I think it was probably the ORCs being 6-2 that threw most people off. I honestly didn't even notice it until you mentioned it either.
Ok, taking Qiang out because he's a character designed to sell a board game and Krit because Krit was a fucking mistake none of us have managed to fathom how the fuck he came about out of nowhere, other than the running theory he was a Tai Sheng sculpt fuck up. The only two I have a problem with overlap is the Wu Ming and Zuyongs, they honestly feel like they could've been rolled into one unit but I get why they exist thematically and it's because the Invincibles and ISS do not get along. It's hard to thematically resolve a squad of Zuyongs working under the Bird Boys. Blame it on the lore but I think it's mostly a result of Yu Jing being so fucking underdeveloped in terms of sectorials and badly behind most other factions, and Uprising setting the fucking clock back even further. Jujaks do have a mechanical reason to exist and it's Tian Gou and Shang Ji. If you tried to roll them into Zuyongs we'd run into a problem of we need Flamethrowers on everything which would bloat their cost. You want something like the following situation to unfold: "Ok, I peek my unit around the corner at the Shang Ji's buddy Jujak. Is it a Jammer Tian Gou or the KHD?" "It's actually a Spitfire Jujak this time around. I use the Heavy Flamethrower." "Ah. Fuck." The other reason they exist is because Zuyongs are staying cheaper budget HI at 4-4 MOV, the Jujaks exist also to be their filler HI for the more premium Shang Ji without making moving their link awkward. I think the weird thing that's unfolded is at some point in White Banner's design it's pretty clear that they've co-opted the Shang Ji as the owner sectorial. For a unit called Shang Ji Invincibles they're pretty clearly designed with the intent of not being for Invicible Army which is kinda weird, and doesn't really do much but shit on IA some more but I guess that's IA for you. TBH I think CB need to go back and redo IA as much as they do for ISS. Lui Xing's a fucking steaming mess, Hulang's missing goddamn smoke grenades, Shang Ji were designed for a different sectorial, Shit Dickram is a Kritical failure, and the Guijia... Well it's not as bad as it was but I still want super jump on it goddammit.
As I say, Vanilla is fine but the Sectorials might as well not exist, which is a problem when the game is pushing for Sectorial play more and more. I wish N4 would solve some of that and at the very least give us more fireteam variation, but I don't think it will.
I think WB is fine, people just need to get their heads out of trying to do nothing but primary core link. ISS is due for an update though and IA was a half baked mess the day it revealed so nothing's changed there.
You feel like I was criticising you, I guess, but no I would have quoted you directly if so. Sure I did react to that you wrote that Yu Jing have "great" access to smoke, but that's setting the bar fairly low if you actually count how many units have smoke, what AVA they have, and what PH/BS they have. Yu Jing is better than most at exploiting smoke, but we've also got worse access to it at lower quality than most. Your assessment of the Heavy Infantry situation is fairly spot on, btw. Any claim that Yu Jing is not good at heavy infantry or have a strong identity as such is by someone who hasn't done an assessment or who is wilfully ignoring it, and that's doing the same error. Now, changes to Tactical Window being standard will disfavour Yu Jing's most used smoke access quite heavily and N4 will also bring serious changes to hacking and could alter the balance for heavy infantry quite a bit, so these assessments are probably going to need heavy alterations in not too long. Just imagine the tripple whammy to people's expectations if Hulang gets smoke... Is the Guilang AHD good at hacking when compared to other factions? Or is it that Guilang AHD is a good skirmisher that can also do some hacking? To me it's quite clearly the latter. You're not going to get a hacking game to beat Nomads in Yu Jing. Nor Haqq, Combined, Aleph, O-12 or most of NA2. These factions will be able to put a repeater where it is needed, so that more of their hackers can gang up on a single target, for lower points and order investment than the Yu Jing player, so as Yu Jing you avoid the hacking game where able and stack your chances where necessary. Unlike Ariadna we can still have half a foot in the game so that it becomes this volatile tactical tool. I prefer the Kanren over the Guilang for hacking, btw.
