I have a figure for him, He's only 21pts 1SWC, potential to get more, good range. None of my players would believe I'm taking a Crane. Sforza is okay but I think the ABH is just as good for less.
All decent arguments- but the Hsien already ticks a lot of those boxes. Xi Zhuang covers your close defense even better, is a backup specialist if the hacker gets killed, and scores for lots of Classifieds.
I just think with all the bears and dog warriors out there, you can rarely have enough viral. Especially viral that your opponent does not know exists. Heck he could pretend to be the bounty hunter spitfire. Edit: Did I mention how much a enjoy @khepri's dice calculator? Against a BS13 ARM 3 BTS 3 target, linked Sforza is weaker than a linked bounty hunter spitfire in 16"+ to 24" rangeband. But Sforza is superior to a linked bounty hunter spitfire in the < 16" and 24"+ rangebands. X-Visors can make Rifle weapons pretty decent up to 32" (see Lasiqs and surprisingly Druze). But if you find the bounty hunter spitfire works for you, go for it.
I got in a game with my IS on the weekend! Of course I did horrible lol. I played against Bakunin and a Chimera killed about half my army. Why is it the first time I paint something to play, they are the first ones to be killed? My mistake was making an anti-hacker list that was too anti-hacker. I needed a bit better ARO presence. It did its job in being anti-hacker, but I had nothing that could counter warbands like the Chimera. It pretty much walked up and killed off my Dakini-Deva team and Weibing on one side and then came around and killed everything else. Damn I hate them. I had some pretty good CC with my guys but the combo of Martial Arts with NBW sucks. Also the Total Invulnerable sucked because it was immune to my Para-6 CCWs. Sure I may have survived but it didn’t stop it.
You really do want some AROs to help deal with the Chimera. Its surprisingly fragile which is the price it pays for being able to kill even elite CC units in CC.
Celestial Guard, Pheasant Red Fury and Haidao are now announced in a Last Chance ISS bundle on the store. Time to ramp up the derranged speculations that ISS will be getting a remake and that Haidao will join them (and how many nails in the Bao coffin that is)
Haidao would be a great addition to ISS. To be fair, they would make a great addition to everything. Baos are OOP for a long time now and their loadout makes them even more “out of sight, out of mind”. I hope they don’t let them die this way. I hope for them a proper rework, even something to make them playable outside ISS. Bluecoat are what I have in mind for the niche of Baos. With the current statline, even a KHD profile would be fine.
Something similar to Bluecoats is what you get if you remove Chain of Command from any given Pheasant profile. Also, if Haidao got introduced into ISS, that would free up the "Bao slot" to be remade into something, hopefully, wonderful. And yes, the Bao statline would make a fantastic hacker unit.
They have changed the name of the bundle to be Yu Jing Bundle instead of ISS Bundle. Haidao, I’m thinking since he’s a single figure, he’s going to eventually get re-packaged in a bigger set. The Pheasant is actually pretty old. It’s not up to today’s standards. I’m surprised on the Celestial SWC box though. They still look good. However, the only troops that sees any use for me is the hacker and SLGL. They have also revised troops that seemed fine as they were many times. Bao could be awesome. I think they are on the edge of it. They would be awesome now if they didn’t have competition in their own forces both as shooters as well as MSV. They are also the best at finding and shooting camo troops with MSV2 and Discover +3. Biovisor needs to be changed to be actually useful. In vanilla if you want an MSV2 or 1 shooter, the Haidao sniper is just better for a few points more. The Hsien also fills many rolls he doesn’t. Then you have Major Lunah (also ISS and sniper is the same price), Knauf, Ye Mao, Ru Shi and others. In ISS there’s also the MSV2 Spitfire Deva. I think we’ve often said they would be good with a specialist and burst 3+ mid-range weapon. If there’s any troop that should have Marksman guns, it’s them. A KHD or FO would be perfect for them. They would become one of YJ best specialists instantly due to WIP14 and BTS6. It could be too good and why they haven’t gotten one. Story-wise, they are ok. They are fanatical to the emperor troops that do a lot of dirty work. Executions, torture, etc. I think they could use a bit of change. A Post-Uprising Reforms change to become more of like guards or watch dogs. The uprising wasn’t due to their tactics, but it sure didn’t help. What I would do with no other changes: Add Multi-Marksman or other Ammo Marksman (Breaker please!) Add (give back) X-Visor on some options. Add Para CCW -6 Add KHD, Upgrade: Carbonite (“take them alive”). Or just HD. Add FO with Flash Pulse
The Pheasant that got added to the last chancer bundle is newer than the Celestial Guard SWC pack, if memory serves. Both were released not too long after the ISS starter
