This is the reality of many, many, sectorials. Druze, Starco, Caledonia, Tartary, US Rangers and Spiral have even fewer BS 14, Dahshat, Tohaa, Ikari, Corregidor, Tunguska, Ramah, Qapu Kahlki, Ariadna and Merrovingia all have only 1 BS 14 unit and the Ariadnan is an AD2 AP Rifle unit. Foreign Company, Morat, Onyx, and Hassassins have only one more unit with BS 14 and in case of Onyx that's an AD3 character with Foreign Company being the only one with access to HMG+ on more than one BS 14. If all you're doing is counting profiles and counting BS then you're going to miss the forest for all the trees. JSA is slightly undergunned. Slightly. What's missing is sufficient firepower to sluice the melee units into the range where they shine. However, if you put that firepower on Tanko or Domaru, which is what seems to be what's being fished for, you strongly risk over-gunning the designated melee faction. I'll be so bold as to suggest the unthinkable; that the problem might just be with the Ninjas and the high cost of the Ninja gun.fighters (not just the sniper, but the various combi profiles as well as the lack of BSG profile) rather than inherently with the samurai.
As a Tohaa player I must remind that the Sukeul and the Draal, although they "only" have BS13, carry visual modifiers that make them lethal when linked. Tohaa can no longer be considered undergunned, they are over the average now.
Yes, this is exactly my point. Them's the forest gone missing. The individual BS value of a trooper isn't as relevant as a large other number of factors. Burst, rangebands, visual MODs, visual MOD counters, and above all cost. BS 12 can be much better than BS 15 if sufficient other factors are satisfied. There are a range of other possible fixes for the problem, but first you'd need to make sure that the problem actually is a firepower issue and not derivative of other issues - and I write that because the stuff that's been identified as problematic are HI and melee units (admittedly my own personal favourite balance issues to wh- point out).
And even then, JSA does not have a lot of visual modifiers on good shooters. Ninjas aren't great shooters, but it's trivial to get them to -12 to-hit. Ryuken SMGs are the other option. I would really like the return of the Raiden Spitfire profile in the Ryuken. But with ODD instead of Limited Camo (basically, replacing the SMGs with a Spitfire). Because JSA is really missing a unit to give covering fire while the melee monsters get close.
It wasn't popular for a reason and I don't think it had a lot more to do with the Spitfire starting on home turf than it did with the Raiden being Limited Camo. Go the full mile and give the third Ryuken an HMG or don't bother. While ODD is sort of fitting, I'd rather see it complement what JSA miss a bit more and have it have MSV1 and Mimetism. You'd still need a Shikami to eek out beneficial odds against the game's supreme ARO piece (Cored Kamau). Expected price is a bit high in the low 30s, though.
The Linked Kempeitai Marksmanrifle and Coordinated Panzerfaust/Missile barrages are actually pretty good against Kamau as well as it stands.
Yeah, but the Kempei needs to get close enough with their Spitfire-grade gun and it's pretty amazing how a Kempeitai+Keisotsu link tends to run almost as expensive as a DoTanko link. Coordinated PFaust/Blitzen/Missiles I can imagine work wonders, though, but have to remember that Kamau is only a benchmark.
Huh. Ya folk have interestin points talked in here about Daiyōkai. I just got my army starter box yesterday (with Keisotsu box) and planning on build g’ol Dai first, paint it, and swap it to be my avatar picture in here. I also like the ideas you folk point out, and might test them out (after a few additions from JSA’s kits).
