I'm sorry but I don't want to play on the High burst Vs High burst roulette. I leave that to las vegas casino fans I want at least some rangeband and mimetism+cover game to exploit. reducing his chances while keeping mine over BS10. Even a dirty zero can deal with a TR bot with ease, Why a zencha can't? And the Liuxing needs to tank 4 shots to the chest on 8s if he wants to use the explosion, and has problems with enemy deployment hacking areas too. so it is also some kind of a lottery. Turn one hulang or zencha is gonna be carbonited and shooted to death even in suppressive fire. you may not have the posibility of extending your repeater network or using Faery dust If you want to rely on tanking shots on the face... sure (It's a measured risk option) an engaging dodge would also end the direct template party One zapper and your BS HI is done for a small teardrop template costs 1p, 2 of them cost 2p... for most of the troopers, Boarding Shotguns cost +5/+6 points over a light one (2p) muttas or nagas pay just 4p over a chain rifle's cost. the pricing is not consistent. A BS hit mode is statistically comparable to a SMG In reactive a BS is slightly better than an SMG but has no suppressive as a setback Unlike the rest of the direct templates, shotguns can't make intuitives, you need to deal with the camo first I don't like the cost changes at all. I don't feel they are proportional or reasonable even if the rule changes are a good simplification effort This is perhaps the only statement in wich mainly I agree with you (even if I don't think it can be considered "cheap") The overall changes are good in vanilla and the rest of yujing sectorials, but in inbilcible that was facing serious problems in listbuilding a dealing with specific problems, the situation didn't change so much. We received some cost reductions and new tools loosing other tools on the process. for example a plausible speculative with taisheng or with the zhanshi, or the hardening arround LT2 and Tac-sense
Fair one, you're entitled to have your own opinion but having played N4 games with IA I think you're overstating its weaknesses now. I understand where you're coming from and would have agreed in N3, but the change to crits mean there's a lot less risk pitting a 2 wound BS13-16 B5 HI vs a relatively flimsy BS11 B4 remote. Maybe I should have been clearer; obviously you're not dropping him on the TR bot but behind it round the corner. Equally you won't be dropping it in a hacking zone. Walking through a hacking zone to take out a TR bot that's pinning you down though? That I'd do, especially as the Liu Xing should be viewed as a disposable weapon and hackable states can be reset out of. Zhencha has camo state. If it's left out exposed turn one then there's nothing in the game to stop it being hacked or shot so I don't get where you're coming from on that one. The Hulang has new protection in the form of the Krazy Koala and starting suppressive with Mim-6 seems pretty powerful to me, although I haven't tried either yet so can't accurately comment. We do have ways to extend our repeater network though, which is why I mentioned it, so again I'm confused. 1. I forgot about the lack of intuitive, definitely a mark against them. However I meant that once a camo unit revealed, the direct template mode makes it much easier to win close range engagements. Also offsets the scarcity of visors (along with all our other templates). 2. I get that zapper is good against HI. That's irrelevant to the performance of the BS though surely? 3. Don't know what specifically you're referring to with this one but YES! This is a Heavy Infantry faction! Now we can actually rely on tanking shots to the face As it should be! 4. Agreed, it's pricey. Subjective at this point. I think the flexibility makes the points increase palatable, especially when our HI platforms can leverage it better than more flimsy units. Personal taste though. That Cheong though! Does everything and more. Him and a Haidao KHD make a great deterrent if he's in your aggressive fireteam. Which also helps him get upfield to expand your hacking area.
Chief Cheong is absurdly over costed. 14 pts more than a Go Cheng for what it brings... Either he costs 6 pts more than what he should cost or we are paying around 7 points for the repeater. And I agree with almost all points exposed by Mc Lane. Despite undoubtedly IA is now better as it has gained versatility in link composition, it still carries almost all the excessive downsides it had in N3.
I think the simple tweaks to units, profiles, and fireteams, plus additional NCO have made it incredibly more flexible. At the end of the day it's an expensive heavy infantry sectorial filled with big elite units. It's always going to be more restricted than others. I think WB suffers much more from lack of meaningful list design options.
