I personally ? Never. But my opponent usually have a different say on the topic ;P Just a reminder, impetues WB with chain rifle have effective threat range of ~18.5" - 22.5" (before it starts burning regular orders) as you can see it covers much of the Spitfire optimal range.
Well technically she's a character/Hospitaller so I wasn't that wrong (I also really remember her). But for obvious reasons she's not a "regular" case :) Yes I'm very well aware that Hospitallers take a most of a cake when it comes to MO list building or Vanilla (as it turns out people are not that stoked about all those spitfires.....). So creme de la creme, best of best.... which is already "kinda" represented with BS14, PH14, WIP14 but for some reason someone gave them shitty armor (BTS3) and designers had no clear vision of him resulting in "throw some stats, obligatory MO spitfire and call it a day. Now let us design Ayyar!".
Personally i'd like to see KOTHS with some breaker rifle/marksman rifle, union of HSG and 16-"24" weapon or stuff that Pano don't have like posion/viral/idon'tknow But the "great problem" using MO with others knights is about having the possibility to run the core hospitaller+magister. Because this FT is two or three step better than other duo. For what i read and see 90% of MO list play this Ft so, as long as we have the hosp+mag FT other options will be only a random apparition on table. Imho obviously Think a MO list without that FT and you see heavily all the weakness of the list. Do you like a mixed FT hosp/santiago/magister with OS? Removing this strange distinction between normal and specialist?
From this ex-MO player's perspective, the sectorial is badly lacking in flexibility and--most importantly--interesting list-building options. You can either (a) run a core link of doom, or (b) litter the field with TO OSs for button-pushing. That is all I ever see people do for MO at tourneys. (and to be fair, if that's your idea of fun, then great, current MO is the sectorial for you!) The KOTHS and the Teuton are the worst offenders. The former are supposed to be the best of the best of this high-tech faction and they get meh ARM/BTS and a Spitfire. Oh joy. They can chew through light infantry, but lack the ability to reliably crack tough targets. How elite is that, exactly? And the Teutons are supposed to be berserker jungle warriors but still lack a delivery device to punch them through to your enemy's lines. I remain disappointed that with all the mixed links that have arrived, CB has declined to bring the Teutons back into the fold (or the Father Knights, who would fit perfectly into a mixed link from a fluff perspective; plus that might make the ML profile useful). Ultimately, these concerns are not about efficacy--you can definitely win games with MO as it stands--it's about keeping things interesting. I stopped playing my MO over a year ago because they'd bored me to tears, though I've not yet sold them off. Still holding out hope that CB revisits the sectorial sometime in the not-too-distant future and breathes some new life into it.
You, sir, just read my mind. I was about to pose a serious question regarding list archetypes in MO. And what you listed is exactly what I can theory-craft or have read about. I desperately want to paint and field MO, but from a gameplay perspective, they sound horribly boring. And also, exactly what I thought, so much link diversity coming out lately, and I see a great potential for link mixing in MO but know it wont happen. I feel MO could use a rewrite from the ground up, since what they seem to bring now is bland as hell (no pun intended).
Some of that is just Pan-O's general design ("we outshoot you!"), but some of it is definitely specific to MO. How many solid SWC weapon profiles do you have besides Spitfires? How many of those will you ever actually use? And how many of that subset will you run in competitive lists? Spoiler alert: the answer is "very few," even relative to what your cousins in NCA or ASA have access to.
The main problem is the overlap between various HIs. Hospitallers, Santiagos, and Montesas are in a good spot. Teutons, Father-Knights and to some extent Sepulchre are squeezed design-wise. Maybe we need some small knightxit? :P Seriously, though - our main theory for a long time now is that the design team lacks someone passionate about PanO, so their design philosophy revolves around +1B S/Mimetism/Spitfire. They're much more inventive when it comes to YJ, Nomads or Haqq. What's more, Bostria clarified recently that his famous "PanO was a mistake" text meant that early PanO design giving them +1 BS resulted in a powerful faction. This probably led to some tunnel vision; "we can't/don't have to give them more good stuff, they're powerful already". But I digress.
Good points all around. At this point, I'd actually settle for PanO units that are "less skilled", just to get some diversity in builds. Auxilia are an example of this... Their BS11 is, in fact, the BS10 of militia like Caledonian Volunteers or Metros, with the PanO tech advantage thrown in for good measure. I'm okay foregoing the universal PanO +1 BS if it gives us some depth. I wonder if the rumored cataclysms that will befall the various factions might stir up some design ideas. I know this is being explored in a different thread, but I do have hopes for Varuna; new alien units, badass ORC skull-themed paint schemes, the inclusion of the Kamau HMG in Beyond Ice Storm, the timeless and iconic status of the Cutter... These are all potential factors/indicators that someone is excited about PanO. I know this doesn't do knights a whole lot of good. Given the rapid fire release schedule for new Sectorials, I think all of us are probably locked into a holding pattern until we see an N3 or some other major shakeup of current content. In that time, maybe CB will hire (or develop) an entity with a creative interest in PanO. Still, if ISS can receive a band-aid fix with Bounty Hunters, there's no reason MO couldn't receive a similar quick fix. I think the key here may lie in Svalarheima. There's always a chance that mixed Father Knight/Hospitaller/Order Sergeant links, possible new Haris/Duo combinations, etc. will pass through playtesting and be available for Svalarheima. If those links survive playtesting, it's possible they'll get patched in to Military Orders as well. This is all speculation, but given how CB releases new content, I think it's within the realm of possibility.
One challenge is that +1 BS used to mean a lot more, rules-wise, than it does now. Higher BS used to break ties in F2F rolls. Example from the olden days: Fusilier Angus shoots an Alguacile. Angus rolls a 9, 3, 2. The Alguacile rolls a 9. In the current rules, neither unit scores a hit. Back in the day though, the model with the higher BS value broke the tie and scored a hit. So Angus' 9 would inflict a hit, and the Alguacile would roll damage. The same was true with crits. If Angus crit on a 12 and scores it, while the Alguacile crits on an 11, Angus' higher BS value broke the tie there as well. The Alguacile's crit was ignored. Of course, that system is long gone. But you can see why the PanO design space felt constrained, when PanO tended to have an edge that potentially came up in every time there was a F2F roll.
You know, warcors say that CB said giving Teutons link at all was a mistake .... .... samo as PanO! <sorry, could pass this one :( >
That's why Aleph has BS15 "totally not a TAG" and BS17 sniper ? Well to keep internal balance they had also thrown Bolt Paramedic into this box xD
@eciu: I think that Aleph's development over time has put the lie to any number of theories about why Pan-O remains restricted in its access to more exotic weaponry, smoke, etc. Barakiel makes an excellent point about what the difference in BS used to mean, but obviously that hasn't been the case for a few years now. I've heard that too, what I've never heard is a convincing reason why.
But of course it does limit. Everything Aleph has PanO cannot have due to it being repetitive, and it seems designers want to avoid that. It was a mistake - it was not something planned. It seems they were never playtested/designed to have it :)
It kind of makes sense depending on a context. "It was a mistake to make one faction powerful through a basic stat since balancing it in other areas made it boring as a result". Of course, to what this stat advantage amounts now is questionable.
