You are probably right. Although there is no other data about number of certain soldiers. I thought that mono swords were YJ thing like viral was haqq thing (except loup garou and non human factions). Suddenly some little NA2 faction has more mono swords than YJ (talking tabletop and not fluff). My concerns can be gone with new YJ stuff arriving but at the moment there is just an empty space. (Praying for chain, exp ccw monk)
I Dont think we will see many more CC units for yu jing from here on, I just hope they can keep HI fresh.
I wouldn't count on that. I'm expecting and hoping different kinds of CC units. JSA had unadulterated raw high CC, while Yu Jingese CC tends towards more practical CC. I'm hoping for dirty fighting as a style, you know NBW kind of "drag them down to our level and beat them through sheer force"
I don't quite understand what the difference on the table top is here, either you've got good weapons/stats/rules for CC, or you don't and you get beat up in CC.
As someone who only plays Yu Jing, is it worth buying the Uprising book to get a clear picture of what's going on with my faction? I understand it's from the JSA's perspective but as it's a civil war with Yu Jing they're obviously heavily featured in it too. The dialogue in this thread has alternated between it being a well balanced description of the actions of the ISS vs JSA, and an idiot ball holding ISS who "were always evil anyway", so that's pretty confusing.
A unit with CC 21, MA1 and NBW performs slightly better than Ninjas against TAGs, and slightly better than a Ninja versus a Ninja or Oniwaban. When I'm talking dirty, I'm talking mostly about NBW and how it performs a bit asymmetrically. Berserk is also such a skill I'd like to see once again. Other options would include immunity skills to negate exotic CCWs such as Bioimmunity or Total Immunity. Still not talking about soldiers expected to out-perform Shinobu or Mushashi who should both remain unequalled. CC system in general has problems, however, since there is no active-turn advantage where a moderately decent CC unit can hope to get the jump on an Oniwaban the way a moderately decent soldier can get the jump on a Swiss Guard by shooting it from a flank during active turn - so I think if you're expecting my talk regarding dirty fighting to be about CC:ing Shinobu, then that's not really possible in this rules set. But if we're looking at the Hsien-to-Ninja spectrum of CC units, then it should be very possible to design a unit that's distinct from JSA's style able to take on any Military Orders Knight but without doing it by patently out-classing them. The secondary mode of NBW is a bit of a problem conceptually.
It would certainly pay off for CB to keep an eye on this thread, not because of banning, but because it's clear it is of interest to the community... damn, so much to answer in less than 12 hours! This explains some stuff, and it was never in doubt that the whole of the Japanese culture was united against YJ. It does not explain a lot of other stuff, however, the most glaring of all the deals with other nations. Let's see if I understand this right. A very competent "spy", without ego, so plain he is a walking stereotype of "lost in the mediocrity", that spends years going to low-key meetings that act as cover for meetings with high-key representatives of the major political blocks in the Human Sphere, so the ISS was not such a blind idiot of an organization (the target was a tree inside a forest)... but not a whisper of the movements of those other people reached nobody? Seriously, again, idiot ball for all: all nations keep an eye on important people of their own and important people of the other nations, because they can broker this kind of agreements and that... It's not like a group of PC players in a P&P RPG game had to do everything, you know? AKA: we will sign anything for the right price. Seriously? Not principle but money? The more I read, the more I think the Human Sphere is a nest of mediocrity and stupidity that deserves to be walled by the CA and let to exterminate itself... What? And I was thinking Aleph IS Maya... And that YJ was an oppressive state that would censor news... even from external sources... Unless, of course, it was all false and that Candy was never in YJ at all, with everything being a carefully orchestrated movie, that could be easily debunked... So. The Japanese secession takes HALF of YJ's resources away? How can this be described as "minor losses" by anybody? And how, pray tell, were the Kuge able to move all that money outside YJ's banks, or that riches, or whatever, without losing a huge part to the ISS/taxes department/whatever? They had it all in Switzerland already and NOBODY NOTICED? And now, incidentally, are indebted to the ears. But it is no problem, since the JSA timeline will now