how new player friendly are the JSA?

I would say JSA aren't necessarily a bad starter army. they were what I started with, and that was before they split off. certain units might be tough to learn effectively, like ninjas and onis. But at a core you have some pretty straight forward units.
I would recommend the JSA box, obviously.
then branch out to the Keisotsu box, which will give you a solid link team and lets you fluff out the core box.
from there, I would buy the Domaru box along with the Tanko box. this will give you some firepower.
If you're feeling really crazy you could even buy their TAG. it's pretty good.
possibly the Aragoto as well if you want some fast strikers, although they are tough to use.

all of these models don't have too complicated of rules, but things like Ninjas, Oniwaban and the characters are our more powerful units and have more complicated rules. It's a learning curve, and you'll get there.

Welcome to JSA!

 

ah, the age old problem!

 

Honestly I think JSA is probably one of the more straightforward armies, but I think it's probably harder for new players to grasp because of how some units work.

I'm particular, it seems like new players struggle with all the flavors of Ninja. Once you have a solid grasp of hidden deployment/Oniwaban threats, I feel like it becomes much easier, but I think until then it's pretty hard. Add in the general shooting weakness of the faction with a couple exceptions, the almost useless line troops, and lack of long range presence, and it becomes clear why it's hard as a first faction.

Once you have your mind wrapped around all of that, it's fine -- but until then, you're going to lose a lot (which is fine -- new players always lose a lot.)

 

Close ranged shooting and melee combat is a really important part of JSA, and it's also fairly complex. The closer you get to someone, the more options they can present to challenge you. When you're just laying waste at long range with an HMG or Spitfire, there's only so much the enemy can do to really threaten you in response. They're probably shooting back, or maybe dodging/throwing smoke grenades to defend themselves, and that's it.

With JSA though, you enter dangerous territory. Suddenly enemies will shoot, Dodge, throw smoke, fire a direct template weapon, hack you, symbiobomb you, drop mines, send crazy koalas at you, Engage into you.

When you get really close, like with Close Combat, you have to be hyper aware of interplays like Change Facing, Triangulated Fire into CC, 6th Sense Level 1 to delay ARO, etc.

The nice thing though is you can scale your gameplay to make these processes easy and gradual to learn. Start with 10-order lists full of Heavy Infantry and/or a TAG that are robust and shoot well. It's hard to mess up just firing downrange with an O-Yoroi.

As you develop your understanding of the game, you can go for those finesse-oriented pieces like TO Camo units and Ryuken-9 SMGs that yield high reward.

Good luck.

 

To be honest, the new army box is a great starting point if you are looking at the JSA they are not the most complicated army and what looks super cool is usually super strong too (examples: Kitsume oniwaban kuroshi rider the rukens). You should try to Ebay the bow ninja too no point of getting red vail for one mini and who knows when CB will decide to make a new ninja blister. grabbing a box of tankos or domarus might be a good expansion idea as well as the support pack as well as the keisotsu box.

 

I feel like JSA have a very flat learning curve compared to other lists. They were my first army, but sat idle for a long time until the uprising. It's been an exercise in patience and experimentation to get them back up to fighting form in my own head space. They seem to have a much narrower margin of error than many factions.

Short form, they're great but you really need to give yourself time to learn the intricate CQC tactics with them, as Barakiel mentioned.

Also, @barakiel. I still can't get the Ryuken SMG to do anything. She has been crit to death in almost every single FTF roll she's made since I've had the model painted. It's hilarious. "Okay, I have 3 dice on 12's, you have 1 dice on a 3.....shit." Every.Damn.Time.

@Grizwald, even if you do start them, this section of the forum seems to have a good selection of veterans to give you advice.

Good luck.

 

Close Combat has a bit of a learning curve to it (moreso than shooting). Once you work your way through some introductory scenarios (like the Op Icestorm set), I strongly recommend playing at least one game spending no Support Weapons Cost on heavy weapons, and just go all-in on CC. It's honestly a lot of fun, even against the Steel Phalanx.

The other really steep learning curve is bikes, due to Impetuous and their lack of ability to take cover.

Otherwise, read The Dude's JSA Tactica. Get in someone's face and shoot or stab them, it's what the JSA does best.

The biggest thing that trips up new players is how non-intuitive the opposed roll mechanic is. Since you're almost guaranteed to have your laptop or tablet out as you're playing anyway, just for the Army App or to look up rules on the Wiki, you should check your decisions with the Infinity Dice Calculator. I said check, so you don't get to compute the odds using the calculator before deciding what to do. Make your decision and then run the calculator on your choice(s).

 

The woman holding the cat is the Kuge delegate, and she does not have a profile. You can use her as your civilian. I think that the large army starter, and the Keisotsu SWC box will land you at about 300pts. (This is just a rough click through of the points. I haven't optimized combat groups)

Japanese Secessionist Army
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10
DAIYŌKAI MULTI Marksman Rifle, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CC Weapon, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 52)
RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
RYŪKEN (CH: Limited Camouflage) Heavy Rocket Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 23)
KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 21)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 17)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17)

GROUP 2 3 1
KUROSHI RIDER Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Breaker Pistol, AP + Shock CCW. (0 | 33)
ONIWABAN Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (0 | 41)
KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25)

6 SWC | 294 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

221 points with no weapon proxy but taking the most expensive choice when it doesn't show that they have (so MULTI Marksman Rifle on the Daiyokai). Could add a few points of you upgrade the keisotsu to forward observers or paramedics, there are no Miniatures for that anyway.

 

I really recommend Yojimbo. He is such a fun and unique character . Also, very cool model. Who defines the popular image of samurai more than Mifune Toshiro in miniature form on a futuristic motorcycle ? (Be quiet, Mushashi)

Yojimbo is an essential JSA pick for me.

 

Definitely he is, but it takes time to learn to use him. His more of a fines piece, since his extremely impetuous and has silhouette 4 and no defensive abilities. It's not hard to lose him on his impetuous order to some over-watching TR-bot just because 4 d20 on 14s is much better than 1 d20 on 17 (shooting TR-bot vs smoking Yojimbo).

By the way he's got nice fluff.

 

Considering that's just Mifune Toshiro arguing with himself over which role was more badass...

 

In cases like this, remember you can always spent 1 regular order of its combat group to cancel the Impetuous order. It's not ideal but definitely much better than losing him.