The only faction that even comes close to YJ (and JSA in particular) has access to arguably some of the strongest CC specialists in the game. Musashi and Shinobu are the only two MA L5 units in the entire game afaik, and Saito, Yojimbo and Oniwaban all have access to MA4. The only other faction that comes close to this is Aleph, who only has MA L4 (but 4 units with it, so that's cool), but all of my notes are made from the perspective of playing JSA. Because of this, I tried my best to pull profiles from only JSA, but I did have to pull a coupl from outside of JSA because we don't have any Neurocinetics units and in one case I wanted to illustrate what happens with only MA L4 :(. MA L3: L3 is the most "generally good" level of MA for any fight in CC. There are a bunch of situations where MA3 is actually superior to MA4 and MA5, which are both more situational. When in doubt, pick MA3. You'll see below how in a fight between two martial artists, MA3 is superior to MA4. MA L4: People tend to overvalue the extra dice in CC, and L4 is beaten by L3 in a mirror matchup. MA L4 is good for two main things: Killing units who have CC so low that your chance of failure is almost zero to begin with, and countering weapons with high burst. Consider Shinobu against a Keisotsu. In cases like this, where it's almost impossible to lose even without MA, it's worth it to fish for crits. For Musashi, the changes between the levels are much smaller for dealing only one wound, but L4 is significantly better for dealing multiple wounds. Units with Neurocinetics who are capable of removing mods are an excellent example of this. Let's say your Shinobu is running at a Nomad Sin-Eater Observant. He's certainly not going to CC you (You can check for yourself, MA L4 gives the best odds to kill the enemy by about 10%. Here's the same matchup for Musashi to show that it's not just a result of Monofilament weapons -- again for Musashi, MA L4 reduces the chance of a single wound by a couple percent compared to L3 and L5, but greatly increases the chance (about 10%) of killing the Sin-Eater outright. By the same reasoning MA L4 is also good for dealing with Fireteam units who have B2 in ARO -- consider a Shinobu running at a Karakuri's Mk12 while the Karakuri is in a link, where again, MA L4 comes out ahead by 13% compared to MA3. Musashi plays out about the same but with a slightly smaller gain from MA L4 (about 9%). Finally, minor point, if the other guy Berserks and you want to kill him, MA L4 is your guy. MA4 is the most likely to get you killed, but also the most likely to kill the other guy. No example here, since there are links to this matchup in the MA L5 section. MA L5: MA5 has a few uses, but they're all more niche even than MA4. First note that MA5 compared to MA3 is a couple percent more likely to generate a situation where neither player wins in a mirror matchup. It's weird, but basically it's because if both people use MA3, they finish at their base CC, if one uses MA5 and the other uses MA3, they both end up at CC-3, and if they both use MA5, they both end up at CC-6. Another use is significantly reducing the chance of the other person getting a crit, which is very important against enemy units with abilities like Berserk. Consider a Domaru manfighting a Musashi. MA5 reduces the chances of a dead Musashi by a couple of percentage points. In the same case with Shinobu, her chance of dying is reduced by 3% while her chance to wound is reduced by 6%. Probably more relevant here anyway since you are much less likely to win if you lose your Shinobu than someone worth half as much. If my Musashi kills a Domaru, he's paid for. If my Shinobu does, she's like... half-paid for. (And side-note it's also much more likely she's an important model for me, whereas Musashi is what I bring when I have 25 points left over at the end and realize I don't have a CC-discourager.) Finally, if someone makes the mistake of choosing MA4 against you instead of MA5 likely because they are overvaluing the second dice here and letting it blind them to the effect of MA L5 on your burst, you will remember that MA5 gives you the same burst as whatever the other person has, and laugh. Here is what happens if an Achilles makes the mistake of using MA4, but this is what happens if he picks MA3 instead. For this reason, MA5 is about as hard a counter as there can be to MA4, but it's just so unlikely that the other person would pick MA4 knowing what MA5 does. MA5 also has the thing where you can make a CC attack against everyone in B2B contact with you, but I haven't ever found this useful -- maybe if someone had some cheerleaders grouped up it could work, and Musashi is probably better for this discounting infiltration since he has more movement to work with. Does anyone else know any situations where MA4 or MA5 are superior to MA3? I tried to make this a pretty complete analysis, but I'm sure I'm missing some stuff, and I didn't go into any detail about how ammo types affect this.
MA5 comes almost never into play, because just having it means the only dudette with company who will engage the slice & dice master is the Chimera (Born Warrior, plus 3 pupniks), so it's more of a deterrant than something you will use... which means the enemy will prefer to coordinate 4 guys to shoot at you with 5 dice rather than close & lose 4 of them (and maybe go for crit). MA4... depends on who uses it, and, as you say, what is on the receiving end. When the oponent can buff him/herself to get 20+ on CC with AM, then the question is what is (s)he carrying... A Speculo Killer getting a crit is "remove enemy unit from game, regardless of ARM, EST/Wounds unless you also got a crit on CC", while most other AM3 guys is "get one hit at half ARM/lose 1 Wound or EST" which I'm confortable risking. So for example, the Fiday character Vs a Myrmidon, I'd go with 2 dice even risking going unconscious and letting him crit on 16+.
