Yu Jing Quickening
I wanted to take a small break from Combined after all those games pre-tournament and at the tournament. I decided to try a vanilla Yu Jing list instead, and my opponent was James (RomanLegion) who also plays a lot of vanilla Yu Jing. We tried a different setup of his table with a split on the big central island thing, and I kinda like it.
Overview
We decided on Mindwipe, because it’s a fun and complex mission, and James and I like that sort of thing.
- Mission: ITS13 Mindwipe
- Forces: Yu Jing versus Yu Jing (OpFor) (300)
- Deploy First: Yu Jing (OpFor)
- First Turn: Yu Jing (OpFor)
I really wanted to try out a camo-heavy Yu Jing list, mostly because I was peer-pressured encouraged to do so by the rest of The Dice Abide LIVE! team. They wanted to see someone play a vanilla Yu Jing list without Kuang Shi powering everything. Still, not taking advantage of Yu Jing’s excellent access to order trickery like LIeutenant +1 Order and NCO or Tac Aware is a bit foolish, so I made some concessions there.
I’ve been seeing a lot of success with the Libertos, so I brought a super Libertos in the form of the Beasthunter. Sadly, I couldn’t afford the +1B in CC version unique to Yu Jing, but a camo heavy flamethrower with Panzerfaust would have to do. I took a Daofei hacker and Guilang hacker to do the mission, and then a Hac Tao NCO and Daoying Lt (the boring one) to shoot things with to let the Daofei and Guilang do their jobs.
Shaolin No Shadow Kick
GROUP 1
8
2
1
GROUP 2
DĀOYĪNG (Lieutenant [+1 Order]) Boarding Shotgun / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 22)
DÀOFĚI (Hacker, Hacking Device) MULTI Rifle, D-Charges ( ) / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0.5 | 56)
HAC TAO (NCO) Heavy Machine Gun, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (1.5 | 65)
MAJOR LUNAH VIRAL Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 29)
LÓNG YÁ (Minelayer) Panzerfaust(+1B), Flammenspeer(+1B), Submachine Gun, AP Mines / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 17)
GŬILÁNG (Hacker, Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Shock Mines ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 30)
LIANG KAI Chain Rifle, Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse / Pistol, EXP CC Weapon. (0 | 21)
BEASTHUNTERS (Surprise Attack [-3], Camouflage, Forward Deployment [+8″]) Heavy Flamethrower, Panzerfaust, AP Mines / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 15)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)
SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
Long Ya minelayers are so efficient and offer so much utility it was hard to not include them, so they’re in there as well. Lunah is also a big reason to play Yu Jing in general, so she also made an appearance. I’ve enjoyed my 4 Taigha so much that I decided to just take 4 Shaolin and Liang Kai to keep the transition smooth from my vanilla CA lists.
James took a shockingly similar list. He didn’t get the “no Kuang Shi” memo, so there are three of them and the controller there powering all his units. He decided to take the excellent Hac Tao hacker to be his Uberhacker, and also took a pair of Long Ya and Lunah for the same reasons I took mine.
GROUP 1GROUP 2
HÚLÁNG (Forward Deployment [+8″]) Combi Rifle, Light Flamethrower, E/M Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 41)
AÏDA SWANSON FTO (Minelayer) Submachine Gun, Viral Mines / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 20)
CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / CC Weapon, Pistol. (0.5 | 13)
KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
LIÚ XĪNG (Specialist Operative) MULTI Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 35)
SON-BAE Yaókòng Missile Launcher / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 16)
6 SWC | 300 Points | Open in Infinity Army
His plan for the servers was different though, instead of getting a Daofei or Guilang over there, he was just going to drop a Liu Xing with D-Charges on it. Smart. He loves his Son Bae too, (Son Bae is BAE, I guess?) and took Aida and a Hulang to round out the list. He did manage to get a single Shaolin in there as well, because why not.
But, basically this was a pretty darn close mirror match. And we all know that that means:
Deployment
James won the rolloff and elected to go first. There’s a fair amount of verticality on the table–there’s a ground level fight and a second story fight because of the big flat islands. It’s still pretty open, especially on the lateral firelanes, especially on the top floors, but there are plenty of safe advancement paths. In any case, James doesn’t have S3 camo tokens (only Ariadna players do), so the Su Jian and generic Yu Jing S3 bot are all Long Ya in camo.
