First things first. MO was my first Sectorial and I own every model of their miniature range, including probably 300 points of Magisters and Order Sergeants alone. Man I love my space knights and let's face it, what's not to love about Deus Vult Memes. With that out of the way this isn't gonna be about the emotional attachment, but about the things that changed and the way this affected the bigger picture. In case I still have your attention, buckle up and bear with me for a bit. Some people are in it to win it and they tend to show up with things like Rasail+4 Triads Tohaa, Vanilla Achilles+Posthumans 16 Orders Aleph, The usual Haqq stuff and two combat group Ariadna Camo spam double Spetznaz. You guys get the picture. Oh yeah and now Varuna. Kamau Snipers, right? Love em or hate em. For reference - as far as I am aware most people just accept Tunguska,TAK and OSS are not quite up there with their respective Vanilla Faction's in power level. Matchup issues, lack of access to borderline OP Vanilla choices, things like that. Those Sectorials are facing an ever so slight handycap but still have a solid core and can keep up. In case I still have your attention, buckle up and bear with me for a bit. MO can't claim the same. It has several problems, each of them not fatal on it's own, but since they exist all at once they're rather catastrophic. A lack of valueable cheap troops to complete or supplement a list with. Every other Sectorial in existence has their choice of troops that simply add high value for relatively small cost - Warbands, Kuang Shi, Libertos, Daylami, Regular Minelayers, Barids, Auxilia, CSU, Krakots, Puppet Master, Helots etc or even just AVA3 Fugazi. In addition to that some Factions get a further power boost like Aleph with Posthumans/Netrods, CA with their superb REMs/free Upgrade Programs/Imetrons, I'm not too familiar with IA yet, but TA on top of LT L2 with readily available NCO seems like a fair entry for that list as well, they might be equally terrible but that is a question for another day. And of course having Regular Orders available for cheap sometimes just makes the entire Sectorial, ISS and CHA in particular aren't any worse off having that option available. MO still has the default barebones PanO choices If you want, but it is very, very limited in comparison. Military Orders ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 3 2 FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) MULEBOT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) MULEBOT (Minesweeper, Repeater) Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) WARCOR (Aerocam) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) 0 SWC | 32 Points Open in Infinity Army Naturally we also get the usual affordable Doc, Engineer and the Pathfinder, but nothing really comes close to what literally everyone else has access to in some way or another. After we take the fabulous five it turns out we're stuck. The available troops until the low 20s are below average at best. Until we hit Magister Knights and TOFOOS our low cost troops are terrible. Having Frenzy/Iimpetuous means a lot of Knights are fairly affordable but ultimately this only offsets their very high and expensive stats. CC20+ and with PH13+ and BS14 is nice to have for most of them, but to really benefit from it you'd need something else on top. Unfortunately Knights neither stand out on CC nor shooting. When on the recieving end of aggression most Knights have nothing but a baseline of 13s and 14s on top of ARM3/4 to protect them against it. That remains true for anyone except the linked Magister, who blows every other Knight out of the water in terms of survivability relative to cost. 5 Magisters can take a lot more punishment than 5 Hospitalers despite being much cheaper, mostly thanks to their excellent array of rangebands on top of the ever useful Dodge on 17s. This is in essence what carried old MO on it's back. A Hospitaler HMG to solve things the PanO way and Magisters to increase the overall value of your list by being borderline broken when linked. That thing every other army pre 3rd Offensive did with cheap troops, MO pulled off with HI. Not to forget that back then MO was the only guy around with a core Linked 2W BS17 HMG. Since then the game has seen Orcs joining Fusiliers and Regulars to get access to the same thing for below 100 points. There's also Vet Kazaks who handily outperform flat BS17 by trading one pip of BS for AP ammo and Mimetism or Dakini HMGs who can benefit from assisted Fire to get an effective BS17 with Shock ammo and Mimetism. Not to mention FAT L2 and FA L2 being part of the game now. ARO pieces also got stronger, with the Kamau Sniper being the most notable and extreme example. In short the Hospitaler + Magister Link was already on the wrong side of powercreep and no longer on top of the foodchain when it got axed. Which would have been a pretty good reason not to axe it to begin with. For the sake of internal competition something had to happen, that much is certain. Factor in that you still need to cross the table the PanO way somehow and you'll arrive at the gnarly conclusion that you'll probably still have to make a Seraph HMG, Tik or some sort of Hospitaler Link fit in your list unless you want to pray for an easy opponent, dense table or simply feel lucky for the day. Yet none of these options can