It makes me feel bad that you disagree. I thought Liu Xing's pretty neat, since he can ignore one Chain Rifle (which is really nagging when you try a 1-wound Boarding Shotgun flanker), or an unexpected crit. By all means I am not despising mimetism - how can anyone who play infinity could do that - but 1.999 W means a lot when he actually position himself more aggressively. I wouldn't gamble a Tiger by extending his attack routes, but Liu Xing - well, I'll try a boarding shotgun option for good reasons. I think Tigers' are more like an out-fighter boxer, trying to avoid optimal range for enemies and mod-soaking play. Liu Xing's an infighter - screw on those templates, because this guy will throw a triple burst Shock ammo into their face. Did I mentioned about Explode Lx? Course not, because we can deliver an Multi Rifle with 30-pts price. P.S) Don't get this as an offence - Judging from your past threads, I feel your opinions about Yu Jing gameplay is pretty similar to me, but I did wanted to say something about Liu Xing.
Ha. Give Shooting Stars super jump and make Explode X disposable and let em hopscotch around on explosions. Then you'd be in a radical design space.
Everyone needs to be an out-fighter in Infinity, though. HI can tank an unexpected crit or just a stroke of bad luck, but very few HI can afford to be blasé about their positioning and waltz into fire. The Hac Tao/Swiss Guard are about the best at it, due to high ARM and Mods; ARM3 without Mods does not make a good infighter. I'll bring up the Shikami again (a unit we lost for "design space" bullshit reasons) because it's a good infighter example: it's got ODD for a base -6, it can bring Nimbus Grenades to make itself a nuisance to bring down with a further -3 and -1B, useful on both Active and Reactive turns; it's got Kinematika L2, Super Jump and Climbing Plus to really fuck with enemy positioning; and then great CC stats/skills (CC23, MA3, Dual Wield (AP/DA)) along with that mobility and Mod-stacking and ARM3/2W makes it a good infighter. If ARM3 2W makes a model a good infighter, then about a third of all models are good infighters. Simply, a unit that deliberately does not minimise its retaliation odds is either doing it for a specific reason (eg, desperation or to remove a specific threat that has to go) or is in a bad place due to enemy movement. The Liu Xing doesn't bring anything with it other than ELX that makes it a particularly useful infighter - and ELX is, presumably, a one-use only ability, which is worse because it can't even sustain that level of infighter threat. So I can understand where you're coming from, but I feel like the Liu Xing severely lacks the tools necessary to do what you think it's capable of. If it had Mimetism, or ARM5, or a -20 Mod, maybe yeah. No worries, no offence taken, and hopefully none given! :)
I'm quite excited to try this variant on a drop heavy list that I've had fun with before Reign v4 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 4 Liu Xing Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32) CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) ZHANSHI Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GROUP 2 5 2 2 ZHANSHI (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12) ZHANSHI Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19) BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 21) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) TIGER SOLDIER Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) TIGER SOLDIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
You might want to switch the Zhanshi Lt and the FO over, maybe? Give the FO the larger order pool and keep the smaller one for the Hacker? Alternatively, maybe switch out the Tiger Spitfire for some more orders in the second group? That way you'd be able to drop in both AD troopers with enough orders to go on a dual rampage! :P
Yeh I thought about switching him down to a normal zhanshi for Lt hiding as well. But generally the minor tweaks happen once I know the mission. This is more of an ' archetype' for a list. I know 2 drop troops with orderso behind them are pretty effective. But I'm curious how this will go based on the suciadal nature of the Liu xing. In my experience I've also found the drop needs a bit of sweeping before hand. So I actually thought I might switch the Yan huo into group 2, but 3 regular orders might be a bit tight even for that.
You have quite a lot of active presence with the three AD troopers, maybe switch the HMC for the Neuro 2xML? Gives you a nastier ARO presence, and your opponents will probably know that you have something beefy in reserve with the 93pts off the table: might be a Hac Tao HMG/KHD with a Ninja buddy; could be some AD and a Ninja; maybe the Camo Marker you have is a Daofei, etc. So having the ML Yan Huo anchor might be useful, as it's less likely to gobble up the orders? For sweeping the drop zone, that might be the purpose for the Liu Xing? Drop it on top of a relatively weak position, sweep forward a little bit and then drop the Tigers in better positions? The BS Liu Xing doesn't want to have a long range firefight, so let it drop in to close confines (assuming ITS 10 AD) and clear stuff out? Would be more flexible than the Yan Huo (ie, isn't restricted to what the Yan Huo can see/move to see) but risky based on the AD roll (though you do have Controlled Jump for helping that).
