New Player, list help

There’s a lot of firepower there, but with only 6 orders available to you it may be difficult to leverage it.

I’m a huge fan of playing durable, 2W models in low points games because with fewer attacks being directed at them, their resilience shines brighter.

That being said, what exactly is Patsy doing for you? I love her to death but she’s not forming a wacky Haris team here (unless you have both the Orc and the Kamau in her team!) I’d be potentially interested in replacing her with a couple cheaper models. Similarly with Bipandra, she’s almost twice as expensive as the basic Trauma-Doc for some pretty trivial upgrades. In a Fusilier link team the Nanopulser will shine, but on her own why not save a bunch of points and snag a Trauma-Doc?

Overall you’ve picked out a lot of my favorite Varuna models, your list as written will probably work but I personally would prefer to run with at least 8-9 orders, preferably a full stack of 10.

Run it as-is first and report back! Maybe the sheer amount of wounds and armor is enough at 200point games to mitigate the lack of orders.

 

One sec while I unsnarl the Army Mobile glitch so I can read your list better.

I really recommend playing through the Op:Icestorm missions to learn the core rules, and then add the 'Beyond Icestorm' minis and missions.

That should get you to the point of 250-300pt games, though you may want to add some 'focus' games where you bring all the CC models and all the hacking models (in separate games!) to learn those bits of the rules.

Otherwise, I might consider running Patsy, the Kamau sniper, and the Fusilier as a Haris team, with the ORC HMG as a rambo. When you scale that up to 300, you will probably want to shuffle that around to the ORC HMG and Kamau sniper in a Core team; with Patsy, a Kamau (I like the HRL), and the Varuna Machinist in a Haris.

 

Patsy/Kamau/Fusilier as a 3-woman Core? Could work.

Kamau/Fusilier/Bipandra/Patsy can also get you to a 4-woman Core. Any way to throw in that 5th member?

 

Yes, but it needs to be a Varuna Division Orc, not the regular ones (you've got the spare points, so you're fine).
You could drop Patsy and Bipandra, add in 3 Fusiliers, a Trauma Doc, a Machinist and a Palbot to get a 5-man core for the Kamau sniper while freeing up the Orc to run off and kill stuff in the active turn with 10 orders.

 

In my experience, this is the best way to learn the basics of the game. Each mission adds a very digestible number of new rules.

It’s straightforward enough and there are tutorial videos so you can definitely get through it with two new players. It’s really good if you can play the missions with an experienced player though.

 

The icestorm box/pano starter has three combi rifle fusiliers. The fusilier SWC box is a really good purchase though.

 

Welcome to the Hyperpower!

I want to echo what others have said before: play through the Icestorm box first. It might not seem like the most glamorous way to start, but so totally worth it. It will also help you develop your play-style by adding on rules successively, and seeing how different models can interact with each other (both friendly and enemy). My group has been playing a lot of 200 point games recently, which I think is a good benchmark to play after completing a starter with friends (frenemies?). I got some list building help from some great guys here, and this is a list I've used for a few different scenarios (Aquisition, Armoury, L&S - some good ones to learn).


Varuna Immediate Reaction Division
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10
ZULU-COBRA Lieutenant (Sensor) Combi Rifle, Jammer / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29)
ZULU-COBRA (Forward Observer) Breaker Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 26)
KAMAU (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 21)
KAMAU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28)
MACHINIST (Varuna Div.) (CH: Mimetism, Stealth, Aquatic Terrain) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)
FUSILIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 14)
KAMAU (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)

4 SWC | 199 Points


This list also uses some of the models that you would own already, or ones that were mentioned in your original list above. I use Bipandra as my medic profile, if you have her model already. It's a little hard to look at someone else's list and see what they see as everyone has a different play-style can squeeze different tricks out of different profiles (conceptually); but this is what this list has allowed me to do:

- Fusie LGL lobbing grenades at a hunkered down linked teams, and even break the link turn 1
- Kamau/Machinist Haris delivered an engineer to objectives. Also the +1B on the Kamau HMG in the link (fireteam bonus of 3) makes him scary.
- Linked Kamau Sniper is good at locking down lanes, and couples with a sensor on a zulu cobra, is good at stripping away negative mods to shoot at targets with Camo-ness things.
- Zulu cobras are great for locking the midboard, and can be really good mid/late game pieces (these guys are so great IMO)

The Fusie SWC box is a solid purchase, and gives you a lot of options to branch out as well - I do love a Missile Launcher in a fusie linked team as an ARO Piece (to hit mods and burst mods are great). Sometimes the Fusie hacker is a great include as well. All depends on how you want to play.

 

There's nothing wrong with starting with a Sectoral.

But use the Icestorm missions to get your head around the rules.

 

I really recommend not using link teams until you have the core rules down solid, because the link team rules modify so many of the core rules.

 

Nothing wrong with diving into a sectorial (taking the plunge, getting your toes wet... other water based Varuna puns...). Though going straight into larger linked teams may be a little daunting. One of the suggestions I have is printing off a cheat sheet that has a break down of all the bonuses to keep with you while you're playing for quick reference. I found that with my playstyle and listing building that it was easier (in regards to a 5-(wo)man team) to build out an ARO link to try out first - meaning one that is meant to be more productive or useful in the reactive turm. This can include the Kamau sniper parked with 4 fusies to round out the team I posted above; I even enjoy the fusie with ML in a full fusie link at lower points.

I say this because it can be a little hard to maneuver a 5 model squad, and get the most out of them while trying to get through the standard rules and learning linked teams all at the same time - hell, it can be hard to maneuver them sometimes for vet players as well. My gaming group has been building more and more lists taking the "two Haris" approach, meaning you take a true 3 model Haris, and a 3 model Core (as you can only have 1 Haris on the board at a time). All in all, there are a lot of ways to play.

All of this being said, I agree with @Section9 and @AdmiralJCJF - make sure you've played the box and are comfortable with the core rules before jumping into fireteams. Having played multiple gaming systems, and working for numerous gaming stores, the main reason I saw new players ditch games was being frustrated with rulesets (however they were mostly because gamers would play an intro game and then want to jump to tournament sized armies, or the people teaching them were bad). What I'm trying to summarize in this part of my rant is that most people on here will recommend taking things slow - and for good reason. We want everyone to play this game 'cus it's awesome. The last thing we want is for people to have a bad experience because of something as mundane as rules creep, or compound rules.

 

Very much agree with this!

I want people to play the game, because I think it's the best small-unit game in existence.