Invincible Army - from starter box next steps for noob to IA?

Shang Ji - The Shang Ji have become pretty meta in IA and are just amazing HI.

S3 rem box - These give you cheap orders that really help with rounding up lists.

Zhencha - Camo HI middle fielders. You might want them for some missions.

You are also going to want to have a look at the units that offer NCO skill, so you have a good use for your lieutenant orders.
1. Krit & Tai are great wildcards with NCO both being specialists, and a host of good gear and skills.
2. Hac Tao heavy machine gun is a pricey piece but offers a very solid solo attack option.
3. Mowang are a great budget option but can sometimes feel like it does not bring that much to the table but a solid body whos able to use your Lieutenant orders but sometimes that is just what you need.

Zhanshi cores with a Hidao multisniper are very good and pretty much the best defensive core IA can do but it can feel silly if you want to lean into the HI of IA.

 

I pretty much agree with 90%. I prefer the Liu Xing instead of a Zhencha. It's more of a personal preference though.

 

Yeah, I agree 90% as well... but the only LiuXing is in the starter already, so he is covered there.

Typical IA armies beyond the Starter require ShanJi, at least the HMG, Krit, a base of Zhanshi and a HaiDao Sniper. Other pieces I consider fundamentals are the Daoying Hacker, the S3 Remotes, and a Zencha. There are some other things that you can proxy there, like the Chief for example (you can use a Zhanshi), and the Mowang is a nice piece too, but I find him lacking in N4.

 

Get two boxes of Yaokong remotes, you frequently run 3-4 in IA.

 

The Hulang is also an interesting option, giving you options for a forward deployment specialist skirmisher or close quarters wildcard link member with strong visual mods for shooting and good cc. It's a shame they don't ship it with crazy koala models though. Good for missions where you need to D-Charge something without missing.

 

Give us a new sculpt with koalas and an alternate helmet design.

 

Got to agree on the Hulangs looks, he just looks too meh. I want a badass action pose female Hulang.

 

The skull helmet is the big problem. Considering China's hang-ups with skulls, having that as the helmet for an actual regiment just doesn't make any sense with the idea of space China.
It'd be like giving Haqqislam a pig-themed soldier.

 

As I understand it it's not a cultural taboo and actually more the current party in power not liking anything that can be viewed as competition to their absolute moral authority. Occultism and superstition are on that list. Skeletons aren't flat out illegal and aren't universally censored, but games and media companies (particularly foreign ones) take it upon themselves to self censor to avoid being accused of promoting superstition.

In the future with the parties in power that have shifted with Yu Jing you could fairly reasonably believe this practice may have fallen out of use.

 

Fair enough point. Can I just say it looks dumb, then?

 

Absolutely a fair comment.

 

Hello and welcome.

There's an old proverb that we no longer use much: "it's not your list, it's you". This isn't necessarily true for many reasons. I wouldn't recommend going full ham on all big bois, you're just taking existing vulnerabilities and making them more universal and missing out on list diversity. Basically, the game is about finding situations where you are in advantage and if your list is very similar it means your opponent can use the same advantages over and over again - and IA isn't really made to compensate for this.
A more correct proverb would be: "a good list can't make your game for you, but a bad list can break it"

Even bad lists are worth playing and exploring, mind you, as a training for how to recognise exploitable situations and how to find advantage even when disadvantaged.

 

So, with that in mind, the most generalised recommendation for IA I can possibly make is try and make sure to always have a bunch of little guys (maybe half your list) and bring big guns on the big bois. That leaves the skirmish elements which are Zhencha. Bring one or two in most games, if only to learn when to use them for assassination and when they're only picking easy targets and objectives.
IA can get away with low order counts, but I wouldn't go below 11 order generating bodies so that you can refill the primary pool when it gets low.

 

Unfortunately you'll fine many times you have 20pts left and all the guys you actually want are 30+pts.