That's included. BS Attack(Guided) gives you a +6 by itself, I think a Zeta would have you hitting on 10s thanks to its ECM:Guided(8) but in most cases the target number would be 12. The rules for BS Attack(Guided) are buried in the actual BS Attack skill description on Page 45 if you want to go looking for them, since Guided isn't actually on the Table of Contents anywhere it's hard to find.
Well, heavy infantry in Sun1's cost category generally got a 7 to 12 points decrease in price; Sun1 didn't and instead got a reduction on the Total Immunity skill (and before you say anything - Karakuri were compensated with a third STR so this is not a move made to bring Total Immunity in line) while Strategos L3 had its strongest effect removed and replaced by a fairly mediocre "remote Free Agent" Meanwhile Yu Jing got the number of NCO and LT2 increased even further which in turn devalues having access to Strategoes as order manipulation - particularly extremely expensive Strategos units with very little else going for them. So yes, Sun1 got left behind to a very significant degree.
He's still got as much durability as a Bearpode. There must be a way to use that. Maybe he's meant to be a dedicated Turn 3 stomper, keeping Group One topped up with orders and then charging in himself once the opposition has lightened up. He's also completely immune to Flash Pulse and can't be oneshot by any Impersonating or Superior Infiltrating assassin outside of Shinobu with at least one crit, so he's probably still a good choice for Decapitation where you can just bury his surroundings in Forward Observers with no worry for friendly fire if the enemy brings a CC assassin.
There is a way to use everything, but I think this one is sufficiently an uphill battle to find a use for that my gaming opportunities are too precious to waste on frivolous testing. Keep in mind that Daoying, Daofei, and Guilang LTs can't be one-shot by any assassins, either, unless they both can identify which Marker is the correct one and succeed the Discover-Shoot. For ISS you have Taowu, Sforza and Pheasant to provide CoC and LT displacement with nasty consequences for trying to assassinate the wrong target - a Celestial Guard LT, Taowu and a BSG Pheasant costs as much as Sun Tze while providing more orders and Taowu will protect your order pool equal to Sun if going first while the Celestial Guard is immune to Oblivion. There are alternatives as far as sturdy LT goes, without going overboard in investment.
So far I'm loving the YJ changes, Shang Jesus really fits the bill in the battlefield. But hey YJ guys, do you got any plans to handle Avatar / Cutter class TAGs? I fear Jesus alone cannot handle that monsters in this edition, and the chaffs are just not enough to slow them down.
Since we can't burn off the mimetism anymore, those do scare me. Plans currently revolving around mostly massed Oblivion and/or getting a melee unit in combat with them. IA is going to have problems since they're missing smoke and have few MSV2 so I think dragging a Haidao sniper into position to whittle them down is going to be required. Hulang FTO can provide a decent shot at taking them out, but this also relies a bit on the TAGs not having orders to revert to Marker state since IA is also missing decent Sensor users. IA and WB on the other hand should have the tools necessary to deal with them and this is where I think Mehmut will shine.
Yeah, I could use some coordinated oblivion or total control, but that would wage me some repeater runs with Guilang or Lu Duan / Jeong. Would pick a fight against Jotum with Shang-Jesus or Yan Huo, but I do fear we could meet more Avatars than before - and well we do lack E/M Weaponry to deal with them efficiently. Still from the posts before, I received your C&C to create some hacking savvy WB list, and it did payed off. Could use some dusting, though. (Note that tables were pretty dense, but it gave a decisive victory against SWF.)
Well first and most important is Sun v1. Bsg didn't get ANY discount while having 2 nerfs (TI and strategos) and supposed discounts for arm 4 and hackable. Second is the daofei getting no discount. I know he gained few things and mimetism got 1 or 2 points more expensive but comparing it to Ork that got 9! points discount with 4 arm I'm sure dao didn't get 9 points of stuff added. Next is Haidao. He is as good as ever but when you compare him with evader there is something wrong. Base combi Haidao vs base multi rifle evader. Haidao is 3 points cheaper and we get 3CC and breaker pistol upgrade. At best these are worth 3 points. Evader gets 1ph, 3 bts, deactivator, specialist operative, climbing+ and panzerfauts and multi upgrade. 8-9 points of stuff compared to 5-6 points of stuff and discounts on Haidao. So either evader should be around 3 points more expensive or Haidao cheaper (that would be too good imo) Don't get me wrong I think Shang Jesus is amazing but compare it with Asawira Ap spitfire. 4CC, 1BS, 1WIP, 3BTS, MA2, Berserk+3, Regeneration and Stealth for 39. We on the other hand get BS(shock), Number2, terrain total, weapon upgrade, TacAware and tinbot for 49points. Hmg is 2 more points than spit, TacAware is 3 points number2 is 1 terrain total and BS shock are at best 4 points together. That would compensate 10 points of difference between units but Asawira has around 10+ points of stuff over Shanger on top of that. Is frenzy discount actually 10+ points in that case? Or is it again something wrong with handing different discounts for arm/hackable? Also, every other unit using frenzy is worth being mad at.
