So, you’ve been playing Infinity 5th Edition for a few months, have you? Whether you’re new to Infinity or a long-time Warhorse you need to know what Goonhammer thinks of PanOceania in N5. So, today we’re going to discuss the coolest Hyperpower in the Human Sphere and its three sectorials. Strap in, chummers, this is going to be one helluva ride.
OK, first thing’s first, introductions are in order: Pan-Oceania is what happens when a near-future USA, Russia, France, UK and Germany get together and agree to collectively bankrupt themselves as the greatest practical joke in history (To note: the real world scoreboard says we’re about 3/5 of the way there already). So, whenever there’s a geo-political power vacuum opening up, of course you’re going to see South America, India, (South, East and South-East) Asia, Australia and for some reason…The Scandinavians*…join forces and become an economic hyperpower. Seems reasonable. Pan-Oceania (PanO for short) is the closest thing to a ‘generic good guys wearing blue’ faction that seems to permeate popular culture. Pro Tip: They aren’t nearly as good as they’d have you believe. PanO, as a faction, are generally the straight-forward, no tricks (update: These days it’s probably: Fewer tricks) faction that wins games by shooting the opponent off the table and then worrying about the scoreboard later.
We’re going to discuss each of PanO’s sectorials first and then round up with the vanilla/generic army list at the end. So, without further ado…
Kestrel Colonial Force
We here at Goonhammer HQ workshopped nicknames for Kestrel Colonial Force and after 16 gruelling hours of arguments the vote was that Kestrel, the PanO sectorial based on a desert planet, would be known as SandO. However, I’m going to just straight up ignore that and lean into the common typo of KFC. So, anytime I’ve written ‘KFC’ just assume that I’m being incredibly funny on purpose [Ed: No, it’s not] and not making an oblique reference to a certain Colonel with 11 Secret Herbs and Spices. Or, maybe I am? Do you even know what Helot tastes like?
Play Style and Faction Identity
I don’t know how to describe Kestrel playstyle and identity except as ‘PanO Goodstuff’. You’ll struggle to wander through the army list without tripping over a good profile. If we had to drill down further, I’d note that Kestrel doesn’t have the absolute peak of firepower (ie. BS 15 HRMC TAGs) but it still has some solid B+ firepower (and the Hetkari, which is an A+ shooter all by itself). Your infowar capability is probably mostly there to give you the breathing room you need to win the shooting war, it’s an enabler function rather than a core function of the faction.
Fireteams
Pretty standard layout here, 1 Fireteam Core, 1 Haris, unlimited Duos. Wildcards are fine, good balance of specialists, mid-tier shooters and toolbox units.
Fennec Fireteams: Core or Haris
Being an LI Fireteam it’s no surprise that we can’t have a Duo here, which is a shame, as having a two Fennec combo of a HMG and Paramedic for the +1 dice shooting would be incredibly efficient. Understandably, we can’t do this because unlimited Duos would be exploited and the game would become degenerate very quickly. As it stands, the cheapest way to achieve that extra firepower in this Fireteam is to plug in an additional Fennec and make a Haris or Core. Which is fine, nobody ever complained about paying 10 points for a BS 12 Combi-rifle that generates an order.
Kestrel Fireteams: Duo
This fireteam seems useful but potentially expensive if you’re trying to get a Burst bonus onto an Active piece. I feel like the trick would be to attach a Wildcard specialist to your choice of shooter: Griffin HMG or Hetkari and go wild (Bipandra might be an option, because she can also heal the active piece if they lose too many F2F rolls).
Armoured Fireteams: Duo
I’m pretty open-minded and do my best to avoid constricting my thinking to ‘What’s good in N4’ but I don’t think it’s a struggle to suggest that Double-TAG fireteams aren’t going to be terribly popular or efficient. Prove me wrong, children. Prove me wrong. Honestly, what you might see here is a TAG dragging a wildcard specialist around, most likely the Pathfinder which can keep up with it (while also delivering a Repeater into the mid-field). Maybe you’ll drop in a Bulleteer to give you a sacrificial attack piece? The choice is yours. It’s fine. Basically, if you’re going to take a Tikbalang or Squalos on their own merits as a solo piece, you may as well duct-tape a Pathfinder to it.
Colcorp Fireteams: Haris or Duo
FT Master on 6 point Jackals is one helluva drug. Haris or Duo, you’ve got cheap Regular orders that can pull double-duty as ARO pieces. If you have points and Combat Group slots left over I can think of worse things to do than fill them with ColCorp Duos. These seem very solid, and I’m leaning towards the Multi Marksman Rifle on the Magistrate personally.
