New player looking to Expand Yu-Jing starter

If he wants to use Shaolines, he must play Vanilla YJ. In that regard, having 2 guilang is more than a good inversion. Also, he will need the Support pack since there are not many other options regarding engineers or medics (but be aware that it's going to be resculpted... Personally I prefer the old engineer girl).

The usefulness of Shaolines is the same the Morlocks have, they are cheap smokers that also like to CC the enemy and, if used offensively, go through the flanks. They can also be used to give some modicum of protection to Kuang Shi, since you can activate a Shaolin (with his impetuous order) to move + smoke and then allow the Kuang Shi to move behind that smoke, the only surprise could be the Intruder, since all other MSV2-3 carriers lack a marker state they can start the game in.

As for Beyond Red Veil, to Haqquislam it offers a Spitfire Tarik, which is a good option if he doesn't have the big guy already. For what you say, I assume he already have at least one Fiday, and very likely the AD troop too... so yeah, its a box of little interest to him (and I'd bet to th YJ player too).

So, if he buys the Shaolin, get 2 guilangs and the Support Pack. That gives him 3 midfield specialist with the KHD ninja from Red Veil, and the medic and engineer.

 

For vanilla your friend should pick in my opinion guilangs, rui shi/lu dan, Shaolins and maybe the Su Jian (optional beacuse she/he have a Hsien). And if he/she want rhe new suport pack in one month. Apart there are the kuang shi isue, i don't recomend them for beginers beacuse they make list building very easy and kuang shi dependent ( and i dislike them). But if your feiend like ISS kuang shi are a must.

The Yu Jing's beyond part isn't bad by itself, the Daofei is good, but the guilang sniper with Cd 11 isn't the best. The imperial agent from beyond ( eagle class) have his place on vanilla if you need to hold a beacon or a console ( the madtrap one in supresion fire + sensor). But he isn't a must play.

 

There are 4 imperial agents: hsien, Crane, Pheasnt and eagle class:

The Crane and Hsien have a role as a strong damage carries, but you can only play one of it ( unless you spam kuang shis and remotes). Both work fine with appropite support.
Eagle and pheasnt have a bit more limiteted use, the first as a zone guardian in misions like matrix or capture and protect and the pheasnt as a CoC suport that can make some misions ( worth if you want an agresivo Leutinent like the Hsien or Hac Tao). But the most used models from ISS on vanilla are the Su Jian, kuang shis and maybe kanren ( always outplayed by guilangs). Wu Mings have little place on vanilla, terracota do the same for less points except the heavy rocjet launcher porfile ( i think thats why this model goes in blister). Whatever Wu Mings are very good on ISS and fit with a cheap eagle rank agent.

 

Essentially the Beyond box models can be picked elsewhere, but if he wants to have different models is an option. As Krossaks has said, the Eagle is the least interesting of the three (the same way that the Fiday is the less interesting of the Haqquislam part, because it's easy the player already had 1-2 Fidays already).

Guilang are needed in a pair because YJ vanilla has 3 infiltrators: Ninja, Daofei and Guilang. And the Guilang is the only with minelayer or FO profiles (maybe the Ninja will get one, dunno, atm it has it only on JSA), plus for 24-29 pts they are good.

If you are asking about the ISS starter... the gaming utility is somewhat reduced in generic, with the Crane being the only really attractive option, since the Celestial Guards are not the used infantry (but you will want them in the future for the Kuangshi, though...), the Pheasant is an apprentice of too much, and the Zhanying you can get other loadouts separately (but it's nice to have with the Wu Ming because you can complete the core with 2 boxes).

The Wu Ming take little, aside from the HRL, to the table while on Vanilla. Specially since the Zhuyong HMG is a strong piece.

Another model that works wonders in vanilla and ISS is Sun Tze, but then your other friend will pick Saladin, and then the only advantage they will have is the Lt order turned into a regular one (a game in which Saladin performs better, because he is cheaper).

 

Beyond Red Veil is not a bad deal for the YJ player, but it is less attractive to a Haqq player that already has a lot (as it's basically Hassassins with a side order of Saladin). Comes with the new Guilang Sniper and Daofei HMG. The Zhanying (Eagle) agent is useful due to Sixth Sense L2 and Sensor, and plays nicely with the Weiing combi+FObot. The Weibing is useful because it's a fast specialist.

But to tell you the truth, I think the Guilang sniper and Daofei HMG are among the least-used profiles. I'd buy the Guilang combi and the old Daofei multirifle. Or the Hac Tao hacker, and proxy that as the Daofei.

So, I'd recommend getting the basic Yaokong REM box. With some careful drilling, you can magnetize all the weapons. If you don't want to magnetize, I'd build the Weibing combi+FO and the Husong TR HMG from the first box. The second box I'd probably build the Son-Bae Smart ML and either the Chaiyi or a second Weibing. If you get to a third box, that'd be the second Husong and second Weibing or the Chaiyi (whichever you didn't make from the second box). But I'd start with only getting one box of the basic Yaokong Remotes.

Nothing wrong with the Shaolin, they've had one resculpt and I think are a digital sculpt. You'd be hard-pressed to find the original Shaolin models, as one was unique to the first YJ starter and the other two in a blister with ... kinda unfortunate poses. Guy doing a boot-to-head and the girl doing a cartwheel. The original models were out in 2006!

 

I'd say (as a bit of a noob myself) that the sculpts in beyond are great for YJ, the Daofei can easily be proxied as other loadouts, and I plan to use the zhanying as the minelayer guilang, to go with the sniper.

That said, new proxy rules are very flexibile - I prefer to have the right unit, even if the weapon loadout isn't quite right (I try to avoid big discrepancies, like missile launcher mini with an SMG profile or something) but in general, the rifles all look reasonably similar and people don't mind small proxies.

I think shaolin are great (smoke in YJ with the Hsien HMG is just beastly, my Hsien soloed a Haqq army last week), the imperial agents can always proxy, the Wu Ming can be run as Zuyong if you want, and in general I think vanilla gets a lot of mileage out of infiltrators like guilang/kanren, big hitters like Hsien/Dao-Fei/Hac Tao, and support troops like the monks/kuang-shi/remotes.