Lets talk about Sval options for a bit, because there are so many decisions to make here and basically all of them can be in about any Link in Sval. SWC gun choices: Hospitaler/Orc HMG: - down to 1.5 SWC and B5 BS14 is always solid FTF. Second wound with ARM4 is a second wound the Karhu FB lacks, for a Link that wants to move across the board if I want a HI pointman. Orc Feuerbach: Same as above, my preferred Sval ARO piece for the Fusilier Link. Unlike Varuna no Snakeater tax required. Still has more than enough punch to clear ARO pieces in Active for double duty. KoJ Spitfire: Thanks to the Feuerbach options covering HMG Rangebands a solid option for any Sval Core Link/Haris. Adding Stealth, CC, ARM5, BTS9 and more speed to Hospitalers. KoJ ML: Defensive luxury upgrade over the Orc FB. Good chunk more expensive, worse Active Turn but a template to play with. Still adds the above things. Imho pairs best with a Karhu Feuerbach. Karhu Feuerbach: On average the best FTF option both for ARO and Active Turn. Also by far the squishiest which makes him less desireable for ARO and more attractive for Active Turn. Wrecks most TAGs on Active in 2 Orders through Cover. Varg HRL FO: The only Specialist of the list. Unusual as that is we likely don't need him and he can "only" link with Orcs. Still it's a template on a FO with Albedo and unhackable if we have a use for that over the Karhu Specialists. The Orc Feuerbach is still the better ARO option imho - BS14, ARM4, 2W Shock Immunity vs the dude who can be bypassed with White Noise (admittedly can see through Smoke now) and can drop to any hit (potentially straight to dead). The Orc is also better vs anything with just a MSV. Hsien, Grenzer, Wildcats, Aquila, Kempetai, Bolt MSR, OS Spitfire, Rui Shi, Yara... Coordinated Orders (people learned to use those to clear Kamau, guess they would for Karhu), DTWs and Mines/Perimeter offensive use stacked with other attacks. A lot of that looks pretty common to me now. Add in that Orcs can be put back up by a Paramedic very reliably now (see later for more). The Karhu FB is still bonkers and I'd try to include one for Active Turn duty pretty much every time, but the Orc FB (and his more expensive upgrade the KoJ ML) have their niche. 6-2 C+ Lets you move up to that tall building supposed to block LoF and snipe the whole board, a C+ Orc or other Karhu in the same link lets you get to about 20" height total without breaking Core. NCO to make sure the Fusilier Lt contributes to the greater good. Standout fillers: Orc C+ Firewall: C+ on a 2W guy to eat a template, shrugg it off more often than not and kill what tried. Choice of MR and BSG just makes it even better. KOJ AHD: Firewall to stack on a KOJ for effective "BTS 8" even vs Breaker (-3DAM, BTS9/2) or "BTS 12" vs other Hacking, Jammers and other Technical Weapons. D-Charges work at full CC now if you need to blow up something big (AC2, TAG, Achilles...) fast. Most casual Hacking has a hard time touching him as long as the Firewall is running, while he hacks back. In a Link stacked with C+ and big guns he brings ecxellent Perimeter defense. Outside of specific missions I don't see why to settle for the FO KoJ because of how well his whole Kit synergizes with being a Hacker. Spotlight for a potential Clipper if you care to bring one, helps with Roofsweeping and ofc persists, so anyone eating the Program as ARO for free is target practice for your own turn. Buffing your Link's MRs and BSGs to above 20 (Karhu MR 22, Orc MR 23, Orc BSG 26) can be easily worth it depending on the target. He has Stealth as well, with all the ZOC abuse that gets you for a Hacker. Karhu Engineer: NCO gives you another Order to move, repair or whatever even if you end up Isolated somehow. Unhackable Engineering is invaluable for a N4 HI link dealing with Hackers and E/M. The only thing he can't clear is Stunned on a target with W, keep those pesky Flashpulse Bots in mind (Or your KOJ in cover and laugh at them). 6-2 unhackable Specialist with C+ and NCO is honestly enough to bring one already. Did I mention the Multirifle on a LI Specialist? And a Blitzen? In PanO? Yeah, very useful. Karhu Paramedic: Same as above, brings back HI on PH14. Gets +1B on Medkit from his Link if you need it (and Medkit fails don't cancel successes in N4). In a Core that will be B2 BS16 after range most of the time since you're usually a man down to be able to use it. Can't clear Stunned either, so that's a "downside". Vargar Sensor: Superjump, Triangulated Fire, Sensor, Albedo, Wildparrot. Just nice to have in every matchup. Mass Camo? That Sensor will do some work. HI Link/TAG on the other side? Wildparrots do nasty things against them. Heavy MODs at long Range? TF now gets Burst MODs from your Link. Superjump and Albedo are somehow the least useful things in his kit and those can still do serious work. "Unfortunately" can only join Orc links, which excludes him from Hospitalers and Fusiliers, and isn't a Specialist. Fusilier Paramedic: Now my default Specialist chocie for Fusiliers over FOs. 3-4 of them coordinating to bring a HI back with more reliability than a Traumadoc with 2 Command Tokens is a thing of beauty. A bit of a meme though, one with a Burst 2 Medkit from his Link is fine. Fusilier FO: Deploying a Repeater in your DZ so your KoJ can cover your DZ seems good, especially since a Core Linked Fusilier will cancel Stealth in ZoC and likely won't be in LOF. Basic Fusiliers: Hides the Lt, while the Order will still be available to any Karhu in the army. This. Is. Awesome. Heck Yeah. Basically every Sval list I've build so far has an entire Combat group that can assemble into a variety of Core and Haris choices every game. Win first turn? Deploy as aggressive HI + Karhu Core Link. Lose first turn? Deploy as defensive Fusilier Core with Orc FB/KOJ ML and Haris. Honorable mention to the Jotum + Karhu Engineer Duo. It's nuts to just have that option. It's a damn shame about the Boyg, Locust and Nokken being a lot less amazing than Sval's Links. But oh well, this feels great to click together and play on a table. Haven't had so much fun since the Acon rework and it's quite possibly a little broken.
