@atomicfryingpan Tactical Awareness, the way I'm seeing it, requires the entire ops team to have worked together for years, in training almost identical to combat. At the very least, it would require the entire fireteam to have worked together for years (since the TA skill does require that order to be spent on the entire fireteam. It's very unlikely that you'd get enough Uighur (don't worry about the spelling, I've seen at least three variants) former soldiers with zero other marketable skills after a single term of service, and all getting out at the same time. Because you can't just take 3 Navy SEALs, an Army Ranger, and a Marine Force Recon, throw them together and get that 'telepathy' Infinity is calling Tactical Awareness. Well, the SEALs might have it, but that's only if they all served together in the same platoon of the same Team. The Ranger and the Recon Marine don't work the same (though admittedly the Marine would slot in before the Ranger, due to a more-similar skill-and-training set). For that matter, the Ranger doesn't even speak the same language as the Marine or SEALs (and no, I'm not joking about that!). They'd shake out to a decent level (defined as "able to wipe the floor with 5-10x their number of non-Special-Forces") in a couple weeks to a month of intensive training. And then it'd take at least 6 months to get them up that last 10% to what we're calling Tactical Awareness. You're right, LT2+NCO+TacA does make it easy to make stompy 1-group lists. But look at this list: That's the kind of thing you can make in Dahshat that you can't make in IA. If I'm parsing things correctly, that's a Zuyong Haris in Group 1, and a 'Zuyong' Core in Group 2.
Its more the army identity. If dashat does what ia does almost as well we only have iss as far as identity goes again.
Nope it's two Zuyong cores. You start with the ABH+Rui Shi in the core. If you go second they just ARO and shit with glue cannons. Use any of them that roll interesting gear to refill Zuyong link with them later. Reform Group 1 Zuyongs into a core on your first turn and go kill shit with them, bring the Rui Shi if you really want to. If you go first you buff the Rui Shi then spend 5 Orders charging at the enemy and kill as much shit as you can with them in 5 orders. Then reform the Zuyong into a core and kill whatever they didn't kill. Refill Zuyongs with any ABH that survive and roll cool gear later. Or refill with the Rui Shi if it's still alive. You've got alot of choices. Your Haris link is the Brawlers with the MSV2 sniper for ARO duties.
Let's also remember dahshat only has 3 options for lieutenants. Ghulams, brawlers, and zuyong. Those are pretty obvious choices with only 1 real trick (sforza holo1).
Due to costs inside sectorial, IA LT choices outside of Daoying are at least on par, if not far worse than that. Guijia's problems are magnified by having an SWC penalty for LT Zuyong LT comes without TacAware, just like Dahshat Zhanshi LT is like a marginally more competent Brawler, both in terms of cost and AVA. Yan Huo LT is fairly obvious and can't link. Shang-Ji similar to Zuyong, but costs a lot more and doesn't optionally come with a reduced SWC HMG. Mowang comes without NCO which is just as obvious as plonking down a Sun Tze with Advanced Command. It's a very good thing the Daoying exists and is both good in their own right, camo makes multi-body fakes much easier, but also synergising with NCO. All packed into a surprisingly affordable package. Hell, I'll go so far as to say Daoying are probably the best LT choice in game, with only Saladin and a cadre of Hafza as potential rival. I think the best way to describe Dahshat is "a more contemporary take on QK with the best from IA". Reiterating my previous sentiment; I think the problem is that Zuyong are "the best from IA" *bites thumb at Shang-Ji and Guijia*
Yes, many people are reading Dahshat as over the top and shitting on IA. I find them ok, I think the real culprit here is a good portion of IA is half baked to put it politely. Shang Ji have very little reason to exist because they're expensive Zuyongs The Guijia is a garbage can The Liu Xing belongs in a different faction The Hulang belongs in a different army (something with smoke/eclipse) You fix all that bullshit and IA would stack up alot better in terms of having their own unique legs to stand on despite Dahshat cribbing the Zuyong and TacAw.
Can you please elaborate on this one? It's a bit confusing, especially when we are talking about what was conceived as "Multi-wound / HI faction/army".
Its got a problem with being hackable and not being able to aggressively attack ahead of the army despite being designed to do that because deployment zones tend to be littered with repeaters. Case in point, last game I had the only reason my Liu Xing got away with killing a bunch of shit is because my opponent straight up forgot I was operating it under a repeater the whole time and I decided not to inform him about it. Otherwise I would been eating AROs from a HD and an AHD the whole time. Now if you put it in a faction that can overcome its weaknesses, like Nomads who can fire a long range pitcher and shitblast the offending hacker off the table, the Liu Xing has way less of an issue doing his job. IA though? You need to walk a Zuyong link up there for a Haidao to do the job at which point... you have a Zuyong link right outside their deployment zone and the Liu Xing is pretty redundant.
Couldn't you clear the repeaters/hackers with a Zhencha beforehand? Other than that the choices seem very limited, I agree.
Not if they're hidden from LOF in the DZ, not easily no. Stuff like Ikadrons, Baggage bots, combat remotes etc. You're not really gonna be able to get at them easily alot of the time.
Took the words out of my mouth. I've finished buying Corvus's miniatures for a while and I'll stick with ISS for the foreseeable future.
I’m with @atomicfryingpan , I’m almost thinking of Dahshat, at first, as a Division of Yu Jing. I can’t afford to buy a lot of new stuff. So Zhanshi for Ghulam, Weibing for Rafiq, etc. I’m going to be using the max of the Zuyong, Zhencha, and Hulang sometimes. BTW, here’s a test for you guys, some key thinks were left out. If you didn’t know, what would you think it is? Move 6-4, CC 24, BS11, PH 16, WIP 14, ARM 4, BTS 3, W 2, S 6 Kinematica L2, MA L3, 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades normal & smoke.
McMurderface. One of the big draws of the sectorial, for sure. He's the one that'll combo best with the linked Rui Shi.
True! However, think of him as a Fast moving Heavy Infantry Assault Troop. Think this guy with chain guns and CC weapons.
I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to kitbash a Gecko and a Dog to produce something similar for Dahshat as a McMurder stand in model.
Way you describe it, sounds like something you could display in a freak circus and earn good money from it :-D
To further elaborate on that, I think the Liu Xing is simply too light. I mean, it's functionally a Tiger with NWI and Vulnerability:Hacking. Crank that up to a Daofei/Hac Tao equivalent, an actual 2W Heavy Infantry with BTS6 and/or Deflector L2 would let you drop in much more safely. Because right now, if you can't clear the enemy's Repeater network, you can't drop in safely. You can cover just about your entire DZ with a total of 3 models. At the dead center of your DZ is a cheap LI hacker, ~18pts. Then add two of those 8pt fast repeaterbots (Chaiyi, in YJ terms), and put them ~12" away from the hacker, centered on a line 6" up from your table edge. that just covered nearly your entire DZ in a single model's Hacking Area for a total of 34pts. Add a single 8pt baggagebot to completely cover your entire DZ, for a total cost of 42pts. Any number of Liu Xing are countered by roughly the cost of one, and the opponent gets 3-4 orders out of it. And a lot of armies are taking lots of REMs for cheap orders now.
