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Hey all!
Again, just got into the game, and while I build and paint up my Haqqi units, I've also decided to take on a PanO army.
I'll be starting with the PanO contents of two Operation Ice Storm boxes (swapped the Nomads with another guy). I'll also get the Joan of Arc model when AtoZ releases.

I want to add a TAG since PanO has awesome looking models. (I ordered a Squalo, FYI)
From a game perspective, what how would you rate the various TAGs? Stengths/Weaknesses?

Thanks!

Heavy TAGs

Jotum - Strongest, most durable TAG around. Best general purpose assault unit.
Cutter - Stealthiest, nastiest opponent at long range. Has weakness due to lack of firepower within 8 inches.
Squalo - General purpose, weaker than Jotum but has the heavy grenade launcher that can be used as indirect artillery.
Drago - General purpose, better gun than Jotum and Squalo, a little better up close than Squalo.

Light TAGs
Toni Macayana - Character Tikbalang. Highly mobile, efficient, capable light combatant. Doesn't crack armor, but punishes enemy toops.
Tikbalang - Useless. Toni is far superior for only a small increase in points.
Uhlan - Useless. Costs nearly as much as a Cutter, but has worse survivability, is less stealthy and has barely any firepower advantage.
Seraph - Situational. Has weak gun power, but is the most capable PanO TAG within 16 inches, due to having a Spitfire, CC capability, and an AuxBot with flamethrower.

There are tags for pan O besides Jotums and Cutters?

No...

I don't believe there is..

There's also the Swiss Guard. I jest, I jest, although just mildly.

Armoured Cavalry is completely solid TAG. With heavy grenade launcher it can act as a soft removal of ODD, TR REM and link team. It's also nice that he can be the lieutenant for only 2 SWC, which can serve as a rather nice platform for the lieutenant order, although you'll lose the heavy grenade launcher with this option. It's not the worst idea, depending how you'll build the rest of the list.

Father Knight would be your durable specialist that can take care of himself to some extend, he could probably scare most of the infiltrating vermin away from the consoles. Personally I really love using appropriate specialists (engineer and hacker) as I simply find -3 penalty to be brutal and it's far too easy to burn through half the available order pool. Joan could be interesting with her order conservation that goes well with the new command tokens, although in this case you'll probably skip the Father Knight and have few Fusiliers as Forward Observers for your objective grabbers. You could take him, I'm just not sure, if he'll be of better use than two Nisse.

Ok, picked up a Jotum. Time to bash some heads or something.

What are the thoughts on viability of a list composed of the contents of 2x O:IS and a TAG? Any ideas?

Anyone with practical experience with the Seraph, out of curiosity?

One guy loves his Seraph on the official forums, most other players don't (but I believe most never fielded it)

It seems much more useful in N3 as a "super-heavy infantry" with his Spitfire, big choppa and BBQ little helper, efficient at CQB where most TAG struggle
It actually has a role now instead of being "the sh*t TAG"

 TanKoL wrote:
One guy loves his Seraph on the official forums, most other players don't (but I believe most never fielded it)

I find this to be a big issue with the community at the moment. There's a lot of new players that have joined Infinity and are content to math-hammer a unit and declare it to be terrible without fielding it. Due to the nature of the game mechanics (range bands, critical hits, face to face rolls, etc) Infinity is not a game that can be math-hammered. Usually when someone decided to call a unit terrible, a few others will pop up to defend it because they actually use it. You tend to find less people defending something when there's no model, however, as there's less incentive to try one if there's no shiny model.

Well, it depends.

By N2 rules, the Seraph was rubbish simply because another unit did the exact same thing as it, but better, for about the same cost (Macayana), since the HMG was a far superior weapon at all ranges except 0-8, and that melee was an awful choice.

In N3, things are a little different, and close combat is a lot stronger. Most TAGs lost a huge amount of close quarters fighting power.

So the Seraph has an argument now. Previously, it was pretty much worse than Macayana, and objectively definitely worse than the YuJing O-Yoroi. Now? It's different weapons do differentiate it.

The game can absolutely be math-hammered to determine superiority in specific situations. The game happens to require the skill though to generate those situations.

 Killionaire wrote:
The game can absolutely be math-hammered to determine superiority in specific situations. The game happens to require the skill though to generate those situations.

