Lareon's Battle Log: a personal voyage in ISS

Hello everyone!
New fireteam rules, new motivations! Shamelessy copying @valukr idea, I open a little personal B-log about my future experiences with this "new" ISS format.

First, a bit of a context: I'm a "long-time" Infinity player, starting back in 2015 with Nomads. In the following years I played a lot of different armies (in the last three years I focused on Haqq as my main) and I think of myself as an average player. Not good, not bad, a little in-between.
But I always had an Achille's heel: I fell in love with ISS with their redesign, several years ago, and since then I struggled to bring them justice in a match.
But oh boy, I'm so bad.
I think I'm not quite able to catch their playstyle, and I failed a lot to do something good on the field with them. But! After this new fireteam rules the little, lovely spark in my soul ignited again, and I went back on the drawing board.

So this thread will gather all my shenanigans, thoughts, and failures (or successes) with ISS, hoping to find some good insight and improving myself as a player :)

So, without further ado, I present my first template:

Everything is a FT! (almost)
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lista.grupo 1 9 2 1
HSIEN (Lieutenant) 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 Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 15)
PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Tactical Awareness) Red Fury / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 31)
MIRANDA ASHCROFT Combi Rifle, E/Mitter(+1B), Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
ZHÀNYING (Sensor, Triangulated Fire, Minelayer) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Madtraps / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 23)
NINJA (Hacker, Hacking Device) Submachine Gun ( ) / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0.5 | 35)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
SÙ-JIÀN Heavy Shotgun(+1B), Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 50)
MOTORIZED BOUNTY HUNTER Red Fury / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 15)

lista.grupo 2 5 4
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)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)

4 filtros.CAP | 300 filtros.puntos

SYS.abrirArmy


This will be my starting point for my tests.
As you can see I tried to maximize the fireteam potential, bringing a somewhat balanced team.

• The first Law&Order haris (Hsien + CSU + BH) is my first attacking vector. A solid firepower with cheap pieces that covers the short range, and can be immolated for countering pesky skirmishers or warbands.
• The second Law&Order is just an excuse to finally bring a Pheasant on the field, lol. Aside that, I tried to bring a reliable secondary attacking vector, with less firepower but more tools in their arsenal. Tac awareness, a red fury for bringing down non-shock immune troops, Mad traps, 3-Burst E/Mitter, Sensor... well, a nice and quite cheap toolbox that can be used in many situations.
• An always reliable ninja, to soften the defences and bring down juicy targets
• A Duo Su-Jian/MBH. Because, why not? Really fast, hard hitting. They're not meant to be always in duo, as unfortunately the irregular order will break the team. But in some cases I can use the Su-Jian orders to bring them forward, and break the team once the MBH is in the right range
• Core Celestial/Kuang Shi. An old reliable. I must admit I'm not fond of KS, and I always avoided them in my lists. But I believe here they can be useful as a meat shield, and to cover angles to protect my other fireteams. Plan is usually to link just a couple of them to the Monitor (for the B2 smoke ) and leave the others around.

 

Sooooo, last saturday I baptized the new redesign with a match. 300pt Decapitation against Corregidor. I thought the template itself was good enough to be used for this mission, so I brought it without changes.

How did it went:



The game went... duh.
I won the LT roll and decided to start second: ISS is stronger in short range, so let them come!
I deployed conservatively, with no visible pieces for Aro: my Hsien fireteam on the left side, Celestial with 2KS in the middle, protected by the Pheasant/Miranda, the Su-Jian + MBH on the right side, ready to a dash. My opponent mistakenly brought a list with 18+ orders, but we went with it anyway. and deployed evenly to cover the entire zone: Alguaciles/Lupe Balboa/Lobos fireteam, a duo digger/Diablos, an Haris Jaguars+Massacre, a Daktari, Jazz and Billie, a couple Transductor, and a lonely MSR Intruder on the top of a building

His first turn was just a cautious advance with everything. He tried to rush the Transductor to put my Hsien under repeater area, but was not able to reach it. As for my turn... well.
Sigh.
With my first order i peeked out with the Hsien to provoke the Intruder's reaction. he left camo state, and in the following F2F i missed all my hits, took a DA projectile back, and proceeded to fail both armor rolls.
With the second order I advanced with my Su-Jian, took a lonely hit from a Jaguar Panzerfaust and trashed it after failing all the attack rolls and armor rolls.
After losing 100 points in aro, I was not in a good situation.
I advanced with the MBH, killed the jaguar, put it in range against the intruder and I was able to place on him whooping 5 red fury hits against him (4 hits and a crit). Obviously he was able to save everything. Figures.
At least he put his head down, so I was able to move my ninja (hidden deployed in the middle of the field), that dashed forward and was able to kill Jazz and Massacre before he was able to react properly.