Notable Units
Just to help you navigate your way through your first Kestrel Fried Chicken combo-meal, here’s our top pick for units to watch out for as you play your first games in N5:
Hetkari Shooters: Hoo boy. This heckin’ chonker is an Apex Predator. I think that while if you did the maths on how often BS 14 with Marksmanship and BS Attack -3 actually wins Firefights you might be mildly and pleasantly surprised, I’m still going to lean into the MULTI Red Fury because I am addicted to rolling as many dice as possible. At least with an AP-ammo type you can convert F2F wins into damage against harder targets, so the Multi-Fury (much easier to say than the full name) remains a very viable weapon. Regardless of loadout, you’re still spending about 1/6th of your total points for a single 6-2 S2 model that starts in your DZ and has no mobility skills. A poor deployment here could see you handicapped for the rest of your game, where larger models (ie. TAGs) or those with movement skills are more likely to get the LOF they need to recover from an unlucky deployment choice. So, Hetkari Shooter: They’re great, amazing even, when they start rolling F2F but it’s your job to make that happen.
Redeye Close Air Support Squad: Noting above that the Hektari might struggle to line up some good fights, the Redeye is a hyper-mobile platform that won’t struggle to start a fight in a bar on a Friday night. Whether it can win those fights is another question. As a side note, check out that Dodge -3 and consider the damage you might be able to do by Spec Firing that Grenade Launcher. Vehicles appear to sit in the design space between TAGs and HI: they’re mobile, have some resilience (ie. decent Arm and multiple STR), and good but not amazing F2F capabilities (BS 13 here, Mimetism -6…but also No Cover), you also have to pay elite HI/budget-TAG prices for them.
Drummers: In earlier editions PanO had a cheeky unit called Auxila, who were BS 11…in PanO. Practically unforgivable, right? Except for the fact that they came up with the idea of strapping flamethrowers to Roombas. Drummers are the next step in weaponised home-appliances, with anything from Mk12s through to Hyper-Rapid Magnetic Cannons being duct-taped to remotes. While I am usually a strong proponent of disposable attack pieces I feel like the premium you’re paying here isn’t quite justified by the performance. Paying basically 40 points for a single wound HRMC that leaves behind a dweeb with a Marksman Rifle is a very spicy choice. That said, there are ways to mitigate risks here. A Peripheral is a trooper, troopers can pick up Speedballs. Catching what I’m throwing? Overall, worth testing but I don’t think they’ll be terribly prominent in the meta-game as going second is going to paint a pretty big target on your Drummer.
Fireflies: these are a very multi-role unit which binds some important KCF Fireteams together. They can be great support for TAGs when taken as engineers, they allow NCO Orders to be spent moving a team, and they provide the only turret Minelayer currently in the game. Really the envy of other factions’ Fireteam MI.
Magistrates (and Jackals): The former give PanO a really top-class command structure, with Counterintelligence and Strategos for an unbelievably cheap price. While natural Lts, we can also support them as Chain of Command for one of the Sectorial’s superb active Lt options, e.g. the Tikbalang with +1 Lt Order. Their other utility is making Jackals Regular Order generators via Fireteam Master, which is just an insane value.
Father Lucien Sforza: A late addition to the team. Sforza is an odd addition to the team. He suffers from the curse of having enough skills and capability to be expensive but not enough capability to be a reliable threat to the sorts of pieces you might want him to be facing off against. If you really desperately need a 0 SWC weapon that can shoot out to HMG rangebands, I guess you can give Sforza a call. Alternatively, if you absolutely must have a bounty-hunting priest with a glue-gun in your list, he’s your man.
Rating: S
If KFC has any weaknesses as a faction I am yet to encounter them. Maybe infowar but it’s pretty hard to suggest that a faction with access to Peacemakers and Marker-state Hackers has weak Hacking.
Sample List
To help you write your first KFC lists, we’ve provided a delicious free sample! Disclaimer: Goonhammer advises that the free sample list contains none of the 11 secret herbs and spices, almost no actual chicken (or Kestrel) meat, and has no nutritional value whatsoever. Any victories achieved while using this list are not intended and entirely coincidental. If your LDL cholesterol levels stay above 160 mg/dl for longer than 3 hours after a game please see your Doctor.
Finger Lickin’ Good
Army Code:
axZrZXN0cmVsLWNvbG9uaWFsLWZvcmNlASCBLAIBAQAJAIcSAQMAAC4BAgAAhyABAwAAhyABAwAAhxUBAQAAhxUBAQAAhwwBBgAAJAEDAAAkAQMAAgEABwARAQIAAIcLAQoAAA8BCwAAhxABAwAAhwsBCQAAJQEBAAAjAQIA
This isn’t an optimised KFC list by any stretch of the imagination but you’ve got a whole heap of defence in depth to ensure that you survive your opponent’s alpha strike. A lot of these pieces can also turn around and prosecute an attack run as needed, so you’ll always have options to take a chunk out of your opponent even if they get to swing first.
