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Does anyone have units that just WILL NOT work for them?

Discussion in 'Japanese Secessionist Army' started by Sekac, Feb 17, 2019.

  1. Sekac

    Sekac Member

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    Hi everyone!

    Brand new to these forums, but not to the game. I've been playing on and off for about 6 years but never taken it too seriously (never been to a tournament, for instance).

    The ninjas and aragoto were the models that finally convinced me to get into the game after a buddy had been pressuring me for over a year.

    So I want to like Oniwaban/Shinobu because they are cyber ninjas incarnate! But I hate them. I have never accomplished anything with them. That's not entirely true, I think I've nanopulsed a couple guys years ago.

    But so far, I have failed 100% of my superior infiltration rolls, and people have passed 100% of their armor saves against monofilament on the extremely rare occasion I'm able to get into combat. Now, granted, we're talking about small sample sizes here. I've only tried superior infiltrating like 4 or 5 times, and probably about the same with monofilament. Every time I fail, it takes me like another year to summon the courage to try it again.

    The latest game, my opponent made a mistake when deploying and I was going to have a free run at a Harris team with Shinobu. Instead, the dice intervened and said "no, your opponent will NOT be punished for his mistakes." Shinobu rolled a 17 to infiltrate. Then a morat with an HMG split fire at her and the HRL Ryuken later in the game. She rolled a 17 on her smoke and died. (The Ryuken also died).

    So I'm at a loss. It seems like giving up entirely on them is the only reasonable option at this point. I know if I keep running them, my bad luck will eventually end. But in the meantime, it has gotten frustrating to the point where it's sapping my enjoyment of the game. I would've enjoyed the game more if I took a 253 point list with 9 models and 5.5 SWC.

    Does anyone else have any similar models that look good on paper, but in practice just refuse to do anything other than be a handicap?

    Tell me I'm not alone!
     
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  2. atomicfryingpan

    atomicfryingpan Well-Known Member

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    I completely feel your pain. Saito togan is that unit for me. He's basically a cheaper kitsune. I run him in Druze alot. He consistantly fails to land smoke. I've never seen a model role 19's more when it comes to dodging or throwing smoke than him. The worst and most unforgivable thing is dying in close combat against a keisotsu paramedic. I tell my friends this is exactly why hes a mercenary ninja because none of the real ninja clans want him bringing dishonor to them.
     
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  3. Sekac

    Sekac Member

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    That's funny, I've always liked Saito!

    Any of the other TO infiltrators work just fine for me, it's just the "superior" infiltrators. Even if I just infiltrate them to the mid board, they seem to be in the wrong spot, die unceremoniously, or bop someone on the head with a foam noodle, then die ingloriously.

    On a related note, I decided to do a shinobu head swap with an aragoto a few years back. The exposed head on a TO model seems weird to me. Like, a disembodied head hovering in the corner??

    The hair flying back works well on a motorcycle model, and it helped differentiate if I wanted to run a hacker or the old special character (I forget her name) or some such.

    I glued a ponytail from my WH40K Dark Eldar to the back of Shinobu's now helmeted head, because ninjas gotta have their hair. It snapped off yesterday too (probably why she failed her infiltration roll). No big deal, I figured. I'll pin it later.

    So after i posted this thread this morning, I figured I'd get some repair work done. I drilled and put a pin in the ponytail, and was drilling the helmet when the drillbit snapped off inside the head. The hole is jammed and that was also my last bit. No more repairs today, and no way to reattach...

    She'll be the death of me.
     
  4. KestrelM1

    KestrelM1 Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]

    I think most people have feast-or-famine experiences with Oniwaban/Shinobu, given the nature of single-wound superior infiltrating models. That's probably for the best, since when they stick their roll they can be virtually impossible to stop from killing at least one thing.

    If you are the risk-averse type I would highly advise trying Oniwaban/Shionbu and just using standard Infiltration. They are still amazing murder machines in the midfield, and Shinobu is more than capable of opening lanes for herself into the enemy deployment zone. It's more order intensive, but sometimes the risk just isn't worthwhile.
     
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  5. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    You don't always need to make the roll though -- it's only worth it if you're going first and have a good target. As for Monofilament, you should be critting about 50% of the time with MA4 and monofilament, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Have you tried playing 2 Oniwaban? That's a 93%ish chance to land at least one, and then you'll definitely get a chance. The biggest mistake people make though is forgetting they have BS weapons, and in many cases a suprise shot imposing a -12 (TO, Suprise Shot, Cover) and flanking to take the target's cover and shoot on 14s is enough to do the job...

    For me it's the Shikami. No matter how I play it, I end up asking myself why I didn't take Saito or a Ninja instead.
     
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  6. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    For me, it's bikes. I think our tables may be a little too dense.
     
  7. Sekac

    Sekac Member

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    Yeah I tried to roll to infiltrate back in 2nd edition the first couple times I played with an oniwaban. They both failed and so I stopped rolling for it for a while and he kept embarrassing himself at the mid board anyway.

