I'll be picking up the Red Veil starter, and the Beyond Red Veil expansion. After that I'm looking at a few choice models (Hac Tao, I'm looking you). But I'm curious to know, what are your must haves, your go to's? I'm going with vanilla first, but then possibly into Invincible Army.
Remotes both yaokongs and Rui Shi Lu Dan. Shaolin warrior monks, kuang shis and maybe a guilang blister(old but gold) or a Zencha one. To jump to invencible later you will need some haidao sniper, the Terracota hmg blister and maybe the starter. But if you are new on the game i rrcomend you to play some games with Vanilla. IA style is complicated and very punishing with mistakes. Edit :Daoying hacker for both IA and vanilla, but if you have the red veil with x3 zhansi i won't find the daoying as a priority
I fell in love with the faction because of tigers and the Yan Huo HRMC, the next thing i fell head over heels was the Su Jian and the last one were the Hac Tao and Hsien. However you are starting with quite a flexible base so its gonna come down to what playstyle would you like to develop. The safest bets i can recommend are: Support Pack- Specialists that heal and repair will come in handy in most lists. Yaoxie Remotes- Their flexibility gives you several usefull options for list building Yaokong Remotes- The premier hunter-killers of the faction
that ancient Guilang combirifle model, so you can field a Daofei, Guilang sniper, Guilang Minelayer, and a mine all within 8" of each other. YJ support pack Yaokong REM box, built as Weibing and Husong (or magnetized, if you can) Rui Shi/Lu Duan box (if you don't like the looks of those, try the Nomad Tsyklon instead) baggagebots (if you don't like the looks of those, try the Haqq baggagebots instead)
Ok, remotes. In order to use them I need either a TAG or a Hacker. A hacker would be less obvious, and could boost the remotes with different programs, but a Hacker would be squishier than a TAG. Rui Shi: Is a "You can't hide from me!" hunter killer. Lu Duan: Sucker punch waiting to happen? Husong: "Get out of my house!"? Is that a correct assumption? How do the other remotes fit in?
Red Veil and Beyond gets you an okay start for ISS, a good start for IA, and a great start for upcoming White Banner (seriously, 6 models of which two are expected to be real crucial models for that sectorial). Echoing the others a bit, here's what I think will generate a good starting selection to make lists from. The basics are: Yaoxie Yaokong* Yaokong* Support pack (Zhanshi Doctor + Engineer, make sure it's the NEW non-derpy) Daoying Hacker/Boarding Shotgun Mowang (coming soon) Haidao Sniper For Vanilla and ISS, I recommend also picking up: Ninja Kuang Shi Hack Tao Sword (it's basically a universal proxy) Celestial Guard SWC box Su-Jian Kanren Major Lunah or Major Lunah stand-in Dire Foes 6 Guilang Shaolin Monks Something that's stand-in for Bounty Hunters For IA I recommend: IA Starter Zhencha Boarding Shotgun I recommend against these initially, unless you really want to paint them. See them as long term for when you've started forming an opinion about whether they fit your game play or not: Guijia Yan Huo (any) Pheasant (any) Bao (any) Sun Tze Sniper / V2 Hulang (coming soon) Shang-Ji (their models are so painfully outdated) Special notes: The ISS starter, if you want to go ISS, is kind of bad. It's got a couple of dud loadouts and the four other models mostly support one specific type of list that is good but, well, Celestial Guards aren't the most common cheerleaders for ISS. I don't typically manage to make AD troops work personally, which is why I'm not recommending Tiger Spitfire. If you go "main" vanilla, you probably want to pick up some Morats for the Krakot Renegades as a priority. Wu Ming SWC box makes for a very good proxy-box for IA, but eventually they'll be outdated for IA use. Rage-fist Crane Agent in the ISS starter is a great proxy for Tai Sheng or Shang-Ji if you go IA. I am not sure I can recommend Panggolin as an initial purchase, but they're certainly not deserving of going on the long term list, either. The IA list is short because most of the critical models are either unreleased (Zhencha SMG), already recommended as basics (Daoying, Haidao), is in the starter, or simply not available yet. IA isn't a very big sectorial in terms of unit diversity, either, so that doesn't really make for a big purchase list. A suggestion for a minimum IA purchase list: Yaoxie Yaokong (Chaiyi, Son-Bae) Yaokong (Weibing**, Husong) IA Starter Haidao sniper Daoying hacker Mowang (These'll form a good core and you can proxy and slow-buy what you find yourself using a lot) * Recommended Yaokong setups: 2 chain gun (Husong) 1 weaponless (Chaiyi) 1 cylinder (Weibing) * For IA I recommend: 1 side-box (Son-Bae) 1 weaponless (second Chaiyi) ** Weibing typically makes for acceptable Chaiyi proxies in lists that contain no Weibing
Rui Shi: "I'm coming to get you" Lu Duan: "I'm coming to annoy you" Weibing: "I'm going to see you" Husong: "Get off my lawn" The Rui Shi is fairly self-evident, Lu Duan is like a tricky to use Rui Shi (it can be a crucial tool for safe removal of mines and repeaters), while the Husong you'll find to typically die quite fast since most people will bring tools that kills it with -12 MODs so it doesn't get to lucky-crit them. Weibing gets an honourable mention for being the primary tool for dealing with camo (plus it's fast and can push buttons!) Daoying Hacker isn't squishy, just make sure there's no Killer Hackers in the ZoC of any of your Remotes with Repeaters when you buff them! Hell, Daoying Hackers are a lot more likely to last more than two rounds than Guijias!
Question: Celestial Guard with combi/LGL, can not shoot smoke, but Celestial guard with smoke LGL can shoot regular grenades?
The Celestial Guard with Kuang Shi Control Device and Smoke Light Grenade Launcher can not shoot regular grenades.
Ammo type is listed before weapon. an LGL does not list any specific ammo, so it can only throw frag grenades. CELESTIAL GUARD Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 17) But a Smoke LGL does not list normal ammo. CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13) When CB wants multiple types of ammo in a grenade launcher, it looks like this: MUYIB Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (Normal and Smoke Ammo.) / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 23) or DRUZE (X Visor) Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (E/M and Nimbus) / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) I admit, I really wish you could add more ammo types in any LGL, but that's not how the game is currently set up to be played.
Basically, a weapon without a <ammo type> in front of it functions normally and typically only shoots <Normal> ammo. A weapon with an ammo type in its name shoots only that ammo type. A weapon with <MULTI> in its name has two ammo types at full burst and typically a more potent damage type and Stun at burst 1 (depending on which grade of multi it is - MULTI Rifle and HRMC shoots light, MULTI Sniper shoots medium, MULTI HMG shoots heavy) So the regular ammo modifications are pretty straight forward and eventually MULTI will also make sense - except for "Hang on! MULTI Snipers have medium MULTI? But that's like the highest potential damage output of all MULTI!"