haris + 2 of these guys for a nice dose of heavy artillery bombardments. Anyways, what do you guys think about the Hai Daos? I know I'm looking forward to them quite a bit.
The pinyin translates to Pirate. I'm not sure what to make of that. I don't know if CB just fucked up and meant to use dāo which is sword, but yeah. zhēn chá translates to reconnaissance or a variety of similar meanings in context, which makes sense but this not so much.
I'm not knowledgeable in Chinese or any other asian language for that matter, so I did not notice that detail.
What i realy like is that the IA has some "real" pistols (breaker) and not this punny airsofts. ... and i hope for more automedkits across the sectorial. For the HaiDao: it looks more like independent Firesupport to me but i still hope for an Doc and/or Engineer Profile
I don know what to expect of the haidaos. They seem to be the multifireteam compososers that CB likes to include lately, but maybe they are something special. Either way the sniper option is appreciated, and as usual I hope it has different specialist profiles.
Didn’t Carlos say something quickly about it being some sort of specialist but then said the Zhencha would be better. I’m hoping for Engineer. I’m thinking Carols said that because he probably doesn’t have a form of forward deployment skill. Hence the sniper rifle. But I hope the name means specialist support rather than fire support. I really like the look of him too. He stands out from everyone else. With all the pouches and stuff on him, I definitely think of tools for an Engineer.
Yeah, if this is the multi-purpose specialist HI that we've been wishlisting for Shang-Ji to become, that would be rad enough to take us back to the 80s. Just imagine, take a typical Line Infantry and condense out all the special roles, the Doctor, the Engineer, the Sniper, the Hacker, and the (mid-range) Gunner, and then pack it all on a Zuyong-style heavy infantry and have them available to complement any IA fireteam worth mentioning. (Also note that none of these roles are available to Zuyong) Just one glorious SWC pack and none of those single blister nonsense that keeps delaying releases. This would also make for an interesting trade-off in vanilla, assuming AVA is 1; Doctor, Engineer or... maybe sniper? Unless they have some special rules that pump up their price, I'm assuming a Doctor profile is roughly 29 points and a sniper is roughly 33 points. Only problem I can see with this idea is the Red Fury; who'd get a Red Fury HaiDao if you could get a HMG Zuyong for that link? Same for vanilla. What good is the Red Fury HaiDao in a Shang-Ji link that already has the heavier Spitfire? Only reason I can think of would be SWC, if the HaiDao Red Fury only has to pay 1 SWC, there might be room for it as a budget alternative. On the other hand, assuming CB didn't fuck up the pinyin, and this is meant to be a Corsair (which I loosely translate to space boarding action regiment), then this all goes out the window and I'd be expecting some fancy special rules for them.
If a Doctor, what IA NEEDS is an Akbar Doctor! If you are going to have 2 wound guys all around, you want that. I once put down almost a whole link team of Janisaries and then along comes an akbar doctor that brings them all back! One thing to note, lots of guys get this wrong, you can do Akbar Doctor OR Doctor Plus. Akbar Doctor does NOT allow the +3 to WIP but it will bring back two wounds on a HI.
I doubt we'd get an Akbar Doctor. Especially since that seems to be a Haqq exclusive thing. Doctor Plus at best. But even just having a Doctor who could stand his own ground in a fight is something to be glad about. And yeah, I honestly would expect this to be a unit whose shtick is basically condensing all the special roles a regular troop would have. Need an Engineer? Sure. A Doctor? Different profile, but okay. Sniper? Gotcha covered. Need to mop up some one Wound infantry that may or may not have Dogged or No Wound Incapacitation? Sure. Need to bust some terrain? Just get them to the terrain piece and they'll do the rest. And who knows... maybe they'll also get something like an LRL, or the rare and treasured item for HI, grenades. Light on skills not native to specific profiles, maybe WIP 14 if CB wants to pamper us a bit, and some very specialized profiles and I am indeed happy about this HI.
I'm loving everything I've seen for AI so far. But did anyone notice the Haidao in this artwork? It looks massive.
The foreground one only thing looks huge due to perspective. The one communicating to the tech towers over the tech, but that is ballpark where a power armored trooper should be.
Akbar Doctor, exclusive to Haqqislam? Just like those exclusive Haris links, of course, what were we thinking? ^_^ More seriously put, Akbar Doctor is painfully suited to Invincible Army, but I definitely dont think we see it on the Haidao, in of itself YJ getting an HI doctor is significant, Akbar would just push the costs up. But I'm going to keep holding out for the Norman Bethune Recreation.
