Yu Jing is a hot mess

I don’t have a lot of opinions on their playability, but I do actually like how several (most?) NA2 sectorials provide ways for players who already own one vanilla army to dip their toes in and experiment with units from another army.

 

Does Druze Boredom Society count as fully fledged or stitched-together?

 

In my book it's a pure mercenaries sectorial and not a stitched-together mess, for what it's worth. I'd be interested in seeing Druze, specifically, get a JSA-style make over complete with new releases and all.

 

I dont plan on playing Yu Jing but if their Armor looked more like the different factions in the movie The Great Wall where the helmets had different animals or faces, or stag horns and there was clear distinction between troops of different designations instead of a sea of orange clones I'd consider it. That and a hump in CC. Their CC should be matched with JSA, 1-2 MA5ers but nothing that's MAing and Berserking to the degree the Domaru are because semi suicidal skilled charges has been a Japanese trope all the way up to WWII Kamikaze... But, yeah, even in the future I hate the Chinese govt. But love the historic culture and accupuncture works so make an even mix of scifi Armor and old chinese things like animal adorned helmets aka KungFu Panda and I'm in like Flynn, who doesn't animal themed suits, every mother fucker here watched at least one version of the power rangers. Let me get in my Blue Wolf Zord and whip out Su Jian morphing and I'm fuckin sold. But, like more of the faction needs to do that. Even making animal human hybrids like Bakunin, but make them professionals and cruel, like a literal Tiger General. If YuJing can have exploding head prisoner soldiers, they can break the international rules even more. Hell, including making their own Ai! Obviously this is for the next edition.

 

I like YJ where they are visually, although I do keep thinking about buying into JSA, so I guess I miss that side of it too. I agree sectorial-design wise though. It is a bit of a mess.

 

I still hoping to see the RODON forces as and army sectorial. There must be a lot of Jujaks and others

 

Yeah we don't need more armored rice-hats or silly stuff like that. YJ has a great aesthetic going with the Invincible armor. They are the "take me seriously guys!" faction, and the aesthetic reflects that well.

If you would rather see ridiculous shoulderpads and dragon-head-grav-bikes, there are other games for that.

 

"Socialist", lmao. Next thing you tell me 3rd Reich was "socialist" because it called itself that xD

Yu Jing is pure fash oppression, dude. It's Stalin country.

 

Problem is at play level all our HIs look a little bit like clones (happens to PanO too but YJ HIs are way prettier) so, as this is still a fantasy manga inspired game, you need something to make them distinguishable from each other and not just like they copy pasted their 3d files assets.

Please bring back braids and tabards.

 

While I'm halfway there with you, it would be annoying if every unit was named like a chinese-american takeaway restaurant, but in terms of things like the blue wolf and hulang with super stylised designs, I'd rather they use historical designs from China rather than done-to-death western tropes like wolves, wolverine and skulls. It's not as if China lacks of interesting and distinctive headwear designs.



A modern twist is of course advisable, as was demonstrated by the original tiger soldiers.

 

Since N4 I've been mostly optimistic about YJ. My exception is White Banner.

I've found it to be very lacking in look, story, and rules. They are too limited on the number and types of core teams. One of which can't even be a core team unless a wildcard is added. I really don't understand why they don't have a Ye Mao core team when their equivalents in other factions (Bolts, Vargar, Kaplans, Rodok, etc). Right now I never take them because after making one of two core teams, there's no points left over for them because they made them overly expensive with bloat. Did they need Multi-Rifles? I would have been happy with Combi, Breaker, or Marksman. I also think they have the other link backwards. Jujak are Veteran Troops and Shang Ji are Line Troops. To me, it feels like the SJ should be subordinate to the Jujak. So It should be a Jujak core with SJ being able to join them. When they changed the Shang Ji, it made it both better and worse in a weird way. It made the force very dependable on them because they are now good troops but it makes me feel like there's less reasons to take Jujak. My biggest gripe is that Kai and Jing are limited to duos. It also doesn't help that they still haven't come out with figures for the faction as well. Or they come in box sets with PanO figures I neither want or can afford. I can only hope that if they do a YJ Action pack with new figures, it will be heavy of WB figures.

I haven't actually played ISS but I feel they are fine. I was never one to use the Kuang Shi crutch. I find them to be horrible story-wise and don't use them based on principle. Before the first Human Sphere, YJ was not a stereotype Communist China in space. They felt a bit more enlightened and that's the way I still want to view them. But anyway, other than having a hard time with some missions where they don't have the tools to get the jobs done, they are not bad but really need a few more tools. I like the Deva addition even if it's an Aleph carry over. I think they Bao are a little better but I miss the X-Visor. I like that Zhanying can now have more than 1 in a Wu Ming team.

I'm mostly fine with IA. I just want some Shang Ji to come out.

Look-wise, I agree partially that they now look a bit like Human Army #2. They do stand out from PanO and others, but there's not much that says this is the "Asian" force. What got me into infinity in the first place was the Shaolin. They still look great and I hope they get get a bit more of the old look back in. I have high hopes for when they come out with the Shang Ji (in about 8 years) that they look as good as the one hacker they have done. And to me Adil Crane armor is spot on! I love that figure! Also both versions of Liang Kai are fantastic. I also love the Dao (one edge sword) on Jing Qo. The only one that was a bit of a miss for me was the Hulang. He's very generic looking. I filed off some of the nubs on his helmet except the two front ones I'm going to try to make it look like devil horns. I'd like to change his sword too. That's an area they can make them look more "Asian". The Jian (double edge strait sword) looks too much like a Euro sword at that size. Iconic Chinese weapons are Kwan (Guan) Dao, Broad (sabre) sword, and Tiger hook swords. I'd add South Asian but I'm not sure what countries joined YJ and PanO.

