Last thread talking about Vanilla PanOceania was ages ago, and it was mostly about "why" Vanilla PanO was one of the worst out there. The one before is stickied, and it's @Judge Dredd's guide to vanilla. Now, with water under the bridge, Third Offensive and Daedalus' Fall have brought a lot of new options to the base faction. At the same time, a number of sectorials have improved to the point where it's hard to imagine how to beat them outside using Fireteams... Yet according to @Teslarod's stats vanilla ALEPH and Combined army have been dominating throughout ITS seasons 9 & 10, toe to toe with the likes of OSS, Varuna and Tohaa (the later doesn't really count as Vanilla, does it). The future is hard to predict, as extremely "pushed" Fireteam options make their entrance into more and more sectorials... yet, at the same time, Vanilla can always pick the best models each time, and when Fireteams break, model quality becomes more and more important... *** New options, off the top of my head: 1 Helot Militia, especially the 9pts / 0.5 SWC option. Regular with Joan 1 Monstrucker Engineer WIP13(14) in Vanilla, for 13pts. Gets Climbing Plus, and it has Drop Bears. Regular with Joan. 1 Zulu Cobra, especially Sensor/Jammer and KHD, AFAIK (didn't play with them enough) Bolt Chain of Command at 27pts, Bolt KHD 1 Seraph HMG, a relatively inexpensive TAG option at 79 pts (cheapest before: 85pts Tikbalangs, 93pts Squalo and 94pts Dragões) 1 Echo Bravo Plus stuff from various other sectorials we can access together exclusively in Vanilla: 2 Regulars from Acon 1 Swiss Guard & 1 Aquilla Guard from NCA 2 Auxilia from NCA 1 Order Sergeant / Spec. Sergeant from MO 2 Croc Men 1 Hexas 1 Cutters and tons of other stuff... Some mercenaries such as: 2 Krakot Renegades, excellent for removing annoying midfield speedbumps 1 Authorized Bounty Hunter, the cheapest being at 12pts (5% chance to roll for Smoke...) Aïda Swanson, etc. And finally the stuff that is still missing a proper sectorial (Svalarheima), yet finds a home in Vanilla: 2 Nisses Jotum (This list is obviously incomplete. You Can Help By Expanding It.) *** Joan's Sectorial has a crucial mechanic that is less useful to Fireteam-based armies: Coordinated Orders. The ability to, once per turn, do a Coordinated order is not to be underestimated. Also, you *save* on Command tokens by not having to reform Fireteams throughout the game, which can also translate in more C.O.'s. Finally, late game, assuming you managed to cripple the enemy's valid Fireteam-enabler, you have an even playing field. Bask in your superior troop quality as you mow down his arrogant posse. (In theory at least.) So, what do you guy's think? Example of random list using all of Vanilla's tools: Nisse of you to come by ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 9 1 1 JOAN OF ARC Lieutenant MULTI Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, DA CCW. (+1 | 50) NISSE HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) NISSE HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) ZULU-COBRA (Sensor) Combi Rifle, Jammer / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) MONSTRUCKER Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14) GROUP 2 4 2 BOLT (Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21) AUXILIA Combi Rifle + AUXBOT_1 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) AUXILIA Combi Rifle + AUXBOT_1 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) SPEC. SERGEANT Heavy Rocket Launcher + AUXBOT_1 / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 19) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army
I would probably swap a nisse into the second group to take advantage of orders for an extra gunner. And if I could I would probably try to squeeze in the CoC bolt with the ever expanding ways to cause LoL. Other than that, it looks solid.
Nisses is the reason I play vanilla PanO and never look at any sectorial. None of the sectorials seems "complete" enough. The fact that vanilla has now an engineer worth his points only enforces my view.
@BarbeChenue That list does a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Double Nisse is nice, but to get them and the Orders to fuel them you forgot to bring someone to cross the board for you. You'll also be in a bit of trouble against really tough AROs like a Hollowman ML or the classic Kamau Sniper without a Doc to put the Nisse back up and running. Spec Sergeant + Auxbot is one of the worst things you could run in Vanilla, would probably drop him for the Doc and a Palbot, there is also a Warcor missing and the Auxilias would like to be FOs. In between Regular Minelayer, ZC Jammer, Auxilia, Krakots and Helot you can invest too many points in light troops. That said for an entry level list that one is plenty scary. What it's missing is something that starts up the board or can bully it's way there like an Echo Bravo Red Fury, Bulleteer, Joan V2, Swiss Guard, Aquila or TAG. What does Joan do for you here? Sure she makes all those Irregular pieces Regular, but she is 50 points and you didn't invest in a CoC. Her Coordinated Orders don't have a Swiss Missile or something nasty to coordinate, so it's mostly extra Movement every turn. If I were to rebuild that, I'd take a look at Joan, ZC and that Spec Sergeant and figure out how to make the list deadlier with those points. Maybe Joan V2 + CoC Bolt, Warcor and an EB Red Fury/Paramedic (depending on mission) with a little bit of wiggling.