live up to the expectations their predecessor left behind. Now we add the problem of the Lt situation to the mix. Sticking 3 Fusiliers on some rooftops and hoping your opponent doesn't want to bother guessing is not exactly the best strat, but it is a tried and proven one... or simply what a lot of other Sectorials have to settle for as well, so it's at least somewhat fair to share the worst option with others. At least you get some Orders out of it, so we had that going for us. Unfortunately we'll be paying at least 34 points for a the single Regular Order of a mostly obvious Lt that will be slightly harder to take out than a Fusilier but has to exist in a world where good old impersonators and Oniwabans are a thing. The last few years of additions also added X-Visor E/M LGLs, Dart, Hollow Man Links and a variety of fun things that make being an obvious Lt a fairly sad thing. The last one being a free pass for AD4+ troop dropping in around the corner and blasting away at your Lt. We're MO, who are we kidding there is not gonna be a Spec Sergeant Hacker to discourage that with the threat of Hack Transport Aircraft. Now last but not least on to the unsung Achilles heel of MO - regular Order Sergeants. They're just that tad bit not-so-great in every aspect. They're not cheap, they have to pay 2 points for a Specialist Paramedic instead of getting a FO option. They get neither a ML or a HMG, nor interesting weapons or utility like a Sensor/Minelayer. They cost 3 points more than a Regular or Fusilier for an upgrade about as useful as that free McAfee Antivirus trial that came with the download you actually wanted. But wait they make up for it.... with... erm... access to a HRL? Yeah no. On we go. The Combi Auxbot guy is a terrible version of an Auxilia. The Hacker can't link, doesn't have an interesting weapon or anything else like an Upgrade Program to make up for the lack of access to Sixth Sense L2 and 3 points premium. The Auxbot+HRL is actually interesting, if only you had access to cheap stuff that would allow to shave off some points to spend on him. Although I've never seen anyone talk about the guy in Vanilla. So we have to consider that considering this Profile to be viable might just be an indicator of how dire the situation is. On the plus side the TO Spec Sergeants are still amazing, if only you could afford more than one... maybe, in new MO. There are a bunch of things that could have improved MO by a lot. - Some Knights getting a HMG so you can walk across the board with them the way god intended - Some Knights getting TA (you know - the thing Morats and IA got for some inexplicable reason to fix their HI). - MO TAGs having Lt Profiles so you'd actually have a reason to buy a CoC dude more expensive than even Joan. (And because Seraphs are Father Officers, but eh fluff, right?) - AVA2/3 Fugazi to make up for the loss of Fusiliers... and to show you're a high tech PanO Sectorial, instead of a bunch of religious hillbillies without a proper supply chain. (Fluff again, really?) - Eclipse Smoke, a bit too simple because we all know that will never happen. (Yup, you guessed it - for fluff reasons. This is mostly here for completion's sake.) - The Crusader being worth a damn. (Dual SMG Profile? Dogged? I'd take about anything remotely strong to offset the bunch of "eh" that guy currently is.) - The Blackfriar Sniper being able to link (... you know - so you can have a superior version of the Fusilier+Kamau Link.) ... with all of that, MO would be... well still the weakest PanO Sectorial. Probably by a mile and then some. Boy it's not easy to be a true believer these days with all those guys just in it for the free rezz, ain't it? Anyway, imagine building a MO list without the looming feeling of despair. Wouldn't that be peachy? Not all is bad though. I'm pretty stoked about the Seraph HMG in Vanilla. And a Jotum Lt backed by a KotHS CoC is something I'm at least looking forward to give a chance. Aside from that new MO is barely recognizeable as an Infinity Faction. It looks like something some other company to remain unnamed slapped together on a Thursday afternoon to fill some pages. There is nothing resembling a coherent theme or internal balance, nothing that seems inspired or intended to allow you to compete in earnest. MO looks like most of the playtesting team decided they hated the Faction and wanted it to die a slow and painful death. For those willing to sacrifice MO on the altar of positivity - you can do better. Don't settle for the memories of the past. For the rest of us who remember better days, for now our princess is in another castle lads.
Wow, I honestly thought there was a light at the end of this post... Sure fooled me! Honestly, I was the one hoping and saying that fusiliers should go from the MO sectorial. Since before altho stronger it was boring and unimaginative, especially with a fusi LT. There was a hope that by removing fusis, they HAD to make order sargent better in order to provide a stable core.... I was quite happy with the way changes sounded during the promo week (mostly bc of the killer hacker and general santiago linkability, seraph fix and addition of the HMG and making KotHS actually do something, anything I guess...?), even though I wasnt really sure how did they mitigate the fusi removal. I see all of your points...dunno... pretty miniatures I guess?
