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How competitive are MO?

Discussion in 'PanOceania' started by Context, Aug 14, 2019.

  1. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    The odds of this in an even matchup is 9 in 256, or roughly 3.5%. We can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that that probably didn't happen by chance.
     
  2. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    Your wins with MO are quantification of your skill, not MOs.

    RE data, just look at placements at major tournaments then. MO is very underrepresented in high tournament placements, even weighting for its lower player count. OSS, Aleph and Tohaa are overrepresented, even weighting for the higher player counts of OSS/Aleph recently.
     
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  3. theradrussian

    theradrussian Well-Known Member

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    I really dislike these blanket statements because the reverse is also true:

    "Unless you can prove a faction is well-designed and capable, it doesn't mean much". Bam. No counter-argument, no need for a critical assessment.


    Yes - I have also critted 4 units off the enemy in turn 1 via aros (all in a row), and had the same happen to me. It doesn't mean crits are OP either...or does it? (plz no that's a whole different can of worms)
     
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  4. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    I really disagree. You're essentially arguing against statistical analysis as a concept.
     
  5. mattbab

    mattbab Member
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    Every game has top tier and low tier. EVERY GAME. Even chess :D

    You cannot have a 100% balanced roster in a game with such amount of different skills, weapons, profiles.
    Some armies are better, others are weaker, deal with it.

    So the real question is: can you reasonably win with MO? Are they playable? Can you surprise your opponent with an anti-meta strategy?

    Of course you can. They have very particular strenght (linked HI, cheap TO, superjump TAG). Actually I think it's by far not the worst army right now, so I don't get all this discussion.
     
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  6. Marduck

    Marduck Well-Known Member

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    As a concept to predict the futur yes. It's probably usefull for a bookmaker but not for a player that has already decided to go with MO because he likes the fluff or the models or it suits it's playstyle (ex : I played Accon. It's easy and straighfoward but very boring imo ...)

    I do not mean to compare Infinity to a professional or any high level amateur sport, but do you really think that people training for that kind of competition look at the stats and say "ho well I will probably place X or Y ... " ? I have been doing some rugby at a very amateur level, and before a game, even if the odds say you should loose you don't care. You bash yourself in the head and go on the field full of energy ... and sometime you win.

    I have been talking to some top 40k player that do the ETC. That's a team championship. Sometime they go to a game with the expectation to loose, but no matter what they try to get each point they can, despite the prediction.

    If your mental state before a game is that you can't win because Faction / Table / Opponent you probably won't get the best result you could have.

    But we are talking two different things. You talking meta analysis based on stats and what happenned in the global scene. I'm talking about potential and how does a player archieve the best result he can with MO.
     
    #206 Marduck, Oct 3, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2019
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  7. Armihaul

    Armihaul Well-Known Member

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    The balance in a game is something almost imposible to attain, but is an objective to be attained. There are better factions than others and that should be addressed and fixed, so in the end, the player's skill is what matters more, and well done statistics is a way to know the status of a faction. While more balanced is a game, and better are those statistics, is easier to find anything that could "break" it, but also, more difficult to guess who will win in the table. And here some people are mixing those concepts. Statistics doesn't work for predict, but for know the situation
     
  8. theradrussian

    theradrussian Well-Known Member

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    Ok, so who is the worst and why. GO!

    I love how all these statements are thrown about as certainties by some, who then fail to back up said statements...
     
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  9. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    No, but some of them definitely did look at stats and said "What faction I should invest my time and money into now that I'm playing competitively?"

    I know some people looking into the matter before even getting into Infinity, being fed up with losing with their favorites in certain other wargame, and I know people who bring different armies to tourneys and preparation matches compared to what they bring to casuals, so there's that.

    We can always go with "you can still win with low-tier factions on reasonably high level of play", but that's basically setting standards of balance lower than you would otherwise. And pointing out that there are still people passionate enough about faction they have picked because of fluff and minis to keep pushing themeselves to win with it does not change where their competitive ceiling is.
     
