So in my ongoing desperate quest to not be totally out of touch, I decided to not comment too much on YJ's powerlevel in general, not at least before I had 10+ games under my belt and done extensive listbuilding, to see what met my expectations and what didn't. So for what it's worth, here's my two cents on the power level of YJ and it's sectorials at the moment: Vanilla YJ: Rating: A+ tier Spoiler: Vanilla YJ Vanilla YJ simply have insane flexibility when compared to any other army in the game at the moment, which is why it's such a high tier army for me. You can do everything from abusing the 15 order cap + Lt.2 + NCO and Tactical Awareness, to a tight elite power army, right to an Ariadna-style camo spam army. All this with access to forward deployed repeaters, multiple minelayers, NCO, Lt.2 AND CoC and many times all of it at the same time, really makes Yu Jing a swiss army power house and so far I've been having a blast with list building, as well as playing them. The army is unable to bring degenerate firepower like the Kriza Borac (linked or otherwise), linked Karhu etc. but is more than capable of bringing plenty of punch to the table, while having access to good specialists White Banner: Rating: B/A- tier Spoiler: White Banner This feels like a joker army to me, because this is the army I'm least familiar with as well as the fact that my lists tend to be very mono-build with them, so I feel like there's something I'm missing with these guys. Whenever I vary too much from my normal list building with this sectorial, I tend to just go for Vanilla YJ instead, as I feel like they can do it better. That said, what I DID manage to build and play, was actually very powerful for what it was, even though I struggle to see how this army can deal with a skilled player that has high experience with Impersonators or just Tohaa in general (this is based on the assumption that Tohaa more or less stays somewhat unchanged in November). These two reasons is why I feel like the army is hovering between low A tier and high B tier, because I feel like there's a build I haven't discovered yet that is very powerful and that matchups will skewer your games a bit. Invincible Army: Rating: B tier Spoiler: The Cool Guys One of my favourite armies in the game and only got better in N4. I ran full HI-core single combat groups in big 60+ players satellites back in N3, back when everyone had 18-20 orders (and got a 2nd and 3rd place respectively), so I never bought into the narrative that "only Zhanshi cores are viable". Luckily that narrative is dead and burried with N4, because holy moly IA got a ton of buffs, namely the removal of bad link restrictions and, quite frankly, the unheard (and unexpected) buffs to the Hulang and the Shang Ji.. Hell, even the Guija is somewhat playable now (not really though). This army brought me the highest highs and the lowest lows whenever I played them, and this is very much still the case in N4. Now, with all those positives out of the way... Unfortunately there's one aspect of the army that still haven't changed from N3; sadly that's the fact that some matchups are beyond terrible for IA. It used to be (in N3) that against a competitive Vanilla Haqq list, you would simply save yourself the time and auto-concede. Not only did Haqq have overlapping fields of hardcounters in the form of Jammers, but the fundemental core of listbuilding in Haqq (trading up) was a hardcounter to IA at any conceptual level. Mostly, this also applied to Vanilla Nomads (although not because of the hackers, ironically YOU hardcountered their hacking with Haidao KHD + Tinbot) but it kind of depended on their list. Other terrible matchups included Vanilla Aleph (although surprisingly not OSS) and Vanilla Tohaa. Now, in N4 none of this has really changed that much. Now obviously I haven't played against ALL armies but my point is, that IA can easily perform like an A tier army but there are simply too many bad matchups that makes the game an uphill battle for you, that its performance is, sadly, unreliable when bringing them in a tournament scene. Imperial Service: Rating: F tier Spoiler: Imperial Service I saved this sectorial, because this is the one I have the most to say about. First of all, no that isn't typo. ISS is, effectively, a dead army. As it stands now, ISS is only slightly better than what they used to be, back when they were a N2 army I.E. a meme-army that barely functioned. They have no midfield presence that can slow the enemy down. They have zero ARO pieces (except AVA3 Total Reaction REM's) They have little to no Camo They have almost no hacking and when they do, they do not have any repeater network to exploit, nor do they have strong hackers to participate in the ARO game The changes to perimeter weapons actually nerfs ISS, as they used between 2-6 Crazy Koala's to have SOME form of DZ protection. Now, granted, they