K fellas, wish me luck, tomorrow I'll try the Z-guy, prob in a vanilla cause we don't have the actual army roster. I'll be supporting him with a Lu duan, one again a Genius Idea - man, why didn't we thought about the jewel remote.
Being uploaded into army on release day is obviously fine as an alternative to being in the book, the main point being if IA profiles don't arrive with Third Offensive when they're being hyped up like this, there will be a shitstorm.
I don't see the advantage in waiting for book launch to release profiles, especially since they're not in the book, but at this point we're close enough getting the full rules that impatience is starting to set in, so that's making me a bit biased. You'd think after waiting years a few more weeks would be nothing, but it's always that last little bit before the end that's the hardest, you know?
At least this time we hopefully don't need to scrounge for who ever gets the book first to post Summaries on the internet with poor quality phone pics of the profile!!
Just a word of warning if you're not used to using Lu Duan or Holo echoes in general. Those echoes are his only defence. They drop he's gone. ARM 0 won't be pretty if he can't win. I usually marksmanship it up. And it will wreak skirmishers on 15's in positive. 12's if TO Camo. But it characterises Yu Jing traits quite well. An all round toolbox ( in the shooting department.) But his reactive game is something to be desired.... I usually clear Camo/ mines, etc. Then fall back if I have the orders. Or I leapfrog our better units in front to do work and have Lu Duan watch their backs. Either way the situation on the board plays a factor so stuff varies accordingly.
Remember that mines and perimeter weapons may not be deployed close enough to trigger on the Zhencha. It's annoying for the minelayer but vital rule for the game and means that you don't automatically want to keep you infiltrating camo markers in reserve.
Can you move an echo out of coherency to set the mine off before it disappears due to cuherency checks? That would help extend the range!
I think so? From the Wiki: From that it sounds like you can. If you can, that would absolutely make the Lu Duan a good companion for the Zhencha.
Yeah, that lets you leave the real Lu Duan around a corner while you send off the echo 14 - 18" away!
That could also be helpful in some situations by running a Holoecho into base-to-base with an enemy. If you have the real one near an objective or total cover, by holding ARO they risk letting it get away. But if you've engaged with the real one, firing on a decoy means uncontested Electric Pulse or Surprise Attack "bare fists". I didn't find anything in the rules about not being able to Coordinate Holoprojector troops, so it could be used to cover another trooper (Zhencha) against ARO threats for an order. I'm a bit sketchy on if the Holoprojector Marker State fails on contact with an enemy trooper or at the end of the second Short Skill, if it fails early you still have a flamethrower and can sit a bit further back. The Lu Duan really does seem to be made for supporting the Zhencha, I'm wondering now if that was intentional. Edit: Holoecho state entry on the wiki indicates the marker is always removed at the end of the order, except in the case of a failed Initial Coherency Check.
From the wiki: The Holoecho state of a holographic decoy is canceled, whenever: It enters base to base contact with a model. Anytime a holographic decoy cancels its Holoecho state the player must remove its Holoecho from the table at the end of the Order that happened. Technically moving through allied silhouettes also cancels the holoecho, although I doubt anybody enforces that. Keep in mind none of this means shit, you can't do mindgames against a person AROing, they can delay their ARO against Holoecho marker states and simply wait to see which marker is real.
Delay rules are the same as against Camo- you only get to take a shot after delaying if the real one reveals itself. This means that threatening a dangerous ARO and making the enemy delay gets you a free Move-Move, which could be key to contesting an objective that doesn't require a specialist.
CB is on record saying that they're all getting released on Army when the book hits the stores, probably end of November.
Tried him on Frontline Mission. Group 1. Substitude TS MSR with Zhencha SMG option. Group was created to supress enemies via HRMC, supporting Zhencha and Sensor remote in Group 2. Two camos in one group, because I wanted to co-order the last drop for recamoing. Yan Huo got the Lt - obvious, but the extra order can give out the last minute momentum (Which is, a freaking 5 HMCs.) or mobility it desperately needs. Group 2 was the supporting group, though posing a threat; Kanren can do a suicide run if he like to, and the Frontline is free from deploy issues. Warcor for dirt cheap FPs, and makeshift minefield cleaner - For Zhencha. Adversary was the Nomads. Luck was on me, since he predicted I was doing that Dao hat trick again. He engaged the defenses with a moran, some bit of Zero and Hecklers. Later he said he thought Dao will try to pry open the gap. Turn 1, Yu Jing took out a Moran; Hacker's ARO gone into holoecho, Moran got a solid crit from Lu Duan, which opened the lane. Generating another Holos, Lu duan took out a TR bot. I was quite uncertain about Mine hat trick - Zhencha stood quietly on the rooftop. Evade shock for good reasons. I lost Sniffer bot and Lu duan, Warcor on the following turn by the Hollow Men. He then tried the jumping discovery - Since he thought it was THE Daofei - He failed, but took out Guilang. He then retreated into cover. Which was pro, cause he knew there's a Daofei who can do horizental movement normally. Turn 2. Zhencha activates. First he was astonished since Yu Jing's only C+ is now the big Su Jian. He than lost a Hollow man by an ambush BS 15 SMG. Zhencha then FO'd the corpse to gain +1 Classified Score. Zhencha Recamos himself, Ran into another good heights. Taking off the Hollow man made me happy. Losing his arm, He tried to extend over with a heckler Jammer - He eventually succeed in Intuitive Jammer attack, and my Zhencha was now Isolated. To my surprise, he dearly wanted to avenge his Hollow man. Tomcat engineer arrives, and tried to take out Zhencha with range trolling - He forgot he got a DEP. Tomcat Engineer missed all shots, and DEP took him away for good. After this he managed to repair up his Hollow men with Clockmaker, Zhencha finally gave into him, but boy did he hassle. Mission was on his favor, TBH, and my opponent was not really aware of him. I won the game cause he soaked off quite a order, and Zero couldnt reach him without mine prepping. TL;DR : We got a quite awesome harass piece in here, gentlemen!
Did you tell your opponent that you were playing IA? Cause I find it a bit strange that your opponent was expecting a Dao Fei.
