Coming back to JSA whats the standard list build now?

ISS plant spotted, reported to the Kempeitai.

 

I really like the domaru, karakuri, yuriko Haris. It's very versatile, has a lot of tools and Mobile. The core can be keisotsu buffed with domaru and kempeitei or domaru with tanko. You might add a daiyokai for fun and NCO duty.
Depending on playstyle you can run a HI heavy list or just spam ninja, oniwanban, ryuken. I recently tend to play a Haris and a three man core with some ninjas and ryuken and have aot of fun with it.
You could for the hell of it play a list with only bikes and drones. Especially with the rules for the actual It's season.
In most of my lists a domaru or neko is my lt. And I have a coc somewhere.
The o Yoroi is one of not the only reliable HMG in the sectorial, is a menace in close combat and comes with coalas for shit and giggles.

The beauty of JSA is you can make every available playstyle viable and have a lot of fun.

 

The new "thing" since you've been gone is you can cybermask the Aragoto KHD now courtesy of the ITS rules allowing them to drop Impetuous. Very hard to stop a marker state that can move 14" and doesn't trigger mines from penetrating your lines.

 

General playstyle:
JSA in N4 got a fair bit of viable choices that there aren't any "standard core" auto includes apart from 2 profiles, imo. JSA wants to control the table and control the tempo of the game, that is the playstyle that seems to give JSA most success. This is accomplished by JSA's excellent skirmishers and the army's ability to out-trade anything in the game (aka apply Domaru E/M CCW to problem). JSA's most notable weakness is poor hacking game and a lack of long range firepower (only 3 HMG in the whole army) in the trade-off of amazing control tools. One thing that JSA is not: a CC army. In all of N4 games I've seen JSA play, and the games I've played myself, I can count with my hands the amount of times that a game was decided by a trooper going into CC. JSA is an agressive board control army that leverages CC to achieve that, it is not it's win condition.
The main reasons to play JSA are: Oniwabans (Shinobu Kitsune in N4 is particularly strong), Samurai Core link (Domaru+Tanko), great unique units like Karakuri and Ryuken-9. As for list auto-includes: I'd say definitely Yojimbo and Yuriko Oda, from there you do what you want, really.

Lieutenants:
For Lts, the most opted profiles are Oyama/Kuroshi/Oniwabans, although Oyama takes the cake as the most chosen Lt, reasons are two fold: first one is WIP14 and the second one is because we have access to a 20 pt, sixth sense Chain of Command, which basically allows you to play agressive Lts, rampage with them till death and not worry about LoL. Specifically for Oyama, he is also quite resilient versus CC Assassins - the prospect you give to a player that they need to be able to assassinate a CC monster like Oyama AND then kill off a Kempeitai to put you in LoL is so resource heavy, that they will be heavily dissuaded to go for it.

Fireteams:
Normally JSA plays with a Heavy Infantry Core, composed of Domaru-Tanko-Wildcards. Notable Wildcards are Yuriko Oda, Kempeitai MSV2 and Daiyokai.
What the core gives you, in its essence is the best tool to deliver Domaru to CC, the core normally wants to end the game by the midfield or in the opponents face, whichever gives you more Objective Points, it doesn't rely on the 5-man bonus as other cores and it's normally fine if dismantled (Tanko get Impetuous activations, which can come in clutch in later turns for some order efficiency and Domaru are excellent corner guards).
The Daiyokai is a bit of a contentious point, some people vouch for him, some don't like him. He's more standard, he's a decent shot, but makes the link slow and he is big. Daiyokai seems to play in more defensive oriented lists, and there's an argument that JSA doesn't want to play defence.

Karakuri - Oda - Oyama is an amazing attack haris that covers everything: you have 2 specialists, one of them is 3 STR Immunity (Total), one CC monster for ZoC protection, and the other specialist is an engineer which is convenient to heal STR lost and cure hacking states. Normally lists that take this Haris can then have a very defensive Core of Domaru and Tanko just for ARO duty.

Keisotsu fireteams are cheap, but bad. They die too easily and are poor shots. You can pimp the Keisotsu core a bit with Kempeitai, 1 Domaru, but the issue will be fundamentally the same, Keisotsu are just bad. However, they complement O-Yoroi lists quite well, allowing some mediocre artillery fire and mitigate the points investement of a TAG (allowing more fancy toys to be paired up with the TAG).

ARO:
Ryuken-9 HRL, Tanko Missile Launcher, Keisotsu Missile Launcher, Karakuri (Panzerfaust), Husong TR HMG. JSA doesn't have good corner ARO options, like cheap dtw, but the abovementioned profiles do see some ARO duty as an "hard ARO".

 

JSA's in a great spot where you can field a ton of viable combinations. I've enjoyed iterations on these three lists, although Double Dragon certainly isn't something I'd take to a competitive event where I was trying to do well...

Heavy Metal Samurai:

Spoiler

17 Orders, 21 fighting wounds
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GROUP 1 5 1 1
DOMARU (Lieutenant [+1 Order]) Spitfire / Pistol, E/M CC Weapon. (1.5 | 37)
YURIKO ODA FTO Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, Panzerfaust, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 45)
KEISOTSU (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 14)
WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
YOJIMBO Contender(+1B), Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, Crazykoala / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 18)

GROUP 2 6 1 2
DAIYŌKAI MULTI Marksman Rifle, Panzerfaust / Pistol, AP + DA CC Weapon. (0 | 48)
KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
OYAMA Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, E/M CC Weapon, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)
TANKŌ Missile Launcher / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 27)
TANKŌ Flammenspeer, Contender / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 17)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)

3.5 SWC | 300 Points

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Double Dragon:

Spoiler

Double dragon
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10 2
O-YOROI (Lieutenant) AP Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Flamethrower, Crazykoala / EXP CC Weapon. (2 | 75)
O-YOROI PILOT Contender, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 0)
O-YOROI AP Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Flamethrower, Crazykoala / EXP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 75)
O-YOROI PILOT Contender, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 0)
KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
YURIKO ODA FTO Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
SHINOBU Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 44)

6 SWC | 300 Points

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Midfield Mods:

Spoiler

Midfield Mods - Antimateriel Mission
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GROUP 1 8 1 1
YURIKO ODA FTO Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 23)
KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 20)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 9)
KEISOTSU (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 17)
YOJIMBO Contender(+1B), Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, Crazykoala / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 18)
SAITO TOGAN Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 36)

GROUP 2 6
RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment [+8"]) Submachine Gun, Shock Mines, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0.5 | 26)
RYŪKEN (Hacker, Forward Deployment [+8"], Killer Hacking Device) Submachine Gun, Shock Mines, D-Charges ( ) / Breaker Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0.5 | 29)
WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
TOKUSETSU EISEI (Doctor) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 14)
YÁOZĂO PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
RUI SHI Spitfire / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 23)
NINJA (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 29)

5.5 SWC | 299 Points

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