Why ISS doesn't work...

Pretty sure the motivation for that was simply "Martial Arts doesn't give it anymore, they dun need it no more."

 

I see your point here, but I actually think they'd be pretty good with one Boarding Shotgun KS mixed in as a pointman instead of the usual all-Chain Rifle loadout. The Core bonus means they can shoot a flanked target with 3 dice on 20s with dangerous AP ammo. It would still be a suicide mission for the KS squad to raid a DZ, you'd need to wait until at least Turn 2 against most players for it to make sense unless you can basically guarantee a LT kill, but that's what the Su Jian is for. With the Core devoted to Kuang Shi you're relying on Hackables or a well-driven Ninja to clear AROs, but fortunately good Hacking factions with stupid defensive links is a small sample.

Here's something I threw together:
Hackable Clear+Sweep
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10 4
SÙ-JIÀN Spitfire, Light Flamethrower, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 54)
DEVA (Lieutenant, Triangulated Fire, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 24)
DAKINI Tacbot Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 21)
DAKINI Tacbot (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
KUANG SHI Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
KUANG SHI Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KǍNRÈN (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt ( ) / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 26)

GROUP 2 4 1
NINJA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 35)
RUI SHI Spitfire / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 23)
SOPHOTECT Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 31)
YUDBOT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
YUDBOT PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
PANGGULING (Hacker, EVO Hacking Device) ( ) / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 15)
WARCOR (Sixth Sense) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)

4.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Plan would be to use either the buffed Dakini HMG in a Haris or Rui Shi with Smoke from the Core to clear ARO depending on opponent, then use the Su Jian for raiding. If going second the Sophotect is needed for clearing potential Oblivion from Battlecat. LT's wearing a neon sign but at least needs Impersonators for the opponent to get an easy kill and you can reserve it. On later turns the KS link can move into midfield and bunker down since nothing wants to walk into KS on its own turn, hopefully allowing for solid control on the objectives for Turn 3 or a suicide rush to clear out really tempting targets of opportunity. Ninja and Kanren are there to push buttons and remove obstacles from the Su Jian's path.

 

Your LT is a spotlight and a guided missile away from exploding it's hardly as safe as you are suggesting, but I digress.

Bigger issue: your ARO presence pretty much begins and ends at a single flash pulse from a Warcor. I recall this being one of @Zewrath's major complaints about the sectorial is it struggles to defend itself. You go second you have nothing to stop some kind of nasty pain train like Hector and friends running into your DZ and murdering absolutely everything you own.

 

Annoyingly, that's a literally-everyone-but-Daoying-and-Daofei problem for YJ. At least the Deva can Reset at WIP15, which can save it a few orders of life especially if the enemy can't link their Pitchers, and if the enemy is deploying first and playing an obvious Guided list you can keep the Kanren in the DZ as a set of LT decoys if you leave the Deva unlinked.

Yeah, this list is heavily dependent on close-up trades and slowing the enemy down with the threat of the fast Su Jian and REM response. It may have a lot to do with the fact that almost nobody I play against actually uses pain-train type lists and usually favours Skirmisher and Warband-heavy designs with powerful long-range links, which influences my listbuilding (I usually play NCA with lots of REMs and no links, and have hated the N4 meta, so I'm not an outstanding optimiser at present). Steel Phalanx, Tohaa and CJC in particular would be huge threats with their Eclipse Smoke cancelling out the Kuang Shi's trading advantages, with Steel Phalanx in particular being very hard to handle since they can tank Explodes easily. I'd need to use the other list against those factions or deploy expensive things on roofs (which I'm prone to doing anyway).

 

Just in general I think that the inability of some factions to play defense needs to be looked at in N4. The new hotness for defense is a bunch of tucked dudes with template weapons, and ISS can't put cheap ones outside of their midfield.

 

CoC and presenting multiple LT choices is the other route, or shielding them with a -6 tinbot. If you make it more orders than it's worth to chase the LT with guided weapons they will probably get left alone in most circumstances.

I do not think it's a competitively viable option to have an obvious LT in N4 that has 0 countermeasures for hacking. You're playing russian roulette on getting fucked by someone who's running guided weapons.

Excuse my french, but why in the fuck would you play NCA without using at least 1 link available to them? Even if its just a basic bitch defensive Fusi link that doubles as a cheap order battery?

 

I'm still wondering how an organization that includes a recreation of the most famous warrior philosoph in man's history managed to screw the the whole uprising up in such a hilarious manner.

Yes some are very old. But I think the remakes of the CG and Kuang Shi are to fresh for a discontinuation in the near future.

 

Just to cherrypick a bit, assuming you place them right, coordinated Lunah + 2 ABH ought to fairly reliably deal with something like a Grenzer, no?

Regarding lieutenants, what about Cranedil? Sweet sculpt aside, he's durable, can't be isolated, and can group up with a tinbot if necessary - and he's a specialist when that matters.

Maybe something like this?

ISS Cranedil LT
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10 4
WÚ MÍNG Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 37)
ADIL (Crane Rank Armor) (Lieutenant) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 43)
WÚ MÍNG Boarding Shotgun ( | TinBot: Firewall [-6]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 31)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 13)
KUANG SHI Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
XI ZHUANG Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower(+1B), Flash Pulse, Madtraps / Pistol, CC Weapon, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 21)
KǍNRÈN (Hacker, Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt ( ) / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 26)

GROUP 2 5
KǍNRÈN (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Chain-colt, Madtraps / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 25)
HÙSÒNG Yaókòng Heavy Machine Gun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1 | 24)
BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12)
BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Akrylat-Kanone / Breaker Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12)
MAJOR LUNAH VIRAL Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)

4.5 SWC | 300 Points

Open in Infinity Army

 

Honestly hard to tell you, difficult for me to run the math on that one.

