Having faced Yan Huo in a few recent games, I'd say they are a difficult target. Tough (ARM 8 in cover!), high BS, powerful weapons with good range - this makes them quite difficult to dislodge. With good positioning, they can control a big part of a table. Are they going to win you a game on their own? No. But they can make your opponent invest resources (i.e. models and Orders) into dislodging them, while you pursue mission Objectives. Which still counts towards your victory. I might try using a Sunduqbut in my Haqq is a similar manner, actually!
Maybe i am walking into the dice-calculator trap again, but BS5 or higher in ARO are (in my opinion) not too bad, just because of the sheer amount of critchance. A single die is 5% crit, two ramp up to 9,75'%. B5 means 22,62% crit chances. Plus, Yan hou is not too bad to be used in an CO with his halfed burst of 3. That means, ofc, YH is not shooting from 48`` against mimetism-6 in Cover. But I guess that´s just an subjective feeling. Spoiler: Damn, Terry proved the wrong point. YH (HRMC) vs. Atalanta (TR) Active Player 36.58% Custom Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Unconscious) 16.73% Custom Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Dead) Failures 32.45% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 30.97% Custom Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Custom Unit (1 W) 10.90% Custom Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Unconscious) 2.15% Custom Unit inflicts 3 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Dead) YH (HRMC) vs. Bolt MSR and 4 friends Active Player 29.42% Custom Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Unconscious) 10.89% Custom Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Dead) Failures 36.23% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 34.35% Custom Unit inflicts 1 or more wounds on Custom Unit (1 W) 12.44% Custom Unit inflicts 2 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Unconscious) 2.57% Custom Unit inflicts 3 or more wounds on Custom Unit (Dead) well, subjective feeling it is. On the other hand: there are not much raw attack pieces able to kill 5stack Bolt MSV MSR easily. This aro pieces are more comfortable to deal with if you dont have to depend on the same rangeband and can canel out their buffs. And this mostly involves support from different units. Or Pitcher hacker GML .
That's pretty much the problem it has. It's still costly, inflexible, and doesn't provide a platform of dominant firepower. You're better off leveraging more flexible solutions that bring more to the table such as the various Camo HI Yu Jing has access to or the Shang Ji which is just a very well rounded cost effective model. It doesn't help the Yan Huo in Vanilla that it is hyper vulnerable to some of the dominant meta issues with regards to hackers, pitchers, missiles etc etc. Vanilla Yu Jing at its best is forced into a camo heavy to not get gutted by this type of opponent and the Yan Huo doesn't even have the Tinbot to offer some kind of protection nor can it Duo in Vanilla.
I too find facing them an obstacle that must be brought down, they usually are, but I am not sure the order expenditure attaining the result was worth it, I have not fielded myself, when I played Invincibles I did not have the models and now that are assembled and primed Invincibles are in the back of the factions I play right now.
Well now Yu Jing has it's 4th size 5 HI! Each of them fairly pretty different from each other. CA has 3 and the rest 2 or 1. I guess it sort of makes up for only having 2 TAGs (What can I say, TAGs are cool if not always effective). The new Haetae is pretty cool looking, even though it's holding up a worthless Para CCW with CC15. Not the greatest guns in the game and other than the TacAware, it's pretty boring. But it's pretty cheap because of that. Along with the Yan Huo, he seems to be a long range support, while the Mowang and Su Jiang are the assault types. To me, if they could actually both be taken in Vanilla, The Yan Huo wins out some due to just having better guns with the same BS. However, That TacAware really helps the Haetae get to where it needs to be. Then the price is also a little cheaper. Especially the HRL +1 B. YĀN HUǑ FTO MULTI Heavy Machine Gun / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 48) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 48) YĀN HUǑ FTO Missile Launcher(+1B) / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 42) SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 54) SÙ-JIÀN Heavy Shotgun(+1B), Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 50) MÓWÁNG (NCO) MULTI Rifle, Flammenspeer / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 43) MÓWÁNG (NCO) Red Fury, Akrylat-Kanone / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 45) MÓWÁNG (NCO) Spitfire, Flammenspeer / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 47) HAETAE REF. Heavy Machine Gun / Assault Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1.5 | 41) HAETAE REF. (BS Attack [Guided]) Heavy Rocket Launcher(+1B) / Assault Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1.5 | 35)
Considering their given role of either ARO cleaner/Missile turret (or something in between for the haris profiles), I think the yan huos have simply been outscaled by the arm race. When most serious lists either need a solution for a BS 18+ sniper, or field it, the humble BS14 yan huo, even with B5 HRMC in active or B2 missiles in ARO, can't fulfill his role. Don't get me wrong, he's always been sitting in that awkward, slightly above average spot, it just so happen that "slightly above average" doesn't cut it anymore.
I hope someday, if he doesn't get something like MSV or Marksmanship, i'd like Triangulated fire. It should be a cheap to zero cost thing.
Hätätae can start from the middle of the table and he is only available in RF. Maybe the range sold out when you are facing an exclusion zone. Apart form this, the saved on PH. Compared to Yan Hou his servos are pretty bad - ordered over Temu or Wish. The powerarmour faction that can not build good PA anymore. Sure its for point-saving. I wish they would do this with Yan Hou - Dodge (PH 12) - to show its clumpsy while moving, but spits out heavy weapon fire like their lore. Sadly YJ has no HD+. White Noise would help cleaning Atalanta ;-) or walking past Kamau and Co.
Same here. I'd love to see them get something just a little more, and differentiating. Something that says "artillery". Triangulated is a weird, and order intensive rule, but it would thematically work for Yan Huo as they can usually handle walking out in front of a target for 1 order to line up the Triangulated shot. I've only ever run the YH in about 6 games - back in N3 - but they gave me my best memories of Infinity so far. Specifically the 2*ML Neuro version (I ran the HRMC twice and got nowhere with it. Too order intensive to reposition to try to find any targets that weren't already hiding from it). The 2*ML Neuro, though - just mean. In one game, a Core team of Frontoviks flinched in front of him, and then 3 of them were dead. Then he put down a Ratnik in ARO, which got Doctored back up, so he put it down again (in ARO). In another game, an Intruder Sniper was laying into him through a low vis zone etc, and so he was on -12 (hitting on 2s). The Intruder spent order after order trying to put him down, but only got through his ARM (in cover) once, so I eventually rolled a 2 (and a 1, while the Intruder missed), vapourising the sniper after he'd wasted ~ 5 orders on it. All flukes of luck, no doubt. But encouraged by the carnifexiness of the Yan Huo 2*ML. I *LOVE* that thing! So actually, in order to improve the Neuro profile, I might suggest Sixth Sense, as a proxy for some kind of tactical battlefield awareness, without the cost of an MSV. What is Sixth Sense worth on a profile?
Sixth sense is also a great idea. Some of their biggest weakness is anyone using smoke and or surprise.
