1) With the new fireteam rules a great many top-dog shooters in the game were suddenly locked behind some pretty stiff paywalls, but not so with the beloved NCA Bolts. They remain an excellent pure link and were even given Machinist (Bolt). At a time when most players are desperately trying to calculate whether it's worth the points increase to keep their favourite gun in a pure link, NCA players can rejoice in the excellence and flexibility of the basic Bolt. What this means is that while the Bolt Sniper's peers were nearly all taken down a peg, she remains her old illustrious self. With the drop in Big Gun + Mooks© fireteams the game will shift away a little from where it was, and any shift away from readiness to deal with her will be to her benefit. I like the way this feels, leaving NCA as perhaps the premiere shooting sectorial in the game, whereas before they had many competitors for the crown. 2) Fusilier haris is such a big deal. I always liked to run a haris in my second order pool before and this is now so much easier. I think we'll see a lot of this kind of setup: HMG Fusilier + Spec CSU + Wildcard. Shona in that set up, for example, makes a super impactful haris for what, 56pts? It also gives Aquila Guard a whole new way to play, however... 3) We finally get access to FTO Black Friar HRL. While this is a bit of a bummer for Aquila Guard, as his niche now has some seriously efficent competition, the impact of this addition could prove to be massive. Because the Friar has native 6th sense and MSV2 it offers a top tier aro unit alongside a cheap Haris, as already mentioned. HRL Friar, paramedic Fusilier and lsg CSU comes to just 48pts. That's outrageously efficient. So yeah, on first blush it looked like not much changed for NCA with the update, but really they've retained their superlative core shooting while gaining some clutch haris efficiency and flexibility. Be keen to hear veteran NCA players' opinions on this.
I wound up trying a Fusilier Haris myself at a tournament yesterday, with a MULTI Sniper for a gun, a cheap Forward Observer and the LT, alongside a full Bolt Core. I found that both the Core and Haris were capable of controlling fire lanes, with the Fusiliers even able to contest some Core links as well as easily zone out solo troopers trying to score. Playing this way proved effective at keeping the enemy away, but I ran into issues when the enemy was able to get something close- a Tiger Soldier did a lot of damage to me, while Carlotta was only defeated by some bad dice when she got into my backline. It also leaves advancing and scoring up to solo models, which was a task my 3 Locusts proved unequal to. I'm definitely going to iterate on the list in future to try and improve its options for offense and close-up defense; some Auxilia are badly needed with the setup since it's so static.
Can't believe I forgot to add Uma as 4)! Her skirmisher profile is gonna be clutch for NCA going forward.
I always thought the Bolt sniper was reasonable, precisely because a Bolt team was relatively expensive. The more questionable teams were the Kamaus, Grenzers, etc. that got to link with line troops. The other teams are now more in line with the Bolt team (if you want the Coherent bonuses), so I agree that the Bolt is in a better place comparatively, but is it really better than the others? I thought it was more on a level with the others now, where formerly it was second-tier (but still good, just priced accordingly).
I prefer a bolt core to kamau by quite a distance, even if they come out 10pts more expensive. Marksmanship, veteran and terrain total are a step above mimetism and stealth in my book. Id certainly favour the bolt in a headtohead in most shooting comparisons.
That's fair. Actually I think both teams are more expensive than they were. If memory serves, in the old system you could shave a few points off your Bolt core by putting things like Peacemakers in there. Now it's just one Machinist and 4 Bolts if you want the Coherency bonus. So, slight nerf to Bolts and much larger nerf to Kamaus, leaving the Bolt significantly better value than the Kamau but still a little worse than the former Bolt?
I agree. If someone's happy playing something regardless of whether it's good or not, that's great. I like @Time Bandit's post, and I agree about NCA. I would have liked to see PanO have a slightly easier time scoring that true +3 bonus, compared to other factions and their sectorials. Instead, i'm finding it's largely the reverse. It's great to see Bolts given some nice link options.
I mean what I constantly hate is lack (or very finished) PanO "flavor". CB did quite a good job with Varuna (Exho-Bravo, Zulu Cobra being prime examples), but you have Tunguska with fully linkable Kriza who has more/same punch as HMG Hospitaller, on top of having typical Nomad gadgets etc. (not to mention Vostok being better buleteer with better support). PanO having some specialized/general BS bonuses in their link teams could emphasise their focus on BS and "professional coordinated army". Only problem is that if PanO got such bonus, Nomads would get something even cooler.
Bolts were the reason to play NCA, even back in the old N3. A bunch of bolts plus the Squalo Lt were a funny (risky) thing, now probably it could work well enough to be a regular thing to play :) Maybe FT changes makes NCA the best "Pano" thing to play?! We will see.
5) With most attack pieces losing 2 BS, the Swiss Missile is utterly immovable now. Not even MSV2 Snipers in a Mixed Core are going to want to contest this monster. B3 on 14's vs. B1 on 15's? Not great odds, especially considering the durability and Firepower the Swiss has. Brute-force options like Shang Jisus just dropped from B5 on 10's to B5 on 8's. Hexas also got better by the same logic.
