Really glad to hear you had a good game with the zencha @ObviousGray. It's quite nice to hear that the zecnha aggro'd your opponent into making unnecessary mistakes trying to finish off the zecha as well as the mistake in assuming what the camo marker would be. Having another camo option with very different movement skills to the others is something I undervalue.
Yeah, @ObviousGray, awesome to hear more experiences with Tenacious-Z. In my game, my opponent basically ignored him all game. I told my opponent I'd be playtesting the new IA units since I wanted to make sure he was okay with me using profiles that weren't in army yet. As a result, in turn 3, my zhencha basically had free reign of the board. In my turns, I funneled my orders into units like a guilang who had good angles on my opponent's dakini team, my liu xing who annihilated my opponent's sophotect and sponged 8 orders before dying, and a heroic shaolin monk who tanked 5-6 armor saves before dying himself, but not before taking a deva and dakini with him. Having a zhencha in the final turn when both our forces were fairly sparse feels great 'cause I know he can take two wounds and I'd know if my opponent has a mine down somewhere by that point in the game. He secured me the victory by doing both classifieds and ending the game behind cover in suppression. Overall, not the most mind-blowing unit, imo, but still really tough vs other skirmishers and really scary in battle.
I don't buy the books because the lore doesn't have any value for me. I'm sure I'm not alone in that feeling.
Very much so! Hell, the only reason I bought the books was for the fluff. The army lists printed in the books were out of date nearly as soon as the books were printed. But up until Uprising, I felt the fluff was worth buying sight-unseen. Pre-ordering, even. And now I'm starting to feel like the fluff is no longer worth paying for. I'm certainly not going to buy 3rd Offensive until after someone else gets a copy and gives me a read on the fluff.
Which is a totally rational thing after uprising let you down. Hopefully 3rd Offensive is more satisfying!
Oh, it will! The heroic Invincible Army which tried to safe the day will accidantly blow up a important recon-mission from O12, got in trouble and will be safed by an more heroic PanO lawyer. After that, the IA will be under official close observation from Aleph. Dissatisfied, Yu Jing will join the EI to conquer the Human Sphere... Bad Jokes aside, i will try the Zencha and Liu Xing in my next Games just to get an idea how they behave on the table... two days ago, my Tanko tanked two hits from a Panzerfaust with his head, since then im convinced that everything is possible. :D
I think the Zencha (SMG) will be a nice addition, especially in vanilla with a guilang minelayer. The BShotty profile seems a bit pricy to me... Still unsure how to feel about the whole HI-thing. Time will tell. I'm eager to see the rest of the IA profiles and the link options. When we get to see the complete sectorial with rules, we can discuss the Zencha in context.
Someone mentioned the idea of taking out enemy snipers on the enemy DZ with the Zhencha on another thread and I wanted to share it here. Love this idea. You start on the middle of the table as a camo marker, you then move up to the snipers building and climb it, with stealth, so you can take it out from behind with your SMG/BSG. Maybe you place some mines on the way, right in front of the enemy DZ? ... I’m so pumped right now.
It's definitely a way to punish a medium infantry sniper who uses forward deployment to get into a sniper tower!
Just beware mine laying snipers that can cover their base - although there should be an attack vector that puts the sniper in the way of the blast (thus protecting your zencha), once the sniper is gone, that protection is gone, too...
