I had a thought today about the possible PanO future - what if the conspicuous absense of almost all MO units from vPanO is the groundwork for their future withdrawal? They're popular and CB might calculate that the army will survive as NA2, while its removal would make space for another sectorial making a comeback.
I am just hoping at this point that most of MO will be viable. As of right now, I find myself playing with similar tools - Crosiers, Knight Commander, Teutons. Add spices as wanted. I simply can not afford any real ammount of beefy troops, because then I fall well short of fifteen orders, which means I have all this heavy armoured knightly goodness and I can bring at best, one or two of them, before the whole list turns into a total joke. Second problem is extremely obvious Lt choices and lack of CoC, or Veteran troops, except on a profile you do not want to take. This means that nine times out of ten I am a Knight Commander user, and one time out of ten I am a Teuton user. All the beefy LT choices are so beefy and so expensive that, coupled with no CoC on the cheap, you can not allow yourself to fall in LoL. And the nature of Infinity is such that your beefy attacking pieces want to go forward and, well, attack the enemy, which shortens their lifespan considerably. By the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, change Trinitarians and Dart. As of right now, they are so good, you just do not leave house without at least one of them. They can do it all. Which makes them extremely useful and nearly auto-take. By and large, MO is held back by the sins of PanO. MO does not have outstanding hackers or a repeater net on the cheap, they lack smoke and have extremely limited access to Camo, Mimetism, CoC, or anything that can be called tricks. They are straightforward and blunt, but, apart from some units, lack the necessary tools or are too expensive to be used effectively. It is extremely apparent in the game against Morats, where my stars are Crosier five man core link, TRbot and an engineer, Flash Pulse bot, WarCor and TechBee, who can make so many layers of aro and flash pulse, that the game devolves into "throw the smoke grenade from smoke grenade, or eat a TRbot hmg / Crosier multi sniper shot to the face and a couple of Flash pulses to boot". So, zero actual knights were involved in winning me that game.
I agree and had hoped they would have done exactly that with the introduction of N5. The Military orders belong much more as an NA2 faction than a proper PanO sectorial. many of the knight units present in any other panO sectorials would still be there as "mercenaries" or laison officers. This way we also could have kept either Varuna or NCA. I am especially baffeled that they choose to park Varuna in the no play zone seeing as it is a very new sectorial. Even though you can still play both Varuna and NCA units in the generic pano army.
@Darvain one point I'll disagree with is the CoC. I am a big fan of MO breaking the trend of giving it to a cheap/semi cheap unit that can be safely stashed somewhere safe and mostly forgotten about. There's already enough of unit archetypes and tactics that are the same regardless of army they're in, and everything that plays a bit different helps. What I miss is the old Sepulchre, with S2 and Holomask, which allowed to play some mind games with opponent - especially since it was double as surprising coming from MO. What I wish for N5 MO is: Units getting slightly cheaper, to allow for actually fielding in a single list both HI spearhead and support structure it needs to function Fixing said support structure - Order Sergeants seem like a good unit to be a toolbox, including a number of useful profiles that can be then placed in team that needs it Fixing Hospitallers so that they have a function when compared to other troops The rest is mostly tweaks to specific units, like Knight Commanders, Black Friars, and Infirmarers Bottom line is that what little I experienced with MO before leaving PanO made me feel like the army was still unwieldy, though less so than before, but it was finally fun. I hope they'll keep the fun factor.