Probability and percentages aside I wouldn't classify it as reliable because it's relying on going first before the ABH or Lunah eat shit, as they are down as the ARO parts of the list.

I feel like we're trying to solve esoteric issues and really ignoring the main one which is what even does this sectorial truly offer over the other two that makes giving up the benefits they offer and accepting drawbacks like not being able to hide LTs under markers and losing TacAw on our fireteams.

Being hyper cheap isn't an outright benefit anymore.

And regarding normal smoke, after starting N4 with smoke, and then switching to no smoke for the last couple of months I've honestly barely felt the loss of its presence as a defensive tool. Smoke is considerably weaker in N4, there is a much larger number of models that can see through it, and it's much harder to get value out of setting it up for CC.

The only way I've really felt it missing is from losing access to certain smoke plays like the Guilangs forcing shit AROs through smoke, but ISS isn't particularly well geared to take advantage of N4 smoke plays and relies on pure BS attacks through smoke which are largely worthless against high power fire teams.

 

Why even engage the Grenzer like that?
Usually an AD or Camo in close range will drop his mental BS by a consideral amount.

 

Because you're ISS and you don't really have good options to do that.

 

Used to play EVO lists with Fugazi and Pathfinders taking the Fusiliers' role in N3, with the Deva AHD and Veteran Machinist in nearly all lists alongside more conventional solo attack pieces(you could out-hack complacent Nomads with that list template). Those two profiles along with extra Hexa AVA warranted going Sectorial instead of Vanilla PanO, though I usually had to put a Fusilier team in my other more mission-specific tournament list since NCA was quite inflexible at the time. For N4 I'm more inclined to drop the Sectorial outside casual games because it's extremely vulnerable to Hacking if you're not relying on your links- and I fucking hate link gameplay. I get the theory with them, but find them too slow, dull and rigid to enjoy any more than once in a while. The lack of support for unlinked gameplay in most factions is one of my biggest gripes with this edition. I've recently bought a bunch of ISS minis with the intent of supplementing my old pre-Uprising Vanilla YJ army, which is why the ISS units have been on my mind lately.

 

If you want to play unlinked and not have it be shit pick something that camo spams. Vanilla YJ and Shas are two good options.

Also has the good side effect of being one of the better counter options to getting smacked around by hacking and guided fire.

 

Vanilla YJ was the plan. A big part of why is probably ISS' biggest upside; Kuang Shi are multiple times cheaper per order in dollars than the REMs you have to use in most other factions if you want a full complement of orders. I think only the CA Ikadron+Imetron booster is better value for money and I think Shasvastii look like shit yet they're borderline mandatory for CA, so Space Asia it is.

 

So the Garuda and Ninja is not a thing?
They are quite decent option, that was my primary way to deal with the Kamau link in N3, especially taking out his other link members.

 

Specific to what you suggested to getting in close and engaging the sniper directly in their +0 band, the Garuda is somewhat unreliable to drop given its low PH and hackable nature, and a Ninja even at the 8-16" band is not good to engage such a target rolling on 11 or 8s depending on the sniper in question. Even if the Garuda could find an optimal shot with a spitfire at the same range doesn't return good odds on this. Shooting on 9s vs 13s against a Kamau puts you at 29% vs 45.6%

Sure if you can engage the other link team members that's great but in my experience that's very difficult to have a crack at, particularly on turn 1. Normally requiring the unit in question to force its way at well into the opponent's DZ to find a lateral shot, which means the Ninja needs to fight its way through mines, Helots, REMS, and various trash ARO units.

Assuming red circles are the primary ARO unit and the blue circles are his link cheerleaders, prone or whatever. (These aren't necessarily exactly optimal positions for a fireteam I'm just pulling a random photo of a table out of my phone to draw over with mspaint)



You have to intrude quite a distance into a DZ to get that lateral shot on the cheerleaders and that means you've gotta beat alot of other ARO units/mines like Peacemakers, Auxbots, Helots, Puppets, Koalas etc to get there. I don't find the Ninja or Garuda up to this task. Hell if it were that easy I'd basically table any opponent that went second versus a Dao Fei or Tiger.

I dunno, maybe if the tables look something like this they're more viable at it.



That's actually from a recent Australian tournament and I definitely don't think it's a table that provides a particularly good game of Infinity when played on. It's the kind of table where if something like the Avatar or a Hac Tao breaches the DZ line that things end very quickly and there's very little viable terrain to set up a forward crumple zone of disposable or soft ARO units.

That said given it's a small local tournament maybe they ran short on terrain. It certainly exhibits what I hear referred to as the "ring of death" created around the edge of the table, a result of what available terrain there is getting pushed inwards to compensate for the shortage.

 

The Kamau sniper is overall pretty bad for the game. VIRD, especially in N3, seems like the sectorial designed for the player who never wants to have to make a hard choice.

 

Pretty much this. The ninja is the only reason I rate ISS higher than Morats, or any other faction without access to proper skirmishers. I've already had a number of games with ISS where my ninja, that I had planned to keep hidden to push buttons, had to reveal himself to get to work because no one else could get the job done as well. Incidently, it makes the kunai ninja more and more attractive whenever I build an ISS list.

The kanren is good, but he is at his best when acting as support to other skirmisher. He can fight in the midfield and take objective there, but he won't be able to push deep into ennemy territory: holoprojector is just too fiddly to use in this manner.

As far as I'm concerned, the single most thematic AND most needed change that could happen to ISS would be to give the kanren an impersonator profile, à la greif operator.