1 W with NWI and ARM 3+ and MOV 4-4 is definitely heavy infantry but it's not what people expected from YJ heavy infantry. Which I suppose is fair but also I think if they cornered themselves into "everything in IA that is not chaff must have 2 W" then it would have been a struggle to balance and make it flexible and interesting at the same time. But that is HI, absolutely. Really the marker of HI is speed and armour, so MI or higher level ARM with LI speed means HI. And yes yes the Yadu, but the Yadu is also a crazy cyborg lhost so it gets to be an exception (with ALEPH's whole deal being unnaturally resilient yet mobile troops, lots of NWI and BS mods and high ARM for the classification etc).
After Third Offensive units that fit that bill will still be predominantly MI with some WB also fitting the bill and a few LI being awfully close to the same. I think it's very safe to say that expecting all roles to be filled with HI is not something most people had on their minds, rather each had their own idea which roles would be HI and which roles could be filled with the mandatory fillers. Instead of making an army with a solid HI core and a few non-HI elements on the side, it seems CB tried to make one containing only HI by way of moving the goal posts of what to expect from HI. The big question now is, of course, why Mobile Brigada, Riot Grrls, Jannissary, and a few others are not also 1W+NWI considering they are manufactured after inferior techniques.
I can see 14-order Combat Groups being a regular thing. Shang Ji Tinbot, Shang Ji Spitfire, Daoying LT2, and Zuyong NCO. This. So much this. Holding the 1W HI until the fluff was available would have been a better choice. As it is, I'm hoping there was actually a gameplay or design reason for why those troops are 1W, and that CB shares that reason. The Yuan-Yuans would like to give you a high-5 with their PH14. Light powered armor, cheaper and less capable for equipping everyone with it, is called the Zuyong. We definitely need to smack CB for attaching costs for abilities to unit classification, not stats.
Yeah, it feels really skeevy when it's obvious CB is exploiting the points system instead of fixing it. It's pretty aggravating for Yu Jing in general since we seem come up on the other side of the price bumps. Our line troops pay the CC tax. We've got no frenzy discounts. Our primary skirmisher pays 7 points for 1 Arm/WIP + MSV 1 over a baseline Zero. Multiple LI 25+ points with no defensive mods. Pretty much the only time we are allowed to get away with the discounts are the Kuang Shi, the attack remotes, and maybe the Wu Ming who sorta dump PH (not as crazy as the Hollowmen) and use cost effective weapons. Rasyats and Ekdromoi clock in at 13. Really there isn't any great barrier to the Liu Xing getting higher PH as far as air dropping precedent goes. CB just chose to put average PH to key off the trademark gimmick.
Quick question: how do we know the points system is a simple linear one? What if it involves a more complicated exponential algorithm (perhaps based on what is already available on a model, or in faction), to account for force multipliers?
I'd like to adress this particular point, as it comes up a lot. I think many people overvalue "baseline" troops. While they're cheap as chips and cost-effective to a certain point, additional stats and equipment do make a difference most of the time. PanO doesn't get a Zero equivalent either, but I wouldn't trade either Crocs or Nagas for them. Guilang isn't as cheap as Zero, but he's certainly more useful.
Guilang is a fantastic troop. The Forward Observer profile is 27pts, that's 8pts over a Zero FO. For that you get a DepRep, MSV1 and higher WIP, all of which are useful. The Zero is a good button pusher and places Mines, the Guilang is a slightly better button pusher (and slightly better at deploying mines in intuitive attack too, don't forget that), but is also a much better midfield camo hunter with his MSV. He also gets DepReps which are very useful if you take the hacking support to make them worthwhile. Basically with the Guilang you're paying to be multi-capable and to be able to give broad support and also be broadly supported by various other troops, and that's not a bad thing. The Guilang isn't a Zero but it's not paying a "tax" to do a Zero's job, it's paying for stuff it does better (if the Zero can even do it at all, their FOs have no DepReps). You might as well say that a Spektr pays a tax over a Zero because it has TO Camo; yes if all you use it for is to move up and push buttons then it is more expensive at the same job, but then, you're not using it effectively, because you have got that superior BS mod etc. Use the Guilang for its intended purpose; a multi-role camo hunter, decoy for Daofei (and Zhencha in future), button pusher, support deployable guy... and suddenly he's making those extra points work. Infinity is not about taking units and complaining when they don't fit into particular cut out shapes of tactical roles, it's about looking at units, seeing what they can do, and adjusting your tactics to get the most out of them. Don't try to fit the Guilang into a pure Zero's role, make your tactics work with what the Guilang can do.
