I think you hit the bone. Sometimes when we are complaining about something it looks like if we were complaining about "not be able to win", which isn't in fact the point. Matches and Tournaments can be won with Pano, nobody denies that, the thing is that right now it looks like Pano only can win in what I call the "break point", Pano manages to do so much harm to the rival, that is unable to win, or Pano breaks against the enemy, so is unable to win. The thing is that you can win only "achieving this break point", which in fact all others armies can do. So, being Pano in that point, reducing resources for Pano on that thing that allows Pano to win feel not well. And this is all about.
I played Starmada, before and after the changes in N4 (but not the last ones), in fact I played a lot of starmada in early n4 . And it worked. Yes, it wasn't so strong as his "vainilla army", but it has some tools really interesting. I was and I'm in love with crushers, I played 3 of them, and they worked. I'm not a fan for midfield profiles without camo access because they have a "target" on the back, but crushers have the tools to survive. NWI, Mimetism, shock immunity... A bunch of tools that allow to survive or at least to have big chances to do it, against cheaper lighshotgunned midfield enemy profiles. Yes, it has a lot of issues, some of them similar to pano, but people with chain, smoke and berskerk did a lot of work. Even 2 kind of parachutist (nyoka and crusher)... Kappa hacker... 12 points. Yes, similarities, but still the gap is really big. Of course, I don't want to have every faction doing the same. Isn't the point of the complaints. :)
You are probably reading it in an entirely different, or wrong, way than what it was written. What I said, and it has nothing to do with the nerf, despite the thread, is that in many cases for an army to work, a player needs to find the way the army will work for their preferred playstyle and meta, or find how the army works, because it happens if one plays a particular army or faction a lot to be stuck in that army/ faction mentality and try to play a new faction or army in a way they are not supposed to be played.
And thats why Lady Numiria, me, and others have moved on to playing O-12. Its literally Pano but with nice things. lol So many of their units are a side grade (sometimes straight upgrades) to a classic Pano unit. And so many of the complaints we Pano vets have about the faction are addressed in O-12. The biggest downside to O-12 was their sectorial kind of sucked but the new update fixed a lot of the issues it had.
You could say that, they feel like a spicier? (not sure what word to use) version of PanO, they are definitely different, but feel quite similar too.
Spicier Pano is a great word to use for O-12. lol The most important advantage O-12 has over Pano is that they have a lot more tools for winning ITS missions or any other tournament format. Shout out to white company, the 6th Pano sectorial. Its main weakness is a lot of pricey 1 wound units but its another sectorial that does a good job of giving you a lot of options that normal Pano just lacks. Heres hoping we see a shock army revival thats has as many new units as Bakunin just got. And if all the nomad sectorials have gotten MSV 2 units, I want Shock Army to get one too.
Ok, but that would not only put out of context what I said, but it would also put the wrong context too.
Hyperbole begets hyperbole… an increase of a few points on a single unit being denounced as an “insulting nerf” could be construed as “thought terminating” as well. And, well, approaching a situation via the lens of “how do I work through/around this?” rather than “IT’S THE APOCALYPSE!!!” can ofttimes lead to solutions rather than salt.
Approaching a situation logically and with thought… heresy. You’re talking common sense here @A Mão Esquerda and that’s not allowed… I jest of course. Now, what else did I miss on my forum sabbatical?
If your proposed solution for my army not doing what it's advertised to do is "buy another faction", you have a poor grasp of the problem. To be clear, I don't even want "nice things" for PanO, I just want the playstyle it is very clearly sold around to be supported by the game, or for its units to be designed to make those tactics viable. I don't want O12; I find many of its medium and heavy infantry to be gaudy and over-decorated, its focused and optimised profiles don't leave much room for improvisation and the faction leans far too much on Characters for variety in its playstyle (though I was very tempted by Bluecoats and the Skirmishers; great miniatures). I enjoy PanO. I like to play my NCA. I'd just like to not play at a massive disadvantage because CB forgot to provide any reason for most armies to get within line of sight of each other. Hell, I don't even use Bulleteers much anymore; usually my best solo pieces are Hackable so I need to keep the Fireteams biological in case I have to play against Hackers, since the Hexa KHD can't actually kill much anymore.
Oh. Ah....I think you made a mistake here. I understand fully the fustration Pano players feel over the multi year longer term stagnation of the faction. We dont get all new ways to play, it all involves shooting the enemy dead. If that doesnt work, you lose. My post was mostly a response to Eciu "just make it work" comment and A Mão Esquerda post. And my response was a simple why bother with that when I already got the modern version of Pano I wished existed. Its called O-12 so I jumped ship (Also white company). lol Of course, my vision of an ideal Pano is not every players ideal. Its ok to still speak on wanting improvements to your favorite faction. I've always loved NCA too even if its always been the epitome of Pano, shoot everything dead and if that doesnt work you lose. I suppose you could say that after playing this game on and off for almost two decades now (I'm an old man vet from when this game was just a teaser website of Pano and Yu Jing models lol), I have just given up hope that Pano will get major updates that expand our options that other factions get (nomads). Maybe if CB gets around to updating Varuna or reviving Shock Army we shall get that.
Winterfor is literally the Karhu keeping it all together. There isn't a single other thing in that Sectorial that has good synergy, it's all just Karhu propping things up enough to make the rest work.
Funny thing about this attitude (and picture which nicely summarise it), is that beyond being stupid opinion (stupid as there is no way to falsify such "argument"), you can use it in every time context/discussion (hopefully proving how stupid it is in the process of doing so). "idea acceleration method" FTW!
"How I did it make work? Playing it like it was Pano, but with worse BS, no hidden deployment, no superior -6 Mimetism pieces, no marker state, no ability for null deployment, no midfield, and deployment zone bound" - Andromeda, Casanova, Crushers and Nyokas are all excellent troops that you seem to have overlooked in your assessment. They are all stellar specialists who start up the board, who also happen to be very dangerous 0-1swc attack pieces. Andromeda in particular is just light years away from what NCA has access to in this deparment. - Starmada has very good shooting. If it's not quite the equal of NCA you can forgive them, as NCA is the best shooting faction in the game. - While NCA has access to two camo/HD specialists, they're both hackable, slow, and start in your DZ, and one of them is very expensive. Like 10pts-off-a-Zeta expensive. Playing the mission is hard with NCA, unlike Starmada (especially now, wow, what a glow up they've received!) Starmada has some of the very best command units in the game for order efficiency, and even before Sarko and Roadbot, had great midfielders (and smoke, warbands, C+, hacking w/pitchers, close combat specialists, etc) to play the mission. It's not all doom and gloom for NCA, especially with that ava1 garuda that is so clutch for them. I like NCA and rate them, but Spectral Owl's assessment is spot on the money. I really like both Starmada and NCA and play them both, even though they're not setting the competitive scene alight (although Starmada may be about to now). Starmada is better at missions than NCA by some margin, however. And that's what wins you games, as Spectral Owl pointed out.
If you have not tried to make it work, how do you even know it does not work? To be frank I played bolts from when everybody said they were useless and had good results with them then, have good results with them now that everybody says they are good, what "works" is subjective affected by player preference, player style, local meta.