Second round went quite quickly: he moved the Diablo against the ninja, berserking against her defences, and putted down my last serious attack piece. I conceded during his turn as we reached time limit (I'm training my players for tournament purposes, so our matches are timebound) with my hearth broken.

So! What did I learned from this game? Nothing, lol.
Unfortunately the match was so brutal and one-directional I wasn't able to prove anything. Oh well, next time.

 

Yeah, for Jazz I dashed forward through the opponent's defenders, ignoring everyone and trying to reach LoF with my target. She was discovered mid-movement but was too late to prevent the next order, in which I moved in range with Jazz and face-to-faced his Trinity with a full smg burst (a trench-hammer flied unopposed against my ninja, but I relied on her mimetism and was able to save her ).
As for Massacre, he advanced toward my MBH and was basically on the midfield line, so the ninja caught him by surprise and received a burst on his back, outside his ZoC. Shock ammos does wonders, sometimes.

I'm starting to think about bringing the Sophotect. I'm usually against him, as I don't find a deployment zone doc/eng much efficent, order-wise. But I'm sensing that in a sectorial with a lot of movements in their own half table it could worth something, sometime.

 

Not much. I was in a tight spot, as the Hsien was squeezed between the repeater zone and a huge firelane covered by the Intruder. We shared hits from 44" away, putting the Hsien a little on the disadvanted side, but he was the more reliable hitter against that menace. But i seriously underestimated the danger posed by the jaguar, and this ultimately costed me the Su-Jian. In hindsight I would probably have putted a couple more orders on the Celestial Guard, in order to place a smoke screen to let the Su-Jian move closer (and it would have surely saved the little murder-bot), but the game diverted so much in so little orders from my original plans that it's difficult to estimate what coud have been.

yes-sh. I'm not very fond of strong aros, so usually my defence consist in flash-pulses and mad traps, to waste opponent orders. Especially in missions like decapitations, where a strong active turn is much better than risking valuable orders to slow enemy advance. But I brought the Kuang Shi as short-range Aro, to weak/hinder the enemy before moving too much closer. But there are interesting options for ISS, if I want to deploy something stronger (major lunah, the ol' reliable double MSR Dakini Haris, or now a MSR Bao/SR ABH haris).

That's... a good idea. I originally designed the group 2 as a smoke and body provider. Link enough KS to let the Celestial Guard shoot at B2, and release the others to suicide for the glory of the State Empire. The order buffer was a nice addition I already planned (but not much expected to use, due the volatility of the KS), but I see a lot of sense to use Sun Tze to add versatibility (and it could help me to finally deploy him, as I always struggled a bit to do - excellent Aro piece, but not much after that).

 

Yeah, that's true. However I sensed the Hsien was the best choice for what I intended him to do. It's still a beefy LT with 2w and a lot of armor, that could have helped to avoid being killed by DTW kamikazes. The CSU/BH he was linked to were the bodyguards to avoid him dangers in ARO, while the Hsien himself was equipped with a long-range weapon being able to take distances from the hotter fights. This was a situation in which I decided to avoid deploying ARO pieces and let the opponent advance, so I had to put some armor on my target to survive overextending pieces on the first round.
After all, the only risk he had was receiving a 2-hits aro and failing two ARM 7 rolls.
...sigh.

@YueFei23 I wasn't aware that NWI can be activated on the second unconscious. Always thought NWI and remote presence mutually excluded (activate NWI as soon as the model enter in unconscious or gain two unconscious levels). That's good to know, thanks! Something I will surely remember next time :)

 

Prepping for the next match.
We'll play a 300pt Frontline, this time against a new MO player I'm tutoring, that I will simply call him "The Wall".

Here's an example of his playstyle:


Always had some trouble breaking through all it's defences, especially while playing Haqq. I'm quite confident this time I will be able to put a dent on that damn Pano cultists!