risk of what? because I'm talking about loosing orders, not necessarily about loosing troops. playing roulette can end up making you loose easily 1/4th of your orders and halting your advance on the process. And the remote can easily end up prone on unconscious state 2 with a ready engineer bot next to make your efforts go to waste on one order If you want to take care of bussiness you need to drop it where you have available. Being in hacking area can mean: been targeted (the TR bot goes at 11s instead of 8s), it could mean end up INM-B and wasting serveral resets at -3 to continue, it could mean end up isolated, no more orders for the Liu, and It's probably done for. next hacking attack defense is reset on -9 non HI skirmishers doesn't have that problem. To take them out of suppressive is not so easy as a carbonite. they've also have more company in the mid field, so they can have it's backs covered by close camouflage allied markers. And lastly, zencha doesn't have a minelayer profile, so he can't deploy with a barrier between him and the enemy The main defense of the zencha is being deployed prone on top of an unreachable building for most of the enemy troops... but that's also a setback because it's packed with extra close range weapons and he needs to waste orders climbing down and taking detours to avoid enemies on bad rangebands. As you can notice I'm talking about order efficiency an defensive efficiency. Not about killing stuff... almost everyone can do that into some extent. What's the point of having 1-2 more orders than the usual if it takes you extra orders deal with common issues Again, one hacker, carbonite, bye, bye suppressive shit. then while inmovilized, let's use this direct templates or directly shoot him with MSVs unopposed, or just engage him in CC as humilliation the midfielders does't usually have this kind of problems. Even nomads avoid this shit fielding MIs instead of HIs We always had ways of extending our repeating network. Our attaking remotes always have been reliable to advance and play that game. The Pango FTO covers the role of chief cheong almost exactly in a fireteam (just avance with him ahead of the spearhead hacker) What is debatable is if that's actually a good or a bad thing. Were not a faction of elite hackers. Haidao is our only killer hacker inside invincible, and it has almost no defense aside from the tinbot firewall. With BTS0 and the damage of hacking programs, one or two hits and it's done for, loosing the shanger tinbot and is done for. If you want to play the hacking game things grow complicated inside IA. And those things add up complication in listbuilding One thing is having one or two heavy infantry fielded. You can avoid hackers... but when all of your army has that same weakspot, all approach is a threat and taking detours or precautions may not be posible. an enemy hacker will have alwais something within reach An that's my main point. Building IA lists is a headache. Far too complicated. too many weaknesses to cover. And I dont think that there has been major improvements aside of the hulang FTO and minelayer options
IA is stronger than ever. Multiple things lead to give it power : - crit rework makes them a lot more resilient - NCO slapped on a 36pts unit wich is also engineer (Krit went from crap to god) - Big Toys cost reduction - new linkable repeater profile - HI movement increased ! This leads to better order economy with easier move + attack - neurocinetics on a tinbot...yan huos can pack a monster ARO punch in duo - wildcards "1 per unit" restriction removed - "count as zuyong" ----> wildcard - wildcards everywhere - mowang has a non-lt non-NCO profile protecting his Lt state safety (big meta buff of this unit) - Haidaos everywhere is game changing especially with the ~20 pts model - pangullings cost 12pts, helping to reduce links cost while offering a repeater - hulang rework - Guijia got SUPER JUMP and dropped in cost - Shang Ji is now a real unit, not overpriced spitfire - hac tao NCO allows to put 12 orders on the most powerfull HI murdermachine of Yu Jing - number 2 on our zuyongs, making them the most resilient fireteams in the game Weaknesses: Concerning hacking : We got firewalls, fairy dust, repeaters and KHD easily. We are limited in the way IA hack game is defensive. The new presence of Wildcard engineers allows to recover from carbonite like a charm Concerning firepower against 1W TR HMG bots: Hac Tao HMG bs 14 mimetism -6 2W Yan Huo HRMC bs 14 burst 5, god rangebands 2W Zuyong/Shang Ji HMG - core bs 13+3 burst 4+1 2W Mowang Red Fury bs 13 mimetism -3 2W+NWI Just shoot it, this is not luck you are just more brutal. We are not haqqislam boys Concerning cc: The presence of templates weapons linkable (krit, tai, hulang..) makes any offensive really dangerous, remember 80% of our units are 2W. Concerning Daoying loosing hack buffing: Put Qiang Gao in your core or use the massive point decrease to buy a bot. Last words: IA isn't perfect, no faction is meant to. Hack and cc are a made flaw, but not without answers. N4 made our sectorial more flexible and resilient, allowing us to use even more our massive firepower. Just throw lead on your opponent And I want a tactica on them because rule of cool
I think we're starting to argue past each other. You see some parts of the sectorial as insurmountable weaknesses without vast order inefficiency and complicated support decisions, I see them as interesting challenges that offset the order hyper efficiency and resilience the units offer (obviously different situations lean towards one side or the other). There's a different discussion about how IA compares to other factions like Nomads but that's not new and doesn't affect the internal ability to play certain styles. I'm trying out some extreme list ideas to test our new capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses to breaking point so I'll let you know how they get on!
@Mc_Clane While I agree that IA still face the same challenge as before and overall didn't get much points reduction (which is a bummer really) it's still much more flexible than it used to. The simple fact that you can throw an NCO wherever you damn need it, or both an haidao KHD and a sniper in the same fireteam is a BIG deal. I'd just advise caution on using too many shang-jis in IA. they're very good but also very expensive, and zuyongs are still very serviceable. Shang-jisus isn't an auto include!
Start forgetting about this. No more tinbot I can't disagree about the changes making IA fireteams more flexible. but I can't consider the changes purposed to fix the N3 needs of the sectorial. the results are also quite weird. I end up filling zhanshi fireteams with haidaos instead of using zuyong, and I'm not sure if I like the implications of that. On the specific changes, Krit FD, is a nice option that's gotten my interest. But I'm not sure if it's a net value or just an extravagance... I´ll need to test it out. It's a hackable engineer that costs 40+ points exposed (no marker state, no suppressive fire) and potentially surrounded by repeaters that make him reachable from far away. It seems a custom tailor-made high hacking capable list is required to field him in. Krit FTO in the other hand, definitely lacks the Veteran skill to fulfil it's role inside fireteams to a reasonable degree.
What? IA is now one of the deadliest hacking army, with Shang-Jesus and massive supporter hacking, along with Krit (God I'm serious) / Cheong / Zhencha makes people regret their day trying to chew into that massive -6 tinbot buff. Jump out from Zuyongs, embrace Zhanshis. You can choose between massed oblivion or a packing punch from Haidao KHD!
There's a difference between offensive and defensive hacking. Because it's so easy to gang-up in defensive hacking (just make sure your outer hacking layer are repeaters and not the hackers themselves), you'll not only gain Firewalls but can respond to any hackable threat with all of your hackers in sufficient numbers that you should be able to overwhelm them. For IA this manifests in that it's easy to stick great MODs on our Zhanshi hackers, but also that if the opponent does something similar with 3-4 Hacking Devices and a bunch of Repeaters in our approach, it gets hard punching through (particularly with a table edge aligned grid setup for the terrain). So weak offence, strong defence, but not impossible.