Military Orders
Military Order (MO) are an unusual Sectorial in that they have minimal overlap with Generic PanO. Seriously, besides the Remotes, it’s only Teutonic Knights, the new Team Crux Father-Knights, Joan of Arc, her best friend the Warcor, the Tech-Bee, and the Tikbalang (in a slightly tweaked profile). Similarly, there are a few knights available in Svarlaheima WinterForce (SWF) and just the Crux in KCF. So in some ways it’s a separate faction – in others it carries the design language of PanO (high BS, low WIP, no smoke).
Play Style and Faction Identity
It’s a common joke that MO gets reworked about twice an edition. This is because they’re perennially popular – space knights are a strong concept, and people love to point out the comparison with GW’s space knights, as a potential onramp for disillusioned 40k players. At the same time, they have a real dissonance between the ‘power fantasy’ of the army and how to actually play Infinity. MO is definitely, conceptually, a Heavy Infantry army. Players want to push their power armoured knights around the board. But this is challenging in practice; HI have never been in a better place than N5, but factions still need cheaper supporting units. In fact nearly all competitive lists, being around 15 models strong, need to take some cheap troopers, and so factions’ competitive edge is closely linked to how good their cheap stuff is. Additionally, due to hacking and general asymmetry, it is tactically very helpful to have some unhackable units to attack where HI would run into trouble, as well as support capabilities like killer hackers and engineers. So MO has two perennial problems with list building: first, its ‘cheap end’ units aren’t that numerous and aren’t particularly good. Players end up taking multiple serviceable 11-18pt models which might get overlooked in other factions, just to make lists work. Second, most of the iconic HI knights are under optimised. They are beefy models with good all round stats, including some close combat skills, which makes them expensive in points. At the same time, they lack real gunfighting equipment. Because of these factors, competitive MO lists have often looked different to what a new player might expect.
In late N4, MO coasted heavily on its better units: Teutonic Knights (the cheapest heavy infantry by a wide margin), Trinitarian Tertiaries (hidden infiltrators to get things done) and the mighty Tikbalang (a highly mobile TAG). Joan of Arc, the Sectorial’s notional leader, was actually far better in Generic PanO, since her Fireteam options only supported Hospitaller knights, which were not popular. In N5, some of these truths about what worked and what didn’t remain the same. MO is still bloody awkward to get to 14-15 Orders and still have the cool stuff. But a lot of the detail on exactly which models are good shifted.
Fireteams
MO’s fireteams remain a little bit clunky. Their basic team (Haris and Core only) which has to be built on Crosier line infantry or Teutonic Knights, also allows for the cheapish support troops, and Black Friars, a key gunfighting unit. Lists are very likely to still include at least one of these teams to get enough numbers on the table. The other option for building a team on light infantry is built on Order Sergeants (Haris and Duo only) and again has support troop options, with the gunfighter instead being the Bulleteer. Both these teams allow for including enough light infantry to get a decent Fireteam bonus level, then either power up a single-wound gunfighter (the Black Friar or Bulleteer) or bring in a Wildcard. The former also covers building a team around Teutonic Knights – see their unit entry below. These will probably be the most common team when lists want to get to that goal of 14-15 Orders.
The other option for a bigger team built around knights is the Crusade team, which is just Hospitallers, and can include Joan (two useful Wildcards, De Fersen and Hawkins, also count as Hospitallers). So this is the premier option for a full HI pain train list, but as we have pointed out in other N5 coverage, that style of play took a substantial nerf. But it also covers taking a Duo or Haris team which includes at least one ordinary Hospitaller.
Finally there are a variety of Duo teams you can make – the pure options are Knights of Montesa, Santiago, or the Bulleteer remotes. Rather frustratingly there are no (counts as) tags here, so more interesting combinations, like Joan with any non-Hospitallers, or Knights of Justice (KoJ) with anything, don’t get the new N5 Duo boost. It’s even more irritating that KoJ can’t form a Duo of their own.
We’ll look at some example Fireteams later on, after examining the units.
Notable Units
Cheap Stuff and Support
Let’s look at the cheap things first. These are the units you will need to take in order to build any sensible list. Crosiers are the line infantry and will probably be seen as the paramedic option, and maybe in pairs so that other additions and wildcards can gain the +1SD bonus. Order Sergeants offer the same line infantry role but with alternative profiles (a hacker and a HRL). While these types will be seen as Fireteam glue, they’re not especially great value so are a kind of awkward fact of life in MO. A key member of a Crosier-built Fireteam (although it could go with Teutons instead) is the Black Friar. This unit got a nice upgrade with Albedo(-3) on top of its existing MSV2, making it one of the Sectorial’s most efficient gunfighters. The weapon options are a bit strange, with the HRL profile the only one likely to see play. With MSV and Combat Instinct, this model is only super vulnerable to Albedo and White Noise attacks. Can’t argue with that for the cost, its only flaw is fragility.