They are still fun, have no doubt. Just the lack of CoC forces you into a playstyle, from which, now, there is nearly no escape. Beefy Lt knights are expensive and want to go on the offensive - so when they die, you are doubly punished by both being with no attacking piece and by LoL. As you said, the faction needs a slight rework. Giving it at least moderate CoC piece is the easy way out. Reworking Order Sergants, Infirmarers, Black Friarss, Crusader Bretheren, the whole "Tikbalang of Montesa is one of three best tags in the game", reworking knights and the delivery system of said knights is a tough way. To me, MO should play like this - in absence of smoke or cheap CoC profile, the delivery method should be like this - all the knights get Impetous, Nanoscreen, Dodge (+3) and No Cover. Religious Troop of course. No Stealth. Give one or two specialists, like Santiago or Sepulchre special treatment, like KHD or CoC, as they already have. Of all the knights, only Hospitallers are allowed to link and can be a solid core. The rest can have duo at best. Give Harris to Order Sergants and the second Core option to Crosiers. Give Order Sergants a Wildcard. Then it can play like this - knights lead the charge, supported by Crosiers, Order Sergants and bots, as well as other elements. Give knights a discount by not being able to link, maybe lower their bs a tad and up their martial arts a tad. Make them "in your face, taking losses, but still advancing". They should be the core of the army. Teutons fit that bill right now nearly perfectly. Knights shuold lead from the front with the name of God, and as such they should be appropriately present on the battlefield. Then it will be not only thematical, but highly enjoyable to field the army of knights.
HIs will be cheaper by at least 3pts/models, so a list with 5 knights is at least 15 pts cheaper (thats 2 Fugazi! :D ), so it can be easier to reach the 15 Order limit (although I can't see why it is so important (although although I'm not a good player)). IMO Knights could get more Tac Awareness to reach that coveted 15 orders and some Orders could really buy a few shipments of nanopulsers: In Kestrel nearly every profile will have nanopulser or the big sibling Pulzar, so perhaps MO could get some DTW love...
Maximising Orders is important because it gives you more movement, more options, and protection from bad luck. I've lost games in the past purely due to losing coin-flip attacks or objectives so many times I ran out my Orders. It's especially important for PanO because without Smoke/White Noise and limited access to safe scoring, you're usually rolling the dice with every Order. MO in particular is infamous for being locked into its own DZ in the past when it gets on a run of bad shooting luck.
Orders are important for PanO in general and MO in particular, because, unlike a lot of other faction, MO lacks three things - delivery options, like smoke. A camo option on a cheap throwaway troop who can be an excelent roadblock in midfield. A cheap missile warband, which it can throw into the fray to clear a path or accomplish a mission. All this means that Orders player, a lot of the time, simply have just two options - either roll up to a corner and shoot, or dodge forward. And time and time again I had the misfortune of getting my shots deflected or even being outshot on my own turn due to bad luck or excelent profile. For example, when I had a Ryuken unit-9 blocking my path and my only msv2 was already dead, it means shooting at bs-9 at him, and he is covering the whole left flank of approach with his hrl. And I need that approach, one of the tech coffins with supplies are there. I need order numbers to throw enough lead downfield to hopefully get a crit or through volume, bring him down. this problem can be mitigated with enough due dilligence. I found through trial and error that trbot with marksmanship and an engineer nearby is a potent equalizer when everything else fails. But that package is a 57 points squishy turret, which is much better on defence, than offence (crazy concept, I know). Due to real lack of reach on a lot of weapons, sometimes, when my HRL and my multi sniper are both dead, due to bad luck in active or losing them in aro, I am stuck with spitfire at best and combirifle in general. And while they are an ok profiles, and spitfire is a beast, they lack range. And when you are down any long range shooting yourself, if you did not deal enough damage, you are indeed stuck in DZ and your only way out is to dodge / shoot yourself out.
It's not just a super general "something/anything" matter. It's a very specific "Why risk investing into one of CBs armies when they may make it unplayable a year from now?" The fact that CB has not communicated at all how they will go forward with rotating sectorials means everything is in limbo. Because here's what we do know: CB doesn't want to have too many factions in their game in general CB wants no more than three sectorials per faction CB will nonetheless happily add new factions in favor of revamping old factions in order to make more money. What that leaves players with is a huge uncertainty that any of their sectorials might get shanked to make room for the cool new kid on the block, with no guarantee if or when their shanked army will ever come back. Sounds very logical to me to become extremely cautious about starting a new faction...
