And if we can't avoid unfavourable trades, it's too little. There needs to be the capability to avoid disadvantageous positions available for a clever player, ideally a lot of options good for different situations, without any overly-easy or one-sided solutions (like current GML+Pitcher+Spotlight). Our shooting isn't good enough to justify the lack of alternatives, and arguably shouldn't be as it would make for a terribly dull game, and while LoS blockers may go against the usual ethos for the faction we're going to need something to back up that marginal shooting edge in order to future-proof the faction.
Tying this back to what Burlesford said about improving tech access for PanO, maybe the Guarda's Eclipse launching Auxbot needs to be an option for a few other troops. Perhaps Escort Sergeants? A unit like Locusts would also benefit from having Eclipse grenades on a few of their profiles.
I misread this as the Guarda being able to launch Auxbots and thought: yeah, that's a pretty cool tech solution. Just lob bots all over the table!
Now that would be funny and fun to play against. obviously limit the amount of auxbots that can be launched. I always thought more profiles with auxbots would be better. One Fusilier profile with auxbot that can FTO. A couple of ORC profiles with auxbot that can FTO. A few SK profiles or forward deployment profiles with an auxbot, preferably with eclipse smoke grenades. A Swiss Guard hacker with auxbot that has a repeater maybe, or uses some E/M weaponry. Th auxbot has the skills for mimetism-6, hidden deployment, camo, etc. Is this a bit too much?, haha.
The problem with Auxbots is they block two important factions, joining a fireteam and become part of a coordinated order.
Show me which other faction has BS19 on an MSR with MSV. That's literally the high watermark of shooting in the game, and it's quite affordable. Show me another faction that has a B4 Feuerbach with MSV and Mimetism. Or a BS16 MSV2 sniper. A BS15 TAG with Mimetism and Climbing Plus, or a BS15 TAG with Mimetism -6 and Surprise Attack. Sure, PanO hasn't the best firepower on every single one of its units (because that would be ridiculous), but it objectively has the most units with the objectively best firepower in the game, period.
While one can argue that PanO is one-dimensional, the do have the best firepower. And in ITS 15, the Faction has been doing very well.
To be completely fair, there are some examples: BS16 MSV2 Sniper exists in Starmada with an Epsilon in a pure Betatrooper core. There's also the Yaogat, which is only BS15 but makes up for it by being B4, and good ole' Atalanta with effectively BS18. Marksmanship Sin Eater also kinda counts as an effectively BS16 MSR but Neurocinetics makes it terrible on Player turn. The Marut and Avatar match PanO TAG's for shooting, though they're somewhat special cases, with the Sphinx slightly behind the Cutter at -1 BS (though more notably: a much worse gun). There's also a number of counter-examples; units in other factions that have shooting profiles that PanO cannot match. Things like the Azrail's B4 Continuous Damage Feuerbach, Kusanagi's BS 17 Mim-6 Spitfire, the Silverstar Prime's "better mimetism" MSV1 HMG or the Kriza Borac's Burst 6 HMG. I agree that PanO has, overall, the best shooting and that this does translate to on-table advantages and performance, but it is easy to see why to many players it doesn't really feel like PanO has the best shooting.
Don't miss Riot Grrls ML with BS 16, msv, 2W, and dodge 16 accompanied by wip18 doctor and tinbot -6! PanO don't have easy mix-and-match pure fireteam with msv and 2W troopers as fireteam update took BS2 from mixed core Kamau, Karhu, Bagh, and knights. That was fair as they were powerful. But what happened next? Morats and Bakunin with keywords you want were just disgusting and made me feel power creep. At least for me, I don't like PanO being the first (Again!) getting new edition sectorial, as it will be nerfed if too strong and will be surpassed by later sectorials. And what is the cost of the PanO BS advantage? PanO can't block LoF (except bs10 eclipse launcher on GdA's auxbot), have few cheap orders or warbands, and poor choices of specialists. We got some better specialists like ZC, Blockers and Blades recently so things are better now but our AD troops and infiltrators still feel meh.
I know I'm late, and quite agree with the others taking a more moderate position with PanO as having an edge, but a rather small one, but I really must be a pendant so- Tunguska. Grenzers pay through the nose for their filler profiles, but their MSR hits exactly the same shooting profile as a Bolt.
Purity in fireteams is laughable. Riots+fiddler+avicena is pure. Volkolak + patcher + rokots is pure. But Domarus + Tankos is not Even Aragotos haris with Kuroshi, an aragoto character, is not pure, wtf CB?
It does, but it pays much more for a pure core to hit that BS19, so in reality it's stuck at BS16 or 17 most of the time. The Bolt can be easily slotted into a core, even more so with the recent addition of Blockers.
Not really, but it's still kind of stupid that the Aragoto character with 2 Aragotos isn't a pure fireteam. Meanwhile Morats have half of their infantry counting as Pure and get up to 2 Harises! Although personally I hope they change it to 2 Haris being available to everyone. Really open up those listbuilding options.
PanO is sort of like YJ. YJ has the most HI but not necessarily the best HI. PanO has many good shooters and guns but not necessarily the best.
I have only two things in my wish list for n5: - Make JSA Aragotos a 5 man Core Fireteam. And please call them (Bōsōzoku) - Make Starmada Nyokas either interesting as in adding Specialist options other than FO, or cheaper even if that implies removing parts of their kit.
