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Military Orders. A word of hope.

Discussion in 'PanOceania' started by Daireann, Sep 6, 2020.

  1. daboarder

    daboarder Force One Commander
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    What is 1 dimensional about having 3 different types of HI links and half a dozen different support HI profiles?

    Plus the usual tags, LI and MI options.

    Far more one dimensional to argue that every sectorial requires the same tools, for example cheap camo skirmishers.
     
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  2. MikeTheScrivener

    MikeTheScrivener O-12 Peace Kepper

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    i know this isnt sarcasm.....
    but it reads like it.

    i dont think any one ever suggested this. besides, a "cheap" camo infiltrator has been in MO in the form of the TO OS since.... forever?
     
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  3. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    I think the problem is more the internal competition between the HI links, what they do, and what things work with them. In pre-pre-rework MO (mid N3 MO), the KH + Magister link really dominated decision making because it was the only way to get both active turn weapons and strong reactive weapons in the link.

    After the rework, the KH link lost a lot of viability because there weren't ways to mitigate costs, and it seems like MO became dominated by either Teuton-Magister links (with filler Santiagos and OS) or the "four mooks and an FK link so I can play Joan's inspiring leadership with Dart and two TO guys" style.

    Again, I'm speaking from limited experience with MO and N4, but I don't know if the HI links really offer that much difference in how they perform on the table? Especially now that the wildcard design kind of dominates the sectorial, I don't really see the difference between a Teuton-Magister link and a KH link except what their filler unit will be. I don't think that is necessarily bad design in-and-of itself, but the fact that when your opponent tells you they are playing Military Orders, you have an incredibly clear expectation of what is coming is a big indicator of the one-dimensional nature of the army.

    If we just want to talk about HI-focused sectorials, look at how multi-dimensional IA is. IA can play a defensive link to support several different flavors of Haris, IA can play an active core that constantly rebuilds itself, it can play a defensive link to support strong solo pieces like the Hulang, Hac Tao or Mowang, and it can focus just on its skirmishers and camo units. MO can do several of those things, but not nearly to the same breadth or depth as IA.

    I am not arguing that MO needs to copy IA's design, but I would definitely argue that CB could fix many of MO's issues by using the same design principles.
     
  4. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    To anyone suggesting that Military Orders shouldn't be able to run viable lists with the Light Infantry and Medium Infantry, I ask "why do they have so many of them then?"

    Options we aren't supposed to use is bullshit noob trap design.
     
  5. Sangarn

    Sangarn TRIUMcorp CEO
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    Magisters ARE defined by Dodge+3.
     
  6. Janzerker

    Janzerker Well-Known Member

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    Do you realize that's exactly the same that happens with IA? IA has only two cores: Zanshi and Zuyong. The Core ShangJi is inviable because these dudes are as expensive a KoJ and wildcards. So it doesn't count. The only difference between a Zanshi and a Zuyong core is that if you have Zanshis then you can't have Zuyongs in the same link, and vice-versa. Otherwise, there's practically no difference in what a Zanshi or Zuyong core can do. They behave exactly in the same way! Therefore the base of IA is formed up by Zanshi (MO has OS), Zuyong which are plain HI with mediocre stats (let's say MO equivalent is Hospitalier or Teuton, with elite stats for a similar price), HaiDao, a plain fake HI with shitty stats that's the source of support specialist (in MO that role is covered by Santiago, more expensive but elite stats) and Shang Ji, which is a super Zuyong (in the same way KoJ is a super knight).
    However, Magister as a stupidly cheap filler with elite stats and OS having more options than a Zanshi allows for slightly more flexibility. IA lets you link a fat ass Pango REM or a Son Bae, but that's it. In MO you can add a single OS to any knight link in order to lower the cost, in IA either you base your link in Zanshi or add a fat ass REM.

    That statement is simply not true. MO can play many more styles. Don't put the blame on the sectorial just because the only mono-dimensional thing, in this case, is the player's mind. Unlike IA MO has a huge plethora of low and middle-cost units. OS links are a thing, affordable effective TAGs too.

    Huh? Excuse me. You declared before having limited experience with MO, and it's clear you have limited knowledge about IA too. If you want to play HI, IA is monodimensional, and if you don't want to focus on HI IA continues being monodimensional, unlike MO.

