My buddy is coming over on Saturday, so I'm tinkering on a list. I want to try out a couple of things and the mission will be VaulSC's Neural Net: ISS YOO ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 8 2 DEVA (Lieutenant, Triangulated Fire, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24) XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B), Flash Pulse, Madtraps / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21) DAKINI Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 21) CELESTIAL GUARD (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 14) 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) PANGGULING (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15) GROUP 2 7 1 PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Tactical Awareness) Red Fury / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 31) HSIEN Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 55) CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle, Light Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 11) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12) BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12) SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 31) YUDBOT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3) KǍNRÈN (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt ( ) / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 26) 4.5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army The main thing I wanted to try is the mixed CG/Dakini/Deva core. +1 BS is nice to have on both the Smoke Launcher and the Dakini HMG, and the Deva will keep the thing from falling apart in case one of the CGs gets taken out. Deva also is a fairly useful LT in itself, with WP15 and NWI. Xi Zhuang adds some decent area denial and defensive capability. The second thing is the Haris in CG2 lead by the Pheasant RF. She's been on my list since the ft update as she provides nice utility to somewhat justify her cost now. WIP 14 specialist, TacAware to fuel the Haris, CoC, B5, good CC abilities and Stealth should make for a competent midfield piece. Now, the question here was whether to include a Bao MSR or the Hsien. Bao would leave some more room for other things (like a Su Jian), but the Hsien is just such a beast that I decided to go with him this time around. CSU and ABHs for orders and some redundancy to reform the haris. Sophotect for another premium specialist and to revive crucial pieces. Kanren to remove potential hacking threats to my Hsien. My opponent plays DBS, so there won't be any tinbot hacker shenanigans going on.
You are missing the point entirely, I don't care that you're playing against a brand new player, that's irrelevant. I also teach plenty of new people in games. What I don't do, which you are, is then try to use those games as justifications of absolutely brain dead plans like putting a terribly equipped LT on ARO duties. I have shown you the math, Sun Tze is weak ARO presence and you're just feeding him away for no reason. Nothing you've said is based on a logical thought process, it's based on your gut from stomping some new guy who has no idea what he's doing. You're trying to give advice on the basis of the opponent making unforced errors. It's terrible. It'll get destroyed by hacking based opponents, it has no viable defenses against that. It's not even particularly well equipped to play the mission you designed it for, there are no deployable based defenses to stall or strip camo units from moving on the objective, your MSV defenses are extremely weak they'll get beaten off a defensive position by any middle of the pack attacking unit. Your AROs in general are crap and you're basically playing a mish mash of units that barely leverage any sectorial strength (as little as ISS even can claim there) to the point where you'd get a much superior list just playing Vanilla. But that's the nature of ISS, it's an extremely weak outdated sectorial. Whatever you do it's going to suck so just enjoy it is all I can say.
On an unrelated note, it probably needs clarifying whether or not ITS Bounty Hunters are allowed to form fireteams listed in the fireteam chart. Army lists them as ITS BIKE RECON Motorized Bounty Hunters. That's technically different from the Motorized Bounty Hunter in the fireteam list
I was wondering that myself. But when you add ITS MBH to the list, her entry has the same name as normal MBH. Without clicking on the unit itself the only way to say its not regular MBH is 0 swc cost on red fury, for other versions there is no other way to distinguish them AFAIK.
Previously I think it was stated that you could duo them with other MBH in ISS, though I can't put my finger on the thread right now. The ITS BIKE RECON entry was an army bookkeeping addition after the release of the pdf, and it is intended to be exactly the same unit but tagged so it doesn't cost you points or swc.
The Booty chart just got updated! Most of the changes are to give interesting results to Tags with Booty, which ISS doesn't have. The tiny little bump for ISS at this point is that rolling up an ADHL now gets you ADHL (+1 B) - when it happens, it'll be a nice little boost for anti-tag ability on ABH and MBH.
