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First impressions of the Liu Xing on the table.

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Alphz, Feb 12, 2019.

  1. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Well, he came in with a bang and I'm sure we all remember how derided this particular profile was.

    I've played about 7 games on the trot in the lead up to and during a recent small tournament we had and so feel a bit better about sharing what I thought worked and what didn't. Obvious caveat that my thoughts will be influenced by the particular match ups, my dice on the day and the missions.

    The missions, which of course a huge variable in profile usability were, note red classifieds were used for this event!

    Acquisition
    Highly classified (red)
    Frostbyte

    I was playing vanilla and ended up with a multi-rifle spec. Op. Liu xing in both lists.

    Particularly for highly classified, the Liu xing brought the tools to achieve a dizzying amount of the cards. For those unfamiliar, several of the classifieds for veterans and heavy infantry get pushed to being in your opponents DZ, as well as a number of other classifieds, achievable only in the dz.

    In 2/3 of the highly classified games, of the 5 classified the Liu xing could pick up 3-4. This was massive and in both games made picking up all 5 classifieds almost easy. No mean feat for the red deck - this left the rest of my force to focus on one or two classified or to disrupt my opponent, which was quite a large advantage.

    For the other missions, the Liu xing acted as a hail Mary, and decisively during the tournament this was highly effective. I'll talk about the jumps more later.
    Mission 1: acquisition vs an avatar list. A strong speculo attack early left me on the back foot. The avatar and his entourage moved up ready to take the objective and used a classic midfield suppression move. The Liu xing dropped in the back, on top of doctor worm who was left with no good choices so opted to dodge. He survived only to get mowed with multi fire.
    I started putting the ap rounds to work and killed another 2 models and wounded the avatar, who he opted to turn around rather than let me just keep hosing him. This allowed a Shaolin to get into cc and the Liu xing went into suppression, locking down the rest of his forces and preventing him from winning.
    A BS 2w rifle in the backfield was super effective. In this instance a tiger would have needed to find a safer landing point and spend precious orders getting to where the Liu xing started. Instead I could use those orders killing. The multi rifle pushing

    In most of my lists, I brought the hacker for assisted jump. This was huge and 2 of my 5 jumps would have been fails without it. I failed 1/5 jumps, which is about right.
     
  2. Weathercock

    Weathercock Well-Known Member

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    1/5 failure rate on the drop is actually pretty lucky. You're looking at 1/4 with hacking support (the necessity of this should be factored into the relative cost of the Liu Xing) if it's uncontested, and around 1/3rd if the opponent tries to intercede. That's just too unreliable for me on a unit that has to drop in and costs as much as he does. And Damage 12 is unimpressive considering the work required to land it.

    I've only ran the Liu Xing once, and it failed its jump, but that failed jump was enough for me to write the poor thing off. You just have to sink so many eggs into one basket that offers very little value in contingency.
     
  3. Mc_Clane

    Mc_Clane Zhànzhēng bùzhǎng
    Warcor

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    I found that with Liuxing you need to be conservative in witch point you want to land.
    • Don't be mean, use an EVO or assisted Jump always
    • Avoid repeater zones
    • Fireteam members are out of the question since they'll shoot you twice even jumping on their back.
    • Jump in the back of the enemy is a must in order to avoid unopposed engage actions.
    • Primary targets should be low PH troopers, better if they're bikes or remotes. Enemy hackers (killer, evo, or a regular hacker if your're not using the AHD profile) are a nice choice too.
    • If you're using a BS profile, use the enemy siluetes to cover your siluete entirely in order to give secondary targets a -3 to dodging
    • Exploit the fact that the enemy trooper can't use alarm if it reacts to your jump (or the rest of your actions. Is either react or auto-facing with alarm at the end of the order sequence)
    • Exploit the fact that the enemy can't use guts to face or move if they can't improve their cover
    • Exploit the facing towards the Liuxing to attack form a frontal vector, from your deployment or mid table, gaining the enemy's back.
    • Cripple a bit the enemy orderpool and then stick as a reactive piece inside the enemy side.
    If you follow all of that steps The liuxing will be a powerful tool to take most of the troublesome pieces of your enemy. I've dealt with ML noctifers, TR bots, doctors and hackers.

    It's also super useful in a lot of specific games. Highly classified, Hunting party, rescue, frostbyte,... It's profile is quite basic to make it affordable and not a center piece of the army. I just miss a slightly higher CC attribute to make use of those D-Charges or give some protection against CC troops

    You should run it more times. Nowadays It's pretty common to face against opponents that doesn't include regular hackers or that just include one. If the second is the case just fall on top of that hacker. even on it's face to make dodging more appealing instead of Hacking aerial transports.

    The worst case scenario may be an enemy full of repeaters and some Assault hackers or to drop close to a jammer. Isolated is no joke for a liuxing

    but nothing forces you to fall on the 1st turn. on the second or third is more easy to fall. the enemy network is less compressed, you can take care of some menaces, and Liuxing will have more enemy's on their back. Plus it'll be useful to take quadrants or zones from your enemy on those types of mission

    And of course, if you want to reasure, you can always enter from a border. The Explode Lx costs just 1 miserable point, not such a waste in my opinion.
     