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  10. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    I would put MO down towards Druze and Morats. Honestly it's very easy to take a stab at the top of the game, but harder to quantify the bottom.

    It's akin to saying "If you're 10% better than everyone else, you can win with an army that is 10% worse." Like, yeah, that's a truism, not a meaningful statement.
     
  11. Arkaon1125

    Arkaon1125 Well-Known Member

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    I think, but it's only a personal thing, the right question is:
    Is MO fun to play?

    I'm not playng in competitive way, i don't like it because they force you to play with strong list, using all meta and not "what you like". So the question is plain and simple: Is possible to use Many (or all?) the models in MO and have fun while playng it?
    And i'm not talking about winning, i like to have fun (so beeing a challeng for the opponent, without overwhelming it or vice versa) while i play.

    ps: this is not taking in consideration the fluff, flavuour and minis, that are the most important thing that make me choose MO as start with PanO
     
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  12. Marduck

    Marduck Well-Known Member

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    Well my back up is that I have been pretty succesful with MO (old and new version ... I admit I didn't play the new version enough to be sure) especially compared to other factions I have played. I have a lot more trouble designing and executing a good winning plan with MRRF for example. Usually I have to improvise and adapt to the table / faction much more than with MO where I have plan and usually successfully execute it.

    A lot of people have share their idea about how to play MO in this topic (FK with missile as ARO and TOFO sergent or TAG for mission / offense ; Joan crusade link ; Joan and lot of TO sergent ; etc ...).

    If you want mine here it is (the new version of MOR requiere some adjustement but the general plan is the same. Make a stronghold big enough so that your opponent loose orders and models trying to crack it).

    I'm sorry these are empiric evidences that probably won't convince you but I don't see how I could proove A+B = MO is strong ...

    Maybe you can recognize that this has a resistance / cheapness potential that few other factions can beat :

    CHEVALIER DE SANTIAGO Lieutenant (Opérateur Spécialiste) Spitfire, Nanopulseur, Grenades E/M, Charges Creuses / Pistolet, Arme CC DA. (1 | 43)
    CHEVALIER MAGISTÈRE Panzerfaust, Fusil à Pompe Léger / Pistolet, Arme CC AP. (0 | 22)
    CHEVALIER MAGISTÈRE Panzerfaust, Fusil à Pompe Léger / Pistolet, Arme CC AP. (0 | 22)
    CHEVALIER MAGISTÈRE Panzerfaust, Fusil à Pompe Léger / Pistolet, Arme CC AP. (0 | 22)
    SERGENT DE L'ORDRE Infirmier (MédiKit) Fusil Combi / Pistolet, Couteau. (0 | 15)

    1 CAP | 124 Points


    or that these are very good profils considering their cost / efficiency :

    CHEVALIER HOSPITALIER Médecin (Fireteam: Haris, MédiKit) Fusil Combi / Pistolet, Arme CC DA. (0.5 | 36)
    CHEVALIER DE SANTIAGO Hacker (Disp. de Piratage Tueur) Fusil Combi, Nanopulseur, Charges Creuses + 1 TinBot A (Déflecteur N1) / Pistolet, Arme CC DA. (0 | 38)
    SERGENT SPEC. (CD: Camouflage TO, Infiltration, Observateur d'Artillerie) Fusil Combi, Mines Antipersonnel / Pistolet, Couteau. (0 | 27)
    SERGENT SPEC. (CD: Camouflage TO, Infiltration) Fusil de Sniper MULTI / Pistolet, Couteau. (1.5 | 33)



    That's a point. If you main goal is to win big tournaments with the less effort, probably MO is a not the best choice (I would point at Acconteciemento or maybe Varuna). If you want to have a decent chance to do well and are ready to take time learning the faction I would say you can play MO with some satisfaction.


    They will ask you to define fun. To me it's fun to charge with Joan and friends or to try to soak an attack with them. Or go with a lot of TO with her.
     
