I was thinking of buying the Karakuri Special project, and I wanted to know if any body has used them and what do people think of them, and should I buy them?
The models are a bit fiddly to assemble, but they are impressively hard to kill in game. Total Immunity means that DA or EXP (or Fire) only does a single ARM roll. Those skinny little geishabots can face-tank a missile launcher!
I echo @Section9 and will add that they are excellent all round models for any list. All of them are specialists thanks to forward observer, they all come with a chain rifle and D.E.P on top of their main armament and it takes a lot to bring them down. Total immunity is a very powerful skill to have but on top of that, they are remote presence models, the same as remotes. They still use HI rules but remote presence means that they have 2 levels of unconscious and you can re-roll the engineer roll to repair them. You can also fix them back up to full wounds. This also works with dogged so that if you hammered by a high burst weapon (like a linked HMG) and would like to go dogged to keep the opponent from freely moving down that approach, the opponent needs to put you past that second level of unconscious to deny you the chance to go dogged. Karakuri are very different from JSA's other HI options but they are extremely useful. (I really like the option to run a haris team of two karakuri with a domaru.)
Thanks for very bodies feed back, I totally forgot they get 2 levels of unconscious, Ok! my mind is made up, I will buy them.
Their biggest problem is to get into a good shooting range. I ran them in the old JSA sectorial and I sometimes felt they had not enough punch. Their weakness are Burst 5 weapons and E/M ammunition. They got a little bit cheaper with the Uprising split due to the option of having a Domaru in the Haris, but I did not have the option to try them out yet. Had too many new tools to play with.
Also agains plasma and AP doesnt reduce ARM. I fieldet them in many games and are still sad because i cant select them anymore in YJ. I like the mk12 the most because its a very good toolkit, the new domaru-karakuri haris helps with one of their weakness: CC. One roadblocked ajax once, he needed 4 orders to kill one.
Oh yeah, not just a bit fiddly! I think they can deal better with those than many other HIs... Well, 12 orders for Ajay to kill a haris doesn't sound that vulnerable to me. Is the Domaru Haris so much better than the triple Karakuri? Of course they are weak in CC and the Grenades might be nice, as well as the 11 points saved, but a Domaru has (a little?) less survivability (and needs a doctor, just in case, not an engineer). Has anybody some experience with those two possibilities? Triple Karakuri vs Domaru + 2 Karakuri?
The point is, every halfway dedicated CC unit would need the same amount or more orders. Its just that a Karakuri can soak 3 crits from a Exp CC weapon. If you dont have the orders, its easier to just move in B2B and the Karakuri is out of the game if you don't free her with an CC unit or try your luck and shoot into CC. And thats why you have a Domaru with you. Don't take me wrong, 3 Karakuri are still valid but i think that the Domaru makes the Link more Flexible which fits my playstyle better.
Because total immunity does not help against that. If you loose two wounds, you're unconscious or dogged. I made the mistake to leave them visible in my active turn because I had the total immunity in mind. They're great to ignore explosive for DA AROs while advancing though. E/M2 special ammunition is "exotic", so total immunity does not help. BTS6 does help though. As I understand the current fireteam rules, you take the Domaru Haris and the MK5 + Heavy Shotgun Karakuri. So you get the burst 4 MK5 and the burst 3 Heavy Shotgun + the E/M grenades and CC capabilities of the Domaru. If you take the 3 Karakuri Haris, you trade the E/M grenades and CC capabilities to a Combi rifle (the Haris Karakuri) for a higher price. I also tried to pair the Karakuris (they are all FO) with a Smart Missile Launcher, but this combination is a trap in my experience. I only made it work once in 10 games. And by now we know that you don't get the +1 burst on the FO. I really love the models btw, but fiddly they are! They were both fun and a pain to assemble and paint, haha.
The trick I found was to not separate the legs from the tag before gluing them to the torso, but to keep them together until the glue sets... I loved posing and painting the creepy dolls, tho..
