The NCA winning the turnament isn't a problem becuase Pano's viablity has never been a problem. The complaint is more about how little variety there is in the faction. Case in point, it was NCA that won and not generic Pano. How often is generic Pano even played? There isn't much reason to do so since unlike the other factions in the game, generic Pano doesn't offer any unique gameplay you can't find already in one of its sectorials. Not to mention the sectorials offer gameplay options that don't exist for the generic army. Its the opposite dynamic compared to what sectorials do for other factions (which is exaggerate themes that already exist in the army).
@Death Pretty much sums up our problem. @Shoitaan NCA won? And here I thought Military Orders winning the big one was shocking.
Is PanO Sub-optimal or is it's viability not a problem? I am very confused. PanO is one of CB's most popular factions. Is this true? PanO is having little issue with placing in tournaments. Is this true? NCA and MO seam like they play very differently. Is this true? It seams to me that if you want more toys then you are probably going to have to give up some of your strengths.
Oh, some PanO players will drop the +1 BS in a heartbeat to get something vaguely interesting. PanO is balanced against other forces in the game. However, that doesn't mean vanilla PanO is still a boring slog of a faction. Most PanO players are not here laminating that PanO doesn't work. It works just fine. They just wish it could do it with some more flair and play up to its overall themes better. Cause the theme of "We shoot better" might of worked well back in N1 and N2 but with other factions becoming more well rounded (looking at you Nomads) doesn't hold any water in N3. It's also a lame ass central theme. PanO can be much more thematic and push the theme of it being the hyperpower better.
Itd be great if the conversation stayed on track of Internal balance and flavour/interesting design rather than let someone just derail it talking about points that arent being discussed like external power
Sub-optimal means your viable (you can win with the unit) but its not the best unit to use. Such as black friar vs Nisse. Sorry, but I still think the a combi nisse is better than multi-rifle BF, defensive mods make a big difference in winning FtF rolls. -3 BS for defense is about equal to +1 burst. So its a big deal. Much more than having shock ammo or abledo (that works for only 1 turn). Generic Pano feels sub-optimal because it lacks any of the tools other factions have and nothing really to make up for it. N3 was a power shift not in favor of Pano. We can still win, sure. But theres not much variety in the units used.
Personally I don't think we need to stop being kill-focused in order to be interesting. I think CB just needs to let us lean into it harder. To me, makeing killing more 'interesting' for gameplay would mean something other than a statistical advantage. I think that's why so many people are willing to give up the +1BS. Even something with T/O, fluff aside is simply a statistical advantage to dice rolls which makes us more killy. And that - at least in my perspective - is what makes the faction boring to people. Remove all the fluff and our efficiency is all numbers. There's no non-statistical gameplay elements that shake things up like holoechoes, G;Jumpers and other stuff that involve decision making. Moving around in market states is at least 'something' as it makes you both think about what's going to happen next and what ARO or short move to declare. Combat supremacy involving something other than a dice advantage is what's lacking in the faction's 'fun factor'. To that end, how come the super rich, super advanced hyper-power with sattelites everywhere can't design heavy-duty shock absorbers and have precise GPS? i.e. I don't care if its just another death machine but I would love a light TAG that I can ADLvl 5/x on to people. Yes the point cost would be ludicrous but it would be something I'd be willing to pay in order to reintroduce that fun factor to the faction. Even if its not super killy, it would drastically change the threat vectors your opponent has to deal with mid-game causing enough chaos to be fun for you, win or lose. Sure, ultimately its a silly OP idea but at the end of the day, I think we can be as interesting as the other factions while being as bad at button pushing as CB clearly wants us to be. They just need to learn us harder into combat supremacy without simply giving out dice advantage. Edit: I think this is why I like Bolts and Locusts so much even though their numbers don't stack well against other units: Drop bears. Being able to throw a mine for short-medium range area denial at least makes the actual gameplay more interesting as it forces more decisions on both you and your opponent.
Wait, we do have an official confirmation from CB on that ? This is getting really ridiculus really fast :( "Dont bother with half (or 3/4 of MO), because for sure we dont bother" Srsly MO is going the way of Sisters really fast :(
Which is ok - PanO's default strategy is to perform an Alpha Strike, put enemy on the back foot, and only then go for the objectives. This is ok from the design's point of view, but - as most people here have said already - we hit a wall when we want to stray from this path even a bit. What's more, most of our units does it in a really similar way, so we can't tweak our approach too much. This is one of the reasons SAA is the most well-rounded sectorial; its Aleph auxiliaries introduce new options which we wouldn't have otherwise. More Auxbots (Devabots), wide Repeater network, great hacking - and both Regulars and Bagh-Mari provide good, flexible link teams. It also play the midfield game very well. Compare Neoterra, where most stuff does pretty much the sam - engage enemy from the long range. If only there was some mix up, like Bolts better tweaked for the midfield, stronger AD component, etc. Exactly this. Take away some of the pure BS advantage, but enchance our Command and Control and general technology game. Which MO units require resculpts? Because the only necessary thing would be a new starter.
Well MO starter is a start ;) Combi rifle OS are getting dated quite fast. KotHS while being cool could use refrsh (though its not first priority, he desperatly need new profiles than new model), Teutons looks definetaly dated (dunno if anyone would buy then anyway for whatever reason, unless they were bundled with some usefull stuff). We could surely use some double OS TO blister pack. That would be really cool.
Well personally dumber thing "in quality" was getting rid of Magister shoulder Panzerfaust and giving them Atek's tubes (this is obviously very subjective opinion), while "this" would be very very "not-smart" in "in quantity" terms.
The Santiagos hold up pretty well alongside modern sculpts. To be fair there aren't that many knights left that need resculpting desperately.
The question and answer part of the adepticon seminar. As far as which models need resculpts. The teuton and the sepulcher need a resculpt to be up to scale with the current knights.
Internal balance and external balance are very much related when discussing game design. You give PanO new tricks and you might start stepping on other factions toes, other factions that might need that advantage. PanO is not hurting for build options. Hell on of the complaints I guy I used to play with had was that there was to much overlap in PanO. Can't afford your Crocman sniper? Just take a Spec Sargent or one of the other half dozen good ARO options. You have a tag (the coolest looking units in the game) of every flavor, you have arguably the strongest paintrain in the game... and you don't feel like you are playing the superpower faction? MO I can understand as it is pretty clunky and unrefined even if still very powerful so a revamp is warranted. Maybe you are just a bit hung up on that word "superpower"? When you get right down to it the faction are not really all that different from each other outside of a handful of standout units. If your looking for new tricks have you thought about just getting JCT and painting it blue? Ok so then PanO is a lower tier faction? What are you basing this off of, because as far as I can tell it is not performance.
