We had an absolutely hilarious* [READ: Miserable] discussion on this in the Infinity the Game community Discord and the end result was that, yeah, the Kuang Shi Celestial Guard Monitor counts as a Celestial Guard Monitor, because otherwise we get into some incredibly niche Infinite Oregano scenarios that only ever happen online. Apropos of that, I took this ISS list to a game of The Armory vs NCA. The Armory ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 DAKINI MULTI Sniper Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 20) DAKINI MULTI Sniper Rifle / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 20) CELESTIAL GUARD (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13) TÁOWÙ (Counterintelligence) Nanopulser(+2B), Flash Pulse(+1B) / Viral Pistol(+1B), Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25) XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B), Flash Pulse, Madtraps / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21) BOUNTY HUNTER Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 15) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12) GROUP 2 8 3 HSIEN MULTI Marksman Rifle, Nanopulser ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 53) CRANE AGENT (Hacker, Hacking Device, Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser(+1B) ( ) / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0.5 | 46) BÀO TROOP Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22) CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5) LÙ DUĀN Mk12, Heavy Flamethrower(+1B) ( | Deployable Repeater) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 24) 4 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army The table was set up like this, with my deployment closest to the camera. The madman has three Crab Bots as his Fugazis, I love them. My opponent won the Lt roll, and took Deployment expecting me to take First Turn; since The Armory scores on round end, I risked the disadvantage and opted for Second Turn instead. The DZs were a touch sparse with some lateral firelanes I wasn't comfortable with, but the center of the table was dense enough with some very clear paths into my DZ that I wasn't overly worried about a Bolt sniper pinning me into my DZ. I set up the Dakini core to watch the long path on the left, with a Xi and his madtraps watching the corner in case of a Peacemaker attack. Tao Wu masked as a Deva Hacker. ABHs rolled something mostly irrelevant, and I posted the Akrylat on the top center almost as an afterthought that might've saved the game for me. Hoping to avoid a Peacemaker push from the right side I positioned the Crane ahead of the rest of the Haris (although he was slightly out of my DZ in this pic, I pulled him back a little after noticing, although it didn't make a difference. Opponent deployed the expected Bolt Core, with a support haris of two Fusiliers and a CSU. Where he's pointing in the pic is where a Peacemaker showed up right on the edge of the exclusion zone. Not feeling confident in my defense on that side, I posted my reserve Lu Duan. My opponent's familiar with the remote, so I took a gamble and deployed the real one directly watching his Peacemaker, and the Deployable Repeater added some additional protection. Then my opponent's reserve Squalo went down and I really started to panic. Locally we don't have a lot of TAGs, and it's something I mentioned that was ripe for exploitation. My only real defense were the two Dakini snipers who could easily be outshot, an unlinked Akrylat ABH, and an easily swept DepRep. I opted to strip orders out of the Squalo's pool and hoped I'd have enough orders on the start of my turn that I might be able to make a decent game out of it. Turned out to not be necessary. The Squalo spent one order moving, one order Spec Firing a 'nade into the Dakini cluster (all of whom succeeded their dodges and spread out), then its TacAware vaulting up onto terrain and taking three AROs, all of which I won; it bounced the MSR hits but failed the Akrylat's PH save in what turned out to be the best possible first turn I could've asked for. Opponent noted that Bolts aren't so great at holding the Armory when there's a B3 shotgun staring them down, so opted to dip in to grab some stuff out of the Panopolies and cede control just outside of it. End of Reactive Turn 1 and all I'm down is a single Dakini sniper. My first active turn the remaining Dakini sniper was able to exploit a positioning error and kill the Machinist, then ducked back and out of cover to win a fight against a Bolt Spitfire link leader out of his good range. With the link broken I advanced with the Hsien Haris and dueled the Bolt Sniper in her 0" Rangeband. The Crane's Stealth came in huge here against a Bolt hacker, as a couple speculative hacking AROs declared against the stealthy Crane just meant I could move the Haris about the Armory without issue. Eventually the Crane nailed the Bolt with a Carbonite, then dipped out of the Armory to flatten the remaining Bolts with his Nanopulsers. I had a couple orders left, and with characteristic hubris, blundered Tao Wu right into the TAG's LoF, who nailed the Dodge and plugged the schemer in the head with its Multi-Pistol before I could reach it with Wu's MonoCCW. Ended my turn with this smug son of a bitch pulling an EXP CCW out of the Panopoly. Opponent's turn 2 shifted a bunch of spare orders into the TAG's group, and it went around doing TAG things, but without a clear way to see into or contest the Armory, all it could really do was kill a couple troopers and unsuccessfully spec fire grenades into the building. The remainder of the game went largely as expected; I held the Armory against whatever troops he had left, with the Crane Hacker deterring Auxbots from approaching, and on my opponent's turn nearly shoving the TAG's gun right into the room in order to clear it; by the end of the game I didn't have many troops left, but it didn't matter. I'd killed everything that could fit into the Armory. Overall I'm very impressed with the Crane, and the Hsien/Crane/Bao haris in general. Despite ISS's limited repeater coverage, it was still enough to protect my DZ, and he held the room like a champ. The Bao was there to dispatch any camo or mimetism troops, but wasn't needed against NCA. Post-game discussion we agreed that the TAG was scary, but the list lacked effective beef to maintain control of the Armory -- Bolts are great shooters but they don't handle templates well, and I brought plenty in my list. We'll be playing a similar mission on Sunday, and I suggested he take a haris with Shona and Aquila FTO, so it should be interesting to see the near mirror of my own Hsien Crane haris matchup.
For White Banner, has anyone tried this? Gong, Kai, Shaolin. LÉI GŌNG Shock Marksman Rifle, Nanopulser, Blitzen / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 34) LIANG KAI Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 21) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 5) 0 SWC | 60 Points
I like it, although it's very order hungry. One version of that I tried running replaces Liang Kai with Adil. The dice absolutely screwed me over for the game I ran it, but I think the link definitely has some massive potential. Yes, you have to convert the monks irregular order over, but the midfield utility on such a team is amazing.