But, wasn't it the case already? Was there a time when more than three sectorials were really "activelly" supported with both new releases and rules? When Varuna appeared, Acontecimento disappeared. When Kosmoflot appeared, CHA disappeared. The only difference I see with N5 is the lack of rules for the non supported sectorial in order to clear things down for the new comers with the new version (and I think that's the big deal that triggered this anxiety for lack of better word). But, once a sectorial has N5 profiles, what will prevent you to use them even if the sectorial is put in the fridge? Do you think they will errase it from Army and ban it from ITS? I understand the reasoning, but I don't understand why people are talking that much about it now, because, to me, the rotation was already a things since they announced the first OOP sectorials time ago. And they did not communicate much more before than today.
In the same way that no one buys an item that is about to expire compared to others that are not...Who in their right mind is going to bet on a sectorial of a faction with an obvious risk of rotation?... This is a very expensive hobby, new players will bet on another sectorial of another faction with no obvious risk of rotation. As long as the new player has this information (this is the key), it will make the sectorials of PanO (not MO) and Ariadna less desirable and viewed with more suspicion and risk... which will cause fewer new players to land in those factions. Obviously information is the key... but if those who introduce the game are transparent and give honest advice... I doubt that a new player will get into a faction with an excess of sectorials in rotation. That they remain playable is the key... N5 can be assured for the current ones but not N6. Under the current circumstances I doubt that any new player will start a sectorial like Svalarheima. It is the most probably sectorial of PanO to be discontinued in the future and who knows when it will stop being playable... tell me if I am wrong. This is the reason why I think CB should define a clear policy for discontinued sectorials playability... for the good of all.
Yes, that is what exactly people think and have a very substantial possibility to be true: an OOP sectorial will make it illegal to play those models outside proxying something else.
Apart from KFC its the newest sectorial. I am 3 Vrags away from completion. Somewhow I doubt new players will not buy it, but I understand what you mean. Nothing is safe. But with KFC out it will take a while for a new Pan O sectorial to rise. My Varuna is almost complete but not painted. With the bitter loss of the Kamau (no I don't like proxing) I see nearly no reason to paint them. I mean we have two types of Fusilers in Vanilla, Orcs and Orcs with MSV but we can not keep Kamau? Will I collect KFC then? I like the new style of the profiles. The minis look good - most if them. But the feeling of the sectorial is missing.
When you say "illegal to play" what do you mean? If you mean not legal to play in ITS Tournaments becuse they may not be balanced, you might be right. If you mean that they're not legal to play in casual and narrative games least your local Warcor show up with the official mini smashing hammer and reduce them to shards of metal. Not so much.
The "might" is the entirety of the problem here. I can understand the drip-feed of information on the changes and new content in N5, but throwing half of two factions into limbo is something we'd all benefit from just being told the truth about; immediately and in full. Committed players could use that time to build up and complete a more recent army, those of us who basically just got kicked out of the game for not liking the newer Sectorials would simply leave a few angry rants and get the hell out of here. In this current ridiculous situation, everyone's all talking to each other about what the hell they're supposed to be doing rather than actually anticipating and talking up the release. The N4 changeover had a hell of a lot more hype and discussions about the new units, and I can tell you I'd much rather be debating over what kind of bar a linked Black A.I.R Sniper is setting for an active-turn attacker than figuring out which of my NCA figures can pass for a unit CB could actually be bothered writing for.
What I replied was in the context of "deleting from army + banning from ITS", so ofcourse they will be playable in local RTTs and casual games (although IF CB removes them from ARMY it could be a pain to create lists for them).
First and foremost I find your aversion for Military Orders appalling... Jokes aside, if the metric of MO having only 3 units in generic, well... SWF only has 3 units (or under really heavy debate 6), MO is part of PanO and does not belong to anywhere else. I am really glad most MO units left Generic as it will allow MO to finally get a breather and hopefully start shaping to what it can be.
Any sectorial being part of their faction isn't something set in stone. It all depends on how CB will decide to develop the faction and game balance and how they'll use the fluff to pull it off. I do agree that whatever the future might bring for now it opens new possibilities for MO becoming better developed, I'm looking forward to it.
