Hey, I got back into infinity about a year and a half ago - mainly I play with my brother and if lucky we average 1-2 games per month, so my experience with other factions and other views on the game is very limited. I'm trying to learn more about the game and get a better understanding about my faction. I've compiled a list with every model I own and ranked everything in a Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue system, where red is "I never use this model" And Blue is "I basically always use this model" - and thrown in my own ideas about the units as well. Would gladly accept any pointers on tips & tricks and potential benefits or synergies that I've overlooked (I'm sure there are plenty) So without further ado: Collection ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11) Almost always include 1-3 of these guys as order generators. ZHANSHI HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 19) Rarely included, will basically only include if I've got SWC to spare but am low on points. ZHANSHI MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 19) Have used a few times when I first got him, but the high SWC & point cost for his low stats & no fancy special rules just make him feel undesirable. ZHANSHI Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 16) I probably use this guy too much, but i've had massive success with his missile launcher in a few games.. ZHANSHI Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19) We don't really do a lot of hacking, (which we probably should) - this guy used to be included when I ran the tiger soldier more frequently to help getting him down where I wanted. More about him later. ZHÀNYING (Sensor) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nimbus Grenades / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 26) Don't really understand this profile, that's a lot of points for not doing a whole lot, I'm possibly missing something though. TIGER SOLDIER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 33) Used to be a green, but now that I've got a bit more models to choose from she rarely makes the cut. I've had a few to many failed PH rolls and have her end up somewhere completely useless. It seems like a really hit or miss model, and I'm not overly fond of the randomness of having to drop her and potentially scattering off. ZÚYǑNG Combi Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0 | 27) I'd rather pay more for a real HI or less for an order generator? YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) Included when I'm running a doctor or engineer and have 3 points to spare. GROUP 2 10 YĀN HUǑ 2 Missile Launchers + TinBot C (Neurocinetics) / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 56) I used to love him, but I'm having way more luck on my lists where I hide stuff & plan for the active turn rather than using ARO pieces, he just tends to soak up a few orders and then die, which he seems like a bit too expensive for. YĀN HUǑ Lieutenant Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannon / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 54) This model is currently being painted so I've not yet tried it - although I got it mostly for the cool factor, unsure if it'll find its way into many of my lists. DÀOFĚI Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 55) Possibly one of my favorite models, would be blue but the point cost & other cool HI's gets altered into my lists as well. Have had a lot of success ramboing him deep into Enemy territory, or just as a midfield bully. Also like the combo of him as a LT with a executive order hac tao for faking him as my LT and then make my opponent spend their turn chasing him down just to ARO reveal the hac tao. HAC TAO HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 68) Another Favorite, resilient, sneaky, hard hitting. Only drawback would be that my lists with the hac tao tends to be low on MSV. HSIEN MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 57) Only used rarely, mainly in limited insertion to fit more SWC. (as LT) HSIEN HMG, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 61) This guy mixed with some monks used to be my bread and butter, but he's getting a bit less playtime now when I've got the hac tao and daofei to play with as well. GŪIJIĂ MULTI HMG, Heavy Flamethrower / AP CCW. (2 | 88) Favorite model aesthetic wise, but games with him tend to be way to one sided (in either direction) so have been opting out on him more than not lately. GŪIJIĂ PILOT Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. () GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) Okay, I might have made one or two lists without him but he's as close to blue as it gets. Really like this model for midboard control and scenarios - find him really cheap for what he does. GŬILÁNG MULTI Sniper Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 33) Only really used it in niche lists when I run a lot of camo/infiltrators, overall I'm not that fond of sniper rifles I guess. NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) Love her for the awesome round 3 scenario steals, although I'm struggling to get much early/mid game use of her. Posibily that's just my inexperience with stealth/hacking/close combat though. Either way if there's a button pushing scenario this gal is coming along. GROUP 3 6 4 8 SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 5) Okay, these go from orange to blue depending on if my HSIEN is in the list. Auto include with the hsien, rarely use them otherwise. 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) Unless I'm playing limited insertion these guys are in the list 10/10. SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (2 | 59) Being painted as we speak so haven't used it yet. GROUP 4 4 TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) Try to include the doctor as often as possible, the engineer whenever I'm running the tag. SHIKAMI Combi Rifle / Pistol, DA CCW, AP CCW, Knife. (0 | 47) Also being painted so haven't used it yet. KNAUF MULTI Sniper / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) Love the model, but as with all my sniper rifles he rarely gets play time. 22.5 SWC | 945 Points Open in Infinity Army Would love your thoughts on what units I'm overlooking, overusing, and which models to get next to expand more or any other pointers :3