be frozen for real time years until the next need to "shake the tree" of the JSA fluff. This is the same as playing Legend of the Five Rings, having the GM houserule that you can only regain Void points once a day, and spending 2-3 void points per NPC per encounter: the "moment of unity with the universe" is seen dozens of times a day, made into an occurrence as amazing as breathing, and yet you can do it 2-3 times a day... Because the dudes who helped them become a major power politically deserve to be punished! For the lulz! It has been mentioned several times. Did PanO stablish that before or after O-12 reached a decision? And how did they implemented it? Because fist, YJ has its own route to Earth, and second you can always do an orbital insertion... Fraactas do it individually according to their fluff, so I don't understand how YJ can't drop troops to reinforce those beachheads if needed and the crossing of their own territories was not possible by atmospheric flight... And second, if PanO threatened to shoot at YJ ships going through YJ's aerospace, BEFORE O-12 stripped that territories from YJ, then YJ would force the issue and place the ball on PanO's "bluff": if PanO fires, it's war and O-12 HAS TO give support to YJ!!! Irrelevant, since that's stating more than the obvious, and it certainly feels like getting a 0 in a test while the teacher saying "but you could have made it if you hadn't had your answers copied by the guy who sat by your side". So they are now either between YJ and the other factions as some sort of cushion state, in a Human Sphere were it is theoretically forbidden to go to war with other factions (so as much use as having part of Scotland detach and act as cushion with the rest of England...), or are the next target of those same factions that will take those places, or at least ransack them and claim it was pirates or the CA. Oh, wait, that won't happen because timeline frozen and the next time it's JSA update's turn, this will be forgotten. Because what's best for stocks and companies in general is to be involved in a war! Seriously! Nobody disappeared, people thrust the nascent Japanese nation will have good laws and financial base, etc!!! Again, Catalonian example: among other reasons, the stocks of business there plummeted because nobody knew what kind of laws might get approved if Catalonia became its own nation, or what money would the nation have, or what currency could emit and at what exchange rate with the other nations... Step 1: Mary Sue an entire faction! Step 2: Challeng accepted... (you should not tempt fate, Aldo >.<) I blame his decision for staying solo all the time. When you accept only your own counsel, you will eventually dig your own grave... and have nobody to warn you not to make it so deep, nor jump inside. Loners live and die alone, and all that. And you know, there is a reason public betas happen and why games get patched (for bugs) after launch: the first tenet of testing is that it is impossible to make exhaustive testing, so the more people use something with a 0.00001% chance of finding a bug, the more likely it is at least one of them will find a bug. But if you wanna discuss how dusty the house is when that same house is on fire, yeah. I used "fed up" instead of "burned". So PanO is now the USA? And the O-12, AKA the UN with control of most trains and big shipping can do nothing to enforce the law, which is the reason for its existence? As if a threat to stop the Circular's route through a nation's systems would not send the shivers to that nation... I agree, those manipulating Kuge are evil! And the CA would enjoy looking how 60% of so of the military power of the Human sphere suddenly stops fighting them and starts fighting itself! Total war between PanO and YJ can't be tolerated, because of the CA, you know. That's the way Romans used to conquer so many places: bribe some locals to fight other locals, come in ans sweep whatever remains with your already superior army, which has to fight less. So, you are saying that Interruptor is the only author who has devoted more than a decade, alone, to an IP. I think you are wrong, but I won't bother looking for hard data, since I have a simpler answer: hubris never works out, and attempting to control everything is not possible for a single person. Well, you have used it also, so... kinda lost the high ground there. I will spell it for you: "you have not understand what I said", "your opinions are weak and not your own". Not ot mention assuming he just directed a D&D campaign, disregarding any possibility but that it was a simple "carry on your characters"... Because 10 years of dungeon runs is the same as 10 years of kingdom building, or 10 years of a Pendragon saga, or... For what I read of your writings, seriously, broad your horizons, or pour more of your