You are missing the most important feature of Kitsune. Surprise Attack. When you put a -12 on the enemy (both shooting or punching) you'll be grateful of MA5. This normally lead to not using a BS attack (normally deadlier with higher DMG and maybe Ammo) and go with your hands. I found that MA4 is useful on Musashi for mook-cleanse. CC14 vs 25 is normally enough to be on the safe side with a second dice. Against anything with MA, MA5 is golden. CC21 MA3 is reduced to 18 while Musashi is still at 22. This is still very dangerous, but i think it's the best odds in his favor.
I have a question, now that I think about it... We got a FAQ that says all miniatures that passed through a place where an ARO splash template gets placed suffer a hit. Can a miniature engage several enemies in its active turn? For example, if I can "touch the base" of three enemies with the same short movement order of Shinobu, can I use AM5 to hit them all? Or I get "glued" to the first one?
Why not? There is even the relevant example: http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Martial_Arts Example 1. Martial Arts L5 in Active Turn During his Active Turn, Miyamoto Mushashi, a Mercenary with Martial Arts L5, uses the first Short Skill of his Order to enter base to base contact with three Fusiliers. Each of the three reacts in ARO by declaring a CC Attack. As the second Short Skill of his Order, Miyamoto also declares a CC Attack and announces he will use the fifth Level of his Martial Arts. This means he can make one CC Attack against each of the Fusiliers. Three separate Face to Face CC Rolls are made (Miyamoto against each one of the three Fusiliers). In each of these Face to Face Rolls, the Fusilier involved has to apply a MOD of -6 to his CC due to Miyamoto's Level 5 Martial Arts.
Bear in mind that it's going to be almost impossible to reach base contact with three enemy bases, just through basic geometry, as you stop moving once you reach base contact.
Against multi wound models the potential of extra wounds can be worth the risk of using MA4 over MA3, especially with an AP or Shock CCW. Whilst MA3 is more likely to land a single wound, the chance of taking out a tough target in a single order can be worth using MA4 instead.
That example does not specify if he touched them all at the same time, or one after another... This. If they add "you can engage as many enemy models as you can touch with a short movement order", then AM5 would be more useful.
I'm not sure I get your point. You can't carry on moving to be able to touch multiple enemy models unless they happen to be close enough to touch multiple ones at the same time. From the General Movement Rules: A trooper's Movement ends automatically whenever he enters base to base contact with an enemy, even if the movement route specified is cut short as a result.
I was trying to say that AM5 would see some use (specially in the active turn) if AM5 models were able to keep moving after touching an enemy base while using that level, so they could attack more than one enemy in the same order. For example, Musashi moves, touches Fusilier 1, keeps moving, touches #2, ends movement touching #3, then applies AM5. It would be a Long Order, though, but...
Ah, so you're suggesting a rules change? MA5 is still useful due to the extra -6 MOD, and if you contact two targets than you're already getting the additional Burst of MA4 and still imposing the -6 MOD.
Yep, since right now is quite rare to be able to engage more than one target in melee whilst on active turn, and in reactive the opponent won't engage more than one model against you... BTW, I'm still waiting for more of your terrain photos!
It certainly would be pretty and cinematic to give martial artists the ability to tag models in CC, and it would also make MA5 crazy good at murdering everyone all at once. In fact, it would be too good. Charging 2 models at once is pretty feasible in the current rules (targets just need to be within a base width of each other), and that gives MA5 some ruthless efficiency. As you noted, it's almost like using MA3, but on two targets at once. I have dreams of Shinobu dispatching an HI Fireteam 2 at a time.
Yeah when I factor in Surprise attack against say Tarik MA4 becomes the statistically best choice over MA3. Without Surprise Attack MA3 is better.
This is where specific profiles become more important, I think, and again, MA5 does result in a lower chance of success for both players of about the same proportion (Shinobu is hurt more though since she's losing 10% for 65% instead of 2% from 12%.) I'll refigure some numbers with surprise attack to see if there's a pattern anywhere.
So with surprise attack modifiers: Shinobu is the same -- MA4 still is the strongest here. I'm not surprised by this. Shinobu runs at a Sin-Eater: MA4 is still the strongest, again, as expected. Shinobu vs. Karakuri in link: Dice calculator seems bugged, Monofilament should ignore Total Immunity (it's an Exotic ammo type.) MA4 is still the best. Shinobu vs. Domaru berserk: MA4 is best. Shinobu vs. Achilles: If Achilles uses MA4, MA5 is still the best choice, but weirdly if he uses MA3, you should respond with MA3. So it looks like in general with surprise attack, you should be picking MA4 in all except some extreme cases.
There's another nice niche for MA4. Against electric pulse, which bans mods to CC or PH in combat. You can still modify burst, so you can go to town on the remote with burst 2 like you're in a bonus level of Street Fighter II. Obviously this increases the chance of you rolling over a 7 and if you have MA5 you're probably already adding +5 to your CC roll with a CC of 25. Still, ones happen, and two chances to not fail are better than one.
Electric Pulse is a CC attack that automatically rolls 7 and prevents either participants from using any abilities that MOD PH or CC. MA3 doesn't work against Electric Pulse :)
