Dunno jump on the JSA Forum and dig out one of the various Shikami threads. You'll see. Btw comparing Zhencha to Shikami. Which genius thought that was a good idea? One has Infiltration, Marker State and no CC capability whatsoever the other one is a Shikami, if it's up to me YJ can have him back for free.
Shikami and Zhencha both like to operate in the midfield; they're both Specialists (in some form); they both have improved mobility in some way; they're both carrying innate Modifiers; they're both very short ranged units (Zhencha packs only an SMG with a single use DEP/BSG); and they're both HI with similar statlines. Assuming you read my previous comparison, Marker State and Infiltration are the biggest differences between the two and actually gives the Zhencha a decent edge, as opposed to otherwise being predominantly inferior. At least you think we should have the Shikami back, that's nice.
Yeah, I play against Shikami often enough to disagree, and in any case there is no consensus that they're bad. Saying they're terrible is pure hyperbole.
Than what? ISS? Doesn't matter, you can't take a Dao Fei in ISS. This is more order efficient than IA will be. You can get a whole combat group with that Dao Fei for less than 130pts in Vanilla. That's more efficient than IA will ever be with orders.
I believe we've been told that IA will have models that provide extra orders for themselves as well as NCO (with, I think, Lt level 2 as well) allowing for 13+ orders in a single combat group. All of whom are much tougher than a kuang shi. I have no idea about your local meta but I tend not to see kuang shi last to turn 3 because of their impetuous nature. That also means opponents cannot dock you orders first turn for taking multiple combat groups. IA will never be able to compete with kuang shi on a point per order basis but I'll wait and see before saying they can't be more order efficient over the game for a single combat group until we see all the rules!
Docking orders against order spam is a stupid idea as your effect is diluted and you let them run riot with mass coordinated orders on turn one and get alot of troops into position to hold down the mid field. Anything more than 16 orders I would almost always limit the command token useage. Kuang Shi do tend to die but it doesn't matter, you have a big first turn lay down the hurt with the model they're fueling, then swap him over to the other group after turn 1 or 2. Alternatively I build the combat groups so the Kuang Shi group is basically entirely a suicide group, it's the Kuang Shi with Monks. They provide efficiency in another way where they keep you ahead by draining your opponent's orders simply trying to fight them instead of actually doing something meaningful.
AVA4 Kuang Shi in vanilla is more than enough for vanilla to never have to worry about using Zhanshi. Sure, makes lists samey, but at least I'm not choosing to be down a whole Monk, or a specialist profile, or a particular weapon because I pay a 10% markup on an never-used CC boost from baseline. Now if only we had, I dunno, like a 9-point, cheap line trooper that allowed for more list-building variety while still allowing us to take our iconic HI in vanilla. I feel... I feel like we had something like that at some point. But no, we lost nothing of value in the Uprising. No one ever took any JSA units, they were all terrible! So say CB, so say we all! In all seriousness, even though Zhanshi being in IA chafes my arse, I hope this is the catalyst that finally sees them get fixed to be worth fielding in vanilla. If they can get them down to 8-9 points then maybe I'll finally field some of the dozen or so of them I've built up over the years.
IA seems to be similar to neoterra. NCA doesnt have much of a midfield presence and has to shoot first then complete objectives later. Their puzzle is getting out of the DZ and to the target. They're able to do this and granted they have all different kinds of armor types but they're able to deal with skirmishers, hackers, and mines. I think their special schtick is good equipment and superior gun fighters. IA seems to be a parallel in quite a few ways. They may not have the high BS of neoterra but it looks like they have some good firepower! Like neoterra it doesn't look like they wont have much of a midfield presence and have to fight their way out of the DZ. It's not impossible and just requires a different way of doing the missions.
There's no need to take my point and force it into an extreme scenario beyond what was intended. Earlier comments had talked about vanilla lists and 4 kuang shi fuelling something like a daofei. I would not count that as playing for order spam as the full list may still only be 15 or so models. We seem to have very different metas as well as very different approaches to list building so benefit of the doubt ought to be applied. I offered a suggestion that IA may turn out to be order efficient and using models that are relatively tough and useful beyond just their order. I would like to wait and hope that this may prove to be the case.
Vanilla is order spam, it's the only real way to play it at the moment. If you don't choke your opponent with disposable bodies they take advantage of the fact that you don't have AROs worth a shit and just plow into your expensive models on turn one. It sucks but that's the fallout from uprising, nobody has to be scared about getting aggressive in Vanilla's face anymore.
That's how it is. Oniwabans used to make people take it slow with their rambos on turn 1, now they don't need to be scared of them so it's extremely viable to play find the Rambo and murder it, and then watch the army fall apart. If you stuff a bunch of monks and Kuang Shi in front of them they have to waste time and orders dicking about with them and not really achieving anything, because you don't really care about those 5pt idiots eating shit and dieing, that's what they're there for. Last game I played I put a bunch of monks and Kuang Shi in front of my opponent and they absorbed an entire turn's worth of activations from a Yadu core and the Rudras going HAM (that REM is nasty having played against it now). Most of them died, but it didn't matter because they were there to die, and my retaliation was for 3 Tigers to drop in and wipe the Yadu link out. Now if I was playing a 12-14 order list without spammy units, that core link would've just run all the way to my DZ and shredded my expensive models very quickly. K1 Marksman rifle with link bonuses is no goddamn joke. Previously, this kind of 12-14 order list, which I preferred to run over order spam, was protected by Oniwabans and Kitsune. Their potential presence stopped people from pulling this bullshit because pushing a link (or TAG, or Rambo, or whatever) was then met with smoke grenades and monofilament weapons, and generally an equally unfun time. I've learned the lesson the hard way. There is no counter attack, no here be dragons ninja hiding in waiting and people quite gladly walk over to your side of the table and beat the ever loving shit out of your army these days. You don't have the models to fend off this attack, something's gonna die so make it 5pt idiots you don't really care about for the best result.
My experiences against generic Yu Jing are very different. I don't know if that's differences in meta, or a degree of hyperbole in your posts, but REND does very well with YJ and almost always runs almost single Combat Group lists.
Reading through this thread's posts regarding the Zhencha is like seeing the 5 stages of grief. I think we just passed bargaining by swearing they forget shock immunity, and now were on depression? or maybe we went back to anger..... I don't know anymore
My own experience with vanilla is that they are much more reliant on strong solo units. My grievance with vanilla is that those costly units are seldom able to complete objectives and can't drag specialists with them like they can in sectorials.
A Hac Tao should be more than enough to scare your opponent from advancing rashly. Either in hidden missile ARO or counter attacking with hmg or multirifle. It's also extremely difficult to flush out and kill, as your opponent will have to come across the table in turn 1 to sensor it, then get a heavy grade gunfighter to bear on it. I really don't see how many of the strong attacking elements of Yu Jing can be neutralized before they do some damage if they're played well. A Su Jian can also often start in hard to access areas on top of buildings that opponents will struggle to get to. Sometimes an antipode pack can track them down, but they're tough to kill. It's also pretty much impossible to alpha strike a tiger before it's time to make a play. Kuang Shi and Shaolin do make for strong lists as it's great to have pawns to push forward for cheap trades with chain rifles as well as the ability to defend in depth without strong ARO presence. My personal play style is to use them, but other players prefer to avoid the unpredictability they bring. There's more than one way to build a good list.
Tbhfam I do get the feel that IA was hedged against with the coldfront sectorials, all that t2 on one hand and all that hacking and even some assisted k1 on the other. Not to mention tripling the number of jammers in existence since uprising, cybermines and wild parrot.
