Talk about another transforming unit + the S5 discussion earlier in the thread got me thinking about the siege tanks from Starcraft. So... I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest something like a cross between a Su-Jian and a CA Overdron: an 8-2 S3 FO HI that can go into "siege mode" and become a 4-2 S5 that can then use twin smart heavy rocket launchers. Mobile specialist and part-time artillery platform. 65ish points + 2 SWC.
When the JSA were first created as a new sectorial in 2nd Edition, the only existing profiles (that also existed for vanilla Yu Jing) for it were the remotes (naturally), Keisotsu, and Ninja. Currently, there are four known Invincible profiles (Zuyong, YanHuo, Shang Ji, Tiger Soldiers) in total. Now, there may be further overlap since a lot of StateEmpire units were never in any sectorial, but we have few confirmations on that front. When the JSA left, they took 13-14 some odd profiles with them which leaves a pretty hefty gap in Yu Jing's lineup. If the Invincible Army is on the light side for total profiles and has a lot of vanilla overlap (which by all rights, it shouldn't since only a handful of existing units really fit its theme) then the loss of JSA wont exactly be countered by the release of the IA, which isn't exactly great with us currently sitting at the second smallest faction in the game (only beating out one that CB have said they consider a sectorial and gets to link out of the box). Five profiles, at this juncture, is a bit small for a faction that will only just be getting their second sectorial when some other factions (that have been around just as long as us) are going to be on their third or fourth. If five profiles is the maximum number of new profiles we can expect from the IA, then it may well not only be missing a bunch of tools in its own kit, but it will do little to fix vanilla which lost quite a few unique profiles in the split. It also seems odd that a mere five extra profiles would cause them to hold off for so long on releasing a sectorial that was apparently already basically done as of a year or two ago. The precedent for the size of a new sectorial should be set by things like USAriadna and what we saw when Human Sphere was first released. The new JSA isn't so much a new sectorial as it is a slight facelift to a sub-faction that has been around for nearly a decade. Only getting a handful of new profiles and a number of tweaks is expected for a re-work, but the Invincible Army doesn't actually exist as an available sub-faction yet and has a big gap to fill with it being Yu Jing's second sectorial. 5 additional profiles on top of a handful of existing ones, a few unannounced existing units, and the usual generics (remotes and such) may not cut it when vanilla has been left hurting. Basically, unless all five profiles are dynamite, then we can expect maybe 1-3 of them will be vanilla-relevant and an outside chance of at least one of them being bad both in and out of sectorial. We'll need to wait and see, but after teasing IA for so long and after cutting a good chunk of profiles that have been in there for close to a decade, the Invincible Army has some big shoes to fill when it comes to creating some good will with segments of the Yu Jing player base. We're just hoping for something worth the wait rather than a disappointing damp squib of a release.
Quote from interrupter about IA. "Nowadays, we are sure the release of the Yu Jing’s next Sectorial army will increase the interest of the players in this army, as it will not only visually attractive, but also nice and different to play. Any case, there are not only Sectorial Armies in Infinity to play with…" source: http://red5.com.br/2018/04/19/uma-exclusiva-com-gutier-lusquinos-um-dos-criadores-do-infinity/
I'll say its now, don't expect the IA new units to replace what Yu Jing lost with the JSA split. Yu Jing is unlikely to get a replacement for bikes and Shinobi from the IA.