There are some useful solo models which will feature in many lists. The AVA1 Fugazi (flash pulse bot) is basically an auto-take for MO – just raising their AVA would be a real boost to the faction. The 12pt Raveneye is similarly too good a value to pass up, unless your list uses a lot of Crosiers. MO is so pressed for cheap models to fit in the cool stuff that it often includes unarmed Mulebots, and could include the reworked Tech-Bee (she gets TAGCom now) even if not using any TAGs. Finally, the humble Warcor finishes off many an MO list which falls short on numbers. Of course if you’re using Joan as your Lt, that’s a cheap Order.
Further support is useful for big valuable units. Curators are the faction’s only engineer and therefore crucial to supporting its TAGs, and still pretty great insurance for all the hackable HI. Infirmarers are the basic Doctor option, and saw a big points drop in N5 which just about makes them usable. Both units are necessary support and just cheap enough to not actively harm your battle to get an acceptable number of models on the table. So they can feature with Palbot servants, which is probably the best method. They can mesh into Fireteams, but neither can contribute to a bonus for a Core team.
Taking a good half your models from the above list gives you just about enough leeway to get some cool knights and things. But it’s not very satisfying or efficient.
TAGs
I’ve heard MO cheekily (but accurately) described as having gone from a faction carried on the back of a strong TAG in N4 to … exactly the same thing in N5. Only the TAG changed. We mentioned how great the Tikbalang was? Well, it stayed the same cost and lost AP on its HMG. A key skill, Climbing Plus, also got much more heavily restricted. Still a formidable active turn threat, but no longer among the best TAGs in the game (it’s much better in vanilla PanO or KCF where it accesses a Lt+1 Order profile. The Seraph, meanwhile, is easily the most-improved unit in the Sectorial. This hinges on the combo of Super-Jump (8”) and (Jet Propulsion), allowing It to zoom around the board and gain LoF on pretty much anything not hiding in a sealed box. That’s a terrifying capability for light units, on a serious TAG it looks like it could be game-breaking. It gained a Multi-HMG profile and an AP Spitfire with HFT Auxbot profile. We can’t say which of those is better yet; the MHMG makes it a true all-round apex threat from the start of the game, while the AP Spitfire and Auxbot are better for close assault once it gets jumping. We predict the Seraph will be Sectorial defining and should, at least for the short term, appear in the bulk of competitive lists for MO. Its biggest weakness is hacking (which can seriously restrain its breakthrough with AROs) or getting bricked by EM rounds. Curators are only AVA1 in MO, so your engineering support is also a single point of failure. We think the Speedball pack ‘Switch On’ is going to be a very common pick for MO to get their Seraph through tough times.
Knights
At least for us, this is the key thematic draw of the Sectorial, but also the most frustrating part. Most of the Knights are just not very optimised models. Apparently Mimetism, Visors (ironically), or other gunfighting rules like BS Attack(-3) are not knightly accomplishments. All of the knights (bar some of the cheap Teutons) got cheaper in N5, but mostly in line with other HI across the game.
Teutonic Knights remain the cheapest by far but can no longer function as budget general-use HI due to gaining Limited Cover. Completely fair, but it changes their use case. The gap between a Fireteam and a solo Teuton is narrower. The ML profile is no longer viable, and in our opinion neither is the spitfire. Order efficiency is now its only selling point; it just can’t batter through ordinary AROs reliably or quickly enough to work as a gunner. The close range/Panzerfaust Teutons should now dominate, and due to overall cost we expect them to still fill their AVA3 in most lists. We don’t know if the meta will settle on using Teutons more as Fireteam glue, alongside more capable Wildcards (or Black Friars) or just as Impetuous warbands. In either role, they are still the best ordinary Lt/decoy candidates in the faction.
Hospitaller Knights got cheaper, but now really do have to worry about Frenzy. Profiles have been consolidated slightly; shout out to the FD+8” option, which now carries a Contender as well – an interesting pick to play with. The lack of direct template weapons is a real shame, given you often want to send knights forward into the enemy. Nonetheless, Hospitallers are probably the best choices for Knightly Duos, either as the Doctor/HMG, or paired with a powerful character. Hawkins is a good all-rounder, a Specialist with limited AP weaponry and better melee skills than other Hospitallers. De Fersen is the best hacker in-faction and totes a spitfire, but he really wants a Tinbot, so should appear more in teams with 3+ models. Joan is maybe the most improved model in the Sectorial besides the Seraph. Gaining TacAware, and AP on her mobility version’s spitfire, is enormous. In N4 her ARM5 rifle version was the usual pick; now the mobility version looks better. The ability to buy Strategic Deployment, or +1 Command Token (we would probably take the former) is clutch, even if it does cost a few additional points.
