I definitely feel like I have to buy some kuang shi now, just for order efficiency. Having all my line infantry cost ~2pts more is a small but noticeable change. That said, Kuang-shi are really strong, so I probably should get them anyway.
In an attempt to try and get something useful out of the CBLs/tweaks made ahead of the campaign I was going to try and take a look at some of the usage numbers that were posted at Adepticon. Does anyone have a full breakdown of that data as the only images I could find had a section missing (from shortly after Kitsune down to around the Shikami)?
That is more or less the crux of it, vanilla Yu Jing are functional and pretty playable as is, they will get reinforcements later but they can fight for themselves till they get them. Depends on the player and gameplay really, if you like the Spekulo/ hasassin aproach they were a core function, if you could not care less they were not, I liked them and used them in that way (mostly Kitsune TBH) but I am not bothered by them leaving Ninja are more versatile but cannot one-shot things, now Daofei and Guilangs are another thing altogether, but again they are more dependant on gameplay preferences. In general there are few, if any, core functions in the army list, or any army list, player preferences elevates certain units to core functions.
Heck, does anyone have the adepticon stuff in general? I can't find the actual summaries posted anywhere.
Kuang-shi can feel a bit unweildy at times but are absolutely champs the more you get used to them. 2 tips - 1st. their orders are more important than their lives. Most of the game will be just keeping them alive. Sometimes you will need to throw a couple of them into a coordinated order to keep them out of harms way for 1 more turn. On last turn, let em go wild. 2nd. Pistol AROs man. Quite often throwing pistol ARO's against enemies who would otherwise shrug off chainrifles can be a huge pain in the ass. You either beat them in the FtF or reduce their hits that dogged kicks in and they have to try again. Without shock weaponry, kuangshi are absolute PITA's to clear efficiently.
Yu Jing, like Pano, is now rather generic in their abilities outside of sectorials. I do think they have more support for indirect warfare than Pano does. 1) Guilang are still the best camo lvl 2 infiltrators in the game. MSV 1 more than makes up for only BS 11. 2) Kanren and Ninja KHD are very good. 3) Tiger is probably the best 1w AD in the game. 4) Wide assortment of optimized HI. Despite the CC tax of the faction, all their HI have a wonderful assortment of equipment/skills for any job. 5) Shaolin Monks - still one of the best warbands because of its dirt cheap cost. 20 points for 4 monks. Practically an always take unless you prefer dirt cheap Kuang Shi orders (usually unnecessary).
I think we really are going to have to utterly disagree here. They weren't top tier, got more expensive and lost key pieces which have made some strategies impossible. Ninjas have a role to play and I'm glad we kept them but trying to claim that they do the same thing as Oniwaban is just nonsense. But this thread isn't about that so let's try to avoid any claims that things are just peachy and players are no worse off so that we don't have to get into a backwards and forwards on why we're each wrong. Building further on that last point. Understand when to use the pistol in the active turn as well. Against a standard opponent the pistol is the better option at close range provided the enemy isn't in cover (and it's not as if you're hugging cover so they shouldn't be). They are all about forcing your opponent to make difficult trades. Move right next to them before attacking so that if they dodge you're getting free attacks, if they shoot (and have no shock/da) then they're probably looking at making 2 armour rolls (chain rifle and blast), etc. That's a pretty fine trade against a 30pt croc man or spektr.
That's ok, I imagine most of the really competitive YJ players will be running ISS anyway so expect to see 8 in a fair few :)
I'd love to be able to use LI in place of monks/kuang shi, but at 11 pts each, they're harder to fit in. (Hac Tao costs so much T.T)
This is an interesting statement to me. I've always found Yu Jing far less generic than PanO (I've always played yu jing sans JSA units anyway). I've always found vanilla yu jing to be an agressive faction, but not always in a straight up win the face to face as panO. 1b) camo infiltrating Heavy infantry! C'mon man. Daofei combined with guilang can make a pretty nasty front line. I generally preferred daofei to oniwaban for consistency as they hit hard and were likely to be better suppressors than the squishy super ninjas. If CC was a threat you'd pop back into camo state near some friendly mines. 2b) Kanren bring in some affordable shenanigans. But can often just be a solid forward deployed specialist. 3) Yes. Take 2! 4b) Yu Jing easily boast some of the best heavy infantry in the game. Supported by 5p regular orders we can field an insane number of them as well. The hac tao XO, crane multi+sensor, zuyong HMG+automedkit and daofei spitfire are some of my favourite with almost no analogue anywhere in the game. PanO tears flow freely at our aggressive Lts backed up by some CoC. All of these remain vanilla options. 5b) Shaolin monks aren't just fantastic warbands. They're 5 point smoke throwers who then allow you to obliterate enemy resistance with BS14 MSV2 or cheaper marksmanship MSV2 or sniper MSV2. 6) Kuangshi + CG control device. 33 points 0.5 SWC for 5 regular orders and a smoke grenade launcher should form the backbone of most yu jing lists. Other than occasionally running into sniper fire, there is just about no downsides to kuangshi (and thats without resorting to gamey play like deploying them on walls). 7) Abundant aggressive Lts backed up by CoC with free agent. Honestly, free agent is amazing for command group shifting which would otherwise be command token expensive. If you're not using all of your command tokens every. single. game. with Yu Jing, then I can see why you might not appreciate this. The discounts you get for taking an aggressive Lt is insane. 1.5 SWC spitfire on the camo infiltrating heavy infantry? yes please! 8) Missing bikes? Have you tried battle cat yet? Arguably one of the most disgusting rambo models in the game. 8" cautious move, climbing+ and a BS14 spitfire on an ARM5 3W miniTAG chassis. BUT can't be possessed. shiiiiiiit. This thing is absolute filth in a ISS army, but vanilla can back it up with hactao, which is probably even more horrible as literally nothing combats both at the same time. Losing JSA is likely going to shake up a lot of peoples established playstyles. Using the oniwaban will definitely be missed, but if you think you can't alpha strike anymore without the oniwaban then you really do need to spend a bit more time looking at the yu jing roster. I'd actually argue the oni isn't even the best alpha we have.
Do you just dislike the kuang shi model/fluff or is it a genuine feeling that they are bad/hard to use?
@Alphz I forgot the insanity that is the updated Su-Jian. That does make the lack of bikes sting far less. And yeah, Yu Jing is one of the best factions for aggressive LTs. All good points.
There's something being overlooked here that Yu-Jing now do a lot better without Japanese cannon fodder:
Mostly the fluff and I just prefer the look/fluff of the normal line infantry. Also starter set gave me zanshi, not kuang shi.
Honestly i would make Limited Insertion the de facto playing mode, but then again that would kinda mess with Ariadna
It also plays merry hell with any AD or Hidden Deployment stuff, because it basically warns your opponent SOMETHING NASTY IS GONNA TRY TO HAPPEN!
