I've got three core principles I'd like to discuss here:
1. You must dominate face-to-face rolls whenever possible, or get uncontested rolls
2. Try to hide your offensive units on your reactive turn and avoid activating your defensive units (snipers mostly) on your active turn
3. Advance with tanks (in the World of Warcraft sense), keeping an eye on their range bands: HMG's for moving out of the DZ and shotguns/MK12s for closing in on objectives.
Let's unpack each of those a bit.
Dominating face-to-face rolls
There are a few things to consider here: facing, cover, camoflage/MSV/ODD, BS/CC, burst and range bands. If you manage match-ups so that you have an edge on these then you should come out on top overall. Try to avoid situations where you are both rolling on the same amount unless you have a huge burst advantage (i.e. 3-1 or better) or you have a lot of small threats so 50/50 trades are fine for you (i.e. when you are trading a 20 point model for a 40+ point model).
Ideally you won't even go face-to-face, but opportunities for normal rolls are rare without a lot of camo, stealth and drop units. They do sometimes occur when people have multiple threat vectors to worry about or are charging forward to an objective (or you have a Ninja), but that seems to me to be advanced tactics. Mind your facing and things should be fine.
Units that don't have camo should ideally have visors so that they can't be taken out by units that do have camo, and units without visors should ideally have camo. These things are expensive, so don't start fretting that your cheerleaders don't have either. This only applies to combat units i.e. not cheerleaders, not utility units (e.g. sniffers), and not to specialists. Try to apply your MSV units to your opponent's camo units and your camo units to your opponent's units without visors. This is much easier for the camo units because they can usually employ movement and deployment shenanigans (like infiltrate) to isolate good targets.
It goes without saying, but BS and CC are the king traits in this game, especially the former. A 3 point advantage on BS, such as that enjoyed by most HIs, is huge and can turn face-to-faces into one sided fights on active turn, especially when you have camoflage and surprise shot involved (hello Dao Fei). The only models that shouldn't worry about BS are those that will be using template weapons, and to a much lesser extent, your specialists, who want WIP instead.
Burst comes into point 2, and range bands into point 3, so I will cover them there.
Hide offensive units on the reactive turn
The main defensive units are low burst, high damage, long range guns like rocket launchers and sniper rifles, especially the MULTI-sniper because it has DA ammo and the EXP rocket launchers like the panzerfaust. The best users of these weapons are camoflaged guys with visors with long lines of site down a channel. The range band and camoflage plus being deployed in cover means that you can usually manage at least a -6 mod (if not -9) against your opponent and a +3 mod to your own BS. Even with just 1 shot you have a good chance of winning the face-to-face, and then the multiple damage dice of your weapon will put the hurt on. The best units on these factors are the Aleph sniper with MSV2 and spotter-bot, the Intruder with TO Camo and MSV, and the Guilang Sniper with camo and MSV. You need to have either CAMO or MSV, but I really prefer a mix of both unless the unit is very cheap. I mostly say that because of Raidens. Raiden with HRL costs a mere 19 points and comes with limited camoflage for surprise shot and mimetism, and while he doesn't have a multi-spectrum visor he does have an x-visor which means you can hit things that get a bit close. Units that don't have camoflage are also disadvantaged because your opponent can see them and play accordingly.
These are the only units that you want exposed to your opponent's shooting in your reactive turn because they are efficient on the reactive turn. Because of the low burst value they are weak on the active turn, or at least not efficient in terms of maximising likely damage per order. Because of the high range they don't want to move forward, which again makes them more suited to the reactive turn. Some armies can field lists that are largely focused on the reactive turn. For example, Tohaa can field 2 Nikoul's with sapper and viral sniper rifles as well as two Gao-Rael's with MSV2 and viral sniper rifles. Ouch. These guys are expensive but can totally shut down fire lanes while limiting your opponent's ability to hit back at you.
