It works better in Vanilla. Access to Strategos and Smoke raises the model from overcosted and kinda crappy to decent enough.
I don't know. They never got to do more than kill an overextended Lu Duan. Did eat a few orders, but that's not great payout for 88 points (both times they came in pairs) My observation from what limited experience I have of facing them so far is that they are easy to pin down and their limited range (have only faced the twin SMG) and lack of mobility skills means you don't have to clear them out unless they are literally in your way. I was trucking a Shang-Ji AHD in what has become my favourite list, so uprooting them was easy.
Hulangs are a good distraction carnifex. If i could easily include one alongside my pain train and zhencha/ruishi i probably would.
You core the Shang-Ji with Zanshi or Zuyong? Invincible Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 5 SHÀNG JÍ Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 43) HǍIDÀO (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 37) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) 2 SWC | 113 Points Open in Infinity Army Something like this or....this.... Invincible Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 5 SHÀNG JÍ Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 43) HǍIDÀO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 26) TAI SHENG Mk12, Chain-colt, Stun Grenades / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (0 | 45) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Haris, Tactical Awareness) Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 34) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Duo, Tactical Awareness) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 38) 2.5 SWC | 186 Points Open in Infinity Army
The latter, but Tai is too expensive, downgrade to a Son-Bae so you can fit a Lu Duan and a Rui Shi in as well as a couple of Weibing, Gongcheng, Yisheng and healthy amount of Yaozao. The extra few bodies in group 2 adds some pretty important resilience to alpha striking and bad luck. Abuse Holo2 to get a Repeater into range of AHDs and importany Repeaters, while Rui Shi is your primary attack piece (yes, primary!) so that you can clear some of the template based ARO pieces before moving out with the main group to clean up objectives during turn 2 or 3. I lose games where I move out with the team too early.