What i would do with Imperial Service if i were CB

I don't think CB wants Frenzy on Yu Jing troops in general. CB seems to be trying to sell Yu Jing as a military in control with discipline.

Generally, I don't quite like the direction you're taking Bao in and I think you've exasperated Pheasants' problems, otherwise it's interesting and I think the sectorial is in a position where the mercs can be used as order generators. I'll leave nitpicking on specific details aside as there'd be little point and too many nits to pick there.

I think the biggest switch up for the sectorial would be Imp-2 on Kanren instead of Holoecho, even if that'll leave MadTraps at home.

 

Unfortuantley O-12 has kind of stolen things I've wanted for along time in ISS. I'd like to see some Riot Stoppers for the most part. But I've also wanted some Anti-hackers. Meaning better upgraded KHD users. Police that go after cyber criminals.

Celestials are not bad as they are. If anything I'd like to see a KHD.

I agree on this. Wildcard or able to join with up to 1.

I'm not sure about this. It's not bad though.

6-2 move now! If there were any changes, this is the one i want most.

I'm not sure how I feel about Frenzy. If a YJ troop has it I suppose they the ones that should.

I thought they would have changed them to ARM3 when N4 came out. why are they in such good armor? But if you want shock troops why not go to ARM5!

It might be overboard to have them in core fireteams. Maybe a special FTO option?

I only disagree on viral. It's not very YJ. Breaker is.

Shock immune would help but I already don't take him because of cost and don't think i want him more expensive.

6-2 move! But that's all they really need.

Great idea of Stealth on mobility form.

This is a sticky one since if it happened for us it would also happen for all others that get him. But all of those proposed changes would make him worth taking.

I think a lot of that is over doing it. I just want them to be able to form a core again and add a specialist. KHD or FO. Changing them to a MI ARM3 is not a bad idea though.

if anyone should be a wildcard it should be the Pheasant and change E/Mitter to E/Marat. Emitters suck!

All existing profiles should have Madtraps.

I like the idea of one with Impersonation.

He's a thread unto himself. He needs to be made more worth those points. I actually like the MI one. For some reason both profiles have Strategos but only the Lt. can use it. I think they should have a version with CoC. Then once he is the Lt. Strategos comes into play. At least the changing Lt. order into Regular. BS Shock on the MSR feels over doing it. I'd rather he live up to the name and have Marksmanship.

 

It wouldn't *have* to leave MadTraps at home... Speculo Killers still have AP mines, right?

 

I think adding a deployable repeater profile for Kanren is really what the sectorial needs.

The move from 16-17 bodies with some ablative Kuang Shi wounds to "every order is sacred" at 15 models is one of the things that has really changed the flavour of ISS. I used to play them as a defend-in-depth and then counterpunch army, with the defending in depth done with Kuang Shi and flash pulses as they have almost no midfield presence and middling ARO options.

I think the best solution for this would be that they leverage their undercover secret agents to deploy a defensive repeater network and can then use their excellent sixth sense Zhanying hackers to get some use out of it.

 

How about Kuang Shi as Repeaters? The control device used to make them go unconscious and then become repeaters. Well how about them just having the Repeater skill all of the time? I'm not saying all of them though. Maybe one of the options.

 

That might be another way to solve things - I'm sure there are lots of ways it could be done. The addition of other midfield speed bumps like a Libertos would also do it.

The addition of the motorized ABH will be interesting - having a fast attack piece that can't be bricked by a repeater like the Lu Duan, Rui Shi or Su Jian or Garuda is pretty appealing. That's a different part of the picture where there are already quite a few good choices, but it never hurts to get another one.

 

Oooh I love threads like this! Gonna add my 2 cents since we're on lockdown and I'm looking for stuff to do...

I played IS in 2nd edition, but then VaulSC started maining them and I didn't like being "the other ____ player" for any faction which is one of the reasons I ended up focusing on Tohaa for a long time. I remember them being the spam and smoke faciton. Tons of bodies, tons of smoke, Rui Shi and sometimes other MSV shooting through the smoke. Lots of stuff not seeing any play because these things were primary. I don't miss those days but since losing order spam and the Rui Shi ability to eventually crit anything to death IS has seemed pretty incoherent in 4th.