 

I would actually also chime in regarding White Banner.
I think the sectorial has been an abortion of a release.
The Kaldstrøm and the Beyond (as well as the TAG) have largely almost only been placeholders for Code One release.
There have been next to nothing actually released for the White Banner and the insanely useful camo remotes have never been released either.

It also irks me somewhat that Vanilla YJ is a much better army to make a Camo/skirmisher army with, than White Banner.

 

This might sound bad but I think they shouldn't have made Hundun and Long Ya AVA2 in vanilla. Because like was said, why take WB when you can do it better in vanilla. If they were AVA1 or unique to White banner it would be different. But right now I don't see how they can make White Banner more like what was wanted. I think a core of Ye Mao would help. And Liang Kai (who has super jump) joining them. I would love the addition of Hulang. For some reason, he just seems right for them. It would make an interesting choice between Hulang and Daofei, or both!

 

basically the exact same thing that happened with old Corregidor, regarding Morans and Intruder

 

And it has not even a minature released

IA is fine, as we all agree. Only thing left for happiness is the Shang-Ji HMG and this has the sligthly dark undertone, that we will rarely (not) use Zhuyong HMG again.

IS - got a little update, now you can play them without a YJ figure. Honestly I like the additon of the Deva, they could quit the lt. options in my opinion, but anyway now you can have a nice little OSS Haris. The flexibility of the Zhangyin/Wu Ming are good and the Cranes are still to expensive (and got the wrong move value) compared to something like Pan O knights*)

WB - I like so much theme-wise but the fireteams are very restricting. It is the first sectorial where I play a fireteam more of a orderbattery than actual active duty. The fuel my solo pieces or duos. I agree with the Jujak/Shang Ji problem. Jujaks feel like the are just an idea that was not fully thinked through. They were so much better if the got wildcard or at least their own core. Same problematic for Ye Mao, are they so good that they only allowed to haris. Their direct counterpart, the Kharhus had core, because Pan O needs a better shoot.

IA & WB share the Zhanshi + HI fireteams, but okay other sectorials do the same nowadays, so not much of a problem here.

And now the characters. At the moment, with no Shang Ji HMG available I use Lei Gong (Aristea Version) a lot, but he is from IA. Adil and Qo are booth very good, but somehow they share the same role, both are good in CC and shooting and are SOs, I wish Qo were a bit more CC, given up the good shooting for more stealth (mime -6) and speed 6_2. Lei is a good addition, but I don´t like it in general, when have to take a char, to get a special ability like albedo (not that it will be used often). Cpt. Gao is even more IA than WB and for me only theretical, we got no mini (and if, it will proxy shang) and I see very little use for him with the totaly lack of NCO in WB. The fact that Liang is shared with Pan O, O-12 and WC is something I can live with, but why he can link in some NA2 and not in his parent sectorial - he is YJ at least!

The release of WB units stopped with KS & Beyond. No Tian, no Shang, no optional Jujaks and Ye Maos - a second Ye Mao (and I like them a lot) was locked in a 80,- € ITS box. Yes other sectiorials suffer the same, Kosmoflot has not a single one of the new units.

*) take a look at the new MO Box - all worked together very well and the new KotHS is a super-optimised unit, barly over the price range of Shang HMG. This is way it could work.

 

Proposal to give WBA a soul
​

1. Remove pointless restrictions and limitations on iconic WBA troops

• Remove AVA Limit on Zhanshis
• Raise Jujak AVA to at least 5
• Remove one-per-link restriction on Tiangou 1st Section wildcards.

2. Add link options to iconic units in line with other factions

• Add core and wildcard to Yemao (cf. Kamau, Muyib)
• Allow Zhanshi Yisheng and Zhanshi Gongcheng to link as Zhanshis (this should be a no brainer, but cf. Mechanist)
• Allow Yaoxie Ruishi to link with Zhanshis (cf. Ruishi in Dashat)
• Allow Yaokong Sonbae to link with Zhanshis (cf. Sonbae in Invincible Army)
• Add core and haris to Jujaks (seriously, what's with needing to join a Shang ji core?)
• Make Jing Qo a wildcard (cf. plenty of other more powerful characters in pretty much every faction)
• Make Yaopu Pangulin FTO a wildcard.

3. Add flavor to bland, newly minted iconic units

• Allow Liang Kai to join any fireteam of Yemao
• Give Jujaks Immunity: Continuous Damage
• Give Jujak boarding shotguns Continuous Damage
• Release a box of Jujaks
• Optional: Make Jujak missile a HRL instead
• Give Jing Qo some alternative profiles, e.g. SMG + EM grenades

4. Remove units iconic to other sectorials

• Remove Lei Gong
• Remove Qiang Gao
• Remove Shang Ji (sorry, it's for the best)

5. Add iconic WBA troops that were left out for some reason

• Add Hac Tao at AVA2

6.

With regard to Zhanshis, they are literally troops of the banner and the B in WBA stands for banner. They need the most available, most flexible Zhanshi links in the game with a reason to exist other than cheerleading Invincible Army's most definitive N4 profile (Who shouldn't even be here). The changes I am proposing might look overly generous, but none is actually likely to be more powerful than what I propose be taken away.

 

Isn’t that just a Vulkan shotgun?