Infinity/N4 Tactics/Imperial Service

An overview for faction units and tactics in N4. WIP

Why Play Imperial Service?

PROTECT YOUR HOME. SERVE YU JING. JOIN THE IMPERIAL SERVICE.

ISS is an aggressive, fast paced army with a major focus on kicking down doors and "arresting" the enemies of Yu Jing hiding inside. They're most deadly against lightly armored troops at mid-to-close range, but have to resort to indirect hacking to deal with high armor like superheavy infantry or TAGs.

The ideal ISS list forces your opponent into hiding and then blows the whole building, preferably while a few Kuang Shi are still in it. All are guilty under the eyes of the Imperial Judges and only death absolves their crimes.

Faction Features

• KUANG SHI CORE LINK: N3 ISS made good use of its Kuang Shi, and N4 is no exception. A full Core of Kuang Shi is 33 points of screaming template laying terror backed by core linked smoke grenades. If that wasn't good enough, ISS has access to true wildcards now, allowing you to fold in additional utility while keeping more Kuang to backfill the link once you start slinging blast collared criminals into enemy lines.
• CAMO CANNOT HIDE: ISS carries no less than seven troops with some form of MSV and six troopers with Sensor. Combined with templates on nearly every key trooper means your opponent's Camouflage and Mimetism will not save them.
• DEPLOYMENT ZONE HELL: Tired of your opponent ramming TAGs into your deployment zone? Fill it with MadTraps! These active defense bots will rush the first enemy that gets within 8" and attempt to immobilize it. Your DZ is also swarming with template weapons, making attempts to break in and scalpel out your expensive troopers a near impossibility. Impersonators and Infiltrators beware!

Special Skills

• Explode/Dogged: What are you gonna do with that big bat? Gonna hit me? Better make it count. Better make it hurt. Better kill me in one shot.

A Kuang Shi, upon taking damage that would render it unconscious, can choose to either remain active in Dogged state, allowing it to continue acting until it dies at end of turn, or Explode, erupting into a circular template. Remember the skill won't activate if a Kuang Shi is instantly killed, such as failing an armor save to Shock ammo, or if there are friendly models within the blast radius.

• Martial Arts: ISS has a higher than average number of martial artists in their army; Pheasants, Kanren, and Hsien Warriors all have enough CC to defend themselves in close combat, while Adil, Ninjas, and Cranes have the raw statistical power to make offensively closing to melee a viable option. You might wonder why Ninjas are available in an army specifically made up of Yu Jing troops when JSA is right there. It's a long story.

• Sensor: There are six troopers in ISS with Sensor; all of them are viable. In addition to adding a whopping +6 to your Discover rolls vs Camo markers, Sensor allows you to "ping" that trooper's Zone of Control, performing a WIP+6 normal roll that, upon a success, Discovers all enemy troopers or equipment in Camouflaged or Hidden Deployment states. This is the number one way to fuck up a JSA player's day. Remember that enemy troopers also can't return to Camo state while within the ZoC of a trooper with Sensor, and Sensor has no effect on Impersonation markers.

Weapons and Equipment

• Chain Rifles/Colts and Nanopulsers: Chain Rifles are scatter guns that use ammunition threaded into small chains that are ground up and fired at high velocity; Chain Colts are their handheld equivalent. They're bulky, loud, illegal, and incredibly deadly. While they're theoretically best used against lightly armored targets, all template weapons ignore cover, which means most troops with have, at best, a coin flip chance to avoid being wounded. Nanopulsers are the BTS-targeting equivalent of Chain Colts, but more compact, more dangerous, and far, far more illegal.

• Multispectral Visor: Predator Thermal Vision. Comes in two levels in ISS: MSV1 reduces Mimetism and visual penalties by 3, MSV2 removes all Mimetism and visual penalties. Both versions can draw line of fire through Smoke, although MSV1 takes a -6 penalty on all Attacks through it. Remember that nothing can draw line of fire through Eclipse Zones, and White Noise specifically blocks MSV from drawing line of fire through it.

• Holoprojector: You think this is the real Quaid? It is. Holoprojector allows you to deploy three Holoechoes; two false Echoes and the real trooper. These Echoes have identical stats and loadout of their originating trooper, and share all states such as Prone or Isolated. Each Echo must be within 8" of either another Echo or the real trooper, and you do not have to declare the trooper is in Holoecho state until you activate them with a regular order. Functionally, the Echoes are real troopers; they can trigger mines and deployables, provoke AROs, and be the target of Attacks; upon taking a hit that would force an armor or BTS save, or the real trooper reveals themselves, the Echo vanishes. Remember that Holoecho state is form of Marker state, which means your opponent can Delay their ARO until you reveal.

• Holomask allows you to deploy a trooper as though it were a completely different unit in your army list of the same Silhouette value; the trooper retains all of their own attributes, but to your opponent, they'll appear to be what they're masking as. Remember that Holomask can't replicate deployable equipment nor camouflage; a hackable troop does not suddenly become an invalid target for an enemy hacker, but the inverse is not true; a trooper masking as a heavy infantry, for example, appears to be hackable right up until your opponent declares a hacking attack on them.

• You can combine Holomask and Holoprojector, allowing you to deploy three Holoechoes of any trooper in your army. You decide how you want to engage with this fascinating tactical option.

Units Overview

• Overview 1:
• Overview 2:
• Overview 3:

Remember to keep Unit blurbs below short and succinct. This is 'what they do and why they're good' not 'here's how you use them'. Keep them to a paragraph.

Light Infantry

• Light Infantry 1:
  • Special Character:
• Light Infantry 2:

Medium Infantry

• Medium Infantry 1:
• Medium Infantry 2:

Heavy Infantry

• Heavy Infantry 1:
• Heavy Infantry 2:

Tactical Armor Gear

• TAGS:

Remotes

• Remotes:

Warband

• Warbands:

Skirmishers

• Skirmishers:

Building Your Army

One to two short paragraphs on list building.

Tactics

• Shoot Enemy, Don't Die:
• Don't Die:
• Play the Objective: