The Mowang can't get in the Armory either. Right? He is S5 and its only S2 and below. I take it you would just use him to fight around the armory?
Actually both a Mowang and a Su Jian can get into the armoury - the thing to note about armory doors is that they admit models with a silhouette value of 2 or below, not a base size of a certain radius; if a Mowang or a Su Jian go prone, their silhouette changes to zero, meaning they can squeeze in through an armoury door. It'll usually take a bit of finagling (a Mowang would basically need to start right up against the door to get through with his 2" of prone movement) but it's definitely possible.
I think vanilla Yu Jing is doing great. It does have a certain playstyle that most players gravitate to, but as Robert points out the same core can actually accommodate a lot of variance. For example my base starts as CG and 3x kuang, 3 x Shaolin, a liberto and I add mission units from there. In the same tournament in fact I had a this list; Yinstate CanCon──────────────────────────────────────────────────GROUP 1 9 1 5 SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 59) KRAKOT RENEGADE Submachine Gun, Chest Mine / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 15) HSIEN Lieutenant HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 61) CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) ZHĒNCHÁ (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, D.E.P., Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 34) GŬILÁNG Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 31) G2 3 4 2 XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, MadTraps / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20) PANGGULING (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) Zhanshi YĪSHĒNG Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10) 6 SWC | 299 PointsOpen in Infinity Army There were several games where the hsien ate a crit in an important face to face, which with the rui shi would have just sacked out. I find the 24" spitfire requires me to move quite far forward as well so when that happens it's far from eng support. I've found the zhencha to be a game changer in my meta and almost always does work. The Liu xing is also a good unit when mission and match up allows. You don't take it all the time, but the threat keeps opponents on their toes. I'm currently toying with a list that puts out something like 7 camo tokens, which plays differently again.
Destroying an Armory wall creates a Narrow Gate access point, which has the same "S2 or lower" restriction as the actual door.
Yeah, that's my issue. I'm still trying to figure out what the playtesters were talking about when the Shang Ji was the awesomesauce of the IA during playtesting.
The playtesters probably do not playtest by trying to outshoot a core linked Kamau Sniper in 12 orders with a Spitfire through a quagmire of helots and jammers.
Playtester feedback could possibly be a rather big factor in how Sectorials turn out. Whatever led to Shasvastii and OSS indicates someone was getting their teeth kicked in by someone else who knew what he was doing and pointed out stuff like: "REM Links are kinda easy to exploit, mabye make something that gives them passive Number 2 and a stat buff to make up for the no Prone part?" "Asura Lts are kind of a hard sell next to Achilles, could we improve her command capabilities instead?" Those Sectorials can deal with the best of the competition. IA and TJC kinda looks like the feedback was "I liked the part where I got to spend 13 Orders on my 200 points HI Core" or "All the jumping around was awesome". Hard to explain why IA has the Daoying. No denying it's a very useful troop, yet still can't think of much that has less in common with the HI theme of IA than a backline Camomarker. Who playtested that? looks like a salvage from Shukra/Mentor to fix the Lt problem for IA.
I've started thinking of IA as "controller and drones" from a list building standpoint, and it has "machine drones" (REM) and "meat drones" (HI). Sort of like a giant Puppetactica team. The Daoying's Hacker profile can Firewall the meat drones, landing-assist the airdropped meat drones, and buff the machine drones. The only thing I think they're missing is mines and a minelayer, but it makes sense if the intended composition is a MSR Haidao or Son Bae in a back-field Zhanshi link standing DZ guard and offering fire support while HI duos and a Haris go do work. For those times when you forego the back-field fire support/overwatch core, you can place a non-LT sniper Daoying with a mine by your LT, giving you three camo markers instead of two right off the bat, and one good (except for smoke lolsob) Surprise Shot sniper attack at a useful moment. My wishlist for additions to IA: A proprietary Daoying LT or Hac Tao profile with counterintelligence. Given how important Command Tokens are to IA, and that there's nothing in the lineup with strategos, having one of these two profiles in IA would be nice, but giving Vanilla YJ access to them seems maybe...not good for balance. I'd prefer the Hac Tao, it seems to suit their style better. A proprietary Daoying LT profile with advanced command. It'd force a choice between hacker, counter-intel, or advanced command for the LT, and limit you to one such per list, but still. A proprietary, linkable Son Bae HGL profile as an alternative to the missile profile. It'd be like a fragile Squalo. I fully expect it'd be expensive for a S3 REM, but being able to throw it in a core (B2 even in ARO, +3 BS) with a Zhanshi hacker and give it Shock ammo with Assisted Fire could make for a nasty spec-fire option and an improvement over the Zhanshi LGL in a core. A proprietary, linkable Son Bae smoke LGL profile. It means you miss out on the missile or HGL option, so pick one: guided, spec-fire, or smoke. But B2 smoke spec fire seems like it'd at least give IA one viable tool for this job. (I'd prefer Nimbus, but that seems maybe too much given link bonuses.) A Pangguling FTO or Chaiyi profile with a jammer. Because a Zhencha with a jammer would be too good? A Pangguling profile with antipersonnel mines, mine dispenser, crazy koalas. Not an ideal choice, but it'd make for hopefully cheap back-field defensive reinforcement/ammo depot/points to move out in area control missions. Su-Jian (AVA 1). I get it's an ISS toy but a Remote Presence HI seems like exactly the kind of thing IA should be running. A proprietary Zhencha paramedic profile (e-maulers + minelayer, combi or MULTI rifle, akrylat-kanone). Because objectives, and it seems like a camo infiltrating paramedic with glue bazooka and EM mines is on-theme for these troops. A proprietary Zhencha engineer profile (zapper, contender, d-charges, minesweeper, MSV1). An infiltrating engineer seems like the more broadly useful profile for objectives, HI and REM support, and disrupting enemy troops. I get that that's what Krit is supposed to be, but I'd trade his automedkit and Courage for the Zhencha kit in a heartbeat, even if the points cost was similar. Giving an engineer minesweeper might be a bit wasteful since they already get a deactivator, but the Zhencha approach of being a sneaky jerk makes minesweeper's ability to flip mine loyalty attractive. MSV1 is there to make Discover + Shoot with the deactivator or minelayer a flat WIP roll. The contender is for an anti-material weapon and because equipping him with a MULTI rifle seems...eh? This is already a busy kit. A proprietary Zhencha E/W commando (e/mitter, combi rifle, e/m CC weapon, deployable repeater, mad traps, minelayer, MSV2). This kit's job is to hopefully provide a hard area denial speedbump, with the capacity to E/M snipe from camo to disrupt an enemy fireteam, REM, or TAG. The pairing of repeater and mad traps with minelayer means you have the option of starting with an expanded hacking net in place, or a ready-to-boost perimeter weapon in play. MSV2, camo, and e/mitter makes this a possible counter to a Cutter.