Well I have to say, I was mighty impressed with @Firellon 's performance at the German Satalite, taking the 3rd place with MO. Like 4 Majors and 1 loss IIRC. Deus Vult indeed! :o Also I have to agree with @Teslarod on 2 things: Some Vanilla armies (mainly Nomads & Haqq) are going off the acceptable end of what's considered merely "mildy OP". They have access to too much shit now, that clutters the midfield which is made even worse with access to 2 Krakots & Libertos IA & MAF seems to be designed to be (mostly) LI format armies so they have rules to accommodate such a playstyle (NCO + Lt.2 & TA), however MO feels like CB are under the impression that Joan's Inspiring leader ship will somehow equal the same results as having access to TA.. O_o
Why do serious answers to serious questions always sound so negative? With that in mind here are a few. It's still Infinity, being good at the game gets you quite far even with some mistakes. Remember our Game at the German Masters? Boy did I play like garbage that day and somehow still lucked out to get a tie. Had a pretty bad game 3 in the 5 round 40 player tournament I won the month before that, but got saved by a couple lucky Flashpulse crits that neutralized McMurder for turn 2 and 3. And then had a free game 5 with my opponent basically losing 10-0 to his own deployment. Daboarder's Varuna win actually looks quite similar. 10 Order Steel Phalanx on the top table was probably not the hardest match he had to play in that tournament. The weirdest thing I've seen was a double Yan Huo ML YJ Vanilla list taking 3rd in ITS8. The guy had 8 beers and was as far away as you can from actively trying to win, but 8 ML crits (yes one for every beer) just do that for you. Talking MO up to a point where it's not so bad that it should get a second look before N4 kinda pisses me off. I didn't get to play them much before because of them being a one trick pony and now I can't even ride that pony anymore... and would be supposed to settle for a donkey with rabies. Kinda not pleased about the people claiming that is jolly fun. There are a bunch of other guys with Space Knights if you don't care for balance. I'd just kindly request they'd go and be satisfied with those, so we can get a MO that works on the table.
Looks like a good analysis to me. Taking the Machinist for a relatively cheap order plus decent tools also allows taking 2 Palbots, which are extremely cheap orders. Additionally, Joan can turn irregular orders into regular orders. Meaning the Techbee and the Warcor become inexpensive resources for churning cheap orders. All this is for what it’s worth.
Ha ha. Well fortunately it isn’t a mistake I’ve actually made. I have yet to play the game, I just hang around the forum and in infinity army waiting for the day that the game gets some attention in my area. :)
I mean, can you MAKE the new MO work? Sure. But it does feel like even more of an uphill effort now. It's strange, I get why the ditched the "Knights of Order" and "Confere Knights" concepts, but it's kinda hilarious that Military Orders has ended up just as badly stuffed around from a list building perspective despite that massive liberalisation. For the life of me I can't understand why the other Santiago profiles had to go, and they had to lose their option to make their own Core (it's availability that kills it). And Teutons? Just... why? As for the restrictions on the Crusade Fireteam, I genuinely think that people in the CB playtesting team are either AMAZING at using HI Core Fireteams (like, MUCH BETTER than any of the existing tournament players) or they SUCK at fighting them. Because that's becoming the only rational explanation for restrictions like these.
I know on which side of the HI fire team interpretation I firmly land on. Speaking of landing on things and bad. I put together an hmg crusader I won recently, by God is that old model awesome.
The Teutons were buffed, it just wasn't enough to make them shine over other knights. But yeah, Santiagos not having their own Core sucks. Not having a Crusade Fireteam with Joan that's Santiago is also meh.
Yes, they were: Military Orders ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 5 3 ORDER SERGEANT Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 15) MAGISTER KNIGHT Panzerfaust, Light Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 22) MAGISTER KNIGHT Panzerfaust, Light Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 22) MAGISTER KNIGHT Panzerfaust, Light Shotgun / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 22) KNIGHT OF SANTIAGO Lieutenant (Specialist Operative) Spitfire, Nanopulser, E/M Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, DA CCW. (1 | 43) 2.5 SWC | 124 Points Open in Infinity Army
Santiagos not getting Core I can live with. They work well conceptually as a Marine specialists attached to other squads. But I can't get the reasoning behind taking Boarding Shotgun away from them.
Nope they weren't. They got a Specialist and a Haris Profile and can Core now. That's not a change and not enough. Hospitalers got changed, cheaper and DA CCWs. Santiagos got changed, KothS got changed. Teutons? They stay the same bad clone of a better knight they were before. Wildcard is superior to Fireteam Core in every way. Fatherknights got the Orc treatment, deal with them being bad by slapping them into a LI Link. Not a change, still bad. Which is very easy to spot by everyone I know building Teuton Links with exactly zero Teutons. Btw you can run a Crusade Fireteam with up to 3 Santiagos and DeFe. Which is really nice if it weren't for the inability to reform the Fireteam without 5 dudes.
To point out poorly done work in the hope it will get revisited? MO is like a bad, rather racist joke at a family gathering when put into the context of the other sectorials that came out recently, which seem to have coherent and functional identities. IMO the minis hold up well enough to justify being a painting project, but that's it.
Technically Teutons did get a minor buff, their pointman profile got NCO which means an extra order each round for your gunner in the core link. I think the whole Teuton link with no Teutons shows the inherent mistake with not doing the wildcard limitation that they applied in Invincibles. You need to actually make choices there. It's further compounded when the wildcard option is getting a shitload of discounts for "reasons" such as Frenzy and a straight up SWC discount because ????? who knows. TBH it wouldn't surprise me if very little testing was actually done with MO they just got lumped in with 3rd Offensive for changes because of the Montessa and were kind of a last minute thing.