    [Shrug]

    I haven't tried 2 oniwabans yet. That thought makes my hands shake... I still dream of having my oniwaban kill somebody early and then go into suppression with the SMG on my opponent's doorstep.

    It's my JSA dream. But dreams are for suckers.
     
  8. Paperclip

    Paperclip Active Member

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    My lists contain 2 oniwabans unless I'm playing a HI centric list. Could it be that you are revealing your oniwabans too early in the game ? Players expecting an oniwaban tend to have better protection in their first turn, I tend to reveal mine only 2nd turn onwards or at least turn 1B when my opponent had overextended his assets. Oniwabans are scapels and not bludgeoning tools. Leave the kill-everthing to a MML2 ruishi or karakuri.
     
  9. grampyseer

    grampyseer User of the "ignore" button
    Warcor

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    For me, it’s Ryuken 9 SMG.

    Against all odds, those models die to a crit on a 3 or 6 every time.

    Career highlights to date:

    Dying to biotechvore

    That’s almost it.



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  10. MattyG2787

    MattyG2787 Member

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    Yojimbo. Granted I have a tiny sample size with him but I feel like my games with him have been
    Step 1. Impetuous forward
    Step 2. Attempt to smoke dodge
    Step 3. Miss the smoke
    Step 4. Die horribly
     
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  11. siri

    siri Well-Known Member

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    He has this ability.

    He truly is a real avatar of a real man, because he NEVER hit a smoke with me, I'm not saying dodge, just smoke, and fail twice to capture a antenna and fail twice again in the second.
    So this game he just spend 6 orders to capture 2 antennas ...

    But in another game he just attack a linked team with joanna and take them all, except the medic...
    But to accomplish this he ask help to Yojimbo to smoke the way.
    He simply doesn't believe in his smokes anymore !
     
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  12. Sekac

    Sekac Member

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    I think I might need to add mines to the list after the last 2 games. Not that they're supposed to be game changers, but dang.

    First game, one of those morat warbands with smoke ran around a cargo container with 2 mines behind it. He ducks and they both miss. This is kind of a gripe of mine with infinity. One dodge roll to dodge all mines?! Are we to believe that 1 mine projects the same amount of shrapnel as 100?? Or maybe that all of the mines are shooting a single projectile at his right eye, and if he moves that, everything misses? There should be some sort of negative modifier per mine (-3 for template, -1 per additional mine, something like that).

    Next game, my ODD Ryuken has suppressive fire and a mine guarding my HVT. Bao walks around the corner and freely takes a mine to the face so he can go full burst against the SMG. He wins the duel with my Ryuken and is unperturbed by a claymore blast upside the head.

    Not really upset about it, obviously I'll keep using mines. But I'm currently imagining them not as mines, but as sprinklers for enemy soldiers to laugh and play in.
     
  13. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    Even better: one dodge roll to dodge all the Direct Teamplates.
     
  14. Urobros

    Urobros Well-Known Member

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    2018 was a hard year for me and my hassasins, specially to Yasbir and/or Hussein or the Fiday. Yes, I know they aren't exactly the same as Kitsune or the Oniwabans, but in the end they have "similar targets". It wasn't until half of the year and an incredible amount of loosed games I managed to use them correctly.

    Maybe I could give you some tips.

    If you go second never ever tries to infiltrate them. If you fails the roll them the rival have the chance to put them down without much issues and you will loose an expensive and really useful unit.

    If you go first only do "infiltrate" if it is your only chance to catch the target or the others possibles ways are blocked, else deploy save into your half table. Here your enemy has less opportunities of place some mine or similar to harm your really fragil and expensive "TO". And in the end you only will use 2 or 3 orders to go from your side to the "target".

    The oniwaban and kitsune can shoot with a really acceptable chance to success most of the troups bellow his own cost. So, do it.

    If you haven't the chance to do suspresive attack engage only with troups which don't have any kind of CC hability and a CC less than 20. If have any of this only engage if you could do surpresive attack.

    If the enemy is really supperior or save his armour salvations, apply the "think", is your problem in your turn. Oniwaban and more Kitsune are really hard to beat in CC, even if the rival have +1B and shooting into the CC with -6 for TO and -6 of shooting into a CC probably will make your rival to waste a big amount of orders before kill kitsune (and maybe he kill his own troup before). Yes, sometimes "not kill something" is a really good strategy.

    Back to the subject... I had a lot of troubles with Yasbir, until I realized that I dind't have always the necessity of use the infiltration, even if I have included this profile. Sometimes it was really more ussefull deployed it in my deployement area as a ASsault Hacker Barid (Using Holoprojector L1 instead L2). Or if the rival place a lot of mines or CrazyKolas in order to prevent my fidays I used him, his holoechos to made a free path to my fiday, making most of the times, the placed defense useless. I though Yasbir sucks, but now I think Yasbir rocks! And yes, I know that Yasbir isn't in JSA, but I'am only triying to encourage you, guys to play this troups which yoo love but sadly don't work properly :D
     
    #14 Urobros, Feb 22, 2019
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2019
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