Knights of Santiago are still flexible all-rounders and rather pay the price for that. Spec Ops and 360 visors are convenient, they do cost points but Santiagos saw major point drops overall. The KHD remains the best way for the Sectorial to defend its Fireteams from enemy hackers, so will be important. The Combat Jump versions still lack Parachutist, so remain the option for gamblers and fanatics. I am still partial to the Combat Jump KHD myself – losing shotgun templates stings, but it picked up +1B on the boarding shotgun to compensate.
Knights of Justice (KoJ) are still too expensive to be used competitively. Their stats are all great – being 6-2 alone is a huge relief – and their non-SWC profiles finally got multi- rather than combi-rifles, but the Sectorial just can’t afford them. I’d genuinely try a Duo if it were allowed, but these need at least two other models to team up with to access any +1SD bonus.
Not so for Crux Team Father Knights. The only genuinely new unit in the Sectorial, this AVA1 choice is the Wildcard par excellence – any Fireteam benefits enormously from him, particularly the Strategic Deployment profile. But he’s valuable in himself as a capable 24” gunfighter who can counter enemy firepower units which happen to have MSV – Albedo-6 is a hell of a drug. His FD+8” option seems like it needs you to play first turn to be effective (similar issues to Mendoza); the options that also have Hidden Deployment are intriguing. It’s a lot of points for a unit with 8” guns (all of the profiles are expensive) but there’s definitely room for experimentation here.
Motorised Knights of Montesa are still a promising Duo for missions where you want to cross the board fast. Limited Cover is a blow, but not as fatal as it is for Teutons, since these have Mimetism to partially compensate. The weapon choices are similar, but all got cheaper and gained boarding pistols to provide direct templates. These seem like a valid choice for rapid attack units (probably as a Duo) and the Paramedic will certainly be a top mission specialist, since it’s down to 23pts. That’s the same as a Trinitarian, and much more suitable for exclusion zone missions. N5 also adds a dismounted unit, the Knight of Montesa, which is just a dismounted profile with FD+8”. Tragically still Limited Cover, but a valid alternative as a mission Specialist or a cheap fighter that starts forward.
Our last Knight, of the Holy Sepulchre, is one of the weirdest. Holoprojector doesn’t play with Fireteams and it’s not seen as a great kit compared to, say, Camouflage and Mimetism. It’s tricky to use the skill to achieve real surprise or protect yourself fully in the Reactive turn. At least the Sepulchre benefited slightly from fewer Fireteams ignoring its Surprise Attack, and from its Warhorse skill now ignoring enemy BS Attack(-3). But both profiles here are super expensive for a solo model without a ‘real’ marker state or so much as a template weapon. You can get TAGs for this price in some factions.
Other Threats
Is Mendoza a knight? We will mention him here anyway, because he’s rather unique. A Mimetism-6 HI with FD+8” is a very aggressive model. He got a lot cheaper in N5, to the point that he competes with the biggest and baddest Fireteam knights. Massively easier to fit into a list. But, his issues are still there: without a marker state, he can only really deploy forward if you’re playing first. He’s too juicy a target otherwise; all the Mimetism and fighting stats in the world won’t save him in the midfield playing second. Those qualities will be meaningless when he gets hacked, and that’s also his weakness in your active turn. Players will want a non-hackable threat to complement him.
Trinitarian Tertiaries are probably those threats. These lean Hidden operators are still the most efficient way for MO to have a midfield presence and will be a constant, at least in missions which don’t have an exclusion zone. They are the flexible choice for those who want some midfield presence as a plan B. For the more aggressive, Dart stayed exactly the same, which brings her down a bit in relative terms. Some metas did consider her an auto-take for N4 MO. I’m a little more pessimistic, she’s very expensive for a model that needs to be within 8” to shine. But there is a new Hidden light infantry in MO’s midfield with Konstantinos’ new profile. This is a decent glow-up for a historically poor profile. Barely less expensive than Dart, and only 1VITA, but Konstantinos does bring a better visor and a proper rifle. He’s also a specialist, which is big, but lacks Stealth. We think a lot of good MO players (or those playing against good opposition) will need some form of unhackable tech piece to make a hole for their assault units. Dart may still be the favourite there, but time will tell.
One alternative would be the Crusader Brethren. This didn’t get much cheaper, instead it was given a bevy of close combat skills. This means it looks overcoated as a shooter, but there might be some play in the 23pt Discoballer profile. Some way to manage visibility is super valuable, and MO can’t complain, being entirely smokeless up until now. But we’re not sure we would rely on the Crusader Brethren finding a place to deploy, when you could fold Konstantinos FTO into a team and use a Discoballer with +1SD instead.
A Note on MO Lieutenants
New players may see the Knight Commander, a model explicitly designed to be the Lt in an MO force, and think it sounds a jolly good idea. This unit is still a total trap. It’s just too expensive for the very marginal benefits of secrecy and the privilege of paying extra for +1Lt Order. A real disappointment, the unit was ripe for a revamp. Many players have expressed a desire for a functional, cheap Chain of Command unit. That would actually enable using heroic Lts like Joan or De Fersen. Instead we are stuck with this overpriced garbage. How it ended up at 23pts minimum is beyond belief.
