Infinity Unit Review: Yuan Yuan

Everyone's favorite space pirates, the Yuan Yuan are a devastating and disruptive force on the table. Yuan Yuan have become far more popular lately, first with the addition of the Soldiers of Fortune ITS extra, then with the Ikari Company.

Stats and Special Rules

Across the board, it's clear that the only exceptional stats of the Yuan Yuan are close combat oriented. A solid CC19 and PH14 means they have a fair chance in melee, but lack the Martial Arts or Natural Born Warrior to really seal the deal. Yuan Yuan are among the the worst shots in the game with  BS9, but thankfully they carry most frequently chain rifles and smoke grenades, neither of which use BS. Their PH14 means that even with AD:Inferior Combat Jump, they land on 11's unassisted, though you can always use lower levels of AD to simply walk into the table from an edge.

Extremely impetuous and irregular means they aren't team players, and will be required to come onto the table immediately at the beginning of your first turn, unless you want to spend your regular orders from the pool to stop them. Finally, they have booty which can give them some extra handy gear, but rarely something that will totally change their effectiveness. Rolling +ARM, grenades, e/m grenades, light flamethrower, and automedikit are probably the best things you can hope for.

Profiles

Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades, Shock/AP/DA CCW. Without a doubt the standard profile, I generally take the AP CCW, unless I'm playing a mission where anti-materiel is needed and go with the DA CCW. As mentioned above, the chain rifle and smoke grenades mean you don't need to rely on their piss poor BS. Taking 3-4 of these monsters in a list is very easy to do, and only going to run you 24-36 points, and even if only 1-2 of them survive coming on the table, they can still wreak havoc.

Boarding Shotgun or Rifle, Smoke Grenades, Shock CCW. Normally I don't lump up profiles with different ranged weapons like this, but with BS9, I don't see the harm. Since Yuan Yuan are impetuous, they'll never receive the benefit of cover, making firefights incredibly risky. If you are going to take either of these, I'd lean towards the shotgun to try and make up for the poor BS. Hitting on 15's within 8" isn't the end of the world if you can catch the enemy out of cover, and Yuan Yuan have the tools to get close. The rifle might be okay if you go into suppressive and get lucky? BS9 only hitting on 6's against an enemy in cover isn't going to be incredibly threatening. Overall though for the price of these profiles you can get (or just about get) two of the other Yuan Yuan, which seems like the better route in my book.

On the Table

The Yuan Yuan are meant to be cheap and disruptive, which they do quite well. Since they will be coming on at the beginning of your first turn, they can't be assisted by your normal hackers, but if you want to get really dirty, take an EVO hacking device, which gets them landing on 14's. Generally however, unless there is some place really juicy to land, I tend to walk them on from a table edge and provide smoke. Something easily forgotten is that Yuan Yuan are not forced to deploy using AD, you can start them on the table, which is really not a bad idea if you have some MSV2 units that could use the smoke.