Just picked up JSA starter, need list suggestions

Welcome to the faction! for a beginner I would recommend a list like this :

Japanese Secessionist Army
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GROUP 1 9
DAIYŌKAI Red Fury, Panzerfaust / Pistol, DA CC Weapon, AP CC Weapon. (1 | 49)
DOMARU (Fireteam: Haris) Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27)
OYAMA Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, AP CCW, EXP CCW. (0 | 28)
KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 21)
KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9)
KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14)
NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29)

GROUP 2 4 1 1
YOJIMBO Contender, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 21)
RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 24)
RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 20)
TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

5.5 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army






We have really good link teams - use them!

• The Yokai gives good fire support while allowing your Domaru to move up the board where they can reach sword range and cause some havoc

• The full Keisotsu link offers a decent ARO piece in the form of a B2 BS13 Missile Launcher

• The ninja allows you to push a button or slay a midfield opponent with the first group

• The second group offers support and a nice Rambo piece in the form of Yojimbo

• Rui-Shi can be buffed and possibly combo with smoke

• Between the Ryuken, the ninja, and Yojimbo you can have a lot of board control ability with mines and crazy koalas

Here are my thoughts on the list you have here:

• No link teams above 2 members means you're not using the sectorial rules to their fullest benefit
• you're effectively not using half of your SWC
• You have no dedicated ARO pieces outside of a flash pulse, which means you're giving the opponent all of the orders to score objectives/ kill your active turn pieces.
• You're not using our faction benefits! (cheap CoC with ultra aggressive LTs, cheap HI, ect.)
• 6 orders isn't enough to fuel a ninja, oni AND Yojimbo (keep in mind oni and ninja don't contribute to the pool at first effectively making that group 3 regular orders)

 

You're missing the Harris skill on one of the Domaru. its .5 SWC

 

How necessary is Yojimbo? I was leaning away from getting any named characters (And Togan is hideous) but it seems like yojimbo is in about every list I see posted. Is he that critical?

 

No, just really attractive. Smoke, koalas, and CC murdersauce on a motorcycle at an irresistible low price. But he's reckless and difficult to hide or maneuver surgically. He tends to eat a lot of dirt at a high speed.

 

He's a lot of fun. He has great board control potential and is an absolute blender in CC, he also offers the cheapest smoke in the army. If he dies? whatever - thats only 21 points and an irregular order.

 

The Rui-Shi is a very strong piece indeed. Dirt cheap and with a solid gun. I would strongly suggest support ware on him though. Though, the new Kempetai profiles make him less of a "must-take" for me since the SMR is linkable. Theoretically, with the list you've posted you could cut those three 8 point bots and trade them in for three keisotsu and you're only spending three more points and they're doing a whole lot more for your list, especially if you put a real gun on one of them (which you have the SWC for ).

I find that the oni wants orders for himself. He wants to be an alpha striker, meaning, he wants to kill one or two things and then drop into suppressive or marker state - and you need a healthy amount of orders to do that.

 

MSV2+ not essential to any list, just ask an Ariadna player, and JSA have plenty of CC, a good selection of DTWs, and an excellent Minelayer unit with which to combat camo. As well as access to the stalwart 16pt sensor bot!

 

The common theme seems to be "cheap smoke" (among other things). If you want smoke in JSA, you are looking at characters. I understand the attraction to making lists without characters when you are stylizing your personal forces, however, have you considered creating special characters of your own patterned on the characters that exist? For example, couldn't you paint Shinobu with a different colour of hair, call her something else and say she is another, different, also particularly skilled Oniwaban that packs a combi-rifle and smoke grenades?

 

This probably isn't the faction to lean away from named characters (we're second only to Aleph). All of our smoke carriers are named and almost half of our lieutenant options are. Yojimbo is just really effective for 21 points and 0 SWC. 8-6 move with all of that CC, smoke, koalas to lock down the board, and NWI.

 

Yeah, as others have mentioned, the only way to get smoke around here is a Named Character, either Shinobu, Saito, or Yojimbo.

For Saito, if you don't mind also running StarCo, you buy the Outrage character pack for Nakadai. Much better looking Ninja/oniwaban.


Also gives you a TAG pilot, Emily, a scary-huge Irmandinho, Uhahu, and a badass sniper model.

 

As others mentioned, having that precious smoke makes your JSA list pretty good. Out of three, here are some of the pros and cons between them:

Shinobu Kitsune:
+Pros: Superior Infiltration with a great CC of 25, MA5, Physical for those smoke grenades and monofilament for removing big targets. Also has nanopulser intuitive attacks.
+Cons: Most expensive of the three at 47 pts and half an SWC (1 if you take the lieutenant option). Also vulnerable to templates and things with her low ARM.

Saito Togan:
+Pros: Mid-range between the three and still comes with Infiltration. While less killy than Shinobu, he still has a high CC stat of 24 and MA4 to back him up. For an extra point, you can bump him up to specialist operative, meaning that he can score objectives.
+Cons: Still on the pricey side, and still as vulnerable to templates as Shinobu. Also not as lethal as Shinobu as mentioned. With EXP CC he will some trouble with armored targets.

Yojimbo:
+Pros: Comes with CC 24, MA4, NWI, and CrazyKoalas on a bike. Not only is he fast, but he comes at a low price of 21 pts! Having both the Smoke Grenades and launcher, he is able to cover 0-16 inches at a +3.
+Cons: Being that he is extremely impetuous, he is going to be running out and will never get the benefit of cover. This makes him a little hard to use at first.

 

Sadly, I have none of the other starco minis, basically, and I already own Knauf from the manga.

I may get Yojimbo, who could very well use his dismounted version for Saito, though I'm kind of tempted to use my CSU I got with BRV as Saito, casual saturday version. :P