Rating: B – strong units but very limited variety and structure. MO has the same issues which existed in N4, and that have plagued it in slight variations through various faction reworks. It doesn’t have enough cheap units (or maybe good enough cheap units) and most of the actual knights aren’t worth their points. This will probably lead to the same solution as in N4: there will be functional, competitive but not meta-beating lists available for the faction. However they will be light on variety and a wide range of units will be consigned to the bin. That might be overly pessimistic. MO did get improvements to some profiles, better Duos might be a real help, Discoballer could be a game changer (that last one is far better for other PanO sub-factions though). However this was not their time for [another] major reworking and it shows.
We expect MO lists to heavily feature a similar subset of 5-10 cheap profiles: Fugazi, Raveneye, 1-2 Mulebots, 1-3 Crosiers, 3 cheap Teutons. That’s fine, and many factions in Infinity kind of work that way – when was the last time Combined Army showed up without any Ikadrons or Warbands? But it’s not a very engaging collection in MO. After that we think most lists will build heavily around supporting the Seraph, and that will lend itself to Remotes in support. We also think some Hidden or Camouflage unhackable model(s) will be priorities for lists, to help free the Seraph from threats. A cheap Teuton is still the more practical Lt in this list archetype.
However, we don’t have a crystal ball and some alternative configurations of knightly Fireteams may rise to prominence. We do think a Crux Team Father-Knight has the legs to lead Teutons, or even a more expensive Fireteam. Various combos of knights are good enough to see play, even if they don’t look likely to become top tournament prospects.
Sample List
Just to help you start off with writing Military Order lists, we’ve provided a sample list below. This list contains some elements of the faction that we think you’d do well to explore and experiment with at the start of the N5 edition cycle. Disclaimer: Goonhammer advises that the following list is for demonstration purposes only. Any victories achieved while using these lists are not intended and entirely coincidental. If your urge to sack the holy cities of other faiths persists for longer than 2 centuries please see your Medicus.
List Name: Send the Seraph
Army Code: Zw9taWxpdGFyeS1vcmRlcnMOU2VyYXBoIExpc3QgdjGBLAIBAAoBIgECAAKDAwEEAAOFzwECAASGGAECAAWGGAEBAAYeAQEABx4BAQAIHgEHAAmDpwECAAqGNAEBAAIABwERAQEAAoYzAQMAAyUBAQAEJQEBAAUTAQEABiYBAQAHhfcBAwA%3D
This list is really just about the Seraph. The idea is to use it aggressively to shoot whatever it can see (taking full advantage of Super-Jump), while Dart takes care of key threats like hackers that could stop it. The rest of the list is necessarily light, with a Core team of Crosiers powering the Black Friar, who is cheap and can deal with Mimetism-6 threats the Seraph doesn’t fancy as much. This team can include the Teutons or they can just function as warbands and/or Lt decoys. In the support group we have an engineer, some cheap stuff and a TR bot to provide a bit of defence.
List Name: Mendooozaaaa!
ArmyCode:
Zw9taWxpdGFyeS1vcmRlcnMVQ29vbCBHdXlzIGFuZCBNZW5kb3phgSwCAQAKAYYYAQUAAoYYAQIAA4MDAQQABIY0AQEABR4BBwAGHgEFAAceAQEACIcXAQYACTIBAQAKhhoBAwACAAUBEwEBAAKDpwECAAMmAQEABAYBAwAFBgEHAA%3D%3D
I don’t actually like the Seraph model and prefer to see power armoured HI in my MO lists. This is an example of a possibly-functional list which still makes more standard knights the active pieces. We have a similarly efficient Crosier/Black Friar team as a backstop, then a team of Teutons led by a Crux Team Father-Knight to plow up the field, supporting Mendoza. The support group features the longer range sweeper in the form of a Hospitaller Duo. That Duo could easily be swapped into ranged threat, or the Doctor could be cut for a Trinitarian.
Svalarheima Winter Force
Play Style and Faction Identity
Svalarheima is PanO with highly mobile Close Combat elements. It’s insane how many pieces you can get that have Super-Jump and a CC score above 20. It’s Three, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it’s happening in PanO. Also, Valkyrie. Svalarheima are, generally, a very honest faction. You don’t get a huge amount of fog of war on deployment as your opponent will look at your list and have a pretty good idea of what you’re bringing to the game. That said, SWF did finally learn how to use camouflage: They finally have multiple units with a marker state and even a few Minelayers to help mix it up but your opponents probably won’t be surprised twice in any one game by your list.
Fireteams
Fusilier Fireteam
Pretty simple and generic. Take some Fusiliers, maybe splice in a gun (Oktavia, Karhu or a Wildcard), call it done. Drop in a Hacker if you want the cheapest possible way to leverage the area denial of Peace Makers.
