Removing vanilla from competitive play solves such a large proportion of N4 balance issues that I wouldn't feel the need initially introduce any further house rules. I normally run events with heavy customizations, part of the appeal of this format is that I wouldn't have to--modifications to the competitive ruleset are quite controversial and divisive in the community at the moment. It's just far from ideal, so I wouldn't recommend tournament organizers do this across the board, at all. People will still want to run units that can only be used in Vanilla. This is a niche event thing.
No problem at all, thanks for answering! Modifications to the competitive ruleset are indeed controversial at the minute, in my own local community they’ve been the reason for a few tempers flaring. It’ll be interesting here to see the sectorials facing off. I have seen it suggested somewhere (possibly here or on discord, my memory fails at where exactly) that the inverse be applied and that only vanilla be played. I feel though that this would take the game back to a mythic time where dinosaurs roamed the earth and “hitherto came Conan, sword in hand…” and would certainly see some armies well at the head of the pack. Please let us know when the event occurs. I’m going to have to pick a sectorial to root for…
I'll be after our July mini-campaign. For this next event, players will ONLY be able to choose between White Banner or SWF ;) It's called TeamBattle: Kaldstrom. Basically, everyone on the WB team vs everyone on the SWF team, over three rounds of play (on snow-themed maps). Fun fun fun.
Sounds great! I’ll keep an eye out for it. I’ll have to root for SWF though. White Banner has failed me for the last time. Admittedly it’s more to do with me being terrible with them and the dice gods hating me but my SWF has had much better luck.
You should also allow players on both sides to play White Company, since they're the Sval mercenary force.
Remove vanillas so the fair and balanced Hassassin Bahram can finally be playable in the current meta. /s
I don’t know about CB, but Wyrd seems to get a good deal of sales out of producing alternate sculpts and unnecessary alternate versions of existing models as a sales mechanic. “Demoting” some of the existing profiles to alternate sculpts of other troops, and implementing shared AVA schemes really needs to happen to keep the profiles under control. Then, if vanilla really needs an advantage, it can get something like “No command token needed for coordinated orders.”
Keeping track of the last post it looks like a great majority thinks that Sectorial are better than Vainillas? Or I'm missing something? Vainilla vs Sectorial question hast a big big "depend" implicit, not all sectorial are on the same level of some Vainilla and viceversa. Taking in consideration what I usually play (or face) I feel bolt enough to say: Vainilla Pano is far far below any of the Pano Sectorials. To me is allways, what I want to play? On what sectorial can I find it? Vainilla Pano has only one reason to be played, SoF extra + Joan. Vainilla Haquisslam is right now amazing, far superior to Qapu and Ramah, but equal to Hassasin. Kosmo is a little over Vainilla Ariadna, but the Vainilla is on same level as TAK. Later come Usarf, Caledonia and in backvagon, poor Merovinge. Yujing sadly I haven't enough imput. Aleph, you can play pretty much any option without problems, you will be competitive, only with different styles. Nomads I feel vainilla on same level as Tunguska better than Bakunin, but a little below Corregidor. CA Vainilla is far superior to any CA Sectorial, and probably superior to any other army. Later, the CA sectorial are all in a really good place. To me the simpliest solution of this "issue with sectorial vs vainilla" were "sectorials with profiles which didn't go into Vainilla", this will make things a lot simlplier plus facilitate the desing decissions and testing. This is something CB did but they are to shy doing it.
Agree. Just apart from the serious quality Irregulars PanO has now to pair with Joan, their duos post-fireteam update are seriously compelling. There's a lot more you can do with Vanilla PanO today than there used to be.
