You have to get rid of the LOF requirement or nobody will ever use this skill. It's the main problem with it. Because of the nature of leaving cover and getting shot at by shit which gets you killed, and the inherent low burst in CC it's not viable for models to actually assault jack shit. Light troops like Oniwabans, even if they had assault, would just have smoke thrown on the target first. Heavy troops like a Father Knight are just gonna fire their shotgun at BS20 or some shit instead. If you take away the LOF requirement this rule will at least find some use in increasing order efficiency for CC troopers who are normally excessively order inefficient. Why spend 2 orders walking at someone to stab them with a different model can shitblast them with a gun with one order?
MO is hardly bottom tier. There are way worst sectorials such as MAF and USArf. Yes, I rate USArf bellow MO. People have such tunnel vision on the knights that they forget that the Order Sergeants are the real heroes of the MO.
And they are even less vialable now when they do have to compete with knights for precious slots in usual 10 slot LI list. Hilariously since 3rd Offensive I don't recall using TO OS at all. I've only used HRL/Paramedic mostly due to pricing (and fact that I've already Koni in link).
I have used one TOFOOS in a list I should play a bit after April. It might need some changes in it but I was pretty satisfied about what I could do with it. I think I should ditch the Montesa to bring Dart. She seems to be a nice problem solver by sweaping all the midfield from infiltrators. And to teach some lessons to those new Haqq toys.
SOF fixes a bunch of MO's Problems with Joan. You have access to a quality Core Link and the Orders to bring it home with those addition, nevermind the extra 100 points, which should be enough to run Core and TAG with 20 Orders total. Nevermind that you'll get Yojumbo and 4 Yuan Yuans for Smoke coverage if you want. The better Knights itself are pretty decent, especially Magisters/Santiagos, the Sectorial around them just doesn't support them well. Pretty much the same level really. USArf is (a tiny bit) better than people give it credit for, not much tho. Morats definitely got improved by their update while MO took a hit. Those 3 are probably fighting for last place with Druze. ... OS being as shit as they are is honestly one of the more serious issues. Their weapon range doesn't compliment the Knights and the TO ones are the only one that are actually good. There are plenty expensive Linetroops that are pretty good in their respective Factions like for example Celestial Guards. The new Shas Linetrooper sporting friggin SMG+Zapper comes close to adding insult to injury. OS gaining a MSR with MODs, a plain old HMG or heck a (Eclipse)Smoke LGL would have gone a long way.
PanO ingeneral love SoF because of Joan and 400 points gives you a lot of flex power. At that point you could toss Joan and an Aquilla in and really powerhouse the smoke angle. 400 points also alleviates the Lt issue in MO by making him a smaller fraction on the list than >10%
Wow! that is a lot for one guy, and this is coming from someone who is also a Tohaa player but at lease they can only take one Kaeltar, and I feel that is to much! CB, got this one wrong.
I just love how much the Tohaa conversations have already dismissed this guy as a pointless irrelevance while he needles some Japanese, PanO and Yu Jing players so well for being the perfect expression of something they actually want to see in their forces. And, yes, the LoF restriction on Assault needs to go. Just that would make it at least situationally useful.
Exactly. An additional wound/STR on a model is the single most valuable stat in the game. Funny, new-MO is placing in top-5 in major competitive tournaments. "Bottom Tier" in Infinity does NOT mean "noncompetitive."
Varuna is fairly new and given it's recent release compared to the long history of MO, should still have less players just because they got released at the same time and the assembled MO armies were at the ready right off the bat. Given that, Varuna already has taken 2 major wins instead of just top-5 placings with less games. MO certainly is lacking on the results considering actual statistics. "Top end results" pop up here and there, but somehow it's never a win and always top "X" place instead. As you point out correctly Infinity's core rules means no matter how bad there army you still have a chance. In our case the question following that would be, why does MO appear to always fall short and can't seem to reach the very top anyway? Because with enough tries someone should be able to pull off a clean tournament win at some point. How big the sample size has to be relative for that one success to be in it seems to be the problem.
Long story short, nothing we write will change your mind that MO is bottom tier. All I can say is that MO has a lot of options to help you win. MAF feels much more limited in what it can do. It just not the best. I suppose MO is very similar to USARF in that regard. Both sectorials give you what you need to win missions but their units are often not the best ones in their faction. In other words, this is not a case of 40k where some factions are just strongly disadvantage in the meta. MO can win tournments even if its not quite optimal. Its disadvantages really aren't crippling, even the expensive forced knight LT is hardly crippling.
