Advice for switching from Sectorial to Vanilla?

A bunch of combos you can do. Moran repeater net with a pair of interventors and zeros would make most hackables tremble.

Morloks backing up intruders and saving points compared to jags.

Sin Eater is a great ARO troop as well. TR bot with mimetism, armor and BS13. I also recommend minelayers to help slow your opponent down in vanilla.

things I would probably never use in vanilla, which is sad because I love the models, are the reverends. Healers, Moiras and custodiers. So many things in vanilla that just work better for cheaper.

 

People talk about better troop combinations and choice in Vanilla (and that is valid) but in my experience one of the biggest advantages is just being able to spread out more.

In sectorial a lot of the power comes from the bonuses for fireteams which let you try to overwhelm your opponent directly with better stats. But the cost is having to bunch models up, which makes them ripe targets together. In Vanilla you can enhance both your defence and attack just by distributing your models better over the board, making better use of spacing and terrain. This means for example, you can more often put them places it is less efficient for your opponent to get to, or to kill multiple models in one order, set up mutually supportive lines of fire etc. In attack, you are also more likely to have a piece in the right place to exploit a weakness where it can go around rather than straight up beat down your opponents best defensive gunfighters, so more numerous but less simply overwhelming threats can be a way to go. It's harder for people to take your toys off you that way because there isn't one or two keystone pieces anchored to other models providing both bonuses and vulnerabilities.

With that in mind I think a distributed defence in depth is likely to be more effective in Vanilla than tower defences like a HI ML in a 5 man placed on 'fort kick ass' in your deployment. That's not to say direct long range ARO's can't work but the aim tends to be more to slow, frustrate and trap a push at you with pieces that will slow your opponent down, suck their orders and leave them exposed for counter attack. So minelayers, camo, hacking, redundancy and just spreading out in annoying to draw LOF to places that are now more available because you don't have to worry about things being in ZOC.

For direct ARO's I think one way to think about it is to skew towards things that can't be ignored, but can take a hit (rather than things that make your opponent take bigger risks for losing to them in sectorial) can be valuable. Plus of course things that can reveal when you choose. So things with wounds and armour become a bigger consideration for example. If you can force an engagement, then guts into total cover when you take a wound, that sucks up their orders but not yours. Even TAGs can be good for this.

Other options for this Nomads are good at include REMs which go prone out of LOF when knocked unconscious (and are less likely to go straight to dead due to having two unconscious states) then get repaired for less cost in orders than your opponent spent to put it down by our excellent engineers (with rerolls). Also we have a bunch of good Peripherals (Puppets, Pupniks, Jackbots, Zondmates) which can make excellent ablative defences, making an opponent engage them but not losing an order if they go down.

 

For example ... taking 3 of the best hackers in the game simultaneously: Mary Problems, Jazz and an Interventor.

I mostly play Vanilla Nomads. My Meta is minuscule, so maybe my tips don't work for you at all.

How do I start ... I open the army and click on any unit I like and want to play ... Mary .. check, Jazz and Billie ... check ... Intruder HMG ... check ... Interventor ... Heckler ... check ... two Morans .... check ... uh nice a Bandit ... check ... and so on. It depends on the mission what I include, but I prefer the camo, Skirmisher, Infiltration Route. So most of the time I have an Intruder, Heckler, Bandit, Liberto, Zero, Moran or Prowler or ... all of them or more of one of them. And I take 3 Hackers most of the time (sometimes even 4) because they are my only defense against HI and/or TAGs. To back them up Morans are great as well as Hecklers with their Fast Pandas and Jazz and Mary themselves with their Pitchers.

In the end the list looks squishy, but for the enemy heavy hitters its pretty hard to reach their targets. And against anything else you still have your shell game with Camo Troopers and Mines. You can achieve great board control for ... well Board Control Missions. Sometimes you don't even have to move. Sometimes I went into Loss of Lieutenant, but because my units were already in place It was no real disadvantage.

