I hardly ever see anyone use Bao troops, it looks like they've got some pretty decent equipment. Is it that they're over costed?
Disclaimer: I dont play Vanilla YJ/ISS much (4 games post Red Veil Demos?). But it seems as though a major part of it is that the MSV that the Bao offer aren't unique or interesting to Yu Jing. While the Biovisor are much more situational. Add in that the Bao are in a premium category of disposable troops and people find them unattractive. That being said the X-Visor that the Bao has is actually an incredibly effective/inexpensive tool to play with range bands. The Bao is another one of those units in my books that isn't going to run the table but learn to use the X-Visor/MSV combo right and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with how effective it can be.
My most regular opponent plays either Hassassins or Shas, so I get some extensive use out of the MSV/Biometric Bao as a DZ guardian. Once the impersonator problem is dealt with, he can usually clear out the midfield pretty effectively as well (though not as good as Kanren echos).
In one word: Rui Shi. (okay, two words). Long version: It is better in almost every situation. It is cheaper, can benefit from supportware and has a decent range with it's spitfire, even without X-Visor. The usefulness of the X-Visor in suppressive fire doesn't neutralizes the advantage of the Rui Shi in active turn. The Bio Visor is seldom helpful, even against impersonators.
It's an internal balance problem, ir you want a troop with MSV you get first the Rui Shi, it costs less points, has a better weapon and is faster. On ISS they might see more play in a fireteam, but the pheasant tax adds up, and they have no specialist profiles. They sorta fixed this on Yuandun, with the mixed links with msr and shock marksmanship Bao.
They are one of the units that seems very likely to get a remix in N4. I'm betting they will be in mixed links alongside other Agents. The idea of Bao bodyguards alongside Hsien, Cranes, Celestials, etc. in the same link is really really cool.
My experience is different. The problem is that you need two discover rolls, nevertheless. Too much time to do shenanigans, especially in Haq Turn. We have at least two veeery good Haq players in our group. TBH I haven't found a reliable way to deal with their impersonators. But I've given up to use Bio Visors against them. As a ISS player I prefer a screen of Kuang Shi. In the best case they kill each other. Worst case, the Kuang Shi acts as a speed bump before the Friday kills too much of my other troops.
Yeah, if bio ignored the impersonation mods and put them straight to revealed they'd be good, as they are, they're not really useful outside of your own active turn
I think there was an improvement with the Pheasant Sniper helped a bit. But the need to make a Haris rather than a core. And the Red Fury Haris Pheasant costs too much to make a small team. 3 PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Multispectral Visor L1, Marksmanship LX) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32) PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Chain of Command, Fireteam: Haris) Red Fury / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 36) BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2, Biometric Visor L2) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23) 3 SWC | 91 Points
seeing how bts is useful against jammers and the biovisor now has more targets that it’s useful against, I’d contest those points of the argument. Inherently high CC is also (maybe) becoming more value as more units with mediocre-high cc enter the game. Bao and other previously less-used units like them have been hitting the table a lot more in my meta recently and have been performing well.
Even if we overlook the fact that ARM/BTS in general is badly over costed they're a purely defensive link team, Bao don't get any active weapons to run and gun up the table with nor do they appear in any link where this would be relevant or useful. Outside of combis and shotguns the only weapon they get is an MSR. They're not going anywhere near jammers in the first place. Trying to sell CC15 with a Knife as a plus is also a joke, come on buddy. What, are we expecting them to be having some kind of gentleman's duel with some other CC15ish unit also armed with a Knife? What kind of opponent is starting that fight instead of shooting you in the face. I am also curious what links your opponents are running because I have often found people who talk up how good a Bao link often don't actually understand what a legal Bao link looks like.
Making them Veteran L1 would be a perfect fix for their shortcomings right now, as well as thematic. If they were specialized at digging out not just Infiltrators but also Jammers, they would be useful in specific games at the very least. HUnting down Jammers with shotguns... in smoke... that would be really useful. That and fixing their link options would be a big bonus. In the age of Wildcard troopers all over the place, I've always thought Pheasants would make better Wildcards anyways. Or even make -Bao- the Wildcards in ISS, thrown in to accompany search and destroy squads with their nasty visor capabilities. Being able to just throw a biovisor into a link makes them way more likely to take them, and being able to throw a light weapon with MSV2 into a link is still balanced but totally worth taking. Now that MSV2 snipers in mixed links are more common, one in the official-MSV2-sectorial would make sense. They're the guy you send in to ID potential subversives or sweep rooms for hidden panels and the like while you're kicking in doors.
How do you rate this profile when playing agaist armies that are very likely to bring impersonators/infiltrators? On first glance, this guy seems like an expensive cheerleader with the additional utility of checking things like Fiday, Oniwaban and Speculos who are after your LT, but in I'm not sure how useful he is in practice. Impersonators (if deployed in your DZ) can probably reach their designated target within their first order, so Discovering them doesn't really make sense and BioVisor2 doesn't come into effect, since they will reveal themselves anyway. However, they do provide an ARO against smoke + CC killers like Shinobu/Saito/Fiday and BS on short range is rather threatening to these kinds of units. If you go first and their impersonator is close by, they should also have a good chance of trading up at 23 points. What do you think? Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1 BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2, Biometric Visor L2) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23) 0 SWC | 23 Points Open in Infinity Army
@Knauf , regarding your question @Dragonclaw and @Triumph answered it just above. Currently not really worth it.