2nd game trying Zhencha. Mission was Looting and Sabotaging. Opponent was MO. Group 1, sporting a usual Yu Jing weak ARO game, this group was designed to make Hac Tao deathtrap - since I hardly find something more effective than Hac to remove that Knight Link. We both agreed to use new profiles - and I expected KoS Killer hacker, that is why I didn't brought AHDs. Group 2 was the buttons group. We were playing LandS, Xi was to make forced dodges, and if lucky to stall a Knight. Zhencha and Guilang for that board control, with TR bot at reserve. Turn 1, Knight Hospitaller Link hit me hard, and took 4 orders from group 1 (he ran a suicide bombing full link HMG thanks to crit). It did hurt, but he ate 2 CR and last order Hac Tao ARO, losing HMG Hospitaller. Hac Tao, now a LT, terminates the link. Leaving wounded Magister, and goes into Camo again. Zhencha slips into the big gap where main link left.. He vertically moved through the building. Look at this Suji! He's C+ing!! He bashed into PanO flank, murdering two ARO man, and had a perfect opportunity for delivering DEP to Joan. He gets a crit FO by the bystanding Warcor(science!), and soaked one lucky Rifle shot bouncing off his ARM 3. He retreats, unscathed. Turn 2, Magister destroys my AC/2 in 2 orders. He than takes out my Bounty Hunter, Bulleteer tries to pick a fight wirh Hac Tao, failing on discover. Both of them dies to a humble CG, and my ninja khd destroyed PanO A/C. Hac Tao then advances, but lack of orders made him recamo again. Turn 3, Joan picks the Panoply and achieve classified capturing my Xi Zuang. At this moment I was losing 5:4, but still he forgot Zhencha had a C+.. My turn, Hac opens one Panoply, grabbing a combi rifle. Then with last 3 orders, Zhencha sprints up - PanO shot him, but a combi couldn't kill him. He batched the last panoply, tied the game, and made me victorious on tiebreaker since he was a Fatboi (he and Hac were like 103 pts anyway.) Game was close, and If I had picked a Daofei I could've packed a lot of punches but probably lost the mission. I'm getting more fond of this fella - reliable button pusher, and occasional assassin. This is good.
The ability to soak random AROs seems vastly underrated on these forums. I think you had a perfect demonstration of how hac tao are perfectly capable of punishing someone who over extends as well. Thanks for the write ups.
Depends on how much shock weapons one sees in their meta. I loved soaking up random AROs and did it all the time with my Aleph forces. Once shock became more prevalent though using pseudo multi-wound with no shock immunity (or equivalent) kind of whisked that away (no all the time but units these days have a lot more shock weapons at their disposal then before... *looks at the SMG*).
Lol, did you even read it? The Pan-O player's dice crapped out on him. He lost his 5 man link to combi rifles. Revealing the Hac Tao to even ARO was a questionable decision, 1/2 he cops a wound, 1/6 he takes 2 wounds and starts his first turn in loss of LT. All that for a 12% chance to deal a wound to the Hospitaller. Would not recommend doing this.
1) He ran into Chain Rifles. :) 2) It was his last order. And he splitted the shots - for an excuse. 3) He did not lost the whole link - That is why Hac Tao sweeped the remnants. Yeah I'm not a tactical genius, nor an armchair general. Talking on statistics, I like it, and thank you for reminding. If you play on more soft tone, I would appreciate it more.
Yep, well there's a mistake. I'll be honest I was giving the player the benefit of the doubt he wasn't doing something like this. And another one. Should've just drilled them all into the Hac Tao. Even if he only gets 1 wound through it puts you in a much worse position next turn and he runs a reasonable shot of putting you in LoL which is a huge swing in game state. I know, but he lost the big one, the 5 man bonus for no significant reason. Although it was in fact also partially to user error, not just poor dice as I initially thought. That is a soft tone. I could've called you stupid for rolling on a 12% chance, I didn't. General rule of thumb for the full Hospitaller link on the active turn, unless the Hac Tao is attempting to force him to split between a highly dangerous ARO like some kind of ML, don't reveal it. The odds of taking a wound are far far higher than inflicting one and you waste your marker state for no reason.
Oh well. Anyway we're in Zhencha thread, and I am seeing some more potential than I expected. C+ Camo Infiltration did synergy marvel. I was kinda lucky since I didn't ran into a mine or proper Shock bullets, but that is avoidable when you almost always take a sensor bot or Lu Duan - which you must! Definitely will run this guy again. Wonder what mission I'll be in next time.. ;)
I don't see many on last turn aro units. That's changing with the likes of helots but at least in my experience the situations where single wound specialists have karked it to desperate Aro shots did not often involve shock. Shock still isn't super common on aro units.