Uma being a native Bolt and Fusilier alongside having 2x Haris is dope. NCA was one of the few Sectorials that could already make a Fusilier ARO piece work (just back it with a Swiss ML or Hexa MSR), now that's the same BS as an Orc would be. Since our ARO potential isn't relying on Links as much as other Sectorials (we have lots of DTWs and HD AROs instead), we're not getting shafted like Sval and Varuna. At least to me, NCA has been pretty big on solo pieces. All Swiss and Aquila versions get better relative to the playing field. Dealing with high power MSV ARO pieces was one of the Swiss' HMG biggest problems (aside from high ARM). -2 BS and that's not as much of an issue any more. The Swiss ML had some trouble winning FTFs on his own vs full Core Links, these won't be as common and where they still occur they'll be much easier to beat with -2 BS. Aquila FTO mostly negates the need to activate the +3 to Discover bonus. MSV3 still autodiscovers Camo and didn't have the bonus before that anyway. Aquila HMG, same as Swiss HMG faces less dangerous AROs than before most of the time. I think this buffed a lot of TAGs for the same reasons, but I'd still look elsewhere to run one (mostly Vanilla with the new Karhu Duo or something like that). As said above by others the Bolt Link became a lot better relatively speaking because there's hardly anything left that can beat the ARO Sniper it in the numbers game, Active and Reactive. Uma went from universally awful to I don't know which version is better. The Skirmisher version Dart light, but a Specialist, is great even if all your cover for her are Peacemakers and Locusts, C+ Marker with FD8 is a lot of security even without backup, not to mention we always have the HD ARO piece threat looming over even our most exposed pieces on the table. B4 BS13 SMG even in 0 Rangebands is a lot of damage compared to what standard Skirmishers with BS11/12 Rifle equivalents or Shotguns bring. Add in the E/M Mines (big upgrade over Grenades) she's not just a big game hunter but also has a built in tool to discourage opposition by DTWs against her. Add in the latest FAQ combined with C+ (which really should be fixed) vs Template AROs. Where she can really catch a template ARO off guard by simply walking up the wall to gain LOF without ever touching the template. The linked version is just a really hard hitting, unhackable Specialists with C+. Not that impressive until you realize that's basically why Karhu are great. And she gets to keep all the link boni unlike them. Good catch on the Friar. Same as for any other ARO piece in NCA, HD AROs make the guy a menace to deal with.
Agreed. It's one reason I'm playing Nomads quite a bit these days. The first time i used the 2-Wound Bulleteer that costs 0 SWC and is Wildcard for everyone, I think my exact words were "this is f*cking dumb. I love it." The BS bonuses you're describing would have been especially nice for Varuna, who has been kicked in the head repeatedly since this edition dropped. What's this? I think I missed this one.
They were made quite a good (if not best) PanO sectorial, so obviously it couldn't stand this way ;) (never played it (and dont remember playing against it) but considering the hurt that linked MSV2 mimetism MSR caused I'm not surprised)
Yes. Someone was salty about VIRD, and it shows. They were built as a defensive sectorial, and now that whole playstyle's been gutted hard. Every aspect of their defensive trifecta (Jammer, Helots, BS16 MSV2) has been dismantled. As a player, it's time to move on.
With the new Order declaration rules you can do a BS Attack +Move (in that Order) declaration. A Template ARO against that still has to place the template after your fist Short Skill (BS Attack) and lock the position down. You can then just walk around that by i.e. forfeiting Cover and walking back around the template if you have enough movement, or by scaling the wall you're hugging and moving over the cone's height with C+. Reference thread: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/goodbye-aro-templates.40793/ Sure hope this gets fixed, but nothing done in that regard last time I checked. The counterplay would be HD AROs (yay for NCA again). The funny part about this is that they didn't really fix the problem, arguably might have made it worse. With Uma now playable and counting as native Bolt AND Kamau in the respective Sectorials, as well as ForCo having Bolts AND Orcs count as native for the combined Fireteam, PanO's uber ARO Sniper can no longer be easily utilized in a cheap defensive ARO team (the Bolt never could, only applies to the Kamau anyway), but still very much exists if you are willing to run a Core team that doubles down as an aggressive unit. ... while almost all the competition is down 2 BS from before... and you got a BS16, Mimetic, C+ DAM 14 Breaker Rifle with E/M Mines to dominate the midfield after your "unstoppable" MSR swept any long range attempt at opposition. In Terms of PanO Core Links, I think Sval was hit the hardest. They already were using a Haris pretty commonly, so the nerfbat to their insanely comfy Core options really hurts bad.
I genuinely have to agree that nca feels like it got a buff on the tabletop. I played 2 games yesterday and it felt oppressive how good bolt firepower was against a mixed core and I especially enjoyed getting to shoot on 17s with the spitfire even after the sniper went down due to being a pure core. The bolt core just solves so many problems and protects itself with drop bears or e/m mines. Also tried out new uma profile which felt really good when supported with a peacemaker. Uma just works like dart but you have to be a little more careful with her. She's wonderful for digging out that LT on a roof prone or a hacker or missle bot that's been harassing you all game.
Bolts are great. They’ve managed to retain being insanely good shots with all the new fireteam rules and their marksmanship and veteran skills are just icing on a very shooty cake. Going to have to give Uma a go in NCA, I have as yet not allowed her to sortie but this was due to my previous use of my Aquila and Swiss guards who are just fun to run around with.
