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Kanren: why is it even a thing?

Discussion in 'Yu Jing' started by yoink101, Jun 27, 2018.

  1. yoink101

    yoink101 Chandra SpecOps Complaint Department

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    As written above, I don’t get the kanren. It has good stats and cool tools. But I don’t understand why I would take one over many of the other 30ish point profiles in ISS. Without any type of camo, it’s not a great gunfighter. Without multiple wounds or high armor, it’s to expensive to piece trade with a chain colt. It’s subpar close combat is situational at best. Sniffers can be cool, but the 8 point flash pulse bot can often get places faster. The hacker doesn’t have a token state to protect itself from midfield hackers.

    I don’t get it. I really like both models though and I want to understand. Please help!
     
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  2. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Mad Trap profile can start mad traps up the table, which is nice.
     
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  3. ObviousGray

    ObviousGray Frenzied Mushroom

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    I use Kanrens for multiple purposes. Briefly;

    1) Facing Camo heavy factions like Nomad, Ariadna : sniffers are good, but Holo-to-yerface tactic works solid enough since mines are forced to detonate once ANY enemy goes into their trigger area. One does not detonate, well they will be your prey.

    2) Direct defence breaker. Kanren's chain colt can pose dread choices to a link team, whether dodge or return fire, Kanren can make them bleed in which cases; yet in this case, you should turn off Holo 2 to not letting them use Sixth Sense.

    3) CC decapitator. Like you said, kanren solo has a limit to deal with. But what if you stall a big one with your ninja or Kuang shi? You can easily step up to it, and bring the Monofiliament of Death.

    TAGs, on the other hand, Dont go near TAG with HFTs. But you can gain an upper hand when dealing with other guys.

    Holo 2 is a very versatile gear. If you get used to it, it pays off awesome. Good luck!
     
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  4. SKOZZOKONZ

    SKOZZOKONZ Well-Known Member

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    It was probs meant to be an impersonator from the fluff, but yu jing having semi fidays and oniwabans would have been to much.
     
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  5. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    The Kanren isn't easy to use but he's actually quite decent as a gun fighter. Surprise attack with BS12 on either Boarding Shotgun or Combi Rifle can deal with most things in this game, since ARM doesn't really mean anything before it goes to around ARM4+.
    He takes practice using but he's mostly useful for Holo shenanigans, especially if you want to "hide" TO models, like pretending he's a Hsien HMG so your opponent can't just count your points and figure out that you're missing a model. Alternatively you can use the Mad Traps profile and disguise him as a Pheasant Mad Traps, which often deters your opponent from committing himself to kill whoever he suspects is your Lt. because he thinks you have CoC.
     
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  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    In vanilla, you can also pretend to be a poorly positioned Armand.

    One of my favourite profiles and by far the best mine-and-koala diffusion device in the game. I really like the hacking profiles as they are some of few Yu Jing hackers that typically actually has any effect (the other hackers tend to be under-supported and under-statted with too much cost in other things to be as effective).

    I would have liked the hackers to have had BSG, however, and the chain-colt is a bit weird - I'd have preferred an adhesive launcher or a large DTW or saved a point by not having it - but you can't have everything and the Kanren, being one of the absolutely most recent proper Yu Jing additions, is both interesting and refreshing to play with.
     
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  7. REND

    REND Well-Known Member

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    Use of the Kanren revolves around understanding how to exploit Holo-projector. That take time, practice and a little bit of imagination. Using the level 1 state allows you to impersonate any other S2 model in the faction meaning you can throw off opponents estimates about your list build, lead them to think you have nastier threats deployed than you really do or lull them into using the wrong tactics to deal with the perceived threat. (Favourite is a killer hacker pretending to be an HI model like a Hsien.) Use level 2 and you get surprise shot and attack to improve those face-to-face roll-offs but more than that, opponents have to decide which is the real model or delay their reaction. (This can actually be really useful in helping the Kanren move across the table if the opponent thinks there will be a shoot-out.) Holo-echoes are also perfect tools for setting off mines, koalas and madtraps. Since they have forward deployment level 2 they also start pretty far up the board and it doesn't take long to get them into good positions.

    Kanren are fragile but useful all-rounders who can bring a useful selection of support equipment and many of their profiles are specialists.
     