    #212 Marduck, Oct 3, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2019
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  13. Seraphin

    Seraphin Well-Known Member

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    For me it feels like driving a tank over the battlefield, squashing everything around with superior firepower. But you have only a single tank and then you get swarmed by trained guerilla and peasants with pitchforks (that somehow can pierce through sci-fi armor plating). There is a lot of fun serving punishment right and left, but there is little margin for error - when things go south, it's really hard to fix them. Their CC is better than average and swords look fancy, but 99% of time you will miss on close combat experience - except of Joan and maybe DeFersen there are no real martial artists there. You pay a lot for cool HI models and your LT, which limits number of combinations you can field. Every list I do seems to be really specialized, with some centerpiece and support for it. This is cool, but when centerpiece goes down rest of the match is a struggle :P
     
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  14. mattbab

    mattbab Member
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    Imo: MRRF, Morats, Druzes, Forco, Ikari, USariadna, for the most obvious to me. And there is a lot of others sectorials at the same level or close. I could be wrong, it's from my experience and point of view of course, but I really feel that all this complaint here is quite unfair.

    They are complicated to field, you need to think about a lot of threats and constraints when you build your lists, but they are not so weak. Or many other players should complain more :D
     
  15. theradrussian

    theradrussian Well-Known Member

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    MRRF: 4 chasseurs, cheap orders, 112 bike for smoke, linkable x visor viral weaponry...

    Morats: Yeah these guys I rate similarly to MO sadly

    ForCo: What's bad about them? I'm hyped about my nomad+panO hybrid with Aristeia characters! Though it may be rool of cool clouding my judgement.

    Ikari: have you met my friends the yuan yuans?

    USAriadna:....what??? 4 foxtrots, cheap arm 3 core, desperado smoke, tacbow+shotgun chuck norris and now minutemen can join cores? I fail to see their stark weakness.
     
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  16. mattbab

    mattbab Member
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    Okay, so basically if you have smoke your are better. I get the point, but i don't agree of course.

    In comparison, MO have TO FOS, a quite good firepower with TAGs or hospitaller with HMG/santiago spit, and are very resilient and agressive. Their link of HI are expensive but they are very strong.

    MRRF : Comparing them with MO is just a joke to me but i will try to give a serious discussion.

    MRRF, except chasseurs, is very, very weak. All your link are extremely fragile, smoke is very complicated to field and costs cap AND you have the worst firepower of the entire game. Viral rifle is good but have you see on which link he is? 5 Loup garou for 100+ points? Haris for 60 points? Wow, such a threat. Ok, chasseurs are very good but they cannot do all the work alone. All scenarios with exclusion zone are very hard. I've played them a lot, I love them, but really they cannot stand with most of armies of the game, they're just outdated.

    Forco : ok, they're not so bad. But their link cannot stand with the MO ones. Hospitaller are better than Orc, you have very good wildcard (Santiagos are far better than any of the heroes...), TAGs are better. In the other hand you have uberfallkommando and kriza boracs. Maybe similar.

    Ikari: okay, the yuan yuan are cool but seriously? Ikari has bad camo/infiltrators, bad TAGs, link cheaper but weaker.

    USAriadna: not so bad too. ARM 3 is good, but 2 wounds is better. Foxtrot are cool but again, you have TOFOS for 27 points in total AVA. Their firepower is very dependant of their link. They can have problems to deal with strong AROs, and problems of Ariadna in general: no cube, no servant, no REM. You still have a bulleteer or peacemaker in MO.

    Smoke and camos are good, of course but they are not the only asset of the game.
     
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  17. theradrussian

    theradrussian Well-Known Member

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    So, in your world more wounds = better.

    In mine more orders and marker state = better.

    I won't really see the value in carrying this one, since you're actively comparing 5 man HI links that run about 150 points to LI/MI ones that are in the 80s-100s.

    You want a tank, but ignore the fact that the enemy has counters to it. Oh, and fuel, which you lack.
     
