I've been getting ready to play some Vanilla soon and wanted to talk a bit about some of the things that only Vanilla can do. Unfortunately most of the things I like are not actually Yu Jing troops. Knauf: Wow I didn't realize he now has +1B. That's fantastic I think. He can now also do smoke tricks. To me he seams pretty good. AP+Shock is pretty cool instead of one or the other. BS13 is always good. REM Racer: At first I didn't know what to make of this. I didn't realize it's a guy that gives bonuses to a REM chosen at the beginning of the game. I'd like to take one with a Rui Shi, Giving it +1 Dmg (great with spitfire), +1 WIP (awesome for discover), +3 BTS (this I like the most). I think this is a camo-hacker killer. Get rid of those pesky zero hackers! I think this guy is a better choice to take if you need a cheap order too. Why take a Zhanshi when you can take him for +1pt? Authorized Bounty Hunters: I already loved them but now AVA3. Like I said before, why take a Zhanshi when you can take a 12pt ABH? Who can get even better/more weapons/equipment with booty. Others that seem like good choices are Krakots Monstrucker (again, why take a mech eng?) Tian Gau being able to look like anything can be pretty cool. Having a Guilang and a Zhencha can be really good I think. Anyone have some combos that can be done with Vanilla and can't be done in sectorals?
Just a quick note but with Snipers being DAM 15 the number of cases where the AP firing mode beats the DA firing mode are pretty few and far between (basically only heavy TAGs in cover). So he essentially has a Viral Sniper Rifle that hits ARM but can also do AP if you really need it.
Some great team work that can happen i think is with some minelayer repeaters and hackers. But there's a few combos that can be done that sectorals can't do. Guilang minelayer with Deployable repeaters with our best hackers the Hac Tao and Crane Agent. Shaolin smoke with Haidao MSR.
I personally like vanilla more than the sectorials at the moment. Note that vanilla can take the really cheap CG+4 Kuang shi that the other two decent sectorials (WB and IA) can't take. I'm finding it really easy to make lists now in vanilla with two powerful active turn pieces and a few good ARO pieces, giving me a wealth of options I don't feel I get from the sectorials.
4 Kuang Shi+Monitor and two Guilangs of your choosing (I like FO and minelayer as a default, but play around as the situation demands and allows) is an excellent ~86 point foundation for pretty much any vanilla list that allows you to take on just about anything you want and not mess it up too badly. The Guilangs and order battery alone are enough to be able to win some games, so anything else already has a leg up on the competition.
Kanrens seem too be better in vanilla too, as there are more options they can disguise as. I find it strange that there are only the Kanrens forward deploying in IS, so a kanren can disguise as kanren... In vanilla you have the hulang, Aida, libertos, Armand and kokram for forward deployment.
ISS is... troubled... at the moment. Thankfully for vanilla and unfortunately for ISS, at least lot of its best toys work just as well, if not better in vanilla now.
Usually the main appeal of vanilla factions is to pick the best of what is available to sectorials, like playing a daoying LT + hac tao NCO alongside monks, guilangs, ninjas and kuang-shis. There are some funny combos as well, yu-jing in particular can fit a lot of very different stuff in the midfield that allows for some shenanigans with kanrens.
Camouflaged, forward beployed troopers, with MSV1, mines, deployable repeater, and specialistprofiles. A decent Stateline. Just a very versatile trooper with his tools and ability. And definitely a runner up for the best skirmisher there is.
What I find more appealing is the combination of all that "let's place repeaters and hack things to explode them with missiles" thing and the HSG Su Jian. That's my reason to try playing vanilla. I've had a lot of fun playing that style with White Banner, but I miss having a balls to the wall attack piece. This is what I'd like to try when I can get a game in: The Guilang Minelayers are amazing, and the Libertos is something you can't get in the sectorials (the Kuang Shi as well). Zhencha is there to push buttons and, even though there's no NCO around, the Daoying Lt. is both safe and useful. Long Ya x2 are great speedbumps. ML REM is self-explanatory by now. Su Jian: the reason I want to test this list. I believe the HSG is the way to go since most of what you'll try to kill has high ARM (remember it has +1B! And the Combat Form also comes with +1 dmg). Cautious Movement has always been a great sale point for this troop, but with how regular Repeater networks seem to be now, how the smoke from the CG being less reliable, and the fact MSV1 can see through it... Maybe it's not that good anymore. That doesn't change the fact the cat is strong though, and I intend to prove it. Jing Qo: I've enjoyed Dodging in the active turn to close distances with good CC troops. Liang Kai proved to be able to do it, but the EXP weapon falls short when the target is a TAG or something with real armor. I believe Jing Qo can do a better job there, plus she is a better shooter and can push buttons so let's give it a go! She seems to be better in White Banner though... If she ends up falling short without good smoke support, I'll take her out and upgrade the Zhencha to a Daofei. What do you guys think?
Well, after posting the last list I noticed that the Ninja HD profile comes with an AP CCW, and changing that for the Zhencha would give me a nice "all around counter" to TAGs/non-martial arts HI and enough points to place Krit instead of Jing Qo. That gives the list a way to bring back the Su Jian after it falls, which (if it happens) should be near/at the enemy DZ: And more Repeaters are always nice, right?
Your new list has problems dealing with repeaters, hackers and similar rooftop annoyances ;) Btw, you don't need to take screenshots, you can use the little speech bubble.
One of the advantages of the Zhencha is the Climb+. He's good for going up to kill stuff or down to hit a button. I'm thinking the EVO is going to be more important for Fairy Dust as well. We have all of these great HI that will start close to an opponents hackers.
I understand the advantage of the Zhencha, but the Su Jian + Kokram duet seems really interesting to me. Su Jian has the mobility to avoid certain roadblocks and his resilience really goes up to eleven if you can deploy an Engineer up the field (he goes into NWI, then drops to Unconscious and can be brought back). The NCO on Krit is kinda sweet as well, I think that's the one aspect that sells it to me in the end.
Krit from meme in n3 became my go to NCO in IA and runner up for go to NCO in vanilla with only Hac Tao being on top. Forward deployed profile has it all, strong DTW weapon, 20inch button pusher, 20inch engineer ready to fix tags and mechakitty, 20inch repeater/EM mine, and a good way to use 2 Lt orders. Such a good boy with amazing mini ;)
@Amusedbymuse You went from talking about Krit to mentioning a mechkitty ... please can you join the dots up for me ? Did you mean to pair him with Su Jian or something? :D
I think @Joametz is saying that you already have Krit 8" up the board, so you move the su-jian up and try and be near Krit in case the SJ goes down. Then Krit doesn't have to move much to use the Engineer skill. Which means you need to keep it in mind with deployment. You don't want o put SJ all the way on left side and Krit on the right. Krit is our only Engineer that can deploy anywhere other than deployment.
Only problem with that is that Su-Jian isn't a massive increase in punching power compared to Krit himself, once you consider that you're focusing over 90 points in a very small hackable area and that Krit also has a Heavy Shotgun and quite some order efficiency. If this wasn't AVA 1, I'd say it's better to get two Su-Jian instead to make the attack less of a counter-deploy risk, but as both have AVA 1 maybe it's still better to have Krit on one side and Su-Jian attacking on the other and particularly where Krit can't get to.
