My views here, so feel free to disagree. What did Vanilla YJ really loose with Japan going awary? - Oniwabans - Karakuri - Raiden - Aragoto Those were the big hits. Everything else added some depth to army, but was not really irreplaceable. This is the TL;DR, a more in depth though about each of the units goes below. - Oniwaban. The simple fact that they existed forced you oponent's hand. Had a TAG and was about to go second against a YJ that is missing points on the table? I would have to put that TAG with a deep defensive layer or risk loosing it to the suicidal ninja. That meant that some deploy areas were almost off-limits, and it would probably take 1 or 2 more orders to get the TAG were I wanted it. Even with no TAG, it meant that obvious lts had to be *really* careful with deployment, as did anything that was expensive. All of that and the oponent could have not even brought a Oniwaban. The fact is: The simple existance of that ninja meant that you had to change the way you would deploy to avoid a turn 1 disaster. - Karakuri. Tough 2 wounds + dogged total immunity specialists. It is one of the few specialists in the game that can ignore a missile launcher pointed their way to get a move-move towards a objective, or can fail to capture something, tank the covering fire and try again. They are not cheap, but they made for great cappers on threathed areas or last turn hail marys, and if that was not needed they were still reasonable shooty HI (albeit a bit expensive for that role). -Raiden. Cheap camoed HRL. Even if it was not the best shot, or was blocked by smoke it still meant your enemy had to toss that smoke. Thats what you want from ARO pieces - for people to have to move and act in less than optimal ways. The raiden was cheap enough to be almost anywhere, disposable and was enough of a threat that you simply couldn't ignore it and hope for the best. The DZ mine is not that much of a boon on the home of the chain rifle, but it could still force the enemy to spend more actions in guessing who's the real raiden. -Aragoto. Aragoto aren't great. But they have mobility. They are quick enough to explit a gap and get into your backfield in 2 orders, and then they can reign hell against cheerleaders. I think that Vanilla YJ lost most of what made it different from ISS. Right now there is only 2 things you want from vanilla that you don't find in ISS: Hac Tao and Impetous smoke.
Vanilla has Daofei, Guilangs, Hac Tao, Tiger Soldiers and Shaolins off the top my my head, which are all really really good. One could quite easily make a list which in fact has mostly those things, and expect it to do very well. Plus if you want a TAG you need to play Vanilla (or one of those CBLs, I mean, okay sure technically yes but who uses those?) and they have the support to make it run well too.
@Wyrmnax The big hit, as in massive hit, was loss of Shinobu and to a lesser extent Oniwaban. I do not think there's a character and corresponding unit that would be anywhere near as big loss to one of the other vanilla factions' tactical ability. Maybe the Fidays. As for the others, not so much. I'm mostly missing points, if it wasn't for loss of points that came with this split as well I could compromise and use Wu Ming or Zuyong instead of Raiden and the other two I don't think were worth much outside of sectorial.
Completely forgot about the Tiger Soldiers, and yes, they are another good reason to go Vanilla. Most of what guilangs can do can be done by Kanrens - maybe not as optimally, but can be done. Daofeis are good but not as much of game changers as a TO HI, or impetuous smoke, or a great AD. So yeah, i defer to you on Tiger Soldiers that I had completely forgotten, but I keep my point towards the rest - there is very little reason to play Vanilla instead of ISS right now - you simply don't have enough options to switch tactics that would have been better executed by having fireteams. And TAGs are a problem apart, as TAGs are still very meh.
What I mean by loosing Oniwaban was loosing them as a whole class, inclusing Shinobu. Its the whole TO camo, superioir infiltrating, shotgun + monofilament threath that could be done by either.
Saying the Guijia runs well is being overly generous. I haven't lost a game with mine, but it's still not better than bringing a Hac Tao or Su Jian for less cost. Only reason I put it on the table is for shits and giggles. ISS doesn't miss Tiger Soldiers either. They get Garuda which are just as good. 6-4 movement on an AD trooper is insanely strong, and they can get buffed with marksmanship.
I wasn't exactly nitpicking about Shinobu versus Oniwaban, but from my own experience the smoke grenades on Shinobu lets her dissect a group of models in a way that an Oniwaban can't. I wouldn't call the Garuda just as good, but it's not far off. On the other hand, I'm not enamoured by the situational nature of AD troops in general, tables and enemy deployment can make them useless in a way that doesn't happen with other troops. When they work they work, when they don't it's hard to get them to work.
What I like about the Garuda is it's insulated from the problem you describe. If your table is crap or your opponent is locking down the attack vectors heavily it's a good candidate to just start on the table and go to town as a fast moving rambo piece with an HMG and Marksmanship.
You're right that they not irreplaceable, but the issue is that they haven't been replaced; it's just a sucking wound. Domaru, Haramaki and Shikami were good midfield beaters that could actually press forward (and wanted to), creating space for specialists. Domaru and Haramaki were also cheap enough to play second fiddle without it being much of an issue. The cheaper JSA units (Tokusetsu and Keisotsu) were a terrible design choice ("They're more cost effective! Why aren't you taking the more expensive, less efficient units?!"). The fault lies squarely with CB for making an obviously better option (well, an obviously worse option in the Zhanshi). The O-Yoroi wasn't particularly impressive, but it brought Koalas for control, which is damn useful on a big beatstick like a TAG. And then the four you mentioned were all very useful in their own unique ways. JSA did provide breadth of options, and now they simply don't with no replacements in sight.