1) You're spot on about the Zhanshi heavy weapons all being pretty useless, but for me all Zhanshi are red. I might take 1 to make it a potential lieutenant, but that's it. Our regular orders come cheaper in Vanilla. Once Invincible Army is a sectorial, Zhanshi will be much more serviceable, but they'll still be competing since all of the cool IA toys we have so far have pretty sizable SWC. 2) Zhanying profile stands out more in ISS where they Haris with the Hsien, but the Sensor on its own can be pretty useful. Also note that he gets you Madtraps, which are great from protecting your backline against flanking pieces. 3) Tiger Soldier. You don't have to drop them -- AD:Combat Jump can be dropped down to AD:Airborne Infiltration, allowing you to walk in from the side anywhere except your opponent's DZ without a roll. I generally use this level and consider the Combat Jump an extra. The Spitfire profile is especially potent as a flanking piece. 4) Zuyong: It's the HMG automedikit lieutenant that really stands out. BS13 HMG with 2 wounds and he has a significant chance to stand up again if he dies. The rest of the profiles lack punch in Vanilla. Same for the Hsien, IMO -- I wouldn't take him if I'm not taking the HMG. 5) Yan Huo: I think the reason you're not enjoying using the Neurocinetics one is because you say you aren't taking Yaozaos. Take a Yan Huo, park a Yaozao 4 inches behind him (out of blast template range), and after he eats 3-4 orders in ARO, just leave him alone -- if he's unconscious, he's prone. Then on your turn, spend one order on your doctor to bring your Yaozao in and heal him. Wasting 3-4 orders at the cost of one of yours? That's a pretty good trade. ARO pieces are meant to die -- the point is to limit your opponent's advance as much as you can. 6) Guilang Sniper: You're probably not overly fond of them because Yu Jing snipers are so lackluster altogether. The Guilang is probably the best sniper, but for me that means I'm giving up one of my two Guilangs and I'm taking that FO Repeater one in basically every game -- it's amazing for removing any difficult to dislodge HI without risking your own model.
Monks are good in any list, 5pt smoke is always useful. Just because the Hsien isn't in the list doesn't mean you don't need to avoid a long range defensive link team like Unidrons. Also doing stuff like throwing smoke onto an objective and just walking a specialist up and pressing the button can be a much easier option than stuff like trying to dig a suppressive fire Armbot out of cover that's covering the objective, -12 BS Mod hurts. I would also recommend turning the Guilang sniper into another combi rifle, you can snip the barrel modify the gun, works well. This is a common fix for snipers in several factions (Haq and Tuareg sniper for instance). As a side note yellow text on white background super hard to read.
Don't be afraid to weapon proxy -- in a lot of cases you won't even have access to a model with the right weapon. It's okay to play your Tiger Soldier as a Spitfire or your Zuyong as an HMG, as long as the other player knows what it is. Same goes for Madtraps -- there's only one box in the entire game that has them right now (Dire Foes with Xi Zhuang) so don't be afraid to use any S1 model or just attach some d20s to 25mm bases. A haris is just a 3-man fireteam. ISS has a lot of really interesting mixed link teams, and the Hsien + Zhanying one is definitely among them. The Guilang profile matters more if you're playing ITS missions with classified objectives. He's a Forward Observer which means there are classified objectives he can accomplish, and the repeater will 1) give you easy access to REMs, TAGs and HI with your hackers, or 2) give your Killer Hackers a way to hit his hackers. The first won't matter as much if you're only playing against Haaq since they are less likely to field more than 1-2 hackable units, but being able to Isolate (Oblivion Hacking Program) an Al Fasid or Asawira (http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Isolated -- they generate 1 irregular order, can't receive orders from their order pool, and the state can only be cancelled by an Engineer getting in b2b contact and making a WIP roll) basically forces them to make the unit almost useless in the active turn or waste a bunch of orders on an engineer. Less useful if your opponent isn't fielding hackable units, but if they're using a heavy infantry as an active turn hunter, you can basically make him a non-factor. On the other hand, since you are playing Yu Jing and are very likely to be using hackable units as active turn hunters, you'll want to be packing a killer hacker to deal with those pesky assault hackers. The guilang FO/Repeater isn't a hacker or hackable, which means he can run into a hacker's ZoC, drop a repeater, and run away or recamo without eating AROs. Then your killer hacker can do his thing.
I try to not proxy a lot - mostly because the people I occasionally play with at the gaming club are not big fans of it. Otherwise I'd probably proxy weapons a lot. Ah gotcha, I am curious about expanding into an ISS list now that new kuangshis have come out (have 4 of the old ones, kind of want the new ones, but unless I make an ISS army where I can potentially field them all I don't see the point of changing my current ones) - so might need to look into all that! Guilty confession I guess - I've never really used the repeater, I'm mainly just dropping mines around objectives / taking them & sneaking up on order generators and taking them out. Thanks for the tips, I guess there's some nice synergies with him and the ninja KHD then, and perhaps the Tiger soldier assault hacker profile now that I know that I can just walk him on where he's needed!
