Hello all, I'm digging out all of my favourite Samurai and Ninjas for a game tonight for the first time in N4 (and my first in-person game in 18months). I've not played loads of N4 yet but it seems the changes now favour a less overt form of defence. Certainly most games I have played so far I've seen less of the core-linked missile launcher turrets and more midfield camo-spam/WB chain-rifle chaff (and this is how I've enjoyed running my shasvastii). I saw a discussion online that posited that this was due to the meta moving online for the last 2 years and the resulting move towards using the more built up and complicated maps that are generally favoured on TTS compared to the more open maps that are used in in-person gaming. Being limited to only 15 models means that your less likely to have large numbers of throwaway troops to gum up the works of your opponent. So my question: seeing as JSA lacks those cheap asymmetric ARO pieces and no infiltrating+camo+minelayer pieces, what do you use as your main ARO pieces and speedbumps? Ryuken still seems strong, or are you resorting back to the Domaru/Tank Missile Core? would be interesting to hear any input!
I'm copy pasting from this thread: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/coming-back-to-jsa-whats-the-standard-list-build-now.40847/ ARO: Ryuken-9 HRL, Tanko Missile Launcher, Keisotsu Missile Launcher, Karakuri (Immunity Total 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". To expand a bit: JSA really hates reactive turn. It wants to be the one with Initiative as often as possible to build up it's defenses. You can have quite a lot of Minelayers (Ryuken, Yuriko, Yojimbo, O-Yoroi) to build a defensive bubble that is difficult to breach. I particularly like having Tanko ML ( he can die, as JSA core doesn't rely that much on +3BS) and Husong (since I always take Yuriko Oda, who can patch him up) out on ARO duty, because then I can make my opponents sweat a little bit before throwing a repeater through pitcher on my DZ. Ryuken-9 HRL is like a better LongYa, so that's cool. Other than that JSA's best "ARO" is obliterating the enemy's biggest weapons (Shinobu, berserking Domaru, KHDs, and such) so that the reactive turn isn't as back breaking.
Using command token to start a model on suppressive fire is useful for ryuken SMG, don't forget you can do that!
