Invincible Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 3 YĀN HUǑ (FTO) 2 Missile Launchers / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 52) PANGGULING FTO (Repeater) Light Shotgun / Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Haris, Tactical Awareness) Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 34) 2.5 SWC | 99 Points Open in Infinity Army So this should work? That Yan Huo is going to be amazing in both active and reactive turns. Now it's got some hacking protection as well. I don't think we've seen a weapon capable of doing 9 potential damage before.... and an extra order if the team needs to reposition, or go hassle an infiltrator or AD with the Zuyong.
Like a flamer? :P Also think bigger, your damage potential rises sky high if you fire that into a HI core.
I know the thread is about IA but I'm a bit disappointed that the AVA for all of the new troops in Vanilla is 1.
Guija is not very interesting but is still perfectly okay for a TAG. YJ run TAGs really well too, great skirmishers and warbands for support, cheap orders, and hidden KHDs to lance enemy hackers.
I think the overall release is alright. Some good stuff but nothing "zomg!!!11!1!1" think it'll need some table-time to get the nuance down but its not grabbing me by the balls in the same way ikari/starco/TAK did. Major missed opportunity to spruce up the guijia as well. Oyoroi, scarface and raicho all got tweaks and the guijia got nothing and it exists in a sectoral with hac tao and linkable yan huo.
There's also a major difference between the uses of swear words. Fuck as an adverb or adjective isn't necessarily offensive; it's functionally emphasis. That's a viable use of a word. Using it as a slur to attack someone isn't. That's a major difference that a lot of people seem to miss, and really annoys me, personally, infinitely more than someone going, "Oh shit! I forgot to do X!'
Alright, so what follows is my initial impression after gathering my thoughts a bit. Overall, the IA just doesn't feel exciting to me, but almost worst it feels very much like a patchwork given too much time to cook and you can see all the strata that ended up piling up on it. I don't think it is bad, I think it could damn well be very viable and it does contain a handful of exciting units. But as a whole, it feels like it landed a bit shy of the target CB created when they said they wanted to basically revamp the whole faction. Because it's easier, I'm going to start with the new profiles before giving my deeper thoughts on the whole thing. DAOYING OPERATIVE CONTROL UNIT This thing ended up taking me by surprise and I think it may be the breakout of the sectorial. A shame about AVA1 in vanilla, but even then it is just such a great little toolkit. It gives us some DZ control options, it is an LT that can hide in a marker state, and because it is MI it is downright cheap. A shame we can't take it alongside our old DZ minelayer options like Yuriko and the Raiden, because it really would have shined with more back field markers to play around with. But even without that, the thing plays very well in vanilla. In IA? This thing is damn near an auto-include because of how it plays with everything else (and some versions are cheap enough that grabbing a second for DZ shenanigans might be worth it. This is the kind of profile Yu Jing needs more of and is the exact kind of bar we should expect in terms of design. This thing is what we wanted every time we looked at the Pheasant or Sun Tze Mk2 and felt deep pangs of disappointment. The Daoying is a fucking rock star. HULANG SHOCK TROOPERS This one is a bit of a rollercoaster for me. I actually quite like it. But it feels basically like a Shikami with the deck chairs moved around. It feels like an apology in the form of a profile. It is hard to get past that when looking at this thing. But the places it differs from the Shikami? Those are actually pretty good. Mimetism means it's proof against flame weapons taking away its mods (if it survives of course), FD2 instead of the hyper-mobility suite gives it a head start on objectives which I think is generally more important for specialist work, and I like its weapon suite a lot better than the Shikami (to me, this is where the Shikami kind of fell down). Its CC suite also makes it excellent for camping corners, sadly a complete lack of smoke in the sectorial means leveraging its CC proactively will be hard. But in vanilla, it might be able to get in close with the help of vanilla's usual smoke-laying strats. Finally, it is another 1W+NWI HI. In this case Shock Immunity saves it from the "in Aleph, this would be called LI or SK" problem, but it does speak to one of the tonal issues of this army that I'll cover later. Overall, I think this thing is generally an improvement on the Shikami, but so close to the original that it sort of lacks an identity other than feeling like CB saying sorry for taking the Shikami. HAIDAO SPECIAL SUPPORT GROUP This thing is a bloody rollercoaster of emotion. I mean, you look at the price tag and smile... and then you look at the profile and... BTS0? BTS0! What the actual fuck? Again, a lot of this problem is tonal. If the Haidao's profile had been the Zuyong's and the Zuyong's prfoile had been the Haidao then this might make more sense, but it feels like the further you get from being a bog standard infantryman in the IA, the worse armour they saddle you with. But taken on its own, the Haidao isn't terrible just, confusing. It's tough enough to take hits (thankfully, again, this at least has Shock Immunity), it has some strong profiles, and it ligitimately makes a good wildcard. But it also feels like it should have just