I appreciate people checking on the rule questions, by the way. That's the major reason the rules writeups are valuable... I think most folks can glance at a unit profile and appreciate its worth, but it's the interactions and roles that they have with other units that may not be self-evident at first glance. That's why it's worth discussing the application of things like Sixth Sense Level 2 Hackers (even if their stats are bad) or Nimbus Plus. I'm also far from perfect when it comes to rule and unit interactions, so please point things out if they seem wrong or unclear. I started writing this a whole ago, before we even had the full rules for units. My proofreading caught a few things, but there is probably plenty that I overlooked. Thanks to @colbrook , @eciu , etc. for citing the right rule sections and saving me the citation work. @Skyhusky nothing wrong with owning Bipandra. And any Infinity model can play a role if you're dedicated to making it work. It isn't like she's useless... Just probably not optimal. @lord farfhocel The Cutter's got some challenges in its uses, but the nice thing is that you can blast away at close range and (even with -3 from 0-8) probably still win gunfights if you find yourself in those dire circumstances. It's probably a good cautionary tale too, not getting the Cutter into a position where it has to use a template or something. It's always going to be safest when it's far away, in Camo state. @Teslarod Thanks for checking it out, bud. You're damn strong with Vanilla, something I've never been able to achieve, so it's good to hear your collective Vanilla experience being applied to VIRD. I agree entirely by the way on VIRD needing to work hard to dig out hiding opponents. While I love having Fusiliers + Kamau and Helots, and don't imagine I will stop using them anytime soon, it does mean that a big component of your force is dedicated to sitting your DZ and not maneuvering very well. They also don't give out a ton of Orders, because of Helots being Irregular and Kamau being far costlier than a simple line trooper link. The result is that my lists usually have ~15 Regular Orders (which is, on average, 2 Orders less than my NCA or Acon lists) while also typically having fewer Specialists, and either no midfield troops or no highly mobile ultra death-dealer (Swiss or Tikbalang.) VIRD compensates by area denial: MSV2 Kamau and Zulu Cobra Jammer both tax enemy Orders to a huge degree. Tying this back to your point about ORCs, this is where they serve a role. They're still not particularly good solo, or highly point-efficient in a link, but they really help anchor your force with a 2-wound unit that can press an attack without falling apart to a chance AP mine or suicidal CC wielder. In an ideal situation, I probably wouldn't field them at all... I'd rather rely on great 1-Wound units with superior capabilities. But I've been running into many ITS missions that require a durable data tracker or Xenotech delivery carrier, so I'm alternating between using Patsy and the ORC HMG, just to give both their fair shake. Patsy as a Datatracker is okay, but not great with the Xenotech, since she can't Haris while she's leading the scientist around. The ORC is great as Datatracker, but similarly not great with Xenotech, because losing out on those link bonuses really starts to hurt him too. So the quest continues for exploring how viable VIRD can be with Xenotech or Datatracker-critical missions. @Make PanO Great Again :P Thanks man, our conversations have been very useful as I piece this together. Like with Teslarod, I'm curious to know more about how the Vanilla experience is impacted by VIRD. @andre61 I was able to get a headstart a couple months ago, when we started hearing details like Fusilier+Kamau mixed links, profiles for Zulu Cobras, etc. This let me get in a couple dozen games, followed by a couple ITS events very quickly once the rules were released, so help cement my opinions and develop some ideas. I've also been on vacation all week, so had plenty of time to write.
@daboarder yeah I guess everyone needs a game in which you get cocky with your cutter and get a friendly reality check from a monoccw/emarat/hflamer/engage etc.... Aleph knows I needed that... but it just feels like an omission by CB. Especially since most (all?) The tags got a bit of a tweak, raizot got MD, squallo got a Duck Dodgers zapper, tik got the MO version... All nice.. and yet we forgot to order a gun from Amazone... or PanoBay? Also @psychoticstorm can we have a sticky please?
In N2, the Cutter had a HFT, it was a Squalo with TO camo. And it was brutal. You couldn't get close to it to get inside the HMG's bad range (or CC it, or burn the TO off of it), and it could happily murder most of an opponents army if he deployed poorly. Now, at least, it has some weaknesses to work against. Besides, flamethrowers and Zappers don't work very well underwater.