I seemed to get ADHL on booty rolls consistently for about a year, which means I'll probably never roll it again :P
That's really not what I'm doing. I've put together a list that looks interesting to me. I've taken it for a test drive in a practice game and proved to that it has some of the mobility and punch to be quite effective. It could use tweaking for certain matchups and may have some weak spots, but it's fun as hell to play. By playing a variety of lists and keeping things a little fresh you can avoid getting burnt out and thinking "whatever you do it's going to suck", which sounds like a depressing place to be.
Yeah, it's a surprisingly good rule, even before the change. I've generally discounted it as "something I would never want to rely on", but in my last four games I've had msv1 on an MBH red fury, MSR on an ABH sniper (that killed a Maghariba) and Mimetism (-6) on another ABH sniper. It can make a huge difference to the game... even if you can't rely on it.
It's literally what you're doing. You've given some terrible advice, put your LT on ARO who statistically going to get punked by anything that looks at him funny. You've gone through a range of mental gymnastics, none of which makes sense (deny bounty hunters lanes? He fucking loses firefights to bounty hunters), to try to justify it. Not to take away your enjoyment of playing a crap unit like Sun Tze, if you enjoy it you enjoy it, but the reality is he sucks. Giving crap advice of using him as an ARO piece doesn't magically make him better.
He can pin a red fury MBH down pretty solidly, assuming it is outside 24" and trying to shoot at you from cover. http://inf-dice.ghostlords.com/n4/?...p=0&p2.coordinated=0&p2.cover=3&p2.misc_mod=0
Yeah, and now he's on a long firelane so we're back to getting assblasted by take your pick of shooter with an HMG. You've said put him on a long firelane, he's bad at ARO duties and dies. You've said put him on a short firelane, he's still bad at ARO duties and loses fights. He's a bad ARO piece. B1 is not good on a high value non mimetic target with crap all armour to write home about. His cost and stats do not justify the role you're trying to force him into, you're like a small child madly trying to bash a square peg into a round hole. Why you're picking this hill to die on rather than admitting it was a poor idea I have no clue. Sun Tze2 is an active turn piece. He's not a particularly good active turn piece but if you're hellbent on playing him it's better than putting your LT on ARO duties that he clearly can't handle and getting him killed for no reason.
I didn't say put him on a short fire lane. I said to use him as part of an orchestrated ARO trap or coordinated order. If I'm going second, I would put him on a long diagonal firelane, keyholed by terrain so that he is threatening something and my opponent would have to spend 3-4 orders to get a high burst weapon to bear on him. If, as an ARO piece, he absorbs 3+ orders of my enemy's first turn before dying, I can probably live with that. He's a mediocre ARO piece, but against targets that aren't equipped with high burst weapons he's just good enough. He has total immunity, so he's not super scared of lower burst weapons with special ammo, and he's not scared of shooting where the opponents have to split burst against multiple AROs. He's pretty juicy bait, because your opponents want to delete him and the two orders he brings, but often they just guts him prone and have gone out of their way to do it. If I'm going first, I'd use him in a coordinated order, as an active turn shooter against something I had good odds against, or just keep him safe for the two orders he feeds the pool. He's pretty great in a coordinated order vs a TAG, as he doesn't give a shit about the EXP round and packs AP ammo. He's a great lieutenant AND a middling ARO piece AND a fairly good component in a coordinated order in a sectorial that's starved for long-range AP weaponry. You seem unable to look at him as part of a larger plan.
Also... hill to die on? It's just one list for a game of toy soldiers. I'm not going to get it tattooed on my arm.
@Triumph what is wrong dude, you basically frothing at the mouth? You've made your position clear, you disagree, whether you're right or wrong - let the man play with his war dollies the way he wants and stop hounding him. Whatever good you think you are trying to bring by educating him, it's not coming across that way. Move on.