been a 4-4 MI instead because it is so bereft of any usual HI features that it feels more "pseudo" and HI than just about anything but the Zencha. It's a good profile and I think it uses the pseudo-HI shtick well, but part of the issue is that the pseudo-HI shtick feels like a haphazard afterthought on so many things in IA that it is hard to like the Haidao as it feels like it contributes to this problem. LIU XING JUMP INFANTRY Yeah, this one has been gone over in detail. My main misgivings are that it apparently removed the Tiger Soldier from the sectorial, offers nothing to vanilla, and largely feels like a worse and more vulnerable version of the multi-wound drop units we've already seen. Its sole unique gimmick (Explode LX) is just that, a gimmick. The thing is a mess that feels like CB holding back from trying to make a unique heavy drop trooper because they decided it needed to have the old Caskuda rule, but then they were too afraid that it would be OP. MOWANG TROOPS This thing is a brick to the head. Bricks to the head are not really what Yu Jing needs right now, but this isn't to say the Mowang is bad. It is merely more of the same. If I don't feel like spending the points then I can take it instead of a Hac Tao, if I want something more aggressive I can use it instead of a Hsien. To its credit, NCO order shenanigans with the Daoying make it a great offensive piece in general for the cost. It won't be zipping around the field like the Su-Jian, but it can siphon of orders like an aggressive LT without risking the Daoying sitting safe in your DZ. This particular interplay alone makes me glad the Mowang exists, but at the same time it is still mostly just another beefy Yu Jing HI meant to hurt things. I don't hate it, but I don't know if it is really what we needed (especially given that one of our best face-bricks, the Daofei was kept out of the sectorial for reasons unknown). SHANG JI INVINCIBLES These were, quite frankly, heart breaking. And that was before I flipped over to the Zuyong and found out they gave them the exact same new profiles. The only thing the Shang Ji brings with it is a potential Zhanshi link... But given that Zhanshi are terrible and the IA is capable of much better links there is no reason to do that. Shang Ji needed a rework, a couple of new profiles is not that. The base chassis was what was wrong with the Shang Ji, and that remained the same. It does nothing you can't do with a Zuyong outside of that one link. There is no reason for this thing to exist at all. TAI SHENG, ZUYONG INVINCIBLES NCO I really like Tai Sheng! Pricey, but they bring a lot to the table for Zuyong links. I don't think she brings much to vanilla, which is a shame considering vanilla is very low on named characters that work well in it, but for IA she is dynamite (especially because the Daoying is solid gold and plays well with NCOs). She forms a catalyst which allows Zuyong links to start playing around with bigger order pools than they should, and she comes with the kinds of things links love to have (specialist profiles, templates, and so on). I think I like the Mk12 version the most since it means her NCO turns will have the right level of range and punch to be worth it. In general, a solid profile that plays well with the list. YAN HUO INVINCIBLES, FIRE SUPPORT HEAVY REGIMENT They have long been one of Yu Jing's most boring bricks. I'm not sure if the new haris will fix that, especially with the Mowang being a much better boring brick without needing the extra support. It feels like the Yan Huo needed a tweak, and it still feels like that. The Haris might change this up, but it is hard to say because a 3-man fireteam sort of just feels like extra points piled on top to give it +1 burst... which is already covered by the HRMC version for less points. ZENCHA, ARMORED RECONNAISSANCE REGIMENT The SMG version is alright, there were no other hidden profile (like minelayer) that changed this fact. It feels like an Alpeh unit with more inherent vulnerabilities and nothing to compensate for that. Climbing+, SMG discount, and a marker state make it good enough to take, but it will never be able to shake that feeling that you're just running an E/M vulnerable, hackable Naga or an HI that can immediately die to AP mines. The profile is still missing Shock Immunity and have the dubious honour of being the only single wound HI without it is terrible. Finally, because it is the elephant in the room, I see nothing in the IA roster that leads me to believe the Daofei would have been OP in it. HI deploying at midfield? IA has two of 'em! HI with levels of CH? IA has four of 'em. The Daofei feels like it would fit in there perfectly and I don't even think it would stop folks from taking the Zencha SMG because they'd likely just treat it as a beefy Guilang instead of as a flimsy Daofei. The reason for the existence of the Zencha remains a mystery. Vanilla didn't need it, IA would likely be happier with a Daofei instead, and the concessions made to save costs make it an objectively worse version of units Aleph is loaded with. Even the good profile is only good because the SMG discount is OP and marker states are baseline the meta is determined by. But this is a unit that should have been MI or a Skirmisher instead of HI. ZUYONG INVINCIBLES, TERRA-COTTA SOLDIERS No changes other than the new TacSense profiles that immediately obviate the need for Shang Ji. Given that the list is chock full of budget HI with shit stats... The Zuyong being traditional full HI just feels fucking weird now. This is part of the tonal dissonance I was on about earlier. Development of the IA has stretched across so much time that you can see literal