  8. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    Dont forget the suppression fire holo 2 trick. If you are not aware you walk up to a building out of sight of the opponent, but be in a position that when your holoechos automatically spawn one will be looking around the corner. Go into suppression fire, spawn holo's, pick one looking around the corner as your primary. Congrats, you just got suppression fire overlooking enemy models without giving them the chance to shoot you.
     
  9. ambisinister

    ambisinister Broken Zoetrope

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    Also remember that the killer hacker does have a marker state because it can use Cybermask.
     
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  10. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Isn't having holo echos a marker state?

    I haven't been able to get the hang of him either but getting better with Holo by using the Lu Duan. It's been fantastic for me lately.
     
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  11. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    Yes it is.
     
  12. Stormygeddon

    Stormygeddon Well-Known Member

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    Without going into the gorillion reasons of why Holoprojector Level 2 is useful and what tricks you can make with it, my main reasons are the following.

    They make good specialists. With Forward Deployment L2 they can find themselves in about the same positions as our other normal skirmishers, except at the same price or cheaper than the Ninja or Guilang. The holoprojectors diversify your midfield presence so it's not just camouflage. And it still can make the regular "move in and press a button" action most specialists get relegated to.

    Adding to the "Divesify midfield presence" point. They have a lot of good options. Ninjas are great and all, but it's kind of "KHD Tacbow or bust" while the Kanren has the FO and hacker profiles for specialists, choosing between BSG and Combi Rifles, but also Mad Traps if you want more of a speed bump or killer.

    The Holo echoes can let me detonate mines without risking a roll with dodge, and the various echoes (and Surprise Shot) can play with defenses of suppressive fire and Total Reaction as others have mentioned.

    And while Martial Arts Level 1 on CC 19 is not "Top tier", between that and Surprise attack you have more than enough of a basis to be able to reliably kill a great amount of targets, from the average TAG to Skirmishers and Warbands who may think you're an easy target. Penultimate game I played had a Devil Dog team come in to bite, but the Martial Arts helped fend him off with my ARO, and the monofilament hit that went through bypassed the annoying Total Immunity and also ended with the doggo going straight to the dead state. The Kanren has so many holoprojector tricks that people forget that it's actually like a solid A-/B+ close combat specialist who can very easily take down the likes of a Maghariba Guard, Gecko, or Swiss Guard if they were caught with their pants down against a Surprise Attack.
     
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  13. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    because sometimes you want to deploy 4 HMG Hsien's and see your opponents face.
     
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  14. barakiel

    barakiel Echo Bravo Master Sergeant

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    A unit like the Kanren is actually a pretty good litmus test for an Infinity player. What value do you see there? What role can it provide? The profile is varied enough that can really do a bit of everything, depending on your matchups, your mission lineup, what else is in your list, etc.

    The appeal I see is that it's a minesweeper/marker state/gunfighter/direct template/monofilament attack whenever you need one. Yes, Camo is a more powerful rule than Holo2 in a lot of circumstances, but Holo2 can also a lot of things that Camo can't.
     
  15. YueFei23

    YueFei23 Durian Inspector

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    For me the kanren glass is at best half full... I'll only take one when I can figure out a concrete use for a mission.
    • If I need to score something or deny scoring of something with a specialist in turn 1, maybe it gets the cut... if I need my 30 point scorer to live longer a Ninja is much more likely to survive.
    • Flushing out mines or perimeter weapons is interesting, but only comes into play against certain opponents and is something a dodging warband member can do for cheaper, often with an impetuous order.
    • Madtraps are a good defensive card layered up with other ZoC stuff or AROs, but come for cheaper and with more utility on Xi Zhuang and are easily countered if you just throw them out unsupported. Madtraps are also irritatingly passive, so if your opponent has some hyperdynamics or holoprojectors of their own and knows what to do they're often just points spent on nothing.
    • Monofilament is a great tool to have now the oniwaban is gone, but getting a kanren to stay alive and go where it needs to go can take a lot of orders for a not very resilient model.
    • The sniffer dropping guy has interesting synergy with evo and satlock, so can work in a dedicated smart missile build, but even then there are generally better ways to target stuff with hacking or triangulated firing sensor. Also the minelayer doesn't think to bring mines, which is just sad. It's also just sad he doesn't even bring his own sensor... you need another model to support him! This seemed better when there were objective rooms to hide behind and deny to infiltrators.
    • His holoechoes are scary until you realise they don't contain any kind of ARO threat - one combi rifle or boarding shotgun is so easily outranged you have to hide them away and most things trading chain rifles with his colt can either take a hit or cost way less than he does. Most fun impersonation tricks involve giving up forward deployment as I got bored pretending to be just another kind of kanren a while ago. Regular sforza is probably a more fun holoprojector stooge, as he has a viral ARO or glue shot, x-visor and dogged, so at least he'll have potential to hurt something if he shoots back.
    Where he loses out to me is that he just doesn't do quite enough stuff when I weigh him against other choices. He's either a scoring specialist or an area denial piece, but never both at once. If he was slightly buffed so he smooshed a madtrap and specialist profile together or the minelayer brought mines & packed his own sensor etc... I'd be all over him.
     