Both of you are correct. I agree that CC in any force is kinda useless the way the do it in infinity and we both pay for the least used stat in the game. Lets face it's just not that good and doesn't look like it's going to be much better. I'm just talking about the theme. Even before Uprising, PanO had more HI with marital arts and high CC. Even then, it was mostly the JSA HI that had it. YJ had Crane and Hsien. The rest were Domaru and whatever the Tanko took over for. Now we have 3 and one is pseudo-HI. PanO has 8. And none of them are that HI-NWI crap. Now this is where I usually hear the "but that's HI". YJ does have some LI and MI good CC guys but they outclassed by others by being better or cheaper. I've had some really good CC guys get torn apart by MrMurder and Chimera. Yes I know we have Shaolin but lets face it again that they are not really there for CC. They are glorified smoke chuckers.
@Mahtamori I think the important loadout is the FO/deployable repeater. Once we get some coverage, there are a lot of strong hackers YJ can leverage and there is some good synergy with Rui Shi / Lu Duan there both in terms of support and (fast) coverage. Even the Tiger AHD can drop in with a respectable WIP 14, put out pressure and still double as an attacking piece and specialist. Then there are Daoying and TianGou, both fairly unique hacking loadouts with additional utility. I don't see ourselves starving for options tbh.
Yeah compare that to factions that are way better at hacking than we are, deployable repeaters are very far down on the list of good repeater tech. You want Pitchers and innate forward deploying repeaters to provide good coverage in hard to reach areas. Deployable repeaters are order expensive and often require you to drag the Guilang out of position from spots it otherwise wants to be in. It's not great. Yu Jing is not a faction that is good at hacking, we're so far behind in tech compared to real hacking factions. Yu Jing is pretty much on par with Pan-O at hacking, think about that. That's pretty fucking abysmal. Sure, you can hack things which is a step better than Ariadna but that's a really low bar dude.
The message I want to get across here is that something being possible is not equal to being "great". You can put up Repeaters, but you are in a fairly literal sense of the word, the worst at it of any faction who can. I'm sad everyone keeps forgetting Kanren exists :(
I mean I know he exists but I just like the Ninja more because I use them as regular camo and obscure Zencha and Guilang positions, or make him pretend to be a mine and then it runs at things.
I meant Tian Gou does very little that a Kanren can't do when it comes to hacking. Kanren is actually quite diverse with balanced stats and we've had them for quite some time, but people seem to miss them when discussing hacking. They're sorely lacking deployable repeater coverage (particularly of the remotely deployed kind), particularly in ISS, or they've have been a hacking powerhouse. For Ninjas, I prefer mine without a hacking device completely.
I dunno if people are talking about the KHD Tian Gou in Vanilla, I don't really rate them in Vanilla I purely look at them for wild card options. As far as the Ninja goes I figure for 3pts I'd rather it be a specialist as well. Too one dimensional for what it does other wise as it sucks as a gunfighter. TBH I'd prefer the FO Ninja but we don't get that... yet. Hopefully in N4 perhaps.
Having just started playing ISS after running IA and WBA for a league each, I have to say Kanren have been MVP every match and one of my all time favourite units. This coming from a full on HI fanboy.
I'm fully expecting to be loosing the Ninja because I just bought one. On the Subject of theme: This is a Mongol themed troop KNIGHT OF MONTESA MULTI Rifle, Chain-colt / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 42) KNIGHT OF MONTESA Boarding Shotgun, Chain-colt / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 37) Open in Infinity Army This is not BLUE WOLF AP Spitfire, Heavy Flamethrower, Akrylat-Kanone / DA CC Weapon. (2 | 89) BLUE WOLF PILOT Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 0) Open in Infinity Army Edit: To be honest a real Mongol theme would be more like BS12 Kum but with Marksman Rifles and Red Furies.
Yes, I was kinda dissapointed when the Mongol themed TAG got ZERO movement skills and instead we got a slightly different Guijia. This is my main problem with Yu Jing, it all seems so uninspiring usually (see: variations of Zuyong). The sculpt is great and maybe it Is playable/good, but definitely not what I was thinking of when they told us "Mongol TAGs who hunt in packs"
Mongols were know for being Horse nomads that fought bow and arrow first and CC second. Though they did some savage ground fighters too. How is a Wolf themed TAG Mongol?
What? Man, I'd much rather have a cool new TAG as a Mongol themed unit than an expensive HI bike unit. Are YJ really going to use a 40ish point HI bike over the better HI they have in their own faction? P.S. If you think Yu JIng units are uninspired you should be reading the Pano forums and how it felt to play Pano before Varuna came out.