Gonna go down the list of units and suggest some changes.

• Bounty Hunters should be able to form link teams led by some sort of agent. Would be fun to play and fits thematically.
  
  
• Bao Troops have always been bad. Mid-20 point one wound guys with MSV and lack of HMG were bad when I started the game and are still bad, doesn't matter how many niche visors you stick on them. The easiest fix is the usual "let them join a team of Celestial Guard" or wildcard in general, but frankly they would still be rather unimpressive. I would suggest both going that easy route but also as another simple fix giving them access to a MULTI Sniper +1B like their cousins the Yaogat got. That profile is seeing some play in Morats now and I could see it perhaps being reasonable here. The non-Sniper profiles might pick up sensor too - kind of treads on some toes a little but fits with their "I can see everything but otherwise suck" design philosophy.
  
  
• Celestial Guard: Fine, just lacking the wildcard salad of other sectorials. Could benefit from the usual "big ARM 2W turret" offering other armies get which would improve their effectiveness but not the uniqueness of the sectorial. I feel this is a place where enabling MSV2 + inbuilt smoke on a core link could be reasonable. Maybe not the full Hsien, but even so maybe thats fine.
  
  
• Kuang Shi: Someone mentioned repeaters here. Repeater Kuang Shi were pretty ridiculous when they existed. It's not necessarily a bad idea but more one where you need to be careful. An IS exclusive Repeater Kuang Shi with a downgrade would be good. Personally I'd be in favor of removing dogged across the board for them to make the explode more relevant. Then give IS a chain colt/repeater option or something. Have seen the Peripheral idea before and it's really cool, but definitely not a good idea to replace the primary IS (and arguably YJ) advantage with it.
  
  
• CSU: Doesn't do anything particularly interesting. Maybe link with whatever the Bounty Hunter link would be?
  
  
• Deva: Deva in an agent link? I don't know if that would be appropriate with the fluff - are they that embedded into IS? Otherwise, no changes here.
  
  
• Pheasants: Honestly I feel plain wildcard or a more permissive counts as is enough here. These have never been outstanding but they also don't need to be. But what they are currently is a gap filling profile that can only join what is possibly one of the crappiest links in the game (pure Bao). I would love to see a discount someplace, as a 1W CC orientated model is not where you want chain of command. Perhaps have some CoC profiles instead of universally applying it to all of them?
  
  
• Taowu: I agree fully with the linkable concept in the OP.
  
  
• Zanying: These feel distinctly mediocre, like they are designed to be an expensive and limited Celestial Guard link to put Hsien in, because Hsien in a regular link would be too good. Your usual low-20s elite link infantry option, this type of profile pisses me off. Honestly I think just fold these and Bao Troops into one unit the same way Magisters and Teutons were and call it a day.
  
  
• Adil Mehmut: Seems like an expensive but otherwise reasonable link option. I like things that give sensor to links honestly. Could do with a cost cut, probably the CC stats, to get him under 30 points.
  
  
• Sun Tze 1.0 & 2.0: Would it be egregious to ask for LT+1 order instead of +1 command token here? The other Strategos order pools are playable on little more than that. If you want to go really bonkers give him some form of link capability, even if its just one of those really expensive agent only links similar to the restrictions on Joan.
  
  
• Hsien: A solid unit which would appreciate a wider link pool and no other changes.
  
  
• Adil Mehmut Crane: People dump on this guy and I reckon it's unwarranted. Yeah there are downsides compared to a crane, like worse guns. But he gives you access to a specialist version of the standard crane that retains sensor and also gains Veteran. I remember wishing for a sensor specialist crane way back in 2nd edition and here it is. I'm going to go ahead and say fine as it is even though others will disagree.
  
  
• Su Jian: I'm in the no changes camp honestly. OP recommended stealth but I'm really skeptical about giving a fast, 3 wound ARM 5 BS 14 HI stealth. If so, that mobility form needs a big downgrade in the form of BS 0. Let people put the hurt on in the rare occasion where they can actually engage it in that form.
  
