I rarely play vanilla, but should I do so I'd consider using Swiss hacker or De Fersen instead. Both require more points and/or SWC, but we get what we pay for; De Fersen is significantly better in CC, has a great CQB potential, as well as improved range. He can act both as an Assault Hacker and a gunman. Swiss hacker can use the best protection for a hacker there is - Hidden Deployment and marker state. Between his MRifle and TO Camo he's also a significantly better gunfighter than F-K. Spitfire (or other assault weapon) choice is much easier; I'd take GdA (vanilla), or Sepulchre (MO) over F-K every time. They simply bring so much more utility to the table it isn't even funny. I'm not saying F-K is worthless. It's a solid unit and can work all right - it's just that if elite unit's selling point is being a super ORC with BTS 9, it means that something went horribly wrong. It works, but when compared with things that work better it has no clear purpose.
The Father Knight is one of the units which really brings into focus one of the fundamental underlying issues of Infinity unit costing. Attributes cost too much and abilities and equipment cost too little, but Attributes do not add new abilities while abilities and equipment do and abilities (smoke, marker states etc.) are what is truly powerful in the system. Units with a lot of Attributes but few abilities and equipment cost too much compared to their actual on-table utility. The perfect comparison would be something like a Foxtrot with a Father Knight. Or, for a more points equivalent example, a Swiss Guard with a Father Knight. This hurts Yu Jing units in terms of the points invested in CC where there ISN'T Martial Arts (because Martial Arts is better than +3CC but costs less) but the combination works out ok (because most Yu Jing units do have Martial Arts... the ones that matter anyway).
And another fluff joke of "FK leading troops" and not being able to link with anyone xD Or Seraphs having WIP12 although they are controlled by FK xD Fluff for PanO is hilarious thing. Also FK AHD was not that bad concept in pre-KHD world where you could actually have whooping BTS12 against hacking. Right now every 20pts skirmisher with KHD will make short work of FK AHD.
Huh. Hadn't noticed that. It's only a +1WIP bump. Wonder why it didn't happen? Jotums are also WIP13, but otherwise, PanO TAGs are WIP12... I think there's more a problem with AHDs than anything else. IMO, they need Brainblast and Lockpick as part of their allowed programs. Lockpick is more for fluff than anything else, but an Assault Hacking Device should be able to unlock doors! Brainblast is so that there is at least ONE damage-causing program on the thing.
Great post on the whole, and adds valuable perspective. Continuing on your concept of abilities versus items: Hsien vs Aquila is a famous comparison. Both start with a similar statline and generic "chassis" as elite HI. The Aquila gets MSV3 and a stat bump in BS, and competes directly with another Top Tier HI in their Sectorial (Swiss Guard.) The Hsien has MSV2, Martial Arts (and corresponding Stealth), higher CC, higher WIP, a direct template weapon, Haris options, an SWC refund, Tinbot access, boarding shotgun access, 5 pt Regular Order access, abundant Smoke access, CoC access, and has no competition for its role within Sectorial (and has enough perks to be different enough from its elite TO counterpart in Vanilla.) Hsien remains just slightly cheaper than the Aquila cross the board. And while I don't think this comparison works in the Aquila's favor, it does highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in both factions. PanO: looks great on the table, good at assigned roles, but deeply uninspired. Yu Jing: Packed to the gills with utility, someone clearly loves them and feels inspired by the character they convey, but often some other army/unit does it better. For me though, as a player who likes the balance of both theme and competitive viability, it's all about PanO because their Sectorials have distinct playstyles and great cohesive themes. ISS is a hell of a Sectorial, but a lot of Yu Jing's appeal right now is in Vanilla, and I'm not draw to Vanilla forces as much.
So Yu Jing did just get nerfed by having an entire sectorial worth of units removed but I did not get the impression that many Yu Jing players really cared all that much.
New player? PanO, everything is optimised everything spells you what they do, you cannot misinterpret what any unit does. Veteran Player? Yu Jing, it is exhilarating to make a list with units that can do two things at once, maybe not as optimised but hey options.
Yea, those LSG & Combis, or Combis & Assault Pistols screems "crazy optimization" for me. Not to mention WIP12 BTS3 AHD hackers xD Or overpriced BS11 Auxbot guy xD Or like half of MO xD
Well they are, especially under the context of what I wrote, you cannot miss what a PanO unit does and that is great for new players and a headache for a veteran player making a list.