40k and Infinity don't compare well. MAF and USArf gets pushed in one direction, take the good stuff, leave the rest. For them choice is an illusion and unlike for example Tohaa their armies aren't composed of pretty much universally good stuff. At which point would you be willing to consent that the downsides are crippling for an Infinity Sectorial? Forced obvious Lt with 10% of your points vanishing into choices out of your control alone is something I'm not a fan of. Any other Sectorial has a better choice, be it Linetrooper shellgames, Marker State Lts or some sort of back up mechanic to dampen the blow. Modless gunners, unless you want to bring a Tikbalang. The best MODs you can get for any given B4 gun are Fireteam bonuses. In 2019's Infinity that is a problem if your parent Faction is PanO and you suffer the limitations of not having access to Smoke. This is a major issue MO shares with USArf. Not having acces to the common combination of a B4 long range gun with attached Visor or MODs these days is a tough sell. Morats have their access to that limited to an expensive MI, which although nice is probably the worst place to have it. Lack of cheap chaff to bolster your numbers or try to delay your opponent through sheer attrition. There aren't any Minelayers, Helots, Daylami or classical Warbands in MO, you don't even get the usual AVA3 Fugazi backed by 10 point Linetroopers, Mines, Auxbots or CSU formula other PanO Sectorials have access to address that problem. You get a Knight Core team for your efforts, but it's not really more deadly than a Panoceanian TAG. And you can run those, especially the Cutter with a lot better support than the Knights. Your only capable Long Range gunners are the Tikbalang and a Core Linked Hospitaler HMG, both of which dominate the rest of the list. There isn't a cheap option like a Nisse, Bagh Mari or Kamau HMG to solve the plain and simple issue of leaving your own DZ. Backup gunners in general are also rare, you have one of the worst AD troops of the game, the basic Bulleteer with hard to access Hacking support and without the usual screen to protect him and then the Blackfriar, who if the MSR could link with OS would still be a bad Kamau/Nisse knockoff. TO OS MSRs are hard to fit in since losing an Order to keep one in Hidden Deployment is more of an issue for MO who is already starved for them. You can't fill all those gaps with solo Knights either as that quickly busts your budget or doesn't even provide much benefit to begin with. Knights are pretty much the only upside MO has to offer. MO TAGs are excellent, but better suited to Vanilla thanks to access to better support (again). TO OS are far from bad, but also nothing special as far as TO Infiltrators go. Back to the Knights - they're not the answer to all your problems. Invincible Army is HI based as well, but oddly enough gets plenty of Orders to fuel them. Their Linetroops are 2 points cheaper, their cheap Remotes have the usual AVA, their HI have a number of Skills that make them more Order efficient with Tac Sense and NCO+Lt L2. They get a Linkable MSV2 HI MSR to put into their Linetroopers as well as a Mimetic and a TO HI on top. Aleph gets a compact HI Link in Achilles and doesn't seem to suffer much of a downside for having access to something with the means to take out a TAG in one Order and the tools to get there by himself. Really wonder which part of MO is good enough to offset those downsides. 5 guys with Frenzy/Impetuous disabled because they are Linked? You can have that in Bakunin without getting Order taxed for it.
I want to add valkyrie to the long list of things that are better in cc than MO for no discernible reason
That's a CC troop alright. If that can link it's a huge upgrade for Foreign Legion. Total Immunity+NWI, Berserk+NBW+EXP CCW in a neat package with Frenzy to keep the budget low.
Too bad we'll newer have this:) on the other hand, now i'll probably try new NA2 since i already have all PanO minis and love Crisa'a sculpt.
I'm not as bothered by her as shes not 3 wounds base, toting pokemon, 6-2 move with a burst 4 midrange weapon, high BS and yadda yadda ya. Her design is pretty much what I would want from a Teuton character.
I agree with @eciu and @Teslarod . MO lost its cheerleaders, cheap lt and best fireteam options. We got some new good stuff, however Lt part is essential part of the game. We don't have tricks like smoke, so if due to some unlucky rolls your long range weapons go down, you are pinned to your DZ. I have a question to people who can't admit that new MO is worse. Do you need w40k levels of bad to admit it or it will still be challenging but balanced gameplay?