didn't have ANY of those things (except perimeter weapons) in N3 but ISS traded all of those things in order to have a truckload of orders, which they now lost with a 15 order cap. Other armies that relied on a similar premise like Ariadna and Haqq suffered the same but they got compensated by getting massive buffs on units like Duroc, Lone Ranger, Van Zant or new units like Shujae, Nadhir and Shakush. ISS got nothing like that, except more Aleph units. Which is another thing that really sucks in ISS, which is that most good units ISS are actually Aleph units and once you start fielding Deva's, Dakini's, Sophotech and Garuda... You start questioning yourself of why you're not simply playing OSS instead? A much, much better army in terms of powerlevel, structure and theme. The only thing that stayed good in ISS is the Su-Jian but besides the Duo link, the Su-Jian is MUCH better supported in Vanilla YJ, so I don't see the point. Another bad point is that Sun Tze is simply unplayable. Not only did his strongest attribute get nerfed (choosing to save on his BTS) but he also lost his ability to prevent the enemy from having reserves against you, which is a VERY valuable skill to have in an army that can hide almost nothing, and have a hard time dealing with alpha striking impersonators now that your order pool is kneecapped. This, of course, is not even mentioning the fact that his cost remained basically the same, which is quite frankly baffling when he is much, much, MUCH worse than before and bear in mind, he was rarely ever taken even back when he WAS buffed with the Immunity: Total change, that let him "abuse" his BTS6 and Mimitism. As it stands now, I don't see how this army can perform or function in any competitive setting what so ever, except for having a slap fight with USARF and even then, I wouldn't actually go into that fight with any sort of confidence. Highlighted units that surprised me, either positively or negatively: Zhanshi: Rating B/F tier: Spoiler: Zhanshi So, what's with the weird rating? Well, truth be told the Zhanshi is simply useless/outclassed in any Vanilla army composition, other than sectorials. With how armies are build in N4, there's simply no way for the Zhanshi to slot into the 15 max orders combat group. This isn't helped either with the fact that none of the profiles are worth anything as their own. None of the SWC weapons are worth the investment without a link The hacker is quite unprotected by themselves and isn't worth the SWC or points The FO/Paramedic are mediocre specialists that start in your deployment zone The only viable remaining option because the Lt. option + 1 extra Zhanshi to leave the opponent guessing... However, Yu Jing are at this point so starved for great Lt. options, either in the form of solid Lt.'s or attack piece Lt.'s with a solid CoC option so the Zhanshi Lt. option is not only outclassed, but Yu Jing have such a strong game playing around their Lt.'s that taking a non-useful Zhanshi as your leader is atively detrimental for your army. So where does the B rating come from then? Well, the above still apllies in both White Banner and Invincible Army but the hacker profile and the paramedic profile are very strong in the links you can form. Having a repeater network and tinbot -6 with + 2 hackers is a great deterrent against hackable targets and a general boon to your ARO game. However, the best addition is the linked paramedic profile, as the new changes to Medikit and the removal of the -3 PH penalty, gives you an 87,8% chance to bring back a Shang-Ji (provided that both shots hit). Daoying Operative Control Unit: Rating S+ tier: Spoiler: Daoying Given the fact that a very strong case could be made, that the Daoying (specifically, the Hacker) was the very best Lt. in the entire game of N3, it really shouldn't come as a surprise to me that the unit stayed on the S tier level. Yet here we are. My first impressions of the Daoying in N4, looked very grim as the Hacking Device lost the supportware. This was terrible news for the Daoying, as that meant she would lose much of her flexibility and forever be a Mowang- feeder instead (this was on top of the fact that she increased in price on most profile and now didn't get Lt.2 for free, except on the barebones Boarding Shotgun Profile). However, since N4 gave us the pleasant surprise of the Hac Tao NCO and Krit Krokram NCO, the Daoying have a broader pool of viable units to make use of her 2 Lt. orders. There is one significant change though and that is the MSR + Minelayer profile, more specifically the change of it caosting 1 SWC. Remember how everyone could always somehow "find" 1SWC for the abominable/mandatory Minelayer Libertos in N3 Vanilla armies? Well, this is the Yu Jing equivalent of the N3 Libertos Minelayer. She brings 2 Lt. orders, WIP14, protection in Marker State AND Mines for DZ protection. The fact that she comes with a MSR is entirely coincidental but it is actually a quite nice option to have in the last game round, either to pick off stragglers or perform last turn ARO duties. She's borderline mandatory. In fact, everytime you DON'T start your list building with her as a Lt.-option, you always need to answer yourself WHY and what your gameplan is for this specific list and why does it justify NOT using her as the Lt. 10/10 would make Daoying my waifu
