Well. It's really meta dependant. My experiance is that most of the time repeater range covers almost entire deployment zone.
Yeah, you'd have a hell of a time dropping onto most of the tables around my way. Far too many Sensor/Sniffer/Combat/Minsweeper or EVO Remotes kicking around. That's one of my biggest worries with the potential for the unit.
Not even in N2, too risky for the only AD in the entire Imperial SS. My big worry is that with a single basic Fusilier-equivalent hacker, one repeaterbot, and one 8pt baggagebot, you have the entire Deployment Zone covered in Hacking Area. Total investment of about 35pts, that you're honestly likely to be taking anyway. I can understand why Explode LX is not as powerful as an actual grenade or whatever. It's not actually an explosion, it's all the debris and stuff getting kicked around by the retro-rockets so that the Liu Xing doesn't leave an impact crater. But still. It's a bit... disappointing that it's reduced power like that.
Hacking Area can be dangerous, but a Liu Xing only has to weather it for long enough to get the job done- assuming you haven't got a way of just killing the repeaters with your excess of guns. With Fairy Dust active, I'd take a chance on Normal Rolls against a Fusilier Hacker for the two orders it would take to kill it. If that's the enemy's only Hacker, I have denied them supportware, classifieds and their investment in repeaters, which is a good trade for me. Explode LX is still only 5% worse than a LGL, and this is still the absurdly swingy game of Infinity. Explode will be strongest when used to force bad decisions, like most anything else in the game. I can see it being an absolute menace to links with Hackers by dropping on a non-Hacker, valuable member like a HMG gunner. They can either Hack and try to prevent a rampage, or Dodge and double the chance of saving a useful piece.
Alright, so the Liu Xing is definitely a wash at this point. I mean, the reveal of a damage 12 explosion wasn't really a deal breaker. It was already kind of crap when we assumed it was damage 13 and shock. Hell, I dare say it could damage 14 and DA and the unit still wouldn't really be in a good spot. The problem with it was never really about Explosion LX, it was about inconsistency. Utilizing the points spent on Explosion LX is too risky most of the time, but using Airborne Infiltration instead completely wastes what is otherwise a one-shot ability (and even if it's cheap, any kind of inefficiency in the cost overhead of a model will be felt keenly in a list with so many top heavy units). So sure, we get a unit with some backfield risk (assuming we take an EVO so it possibly hits, manage to avoid the hacking attempt on a transport, have a clean target that wont immediately kill the Xiu Ling, and then avoid any hacking zones... and then actually succeed in the landing and then actually kill our target) but it is so inconsistent in its ability to provide that kind of threat that eventually even the threat of it being in our list won't really have an effect (let alone that most of the best practices to defend against it work on general AD troops just as well). The Liu Xing feels like a pulled punch. I just don't see a point in it. Tiger Soldiers in IA (as originally planned) would have been better. The Zencha? I will admit that the SMG one is at least good enough to see the field, but it is telling that only that loadout is worth a damn. It still feels like a weaker copy of an Aleph unit and the decision to make it an HI profile only hinders it further. The Mowang is better than I expected. Tough enough to me a borderline TAG, visual mods, good weapon access. I know I say we don't need anymore beat sticks, and I stick by that, but the Mowang is a beat stick that I can see getting some use in my lists. I was kind of expecting something underwhelming, but I am quite whelmed by the Mowang. Haidao as Wildcards sounds fun. We'll still need to see the profile, but a specialist profile that can link, is beefy, and good in combat will never go out of style for the right cost. Shang Ji still need a redesign stat-wise, but with Wildcard and Tactical Sense I can definitely see a load of uses for them depending on what the final unit looks like. My vague hope here is something generally in the Crane-range as far as gimmicks go. Something with a bit of spice to act as a head of a fireteam, or to be a solo utility unit. MULTI HMG Yan Huo in a fireteam will be nice depending on what the special fire team there looks like. Might be a bit too pricey to field, but then the Yan Huo are kind of lackluster in general (especially with the Mowang coming along). Kind of hope we see a small rework on them to make them something more than a big gun platform, since Infinity firefights rely more on gimmicks than they do on merely good shooting stats. Daoying sound interesting and I kind of hope Yu Jing finally gets the dedicated command unit they've been waiting for for a while. My guess is Lt2 will be here, but part of me is hoping for a dedicated backline CoC as well (and either tougher than a Crane, or more price conscious). I really like the sound of NCO, and I'm really hoping that a special character isn't the only source of it (not that I mind actually having a named character that is neither a SpecOps release or a recreation). In general, I'm a fan of the action economy things they're trying out and it will be interesting to see how that all works out. Though with that said, stuff like this does underline what I dislike about rolling releases. CB seem to have come up with a few good solutions for the "elite" unit problem Infinity is suffering, and despite a lot of elite armies currently existing, it will be years before any of them see basic tricks like NCO and Tactical Sense brought their way. But as tricks, they're so generic that they don't feel like they should be Yu Jing toys (just like Haris never felt like it should be Haqq exclusive). I don't think I'm quite hyped, but I feel optimistic enough to give Army a perusal when the lists drop and I might actually get a few games in to see how things are. But there are still too many unknowns for me to get my hopes up, and the only things we know for sure have still been kind of disappointing. For the amount of time I've been anticipating this release, I really wish I could muster more enthusiasm, but I'd hate to just get let down again. Either way, the podcast info was appreciated and does have a few intriguing tidbits that might end up being interesting. We'll have to wait and see.
Welp, at least the podcast did a good job. Wait and see became a rational attitude.. That's huge. It means there can be some expectations worth giving. WAY better than before. :)
None of the art for the Yu Jing's drop gear shows any kind of retro rocket being used. Do you have any fluff evidence that their triangle backpacks actually use high powered rockets?
Just basic physics, and earlier statements that artificial gravity tech is obscenely expensive and/or less reliable (and therefore not what you want to use in a disposable troop like AD3+). Not to mention the description of how the skills work in the rulebook. There are also rocket nozzles inside the airbrakes of the new Tiger backpack (and Rasyat pack), plus that spoiled picture of a 3d print. There's quite a fun description of an orbital drop insertion in Jay Posey's SUNGRAZER, in addition to the famous one at the start of Starship Troopers. I've also read a third description of combat drops on the Eldraeverse.com (but those involve accelerating down right on the hairy edge of burning up in the drop shuttle to get out of the engagement range ASAP, a 'suicide burn' at minimum altitude, followed by lithobraking so hard most dropships are not re-usable).
I don't understand CB's approach to the new releases, regarding Third Offensive. invincible Army got announced as a "surprise" release but I must admit that the "hype" being built up by CB have been utterly shit. Especially now that the new leaks have revealed PanO gets CoC, a rework on several Knights for something that's not even a new army/sectorial but the hype they've build up around MO is insane (and good for them) but holy crap how tone deaf are CB at this point? Are they unable to see how many worrisome aspects there're with IA at this point? Why has the only "leak" beyond the Shooting Star and Zencha been something that's been dragged out of @HellLois on a forum, while the other armies have been getting rule leaks and previews after previews on either facebook or podcasts? Honestly, at this point there's really nothing that makes me wanna' pick up the upcoming IA and I'm just interested in how this will affect vanilla, if at all (which the current leaks haven't suggested so far). My main point in with this rant is that the order of "hype" and new info amongst the armies are far from equal, compared to the rest and this is pretty shitty considering how long and anticipated army IA is.
We knew about that already, what was clarified was if it was dodgeable or not and what type of damage it was. Which turned out to be terrible.
