New fireteams creation rules no longer require sectorial. You can create any fireteam that is listed in fireteams chart for your army. Vanilla has a long list of duos, and they are all listed together, so full mixing available. Cute things like SuJian+MBH or Guija+TinBot ShangJi/Zuyong/WuMing. Overall new fireteam rules look more like nerfs than buffs for most sectorials and Vanilla get Duo's on top.
I main Onyx, NCA, ForCo and Spiral. ForCo is almost exactly the same, NCA got a few minor nerfs and buffs, and Spiral & Onyx have both had massive buffs in terms of FT compositions. I don't think it's at all safe to conclude that "new fireteam rules look more like nerfs than buffs for most sectorials".
I think this is massive for any vanilla with lots of tinbots and TacAware/NCO. *looks at Yu Jing* Oh, hey there.
Yeah tbh i didnt see a big big buff to vanilla being on the cards for this update. I reserve the right to grumble if it turns out to be a problem. :D
How did Spiral get buffed? I haven't played Tohaa/Spiral so I keep mixing the names but i remember it was already very flexible with fireteams. And they had the gimmic of fielding Core of brawlers with Tagma Sniper plus TriCore for 2 teams with full bonuses. Now it looks like they lost TriCore completly and I have no idea what they gained. With Onyx I will agree it looks better than it used to. My sectorials (IA, WB and WCo) all feel like they got worse in more ways than better: IA to me looks like straight nerf with a small plus side of RuiShi being linkable with Invincibles. WB is more flexible and my dream of Shaolin regular fireteam somehow did come true, but on the other hand Zhanshi core is useless and HI cores are still expensive and inferior to IA. WB overall might be fun to run as 2x3man team but vanilla still seems very similar and just better. Not to mention Zhanshi Lt is virtually the only option and now he lost Core bonuses for defense. WCo can now play with B4 Feuerbach on Karhu and Liang Kai/Shona are full wildcards. But no more Haidao Valeria Ork Fusilier core, and sadly it was the best way of playing them. Again, they might be decent for 2x3man teams but similar to WB their Lt doesn't have Core bonuses to defend itself.
Spiral picked up two very strong options, and had taagma go true wildcard, making any fireteam in the sectorial tricore viable. - So now we can run something like Anaconda, tricore taagma, engineer brawler for 95pts. Suddenly the anaconda is transformed, having 6th sense, +1B and BS14. If the spitfire pilot survives it joins the fireteam without any interruption too, which is a great little consolation prize for losing your anaconda. - Chaaksa Longarms can form cheap harises, so a portable autocannon and 2 auxiliars comes in at 50pts. Throw the tricore in there instead if you want. Impersonate another longarm with it if you want. - The tricore taagma is now going to become a massive priority to find and kill for your opponent, as when their current team breaks down they can flip over to literally any team in your list and buff it. Finally, brawler tricore gives the full bonus, so taagma tricore, sniper and hrl, for example, gives you a very cheap and punchy haris for 59pts. Taagma sniper/ auxiliar haris is gone though, and the ascendency of the draal tricore is a bit tarnished, but overall Spiral look to have had a big buf in a department where it was sorely lacking: long range threat.
This woman just got a lot more appealing: ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1 1 ZÚYǑNG (Tactical Awareness) Combi Rifle ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / CC Weapon, Breaker Pistol(+1B). (0 | 31) 0 SWC | 31 Points Open in Infinity Army
YJ has 15 Duo's to choose from. The most of any generic faction. Also some that have great synergy. PanO has a few TAGs that can duo but not seeing things like Tinbots. Karhu ENG is probably going to be popular though.
Krit + Su Jian is an NCO powering a miniature TAG that drags a specialist onto the field until it outruns him, for about the same cost as a TAG -- it's very very good. Something I was pondering was the Shang Ji APHMG duoing with a Pheasant hacker of some kind, maybe a KHD; this is one of the extremely small number of vanilla-available Tinbots, and it comes with an extremely versatile gun and a tac-aware order to drag the specialist up the table. I disagree with this. Zhanshi cores are BS14 if you don't take any Wildcards, which is right on the money for where most mixed links are standing. Zhanshi MLs are BS14, 6S, B2, Disco+3 for 1.5swc and 16 points. You can fill out a Core link of them, including an HMG and paramedic, for 70 points. That gives you a looooooot of flex for White Banner's or IA's solos and lets you make a great Haris in both armies. Like, check this out: ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 6 / 2 / 3 ZHANSHI (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11) ZHANSHI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13) ZHANSHI Missile Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 16) ZHANSHI Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 19) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 6) LIANG KAI Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 21) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 6) 2.5 SWC | 103 Points That's your core, that's your haris. You've got 8 Regular Orders and you're barely a third into your list. You've got a BS 14 HMG, Paramed, Lt, Decoy, and a threatening ARO most people would try to ignore because almost nobody's shooting on 16s for cheap anymore. You could fill out your list with anything you want at this point. Take a Blue Wolf. Take a Guijia. Take both! Take a Daofei and four Guilang. Take some backup troops to fill in the Core when the ML dies. Hell, take four Jujaks and So-Ra and form them into a Core when you're done with your Zhanshis. In fact, fuck it. Double Core. ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 1 ZHANSHI (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11) ZHANSHI (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13) ZHANSHI Missile Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 16) ZHANSHI Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 19) ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11) JUJAK Combi Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 26) JUJAK (Engineer, Deactivator) Boarding Shotgun, Panzerfaust, D-Charges ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 30) JUJAK Missile Launcher, Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 33) JUJAK Breaker Combi Rifle, Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 28) SHÀNG JÍ (Tactical Awareness) AP Heavy Machine Gun, Chain-colt ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 49) GROUP 2 3 2 3 LIANG KAI Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 21) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 5) SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 5) LÓNG YÁ (Minelayer) Panzerfaust(+1B), Flammenspeer(+1B), Submachine Gun, AP Mines / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 17) LÓNG YÁ Panzerfaust(+1B), Flammenspeer(+1B), Submachine Gun, AP Mines / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 16) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
So-Ra and Tai got left off the list of duos while Krit gets to. Kinda weird. Same for Mowang making the list but Yan Huo missing out.
True, Patsy had duo on her N3 profile too and she made the cut for Vanilla duos. Tai and the Yan Huo didn't have duo in Vanilla but on the other hand So-Ra did. I dunno. Seems randomly chosen.
