Ninja has TO Camo, vs 1W+NWI/SI and Mimetism. Hulang is more resilient to actual damage, but that's riskier (you might just drop both wounds); TO Camo is better for massively reducing threat via MOD stacking and Marker state. Hulang is more powerful going after the big things: TAGs and HI links (a couple of E/M grenades through Spec Fire orders could really ruin an enemy's day, even if they do get to dodge properly and it's order intensive). Ninjas are good for being a nuisance and sneaking through to kill off orders/button pushers. They're comparable in some ways, but I think they have different targeting priorities.
So here's a few Vanilla lists. Stealth Unit ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) MAJOR LUNAH Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29) DĀOYĪNG Lieutenant L2 Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29) DÀOFĚI Spitfire / Pistol, Shock CCW. (2 | 55) ZHĒNCHÁ (Forward Observer) Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 37) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 26) TIGER SOLDIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29) TIGER SOLDIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) 4.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Just Playing with you! LOL. My all Merc force is ready! ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 7 3 1 DĀOYĪNG Lieutenant L2 Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29) BOUNTY HUNTER Sniper Rifle / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 21) AÏDA SWANSON 2 Submachine Gun, Viral Mines / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 24) JÄGER Submachine Gun + E/Mitter / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 18) LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) MIRANDA ASHCROFT Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CCW. (0 | 19) KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14) MAJOR LUNAH Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29) ARMAND (Minelayer) MULTI Sniper, Nanopulser, Antipersonnel Mines / 2 Breaker Pistols, Shock CC Weapon, Knife. (1.5 | 42) KNAUF MULTI Sniper / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32) GROUP 2 3 1 1 KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Chain-colt, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) DĀOYĪNG Lieutenant L2 Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 29) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Duo, Tactical Awareness) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 38) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Duo, Tactical Awareness) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 38) ZÚYŎNG (Fireteam: Duo, Tactical Awareness) HMG / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (1.5 | 38) MÓWÁNG (NCO) Red Fury, Akrylat-Kanone / Heavy Pistol, Knife. (1 | 52) NINJA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Tactical Bow / Pistol, DA CCW, Knife. (0 | 29) GŬILÁNG (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) LÙ DUĀN Mk12, Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (0 | 21) WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) 6 SWC | 298 Points Open in Infinity Army
Also, I just realised: The Hai Dao seems so good... It has more or less now killed the Bao Troop off in Vanilla and nearly killed the Shang Ji- Since Baos only had the MSV2 sniper going for them in Vanilla, and now... a bigger, angrier MSV2 Sniper has arrived. As for the Shang Ji, I say nearly because even though it is now surplanted as our cheapest HI Hacker ( Still the cheapest AHD HI we have. ), it did get a Tac Sense Spitfire, which costs only 6 points and 0.5 SWC more than the HMG Zuyong Tac Sense ( Why do I keep calling Tactical Awareness Tac Sense...? ) for slightly better ARM/BTS/PH and a 4-Burst gun with different rangebands... so it still has A niche in my eyes. Which going from ''You have one job, and it's a job rarely need done'' to ''You have a singular job that is needed to be done often enough'' is a nice jump, I suppose...
It's sad but I think you are right. for only 8pts more you gain ARM3, BS13, NWI, PH11, WIP14 Unless you felt the need for the BTS 6. Why take a Bao? For an 8pt. Remote? Yu Jing ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 2 BÀO TROOP (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 29) HǍIDÀO (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 37) 3 SWC | 66 Points Open in Infinity Army
I'm not sure if this is a sign as to how badly in need of help the Baos are, or how great the Hai Dao is, but this is how it is... Also, on the topic of ISS, just checked there, they don't have the Panguilling LSG profile oddly enough.
Or JSA, but these two seem less surprising. Let us not speak of this in case vanilla wasn't meant to have it either and hope CB doesn't notice and remove it-
In reply to the comments/questions about the Hulang and Bao. The Hulang is not as competent a CC specialist as the ninja, he's on par with the crane but the simple fact of this is merely that they are a slightly less deadly close combat killer. In the case against an AC unit I'm not convinced the ninja is a stronger option unless they pick up some D-charges themselves. The Hulang is a much better short to mid-range shooter than the ninja despite lacking a marker state or the extra mod from TO. A pair of SMGs or combi with light flame thrower with E/M grenades to boot is quite a tasty armament and in vanilla that package has more support. (Guilang FO to mark a target or you might even manage to use bio-locator on the kuang shi to let you drop E/M grenades on people from completely unexpected places.) In the case of the Bao, AVA makes some case for their continued existence. I don't think they are a bad profile personally, although my words here can't carry much weight because I don't field them, might have to change that. In addition it might make us look at some of the other profiles a bit more. The combi light shotgun comes with an X-visor as well, which is still a nice option for suppressive fire and the one with both types of visor plus a boarding shotgun could be useful for deployment zone defence if you regularly face Combined or Haqqislam. I kind of wish they had bio-immunity to at least make them a bit more attractive but for the points, I don't dislike the bao. The biggest problem they've always had is the competition from the rui shi, which is admittedly just better in nearly all circumstances.