    By a defensive link you mean a core with heavy weapons, right? How is that different from a OS core with support weapons that can be backed up by a KoJ, or a magister/teuton link backed up again by a KoJ? Swap Koj with ShangJi, Santiago with HaiDao Different flavors of Haris? you mean Haris of ShangJi or haris of Zuyong? which means no difference at all. I mean you can play Haris of Hospitaliers than can bring their own doctor or even have some members start with FD +8", or a cheap teuton haris you can reinforce with a strong KoJ.

    And so can MO. Be it a Teuton/magister or a Hospitalier link, you can always rebuild with Santiago, KoJ, OS and Lazarus.

    Again how is that different from a OS link or a cheap magister/teuton core? And you can always throw a rock like ML KoJ in each.
    Strong solo pieces: Santiago, Montesa, Dart, a KoJ with FD, Seraph, Tikbalang of Montesa, Joan, KoTHS...
    Again how is that different to IA?

    Eh... definitively no. Unless you are telling me meme lists are competitive. IA has a single one "skirmisher", and that's the Zencha, a costly hackable skirmisher. Because of that, you will rarely find more than one in any IA list. Also it's really annoying when your only infiltrated button pusher is hackable in spite of not having a so much needed minelayer option.
    MO on the other hand has the god damn Trinitarians which must be the best TO skirmisher unit in the game. Absurdly optimized, cheap, and help a lot with defense at midfield. Something at which MO is miles better than IA.

    With how picky and demanding the international PanO community has shown to be you don't want the same design principles of IA:
    - Mediocre stats for HI
    - Shitty fake 1W + NWI HIs in order to reduce costs, COSTS that MO units reduce by the means of continuous free reductions of points throughout different editions of the game and the insane abuse of the frenzy rule.
    - Can not link doctors and they only have one AVA 1 doctor.
    - Non existant midfield control.
    - Non existant DZ defense.
    - Very vulnerable to melee, coupled with the later points it means very vulnerable to impersonators and Dep Zone assassins.
    - Because of the last point they struggle at clearing rooms. Hulang would have been a solution now but because of the nerf that YJ has suffered in MA now they are average melee units.

    In exchange, the positive points are:
    + Linkable engineers in order to make up for the average BTS value of 3 (in MO average BTS is 6)
    + Better tinbots and tinbot access again in order to level up with BTS 3.
    + Great command structure. It's their crutch but in N4 CB have shared those skills generously amongst other factions. Morats, CA and Haqqislam benefit a lot from that.
    + Slightly better firepower. Although that's only in theory, average BS is 13 and the army doesn't have much in modifiers either outside a few specialist units.

    IA has so many downsides that if you want to build a list that solves some you end up with less than 4-5 HIs, many of them fake HIs. Furthermore, it only has Zanshi and REMs in order to try to cover those weak points. Unlike MO with a healthy variety of units: OS, Trinitarians, Black Frier, Crusader Brethren, Dart, ...

    Overall ITS 2019 data shows IA is a so, so army. Always placing below half of the classification table, with exception of Limited insertion where they place 5th, which is hilarious for an army designed to excel at that single crutch. You would expect it at least to be top 3. Btw, MO isn't far away from the positions of IA. However given the change in N4 meta, just with the changes done to N4 MO one would expect to do far better. Now that ARM matters MO brings average ARM 4 2 W in PH 14 HIs, now that PH attribute becomes even more important with how useful dodges is and the new changes to medikit. Cheap HIs with elite stats, very competent in CC making a huge deterrent to assassins and deep strikers. Many more options for midfield with FD versions for KoJ , Hospitalier, criminal cheap Montesa despite Impetuous became a joke of a downside, not to talk about a totally undeserved CJ Santiago.

    Right now MO stands like a quite flexible sectorial well prepared for the N4 meta. That's why any further reworks are totally undeserved unless they have the intention to nerf some things, or finally make frenzy to work as the downside units get such a generous discount for.
     
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  7. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    I seem to recall trying to remind people at some point that the sectorial isn't the "Heavy Infantry Orders" it's the "Military Orders" which in theme, isn't just about heavy infantry (knights).
     
