Honestly, if the proportions weren't so buggered, I'd use it. The Shang Ji/Crane armour has always been the peak of aesthetic for YJ and Infinity in general.
Are you making fun of the size of my Vietnamese Female warrior?! She may be small but she packs a punch! Honestly though, I'd think that armor is custom made for every trooper and size. I'd think 200 years in the future this is easy to do. Especially with YJ who decided to go the HI route. The armor doesn't need to be big to do it's job.
I think the gist of why Yu Jing's heavy infantry program is so successful is that their suits require significantly less custom manufacturing and a lot less training to wear comfortably. I believe I read that somewhere in the old Zuyong unit blurb. That said, I think the Shang-Ji armour is the expensive quality prototype version of the much cheaper Zuyong armours.
I think I read in either uprising or acheron that Shang-Ji was the intended replacement for the then-standard Beaky armour (that wu ming still use), but the rollout was delayed thanks to Uprising and costs, so it's still going to specialist formations.
Loadout Smoadout. Most players have no idea what gun is what. I'll use my own head cannon to use my figure. Then makes even less sense they are line troops and Jujak are veteran.
I finally got around to a thorough read of the N4 fluff book and it pretty explicitly says that Zuyong armor is obsolete and being gradually replaced with Shang Ji armor everywhere in the Yu Jing military.
Well, the passage (p. 58) basically describes most of the IA heavy infantry as offshoots of the old "Bird's Beak" Niao Zui armor design, and then goes on to say the resulting innovation rendered the Niao Zui obsolete and that Shang Ji are being rolled out to replace it. So presumably Zuyongs will be in service for some time to come, but they're still basically budget Niao Zui suits: Spoiler: Fluff quote This opened the door for the creation of a range of specialist suits based on the standard Invincible model, known as Niao Zui (or the "Bird's Beak") due to its characteristic helmet, including an inexpensive, lightweight version, the Zuyong model, and a reinforced, heavy support option, the Yan Huo. Superior customized features were created to respond to specific operational needs: infiltration, camouflage or surveillance. The rapid technological evolution of Invincible armors soon made the "Bird's Beak" model obsolete as the Yu Jing standard, and it is now being recalled in favor of an improved model called Shang Ji. Also, Yan Huo are the focus of three different passages of flavor text in the YJ chapter of the fluff book; Wu Ming are the runners up with two excerpts focused on them. *shrug* It's a fun read, though.
Honestly. Playing IA in n4, my local group wonders if they're over adjusted. I'm happy drinking tears. MO fireteams are beast because man per man they're nasty gunfighters. Yeah Pano is always gonna be Pano with its +1 bs. That said IA is the heavy infantry faction where I'm bringing full pain trains and still packing 12+ orders with tacaware all over the place. Our links are like hydras with number 2 and so many linkable options, they rarely stay broken where MO is susceptible to having a few key heads blown off. We have some good NCO and coc options meaning our Lt's move the people that matter when they're not being useful themselves. That's when the Daoying isn't brining some game changing utility as a camo hacker. Comparatively the knight commander seems to be trying to circumnavigate the Lt tax... by still being a tax. Speaking of Lt's I've been running Quaing Gao to really add some heavy firepower to my links. He hits like a freight train spear heading a core. My main grumble is no more stun grenades was a real travesty as Tai Sheng was such a utility peice and didn't really gain any substitute utility to replace the loss. Rest in peace state waifu. The Yan Hugo's really do suffer from being the first thicc heavy infantry. Id love to see some extra spice added to their profile. But that's because I enjoy paying pts to not be boring on the table. So take my opinion with a commercial sized grain of salt. I feel like a MO peice per peice is better yeah. But as a whole list, the IA machine runs effectively as a unit. Why I love how they play now. We're a state military unit not a bunch of fanatics playing Don Quixote. White banner on the other hand... maybe I'm not seeing it. A shame as I love some of their profiles but I'm trying to make the picture come together into a real win.