Your idea of an "orchestrated ARO trap" isn't what people are typically referring to, because your idea of it only works against opponents who have no idea what they're doing. An actual ARO trap is when you catch your opponent and force them into situation where they can no longer gain F2F rolls. For example, someone moves into position to shoot Sun Tze with their HI, then a Ninja Hacker pops out on the roof above them and throws Oblivion at them. Your opponent now needs to choose between contesting Sun Tze's shooting or the Ninja attempting to Isolate his HI, he can't do both and the situation now sucks for him. That's an ARO trap. Not some game state that relies on your opponent having no idea how to play the game. The amount of points, SWC, and general army resources you are flushing down the toilet is greater than putting Shang Ji-sus on ARO duty. Nobody thinks that's a sane use of resources either and the Shang Ji is a better shot than Sun Tze because of fireteam bonuses, and this is objectively worse. Again, back in reality people attacking with low burst weaponry is a rarity not the norm. Look at the current state of profiles and fireteams, those sorts of weapons like Feuerbachs are hitting B4 in multiple sectorials. Even a bog standard ORC running at B3 is a 1/6 of outright killing Sun. You're basically playing with fire for no reason, everything you've described is the kind of job people assign to expendable Husongs in a second combat group, not a 50+ point LT that causes them to lose multiple orders from the primary combat group. Your entire game plan can be described as High Risk, Low Reward. As far as splitting burst goes? Granted that can happen but it requires you to be playing in an area that doesn't use pie slicing or intent. Is that actually how you play? Because if it isn't again, you're relying on something a competent opponent won't do. Again, in reality against competent players you're not being granted the option to coordinate fire like that on a TAG. No sane person is leaving a TAG exposed like that so you can run a whole bunch of dispersed units up on it and pound them for no reason from long range. Trying to coordinate long range firepower against unexposed targets isn't happening in reality, it costs a ridiculously unfeasible amount of orders to facilitate when you're suggesting doing it with a bunch of units that start on the wrong side of the table. Coordinated orders that involved shooting are almost entirely limited to highly exposed targets, generally castle pieces like S Tier linked snipers, which again Sun Tze is bad at because he gives the opening for the opponent to score a high value trade. The idea of the coordinated order attack is to get the opponent to Dodge so you can take the shot safely, whereas Sun Tze runs an option for something like 10-15% varying on the fireteam for you to just lose your LT in a bad trade. I can see the plan, I'm telling you the plan is terrible. Notice how the only people who I've bothered arguing with in this thread have kicked things off with snark about "Armchair generals" "Pissing with dicks" or "peanut galleries" while offering absolutely garbage advice and insight into long standing dumpster tier units? Coming into a thread with that is in my opinion an open invitation for an argument. Seriously, you open with that, what responses were you really hoping to get?
@Triumph Even I'm getting tired of this. Name calling is pretty childish. We play this game to have fun. If it's not fun they why play? We each have fun in our own way. Some like the things because they are cool and some like the math. We then talk about what was fun for us. All advice is taken with a gain of salt. To me the best advice is to just play. See what works for you. All the number crunching in the world isn't' going to help if it just doesn't suit you.
Again, I do not care if someone is enjoying playing a bad unit. That has absolutely no bearing on the discussion. I have an issue when they play the bad unit, then try to argue it's in fact a good unit without any real evidence to the contrary. For bonus points when you try to start your argument by calling other people armchair generals or a peanut gallery while offering a terrible argument, congratulations my interest in the discussion has been solidly stoked.
@Triumph, you're obtuse. An ARO trap is a trap with AROs. Reserve dropping two models with decent long-range AROs is just as much an ARO trap if it locks up an enemy unit as using a hidden deployment Ninja. There's more than one way to do it. The coordinated orders would be used to remove any long-range ARO threats that stop the Su Jian duo from moving out. If someone null deploys then they'll have to worry about 11 orders of Su Jian and MBH showing up in their backyard. Everyone in this thread is trying to play ISS. Pointing out that there's a better unit in another army doesn't help anyone build a better ISS list, neither does whining that the unit is overpriced and needs to change. I'm working with what I've got instead of complaining about a faction that sucks, and the inclusion of cheap CSU and cutting other corners means that I can squeeze an overpriced ARO mediocre piece into my list and live with risk of losing it. Then I'm trying to have fun applying creativity to the best ways to use it on the table, none of which is helped by constant negative shouting. Sun Tze is expensive and sub-par in ARO, but you can still make units like that work as part of a larger whole and you refuse to concede any of those points. Ever. This is why the snark, because as soon as anyone mentions this you'll pop out from behind the door and never let anything drop.