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  8. Janzerker

    Janzerker Well-Known Member

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    When the sectorial was launched for the first time in HS N2, designers explained that Order Sergeants were the unit created to offer specialist support to the sectorial. The Knights do the hard fight and the OSs do the missions and offer support. That was the initial conception of the sectorial.
     
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  9. Stiopa

    Stiopa Trust The Fuckhead

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    First of all, OS fireteam is perfectly viable now; with the Specialist Sergeant restriction out of the way and multiple useful wildcards it's pretty easy to construct a good LI link to fill the needs. The one thing I'd love to see is them to get Haris option, to allow us to build small, flexible teams to support main link.

    Still, HI should be the focus of the sectorial, and N4 actually made it happen. Back in N2 and for the large part of N3 we were complaining that different orders aren't diverse enough, and that Hospitaller link is the clear winner. This was largely fixed;
    • Montesa is a much different unit, with a clear purpose, and good stats and costs. My only issue with him is the BS reduction, but if that's the cost to pay for how unique, interesting, and useful it became, I'll pay it gladly.
    • Santiagos are another unit that really benefitted from reworks, though wildcard KHD is such an autoinclude, that I'd like to see some alternatives. Combat Jump on a proper HI is very interesting, and I hope it'll survive any upcoming tweaks and reworks. My only problem is that it seems that for some obscure reason Santiagos didn't get the price reduction which most other heavy units got, which makes constructing MO lists harder.
    • Hospitallers were a baseline MO order, and they would probably stay that way, if Magisters could still join their links. Right now they're still a decent base for a fireteam, thanks to various wildcards they can attach to them. What they really lack is some secondary weapons. FD option is actually interesting, though I'd like to see other options than just BSG. FD Multi and FD Doctor would really sell the idea of unit focused on CSAR.
    • Teutons are my biggest disappointment, because while they're useful - NCO Spitfire + Magisters took the role of baseline fireteam from Hospitallers - they are still clunky as a unit. I'd really like to see them pushed further into "HI warband" direction, making them more deadly in CC, while losing the long range capabilities.
    • Sepulchre is an ongoing experiment, it seems. It's one of our few units capable of introducing some misdirection into a list, and as such I value it greatly. I really hope that if it'll really get the S5 rework, the Holomask and Holoprojector will get moved to a different, S2 unit (reworked Magisters with Holo? Now that would be fun). Another issue is that they're still undergunned for such an elite unit.
    • KoJ also benefitted from their transformation from Father-Knights, though basic Spitfire loadouts aren't that useful - we have better choices. And again, elite HI with a Combi and no secondary weapons isn't perfect. But life rarely is.
    What does suffer in MO is the support structure. But then again, not by much. We have access to good complement of PanO remotes (AVA 2 Fugazi would be great, but one can't have everything), Infirmarer is actually a useful unit to have - I just had to change the way I was thinking about him. Not as an expensive competition to Trauma Doc, or squishy competition to Hospitaller, but as a fireteam component. And having a linkable doc that can join any of our fireteams is a big advantage. Main problem spots I see here are Black Friars - MRifle is ok, MSR is debatable - though it serves a purpose in OS link, I think - but they could really use more options. And Konstantinos is still trying to be everything at once, but not very good at anything. At least he's cheaper now. We also got a perfectly good hidden infiltrator in the bargain. And between Montesa, AD Santiago, and Crusaders our flanking capabilities look very good.

    To sum it up, we're in much better position that we were, but it feels like the update was stopped halfway. Santiago and Magisters costs, some weird restrictions still in place... I'm definitely more optimistic about what we can do with MO than I was a week ago, but they still could use some thought. I hope that HellLois's remarks mean that they're really getting it.
     
    #369 Stiopa, Oct 7, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2020
  10. Skoll

    Skoll Well-Known Member

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    I feel like holo projector isnt really a skill that belongs on a 50+ point piece, it's perfectly fine to play shell games with sub 30 point pieces. But at a certain point some gaps or gimmicks become obvious. Like what do you disguise a forward deploying sepulcher as 3 of? Just 3 unlinked hospitaller boarding shotguns?

    I figure with move so s5 we will probably see something like burst+1
     
  11. MikeTheScrivener

    MikeTheScrivener O-12 Peace Kepper

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    like the post above - the update does feel half finished.
    I think IA is an easy comparison point for MO but is a trap because CB is never going to give PanO that type of order generation with NCO, TacAwar, and LT.2.

    Everyone keeps saying that MO needs to, or should, focus on Heavy Infantry but no one has really defined what that means. Does that mean taking a heavy infantry core? does that mean your list has to be comprised of only or mostly HI? to be honest my core teams generally play much more of a support role in my lists, and even when I play JSA - another faction I would consider to "focus on HI with LI support", the HI i do take is generally small in number but very integral to the battle plan. Regardless, I don't see how a more flexible faction is a bad thing. Whatever the changes may be I don't see the playstyle of "single combat group made up of mostly HI" going away
     
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  12. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    Holoprojector and holomask are two different skills now, Holoprojector turns on Surprise Attack for the trooper and the echoes can always be used to bypass perimeter weapons and other deployables. If you have the right weaponry and statline it also lets you play butthole roulette with ARO pieces, particularly things like the Kamau.

    Holomask is pretty useless for the particular model though.
     
  13. Skoll

    Skoll Well-Known Member

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    The problem is you can always delay vs marker states. So the only situation where you can get away with the enemy picking the wrong one is if you move move.

    In active they delay until your second skill and pick the right one. In reactive you have to declare your aro first revealing the correct one.
     
  14. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    That's not how you use it. The point is to invite the enemy to take a shot at you. i.e. if you don't shoot me I'm going to keep marching into your shitty rangeband, or into your DZ and start killing everyone else, or I'm going to do an important objective or move over here and murder all your midfield specialists.

    You want to offer them 2 shit choices. Either they take a shot and risk giving you uncontested shots back 66% of the time, or they do nothing by delaying and you keep moving to go and kill something else that belongs to them thereby failing in their role to slow you down as an ARO piece.
     
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  15. Skoll

    Skoll Well-Known Member

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    But the problem is that they are never faced with this absolutely awful choice.

    If you want to do anything other than move closer or out of line of sight. They will be able to shoot the correct model and a linked sniper or ml is still on decent odds vs you even in their 0 range.

    It's also pretty difficult for 3 troopers not in template range of each other to all trigger only a singular aro. So odds are you are getting hit by something even in your absolute best case scenario where the key aro piece picked the wrong body for some reason.

    Sure this is SLIGHTLY more likey in n4 since 6th sense level two doesnt allow you to just delay till second order.

    But it still puts the sepulcher in an odd spot of a 50 point mine sweeper
     
  16. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    They are faced by this choice. Shoot, or the units keeps moving. The point is you need to be smart enough to send it in a direction that will force the choice. So you need to send it to take control of an objective, towards his infiltrated Daofei to kill it, or move it closer to get into prime range bands or basically anything that will benefit you and not your opponent. You don't move with the intent of shooting at the ARO piece itself, you only shoot at it if he decides to gamble on picking the correct holo echo. Otherwise generally you reposition to kill something else important.

    If you can't force that choice that's on you not being smart enough to use it.
     
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  17. Arkaon1125

    Arkaon1125 Well-Known Member

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    IN the Last Match i had i was pretty happy on how the MO wrked on the field. I played versus a Nomad player. I felt very very incisive in the metch the Trinitarians, is my only opinion or those guys are very usefull to contest midfield?
     
  18. andre61

    andre61 Well-Known Member

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    #378 andre61, Oct 7, 2020
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2020
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  19. Skoll

    Skoll Well-Known Member

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    That's a supremely corner case situation where you are facing an opponent who setup an incompetent defense. You are manufacturing fantasy scenarios and going "you are too dumb to see", the reality of it is that you are likely never going to see this choice the way the echoes work. You need to present 3 separate attractive targets that are all triggering just 1 ARO moving to threaten something else to force the opponents hand into taking the shot at the wrong thing.

    I mean sure if all that's up AROing is a single piece, sure why not. But against that setup it should be no problem just not approaching in its line of sight with no need for the echoes.

    Im free to agree to disagree on the utility of holo echo on expensive pieces . But if your argument is going to boil down to "nuh uh you dumb" then that's on you bud
     
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  20. Judge Dredd

    Judge Dredd Well-Known Member
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    The theory is sound, but the execution has always had issues. The prevalence of blast in my meta in particular makes that quite difficult. Its very map intensive as certain setups and layered AROs can mess up the advantage of said playstyle.
     
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