@barakiel great write up always. You helped me understand NCA and after reading this I can say I understand Varuna better as well, so thanks for writing these really. You're a true Panoceanian high commander indeed. I'd just like to say that it would be amazing if you wrote a tactica for the updated MO. But I'm under the impression that that's the only PanO sectorial you don't play maybe?
Excellent post, @barakiel , I listened to your white noise considerations as well. I've been playing USARF for the past year, maybe a little more, with a list that has close to none ARO - VIRD will be a nice change. I like the idea of a lone kamau hmg on the opposite flank of the core group, although I think he'll be ganged up on and killed early. One thing I'd like to know is how to handle a strong midfield attack, though. Mobile armies may swarm the middle and conquer objectives on turn 1, and we may have trouble dislodging them... would it be the matter of using the hmgs to overwatch the middle and use maybe croc or Zulu cobra to establish a hold there? With support from the heavy guns, and on suppressive, they'll be hard to remove...
@Titus I'm glad that both articles are helpful to you. The MO question is a good one. You're correct, it's the Sectorial that I don't play (or at least not regularly.) I've played perhaps a dozen games with them, but I don't view that as nearly enough to actually attempt an article with them, especially since I stuck to safe territory and mostly played Hospitaller + Magisters. Since I like to cement my opinions through ITS play, I just don't know if I can play an adequate volume of games to really become decent or proficient with MO. Besides, I think they look difficult as hell. @eciu is correct when he says the other PanO Sectorials have many more tools, and are a lot less constrained. Are you an MO player already? Or are you interested in them in the future? @mauriciorjbr Thanks for listening! White Noise does a fantastic job, and I really enjoy being a part of those episodes. For the lone Kamau HMG, a big part of his role is just looking for weaknesses or DZ vulnerabilities to capitalize on. If you're worried about his vulnerability, you can also consider just using the Zulu Cobra instead. The Cobra's much more difficult to counter-attack, especially if you use the Jammer unit. The best thing I can say for using any VIRD unit is that you really need to overlap their tools in order to protect them and get the best results. For a lot of armies that project midfield dominance, you can throw dozen piles of antipersonnel mines and direct template weapon warbands, and simply cover the midfield through volume. VIRD definitely cannnot operate that way... Our only access to mines costs nearly twice the points of a Foxtrot, more than one and a half times the cost of a Chasseur. Instead, everything needs to overlap. Best case for defense would be the following interlocking components: Zulu Cobra Jammer on top of a building or up a flight of stairs, projecting Jammer in a high-traffic area. Croc antipersonnel mine protecting the stairway or ladder, so that a Camo or Stealth unit cannot approach safely without being contested. Kamau MSV2 and Helots watching over all, making sure that enemies break Stealth/Camo if they want to bypass the Zulu Cobra Jammer. Then you can fortify this further through use of any Hacking you have (KHD or AHD) plus Suppressive Fire, Fugazi Flash Pulses, etc. Getting all the units working in tandem can produce a very powerful overall effect. One reason I've been fielding a Croc Man more and more is because antipersonnel mines are a really important part of this chain of defense... You need those mines to break Stealth/force Dodges so that Jammer AROs get triggered. Alternately, you can at least force an enemy to burn a few Orders sacrificing a disposable unit to clear the mine, then hopefully you have some fallback defense after this: Jammer is in Camo, MSV2 AROs, etc. You can also forestall a midfield attack by just attacking hyper-aggressively yourself. A Zulu Cobra Jammer/Sensor is a one-man wrecking crew for annihilating midfield opposition. I had a recent game where a Zulu Cobra was able to reveal 5 Camo Tokens with one sensor sweep, and that Assault Pistol (with Triangulated Fire, if necessary) is brilliant. This profile helps us gain ground in the midfield, and then hold that ground if it receives proper support. The Echo Bravo is good here too if you can get one behind the enemy midfield. The Wild Parrot is obviously happiest when it's going for major E/M vulnerable models, but if you can cover a few warbands or camo minis with it, Isolation is still very powerful. If you time your use of the Kamau MSV2, and don't throw it away too early in the game, it's fully capable of overwatching vs an entire opposing army. There are entire vanilla/sectorial forces that will struggle to defeat or dislodge the Kamau, so having it assume its ARO role at the right time, and in the right place, can effectively "lock" the enemy table once you've knocked over your opponent's gunfighters. If an opponent is going first, and threatens to get all that dangerous stuff up the table and into the midfield, you'll gain the advantage of counter-deploying. Use that really well, to position the Kamau MSV2 and Helots in a location where they can overwatch lanes while being safe from hostile gunfighters. @Section9 yeah the solo ORC HMG often ends up doing this role for me, although I'm not really happy with ORC performance if they don't have link bonuses. Sometimes it's simply necessary... VIRD needs a Xenotech runner or aggressive Datatracker, which means ORC and Patsy if you want your units to have any durability. The Kamau HMG is still delivering better face-to-face results if you're just solo gunfighting, and it does so for a lot fewer points. By downgrading an ORC HMG to a Kamau HMG, you can practically buy two Helots or two Fugazi with the difference in points. That's hugely significant, and doesn't make the ORC a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination. VIRD needs both its decent order pools and its broad spectrum of tools. Shock Immunity on the Kamau is hilariously amazing too, because Shock is the natural predator of elite 1-Wound units, especially units that gunfight at range and have easy access to healing.
