Yu Jing elite camo

Since invincible army came out I've been experimenting with variations on an "elite" camo army for Yu Jing. Most camo lists use cheap and cheerful infiltrators to pepper the midfield with camo tokens. The closest thing to an elite unit in these lists is something like Pavel McMannus, who clocks in at 32 points with 1W and BS12. The Yu Jing approach is a little different...

Camo, infiltration, and forward deployment does not come cheap in Yu Jing. The Liberto in vanilla obviously helps (8 points), as does the Long Ya in vanilla/IA (17 points). But the backbone of your list is the Dao Fei (55 points), the amazing Zhen Cha (35 points), and the humble Gui Lang (27 points - now much improved by minelayers getting boarding shotguns). Gui Langs in particular are very expensive for flimsy 1W skirmishers. MSV1/Mimetism is fantastic, but a lot to lose to a stray crit or even just a botched face to face roll on B2 with BS11. They're really only good for hunting other skirmishers. Support players with forward deployment are also pricey. Kan Rens are pretty average quality and cost around 25 points because of their pointless monofilament swords. Hu Lang Shocktroops are 42 points, and the anti hard-target Krit Kokram is 41 points. Of course, in exchange for these high costs you get chonky stat-lines, including heavy armour and wounds, and valuable equipment, notably multi-spectral visors and SMGs. This differentiates YJ camo lists from Ariadna camo lists. Kuang Shi cheerleaders make elite lists viable by providing orders, but they do force you to play vanilla rather than White Banner (I can't seem to get white banner to a decent order count). Unusually, you will probably want to play your Kuang Shi quite conservatively in this list to keep your order pool into the late game and act as bodyguards.  

What differentiates you from Nomads is the hacking game. Yu Jing hackers are mostly bad. The Ninja with KHD is a good assassin, but in camo spam you want your hackers to create a tarpit. For that you need hacking devices. There is no HD+ in YJ. Some of the better HD hackers are camo units - the Gui Lang (WIP14) and the Dao Fei. But you don't want to decamo these guys to hack as this ruins your shell game. To my mind, that leaves 2 serious options: the REM Racer and the Dao Ying. The racer is a pretty poor hacker with WIP13, but having a deployable repeater and SMG is good, and giving +1BS to a Rui Shi is fantastic. Well worth the +3 points over a celestial guard hacker, even with the -1WIP. The Dao Ying is quite tasty for a few reasons. WIP14 is nice for a hacker, and they cost 0SWC. They have camouflage, which makes them harder to KHD and makes them a good lieutenant because they can hide from assassins (note that quality assassins are typically in factions that don't rely on hackable units, so you won't have a Daoying against Hassassins for example, or Kosmoflot). Having a boarding shotgun and mimetism makes them doubly hard to assassinate because they will often win the ftf. They use the lieutenant order quite well to hack and recamo (though not as well as they used to when HDs had assisted fire). +1 order also makes up for their primary weakness, which is their high cost at 30 points (why the f**k do they have a breaker pistol?). If you have Krit Kokram (NCO) he can use the orders if the Dao Ying stays hidden. Yu Jing does have one interesting distinction from Nomads in the hacking department, which is their abundance of deployable repeaters. If you have a REM racer, Krit Kokram, and 2 Gui Lang minelayers, you have 4 deployable repeaters. A bit of an order investment to place all of them, but you can potentially use minelayer to deploy them instead of mines if you know your opponent is flush with HI/TAGs (e.g. Invincible Army), or use coordinated orders.  

The play style of Yu Jing camo is otherwise the same as Nomad and Ariadna camo. Keep it lame. Stay in camo and let your opponent waste orders discovering and dodging mines, avoiding repeater nets, and scaling buildings to dig out a single annoying skirmisher. Use your sweepers - Rui Shi, Dao Fei, etc - to go on rambo runs on your turn, getting a few kills to open up the table for specialists to score and skirmishers to lay mines strategically. Rambo runs mean your other guys stay under camo. Occasionally score kills with surprise shot boarding shotguns. Your cheerleaders (Kuang Shi mostly) are typically packing direct template weapons and dogged, which makes them a pain to kill.       

Alright, onto some lists!

  

Yu Jing Camo spam - Guided

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GROUP 1  

 DÀOFĚI Spitfire, D-Charges / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 55)

 GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Shock Mines ( | Deployable Repeater) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27)

 GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Shock Mines ( | Deployable Repeater) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27)

 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)

 KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)

 CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / CC Weapon, Pistol. (0.5 | 13)

 LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)

 SON-BAE Yaókòng Missile Launcher / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (1.5 | 16)

GROUP 2  

 KOKRAM (Forward Deployment [+8"], Minelayer) Heavy Shotgun, E/Mitter, E/M Mines ( | Deployable Repeater) / Heavy Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0 | 41)

 DĀOYĪNG (Lieutenant [+1 Order], Hacker, Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun ( ) / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 30)

 ZHĒNCHÁ (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, Panzerfaust, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 35)

 LÓNG YÁ (Minelayer) Panzerfaust(+1B), Flammenspeer(+1B), Submachine Gun, AP Mines / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 17)

 ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 11)

 6 SWC | 300 Points

[url=https://infinitytheuniverse.com/army/list/gMkHeXUtamluZxFZdSBKaW5nIENhbW8gc3BhbYEsAgEKAICCAQQAAICGAQUAAICGAQUAAICSAQEAAICSAQEAAICSAQEAAICSAQEAAICSAgEAAIT7AQQAAICNAQIAAgUAhaUBAQAAhNwBBQAAhOsBAgAAhgEBAwAAfAEBAA%3D%3D]Open in Infinity Army

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This list uses spotlight and all the deployable repeaters (Gui Langs and Crit Kokram), which is now quite good. Guided is typically an inefficient way to kill things on active turn, but as camo spam plays lame the inefficiency isn't a huge problem. Shooting guided missiles means you don't need to reveal any part of your shell game. Going for repeaters makes the list a little lite on mines, but the Kuang Shi act as mines on first reactive turn to prevent alpha strikes. The Dao Ying acts as lieutenant to free the Dao Fei to Rambo. Krit Kokram will almost always deploy a repeater rather than an EM mine. You should prioritise spending orders on him where useful, because he is likely to die thanks to not having camo or a MOD stack. I'm not yet sure whether he is good. It might be more valuable to replace him with a Ninja KHD (it needs to be a specialist) and upgrade the Zhanshi to a 2nd Long Ya with Heavy Shotgun. That would take you to 298 points. This list shines if your opponent has to come into the midfield, at which point they become targeted and then lit up on your turn with guided missiles. My fear with this list is that you're quite reliant on the Spitfire Dao Fei to take down ARO pieces. You don't have much smoke at all - only the celestial guard controller, who is unreliable - which means any ARO piece locking down an objective could be painful. Skirmisher lists often rely on pressing buttons early as this forces the enemy to come to you. If your opponent locks you out this game plan falls apart. This is likely to happen against Tohaa and Ariadna, who are precisely the factions you want to be spotlighting the most because they aren't otherwise unhackable. 

What about if you don't bother with guided missiles? 

Yu Jing Camo spam

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GROUP 1  

 DÀOFĚI Spitfire, D-Charges / Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 55)

 GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Shock Mines ( | Deployable Repeater) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27)

 GŬILÁNG (Minelayer) Boarding Shotgun, Shock Mines ( | Deployable Repeater) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 27)

 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)

 KUANG SHI Chain Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)

 CELESTIAL GUARD Monitor Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher / CC Weapon, Pistol. (0.5 | 13)

 LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)

GROUP 2

 HÚLÁNG (Forward Deployment [+8"], Minelayer]) Submachine Gun(+1B), E/M Grenades, D-Charges, Crazykoala / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0 | 42)

 ZÚYǑNG (Lieutenant, Regeneration) Heavy Machine Gun / CC Weapon, Breaker Pistol(+1B). (1 | 36)

 ZHĒNCHÁ (Forward Observer) Submachine Gun, Panzerfaust, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 35)

 LÓNG YÁ (Minelayer) Panzerfaust(+1B), Flammenspeer(+1B), Submachine Gun, AP Mines / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 17)

 LÓNG YÁ (Minelayer) Panzerfaust(+1B), Flammenspeer(+1B), Submachine Gun, AP Mines / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 17)

 WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse ( ) / Stun Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)

 6 SWC | 300 Points

[url=https://infinitytheuniverse.com/army/list/gMkHeXUtamluZxFZdSBKaW5nIENhbW8gc3BhbYEsAgEJAICCAQQAAICGAQUAAICGAQUAAICSAQEAAICSAQEAAICSAQEAAICSAQEAAICSAgEAAIT7AQQAAgYAhOkBAgAAfwEPAACE6wECAACGAQEDAACGAQEDAAAyAQEA]Open in Infinity Army

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You drop the Dao Ying because you don't need a hacker, which opens up the lieutenant question. You don't want your Dao Fei to be your lieutenant because you want him to be free to rambo. Final turn lieutenant rambos are great, but inflexible. Having the Zu Yong instead gives you a decent HMG parapet clearer and a lieutenant who will otherwise stay put. You could use a Hsien instead, but would require using a Kanren instead of the Hu Lang to free up points. You could also replace the Zuyong with a Rui Shi who does the alpha strike job and save the Dao Fei for the final turn, but this requires him to play pretty cagey throughout the game. It also means you don't have a parapet clearer, which can cause headaches. On the plus side, the Rui saves you a bunch of points to upgrade the Warcor to a REM Racer with light shotgun and +1BS to the Rui Shi. 

The minefield of this list is substantial - 2 from the Gui Langs, 1 from the Liberto, 2 from the Long Ya, and 2 Crazy Koalas from the Hu Lang. If your opponent turtles your Zuyong should be able to clear the parapets and then your Dao Fei can sneak into the meat of their order pool to cause carnage. Or he might be able to sneak in unassisted thanks to camo. Gui Langs and Libertos are also effective alpha strike pieces with their shotgun templates and deep deployment. If your opponent comes at you they have a large minefield to wade through and then you counterattack with a lot of shotguns and SMGs. Also look for opportunities to use their 6-4 MOV to get a long range, flanking shot of flammenspeer or panzerfaust off with the Long Ya. With surprise shot, B2, and an advantageous range band, a flammenspeer can get a hit fairly reliably and cause carnage, especially into the rear of link teams. Any spare orders in group 2 can be spent minelaying and recamoing with the Long Ya - they are S3, which means coming out of camo costs you little in the way of surprise. The Warcor can be made a regular order in a pinch. Would be great if he could be a shaolin for some smoke, but I think the minelayer Long Ya are more important. The biggest issue with this list is that it only has 2 specialists - the Hulang and Zhencha. The latter is very reliable late game because of WIP14 and climbing plus, but the former is likely to die early because of a lack of camouflage.   

Overall, I don't think these lists are quite as good as the Nomad list, but I can't say for sure. I think Ariadna camo spam is hurt by the 15 order cap and the boosts to HI, TAGs, and hackers, which all encourage you to take hackers and chonky boys that Ariadna don't have. The Ariadna list used to have a hard time against HI link teams in particular because you couldn't surprise shot them due to sixth sense and without that your boarding shotguns weren't reliable at taking them down. Now there will be more HIs rolling around. TAGs were better but with tactical awareness a good player will now just charge around with the TAG eating all the mines before dropping into suppression, and then their support crew can mop you up more easily. Nomads, in contrast, benefitted from all the N4 changes. Mary is a beast now (I would say she is pound-for-pound the best hacker in the game), the 15 order cap is their sweet spot, and the Kriza is much better than both the Zuyong and Blackjack. Where the Yu Jing list shines I think is in the Dao Fei, obviously, and the abundance of camo shotguns and SMGs, less obviously. Dao Fei are one of the better alpha strike and sweeper units in the game, especially against an opponent who doesn't suspect them. They are even better now that they are 6-2. Shotguns and SMGs are remarkably reliable weapons on skirmishers, which makes pretty much every camo token in Yu Jing a threat. Having long range weapons on the Long Ya, even if limited to 1 salvo and telegraphed by their silhouette, gives you a lot of interesting attack vectors that Nomads don't have (Ariadna do with Ojotniks on Pavel and Scouts). In Nomads, 2 of your shotguns (the morans) are typically not camouflaged, which makes it harder to surprise someone with a close range template. Time to playtest.