    #3 Mc_Clane, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
  4. ObviousGray

    ObviousGray Frenzied Mushroom

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    Good write-ups. For me I often find it more successful to just land on AD 2, with a similar feeling of not risking an Infiltration roll.

    Still, the SO option on Liu Xing does come in handy; a steal for Highly classified which we were pretty bad at.


    P.S) How did you dealt with repeater problems?
     
    #4 ObviousGray, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
  5. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    No, your opponent just doesn't know how to cover his backfield or what the engage rule is. You dropped in LOF, so the Med-Tech should've declared Engage. At which point the Liu Xing vs Med Tech in CC turns into a 30-18% slapfest of stupid rolls and you need to spend like 3 or more orders just trying to get out of it.

    If you dropped out of LOF.... then the Tiger could've dropped in that position as well.

    This is putting aside the Avatar list sounds either poorly built or he placed his repeaters awfully. Avatar should bring a HD+ with him for White Noise to offset his main counter which is MSV2.


    I assume we're talking about reacting to the Explosion here. Keep in mind they can react by opting to fail a guts check to get out of a danger zone (your explosion) and can use that to turn around.


    Because this is actually completely wrong. Bolded the relevant part.

    "If the troop fails its Guts Roll, it must go Prone or move up to 2 inches in order to abandon the danger zone, gain Cover, or improve its Cover against the attack."


    This is the one area I think he's got value in, however, I'm not yet convinced that bringing the Liu Xing over using Zencha to do the job is actually worth it given the Zencha can get into a DZ that has repeater coverage and the Liu Xing can't.
     
    #5 Triumph, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
  6. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    1/5 is above average for hacker support. So lucky yes. Particularly that it worked when I needed it to. But I don't really agree with how much youre trying to emphasise that luck. Everything in Infinity is a probability, and often 75% is in the upper echelons of the curve. Of course, the cost of failing can be much higher.

    LoL I was waiting for you to come preaching that perfect game.
    He went with a normal dodge as the template only clipped him, you know how it's 2.5" which is longer than the average engage?

    He had extra cover on the landing, but the cover died to a Rambo hac tao Lt.

    Can you fit an hd+, speculo and specialists in one avatar list?
     
  7. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Yeah strong hacker presence can sometimes force the AD2 and I did in a couple games. This is where I find the multi better than the bsg as the good range bands reach a bit further.

    Generally repeaters were not a problem for a number of reasons

    1. Repeaters but no assualt hackers. Killer hackers are quite common and so people will forego hackers unless they have a specific use for them.

    2. Hackers or repeaters dead Normally I was going for a turn 2 or 3 drop and my lists included several attack vectors. The missions generally meant hackers need to advance which exposed then to death.

    3. Maybe we dont play on super dense tables but avoiding hackers was ok if you abandoned cover. Which I did a lot with the Liu xing as he can afford the odd lost ftf, and it makes your own attacks more lethal if you're denying the enemy cover as well. Giving more orders to Rambo.
     
    #7 Alphz, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
    A Mão Esquerda and ObviousGray like this.
  8. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    The template is actually slightly smaller than 2.5" it's not a 40k 5" template I've found this out the hard way that its actual dimensions are 120mm, 5" is 127mm. Including the fact that your 25mm base takes 12.5mm of the real estate in each direction the distance from your base to the edge of the template is 47.5mm.

    2" is 50.8mm therefore if you clip them with the explosion they will always be in range for Engage. If you can't make this work your measuring devices are off (make sure the 40k player isn't recycling his blast templates also apparently the icestorm cardboard template is the wrong size) or the template isn't centered properly over the Liu Xing's landing zone.

    I found this out due to Kuang Shi explosion, even at point blank range it's possible for people to clear the danger zone.

    As for can you fit all that in the one list? Most definitely. You could build an Avatar list to handle Frostbyte and Acquisition like that. It also starts with 6 repeaters on the table, and this isn't to netdeck your Liu Xing it's so the Avatar has a tonne of spread for White Noise.


    Combined Army
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]10
    AVATAR Lieutenant (Strategos L3) MULTI HMG, Sepsitor Plus / DA CCW. (3.5 | 137)
    [​IMG] STALDRON Flash Pulse / Knife. (0 | 0)
    UMBRA LEGATE Hacker (Hacking Device Plus) Boarding Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 43)
    Bit Hacker (UPGRADE: Expel) Submachine Gun + Pitcher, Deployable Repeater + KISS! / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
    [​IMG] KISS! Adhesive Launcher / Electric Pulse. (- | 4)
    MED-TECH OBSIDON MEDCHANOID Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
    SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    SPECULO KILLER Boarding Shotgun, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CCW, Knife. (1 | 34)
    IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
    IKADRON (Baggage, Repeater) 2 Light Flamethrowers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
    ÍMETRON . (0 | 4)
    R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
    R-DRONE Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
    SLAVE DRONE Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

    5.5 SWC | 300 Points


    The lighter your tables are on terrain the less problematic repeaters are due to less places to put them. It also creates far few places to hide models in general and increases the risk of a conga line occuring. I am interested in seeing what your tables look like.


