No, it's not from the order expenditure sequence, it's from the rules for ARO. http://infinitythewiki.com/en/ARO:_Automatic_Reaction_Order The expenditure sequence doesn't matter here, you ARO immediately the first time you are eligible, or you don't ARO at all against that Order.
Again, HTA has such unique/weird timing that I am not going to assume that troopers who have it lose the capability to shoot against a hackable drop troop that appears right in front of them.
That's cool, you do you, absent any instructions not to follow the basic "use it or lose it" rule for AROs I'll continue to play them the way the rules describe.
Since you can't normally declare ARO's against the declaration of HTA it's a special case. We'll see. I'm sure tournaments will be running it my way.
What makes you think AROs can't be declared against an AD: Combat Jump declaration? Most units don't have an ARO until the skill is fully resolved, but the special timing here is not when you declare Hack Transport Aircraft, the special timing is when you're allowed to declare AROs after the rolls and effects of a skill, meaning HTA is normal timing while BS Attack or Dodge is on special, delayed, timing. Also, I'm sure most TOs will opt for running it the way IJW has explained the situation to work.
The fact that most units can't declare ARO's until determining the final position of the AD model *is* an extremely unique/weird timing. HTA is unique in that it overrides AD's restriction (back to normal).
Yeah, I don't think there's anything controversial about the HTA ARO force. It's just how ARO works, even if it isn't always what we'd want. Anyway... I've been having some fun with the IA units in vanilla. My favourite things so far are: All the camo: It's great to not have to rely so much on Daofei and Guilang. Instead, Zhencha, Libertos, Daoying and Lunah are all great options now. I haven't played any all camo lists, but there are several fun builds, with AD troops, hac tao, Lunah etc. The Tai Sheng Dynamic Duos: My first bunch of lists all tried to have a Daoying and an NCO to pack those Lt2 orders in. What I'm now trying out and enjoying a lot is a Hsien and CoC Tai Sheng duo. For only 4 points over Tai Sheng's already useful and resilient base profiles you can pick up CoC, which is a huge discount on CoC over the 30 point pheasants we used to have to use if we wanted to be able to play a Hsien LT aggressively. Running this feels like having two aggressive lieutenants, which is really fun to play. This would also work well with Mowang, Crane, Sun Tze v1 or 2, Yan Huo, Hac Tao executive order etc... the cheaper CoC on a useful scoring specialist opens up a lot more opportunity to play lieutenants aggressively if you can put the Daoying back on the shelf. With NCO you really get two aggressive Lts for the price of one. Libertos: These guys are sooooo good. I love being able to have a cheap midfield infiltrator and minelayer to hold the enemy up or throw himself on mines with hyperdynamics to save more expensive troops doing it. He's really a huge reason I'm playing vanilla, because I want to have fun with the Yu Jing funded secessionist fishmen and poke Pan O in the eye ;) Haidao MSV2 sniper: I played around with Lunah and Zhanying nimbus clouds a little, but decided the Haidao is the better ARO piece with his two wounds and a better active turn beatstick because he can use shaolin impetuous smoke and get synergy going with a hsien - they can both make use of the same smoke clouds. I know I'm not alone loving him, but good is good. Liu Xing: because they're super fun. Who doesn't like exploding? I'm sad to say I have walked him on in one mission just to get the order on the table... I was very disappointed in myself.
I think you're going to be surprised, as even @ijw has come down on the side of "Hackers get to Hack Transport Aircraft as their ARO, and if they don't HTA, they don't get to ARO at all." When the guy doing the English Translation of the rules and maintaining the wiki says it's that way, well, you can take that to the bank.
@Section9 he's been wrong before. And the ARO timing for AD is so weird I think it merits discussion.
You're right, @ijw has been wrong before. Or rather, said that "I don't like it, but Rules As Written sure reads that you can do X" only to get overruled by @HellLois about 3 posts later, that X was NOT supposed to be allowed.
Yes, although Combat Jump doesn't have a restriction, it's only got a clarification that AROs are generated taking the final position into account and not the initial intended location. The fact that a normal unit doesn't have any AROs until then is not anything strange or unique in this rule set. With Marker states and Stealth retroactively being cancelled for the entire order, potentially giving units AROs when they didn't have them before, this is par for course in a counter-reactive rule set.
Used one (combi + flamer version) twice in a custom scenario, that required killing stuff in CC in enemy deployment to win. Worked quite well - for that particular, custom scenario. I'm still having problems with fitting him in regular, ITS mission lists.
I tried them twice in IA: once in Hunting Party (didn't do much, a very defensive Orc Feuer + MSR Kamau held him back) and another time in Biotechvore (killed a couple guys with the LFT, the idea was to use him to hunt a Cutter that was surely gonna be present, but a Haidao MSR did the job :facepalm:). I believe it's a good unit that may be lacking smoke support in the sectorial, so I'm really eager to try'em in vanilla. I figure a list with 4 Shaolins, KSCD + Zombies and several MSV2s (Haidao, Hsien, Rui Shi). He can touch buttons if needed, and you can always throw a Ninja and Guilangs in there.
Hulangs are great. Vanilla provides a lot of support that he lacks in IA, and the toolkit the have is fantastic. People can get really scared of that monofilament CCW, which often ends up just playing into the rest of his tricks. My only real qualm with them is the low PH. Being able to spec-fire those EM grenades is awesome, but PH12 means he's no Domaru in that aspect. YJ has better FO support than JSA, which means you could try to get a targetted shot off, but for ~15 points more than a Domaru, I'd like to have the Hulang hit the gym on a similar schedule at least. It's not as big a problem as it is on the absolute dumpster fire that is the Liu Xing, but it is an annoyance. Still, great unit, really fun to use, and I recommend him in vanilla lists.
I tried a hulang and found one drawback - they naturally sit around the same deployment area as zhencha, libertos, guilang camo tokens. If you're not careful, an opponent can drop a chain rifle on the hulang and tag one or more camo tokens... if they then dodge and stay alive, you can lose a whole camo deployment just to a couple of templates with no discover rolls. In some ways, running the camo tokens on their own is safer as they can't be attacked quite so easily. They are an incredible toolbox unit though, and monofilamenting something big in half would be so much fun if you could support them well. One idea I had was to take a madtraps kanren, then disguise it as 3 more hulang. You've then got 2 midfield monofilament swingers and the hulang makes the kanren's holoechoes quite a bit scarier to engage with 2 wounds and it's 4" engage into combat.
I've done it a few times. It works really well. Just remember that it only works if you're going second. If you go first, moving one or the other reveals which is the real Hulang. That said, mixing in a killer hacker Kanren can be quite juicy, since it helps to cover up one of the Hulang's weaknesses.
Oh yeah, it's definitely a strategy for going second. If you're going first, you probably want to throw some smoke out there and get the hulang to do something nasty, ending in suppressive fire. Given kanren are AVA 1 you might also want a TO ninja to get the KHD supporting these guys. One thing I thought might be funny is leaving the hulang within 4" of a corner with 1-2 hulang holoechoes in a chain rifle shaped template behind him... encourage an opponent to come around the corner with something templaty and then leap into combat.
