Thoughts on unit

The sholin warrior monks
They are better in cc, but same cost (5) as the kuang shi, but have smoke grenades...
They are also religious.

Thoughts? I'm thinking of picking up a Box...

they have different roles really. Shaolin are irregular, which makes a huuuge difference. Also shaolin are not linkable, so you have to deal with having them, and deciding on how to use them.

pros: Great cc, ma3, ccw's, smoke grenades, 5 point chain rifle'r

cons: impetuous, not linkable, suuuper easy to kill out of smoke or through MSV2 (especially in n3, as impetuous will rob you of the ability to take cover modifiers)

So different roles. Kuang shi are awesome linkable order cheerleaders or a good suicide bomb, shaolin are very good cc specialists, but are gunna be order intensive as hell (smoking up the field coupled with irregular means you are gunna have to spend lots of orders on them).

Funny enough, KS and Shaolin monks would have worked great together, if only they were in the same sectorial... imagine 6 kuang shi, a controller, and 3 shaolin monks as a second order group...57 points and 10 orders to pour into the shaolin, plus 3 extra impetuous... grosssssss

Good thing I asked about them! haha
After your points I think that the Kuangshi are the better option for my play style.
I want more figs, but I don't want to spend money on sub par ones. Everything must be awesome.

Still looking at that O-Yoroi

Also, the Karakuri have my attention too. but they are point hogs, and I like numbers, especially on a game where the more orders the better.
43pts for an exploding, total immunity, forward observer with MK12, Chain rifle, DEP, pistol and Knife... Seems worth it, but again, not fully sure. The miniatures are sweet lookin

Apparently a Karakuri link is one of the best in the game but, as you said, total point hogs. You would need a lot of cheerleaders to fit in extra good stuff.

With the shaolin, they won't be really good until you can link them and for that we need the next yu jing sectorial (Terracotta).

Hmmm, seems the AVA of the Karakuri is 1... so maybe getting one isn't that bad an idea.

One never hurt

remember, AVA is different between vanilla and sectorials. you can only link in sectorials