Great content. Subscribing to this. I tried to play with NCA but I had much worst results than I had with generic and OM. But I am determined to keep trying and be competitive with the Capitaline Army, so this is very interesting. Most people new to Neoterra I've met tend to think it is just like play generic PanO, and just adding a fusiliers fireteam. I tried this and wasn't satisfied. Then I tried bolts fireteam, but I found it too weak and expensive (compared to a Santiago link anwyay) and I was almost traumatized. Reading this makes you realize how much NCA diverges from generic, beyond the obvious fireteam options. So I will give it a try again and use this tactica. However, it's still a bit sad to read about Bolts being very niche and mostly second to fusiliers. The models are so beautiful it just hurts. Also, my group of players call me tropical when I play the hacker Swiss guard, but reading this just encourages me to play it more... They also laughed at my hacker father knight at first. Now they fear it. About your content, it's great to read so much detail about every troop and how it can work with others. It would be very useful to have more group tactics, sinergies and lists. As in see how to play NCA as a whole. Great work and thanks.
This is a pretty great article and gives some nice ideas on how to use the units.There is one thing I am wondering about, why isn't there anything written about the Mulebots?
What do you want to know about poorer Fugazi brothers or what actually is "only EVO device" or "worse TR drone" ?
Why actually is the poorer Fugazi brothers? Why is it a worse TR drone? Why do you want a EVO device? Not everyone has the time and patience to search everything that is to know about the all the units and this Tactica is a great help for these kind of people. So that is why I was wondering why they weren't included.
Lack of any reliable self defence ? Big silluete so it's hard to hide it. Lack of defensive abilites (Fugazi has nice mimetism). It's really usefull in few scenarios when you have to secure area with points, but usually only if you have already killed every nearby enemy as it will die to anything (dodging on 7s is not fun). Because for 4 pts and 1 SWC you upgrade combi to HMG (which is usually superior weapon for drone, as you really don't want to be close and personal with drones unless they have HFT), AND 360 visor. It's more of "EVO device" than drone itself. ATM. it's only source of EVO and has nothing beyond that, so it's whole description boils down to aftermentioned EVO device. On top of Baggage skill (and it's reload, or Med-EVAC) is underused/underneeded (unless you play some skeved Nomads CrazyKoala list) or happen to have "unloaded" guy nearby the baggage bot. And Minesweeper skill is so highly situational (as you still have to discover mines) that unless Imetron/Netrod lands in front of your Muleboot it's usually better just to shoot it (or use some guy to "disarm" the mine).
Also it would be interesting if Minesweeper (as it is only present on drones afaik) would be reworked to true "sapper&defuse" equipment, which allowed the drone not to trigger mines/Koalas/perimeter weapon so it actually can use it's 8" range band. And/or not need LoF to use this equipment. We could at least have some reliable dedicated anti "castle defense" option....
Pretty sure we agree that you take may AVA Fugazi before thinking about Baggage Bots. However they are 8 points Regular Orders and Baggage is very useful for scoring, Retreat threshold and surviving Army points. My NCA, Vanilla and MO lists include them very often. SAA not so much... simce AVA Total Regulars are a thing there.
Yes I also use them often (in MO), but I constantly wish they were Fugazis ;) As I've noted, Baggage is usefull in "zones" missions, though at least in my experience Baggage was not deciding factor so far. Again as a cheerleader they are good if you don't have other options (so mostly MO, as NCA usually have enough of "cheap orders" with AVA5 Fusiliers and AVA3 Fugazis, on top of Warcor and Techbee).
Also on Retreat!: actually I think (or at least that's my exeperience) that Retreat! is more of a problem of the other guy than the one who ends up Retreat! I never had exeriepnce that staying out of Retreat! was beneficial for the player, most often it was reverse: "alive" player was prevented for pushing his advance too much as the mission could finish immiedietly not allowing him to score maximum/more points/objectives. That's exactly what had happened in my last 3 tournament games :D
@Titus Yes, working on more content about good listbuilding combinations, as well as input for things like deployment, objective-oriented scenarios, zone domination missions, etc. More to come. I agree too that NCA is a very, very different beast from Vanilla. I'm an awful Vanilla PanO player, I've never really made them click and have never had an real success. Regarding Bolts: if you like them, use them. They can be made to work. @Swordbrethren Mules are coming. I hit the max character count for my first post, so had to slice off a couple of units just to make everything fit.
Writeup for Mules is done, I just need to resize and upload the unit insignia. Just to chime in on the ongoing discussion; Minesweeper was very cool when it was an all-or-nothing ability; you could walk into a mine or Koalas area of effect, then pass a WIP check to nullify the hit and take control of the equipment. The current mode is unfortunate, since it's never Order efficient. The only time I use it now is basically when something goes wrong for my opponent; either he carelessly leaves a mine/koala in close LoF of my minesweeper, or a Netrod scatters way off target and into easy Line of Sight. Reloading is a big deal for some armies, though less so for NCA. Bolt players can use them to lay some defensive Bears near the DZ, then reload before walking into the midfield.
With Panzerfaust and Koalas out my ears I should be one of them but I still can't find the orders to use it.
Great Writeup. It might be worth including on the Fugazi section that flashpulse is a technical weapon and to not let the lower than average BS trick you. It's an easy rule to miss. I certainly did, and it took me to actually begrudgingly using one and having an opponent point it out to me to realise how good they were.
It happened to me in my last tourney too. It's so unintuitive, but I get they want to punish 'just kill em all' as a strategy to win every mission regardless of objective.
It wouldn't be that bad if PanO only tool wasn't "shoot everyone" ^^ You cannot just "smoke objective and capture" it like most factions can, you actually have to attack and kill enemy guy watching it.
PanO special ITS rule, putting the enemy into retreat automatically gives the PanO player a full 10 points :p
Is that general consensus? Entering Suppressive Fire is an order the Auxbot can't do, so only the Auxilia himself enters it. But using Suppressive Fire as your actual ARO is just a regular shoot order with a special modifier like Anti-material or Stun Mode. So I don't see a reason why the Auxilia should be unable to use the Combi Rifle in Suppressive Fire mode as his Shoot ARO while the Auxbot uses its Heavy Flamethrower with its Shoot ARO.
It's not a general consensus, and I think I wrote that at a time when the issue was being questioned a bit more. I do agree with your conclusion (I've been playing it that way myself lately) so I'm going to update the entry to reflect this. Thanks for the good edit!
Really fascinating guide and some rather interesting ( And pleasantly unbiased/not-overbearing. ) points for several of the units. Granted, I am not ( yet ) a PanOceania player, but PanO is rather prevalent in my local area, with a good few people playing it and it's sectorials ( I have felt what it feels like to have your order pool gutted turn 1 because of a Squalos. ), so seeing some stuff about the faction is still useful to me. Great work, good luck on any future guides. P.S.: The Acontecimento guide was equally as good ( I just think I'd like NCA more. Feels more like what I'd prefer. So that's why I commented here.) P.P.S.: Also, may I ask if you have any plans on doing a similar guide for Military Orders sometime in the future?