Aaaaaand, this is the list I will bring with me:

No major losses
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lista.grupo 1 10
WÚ MÍNG Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 37)
WÚ MÍNG Boarding Shotgun ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 31)
ZHÀNYING (Sensor, Triangulated Fire, Minelayer) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Madtraps / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 23)
ZHÀNYING (Lieutenant, Sensor, Triangulated Fire) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21)
ZHÀNYING (Hacker, Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 25)
MIRANDA ASHCROFT Combi Rifle, E/Mitter(+1B), Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12)
BÀO TROOP MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)
SÙ-JIÀN Heavy Shotgun(+1B), Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 50)
NINJA (Hacker, Hacking Device) Submachine Gun ( ) / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0.5 | 35)

lista.grupo 2 1 1
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)

4 filtros.CAP | 298 filtros.puntos

SYS.abrirArmy

Now, with this list I want to test the reliability of a full core, and I thought Wu Mings can do wonders with the option to go pure with Zhanying. Frontline is a violent mission, and I expect a lot of HIs and Armor to break through. In this case the Law&Order haris is composed by Miranda (I believe in you!), and a supporting BAO sniper to cover long distances, if needed. I was tempted by adding a ML Zhanying to replace the BH, but I don't want to find myself working with a fireteam too defensive, especially as I want to put full weight on Miranda's E/Mitter.

The group 2 is.. heh. At first I planned to play with a single group (removing the BH and adding another Wu Ming Chain Rifle in the core), but I didn't found it much useful and I preferred to switch it for a couple of late-game Aros, to pop out once the fight is already heated up.

 

The wall was breached!

Quick review of the match: I won the LT roll and decided the field and deploy as second, while my opponent went first in initiative.
I decided to deploy safe, without visible Aro pieces: as I didn't have to defend objectives, I thought it was better to save my few aro pieces for the later part of the game. On the left side the flash-pulse rem and the Haris Miranda/BH/Bao (behind an house with a HUGE firelane that costed me a lot); center section covered by the warcor and the Su-jian, ready to sprint where needed; right side with my core, safely hugging a wall. In the exact middle of the battlefield the ninja awaited in hidden deployment.

My opponent depoyed his crosier/kostantinos core directly opposed to my core, on my right side. On my left side a Teuton haris supported by a Tikbalang, in the center a TR and a flash pulse bot, a Curator and a Tech Bee. Palbots deployed everywhere!

--------------------------
So.. the game started and the Teutons ran. And ran. And ran again. Jesus they ran a lot.
The fireline was so straight and huge (and uncovered, thanks to my poor judgment) that in a few orders they crashed on my poor Miranda haris, butchering them. I had the sense to cover the short range with some aro (so in the advance one the Teuton exploded thanks to the Su-Jian panzerfaust, and another one was isolated by the ninja), but in the end the remaining shotgun was able to wreak havoc and clean my entire flank.

(in the meanwhile that Teuton survived 3 Carbonite attempts, 2 Monofilament hits and was able to win with a 6 on the following CC roll against my B2 CC16 - but that's another story).

The Tik advanced trying to flame down the poor ninja, and eventually succeeded in a few orders. But due this hunt he went too near my deployment zone...

My turn! I moved my core cleaning easily all the Aro found, being able to break down his fireteam and starting convergin in the middle. I did a gargantuan mistake due order pool panic (I betted against an unopposed aro in order to move my hacker in ZoC of the Tik - oh boy, I'm so bad at betting) and so I lost my powerful tool against the opponent Heavis.
In turn the Su-Jian performed extraordinarly well: after saving a couple times against the Tik HFT, he was able to bring it down with ease, and started hunting the remaining Teutons in my deployment zone.
------------------------------

With the second turn we were approaching the timeframe limit we set, so my opponent tried to consolidate his advantage. he scored an objective, civevac-ed my HVT and started to run back with the Teuton. The other troops were deployed to maximize Aro and hinder my advance, and the TR bot tried to bring down the Su-Jian, unsuccessfully.

My second turn was pretty straightforward: the Su-Jian advanced on the left disabling the TR bot and securing a section of the battlefield, while on the other side the core advanced under enemy fire in order to secure additional sections. The Wu-Ming HMG was able to kill the civevac-ing teuton on the other side of the table and a couple more units to secure the area.
-----------------------------

The game ended in the second turn for time limit. 3-2 for me, knowing the the third turn would have been pretty straightforward for me, as the enemy was basically ousted. Yay!


