That's ok with me, provided we get neat other stuff (I'd still like a mini-Tag duo or Haris with little spider tanks, it'd be so cool) or a transmutation TAG with a 'road' and a 'walker' form. Both of those are super Japan.
'Other' neat stuff... Serious question here, from someone who doesn't and basically never will play JSA, do you think there are holes in JSA that should be filled, what are they? I'm not talking wishlists, I'm talking things you actually think are a weakness that needs fixing (as opposed to one that is a feature). IE in Bakunin I would like to see a Moderator Dire Foe so that there was someone marginally competent in a Moderator link. Because I think that is an actual hole. But lack of MSV2, bikes, varied AD, TO and leadership skills are features that I don't think need filling.
Personally, I'd like to not have to use named characters for smoke, because I personally dislike named characters in my list. The 'requirement' to run Saito/Yojimbo to be effective is not something I like.
No, it was just that one. That was the mercenary Kempeitai profile, it had Basic Impersonation for YJ only. Agreed. I'd like a source of smoke that isn't a character. Then again, it seems that JSA is getting weapons supplied from PanO, so no smoke.
Gutier said at the French satellite tournament that JSAs split from Yu Jing should actually habe weakened them and if they followed the fluff 100% the sectoral should have been made worse. Of cause they didn't want to do that so we got what we have now. But I take that as a clear indication that we shouldn't expect a lot of new stuff in the near future. Well maybe of we do some awesome stuff in the campaigns we can give JSA. A stronger hold in the Human sphere and provide the economy for new stuff
I think new JSA stuff will happen naturally as the story will progress onwards in this year and the following. CB has announced that they want to progress the story from now on and that they intend to give players new ways of playing their existing armies and whatnot. Naturally adding a new profile or loadout every here and there as the story progresses is an easy way of doing so. Just imagine. Kurage station remains in JSA hands, a technology deal is struck with Nomads, bam, one of the Ten no Bushi research projects finally gets the ressources needed and a new Heavy Infantry is born, or the Daiyokai gets an improvement due to the finished research, or whatever. It's easy to do, requires little effort and in case of just new loadouts/rules no money, and still will make things more interesting and fresh for the players. And it makes the stories feel meaningful and have an impact on the factions. Sure JSA took a hit during the uprising, but if they hadn't taken that hit, they would have had even more fancy stuff if the Ten no Bushi fluff is anything to go with, so I fully expect them to eventually get those mentioned things sooner or later as the storyline allows for the Ten no Bushi program to gain traction again.
At least you realize it's a warband in every way, just a 2 would total immunity warband. But still, no. The order expenditure and reliability are massively different to a gunfighter. It's not my fault that barakiel didn't include include TO Camo, MSV2, Superior Infiltration, Minelayers or ODD in his list and you don't seem to understand intentional limitations. It's called being a realist, and in this case, being correct. I like the idea of JSA(along with others) having units added as the narrative moves forward. I wouldn't be surprised if the Kempeitai Impersonators show up again if JSA get any closed battle lists.
Just some background on how Sectorials are designed: Back in N2, Sectorials were built with very clearly defined limitations. If you put together a rough list of all the commonly found unit types/equipment types, such as "MSV2 gunfighter", "infiltrating Camo Specialist", "AD gunfighter", "smoke grenade access", etc. you'd find that all sectorials had between half and 2/3 of any of those units, compared to their Vanilla equivalent which usually had significantly more of those "keyword" unit and equipment types. CB has been gradually eroding this dynamic, making Sectorials more well-rounded as stand-alone playable armies. The very fact that we call them "factions" now wouldn't have flown 3 or 4 years ago, because the difference between a full faction and a Sectorial was so extreme that noone would have ever bothered to confuse the two. Once upon a time, JSA had no Heavy Infantry gunfighter. No 0 SWC infiltrating Specialist. No mixed links. No Haris teams. No MSV2 on a Japanese unit (only the Rui Shi.) No smoke dispenser for less than 35+ points. No antipersonnel mines. No ODD. And in spite of all those restrictions, it was still considered quite a good and competitive Sectorial. So when we come into this discussion and see players discussing all the things that JSA should get, bear in mind that there's multiple perspectives at work here. Some of us have seen JSA get more than any of us functionally dreamed of, and we're pretty okay with JSA not necessarily getting any more because we've already seen the Sectorial become more flexible and well-rounded than it's ever been.
To respond to the initial post, I think new Ryuken profiles (and by extension, any new JSA) are likely...in the far future. JSA have very little left to release. After Tanko, its mostly just Aragoto and Keisotsu, and a few blisters to fill out options (and maybe AVA). Despite that, I doubt we will see new units for JSA for at least another year. For what I'd like to see...I could see a Moran-like Ryuken, with Mimetism, CrazyKoalas and a Boarding Shotgun. For the army that developed them, they seem to not have a lot of the little buggers. I could also see a Sniper option, which is something we lost with Keisotsu and something Ninjas don't really do well. Throw on Sapper and you can keep with the variety in the profiles...though the rule might perhaps be redundant with V:Courage already on the profile. Meh...just spitballing ideas.
I wouldn't expect to see a sniper of any sort in the near future. it goes back to what barakiel said, these holes in our sectorials and lists are intentional. They help weave the fluff of the army into the gameplay on the tabletop. Long range shooting isn't JSA's thing, fluff wise and now gameplaywise A moran type Ryuken is a little redundant with what we already have, although more crazy koalas in the army is always welcome imo. a generic Argagoto profile with them would be really cool.