  
• Wu Ming: I really don't like these. They feel too... standard, for convict HI. I own a box of them that I haven't painted or assembled for several years because they just don't seem all that interesting. I certainly feel at least these should be cheaper and worse than Zuyongs instead of essentially expensive and stronger ones. I like the frenzy idea as this is pretty much the only place you should find a frenzy HI in YJ. I also partially agree with 6-2 MOV, mostly to bring all the HI in line, but I can see 4-4 MOV to represent old and inferior HI armor as a thing. I would go further down that path and cut 1 ARM and all BTS. If you want to be bonkers, give them explode like a Kuang Shi.
  
  
• Kanren: I saw an idea for impersonation earlier and I feel that is a bad fit - IS is not an army known for access to marker state. What I would suggest instead is something similar - Forward Deployment +16" or even +20". Give them no-roll deployment past the middle line (though not all the way like impersonation) at the cost of being non-marker skirmisher. That would make them pretty damn unique and even advantageous over standard skirmishers in at least one way.

Gui Feng, Major Lunar, ALEPH profiles, Miranda, Remotes, Ninja, Kunai: No changes

 

To be honest, I find the Kuang Shi order advantage a bit of a shackle. The heavies on offer for ISS are not as great as they were and they weren't fantastic compared to anyone but Caledonia (the only other sectorial with ridiculously cheap regular orders) and *phew* not managing to jump that hurdle would've been embarassing.
Now that literally everyone has had some pretty major improvements to the top end units, both reducing cost and increasing performance, the benefit of having dirt cheap orders to fuel what is now... mediocre heavies and with a capped order economy.

Setting Sun up as a premium - and cost effective - command unit would make so much more sense as a faction advantage and order advantage route.

Kinda.

Speculo pays a bit of an SWC premium for their Shock Mines, but, unlike Shock Mines. Perimeter ignores walls, making the trigger area much larger, but on the other hand you may not deploy them with camouflage tokens in range regardless if there's other units nearby. I think on the whole leaving perimeter weapons makes things more manageable for both you and your opponent. They'll have enough trouble managing reasonably competent Mono CCW with a potential hacking device or BSG in their face turn 0.

That said, I think it'd be interesting if MadTraps were replaced with peripheral Kuang Shi where appropriate. I'm not so sure MadTraps are necessary to tell the ISS story, unlike for O-12, and peri-Shi could serve a similar purpose. Though... Kuang Shi would not be appropriate to as many units as MadTraps are (def. not appropriate for Zhanying and Pheasants who are closer to cops than cyber-KGB).

 

I feel they only set up IS to be taken out. They are are like MRRF and QK in all but name. The only figure they have gotten specifically IS in years is Adil HI. I think before that was Celestial Guard about 2-3 years ago. Feels like less since I feel last year didn't happen!

I don't think IS needs a lot of changes. Just a few tweaks would help a lot.

I was disappointed they seemed to make an effort to take away core teams from YJ in general. I want Bao to have a core team again. Especially since they went down in points.

The Motorized BH is going to be fun I think. It may not be the greatest most cheeesy thing but fun is ok with me.

I was really glad there's less Kuang Shi. I'm sick of Chinese=Evil state empire in the future. To me IS are police that do police things. Fighting terrorism, cyber crimes, weapon trafficking, Shasvastii, etc. They were around long before the O-12! So I'm in the process of finding Devabots for my Kuang Shi. To me their rules make much more sense for robots and it makes me feel at least a little bit morally better. Since we already have Aleph units it makes sense too.

 

Strong disagree with this one, I think Zhanying are a unit that's starring in N4 for me. They've:

• dropped almost ten points going from N3 to N4. The zhanying links don't feel badly priced any more.
• have a great profile with sensor and madtraps
• are one of the few hackers with native sixth sense
• lieutenant profile is also handy...
• comboing the hacker with the hsien and wu ming tinbots means they already have great link synergy
• their cc surprise potential with the para ccw (-6) and bumped cc to 18 is now amazing. I saved my hsien by tazing a rasyat with one the other day...
• They effectively always have ARM 3 now, w/ bioimmunity and BTS 3.
• The new N4 dodge makes it much easier to set up triangulated fire opportunities with the breaker rifle.