Nisses Fireteam
My default build here would be a Nisse HMG or Sniper backed up by a Machinist WinterFor. Get that sweet +1SD for your big gun, drag a specialist around with you. Seems solid. You’re a braver person than I if you go for a Nisse Haris or full Core.
WinterFor Alpha Fireteam
Building up a fireteam that needs to start with an ORC or Varg is going to be an expensive proposition. I personally woldn’t do much more than a pure Duo. I’d be very tempted to roll in Valkyrie as her unique melee capabilities and survivability makes her an excellent Trading-Up piece. This is also notable as the Super-Jump team, for Vargar with or without Shona Carano. Bouncing 6-6 around the table is a lot of fun.
WinterFor Beta Fireteam
Another potentially expensive Duo/Haris but at least you can either do Double-Hospitaller (Doc and HMG is the first order optimal pick) or ‘Any shooter’ tailed by an Infirmarer. Seems perfectly fine. The Boyg is very expensive but represents an excellent MSV-breaking piece (and SWF loves a cheeky bit of Mimetism, so having someone to chew on your natural predators feels like a solid play.), so having them tailed by a specialist (native member or wildcard) while they sweep the ramparts is a perfectly reasonable choice.
Bulleteers Duo
Does exactly what it says on the box. You can maybe strap a Karhu Engineer to the back of a Bulleteer but that feels like the Tail is Wagging the Dog. That said, at 19 points with the option to repair, a Bulleteer HSG is going to trade up if it can get into the 0-8” rangeband.
Notable Units
Let’s not beat around the bush…
Jotum: It’s an ARM 10, BTS 9 monstrosity. If it’s in cover, a combi-rifle cannot hurt it. Jotum is like Chuck Norris. It doesn’t sleep, it lies awake at night and waits. A Taigha Creature Berserked into the Jotum once and after three agonising rounds, the Taigha Creature died.
Vargar and Boyg: I’m putting both of these into the same category as they are both Albedo -6 units. SWF loves a bit of Mimetism, so these guys are great insurance against MSV ruining your day.
Liang Kai: Liang Kai is the warband most warbands wish they were. Playing PanO, you’ve got the long-range game sorted, so Liang Kai is the man you send in to mop up once your opponent has flinched and ducked into cover. To a lesser extent, Shona Carano and Valkyrie can do the same but start with Liang Kai and work from there.
Team Deus Vult: Despite being categorically not Military Orders, apparently SWF does get representation from the religious side of PanO. Hawkins is a great little piece that does everything, the Knight of Justice is great for the price (and the Hacker, at BTS 9 is amazing), while the regular Hospitallers are a little slow (foot slogging out of your DZ at 4-4), they’re well priced for their ability to win fights
Rating: B+
Svalarheima seems pretty good. They’ve got PanO guns, great close-quarters pieces, a sprinkling of Knights and the Jotum. What else could you want?
Sample List
Just to help you start off with writing Svalarheima lists, we’ve provided a sample list below. This list contains some elements of the faction that we think you’d do well to explore and experiment with at the start of the N5 edition cycle. Disclaimer: Goonhammer advises that the following list is for demonstration purposes only. Any victories achieved while using these lists are not intended and entirely coincidental. If your hypothermia persists for longer than 3 hours after a game please drink a nice warm cup of hot cocoa (and then see a doctor).
Ride of the Valkiang-Kai
Army Code: ahpzdmFsYXJoZWltYS1zLXdpbnRlci1mb3JjZRhSaWRlIG9mIHRoZSBWYWxraWFuZy1LYWmBLAIBAQAJAAMBAwAADwENAACFPwEBAACF3AEBAACGIgEEAACF4QEBAAAkAQMAACQBAwAAMgEBAAIBAAYAIwECAAAQAQIAAAEBCgAAAQEJAAABAQYAAIXNAQMA
So much close quarters combat. If your Nisse sniper and Karhu Feurbach and get your opponent to duck, your Murder Squad will be able to leap across the table and do horrible, nasty things to them.
Generic PanO
We’ve decided to put the parent-faction, Generic PanO at the bottom of the list instead of first because we’re going to be talking about a few profiles that were already going to be covered in their respective Sectorials. So, rather than duplicate words or endlessly say ‘see below’, we’re just going to hope you’ve read the previous sections above and know what we’re on about. First of all, I just need to call out Corvus Belli for what they did to my boy, Varuna. In memory of my glorious beach-party faction I will henceforth be referring to vanilla PanO as Varunilla, because that’s where all the Varuna refugees ended up (Cutters, Crocmen, Zulu Cobras, etc etc). I will force this meme so hard.
Play Style and Faction Identity
It’s PanO, they’re schtick has been having high-water mark shooters for the longest time. They’ve still got that. They’ve got the Hektari, the Crux Knight, as well as the Cutter. However, they’ve been given a few more tricks in this edition and if you fail to adapt to your new toolbox you’re going to get outflanked, stabbed and hacked before you can get your shots off.
