Hi everyone, Having a grand total of 2 whopping games I am starting to make some progress towards eventually understanding this game. That is my hope anyhow. (still a *lot* to chew through) At the moment I more or less 'get' what to do in my active turn. Kill stuff and score points (play the objective) But what to do (or avoid!) in my reactive turn is a lot harder. As a Yu Jing player; what do you use as ARO-pieces / speedbumps? In my experience anything out there eventually dies if the opponent spends enough orders. So how do you slow down the enemy without being wasteful with your precious few miniatures? Any other semi related advice is also much appreciated. :) [edit] No post is worth anything without a picture of some minatures. So here is my progress thus far. ;)
Ok, so you got the basic gist right: active turn, do things; reactive turn, impede your enemy's things so he does as little as possible. Now, you need to think about the basics: list building, style, deployment, timing, and enemy knowledge. About list building, you need to know what are you going to play. Extras (mercenaries, Specops, Limited Inssertion, etc...) can change everything, but the most important thing are the missions. Some missions require specialists and the orders to fuel them, others require hunting troops and the orders to fuel them... and others require a mix. While this obeys a classification on the ITS document, at least one mission has been labeled as "specialists type" while actually being a killy mission (Capture and Protect). Once you know the missions, you need to decide which troop pool will you go to: generic, sectorial... the defining factor can be order efficiency (meaning Fireteams, very interesting in Biotecvore or in Limited Insertion games for example) or variety (Generics have more infiltrating troops, for example, meaning specialists in the middle of the table). Model avaiability and exclusive options might be relevant here (for example, it's not very interesting to play Imperial Service without Aleph's Support pack, hsiens, Kuangshis and the transformer). The style is quite simple: do you want to play, or counterplay? So, it's your idea to achieve the mission objectives, or to limit your enemy access to those objectives. An example on that would be playing Imperial Service in a set of missions that includes Mortal Dance (where 3 points depend on having a TAG, something the Imperial Service does not unless the Mercenaries extra has been selected). Deployment is more an art than anything else, because it depends on a lot of factors, the more important one being the table you are playing on. Then there is the mission, your list, your enemy's list, who will deploy first, etc... A good rule of thumb is that an ARO piece will last 2 enemy orders, but if you manage to deploy (and keep) more than one troop AROing at the same time you are increasing the amount of orders the enemy has to spend to avoid or remove those roadblocks. The simplest way to define a good ARO piece comes down to: can you survive without it? And of course, that means recovering the piece, if it's possible. For example, a YanHuo is a HI troop that, once unconscious, goes prone, meaning that placing the YH behind a small wall and a doctor or Servitor (assigned to a doctor) nearby lets you place again the menacing troop covering that zone. One of the best ARO pieces is the humble Warcor: you can find him on any human list, he costs 3 points, and you lose almost nothing with his death, but if alive he can support a valuable ARO piece with a blinding laser, pressuring your opponent to choose between risking not being able to keep using that troop or splitting his Burst. And in your active turn, you can use his order as a regular one by blowing a Command Token, or you can use his irregular order to Discover an enemy Camo token (for example). Timing comes down first to know how much time you do have for each action and reaction, so you do not exceed the allotted time for the match or have to play a 2-round game (something that breaks down all planning for both players and is always a mess). Now, going into less obvious "timing" parts: when to risk a troop, and when not to; when to spend an order to recover another order for future turns and when not to; when to send a troop on a suicide mission and when not to. Now, Timing requires a deep knowledge of what tools you do have at your disposal, meaning troops, their position, and their capabilities. Also, a knowledge of the mission and its rules is needed for good decisions (both before and during the match). And knowing the enemy keeps bad surprises out of your way. Being able to "count" points and SWC of enemy troops is the most basic way to implement this, even if its on the rougher part, since it can reveal to you Lt candidates, hidden troops, and other shenanigans. Knowing your enemy relies heavily on the smoke combo means placing ARO pieces in