@barakiel , tnx for the ideas. I think my minis arrive mid january, so I'll have time to read up more on PanO strat. My USARF has 2 foxtrots, 2 hardcases and 4 infiltrating grunts, so I'm used to establishing a strong midfield presence and holding it. Thinking about what you said, if we can use the echo bravo as a flank harrasser, it will create a problem to the enemy where he will have to stall the forward push and wont be able to fortify as much, giving us leverage in the attrition game. If we attack from the flank with an echo bravo, and have the croc man and zulu cobra interfering with the midfield opposition, specially if out jammer attack succeeds, then the enemy will be so occupied, in his turn, that our specialists will be able to push the necessary buttons. I totally agree on croc man and his mines - mines are always a hassle to deal with. The defensive core with an orc feuerbach, kamau sniper and 3 fusileers is very strong - I wouldnt go face to face against it without trying to slice it down, maybe isolating the furthermost member... and that's where I see our lone kamau taking another ARO shot against this attacker. If we can place both groups looking at our probable attacker, with our table border flank protected by a wall or something, then the strategy has a great chance of success (the enemy will have to maneuver torwards the center of the map, where we have more ARO overwatching positions) :) I've been thinking about a harris with Patsy + filler, she seems to be an excellent specialist... the problem will be points though :p And the fugazi and mulebots, do you hang them back as order batteries or do you run them up to spread the hacking network?
Really nice and detailed analysys . I am just half way thru it , but one thing I have noticed about zulu cobras sensor aplication. As far as I can tell ,you can’t combine triangulated fire with suprise shoot bonus. First one is entire order skill while second is just a short skill option. Still , even without that aditional -3 bonus its viable tactic and probobly first practical way to use triangulated fire in real game ;)
It's been hashed out in the forums several times, the short answer is: yes you can. You declare the long skill "SENSOR: TRIANGULATED FIRE" and as part of that long skill you declare the short skill "SURPRISE SHOT", you can use this because it has the BS Attack label and therefore fulfils the requirements as set out by the long skill. This interaction, BS Attack label = BS Attack, is clarified in the FAQ. Note, it first came up quite a while ago when people wanted to combine Speculative Fire with Surprise Shot (any camo troop with a LGL for example), and is perfectly legal there too. The most recent time it came up: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/surprise-shot-triangulated-fire.25564/ (yes, it would be nice and simple if surprise shot was a conditional MOD rather than it's own skill, but CB love their nesting skills)
All sounds like a good start. Definitely remember to keep your order pools up... VIRD has great midfield units, but they're not going to be able to push buttons and deny area and fight effectively... You sort of have to choose a role for them. The result is that you want a decent-sized set of Order pools to help get your one or two key units where they need to go, based on the role you want them to fulfill. This limitation also makes deployment really important for VIRD. To answer your question about Fugazi and Mules, it all depends on need. Generally yes, I keep them safely in back and out of action, using the Fugazi to watch table edges or backfield to help guard against intrusion. If I need a Repeater up the table up though, they can definitely be repositioned quickly. I've had a few games so far too where I've suicide-run a 6-6 MOV Fugazi through mines to trip them all so that a Snake Eater can break through and do some damage. Fugazi really help keep the list flexible. @hypnotic Certainly good logic, but as @Cartographer very helpfully mentions, this question ended up being asked and answered. It turns out that you can, indeed, stack Surprise Shot with Triangulated Fire, which is fantastic for Zulu Cobras. It's massively powerful.