I'd honestly enjoy some form of shooty japanese unit since samurai were initially archers, but I get that it doesn't fit the playstyle. With that in mind, it would be nice to get a proper warband in line with the shaolin monks, so we could get utility of some sort (like smoke or white noise) or possibly a pure support warband of irregular troops (could be a 'shrine maiden' unit) who would provide defensive hacking device/smoke launcher style profiles, maybe with stun weapons or adhesive. Just the idea being to create a unique and flavorful warband with a mini range that would be an immediate buy for many players.
A "shrine maiden" style Warband unit would certainly be cool, especially if given uniqueness through use of non-lethal weapons. As for smoke access, that really is the major hole with JSA. And unlike PanO, who make up for it with a plethora of MSV troops, we have only 2 profiles with it. An MSV2 Ryuken, or a smoke Ryuken, would be good to help fill the glaring gap. I do think sub-20 point smoke, however, is something that they want to keep out of JSA. As a Ryuken profile, it'd keep the access low enough still, but not force is to rely on named characters. And it'd still have to compete with the ODD Ryuken, which is a fantastic profile.
That's called the O-Yoroi (named for the armor worn by the horse-archer samurai). The Domaru, Haramaki, and Tanko are all foot-samurai armors, which were mostly sword-and-spear fighters. Bows (and firearms later) very quickly got pushed down to the Ashigaru mooks. That'd be the Ikko-ikki for the Buddhist warriors (though Nobunaga killed almost all of them).
Heian warrior monks would be cool in general. On the topic of bow wielders, thematically the Haramaki fit that role back in the day. Once upon a time, their weapons were all deliberately Burst 1, to represent the notion that a single well-placed, well-executed shot was more martially distinctive than a firefight with automatic weapons (thematically this fit the historically-false-but-very-popular trope of samurai favoring bow use over "dishonorable" blackpowder weapons, and I think CB loosely adapted that notion for JSA.) Haramaki fit this idea by having tactically limited but hard-hitting missile/blitzen/contender as their primary weapons, with a huge point premium paid for the Combi. Domaru didn't have their current high-Burst options either. The only Burst 3+ weapon among the whole crowd was the O-Yo HMG and the Haramaki Combi. As I recall, that Haramaki marksman ethos came from the fact that many of them were Aristos. As dueling weapons with a low rate of fire, most of them already had Contenders.
I would argue that the Ninja MSR does a much better job than a Keisotsu, just more expensively, and not as great as something BS 12. As for MSV2 the Kempeitai is handling that.
I wouldn't expect Buddhist battle monks really, too much cross over with potential future Yu Jing Units (especially in design style). Now Shinto Priests/Priestess on the other hand could be a very possible option. I personally still hope for my Kabuki Warrior AD troop landing on the battlefield screaming "YOOOO!" forcing everyone around him to change face towards him, thus opening up fire lanes, backs to ninja ambushes and whatnot :-P I don't expect to see much sniper presence to be honest, when they took away that option from the Keisotsu they made a bit of a statement in that regard I think, though I could see Ryuken getting one profile with it, mainly because it'll be a very sought after unit with very low AVA forcing people to pick and choose their Ryuken, thus slightly modifying their playstyle. I frankly still heavily disagree with people insisting on JSA being "just a sectorial", they simply aren't anymore. Sure they can still form fireteams, but let's be real, with the way Infinity is going, this is nothing special anymore, and I wouldn't be too surprised if sooner or later everyone can simply form them, in case of vanilla maybe with some drone support. And that aside there's an easy fluff reason for them being able to form fireteams, after all they are an extremely united army who fought together ever since they were formed, unlike say Yu Jings forces who are all over the place and whatnot. I get WHY you claim they are just a sectorial, I just think you are limiting the faction more than it is in terms of future designs, I mean just look at ISS, they are basically Vanilla 2.0 with some units missing by now, but even those now seem to slowly get added in the CBL with Guija and stuff, and if that's the direction CB is going for, we can expect more flexibility from JSA as well, especially since they are their own nation now, and not just "a sectorial". But who knows, maybe all of you "Ah the wave is over, soon JSA will be boring and stale"are right and they will indeed let JSA sink into boring oblivion (like they did with many sectorials before) , but I frankly think CB is capable of more, and they have clearly stated their intention to do more for all armies, so I intend to continue to expect more until proven wrong by CBs future actions.
I'd be surprised if Ryuken got a sniper profile. I'm expecting the long-range to be covered by the MSV2 Sharksman rifle Kempeitai (with a sculpt that looks like Saito). Don't get me wrong, I'm torqued that Keisotsu lost both the sniper rifle and the LGL. I'd converted a sniper (from the CG) and I have the Keisotsu LGL because I bought the two blisters long before the JSA starter was a thing. Ninja sniper needs some thinking outside the box for best use, but putting someone at -12 to-hit is child's play. -6 for TO and -3 for cover. and another -3 for Surprise Shot, you don't care what their range bonus is! You can even get XVisor troops to -12, which isn't something you see very often. Yes, the Ninja is 'only' BS11. But when you're hitting on 14s or 11s (cover) and they can't hit you back, well, that's a good day. I admit, in vanilla YJ I preferred the Guilang, to have MSV on my sniper. I'd stick an infiltrating sniper on a flank and have it shoot models on the opposite side of the board.
