I've been prepping some ISS lists for an upcoming tournament, being a nice change from vanilla while also letting me revisit some units that I often neglect in vanilla play, and unlike IA, is a sectorial that actually has some identity. In all honesty, I really haven't seriously played ISS in a decent while, and so going back to approach them in this fashion really does highlight how they've aged in some places. Now, I think that ISS as a whole was at its N3 refurbishing and still is one of the better designed sectorials in the game. But it could still use some refurbishment to catch up with the times. To that end, I would aim for minimal adjustment for most profiles. The bulk of what ISS could use is just some sprucing up on its fireteam fluidity. Only in the most egregious of cases would I revamp or redesign actual profiles. Zhanying Imperial Agents: -Wildcard Trooper: Up to 1 Zhanying can join any fireteam of this Sectorial Army that does not contain any Kuang Shi The Zhanying is a costly toolbox unit that would rarely make for a strong pointman, but has a variety of profiles that would serve to add a lot of utility to any fireteam he's added to. And since ISS fireteams are all about packing in a wide variety of utility into its fireteams, this guy should really be a posterboy for the faction. However, the Kuang Shi link should never be allowed access to wildcard options, as it pushes toward some of the worse implementation of fireteams conceptually, using cheap chaff troopers to do little more than act passively and provide bonuses to a premium trooper. So the latter distinction is necessary. Wu Ming -Remove special fireteam option Giving the limited wildcard status to the Zhanying replaces this -Fireteam: Haris profile added using SMG/Chain Rifle loadout A Haris option would make these guys a more attractive option. A full core is costly and cumbersome, and these guys come with an eclectic armoury that could be made more playable in a haris format. Imperial Agents, Pheasant Rank -Wildcard Trooper: Up to 1 Imperial Agent Pheasant Rank may join any fireteam of this Sectorial Army that does not contain any Kuang Shi I still think the Pheasant needs a more complete revamp to see more use, but the problem is that I really don't know how I would even attempt to do it without redesigning him from the ground up. This would help at least to integrate him into lists more easily. Bao Troops Unfortunately, these guys are the previously mentioned egregious case, and are in some serious need of reworking. In their current state, they're nearly unplayable, and minor fiddling just isn't going to be enough to help with that. Aggressive, close ranged, breach-and-clear troopers. I'd even consider giving them frenzy to fit their background, but I'm not sure if it would be too much of a point-reduction for their own good. I could see myself using these. Biometric Visor has been removed entirely, as it's absolutely worthless to begin with. I just wish I could fit in a weapon that defies the concilium convention to the MSR profile... EDIT: Add automedkits until the cost seems reasonable. Thoughts? I'd like to see the Kanren get an Impersonation profile, but I feel that goes beyond my intended scope of focusing on minimal changes.
N4's coming up, so I'd just negotiate a better BMV rule if I were you- if BMV2 actually let you shoot IMP markers or dispelled Holoechoes in LoS on activation it would be insanely valuable for protecting troops or hunting hidden LTs. As for War Crimes on the MSR, shift the Pistol to Viral or Heavy and you're good. Most of what you're proposing here for a "rework" consists of cherry-picking some of the most powerful/undercosted rules in the game though, which will hopefully be fixed for N4 anyway, so I'd advise toning it down more than a little bit. I'll pitch my usual favoured fix for Bao here again; Skill that lets them Special Dodge against Templates using BS Attacks. Would be fluffy for a breacher (shoot them down before they even pick up the gun), and let them cut through the heavily-preferred Chain Rifle/Smoke Grenade Warband spam defense like a hot knife through butter without resorting to points formula abuse to improve trading performance and order pools.
I really don't care about exact values for point formulas for the Bao in this case. You can throw on a bunch of inconsequential crap rules to inflate their price, so long as the trooper itself can feel thematic and worthwhile. Throw an automedkit on there, or whatever other useless rules you want until the point cost looks right. Main point being, however, they should be a hyper-aggressive asymmetrical close-range gunfighting squad. You could switch the riotstopper for a chain colt, but I figure the stopper is more thematic with their background.