Well, too bad miniature market decided to take some time off and only ship my order 10 days after they were paid for... sometimes it sucks to live in Brazil. The more I read, the more hyped I get hehehe. In regards to the midfielders, you're right, because if we are scoring on consoles and antennas, we might be getting shot at in return - which stresses out the importance of our core overlooking the scoring areas. Maybe an alpha strike with a peacemaker can soften up the midfield, creating room for our specialists. My local meta has a player with a very annoying Fiday who ramboes up and assassinates the links by using smoke, can't wait for him to get a Kamau shooting him right through that smoke grenade hehehe Down here we have the following armies: - vanilla nomad x2 - vanilla haqq - USARF - Caledonia x2 - Vanilla PanO - S.A. of Acontecimento - StarCo - JSA x2 - Yu Jing - Druze - Steel Phalanx So it's quite diverse, it'll be lots of fun to tune the list. The Kamau bring answers to smoke, Echo Bravo hacking, Zulu Cobra with sensor... cant wait to try out the new toys. Ah, and there's always the Cutter :)
@barakiel I already play MO and have been playing it for almost two years. I had to set them aside many times because as @eciu and you said, it is a very constrained sectorial. That's when I read your NCA tactica and tried it out. So I've been playing both sectorials since, and never played generic PanO again. Now with the new MO we all have been analyzing the new troops and fireteams options again and again, but I when I read your tacticas you always shed some new light over this or that profile option or combination of troops that didn't look obvious. So as MO looks now, it is going to be a lot of fun trying out all the new stuff. But I think CB made sure it was still a powerful but constrained sectorial, and they made sure in a really painful way with the lieutenant options. Anyway, I wouldn't like to derail this brilliant thread talking about another sectorial. If you want to talk about MO or even decide to get on it with a tactica and I can help out just let me know.
@Cartographer thanks for the clarification. Sadly ,it is so annoying that some rules are so unclear. First you have to learn a rule (quite a few of them) and than look up on the forums if there is some wird exeption or synergy with other rules. Especialy when you play with people who dont use this forum at all , so you waste time looking it up online, explaining ingame, creating impresion that you are abusing rules.
I think some of it is self perpetuating. Maybe I'm showing my age, but I remember stumbling through the Rogue Trader rules with some buddies, and we didn't have half as many problems, and when we did, we just came up with a resolution and moved on. I've yet to see a game with a rules book as bad as that in the modern era. (Yes, even N1/N2). While it's true that there are some rules that are unclear, there's also a bit of rules-lawyering going on, looking for a loop-hole to exploit. As a result you have people asking questions about things that are very niche, and are minor problems at best. Something that comes up in 1 in 100 games, if that. Further, if you just pick a resolution and move on, it's not an issue. The internet discussions on this forum and others make the problem seem much worse by concentrating a lot of attention on these problems, attention it probably wouldn't receive if people weren't looking for a reason to discuss the game. 99% of players wouldn't even know about the problem, or that it was a problem, but since we're all here on the forums, everybody knows how incredibly broken shooting the back from the front really is. In this case we're talking about a single ability, on one model, in a faction with 62 different profiles, and in a case that requires the model to be in camo state, and then want to shoot another model in a state that makes the long order skill Triangulated Fire worth using, and then adds or subtracts 10-20% to the results. Whether he can, or cannot is unlikely to effect most games, even if the skill is used quite a bit. It's good there's an official answer, but even if there wasn't, it's a minor quibble.
Anyone else imagines her kind of like a Joanne of Arc, with no helmet, long blonde hair except that instead of being so serious she will have a beaming smile? Anyway, whatever they do I really hope she has a charismatic miniature, and since they still have to remake the women's orc armour they do something cool and not extremely thin armour with boob plate. Mmmhhh... Samus Aran style, please??
The beaming smile is actually on her description in the Third Offensive book, but I'd go with short hair (she plays a lot of Scuball, I imagine long hair would be a bit of an hindrance even under a cap). Also I picture her as a dark-skinned brunette with blue eyes (tan, waterworld and such). And now I'm thinking about Joan of Arc playing Scuball and feel sorry for the other team.
I don't have the book with me for some reason I really though her description said she's blonde. Whatever her final design is, I can't repeat enough how much I want her to be a sturdy armoured IP and not a plated pin-up girl. Joanne is ok with that style because she's no even human, but please not Patsy.
