You're not wrong, there are a ton of really cool options to try out. Enjoy it! Some people are just gonna be bitter so best to ignore them.
Sigh. Couldn't you have just ended your post with a purely positive message, instead of being a jerk and making an entirely v unnecessary jab at people?
Well, it was to be expected the IA wouldn't be what people wanted. I'm excited at the viability of the pain train in IA as I've been holding off having a pain train army for this day :D. Definitely agree the difference between the "new" HI and zuyong is actually a bit jarring. It was a missed opportunity to rebalance zuyong as cut-rate HI and then rebalance shang-ji down to the mid-range HI points. Shang ji not getting a rework makes me sad as well. On the flip side, if zuyong were even more cheap and shang-ji were cheap IA would field some absolutely brokenly good links and so I can see the balance here. Quite frankly, several of Durandels points actually veer too close to being brokenly good. Especially, I don't understand the logic of zhanshi becoming 8 points. At best I was hoping 10 points, but being 11 points isn't the end of the world, its mildly annoying as opposed to being some kind of glaring blemish... jesus. I don't quite buy the direct comparison of the hulang to the shikami. But goes in the same basket as always comparing to Aleph. Last time I checked, Aleph breaks many of the rules of unit definitions so using it as the benchmark of "oh but this would be a normal skirmisher in Aleph" is a bad comparison, in the already fraught field of making comparisons across factions being challenging.
Still, it is a very fun army to build a roster. Frankly, I expected IA would be compared to MO upon release, since they got their shiny VIRD and we got two pseudo-HI guys. But after the opening, hey, Daoyings are scratch on the back and Tai Sheng is just pure awesomeness. Not to mention Zuyong super train. Yeah, I was disappointed at Hulang not having Lcamo, but IA would be great. Tactical HI en masse, thats the way. Although it will require some practices.. :) Good to see you guys happy, looks like our harsh winter has gone, at least, half.
@Alphz - Yeah, there's definitely some good stuff coming in through IA. I'm looking forward to having an elite sectorial that can run a reasonably interesting 10-man Combat Group without being gimped on orders. Definitely a jarring and somewhat ramshackle design philosophy though, especially with only one unit actually not having Shock Immunity. I mean, I'm happy 5/6 have Shock Immunity, but it's still ramshackle...
*looks at Guija not changing at all *looks at Pano getting new Seraph profile with HMG and dual nanopulsers Pano's reaction: Sorry, couldn't resist. :P
Yeah, thinking about it more balancing a zuyong rework would be a nighmare. There's already some scary ass links to provide covering fire to some beatsticks. Or just use a whole bunch of NCO and TA orders to Go over there and do the work themselves. In the trade off of interesting synergies versus just having straight up awesome profiles, I like where they went with IA! Some dissapointing choices, but hey, that's Infinity baby.
I wonder if their playtesting suggested a high arm, infiltrating camo + climbing plus, and mine immune skirmishers was just too much. From a competitive point of view, the more broken something is, the more efficient it is, so good design should have inefficiencies built in.
And Kamau/Fishmen randomly gaining Shock Immune in Varuna for seemingly no price change is super weird.
NCO/TA does seem to be a big factor in some of the IA balance factoring, and it's certainly not to be sniffed at! I do feel that it's pushing the sectorial into probably running Daoying Lts, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it might stifle variety a bit. TA is good, but it's packaged on certain profiles (fair enough!) and while it's not a high cost, it does add up quickly. NCO/Daoying is probably the best order efficiency route: it can be a cheap 7pts/order, or 9.66pts/order+HD. Personally I'm finding it very difficult making a list that doesn't start with a Daoying HD Lt2! Also, the Wildcards are...good? Pangguling, Son-Bae, and Haidao are all solid Wildcards, though the Shang Ji is a major let down. It can dump a TinBot B into any link, but the cost is an intense drain in a list already tight on points. I'd agree that a Zuyong rework may pose trouble, but the Shang Ji is functionally irrelevant, rendering one of the Wildcards essentially null. Hulang are cool and I like them but they're expensive and quite lovely up front. Someone mentioned earlier that they feel like they're probably more a zoning unit to support Zhencha, but that's an expensive unit doing that job! I do feel like they're probably missing a Frenzy discount or something. Mowang is a nice tanky option - that seems to be it's niche. If you want firepower, you take a Yan Huo HMC (same cost as the Mowang SF/FS); if you want a midfield tank, the Mowang can be a good spearhead. I don't know why, but I keep getting hung up on thinking the Mowang is a Wildcard when it's not, haha; just some kind of brainlock... Anyway, yeah, having it as a bastion feels like a solid role for it. Interesting profiles bring their own synergies, however. I don't actually know which way I'd prefer. The variety of links is nice, but fundamentally it's mostly X Unit + Pangguling/Son-Bae to make it cheaper, sometimes a Haidao - but I'm not fully sold on the Haidao. BTS 0 makes it a massive weak point in the HI line up, and it kind of kills my enthusiasm for the KHD, personally. If I'm honest, though, I think a lot of my disappointment comes from three things: - The Zhencha's faux-HI status, with no Shock Immunity (and a similar extension to the Haidao's lack of any BTS: until now, hasn't every HI had at least BTS 3?) - The Liu Xing's boringness and pathetic ELX/forcing out the Tiger. - The Shang Ji's continuing disappointment. Outside of those, I think IA is pretty cool. If CB could tidy up those three things, I'd be much happier: the Liu Xing and Shang Ji should really be some flagship HI, but instead they're probably the least interesting units in the damn sectorial (well, after Zhanshi, but they ain't HI/Invincibles, so they shouldn't be there!)
Looking at the wiki, it does not specify which level of Lt you get. The exact wording is The moment the user of Executive Order is placed on the game table for deployment, he becomes his army's Lieutenant, stripping the former Lieutenant of his rank. The last sentence seem to imply that the XO user gains the rank of the former Lt. So if a Hac Tao usurp a Dao Ying, he would be Lt. 2, as it is the rank Dao Ying had. Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk
It's not even that it's bad, it's what @Durandal said: it's a jarring design. It's the only 1W+NWI HI that doesn't have Shock/Bioimmunity. That, along with the Zuyong 2W proper, and the Haidao BTS 0 just makes the units feel out of sync - and this is supposed to be one of the top military formations in the Sphere! It's just...wrong feeling. I've not yet played with the Zhencha (waiting for the sectorial), but I'm happy to say that my opinion on it (at least, the SMG profile) has changed, and that's in spite of the lack of Shock Immunity - but it's still 'off'. As @Durandal said, the whole sectorial looks like it has about three different design philosophies running through it, and they don't quite sync up properly. Honestly, I think IA is serviceable, probably even good, as the Fireteam options are good and we have some cool stuff - but ultimately there's just a nagging issue that's ever present and that comes down to these odd design diversions/branches that have been stapled together.
I quite like Tai Sheng. I think we are kind of boxed in with a Daoying Lt though, as 2 orders us hard to pass up. Especially on a camo specialist wit FD1. Also the plain shotty one gives better order efficiency than anything but kuang shi provided you have a NCO beat stick. Reserving judgment on the Haidao and Hulong for now. Engineer and killer hacker look.....ok but I want to use them first. Mowang is a bit dull. An extra few points and I get robo kitty. I want to try it eventually. Liu Xing specialist looks nice, so do non hacker Zencha. New Zuyong HMG looks interesting though