So, what did I learn from this game:

• the turtle tactic could work, but I still have to put some aro to hinder enemy advance. I didn't expect an advanced so quick (but in hindsight I found the table allowed him to do it), and it costed me a lot of orders in loss.
• The Su-Jian is awesome, if in the correct rangeband. In this game I had to fight the Tik inside his HFT area, and it could have been ended bad for me, but being able to reliably hit inside 24" with a very strong anti-tank weapon is great to hunt down enemy TAGs. (I think in this case I should aim for a 10"-16" rangeband. Not too near to be subjected by DTW, not too far to be inside optimal HMG rangeband)
• The Wu-Ming / Zhanying core is surprisingly solid. The Zhanying proved a vast array of tools for the hit-eater Wu-Mings, and they provide a somewhat cheap fireteam that goes pure. The HMG Wu-Ming is a reliable choice, especially being in a pure fireteam.
• Unopposed rolls against my hackers are bad, even outside combi rifle rangeband, lol.
• Soon or late I will be able to spend at least an order on Miranda, I'm sure of it.

 

Aaaand another match is coming!
This time we will play Capture&Protect, against my beloved MO opponent.

Capture & Protect
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lista.grupo 1 10 1
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
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)
DAKINI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
DAKINI Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 21)
ZHÀNYING (Sensor, Triangulated Fire, Minelayer) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Madtraps / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 23)
PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Tactical Awareness) Red Fury / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 31)
MIRANDA ASHCROFT Combi Rifle, E/Mitter(+1B), Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
NINJA (Hacker, Hacking Device) Submachine Gun ( ) / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0.5 | 35)
KǍNRÈN (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Madtraps / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)

lista.grupo 2 4 1 1
BÀO TROOP MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)
BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / Breaker Pistol(+1B), PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 19)
BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / Breaker Pistol(+1B), PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 19)
CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 7)
BOUNTY HUNTER Red Fury / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 15)

5.5 filtros.CAP | 300 filtros.puntos

SYS.abrirArmy


I will bring another experimental list, inserting new options to be tested with this new fireteam composition.

• The core is composed by a Dakini/Celestial team, with a rather unpleasant surprise for anyone who will try to shorten the distances. A quite reliable smoke and a hard HMG punch should be enough to support my advancing troops, while keeping a safe distance for any real danger. The Dakini mimetism should offset the missing Pure fireteam bonuses.
  
• The haris Pheasant/Zhanying/Miranda will give midrange support and a vast array of tools. Anti-TAG/HI weaponry, anti-skirmisher shock ammos, anti-camo sensors, anti-rush madtraps, anti-LoL chain of command... their role will be to hinder the opponent and provide a versatile patch for any situation I will find.
• I think it's time to deploy a purely defensive haris, and in this case I will bring a BAO MSR with two long-range bounty hunters, tasked to defend the objective or cover long firelanes. Their main initial role will be to fuel the MBH with orders for the first rush, but they can be played a bit more aggresively if necessary (in combo with the smoke)
• The Kanren will be deployed in the middle, and will take position in SF to provide some dangerous zones for the advance

Tactically the situation is quite simple: I will use the core to target every aro covering the objective and to smoke the proximity, while my tasked pieces (MBH, Ninja and - as final backup - the kanren) will rush forward and retreat toward my deployment zone. The MBH could be alternatively used to break the enemy defenses (to soften the Aro and avoid spending too many orders on group 1) if the situation would permit it. The other pieces will close behind, leaving the Pheasant haris in a safe position, ready to be used as specialized fixer on the next rounds.

 

Played the game last Friday, and... oh well, let's say I think the opponent was playing with god mode cheats enabled, lol.

The mission was Capture&Protect, and I won the LT roll. I decided to go first trying to rush the objective before the enemy was able to consolidate the position. The opponent deployed as second, so I started putting pieces on the field.

I placed a lonely MBH on my left side, ready to rush through the wide firelanes of that part of the table, while the ninja took position on the center-left side. The center was heavily guarded by my core (in a versatile position to be able to smoke every lane), while my right side was covered by the pheasant haris, and behind them the Bao/BH haris. The snipers were positioned leaning on the right side, but with a long LoF that was able to peek on a good slice of the left side. The kanren was positioned in the middle.

My opponent put a Tikbalang on my left side, a core of crosier hidden on the top a building, with a spitfire peeking on his objective, a TR Rem and a warcor on the center and the usual Teuton haris on the right side. His Red Fury MBH (rolled an HMG in the booty table) was placed on the rightmost side, to cover a long lane running through the border. A lonely mine was placed on the mid-right side of the table. Hmm... something was off...

