Where's You Head At? - New Lists

At the moment, I feel a little discouraged from PanO. maybe it's burn-out, maybe it's our lack of anything really exciting. Perhaps its the tournament I have coming up with Armory and Engineering Deck as two of the missions, which I don't feel PanO is particularly good at.

None the less, my main PanO these days has shifted from an NCA/SAA split to mainly Varuna. I find myself running this as a "catch all" list:

decap
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 10
KAMAU (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)
KAMAU HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)
FUSILIER (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
FUSILIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
ZULU-COBRA Lieutenant (Sensor) Combi Rifle, Jammer / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29)
ZULU-COBRA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Breaker Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 28)
ORC (Varuna Div.) (Multiterrain: Aquatic/Jungle, Stealth) HMG / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 45)
TRAUMA-DOC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
PALBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

GROUP 2 3 3
ECHO-BRAVO Red Fury / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 25)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9)
HELOT MILITIAMAN Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
HELOT MILITIAMAN Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)

6 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

I've also ran variants of dropping the ORC for a Spitfire Zulu Cobra and the Echo Bravo for a Crocman MSR. I've had a lot of success with these lists. Really great ARO presence combined with deadly active turn shooting. it's really all you can ask for. The specialist game isn't great, but it's workable within PanO.

As far as FC goes – I'm saddened by the fact that although PanO is represented within Foreign Company, I almost never take any of the units. I always opt for the Laxmee Haris instead of the bolts. I've been flirting with this list, I have yet to try it out:

A list i finally like!
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 9 1 1
SECURITATE HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 21)
SECURITATE Feuerbach / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 22)
SECURITATE Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13)
CSU (Specialist Operative) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15)
CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)
CSU Boarding Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 11)
LAXMEE Hacker (UPGRADE: Maestro) Submachine Gun + Pitcher, Cybermines, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 34)
KAPLAN Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28)
KAPLAN Doctor (MediKit) Combi Rifle, Blitzen / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
BAKUNIN ÜBERFALLKOMMANDO . (0 | 24)
CHIMERA Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Eclipse Grenades / Viral CCW. (0 | 21)
x3 PUPNIK DA CCW. (0 | 3)

GROUP 2 5 1
BRAWLER (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 28)
FUGAZI DRONBOT Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 16)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
ZERO (Minelayer) Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 19)
WARCOR (Sixth Sense L1) Flash Pulse / Stun Pistol, Knife. (0 | 3)

6 SWC | 299 Points

Open in Infinity Army

It could be fun. But the army has a ton of problems. lack of notable MSV, no BS weapon over 12, no real "heavy hitter", no lasting power. They just kind of seem disappointing.

 

My headspace with the faction is in a very weird place right now. I’m in the middle of an epic 5-month continent spanning road trip with my wife, so I’ve played one game since December. But of course I’ve been doing a lot of theory, list building and painting.

My main focus right now is on link teams. I found myself a month ago staring at my Army Mobile saved lists where every single list had a linked Kamau sniper. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. And with a link team like that (1 superstar and 4 cheerleaders) that link rarely moves over the course of the game. So I’ve vowed to myself to start playing active teams. If a link does nothing other than ARO over the course of a game, it’s fired. I’m trying to design my links to be active and mobile, and step up proactively for defense rather than rely on an ARO from my deployment zone.

Needless to say, I’ve got a lot of lists to play when May rolls around and I’m back home.

 

With the arrival of spiral corps and some of the changes (total immunity especially) I’m excited to hit the table. I’ve been out of commission with the arrival of my twins two months ago, but I am going to finally get a game in on Saturday. I suspect it will be against Shasvastii and I’m probably bringing Acon.

My lists are wildly up in the air at the moment, but a model I’ve been eyeing again is Drakios.

As more and more shock and viral keep popping up, I suspect that his usefulness will diminish over time. He’s a weird profile to be sure, but I like him. I’ve almost always used his red fury+2 bots. I think he offers some interesting tools for Acon. Triple flamethrowers is nothing to sneeze at.

All in all though, it’s a big investment for a mediocre gunfighter, so I find that it’s really important to use him carefully. Sometimes, he just dies ingloriously and there go my 40+points.

With his red fury though, he is a beast for hunting line troopers and skirmishers. His bots have low wip, but three discover rolls that can be followed with intuitive flame attacks is pretty solid. Four dice on bs12 that can mess with the 8-24 inch range bands has come in surprisingly potent at times as well.

It’s surprisingly useful at times that he has stealth and albedo right now as well. In the age of linked msv2 snipers, being able to simply ignore them on turn 1 is potent. He’s not a cc monster, but three dice on 20 is not bad.

Anyway, here’s hoping he can burn some Shasvastii to death in the jungles of paradiso.

 

Why not do both? including the Kamau MSR AND the Kamau HMG alongside those 4 cheerleaders lets you flex and perform both roles really well. Just switch over with a command token when the MSR dies or if he's no longer needed and let the HMG go to town with the 5-man bonus. Part of the biggest benefit of these mixed links is the ability to include a guy that's good at every role – and more of them to boot.

