The reason I call Hacking trouble for NCA is because almost all its key tools are Hackable. All its most mobile Specialists are Hackers, its best midfield units are REMs and HI, the key gunners in mixed links are all Hackable too. If you opt out of the Hacking game with NCA you give up so much that you're leaning on the Bolt link to win the game for you. This means you have to actually put up a Hacking opposition against the obnoxious UPGRADE-equipped Hackers certain other factions get, or learn to get around their coverage with Markers and positioning. It's rewarding as hell when you get the balance right, but it takes a long time to learn. Personally I lean on sacrificial Auxilia FOs for early button pushing and trades in midfield, with the Hexa and Swiss Hackers for trickier objective play or even a Locust KHD if the enemy's whole Hacking grid leans on one Hacker- throwing up Cybermask and just shooting the git works wonders, though it often eats a whole turn and kills the Locust. Even in less-Hacking-oriented lists it's worth including a Fusilier Hacker just to turn your REMs into restrictive hazards until your opponent marches their KHD up and fries him. Or you can just let the Bolts win the game by themselves. They seriously can do that if your opponent doesn't use the right tools to avoid or eliminate them, but it's a bad idea to rely on your opponent messing up.
1) This thread of Pano improvement ideas getting side tracked into Nomad complaints is just what the Corregidor wants. 2) Corregidor has a weakness! They are a bunch of ex-convicts that can't follow rules or direction. That means their leadership/chain of command options are lacking as sectorial. That also means they don't follow the rules about their sectorial needing to be balanced.
Considering I’m known around my community as THE PanO guy. I love PanO and this thread in no way intended to complain. It’s main function is to Put a spotlight on a Hidden Deployed Elephant in the room. Give Players an opportunity to list realistic design spaces that PanO players would be happy to accept if CB borrowed said ideas for future updates. Enable brainstorming ways that Players can lean into the current design space through experimentation. PanO is still capable. The meta has shifted and people have learned how to factor in dealing with PanO link teams. We’re in the state where we should be going back to basics on how to win or forcing people into engaging in a ftf to achieve their goals while layering it to set us up for success for the next fight.
I'll shamelessly share link to my own previous thread on it ;) https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/pano-reimagined.41066/ Regarding #4: I agree that PanO is still a very capable army. The question of whether it's due to PanO design still being solid or due to the robustness of the core game rules is open, but the effect is that I never felt the faction being left behind power-wise. My main issue leading me to leaving the faction was lack of fun factor when compared to other army choices. A point on hacking: of all armies, Acontecimento is quite a powerhouse in this regard. This is because of the inclusion of Aleph units, but still.
I got to say while we still put up a fight, we have slunk back a bit with the new link teams. Acon remains the ever present oddball of PanO design. I wish they didn't have to go to Aleph for help nearly as much as they do and had some more of their own specialists. Scylla single handedly defines the hacking power of that sectorial.
That she does, though I always was a fan of this PanO/Aleph integration. I don't think PanO needs to do everything in-house, and having a fair number of loaners from Aleph allows access to some more interesting units, helps to keep total PanO unit count a bit lower (though at five sectorials it seems a losing battle), and is fully fluff-justified. In raw power, sure, but almost everyone else did too. And new rules allow for some greater flexibility, like having a Regular Haris as a base for a small team dedicated for some specific task. This is something I wanted to see for a long time now. Though, as I stated before, it'd be good to see greater integration of remotes in PanO fireteams.
I have followed the thread since it started, but I have a lack of time those months, so I can't take the time I wish to bring something valuable on the table, so I will be quick. Acontecimento is in a good place. Corvus did a really good job back there. A one like the village of Asterix and Obelix, remains playable and fun despite the efforts of Corvus to make Pano something "plane" and "boring" :P I'm with @Stiopa about the "fun factor" almost to 100%, but I left Aco and probably MO aside. But if I focus on Winterforce, for example, I found myself playing games where at least one of us hasn't any fun, because I kill everything he send me, or I lost my main pieces in active turn or ARO and I can do nothing but watch how the enemy wins. So, no fun because anyone ended the game with no capacity to play. To make it short: if the Pano shooters don't get jammed, Pano will win the game with the enemy dispair, if not, the Pano player will los the game. Balanced matches are something odd for Winter, Varuna, NCO or Vainilla.