I had a talk with local Ariadna player, and he was hardly joking that he won't like playing Firefight with Yu Jing even more. Tiger Soldiers were bane, still they were vulnerable for savvy DTWs or light shotgun crit - which seldomly occur and thwart our sweeping attacks. Liu Xing, still, can give out a massive middle finger to those feeble gun and goomba the heck out Ariadna's viable Lt. If luckily he survive, next time he'll get punched by [Insert weapon name here]. I love having a joker in my hand. Eager to goomba an Apsaras..;)
The Liu Xing and Tiger seem to complement each other perfectly; the Tiger can take advantage of the smallest gap in DZ protection and gunfight their way through the backline while the Liu Xing can safely land almost anywhere, making a hole as he does. Liu Xing Boarding Shotgun or MULTI Rifle backed up by a Tiger Spitfire with a fairly sized order pool should terrify anyone without a very resilient DZ. Only close-up DTWs or Hidden Deployment shenanigans could reliably stop that combination, and it might lead to HI actually being used defensively every now and then for the extra wound against the Liu Xing's entrance.
On the one hand they're expected to be one of the better targets to drop into assuming your opponent actually brought a full complement of puppets, on the other hand it's dropping into Nomads and all the horrible high WIP hackers that entails and your drop on target just got a whole lot less sure, and even if you land on target and kill the puppet master good luck doing anything else without having your brains hacked out because repeater coverage in DZs is a thing. If you were 100% insisting on dropping into a hacker heavy army you'd be best served by trying to eliminate a hacker by dropping on them given that as we've discovered, they can't dodge when you drop they gotta hack the aircraft.
Nomadians will bring moar hackers, but if they expose their precious puppet master.. Goomba welcomed.
Drop one on the Hacker, too. There's a reason IA can field almost as many Liu Xings as Zuyongs. Bear in mind that even the threat of a Liu Xing dropping out of orbit onto them could keep many pricy HD+ users, especially Lieutenants, from ever breaking Cybermask to ARO, so the 36-point investment could go a very long way if kept in reserve for most of the match by just pressuring high-tech hacking lists into not doing their jobs.
I've long since learned that I'm not very good trying to play yu jing as an ARO force. A bounty hunter (and a tweaked list with a warcor) plus the risk of kuang shi tend to be all I need to slow the enemy down. Its a very active turn style force, intended for direct action operations where the aim of the game is as long as you're trading up, and fighting in your opponents DZ, the game will be won. But time on the table is the best way to tweak. You might be right and I need to reinvest in more ARO. I don't think the liu xing works as a sweeper, and he's certainly not set up to contend with ARO units with decent range presence. The hope is, the threat of a Rui Shi will either leave openings for my AD, or the HRMC will clear them out. I've played the list previously a couple of times and a big weakness was quality ARO pieces which locked down potential avenues for AD attack, and then also locked down my DZ forces. Whereas forces which want to push my DZ will get punished from behind, or in front, or from the sides. I see the liu xing as an agent of chaos. His blast will adjust deployment to be less optimised, and his attack will present a credible threat that will require re-orientating. At this point is when the tigers fall and do the real dirty. or if it needs be, a rui shi just does what a rui shi does.
It's not a bad unit. Really. I remember all the salt about Liu Xing, ranting over about him not being a full 2W fatboi. Utterly not even trying to look upon and research the actual unit. Good to see you guys keep up the constructive debates. Share some experiences will you people, so I can have some fun when I actually field these pseudo-fatboi. :))
I have a game tonight, I'll try and persuade my opponent to let me bring Liu Xings with the old Caskuda Explosion rule, as it's the closest we have to an official ruling. Is there anything the people of the forum would like me to try with them? I've mostly seen them as taking up a modified version of the Oniwaban's responsibilities, making holes and threatening key models with the mere threat of a template where they do not need a template, but I have seen a few alternative views around here.
The verdict is still out on whether he's shit or not, it's just at an impasse because nobody can make a final call due to nobody knows how explosion LX works.
this topic pops out my evil and mean side. Invincible is gonna be soooooooooo FUN!!! I even feel so dirty!
You mean landing on the Puppetmaster and taking out the puppets as collateral damage? ~61|2 dead in a single order? I'd be surprised if any savvy Nomad let that happen, but when you get it to work it will be glorious.