Notable Units
Blade-Ops: Fireteam Glue, Blade Ops are great at plugging a Tactical Aware specialist into any Duo led by a shooter you want to run in vanilla. Does your TAG want a pocket Engineer for repairs? Done. Even if your attack piece falls over your Blade remains a BS-13 operative with Mimetism and an unceasing appetite for violence.
Bolts: With Neo-Capitaline Army deprecated the noble Bolts have been orphaned and folded into vanilla PanO. Which is great for vanilla PanO, mind you. Being BS 13 platforms with Warhorse and Marksmanship, they’re surprisingly well priced and that’s before you consider that a Bolt Hacker is BTS 6 and functionally immune to Oblivion. You need to have a good reason to drop a Bolt into your lists but they’ve got some cute tech going, so it’s rarely hard to justify the choice. Have at it.
Crux Knight: PanO doesn’t get amazing fireteam options in vanilla (Except for the Heloans, trust me, all will be explained) but who needs them when you have a knight that brings their own fireteam bonus with them? I’m just sayin’, Crux Knight bought the N5: Season Pass and they’re going to make it your problem. Great shooter, baked in Specialist, just enough melee to keep your opponents honest and then a cheeky dash of Albedo tech, just because. So good.
Cutter: For when you absolutely must shoot BS 15 bullets at people while inflicting a Mimetism -6 modifier on them before scuttling away and hiding under a Camo Marker. The Cutter remains a top tier TAG in both firepower and survivability. Only available in Vanilla PanO. Think about it.
Swiss Guard: For when you want to pay half the price of a Cutter for slightly more than half the performance of a Cutter. Or a 2W Noctifer, whatever floats your boat. I don’t rate them terribly highly based on their deployment options and speed but you’re still getting Apex Predator levels of firepower for a reasonable price. Worth noting as a capability unique to vanilla PanO but not an auto-take either.
Joan of Arc: The Joan and the Irregulars list is still an option in N5, even if you can’t lean hard into it (which makes for a better list, honestly.). She’s still a 2.5W CC monster that shoots quite. Also, she’s got a new AP-Spitfire. Brilliant.
Fireteams
So, Heloans [portmanteau: Helot plus Joan]. We had to come to this eventually. Joan and two Helots. It’s a thing. It’s a real, danged good thing. You could do the same thing with Patsy but if you take Joan you’ve just turned those Helots Regular and life gets good when you have Regular Helots in Fireteams.
- Genghis Cohen: while Joan and Helots is very impressive, I think deploying Regular Helots in the best possible defensive positions is at least as good. What I was most struck by is the potential of teaming Joan up with 2 Blade-Ops for an active team with 3 Tactical Orders.
PanO also retains some terrific Duo options for TAGs, not pure Duos so much as utility models and engineers supporting their Remote Presence war machines – although you can make a pure Squalo Duo if you feel like it! It would also be remiss not to mention the efficiency of Karhu or Bolt pure Duos. Those are teams that deliver an apex shooter and a very handy specialist in one neat package.
Sample List
Just to help you start off with writing Generic PanO lists, we’ve provided a sample list below. This list contains some elements of the faction that we think you’d do well to explore and experiment with at the start of the N5 edition cycle. Disclaimer: Goonhammer advises that the following list is for demonstration purposes only. Any victories achieved while using these lists are not intended and entirely coincidental. If your Hyperpower status persists for longer than 3 hours after a game please see your Doctor.
Joan Alone 3
Army Code: ZQpwYW5vY2VhbmlhDEpvYW4gQWxvbmUgM4EsAgEBAAkAKgEEAACGHQEBAACExgEEAACExgEEAAAyAQEAABABAgAAEAECAACHFwEEAACEwAEDAAIBAAUAhwsBBwAAJAEDAAARAQIAAAUBCgAAJAEDAA%3D%3D
Yes, technically it’s only got 14 troopers but between the Tactical Awareness Orders and plethora of Specialists and Attack Pieces, this list is a blast to play. If you really need those 15 troopers, cut the ORC in half, King Solomon-styles.
Conclusion
Well, that’s PanO and its three sectorials for you. CB has made the right move here and expanded PanO’s toolbox, giving veterans more options and playstyles to engage with while ensuring that newer PanO players still get a taste of overwhelming firepower, just as God intended. We’ll release individual faction reviews for Varunilla and the three sectorials in the future but, for the time being, we hope this is enough to get your engine started. Get out there and do a Hyper-Capitalism to your foes, if you can’t buy their loyalty with your superior PanO economy, blow them into submission with your superior PanO firepower.
*I don’t know what this had to be in italics. I suppose I just like the idea of making Scandinavia sound intimidating. Not that I have any personal problem with our lovely northern friends.
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