Varuna First N4 all comers list - your thoughts?

Why only 7 orders with Squalo ?

 

There are a few things going on in the list that I'm not just sure about in N4. At the very least though, I'd try to get to 15 Orders. VIRD desperately needs them.

 

You want 15 Troopers. The Lt order and Tac Aware order don't count in this figure.

Balanced groups don't make sense here because the strength of the attack pieces isn't balanced. The increases in the power of a piece with order count aren't linear, they get additionally stronger with each additional order. If you go first with this list, your Squalo will only have 6 orders. If you rearrange combat groups, you can guarantee that it has at least 9.

 

So you can get at least two more Regular Orders into the list.

He's saying you should.

I'd ditch that Bulleteer with shotgun and grab a regular Fusilier (for Fireteam redundancy) and another Fugazi.

That will, at least, bring you up to 14 orders + your extra from the Squalo.

 

Just from looking at that list I can guess that this is a list built out of a few boxes, trying to stay as true as is practical to the needed models. I'll try to account for this assumption in my analysis.

It'll be solid for play in small local tournaments and casual games, but I'll echo the sentiment from everyone else that you want at least the Squalo's group at full capacity and ideally a full 15 orders, if you can manage it. Keep a small group 2 for the Machinist's use and to fill the Squalo's group later in the game and you should be fine.

The obvious advantages you have with that list are a very resilient Core link with excellent gunners and plenty of redundancy, a tough Squalo to carry your offense, and an adequate yet safe investment into objectives thanks to the speed of the Pathfinder and Squalo and the Croc's Hidden Deployment. Its weaknesses are Hacking-based attacks and defenses (you've got plenty of Repeaters and Hackables but only one Hacker, who is bar none the worst in the game in terms of quality and your only active defense in this area) and being quite vulnerable to anything that gets in close, especially troops with DTWs like Flamethrowers.

In terms of objective coverage, you're fairly good, but will have difficulty with some Classified Objectives; namely the ones requiring you to heal a Wound (a Fusilier Paramedic with lots of Light Infantry won't be reliable), win two CC combats (your best bets are beating up targets Stunned by your Flash Pulses, or dicing off against weak targets with the Squalo) and taking MI or HI into the enemy's side of the board (you have none). This is generally fine, as it's unlikely you'll have to do any of these thanks to the Classified Objective selection mechanic.

If you're trying to win tournaments and price isn't an object, definitely listen to the others who've posted above and try to get more cheap REMs like Fugazis and some extra Fusiliers (or proxy them). High order counts are particularly important for PanO in general because of the lack of shortcuts and tricks in the faction; you must typically walk and shoot your way from the DZ to the scenario objective over the course of the game, which drains many more orders than most other approaches.

I'd recommend checking out the stickied TAG primer at the top of the PanO subforum too. It's outdated, but still has some good tips that you'll want to know when driving a Squalo list.

 

The previous posts do a good job of summarizing the points I would make myself. I think the individual units you've included are excellent. I worry a bit about some of the defensive gaps in the list, but I don't think that's really a dealbreaker as far as you taking this list and putting it on the table. I do believe that more orders will work to your benefit though. Let us know how it goes, if you get a chance to play soon!

 

Here's the kind of thing I would be considering myself:



That probably still wants some tweaking of the groups, but captures the kind of build you could run with if you wanted to get good use out of the concepts you are building towards with the Croc Sniper instead of a second Kamau.

 

Fusilier FOs aren't quite the ARO machines they once were, but a Flash Pulse is still a good option to have available for halting an attack run. They are, obviously, also specialists and offer the potential to do some Classified Objectives, and I like to have my options covered there. But I'm also a fan of the Deployable Repeaters, and I've often found them surprisingly useful (especially combined with a Hacker in the Fireteam and one out).

The Zulu Cobra is an all-purpose specialist for missions, good light combat unit, and anti-Hacking all rolled into one package. I'd always want something like that on the table, especially if I have a high value unit like a TAG to protect. A Camo skirmisher like that, especially deployed up where it will be covered by the hard ARO of the linked Kamau, is always useful.

Actually, you could even rebuild that list above by cutting the Bulleteer, adding two Helot Camo LRLs and a PalBot for the Trauma Doc, pulling the Fugazi from Group 1 to Group 2 and putting the Machinist and Trauma Doc up into Group 1 instead. That would give you a dedicated ARO Group 2 which you don't care about losses from to act as a screen for your Group 1 active combat and mission component.

Then you stick out a Fugazi covering one angle up to the Kamau, and layer the Croc Sniper to cover the same lane (and another angle direct onto the Kamau if you can) and ambush whatever moves up to take out the "easy ARO".

 

If you want to use the Bulleteer as a key attack piece I'd make sure to run an EVO Mulebot, so you can use supportware to give it Marksmanship. It's not what it once was, but it's still a significant shift in its offensive potential.

Don't write the Squalo off, it's a solid attack piece, has defensive potential (especially for scenarios which include saturation zones or tables with forested areas) and the Grenade Launcher is a useful option. But if you want to lean into it I'd look at investing in forward repeaters (Peacemakers and the Croc Man FO with Deployable Repeaters) and a decent Hacking presence so you can Spotlight targets and a Clipper to do Smart Missile fire as well.

 

I also agree that Peacemaker, Croc FO, and two Fusilier Hackers are good staples for that setup. They're also just generally useful units too... The role they fill is helpful beyond firing with the Squalo. but the Squalo is obviously a good way to make that Spotlight actually feel threatening.

 

Having see this in action from the point of view of the defender (one of our locals is running Vanilla Nomads and leaning heavily into Guided Missile Launcher) you probably want more than the one Hacker if you want it to come off reliably. Just a Fusilier Hacker trying to Spotlight is likely to chew through a lot of orders. Our local Nomad was using three Hackers, all better than that, and Coordinated Orders to ensure he got the Spotlight off.

If I was going to lean into that side of things I'd probably build something like this: