National campaign in my country is starting next month and I'm willing to partecipate with Yu Jing. The only thing that worries me is that you have to sign up with a faction or a sectorial and stick with it for the whole year of the campaign. Now, I'm liking IA, but I have just 3-4 games under the belt with it, and I never tried Vanilla (I started Yu Jing this month, coming from TAK/MRRF). I've read a lot here on the forums that Vanilla Yu Jing is actually great, while IA doesn't really have a lot of variety, and I'm afraid that on the long run IA may not be that competitive. I have discovered the campaign just recently and didn't really have time to test Vanilla, that's why I'm asking for a couple advices from more experienced players: what do you guys think?
Well, I've played several campaigns, always with generic armies (Aleph, Nomads... granted it was a *narrative* campaign, but still...) and I prefer to have the flexibility to answer almost anything. The only lack vaniila YJ has is the H+ device, frankly, so you won't have trouble adapting to the demands of almost any mission (Biotechvore being one in which Fireteams are best). Specially if you are new with the faction, Vanilla is more easy to tailor to the specifics.
I agree with xagroth. Vanilla YJ is just as good as IA, the only thing you can't do in Vanilla that you can do in IA is the big Zuyong Core paintrain. Admittedly, with NCO and a couple Tactical Awareness models, that's one hell of a Pain Train to hit someone with. But it's so many points that you don't have much else that is a threat.
IA has the same problem like Tunguska or all other ELITE sectorials. If you get the first turn, they are incredibly good, but the chances are high, that you will be wrecked if you go second. Each loss hurts a lot and you don't have that much order monkeys. With the loss of only two models you could lose 5 orders effectively. Don't know what you played in TAK, but Imo you should start with vanilla.
If I was forced into just one sectorial for an entire year I’d defiantly go for vanilla YJ over IA. E: who plays a campaign over an entire YEAR anyway? The sweet spot for campaigns is 8-10 weeks IMO. People grow sick of it after that.
I would say it depends on your goals. If you want to be competitive and winning is your first goal, go with Vanilla. If you like the looks or the way a certain sectorial plays, stick with IA. You will have to solve suboptimal missions and matchups, but you'll learn much about the strengths and weaknesses of the IA. I'm currently doing this in our league that runs for a year, and its fun.
Siren's Call? We can change sectorial/generic (within the same faction), but we'll lose points (like losing 1 TP in a tournament). @smog the commitment is to play just one game per month, it's not so heavy and can be used as a "collateral" game! ^_^
If it's only one game a month it's about the same length as a normal campaign, maybe a bit long. Ah-ha! It was one game a month! That's not so bad, then.
Thank you all for the nice advices: exactly what I was looking for! It's really nice to have such a great community. In the end, I picked Vanilla Yu Jing: this way I'll get to know better every unit and then specialize in whatever I like the most, while still being competitive. I will keep playing IA once in a while tho, just not in the campaign: the Zuyong Paintrain is too much fun! Had a Frostbyte match with a Zuyong HMG TacAware Datatracker and he was the star of the show. @tox yes, it's for Siren's Call! We can change the sectorial/generic but just for 1 game, not for the whole campaign, at the price for 1 TP each time (and for a maximum of 4 games) so I'd rather go for a solid choice from the beginning and try to get my faction the bonus TP for consistency!
@Spauracchio I'm using vanilla too! That was a suffered decision, but I did it for different purposes, being that it is important to learn not to depend on link teams, to try different solutions and lists, other than having those sweet Kuang Shis fill the order pool for our Invincible tanks. @Spauracchio @tox Sssssh, let's keep it secret until I manage to translate all the stuff to have the International community enjoy the developments of the project :P Only thing I could tell for now is that it is an initiative of Ultima Alleanza Wargame Club from Padova (Italy) and that it's the result of team-work. @Section9 please consider it is a national Campaign, we're speaking of here: we knew that a big number of gaming groups and players would have joined, therefore managing the results of 1 game per-month is the only solution within our actual possibilities. Stay tuned! p.s. right now, 80 players joined the Campaign, pretty much the core of the active player-base in Italy for Infinity.
@Kaiserburger Learning not to depend on Fireteams is going to be my main focus for the campaign. Kuang Shi and Monks are going to be a nice diversion tho! Congrats on the amazing number of players. We'll keep it quiet from now on!
Wow, that's one hell of a big campaign! Is someone doing writeups for it, like what we did with Wotan?
Nope: main goal here is to gather and keep active the Italian community and we are providing all the contents to have the players enjoy the experience. Apart from that, I don't exclude that some "flash news" reports of each monthly session may be done. Every participant will be encouraged to do battle reports of course, but without obligation, since it is an activity that takes a lot of time (such as Kurage or Wotan). We just want players to...play :)