I'm going to try this for Engineering Deck & Frostbyte this weekend. I hope that for both missions the karakuri will excel. Moving the team into the objective room early to grab the center console & put a chunk of resilient ARO will hopefully allow me to fend off the horde of ariadnan's that has recently begun to plague my meta. And for Frostbyte, they're a group of resilient specialists I can move into the exclusion zone to grab objectives with and abandon in place for ARO without having to worry about lost points at the end of the game. Japanese Secessionist Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 DOMARU (Fireteam: Haris) Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27) DOMARU Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 26) KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40) KARAKURI Heavy Shotgun, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 35) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14) KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) KEMPEI (Multispectral Visor L2) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (1 | 25) TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) GROUP 2 5 RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24) WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) CHAĪYÌ Yaókòng Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) HÙSÒNG Yaókòng HMG / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 25) PANGGULING (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
Ended up taking a slightly modified version of the above list. Up first was Engineering Deck against MAF: - Went first against a Morat Rodok core very similar to a morat army I play... Karakuri team took the room turn one and shredded a couple Rodoks. TR bot setup long shots shutting down his access to the room (as long as I could beat the Daturazai Smoke). Despite my engineer blowing four command tokens on rerolls throughout the game I managed to hold the middle room and tie on objectives - Minor 6/3. - game went almost 100% according to plan, despite my engineer's best efforts. Second was Frostbyte against Bakunin: - I basically forced second turn by choosing deployment. He deployed a moderator core w/ sniper, rrriotgirl haris w/ Missile & specialist, taskmaster and support. I counter deployed... and again the game went almost 100% according to plan. the Karakuri (HSG was datatracker) strode through the missile's AROs to claim the middle zone, getting behind the riot girl and ripping her appart. The hero was a tie between the keisotsu missile who took out the taskmaster and reaktion zond, or my own husong who took apart basically everything else (despite my engineer continuing to do his damnest to finish the enemy's job, requiring 3 command tokens to fix the bot again...) - Major 10/2 took something else for supplies against USARF. Japanese Secessionist Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 9) KEISOTSU Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 14) KEISOTSU Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) KEMPEI (Chain of Command) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CCW, Electric Pulse. (0 | 21) DOMARU Lieutenant Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 26) DOMARU (Fireteam: Haris) Chain Rifle, E/M Grenades / Pistol, E/M CCW, Shock CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27) KARAKURI Mk12, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 40) KARAKURI Heavy Shotgun, Chain Rifle, D.E.P. / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 35) TOKUSETSU KOHEI Engineer Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) GROUP 2 4 RYŪKEN (Forward Deployment L2, ODD) Submachine Gun, Antipersonnel Mines, D-Charges / 2 Breaker Pistols, Knife. (0.5 | 24) TOKUSETSU EISEI Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) WÈIBĪNG Yaókòng Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) HÙSÒNG Yaókòng HMG / Electric Pulse. (1.5 | 25) YÁOZĂO Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 4.5 SWC | 297 Points Open in Infinity Army
So allow me to ask this - Are there better options other than the Karakuri Special Project? Every time I approach them I feel the points are better spent on a Tanko Haris or another equivalent for the points.
Whenever I play the Karakuri link, they feel very different to my usual Tanko Haris. The Tanko (I take light shotguns to give them a chance to oppose close quarters rolls when I inevitably disband the link to unleash the impetuosity) are all about aggression - ram them all the way up the board, soaking hits and clearing bodies. The karakuri are a much more defensive piece - get them in cover, and on suppression, and with 2 STR, total immunity (and BTS 9 vs E/M, Viral or Plasma) they'll be a pain to shift. Especially as you can allow them to enter the first level of unconsciousness, and then activate Dogged if your opponent decides to eradicate them, making it a riskier strategy. And, repairing STR can be done after the first point of damage.
it depends on the mission - if you need resilient specialists then there aren't much better options in JSA - I'd take any of the Karakuri over the FO Domaru any day (except in the full core link - and even then it is mission dependent) . If you need something for engineering deck, armory, safe area or Frostbyte I think Karakuri are fantastic.
Man! I can't wait to get my Karakuri, the figures are a little ugly, but I like the sound of what they can do.
I have only ran one at a time, but they are solid pieces. The Mk12 is fantastic, and having a unit that can take a hit from a Missile Launcher and survive is great. I bought the set, and modified the heads, but a friend of mine has done some great work converting an Assura to be wearing a Kimono for his. I think even just using an Assura as a proxy works well.