strata of design ideas through them and the Zuyong feel like a strange, dead-end fossil to me. Many of the specialized IA regiments are the new-school 1W+NWI design (with the majority having at least Shock Immunity). But the Zuyong is supposed to be the budget HI that is fielded en masse. Then there is the weirdness that is the twin breaker pistols. No other unit in the IA carries these, it feels like something you'd see on a spec ops units or something aping HK action movie aesthetics. It makes zero sense as a one off thing for what should be the line troops of the sectorial. I look at the Haidao and think "man, if they wanted to make budget suits to save IA cost... they should give that to the Zuyong." Zuyong should be the bottom, the baseline, the lower limit to what modern HI should look like. Instead, next to a bevvy of units with shittier armour, the Zuyong look oddly elite and expensive in comparison. This doesn't make the Zuyong bad (though they're overcosted compared to the various Frenzy HI knocking around), and the presence of order pool shenanigans actually lets them do things other HI teams simply can't. But the mish-mash of unit styles makes the IA feel so disjointed and patchwork that it doesn't feel so much like someone designed it as it was naturally formed over time like some weather-worn rock formation that doesn't quite make sense and could topple over in a slight breeze. DISHONORABLE MENTION: ZHANSHI These things needed a rework, and if they were going to shove them unabated in the Invincible Army, then the least they could have done is thrown them a bone. Even in a sectorial where they can link, they still make shit filler. That extraneous point is a blemish in vanilla where we have other options to save points, but in IA points are at a premium and Zhanshi eat them pointlessly with their long outdated "Yu Jing gets a CC bonus" bullshit. Zhanshi need to be 8-9 points to really work as filler in IA. Luckily, TacSense and the Chaiyi mean we can just bloody well ignore them in most lists (albeit at the sacrifice of ever fielding any truly high cost things). I mean, even just throwing them a bone with an SMG profile or something to allow them to compete with Kuang Shi in vanilla while giving IA a way of actually fielding things like the Hac Tao without crippling the list would be fine. They aren't quite as desperate for a rework as the Shang Ji, but they've been waiting for over a decade to be given a reason to exist. Just give them the Alguacile stat line at this point for all I care, just fix the bloody things. WINNER OF THE "WHY DID THEY BOTHER" AWARD: GUIJA Seriously, why? Why is this thing here. Look over at the Mowang NCO, look at the Hac Tao, look just about any other unit in this list. IA doesn't have 88 points to spare on this thing and it isn't even worth 88 points to begin with. This thing needed a rework and got nothing, it is still one of the most boring and most wasteful units in Yu Jing. It could be discontinued tomorrow and outside of the nice looking mini nothing of value would be lost. Fuckin' embarrassing! So with that out of the way... What do I think of it as a whole? It's not bad. That is probably the best I can say. Its shtick at some point became order-pool shenanigans and I think it does that well. Unfortunately, that sort of feels like it really pigeon-holes list building and, well, as cool as LT2, NCO, and TacSense are... they don't feel like they will stay unique to Yu Jing for a while. No, they feel like generic "order pool shenanigans we're testing before moving them to other elite lists" features. Beyond that, the IA feels really disjointed in terms of design. It honestly feels like it was just plain in the oven too long and the various bits that make it up clash loudly and obviously with each other. It is kind of hilarious that the sectorial meant to represent the struggle of new and old ideas in Yu Jing is itself a mess of similar conflicting ideas and design goals. It simultaneously feels like it was in development too long, but also that it never really reached a properly polished phase and got kicked out the door before the join lines could be smoothed over. You have decade-old, "traditional" HI rubbing shoulders with "budget" HI. But they're doing it incongruously. Line troopers are full HI and some heavier units are traditional, but then you get to some of the "elite" units and they're running with even more cut-down versions of the armour. The aesthetics of the faction are all off, things aren't lining up between background info and how things play on the field. It feels like they were afraid to rework the list from the ground up, so instead we get these generational strata of designs. Zuyong came first, and so the hew closer to traditional HI despite the fact that they should be the most cut-down of the budget HI. But since pseudo-HI are new and CB never bothered to retcon things, we're left with weird dichotomies where it is the age of the profile that determines whether something is traditional or budget instead of background. Worse still, I think they really went overboard on using this cost-saving trick to the point where only one of the new units is even "traditional". If they wanted to save point costs and make things efficient, they would have done better to make the Zuyong even more cut down and to fix the Zhanshi instead of pulling the same trick on four out of the five new HI profiles we received. Further, they didn't have to make so many of them HI. HI are important to the faction, sure. But it is telling that the most interesting and useful unit we received was the Daoying and it is MI. So again, IA aren't bad, I actually think "order