  18. Marduck

    Marduck Well-Known Member

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    MRRF really strugle in some situations (that anoying TO sniper or MSV 2 sniper very far ...) and usually you have to take these very random face to face with your only one wound HMG (Moblot, Zouave, Paracommando). With MO and your TAG or Hospitalier HMG you get at least 2 wounds and a cube / remote presence so that doctor / engineer can reliably get you back on your feet.

    USAriadna at least get some warband top provide smoke to avoid these FtF you don't want to take. Their Ohio being able to join a core Grunt make them more reliable though.

    I definitly wouldn't say Ikari is at the bottom. They have a magnificient link with the Tanko + keisotsu + brawler and very nice msv2 + smoke combos. But they are probably more predictable than MO (only one TO ava 1, no AD 3 outside Yun-Yuan).

    @theradrussian if your meta is a strong believer of cheap stuff + camo + smoke then try the HI link, with some TO in ambush and / or some cheap 8pts bots or pano civilian (warcor / tech bee) to force camo to reveal against a 1st layer of defense.

    When you have a 10 strong dude list, you want to kill stuff during your turn, but also during the opponent turn by forcing him into random FtF, kill some dude during his last orders with your TO revealing, that kind of stuff ...

    More orders mean nothing if you can't beat the opponent strong ARO pieces. And I don't necessarily mean long distance ARO presence. I mean HI waiting for you around the corner with a shotgun.

    PS : I don't say 20 orders list are rubbish. I just say they have some weakness you can exploit with a more elite list, especially when playing MO.
     
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  19. theradrussian

    theradrussian Well-Known Member

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    The problem is, each order I spend revealing camo is an order NOT spent on killing him/doing the mission. This also assumes I won't face multiple AROs trying to get in range. So assume 2 orders to kill enemy aro threats with a linked FK ML or Black Friar or whatever. Then 2-3 + 2 command tokens to move 2 pathfinders and 1 sniffer (because of course MO get AVA 1 on this) and you've spent 5 (assuming there were no mines). Now, your core link you used? Yeah, that's around 120 points.

    Sure, I can walk a tech-bee into death but the first mine has good odds to kill her....assuming there isn't anything with LoF to cover sight-lines. But again, orders spent and I have still not left my DZ in a meaningful way.

    Also, don't eat random crits (especially not T2), and also spend orders to hide so the linked big evil thing they will inevitably have doesn't ruin your "so strong" link when you are the reactive player.

    oh, and this all assumes no hacking to worry about.

    There is the issue. MO can't do what it needs to without orders, as competent players will (IMO) do things to waste your orders, especially if each order generating unit you lose hurts a lot more than each one they lose.

    Believe me, I have been playing a campaign locally using MO and the difference between them and the nomads i used previously is painful.

    EDIT: Tell me if the above misses anything glaringly obvious, but given that this is how I always counter "elite" armies and that i have a high win/loss ratio using it (for reference I own and play QK, corregidor, nomads, tunguska, bakunin, ASA, VIRD, MRRF, TAK, USAriadna, Onyx, and Shas beyond exploring MO lately to see if the apparent issues with it are true), I like to think I've seen firsthand what factions tend to work better within the framework of the game CB has made.

    IMO, it's simply rude that tacsense wasn't given to ANY units in MO, for the above reasons.
     
    #219 theradrussian, Oct 3, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2019
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  20. mattbab

    mattbab Member
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    I'm just saying that this is an asymetric game. Would you say that steel phalanx is bad because it has no marker state at all?
    You cannot say: this army is better because it has smoke and the other one don't. You should consider the game in a more global way. The impact of a HI link on the table has nothing to compare with a MI one which could disappear at the first chain rifle around.

    Random crits is specially something that HI resist better than single wound troop. If your linked minuteman HMG is crit against a MSV 2 sniper, you just lose your main option. With a HI you have a second chance, which is really strong.

    I you struggle against camo, you have sensor with the pathfinder.

    And hacking? You have a wildcard Santiago, you don't care about hacking.
     
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