 

For Varuna, I keep making lists around this foundation:

Varuna Immediate Reaction Division
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

8
ORC (Varuna Div.) (Multiterrain: Aquatic/Jungle, Stealth) HMG / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 45)
KAMAU (Multispectral Visor L2) MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 32)
FUSILIER Paramedic (MediKit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
FUSILIER (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
FUSILIER Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 10)

PATSY GARNETT Submachine Gun, Nimbus Plus Grenades, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 37)
KAMAU Heavy Rocket Launcher, Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 23)
MACHINIST (Varuna Div.) (CH: Mimetism, Stealth, Aquatic Terrain) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 17)

5 SWC | 188 Points

Open in Infinity Army
Yes, ORC+Kamau Fusilier Core with Patsy Kamau Engineer Haris.

 

I'm (first time since Flamia) considering Neoterran force. Something based on this:

Neoterran Heavy
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

5
AQUILA FTO (Specialist Operative) MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Shock CCW. (0 | 59)
ORC HMG / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 44)
ORC Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 36)
ORC Boarding Shotgun + 1 TinBot A (Deflector L1) / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 36)
BIPANDRA Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)

2.5 SWC | 198 Points

Open in Infinity Army

Plus some support stuff.

But hell knows when (and if) I'll had a chance to test it now.

 

There’s no reason you have to use a link team offensively, especially in an army with such potent attack pieces.

Being aggressive with your link means exposing it to hidden templates, skirmishers with mines, warbands with chain rifles, and all kinds of other dangers.

In your deployment zone, you Fireteam provides orders, covers against AD and impersonators, forces your opponent to expend resources if they want to remove it, and gives you a huge threat to force your opponent to react.

Use your skirmishers, bulleteers, solo hmgs with modifiers, and the like to attack with.

Maybe...MAYBE get real aggressive with your link team in the last turn. But really, if anything can force a bad face to face or a normal roll against your fusiliers will be able to kill them more easily if you get aggressive.

 

That haris is awesome. I love the hrl in a link. It’s more mobile than a core and flanking with a template shooting out to 32” is phenomenal. I’ve even run him solo a few times and he works well there as well.

Why the orc? I’ve found that the extra wound isn’t usually worth the ~20 extra points. Especially when Kamau are shock immune.

 

Well, I'm still working about all the kind of lists that can be done in MO and which one will be interesting to play. For the moment, I have a lot of ideas and no time to test them. Still, I put an Albedo BF each time I can because he is a little pack of destruction that always gives me the options I need. I find though the KoS is not an autobuy. He is the second most fragile of those in the sectorial and I think I should run a FK sometimes.
And I would like to have time to try until the last end the new NCA as the army is a hell of excitement now and I finally can have my ORCs + Bolts lists working while they were a bit goofy before (but won me already a lot of games) and I really would like to train more on playing ORCs and Bolts, but not always in the same lists.
And to finish, play seriously Vanilla once for all. Vanilla is in a pretty good spot and I need to master it because I think this is something that will be a good thing for me in order to improve myself as a PanO player.

 

Think I've seen that batrep on Vaul's channel.

Probably a reminder to always bring a Tik, Dart or Akali in Acon. The Link is more or less static and won't be able to deal with a lot of things. So you're gonna have to bring another solution for these problems, Nagas aren't really strong enough to fix that issue.

PanO Vanilla lists seem to be a little toothless these days. You have that one guy like a Swiss HMG, then someone else like a Nisse and his buddy the Echo Bravo. After that you end up with a bunch of Combi Rilfes that aren't really all that scary.
So you end up plugging the hole with Krakots and notice you cut some Fusiliers and are back to obvious Lt problems.

Core issue seems to be that you are very reliant on a KHD, which costs you the slot for an Assault trooper. At least I have a hard time fixing that particular problem compared to my Aleph who solve it nicely thanks to Posthumans.

Apparently army just broke so I can't upload any list that will work afterwards right now.
Here's a screenshot instead. 300/5.5

 

Or you could go Mass armoured list and wreck your opponent with loads of HIs equipped with SWC weapons backed by minelayers.

 

So 2 ?

 

2 what? 2 minelayers? They are enough when you're running a 10 orders list. But if you want more, there is still Bagh Mari Sniper and Le Muet who can provide mines too if you want some more. Well that would reduce the number of HIs you would be running though.

 

I believe they were referring to 2 HI.

Which does make sense, as it's likely you'll be taking SWC HI ( As you originally mentioned ), at which with PanO, any extra SWC expenditure without a Joan LT will cap you at 2 SWC HI ( Since unlike Nomads or Yu Jing, there are no discounted/cheap SWC weapons on HI in PanO. ).

Doesn't mean you can't take more than 2 HI, just means that taking a single Minelayer will incur a 0.5 SWC cost, at which point you can at best afford 2 SWC weapon armed HI without Joan...

 

Bravo!

 

Well, in fact, you still can buy three if you take the Santiago Spitfire somewhere, even without Joan.

 

Huh, completely forgot about that Specialist Operative profile it has that's has a 1.5 SWC Spitfire.

That's kinda neat, albeit still limits you to only one Minelayer ( And no EVO/HD/AHD/other 0.5 SWC things ) before Joan.

It was a simple deduction, my dear Watson.

 

Yes, of course. For myself, I tend to play Joan in the case I run this kind of list because she make everything easier. But, you still field a ton of firepower without her thanks to Kamau HMG and other light troops with non or low SWC long range weapons like Locust MMR, Bulleteer and so on. Really, if you pay attention, bringing heavy weapons in PanO isn't hard. Just notice where are the discounts and make good use of them.