Happy Thread : Liu xing!

Care to explain the maths on that. Seems like a low number for optimal conditions.

 

If I round correctly it's actually 27%

Calculating Infinity dice rolls when there's no F2F element is pretty easy. Simply figure out your fractions and then multiply them. 15/20 to drop on target, 13/20 they fail the dodge, 11/20 they fail the armour. 15/20 x 13/20 x 11/20 gives you 2145/8000 then just do the division to translate it into percentages in this case 26.8%.

 

Oh you mean for the dodge. It was just the person you quoted talked about both shooting and dodging stats.

If they shooting also reduces to about 42% if you account for having to pass the drop on an Arm 1 target.

 

Oh right, I probably should've specified.

 

Exactly.

The Liu Xing was going to be an HI drop trooper, which we all understood at the time to mean 2W. And more than 2W, it was going to be in the same sectorial as the Tiger, so we were expecting something quite a bit more than a Zuyong with wings. We were hoping for something about as far above a Tiger as the Daofei was above the Guilang. Yeah, that would have been 60pts. So. What? See also Daofei and Hac Tao. It would have been utterly unique and badass and a large statement about how YJ is the expert in making power armor. Not even the Tohaa or EI are making honest-to-Bostria 2W drop troops.

And you know what?

We lost the Tiger soldier from the sectorial, and we didn't even really get a Zuyong with wings. The Liu Xing is 1W+NWI. Yes, that might be better for a drop trooper. But every other drop trooper still gets an unconscious state, and there's nothing really preventing other AD troops from getting NWI.

Some of us have been eagerly awaiting the Invincible Army since literally 2006 when the first book arrived. This was so far from exciting it wasn't even funny. Did not help that YJ had gone thought the Uprising 6 months before this, and it was still a (very) sore subject.

 

I'm curious what exactly you were hoping for. Interesting loadouts, with varied weaponry? Very high stats? Camo+visual mods? Personally I like the Liu Xing as it is now, but I can see where you are coming from about it being a little on the dull side.

 

From the first page of this very thread:

With related discussion about how it needed to not invalidate Tiger Soldiers.

Then that morphed into the possibility of being something bigger and badder, to still leave a niche for Tigers.

Though at some point I caught an idea that IA would not have Tigers, most other people did not agree with me.

Then I was thinking a Zuyong with wings (ie, AD4), Mimetism, Deflector L2, and Automedikit, pricepoint in the 50-60 range.

 

Deflector or Stealth would have been swell for dodging the Hacker problem. The Automedkit on a 2W drop trooper is actually a really cool idea, and one I hope we do see in the future. Think the Mimetism would actually bring something closer to a Tiger-clone then differentiate it, though- it would be a straight upgrade rather then the usual Infinity design of everything past Line Troops having useful, unique and internally balanced capabilities.

I honestly just wanted a MULTI Rifle on a platform that can take a hit, and got it. That weapon is really good if you can get it into its good range bands, and has tempted me to grab a Daofei for a long time.

 

Small point, Stealth is incompatible with AD, so wouldn't have made any difference during landing.

Not blowing up on enemy markers is the true gut punch, IMO.

 

Reminds me, is there any clue out there as to whether a Camo or Impersonator troop decloaking to ARO will or will not take the hit?

Didn't know Stealth was incompatible with the AD order, but honestly am not too concerned; the enemy deserve a chance after all. Just one chance...

 

Stealth would have been very useful to not get eaten alive in repeater nets after you landed.

 

AD isn't a Short Movement Skill or Cautious Move ;)

No, we don't know what happens if the Marker reveals in ARO. At least, I haven't seen any and the rules are still a complete mystery, all we have is that the Explosion doesn't trigger if there's any friendly or neutral models in AOE or if there's only enemy markers.

