Greetings Jade Empire citizens. I have read many times how important Lunah can be for ISS. I really need some help understanding her. I don't really find myself taking her or a Sniper in this sectorial when I am making lists. I would like to change that. If you are up for it. Lets break this trooper down. To me she seems like a better offensive piece then defensive one because of her MM LX as it is an entire order skill. Obviously she has some great defensive skills too. I see the case for viral for the new buffed McMurrder spam. If I where going to put a sniper in the list I am having a hard time picking the viral sniper over a MULTI Sniper. So my questions are as follows: In general why do take Lunah? Do you take her for specific missions, if so what? What role do you use her for and why? What other troop profiles do you combo her with? How do you take advantage of her Stealth skill? Why would you take a Viral Sniper over a Multi Sniper?
1. She's really good for the points 2. Viral makes the enemy go to dead unless bio-immune or better, AP doesn't come into play unless they are 6+ ARM. DA or Viral is always better. 3. Yes she's better at offense than defense but she still good in a pinch 4. Stealth in an extra that hardly comes into play so I don't thin about it much.
Stealth can be useful if you're playing hunting party: since she is a character she gets an adhesive launcher, which means you can use her to go hunting and capture targets with MMLX adhesive launcher/stun pistol shots
I'm not. I've used her one time only. For the longest time I disliked her profile too much until they fixed MMSLX, and since then I've not played vanilla nor ISS much. She does solve two things neatly; Core Kamau and TR HMGs. Prioritise Kamau if you are faced with both. Bring Nimbus regardless. I still prefer LeMuet over her when I can afford him (he's like an Epsilon with a permanent and free smoke grenade most of the time), but he doesn't do Core Kamau well at all.
She rules pure and simple Marker state eats at least two orders from an opponent in reactive, proven that you dont rush and open fire on first ARO but wait until they start discovering with high chance or you get targets outside cover; She can stop McMurrough and other dogmen; Offensively she is useful when you get to outrange enemy pieces, I've even managed to get outside 40" of missile launchers. Nimbus and MMLX is something I'd still put into overly complicated tactics bucket since you need to take bad units to use it. MMLX is good when you get an opportunity.
She's not actually very good against the Kamau even with Nimbus it's only 38-30% in her favour. Her base BS 12 and the Mimetism hurt her odds fairly significantly. If you can just remove the Mimetism from the equation her odds would jump significantly. The Pheasant shoots on 18s instead of 15s in the same situation and the odds jump to 60-22% in his favour in comparison to when Lunah shoots on 15s.
My issue with the pheasant is that he's not very good value at anything else and has a massive issue getting to the correct spot unless you managed to counter-deploy the Kamau. Lunah will offer decent value for other tasks due to Mimetism being a more important tool for ARO than MSV1 is.
I'm not saying the Pheasant is a better inclusion than Lunah, he's not he requires a pretty specialised list to be built around him to work. I'm just pointing out shooting Lunah against the Kamau is probably going to wind up being a disappointment as they're pretty close in odds to either just miss each other or the Kamau kills her.
Right you are, but if you need to remove a Core Kamau who's gotten a too-dominant position, she's going to be the most efficient chance. If that fails, I'd suicide a Ninja to reduce the core to a 4-man and then hose the Kamau down with HMG-fire (or take my chances with the Hsien HMG, who's got decent chances even in vanilla, or the Yan Huo HRMC) Lunah isn't expensive in terms of taking care of a high-opportunity threat like a Core Kamau so it is probably going to be worth taking the chance before risking more important models. Also, a Zhanying MadTrap brings quite adequate toolbox to be worth bringing if only to increase your chances versus any given Fireteam or those pesky Helots.
I've usually managed to brute force through Kamau with just a Rui Shi, until he fails 3 saves at once he is fine if you have a servant route to it.
The first time I played Lunah the idea was to use her as a long range aro piece, something ISS usually lacks. She proved herself more than decent in this task, since camo is often the best protection against active turn shooters: if it doesn't have an MSV, any unit is at -6 when trying to discover you if you're sitting under 32", -9 beyond that. It means even an HI HMG in a 5-man team in his good range has around 50% odds to fail his discover. Most units won't get such good odds of survival against this kind of monster. Now, that was before the MMLX rework. These days I might play her more carefully because she can do some real damages, but Yu-jing never really lacked heavy hitters so I still think she is more interesting as an ARO piece. Or as I said earlier, she can be an intersting back-up hunter in Hunting Party. As for viral vs multi, well I like the multi because it has stun ammos if you're up against HIs and TAGs, but its much less valuable on a solo sniper, whereas viral can threaten a bunch of exotic threat like dog warriors or all those new NWI + shock immunity units (she is an Haidao's worst nightmare).
Personally I wouldn't classify Lunah as a particularly efficient option. If Nimbus is on the table you're probably running the Hsien Haris and that's 55-18% with Nimbus you're better off just taking that shot than messing around trying to get Lunah killed. Personally my go to is a Lu Duan and inviting the Kamau to play butthole roulette with the holoechoes.
That only means the Lu Duan will Move closer and the Kamau would lose their ARO. And once it's close enough it's time to flambee the fishy.
Yes they can, but as @Mahtamori says then you just keep moving a Heavy Flamethrower closer to the Kamau. Even if you just use it to get under the 16" range before attacking with the Mk12 it jumps the Lu Duan's odds to 51-24% with Marksmanship which is pretty reasonable odds. Alternatively you can just use their delays to bypass the Kamau's firelanes and go attack something else.
She is dope! MMLvX + nimbus is why you take her. She can also perform ARO duty, and additionally cos she can help against dog warriors. However the pheasant also makes a good case for inclusion If I was to compare them, these are the things I would note. -Both work extremely well in a coordinated order to take out a target. Particularly well with a SuJian using a panzerfuast, really give the opponent a tough decision. In which they often choose to target the suJian, who is far more likely to survive. -Both work exceptionally well with Sun Tzu - having 2 reserves has a far less restrictive effect on your deployment. Though without SunTzu, Lunah is easier to use. -having a unit that can out down enemy AROs are instrumental to ISS Imo. These are both great - Lunah can provide ARO presence better -Viral is great versus pups. Terrible versus REMS - Free Agent is an underrated skill. Especially with Kuang Shi - Pheasent can also STUN big baddies with MMLvX - I think, actually need to check the burst