James set up a Long Ya on the middle and right servers to rpotect them, and then protected the left with a Kuang Shi, the Daoying (who I forgot to mark, it’s the camo token in the corner of the whtie stairs and the leftmost island thing), and the Celestial Guard Kuang Shi controller. There was a big central firelane in the middleish of the table, so the Son Bae watched that along with the Libertos. That was the fastest way into James’s deployment zone so it makes sense to cover it with a lot of annoying things. The other Kuang Shi hung out on the right with the Shaolin to help out.
James’s heavy infantry were tucked into the middle ready to advance up the lane watched by the Son Bae, and Aida locked down the console on the platform. The other console was on the ground near the Hulang, which was clearly James’s intended target.
My deployment was pretty similar, but I had four Shaolin to protect the consoles, so I used them to protect the consoles and used the Long Ya to cover the approaches to the consoles instead. I knew there was a fair amount of killing power on James’s side of the table, and he had first turn, so I wanted to keep things mostly safe. The Daoying went on a roof, prone, of course, and I put Lunah watching the long diagonal firelane from the left of my table side to the right. My Libertos went on the right as did the Beasthunter. Not entirely enthused about this, but that was the best I could come up with at the time.
I put the Guilang in a pocket on my side of the table, ready to go after either console, and then Liang Kai went all the way on the left to try and collapse that flank if it came to that. James put Lunah down out of reserve (I think), and then I put my Daofei prone on the central roof with the Uberhacker token. James chose his Hac Tao as the Uberhacker, which makes sense.
Turn 1
Top of 1 – Yu Jing (OpFor)
My objective for this turn is to just preserve my order pool. Nothing else really matters. James wants to kill my Uberhacker immediately, so after canceling all his impetuous orders he climbs Aida up and over to see the Daofei. Lunah can see this, and crits Aida off the table.
Well, with that option gone, at least James could get some objectives taken care of. He sets up smoke on the lower console with the Kuang Shi controller.
Unfortunately for him, both the Daofei and the Guilang are within 8″ of the console and successfully Oblivion the Hulang.
James wants to take advantage of the smoke with Lunah, so he moves into LoF of my Lunah and takes a shot, killing my Lunah. Womp womp.
My Daofei is revealed now, so James spends the orders to get a Kuang Shi into position and chain rifles the Daofei. I fire a shock round back, pass the chain rifle save, but fail to take out the Kuang Shi.
Fortunately, James is now out of orders, so I don’t have to keep dealing with it.
Bottom of 1 – Yu Jing
My plan for the turn was to control the midfield. I left 3/4 of the Shaolin in place to protect their servers, and then ran the redundant one on the right forward with its impetuous order to throw smoke. It didn’t work, so I tried again with the irregular order with another fail. Bah!
I coordinated the Beasthunter and Libertos forward. With my Lunah down, I needed to take care of James’s Lunah so as to open up the board. I could’ve used the Hac Tao HMG, which isn’t a bad plan, but I wanted to hold it in “reserve” to be able to spring the surprise. I just forced the discover on the Libertos.
By the time it was discovered, it was too late and I was able to template Lunah against her pistol shot, taking her out. The Kuang Shi took a shot with its pistol as well and of course did a wound.
I decided to keep fighting the Kuang Shi to unstick the Daofei, but the Kuang Shi downed the Libertos.
The Daofei doesn’t really need the help, so it shocked the Kuang Shi off the table but did take a wound from the chain rifle.
I didn’t want the Hulang to be able to reset out of isolated state, so I decided to try and take it out. I decided to try and use the Hac Tao to do this, which I think was a big mistake. I should’ve just used the Daofei after recamoing it or something.
In any case, I was on low orders and was unable to do any damage to the Hulang, so I just recamoed the Guilang, the Daofei, and the Hac Tao and passed turn.
Turn 2
Top of 2 – Yu Jing (OpFor)
James has a console flipped, but I don’t, so he can make a play for the server. He drops a Liu Xing next to the server that has the Rogue AI.
I dodge into base to base and beat the Liu Xing down in close combat with a crit. I’ll take it! That’s why I left the Shaolin there.
James gets revenge by getting his Shaolin in a position to fight Liang Kai in smoke.
They trade blows for an order, but nothing happens. the Hulang attempts to reset with its own order, but I reveal the Guilang again to Carbonite it, bringing the total WIP penalty to -12.
