So, I was bored. I started thinking (fantasizing) about being able to move around some troops in Yu Jing Sectorals. No changing rules or anything, just switching some troops. Though I suppose by switching them some things would need to change like fire teams and such. So I'm going to list troops I think a sectoral should gain and loose, then why. ISS Gain: Tian Gou, New TAG (or Blue Wolf if not) The Tian Gou just seems like the kind of troops that would work with the ISS on many occations. They are supposedly hunters of enemies of the StateEmpire. Well it would make sense they work with the ISS then right? Why are they limited to just working on Huang Di then? Obviously ISS needs a TAG. At least I think so but if not a new one I think the Blue Wolf would work out pretty well. Loose: Well I can't see anything they should loose. It's not like it's a huge sectoral anyway. IA Gain: Sun Tze HI This seems like a "No duh" thing to me. Sun Tze is one of histories most brilliant strategists that wrote the art of war. He is NOT being used to his full potential with small police actions! He needs to be the mind vs. Joan of Arcs brawn. Loose: Again IA don't have much too loose. Even less than ISS. They really need a bit more. WB Gain: Su Jian, Hac Tao, Zhencha, Diggers, Tripphammer To me they just seem to be right for White Banner. Even if they are all AVA1 it would be a good thing. The Su Jian is billion Yuan hardware just being used by police? The Terrain (Total), Climb+ and speed are begging to be used in the wilds of Huang Di hunting down PanO. . It's a mining world! of course there should be Diggers and Tripphammers. I suppose SWF should get them too. But I can see them being used in a fight if needed. Loose: Shang Ji, Zhanshi, Tian Gou It's probably controversial but I never thought Shang Ji should have been in WB in the first place. They were, and still kind of are, ported from IA. Jujak should be THE WB HI. True, Shang Ji are excellent but I'd like a little more WB flavor. If they would do something with them like they did with the Orcs in SWF and Varuna by giving them some sort of White Banner option, I would think differently. I think the same with Zhanshi. They should at least have a White Banner only version of them. Right now I'm not a big fan of the Tian Gou. They ruin any unmixed fire teams and kind of expensive for what little they do. There's not even a good reason for them being there.
ISS is the fattest sectorial the game has in terms of number of profiles. It could probably lose something (mercs or alpeh) to gain better focus, but it'd have to be done better than just cutting. You're proposing to remove Zhanshi, Troops of the Banner from the only Banner sectorial we have? IMO, they're in IA for order generation reasons only and I'd like to see them built out of IA properly without having the consequence of forcing Zuyong style lists. In general, I consider Holomask to be a bit dubious in function and I'd like to see the device fixed before you make alterations to sectorials to accommodate a semi-dysfunctional rule.
I agree about Aleph in ISS but bounty hunters have been a part of ISS from the start and would like them kept. Yes taking Zanshi away from WB is probably wrong. But as I said they need to give them WB only Zhanshi or a new troop that's made for them. Well it's already that way in WB and ISS already has some,
I don't think they need to make special Zhanshi just for White Banner (we've technically got those, they're called Guilang), I think they more need to figure out how to make them more the essential part of the sectorial. A bit difficult for a unit that's specifically set up to be a bit... on the bad side... for an order generator, but just giving them AVA T and switching Jujaks to be native to the Zhanshi Fireteams I think would thematically move the sectorial to be more compatible with Zhanshi. Triphammers and Diggers do make a bit of sense here, I agree, but I really don't think Zhencha, Su-Jian nor Hulang have any place in this sectorial at all. Especially not if they've got access to the Tag Raid trifecta. Plus, you know, Su-Jian is the ISS super unit (because Hsien and Crane are such ancient unit designs that they're practically mundane by N4 standards) Speaking of which; Hac Tao and Daofei I would say are a trade. Historically, Daofei are Invincibles while Hac Tao are... more generalists. It would make sense for Hac Tao to be in White Banner and Daofei in IA, but I'm not so sure these two should be in the same. On the ISS side, I'd say that it's easier to narratively separate ISS from Aleph, but it's from a game mechanics stand point a lot easier to design a replacement unit or two for the... whole... Merc... pile... simply because how similar they are. Regardless of which I think these various external units are occupying design space simply by making ISS have almost as many units as Tohaa (supposedly a vanilla faction). After all, Bao are essentially ABH with MSV2 pre-rolled on their Booty. Maybe that's the issue with Bao, that they're trying too hard to be a special design that the game doesn't like while it's a more Yu Jing take on ABH they should have been all along. Replacing the Aleph units is harder, but potentially a better design space for new units. On Sun Tze; remember that ISS are not cops. They're not going to issue you parking tickets. They're not going to respond to your domestic disturbance call. Yu Jing has cops and I think that wouldn't be a bad unit to bring into ISS to either expand on the Mercenary side of things or to fill the gap that the two cheap ABH and CSU profiles would leave behind if evicted. (A cop would be more like a Moderator, but with fewer machine guns). No, the ISS as an organisation are special agents. And to be clear, the ISS agents makes SWAT seem like soft-on-crime type fellows. Zhanying, a relatively low ranking agent, are mentioned as being assigned to tactical oversight and advisory duty to actual cops faced with difficult situations on regular basis (and they hate it, because it's a really shitty job). All this to say, Sun Tze isn't wasting potential being a cop. The Party doesn't trust him, though, so they're not letting him spearhead their new shiny prestigious army divisions, but the Emperor trusts him to work towards bringing law and order to the People, so it is appropriate that he's in ISS. Besides, what would Sun1 do in Invincible Army that he doesn't already do in your Detolf?
Agreed about Zhanshi. Disagree about Su Jian. Besides, it will sell more Su Jian lol. ISS are cops in the sense of being like the US FBI, CIA, Marshals, etc. In the US FBI are also called cops. They are not handing out tickets. They are hunting down terrorists, hackers, rogue AI, smugglers, etc. Things that local police can't do but you don't want to bring in the IA. Sure but it's still waste of Sun Tze. Both thematically and in game.
Um, well. Yu Jing had equivalents of FBI and CIA, and still do because those are perfectly normal agencies for an nation to operate, but the Triads still managed several high profile bombings targeting the judiciary, which is what prompted the Yu Jing to form the ISS to step it up a notch or ten. Now, Yu Jing's CIA equivalent are their own bunch of really unpleasant people, but they don't operate enough guns and varied manpower to merit being a sectorial on their own, but it's entirely possible we might see a Yan Jing (I think they're called) operative similar to how we might see a Nomad Black Hand as a unit rather than sectorial at some point. I also think that Bao technically belong to what you could accuse of being the FBI equivalent. It's also worth remembering that Sun has an agenda of his own and planning ground ops for IA isn't exactly it. ISS is where he can do the most good to further his own agenda (which may or may not be Aleph's design for the Yu Jingse government).