I don't deny that PanoVainilla is now in a better place than it was before the Fireteam changes, the general power downgrade in ARO terms will do good to our "shooters", but it was exactly the same for others shooters from others armies. So isn't something special for Pano, but all vainillas. About the duos it is something really good to have, now you can have TAG+engeneer or a bulleteer with repeater to bring some extra protection to ours big guys. So, of course we are now in a better place than before :) I wish I have the same feeling, but maybe my lack of use for the option Joan+Irregulars makes me not to see the same as you do, because this is the only combination of "Joan + Irregulars" without SoF. I don't see any irregular there which stands up or it will better than the irregular ones in others armies. We only have truly two irregular pure Pano (Helot+TechBee). This is the cheapest orders pool we can have using Joan, 7 orders for 83 points... 8 fusiliers are cheaper and are one order up, in this kind of strategic with Joan, if we lose her, our pool dissapear. Yes, maybe we could put one chain of comand, but this only will do expensier the "joan choice". The need to include heavy guys (and expensive) to take advantage of the "cheap orders", we find ourselfs playing close to limited insertion, probably not reaching the 15 slots, so I don't see the point to play Joan instead. ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1 4 1 MONSTRUCKER Subfusil, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistola, Arma CC. (0 | 12) TECH-BEE (Operativo Especialista, Desactivador) Pulso Flash ( | GizmoKit) / Pistola, Arma CC PARA(-3). (0 | 5) WARCOR (Visor 360º) Pulso Flash ( ) / Pistola Aturdidora, Arma CC PARA(-3). (0 | 3) CAZARRECOMPENSAS Subfusil, Chain-colt(+1R) / Pistola, Arma CC PARA(-6). (0 | 8) JUANA DE ARCO (Teniente) Fusil MULTI, Nanopulser / Pistola, Arma CC EXP. (+1 | 45) 0 CAP | 65 Puntos Abrir en Infinity Army ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1 6 1 MONSTRUCKER Subfusil, Chain Rifle, Drop Bears / Pistola, Arma CC. (0 | 12) TECH-BEE (Operativo Especialista, Desactivador) Pulso Flash ( | GizmoKit) / Pistola, Arma CC PARA(-3). (0 | 5) WARCOR (Visor 360º) Pulso Flash ( ) / Pistola Aturdidora, Arma CC PARA(-3). (0 | 3) CAZARRECOMPENSAS Subfusil, Chain-colt(+1R) / Pistola, Arma CC PARA(-6). (0 | 8) JUANA DE ARCO (Teniente) Fusil MULTI, Nanopulser / Pistola, Arma CC EXP. (+1 | 45) CAZABESTIAS FTO (Minador) Lanzallamas Pesado, Panzerfaust, Minas AP / Pistola, Arma CC DA. (0 | 9) MILICIANO ILOTA (Camuflaje [1 Uso]) Subfusil, Lanzacohetes Ligero / Pistola, Arma CC. (0.5 | 9) 0.5 CAP | 83 Puntos Abrir en Infinity Army Maybe the thing is that Pano, specially vainilla, isn't my play style anymore
To be fair, this isn't really an issue with the army as much as it's an issue with Impersonation being one of the most absurd skills in the game and the fact that it survived unmolested in the transition to N4 is just baffling. The impact and the cost of the skill is, quite frankly, broken. I still take greater issue with Jaan Staar. Like he is the apotheosis of everything wrong with the Impersonator skill. Uxia and Kitsune have built their entire identity around infiltrating deep, yet they come with actual risks and downsides and even order intensities and along comes profiles like Jaan Staar and laughs at them with no downside nor lacking in any lethality.
Vanilla Pano is looking really interesting now. Even without Joan, I lean towards thinking it would be stronger than its sectorials just because you can bring your favourite TAG plus all the best cheap tools. But I haven't tried it. Vanilla Yu Jing IMO is clearly better than its sectorials. Kosmoflot has so many of the best Ariadna tools that it's almost Vanilla with fireteams, so I can see the argument for it being better than Vanilla. Having played Vanilla Haqq and HB for a year each in N4, IMO Vanilla was the stronger of the two even before the fireteam update. But they were close. I haven't played HB post-update but to me it looks significantly nerfed, so my money's firmly on Vanilla now. I don't play Nomads but I find the majority view that Vanilla is strongest to be persuasive. Vanilla CA is obviously better than its sectorials and probably also better than any other faction. Aleph I have no experience or opinion. Tohaa is better than Spiral and O12 is better than Starmada, I think is the consensus.
Hmm. Difficult to say. I’ve played all of pano recently (except acontecimento) but they were all against the same opponent with the same army (he uses TAC). I found the availability of vanilla insane and being able to run duo plus Joan and irregulars for orders was really useful but I’m not sure vanilla out performed some of the sectorials especially when shooting. The haris and core bonuses meant that my neoterra and Varuna were incredibly good shots and there was a great amount of order efficiency. I’ll have to run vanilla more but I’ll certainly agree that it does have all the toys which could easily give it the edge over its sectorials when facing some armies.
Depends on what you consider to be gutting. Any one-size-fits-all solution similar to Bravery or Tactical Ride has a tendency to hit unevenly. What if they made vanilla with flavoured sprinkles? Want Shaolin, well they hate the practice of Kuang Shi so better leave those at home. What if sectorials are so characterful that that's where you'll find the characters (typically)? There's only one (non-action doll) Joan and only two confirmed Knauf, and they can only be on so many planets under so many generals at once, after all.
Reducing Vanilla PanO to only Joan is probably the worst thing you can do. Can you run a Joan list in Vanilla? Definitely, better than MO at that. Is every list better with Joan? Hell no. Joan gives your list a massive weakpoint. You're probably cramming a bunch of expendable troops into your list to use as Regular Order monkeys and you pay Joan's full cost for that and a free coordinated Order. Now that's not bad, but you just don't need it by default. Just take more expensive but already Regular troops instead and divide Joan's cost to improve your baseline and upgrade your gunners. Krakots, Acon Regulars, Auxilia, Diggers, that's 8 effective ways to fill slots with Regular Orders that aren't dependant on Inspiring Leadership and can pull some weight. Pick up a TAG of your choice, Uma, a HD ARO piece, Engineer and TR Bots and you're getting somewhere.
Plus you get to feel really fucking stupid when someone hurls a Pitcher across the table turn 1 and Oblivions her. Now your 6-7 Irregular troops you picked are Irregular forever and have fucked up your combat groups for the next 3 turns. Well done.