worldly experience on your writing. This is not an attack to you, but a real suggestion to better yourself (and neither is a suggestion that you are worst than anybody). Still, the gripe those of us who thing this Uprising not only doesn't better but diminishes the whole Infinity setting is that either they are lazily copy-pasting in the fluff aside from doing so in the miniatures, or that the head honcho prefers to sink the ship before sharing any kind of responsibility with anybody else. Personally, I like to make long-term investments, be it on knowledge, skills, money, or interests. And seeing Infinity becoming a discount Sci-Fi Warhammer Fantasy is not something that appeals to me on any kind of term. Quality of writing is not the issue here (atrocious and over the top as it is on parts), but internal consistency, quality of the setting, and the maturity of the presented material. Uprising has, so far, utterly failed in all three camps. I agree. This is what it looks like more and more. And with the extra insult of "and you will pay me for it, and like it"!! So he knew the JSA was not to be trusted, for a long time, but nobody listened to him and the greatest strategical mind ever seen in a human body was not able to solve that problem with nothing else that "make sure they don't have much dakka to shoot at us with"... Seriously? XD Yet they can produce E/M and Monofilament weapons like I produce print&glue scenography, and have HI so utterly optimized that they do not carry knifes but CCW Shock weapons (cheaper, since they lack the "silent" property) and a "kill everything" CCW or a "if it's HI/remote turn it into garbage" weapon loadout. But smoke is so high-tech they cannot make it! Right now? Whatever you place in front of them they have the tools to take down. Reach it, Berserker away with your weapon, and let it die. And what faction can resist one weapon is very vulnerable to the other. So when can I have 0.5SWC sniper rifles for my Agemas? Share the burden. Unless you think you are surrounded by incapable people and only you can carry it. In which case, Hubris. No, that was not playing chicken. That was like YJ trying to get to their house that is being vandalized when some bully threatens him with physical violence to prevent him from passing in sight of a policeman, and YJ deciding that taking a punch to the face is too big a price to pay for that bully to be arrested and the house protected. So he lets the robbers take whatever they can carry, and waits for the next exact same situation to happen. Aside from the Japanese megacorp's money, and the installations that were placed there for a reason (hint: they were economically viable), etc... I might not consider, for example, a single Myrmidon model to be valuable, but nevertheless I would not allow another player to take it from me and then use it as his own, just because it's only a 16pts model and 10 bucks piece of metal, even if that same player claims to have barely ten models and needs more, and since I have so many it's ok for me to give him one. And no, I was not talking about "I will gift it" but "I am being forced to give it away". The timing has not been stated, but the written data suggest O-12 sanctions came AFTER. No, not different at all. You are saying that Russia can threaten the USA's airspace when USA pretends to move troops from Washington to suppress an armed rebellion in Texas. I would say that no, but my suggestion is that you find a friend that is going to get the book and get a look before deciding.
The uprising part of the book is written in three different narratives, the pro Japanese propaganda, the insights of Yu Jing that are few but crucial and the intelligence reports all other intelligence agencies have about the incident, Uprising plot is not simple or simplistic and it is not Kuge vs ISS many had interests in there and many intelligence agencies made sure things moved along, not necessarily to help the Kuge wilingly or knowingly. Please realise before the uprising happened the kempeitai and the Kuge were really small fish in a really big sea, what they managed may be simply explained as deemed not as important, by everybody until proven wrong. ISS hard stance my also be because they have an emperor and the Japanese betrayed their emperor by elevating their to his status, I am not entirely sure how dogmatic is their loyalty to the Jade throne. Now on weapons, the ninja clans front operations were not harmed and it is far cheaper and easier to equip soldiers with good weapons, so what it is a mono blade training to use it is far more important than having it, than going all the way to build and equip modern heavy infantry armour to your armed forces. @xagroth My comment on the fleet was post uprising, Yu Jing are not sitting idle and will make sure Japan never gets left alone.
