Hey folks, I used to play Infinity back in N3 around 2015, but haven't played since then due to a lack of player base in my area, however I have an opportunity to dive back in so I'm looking for a bit of advice to get me started. I used to run the Shock Army of Acontecimento back in the day and had planned to pick them up again, but I no longer see them as a sectorial option in the store. Are they still viable to run and model supported? Have they been dropped altogether? Likewise I can't see the NCA (my second favourite sect), but I see MO are still supported. I see Varuna and Svalarheima are now available as new sects - how do they play? Finally I see there is now Codeone, which as I understand is a bit like Killteam is to 40k (please forgive me mentioning these! :P ) - a smaller skirmish version of the larger game. Are all models/sects/factions viable for this - or is it just certain ones? Any and all advice greatly welcome - thanks in advance!
Acontecimento and NCA still have rules and 100% tournament legal army lists updated to N4, but their model ranges were retired to free up catalogue space. Code One is a beginner/lite version of N4, it has only 4 factions currently (PanO, Yu Jing, O-12, Combined Army), no Sectorials, and a reduced set of troop profiles. It's designed to be simpler than N4 rather than smaller (though it caps out at 10 troopers rather than N4's 15) I'd advise having a look at the army builder Web page/mobile app. You can switch it from N4 to Code One to see the different factions and Sectorials.
Thanks, glad to know they're still viable! I did see they were on the army builder, but got confused when I couldn't see them in the store. I'll have a look at Code One - smaller/faster games might suit the time I have to play better. I'll take a dig further into the army builder and see what's there
Welcome back to the game! Its a great time to rejoin as everyone is getting used to the N4 Changes. Some good things to know this edition: TAGs have improved significantly in N4. This is due to the points changes, the damage increase, the Tactical awareness (basically an additional irregular order), Critical System (Now just an extra armor roll, which makes high armor useful), and metagame changes. Shock has two the best TAGs with Dragoes being one the best cost optimized TAG in the game. Hacking is now very important in N4. The biggest change is being able to ARO Spotlight. SAA thankfully is very good in this area as it can easily spread their hacking area with their REMs and has access to some good hackers like the cheap regular, Scylla, and Nagas. The ORC is solid in N4 with the cost drop, speed changes, and drop in Multi-rifle pricing. The Montessa paramedic is a solid fast specialist. There is a general troop cap of 15 spots. So warband spam has generally decreased, which opened up different types of play. SAA is still a good sectorial and gives PanO firepower some flexibility and tricks. Varuna is said to be a defensive sectorial than loss some capability due to some of the N4 changes. Svalarheima is a brute force sledgehammer.
Hey @Castiel and welcome back to the Hyperpower. @Brokenwolf has covered most of the key points above, but passed over the other key N4 change which has helped to lift PanO in general and out TAGs specifically. That's the 15 Trooper limit for list building. With total orders, and bodies, driven down it's no longer such an issue to put more of an investment into high quality units (as we usually wanted to anyway). But, as has been covered, Shock Army is not only still supported (even if you can't buy the models right now) but also one of the best ways to play PanO. So if that's where your heart is then dive into the Army Builder and see what you can make of them. Just remember to account for enemy hacking (it's a real threat these days) and don't be afraid to lean into the Tikbalang and Dragao (especially the latter!).
We're also on the brink of a big Military Orders redesign (they're rolling out content previews all this week) so that's a consideration. Once that's done, PanO's going to be in a pretty fantastic place. While there are small things to nitpick, each Sectorial will have received a decent amount of design attention, and have fairly competitive playable rules that align well with the current edition. It's a good time to be a PanO player.