We don't need 1-to-1 replacements of course, but we do need new, unique units that fill roles not already found in our army list that have niches in both vanilla and in IA itself. When JSA left, they took over a dozen profiles, half of which constitute things that nothing else in the existing Yu Jing list can cover and which drastically change potential play styles now that they're gone. We lost access to a fast specialist that could match speeds with offensive pushes from our Rui Shi and Su-Jian. (Aragoto) We lost our ability to perform offensive first-turn pushes on enemy deployment zones in a way similar to how Haqq uses the Fiday. (Shinobu/Oniwaban) We lost an effective ARO piece (especially against links) that comes with its own deployment zone defensive tools. (Raiden) We lost our alternative line troops and specialists (doc/engi) that allowed us to build elite-heavy lists without resorting to Kuang Shi 24/7. (Keisotsu and Tokusetsu) We lost a very unique specialist unit whose model was only available to us a couple of months before it shifted factions. (Shikami) We lost a super-tough, tanky specialist HI profile with a great objective grabbing set of tools. (Karakuri) While we don't necessarily want exact replacements for these specific roles, we did just lose a bunch of unique profiles that aren't covered by anything else in our force. So, for example, if the Shooting Star turns out to just be a super-tiger then it ends up being something of a dead profile in vanilla because it either replaces a popular profile, or is obsolete in comparison (neither of which is good when what vanilla needs is diversity again). And that is the main issue, we lost unique roles and need diversity injected back in to the faction as we've mostly been stripped back to our pre-HS vanilla force (because outside a few powerhouse units like the Hsien and Su-Jian, the ISS doesn't bring a lot of tools that vanilla needs or wants and makes heavy use of outsider profiles that vanilla couldn't take if they wanted). This is why the five profile figure is both sparse and somewhat worrying if it is still true. Because out of the over a dozen profiles we lost, only around half were vanilla relevant. So if the IA is just five more profiles, it does little to heal the wound caused by JSA's leaving. If all five profiles turn out to be knockout successes then we'll be in pretty good shape, but past experience tells us that CB normally don't manage that in a given set of units. Vanilla Yu Jing lacks the diversity of options it had before Uprising and I think a lot of folks are hoping that IA will be the one-and-done fix for that loss. I hope it will be, but let's just say my faith has been more than a bit shaken by recent trends. I don't want to see just a bunch of Chinese palette swaps of old JSA profiles, but I do want the Invincible Army to not only be a cool sectorial in its own right, but to also bring useful tools to vanilla's tool kit and to shore up the diversity issue in the faction that the Uprising caused. Given that it's White Banner and not IA that seems to have the most overlap with vanilla (all "white mask" units, Zhanshi are definite, Guilang, all the remotes, etc.), I can't really expect them to fix the diversity issue. So it really is down to how much new stuff IA brings to the table, since White Banner only really has one semi-confirmed new addition in its ranks (Blue Wolf) and a whole bunch of existing vanilla units claimed for it.
without barging up old wounds here its safe to say I largely disagree with the main thrust of these points. I neither felt like nor agree that many of those JSA profiles were actually useful in Yu Jing or that Yu jing is suddenly a crappy faction now just because "numbers". I can understand if you played yu jing with JSA profiles and that worked for you that might seem to be the case, but I play a pure chinese yu jing and its fucking baller, you might be surprised once the pain fades away. If I was to ball park the actual useful (and unique, not just cheaper) units, we're looking at oniwaban, raiden and bikes. To be generous we could include shinobu as a separate profile and maaaaaybe domaru. So maybe try to reframe from "countering the release of JSA". I don't think its relevant to the discussion. If IA is a good sectorial on its own, and I think Yu Jing is in a pretty good place as a vanilla faction as well, then it will be a success and 5 new profiles can bring a lot in a game of infinity. If ALL of those profiles are useful in IA, that might be most of your army. I honestly don't think counting the number of profiles and comparing it to an arbitrary number of lost profiles is a useful or productive measure of success. Obviously I'm assuming IA will tweak a couple of vanilla profiles outside of the 5 - eg. Shang Ji. I find this mindset that "number of profiles" or size isn't really that important, and frankly isn't healthy. You're really setting up to be disappointed. Once again, I think you might find that CB doesn't think yu jing is now crippled and "desperately" needs a bunch of new profiles, and as a purely chinese yu jing player I can say that JSA only leaves some minor gaps which I can see 5 profiles more than filling, even if only 2-3 are considered "optimised". One of those gaps advance deployment/infiltration area, and one of the teased profiles might fulfill that if it synergises with tigers. My only concern is testing makes it too powerful and they swing it too far the other way.
Then please realise this comes off unnecessarily holier than thou. I played a vanilla Yu Jing force that embraced all the aspects of what was available. And now it's missing a lot of its common standbys. Please don't make light of that by saying the way I played it didn't matter.
