Hi So mostly the take is based on NCA having a massive boost gaining 2 very good utility profiles and 2 top tier predator profiles. This has massively increased the capabilities of an NCA list in general. Additionally as the game continues to develop and this season emphasises close assault capabilities and vertical mobility with the presence of QAZ amd QAZ creatures in missions, NCAs unlock of unhackable verticly mobile close assault troops puts them in a very good position. They may not be quiet as table.agnostic as SWF but they can play innthat space in a way that VIRD and ASA dont anymore. As to vanilla, they have their absolute choice of unhackable close assault, primary top tier predator pieces and support. I very much used to be "pink teams buff shooting so run a sect for PanO, but a few small tweaks and personal developments in vanilla are boosting them above nca and swf for me. If only because they have access to the best of both sectorials. Cheers for listening to us though.
Thank you for replying. I am still trying to understand why people are loving Shona and Liang Kai. I always just treated them like Krakots. The NWI makes that much of a difference?
Are you talking about Shona Carano? A 27 point CC specialist without Foward Deployment and Smoke? IMO not the best cost/opportunity piece with all the cheap Natural Born Warriors like Beasthunters or Diggers available in this ITS
She can kill a Moran Maasai on a roof, which involves using a mobility skill to get up the building in a Short Skill and tanking a shotgun blast. For PanO, you'd almost pay twice that cost for reliable Moran removal, and it also gives you the bonus of going after things like Warband-infested Armouries or template-toting heavy gunners hiding in corners that could give your guns trouble. I'd honestly be a lot more positive about my faction as a whole if our generics could handle those important duties rather than leaning on a stable of celebrities, which feels stupid when they're in every game (often twice in mirror matches) so I rarely bring them.
Wow… That’s some risky stuff right there. The Moran has the crazy koala defending him. Unless you trigger it with another trooper, the risk that she will eat the shotgun AND the crazy koala is at 100%. She can dodge, but even if she does, she will need to trigger CC, and even if the odds is that she would win the combat, the likelihood that she dies in this whole process is non negligible. The risk that she dies even before reaching CC is equally non negligible + this is still very demanding in terms of orders considering she’s 4-4. Is there a better solution? Likely not, but that still shows how pano has troubles handling these kind of scenarios
How can Shona (27 points) easly kill a Morat camouflaged mineslayer (18 points)? 1st Order: Full movment to be close. 2nd Order: Move to SMG range and Dodge the Koala. Shona dodges at 17, but is not immune to shock. 3rd Order: As you cannot make contact with a camo enemy, you must first roll a Discover test at 10 (13 + 3 Range -3 Cover -3 Mime). If you pass the test or the enemy declare ARO, Shona will fire 3 shots at 8 (11 + 3 range -3 cover -3 mime) against 1 shot at 15 (12 + 6 range - 3 cover) of the Morat. In my opinion this is a sub-optimal and risky unit for this task, and of course the Nomad player can deploy 1 Morat and 1Liberto for the same cost in the same Zone of Control.
Please I wish Nomad players would bring the Camo version. Cause then it's not a Repeater. I'll just run my TAG right through that area then. Oh no my TAG soaked a Koala on his way to shoot something.
Why? This does not mesh with above at all. Having air superiority is very useful for airborne operations, true - it means your transports can operate in the AO safely, and reach drop / landing zones with minimal risks. That being said, if you have attained total air superiorty, your attack aircraft should be able to neutralize enemy concetrations easily, and your CAS to be on ground commander's every beck and call. This makes the use of airmobile / air assault forces easy. And their level of training / quality has nothing to do with it. Bah, it could lead to a situation when your airmobile forces are of very lousy quality, because any action they see is a walk in the park: the airforce has shredded any organized opposition in the area before the paratroopers show up, and if any enemy still has any will to fight left in them, you call CAS and bomb him out of that will to fight. What makes for good paratroopers is 1. selection of adequate candidates (as someone phrased it, "you need a specific kind of people to be willing to jump out of a perfectly good airplane in flight". Also, it is risky, as accidents - including fatal - do happen even during peacetime training jumps), 2. time, money and effort put into training them. Can PanOceania get the two conditions fulfilled? Probably it can (though I'd wonder whether citizens of the faction with the highest standard of living in the Human Sphere would be so eager to risk their lives and health. OTOH, PanO has a suitable population base, so even if the percentage rate is lower, there's still enough potential paratroopers...). Does it? Apparently, in the opinion of the game's authors, no, it doesn't.
