I'm still of the opinion that getting rid of that weakness to mines on the zhencha would be bad for IA's internal balance (especially regarding the hulang and the liu xing), though I admit it would be a welcome buff considering the current IA's condition.
I think thats his point. If you want a midfield presence that can walk through mines and just tank the hit you have to make a decision right now. Where as with Shock Immunity the Zencha would arguably become the go to.
I think that just reinforces the idea that the Liu Xing shouldn't exist and IA should have just gotten Tiger Soldiers.
No, it reinforces the point that the LX should have been Daofei or Hac Tao expensive/capable, not a Tiger with NWI.
Personally I'd argue that its a fallacy to think that Liu Xing fill a midfield dominating rolling in the same way that a Zencha or Hulang attempts to do. The Liu Xing provides a very real way to force pressure onto backfield troops. Particularly units you can assert direct dominance over while landing: Hackers, Flashpulse Bots, Snipers and the like.
TBH, I don't see the appeal of the Tiger Soldier, but that's just me not liking AD troops at all for their unreliable nature. If I got to toy with Liu Xing unrestrained, I'd remove LX and give them Holo2.
I meant make the Liu Xing an AD HI that is worth ~60pts, give or take. Probably PH14 ARM4 BTS6 and packing a Deflector L2, so it can drop into Nomad Hacking Territory and still kick ass.
So basically and elite trooper with very few weaknesses that you could drop into peoples backlines for 1, maybe 2 orders. That would be horrific. I've done absolutely terrible things to people's gameplans with plain jane LX. I can't imagine 20 points being anywhere enough to justify the brutality this would inflict.
If we are wishlisting about Liu Xing, I think it should be respec'd as roughly an AD Zuyong with Albedo. Shooting stars are bright. I like the idea of an AD troop that can be a bit more brazen about where it lands. It would also introduce a meaningful new skill into Yu Jing and be very different from Tiger Soldier.
Why not upgrade Explode LX to actually leave the template behind as Smoke, representing all the engine exhaust? It would keep the vulnerability to CC/Engage but very much allow the LX to safely pick its fights.
Ideally, the new edition will be pruning rules rather than creating or complicating them. Explode Lolvel X should probably just disappear. The idea of throwing yourself onto an enemy to do such a pissweak pool noodle attack is silly.
You're right, they should absolutely remove the CC stat and everything relying on it. In all seriousness I happen to rather like Explode LX. It costs one point, forces some bad decisions for a fairly large subset of enemy troops and is most importantly fluffy and fun in a faction that has sorely lacked those things since Uprising. And unlike an enormous number of other skills showing up around the place (G:Jumper, G:Marrionette, anything Tohaa, Impersonation's weird double markers and dependence on enemy species, the CC table mess, Hacking when there's a lot of participants etc. etc.), it's very easy to understand. "When my trooper lands, he places a blast template in the centre of his base that deals 11 damage unless it would hit a friendly or marker." There's not much cognitive load in that at all, save the inevitable wiki check following the "Can I drop this on a Camo Token?" question.
It's mean to Hackers in particular since they can only declare Hack Transport Aircraft against it, which means dropping it on a linked Hacker will cause them to either make the whole link lose its dodge, or break out of the link and reduce its bonuses plus still having a risk of additional members dying to the blast. It's also a pest for valuable but fragile pieces in their reactive turn (especially poorly-guarded LTs), since they don't want to risk an uncontested hit to simply knock a wound off the Liu Xing.
I don't remember the fraacta being BS13 PH14 ARM4? Is that what we're calling Elite now? That would actually be super cool. It would work better in a world where link team MSV2 doesn't just ignore it if you wanted to attack though.
I'm not sure you would risk normal hacking rolls with that 60 pts trooper most of the time, regardless of Deflector. The rest of the kit you've described feels like a massive tax for it. Compared to aforementioned Fraacta which costs about 40 points or ~35 pts Nahab who is completely immune to hacking makes me wonder why would you wishlist for such a load. Unless it has Tactical Awareness Level 3 or something, lol. We're just at a point where people realize 17 point models are often as good as 60 point models if they happen to be trimmed to enabling skills as opposed to +1 to every stat but Wounds which will maybe do something in 2,5% of cases. See Helots, Krakots and the like.
