Taowu- has anyone used him and how did it go?

I'm curious too. Was thinking about grabbing the model myself for a conversion idea. Want to know if he is good in White Company.

 

Used him once in imperial service as obvious lt. Decoy. Sadly my opponent didn't try to assassinate him. So he spent all game in holomask and did nothing except being a source of counterintelligence. But as I went second and stripped him of two orders this didn't come to effect either.
I think what hurts his on paper great abilities is that he is bound to start in your deploymentzone and unable to join any form of fireteam. If he could join fireteams where he could be slingshot forward under holo and be revealed when the opportunity arises it would help a lot.
As it is he might be of some use against factions with impersonators or against duroc. Otherwise he is an awesome model to be used as HVT.

 

Ugh...

He's such a cool profile, and his model is incredible. I've tried using him a couple times, and outside of meme potential, he's just not there.

Yu Jing and ISS doesn't really have many troopers that he can organically disguise as to much enticing effect as a honey pot. Vanilla relies too heavily on markers to do that job without being too obvious, and ISS' most viable options all want to be in a fireteam.

Active use of his kit demands such a large order investment that both factions are far more interested in pouring into better, heftier troopers. If he could link in ISS, he'd be great, as he'd be able to mask as something meaningful while also being able to join a link in getting to where he wants to be.
As it stands, he's most likely to just be 25 points you spend on an ability you get to use in half of your games to save 1 order.

If he could wildcard in ISS, I would adore him. As things currently stand, he's best kept on your shelf and far away from the table. The previously mentioned use as an HVT is probably your best bet of getting him to see a tabletop, disappointing as that may be.

 

I've been using him in Druze Bayram Securities.

Similar conclusions: he's Order-hungry if you want to use him actively. Counterintelligence is a nice thing to have if you go first, but not really a game changer, and I'm not sure if it is worth the 26pts to pay solely for it (granted, I'm playing primarily 200pts games these days, so 26pts are a bigger chunk of my list than in case of a standard 300pts one).

He might have been more useful if he was linkable (but isn't, in DBS).

The model is gorgeous, though.

 

I tried to play him once and yeah he didn't do anything besides counter intel. The best you can hope for with a profile like that is to have something parks its ass a bit too close and then use it to launch a surprise counter-attack. All-in-all, it's a bit on the expensive side for such a situational profile with so little utility.

My advice is to use it as an HVT

 

Definitely a bit too expensive for what he actually does and really needs some forms of fireteams to make the dress-up game work in ISS and White Company.

 

Used him in tts, works OK but is a bit situational (like a lot of models) it's not a bad option to take him as you haven't got enough orders to use all your models in every game. There will be games we're he does nothing and other games where he'll be useful because of the board state

 

Yeah, I want to put him in a list and love the model, but the opportunity hasn't come up yet.

Counter Intelligence could be useful if you're in a mission where going first and scoring immediately is super important - Tremors from the megabeast missions is an example. With the bonus models in that mission you might want to take Sun Tze to give you good odds of going first and boosting the primary order group up to 13 orders in that case, and you'd still have 12 to pump into killing the Stoorworm even if your opponent stripped one. Plus you could dump two Sun Tze on the table.

Still, that's not even an ITS mission... using Taowu is highly situational for now. Wildcard and hiding him in links would be much more fun.

 

I'd like to try him out but every time I put him in a list I end up taking him out. It's hard for me to justify something that might, kinda, sorta, work every once in a while. I need consistent use in some way. He certainly makes a fantastic HVT!

 

I think he is not too bad with objective room missions. His B3 can work well in this setting while he does not need to cross the whole table to be online.

 

I used him in Druze as Armand, he blocked an entire firelane without doing anything really, then in the 3rd turn he flashpulshed the enemies Hsien and blocked his remaining heavy weapon from doing anything substantial.

He is not a bad decoy for his points range and can, if needs be, push forward and block a section of the board.

 

In N4 I actualy used him one time in ISS and he killed a Crusher in CC ... but to be honest, this was forced, the Crusher was already locked with a daring Kuang Shi, so I had the burst bonus. I looked at his profil again today and wonder a bit why the not give him BS-Attack +1 Burst in the top profile (and +1 for the viral pistol, so the b-bonus counts in cc too).

Both B+1 on nano and flashpulse are only useful in active turn (and situational). Its fun to use him as a bait, but if you disguise him as a potential Zhanshi or Celestial Guard Lt., you have the risk, that the opponent simply gunned him down. His ARO potential is flashpulse on WIP 14 only. So without being part of a fireteam, to deliver him towards a juicy target he is Counter Intilligence for 25 pts. I think it would be enough to make him count as an CG for fireteam purposes.

If he could disguise as an HVT, that would be dirty stuff. But a bit unfair, when your opponent tries to civ-evac him ;-)

 

He might have some potential in vanilla also, there you could use him to protect the order pool of a beefy NCO, guaranteeing 11 orders to use on a Hac Tao or Krit. I guess the question there is why you need to spend 25pts to get one extra order in a pool in about half your games. I guess in vanilla there are also some juicier things to holoecho as - Haidao Sniper, Le Muet etc. Doing that might also help mask points for a Liu Xing or Tiger AD option or something in Hidden Deployment.

It seems overly complex, but at least it would be fun to wait for someone to target your fake-haidao then reveal a real Hundun.

 

Ran the physical model out last night for "panic room". Got a bit unlucky with enemy bts saves but he's a good doorkicker for those types of missions, especially if you can holo him as something nasty which might force a certain deployment swing from an opponent

 

I'm interested in trying him against my Ariadna buddy who recently picked up Mirage-5. Vanilla YJ doesn't have many viral options and Lunah would likely find her VSR in a bad range band after Duroc has dropped in the DZ. Have any of you tried him in this scenario?

 

I was thinking of what hard hitters would do this.

To me, making him look like a MSV troops is the thing that's going to get them to set up against it.

BTW how does Mimetisim work with the holomask? They think they have it up until someone goes to try and shoot him?

BTW it also makes him a good diversionary target for Impersonation troops too.

BÀO TROOP MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)
KNAUF MULTI Sniper Rifle / AP Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 32)
ZÚYǑNG Heavy Machine Gun / CC Weapon, Breaker Pistol(+1B). (1.5 | 34)
ARMAND (Multispectral Visor L1) MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser ( ) / Breaker Pistol(+1B), Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 39)
KOKRAM FTO Feuerbach, Chain-colt, D-Charges / Heavy Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (1.5 | 42)
SUN TZE MULTI Sniper Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 45)
SHÀNG JÍ (Tactical Awareness) AP Heavy Machine Gun, Chain-colt ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 49)
HSIEN Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (1.5 | 55)
12 SWC | 325 Points

 

Of that lot, Bao and Sunny aren't worth taking at all, and I'd argue the same for Krit's Feurbach profile too. Zuyong HMG is a stretch now that we have Shang Jisus, especially outside of a fireteam. Armand's not bad, but he's expensive and generally outclassed by Lunah.

So, with what we have remaining, that leaves us in a bit of a pickle. All of them are dominant active turn pieces. If we go first, they'll know Taowu is in the list because of counterintel, and if you're not spending orders on any of these guys, they'll stick out like a sore thumb.
If you go second, counterintel is useless, but the fake out might work a bit better.

 

Counterintelligence is optional, so if the fake-out to guard against duroc is more important to you than losing two orders, you can make that trade-off.

I think against Ariadna masquerading as a multirifle hsien might be a good idea. It has potential to race up the table and murder camo tokens on the way, costs a lot of points and people *love* to kill NCO models. If you're using a daoying lt, it makes the bait even more enticing.