I wouldn't go so far as to say ISS is an F-tier army, either because I haven't had a "feel" on most sectorials yet (especially since the legacy factions typically squats the F-tier in nearly all game systems) or because I've not played them in years, but holy f- is it difficult making lists with ISS that I feel are worth playing. Start putting a lot of mid-field presence together with Kanren and you run out of points quick, realize you don't have much in the way of mobility, or find a list that simply doesn't have any SWC guns at all. Start putting it up with a +1 SWC LT and you end up with either 3 Dakini snipers or an army using only 3 of your 7 SWC. Start it off building around Wu Ming and you'll run out of points almost as fast as orders and have real problems fitting an LT in there. Start it off on the concept of "let's get this wildcard into melee" and you'll quickly realize that the three strong Core snipers are going to be sooo damned hard to deal with. I'm so missing a TAG for this sectorial and there's a spot for a 40-point multi-wound unit of some sort that's also missing. And is it greedy to say that I wish the shock mine on the new Kanren profile was a Deployable Repeater instead? There's one thing I will say, though, and that is that each MadTrap is now much more valuable. There aren't max AVA Taigha in every list ready to take two for the team (but 50% of all opponents are still some form of Shasvasti -.-;;) -- That said, also having a bit of problems putting WB together, but also feel like I need some real practice with it. There's some iffyness with how poorly the sectorial's characters mesh with the sectorial (except Adil, he's excellent there). IA has been a blast. So far haven't run into stuff that feels unfair. It's difficult bringing the correct tools given that it's not a sectorial that you can bring one of everything, but most of the necessary tools are there now and even some of the fancier tools that you use for fun.
Thanks for the write up. I recently took WB instead of Vanilla YJ because I felt I need the hacking protection that comes with the -6 mods from the Tinbot and the cheap Zhanshi hackers. I also sometimes feel the SWC of the deployable repeaters in combination with the SWC from the hackers and the obligatory KuangShi controller.
Thanks for the write up! I need to get games in with yu Jing before I can really make much comment. I am really loving building lists with invincibles, and excited to play them as I think they will be fun. It's as you say though, some rough match ups will definitely make for a challenging army in the long run. White banner have fallen a bit flat for me. I think the thematic idea for them was to have a lot of tricks and lean more into smaller fireteams with yemao being the real workhorses. But superjump just feels poos right now and I constantly find myself wishing they had climbing+ instead. Also why the fuck Jing Qo doesn't just have wildcard.... And 36 points...
From my games so far I agree that vanilla is top tier and ISS sadly bottom tier. From my WB games i have the impression that they are pretty strong, but a little boring/unflexible. Havent tried out invinceble army yet.
Did a tournament with ISS recently, and I do have to agree that I definitely have a lot of frustrations with list building for them. I don't know if I'd put them all the way at the bottom of the barrel yet, the do have their perks, but they definitely are hurting from the edition change. That 15 man cap hit ISS in such a weird way, because I feel starved for points in a way with them that I never had before. It's funny, because ISS used to have the most open ended order pool, and now it's the most strictly restricted across YJ. The aforementioned SWC issue is another frustration, especially with the lack of anti-armour tools available. The spitfire Crane especially feels like he was left behind by the N4 arms race. The change to grenade launcher range bands was an absolute disembowelment of our smoke access, which is criminal considering how much we used to rely on it. Losing biolocators sucks, would have been a cool and thematic way to play a hacking game with ISS. There's a lot in ISS that I want to like in N4, but it really just does not fit together well. Personally, I'll probably be shelving my ISS for a while to focus on vanilla YJ and CA. As much as I love ISS thematically, it's conceptually more challenging than it is worth at the moment.