You could include some heavy hitters yourself, like a Kriza, one or two Geckos, or a Taskmaster because you should have hacking superiority established. Most of the time that's not my playstyle, but it's possible.

I'd say they are not worth taking, but I might be wrong. Like said by @Snowball Sin Eaters are great and one of my favorites, but most of the time they are not worth taking. Outclassed by TR Bots (which I don't like) and without the Forward Deployment from being an MI from ITS 11 (or 12) I think they are not worth taking.

Most of the time I don't let anything outside for shooty ARO during the first turn. It dies anyway, because you only have one shot and your opponent at least 3 most of the time.

Like @Snowball said all Reverends. They are way too expensive. I don't see anything else that it unimaginable to play.

Prowlers, while being bashed as being overshadowed by the Sombras, is a great troop, because it has Hidden Deployment. I already used it to great success as ... expensive button pusher. Should be taken into consideration.

 

I agree with everything above about table coverage. 2 Morans a couple of hackers and a missile bot ruin anyone's day.

The other thing I'll mention is bodies. Now ITS is restricted to 15 slots the inclusion of both puppets and the uberfall in a list gives you many disposable troops to either clear defences (mines etc) or make your opponent spend orders removing something that doesn't cost you an order. Both take a bit of practice to get right but definitely worth it.

 

The rest of your suggestions made sense, but that part I'm going to have to hard disagree. Just get a TR bot, at least it'll be able to be useful in the active.

I don't know why they didn't just get Total Reaction in the transition to N4.

 

Nah, the Sin Eater is great because he has flair. A TR bot has not. I wouldn't mind if all TR bots go the way of the Dodo. That's why I prefer Neurocinetics over Total Reaction. To make the Sin Eater worth taking give him a 360° visor or some MSV. Although this brings other disadvantages.

I myself would prefer a 360° visor and Forward Deployment +4". Makes usefull deployment easier.

 

I'm watching this thread closely as I'm switching as well and was also interested. Looking at the things like Liberto, Renegade & Rem Racer...

 

It is very easy to play vanilla nomads.
Vertigo zond and hackers
Rambo: intruder, prowler, tag etc.
Button pusher :zeroes, bandit etc.

These 3 you have to take.

 

Do you not find the vertigo Zond is a bit of an order sink hole?

 

I think the point is more that you start the game with or can easily develop a good repeater network.

From that point on you only have to spotlight aro to mark targets for death on your next active turn. (Targeted no longer expires, your opponent has to waste orders resetting to remove the state).

Given that I rarely seem short on swc in N4 and that GML bots are cheap in points and naturally synergize with options I already like (Moran's/hackers/etc), they are fairly close to auto include.

 

Fair enough, worth a punt, most of the the things I'm finding I hit in repeater nets now are usually hackable, but I guess that's my 'Meta' (Shudder, hate that word.)

I'll be honest though, SWC seems to leave me pretty quickly, both N3 & N4

 

The other thing about the GML is that it can eliminate targets that might otherwise be hard to get to. This can be especially powerful if your opponent just tries to hide from your guns, or even just generally in vanilla where you don't have the mod stacking of a core link to swing FTF BS attacks so heavily in your favour.

Also yes, going all out on spotlight / guided can be a big order sink - but it can also pick out high-value targets. If you have hackers that are going to spend orders anyway (like Zoe or Mary) a speculative spotlight is an efficient use for a second short skill that might otherwise just go to waste.

 

The best advice is to not get lost in the choice, the biggest "strength" sectorials have is neither their fireteams nor the expanded troop selections or (on some sectorials) the sectorial specific troops, but the focused, streamlined, gameplay experience that allows a clearer army list building.

Vanilla is superior in choice, but also provides a plethora of options to be lost in.

 

That's really true, I do feel a bit overwhelmed when it comes to picking a vanilla list that an all-comer type, as there's just so many blooming options.

I am however surprised to find out Nomad vanilla cannot take McMurough! But looking at Bran Castro I think he makes a healthy alternative...