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  16. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
    Warcor

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    theres also the sensor network you get, can build a nice little guided/specfire list quite efficiently
     
  17. yoink101

    yoink101 Chandra SpecOps Complaint Department

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    Thanks for the responses! It’s a lot to chew on. I need to just put it on the table a bunch and see what I can get done. I do like the idea of pairing a kanren and ninja to lure midfield hackers out.
    It is. It’s certainly not camo. Impersonation from the killer hacker also requires a roll to be successful. I’ve failed enough wip rolls to not want to rely on it.

    Fair point. I don’t particularly like that play style though.
    All really good points. Much of it is what I hadn’t articulated well myself, so thank you! There just seem to be better options in ISS for similar cost or even less points. I do like the idea of using sforza more. That viral ammo is brutal and the x visor can help a lot.
     
  18. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    I just want to break down some of the reasoning on this, because this hits on a lot stuff that people miss about the Kanren.

    Some and some. A list with MSV3 isn't going to care about your markers, and all ninja specialists are still hackable. A ninja isn't going to have a great time against factions that are very high tech (Aleph, PanO) and those with great hacking coverage (Nomads.)

    Two different pieces for two different roles. Xi is going to start in your DZ, a Kanren is going to start halfway up the table, which makes the MadTraps start in a threatening position. You also admitted yourself that camo is preferred to holoprojector almost universally, which means that most camo skirmishers are going to not want to deal with them. Popping out to push a button under a madtrap is a good way to get glued down, and most skirmishers have awful PH.

    I agree with this one. Taking chances on Holo 2 games doesn't feel great to me. The -9 surprise attack is cool, but monofilament will always feel better when you have really high crit chances.

    Sniffer is good for scaring midfield TO skirmishers. Starting with a sniffer down and spending one order to place another can pull skirmishers hanging on midfield objectives out of TO, or discourage them from deploying that close to objectives in the first place, which gives you more room to run around. The chain colt is an awesome weapon for dealing with them once they're out of camo (you still get surprise shot mods with it if you're in Holoecho state.)

    It's YJ so expecting any ARO threat is already a stretch. Kanren's holoechoes are more defensive in ARO. Watch the enemy waste 2 orders before even finding the right target, etc.

    So many of the complaints in this thread seem to miss that the Kanren has Forward Deployment Lv2 and is a specialist, which is why I kind of loathe the Sforza comparisons.
     
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  19. yoink101

    yoink101 Chandra SpecOps Complaint Department

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    Awesome points! I guess the biggest selling point for me is that the Kanren is one of two specialists that can start outside of the deployment zone. There are missions where that is invaluable. Especially this season though, those missions are significantly less common than they were in previous seasons. Considering I started playing ISS recently, I suspect that this might be part of my struggle with the kanren.
     
  20. East of Irem

    East of Irem Well-Known Member

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    Kanren can be really good, not always a good choice but in the right circumstance its great Ive got a report up on kuragecrisis where he basically wins me the game dropping his sniffer to allow the reveal of a farzan with a backfield sensor, then used his boarding shotgun to drop a lasiq sniper and the aforementioned farzan. This done he holds his quarter (enemy left) for 2 turns netting me 4 objective points. Its a great relatively order efficient package but if you dont get first turn its mediocre and vulnerable.
    The trick I really want to pull off is sniffer, satlock FO from hal;f the table away and nuke with guided missile launcher but its tough to line all that up...
     
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