 

I am aware of this. My solution during my test game turned out to be "shoot the robots and hope they don't get lucky". Fortunately, MULTI Rifles and Boarding Shotguns have decent single-shot close AROs, so even if the Liu Xing gets bricked by Carbonite (Why do they always default to Carbonite?) it's a danger during the enemy turn. For everything else, there's Fairy Dust and prayer. For sure, Liu Xing will be strongest when paired with a sacrificial Liu Xing Boarding Shotgun or any Tiger to clear the repeaters first. This is the main reason I'm happy they're so unexpectedly cheap, it lets me bring multiple AD troops for when the dice go bad and will be fantastic when paired with a Tiger- Liu Xing to push through DTWs, mines and other dangers that can't be solved with shooting while the Tiger gunfights and clears the infowar game, and both being able to set up a decent defense for reactive turn.

 

Alright. *Walks in after a few weeks working. Peruses the profiles, stats and forum posts.*...... Right.

MY OPINION

I'm liking the Liu Xing. Not really fussed about explode. It was always a red herring. The real meat and gravy is the ARM, BTS and Ws. It's weak enough that i'm not forced to use it. But it's there to force the opponent to consider it. Cause even though it's weak as piss...... All it takes is one roll to go good. That psychological effect is enough for me. Any more powerful and you'd be forced to use it to not waste an ability you would talk yourself into making sure you use so you don't waste an all powerful single use attack. Which would then limit your tactical application of the unit, forcing you to be VERY one dimensional with it's use and targets. Besides my preferred targets at first look, would be isolated mid field units. (More on this later.)

As for the talk about DZ drops. I don't believe this is where the unit will shine. In fact, outside of specific scenarios. Dependent, upon the table, opponent's deployment and composition. I believe the DZ drop to be a lie. As others have stated. Dropping into the DZ, especially on turn one. Will incur massive problems from the opponent's repeater web, and regular DZ defense. So much so that two wounds may not be enough. But i believe it can work on a drop. But depends on the circumstances. However. Dropping into the midfield. Perhaps dropping onto the suppressed camo troop (example) or other mid field units that have worked their way up would be a better target. Assisting the Zencha, Lu Duan or other models yet to be revealed to remove roadblocks to our links to then advance and harass the enemy or do objectives. Besides. Dropping into the midfield, right on an objective to secure it from the opponent's models, or to clear seems a better fit than an assassin. Especially considering the lack of vis mods to help with gun fighting.

This also helps because of the innate toughness of the Liu Xing allows it to be a better candidate to perform "Take and holds." It's better at breaching then the Tiger ever will be. Better equipped to enter objective rooms where mimetism is negligible and DTWs , mine and shotguns exist. This is where you want your tough ARM/ BTS two wound units to be. Better that it can AD4 there for less order expenditure. Bonus points for the Liu Xing having specialist status to do the job after he's pasted the room with his BS or multi. That skirmisher guarding an objective with a mine. Trying to force you to fork your engagement with him. Well, tank the mine and shoot. Can't do that with the Tiger.

The Liu Xing seems geared to operate in those engagements where the Tiger doesn't want to be. And Vise versa.

@ObviousGray . Hopefully you can do something with this.

@Section9 You see. Me personally. I always expected exactly what we got. I knew the thing wouldn't be really high ARM/ BTS for balance reasons. I knew the PH wouldn't be higher than twelve. I expected a crusader brethren that was an actual HI. And that's more or less what we got. I always looked at the crusader back in N2 and thought to myself. (Especially with the HI movement and such back then.) This is CB making a HI but being too scared to actually be a HI. I mean if you remember (which i know you do.) If you look long and hard at the crusader's stat line. And compare it to a regular HI from N2. (And a zuyong.) The crusader with the exception of wounds and PH was a HI stat line. It even ran with standard HI weapons. So I just took the crusader, added a wound. (But NWI is so much better on a drop) and another skill to make it different. Bioimmunity is great cause he doesn't care about non EM mines.

 

Agreed that Explode is a gimmick at best. The threat of the Caskuda in N2 was always an AD TAG (with HFT and multiHMG), not the kaboom on landing. My reaction on seeing the rule on the profile was 'oh, how fluffy. Not really spectacular, but not bad'. I lost my shit about the 1W (and no Tigers!)

