Well, that does depend on how many Yaozaos you need. I'd personally stick to one, but I see the merit in having two.
I agree but this means having one bot parked near each Yan Huo so the Engineer doesn't need to be. He can even try to fix a remote or grab an objective if need be.
Here's a fatboi list I've had in the bank for a while, but havnt had the chance to play it due to mission types. 2huo suntze──────────────────────────────────────────────────9 1 1 SUN TZE Lieutenant (Advanced Command) Boarding Shotgun, 2 Nanopulsers, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 60) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) YĀN HUǑ 2 Missile Launchers + TinBot C (Neurocinetics) / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 56) ZHANSHI Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20) MECH-ENGINEER Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) Zhanshi YĪSHĒNG Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 300 PointsOpen in Infinity Army
The only S5 I have experience with on the board is Ajax. He is one of my favorite models to put down. I absolutely love his sculpt, and he was one of the first miniatures I bought. I usually use him in vanilla Aleph as a distraction. I mean here is 39 points of angry bald man, charging straight at your line with a giant hammer. Anything he reaches WILL die. He rarely survives a game with me, but the opponent usually devotes more than 39 points of resources to stopping his murderous advance. On the rare occasion an opponent underestimates him, I have had him cause some major damage. But I clearly have no idea what I am talking about, because I also regularly take Penthesalia, and I think PanO is an interesting faction that functions well . . .
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Yan Huo: I mean, look at that big beautiful bastard. It probably helps that it reminds me of the Glitter Boy from Rifts (which is one of my original RPG loves): But, on the lack of S5 HI in PanOceania. Personally I don't want to see one. What I DO want to see is a S5 TAG for PanOceania. Get all that TAG greatness into a S5 package! 6-4 move, 6 armour, 3 structure plus some kind of close range weapon combo (Multi Spitfire, Heavy Pistol, Heavy Flamethrower sounds good to me). That'd be a beauty of a PanOceanian unit without stepping on the "Yu Jing best HI" flavour.
I rarely use the Ninja for well... anything. Hacking is a threat to the Yans but someone is either going to have to get an AD hacker, skirmisher hacker, or a repeater of some sort up into the DZ cause the Yans should rarely be venturing out unless it's necessary. It's a weak point but I rarely deal with hackers getting fancy deep in my DZ.
I like that AD get AHD for just that but it is often a detriment to navigate an enemy DZ when you are hackable.
I have a friend whose Ajax looks like Vulkan from warhammer 40k. After he pummeled my Raicho AND my Anathematic as CA I finally found his nemesis when Playing Bakunin: The MULTI-RIfle Riot grrl. So far there hasn't been a single game where my rainbow haired riot didn't blow his Ajax to bits. Fun times though :D
Ajax doesn't much like Domaru EM CCWs, either. Or EM grenades, or Haramaki/Tanko Blitzen. I regularly bring a Yan Huo HRMC in my vanilla YJ lists. B5 is king. The 2xML version isn't as fun.
Speaking from Haqq and the original Big Boi HI (Azra'il), Big Bois were originally that way because they used out of date, or older armor models. The Al'Fasid was kinda along these lines but the BTS6 makes it seem not quite right. Then enters the SWAST and Kriza and its like, okay your doing this on purpose. I mean I enjoy the big stuff! S5 HI are lots of fun as mini tags, but I preffered the "these are older out of date armor designs". I think Yu Jing did it specifically for the Yan Hao so as not to create a tag to implement the HRMC. Hes large cause his large gun. I personally love the Al'Fasid with HMG OR HRL. I have used both. HRL is a great deployment zone defender. HMG is a great support attack piece. Azra'il with AP HMG is just a cheap attack and defend piece. Get him midway, put him in suppression. I have not been a fan of the Feurbach profile, although the model is supper cool. The Al'fasid just over shadows him in Vanilla, and a Sekban Haris is only about 20ish points more. A Pano S5 would just not fit in my mind. They are the TAG faction with S6 and S7 tags all over the place. The Acon S6 tags could easily provide the same operational role as a S5 for only a bit more cost. Pano is very high tech, large armor really doesnt fit.
No one can convince me the taskmaster isn't a high tech suit. I mean, compared to all the definetely low tech ones like the Haqq models and the Ariadna ones, the Tasky can still move pretty fast (4-4) and can even do so while sneaking around thanks to MA. Not to mention the fact it packs a weapon that so far we've only seen in really high tech stuff (Pulzar)
If I had to have a say in what Nomads HI is the most technologically advanced... I'd have to say it's the Hollow Men. Simply because they are integrating the advantages of Remote Presence technology much like the Su-Jian and Karakuri before them did: the Su-Jian for mobility and adaptability, and the Karakuri for... I can't think of any particular advantages those are known for besides being able to be VERY space efficient ( Like bloody hell, they managed to fit D.E.P.s, Chain Rifles and your choice of Mk12, Heavy Shotgun or Combi Rifle on them and still manage to give them Total Immunity. ). So you could say the Hollow Men use Remote Presences advantage of not having to accommodate a person inside them to achieve greater mobility and the installation of extra weapon systems, in the form of them all having Breaker Pistols and Chain Colts?...? But behind them, I'd say Nomad S5 HIs are the next best HI tech they have. The Taskmaster for reasons @DaRedOne already has mentioned, and the Borac for what I shall assume to be very good recoil dampening tech gizmos allowing it to have Full Auto Lv2.
I tend to think the taskmaster is based around a standard brigada chassis, but is loaded up with extra gear armaments and equipment.
The Yan Huo are S5 because that's the smallest chassis capable of supporting HRMC or MultiHMG. They're probably ARM5 just to give enough weight to stabilize the HRMC. Of interest, the Hac Tao is very close to the size of a Daiyokai, with only the thigh guards, arm guards, and sashimono bulking the Daiyokai up to S5, so I think that the end goal of the Ten-no-Bushi program was an armor the size of a Hac Tao (ARM5 BTS6 S2) with Domaru abilities (CC23, MA3, Kinematica L2). Azrail and Al-Badass are older suits that are chosen for intimidation factor (in addition to toughness). Taskmaster is S5 because of the amount of armor it carries. It also needs an oversized power supply and cybermuscles to get MA1 and Kinematica L1 out of that heavy a chassis. Kriza Boracs is S5 due to needing to stabilize a FA2 HMG. And to carry all the ammo that requires. The Blackjack and Ratnik are closer to S6 than S5, which is definitely due to old tech. Sogarat are almost certainly S5 due to ARM6(!).
