they probably did it because remotes have several issues, not been able to do cautious movement and not been able to interact with civilians become really important fast.
Maybe "religous" also give a point back. Kappa is so cheap because she has a SMG (which are too cheap by themself, but we´ll see what N5 will do here). Ah - that new to me. I thought they came with the change N3/N4. And yes Haq is about high WIP, LI and specialist specialist ;-) But now have Orcs in green and there super-soldiers, shooting boxes and armored airborne troops ... but I do not complain about this, SP has now HD and Nomads there first CoCs ;-) With 27 pts its a good package. Is kinda resilent and it has Remote Presence. The 30 pts MK12 brings its own MMS what makes it shooty - 5 man fireteam let it hit on 15 before other mods.
SMGs are 1 point cheaper than a Rifle, 4 points cheaper than a Combi; the Kappa Hacker would be 16 points with a Combi. Given a Hacking Device is usually 5 points, the Kappa Hacker also gets a 1 point-reduction for free for... some reason. New faction privilege or some-such. A "fair" Kappa Hacker with Combi would be +5 points over the default 12 point Kappa, so 17 points. A "fair" Kappa Hacker with SMG should be 13.
Remote Presence that you almost never use because you are more likely to do NWI. Great if you are one of the new that takes the an Engineer and happens to be near enough to fix it. That made me think of Jeong. I almost always took him out of lists I had him because he’s so darn expensive. And when I have used him, the repeater is never used, and he’s killed like a bug. He costs almost as much as a Ye Mao or Jujak ENG who have more useful skills to go with them. I love the Ye Mao one because he can get anywhere and then Mim and MSV. Jeong should make himself some armor or something.
I have to say I've really enjoyed Jeong in IA occasionally. Him in a Haris with AP Shang Ji-sus and Bixie gave you an unhackable repeater bubble to protect the other two. Against midfield hackers or CC targets I would creep him ahead of his HI buddies and Spotlight/hack through the Repeater. It also meant I had the Engineer safety to un-freeze/isolate the HI if they got caught out. Only difficulty was him keeping up. I think his niche is in IA though.
Man, I was doing "research" on HI and for some reason didn't know, Mobile Brigada have ARM5! JCC and StarCo can form a Core team of them! Also, the hacker is the one with the -6 Tinbot! As far as I can tell, they are the only ARM5 HI that can form a core. JCC then can add in the Evader (better Hai Dao) ENG and/or a Daktari. Thankfully they don't have many things that count as MB. But then again, the Hai Dao doesn't count as anything either. Then they are about the same price and Zuyong. I don't know why I don't see more of these guys. Maybe because I see mostly Bakunin now. Also JCC just has other attractive things. Ok, sure they don't have many skills, but they don't need many.
Yep. Mobile Brigada got a huge boost in N4. But they are only in 5% of Vanilla Nomad lists in ITS 15. They are much more common in CJC (48% of lists), but with an average number of between 1 and 2.
With mim6 proliferating, MB core really wants pure bonus, which puts them at around 180 or 186pts, with zero tac aware. You need an engy too because bts3 is poor. Normally you just see the lt MB because it's pretty sturdy and doesn't cost swc.
Yes, they got +1 ARM in N4 and Nomads still do not consider them, but at least now players take them sometimes.
Sometimes you don't realize what's good or bad, until you start playing other factions. Corregidor or StarCo could make as good or better HI pain train than YJ with them. Mainly because of the rest of force having good cheap troops to back them up. But they have so many other great things as well. I’ve found through playing Starmada how good Beta Troopers are. A bit more than Zuyong but then Mimetisim -3, Climb Plus, Remote Presence, Dodge +3. I can even add Bixie! My only complaint is that they don’t have long range weapons. But then I can have an Epsilon that counts as a Beta for that.
I never realy used him. The main reason was, that he is not painted. Now that he is on my painting table, I will try him out. I still think he is too expensive and too fragile. What you describe above is pretty much the way I plan to use him. Indeed Brigada Hacker gal is now the best Brigade CJC can bring. Pairs up perfectly with Jazz FTO. ML is also a good pick and of courese the two Lt. variants. Pure core is too expensive so you mix them in with humble Alguas. Evader is a good toolbox - especialy AP Spitfire/Engineer but also clocks in at 34 pts. Every Evader is an SO and has C+ and 09G not to forget the mighty deactivator ;-) so yeah a good package. But notice that they are no wildcards. So they struggle with Brigada, Wildcats and Vostok/Sputnik for their place in the main fireteam. Haidao is designed to fill the fireteams (but is a bit outdated in this role) and is the cheapest way to bring an HI engineer, an MSV or an KHD with ARM 3 and 1,5 vita. Main drawback is the lacking BTS - which is kinda rediculous. Did your research lead you the Janissaries? Another plain HI, that got a (random) bounus from N3 to N4 - in this case BS 14 which gives the faction that isn´t known for good shooters a second HI platform with BS 14. The only other faction that came to my mind thats sports more different S2 HIs with BS 14 is Pan O (maybe O-12, they copy paste most things from other factions and make it more effizent). IA still gives you order-efficent HI fireteams. Two Zuyong, three Shang with TA, 3 good characters and a premium HI HMG with NCO powered by an Daoying. A haris with TA Zuyong, Zuyong TA HMG (or another member you see fit) and a NCO char (Bixie or Tai) can go in KG2 and use 7 Orders!