With the Hulang out of the picture, James sends in his own Hac Tao. It pushes to my right, away from the center of the table and away from my camo tokens. The Liberto’s mine reveals it, but fails to do a wound. I decide to reveal my own Hac Tao to take a shot but fail to connect.
The Hac Tao keeps going and threatens a discover on my Beasthunter, so I blasted it with a heavy flamethrower to force yet another dodge.
Sadly, by dodging around the corner, the Hac Tao was out of range for the flamethrower, meaning I had a dead Beasthunter.
Bottom of 2 – Yu Jing
I let the Shaolin walk away from some of the servers because I don’t think James has a second Liu Xing. Liang Kai is also free to fight James’s Shaolin. The impetuous order has me lose the face to face but pass the ARM save, but a real order has me take out the Shaolin.
Now all I need to do is clear Aida’s mine covering the console so I can find the correct server to break. Liang Kai dodges his way to victory, forcing the Long Ya to shoot at him and dodging their fire as well as dodge-clearing the mine. Phew! Way to go Liang Kai!
I decide I’m going to try to just take out the Long Ya watching the approach to the console, so I chain rifle it against its SMG. It misses, but it passes its chain rifle save. Unwilling to lose the order, James drops the Long Ya prone.
This lets me flip the console with my Daofei and identify the server immediately in front of Liang Kai and the Daofei as the server of interest. Well that’s convenient.
I need to take out James’s Libertos, which had made it up to the second story. I just need to put it dogged or I’m going to lose my Daofei to it. The Hac Tao nanopulsars it dogged but takes a wound from the chain colt. Sigh. That’s all I needed though, so the Hac Tao fails guts around the corner.
I’m a little worried about the Hulang rolling a 1 and then going ham, so I try to put a wound on it with a Shaolin’s chain rifle and fail.
Turn 3
Top of 3 – Yu Jing (OpFor)
James starts a hail mary run with the Hac Tao in camo. We just kept the model on the table to avoid having to swap out to a token. I dodge the Shaolin into view to try and delay the Hac Tao, but I forgot about the Son Bae watching this corridor and lose the Shaolin to a missile. Ah well.
The Hac Tao keeps going and I shockingly fail a discover on the Guilang within 8″. Sigh.
The Hac Tao makes it all the way to the server of interest and puts a wound on it with Data Erasure, but lucky for me my Long Ya sticks a Panzerfaust and turns the Hac Tao off. Kaboom!
With his hopes of getting a server kill dashed, James tries to prevent me from getting a server of my own by taking out Liang Kai with his Long Ya. Mimetism saves the day and Liang Kai dodges prone.
Bottom of 3 – Yu Jing
I need to get rid of that Long Ya, so I send in the Hac Tao to do the job. He gets the job done, but the Liberto’s mine takes him out. Oh well. Last turn of the game, just need to clear the way.
I spend all a few orders scooting the Daofei into position, prone, and then dump the rest into Data Erasure on the server until it’s dead. I have one more order left so I snag Net Undermine with Liang Kai.
Mindwipe is a mission that’s pretty prone to blowouts, so with me having the only destroyed server it’s a
10-1 Yu Jing Victory!
Post Game Analysis
James and I talked a bunch after the game and we’re pretty convinced that the misplay on his end was first with the Liu Xing and second with the Hac Tao. The first bit was he should’ve landed the Liu Xing, walked away instead of towards the Shaolin, and shot the Shaolin before moving in on the server. Moving towards the server was dangerous. Admittedly close combat isn’t as reliable as one might think, as it’s quite risky for both parties, but it paid off in spades for me.
The second issue was the Hac Tao. I’m really not sure why James moved it so far away from the server he needed to murder. He spent a ton of resources to do so, and he didn’t have a good answer either. I’m pretty behind on battle reports so it’s been awhile since our discussion, so I don’t remember the details, but I think he was afraid of being close to my hackers. That’s reasonable, I suppose. I don’t think I have enough orders to both get the console flipped (clearing the mine first) and deal with is Hac Tao, especially with most of my orders tied to my own Hac Tao HMG, who is actually shockingly bad at dealing with Mimetism -6 in the midfield.