For me it looks like it depends on the mission with the issue of Ninja vs. Hulang. Maybe what I'm going against. I wouldn't want to use this guy against hackers. He's on his own already and if I haven't been able to get fairy dust up yet he's vulnerable. I just think the Hai Dao is just one more nail in the Bao coffin. I used to think they were great, but then found the Rui Shi to be much better for cheaper. The Combi+Lt shotgun would be great if it didn't cost 27pts.
Baos were always terrible. They only seemed good because Yu Jing had so few MSV 2 options. Now there really is no need to take one outside ISS. Take a HaiDao sniper, its nearly as good as an Intruder sniper while being a bit cheaper. HaiDao are amazing. Congrats Yu Jing players, you got an awesome unit.
Come to think of it, the HaiDao sniper isn't really as good as an Intruder. The intruder has a much easier time winning FtF rolls while also being able to hide in a camo marker. The better comparison would be the HaiDao sniper vs the Nisse sniper. The HaiDao cost only 3 more points and is about as effective, especially when you can exploit smoke. Actually, the HaiDao sniper with access to smoke is probably better than the Nisse. But then I tend to think the Nisse HMG is the better option since Pano lacks smoke. My point still stands, its an amazing new addition to Yu Jing. Congrats. Rejoice.
So, what do people (you) think of Vanilla with Sun Tze now? I find that one of the finest military minds is not in the military funny, but whatever. At least he's still in Vanilla. His Stratego allows for anyone to use the Lt. order. NCO can only use Lt order themselves. Same with TacAware but irregular order. Advance Command adds the extra Command Token. How can we exploit some this? The only thing I can think of is that now that we have a good CoC guy, I'm more likely to take him. However that's two really expensive troops. Even taking the cheapest of each of them is 106pts.!
Sun Tze is still a boss. He was good before and he's still good, but he definitely doesn't work all that well with some of the new NCO options, and he's got stiff competition now from the Daoying LT2 profiles who do work well with NCO. It comes down to how you want to build your list. Daoying are cheaper (and amazing for the points cost), but levels 2 & 3 of Stratego are still ball-busting in the hands of an experienced player. I will continue to run Sun in my lists.
I still like Sun Tze, he's going to offer distinctly different list builds because of how the new rule interactions work. NCO is better is a normal or Daoying Lt but Tai Sheng is excellent irrespective of NCO. The benefits of strategos goes beyond making the Lt order regular, 2 reserve models to deploy and denying the opponent theirs are nice benefits regardless of whether you go first or second. The extra command token is nice as well (as you mention) but really the major change is when people look at the differences between list options. Yu jing can now run two kinds of limited insertion list that exploit completely different kinds of options. Sun Tze with 11 regular orders in a single combat group (plus a tactical awareness or two if you want) 5 command tokens and the knowledge you have 2 hold-backs vs none from the opponent (on top of the best odds you can hope for winning the initiative roll-off) is already a solid list design option. Now we can add to that a Daoying Lt2 with NCO combat group that can squeeze even more orders into a single combat group and on models that get work done. Even in vanilla Tai Sheng is a great choice but there's also the Mowang who can use NCO. That's going to present opponents with a harder choice than previously because of how the different lists are going to use their orders. It's also going to give us different options when choosing how to tackle an opponent and deal with a scenario.
Doh! I just realized that the Hulang is pretty much what Senor Massacre should have been all does years before he became the magic glue for smoke screens! Switch Mono with NBW and Dual Wield plus weapons and you're almost there except the Eclipse Grenades, which might be a bit much on this platform. Guess at least we found a very good proxy for the Hulang for the time being! :D
As expected I'm most excited about the Liu xing and Zhencha for my vanilla lists. Both of these units really fill gaps that I felt vanilla had for me. But daoying are a sneaky little surprise of awesome. I'm especially looking to try the sniper minelayer to provide a bit of Aro presence. The hulang I will try to use, but haven't immediately found space sadly. Mowang and haido I'll wait for models I think, but might find their way into IA more. Mowang really requires you to build the list around him to really appeal more than battle cat.