The whole game as we know was made in a setting for Gutiers' RPG. And I personally suspect that at least some of the company were munchkins
Disregard this. Check Yan Huo, Al Fasid or Azrail – LI speed, huh? The marker of HI is an ability to take a wound from any source and continue doing things AND MI or higher level ARM. Only several Ariadnan "HI" are exception and they get Non Hackable trait instead – and still half of them are Dogged, thus also able to inflict friendship and bring high-caliber democracy after the first wound at least for one turn. Well, yes, that means that Unidrones are HI of a sort – dirt cheap lite HI, indeed. Wait o sh~, they are even Hackable O_O Having LHI as line infantry makes clearer why some people say Onix is OP faction
Sun2's Sniper Rifle isn't the problem, it's the weird composition of his skills. Strategos wants Sun to be passive, but the lack of CH: L1+ means Sun2 can't afford to be passive. The high cost and the MSV1 together with the Sniper wants Sun to be active, but being a very obvious LT and costing so much you can't afford to merely be decent at sniping. Basically, Sun should sit down and have a really long talk with Armand and Lunah and change things up a bit. The old Sun2 profile with Marksmanship LX doesn't seem so bad anymore, but more importantly I think Sun2 needs the armour that Zhencha and/or Hulang has, or to have some sort of Holoprojection for self-contained displacement. Wrapping this one back around, a Daoying with a Multi Sniper and Marksmanship LX wouldn't be bad together with LT2 or similar. As long as the sniper profile doesn't get passive LT abilities, like high cost or Strategos, it can be made to do a lot of work. Still, it's going to be very interest -- By the by, with the moving goal posts that are these new lightweight HI, I don't see why 6-4 MOV should remain hard-locked from mortal humans with the correct equipment.
Perhaps I should be more clear. I know and love the Guilang well enough. But I question the severe 7 point cost over something like a Zero. The most grating of which is the ARM 1, which costs around 2-5 points. It's the same reason why the Clipsos comes in at 25 points as an FO. Armor is absurdly costed in this game and is a significant reason why a lot of profiles don't compete. The marginal benefit of +1 Arm is rarely worth the cost you pay. That armor dump discount matters because it means two Zeros/foxtrots can bring another friend for the cost of two Guilang. All the while the Guilang is not all that much more survivable when a template or hungry Samaritan comes a calling. The Guilang is good, but their counterparts are popping EPO. I am pretty sure democracy isn't the right word for TAK.
We don’t. People will claim to know how it works, but the only ones who know for certain are CB. Additionally, there’s the idea that, for their own reasons, there are Skills/Equipment/Weapons/etc. that CB either doesn’t give to certain factions or only very sparingly.
ARM 1 costs, like, 1-2pts, not 2-5pts. CC +1, ARM +1, DepRep, MSV1, WIP +1. If you assume that you're paying 2pts for WIP 14 (and I think it costs 2pts for 13 to 14) and 2pts for MSV1 (because I doubt it is 1pt for MSV1, it could even be 3pts on a camo troop) then you've covered 7pts there. I don't like to break down pts too much, as it's counterproductive, but the Guilang is not paying a lot for ARM 1. Now you might think, "but that he has ARM 1 and CC 14 is costing him 2-3pts, and those are not useful stat boosts!" To which I say, yes, CB obviously plays around with the efficiency of some troops in order to effectively slot them into the faction's internal meta, the army lists you can make, what you will be facing etc. This seems eminently reasonable.
Pretty sure that can sum up the majority of units that have more CC than the regular baseline LI but not enough to actually be worth a damn.
Absolutely, and it's not remotely just a YJ thing, though it is raised mostly as relating to Zhanshi. Kriza Boracs has CC 18, and a CCW. Is he using it? Fuck no. But even for the cost that HMG profile is pretty goddamn efficient, and so the cost is nudged up by that amount so that the price is reasonable for the profile's capability on the battlefield. There isn't really much of a solution for this in a formula based game, because certain combos are just working together better than others (WIP 16, PH 8, E/M Grenades and no specialist skills = super inefficient, WIP 16, PH 8, Jammer and FO = crazy efficient). Be grateful that at least you get a CC bump, most game designers would probably just arbitrarily increase the cost by hand and create an imbalanced and clumsily structure game.
I always got the impression that janissaries, mobile brigada etc. all defined the benchmark for modern HI. All of them are state of the art "mass" production HI. (With the caveat that the definition of mass production scales based on size of the faction). Things like Kriza, and swiss are a little more bleeding edge and haven't become the baseline units yet. The impression I got from the N3 books was that IA made some production shortcuts to be able field a whole HI equipped army. (Haven't read third offensive). On a note things like grrls also rub me as not in mass production in anywhere near the scale. Black Labs always seemed more group of artisans not assembly line product. Also fwiw I am thankful for swasts MA 1 and cc 19, and on occasion not resetful of krizas cc 18.
