What are your thoughts on Shaolin Monks? I realize they are homeless except for vanilla, but in your vanilla lists are they good performers? Will they be in White Banner? Also, how do you feel their sculpts hold up today in regard to size and detail....from the pics I have seen, 3 of the 4 models look pretty good. The chain rifle posing looks odd to me. Thanks!
Sculpts are "ok" they're not amazing but they hold up better than alot of older stuff. As far as lists go they're basically auto include for Vanilla. They're 5pts, they unlock smoke for the faction. When you don't have links or HD+ the smoke grenades are basically the go to for equalising the playing field. The question isn't whether or not to bring monks it's more a question of how many, even just a couple are useful.
They're probably the best traditional smoke/melee warbands in the game for cost (depending on how you value the martial arts v berserk comparison). For 5pts you get smoke, a chain rifle, a pistol, and capacity to convincingly win any melee F2F roll against any other non-melee expert and possibly also a few actual melee experts. I rarely see a vanilla YJ list without at least a couple, and I often see vanilla YJ lists with full AVA of four. The models are a little dated. Prime candidates for a resculpt, honestly, but they hold up better than a lot of the old range.
The models are what drew me to yj. They're beautiful sculpts but are the old analogue scale so look tiny next to new LI like the zanshi. They look fine next to HI though
As noted above, they provide a lot of utility for their cost. One really important thing to note about them is that being impetuous, they can be activated prior to your Kuang Shi, allowing them to throw down some smoke to protect your other impetuous troopers. This can be a life saver for your order count. I'd consider two to be the ideal amount. That's cheap enough to not be too bothered by their inclusion. Any more, and you might start missing those points elsewhere. Not to say it's a bad investment beyond that, just that it becomes a conscious one. I wouldn't necessarily say that they're auto-take in vanilla, but you should always be considering them.
I always get pleasantly surprised when I check the army list for WIP when doing an intuitive attack and learn again that the little dudes are wip 14. You should run an achievement list for shaolins, you will be amazed how many frags little dudes can collect in favorable trades. Their only fault is not being as good as morlocks. I put a monk in even when I try single group lists in vanilla, smoke on red orders is pure value.
Mine bagged a Gorgos. Shaolins are IMO best synergy WB til now - although we now got Varangians at the bay, using them along with YJ units, namely Rui Shi, seems neatly ridiculous.
Great units who desperately need new sculpts due to scale creep. PH 13 Smoke grenades, a Chain Rifle and competent CC abilities for just 5 points is just really good, and especially so in Vanilla YJ.
Super Unit. Here, they now known as CA Avatar's nightmare: one of my friend traumatized a guy kicking his biggest model's ass with a monk.
I also love this unit :). Bear in mind, that they have great synergy with Kunag Shi - both of them are impetus, so You can chose to move the Shaolins first and have them provide smoke cover for the Kuang Shi`s. It can signifficantly increase their surviveability. As mentioned above the Rui Shi can benefit from their smoke grenades, and so does the Hsien HMG ]:->.
They're small , but that just makes them look more like Aang from Avatar, win-win! Don't forget to paint the blue arrow on their heads!
They also need new sculpts because the staffs are stupidly easy to bend. I replaced the staffs on mine with some .025" music wire, probably should have used .035" because the .025 looks a bit too thin.
Shaolin are the reason I got into Infinity! They are great for Yu Jing. Unfortunately not as good as their counterparts in other factions. But ignore that! If you learn to use them well they can be great.
That's an interesting perspective. What models from other factions do you think outperform them relative to cost and in-faction synergy?
Fair enough. I'm not personally comfortable making balance judgement that extreme, but I would definitely exclude Ghazis from the category of 'traditional' warbands. They're in their own category, which is basically just labelled 'ghazis', which exists as separate in much the same way that any TO camo sniper generally shouldn't be compared to the Posthuman Mk2 if you want to evaluate whether it's good or not. But Space Ranger's concern was in comparison was counterparts, plural. And unless I'm missing something, I feel like it's hard to argue that Monks aren't a great warband when weighed against, say, Morlocks, or Irmandinhos (not that either of those is bad, each has unique strengths), or any of the various biker warbands.
