Right, but it doesn't have one. So if you want the Daofei to fill that specialist role it's going to be more vulnerable. The Daofei is an offensive piece first and foremost. The Zhencha is a specialist first and foremost with added durability and the ability to hold ground better than nearly anyone else in his class. It does this incredibly efficiently for the points. I get that it's a deviation from what HI has traditionally been, but it does it's job incredibly well and other than not meeting with your preconceived notions of what it would be, I dont see anything to complain about. At first I was let down too, but then I realized how much of a monster this guy is going to be on the table.
Taking into account the fact that adding 6 ARM vs 0 ARM improves chances not to get a wound only for ca 15% I would definitely prefer TO with its additional -3 to hit not saying of its other pluses. But of course! That's exactly the reason why it's tagged as HI, not SK, isn't it?
Yes the additional -3 to hit is nice, but doesn't help against direct templates or MSV. I'd rather get the benefits of climbing plus and higher ARM on a skirmisher for less cost. And Myrmidons are warbands, unidrons are REMs, and they both fill the role of Line troops on their respective sectorials. The classification doesn't mean anything in regards to what role a unit has within a n army.
I will give it a try, but when you have Ariadna camospam in your local meta, something that dies to an AP mine is not an easy sell. Not to mention that it's still the only HI that dies to an AP mine.
Don't try to tank mines with it then. Kanren (in vanilla) are phenomenal for clearing mines, and so are the plethora of other HI options in IA.
Corner mine tricks and last minute objective runs with low orders don't allow for that sort of thing.
Then the Zhencha still has a better chance of surviving than pretty much any other skirmisher. PH13 and ARM3 gives you far better odds then the usual ARM 0/1 and PH10/11 you'd be dealing with on similar units.
I think the Zhencha isn't really meant for clearing out zones that the enemy have fortified, just for clearing light resistance and hitting from unexpected angles- fair face-to-face leaves it at a disadvantage compared to its peers because of the added cost. For mines, if the Hai Dao is an Engineer we may actually see Deactivator used for once, and for mass camo, remember that Shang Ji are apparently supposed to be Wildcards and pack flamethrowers. If it's just a single TO specialist or some random line infantry sitting on a point, the Zhencha should be able to obliterate it, but for the main points of contention it seems like IA's aggressive link teams or air support are meant to move in and clear the enemy out manually. For missions with just one objective, like Armoury, it's probably best to leave the Zhencha on the shelf and invest in more and bigger guns unless you want to play the mine game yourself.
I don't think I've been clear enough: my entire point is it's quite obvious entire HI forces can't work the way Infinity's rules frame exist at the moment, and it would make sense if IA's support were REMs and some MI/LI units (as support should be) but no, CB wanted to go with the "but look, there is nothing but HI here" meme and came out with thesd fake HIs, which feels like a cheap trick on player's expectactions and actually make the units saddled with that forced HI label worse just to fulfill some meme.
Usual 10/11 PH skirmishers? Most are 12 to 13 (every single Ariadna SK is 13) with some outliers being 11. So the Zhencha is nothing special there. Armor 3... well if there's a more overrated value in Infinity it is armor. When it comes down to it those 0/1 ARM SKs failing an arm roll are no different from the Zhencha failing its ARM roll. They're dead (whoop de do being an HI in name only). Also, I doubt S9 is talking about tanking mines with a Zhencha. That's using it for the wrong job. However, mines aren't just a defense weapon. They can be used as offensive weapons and it's a tactic I like to use myself. You'd bet I'd be trying to get a mine near a Zhencha with its vulnerability to shock like every other skirmisher. It's nothing more then a high armored skirmisher with NWI that can be hacked (my Dasyu and Proxy Mk2 laugh at it). To me the Zhencha is a pseudo-HI with all the downsides and none of the upsides. The Yadu does a better job being a pseudo-HI taking all the upsides of one and none of the downsides. Some might get some use out of him but it's not a unit I'd go out of my to include in a list.
Fine. But if you are claiming that there aren't prominent users in this forum arguing that anything other than 2 wound troopers with the HI tag is unacceptable then you aren't arguing in good faith.
I don't think 'tanking' is what I'd do, but I am in a place where I need to deal with half a dozen infiltrated minelayers, which means mines covering the objectives. Possibly multiple mines covering each objective. If I had a Daofei (or a shock/bio immune Zhencha), then yes, I'd just eat an explosion on the way in, it can't kill the specialist anyway. Instead, I have to spend more orders getting something else into place to deal with the mine, so that my specialist can then handle the objective. Whether that's a 29pt Kanren (holoechoes FTW) or a poor Chaiyi REM (more likely, a Weibing). And I need to spend orders that I don't have many of because this is an elite army, I'd be surprised if there is a single way to make the Invincible Army have more than 14 orders.
Well, from what we know already, there certainly will be build options which will get to well over 14 orders. They just won't be using all HI.
What have you been drinking... :D CB unfortunately has no idea what they're doing with this game. It's a testament to the base game engine that the whole thing is more or less balanced. They've been swinging wildly and doing random stuff basically.
I'm not sure I agree. I think this argument you and others are running is in bad faith because you are either intentionally or accidentally confusing two ideas, the first being the idea of full 10-order lists with nearly all basic Zuyong infantry becoming viable through the magic of Fireteams and the second being use of mixed premium heavy infantry. The first has been proven that simply removing AVA restrictions on Zuyong it becomes possible, but not necessarily the best you could build, while the second should be self-evident from any given sectorial that it's possible. However. When you're writing "Sure, but there's a group around here who won't be satisfied unless literally every single thing they put onto the table has the HI label and 2 wounds." you are compounding both of those theoretical lists and cherry picking the pros and cons of them to prove a point that I don't think anyone has made. So could you actually point at someone's post where those two types of lists are literally written? AVA T Zuyong ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 30) ZÚYǑNG (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 28) ZÚYǑNG Lieutenant (AutomediKit) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1 | 39) ZÚYǑNG Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (2 | 36) ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 27) ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 27) ZÚYǑNG Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 29) ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle (Fireteam: Haris) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 27)* ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 28) ZÚYǑNG Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 29) 4 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army * This unit is just there as pure theory crafting, cost has been adjusted and added to the total
This is actually true. I recall speculations about light HI Doc/Eng, specifically for the purpose of not having to field non-HI troopers. Also, there was a vocal opposition against the idea of Zhanshi in IA. This has nothing to do with list building theory, more with some people' vision how the sectorial should look. This particular vision was never a realistic one. I think it's more of a case of Carlos coming up with an idea he likes, and then getting surprised and annoyed when people don't share his enthusiasm. This is pure theory on my part, though. I'd very much like to know how the actual CB design workflow looks like.
Considering that I was one of the, if not the most, vocal in opposition to the idea of Zhanshi, I can tell you to your face you're now arguing in bad faith since you're conveniently leaving out the suggested alternative.
We all know that's essentially a strawman position. Obviously there's gonna be a few people asking for exactly that, but I would expect majority of IA-wannabes would be perfectly happy with most of the list being HI while rest is clearly order generators and backfield support (stuff like EVO or Flash Pulse REMs, or the odd non-Lt Zhanshi cheerleader). I have no idea how their workflow looks like - I can only observe the effects. Stuff like changing Montessa but not touching Kirpal Singh. Shock vs multiwound+NWI ruling. Giving duo profiles and expecting people to be "awesome". Submachine gun pricing across factions. Zhencha is just another datapoint - at least Liu Xing got Bioimmunity. EDIT: Oh, yeah, point discounts on Hospitallers. Almost forgot that. They can give that but Kirpal Singh and Rao? Who cares.
