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Future of Imperial Service

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Space Ranger, Mar 1, 2019.

  1. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    I agree. I didn't create the thread because I thought the sectoral was weak at all. But since changes have been happening in others and it could possibly happen to ISS at some point. I wanted to discuss what players would want. Most of the things i'd like are almost cosmetic. I don't want it made more powerful at all. I'd just want it to be a bit more fun.
     
  2. BobbaFett

    BobbaFett New Member

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    Hi, commrades.
    Do we have any rumours regarding DaedaslusFall and any possible upgrade for ISS?

    I'm reading a lot about mercenary companies and Ramah Taskforce. Has any hint of any possible YuJing power up dropped these days?
     
  3. A Mão Esquerda

    A Mão Esquerda Deputy Hexahedron Officer

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    It doesn't seem like any YJ forces will be in this book. Looks like the NA2 and a few other things, but no YJ, PanO, Ariadna, or ALEPH likely.
     
  4. BobbaFett

    BobbaFett New Member

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    Oh, wow! It's just like @Triumph said about the mercenaries shamelessly stealing the spotlight from Yu Jing grorious empairu.
     
  5. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    There's rumors that some YJ troops might be in a new Mercenary force. Dashat (Foreign Company). There's an image with a Brawler and a Zuyong in silhouette.
     
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  6. Hachiman Taro

    Hachiman Taro Inverted gadfly

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    I mean, ISS are fine power scale wise. It'd just be nice to get some more build variety (eg Bao) with the new mixed link hotness.
     
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  7. KestrelM1

    KestrelM1 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, Imperial Service is basically bereft of mixed link fireteams right now.

    Besides the CG + Kuang Shi fireteam, which gives 5 non-impetuous regular orders and extremely reliable smoke for 33/0.5 points.
    And the Hsien + Zhanying Haris, which is a freaking MSV2 HI that synergizes extremely well with the Haris's Sensor and whatever profile you feel like tacking on the end (FO, Hacker, Madtraps, even the Boarding Shotgun seems just fine). Did I mention the extremely reliable smoke for 33/0.5?
    And the Wu Ming + Zhanying Core, letting the fireteam swap out an HI for even more utility, like a Tinbot-B protected Hacker, Sensor, Madtraps... see above.
    And the Crane + Celestial Guard mixed link, which can be as light as one Crane or as heavy as 3, and a paltry price for full fireteam bonuses. And the Crane gets to drag WIP14 specialists along with him while he concentrates on ass kicking.
    And the Pheasant + Bao Haris, which is a Burst 5 specialist who protects your lieutenant and can tow two MSV2 buddies with her for stuff her B5 Red Fury can't handle. Or bring another specialist friend with MadTraps. Did I mention the extremely reliable smoke for 33/0.5?
    And the Pheasant + Bao Core, which lets you field multiple MSV2 MULTI Snipers with full fireteam bonuses and supplement them with basically whatever you want. MadTraps, Hacking, a B5 Red Fury, or just a Boarding Shotgun. Did I mention all of those were specialists?
    And the Ashcroft Hunting Party, which lets a 21/0.5 Red Fury with Booty L2 escort an ODD specialist wherever the two of them please.
    And let's not forget Gui Feng Xi Zuang, a 20 point MadTrap-bearing specialist who fits into CG link teams. Did I mention those can link with Crane Agents?

    For f^&*s sake, people, this is an actual, real fireteam you could be playing in Imperial Service right now:

    CRANE IMPERIAL AGENT (X Visor) Spitfire, 2 Nanopulsers / Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 54)
    CRANE IMPERIAL AGENT (Sensor, X Visor) MULTI Rifle, 2 Nanopulsers / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 52)
    XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, MadTraps / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
    CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13)
    CELESTIAL GUARD (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

    2.5 SWC | 152 Points

    Seriously, if one more person complains about Imperial Service and "mixed links," I'm going to blow a gasket.
     
  8. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    Dahshat company and foreign company are two separate mercenary companies. Dahshat is haqq with yu jing+mercs and foreign company is pano with nomads+mercs/artistos.
     