Bao's problem is their cost, if you throw stuff on them to make them costly it's going to have to be premium stuff or you'll have undone their fix. While a couple of years ago, I'd have said that smoke grenades on MSV2-linkable troops is a no-go, I'll limit myself to note that I find smoke on Bao neither sufficiently merited nor do I think smoke on the actual MSV2 profile is going to happen. I also find Marksmanship L1 to distract more than do much good and the stats changes to be a bit redundant, particularly now that you've added two hacking profiles, maybe BioV2 instead would be more thematic and appropriate? Other than that, this is a good Bao suggestion. The non-SMG profiles should be in the 24-30 range. Pheasant needs an actual fix. While Bao can be fixed by removing the light shotguns and adding hacker profiles, Pheasant needs a lot more work. Mostly the fix can be fairly simple here as well - treat CoC like LT, so remove it from all profiles then duplicate the MadTrap and Shotgun profiles that get CoC. I'd also like to see Haris removed from Pheasant and Haris added to Celestial Guards. Let other units handle Harising and have Pheasant Wildcard in. Last but not least, my pet peevee with ISS; Kaung Shi as Ghost: Synchronized. Yes, it'd completely change the character of ISS and YJ vanilla.
Just throw Frenzy on Bao and drop their BTS by 3. It fits the fluff. Then give them SMGs and an SMR profile.
You can EASILY pump out 16-17+ orders out with a full core of Wu Ming, complete with full utility of Perimeter weapons, MSV options, Smoke and so on. Costly? Mayhaps. Cumbersome? No, not in ISS, that's why ISS is such a great sectorial. Imperial Service ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 9 WÚ MÍNG HMG / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 39) WÚ MÍNG (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 31) WÚ MÍNG (Fireteam: Duo) Chain Rifle, Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25) WÚ MÍNG MULTI Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39) ZHÀNYING (Sensor) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nimbus Grenades, MadTraps / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 28) CELESTIAL GUARD Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21) CELESTIAL GUARD Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) PANGGULING (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) GROUP 2 7 4 CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20) SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 31) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 4 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army
My demands Sun Tze: Counts as a Crane Agent for fireteam composition. Bao: New profile: KHD and SMG. New profile: AHD and SMG. New profile: Shock Marksman Rifle Pheasant: Haris on every profile. Zhanying Haris on every profile. And then just add the special fireteams from Yuandun. Note: Special Fireteam: Duo: Yáokòng WÈIBĪNG + Yáoxiè RUI SHI Note: Special Fireteam: Core: Imperial Agent Crane Rank + ZHÀNYĪNG Imperial Agents + Up to three Celestial Guard Note: Special Fireteam: Duo: Imperial Agent Pheasant Rank + Dakini Note: Special Fireteam: Core: ZHÀNYĪNG Imperial Agents + Up to three Celestial Guard + Sophotects Note: Special Fireteam: Duo: Yáokòng WÈIBĪNG + Sù-Jiàn Immediate Action Unit Note: Special Fireteam: Core: Imperial Agent Pheasant Rank + Bào Troops + Up to three Celestial Guards Note: Special Fireteam: Haris: Imperial Agent Pheasant Rank Haris + Dakini + Celestial Guard. Note: Special Fireteam: Core: Imperial Agent Crane Rank + ZHÀNYĪNG Imperial Agents + Up to two Wú Míng + Hsien Note: Special Fireteam: Haris: Imperial Agent Pheasant Rank Haris + ZHÀNYĪNG Imperial Agents + Mech-Engineer Note: Special Fireteam: Core: Bào Troops + Up to three Celestial Guards
Side note; How do you handle Lt assassination run? One day I got busted by it seriously, from that I'm keeping obvious CG lt into my garbage can. :/
Bao I love the idea of giving Bao Riotstoppers. Totally makes sense for them. I can’t see them getting smoke grenades though. They almost never give them to a troop that has MSV2 too. I can see Stun though. I love the X-Visor though. I love turning a -3 into 0 for range. I was sad they took it away from the BSG. I don’t mind they needing to form a link team with some sort of Wildcard though and not by themselves. It’s just part of the background. Hackers would be good too. Marksman Rifle as well. I like the idea of Wildcards not being able to be with Kuang Shi. Zhanying. Agreed! Wildcard would be excelent for them. Crane. Same thing. Wu Ming. For some reason I thought they already had Haris. I’ve used in Ikari and love it. Pheasant, they need a cost reduction. I really don’t see why they cost so much. They have absolutly nothing that makes them worth the cost. They too should be Wildcard. Sun Tze being able to be in a fireteam would be great. How about a Sophotech+Dakini Haris? I don't like the idea of mixing YJ with Aleph links. What I would like I’d like the Su Jian to be given some more weapon options. Just because. Like change out Panzerfaust for Akrylat Kanon. Hsien Give them Lt.2 or something equivalent.
