Big shoutout and congratulations to @barakiel for the great showing at this event. Too bad there was not the 6th round to fully show who was the best player at the event. CJC was always a decent army (definitely not one of the best), unfortunately, none from top 4/5 played with each other so the TOP end standings where decided by OP earned in previous games.
And the first ASA occurrence is #65. So? ASA is our weakest sectorial now ? Don't think so. Skill is in play in this game more than a lot I actually now. This just means that the best PanO players aren't fond of MO gameplay. I hear a lot about JSA being in the same dire spot than MO and look at how well they performed. Cobraprime is another top tier player and I'm not surprised to see him in the top 10. Look at MRRF ! They performed very well too. This just show that the best players players can make any army performing well providind they love it.
So, well played Barakiel :) Did you think do one of yours excellent battle reports ? If not, what lists did you played ?
From what it looks like with all the data, it seems a lot of PanO wanted to take Varuna for a spin. Thats probably where most of the PanO vets went. As for MO, they are a popular army(and as some believe, they can be their own NA2 army), and you will always have a a few people wanting to field them.
@barakiel congrats mate! Which troopers ended up doing the best job for you? Pretty sure that McMurder buff and new Fireteamoptions helped there.
That was me in 14th and I was playing Varuna. I think my late registration caused some info to get mixed up. @barakiel congratulations on a tournament well played. I didn't get a chance to say hi but I will definitely we there next year and the first round of beer is on me!
Thanks all. As mentioned, I definitely think Varuna offered the "new shiny" effect. I think pretty much anyone can recognize that they're strong, but they also provided very good tools for the missions being played. I don't know how much other players were planning for this, but I was thinking a ton about very intense DZ defense. It was a critical factor in every mission being played. VIRD's natural defensive strength meant they could remain very stable. CA, Haqq and JSA were all strongly represented, meaning lots of Impersonation and Superior Infiltration (not to mention the new Tohaa Impersonator too.) The missions rewarded big defense for both DZ and midfield, with the ability to attack/counter attack very rapidly (Unmasking, Decap, Firefight, Acquisition, Supplies.) VIRD is naturally very strong at this. Cobraprime (last year's winner) actually played VIRD, rather than JSA. So I think 4 VIRD (myself, Cobra, @tschmitt , pooky) in the top 20. I'll be working on the batrep today.
Coming in 90th of 145 is about like scoring a 38%, so more like 'leading the bottom two-fifths', but yeah, that's a good bit higher than I either expected or hoped for. The YD lists are interesting. Their fluff makes me sick. They did a lot better than you'd expect, given how much people talk about how poorly optimized the CBLs are.
I mean bottom 38th percent is still what 1 major victory and 4 losses or maybe 2 minors ? Not trying to disparage the player at all (for all i know what wins he pulled against all odds were pure skill) but that result could easily be attributed to a lucky match
@yoink101 I only got to connect with him briefly, but Iwould be interested to hear his thoughts leading up to this year's rumble; how last year influenced this year, the JSA vs VIRD decision, and how he feels about that decision post-Rumble. He did really well... Top 10... So it isn't like he chose poorly.
So Varuna Averaged 7th out of 36. The lone PanO player snuck in behind them at 22nd but the low survey count means it's pretty negligible to draw conclusions from. NCA shows at 24th and the small SAA cluster at 28th. MO takes the rear at 32nd on average. What we as PanO can take away from this? Varuna is strong not only in representation but also placement very comfortably. Easily makes its argument to be considered our top dog and the more nuanced ones have been made time and again on these forums and in real life. Not much can be said about our Vanilla faction other than it's the least popular present. NCA performed well enough for an old sectorial. A bit on the tail end of the midfield, but not horrible. SAA had few players and is on the back slide. It could be that Varuna's sex appeal draws players away from SAA and NCA. This would make sense as there is some overlap in design appeal and playstyle of these factions, but most armies that placed above them certainly make strong cases for flexibility and possibly played better to the missions. MO sadly isnt bucking any trends. Most aggregate data is showing it placing towards the bottom and Rumble shows no difference. The most startling thing is Combined Army is below it. Morats are dragging along dead last which again conforms with other aggregates. If we accept FC as an outlier MO is 4th from last eaking out Caledonia for its spot. It's the second most played PanO sectorial played with just under half of Varuna. This lends some weight to its placement and its style and look set it well apart from the rest making bleed off less likely. It's sad that armies which supposedly were updated recently still bottoming out as hard as ever.