Yes on the Jannisaries. They got better since Burkut can wildcard into them. Well I can't say that having TA orders have been much of a help. But one of my points is that it's not so much the HI teams themselves. It's the rest of the army. After making your Zuyong/Jujak/Wu Ming teams, you don't have much to choose from to back them up. With some of the ones mentioned and I know with Starmada, you can make a pretty good pain train and still get up to 13-15 troops. IA ends up getting the same orders with less troops. At first that seems good but then that also means less targets other than them. Also less board coverage. For IA, after you have your Invincible team, everything else is more expensive them them. You cheapest specialists are Zhanshi, Mech Engineer, Weibng, and the doctor. White Banner has it a little better but not by much. Their cheapest specialists are the same troops. Sorry for focusing too much on pain trains there. I almost never see them anymore anyway.
I think this is one of the main issues with so called pain trains. Often a big invest that have to reach key points on the table to effectly do some boardcontrol. IA often ends up with a 5 core, a haris of 3 a camo in the DZ and some cheap stuff like Chaiyi or a lone doc/eng. IA is slightly outdated and for now you can do its theme more efficently with TB. Hopfully in N5 CB will polish its gems and spread some love to the older sectorials (and IA is still quite new compared to some others;-)
I won't hold my breath but I keep hoping. Unfortunately they keep disappointing me as far as YJ goes. I already suspect it's going to be a low number of new models for them next year.
I think YJ are highly competitive by can get really dull. It's hard not to just reach for the amazing HI. Tends to be similar profiles too. I am absolutely with what folk have said about some cool units being kinda hard to justify. Crane are so freaking cool but a really expensive mixed bag of skills and gear that can get really situational. Yan are so cool but... Hear me out... I think their BS is too high! BS 14 is expensive especially with heavy weapons. Yan is eye wateringly and already features high burst powerful weapons. The Az'riel is an example of utter devastation at BS13. I had one nuke a symbio Gorgos last game I played. Knock it down to '13 and points off. Bang, cheaper HMRC/Multi HMG. Hell put Cont damage on for utter hilarity! BABY YOUR A FIIIIIIIRE WORK! YJ got a phenomenal buff with reinforcements. And one that cemented the Korean element which I loved (models are so cool!). I feel they will see some love to lesser used units in N5. New light TAG would be lush. Maybe upgrade the Yan to one.
Yan Huo, I think, can stay the price it is. The Haetae is now the budget S5 HI. Yan Huo just needs to be worth the points it’s at. Right now, in vanilla, I’d take the Haetae. In IA I’d go Hac Tao or Shang Ji. Bioimmunity is almost worthless on them. They should delete it and give them BTS 6 like most in its class. Then add some other skill, like Courage. It's still a great troop. Not much can beat it for range and damage. HAETAE (BS Attack [Guided]) Heavy Rocket Launcher(+1B) / Assault Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1.5 | 37) HAETAE Heavy Machine Gun / Assault Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1.5 | 41) YĀN HUǑ FTO Missile Launcher(+1B) / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 42) MÓWÁNG (NCO) MULTI Rifle, Flammenspeer / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 43) MÓWÁNG (NCO) Red Fury, Akrylat-Kanone / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 45) YĀN HUǑ (Neurocinetics [+1B]) Missile Launcher / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 45) MÓWÁNG (NCO) Spitfire, Flammenspeer / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 47) YĀN HUǑ FTO MULTI Heavy Machine Gun / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 48) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / CC Weapon, Heavy Pistol. (1.5 | 48) SÙ-JIÀN Heavy Shotgun(+1B), Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 50) SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 54) HAC TAO Missile Launcher, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 60) HAC TAO Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 63) HAC TAO (NCO) Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 65)
And too slow. This would be worth a thought. 13 is still good and as a fire support plattform, its more about the burst than the precision. I this would get him down a significant value of pts. I would agree. Lets call it nice and useful additions. But they could be better spread over the sectorials. No. That would be against the design point of the Yan Huo. A third (or fourth if you count the Triphammer in) TAG would not be bad. But it has to be cheap. Something like the Wrecker, but a copy of it would be boring and we got our HRL with spice in the form of the Heatae. YJ lacks Firebachs but I think that would make it expensive again. But ISS could use one - ideas can be found in this forum ;-) Ja, but PH 12 is a bit low, especially when the opponten pins you in 9-16" ...
This might sound crazy, but what if instead of another light TAG, we get a Maggie, sized TAG! ARM9-10 and multiple weapon options.
Personaly I do not like this oversized stuff. Let Haq play the S8 and hopefully we not get another one. But ARM 9-10 would be tempting ;-)