    If it's shootable at range by an HMG it's not backfield cover.
     
    #8 Triumph, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
  9. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Wow, yeah that avatar list would have been garbage on the table and with my list. But I think that just demonstrates that there are a lot of variables at play here and we could argue till the cows come home about little details.

    Good to know that engage is always viable though, we were definitely were channeling the bigger 40k templates when we did the quick math and decided he probably wouldn't be in.

    I can try scrounge up some photos of the tournament tables for posterity.

    Thats a really broad throw away comment. By turn 2 and 3 a lot about the table state changes in a close game, I can't even fathom how you think this is applicable as criticism.

    Avatar has to move up to contest the objective. He needs to cover the avatar to prevent it being sponged by a 5 pt shaolin. In a 10 man list, thats the backfield having to move up at least a little to cover the midfield.
    Hactao moves into the midfield in 1.5 orders.
     
    AdmiralJCJF likes this.
  10. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    If your opponent don't deploy his trooper in prone state, he must be a rookie. If you land him the second round it would perhaps be possibel
     
  11. ObviousGray

    ObviousGray Frenzied Mushroom

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    Or we could try 'Billiards' by shooting optimal unconscious person next to our victim, making FtF roll at +6 modifiers.

    So we can hit 16.5 inches' head with template, riight?
     
  12. Ben Kenobi

    Ben Kenobi Well-Known Member

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    What has this to do with my statement?
     
  13. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Because Acquisition is a slow mission. You don't need to shove anybody out of zones early, all the scoring is done at the last moment and the majority of the points can be gained off only a couple of objectives that requires minimal button pushing order expenditure. Datatracker with Xenotech moving onto the objective in the final turn is 6pts alone.

    Most of Acquisition is skirmishing from a safe distance, picking off targets, and draining your opponent's order pool.

    Additionally by your account it wasn't a close game, you were well behind before attacking with the Liu Xing due to the Speculo causing havoc. The CA player has even less reason to move into positions that expose himself and let you back into the game.


    Yeah I saw one of those bad conga line hits recently. Poor guy lined up an entire Druze link team and a camo marker in a dead straight line behind a building. Instead of defending themselves with bullets they all had to take dodges.

    Speculo killed all 6 models in one order. Would've been entirely different if they'd been prone and could shoot back.
     
    #13 Triumph, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
  14. ObviousGray

    ObviousGray Frenzied Mushroom

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    So we can punish prone party with another shotgun play? NVM, sry if it overstepped.
     
  15. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    You mean mixed prone? If they're all prone, the BSG enemy can simply go prone before rounding the corner and gain total cover as if everyone was standing up.
     
  16. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Wait what?
     
  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Read up.

    Obvious Gray: "With Boarding Shotgun use main target to force secondary targets to dodge poorly"
    Ben Kenobi: "If you deploy prone LOF won't be as much of an issue"
    Me: "If you deploy everything prone, all your enemy need to do is also be prone and you'll be back to square one"
     
  18. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Oh right, I misread that and thought you were saying they could all get partial cover mods for being prone.
     
  19. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    But now we're starting to sail into theoretical hypothetical territory.

    Yes, acquisition involves just waking onto the objective turn 3. But your opponent knows this and will try to prevent it. Even having a warcor prone behind the objective prevents the avatar from scoring.

    Maybe you've misread my slightly less serious tone as I was defeated and only the Liu xing saved it for me. Sorry, I meant it as he had the upper hand and my use of the Liu xing turned it around. Had he bunkered down, I probably would have run something into cc with him or just stripped the order pool.

    Also you can't score the data tracker bonus and the xenotech one.
     
  20. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Nothing short really of a bunch of E/M DTWs is going to keep the Avatar away from the objective. It's within two move+shoot orders of your DZ it's not that far. That Warcor is going to last about 5 seconds once the Avatar walks over to the Objective then blows it away.

    Essentially you skirmish for 2 turns, then turn 3 move onto the objective and actually lock it down with SF mode. You move up any earlier you're just asking to get jumped from behind by things like in your example, the Liu Xing (then the Monk). There's no need to advance your planned control piece. You want to just focus on killing models trying to move up, keep one antenna clear if you can and reducing the order pool so in the final turn you can make a move and reduce your opponent's ability to shove you off the Tech Coffin in the final turn.

    That's if you're player 1. If you're player 2 you're trying to assassinate the tougher models your opponent is planning to try and leave on the coffin on the top of turn 3, or maintain enough firepower (if you have the appropriate weaponry like a hidden oniwaban) that can deal with the expected model attempting to control the coffin on turn 3. You don't want to be putting models on the objective on the bottom of turn 2 as player 2. Your opponent is already planning to move there, there's no reason to give him value in getting to shoot up some kills while he goes there or in the case of the avatar, straight up steal them and add them to his army.



    I don't recall there being a ruling on that. Can you link it?
     
    #20 Triumph, Feb 13, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2019
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