sweet, cheap, and to the point. you can do alot with very little. I find that the aggressive haris link is where i place alot of my HI - they have the added bonus of being alot more mobile with the increased speed and smaller footprint. They also have the added bonus of linking Core with these guys to clear an ARO piece and then jumping back into a haris to make it up the board. Agnes is also notable because of her ability to fill any HI haris for just a mere 15 points and is a specialist on top of that. I have yet to experiment with Shona on the table top, but she seems like a flexible option to have with a haris of ORCs or Varg. synergizing with Vargs better because they all have super jump. Seriously feel bad for every solo piece in the army - aside from the nisse and nokken because there's real value taking them alone. The nokken, I usually jam 2 of them into a list - i think minelayer is very useful for spacing enemies away from your links and creating good board presence. And the Nisse because MSV2 is invaluable and he is a great fighter on his own. The Boyg, Locust, Kunai, Liang ki, Oktavia, and even gunnar are just never going to see table time for me. Their just too expensive to add any real value over a fire team - except for gunnar who is outclassed by Shona.
I could actually use some help with that, I started tinkering and made something I like but I've got 15 points to spare and I'm not sure if I should take something out for a different thing or scrap it and rethink the whole thing Orc Feuerbach 38/1,5 Winterfor Orc C+ BS Tinbot 32 KoJ Spitfire FD +4" 50/1,5 Karhu Feuerbach 35/1,5 Karhu Engineer 29 Karhu Paramedic 28 Vargar HRL FO 25/1,5 Vargar Sensor 28 Fusi Lt 10 Fusi 10 285/6 Someone help me budget this thing?
Weeeell I'm still taking 15 Orders. Because AVA3 Fugazi is too good to leave to rot. Pretty sure I'd actually want a Sensor or something else in place of Lian Kai, but this is what I clicked together yesterday on a first draft.
I kinda like the idea of a defensive Fusi+Orc link supporting a Jotum: I haven't played any N4 yet though, and I'm trying to keep to models that I have painted and ready. Hence the ol' reliable Bulleteer Murderbot in Group 2.
The link options in SWF is pretty great, though I feel like slapping wildcard om the Karhu is a lazy way to fix what the faction lacks. It is pretty much mandatory to have a Karhu in almost every link. The NCO alone makes sure og that. Gunnar is a pretty pathetic characters sadly, is there exclusivly to provide his tactical awarness order. but damn her is expensive for that coupled with his squishyness. Uma just makes me sad, her point costs is baffeling imo. Karhu makes Quinn almost redundant. Overall SWF lives on the links. Our solo fighters are pretty bad compared to other similar options. Nøkken offers defence and FD specialists. Locust is just....sigh....they really needed hidden deployment. Just look at the Nadhir. It is straight Up just a better Locust. Bøyg is pretty pathetic. All other SHI have somthing to offer either though skills that add to their armys defence or offence, or though link options. The Bøyg has neither. The missile launcher is such a dumb profile and isn't likely to win many FTF rolls Vs the opponents it's going to face. And the Mk12 is just a really bad HMG. It should at least have some special ammo om that profile. Overall SWF is definitly playable. They just dosen't offer much outside the links. It really needs a Combat Jump option and could really use some camoflage og some kind too.