Problem with early designed troops? Base trooper (with combi rifle, pistol) Base trooper + various Specialist / SWs Base trooper + Combat Jump Base trooper + Infiltrator and so on All of these profiles should simply DISAPPEAR. You get something useful, or the profile really haven't an existential right... And the difference need to be something worth of it, not just Courage, Religious, or futile things. PanOceania has Fusiliers Religious Fusiliers (Order Sergeants) Jungle Fusilers (Acon Reg) Religious Combat Jumper (Akalis AND Brethens) Come on... Let's try to expand Auxilias, REM supported troops (even nto sync, just to be bought togheter like Mirage5 and similar), and HI-Tech amenities
So in furtherance of ongoing discussions regarding the fraiming of our takes on PanO Im going to paste a comment Ive made in the discord about the role of shock assault in the faction and why troops like shona are valuable. "I mean the premise is that the game state PanO wants to engineer is a null deployment/heads down situation where if the opponent stands they die. What nca and swf do well is have cheap relatively disposable (to the mission) tools that are able to erode the opponents lines/models. Starting initial with those in the midfield typically prone on rooftops making them hard tk reach with less mobile troops, and then eventually pushing the game into the opponents table side and finally dz. In this context having tools which are both unhackable and tough or cheap enough that eating a template during their assault does not stop them is a significant advantage in choice. In NCA and SWFs context this gives them tolls such as kai beasthunters shona csu auxbots. Vird is limited to good albiet expensive and fragile for the 20-30 pts they cost troops that outside of UMA they lack the vertical mobility that is critical to establishing midfiel supremacy and hunting down the opponents midfield elements. To achieve the vertically mobile response VIRD has to reach for spec fire tools. Thats ultimately why the pano sectorials are ranked the way they are in this list."
If your opponent has deployed a camouflaged Moran you are joyously happy because he has chosen the option that has no repeater and you can safely ignore them. Shona is great for dealing with many problems your opponent has on the battlefield, admittedly a full linked Fusilier core with grenade launcher can do the same but does not forward any positional threat.
You think 3 orders to break the opponents midfield repeater network and supplant it with your own troops is a poor waste of resources? Hows that logic working out for you? Because mine works pretty well for me. Also no I wouldnt default to the smg on shona vs a moran, id reach for the DTW and trade a wound for a kill, leaving her standing on top of a corpse. Even better if she does fail the discover she gets another go because she has a nanopulser. This is why she is good for clearing midfield.
If theh havent, who gives a shit, let your opponent waste their gml rounds on shona, provided shes killed the midfielders she has already done her job. Talk about wasted effort
Genuinely curious- has there been any fluff mention of something PanO is good at? The only thing I recall actually being stated as superior is their targeting systems, apparently assisted by the gunner's Geist.
They're great in TAGs in general. One of the two powers in the Sphere to build their own TAGs orignally (next to YJ) (1) ad the only one to be able to make Remote Presence ones (2). I'm aware this doesn't translate well into tabletop presence... As for other things, I'm not up to speed with the fluff, especially the RPG stuff. Sorry. If they are great in Big Robots, they probably should be decent in robotics in general. Now, AuxBots are originally a PanO concept, that got later propagated into Aleph (DevaBots, and IIRC similar are in use in O-12). Apparently (in-universe) PanO command didn't considered the idea worth capitalizing on, that's why they don't have robotic infantry (like Dakini, or Karakuri) or robotic transformers like that Yu Jing nasty thing, or O-12 Roadbots. Which doesn't exactly add up in my book - if I have a very rich society (highest standard-of-living in the Sphere, we are told) and booming economy, in addition to "traditionally Western values", it usually means I'm placing high value on human life (especially - life of my own citizens), and I'm inclined to be risk-adverse in terms of military loses. Under these limits, I guess I'd be actually more inclined to rely heavily on robots. Drones getting blasted to pieces don't really have political / morale cost (no protesters with signs "Bring our robots home!"), and as for monetary cost, I have the money to pay for it. After all, once a machine becomes cheaper than human (to procure, equip, maintain etc), and comparably competent, you need specific reason to keep risking humans. (1) now Haqq is the third, and despite being a Haqq player, I'm not sure if it actually counts. XCR-5 Akrep (i.e. gen.2 Maghariba) are produced by a PanO company that was bought out by Haqqislam lock, stock and barrel: production lines, technical plans, know-how and probably a good deal of personnel (and I bet they still depend on a lot of imported components). I don't know the backstory behind Ariadnan Chernobog TAG, but it might be a repurposed industrial / mining model from PanO. The original RM-100 was, to my memory, just that... I don't know what to think about the new Bakunin Stigmata. (2) Aleph and O-12 TAGs are PanO designed and manufactured. Since N1 it was clearly stated in the fluff that O-12's Zeta Units are PanO made. Though IIRC, both Maruts and Zetas were consdiered to be too expesnive per unit to be adopted into PanO service.
