If you think Vanilla armies like Nomads, CA and Aleph aren't thrashing 90% of all sectorials then your meta is shit and not up to date on major tournaments. The hillariously inaccurate meme people perpetuate, that links are OP and toppest of Top tier, is out of touch at best.
Aside from Tohaa Triads there and Enomotarchos there isn't much Link related aggression going on these days. People will happily run their Cores in Sectorials to get Linked MSRs etc for ARO duty and Linked HMGs etc to clear the other guy's ARO's from their DZ. Entire Core teams waltzing up the field in turn 1 is more of a Limited Insertion related phenomena these days. MO might be an exception from that simply because Knight Links are the focus point and best part about them. Playing a 5man HI Link somewhat close to perfect is hard. The giant footprint makes it easy to look for an angle to take them apart in their reactive turn, the playing field has become deadlier and more dangerous. And that's before the increased Shas and CA population made TO MLs a lot more of a common problem. A full HI Core Link is a massive logistical problem, to fit 120-170 points into a list and deployment zone, to support them, screen them from asymmetric trading, keep track of the Link leader position and coherency in Active and Reactive... the list goes on. Then there's the whole Wildcard and Special Fireteams mess - "is my Link even legal at the moment?". Self contained Rambos like a Kriza Borac or a TAG are much easier to handle and keep track of. Links need to compensate for the problem that you'll always risk having 2-5 guys under the same Missile/Shotgun/Mine template and even then Sixth Sense L2, B5 HMGs and +3 BS are not going to save them from that either. The Fireteam boni are gone fast if the wrong guy drops at the wrong moment. A TO Trooper might just drop a Mine or Boarding Shotgun on your entire Link while the pointman is trying to take out an ARO piece. The priceless feeling when your Swiss Guard ML reveals to put a Template on a Zuyong Link with a 13. It's a hazardous environment on a good day and MO gets to feel the full brunt of the impact on the game. Not even sure what can be done about it. Links are an integral part of the game at this point. Maybe N4 will change how they work, probably not. MO can hope to benefit more from N4 than any other Sectorial out there. Links, LT availability, HIs, Hacking, cost for splash CC/ARM and general point formula, Order economy, redistribution of newly added Skills and equipment are all topics to address for N4. I'm not expecting massive changes, but there's enough screws to adjust that even a couple small changes will have a lot of impact together.
Me seeing yet another denier about MO state (the only sectorial here having a dedicated topic about that xD) (Her Müller....)
No it's from an old movie with De Funes (one of my favorite actor. He is soo funny :D ) where he explains the Potatoes Pie recipie to a german chef (Yes it is offensive. But please consider it's a pretty old movie) Go to 1:20 UND ... UND ... MUSKATINOUS HER MULLER !!!
Anecdotal I guess, but I managed to get second place with Military Orders last weekend! I probably would've had a shot at first place if I didn't forget to designate a datatracker during the first match. Whoops! The missions played were Acquisition vs MRRF (minor victory), Capture & Protect vs O12 (minor victory) and Safe Area vs Tohaa (major victory). I used the following two lists: Safe Area/Acquisition ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 SERAPH HMG, 2 Nanopulsers / EXP CCW. (2 | 79) CRABBOT Flash Pulse / Knife. () MACHINIST (Father-Engineer) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) FATHER-KNIGHT (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Breaker Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 45) KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO Lieutenant (Specialist Operative) Spitfire, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, DA CCW. (1 | 43) KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges + 1 TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 38) ORDER SERGEANT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 15) ORDER SERGEANT Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) SPEC. SERGEANT Heavy Rocket Launcher + AUXBOT_1 / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 19) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) SPEC. SERGEANT (CH: TO Camouflage, Infiltration, Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) 6 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army Capture and protect ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 9 1 KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO (Specialist Operative) Spitfire, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 43) FATHER-KNIGHT Missile Launcher / Breaker Pistol, DA CCW. (1.5 | 49) KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, D-Charges + 1 TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 38) ORDER SERGEANT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 15) ORDER SERGEANT Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) ORDER SERGEANT Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) KNIGHT HOSPITALLER Doctor (Fireteam: Haris, MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 36) KNIGHT HOSPITALLER HMG / Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 39) JOAN OF ARC Lieutenant MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (+1 | 49) TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) 7 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army I completely misread the liaison officer rules and thought troops in marker state couldn't be designated as the officer, so I went with a FK FO profile, which did end up working out quite well, controlling the Tech Coffin while in cover. My opponent was unable to remove him. I usually play Haqqislam and its sectorials, so I got some experience with super jump capable troops. I personally love TAGs as well, so the HMG Seraph was a match made in heaven, especially now that it gets an extra order for itself. Catching enemy troops outside cover or in their back gives you a lot of leeway fighting troops with visual modifiers or shooting in suboptimal HMG ranges.
Well, I just picked up literally everything for Military Orders, so we'll see how it goes! Personally, checking out MO, the first thing I saw was Total AVA BS12 Clipsos, coordinated Panzerfausts, auto-hitting EXP CCWs, wildcard killer hackers with TinBots, and S2 Heavy Infantry that's more powerful than most S5... I'm pretty pumped to get them on the table after I've had more time with my Steel Phalanx. :)
Back when you could have a core of Magisters (N2), I coordinated 4 of them to fire panzerfausts at a Lizard TAG. 3 Hit, and it was Glorious! Good luck with them! I will be looking forward to your observations.
Ha, forgot the recent re-balance of MO allowed them as a self-fulfilling core again, for the better part of N3 they had to be filler in a Hospitaller or Santiago core.
I was quite happy with this list despite only barely winning with it. What worked for me was to deploy a defensive core while keeping the ML FK in reserve, making my opponent counter deploy to the HRL OS, which essentially acts as bait. I'm then able to deploy the ML FK in a very oppressive position, forcing my opponent to waste orders on keeping their impetuous out of sight or try to deal with the FK himself. The threat of having two missiles fly on 20's in proper range before visual/cover modifiers does a lot to people. I've generally taken care of the long range threats during or after turn 1 with the FK ML. If I need additional active turn firepower than my FK core or Hospitaller Haris can provide, I move the Santiagos over to the Hospitallers for additional firepower. Alternatively I just move them up together with Joan for some midfield chaos. Mind you, I like being aggressive with my lieutenants and Joan's coordinated Lt. order gels very well with the Santiagos for dealing with bigger threats on the midfield generally forcing opponents to dodge unless they like to eat a nanopulser, E/M grenade and two mult rifle shots :) These days I always pick a Techbee over a Warcor when I want a cheap order, even if I'm not running engineers. For two points extra you get a backup specialist and a pistol which for some reason gets my Techbee a ridiculous amount of kills.
Understood, one question though. How do you build your fireteams for the 1st turn? You put the OS + FK + KoS in the core, and the HK + the other KoS in the haris leaving Joan unlinked?
I find it quite surprising statement especially from SP player as Myrmidons have a good chance in beating Joan in CC, and ODD on almost everyone makes SP shooting usually better than MO's ;) (not to mention smoke&eclipse) Though, interesting to see how you will find MO.
Probably it would strongly depend who is going first, table layout (ML usefull or not? can you cover unlinked Joan etc) and fact if enemy has strong assasins (Fiday, Speculo)
Playing MO after coming from SP gives you better access to HMGs and you're way less scared of Mines :^) Also TAGs, because PanO.
What's wrong with Achilles ?:P But true, mine "immunity" is a nice bonus ;P (though seeing Phoenix again, and SF Myrmidons gives me PTSD)