Still, there’s something to be said for just outright denying me the attack on the Hac Tao by putting it on a board edge… perhaps the other board edge might have been more reasonable. Liang Kai is over there, true, but I have to use him to clear the mine. Of course James doesn’t know this, and Liang Kai is certainly a threat to the Hac Tao who is not an apex CC predator. This concern is a little less clear cut than the play with the Liu Xing, but there’s certainly something more effective that could have been done here. Maybe even going after the central server and then forcing me to come dig the Hac Tao out or make forward progress.
If you’ve read my previous thoughts on Mindwipe, you know I think that it’s fine to spend the first turn attacking orders instead of worrying about flipping a console to determine which server is the one with the Rogue AI. This does require you to have sufficient redundancy in your list to reliably attack all three servers, so you generally want to take some sort of AD troop or the like. My solution was to use the Daofei in the center of the table to allow me to respond. It ended up working out, but if I was really practicing what I preach I should have used the Guilang to push the console instead of the Daofei.
Still, moving Liang Kai more centrally to remove the mine was both a risk as well as a play to help me set up for turn 3. I don’t think I did enough damage on my first turn–the Hac Tao HMG just didn’t deliver for me at all. I really wish there was a Hac Tao MULTI profile with NCO. It wouldn’t even have to be a specialist, and I would consider it. It’s worth noting that this game was played before Bixie was available in the army builder, so you can count on her taking the Hac Tao’s slot once she’s available. Most people in my meta aren’t giving me HMG shots where the Hac Tao can shine, so I need to go dig them out in the midfield, and Bixie’s toolkit is significantly better suited to that task than the Hac Tao HMG.
I do think James’s choice of the Hac Tao Hacker as his Uberhacker is an excellent choice. I like the Daofei more, because it’s more efficient and doesn’t lose out on the ability to be in hidden deployment, but now we’re splitting hairs. I’m a little uncertain if I should have revealed the Daofei to carbonite the Hulang, but it worked out so I guess it was fine. Two wounds is pretty baller.
In terms of lessons for me, I think the easy one is I didn’t like my list. I wasn’t getting the performance out of the Hac Tao HMG that I was expecting, not because it’s bad but because I was asking it to do something that it wasn’t designed to do. I had other tools in my list to accomplish those tasks, but I handicapped myself by forcing myself to use the Hac Tao due to NCO + Daoying.
The harder one is I don’t think I deployed well. I think I could’ve protected against AD troops better. I got lucky and James misplayed a little bit, so it worked out, but pulling the Long Ya farther back I think would have been appropriate. There was that looong diagonal firelane just outside my deployment zone, so perhaps only one of them, but there you go. I also don’t think I played the Beasthunter correctly. Moving it up as part of a coordinated was fine, but I could’ve protected it, and then gone and murdered James’s Hac Tao with it pretty conclusively. It has all the right tools for that, especially if it was supported by a Shaolin properly.
I’ve been playing very aggressively with my Taigha in combined, and I think that’s part of the reason why my pacing was off. Shaolin and Beasthunters aren’t as “fire and forget” as Taigha so I needed to be a little more careful with them. My pacing was a little off as well, and I think it all boils down to Aida’s mine. Having a mine on the console is just so good, especially a viral mine–everything has to respect that, basically (well maybe not a truly total immune thing). So that was a big deal and shaped my turns pretty decisively. I think Bixie again would have been able to deal with that quite effectively, thanks to her ridiculous dodge bonus.
In terms of playing the list more effectively, I think I should’ve just used the Hac Tao for its strengths: kill Lunah, move to the right, kill the Hulang, then challenge the missile bot to take out more of James’s orders. Then I can hang back and threaten things in the midfield from my deployment zone, which boxes James in and forces him to make the Liu Xing play. Once that fails (assuming the same outcome), then I can use the Daofei for its intended purpose and dominate the midfield. I do think I should only have Oblivion’ed or Carbonited with the Guilang, and then if that failed, only then reveal the Daofei.
I’m looking forward to abusing the Daofei some more in future games, it’s got a fun toolkit and some great positional advantages to exploit. I’m happy to be out of the period of only exclusion zone or confused deployment missions for a little bit, it really opens up list construction. I will say I’m also happy to try a camo-heavy, no-Kuang Shi list, which was a lot of fun. I’m pretty happy playing limited insertion, so this felt fine for me. I still think that it probably gave up a lot in terms of not having the Kuang Shi, but it just makes for a fun challenge. Thanks for reading.