BS11 Auxbot guys rule. Every faction would love an Auxilia equivalent. WIP 12 BTS 3 AHDs are also fine. Carbonite's +3 is very helpful in that sense. LSgs and Combis barely come up but at okay when they do. Assault Pistols and Combis are perfectly acceptable. The issue with PanO is that the lack of variation and the absence of plenty of thematic cultural units from their SEA/India/South America feels a little bland at times. They're too European, too overshadowed by the MO and too samey at times. But they're perfectly good. They've got loads of good troops. People complain that the Kamau Sniper is a LI Nisse Sniper, and it is... but it's still a BS 13 MSV2 CH: Mimetism MSR for just over 30pts. It's still really good.
I agree 100% with everything Barakiel said, especially this part about how the plurality of sectorials PanO has access to is amazing in terms of numbers, playstyles and flavors (thematically speaking). As a YJ player, I think vanilla has all the cool/fun/"best" units: Guilangs, Shaolin Monks, AVA 2 Ninjas (because everybody expects the first one :P), Daofeis, Hac Taos, Tigers... I understand that's the appeal of a vanilla army. You have all the toys, none of the fireteams. However, our one and only sectorial is kinda lame in terms of flavor and tactical approaches and it also lacks even one of this awesome profiles to toy with. Competitively speaking is really strong, because AVA 8 of Kuang Shi lets you do some nasty stuff, but some of us enjoy the variety. And while we have that variety in terms of units and profiles in general (which is certainly a plus and it shows on the comparison Bara did between Hsien and Aquila), we lack that multi-sectorial/playstyle/flavor aspect. ... Maybe I'm just pissed at Japan for leaving. It's not like we treated them as second-class citizens or anythi- Oh wait.
Actually, only 6 Yu Jing units have Martial arts. 8 Pan O units have martial arts. JSA has 12 martial arts units (which are the ones you were probably thinking of), currently tied with ALEPH for "close combat themed" faction.
Gotcha. I was just confused since you said "most YJ units have martial arts" when actually they don't. Unless you think over 30 YJ profiles "don't matter". But this brings a good turning point to this discussion: which faction do you think has more profiles that "don't matter"? Whether its the AHD FK or the Multi-sniper Pheasant, which faction has more profiles that are overshadowed by something else? Super-Specialized-PanO, or everybody-gets-a-bunch-of-cheap-equipment-because-its-all-made-in-China YJ?
Any unit you don't intend to spend more than 1 order on don't matter all that much. They might be useful, but you aren't going to use them, so... It's like this; any list with Achilles in it is going to be Martial Arts heavy. Regardless if the rest is Myrmidons or Dakini.
I did clarify "where it matters" which is on units more likely to end up in CC. But that's beside the point really. I don't think discussing profiles has any point. There are a lot of units with trash profiles, Nisse come to mind, but Nisse are still one of the best units in PanOceania. Better to focus on units which have little to no good profiles at all, like Sun Tze v2 or Bao.
People still build lists with cheerleaders? No, that's not quite right. I kinda expect the new players to not use every tool in the box. Experienced players still build lists with cheerleaders?!?
If we define "Cheerleeader" as "troop that has uses, but spends most of its table life as passively covering a zone, maybe getting one regular order on the whole game", then yeah... Mind you, I consider Dakinis as Cheerleaders... and I still tend to go with moving them to the center of the table and then drop a coordinated order for Suppresive Fire, then forget about activating them again for the most part. If you think "stuff that does nothing but to generate orders and, on the best of times, distract enemies with non-lethal AROs", I'd say that mimetic Flash Pulse remotes are still quite valued ;) Lastly, if we talk about "cheapest troop that can be a Lt, get 3 and hide them under a rock", then yeah, for certain missions they are used. And cheerleaders are useful to block AD troops getting to you DZ from a side, at least you force them to roll.
Well, OK, that use does count as a Cheerleader, but most of those are 20-40pt models. Not 10pt models. Those are the two I have issues with. IMO, no model should be in your list just to generate orders for someone else. They should have a reason to be in the list in and for themselves. So a defensive link team that rarely ever moves is a good option, but Netrods and iMetrons are something I have issues with.
