Infinity N4 Faction Focus - PanOceanian Military Orders

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[@R0bertShepherd]

Today we're covering a much-requested faction, although I suspect at least some of those requests come from people who are sadists and want to see me suffer. That's right, it's Military Orders time, and with N5 on the horizon we're aggressively wishlisting possible changes that might redeem this sectorial in the coming edition. Massive thanks to Daboarder www.youtube.com/@DaboarderTTG for helping with the talking points and generally providing both his expertise and the sample list for this video.

[@AraigumaTV]

The link is broken, YT thinks the final ")" is part of the link.

[@R0bertShepherd]

​@AraigumaTV should be fixed now - thankyou!

[@LukeW-n4u]

Military Orders seems to need a thematically appropriate warband; what if they got some kind of religious fantastic who wants to be martyred?

[@uanchovy9480]

Well, this is a title I never expected to see on KZbin. How badly are you being threatened, Rob? Blink if you can hear us. More seriously, as an MO player I'm really looking forward to going through this, but I know that they're not your bag (which is fine! no faction is for everyone, and no faction should *try* to be for everyone!), so I will bear that in mind for some perspective.

[@nikolayleonov4378]

Seraph with Combat Jump is my dream, thank for vocalizing this in public -))

[@LukeW-n4u]

Awesome!! That was me PIZZAKRAP that asked you to think about MO in N5.

[@R0bertShepherd]

@user-jw4yt2iz9z you're showing up as user JW4YY2IZ9Z so I'm glad we cleared that up :p

[@exemplarx1249]

FINALLY edit: I feel so seen by this video, I've been feeling more or less everything you've said in some capacity in my plus minus dozen or so games with Military Orders. Its not that we don't have good things, but there's so much that isn't that good/compares poorly to other sectorials that just do what MO wants to do better. People tell me the Knights of Montesa are good, but I just look left to my buddy playing Steel Phalanx and seethe with envy at Penthesilea's capabilities compared to a Montesa. People tell me the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre is good, but I think Holoprojector is just jumping through lots of hoops for a not-that-strong gunfighting/maneuvering benefit and Mim-6 is better in 85% of situations. The only things I feel are actively amazing and mechanically unique in Military Orders are Tikbalangs, Teutonic Knights, and Trinitarians. Everything else is good enough to get the job done but held back by small inefficiencies in our Fireteam Chart structure or pointages, mediocre, or actively bad. Everytime I look at the Fugazi Dronbot profile and see AVA 1, I get really sad. I like a lot of your suggestions, especially regarding the Hospitallers and the Knight Commander; seeing the Crusade Fireteam playstyle open up would be a real treat, though I would not be opposed to Hospitallers getting a tactical awareness NCO profile :)

[@zephyrrrr4813]

I'd like to push back a bit on the penny vs montessa comparison. Yes penny is unhackable and that's really big. But a montessa paramedic does things that penny cannot in picking things up and getting specialist bonuses. Also the red fury is just such an excellent profile if you can ever afford it. As someone who has played with both I think that montessa are at worst very close to penny

[@exemplarx1249]

​@zephyrrrr4813 I'm not disputing that Knights of Montesa are definitely a good profile and they're very capable and playable, maybe the two profiles are closer than I imagine, but considering that a lot of what holds motorcycles back from being able to drive into a DZ and go crazy is the presence of midfield repeaters or ARO pieces, Penthesilea being able to bypass both of those defenses with ease by both being unhackable and having access to smoke grenades makes her superior to the Montesa in my view. This is without counting the other fringe benefits that she has, like a mono CCW over the Montesa's DA that allow her to engage and destroy TAGs with confidence. That being said, I've heard good things about the Red Fury Montesa and I'd like to give it a shot sometime, I just think that it's efficacy against non T-shirt infantry is gonna be fairly limited and I'd probably rather spend SWC on an AP gun most of the time. I'll also concede that the Montesa being a Paramedic is definitely valuable for objectives and being able to pick guys up. I guess I haven't had trouble rolling under 13 on 1d20 so I haven't experienced the difference between Penthesilea and the Montesa on that front 😅

[@RattlerNxt]

The Border Skirmishers rule is really useful for KoS.

[@Sheslat]

I have played MO since the end of n3 to now end of n4. Like everyone, we all complain about the lacks of our favorite factions, but we all should know that factions should be designed with strengths and weakness, but with time what it annoys me is the fact that they did not when throught with any design. There is a bit on invencible a bit of old deathstart and a bit of 1 hero knight with LI assist, but they did not commit to any. Why not let the commander be a chain of command and lean on the 1 hero knight with 2 liutenan orders fantasy. I hope in n5 we have more well designed armies instead of things like invencible and torchlight doing the same concept

[@krobiekong4326]

Thank you for this breakdown. I love the idea of squires for knights to fill supportive roles. I like the idea of them having to tote the heavy weapons (HRLs, GL, Feuerbachs). I also like how you talked about the Shikami: those minor changes really opened up the unit. CB seems to like "everything" pieces, and the new Shikami is one of those. They seem to be trying to do that with the Ayyar (multiple iterations), but like you mentioned, are hampered by holoprojector. Hopefully N5 does something interesting with that rule.

