@Triumph The only thing a hacker (HD, HD+, EVO) can do against the Liu Xing as he comes in is Hack Transport. Unless they have Sixth Sense. A hacker must announce what the ARO is when you declare Airborne Deployment. After that he can do whatever he wants to hack him. Sixth Sense can allow the hacker to delay the hack for your final position. Otherwise they can’t do anything. You can land right next to a hacker that declares Hack Transport as an ARO.
It's in the mission's description As for the Liu Xing, all theoretical analysis and nitpicking put aside, there is only one truth: the exploding jump is an unreliable gimmick, albeit a powerful one. It has a lot of similitude with the late oniwaban (sometimes i can still hear him, as if he was still alive somewhere) when it comes to deployement option: If you always go for the superior infiltration, well, it's really nice when it works isn't it? But the day he'll let you down and fails his roll you'll be disappointed, and if you're unlucky you'll be disappointed a lot! So it's usually wiser to consider a safer approach with regular infiltration, and only go for the superior one if the game's plan demands it, or if you have a really, really good opportunity. It's exactly the same thing with the liu xing, except you don't have to make the choice during deployement and can decide how to procede according to the situation. You really shouldn't drop the Liu Xing unless you don't have a choice. It's a desperate move, not your go-to option. That's the reason why i love the specialist multi rifle profile so much. He doesn't need to drop on your opponent's face to get the job done, he can just walk on the side and get to buisness much more easily than a boarding shotgun, and even score objectives while he is there. Even if you try the superhero landing, fail, and scatter out of the table, it's still specialist HI with a multi-rifle who can be used for a mad rush to the objectives if the needs arise.
Yes. I meant if they land in the ZoC of the hacker with Sixth Sense. This includes repeater range. I also want to add that the Liu Xing is much better in Vanilla instead of Sectoral. There's just much more the rest of the force can do to support him.
They hack you on the subsequent attempts to move and fight (or if you walk onto the table, your attempts to walk into their DZ). So in the previous example given, while the Liu Xing is trying to shoot Doctor Worm he's getting his brains hacked out. Yes and get punked by whatever your opponent put near his hacker to guard it. We are assuming the opponent isn't retarded and lets you goomba stomp whatever you feel like. Hack Transport ARO occurs before the Liu Xing is on the table, it's out of ZoC. I think that's an extremely overly generous statement given that we've done the maths on explosion to death and shown that it's actually pathetic and struggles to hurt even the weakest targets.
True that's assuming you did land in the area. Hopefully you didn't. You are assuming that thing isn't already taken care of before hand, or someone is stupid enough to land with that there. Though I've gambled on it on it and won at least once with that. He took a wound, went into NWI and kept on kiling! A hacker with sixth sense can wait to see if it lands in his ZoC and do something else. Otherwise all other hackers are obligated to do Hack Transport or do nothing as an ARO. If you happen to know they don't have Sixth Sense or any assault hackers, it's great to land right next to remotes in the back.
Regardless of how someone theorises games should goes. Infinity is a game when things rarely go to plan. The Liu xing worked for me and I can recommend the multi is worth a try. Maybe I was lucky, but more practice will tell me. As @Sedral points out, explode is one skill in the tool box and you should only use it when appropriate. You don't necessarily need to use every single skill a model has in every game for it to be a valuable piece. The bsg Liu xing I think leans into explode needing to be necessary. In playing I found explode to be a good landing skill, the risk of engage makes it a bit more of a challenging proposition. But, it gives you the opportunity for risky landings which allow the piece to be disruptive. That said the multi special op is a good choice for certain missions with objectives. I think my next run will be on area control missions to see if there is much value there.
I played about 10 missions with the Liu Xing so far and when it does land (on 15), it was very order efficient in clearing the enemy backfield of repeater bots and cheap orders that were easy to reach because they cannot go prone. I learned my lesson after I was engaged by baggage bots (these things tend to do their engage checks well). With the missing visual modification grenades in IA, the Liu is, imho, a nice to have tool and sometimes simply our only option. As always, this depends on enemy faction, terrain layout and mission.