shenanigans" is a cool theme (albeit one that doesn't feel like Yu Jing "owns" it, and thus likely to get handed out like candy to every elite sectorial whenever the next edition drops), and I think IA's strong links will make it quite viable on the field. But at the same time, this release also doesn't really fill me with excitement. A lot of profiles can be categorized as stuff we already do, many of the profiles are just plain unispiring, and almost all of the new ones feel kind of samey. Of the few really interesting ones, one of them is basically just a revised version of a unit we lost in the JSA split, and the other is yet another face-beating HI. I appreciate that CB got adventurous with what is and isn't HI, but it also feels like they went overboard with it. Worst of all, I can't help but feel like the IA we got is a kind of field test rather than a final list. It feels like, maybe in a few years, after an N3-scale ISS reworking they might feel right, but right now the sectorial feels like an unpolished testbed rather than something that was in development for literal year. The Hulang is interesting if obviously derivative, the Daoying is fantastic and characterful, and the Mowang is competitive enough that I will use it in place of similar bricks in vanilla if the mood takes me. IA has some great links to play with and has some great ideas that could potentially fix elite lists in general. But at the same time, as something that was supposed to herald a new era of design for Yu Jing, too many of the units felt too watered down or tame. The whole shtick of using the JSA split to open up design space led basically nowhere. Only one of the new units is really unique or novel in its execution (the Daoying) and everything else is either something we already did, or something we used to do back when the JSA was with us. Maybe they're saving the real show for White Banner (i.e. the place where they are sticking all of our great, currently orphaned, profiles), but with that likely being years out... Yeah, I don't know why they couldn't have at least let us keep loyalist JSA for another couple of years until they have a Space Gru eat them all when White Banner drops. IA was never just, hey look, a new sectorial. CB set it up to be a paradigm shift for Yu Jing, a new era with newly opened design space, and a way of re-focusing the faction back on being a Pan-Asian Space Coalition IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE. But the IA as delivered doesn't really do any of that. And even when it is being unique (TacSense, NCO, LT2) it feels so generic that it feels like we'll be giving all our new toys away within a couple of years. After seeing the weird, wacky, and novel design spaces they moved in to with TAK, Varuna, and Tunguska, it feels like IA was just so damn conservative in comparison. For a faction that had so much of its identity slashed, talking a big game about new design space and then delivering something so conservative feels like a cop out. The IA delivers some interesting stuff, and I'll definitely be giving it some plays before deciding if Infinity goes back on the shelf for a long haul, but this really doesn't feel like the payoff after eight months of being told the JSA split was for our own good and so that they could focus on making Yu Jing unique and interesting. But hey, at least eh Daoying is fucking cool!
Note that the NCO+Lt2 combo is already used in OSS fairly broadly to make their expensive models and fireteams work. Same with the mix and match fireteam construction. TacSense is unique to IA as far as I know. For me the exciting stuff is Tai Sheng, Daoying and the Mowang 'cos I just like a big, beefy, face kicker and it feels like the Yan Huo, close range version. Plus, on suppression in cover it's -9 to hit the bastard.
I get the feeling this is the gut reaction from all the Yu Jing players who really loved their Japanese units (and, I'd count myself amongst them), but it's also the reason CB probably can't win. After all, wargamers are a conservative bunch (not wanting to lose the value of much-beloved old models), which is starkly at odds with the commercial demands to continue selling product in increasing quantities in a finite market. Short of undoing Uprising, I'm not sure of the exact shape of those theoretical profiles that could fill this particular hole.
I'm confused; Mowang is basically the same loadout/profile as the Daiyokai except; M gets Mimetism and NCO/Lt D gets CC stats, CC weapons, CC skills, Fatality Does Heavyweight really give *that* much of a discount? Far as I remember, Mimetism only costs about 1pt, and (going by the Raktorak) NCO is about 2 or 3. I just can't tell how that all balances out >_>
I'm still a relatively new player, so everything just looks super cool to me. So many new profiles to go through! I joined just after Uprising, so the Hulang's Oniwakaminess is something I'm really excited to try. And we finally get another character again! Regarding IA's identity (outside of being "the HI sectorial"), does any other sectorial have as many wildcards? I can see that being something that sticks around as a unique theme.
The haido probably has to be 0 bts for balance reasons. Alot of stuff is going to be hard to take down with hacking with all of the tinbots and fairy dust that's gonna be going around.
+1!!! And yes it just feels a bit uninspired and all over. CB not changing Teutons or Shang Ji just feels incredible lazy and self-absorbed. Zhanshi I understand that they are the basic ones, so they wanna keep it that way, but then again they changed the Securitate too, but I guess they are more in the Kamau League of getting bonuses to the max.
