Let’s paint!

Painting challenges are fun!  Especially since any type of painting encouragement is always good in my book! So without further ado, here’s some progress.

 

Nothing like a little Hac Tao Hacker action!  It’s a great sculpt and I was really excited to get paint onto him!  This big guy is definitely one of my favourite sculpts in the game, and likely to be the army centerpiece model for whenever I play vanilla Yu Jing!

’til next time!

 

In Service to the Imperial Army

So, while life has been extremely hectic lately, and I have some models that are in progress, but not ready to show yet, I’m sure you guys are aware that my faction ADD has struck again!  This time, the allure of the Tigerbot was too much to resist and I have now added Yu Jing to my faction repertoire.  While pondering how I was going to start with my Yu Jing aside from a pair of Su Jian, Corvus Belli decided to help me out by showing a lovely picture of the new Imperial Service Starter, and my mind was made up.  I have added the Imperial Service to my list of factions.  The Imperial Service, as well as Yu Jing in general, is fairly new territory for me in terms of list building.  They are one of the factions that does a good job of bridging the extremes between how my various factions play and adds some new tricks that I previously didn’t have ready access to.  While I learn how to play Yu Jing, and more importantly, Imperial Service, I’m going to post my thoughts so that you can see how my thought process on the faction changes over time.  This is the first of those and will hopefully turn into a regular series.

Having access to Kuang Shi means that it is possible to run multiple heavy infantry while still having enough orders to get work done.  It’s not a stretch to have 2 or 3 heavy infantry, while still having ample space for specialists and supporting models.  By extension, you don’t have to run heavy infantry and can just get a ton of orders for moving specialists around to push buttons. Either way, you can really have the best of both worlds, being able to take a high order count list that also has access to some very heavy hitters to boot, while still packing enough specialists and orders for specialists to get stuff done.

Several things that I found really appealing about ISS is the ability to run several link teams with relative ease due to the prevalence of cheap duos, Haris and Core options, and as you guys know, I do like me some fireteams.  You can do many mixed Fireteams that all greatly increase the flexibility of each Fireteam, as well as ubiquitous access to Breaker and Nanopulsars.  ISS also borrows the incredible Sophotect from Aleph, and can take up to 2 Dakini Tactbots and a Garuda Tactbot as well.  They have a solid selection of mercenaries, having access to Miranda Ashcroft and Father Lucien Sforza, as well as being able to pack some incredibly potent specialists on top of the incredible killing power they bring to the battlefield.  On top of all of that, Imperial Service has cheap and easy access to the newly buffed Holoprojector, which I’m excited to put on the table more frequently.

Here are some things that I’m really looking forward to putting on the table:

• Su Jian Duo –  I don’t know what it is about the Su Jian Duo that makes me really want to get it on the table.  Maybe it’s the fact that they are basically transforming tigerbots.  Maybe it’s their incredible flexibility.  However, whatever the reason, this model is the reason I bought into Yu Jing and I’m excited to be able to throw 2 on the table with relative ease, while maximizing their order efficiency.
• Zhanying Haris – I can’t wait for more sculpts of these guys to show up!  This is probably my favourite functional Fireteam in ISS at the moment, with almost every specialist profile having Breaker Combi Rifles and Nimbus grenades, a cheap lieutenant option that can do work, and several solid support weapon options in the Missile Launcher and the HMG.  The option to take a Hsien as an option makes this link even more attractive, and while I’m not the biggest fan of it because of how much it increases the cost of the link, there’s something to be said for having a Hsien in the link for when you want the Haris Zhanying Haris to be up close.  This is one of the more flexible link options and has become one of my favourites very quickly.
• Wu Ming Duo – Wow…talk about cheap heavy infantry.  For 56 points and 0 SWC, you can get a duo of heavy infantry with a specialist in it.  The Wu Ming are excellent heavy infantry that are getting a new resculpted box set later this year!  They are cheap, have ARM4 and 2W.  This is something to keep an eye on, as it’s going to be seen quite a lot as a cheap objective taking pair.  I’m not quite as big a fan of the Core option for Wu Ming due to the fact that I feel Imperial Service has better Core Fireteam options, but as a duo, I think they are fantastic.
• Kuang Shi Core – Speaking of Core Fireteam options, This is something that took me a while to wrap my head around, but after I did, I can’t see a situation where I wouldn’t take this as the Core Fireteam.  You are required to take the Celestial Guard with a Kuang Shi Control Device, but it is such a potent setup!  The Celestial Guard has a B2 Smoke Grenade Launcher at +3 BS, which means that you are going to be laying down smoke at an incredible BS of 17!  You also regain control of the Kuang Shi so that they don’t just run off to die.  Each of the Kuang Shi also come stock with a chain rifle, and B2 chain rifles are deadly in both active turn and ARO.  Did I mention that you get all this and 5 orders or 33 points?  Yeah, it’s really good.

You know what’s really awesome?  The fact that you can get almost all of these on the table at the same time!  It doesn’t leave a lot of room for too many specialists, but is still a rather strong setup.  There are several more Fireteam setups that seem like they have potential, but they haven’t quite clicked with me in terms of how I’m thinking about ISS at the moment.  As I add to them to my collection, I’ll definitely be trying different things out to see if it works.

The other thing is that I really want to utilize some of the amazing new sculpts in the Imperial Service Starter, and some of the amazing individual sculpts previously available to the Imperial Service such as Sun Tze V2.  One of the ones that really jumps out at me is the Crane Agent.  That sculpt is fantastic!  It is incredibly dynamic and something that greatly appeals to me about the Imperial Service is the access to a lot of the amazing heavy infantry that are available to Yu Jing.  While they don’t get access to the Yan Huo or Hac Tao, I still feel like they get an incredible set of heavy infantry options, ranging from the cheap and efficient Wu Ming, to the speedy and flexible Su Jian, to the raw power of the Hsien Warriors.  Currently, I’m really on-board with the Su Jian and Wu Ming.  between cost and flexibility, they really seem like they have it all.  While I like the Hsien warrior, I feel the sculpts are outdated and are extremely pricey in terms of points for what you’re getting.  I don’t feel that they’re bad by any means, but you are paying a lot of points for the MSV, and you can get significantly cheaper MSVs out of Bao Troops.

ISS is something that I’m looking forward to experimenting with and figuring out all of its idiosyncrasies, and I will be sharing that journey with you guys as we go forward!

’til next time!