If you just move around them and avoid eye contact - no, no AROs from hackers, jammers etc. Unless the hacker/jammer has SS Level 2.
Yes, that's one of the issues he faces in IA. When you play vanilla you can easily have your Ninja KHD close to protect him, or Kanren MadTraps, or Minelayer Guilang/Libertos. In IA you don't have anything like that, which makes it a real pain.
using AHDs on anything but TAGs in active is seriously wasteful - you still need to kill the target if you are doing carbonite and Oblivion vs Reset is just a 1 die vs 1 die roulette, i.e. wasted orders you are way more likely to lose your hulang to combi from a Zero if you deploy it ahead in FD2 when going second (why are you doing this again?)
If you are going second hold him back close to one of your repeaters. Clog the approaching lanes with our HaiDao MSR. Think and solve the problem, do not expect the Hulang to do something it cannot do. It is limited but if you playing to his weaknesses then no wonder he does not deliver. Find a way to maximize his strengths. I am not implying he is great but if you are sending him head on an AHD through a repeater network you are the problem, kinda like throwing a Zuyong HMG at a Kamau from the other DZ...
That's the problem for me. I can't seem to find his advantages. He has grenades but low PH. He has Mimetisim but standing in area of +3 for the enemy anyway. He's up close but with short range weapons or medium weapons that don't do much. He's great in CC but gets kicked in the nuts by a Ghulam anyway. All that for a really high price. I've used him in Dahshat and YJ. In both he's mediocre at best.
It also doesn’t help that if you need a midfield cleaner the Zencha is very good, and whatever the Zencha cannot handle Lei Gong will. He is like the big stupid brother.
You have again made the point that many have made multiple times now on many of Hulang threads. What's the point of the Hulang when we have the Zencha and now Lei gong. We have discovered 2 answers. 1. 44 points to try and blow up objectives. 2. To hold down a small section of the board as a threat deterent.
You all are seriously undervaluing E/M grenades either as a bunker clearer or a reactive turn threat once you park Hulang in position. Also the direct template always has a use (active turn fork or reactive threat). Lei Gong is like a direct opposite to Hulang - he exists to fight/bypass msv ARO or snipe things in 16-24". And if you play IA for some reason you take him in a fireteam and dont throw at enemy DZ. This just in, Tiger Soldier is useless apparently, pack it up
Yeah, sure, a model that costs 75% as much, that doesn't start on the board, and isn't hackable is useless because when compared to a model whose main faults are that it's too costly for a model that starts on the board and is hackable... No one is saying the Hulang's gear is useless, but the price just isn't right for a model that's not hyper-optimised. A simple thing like Fury would probably work wonders for this bastard.
Huang is a CC guy with no good delivery method, like all other CC guys without decent delivery methods, he's not liked. Things like visual mods/big guns/smoke/eclipse/infiltration etc is what is needed to make him work properly. Until he gets that for the price, he'll be overlooked as there's no synergistic stuff to drag him up the board or smoke him up there
Exactly. In IA, Hulang does not have a good way to get into CC. He's a bit more usable in vanilla or Dashat, what with actually having smoke support in the army!
Yes, and on those armies you have other CC guys that do pretty much the same thing and have better prices. I mean, you have both McM and Saito in Dashat, and you can go with a Ninja or even a Kanren in Vanilla. Honestly, I think it could work pretty well in vanilla, but you can do wonders with 44 points there... IDK man
I haven't found him to be much better in Dahshat. But need to try a few more times. But I feel like it's just trying to put a square peg into a round hole. I keep finding if i need a mid table guy the Hunzi FO with repeaters or Zhencha FO are more effective for less cost.
Nomads/Tunguska/Bakunin/StarCo/ForCo, OSS/vanilla Aleph all take AHDs fairly regularly. I take them regularly in vanilla YJ (one of my 2 Guilangs that are basically an always-take feature). They're a great second hacking device or speedbump if you have forward repeaters or infiltrators carrying the AHD themselves. Having your AHD stay in camo much of the time mitigates reactive-turn vulnerability to KHDs, until/unless they bait you out to ARO something hackable (at which point your AHD has at least done its service). Like Mahtamori and @Sedral note the AHD is one of the best offensive-hacking pieces. It's just that a lot of Infinity players aren't great at the hacking layer of the game so they try to ignore it as much as possible. I'm not the greatest player, but some of my best moments have come through offensive use of AHDs to freeze important troops before finishing them off. In YJ, Guilang in your main/scoring group and Monks in your aggressive/ablative second order group are a great combo for this.
That's 10 away from a Daofei. That is not a favourable comparison for the Hulang in the slightest. I absolutely will make room for a Daofei.
So I was thinking about the Ryuken 9 and how it has two vastly different profiles built off of the same chasis, and how that could potentially work to improve the Hulang's ability to perform in its role. Here's what I came up with: Now, you could cut the PH down by 1 in order to cut back on cost, if replacing the CCW and adding Frenzy don't scale it back enough. The main thing here is the difference between the Wildcard and the FD2 version now. Wildcard version can add a potential CC deterrent to link teams that are conventionally fragile in close quarters. The FD2 version is given a better defensive tool for securing the midfield while also not relying on a marker state.
I honestly think that making Hulang a proper HI would be enough. Bump Wounds to 2 and PH to 14 and do nothing else (with possible small point increase). Maybe stun granades too. It would have more of a shocktrooper vibe to it.
