For some examples of these, see: Can I declare Change Facing, Hack Transport Aircraft or Counterstrike while Immobilized? The author of this post did an awesome job of concisely framing the issue, some of the other rules it might affect, and implicitly highlights changes to the Immobilized rule that would fix the issue. What happens when an Aragoto uses Cybermask? Both of these threads highlight the phrasing issue with the rules that make the interaction unclear in one of the first few comments. What happens when Maestro and other AROs are resolved at the same time? This question has more deep implications, but posters highlight that a simple phrasing change to Maestro (change the effects on hit to "W/STR equal to the target's W/STR attribute" or an explicit callout in its effects section to resolve the simultaneous timing issue) could solve the issue. All three of these require less than one-two sentence change in their respective rules. One of them is from a year and a half ago, one is a bit over a year old, and one has been sitting for 5 months (this is more forgivable, I think, but the interaction in question had been known for longer in my group at least).
Yup, which are generally troopers which are cheesing the points system. Warbands tend to be undercosted, Libertos are *very* undercosted. Yup, which honestly makes me think that Jammers were *meant* to be a noninteractive game feature. And it's more argument that the design philosophy behind some units is just bad (or at least outdated).
If N4 wasn't incoming, I might be willing to make this argument in, say, 2-3 months. Holoprojector on Tian Gou might give them a sort of Noctifier effect where one doesn't need to be in your list for your opponent to alter their game-play to play around one. Purely a hypothetical, mind you. And also, N4 is coming so who knows.
I think the argument stands right now, given that a lot of other choices in the army are somewhat lackluster. We've already seen the effect that Jammer on any unit that can play a shell game has had with Hecklers and Zulu Cobras (w/ the Croc Man Minelayer). I agree N4 coming shakes things up. These armies feel somewhat incomplete in these forms (especially SWF) so I can only hope that N4 solves a lot of the problems and that's why CB hasn't chimed in.
No, we cannot. I agree with your description of the Tian Gou and its likely effect on a game against White Banner. I don't agree that it's a problem. It might be a problem, but having never played against White Banner, I can't possibly presume to know yet whether it's a problem or not. Right now it sounds like an interesting challenge. As @Hisey said, there is no consensus. Some players have already decided that the Tian Gou is overpowered, but plenty of others haven't.
How about this phrasing? "Either the mechanic is so powerful that the unit is an auto-include, or the mechanic is so powerful that the potential of the unit even being on the table has game-warping implications for play against White Banner".
Yup, just like a Noctifier. You don't have to include one to force the opponent to play as if one was / could be there.
I know where you're coming from, but I don't think this phrase works as a strong argument. The same principle can be applied to an Oniwaban or Van Zant and I struggle to call them 'game-warping', even if you actually could make that argument.
They really ought to just let any unit activated by an order in the active turn, or an ARO in the reactive turn, declare any skill it likes against anything, and then check if it's legal at the resolution step. Legality is already checked at the resolution step as it is. Get rid of "legal declarations". MANY PROBLEMS SOLVED.
White Banner is designed in such a way that a Tian Gou is near mandatory in almost any list you make, regardless of if it is the KHD or Jammer profile. Now, I haven't seen anyone make a list that they call tournament worthy that's got a KHD in it, outside of the specific niche of Shang-Ji Tinbot + Tian Gou KHD, and usually people fall over themselves trying to get specialists into their teams.
Yeah, AVA 4 on Zhanshi and them being the cheapest wildcard is pretty serious railroading. ZHANSHI SHOULD BE AVA TOTAL in the WBA.
OTOH you take 3 Zhanshis anyway - because you always take Qiang Gao in Core, and you want to cover the link with Jammer from Tian Gou, to protect your heavy hitter.
You don't always take the second most expensive LT in a sectorial that also massively announces their presence by generating 2 LT orders that you're not going to be able to use.
You don't have to take him as a LT though. 0,5 SWC cut is not always worth painting a target on him. And even then, you can hide him for your reactive, and then your opponent has to rush through Jammer cover. I mean, what is the point of taking Zhanshi core, if you can't use it for defense (ML or MultiSniper on 11 BS with no mods or MSV is pretty meh), nor for offence - Tian Gou RF is meh, ShangJi is equal in price to Qiang Gao and comparatively worse (if we're talking about HMG loadout), and Adil and Lei Gong are not even worth considering in core WB IMO.
Because Lei Gong is well worth considering and because WBA is more than capable of building lists without a slow core fireteam trying not to be a detriment to the only member capable of taking a hit?
I can't actually tell whether this is sarcasm or not. Most of the white banner lists I've played or written have used non-lieutenant Quing Gao (notable exceptions being the ones I built when we weren't sure if he could be core-linked with Zanshi, and ones trying out the idea of of two three-man teams that a mate from NZ put me on to).
So 6-2 LeiGong is not slowed down by 4-4 Zhanshis? Very doubtful. You can't fully benefit from his FD1 either - he'll run out of coherency faster than you can keep Zhanshis up (let's not forget AROs, and if the opponent let you have an uncontested lane to move up freely - that's not a sign of a good fireteam). And Shock MMR is much weaker than HMG in a core. Lei Gong himself is a very good profile, but I doubt very much he is useful in Zhanshi links in any way other than to situationally plug the hole to get needed FT bonus. He might be strong in Jujak (Shang Ji) or Ye Mao Haris, but Zhanshi Core? No, not worth it most of the time.
It's not sarcasm. I think it's small-minded to think a list has to have a core:d heavy infantry HMG and that adopting the attitude that Qiang is mandatory is unnecessarily limiting yourself. He's 43 points after all, plus maybe also consider other vectors such as the TAware Shang-Ji and let Rui Shi do the burst job? Each unit in a list is a tool to be used. It might be worth sacrificing a Zhanshi in order to get a good shot at a Kamau or Brawler sniper to let your Rui Shi take full advantage of smoke or to get your other units forward. He's got the ability to run away from the Fireteam if necessary, but nothing forces you to play him like that. If you Move-Move you can easily limit yourself to 4" to avoid having him outrange the Zhanshi or you can use the extra 2" to get him back in a better position instead of standing out in the open like a numpty if you have to abandon that attack vector. While Qiang is objectively a better shot, there are targets and ranges that Lei Gong is better against and the fact that you don't need to pay SWC for him and that he's cheaper is also significant for optimizing your list to scenario and opponent, not to mention that you open yourself up to getting locked in by hacking and that E/M will punish your team more severely, and that you're making yourself predictable within your meta... But that's still kind of detracting from the point I made earlier that started this WBA side-track; none of these are as cheap as a Zhanshi or a Tian Gou, so none of them has the qualities needed to work around the fact that Zhanshi are 1 or 2 AVA short of what would be comfortable in what's likely going to be the closest thing to their home sectorial we'll ever get.
I feel like it's much more game warping than either of those. Good coverage of the backline of your DZ makes Van Zant a very expensive Dogged AP Rifle, and and the Oniwaban is pretty strong but still needs to avoid things like templates. The Tian Gou can prevent you from moving even if he can't draw LoF to you. The Tian Gou is definitely more in the "Kamau MSR core" range of game-warping than the Van Zant/Oniwaban/Noctifer camp.
