Saito Army Glitch?

Yup they just shot them selves in the knee all JSA players that would buy new sculpt decide they do not need him XD
on other hand this army would get way more manuver in army bulding if they get a Keisotsu with Smoke luncher like Ghulam NCO for Falafel Sectorial .
@daszul from what i get CB design was a Riuken to be the main awesomnes combined with Shikami - so Ninjas even if they are dudes with Smoke historicly whise seams to be an awkward design for them especialy combined with smoke and specialist.
Yes most intuitive one would be a ninja with bow and other silent weapon + smoke granades + specialist (just a button clicker so Specialist operative )
But i don't know if this is what CB imagined i think they are more up for Domaru haris +2 kurakari thingi and would be most happy with 10 to 12 minis army .. but they forget to add NCO units and Liutenent lvl 2 and this new from Immoral army thingi that add orders.
I would be most happy with "ninja aprentice unit" a Cammo unit with "normal cammo" or maybe dikoy or ambush cammo (typical ninjutsu tech - or Holo 2 ? ) forvard deploy, smoke, MA l1 or 2 - 1 is good is about stealth :P) and some random weapons ? - flamer ? Gimbus granades ? the Em2 thingi ? - and not expensive like 14p to 19 p to make them an alternative to swarm of Keisothus + 8p REMs
or just Fook swarm lists go Cyber Geishas and Daiyoki link but add liutenant lvl 2 and NCO to a list + keisotsu with smoke

all about crating posibilitis not about removing them.

and About Shikami they are usless in current lodout especialy they give evry body around smoke + MSV 2 (beside Hassasins ) combo so Shikami are siting ducks with a weapon that need to be up and personal versus MSV 2 smoke meta at 24 away .. maybe if they got Forvard Deploy ? .

 

The big thing that stands out in my mind is that Saito was never brilliant... Just the most appealing of a very difficult unit type. If you're paying for a TO CC guy, having both smoke and Specialist really made the cost easier to accept.

Elaborating on the idea of "difficult unit type":
Initiating CC is just inherently Order inefficient. Even with an Infiltrating TO Camo Smoke Tosser, who is one of the game's best platforms for successfully using CC, you're still talking about spending a ton of Orders to remove a single enemy unit. You have to walk to the target... Lay smoke if necessary... Be conscious of LoF and your short skill expenditure sequence, which may mean you're not moving your full MOV distance each time... Then get into B2B, score the kill... Not to mention retreat and Recamo for optimal safety. That's a lot more orders than just stepping in-and-out of LoF in one sequence, firing the HMG/Spitfire Burst, and recamoing where you started. As a result, even just having Saito use his Combi was often useful.

So Saito was appealing because he naturally offset some of the order-inefficiency associated with JSA TO units; he has a real ranged gun (unlike Oniwaban and many Ninja profiles), he has smoke (obviously huge for both Specialists and CC combatants,) he could get your button pushing done via Specialist, and still had that dominantly overwhelming CC punch that let you initiate an order-inefficient but hugely lethal f2f exchange. That big toolbox really helped him fit into a gameplan and refund a lot of his Order expenditure cost, really helping offset the natural limitations of these units.

I suppose the reason I'm reflecting heavily on this is because I tried a lot of different approaches to playing JSA post-Uprising, and I found that lists with Saito were the ones that "worked" on a consistent basis...

 

And her is a problem
CB removed a key part to list building
this could be divided to a 2 units but they would need to be below 20p price range - a smoke thrower and a infiltrrating button clicker.

CC with Saito is as Cumbersome as with Fiday - get in correct posicion - 2 ~3 orders , throw a smoke / do nothing 1 order or move and throw smoke - get to CC - win CC 1 order , get back to cammo / impersonation 1 order , get out of there.1 order
and not get in a way of MSV 2 or Biosomething visor
thats 7 orders !
Vs
pop up from cover (best possible vs no cover on opponent ) - shoot with burst 3 with surprise shot and mods from other things - and probably kill target if Normal Li - max 3 orders best possible 1 order :)

so basicly All that CB done with Saito nerf is limit an amount of possible list instade of unlocking a slot.

 

Yeah I'm still not convinced this isn't an error. Koni hasn't said anything on the issue and sometimes the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing over at CB.

