Only problem is getting him there? And generally speaking anyone with MA + NBW will hurt Musashi and that B1 and ARM 1 are hard to work with. Have you been playing him recently and you're fielding him often and he's receiving orders? If so what % of your wins would you say are attributed to his actions?
I always put him in Tanko Harris. I made a group split 9/6 or 8/7 and they are main order consumer in second group. So he have orders. He usually creeps along with his team and strikes when they reach midfield. I always take Yojimbo and more and more often I take Kuroshi, so they can have some smoke if needed. Hard to say if he wins games, but he alwes performs well, at least trading well with some expensive or important piece. MA+NBW hurts everyone in JSA. Armour 3 vs amour 1 does not make much difference. However, I don't think any sane MA+NBW piece would risk approaching Musashi. Even at -3 he has 15% crit chance and 35-40% chance of straight winning dice roll. And then it is Str17 Exp/AP hit. You usually don't risk 30+ or 40+ model at that odds. By all means, he is far from autoinclude. But he is something i like to have and often have.
I dont think anything in JSA is auto include, that's one of the things I like about them, most things seem very viable. Yojimbo comes close though. As for Musashi, theres only one Haris with Kempeitai I find reasonable with him. But as others have said, bringing him is like bringing a Domaru. In the active turn with stealth you dont even have to worry about a hacker. And if you name 3 NBW+MA troops that the opposing player wouldnt be willing to throw at Musashi, I can name 3 that they would... I believe as far CC and Musashi is concerned, people dont want him strait murder everything, but nobody want to see him get murdered either...
1. Can You explain what might be the reason to put Musashi with Kempei? Because I cannot see any.. ;) 2. Domaru is great, but he cannot always be unseen and also a lot of hackers sit in Core gaining 6'th Sense. 3. It's more about people aka players, not troopers. CC'ing Musashi is a gamble. Much more serious than cc'ing Tanko. Some people will take that risk, some will not. Also, the state of the game makes people more or less desperate. And let's not forget NBW is rare enough You can try to avoid those fellas and working on other part of the table or protect him a bit.
Theres at least 10 characters/units in the game that have Musashi beat. Since Musashi cant threaten them effectively with a BS Attack, he'll get bullied by these troops. Not to mention the various Berserk troops that can either tank his hit or are notoriously cheap. There really is plenty of troops in the game that none would think twice about getting into CC with with him. I dont see why anyone would be opposed to him being in the top 5 close combatants. Historical duelist as it wore... especially if he can barely kill someone at range. And when I say top 5 I mean the other units have MA, NBW, Berserk, B+1 etc. Meaning if they attack him their NBW nullifies is MA, then their MA works him over. He should have NBW as well so those troops who have Berserk/NBW/MA/ +B combinations cant work him but match him.
Here are what I consider the best ranking of all the Close Combatants. I considered how often they can win in both the reactive and active turn and whether they needed to use Berserk and whether they would survive it. I placed in Dark Red where Musashi's standing would be if he had NBW. Being in the top 5 would be good enough and it's only cause of CC25 and NBW cause everyone else with NBW would nullify his MA. Obviously those who can really bring their CC higher or their Burst will get to do more damage with more certainty and not risk Berserk. Uberfall 24, CC Attack -3, MA2, NBW, Pupniks+3B Ajax 24, Berserk +3, MA3, NBW Carmen 22, Batard+1B, NBW, +1B Heavy Pistol Kendrat 23, Berserk +3, Chest Mines +3, MA1, NBW Musashi 25, MA5, NBW Cadin 23, Berserk+3, MA2, NBW Nehab 23, Berserk +3, MA2, NBW Valkyrie 22, Berserk +3, NBW, MA3 Aleksei 23, MA2, NBW, Surprise Attack -3 Massacre 24, MA3, NBW Sargosh 24 MA3, NBW Unknown Ranger 23 MA2, NBW Jayth 23, MA3, NBW Wolfgang 22, Berserk +3, MA3, Para CCW -6 Kitsune 25, MA5, Surprise Attack -3 Adil 23, MA2, Para CCW -6 McMurder 23, Berserk, PH16, MA3, AP+DA, Total Immunity Nourkias 25, MA4, +1B Suffice to say, I actually believe Achilles, Liang, Tarik, Gunnar and Shona should get the tiny bump needed to join this list as well.
