What else do you need for a core fireteam? 2 wound HMG in a cheap link is bad now?? Do you play this game or just whine on forums? vanilla yj is weaker than tohaa, so there is no reason to play yj apparently
AVA and the second list. WB can be played as something of a Vanilla-lite so it's a good choice if you need links for a mission, for example Biotechvore which massively favours Sectorials for their order efficiency, but don't like them for regular play. WB also unlocks that second Daofei and Blue Wolf for those into that kind of thing, and AVA 4 Guilangs have their uses.
There aren't too many in N3 in my opinion. To me White Banner has a weak theme so it needs strong mechanics to be exciting to play and those mechanics are sadly lacking. There's no one thing that's terrible or problematic, it's all just a huge pile of mediocrity. Sticking Qiang Gao in a Fireteam produces a strong HMG, but this is something that you can do in almost any sectorial. There's a huge opportunity trade off when foresaking vanilla width and of all the AVA that gets increased just about only Guilang is actually useful, but at the cost of not having Ninjas or Zhencha. The remainder of fireteams are a bit costly for what they do which means that as exciting as Ye Mao are, it gets annoying when the rest of the list can't keep up with your opponent as a result. I'm personally withholding judgement until N4, but until then I've stopped playing White Banner simply because it's just not fun. The sectorial really needs to find a unit that is powerful in vanilla and increase the AVA or Fireteam options for it to create a strong argument for playing the sectorial. No, increasing AVA on a stupidly expensive miniature like a TAG doesn't count and no, a unit that is "strong" like <named-character-that-has-the-statline-of-a-generic-unit> doesn't make for an argument. I mean take a unit that can potentially carry vanilla like Helot, Kamau, Sheeskin, Hsien, Speculo, Fiday, Ariadna Scouts, etc, and if they're affordable increase AVA and if they're unique or expensive give them Fireteam option. E.g.: allow Guijia to enter a Haris, increase AVA on Long Ya, give Liang Kai a profile with Haris skill and have any Shaolin joining that haris be regular, allow Zhanshi support regiments to join Zhanshi Cores etc. Stuff that makes you go "Yeah, but I can't do this in any other faction and that really provides a tangible and useful benefit.". WB just doesn't have any of that.
The Tian Gao shenanigans right now is pretty cool, it's gonna fall off pretty hard though in N4 with Jammer/iso changes.
White banner would already be a more interesting choice if kuang-shi and monks AVA were reduced in vanilla yu-jing (and to a lesser extent, long-ya AVA as well).
Well white banner doesn't offer any sectorial specific profiles for units. Offensive fire team choice is bad. There is just one defensive team and it's mediocre at best. Ava 2 on daofei is almost useless. Only ava 4 on guilangs is something good, but situational. There are few easy fixes that come to my mind. Giving jujak their own core, considering they should drop in price in n4. Special core for shaolin with Liang/Jin qo would work wonders. Letting doctor and engineer join core of Zhanshi. Dropping swc cost of guilang LT to 1. Wb specific hundun msr profile without camo but fto wildcard, maybe even with msv1. All of that together might be too much, but any 2 of these changes would make playing wb feel good instead of being vanilla with bad fire teams but without half of amazing YJ units.
I dunno this seems semi viable and actually amusing with 12 camo markers and your opponent playing does that camo marker explode and where's the Dao Fei? The White Banner Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 DÀOFĚI Lieutenant Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (1.5 | 55) DÀOFĚI Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0.5 | 59) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) LÓNG YÁ 2 Panzerfaust, Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines / Electric Pulse. (0 | 20) LÓNG YÁ 2 Panzerfaust, Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines / Electric Pulse. (0 | 20) GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26) GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GROUP 2 5 4 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) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 3 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army
In vanilla you lose daofei and 2 guilangs, you get ninja, zhencha, liberto, daoying and hac tao. Decent trade imo. Edit: how could I forget, major lunah xd Edit2: Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 DĀOYĪNG Lieutenant L2 Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29) DÀOFĚI Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 55) LÓNG YÁ 2 Panzerfaust, Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines / Electric Pulse. (0 | 20) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) ZHĒNCHÁ (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, D.E.P., Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 34) HÙNDÙN (X Visor) Heavy Rocket Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 26) MAJOR LUNAH Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29) LÓNG YÁ 2 Panzerfaust, Heavy Shotgun, Antipersonnel Mines / Electric Pulse. (0 | 25) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army There you go, you are even immune to order stealing xd
Doesn't work quite the same. You lose the second HI attack piece which takes alot of grunt out of the list. The Zencha's not quite on the same level the SMG limits him a bit and he has to naturally be very cautious about shock. There's alot units that either don't contribute alot of direct lifting, like the Ninja and the Dao Ying who's pretty much wasted in that list, or they're a little fragile or need to be cautious like Lunah who can't recamo. The list I wrote is for a quadrant control style list, populates the quadrants with loads of bullshit, forces your opponent to come in and play with mines and other nasty shit if they want to score or look under camo tokens for your attack pieces, and has enough points in aggressive camo pieces you can push forwards into a quadrant and pretty easily outpoint it with 100+pts of Daofei.
