Bao

For me the critical point is their sculpt and hellish hard assemblying.

Aside from that, Baos tend to be fairly squishy for their pts; they weigh around 20pts. Being not that good dodger means they are often easy prey to DTW or grenades.

Which means they require delicate placing. And YJ got 25 pts nearly broken dz guard Wu Ming.. :/

 

It's like taking Reverend Moiras, giving all MULTI Rifle profiles a Light Shotgun for added points cost, and then dumping all of them except the specialist into Pan-O - they'll be too expensive, slow, and un-supportwareable to compete with Bulleteers and they'll never be quite as competent as a Swiss. Just like how the Rui Shi is cheaper, faster, able to be buffed by hackers, and typically harder to permanently kill off compared to the Bao and how the Hsien has a heavier gun, better statline, and over all just a pain in the ass for your opponent to deal with.

But like everything in this game, there are always going to be people who think the leaky pipes are part of the cozy atmosphere.

 

I’ve run a haris of two bao and a pheasant. I like the haris, I generally like to take the sniper, but that brings the SWC cost up to 3 for the haris. Without the sniper, they have a tough time engaging outside of 24 inches. The x visor+msv2 combi can swing it in a pinch, but a burst 3 msr is a solid option.

The thing about them that I find less than stellar is that they are in a sectorial with both the Hsien and Rui Shi as competing msv2 platforms. If you don’t have a hacking device to buff your remotes or for some reason you don’t want a hsien hmg in your army (wtf not?) then bao are a fine option.

 

In vanilla, they're pretty reasonable. 29pts for a BS12 MSV2 sniper isn't bad (I happen to like the BSG+Contender, too), and the MSV2 BioV2 BSG is a godsend when facing Shas or Haqq.

But in Imperial SS, they're much less viable. You can only take a fireteam of them with a Pheasant (which already is a non-optimized unit), and they're competing with a lot better choices to make a fireteam. As solo models in Imperial SS, the various mercs, CSU, and ABH do the same job for less points.

 

How so? CSU are a cheap specialist/duo and ssl1 makes them an awesome road block. Bao are hunters that take advantage of celestial guard smoke grenades. ABH are discount fire pieces. The characters are all more specialized.

 

They're squishy and overpriced with what are largely dump stats. 2 extra points of CC, 6 points of BTS (they don't even have a hacker profile that might make use of that). They pay for WIP 14 and have exactly 0 specialist or LT profiles that can make use of that stat.

That shit's expensive. You take all the garbage away the MSV2 sniper profile would be like 22pts or something.

Paying for shit stats on a high cost SWC model is especially damning for Yu Jing, we have alot of competition for the SWC. Between extra TR bots, Rui Shi, Tigers, Lunah, Libertos, pick your flavour of super cool HI. If you're gonna spend SWC, you spend it on a legitimately good model. Wanna do some Sniping? 8pts more for a Haidao who takes a dump all over the Bao. Or for the same cost Lunah.

Bio visors are largely junk. It's only useful against 2 models in the entire game, and you can get the same value by spamming down discover rolls with warbands that Yu Jing has in force.

Cheap DZ guards? Again, warbands for days. For one Bao you can get 4 Kuang Shi/Monks. Just want a BS12 boarding shotgun DZ defender? Take a Bounty Hunter, you save a bunch of points and it might roll ODD or something cool on the booty table.

For ISS they're still over priced with dump stats, made worse by their fireteam options forcing them to link in with Pheasants which aren't super popular in the first place either, meaning you don't just pay for shit stats once you do it 3-5 times multiplying the issue.

You can't really justify this to get an MSV2 attack piece, and before you ask, "why not a Red Fury Pheasant for Burst 5 pointman duties?" it's because the Bao have shit fireteam options. They don't have a natural core link, they've got a very specific special link. If the Pheasant tries to take point, eats shit and dies, you can't put the link back together you need to have a Pheasant to form the link. So he's relegated to being a weird specialist in the back of the link yet costs as much as the guy up front with the gun.

