I'm curious about how others approach collecting and playing Yu Jing. In contrast to how I've approached other miniatures games, I find my approach to Yu Jing is completionist. I want all the models and check ebay regularly for OOP models like Bao Troops and the Hac Tao HMG. I am playing vanilla and all the sectorials which contributes to my desire to have everything. So I am wondering if this a common approach to YJ or do most people focus on one sectorial and vanilla lists that use profiles from that sectorial? Does anyone stick to just one sectorial not even playing vanilla? How much do you proxy and how does this affect how you collect the miniatures?
I'm more of an utilitarist I'd say, I buy the models I need. Though I like to experiment a lot and I've been playing yu-jing (and only yu-jing) for a while now so I'm close to having it all . I'd like to say I'm not going for the OOP stuff but... it's just that I already have most of them. The baos and hac tao you're looking for are amongst the first models I bought for the game. Also I paid big bucks for a limited edition guijia and I'm looking for a V2 marksman sun tze at the moment. Usually I stick to one sectorial for a long time before going for something else, bare a few games here and there. I started with ISS in 2014, picked up IA at their release in 2018/2019, a bit of white banner early N4 but found it didn't really fit me, kinda like vanilla, I suck with camos and skirmishers it's just not my style. So I went back to ISS with the fireteam update. I proxy when needed, both for gameplay reason or if I have a theme/story that could use it. For example, I got some more zuyongs to proxy as wu-mings for my somewhat reformed ISS, at least in appearance. Now that I think about it, the only models that I'm pretty sure I'll never buy are the new hulang and the guijia. I like the ones I have, I know i'll never play 2 of those them given how hard it is to justify playing just one in the first place.
My Very first yu jing miniature was the mowang. From there it was a very slippery slope as of now i do own every trooper and their profiles exept for marksman Sun the and the bao. I bought 2 Boxes of wu Ming so i could convert every profile. Troops missing profiles i convert. As i don't like the ye Maos design i converted every single loadout on the basis of Tiger soilders gave them the ye Mao backpack(?) And a cloak. My imperial Service is waiting for New baos eagerly as it is exept for those competely painted. My ohter yu jing at least sport the basic colours and are somewhat tableready. Right now i am slowly painting up my invincible army and my JSA ( i now i am a traitor but my JSA is close to completion with just the second dayokai and the karakuri to paint. they were my first army) I will someday get the new smg hulag but i already converted one from the combirifle one, so maybe i will convert him to carry a multirifle.cbit i am in no hurry.
Search no longer! You can buy my Baos. Its been years I used them and even if they got the Bolt-Threadment I would take the risk and sell them ;-) At the moment I do not have any version of Sun Tze. I never was tempted to bring him on the table, even less the sniper version. And non of the minis is so good, that I must have it (third I am not a fan of characters apart from SP). I also miss out the newer support pack, I was tempted for a moment to buy them exclusivly for my IA, but still old helperbots and more to paint so .... no. Next is Gao. I did not do Defiance and the DF box was also not very appealing, even Uma is in her less useful version. Oh and I ever missed out the Shaolin box, because I have the older ones and the newer ones. I started with ISS. After a turnament I got a Yan Huo as a price and finaly I bought the new Guija (its still the best looking TAG) and so I thought I can also buy into vanilla. Then IA hits and I was totaly into it. Finaly with Kaldstrom I got into White Banner and now I play all three. Better is that! Normaly I play sectorial only. But I want to try out vanilla again. I don´t like to proxy. I know some folks, that even dislike this more than me ;-) So I play Tai only in her breaker version. On a turnament I would break with this tradion if needed. The only mini I do proxy at the moment is the Beasthunter, this is CBs fault ...
Personally I go for the completionist approach, but play only sectorials. So I try to get or convert any and every troop choice for Invincibles and White Banner, but ignore troops that are only in ISS.
I’ve been playing from the start of the game and have at least one of everything except recently. I just don’t have the money to invest in some things that don’t work for me. I have only one figure from the Kaldstrom set and have not gotten the Blue Wolf, Lei Gong, Hulang, Tian Gou. Other than the Blue Wolf, I don’t use any of them. Right now, my old 1st ed. Guijia is now a proxy for the Blue Wolf because it’s the right size and I still like it. Even though I already have 1st and 2nd edition Shaolin I got the one with the 3 section staff because it’s too cool not to get. I haven’t gotten the other one though.
Thanks to all for your replies. So far I find that CB makes this more difficult than they should. Now, I do understand the issue around SKUs and retailers, but it is a little annoying that if I want to get a Yan Huo ML I have to buy the Beta box that includes the Tiger soldier and Zuyong that I already have from Red Veil. I missed my opportunity to get the Yan Huo when it was just in a blister by itself. I started with Code One which is basically White Banner lite, but in N4 I've mostly used Vanilla (cuz of all the toys). I've dabbled with IA and WB, but I find myself drawn to ISS for some reason even when I initially thought I would never touch them. I already got the new Hulang. LOL. I'm holding off on TAGs for the moment. Trying to pace myself. I find myself less interested in characters. I think is just a carryover from my 40k days in older editions. This is the way. I was thinking less in terms of proxying individual profiles and more like "this old Dao Fei HMG is now a Hac Tao HMG" or "these aren't Celestial Guard, they're Bao Troops."
I do not care that "characters" are "characters" because they started and keep been designed as "special version of unit X" so when I design games they are just units.
Characters can be fine. It's just often the case that they seem to fall into the trap of being automatic takes or never takes. In the case of Infinity this is compounded by how many of them are sold in Dire Foes or other boxes packaged with out- of-faction models.
