Thanks for all the responses, everyone. Update on Mr.M I suspect that Mr.M has seen this thread, because he more or less straight away went out and bought 400pts of Haqq. Perhaps he feels like you guys have torn apart all of his past, present and future strats! Karakuri I bought the Karakuri box set, like the idea of having some tough-as-nails specialists to play with. Range is still an issue, as pointed out, but with ARM 6 (bts), 2 wounds, Dogged and Remote Presence then the idea of pushing them up isn't as intimidating. I hadn't realised before just how OP Total Immunity is (or seems to be), so I'm looking forward to testing out the Domaru-Karakuri Haris. Yojimbo He gets rave reviews in a points-vs-usefulness sense, but the super-duper-impetuousness puts me off somewhat. I prefer to take Saito for smoke access (oh! if only we had as much access to smoke as, say, Ariadna). Shinobu is my favourite unit in the whole faction (followed closely by Shikami) but I often struggle to find room for her when there are so many other things I want to take. I'm going to take the thread's general advice and run him more, get more practice in and see if I can get him to do stuff. Does anyone have an anti-Ariadna list to hand, something they'd recommend? I tend to lean towards the same basic format for my lists (they typically revolve around a Keisotsu core with MSV2 Kempei and Yuriko Oda for a bit of extra spice).
So came this convo late, i feel your pain as i face this situation often as well (local meta is tak, jsa, steel legion, PanO and O12) Some things i have tried that seem to work: Total reaction bots work great on holding off dog packs, dog warriors and anything that wants to move somewhere to sweep for TO deployment. Karakuri outside of a link work wonders, HSG deployed as far up as you can, pain to move outta position without a great deal of luck. Neko, i can not stress this guy enough! yea he doesnt have smoke, but what he does have is sheer killing power, whatever gets near him is going to die, i field him with a daiyokai and domaru in a haris, ap + exp cc weapons deal a LOT of hurt. Link also has threats over all ranges. normal list i run is as follows (not perfect but my meta has a lot less camo and a lot more agression) : Japanese Secessionist Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 9 OYAMA Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, AP CCW, EXP CCW. (0 | 28) DAIYŌKAI Red Fury, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CC Weapon, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 51) DOMARU (Fireteam: Haris) Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27) YURIKO ODA Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 24) KEISOTSU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 17) KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 21) KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25) KARAKURI Heavy Shotgun, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 38) GROUP 2 3 TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) HÙSÒNG Yaókòng HMG / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 25) 5.5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army
I love the domaru haris + karakuri HSG + " MK12. They're a good deployment zone defence on turn one with a bunch of B2 chainrifles and the HSG. Turn two once your opponent has advanced into the midfield, the MK12 is a great attack piece as you move your specialists forwards to capture objectives. Basically the Domaru is there to bail the karakuri out in CC if something gets too close