First of all thanks @Teslarod for a more proactive perspective regarding PanO's role in N4, particularly with Svalarheima. It seems to me has been a lot of negativity since the profiles were updated, perhaps with good reason, but at least I will continue on the side of the hyperpower, so what interests me is to think about the strengths and weaknesses of our sectorials instead of lamenting for what could or couldn’t be in the different sectorials. This is what we have today and I’m interested in discussing how to take advantage of it, so thanks for that Teslarod My personal opinion is that SWF is clearly much better in N4 than N3, many profiles make more sense now and although it doesn’t shine like other sectorials, it has its peculiarities that make it interesting to play. As everyone has said, the strength is in the flexibility of its links, with excellent wildacards such as the Karhu (for me the best “updated” profile in PanO) and the Knight of Justice. Adding others not so interesting but more useful than in N3, like Agnes (to lower the costs of links) and even Gunnar, who has been resisted in the community, probably due to the lack of NWI, but the addition of Tactical Awareness seems very good to me, along with the 4 pts decrease, makes it a bit more playable in my opinion. With this in mind, I have thought in a haris in the second group (formed for 4-5 orders), consisting in: Nisse HMG + Karhu medkit + Gunnar. The idea is to have a second group dedicated to this haris that could have 6-7 effective orders to eliminate threats (in a very counting that of the NCO + tactical sense. The haris has specialists and a paramedic to raise the fallen troops, in addition to a good versatility in weapons, the entire list could be: I try to use the nokken, because that's what we have to board control, and the combi rifle + light shotgun and miner profile seems very flexible to me, especially considering that now a miniature could start in suppression fire, if you go second. Anyway, depending on the mission, nokken’s profiles could change to specialists (at least one). This is just an idea, to play differently from how I play the others PanO sectorials, What do you think? Finally I love liang kai, but I have played very little with WBs, how do you intend to use monk, what is your role?
Can't stress enough how great KOJ, Orcs and Karhu work together. CC (with D-Charges), Defenses, Specialists, Paramedic/Engineer, C+, multiple effective gunners, Firewall + BTS9 making. The Nokk Minelayer feels like a trap for the same reason I dislike Ryuken. Basic Minelayers have Camo shellgames with their own Mines. Neither the Nokken nor the Ryuken have that. ODD is no replacement for a Marker State so both of them are lacking a feature making them worthwhile (a KHD on a midfield troop unable to start in Marker state being the opposite of a synergistic addition). Just look at the Trinitarian, then at the Nokk. There's no way I'd ever play a Nokk given a choice. If AVA1 Trinitaries make it to Vanilla, that Minelayer is worth 2 SWC. What I will do is try Locust Parrots/Drop Bears&Grenades and Nokken FOs, with massed Forward Deployment/Infiltration at some point. Vanilla likely does it better, any (TO) Minelayer the existence of ZC Jammers pair up well, Krakots are excellent midfield backup. Can't think of many things with as much threat potential as a Wildparrot to go along with Infiltration. BSG+PZF always was a bit of a dream loadout for Specialists in my eyes, not having a Marker still sucks, FO, ODD and 2 guns might be able to make up for it.
I agree regarding the Nokk Minelayer. I'd be more inclined to buy two Peacemakers for the midfield, relying on their layered defense and midfield repeaters for area denial.
My sole *issue* with Peacemakers would be that they're so much better with a TO Sniper having their back. Hacking ARO, DTW/SF and a TO Sniper springing on the same target is recipe for disaster (in the eyes of whatever is approaching). Really miss Stun Ammo on Multi :/ Spamming several Hackers, ideally at least one in a Core Link to cancel Stealth gets very good mileage out of what is now basically all AHDs. Was a big fan of the Brawler SMG AHD in Core Links for N3, now any defensive Fusilier Link can do that, just better and with non negateable Firewall through friendly Repeaters. Kinda wish Sval had a premium Hacker or a better gun on the KOJ. BTS9 -3 DAM -3WIP is very resilient behind a Firewall, but a bit too expensive for WIP13 and being stuck with a Combi (even though D-Charges combined with decent CC and access to IMM-B is definielty nice). Missed chance to add a Repeater Minelayer anywhere in PanO so far, would have really helped selling Nokken or Locusts.
As much as I personally dislike Mercs, the Kunai Sniper is available and only 4 points over a Hexa (and 1 point lower than Uma, how in the heck?) in cost if you want to set this up. I think the KoJ Hacker is actually good with the Combi, though obviously a Spitfire would be nice- anything the Combi can't handle, there's good odds the Hacking Device can. Oblivion into Carbonite is a TAG killer to match E/M Grenades.
I quite like the nokken minelayer, sval has very good defense options so layering them all together makes up for the weaknesses for each individual piece. I've even started coming around on the Boyg, who I wrote off immediately in n3. I still don't think he's all that good - I think he's annoying to deal with. The missile is a good profile who can pull double duty as both a really annoying ARO piece layered with something else on turn 1 or by himself on turn 2, and decent enough to kill stuff on the active turn (my last game he went hunting a charontid with his heavy pistol)
