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How about that Dahshat mercenary company, huh?

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by Joametz, Mar 14, 2019.

  1. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Truth be told, however, since we're talking about a mercenary company in the modern age, it's not likely to need vast numbers in the way Yu Jing does. I think Blackwater, or whatever the name of the company is now, is around 17000 people, of which the vast majority are logistics and administrative personnel and while Infinity operates on a 7+ planet level, Blackwater is still an enormous business for Earth. If Ikari can manage to raid and free a single inter-planetary troop transport of Wu Ming, that would yield them a sufficient base to offer the level of services we see in these missions we play.
    It's not going to be several brigades of them, nor even a single brigade, but do they really need those numbers? Particularly considering Wu Ming are repeat offence war criminals, and without an explosive collar keeping them in line is going to be even harder now that they have been given freedoms.
     
  2. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    I think your interjecting some of your own imagination into them and the story. I haven't read anything about Wu Ming being escaped from Yu Jing. However, this is getting away from the OP. I think it comes down to CB wanting to give Dahshat a HI of some sort and Zyuong rules work the best in the force without needing to come up with a new troop and therefore more figures for those troops.
     
  3. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Yes, and back onto that; why would a new profile mean a new miniature?
     
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  4. ambisinister

    ambisinister Broken Zoetrope

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    To @Mahtamori 's point: It'd be just as easy for CB to say: "This is the Dahshat. Mercenary Company. This is their Hi and its profile. Dahshat buys aftermarket Zuryong armor, so those miniature would be appropriate." Heck they could even take it a step further and say "This is Dahshat Mercenary Company. This is their HI and its profile. An appropriate miniature to represent it on the table would be Orc, Mobile Brigada, or Zuyong."

    With the proxy rules being what they are, we can already do that anyway, so the only real difference is that we get a new profile. ON the other hand, that will probably make development cycles on CBs end much more difficult, because whenever they come up with one of these merc force they'd be needing to balance new profiles as well as organization charts. With the current system, they can effectively pick from existing 'balanced' profiles and mix and match until they get the force balance right.
     
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  5. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Because there's no precedent for that and could open a whole can of something that would be hard to control. Also people would be wanting new miniatures for that profile and start complaining that there isn't any. It's bad enough they have a lot of profiles that don't have minis for yet.
     
  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    They would? Has CB tried?
     
  7. ambisinister

    ambisinister Broken Zoetrope

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    How is "Use a Zuyong model to represent this profile on the table" a can of worms that's hard to control? They already do that with sectorial specific profiles. "This Strelok has different load outs if you use it in TAK instead of Vanilla." How is that any different than "This Zuyong has different load outs if you use it in Dahshat instead of Yu Jing."?
     
  8. tox

    tox SorriBarai
    Warcor

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    And how is it different from "This specific profile/point/swc is usable only in this sectorial" already done?
     
  9. ambisinister

    ambisinister Broken Zoetrope

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    Is that question for me?
     
  10. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Should the whole game become "Use whatever model you think best represents" then? They are miniature company and need to make miniatures to sell the game. They are not Osprey with Frostgrave where you can use whatever fantasy miniatures you want. And I'm all for the proxy rules, most of my Ikari is made up of old Yu Jing figures! But coming out with a profile and specifically saying "use what you want" could then lead to people using whatever they want for other profiles too.

    Also, what more Yu Jing troops should have been in Dahshat? To me only those two make sense and thats stretching it. Wu Ming I think but what else? Ghulam are already better Zhanshi, Shaolin would be great but I think they are saving them for White Banner.
     
    #70 Space Ranger, Mar 19, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2019
  11. ambisinister

    ambisinister Broken Zoetrope

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    @Space Ranger I mean, first off, that's what their proxy rules are already saying. You can use another appropriate CB model to stand in for a different one as long as you make it clear to your opponent and its not confusing on the table.

    But setting that aside, that's not what I'm talking about. My example above of "use orc, mobile brigada, etc" was an extreme example of something they could do, but what I'm dialed in on is this: Why is it untenable for a Dashat Zuyong to have different profile options from a Vanilla Zuyong? Call it a Zuyong, use the Zuyong model, but have a different profile. CB already does this for other sectorials.
     
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  12. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    That's the most outlandish possibilities that @ambisinister put forward. The more moderate one is to develop Dahshat as a real sectorial with their own personality and concept and then go "La Yughar Taskforce makes use of power armour sourced from Yu Jing back channels" and then for future productions of Zuyong box market them as "Zuyong / La Yughar"
     
  13. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    I'm pretty sure this is obviously not how they want deal with Merc companies though. They are not unique, but alternative forces using existing profiles.
     
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  14. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    The mercenary sectorials are not treated the same as “full” sectorials by CB. Last year’s “new armies” countdown did not include things like DBS or StarCo; similarly I think only SEF, Ramah, and Spiral are counting towards this year’s 5 new factions. Foreign Company and Dashat are just some bonus content to round out the book.
     
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  15. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Exactly that. They were never meant to be unique new forces. While it would be cool if they were, I don't want something new because this gives me new opportunities to try something different without breaking the bank.
     
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  16. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure about that estimate for this year. Bostria has been phrasing it differently all year. "The new book will unlock 5 new armies" vs "we are realeasing 5 new sectorials this year"
     
  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, it's apparent they are just that and that's what's disappointing. They're done on the cheap with barely any budget for miniatures nor development.
    It would have been a lot nicer if at least one of those metrics were allowed quality :/
     
  18. DukeofEarl

    DukeofEarl Well-Known Member

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    I'm pretty sure it still takes development to balance out these armies. I don't recall you making similar complaints about Druze, StarCo, or Ikari when they came out (easily could have missed that though). What is different here (if there is one)?

    Quality is an opinion. Plenty people find value in the existing ones and are excited about the new ones.
     
  19. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    The difference is that we're starting to get volume now. It's like we are now seeing a trend and that trend seem to consist of early design concepts for the real sectorials repackaged as mercenaries to promote sales instead of developing them as products of their own. As if Dahshat was the blueprint from which Invinicible Army sprung, where Al Fasid is the early prototype for Mowang before the proto-Mowang lost the smoke launcher after Haidao were developed to contain MSV2 sniper. I'm speculating a bit, but they don't say "finished product" to me.

    I'm expecting more of Privateer Press' level of mercenaries, even if I wouldn't go so far as to expect actual individual miniatures for them, I would expect separate rules. Again, I'd be happy with handwaving "they look the same because they buy <nearly> the same armour". Bonus points if the Mercenary Extra was also developed such that these merc companies had primary faction affinities so that I as a Yu Jing wouldn't be able to hire Yuan Yuan, but would be able to hire one of Dahshat's unique mercs... and so on.

    By the way, Druze was the first release and it was released with the promise of "there's more coming for it", but turned out that promise was two slightly more fleshed out merc sectorials instead and Uprising JSA. I mean, I'm kind of hoping Druze'll get fleshed out to reach roughly JSA standards, I think JSA is a good aim for sectorial releases in terms of both quantity and substance.
     
  20. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    Either this book is all the new armies for the year, or we have 2 more coming. I think it’s the latter; what do you think?
     
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