I'm somehow surpised beyond everything that the PETA didn't nuke us all yet, seeing how much we are flogging this dead horse. Answer to one question is yes and to other is no. I let you guess which answer goes to which question ;P
Which is actually bad for PanO, as our single units (but NCA) are not that usefull and ifferent (in terms of capabilities) from that guys in Harris. We cannot have some different tools/abilities split between various units. So the fact that you do not always need to bring full CORE is not that usefull for us.
If I had the opportunity to add one recreation to PanO it’d be General John Monash. Special rules would be Engineer, Strategos and Sapper. At the very least. Not sure on his weapons load out or stats. But he is one person I feel PanO can justify the Strategos rule.
For me it’s the glaring lack of uniquely cool units to use. Where is our equivalent to Nourkias? Our bearpode? Our asiwara? Our andromeda? Our Ko-Dali. Is it any surprise Pano players keep leaving for foreign company? We lack seriously cool units that play to our faction strengths that make you go ‘ooh yeah, bring it on’ when you deploy them. We lack the utility of other factions and thus can’t even outshoot our opponents these days so don’t really have that to enjoy either. I’d say rework all the nonsense units people don’t use. Like who is going to pay 23p for Quinn? A barely upgraded fusilier. Or a KOJ for 15 more points than a hospitaller it is barely better than when even the hospitaller is questionable. This is the nonsense we deal with.
Your opinion obviously varies, but others could point to Bagh Mari, Tikbalangs, Guarda de Assalto, Aquila Guard, Bolts, Uhlans, Vargar, Karhu, Joan, Knights of Santiago, ORCs, Kamau, Zulu Cobras, Echo Bravos… not fitting your bill doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
I'd blame the continuing presence of strong weaknesses in PanO's design that aren't adequately compensated in its strengths any more. PanO has some of the game's worst access to Orders (almost no TacAware, very few Impetuous, no LT2 or Strategos, but a couple NCOs are nice) combined with one of the slowest armies in the game, mix that with how minor the shooting advantage is these days and you get an army that simply can't compete in the increasingly Order-intensive, alpha strike-heavy ITS environment. We've got cool stuff, but outside a few Knights it just doesn't work. If anything, we need a few more solid objective-grabbers to free up points for that fun stuff to shine; I've had frankly weird amounts of success bringing three Locusts with my NCA but they cost a third of my points.
True that, but, take away the units that other faction have their own near identical version of and what are we left with? Joan, who without inspiring leadership is just a Good HI shooter who will immediately be locked up by a good player and can’t push buttons. And the guard de Assaulto; where you stop and think, huh, what does this guy actually accomplish in the mission— and then you take someone else instead. Those two fill the same roster slot, except Joan is inherently better so you will take her. And that is Pano. Being there doesn’t mean they bring such a massive and integral resource to your army that you think ‘I can’t wait to spend orders on THAT guy.’ We are very one dimensional, and the game has evolved to a degree where that dimension is easier to use against us that it is for us.
^This. Like I always say, it’s easier to use Pano weaknesses against them than it is for them to use their strengths. In this game of Rock Paper Scissors, we are playing rock paper paper. With such low Wip, and such sparse hackers or deployment options like camo/AD+parachutist/HD or even forward deploying, we really struggle to nail the objective of the game itself. I would want to rework all the more useless units we have into tools to permit A pano play-style.
I agree with this assessment, as well as with the one about PanO - with its specialised units - not changing much, while others did caught up. Seems like the designers didn't get the memo that higher stat isn't a tiebreaker since N3. Seriously though, PanO needs changes made by someone with a clear idea what to do with them. With five sectorials it's a crowded faction, I'd very much prefer to see some culling instead of expanding its roster ad nauseum.
Where is Haqqislams Aquila Guard? Or Yu Jings Bolts? I think its good to see that not all factions have equivalents of all units. But I also think, I got your point. And Uma isn´t it ;-) Me double the price of a Fusi FO: Gun with 24" BS 13 Visor L1 WIP 13 FO Wildcard - thats above "barley". Totaly agree here. GdA is an very old unit concept. A HI with good shooting and an auxbot is not bad per se, but this is a very plain HI and 40 pts is a slap in the face when you take a glimpse to Asawira or Evaders for example. It has BS 15 and a bot. Point. Finish. Forward deployment? Dodge+X? FO? SO? Anything?
