So, looting and sabotaging definitely got trickier as the Shikami followed the good sushi trail out of the faction. I'll be playing as ISS in an upcoming tournament, but who are your goto button smashers for Looting and Sabotage in this new post uprising setting? My ideas are... ISS: Pheasant haris / Bao core. Surprisingly, the pheasant has DA, MA-2 and is pretty good at smashing AC2s. If the plan is to smoke up the table with a kuang shi core then advance up shooting through the smoke, this could be a beautiful thing. Linked Crane. A crane link team all in base to base probably give the best chance of finishing off the AC2. They can take their own smoke launcher and get there on their own. Good chances of crits and multiple burst. Unfortunately you have to build a link around them and the celestials are really squishy things to take up the table... plus Xi's mad traps are out this season. Ninja KHD. Can swap panoply rolls for D-charges, has a DA CC weapon, and has a decent chance of critting. Can murder an enemy hacker on the way in. Martial Arts 2 seems to be the sweet spot for the most damage. Can infiltrate to get there without spending too many orders on movement. The Sophotect. 6-4 movement, two wounds and D-charges. You don't really want this lady to be your quarterback, but she is a backup plan. Can take a synced yudbot for burst 2 cc. Downside is her mediocre CC stat of 13, so she has a 50% chance of wasting each D-Charge. Zhanying hackers: they have D-Charges. Also bioimmunity! Maybe a hsien haris could take them where they need to go. Shame the hsien doesn't pack a DA CC weapon though... Kuang Shi core link... they can't hit the pinata, but they can blow smoke everywhere so anything can get there once you've killed any MSV2 ARO units. Yu Jing: Ninja, as above. Only two of them. Guijia. Tag it and bag the bits. Hope there are no assault hackers. Crane. If you need a rambo CC HI, he's a good option. Krakot. 14 points nets you a crazy PH 13 monkey with a DA weapon and grenades. Metachemistry can pump you to PH 16. And you have grenades. Shaolin. It's a shame the one with a DA weapon costs 12 points and brings a combi rifle. Hac Tao KHD. Could get there and has DA... not great at smashing it when he does. Pheasant: without his bao buddies, this guy is just a crazy chicken with little chance of getting there alive. Zhanying hacker... on his own? psh. Zhanshi Gongcheng. Brings D-Charges. Like a slow sophotect with one wound. On the plus side... CC 14 is mildly better than the Sophotect. What have I missed? What's worked for you?
I think the most difficult thing is figuring out your datatraker. I think you will want multiple attackers to soften it up as you do not have a great option for a datatracker to kill it in one go. For ISS I think the Crane link is good, but the Pheasant Bao Haris would cost the least amount of points, and the Bao could help prevent the Pheasant from being killed. I would probably send in the Ninja first, (either 1st or 2nd Turn), and see if I could get it down to the damaged state with that before running in with the Pheasant to finish the job. Plus the Pheasant has Free Agent, so if you are running low on orders, you can always have him jump to the fuller combat group. On another note you can always have the Ninja pick up some D-Charges before heading over to start wrecking face. With MA 3 you would get three hits with AP+EXP. I would also consider taking the Kanren with Mad Traps, and deploying them close to your AC2 to make your opponent spend orders to get rid of them before attacking it.
That's why I was pleasantly surprised to see how good the pheasant is at whacking the pinata. Remember he gets a +1 Burst and +1 PH for each bao you can get into combat with him. N3 dice: Pheasant haris vs AC2 Two or maybe three orders of smashing it should do the job. Looting and Sabotage ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 4 BÀO TROOP (X Visor, Multispectral Visor L2) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29) PHEASANT IMPERIAL AGENT (Chain of Command, Fireteam: Haris) Red Fury / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 36) CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 31) YUDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) HSIEN Lieutenant HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 61) GROUP 2 5 2 CELESTIAL GUARD (Kuang Shi Control Device) Combi Rifle + Light Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 13) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KǍNRÈN Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, MadTraps / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 28) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Something like that could work really well. I figure the hsien is a nice choice to set up on suppressive fire and cover your defensive setup. Another good choice would be to take Sun Tze for a WIP 17 flash pulse to thwart enemy AC2 smashers and get an extra order towards your own alpha strike on the box. I agree the kanren is a nice choice for locking down your own AC2. It's a shame the only mines in ISS come on a 32 point Wu Ming, it's be nice to drop a few of those around your own AC2.
Always good to remember that you get a burst bonus for every unit you have in base to base regardless of the link, so if you can run some Kuang Shi in there as well you could get a hefty bonus to burst.
True. If you're aiming to do it turn one though, you might just be better saving an order or two to have another whack at it with the pheasant. The kuang shi also want to stink up your own AC2 to make it harder to reach.
The Pheasant would be attacking with his DA weapon, MA2 and +2 burst and +2 PH from his bao buddies. Unfortunately the effectiveness drops off fast if one or other of the BAO die.