They have many names: Also Hacker Assassin Device - marketing slogans at its best. Is this a leak for a new HD? Did the writer not know what the name of a KHD is or was he too lazy to read? If this is an Invincible Army bundle, will we see Pheasants and CG in IA? I think she came after the BSG in the ISS starter. This would be a pretty nice combo. Sometimes you can´t squeeze an regular hacker into the list, because SWC are alredy full. Given the upgrade cost no SWC, it would be a good back up. I mean when Jazz can KHD with her HD+, why a Bao should not to carbo with an KHD? So you don´t have to worry about this: Überhacker - not only Kill... äh Assassin Hacker - will we see an Army upgrade soon? Or something about the Pheasant: But wait unitil T3 otherwise there could be too much enemy presence But price is good. Too bad I have them already
The fluff for the units always reads as if they were the Terminator themself. Mileage in game may vary. But in infinity everybody is a certified badass. And whem everybody has such ridiculous levels of badassery nobody except a few selected few stand out. On a more serious Note: The imperial Service is my favorite faction in infinity Modelrange and it would be a shame if they don't get the glow up they deserve with a few resculpts (Bao, crane MR, pheasant hacker etc.), new profiles and rules (deployables on all kanren, more breaker, more smoke, some weird upgrades to hackers, pointscost for certain troopers) that bring them fully into N4 to compete with the armsrace.
ISS, particularly the actual service part of it (not the Aleph nor merc parts), are dripping with cyberpunk cool. They are the perfect antagonist. Having them go OOP would be a mistake. As much as I'd like a Korean sectorial for the Daebak to call home, a fully functional and updated ISS is much higher on the list. Replace Bao with a unit that makes sense, have Celestials conform to the aesthetic (more long coats!), expand the agent roster. There is so much to do with the aesthetic and the design space!
I like having ISS as grey-scale villains: I think of mine as the Bureau of Correct Thought and Harmonious Behaviour, with different style lists depending on the enemy faced: The Investigative Department doing detective work and rooting out crimes and corruption is Agents plus Aleph support, with journalists ready to immortalize the protection the State Empire delivers for its citizens. The Enforcement Department has Agents plus Lunah and Ninjas surgically sending a message to the State Empires internal enemies. The Resolute Sanctions Department has Agents plus Wu Ming and Kuang Shi, definitely no journalists or Aleph busybodies, and does things that are sadly necessary and definitely never happened. Every good story needs a memorable villain, and in the Human Sphere everybody can play the villain :)
Why do people dislike the Bao? I thought N4 really made them better compared to N3 by merging MSV & Biometric. Is it a lore/fluff issue or do people have a problem with the profile itself?
They're a profile that doesn't actually do anything Infinity asks of them better than any other unit in ISS. They have high WIP and BTS, but no Hacking or Specialist profiles. They have powerful close-up weapons and the visors to get through MODs, but are fragile and trade down into almost everything with a template. Their only heavy weapon is a MULTI Sniper Rifle, which works best at a range where other Bao in a link to buff them would be completely wasted. Biometric Visor only works when an Impersonator is targetting the holder and nobody's wasting a Speculo on a troop that can't be a LT, can't score and dies to a stiff breeze. Effectively, a lot of the game would have to change around them to make the idea they're built off useful as they are now, since they're effectively elite BS attackers with no durability and poor trade performance built around attacking the parts of a table where Shotgun Skirmishers and Warbands usually lurk.
They have a lot of harris options, they don't have to harris with other Bao. He's a light and cheap shooter who can engage with any camo or impersonated model and ensure he will discover it, which is useful for Imp-2. A cheaper end shooter who has close and far rangeband options who can see anything but isn't a specialist is fine to me.
I had the bao sniper do heavy lifting in some lists in a haris with zhanying and xi zhuang. They can Move and Shoot through smoke and can open up room for other teams or a su jian to move through. And is one of the more reliable Tools for long range Engagements. I only ever used the sniper. My compaint would be that they are not really cheap because of unnessary bloat and are only linkable with more expensive, often equally squishy troopers. Specialists und a little more resilence on them, as Well as more liberal linkabillity would be much appreciated. Bao linkable with celelstials counting as celestial woulb be great for a defensive core Team.