On my side, I read a lot on this forums about the Liu Xing. I love the concept (I both love HIs, Combat Jumps and explosives so...). I love it so much that anything anyone could say to prove my shooting star is meh-profile at best was read carefully but never really trusted. Once I had the occasion, I gave it a few tries. And I must say it shined - but let's be clear it was optimal conditions: - No hacker beside KHD (and I used the BSG profile) - After a few ARO-pieces cleaning thanks to a Zuyong HMG haris team, I had one good landing spot - I landed safely, in the back of a sniper, killing him in the process - I proceeded to clean an almost full 5-men MO link (Jeanne d'Arc was left untouched, I'm not a brute), taking them one by one thanks/because of terrain and a couple of lucky rolls It took most of my orders to complete, but removing more than a half of the enemy points and almost all of his firepower in a single turn was a hell of a ROI. I'm lucid here: ideal conditions and blinding love for the model/concept are the main reasons of my state of mind regarding the Liu Xing. Nevertheless, just be assured that it will be missing in my lists from times to times just so that my opponents can't be sure fire-spitting-hurling-metal won't rain on each game. Sorry for you guys who think ExploGuy is bad; you're just not good enough at rolling dice! ;P
Just as a note for that Avatar list discussion earlier: you don’t need a HD+, Ker’nau has white noise on his KHD. I look forward to trying the LX, but I chose to not get it from the starter since I don’t think I’ll be using the AHD version
Also, whoever uses Engage as an argument against using Explode LX, remember that to use Engage the model needs LoF to the Liu xing
Yes! It's a good thing to do but like @smog said you need to have LoF to do. A smart player will try to get behind. If i'm doing it in LoF it's because it might be a remote that dodges at -3.
I just wanna flag down @PsionicFox We played last round at a recent tournament - the mission was Hunting Party. His Liu Xing dropped in and basically won the game. It was a ridiculous amount of glue, and it was glorious. Well, not glorious for me, but still.
I tested the Liu Xing in a recent custom scenario and realized, that is a great tool against defensive fireteams. You land the Liu Xing behind the link (75% success rate with assisted jump, quite good odds, You can easily take one shooting ARO in the face - even if they succed and fail the armor save, You still have NWI), which basically means the enemy has two options: a. dodge/change facing to face the Liu Xing b. fire some weapons as ARO/do nothing. Option a means that they have just turned their backs on Your main force in Your deployment zone, which is awsome - blast them with a HMG or sth from Your deployment zone in the back for free. Option b means that they have turned their backs on Your Liu Xing, which is awesome - blast them with the Liu Xing Boarding Shotgun/Multi combi rifle in the back for free. Of course there is an added danger of enemy hacker, but remember that the enemy must declare all ARO`s before he knows the result of the dice. So should he/she declare change facing with the link and than manage to criple the Liu Xing with a hacking programme, the defensive links members still has turned their backs on Your main force. I`m not saying its a 100% effective strategy, but is has potential. And its fun :->
Defensive link teams are burst 2. Even something as shit as a Zhanshi link with a combi rifle has a 1/5 chance to just send the Liu Xing straight to dead on the landing attempt.
it depends. If you don't touch them with the template (nor LoS AROs) they can only change facing. Of course, the good response is to don't do a thing. A Fireteam member can ARO with the butt due to SSL2 without mods. So the good approach is to hunt down the fillers. The BS is the best tool for doing this taking 2 members with a template and forcing a dodge or break. But not so good against a HI coreteam. that's a hard bone to chew even with a BS HI. Again, you don't have to use explode 100% of the times
It doesn't depend on anything. He's saying you can land in front of a defensive link team and tank shots no worries because NWI, which is factually wrong. There is a 20% chance a BS11 rifle toting shitkicker will put him down for good.
/taunt_mode=on i.e. 80% chance it works as planned. If your game can be lost on a 80-20%, the problem is not the odds. It's your whole plan. :D /taunt_mode=off Actually, I do agree that landing in front of a link is way too dangerous. But the ExplodeLX is imho more a punishing skill: you use it if your opponent did a placement mistake and/or if you could prepare the landing properly (cleaning a couple of key pieces before jumping). And that's what I like about the Liu Xing: it adds an option we do not have (in IA) - yes, probably a Tiger would do the same. But the Tiger is no HI (<3) and no simili-2W in case of a single bad roll.