support of each other will be of little use unless at least two of your pieces have MSV2, because if only one has it the enemy will fire only against that one and then against the others one at a time, while having two will force him to at least maneuver and spend 1-2 extra orders to reposition and try to take out only one. In the end, a list won't make you win: you need to know how to use it effectively. But a list can reduce your chances to win. The most deciding factor of a game is Deployment: a bad deployment will leave openings the enemy will use against you and make all the match an uphill battle, and if your best pieces are removed before you even use them it is a great victory to the enemy, placing you into a defensive mindset. Finally, keeping calm and focused can, at the very least, make your opponent know that forcing your hand too hard will get him the match, but might cost him any chance to reach the coveted top 3 positions of the tournament, forcing him to thread carefully: this usually happens when your enemy overkills, puts you into Retreat!!! mode and you can use some Command Tokens to save some troops (remember Courage and Religious Troops don't suffer retreat, only the Lt loss) and use them to score and cut the distance enough to turn a 3 points victory into a 2 points one or even into a 1-1. Now going to YJ, the Neurocinetic Yan Huo is a classic piece, while the infiltrating troops (and even the Kanren) are all troops you can deploy to force your enemy to waste orders or to use to achieve your goals. In all armies, the 8point flash pulse remotes and the warcor are inexpensive support troops for AROing. The Tiger is also a good option for counter-play and menacing the enemy, since taking out enemy orders is always a good thing. Edit: Finally, the Ninjas are classic speed bumps, specially the inexpensive KHD with bow. While they are CC troops (thus, they die too easily if you try Engage as ARO), one, or the threat of one, can be a real pain in the ass for the enemy. Threat with "maybe, maybe not" troops: an unused slot (9 troops in a combat group), and if your enemy can count your troops' points value having aside the equivalent to an AD/TO can mud the waters a lot. And of course, the Kanren gives you an impressive array of "pranks" if ypu don't use the forward deployment (if you do, then just disguise the troop profile with another one, and remember the perimetrals won't be copied). For example, having three basic celestial guards 20cm or less one from another inside your Deployment Zone can confuse if you have a 10 minis combat group or not, because you do not place the Holoecho marker until your active turn (so during deployment and, if you go second, your enemy's first turn you can play with it).
The "do I keep it up for aro, or hunker down for the next turn?" question is one of the fundamentals of good play. Here are my considerations: As previously stated, everything dies. I don't field too many overwatch pieces that won't get burned by enough orders. The trick is to set up so that you're not seeing any more of the board than you need. If you put a Guilang sniper on that sexy sniper tower that can see 3/4 of the enemy's DZ, you've just allowed him to bring his best "bully" to bear in one order (or hit you with a mean coordinated order on the first attempt.) This is budget piece trading; you want to extract higher value. Instead, consider setting up so that Guilang is only covering one angle of a likely approach. Your opponent can then decide if he wants to spend 3-4 orders before he can even get the vantage he needs to try to "bully" that shooter. Sooner or later, you're going to get unlucky and that TR HMG, linked sniper, or neurocinetics Yah Huo is going to fold like a cheap lawn chair. Make sure that you have a backup "bully" unit somewhere to take over his duties. At the end of the day, if your opponent had to spend 5 orders to clear your ARO over the objective, you've likely already made your opponent pick between heavily damaging you on the first turn, or pushing hard into the mission. Maybe you even lucked out and prevented both! In either case, your ARO deployment has done its job.
http://www.prideofrodina.com/2017/03/guest-writer-guide-to-understanding-aro.html I hope, this will help You. (It's a bit more general and not YJ specific, but still...)
Lu Duan is also really good for this -- you can make it look like 3 Assault Hackers which is just enough to hide a couple of ninjas or a ninja + an oniwaban.
Sadly, you are limited to units of the same Silhoutte valor than the Lu Duan, which means your only option is 3 Aragoto in JSA, which is the only S4 unit with AVA 3+ you can find in YJ or any of its sectorials... and in generic they are AVA2.
Somehow I forgot to put the word "Aragoto" in there. I didn't realize they were only AVA2 in Vanilla. (Although it's not like you're frequently going to play an Oniwaban in Vanilla either.)