  9. Hachiman Taro

    Hachiman Taro Inverted gadfly

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    I don't think anyone really complained about Imperial Service and "mixed links". Really ISS were kinda the start of the new way of doing things. It's just that way has progressed further since with Wild Cards and that kind of thing, and people can see cool ways that could be integrated into ISS to enhance the play experience even further, especially for the things that don't get used so much right now. Like, Pheasant Wildcard and 1-2 Bao in CG links would just make those things maybe hit the table a bit more, without particularly upping the power level of the sectorial, since other things in it (eg Hsien, Crane, Su Jian) are already so good.
     
    #129 Hachiman Taro, Mar 7, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2019
  10. SKOZZOKONZ

    SKOZZOKONZ Well-Known Member

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    Would would you pair with a bao core with double msr?
     
  11. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    You mean something like this:

    Imperial Service
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]5
    PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Chain of Command) Red Fury / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1 | 35)
    BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29)
    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)

    4 SWC | 137 Points

    Open in Infinity Army

    I dunno. Model-wise, you get one of each main weapon (BSG, Contender, Combi+LSG, and MSR), and 2x MSR eats up a lot of SWC (especially with Contenders for Dam14 DA shots in ARO).
     
  12. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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  13. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    You also gotta remember there's a big risk to that link. If the 1W Pointman Pheasant goes down you can't relink the Bao, it's got the Crusade fireteam issues minus the durability and high stats.

    If the pheasant dies you're left with 4 unlinked Bao. There's a pretty big argument to just take teh BS pheasant and use it as a specialist for the link to safely press buttons.
     
  14. SKOZZOKONZ

    SKOZZOKONZ Well-Known Member

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    I meant what else would you run it with if you had that as a defensive fire team.
     
  15. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Let's talk identity.

    As I see it, a Sectorial's primary job is to provide a narrow and focused way of playing a section of the main army's forces that provides a strong identity. The identity of Invincible Army is that of the new, shiny, heavy infantry initiative under the Yu Jing army structure and it does a good job building around this by including only three units that break from this norm; the banner's LI unit Zhanshi, the advanced command MI Daoying and the naval HI unit Haidao. A level of criticism on Invincible Army as far as identity goes is that the Haidao is so important in Invincible Army that it's equally possible to read this as the Naval forces instead of the Army forces.
    For ISS this is a bit more disparate. ISS was the first pan-Yu Jing sectorial and needed to do the job of representing the non-Japanese forces. It features what I can identify as three strong themes, each competing for which is most important; the one the fluff identifies which is the judicial security forces, the one which most has been injected with a of incentive units of mercenaries which I'd call the Emperor's dirty jobs crew, and the last one seems to partly be there to provide a shade of grey to Aleph which is the Aleph sanctioned death squad.
    In general, I would like it to lean into one of these roles more heavily and what I wrote earlier would be an example of leaning into the judicial security aspect more heavily. Aleph can telegraph their own damned dirty underbelly and we've got Mercenary extra now a days for mercenaries - which ISS is far from alone in hiring!

    However, if we look at how to enhance the Emperor's personal little army instead, I'd like to see the Aleph presence diminish a lot more and have the actual Mercenary units be more of cohesive fighting units inside the sectorial. One could argue that this is a lot more like an NA2 army and in this day and age maybe that's a more appropriate place where Crane Agents lead a fireteam of Druze in reasonable deniability assassinations. But that all said, instead of Authorized Bounty Hunters which are designed to be used as single models to supplement a vanilla army, Druze, Kaplan or Brawlers might be a better choice. Brawlers have the advantage of being able to take over the ISS' sectorial's need for a reasonably cheap LI freeing Celestial Guard up to take on a more specialised role that suits their description of veterans with a dim view on ethics, as well as Doctor and Engineer when Sophotect is declined further survices. Kaplan (or Kaplan-like) would fill a similar demi-role, but would force Celestial Guards to be more or less untouched
    What else could be in here - let's not go into too much detail, but suffice to say going this identity path mercenaries should be an integrated part instead the current weird appendix. CSU could be expanded (Haris?). Mercs could get an actual AD: CJ unit through this. And so on.