 

ISS have a lot of my favourite sculpts in the range and on paper the 'visors and tricks' sectorial appeals to me, but in practice I feel like they are missing out on a lot of the elements that make that shine offensively. There's very little camo, HD, forward deployment or infiltration so you're ultimately left trying to shoot your way out of your deployment zone in a sectorial which doesn't do shooting particularly well.

Changing up some of the fireteams would help a bit. I'd love ot see Sun Tze buffed into a state where he doesn't feel like a handicap because he does feel like he could give the sectorial a lot of flavour.

I'd be fine with ISS not having access to NCO and leaving that to the more military focused factions. Even something as simple as upping the number of (real, not Kunai) ninja from 1 to 2 and giving the Kanren Impersonation and Infiltration along with Holomask would go a long way for me.

I don't mind most of the Celestial Guard either, though I'm not sure I understand why they get dodge +1 inch. I'd be happy to see them swap that out for courage. If they got a doctor profile, though, they'd completely negate the standard doctor in Vanilla and I'd run them all the time. I'm not sure that's a bad thing, but paramedic seems a lot more likely (and a lot less attractive).

 

And this is a thing now! Not just for Hsien anymore.

WÚ MÍNG Boarding Shotgun ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 31)
ZHÀNYING (Hacker, Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0.5 | 25)
ZHÀNYING (Sensor, Triangulated Fire, Minelayer) Breaker Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Madtraps / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 23)
ZHÀNYING Heavy Machine Gun, Chain-colt / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1 | 26)
ZHÀNYING Missile Launcher, Chain-colt / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (1.5 | 23)

 

I guess a bad thing is still a thing...

Zhanying stopped being shock immune with N4 so picking them up might get difficult if you try a gun fight with them, and that's a lot of investment in what's pretty barebones medium infantry. The toolkit side of Zhanying are legit, but the SWC weapons side of them are a bit... playing with a handicap?

 

I think it's awesome that you like them, just not my cup of tea. For every time a niche ability has an effect, there will be several times where their price bump over a celestial guard brings nothing to the table and drains value from other areas. I just find that a hard sell. I do agree that sensor/madtrap guy is cool, but there are not the other tools I would like access to in a haris to supplement that and he's sadly not a specialist either.

You got me excited for a second there thinking I'd misread the link rules. A Zanying hacker, Wu Ming tinbot and Hsien pointman would be a pretty sweet haris. But sadly its not allowed

 

Yeah, though there's a version of that link with a Wu Ming hmg that mitigates most of that problem. As long as the point man can take a punch, the link is fine. They have the bonus of not losing sixth sense when they're down to a three-man link, which makes them harder to hobble in a large link and great for haris selections.

One marker for me that they're in a good place is that I always want the madtraps zhanying instead of xi zhuang in a hsien haris, which generally goes hacker, traps and tinbot hsien for me. Sensor and the various toolkit options on the madtrap zhanying are super useful to work into a list and worth more than the utility Xi brings with his FO, extra template etc.

 

Why is everyone so stuck on Shock Immune? Especially on a 1 wound guy. IS only has one expensive doctor, who is probably doing other things or you never took, so unconscious is dead anyway. Even before their shock immune meant jack squat. If they were NWI sure I'd want it. But most of the time they were dead anyway.

 

What the fuck is a doctor?

 

Having BS 12-13 with no mimetism or vis mods is something that has crumpled for me even on my active turn in a 5 man. Being at risk of totally going down from one bad roll is an even harder sell.

I wouldn't mind the lack of a really strong linked pointman if ISS also didn't usually need to fight its way out of its DZ.

 

How many of fireteams does YJ have of that right now? Dakini haris only with Deva, Ye Mao haris only, Bao haris only, Haidao sniper with any IA team, etc.

We have what we have and it's going to be that way for a long time.