My question is: what is the real question here? Would You like to make him JSA "anti NBW tech"? - Maybe. Personally I would prefer to see Neko in that role. Whoever this might be, we would have to accept cost increase and that would be more acceptable on HI piece. Or do You ask if Musashi is playable in his current form? Then hell yeah. He is quite chep regular model at 24 points. It reasonable to think 24 point model have weakneses. He have. But he have also many more or less unique strenghts. Movement 6-4 is 2" less than normal 8-4 bike. He can do 6" cautious Mv and he can benefit from cover. He is one of 2 MA5 models in game. Once he gets there, he is making CC28, B2, Str 17 AP/Exp attack. Who else can do that? Chimera is great, but she will not kill Jotum/Cutter in one strike. He can suffer template weapon or mine on the way to target and not every warband can do that. Not hackable. Very solid model for affordable price
Uberfal is super good, but also fragile. Ph 13, Arm1 and W1. Any template weapon is solid deterrent and stupid lone pistol ARO can kill her easily. Kendrat and Carmen are Dogged, and this is better, but not as good as NWI. All 3 generate 2/3 hits with strenght 14. Well, against TAG with standard ARM8/BTS6 it is pathethic. They can beat him all day and maybe they will scratch him. They will need 2/3 activations to deal with heavy infantry. All 3 should die to Domaru Berserk charge and Domaru still have like 40% chance to survive this experiment. Of course Domaru can also safely chain them to death. Ajax is 39 points, so Yes, he is good. Unless there is some hacker around. Rankings are fine and if we only consider dueling skill, I could agree. But the game is not only about dueling. It is mostly not about dueling.
Missing Igao (CC 23, MA 3, CC Attack -3, Surprise Attack -3) who should be quite high on the list Missing Makaul (CC 23, MA 2, CC Attack -3) who should be quite close to the bottom, but still on it IMO Missing O-Yoroi (CC 23, MA2, ARM7, PH 17, STR 3) who I think is a stronger melee unit than McMurrough (even if McMurrough is absolutely better value for the points) Considering how Berserk actually works (it removes "duel" from "duel to the death") I think you're evaluating it slightly too high. It's an active turn situational advantage that relies on the target either not being a sufficient threat to you or being sufficiently valuable to be worth sacrificing. Most units on your list wouldn't use Berserk against most other units on the list. Several units certainly would if facing Ajax or O-Yoroi, but others are just too dangerous Ajax for example wouldn't Berserk Bloodpool (much cheaper E/M CCW unit), any unit with Mono CCW or O-Yoroi (simply hits him too hard). I'd personally rate Adil one CC higher than Wolfy McWolfFace's Berserk and both of them should be below Mushashi and Kitsune I'd stick Nourkias higher up the list, in the active turn he's as dangerous as Mushashi. Mushashi doesn't have NBW, he's got NWI. Kitsune should, IMO, be one step above Mushashi due to Surprise Attack and Mono being arguably better than NWI and APEXP.
I have to disagree about Kitsunes ranking that monofilament blade of hers and hidden deployment give her a much bigger advantage than the chimeras eclipse grenades and NBW ps: guys don't sleep on Shona she is both AP and EXP mele
Against 98% of targets APEXP is much more reliable than Mono. Much easier to fumble 2 diece than 6. And Str17 APEXP have better target numbers except Jotum.
Its if Kitsune is in a dual. She consistently wins face to face rolls more often with CC25 and consideration for her surprise attack and MA against non NBW.
That's a fair point, but I was mostly trying to point out that they have the same MA, same CC, but she's got Surprise Attack and he doesn't, so they shouldn't be that far apart in the list. Basically, she'll be fumbling her 2 CC dice less often than he fumbles his 2 CC dice. So, Shinobu has a 77% chance to one round a Guijia, 72% if not Surprise Attacking Mushashi has 65% to one round a Guijia (79% to cause 2 damage)
Slipping in a thought: Mushashi often employed mind games to mess with and unnerve his opponents (IIRC) -- so maybe he should be our first Airborne deployment unit? Walk on the board along any edge?
Wouldn't Holoprojectors do just that? AD seems to be specifically ruled out for JSA, and is more Ninja backstabby stuff anyway, IMO.