You generally want to hide you offensive units in your reactive turn because they are most efficient on your active turn. Examples of assault units are HIs with decent guns, BS and ARM, as well as little dudes with good guns, like the Lu Duan with BS12, Holo L2 and an MK12, and the Rui Shi with BS12, MSV2 and a spitfire. These guys will shine on active turn because they bring high burst, high damage, high BS and can ignore camo mods. But on defence your opponent will typically dominate the face-to-face with these units because your opponent gets the burst advantage and you don't have camoflage, range bands and cover to off-set it. There are some exceptions. Suppression fire mode helps, but will probably still see you at a disadvantage. Suppression fire on a camoflage unit in cover with a rambo profile, like a Dao Fei, now that's alright. But you wouldn't want to expose the Dao Fei on your reactive turn without the suppression fire, because then you've only got that one dice and you are probably in your opponent's good band, which cancels out your camo.
Advance with tanks paying attention to range bands
Tanks are units with high armour and multiple wounds with something that helps them engage in even firefights. These guys can take a hit and keep going, and you would back them RAW against most other models when in the appropriate range band. Examples include the Hsien and Karakuri. They are distinct from Rambos, which are units with high damage output and things that hurt your opponent in face-to-face, like ODD or TO Camo. The main rambos in Yu Jing are the Hac Tao and Dao Fei. Both pack Spitfires or HMGs, camo and good BS. The other Rambo I use often is the Oniwaban, who can spring and shotgun your opponent to pieces with +6 for you and -6 for him (plus cover mods). Rambos and tanks do different things, though their functions can often overlap. A tank's job is to open a fire lane, typically by knocking off a sniper, missile launcher or other defensive unit. With BS 14, B4, a good range band and an MSV2 you would expect the Hsien to always be at least 50-50 in these engagements, and with D15, if you get one hit off there is a good chance the target will die. Thanks to ARM4/BTS6 and 2 wounds, if you lose the first 50/50 you can just go again. This is the only time I would pay for armour and multiple wounds - usually they are too expensive. Rambos on the other hand go after a weak point in your opponent's position and run amok. In these weak positions there are ideally no units that can overcome your camo, BS and Burst advantage, so every order results in a kill and you can clear out 4 or 5 units with one big order spend.
Tanks give you good odds when advancing. Consider the Hsien. He has a HMG, so burst 4 with massive damage, which means 1 hit often kills. He has ARM4, so he can take a beat, but hopefully he won't because he has BS14, 4 burst and an MSV2 to offset camoflage. He is usually my main mover out of my deployment zone to clear some space, usually right behind some Shaolin who lay smoke to cut off volume of ARO fire against him and allow him to focus on the priority target, like that prick intruder with the sniper rifle. One-on-one there is little that can take him.
The reason why he is main guy straight out of my deployment zone is that the HMG has great mid-range bands. Once he gets up close things aren't nearly as excellent. That's where the Karakuri comes in. The Karakuri is a tank not a rambo. It wants that shotgun range band. Then it can overwhelm your camo and hit you hard for D15. It also has ARM3 and STR2 and explode, so it can break open a troublesome corner. Sometimes you will need to use the chain rifle, but that's okay too. It's only 35 points. You always want a unit for the job that has the appropriate range band for the situation, the ability to take a hit so it can do two 50/50 rolls and a high enough damage that when it does make contact the situation is resolved. I love the Lu Duan for corner situations. The Holo echoes make it hard for your opponent to know where to put their single bursts, and the Mk12/Heavy flamer combo makes them exceptional at clearing out positions.
A final thought: small threats are the best
So those are my main thoughts and they all revolve around winning face-to-face rolls, which is the main skill for winning games. One extra point emerges from this discussion. Namely, if you are winning most of your face-to-face rolls, then you don't need ARM, BTS and multiple wounds. My priority is always to straight up dominate firefights. The only time I will need multiple wounds is when I need to tank through a sniper or corner guard, and in those situations a REM might be almost as effective as a Hsien for a 1/3 of the price. So I tend to avoid those expensive units like TAGs and HI, especially if they don't have camoflage and/or MSV. If you know you're going up against something with a distinct weakness, like Nomads and JSA have limited MSV, then by all means bring these nasty bastards, but otherwise focus on the MSV and winning those face to face rolls.
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