I just managed to be done with the 4hours Tier video. I agree with some, disagree with others, and pretty much totally disagree with Pano. But just I told them in my youtube comment, the most important thing is to see another point of view. They are a lot of explanations about why the find Pano as they do. Tables, armies around, rivals... as a whole, impact directly on how some profiles works. So... Thanks for the explanations. I´m mostly agree. I agree about "vertical play", while I disagree that 2 profiles would be capable to push NCA to that tier. However, vertical play is what does SWF so interesting. With Karhus you can´t do a lot of interesting things. Even with SWF ORCS and Vargars. They have some skills that allows sometimes do magnificent things, even to turn down the game. I won a match because Karhus move 15 as first movement and has climbing plus... So I could with 3 orders, kill an aro piece make a jump between buildings, climb over a wall, gain my "silhouette length" then to have LoF to the enemy Lt and shoot him in the back with FB+1B. But, for what fun could be this, matches usually doesn´t allow this kind of actions. I played a lot Shona, Liang Kay not so much lately, but for me they are more like "deployment" protection, since people don´t usually want´s to be close to them. I was amazed how they were explaining about Shona and most about Liang Kay, and wondering if they were playing with people that usually don´t put a lot of mines over there or not using "submachines guns" or "multififles". Yes, both dodge fantastically, but I lost the count of times I got that 18 or higher. So, unless it is strictly necessary I will never think to launch Shona or Liang Kai close to that kind of threats. Not in my active turn at least. I´m with Dyne in that point. Not a big fan of speculative, but you have a point. 3 orders it looks like too cheap for me. If were only 3 orders. The problem I see with that approach is "before to launch Shona" you will have to deal with ARO pieces. Even if they are none, all are beyond half the table. 3 order will be the less. 1. Moving directly against the target. 2 moving and dodging the koala, (first chance to do nothing and die, unlikely, but possible. And probably, since stealth is broken by dodge shona will be "targeted") then 3 "superjump" and CC or shoot, probably shoot because Moran will not be exactly in the half of the table. If not CC and moran has boarding shotgun, he could face to face really easy, Using dice to dice calculator, even without Shona not being targeted, Moran has more % to impact so to do wound to Shona, than Shona can. Ok, let´s say Shona has "nwi", so she can now reach CC. Moran can put the template. So, most likely, Moran is dead, Shona is dead, and 4 orders were expended. All of this thinking nobody is looking at that roof so Shona can go there easily. So, while possible, not the best case scenario for me. Moreover, usually Morans, at least around me, aren´t on roofs that allows to reach with one "half superjump", so it would be take at least 2 orders to reach the roof. But what I said, different places, different tables, different opponents. Only one small change and something doesn´t work for me, can do it for you :)
Because the army is desgined to be a high tech faction that's also bad at hacking, when all high-tech units are also hackable. This is fundamentally untenable; the army needs one of Strong hacking, to allow TAGs/REMs/HI to have play Very strong hacking defenses, to play through high-frequency hacking attacks made at no risk Methods to engage hackings not on their own playing field. Of these, I chose aerial deployment as it infringes the least on the specialties of other factions (Ariadna/cammo Haqq has their own distinct mix of warbands, Impersonators, and skirmishers, etc,) without compromising the design vision of the army. I've already discussed this - air support is a poor game design decision for exactly the same reason as artillery support. It's exchanging one non-interactive mechanic for another, this isn't a solution. Yes, it's that they get shut down by hackers, and the game design has decided that the faction being terrible at managing that risk is apparently scancroset. Trivially, the only populations which should struggle with this are Nomads and Aradia; PanO, YJ, and Haqq all control populations in the 10 digits, and all of them have at least one core of risk-tolerate religious militants and/or aren't worried about your desires. They're sort of the problem here, yes. The NWI means they don't drop to one template hit, along with the fact that Shona dodges well. She still feels kinda pricy, but isn't bad by any means. 