Thats not what he said. Hes simply saying that Yu Jing is not crippled from lacking the JSA models. If your playstyle for Yu Jing is gone now then its understandable to be upset. But Yu Jing is not crippled by the lack of JSA units.
I don't quite understand where I said your playstyle didn't matter. Merely I don't agree with the statements that yu jing has "massive holes" that IA somehow has to come and fill. I acknowledge that your playstyle got flipped. But I'm asking you maybe consider what else yu jing offers, which will help temper expectations of IA.
Of course you hold that opinion, because apparently you deliberately ignored 1/4 of Yu Jing's profiles! We lack seriously effective CC troops (Shaolin and Craves are basically it, and they're not actually that great, particularly for the "CC Faction"); forward deploying models are very limited now; our HI variety is far worse now (Japanese HI had very little overlap with Chinese and other Japanese HI, because they tended to bring skills and CV equipment that the others didn't have. HI overlap existed, and still does, between Zuyong, Shang Ji and Wu Ming.) Yu Jing has at least a few big holes. You simply had already self imposed them previously. Yu Jing certainly does have some food stuff. It is, however, pretty predictable at the moment. Also, expectations should be pretty fucking low: my expectations for IA are that CB have JSA swoop in and steal 20 more profiles (Just to be clear, that was sarcasm...) Frankly, you're right: expectations should be low, considering that CB basically been shitting the bed. But understand that those trying to be overly positive are doing so because that's what kind of needs to happen with IA for the overall good of Yu Jing, not because they're being selfish.
Just to cut that one off at the knees, I own all of the JSA miniatures. I have a fully fledged seccessionist army now. I still find my yu jing lists far more exciting. This is largely because CC is fucking hard to execute. Its an interesting challenge to play JSA models where they focus on it exclusively. But when I head back to vanilla I'm much more excited to pick up the superior gunfighters and tools. Despite having hidden deployment, JSA is actually quite predictable - such that tactical brilliance like a tikbalang on a wall in suppression largely nullies a huge amount of what JSA bring to the table to deal with that kind of threat. In contrast, the crane is exactly what you want from a CC heavy infantry. He has enough skills to make a CC specialist take pause about trying to put him down while still excelling at their primary role which is toolbox gunfighter. I'm not going to tell you that yu jing lost some diversity, and if you had found a combo involving JSA and chinese units thats going to sting. We've lost a couple really interesting options. However, The design space for IA is a mile wide now. A couple of those JSA profiles would synergise a little too well with how I suspect IA will be, which might be fire superiority and/or resilience. This is exciting. I'm excited for IA, 5 brand new profiles can bring a lot to the table, and more than make up for what was lost. But you're going to be disappointed if your only desire is to have an oniwaban-equivalent or something like aragoto.
Yep, and all the available information seems to indicate it's going to stay that way for a long time.
Yes, it's April and IA will be either the last sectorial of the 4 remaining for release this year, more likely won't be this year at all. JCT TAK vs OSS and then for the last slot Rammah, Varuna and IA are all in a competition I don't see us winning.
They'll come when they come. Based on that same evidence it sounds like early next year yes. Perspectives will differ but thatt doesnt feel that long to me.
What are you talking about? We've just lost a ton of options, including all but two of our factions characters. I know you're of the opinion that "they weren't used anyway" but I'm tired of arguing about why this is a ridiculous opinion that aims to discredit those of us who paid good money for legitimate unit options. Some of these "counter arguments" are pushing me away from this game. This has been a major blow to the flexible vanilla playstyle options. This isn't something I'd considered before but reading it now it's clear as day; the 5 new profiles will have to be perfectly optimised, high-speed low-drag operators for them to make up for our losses in vanilla profile diversity. I repeat: we've lost 4 named characters. I'm pretty sure that IA's release is so far away in order to get YJ players to "double spend", buying JSA and then IA at the later date. Early next year (at least 8 months away) feels like a very long time to me, especially as we watch other factions get their fourth sectorial.
