supporting a yan huo ML

I usually end up with a helperbot nearby, though I do a bit of a criss-cross in deploying doc and engineer. The doc and the engineer's helperbot go on one side of the field, while the engineer and the doc's helperbot go on the other side. This lets me have a doc and an engineer on each side of the table.

A Rui Shi is almost always a good thing to include, but it's 1SWC.

 

Medic + bot to heal it. Some times i played a total reaction close to it just to make it hard. But the sad truth is against his counters ( tipical ariadna camo+ ap) he probably will die even with full support. Consider deploying it to cover just a critical lane, not in the tipical DZ tower.

 

The big thing to keep in mind for me is being very selective about what you’re watching with him. It you stick him on top of a building, he’s going to die because your opponent will have all of the options when trying to take him out. He might get a lucky roll and kill a good unit, but you’ll quickly find yourself getting hmged by a five man link so even if you win the roll, your opponent has only lost 20 points. You might get hit with an msv model through smoke, or a surprise shot, the point is: your opponent gets to chose.

In my experience, expensive/long range ARO pieces, Yan Huo ML, tr bots, major Luna, work best when you are funneling your opponents around the lanes they are watching. If your opponent spent 4 orders avoiding the lane your Yan Huo is looking at, or spends cautious moves to shoot gaps, or spends a couple of orders running a warband up to toss smoke, then your ARO piece has performed amazingly.

I love taking two long range pieces, say the Yan Huo and a tr bot and placing them on opposite ends of my deployment zone so that they can see each other, and not much past the middle of the table. This means that I leave my opponent’s half of the table open, but to engage my big ARO monsters, they first have to spend orders to get across the table, so it becomes a expenditure of resources to even get to the point of starting to roll dice. If that link team has to spend 4 orders before they even get to my fire lane, suddenly the loss of the one hmg is significantly more annoying.

I don’t know if my wording makes sense, but I hope that helps!

 

Maybe you guys can help me make sense of this. I keep hearing some say how much they love their YH ML with Neurocinetics. To me it seems stupid. I’ve used it and it’s never been that great. In fact it’s been a hindrance.

First, the Math: Neuro gives 2 shots in ARO, however, most of the time it’s against someone shooting at them with 2-5 shots. If It’s used in Active turn, it’s your 2 vs. 1 or 2 (link) 4 (if TR bot). I don’t know about you guys but I like the odds of 2 vs. 1 a lot more that 2 vs. 3, 4, 5.

Second, using the Tinbot Neuro makes it so you can almost never go prone. In many cases I want to do that. In fact not going prone, because I wanted to fire in ARO, is what has gotten him killed a couple times.

 

The Math makes him be like a ML Zanshi in a 5 man Fireteam. Without Sixth Sense, but with more ARM, more Wounds and his bonuses can't be stripped.

 

I'd be happy to give some reasons I think the Yan Huo is excellent, but first, I'm curious about this point: what about the Tinbot/Neurocinetics affects the Yan Huo's ability to go prone?

 

No it doesn't effect the ability to go prone. It makes you not want to go prone. Why would you go prone if you want to use him as an ARO piece?

 

He's not my go to, but when I play him it's with Sun Tze. You hold him back and park him opposite something juicy like a TAG. It's just a headache to get around and unlike TR bots he can cope with eating the usual TO sniper trick passing saves on 8+ and having a doctor nearby it's an annoyance.

He's one of those models that does the most work by fear of presence. If you punish someone with it once in the future they'll deploy with them in the back of their mind, regardless of whether or not they're in the list. Kind of like how we used to use Oniwabans, once you stab a player's TAG with it once, they never leave a TAG sitting in the mid field against you ever again regardless of whether or not you have an Oniwaban in the list.

Otherwise the non Neurocinetics one is an absolute boss on Grid. He will basically single handedly win you the game on that being able to split fire his missiles between Antennas. Having one puts your opponent on notice because you can easily clean up 5 Antennas in one turn, especially if you go first.

 

I agree with @Triumph , once you smack a TAG or HI rambo with just one of those missiles, your opponents will never forget it.

In order to reduce the number of shots coming at the Yan Huo, you probably want to have a second model there that can draw similar LOF. If they only shoot at your Yan Huo, the other model gets a free shot. If they only shoot at the other model, the Yan Huo gets a free shot. So they're going to have to put at least one shot at your other model. And 3v2 or 2v2 is a much better chance for your Yan Huo.

 

two missile launchers give one more B ?

 

Yes.

And the Neurocinetics Tinbot flips that to work only in the Reactive.

 

Actually, it doesn't just flip it to only work in the Reactive turn, it also maintains the Yan Hous ability to benefit from the Twin Weapons skill in the active turn.

To qoute the Wiki:

http://wiki.infinitythegame.com/en/Neurocinetics

''Q: How does the Piece of Equipment TinBot C work with the Neurocinetics Special Skill on the Yān Huǒ 2 Missile Launcher profile?
A: The TinBot C allow use of the Twin Weapons bonus in the Reactive Turn, granting Burst 2 with Neurocinetics.''

So, essentially, the difference between the non-TinBot profile VS the TinBot profile means you simply pay extra points ( 4 in this case. ) to basically up your Yan Hous Burst value in ARO by 1. Which, honestly, feels like a fair deal IMO.

 

I have never seen anyone interpret the rule that way before.

 

I mean, the Neurocinetics profile of the Yan Hou in effect really is just paying 4 points to be able to shoot with a better burst in ARO.

And since Neurocinetics only lowers the Burst value of all your weapons to 1 ( Which the Missile Launchers already were at 1. ), it really gives no effect to your Yan Hou in the Active turn either.

Sorry if I'm phrasing this weirdly though.

 

The problem is the wording of twin weapons is that your twin Missile Launchers just count as 1 Missile Launcher with Burst 2, which then gets modified to Burst 1 by Neurocinetics in the active turn.

I wouldn't complain if you could actually make them B2 in the active turn but I don't know of any argument to get them to work like that.

 

That's a very interesting idea... what if you paired a Bao sniper with him? Nobody is getting down that firelane period without a lot of cahones or firepower (or Eclipse smoke I guess).

Playing against anyone who doesn't have Eclipse (or if you know you're facing say QK or ISS), seems like a pretty sweet combo.

 

Yeah, looking at it again, the wording of the rule is very weird.

The way I see it, the Twin Weapons skill gives a +1 Burst bonus like a modifier once it is used, kind of like the third member bonus for fireteams ( They even have rather similar wording there. ). And since the Neurocinetics skill lowers the Burst value of the weapon itself, which then receives a +1 Bonus due to use of the Twin Weapons skill, I see no harm in having a unit with Neurocinetics ending up with a Burst of 2 when using the Twin Weapons skill.

I suppose it really depends on what comes first: Neurocinetics lowering your Burst value to 1 or Twin Weapons giving it's +1 Burst bonus. ( Looking at the wording of the Neurocinetics rule, I'd argue for it being the one that takes effect first. )

 

That is why it was FAQ'ed: YanHuo with Tinbot C has Burst 1 in active, 2 in reactive, applying the bonus of paired weapons after the Tinbot's.