Imperial Service
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5
BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
BÀO TROOP (Biometric Visor L2) Boarding Shotgun, Contender / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
BÀO TROOP (Biometric Visor L2) Boarding Shotgun, Contender / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
BÀO TROOP (Biometric Visor L2) Boarding Shotgun, Contender / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22)
PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun, Stun Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)

1.5 SWC | 124 Points


When you can get this with a burst 5 HMG. Sensors, by the way, are actually legitimately useful to have around unlike Biovisors. It also doesn't chew up your core link so you can still keep the Kuang Shi under control or take a Crane+CG.

Imperial Service
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3
HSIEN HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 61)
ZHÀNYING (Sensor) Boarding Shotgun, Nimbus Grenades / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 23)
ZHÀNYING (Fireteam: Haris, Sensor) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nimbus Grenades / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 27)

2.5 SWC | 111 Points

If they were either wildcard or a "counts as Celestial Guard" they'd be viable as a 1 man upgrade, but this kind of move would be out of place for ISS which is supposed to be limited in building defensive link teams so I don't think we'll ever see this (nor should we).

 

As noted above, Bao just pay way too much for not nearly enough that they can use effectively. If their costs were to be cut appropriately, they'd probably have an attractive spot filling a pretty significant hole in YJ's roster.

Also, their loadouts could use a bit of spicing up. Frenzy wouldn't hurt either, especially considering their fluff.

 

Maybe this will help to understand a bit. If it works. I have everything in a excel file and it really helps for comparisons. I don't think the Bao is bad. It's just that the Rui Shi is better! It's faster, same BS, WIP is only a little worse, ARM is not much different, 1 wound but has Remote Presence, same BTS. The biggest thing is the fact that it can be buffed by a hacker too! All that for 1 SWC and 20pts.

 

The Ruishi has a few meta dependent vulnerabilites that the bao doesnt suffer such as:

Hacking vulnerability- both to itself and the rest of the armys hackers thanks to its repeater.
Em vulnerability, em mines or weapons Will shutdown the unit completely while only solating the bao.
Dense terrain table mobility: its sillouette makes it difficult if not imposible to traverse certain tables.

The bao also have access to a longer ranged weapon which also has the benefit of multi ammunition. Its also worth noting that the silouette and inability to go prone make it much easier to Hunt down a ruishi than a bao.

The price difference makes some sort of theoretical sense, however since most of those situations do not apply to your average gaming sesión, it becomes harder to justify it. In my view baos do earn their points however i do believe they are lacking in fireteam options.

 

I don't think it's a bold statement to say that the choice between Bao and Rui Shi would be harder to make if they didn't have Light Shotguns nor the punitively high WIP (on a unit with courage and no specialists!) If the choice was between a Rui Shi Spitfire (20/1) and a Bao Xvisor Combi (22/0), then we can properly discuss the pros and cons of non-Hackable vs Buffable and speed vs agility.
The MSniper Bao sort of stands on its own as a model that... kinda works in vanilla, but is held back by the extremely punitive Fireteams in ISS (which, once more, if the base cost of Bao were 21 points instead of 26 points, that's 4 Kuang Shi payed for in a full fireteam!)

 

What does everyone think of turning Boa's into wildcards for ISS?

That of course would be accompanied by some profile adjustments.

 

I'm leery of Wildcards in IS due to the Kuang Shi Fireteam. Counts as CG or Zhanying would be ace though.

That said, this is kind of expecting a leopard to change its spots...

 

Yeah, this definitely isn't ok.

Imperial Service
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5 3
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5)
CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13)
BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)

2 SWC | 57 Points

57 pt defensive MSV2 MSR in a core link that brings its own smoke shenanigans. That would be quite egregious.

 

It doesn't suit them well. I'm a fan of when fluff and gameplay match and the Bao are religious psychopaths (or religiously psychopathic) who need supervision, so you'd put people in charge of Bao, not Bao accompanying people.

 

I think my favorite fluffy Fireteam is a pheasant with two Bao. The lower ranking agent calling on two storm troopers to bust down doors and drag traitors out of their homes in black bags. Yeah.