@ObviousGray Krit FD2 has E/M Mines and DepRep Hulang have E/M Grenades which spec-fire in a Core at 12, which is decent. These are the primary ways I'd look at dealing with Avatar in IA, tbh. Unless I can get a Guijia in melee somehow... And yes, for WB, a list something like that. Weight of Hackers being more important than quality. @Amusedbymuse I think CB increased the Frenzy discount significantly, I think there's around 15 points of discount hiding under that skill for Asawira and Joan, maybe even more.
Well exacly this. I'm playing against my friend today and I'm158% certain he will bring Avatar. It took me ages to make a list capable of killing avatar in IA and my conclusions are very similar. It's either core Haidao on active or hulang, nothing else looks viable. Guijia in CC could do work but getting there without smoke is hard.
Regarding fighting the Avatar in IA, would something like the Zhencha or Liu Xing hackers be worth it? The Zhencha could get in via marker state/climbing+ and the Liu Xing can drop in an unexpected location and start hacking.
Zhencha could do some damage IMO, but Liu Xing will suffer from Noctifer shell games and their own repeaters.
There's the Hac Tao ML profile as well. Stack that beside the Hai Dao and you have a potent ARO threat if the Avatar gets to go first and you can't risk just null-deploying. Crazy expensive though, your opponent may notice something's up unless you make a habit of bringing 2 Liu Xings.
Guijia has about even odds of putting wounds on an Avatar versus taking them if going straight on (27% vs 27%) with slightly higher odds of inflicting more than 1 wound after weighing for new crits. If you can get Spotlight we're looking at 35% vs 22% Shang-Jesus is looking at about 30% vs 20% and 38% vs 13% respectively Hulang in Core at good range has about 20% chance of IMM/ISO an Avatar and 30% risk of Avatar moving due to Dodge and around 14% risk of Avatar moving due to Guts. This increases to 25% if Avatar is Targeted and decreases to 10% if the center of the template is outside 8". Note that movement due to Guts may result in the Avatar being forced to lose cover which could open up to a direct damage approach from a Multi Rifle or similar. Meanwhile a Son-Bae has 36% chance of putting 1+ wounds on an Avatar if using Guided. Remember to shoot with AP+EXP mode! A Shang-Ji/Zuyong with Multi Rifle (e.g. Shang-Ji Hacker) in a Core (or a Haris and Avatar in Targeted) has about 45% of wounding an Avatar outside of Cover at about 12% risk, just be careful to attack outside of 12"!
E/M is now Breaker + DA right? Core-linked Lei Gong probably has pretty good odds of bricking the Avatar, but he only gets one shot. Maybe a reason to bring a Panggu?
Kind of. 35% vs 34% (and 20% of dead Lei) (these numbers not fixed for new crit mechanics, but should be reasonably accurate for comparison)
He sucks in a firefight, trust me I've been there. If you're shooting with Sun Tze you're desperate as fuck and probably running low on orders. He's a fucking dead profile in N4. Like @Mahtamori said he's had major nerfs, he's outcompeted badly in the LT role, and including him is adding a weakness to your army for minimal benefit. The reality is if you don't one round these models they'll get full healed by their engineering squad behind them. Chipping wounds isn't going to get them off the table, and if they're positioned well, you're unlikely to get them in one go due to being able to guts behind cover and force you to burn orders closing on them. If you don't have the tools to outright kill them, if they push too much you can lock them in combat. Something like a Monk or a Ninja jumping on them will mean the TAG probably isn't going anywhere for the rest of the game. If they're hanging back and refusing to commit then they're likely not achieving very much beyond sparring with your disposable ARO pieces, which is a waste of a 100 odd point TAG. In that case you should take the opportunity to gut their order pool instead. If you're playing a mission that necessitates killing big ticket targets camping objectives and you didn't pack something capable of deleting it that's probably an error with list building.
@ObviousGray I'd be remiss if I didn't throw this link to a CA player's N4 battle report your way: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/intelcom-n4-satellite-games-with-the-avatar.38016/ The OP goes into a lot of detail at the start of the post about how the Avatar was used and planned around, I imagine it would be of some use to you in plotting out how to fight such a thing.
That's the real problem, and after crit rework they're most likely to survive a blast and then go into pseudo-total cover or total cover, gets backed up by good engineers and potential re-rolls, and then jump up from that pit stop - TBH aside from blast I don't think we can stop that action without luck. Surely the game turned into TAG-favoring game.. God I miss my Oniwaban more than ever. @SpectralOwl Neat article! I'll enjoy the readings. Thx