 

That honestly doesn't fit with the 9-10-18 Profile PDF. There are two different profiles for him in there the Merc one (which has the Druze only asterisks) and the JSA profile that shows both options without any caveats.

 

Yeah army is so screwed up right now (I can't even load lists on mobile) I'd take that statement from the FB page with a grain of salt.

What I'm worried about is it's an unintentional change that's going to get carried forward as canon in a sort of cargo-cult way.

If they're editing for internal balance they need to take a look at posthumans long before they take a look at Saito.

 

Hym this pdf Sugest 2 things
Saito specialist is only For Druze as mercynary profile so if lets say Haqq would like to hire him as mercynary he should be only non spec profile and JSA at page 65 shows him as a JSA unit not mercynary with both profiles avadible - this looks like Kempetai mercynary profile that was different if used against JSA and different if as merc Vs any one else.
so this basicly looks like an error in Army counting JSA as mercynary army not a separate army so if Saito not in Druze and mercynaru - only one profile - and i think this may be conected with Green label over all mercynary unit as previous JSA got white one so now code interprets JSA as "mercynary not Druze" and display wrong profile and old JSA white label profile do not pop up at all as it was conected to a different call in code.

iven if it is an error problem remain Saito is auto include as he is a smoke provider , and he is infiltrating button masher. Even if not button masher he stays almost always auto include as he is one of 3 possible smoke source - best cost for loadout is Yojimbo then Saito and last Kitsune that can be used to actualy get read of Tag investing this 6 ~7 orders to get to CC and Mono filament a target - this is a caind of cost whise controary to Saito Exp ccw killing a potencial LT li in CC - ther is a less expensive way.
as for army that works in CC and short ranges JSA lacks a Smoke units badly

 

In Army right now, DBS has Specialist Saito. JSA does not have Specialist Saito. Most interestingly (perhaps confusingly) Dahshat does not have Specialist Saito either.

So I'm not sure if there's any internal consistency there about Mercs getting Saito or not. I'm not sure anyone would begrudge Druze getting a decent option... I'd just prefer it wasn't at the cost of JSA, who could use some help too.

 

FWIW the mercenary Saito has a note saying DBS only so it makes sense Dashat doesn't have access.

Now, this doesn't explain the JSA version as that had both profiles.

 

Ewww.

I had switched recently to my vanilla Yu Jing because I just couldn't get JSA to work. My local meta tends to have very good MSV2 ARO pieces and players know there's no way anything in my army can approach from anywhere but my DZ or the center line. Using TO models to push buttons was already a difficult task. Now this?

I don't recall any of the complaints about ninjas being that there isn't a more expensive one available.

Part of the fun of hidden deployment models was your opponent guessing/worrying about what one(s) were out there. Now it's for absolute certain the KHD ninja, and possibly Shinobu if you have 2. Without having to guess what profiles you took, your opponent's only task now is guessing where they are.

I want to love JSA, but it just feels so much like you're playing with your hands tied behind your back. They're just so limited in what tools they have, and most of their strengths have very common hard counters.

 

QFT, been saying this for years.

 

Our Japaneses don't miniaturize things.
Our ninjas don't use smoke.
Our headless biker has one wound!

I should say : It is a good shrubbery!

 

So Army was just updated, changing Saito from Merc to Character and this still wasn't "fixed."

 

That was a different change. They were blanket changing all named units to Characters for consistency there.

 

They also bug fixed a few profiles -- McMurrough was changed to regular impetuous and a few other fixes were made.

 

Well this is a bit of a bummer, speaking as a fresh-faced JSA player. Finally a Saito new model release combined with a big nerf ... huh?

I'm a bit staggered by our lack of specialists now. If the aim was to widen list-composition then I think this will have the opposite effect. Karakuri are now absolutely clutch for us, as far as I can see?

After all, what special operatives do we have now? We have to choose between the Karakuri, Keisotsu, cheerleaders, pricey Domaru, 2 bikers & ninja KHD. Oh yeah, and Shikami, who appears to my untrained eye as very costly. I don't know the game or the profiles well enough at this stage, but Karakuri, KHD ninja and maybe Keisotsu look like the winners from a very limited pool now.

 

3 bikes, there is Kuroshi Rider as well.