I played the Haris at a tournament for the first time last week, and I don't know how I feel about it (no list though, it wasn't an ITS official tournament and we played 200 point lists.) I like that they are good shooters. I like that they have almost no SWC costs. I like that they have pretty good BTS. I like that they have total immunity. I like that they are all specialists. I have a few problems with them though: 1) They have some of the worst CC values in all of Yu Jing. The only things worse than them are the other remote presence units in the faction (including the Su Jian, which is CC8 in cat form, though it is CC16 in humanoid form. I see that they fill a niche in JSA by being good shooters in a faction with few good shooters, but it's weird to me that I'm not using a midrange loadout to close in to CC a target, them way Musashi uses his flashpulse, or a Domaru/Haramaki link uses medium range weapons to get in assaulting range. 2) I rarely am able to fill up my SWC on a list if I take them. Low SWC is fine (and hell, the MK12 does HMG work in the Haris anyway) but I always tend to the extremes with SWC in JSA. Do I bring a Keisotsu link with Missile Launchers (which is pretty unsupportive, even when linked)? Do I bring a Samurai link (even though it kind of has the same job)? I run the Haramaki/Domaru link with 2 Missile Launchers pretty frequently (and they're reasonably scary in ARO), but then I'm sitting at 250 points with only 3.5SWC. Consider a list like this: Japanese Sectorial Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 5 KARAKURI Heavy Shotgun, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 35) KARAKURI (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 36) KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40) OYAMA Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Breaker Pistol, AP CCW, EXP CCW. (0 | 28) HARAMAKI Missile Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 33) HARAMAKI Missile Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 33) HARAMAKI Blitzen, Contender / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 22) HARAMAKI Blitzen, Contender / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 23) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) YOJIMBO Contender, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades, CrazyKoalas (2) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 21) 3.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Killer Hacker and Smoke Grenade Launcher to cover pushing my Karakuri up, defensive samurai link. My problem is I have no room for a Doctor (or hell even a Paramedic with PH14 on the HI), no engineer, etc. But if I do field those, I end up with 0.5SWC or an unsupportive Keisotsu link (and I hate those.) I feel like I'm wasting heavy weapons. So people who have had success with the Karakuri Haris or Karakuri in general, how are you using them?
Of the couple games I proxy them or played against them, they are really good at holding a point and grabbing the objective. In a sense, I have had some good success with them for getting up. While they can survive moving up the field, they need to be supported by some other as they kind of lack the raw hitting power to deal with HIs or TAGs. Only thing I might critique on a usually strong list is that it has very little to deal with camo itself and not having Kempei in case Oyama bites the dust (unless you are using the link in more of a defensive role which you seem you are).
If you're having problems filling up SWC, try to bring a few more Raiden instead. They tend to eat SWC way faster than points and bring additional heavy weapons at decent BS skill. Low CC values isn't much of a drawback in this game. Just saying...
Exactly this, Raiden are low points, high SWC, the perfect match for Karakuri. Their range helps them clear the way. Here's the last Karakuri list I ran, it was brutal. Japanese Sectorial Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 8 KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 21) KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14) KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) KEISOTSU Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KARAKURI (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 36) KARAKURI Heavy Shotgun, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 35) KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40) GROUP 2 5 2 ARAGOTO Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24) ARAGOTO Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 26) RAIDEN (Minelayer, X Visor) Heavy Rocket Launcher, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 21) TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) 5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
I recently played some games with the Karakuri Haris in our local escalation league. I usually try to exploit that all Karakuries are Forward Observers and take a Son-Bae SML in my lists. As I don't like to play with proxies I currently don't have any good lieutenant options beside the Keisotsu. Thus, with the 0,5 Haris and the 1pt lieutenant tax I only have 3 SWC left for the rest of the team, meaning I can field a spitfire missile launcher for the link, a spitfire and a regular hacker and be done with the SWC. I really love that my opponents have to invest many orders to get rid of the karakuries while they have good presence in the midfield. The list is far from perfect, but I guess you get the idea. Japanese Sectorial Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 KARAKURI (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 36) KARAKURI Heavy Shotgun, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 35) KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40) KEISOTSU Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 9) KEISOTSU Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14) YURIKO ODA Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 24) KEMPEI Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20) SON-BAE Yaókòng Smart Missile Launcher / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 18) GROUP 2 5 NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
