What's the idea behind the new Shaolin Warrior Monk sculpt? The older set is 4 figures, which makes more sense for WB AVA, and the lightly clothed/armed aesthetic seems to fit the stats better. The new one feels like a special character... but we already have two recent Liang Kai sculpts so it's not like it needed as a proxy for Liang Kai. If the old monks are going out of print and just getting replaced with a single sculpt, it feels like they're pushing WB away from multi-monk lists.
The new one just looks fancy due to being a newer sculpt. I don’t think there is an ulterior motive of the blister, as both VGs and Muhktars also got this fate. I imagine it has to due with Covid slowing down some of the internal production
That's easy! CB took data from ITS and their own predictions about 15 orders limit lists of N4 - connected the dots and decided no one will play Warbands worth 5 points anymore... This led them to a release of a single monk blister, thus robbing themselves of my hard earned money, all the while skipping the best possible opportunity to release the most crazy awesome posed miniatures in the range, spiced with extremely awesome theme of monks. Like if Liang Kai limited mini wasn't selling Kaldstrom on it's own. It gets better - ITS are super accurate, because pre-Kaldstrom there was no WB to add to stats, there was only Vanilla with Kuang-Shi to steel Monk's thunder... and I'm purposefully overexaggerating here, still am serious about this. There's really no fckn reason for them to sell a single miniature instead of four, except they thought it wouldn't be playable. Box looks waaay better than a blister on a store shelf, Warbands are still a great choice (especially now, when you can spit out 23-25pts worth of an entire combat group and dealing 1 vs 1 is your opponent's worst nightmare), New monk and previously released Liang Kais are just super awesome looking and add a lot of character to Yu-Jing and Infinity in general, So... that's my take. I'm happy to get to know anyone else's proposal.
I play mostly two Monks. The main reason is, that I have only two, the old blister-minis. I skipped the box and now I will add no. 3. The new ones are close in design to Liang Kai. If you skip him, you can put three new ones on the table. But anyway I also expected a box. Any new player that wants to play the right mini, is limited to one, or has to proxy with Liang. Not the best solution. And: Why not make a double blister at least?
Exactly this - double blister would solve the problem. Liang Kai, Liang Kai limited, 2 Monks = 4 monks. I decided to go White Banner (and Yu-Jing for the record) because of miniatures. Purely aesthetics. Wanted to collect only these miniatures I really dig. Am left few Monks short just "because". Pretty sad story. I am considering a commission of 3rd party to make a ripoff just to fill the slots with awesome new style monks.
Yeah its definitely a weird choice, luckily I still have the old monks. At this point I think I would be happy if we even got another monk as a fourth model mixed in with Ye Mao or Tian Gou…
Honestly despite his awkward fireteam in WBA, he has always come through for me as a solo piece. I get hes not for everyone, but he has been good to me.
Maybe I'm an idiot for doing this, but I actually kind-of like playing with the Duo w/ Liang Kai and Jing Qo. They have very similar skillsets, except Jing Qo has some nominal ranged and can push buttons, and Liang Kai provides the templates and slightly better melee - so they kind-of complement one another. Both are pretty hard to hit and have NWI too, and even losing one of them you retain a decent amount of the functionality they have as a Duo, such that it's almost like having a single trooper w/ 4 wounds. I don't know how competitive they actually are (I'm sure someone will tell me: not very) but I always have a good time when they're on the table.
Jujak fireteams: Look, there's this thing where they base model stats on fluff sometimes even when it's bad for that troop profile's performance, and this is one of those times. Jujaks are Korean troops and the central command doesn't seem to trust their ethnic minority troops much, so they probably aren't allowed out in a linked fireteam except when a trusted Shang Ji trooper requisitions them for assistance. I could see maybe giving them Wildcard and allowing up to 1 to join any fireteam, if Zhanshi or Ye Mao teams were allowed to check one out of the library too. They get more link options in White Company because the commander trusts them more than Yu Jing commanders do. Play the ethnic racist faction, get the ethnic racist link options. Why there's a Jujak LT option I can't say—internal consistency isn't a hallmark of CB's game design ethos. I'm still holding out hope that the new character will get "Special Fireteam: Counts as a Shang Ji" so she can form and lead a pure Jujak link. It'd presumably be based on fluff similar to Adil's background where she's earned the trust of command staff and is allowed to lead a linked team in field ops. I like when things don't suck and make sense with the fluff, and that'd solve both for me personally. Jujak stats: Immunity (continuous damage) really ought to be on there for flavor reasons, a continuous damage Boarding Shotgun would be cool on the tinbot BSG profile just to make you consider including him instead of the Engineer, and to give you an alternate tinbot in case you wanted to include a non-tinbot Shang Ji in the link—it'd be an incentive to not autoinclude the APHMG SJ in the link, basically. ALSO I like Zuyongs just fine so Zuyongs with more breaker weapons and templates sound good to me and I kinda like these as-is. Ye Mao Core: Face it, y'all, if these guys came with Core already there'd be a LOUD outcry of "WHY DID THEY PUT USELESS SUPER JUMP ON A 4-4 CORE LINK TROOPASDFGH!!!1" and we'd be arguing about whether or not that was plain dumb in addition to expressing our Karhu envy on a near-daily basis. White Banner-specific Shang Ji profile with Climbing Plus, breaker combi, and light flamer: Nobody has asked for this but I'd buy the blister and run it on principle. I like Shang Ji and want more sculpts regardless of the in-game value of the profile, sue me. Shaolin: I don't understand why they aren't Regular in White Banner, or at least why they don't get a couple of Regular profile options. But boy are they cheap and I assembled the old Shaolin box from my model stash for the express purpose of spamming them.
Yeah it does kinda come across that way doesn't it? I like the idea of having some profiles having a skill/equipment and not the whole thing. You are probably right but we are not the only ones with Karhu envy. I'd buy it! I can understand why they don't do it for WB I guess. But they could at least give us a FTO Liang Kai with Inspiring Leadership (Shaolin). I wish they would change Inspiring Leadership to be more specific on what it effects. Like I mentioned above. It only changes the Irregular order of Shaolin but it can't do it to Warcor. It would kind of show how much that particular troop will follow you. I don't think for instance Joan should be able to change the Irregular order of Helots or Cube Jaegers but Techbees would be fine. Inspiring Leadership (Total) Inspiring Leadership (Galwegian) Inspiring Leadership (Shaolin) Inspiring Leadership (Non-Mercenary unit)
This - totally this. Would repair both Liang Kai and WB in one go. Would add huge amount of flavor. Monks being solitary and rather outside the structure of command, coming together under a senior monk to form an awesome Kung-Fu Panda squad of kickass. Overall would be awesome.