The problem with the Liu Xing was that it was in a faction and sectorial that already has Tigers (because a Zuyong is a Tiger that traded Mimetism and AD4 to get a second wound). Remember, up until 2 weeks ago, we 'knew' that the Tiger was part of the Invincible Army, the Tiger's dossier said it was! So the line of thought was 'how do you have a HI drop trooper not be the obviously-better choice than a Tiger?' Tigers are really good AD troops, unarguably among the best and arguably the best AD troops in the game, after all, so the Liu Xing would have to be pretty badass but in a different way than the Tigers.

And the answer we came up with was that it was going to be a lot more capable than a Tiger, and therefore a lot more points, bordering on Hac Tao expensive, even. The Automedikit was an idea to help make the Liu Xing even more resilient as a drop trooper, close to how obnoxiously hard-to-kill the Caskuda was. Automedikit is only 4pts on a Zuyong, so it's also not a stupidly expensive skill. A Shang Ji profile with Automedikit and AD4 is bordering on 50pts.

 

@Section9 Which is fair enough. I'm not trying to sweep aside your grievances with the profile. Merely saying that i thought the Liu Xing would be a sidegrade rather than a upgrade or downgrade over the Tiger. I don't know. Maybe it has to do with all the warmahordes i've been playing all year. But i really like the sidegrade approach to unit design.

 

Small note: do check the Zuyong statline. It's very, very, basic for an HI. The statline is basically exactly a Liu Xing, so what we got was, with a few minor differences, an AD4 Zuyong.

 

Exactly. That's exactly what I was getting at. It had to be a basic. VERY basic HI to become a drop troop. Stats like a crusader and zuyong. Which are the same. So if you want to approach what i said from another point of view. I was expecting a zuyong with a unique skill. So i got exactly what i thought i was theory crafting.

 

I've been mulling this over for a while, and I'm gonna put it out there - I'm not suggesting this as an actual tactic, just an exploration of the merits of drop troops over killer hackers, and vice versa.

So, I've mentioned elsewhere that the new Santiago knight isn't an effective hunter of top quality hackers (not that I'm advocating that it should be!), given a target like an Interventor or Mary Problems. I'm gonna compare the damage the knight could do, vs the damage a Liu Xing could do, as a thought experiment more than anything. I'm treating this on a conditional probability basis; that is, assuming the Liu Xing has made the landing, close enough to land a template.

Assuming Mary uses Lightning against the knight, and Oblivion against the Liu Xing in ARO, which are both good ARO choices, and assuming the Liu Xing can get the template on target. I'm not including Kaleidoscope on Mary, or the knight, but it could easily be another factor.

The knight is facing a -6 MOD with Lightning, and chooses Redrum; that's 2 burst at 7s, facing 1 dice at 11s. Using a simpler opposed roll calculator, the chance of the Santiago succeeding is 30%, Mary is also 30%, and nothing happening 40%.

If Mary is aiming to brick the Liu Xing to stop it in its tracks, then her armour roll passes on a 12, or 40% of the time. So, 60% chance of taking a wound. Of course, in return, she has a free pass at Oblivionating, and will do so at 44% probability of succeeding.

Landing is more of a personal gamble for the Liu Xing, for sure - there's a worse chance that it'll be unscathed at the end. But, for Mary, it's also more of a gamble to tank the hit. The chances that the Liu Xing suffers the ignominy of failing to wound, and being bricked is only 18% tho, and the chances that everything goes your way is 33% (nearly twice as likely)

If the Liu Xing and Mary survive, then in subsequent rounds, unloading Boarding Shotguns into Mary, vs a hacking attack in response, has the odds firmly in favour of the Liu - 70% to about 10% from Mary.

Again, I don't mean to say this is the way to go - full frontal assault with multiple AROs is neither big nor clever... but, the gamble for a trade isn't a forlorn hope, either.