[@garrettlittle4830]

YIPPEE! Any MO content is good content... Thanks for being willing to see the light. :P

[@Hey_Its_MrSteve]

Rob, what's your opinion on lieutenant orders being usable in fireteams? It seems to me that allowing it would make aggressive lieutenants and Inspiring Leadership feel much more natural. It feels thematic and it self balances in that pushing your lieutenant further forward also puts them in greater danger.

[@R0bertShepherd]

I'm actually a tiny bit against it. The idea isn't fundamentally bad but end of N3 through N4 has seen a serious expansion of how many orders you can spend on an individual unit (the total number hasn't changed much due to N4's trooper limit but tactical awareness etc means the number of orders an individual trooper or team can receive has increased) and I'm very wary of any mechanic that makes that more widespread. Thematically, an Lt being able to activate a team with their order makes sense, I just wouldn't want it to be more creep in how aggressive an individual unit or team can be.

[@LukeW-n4u]

What’s your thoughts on if there was a Tikbalang lieutenant?

[@R0bertShepherd]

I don't think military orders thematically fits with a remote presence TAG. As much as the outcome was a bit grim, Corvus Belli went to a lot of effort to actually put a knight on the battlefield and in charge of MO forces. A glorified FPV drone pilot in a command bunker a thousand miles away is probably a step back from that. Now, if MO had a manned TAG - absolutely. Even a Sepulchre Knight Lt profile would be a bit of welcome variation.

[@heavyhoplitehero334]

YES

[@Direwoof]

i started with militry orders... yea it's the biggest piece of daaawgshit XD, I play white banner and invincible army instead now. Hoping they get some big buffs in n5, more ways to get core pure fire teams with actually good units like 3 teutonics and 2 hospitallers in a 5 man pure would be awesome. Hoping seraph gets an armour buff and a useful gun, no idea why a S7 tag has a default ass HMG with no AP.

[@LukeW-n4u]

Or Helots??

[@R0bertShepherd]

You could potentially add some defensive ARO order sergeant pieces or something but to my knowledge there aren't many catholic helots in the setting.

[@MusterKrux]

Yup. Guilty as charged.

[@corbeaubm]

Back in the days of N3 I played a ton of MO and loved them. Of course, that's because I was spamming Magister Knights and TO Camo specialist sergeants (unlimited availability Trinitarians) with a cheap Fusilier overwatch link (including, yes, a Fusilier Lt.). Basically everything that CB removed or massively restricted about the faction.

[@R0bertShepherd]

RIP Magister Knights, forever in our hearts.

[@MrPinkpanzer]

What if you just change the name of the knight commander or knights of justice to Knight exemplar. Make them the example of what a knight could be, then you can justify making them a pure link with any knightly order. Or maybe CB could just give those units a keyword that does the same thing.

[@thwalmsley]

Shout out to Lockie! He was great for us on WIP12, really knows his stuff regarding PanO and was a good guest.

[@festmkiv]

Despite being a longtime MO fan and player I did not request this video! I think the topic is generally done to death but it was great to see your thoughts on what would make MO work in an INTERESTING way. I had a bunch of ideas that was always just playing on the numbers and mechanical advantage - "Let teutons and hospitallers fireteam, increase AVA of Flashybois, make the Knight of Justice XYZ". Knights and squires - fantastic. Hostpitallers as heavily armoured dudes to give them a unique theme and utility different to Invincibiles, ORCs and other Arm 4 heavy infantry - love it. I don't think this will happen with the optimisation pass - but we can dream! Currently I think MO has two competition viable list construction archetypes, Tikbalang paired with an assault element (Montessa or aggressive harris), or Gabrielle de Fersen Harris supported by a Kngiht of Holy Sepulchre. I feel you NEED one of those AP HMGs to make the faction work, to avoid the risk of PanO lockout. Part of my issues is there are a lot of interesting and potentially fun profiles locked behind this requirement - I'd very much love to run the KotHS with the Multi Spitfire for example. Honestly I think MO is reflective of a more cautious, older design style that changed when Morats was released - they had this series of awesome profiles and thought "hey these might be too good, we'd better really restrict them in other ways so they're not overpowered".

[@R0bertShepherd]

Absolutely agree. The military orders rework feels like one of the last 'old' sectorials.

[@brinklight0074]

DEUS VULT!

[@RattlerNxt]

I’ve dropped 2 of these into the back arc of the Avatar.

[@ChampionofTerra]

Could you do svalarheima?

[@R0bertShepherd]

It's on the list :)

[@JasonPBury]

Great video, With video of yours i watch Im tempted back to the game, Love my MO. My biggest problem is that I love Mendoza.....so hard to fit him in

[@R0bertShepherd]

He's *so* good when you line him up just right, but MO struggles to fit him just like you say. I think you actually manage it in vanilla, but we also know vanilla is changing in N5. Watch this space, I reckon - see what jumps out to you when the new edition hits :)

[@Lilthara]

Glad to see this faction review. Poor MO I hope they become less painful to list build for

[@R0bertShepherd]

You and me both. :)

[@zephyrrrr4813]

On the hospitaler knights front id also really like to see some form of aro piece that you can add to the link more threatening than a hmg

[@R0bertShepherd]

Yeah perhaps a BS14 ARM5 BTS9 heavy infantry piece with a missile launcher.

[@zephyrrrr4813]

Perhaps xd