Mostly by a combination of Perimeter Weapons and Kuang Shi’s. If meta is very heavy with Impersonation then drop the CG Hacker for another CG Lieutenant candidate and let the Zhanying handle the Hacking Device. IDK, it’s not usually been a problem for me at tournaments, even when, as you correctly point out, ISS kinda struggles with obvious Lt’s.
Quite interesting; although I would presume people tend to shrink out impersonators due to their volatile nature - or am I missing something? I'm facing more speculo killers in recent one month than my entire Infinity experience, guess I should be ready for them upon upcoming ITS. Thx in advance.
Alternatively, if you’re facing a very heavy speculo spam, then a good list with a Crane Rank lt. is also a viable solution, as he is quite solid and very likely to beat the shit out of a Speculo.
On Impersonators: when facing Haqq or Shas - use the other list? My own suggestions; Bao (visor/surveillance troopers) Replace Light Shotguns and Contenders with Light Riotstoppers. Put X-Visor, BioV2 and MSV2 on all profiles. Add Boarding Shotgun, Killer Hacking Device profile. Pheasant (team leaders) Remove Chain of Command from all profiles Replace Free Agent with No2 Replace Duo with Specialist Operative on non-hackers Improve PH to at least 12 Add Special Wildcard (up to 1 may join any Fireteam) Zhanying (utility trooper) Replace Forward Observer profile with (Sensor, Chain of Command) Breaker Combi, Nimbus Grenades Replace Boarding Shotgun profile with (Chain of Command) HMG Replace Missile Launcher, Nanopulser, Nimbus Grenades with Missile Launcher, Light Riotstopper, Nimbus Grenades Celestial Guard Add Haris profile Add Special Haris, up to one Crane may join a Celestial Guard Haris. Considerations First and foremost, ISS doesn't need buffs to external balance. At all. The core of what makes ISS strong mustn't be touched. There are some very iffy units, though, that most people who play ISS or face ISS don't actually play all that much. I would like Kanren to have Light Riotstoppers instead of Chain-Colts as they make a lot more sense for the Kanren, but the Kanren male sculpt has a Chain-Colt. Bao would become a bit more expensive, but it would consolidate all of their roles into one and it'd make sense. Ideally the Contender should be replaced with a Light Riotstopper as well, but there's a model with a full scale Contender, but they're old sculpts so who cares, right? Pheasant are simply too expensive to work as CoC and their PH is too low to work as melee unit. All in all, you get these to take care of objectives and make any Fireteam in ISS dangerous to get too close to, not to do the main bulk of the fighting. They're still the main way to get Bao into Fireteams. Zhanying got plausible deniable CoC at the expense of the least used profiles. This isn't a buff per se, more retaining CoC somewhere, and at the sacrifice of the least used profiles. Celestial Guard Haris is mostly regarding Bao, as it frees up Bao to join Cores while still providing reliable smoke. @Ayaxs some of those fireteams doesn't work (no Gong-Cheng) and the Hsien from D is a war crime. Speaking of war crimes, Yuan Dun can let Bao go unsupervised (i.e. team up with Celestial Guards) in direct contravention to the Dragon's orders because they are committing war crimes. That probably shouldn't be the norm for ISS in general, though.
I am on board with all of this. Only exception is that I wouldn't want wildcards of any sorts joining Kuang Shi fireteams. In the case of the Kanren situation, you could give riotstoppers to the combi profiles, and keep the chain colt on the BSG ones.
I'm not too fussed about the Kuang Shi Fireteams, tbh, as you well know I don't think Kuang Shi should provide orders at all. I think the first place to rein in ISS if that becomes necessary is to remove that particular Fireteam (though this would seriously affect the validity BSG KS). As for the Kanren guns are concerned, we don't really have a clear image of what a Riotstopper looks like as far as I can find (Omega, Delta, etc guns don't even seem to have attachments) so it's not too far-fetched that a Chain-Colt can be loaded with glue cartridges I suppose (similar to how Yu Jing miniatures seemingly have three attachements; any bullet shooting gun, any spraying gun, and Blitzen)