It can be complex made from flawed simplified assumptions. Or going for the cogs & wheels, it can have a ton of childishly hand-drawn cogs attempting to rotate in an intricate pattern. The plot is very complex, indeed (but fairly simple in its short version: business moguls backdoor-deal support for their independence from the greater nation they were in, so as to found their own, smaller, nation), meaning the points at which it can come down as a failure are enormous. I mean, what was called on was how simplistic was the idea of geopolitics, not the whole plot. I have mentioned the Bureau Noir, and the Bureau Aegis would have something to say about lawbreaking, plus others mentioned the intelligence agencies both independent and of other nations, and both the ISS and other intelligence agencies on YJ. Problem is, with so many players it is impossible to hide it all during development, so you hope for noise, distraction, and assume parts of the ploy will be discovered and foiled... But for what has been posted the only thing YJ had was numbers. As I said, Worf Effect (of which the CA also suffers, incidentally). Winning some defensive battles while losing most, plus losing all of the battles while attacking, kinda begs disbelief. Except the ISS whole reason d'etre is to protect the internal stability of YJ and they failed utterly and without excuse. And then they go and, instead of attempting damage control, make a fools of themselves. Silk scarfs for all of you, would say an historical Chinese empress. I was under the impression that after Uprising data was not in the book. If so, please state what kind of data is present, since the O-12 aftereffects are more than interesting: CB is in a corner regarding the stuff, since O-12 cannot really go against JSA because of commercial reasons, but they have to explain how they get away with all of it and not get severely punished.
the book has some immediate after uprising data, mostly intelligence reports, post uprising is now, fluff is current, the Japan has just got freed and the bills have not been called in yet.
Right then. While I can foresee TONS of adventure options for the RPG with this Uprising stuff (including "what leads there" and "how it develops" and "what happens next"), for the miniatures game, at the speed at which CB publishes books, even if they plan on filling what's left ASAP we have a long year indeed. And it was a great chance to make a "intersystem" campaign with all the factions for themselves, as long as it was clear that the end was going to be an independent JSA and the players would get to fill the military hows, in missions very specific with high decisions coming from CB.
Dang, lots of stuff to catch up on... This. So very much this. And I have issue with the Imperial Service being that incompetent. You're funny. FFS, you can get Arachne, the Nomad's black-net, in all parts of the Sphere, even on Concilium. And you want me to believe that PanO/Nomads/Haqq aren't deliberately re-broadcasting 'internal use only' news channels?!? CB needs to work harder for that suspension of disbelief. A lot harder. Uhm, they have the command encryption, shouldn't be too hard to shut down all JSA REMs, HI, and TAGs. Grumble. Kuge isn't the word, it hasn't existed since 1868 when it was merged with the daimyo and called the Kazoku (peerage). The Kazoku only lasted until 1947, when the US forcibly stripped their titles as part of the peace treaty. Sure, the families have kept a lot of money and political power, but they don't legally exist as 'nobles' anymore TODAY. None of the infinity factions are good, either. But I agree that I'm not happy about the leaked portrayals of either the JSA or Yu Jing. If that interception started without an O12 Security Council resolution to back it up, that's called an act of war. I know! The Party in charge of Yu Jing literally wrote the book on how to win an insurgency. Specifically, Mao Tse Tung himself wrote that book. So I find it beyond the suspension of disbelief that the organization dedicated to the prevention of an insurgency doesn't require every single person in the organization to be able to quote from that book chapter and verse, and quite likely to tie things together like the old Imperial Examinations for civil servants. There are many parallels, we will get to them as they come up. Pretty much. No. Like the US sending tanks, artillery, and airplanes to Crimea to shoot Russian soldiers. Exactly! And I can tell you, as a global-extinction-event-level practitioner of state-sanctioned violence, that war crimes are NOT a predictable end result of state-sanctioned violence. There are lesser levels of state-sanctioned violence that are possible. Oppressive authoritarian states do not have to lose an insurgency. That's YJ internal waters they're passing over. It'd be like the US shooting down Russian airplanes flying from Moscow to St Petersburg, when StPetes is in rebellion. What I take exception to is the lack of even an attempt to blame the dead civilians on the Secessionists. It is the job