I'd prefer some sort of mobility skill instead of Veteran personally. Also, MULTI Rifles are basically upgraded Combi Rifles if you ask me, so I can see a point to them. And I think the TinBot should be left on the Zuyong for when you want to make a pure Zuyong fireteam. Otherwise, I do really like the idea of making Shang Ji into specialists as well. Maybe some alternative Combi Rifle + <Insert weapon here> profiles too?
Good point, but I want an all-HI (or ~8x HI and 2x REM) list to be competitive in ITS, and not just ONE list, either. We had to deal with that with Imperial Service in the Paradiso campaign, there was quite literally only one build that could complete the missions. Multi Rifles give a good ARO for 0SWC, DA ammo. But I really wish there was a multi+LGL profile. That is quite probably the dirtiest, least appreciated weapon you can put in a link team. SpecFire hitting on 10s from 8-16" normally, hitting on 13s in a link. hitting on 19s direct-fire. I think mixed links would be a good option, but they're really too damn expensive. As it is, you can't really afford a Zuyong Core, Shang Ji Haris, Daofei/Hac Tao dirty tricks, and Yan Huo big guns. And that, to me, is the Invincible Army. All the HI, all the time. Pain train dialed up to 11 (or maybe even 13). REMs in support are optional. Something like this: Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 ZÚYǑNG Lieutenant (AutomediKit) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1 | 39) ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 30) ZÚYǑNG Boarding Shotgun / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 26) ZÚYǑNG Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (2 | 36) ZÚYǑNG (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 28) SHÀNG JÍ Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 43) SHÀNG JÍ Heavy Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 39) SHÀNG JÍ Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower + TinBot B (Deflector L2) / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 40) DÀOFĚI MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 53) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) 8 SWC | 388 Points Open in Infinity Army Yeah, 400 points. But this was my standard assumption of an Invincible Army list before we started seeing all the mixed links. It's a safe bet that Yan Huo will never be more than a Duo. Say, Yan Huo duo'd with a Shang Ji Boarding Shotgun. Another problem the many-HI builds have is SWC. You just about have to take the Zuyong HMG LT in order to have room for 3 heavy weapons and hacking. Zuyong HMG LT plus Zuyong Tinbot and a Daofei/Hac Tao hacker for 2SWC, now if you want EVO support that just cost you a heavy weapon on your HI (but you could take a REM with a heavy weapon). So, let's do 7x HI plus REMs: Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 ZÚYǑNG Lieutenant (AutomediKit) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1 | 39) ZÚYǑNG Boarding Shotgun / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 26) WÚ MÍNG MULTI Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39) SHÀNG JÍ Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 43) SHÀNG JÍ Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower + TinBot B (Deflector L2) / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 40) YĀN HUǑ Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) DÀOFĚI Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 59) PANGGULING Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20) 5.5 SWC | 345 Points Open in Infinity Army That Zuyong+Shang Ji+Wu Ming group is a link team. Plus a Daofei for something that starts up the board, and of course the Yan Huo for big freaking guns. No engineer in this list (but points remain to turn a model into an engineer), and I'd like for the Invincible Army Zuyong to have a Multi+LGL profile instead of taking Wu Ming for that. Actually, I'd like for the Invincible Army Zuyong to have all the Wu Ming weapons options and make the Wu Ming unavailable entirely.
Let’s assume for a moment that there is design space for a unit like this in Yu Jing: Do we want something that’s basically Zanshi loadouts and a stat line that looks something like this: 4-4, CC 14, BS 11, PHY 12, WIP 13, ARM 2, BTS 0, W2, S2 What would you be willing to pay for it points wise? For balance purposes do we see this profile only available in IA (like how MO has extra order sergeant load outs) To me the Defining Trait of power armor HI has always been that second wound, not high ARM so I think that’s the big thing to carry over. Thinking over it further, i’m Not even sure it’s that broken. Sakiel have 18 point load outs and Kerail have 20 point load outs. Now I don’t play Tohaa but I suspect it’d be trivial to make a competitive 10 order list where everything has at least 2 wounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could get up to 15 orders and do the same.
