Okay, basically it's very much a matter of terrain and flexibility. My list had two Louies both with Multi Rifles, though in the original non-SpecOps list one had a BSG and I wished I had one of each. If terrain is so dense that setting up to cover the entire DZ in Hacking Area, then either you chose the wrong side, have the opportunity to push your pain train since you went first, or need tto have a serious discussion with whoever sets up terrain. In my first game I scored a lucky crit on the TR REM guarding Gromoz, then dropped the Louie on her. This was enabled by simply walking a Louie on to the table and engaging the weaker rifle armed insurgents with a HI. Stuck down the second Louie to support her and divert McMurderface in next turn, but both got bogged down by critting FlashREMs, after eating only a moderate, but important, number of order generators. Had I had a BSG, I would've risked taking on the Brigada link through the power of templates. Second game saw a spread out Druze on a fairly open play field. Found a spot in the back field that wasn't quite covered and again proceedes to simply take safe engagements where weight of burst and a stronger base profile allowed me to kill Gromoz and a few REMs again. Second Louie tried flanking the Druze link that was holed up under a roof, but I rolled 17 and he ended up on other side of the field (last 4 orders went to him when the Druze player had forgotten avout him and as such he could flank the remaining Druze+BrawlerSniper) So in summary: find the opening. There is one. Or make one. Don't rely on cover, bully weak units.
Definitely this. I've yet to see a solid argument as to why people's wishlists for the Liu Xing won't become overpowered; it can't just be a case of dropping it in on good odds to cause instant death with no downsides. Competitive analysis sometimes feels like it's anathematic to balanced game design.
I feel like Dahshat and IA will play extremely differently When you look at IA, the list is entirely made up of elite troops almost. There's a lot of tactical sense, Lt L2, NCO, HI covering pretty much every tactical option, and everyone is durable but not cheap. You've got a small elite force with lots of orders to spend in specific places that really need to work together but you can get a lot out of them. Dahshat has got Hunzakuts, Kum, stuff like that. Cheap link fillers yes, but vulnerability to template attacks and weak spots in their efficient link teams too. Much less durability and a lot less capability in infowar too (no KHDs, limited AHDs, limited HDs etc). Less elite firepower and more classic Haqq-style piece trading and so on.
You mean Dahshat can play like IA but it also got the option to play big order lists. So... yes... great move from CB.
Again that's more a problem of 50% of IA is shit or doesn't function properly for them, whereas 90%+ of Dahshat integrates and gels really well with all around great profiles. It's alot easier to build a variety of effective lists when you're not gimped to half a sectorial. Like I said the problem isn't Dahshat it's IA has a bunch of units that need fixing. Even something as simple as "Hey, CB finally found their way out of their own assholes and unfuckified our TAG" opens a whole bunch of new doors.
Yes, I agree, if IA's specific untis weren't shit IA would have enough personality to be a nice sectorial
I don't think that's true. Dahshat doesn't have a lot of awesome troops that IA has, the Mowang, the LiuX, the Haidao, Hac Tao... all of these are extremely capable and effective troops doing something that Dahshat can't match. Of course Dahshat does different things because that's how factions and Sectorals work. I think that IA players should consider that hey, why not play both? If you want to play a single combat group with 14-15 orders then you totally can do that with IA and it's awesome. If you want to take loads of stuff and have a bunch of light stuff mixed in with hardened ex-IA mercs then Dahshat works for that.
That's debatable given the fact Dahshat takes quite a substantial part of IA's identity. I will quote myself from another thread.
Reading your comments, sadly one thing hit my senses were issues with MO. Yerrp I really didn't want to compare IA with MO (cause IA is better ffs), but we could use some flexible sources like Dashat does.
I mean, you can play IA and Dahshat both. In fact I believe that is sort of the point. And I really don't get where this idea that IA is crap or badly designed is coming from. IA is a really cool Sectoral.
But one could reject Dashat; since he waited many year for the fabled IA. Sometimes feeling wins. And lets get frank. Dashat can offer more flexible units unlike IA; If someone grabs a clutch from very close ITS game, I'm pretty sure it would be Dashat. Invincibles are like a brick. Solid, rigid, and when they lose their momentum it goes into maelstrom. There is simply less hail-Mary man to score last button. (Which my Zhencha serves for now, but I'm sure people I'm facing will bring tools to remove him.) That I like, that I wanted for our sectorial army. Adaptation. IA hits like a truck, and thats it. You can't call them sly or flexible.
The Mowang is decent, as is the Hac Tao, but the Liu Xing and the HaiDao are at the very least lackluster. So yes, Dahshat is a better IA because it is not encumbered with IA's shitty units
IA was fabled to be the ultimate HI sectorial for ages. Then it came with all types of HI, from line troops to AD. But then it turned out IA's most effective usage are it's basic HI line troop link teams and MI lieutenants. That pretty clearly shows IA is badly designed. It's number effective strategies are limited and it's biggest stars shine poorly. So poorly in fact that another merc faction being able to field the same Zuyong link team with the help of a rem is widely considered to do everything IA is good at and more. All that fancy TO HI, CC HI, S5 HI, HRMC on HI, AD HI, infiltrating HI gets no consideration from people. Of course this does NOT prove IA is bad competitively. Only it is poorly designed.
