I'd say it's probably pano as a whole. There's a lot a very cool models like TAGs and knights so new players are likely to flock to the faction, but those aren't easy to play which can be frustrating. Also, pano's toolbox isn't as complete as others factions (no smoke/warbands, limited and akward midfield presence), so if players want to try playing with those they'll have to branch out.
I've played them and two locals to me have as well. @Leviathan recently gave up trying to get them to work ahead.of our national tourney, instead opting to play another sectorial and just wait for the updated Shas release this year.
I'm terrible at writing text for humans. I write to little text which is read by humans, so my rambling resembles more "stream of consciousness" than a proper organised and thought through articles/essays. And I grumble a lot.
I’d say MO, because that’s my own past experience. Coming from my beloved Acontecimento, I wanted to try something else, more bulletproof and more CC-oriented... I played MO for only two-three months, got bored with the two only possible lists at the time, then switched to Steel Phalanx (holy sh*t, what a lot of fun there!)… Note that I’m now back to MO because of the 3rd Offensive changes. Fore sure MO doesn’t seem better than before, it really is a hard mode army, but now there are plenty of different lists to test. But I can imagine a folk buying the 300 pts box and thinking he will play again and again with these minis… MO can be really fun if you dig in, but it’s a misleading merchandise. I think it's more an army for veteran players, new players can be quickly disgusted.
Ehhhhh MO players love to complain about it but I think they're just as restricted as most Sectorals tbh. It's more that people are more likely to want to play them but not the wider faction. Someone once said to me "Nomads seem much more flexible than MO" and I was like, yes?
Forget MO, the real trap is the JSA (since before yisus ciberninja have more appel that catholic ultramarins). Jokes apart JSA have carism cool model and it is extremly hard to use. More or less 50% of current Yu Jing base started with JSA and later roamed to vanilla
Of course they are. Much more tools to chose from, tactics to employ during game etc. Are you aware that Nomads can actually actively leverage their CC skills, smoke and smoke trick, have eclipse, deploy cheap camo, TO, AD, hackers, TAGs DUOs etc. ?
I am surprised this didn’t come up earlier. I know a lot or people who bought the Army Box due to the super cool models and never followed through actually playing JSA. And for those who did, JSA is one of the more tricky armies to use.
Yes, but imo it's beside the Ninjas/Oniwaban the only easy to play option. You are very limited with your ARO pieces and the general Range of your weapon. Also most units/links are really expensive.
*scratches head* I started JSA simply because it was a natural evolution of Yu Jing at the time. I often return to it because it's a fairly uncomplicated army with lots of cheap and highly effective options thanks to Fury discounts all around. DoTankos get the job done when, inevitably, the Ninjas and Ryukens fail me. Makes me feel like a boss playing them. You know. Like the Big Boss or Gael or one of the other end-game bosses.
Fairly new JSA player here. I'm still losing most of my games but don't feel like I'm doing it because JSA are unusually difficult to play, maybe I would have done better with another army but it's hard to say without having tested one yet. I also don't think I will be quitting any time soon, but I do consider branching out to some other army (probably some version of JY) but that's mostly to try different things and not because I find JSA too difficult or boring. On the other hand we have the guy who got me into playing Infinity. He is almost as new as I am but I think I have played more games than him at this point. He started NCA, mostly for the Squalos I think but is now looking to get the MO 300p box. I don't think he has any real idea on how they play, it's mostly thematically with him being a big Fate/Saber fan. It remains to be seen if he will continue playing or not but I am a bit concerned that his interest is starting to vane and I feel his plan to start MO is not going to be helpful in that regard.
Well, like @Sedral, I think that's PanO as a whole that is the most unforgiving faction. Once you've been over the three games where you don't use smokes and hacking and just shoot (something PanO new players feel the might of the faction), you begin to introduce objectives, specialists, infiltration, camouflage and smokes. And there begins the moment where a PanO beginner don't understand what he can do. He has to learn to use unintuitive tools to stay on par with his fellow beginners like G: Synchronised, Sensor, Hacking and how to success without having real midfield game and cheap kamikaze troopers like WB. I say it as that's what I felt when I started just before HSN3 with NCA. My brother always managed to beat me with his SSA because they are easier to use and unforgiving to the opponent. HSN3 helped me a lot along posts made by @daboarder or @AdmiralJCJF and I started to being the PanO guy that is dreaded for his remotes and TAGs or Triple Guards lists. When I moved to an other town for my studies, I've brought back two guys to Infinity who had just played some O: Icestorm and stopped. The PanO guy was winning their first games but the Nomad one played also against me and my ASA. He learned some of his tricks and then, the PanO guy wasn't able to win a single game. The PanO guy doesn't play Infinity anymore and the Nomad one is having fun with the game. And we have another player in Paris that is making so huge mistakes and as there is no safe decisions to make in PanO, any bad one will be punished by the hardest issue possible. In my opinion, PanO is really easy until the others begin to use their dirty tricks. On the contrary, I find that Tohaa or Aleph are hard to get the ropes but then, the factions are fairly accessible and can reward really skilled players. PanO rewards skilled players but not suffer that much mediocrity.
I was speaking more of the old JSA (preuprising) Even in a fairly balanced game like infinity the old JSA was a bit tryhard (not bad, just the CC faction without too much resources to get on CC, if you play against the steel phalanx you will understand xD). People played it anyway but was a bit hard infinity. Now with the Ryuken, all new link options and some troop buff it is far better (the new aragoto KHD is amazing)