You do realize that the same Jammer shenaniganery can be pulled in vanilla, right? Won't have Sixth Sense, but also won't be as extremely obvious.
You know perfectly that's a meme of a list and hardly a justification for WB to exist as a sectorial. Besides, other than the two pair of disposable panzefausts that list is probably going to struggle in the new N4 era against heavy armor.
Besides the point that yes it is a meme list simply pointing out that double Daofei is far from useless, you don't have to put them in a camo spam list, come on, use your brain there. I think people who think heavy armour is going to dominate N4 are massively overestimating things and also massively underestimating exactly how pervasive hacking is about to become.
But if you gonna meme, then you need to go full meme. I can see units, I can see courtesy list in your army. How can this be?!
Interestingly, Infiltration, Stealth, and marker state, paired with crit change and potential points deduction will see the Daofei become an even more desirable HI choice with the hacking buff/proliferation changes. Who knows, maybe double Daofei will become more affordable (unconvinced) but they'll certainly have more of a justification to be run now in comparison to less well protected/mobile HI.
Hacking is going to have a very surprising angle of impact. Spotlight together with Spec Fire/Guided. With a 15 Order cap Guided spam is going to be less effective but a Hacker can now setup a roof or corner clear without LOF. HI and TAGs can shrug off a couple LGL/Grenade hits at +6, they could be Hacked by Spotlight before and nobody had a problem with it. The new part is it now works pretty reliable, which is all it needed against squishy on LI or Skirmishers, who are gonna be very concerned. Similar with Spotlight available for ARO - it offsets Mimetism(-3). Skirmishers are usually armed lightly, their combat prowess is determined by MODs (and the old crit system). Negating those MODs for a turn and significantly reducing their effectiveness against armor hurts an entire class of previously very strong and elusive troops. Expensive troops stack MODs on top of high baseline BS or sport weaponry that's effective from further away, thus having an easier time avoiding Hacking Areas, and less reliant on criticals to deal with armor. New IMM-States are permanent, but can be cleared without an Engineer, which could alleviate the "oneshot" problem against E/M heavy troops were facing before. Assuming a resurgence of HI and TAGs, the most accessible way to deal with them permanently from range is high DAM, high B, AP weaponry. Another factor are the obstacles. Skirmishers are quite alright at dealing with Flashpulses or Warbands and start the game in a better position to do so. Heavy troops face a significant higher risk after losing a FTF vs a Smoke roll or a Flashpulse Bot. Warbands are less common and Flashpulses significantly less of a threat allowing heavy troops to take on more serious threats for the rest of their army worth their while. While every basic Hacker is going to sport Carbonite, you'll have the points to include the tools to take care of him or his Repeater more often. You also have the option to clear Carbonite rather than spend the turn stuck in IMM-2. Tables are going to be a bit more open for maneuvers compared to fighting 20+ Order lists. Jammers being non permanent and Disposable is another thing to look forward to for our heavy troops. All in all more relevant hacking and more emphasis on making stats, DAM values and special ammunitions matter is something to look forward to.
Sixth Sense, and +3 to wip roll and second burst Thats enough to make expensive pieces stay away from your order bunker And fireteam is an excellent way to deliver it to an objective, Tian Gou in an Armory forces opponent into some puzzle solving. I'd say that holo'd Jammer in vanilla is just as obvious, since typical YJ list has not many open troops in deployment that are not Kuang Shi/Monks/Doc+Eng