I dunno why we are still talking about this when it's obvious CB just does not give a shit about Yu Jing for whatever reason
that's why I use the Sun Tze sniper figure converted to have a helmet from the Spec Op. To me, Le Muet is what Sun Tze sniper should have been.
Complaining on the forums and telling new players At this point complaining about the uprising doesnt get noticed anymore as anything but annoying. Being negative about the game around new players is sure to make you popular in your local community. Also I dont believe the guy I originally quoted or anyone here has quit the game over this. People can say whatever they want but they're either still buying stuff or taking a break which is nothing abnormal. I dont buy infinity product every month so am always taking breaks from purchasing stuff. I dont think I'm hurting CB's wallet. If someone wants to prove me wrong on that and actually quit the game then good luck I guess? Yeah some units were lost. Some that filled a nice role in the faction but a year from now no one will care or be talking about it. New players will have never known any different and most likely there will be new stuff to either fill the void or have new roles.
The reality of the situation is that people won't stop rightfully bitching about getting screwed over by CB until they do something to make up for it. They haven't done this, and likely won't offer anything at all even as small as a direct apology and admitting they screwed it all up. So people will continue to give them flak over this. Like it or not, that's how it's gonna be.
Wanna shout out to people actually discussing the topic, keep it up! I've generally got about 3-4 lists I'm playing around with. Although there are quite a few familiar profiles in all of them (kuang Shi and guilang). Eventually I'll need to try some non-kuang Shi lists but right now I'm trying to master The chain rifle nuts. Right now id say yu Jing is middle of The pack, some very solid lists but the reduction of potential surprises. I think many players will find the lack of nasty aro pieces combined with a relatively soft under belly of orders difficult to play. But the sheer selection of 50-60 point sluggers, of which you can normally get 2 + a back up and the usual complement of 2-3 skirmishers means a yu Jing list packs punch. I don't think I've had enough game time to give serious tips about strategy yet, but haven't found myself on uphill battles due to limited choices, only bad choices.
I've not been paying much attention to the forums lately, otherwise I would have chimed in earlier. Shortly after uprising came out I got to attend a small tournament (by small I mean only 6 people turned up) and I took Vanilla Yu Jing. I wanted to use completely different lists from what I had previously based lists around (in a small part due to the changes) and took a pair of limited insertion lists because it encouraged me to take more of our pricey toys. So one list had a Hsien, Crane, Daofei and Zuyong as its core backed up by a Kanren with Madtraps to play interference (plus a ninja killer hacker), doctor, engineer and a couple of cheap remotes. I played the list once against Aleph (led by Hoplite Achilles) and won thanks to some good luck with the ninja and the daofei. The other list was a bit sillier featuring a pair of guilang snipers and Sun Tze2, a pair of ninja killer hackers, a daofei assault hacker with a couple of celestial guard plus doctor and engineer. This list got played against JSA and Neoterra. I felt lucky to have won both games but the core reason was that no-one expected to see 3 multi-snipers in the same list. Uprising has forced Yu Jing to change its list builds. Often it feels more difficult because many of these changes are forcing us to drop favourite, powerful and reliable pieces that problem solved for us against a lot of opponents. Most notably things like the Raiden, Shinobu and to the lesser extent the tokusetsu. This forced change grates because of how it came about but after getting over the mental block of "how do I cope with X" I'm having fun list building and would suggest that our lists are still pretty powerful. I don't know where Yu Jing lies on the power curve but I don't feel at all disadvantaged playing them. I've still got a lot of options when it comes to list building and there are a lot of strategies and tactics to exploit in games.
I'm not quite sure I am ready to quit. I certainIy didn't threaten to. I said I'm not buying anymore. Why is it that the default response for someone with complaints to tell them to quit? I enjoy my local community in San Diego. It's really them keeping me in, not CB. That said, if that community falls apart again, I'll just ghost off. I won't try to keep it on life support like I had to early on. And why do you imply I am asshole because I pursue this one issue? I am certainly passionate about this issue, but outside of that, point out where I am a negative influence on the community. I generally try to give thoughtful and reasoned responses. I try to offer options and avoid shooting down others. I want players to grow and explore. And ultimately, that's why I am so persistent about this. Real talk. Infinity is incredibly rough to get into. There are so many front loaded issues that can sink an Infinity hobby. Model buy in is cheap, but you need the proper amount of terrain. For a lot of smaller stores, two Infinity tables are fully capable of using up all of the available terrain. That's why many veteran players bring their own. Any tournament practically relies on participants bringing tables. There are a lot of rules. There are many spots for new players to get an interaction wrong. Just look at how many times questions about impact templates come up. There are lot pitfalls that can absolutely wreck a player's chance for victory. A badly constructed list can lose you the game. A badly deployed force can lose you the game, especially because of the raw alpha strike potential game. Some forces, such as Steel Phalanx are outright noob stompers that will steamroll the unprepared. Dice variance is extremely high, which wreck you if you don't have a plan B. These lessons are hard to learn. Finally, this game requires a whole lot of cooperation between players. If you are paired up with an asshole who isn't willing to engage in in that back and forth, then the situation goes sour fast. We get around this by having veteran players who provide the infrastructure, insight, and dedication to build new players up, to create a fostering community. All of this is built on the belief that all this effort is worth it. Now I ask you this, How can you do all this without the faith CB will respect your collections? That they will have your back, even as they try to explore new things? Is it worth putting all that time in, and even more weighty, dragging others with you when the company cannot give you that certainty of good faith effort? I persist in this issue, because I want CB to be worthy of that trust.