3 orders is optimistic; Shona moves 4-4 and doesn't forward-deploy, so unless you are going first and hold her in reserve to counter-deploy a Moran that's already on the table, you are investing a bit more movement to get her in position. She's also probably going to need to spend at least a couple extra inches super-jumping to the top of the building the midfield piece is on, and the specifics of that may end up consuming an extra order i.e. she can't superjump to the top as the second skill without taking unopposed ARO fire. At this point it's (over) half the activity of a Combat Group for the turn in exchange for one model which costs less. That's definitely a better performance by the Moron into his alleged counter than any hard ARO piece manages these days. She isn't bad, but she's one tool and if the enemy has two midfield pieces plus the obligatory Liberto, she can't trade a wound for all of them. GML rounds aren't a waste - the order-intensive part is applying Spotlight opposed on reset; vs the missile, Shona is dodging on 14 vs 18s, so while she potentially survives longer than most, it's probably not longer than the 1+ order to spotlight and 1+ order to kill with active-turn GML fire. And it's worth doing, because you need either her or another plan in order to clear repeater tokens that the enemy is going to put down using repeaters/fastpandas/pitchers. This all assumes you are going first. Going second, they already have the tokens down, and potentially have (impetuous) moved one or more warbands up to cover them, which makes the task as lot more order-intense and the template trading a lot less favorable. Can she makes things happen? Absolutely. I think people are still getting too hung up on "is this a problem which is literally impossible to deal with if you have your pick of units" whereas the better question is "is this a reasonable level of resource commitment being demanded by the problem set combined with the deficient tools in-faction, and if not are the strengths of the faction sufficient to make up for it". They should be, but aren't. PanO Remotes are extremely average, with the standard package of 5 bots + 2 special remotes everyone gets, and nothing else. With O-12 now having an expanded line of auxbots as well as Betatroops, Aleph having Daktinis, and Combined having their usual privilege of better standard bots + unidrons, it might be a bit below average. The larger problem here is that it simply isn't compatible with the rest of the faction design. Obviously, you can push it to an absurd level, but if we are talking about strong but fairly-priced REM units, they're only ever going to exacerbate the vulnerability to hacking. The lore is irrelevant here - however much good robots make sense, if a unit has the HI, TAG, or REM type, it needs to be built with an extremely strong hacking defense suite to start addressing any of the problems in-faction.
We'll have to agree to disagree at this point. Yes, PanO is the high tech faction. Highest-tech "human" faction when the game was released - but they are no more that, since Aleph and now O-12 showed up. Both using predominately PanO-made tech, with the fluff rationale PanO can't afford to field this gear in the scale required. So, no, PanO's top dog status is due to the mix of their relatively high tech. combined with their large economy and sizeable military. At the same time, funding a sizeable military at any decent tech level is expensive. So perhaps PanO leadership has decided good enough is good enough, and concentrated on their TAGs. Except I wasn't suggesting that. I was pointing out that having air superiority doesn't mean your paratroopers are any better than anyone else's. Do we know how big Nomad population is? Also, since we're at that - how many Hellcats are out there, total? Do we know? I wouldn't be surprised to learn CJC has, total, maybe a company of them. Across the whole Sphere, one company. That's one hundred (and some change) of Superior Combat Jump (skill's name from N3, essentially Combat Jump +3 PH nowadays) -trained elite Hellcats. Maybe another company of reserve / in-training, who don't get fielded. How many Akalis are there? Crusader Bretheren? We don't know, but I'd guess more. CB calls all these formations "regiments", but apparently this doesn't mean a regiment as a size of an unit (seems to be following the British tradition).
I would wager that the specialist regiments of the PMC are more like WW1 or WW2 British Army regiments, where a 'parent' regiment might have one or two 'regular' battalions, two or three 'territorial' (but seeing active service) battalions, and then any number of 'Kitchener' battalions. We know that there are multiple smaller regiments of Fusiliers and Regulares. And as far as the Nomad nation, we're looking at a total population of maybe ten million or so across all three motherships. So, a reinforced company or a battalion of Hellcats would, as you mentioned, likely be the limit. We see these troopers over and over again because, theoretically, Infinity actions are executed by ad hoc strike forces, not regularly formed units.