I`m all for vainilla You change a a big attack vector (the link) for multiple mid ones that come from much diverse angles, a different kind of game all together. Some of last days changes will put all of this to the test sadly, as some of the new auto includes cant even try to be countered without the link bonus or spamming of particular units (TO/camo, Helots) and even then its a tricky business. Here is a small log of Vainilla PanO in a small league we are doing here, being playing games outside of it lately, but im hopeful next week will update https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/criollo-league-log.26892/
It's amazing that that AVA 3 in vanilla is actually in danger with the updates to Bolts: Cheap KHD Cheap CoC Cheap Drop Bears I can actually see myself picking all three in the right circumstances (and not just Biotechvore where they were "sacrificial" units londing their orders to someone else to let them escape).
Dropbears Bolt Vs Dropbears Monstrucker in Vainilla PanO Monstrucker points: 5 points cheaper, can go into multi SF, Direct template, Specialist, actually better throwing dropbears, 4-4 move, climbing+ Bolt points: regular (Joan dont care), +1 armor and 6 bts, Bioinmunity, Vet1, +1BS Funny enough this 2 together cost the same as a Minelayer Crocman, so there is that, but if not for a Dropbear spam the third Bolt wont see much action. Bonus point for every other faction that didnt already had Dropbears (the special PanO tech, like Madtraps, Crazy Koalas) and didnt want to pay the upgrade for Mine dispenser (that we dont get neither)
(Hopefully they fixed that Mobile phone bug...) Here's an attempt to quick fix the list according to suggestions. I'm not a fan of the ML Swiss (Surprise Shot HMG with enemy at -12 is very nice indeed), thought I might be convinced... This is still Nisse ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 8 2 JOAN OF ARC Lieutenant Spitfire, Nanopulser / Pistol, AP CCW. (1 | 51) SWISS GUARD HMG / Pistol, AP CCW. (2 | 68) NISSE HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) MONSTRUCKER Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) BOLT (Killer Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun, E/Mauler / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) BOLT (Chain of Command) Combi Rifle + Light Shotgun, Drop Bears / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27) GROUP 2 2 2 TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) WARCOR (360º Visor) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3) AUXILIA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle + AUXBOT_1 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) 6 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army
Well, this is the kind of thing I WAS running in Vanilla: PanOceania ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 1 AUXILIA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle + AUXBOT_1 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) AUXILIA (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle + AUXBOT_1 / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) AUXBOT_1 Heavy Flamethrower / Electric Pulse. (- | 4) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) REGULAR (Minelayer, Sensor) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 14) FUSILIER Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10) FUSILIER Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 18) HEXA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 27) KRAKOT RENEGADE 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades / Pistol, DA CC Weapon. (0 | 14) NISSE HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) GROUP 2 7 1 BULLETEER Spitfire / Electric Pulse. (1 | 23) MACHINIST Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14) PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3) PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) TECH-BEE (Remote Assistant Level 1, Specialist Operative) Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) NISSE MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 34) 5.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army But with my focus on Acon now I haven't had a chance to test all the sweet new things.
Frankly I don't see that much synergy between Monstruckers and Joan. For a cheap Order you can just get a Fusilier (even a Fusilier Specialist for 1 pt less) and Monstrucker looks like the kind of units that uses Orders rather than sharing them. Sure, it's always an option to make them regular, but I think it's going to be a bit wasted 90% of the time.
I usually run a machinist in my Joan lists. The Monstrucker is a 2p discount, with +1WIP, so what's not to like?
What I meant is that I don't see Joan as necessary to get 100% out of Monstrucker, unlike Warcor, Tech-Bee or ABH when they were Irregular (kinda wish they would still be).
A Climbing Plus specialist with Dropbears, SMG and a Chainrifle? That's exactly what I need to follow my TAGs around, or find an unusual path to fix my Isolated troopers.
Well, with drop bears you don't ever feel bad for using his irregular order as you'd certainly have spent a couple on him anyway, if only to mine the area in front of the DZ.
Question to the vanilla player : now Pano have access to the bolt CoC, are you thinking of playing one of the "active lieutenant" to benefit from their lieutenant order : - TAG (Jotum, Squalos) - specialist knight (De Fersen, Santiago) - non specialist knight with heavy weapon (Joan, Father knight) - pain in the ass (zulu cobra jammer lieutenant)
Why would you like to use Fersen or Father Knight ?o0 Jaon get bonuses for Irregular spam and free coordiantion (usefull when there are no links).
De fersen : specialist lieutenant with good WIP and good weapon. It looks very likable once CoC remove the LoL risk. Am I too optimistic regarding his use ? Father knight : no idea of his use, that's why I ask
I think the question is mostly relevant for a TAG Lieutenants vs. the cost of running Joan. She's still ~50pts, and you may *also* want to run a CoC with her. So TAG + Joan + Jotum is ~190pts. Doesn't leave enough points, IMHO.