What are we sure for IA : Zuyong / Yan huo / Shang Ji / Tiger are part So we have 3HI Lines Troops and 1MI AD Elite Troops What can we expect : 1 HI Headquarters Troops 1or2 HI Elites Troops (probably a rework of Shang Ji + Meteor HI AD) 1 HI Spec. Trained Troops (Maybe the new S5 Transforming units) 1 HI Veteran Troops (Daofei ?) "1 HI Support Troops" (Probably not to integrate the new YJ support Pack to IA (a REM Support would be nice)) "1 Mechanized Troops" (We will probably get the Guijia) Basically we don't have our best units yet. Hope for some cool fireteams (Particularly HI+REM(Support/Firewall) duo!) (+ Yan huo Full AutoL2 profil in IA to reflect the units background please)
So you own all of the JSA range? Great, then understand that not all of us had that kind of income: some of us can't afford to buy two separate armies. As for finding YJ lists more exciting, that's utterly personal taste and doesn't change the fact that YJ has lost options. That you didn't use those options in YJ, for whatever reason, is pretty irrelevant; those options are gone. Yes, CC is quite hard to get use out of. It's also pretty fun to achieve something that way. And JSA models certainly did not focus on CC exclusively. Domaru, Haramaki, Karakuri and Aragato (and even the Oniwaban somewhat) had plenty of draw for their ranged capabilities. Aaaand, what about JSA units in vanilla. Which has been a big point of contention: quite a lot of us used Japanese units, despite CB's ridiculous assertion that no one/barely anyone did (and considering how awful their statistical basis was, it's just not an argument that holds any water). JSA was/is somewhat predictable. Japanese units in vanilla were excellent. They opened up the avenues for attack and they didn't overlap with Chinese units much (unlike other Chinese units!) You talked earlier about CC (JSA) units being utterly focused on only CC (which is demonstrably wrong, even on simple things like Domaru or Haramaki/Tanko) and now the Crane is a great CC unit... That doesn't focus exclusively on CC?! Not that I want it to! But the Crane is one of approximately two actually decent CC units left in YJ. It's a perfectly solid CC unit, but it used to have peers. I'm so confused by this (and the attitude in general). How the fuck does JSA leaving actually, legitimately, open up any damn design space?! It bloody doesn't! IA is a pretty hefty change of pace from the old JSA anyway. Also, how would JSA itself synergise with IA? They're two different sectorials: IA units and JSA units wouldn't cross pollinate and vanilla carries its own baggage in balancing. You're also taking a huge leap to assume that the IA units plus JSA units in vanilla would be too good. There's a solid set of options from vanilla and ISS still, but they're far from broken. I'm not expecting Oniwaban/Aragato replacements. I'm also not expecting anything particularly good, any longer. Uprising killed a huge amount of my enthusiasm for Infinity and YJ. I don't have much faith that CB will handle it well, especially when they talk about opening up design space, when what they actually did was guy unique and different profiles and leave us with a sucking chest wound for over a year (and it's not like people didn't want IA before not!) Considering that there is already a ton of overlap on our HI right now, I don't have much faith that CB won't just release basically the same HI profile we've had for years. They stripped JSA units out of vanilla for flimsy as hell statistical reasons, but they didn't make the less used Shang Ji any better while they're at it. Hmm, smacks of a convenient excuse...
Just a small note on potential design direction for new units; they were talking about how the removal of JSA units left more freedom for design direction. I'm wondering if this freedom now means they feel there's room for a different kind of mid-field TO Camo skirmisher type and whether this means we might see a new kind of infiltrating TO HI now that it doesn't have to rub shoulders with Oniwaban. Another small note is that if the sectorial is going to play differently as CB said in recent interview, those 5 new units need to be movers and shakers, or at least contain one unit that's sufficient to define the whole sectorial (we're talking Kuang Shi or Su-Jian level of defining, not Zhanying or Crane). As it stands, playing IA with the expensive-ended units would be little different from playing vanilla with the same units (particularly seeing how the known IA units have fairly high AVA in vanilla). The other obvious way of playing IA would be Zuyong at its core and that's a playstyle we know from ISS and Corregidor.
Hmm, maybe lots of mixed fireteams would help differentiate it? We could have an infiltrating ODD HI similar to the Ryuken.