So.. now the fun things. On my first turn I tried to clear the field from aro in order to advance with my pieces. Pheasant against the MBH, hit two times, he saves both. The kanren advanced, placed a couple hits against the MBH. He saved. The warcor was targeted by one of my snipers. he saved. With my last orders I put some smoke in the middle, suicide-run my MBH toward the enemy position and crashed it against the Teuton haris. He died in the process, but I was able to score three juicy hits against them, outside cover. he saved them all. With a lot of desperation I repositioned my pheasant in total cover, trading few hits with the MBH. He lost the f2f and was gunned down. The dakini tried to heal him back, but the medikit roll failed, killing the pheasant in the process.
With only a kill caused by the HMG against the spitfire crosier, I finished my turn with -1 progress :|

In his first turn he advanced with with the teutons on one side, and the Tik on the other. With a heavy frown I revealed my ninja hacker trying to sto the TAG from reaching my position. The ninja was flamed down in the process, but fortunately the sacrifice payed off, and the Tik was isolated in the middle of the field. The teutons crashed and killed my kanren, moved against my haris and putting down Miranda in CC. Then, two things happened: my Zhanying won a CC roll against on of the raging Teutons, gluing it in place, while one of the other two was putted down by one of my mad traps. As last actions, the remaining operable Teuton peeked out from an angle and shotgunned one of my sniper BH, receiving back a B2 flamethrower (rolled with booty). My BH was killed, while he saved both rolls. Again, sigh.

With my second turn I moved in position with the core, the Dakini scored 4 hits against the uncovered teuton (the one not immobilized). And he saved them all, while removing the Imm status on the other teuton nearby :|
In the following order my Dakini was shredded into pieces by losing the F2F and taking two panzerfaust hits, destroying my core. In the meanwhile the Zahnying disengaged from the other Imm teuton and bursted him with his breaker combi. Two orders and six hits laters I was able to put down the Teuton, after he saved almost everything.
Again, running thin with orders, and pressured against my deployment zone, I smoked the field and advanced with the reformed core, in CC with the Teuton. Taowu appeared and was able to monofilament/viral down the remaining troops with an huge amount of CC attacks.

With the match almost closing, the opponent's second turn was quite straightforward. He tried to reset the Tik, unsuccessfully. Having repelled back his Teuton attack he tried to deploy a parachutist brethen, but was killed by the Zhanying while advancing. He appeared with a Trinitarian (a-ah!) trying to put down my Zhanying but was gunned down by the Bao.

The game ended for reaching time-limit with a meager 0-0


So.. this is the end of a sad tale of impenetrable PanO armors and frustration. But I was able to learn few things in the process, and that makes me happy:

• the Sniper haris is not bad at all. It's a really big psychological tool, and with the right firelanes he's scary. It's absolutely worth the cost, even if in this match I wasn't able to use it aggressively (I had the choice to use the Bao to put some pressure against the Tik, but I had to spend a lot of orders to put him into right LoF and I prefer not to).
• I'm not convinced with the Celestial/Dakini core. On paper they're good, and it's a quite cheap fireteam, but I'm not happy on their versatility. I prefer a more flexibile/toolbox team and honestly they're not fit for me. But they're not bad at all, being able to provide a reliable hitting platform, smoke, medikit and a scary CC phase.
• Taowu in a fireteam is a BEAST. Honestly, with the weight of the other troops as burst bonus, it's unstoppable, especially with the smoke provided by the celestial guard. I want to thinker a bit around this concept, maybe experimenting a CC/short-range support core.
• I will put Miranda on hold for some time. Third time in a row she was killed before doing anything. She's not bad at all, but draw too much aggro from the opponent, and this hurts a lot the fireteam she's in.
• I'm starting to really love the Zhanying. He brings so many tools on the field I'm starting to wonder why don't put at least one of them on every list I do. They provide patches to almost every situation, and with the new fireteam rules they're able to exponentially increase their support role.
• As usual I suck at kanren'ing. I'm not able to put him efficiently to work, and surprise attack/madtrap aside I don't really see the value of this unit. Maybe sacrificing his forward deployment and holoecho to mingle in the crowd and hope to bluff the opponent in CC, but Taowu cost the same and provide much more value on this role.