    Intermission time: the latest rash of NA2 armies, and what little we see of the next one, worries me a bit. Increasingly we see "mercenary" armies being sectorials that are actually all-stars with units mixed and matched from the empire armies instead of being actual mercenaries. It's like having a mercenary force (or "security firm" because of the illegal nature of mercenaries) consisting of actual SAS, US Rangers and Iranian Revolutionary Guard instead of what actually happens which is Blackwater (or what have you) taking people from these units and re-training them into what's actually a new unit with different priorities and leadership structures.
    As example, I really hope this Dashat doesn't have Zuyong, but that it's actually a unique mercenary unit with Zuyong equipment, meaning different stats and most importantly a different name. If so they use the same models, that matters less!
    If you read a bit between the lines you'll see "Ikari and StarCo army lists looks like they had really, really low production values"

    If we now turn to the other identity which is communicated which is the Aleph seal of approval, again enhancing this identity really should come at a cost of reducing one of the other two identities and you can't really reduce or eliminate Yu Jing in a Yu Jing sectorial. Here, mercs are removed except the ones that are important to the storyline or naturalize them if they're important enough to be permanent. Instead, Aleph has a bunch of units that are currently out on lend-lease and certain units like Nagas or Dasyus could be used to make ISS conform more with the Yuan Dun mentality - and by that I mean kick Ninjas out of the sectorial as well.

    Last but not least, in order to leave no one's nuts unkicked, Wu Ming.
    I've personally loved playing Wu Ming in ISS, but I'm looking at them and going "these are more different to Zuyong than Shang-Ji are" so here's the question I asked myself: what would happen if the legion's penal soldiers were put into the legion? Wu Ming would be there to re-earn their names and having them as the IA's signature max-one-wildcard instead of Shang-Ji would make sort of sense. You've got a somewhat reasonably priced Rocket Launcher, a fairly cheap DTW as well as possibility to bring a Light Grenade Launcher (and by god does IA need those). All in all, Wu Ming would make for very decent complementary unit for a Zuyong Core and make even more room to allow for Shang-Ji to be redesigned.
    The reason to remove Wu Ming from ISS would be to free up space, but not to let a new unit occupy the same design space, but instead to shift the faction in a different direction. To make the ISS identity more distinct. Let Cranes, Hsien and Su-Jian take an even more prominent space for the Heavy Infantry roles and to parry somewhat the "OP spike" that could result from making Crane and Hsien able to form Fireteams with more units.

    Hope this more high-level way of writing leaves your crotches aching less ;)
     
  16. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Shotgun pheasant not a red fury. Or mad traps on missions like looting and sabotaging
     
  17. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Changing the wording doesn't make deleting models any less of a stupid idea.
     
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  18. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    You know. Fuckit. It's going to be so much more enjoyable with you on the ignore list.
     
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  19. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Guys you are totally making me regret making this thread. :unamused:
    Stop the attacks and insults. Or i'm asking to have it closed down.
     
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  20. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    I'm sorry you don't have an appropriate response to the fact that deleting models that players own upsets players, damages communities, and undoes the hard work some of us put into building them up in the first place.

    That's completely putting aside your ideas don't make sense from either a game play or fluff perspective.

    For example:

    Entering the Wu Ming corp is a one way ticket. There is no "re earning your name." The idea that they can ever leave the penal legion is a lie fed to them as they are criminals of the worse kind, they're one step away from being executed. Once they're in the corp they're there until they die in action.

    “Now we all know for a fact that the recruitment terms of the Assault Corps are a sham. When you fulfil your mission you are not pardoned, simply sent on another mission… If you survived, that is.”

    Making them fight along side what is publicly perceived as a legion of elite heroes they got kicked out of in the first place doesn't make any form of sense from a fluff perspective. They're a stain on the honour of the army and make more sense stashed away doing secret dirty jobs for the Imperial Service where they can be used quietly in an expendable fashion.

    As far as complementary units go stuffing them into IA where they directly once again fight for room against the Zuyong makes even less sense. The Zuyong need Wu Ming as much as they need the Shang Ji. They don't. That's the whole damn problem. The Shang Ji just need to get redesigned period.

    IA already has access to core linked LGLs, Zhanshi have them. Not that the army particularly needs them. Zuyongs also have access to core linked Stun Grenades.
     
    #140 Triumph, Mar 7, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2019
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