PanOceania: State of the Faction, and what's next?

I know of at least half a dozen instances in game where the cc stats, the high ph dodge and the combination of panzerfausts and shotguns had major effects in game.

They definitely achieved things that an ORC core wouldnt have

 

Just offhand, nobody but Magisters could have made it through the fusilade coming off my right flank and fought their way into the objective room on your last turn.

 

agreed, and I think one of my major mistakes wasnt just taking the risk in dragging them out while I re-positioned the other 3 link members turn 2

Worst case they drop and im no better off than before, best I get the 5 man out from under the massed akrylate fire. That being said, I had been hoping that having them there would slow the link push

 

Agreed. Breaking that deadlock would have been a risk, but it was tying up more of your army than it was of mine, and if anything was going to be able to get clear of that fight it was your knights.

 

TBH, saying that one list for a tournament would have been better in one sectorial is irrelevant if you can't have a second one which is fitting what you need. When we pick one of the five PanO armies (vanilla and the four sectorials), we choose a set of strengths and weaknesses that we think will be good for the entire event. Why would you play such list in MO if SAA would have done it better? Maybe because SAA can't achieve what you want for the second list at all, while MO can. What MO has is access to all the PanO gears. Not always the best ones (MSV2 but no MSV3 for example) and not always on the best platforms but you have them and you can mix them at will. This plus the best CC of the faction, the biggest range of HIs and the best access to combat specialists. There are downsides for those good points and I think that those weaknesses are easier to see than their strengths. Every armies have their weaknesses. Sometimes, it is easier to notice, sometimes it is harder but they still are there.
For example, a lot of people seem to forget that VIRD relies on 30 points 1W 1ARM troopers but because they have mimetism/camouflage, this seems to be ok because you have easy access to 8-10 pts cheerleaders. The whole army is a glass cannon and someone well aware of it will leverage this weakness to make the game very hard. SAA big problem is that Smoke is a rather effective tool against it and it has no access to TO nor Holoprojector, so missing points are easy to notice and to know what is coming. Your opponent only needs MSV1 to negate SAA's negative MODs, something that even Ariadna has access too. NCA has its weaknesses too.

Those weaknesses, every good players like @barakiel are able to do with them and use the strengths of their army to be victorious if they feel confident with it.

@daboarder : could you give us the top 10 with the armies played by each player? I would laugh if, like in France, you're the top 1 PanO player of the tournament.

@Teslarod : nothing says that daboarder would have had the first place with VIRD. VIRD is the worst suited of our sectorials for Engineering deck and The Armoury.

 

Objective room scenarios belong to the ones GdA loves and is designed for. Montesa, Drakios and Scylla are really effective for those scenarios too. They can be dealt with but they all are rather hard to kill for a lone trooper and really effective when it comes to clean the room. NCA has access to Auxbots in AVA total in addition to Bolts, BF and our trusty HIs, so I think that the sectorial can handle those scenarios. Between E/Mauler, Drop bears, KHD and shotguns, you need more than one warband to clean a room hold by NCA too. But different tools for a different strategy. While it is rare that the Objective room become a bloodbath in MO, you're more likely to replay trench battles of the WW1 with the other two.

 

Am I a masochist for taking VIRD to an event with Armory, Firefight, Tic Tac Toe and Engineering Deck?

On that note I finally wrote a VIRD list that can stand in the Armory, competently play Firefight, and still has 13 orders with a Doctor and an EB. Perhaps my finest work.

 

That’s the way I divided them up. Objective room isn’t super critical in Engineering Deck, hopefully I will kill enough stuff that ending my third turn in there is uncontested. But my Armory list has to get in there first round and survive all 3 rounds in there. I’m hoping that double jammers plus Patsy and an Tinbot toting ORC BSG will be enough beef to survive. Covering the Armory from outside using the rest of my list is really going to be key here. That and using the EB to aggressively kill my opponents Armory clearing models.

 

yup, this was definitely the driving force to choosing MO. in fact I actually rated Engineering Deck as a high consideration for needing the HI link that Armoury. due to Engineering Decks "Sole trooper in the room" rule wiht regards to securing the zone, I considered the ability to have 2W ARM3 Models standing in the doorways, such that they would need to take 3 wounds before an opponent could enter the mission room to be the real critical choice. This choice also applies in Armoury but is somewhat less of an issue when you can also outpoint the opponent just by being a big expensive HI link.
Finally having Frostbyte in the list meant that by taking HI (and Joan) I could essentially focus on half the mission and rely on my ability to ignore the Killer Cold rule to give me the win.

I did consider an ORC Link in VIRD for those 3 missions, but the fact that the Knights have Stealth, CC capabilities and High Dodge means that they really just nullify a lot of strategies used by massed LI armies to hold the room such and jammers, hackers and warbands

EDIT: A note on Eng Deck. the Current ITS Document is a mess, Deltakilo was in discussion with HellLios and Comm Log leading up to Novacore, the mission as described in Comm Log is the accurate mission. So the objective room holds the 5th and pivotal console that cna easily swing the mission, and afterall, in for a penny in for a pound there.

 

So Ive decided to go through and respond to the comments here.

 

I think that ORCs are pretty good for boxroom missions but Knights are absolutely better, yes. Missions like that really benefit tough S2 CQB guys which is, you know. Knights!

The ITS point is relevant because a lot of discussion on here is centred around white room situations rather than mission derived situations, and the latter is actually much more relevant and important. This came up with Namurrs for example; people asked why you'd ever want one over a Mukhtar?!? If you're going to a tournament with Loot/Sabotage and Armoury though Namurr are awesome. All depends on context.

 

@Ayadan
I dont know top 10 im afraid. but the ranking for top 8 was Dashat, Yu Jing, CJC, Dashat, OSS, MO, Spiral, Shasvastii.

And the top 16 included an additional CJC, IA and TJC.

 

Thanks, that's enough. So, seems that MO can be at the same level of power than SEF or OSS (since the difference between you and the OSS guy is only VP).

 

As an aside, Never Lucky (The OSS player) was playing MO for most of the last year, we came up against each other in a tournament in November and he managed to take my CHA to a draw in Decap and impressive feat if I do say so myself.

 

How are you getting three wounds out of your knights? Are you pushing the trauma doc in as well and healing them up as needed?



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3 W before the knights stop blocking the doorway. The Opponent cannot move through the door if there is an Unconscious knight sitting half in the doorway (you cannot move over enemy troops/equipment/Camo)

 

I... Did not even think of that. And they would still have cover...

Neat trick!

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^^^THIS^^^ There is a situation for almost anything in Infinity.