I'm not sure if I would rate ISS so low but it's definitely the weakest of the yu-jing sectorials. List building is really weird, I run in the same issues making N4 15 orders lists than when I was desperately trying to make N3 limited insertion lists: lots of cool toys, barely anything to keep them alive, and the up in quality doesn't feel worth it compared to simply fielding more orders. White banners is seriously underrated imo. It's not on vanilla yu-jing level of absurd, but it can field some very oppressive defensive list with lots of hacking, repeaters, mines and hidden deployed HRL. Kinda feels monobuild though.
So far I've only played vanilla YJ and I've found them much better than N3. Building strong 15 order lists with some of the tweaked prices feels so easy, and I feel there's more choice and variety with what I can take. I haven't got a chance to play any of the sectorials, but what I've heard falls in line with what you've said about WB and ISS. WB is good- better than what most people think- and ISS has gotten the short end of the stick and become, in short, a bad sectorial. I used to play ISS a lot in N3 and though I haven't gotten a chance to play them in N4 I find building a list for them really awkward. I haven't really wanted to bring the Su Jian or spitfire Crane out against my mostly PanO opponents and just lose to a Jotum or Cutter. In addition, their fireteam options seem oddly inflexible, especially when compared to sectorials like Corregidor or WB. I personally think the 15 order cap isn't a great idea, and hopefully this change along with a few others are adjusted to make ISS a competitive sectorial again.
I agree in part about ISS and Aleph. While I like the Deva added. I don't think he should be AVA3, Haris (with or without Dakini), or a Lt. You know something is wrong when you can do an ISS list with NO ISS! I'm not saying that's a good list. It's the principle of it.
Compared to N3 YJ kinda fell off. Sure they got buffed, but everything did. Relatively speaking we lost ground where others gained. ISS has that massive ARO problem I don't know how to solve with or without a HI Link. Lunah, TR Bots, a couple Madtraps and Mines isn't exactly the strongest defense to bank on. White Banner is cool but only if you can stick someone with those BS12 B1 ARO pieces. IA has rough matchups. N4 upped the game in terms of lethality. Crits hit harder and harder than before against multiwound models if DAM-10 is higher than your final ARM value including Cover (i.e. you need ARM4 to break even vs a Spitfire outside of Cover). E/M Templates are insane. AP and K1 got cheaper/buffed and added everywhere. Redesigned N4 MA has a similar problem to N3 hacking, CC hits so hard it starts invalidating any sort of defense, assuming it wasn't a Mono CCW or massively buffed E/M CCW anyway. With Triangulated Fire hitting your own guys on a miss, the only good way to get something out of CC is your own CC or Hacking if you're lucky enough and the thing engaging your HI is Hackable. All the YJ Vanilla lists I see lean on Daoying Lt L2 + Hac Tao NCO. Which has a lot of value, but end up very predictable. The N3 swarm of Kuang Shi and Monks was predictable too, but harder to deal with in context of the edition. Overall YJ Vanilla has a solid seat in A-Tier, but can't quite keep up with the S-Tier stand outs of N4, Vanilla Nomads, Vanilla CA and Vanilla Aleph. For Sectorials I mostly agree with the pecking Order WB is better than the other two. ISS and IA both struggle with several matchups, despite being able to play on equal footing against quite a few other things. For me B-Tier is pretty crowded with mediocre perfection like Sval, who either do a couple things very, very well (in Sval's case Links for both offense and defense thanks to Karhu being obscenely effective as list glue) or everything good, but not exceptional like O-12. A Tier can do better than that, Varuna, Hassassins, Tak, Corregidor... and I don't see any YJ Sectorial there. Not even ISS is down there with Druze, Ikari and Morats (buffed or not still bottom tier) in C-Tier, so B it is. Can agree with all YJ lists being difficult to piece together across Vanilla and Sectorials. Having a lot less problems to pick something over the other or get all the tools I want in there for other armies, YJ is rough in terms of decisions.
@Zewrath There'd be better context for that list if you placed some comparative factions such as Nomads, CA, OSS, VIRD, WinterFo, reworked Bahram.