of the Imperial Service to prevent insurgencies. You do not prevent insurgencies by admitting that you killed a bunch of civilians, that just drives any not-yet-committed civilians into the arms of the Insurgents. It's only neutral airspace today because there's a different country on each side of the straits. Once you get the same nation on either side of the straits, it becomes YJ internal waters/airspace. Good that there is nuance. Again, what organization dedicated to the prevention of insurgencies is going to give ammunition to the insurgents by committing war crimes. It does not make any logical sense for the Imperial Service to not even attempt to blame the dead civilians on the Secessionists, let alone go out and kill lots of civilians (despite the fact that apparently most of the ethnic-Japanese civilians are on the side of the Secessionists). Again, it's only international waters today because China/Korea is on one side and Japan is on the other. Once you get the same country on all sides of the water, it becomes national waters. You're still talking about the modern equivalent of the US actively shooting down Russian aircraft flying between Moscow and St Petersburg, when StPete is in open rebellion. How exactly did that Security Council Resolution get passed, when Russia/YJ holds a veto? NBW lets you ignore all the MA skills, which makes it worth about 3-5 points of CC stat. Totally agree. No, strangling them all with silk scarves is far too nice. I want heads mounted on pikes as a warning to the next thousand generations of Imperial Service agents that providing ammunition to the insurgents will never be tolerated. I fully expect there to be a new Imperial Election immediately after this disaster, accompanied by a massive purge of the Imperial Service.
I do not believe there would be a single sane army in the world who would have installed a switch off flaw in its armed forces, weapons drones and armour, its a great flaw to be exploited by the enemy intelligence.
The limited numbers of Tankos were equipped with improved weapons to make up for the shortcomings of their armor. And while YJ wouldn’t have placed a majority of weapons factories in Japanese territory, the traditional Japanese pride in metallurgy and swordmaking, transported to the future, and reinforced with the increase in national pride and spirit would provide an easy space to forge enough monofilament weapons for a few regiments.
That's like half of what in-game Hackers already do. Isolation and IMM-2 basically fills that status entirely. With the addition of literally writing the code for them, that'd give YJ Command more than just a foot in the door when it comes to shutting down their own remotes. ___ Also, I'd really like to hear more about what kind of troops were deployed into Japan. Even with a PanO blockade (not going to add anything to that hot garbage, since the ridiculousness of it has been covered), Tigers are the perfect unit. Hell, N2 had a small fluff blurb about a mass Tiger drop involving plentiful decoys. That kind of attack would be pretty devastating, especially when they're backed up by 25,000 HI...
You would be surprised about the existence of something called "backdoor". Oh... wait! Seriously, it's not a "I can block the work of whatever electronic that is in my army" as much as "Hey, Aleph, I wanna integrate this pretty quantronic gizmo I payed you for that allows the Lawfully Elected Emperor of the Yu Jing nation to do stuff to advanced military stuff around Shentang and Yutang". A gizmo safely secured that only the Party can open. Or vice-versa, the emperor has the key and the council the access. Having a sentient computer equalizes a lot... Oh, and if we go there, the Possessed state. Ok, a Hacker intercepts the signal of a remote presence TAG and confuses the systems. How come having an operator/pilot offers not more, but less protection against that??? Or, as Section9 said, "you better have those codes for the big guns, son". "We can't produce and/or maintain power armor, but we can forge the most powerful rule-wise advanced blades in the Human Sphere, it must be cheaper than mass produce combi rifles and bullets! And you know, why give ranged weapons to our diminished army, it's better if they take casualties just to reach melee range, where they will kill everything!!!!" Short version: in any sane world, guns > blades, and if PanO supports you so much, some AK-47 can certainly provide much more utility than a big toothpick. Buuuuuut it has been decided that they need to be a melee faction, like MO and Steel Phalanx, and they need a Shtick, since the "I get to you under the smoke, and you have a hard time shooting at me" and the "I get to you shooting at you" was already taken, so they went with "If my troops melee you, whatever is there will be KO". Seriously, let's park the weapons the JSA has now as gameplay decision and work from that, if Monofilament and E/M weaponry was so cheap and good, all factions would have it in huge amounts, specially the knightly orders and the Myrmidons.