Here's the best I can do, assumptions and discussion after list: Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 ZÚYǑNG (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 28) ZÚYǑNG Lieutenant (AutomediKit) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1 | 39) ZÚYǑNG MULTI Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 31) ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 30) SHÀNG JÍ Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 43) ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle + 1 TinBot B (Deflector L2) / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 30) ZÚYǑNG HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 35) SHÀNG JÍ Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 37) <-- Haris! WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 4 SWC | 297 Points Open in Infinity Army So, I'm assuming Shang-Ji and Zuyong are linkable. What I'm presenting is about as close to the goal of all-HI as I can get, and since Zuyong doesn't have any hackers that also means bringing the expensive Shang-Ji Assault Hacker. As far as this list goes there's not a lot of flexibility - the Multi Rifle can change to a Paramedic for an extra specialist which gives sufficient room to upgrade the regular HMG to an Automedikit HMG for a bit of extra LT shenaniganery. That's about it. It's nearly impossible to fill up on SWC and it's really light on specialists as well as missing some key support units - no Engineer, no Doctor, no decent ARO pieces, no mines, no snipers, no good way of dealing with TR HMG REMs and so on. Bottom line is that I don't think that the sectorial will ever get to the point where all-HI is feasible. The three most important specialists are simply missing in the Zuyong line up. No idea about points, I have nothing to extrapolate that low for HI, but that's not going to happen. Just a guess, I'd put it at roughly 19. Heavy Infantry comes with basic targeting equipment (you basically have to pay extra to have it removed), which pushes them up to the lowest point of BS 12 (aka Sun Tze). Then you have the next obstacle, which is that Heavy Infantry means that the suit is fully enclosed (except if you've got fabulous hair, in which case the fantastic mane will provide extra protection against environmental hazards such as high powered rifles) so the lowest ARM and BTS you'll find is 3. Ariadnan HI are different, because they lack the sophistication required to make actual HI which is why they are BTS 0 and W 1 - but still ARM 3+. So, presenting the lowest possible stat line you can have on a Yu Jing heavy infantry: Cube, Regular, MOV 4-4, CC 14, BS 12, PH 12, WIP 13, ARM 3, BTS 3, W2, S2 Combi Rifle, Pistol, Knife A bit of extrapolation from Zuyong and I arrive at a cost of 23 for the basic trooper. Maybe 22. At this point you'd run into the problem that this new unit is way too similar to Zuyong and one of them is going to smother the other. (Of secondary note, the difference in CC between Zhanshi and Zuyong shouldn't be more than a rounding error). Also, don't compare to Tohaa, they cheat (Basically, Tohaa doesn't really pay for the profile that's underneath the Symbiont) While it isn't outlandish to think that the Zuyong might reasonably get demoted to a statline exactly like the one I outlined, I just don't think that Invincible Army is meant to be played with only heavy infantry, and you don't put poorly trained individuals inside expensive armour. The one single exception I can think of where you'd put someone who's poorly trained in power armour is if it is support staff. Zuyong armour isn't the best, but it's cheap enough that the quartermaster will have extras, so they can afford to put what's essentially civilian personell inside those things if said civilians are also essential personell and you had to because bullets in the air sometimes counts higher than accuracy. But we're talking technicians, chefs, and other people you would not select for black ops missions, even if you had no other choice.
Personally I can't see IA not having Zhanshi at all. I think they will have them but maybe AVA3. I'm thinking they would be like the Fusiliers in Military Orders. The would possibly get different/limited weapons, or changed SWC as well. They would also get the Dr. & Eng. too. So I wouldn't limit yourselves to all HI. As fun as that would be, I think they would need some back up.
MO has access to two Fusilier characters, though, and Military Orders aren't quite as front-loaded in terms of expensive units in the way Invincible Army will be. MO also have Order Sergeants. IA will need a sub-15 unit that can form 5-man fireteams. Preferably with extras.
I think IA will get HI Dr's and Engineers. But I doubt that they'll be linkable. This will be unique and interesting.
That doesn't mean they can't/won't be added. I mean, the doc and engineer are called Zanshi Yisheng and Zanshi Gongcheng. There's no reason CB couldn't make a Zuyong Yisheng and Zuyong Gongcheng, putting a real doc and engineer in power armor. Either that or the AVA for helperbots needs to go to 4, so the unarmored doc and engineer each have 2 bots. The hacker is a slightly bigger issue, but I usually just grab an EVObot for my example lists. Which gives supportware. Yes, I am moving the goalposts slightly, in that I am willing to consider an Invincible Army list that is HI and REMs.
IA that is all HI and REMs is trivially easy IF you get a HI engineer. (Zuyong MR standing in for ZY Mech eng) Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) RUI SHI Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 20) PANGGULING Hacker (EVO Hacking Device) Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 25) SHÀNG JÍ Lieutenant Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 37) SHÀNG JÍ Paramedic (Medikit) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 39) SHÀNG JÍ Heavy Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 39) SHÀNG JÍ Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower + TinBot B (Deflector L2) / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 40) SHÀNG JÍ Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 42) ZÚYǑNG MULTI Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 31) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army That list is what IA should look like IMO. It's also why I'm of the opinion that the primary issue with HI links of the SJ type is not enough multirole profiles (Tinbot + AHD or Tinbot Lt should be options).
That's what I initially thought too, but others pointed out that they weren't actually Tigers and were likely the rumoured Shooting Stars
Tigers have been separately confirmed by Bostria to be in IA and I think it was Psychoticstorm who stated that artwork is not IA cover art. Also, if that woman is meant to be a Zhanshi, then there's something wrong with the gear. Zhanshi doesn't have access to Spitfires and the collar around her neck is lacking the thing in front and is a bit too robust on the sides, plus she's wearing some sort of catsuit nano-armour underneath instead of the cloth that Zhanshi and Tigers have.
It's a copy of the Zhanshi concept art, collar and all. The gun is a Combi+LGL. As for PsychoticStorm, I honestly don't believe a thing he types. He constantly spouts far too much rubbish to be taken seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if Tigers were also in IA though. IA being a division of shock troops having multiple AD type troopers would make perfect sense.
That's the one inane.imp meant. That's 100% a Yu Jing armour, I forget whether Zuyong or Wu Ming style, and the back is absolutely a Yu Jing drop pack. Also note his thigh being way, way, too armoured for Druze. Edit: more Yan Huo or Sun Tze than Zuyong and not at all Wu Ming.
Tigers are relatively heavily armoured as designs, but the mask looks wrong. It looks very Crane-like
