Having only two models in the Sectorial with any kind of visual mods (Lunah, ninja) is a pretty big weakness too. No Tag (for missions that require them to score points), limited LT options (5 units, 3 of them 50+ points), and all around expensive troops (other than Kuang Shi). I would still say they have more weaknesses than factions like QK or Corrigador.
Well, its the fluffiest thing they could do, given that all this Uprising fiasco will heavily involve them. And giving a new sectorial-less unit would be pointless now, i think. I don't know how this new release wouldn't improve it, especially when you can add everything in vanilla.
Except that you have 8 Kuang Shi, meaning you get 9 orders for 53/.5, you have one of the only Duos in the game worth playing, you have more Holoprojector Lv2 AVA than pretty much anyone else, and you get a 6-4 Mimetism, combat jump HMG that can be given Marksmanship Level 2 for 30 points. And to make up for visual mods, you are probably the second best sectorial the game at dealing with them.
I'm not saying the Sectorial is bad, I'm not saying it's underpowered. All I'm saying is there ARE weaknesses to exploit.
Which also means the smoke providers (Celestial guard with Kuang shi controller) have orders to give a curtain for the Bao Sniper (use as a hunter) and the Hsien HMG and the MSV2 remote spitfire... Haqquislam would be the only other one with so many Lv2, yeah. Military Orders can place the Sepulcher Knight forward, but it's the sepulcher... As for Duos, there are a lot out there more worthwile than the Su Jianx2 duo... the Geckos are less interesting (not enough gun), Aquiles+Patroclus needs so many revisions... (you always know which model is Achilles, by looking at the link leader marker: one if Achilles, three if Patroclus), but the best one right now I'd say it's the Druze Bayram Cordelia + Scarface Duo. And there are other interesting ones around.
Geckos put all their points into defense. Yeah, they're lightly armed by TAG standards, but stop thinking "Lizard" and start thinking "Mobile Brigada" (or Al-Badass).
I thought they meant Wu Ming. Su Jian duo doesn't really grab me honestly, even if you take two of them. Both are going to be doing essentially the same thing, so they should do it in different places. Wu Ming, on the other hand, are one of the fanciest toolbox units around. Even the duo profiles themselves have multiple fancy tools to work with. There are still more interesting duos, but the Wu Ming one is up there.
Not quite all. They're at their best in suppressive fire but Mk12 ain't bad if you're outranging, and I don't particularly like dual combis myself but burst 4 is still burst 4. Then there's the Gecko pilot, one of the few truly great TAG pilots in the game (and not just because his TAG is cheap). Burst 5 is sure as hell still burst 5, and on a specialist as well.
The present weaknesses of ISS seem to be: Weak midfield prescence. Limited AD. Limited specialists. Limited access to armor-cracking. Limited access to camo (but then, plenty of Holo2 all over the place).
Don't forget that they also armed with Blitzen, that turn anyone that has hackable trait in it into statue.
Actually(tm) it's not anyone with the Hackable trait. It's HI, REM and TAG type troops. That Mormaers held together via leather straps? Yeah, that bitch is frozen by EM. The hi-tech leather is left completely frozen.
and those are exactly the troop types that have the Hackable Characteristic. That said, the way the rule wrote it, and as you also did, is much more clear on who exactly gets Immobilized. (The rule also include Vehicle) Hacking program which cause temporary IMM like Gotcha works on Hackable and Hackers. While E/M only work on HI/TAG/REM and Vehicle.
Point 1: Kanren and Ninja do have some midfield presence, but true, we have nothing on say, all of Ariadna, Hunzakuts or Zeros. We're still in a better state then PanO at least. I'd say we have middling midfield presence as oppose to low. Point 2: We legit have one AD, so you got that right. Though the Garuda, if buffed, can be sweet pretty though. Point 3: We have the Sophotect, who is legit one of the best specialists in the game. Honestly, I feel like she can be all we need. Also, Forward Observer CG can Flash Pulse on WP14 which is bonkers. Point 4: Breaking TAGs or the bigger HI's are one of our weaknesses, but we have access to a lot of cost-effective hackers to deal with the higher armor stuff. Plus we get some weird toys to try and take down TAGs, like our Kanren have monofilament. I'd rate this as another weakness of ours ultimately. Point 5: We do lack Camo. But I think ISS is the counter-Camo list, in that we have sensor and MSV2 up our butts. We are the Cops to everyone else's Robbers. Our lack of significant Camo is probably a consciencious choice. Sub-Point 5: The crazy mind games of Holoprojector are waaaaaay more enjoyable from a meta-perspective than boring ol' Regular Camo. If both you and the opponent know ISS really well, you can throw so many fake outs. You can "win" deployment with your mind games. ISS can be built such that the more the opponent knows about how the list is suppose to operate, the more you can mess with them on how you're composing fireteams or who's the lieutenant. It's a cool design.
On a scale of 1 to 10, anything 7 or lower is trash. Same as when you fill out customer satisfaction sheets :) Garuda is pretty good on its own, but buffing it is difficult in a faction without forward deploying repeaters or pitchers. Not that those would make it easy. Sophotect is a mixed bag. I honestly think she's trash simply because there's no cheap skate option, which sounds weird, but being forced to fork out nearly 40 points on a multi-specialist is a hard sell, especially when one or two more dedicated 15 point specialists at WIP 13 would work just as well for most missions and most lists. I disagree that our hackers are cost-effective, @NewWorldKing , most non-Ariadnans will be able to deploy highly cost-effective hackers through repeaters or simply cheap CH or TO hackers. It's entirely personal preference, of course, and specific application, but getting back to point 1 I'd say even middling performance is trash-tier in this regard. Heh... again, it's so interesting how people treat quantities in Infinity. ISS has two extra units with Sensor and one extra unit with MSV2 compared to most faction, and the AVA is fairly low on both. I think what stands out is that they are core options for the sectorial rather than actually common. This is, of course, accentuated with smoke; Celestial Guard LSGL is probably one of the worst if not the worst source of smoke in game, but you'll find one in every ISS list and they'll nearly guaranteed be linked which makes them reliable and cheap. I really hope we get a Holo2 heavy infantry with Invincible Army. You know, a Yu Jing take on equestrian knights. I think they'll mesh better with the faction than the MO counter-part. For someone with a good eye for points, it's hard to properly hide things with Kanren in ISS, there's this awkwardness of the Ninja and Garuda being just the wrong points and the Celestial Guard being a bit too expensive and providing very little reason to spam the same profile that just makes Kanren pretending to be 3 other units hard to pull off against veterans. Edit: I forgot Bao exist. Also, I'm not saying the faction is weak, I'm saying that it has weaknesses (all factions should have weaknesses) and that the existence of a unit that can do X does not equate to a strength.
Not all HI are hackable (ex.: Ariadna is full of those). Not everything that is hackable is also IMM'd by EMP (ex.: LI hackers). False equivalency does nothing but creating confusion. Then allow me to introduce Greys and their nano-kilts.
ISS does have a fair chunk of E/M2 and glue options at least, for those wanting alternatives to the super heavy firepower / infiltrating monofilament TAG-cracking approach. That Combi + E/mitter + MadTraps Pheasant agent has taken out quite a lot of stuff for me, including Mobile Brigada and an O-Yoroi.
