It may just be a wild guess, yeah. But I would say the Orc/Griffin thing is different though. They are rather standard/typical HI with nothing fancy. Ryuken is on the other hand a very specific, almost one-of-a-kind, type of profile. That would be a bit redundent to have such similar profiles (only difference with the HRL loadout is basically exchanging mim-6 for mim-3 and HD) and a lost opportunity to make something nice and different with the Raiden.
For both the Senku and the Jizamurai, it looks like you should be relying on the 0 SWC Thunderbolts to close the range. With Mimetism, Jizamurai is a better gunfighter than the Domaru. Also, as MI, he is not threatened by hacking networks. This army feels like it will play differently than N4 JSA with more fragile troops.
Meh, it's mostly anecdotical and definitely not a defining feature. New Raiden and current Ryuken are identical/very similar in almost every single aspect, not different enough to justify to separate profiles. But we'll see, I'm not sure what they would do with the Ryuken then. "there, you have Raiden", then "guess what, Raiden is no more, similar Ryuken replace it", then "hey, surprise, Ryuken is no more, guess who's back? Yup, that's right, Raiden is back!".
There is also other differencies. Ryuken has mimetism -6 and 1 use only camo. Raiden is only mimetism -3, but has hidden deployment. They have slightly different usage imho.
And using both in a Vanilla Meme list would be really funny. You can can have a lot of deployment zone camo markers.
and what if you want to put 2 ARO pieces, but raiden is AVA 1 in vanilla? You can put a ryuken to complement. And probably the raiden will be not available in Oban, so at least ryuken HRL must stay there
These differences are already pointed out in my initial message. Slightly different, indeed. Which is the point. I'm not sure this slight difference justify having two separate Army entries. Raiden/Ryuken, even the name is almost the same! For slight differences, you can use the various loadouts of one entry (give it camo 1 use or not, HD or not, etc...). It would be more relevant to give each of them a proper identity and clear differences, diversity is always better. But anyway, we'll see how it is. Or more easily, CB could make the Raiden AVA 2 and get rid of the very similar Ryuken. There, problem solved.
Beyond box showed. Ninja is a bit meh, Tenshin gutai is JSA tiger, nice to have AD troops, and Shizoku, looks sick, i hope it is a HI and not a MI (cant upload images, forum gives me error with every file)
I realy like the miniature for the new Ninja, although I wonder how will it differentiate from the plain old one. Seems to have more armour, so maybe it's a MI, a middle ground between the Shikami and the plain Ninja. And the miniature is on a roof, so perhaps it has climbing plus.
A duo Shizoku + Jizamurai is purity lvl 1, not worth it. You would need a Haris of 2 Jizamurai + Shizoku, at the very least, if you want a weapons platform. But then you can spend a bit more and get you a Jizamurai + Shizoku + NCO Hatamoto. Which is also looking like the most probable way of having at least a specialist. Shizoku are probably pure warriors with an FO option at best. But you want them for their heavy weapons anyway. As they damage the purity of Bushi Tai links.
Just looked back at the PS values of the JSA CC weapons: mostly they hit like a truck. The Yamabushi hits with a DA+Shock PS 4 weapon. That is like a damage 16 in N4. Not bad for a 16 point model that can start in the midfield under camo.
It's official: the JSA has returned to Yu Jing as an allied state, probably like the O12 and Aleph. You can see this with the JSA flag in the background, which clearly displays the Yu Jing mark, above their symbol, this sense of symbols is important as it underlines that Japan is once again a vassal and not really an equal partner. Spoiler: + Or maybe it's a mistake.