It can be, but the mechanics are designed so a wrench can be thrown in the plan though. It's no as easy as simply shooting someone. You need to consider many other things that simply can't be considered through math, and because there's situations in the game where your opponent might simply not want to win the roll. The situation might be favorable, unless the opponent has another ARO you can't see (like a hidden deployment model). They might react contrary to what you are expecting (like a dodge instead of a shot back). They might decide to suicide a much cheaper unit simply to get an EM or Jammer attack off and Isolate a much more expensive unit. A good example is Haqqislam which makes a lot of its grounds through asymmetrical trades. They have units that are more than capable of punching above their weight, but will very likely die in the process. And that's entirely intended.

Simply knowing that you're going to have a better chance at winning the roll due to getting into your optimal range band isn't assurance that you're going to 'win' the encounter.

I'm rather certain, that, if you can imagine a situation, you can crunch numbers for it and judge the various benefits of the various outcomes. I've lost counts how many times people have praised my high BS, yet I simply wonder what the fuss is about. If it's statistically probable, an event can happen.

I consider numbers to be an illumination but not an anchor that bides me when it comes to list building or decision making. It just means I have better idea of what I'm really attempting to do and seeing the events unfold that I didn't predict is entire bag of fun.

Well yeah, but math hammering is historically looking at the averages to determine if you're likely to win the outcome, mostly due to other games tendency to be based around simple actions with simpler mechanics between only two units, and the other usually only gets to roll saves.

Playing the numbers in Infinity is different. It's about positioning for range bands. But simply because your opponent gets to make opposing rolls, even from units you don't know are there, plus with most units having multiple weapons, figuring out your average is good, but won't tell you everything you need to know to know the encounters outcome.

"What are the thoughts on viability of a list composed of the contents of 2x O:IS and a TAG? Any ideas?"

you only need 1 box, they are all great models but these models will be the basis for your force, this isnt warhammer/ 40k.

though i have no experience with pano what i know of infinity for my few years of experience is that from the units in the box, you have nothing to repair your tag, the only option you have for a hacker is the fusiler, while not the worst they not the best, a croc man would be a better option, the rest are only assualt hacker giving you no real virtual defence against hackers, not to mention the squalo is not a repeater,

you might want an engineer of sorts to repair if needed, hmg or spitfire are always good to have, and having 2 orcs and 2 father knights would be abit of a points sink when you idealy wanna keep to one squad for better use of orders, and there are soo many other models you could be using, on top of that if you wanna play ITS you have very few specialists.

just buy the 1 icestorm an buy wat you like from the plethora of options in pano

Depends on the context within which you are wanting the Seraph.

In vanilla, you get the issue where SEVERAL units compete for one job and others will often do it better.

In MO, where it's your ONLY TAG option, how well another one does the job is irrelevant when you can't use them anyway. May as well complain that it isn't as good as the avatar in MO, either.

jason_busy wrote:

"What are the thoughts on viability of a list composed of the contents of 2x O:IS and a TAG? Any ideas?"

you only need 1 box, they are all great models but these models will be the basis for your force, this isnt warhammer/ 40k.

though i have no experience with pano what i know of infinity for my few years of experience is that from the units in the box, you have nothing to repair your tag, the only option you have for a hacker is the fusiler, while not the worst they not the best, a croc man would be a better option, the rest are only assualt hacker giving you no real virtual defence against hackers, not to mention the squalo is not a repeater,

you might want an engineer of sorts to repair if needed, hmg or spitfire are always good to have, and having 2 orcs and 2 father knights would be abit of a points sink when you idealy wanna keep to one squad for better use of orders, and there are soo many other models you could be using, on top of that if you wanna play ITS you have very few specialists.

just buy the 1 icestorm an buy wat you like from the plethora of options in pano

Thanks for the input J-busy.
I'm going to add some of the specialists, so that's a good suggestion.
I also went ahead and ordered the 3x and 4x pack boxes of Neoterran Bolts. They look cool, and while a tad costly, I like their rules, especially being Veteran 1. I also get variety in weapons this way.
I'm not worried about playing ITS at this point, so while playing sectorials would be nice, I'm good with playing vanilla.
To clarify, I'm not buying 2x Icestorm; I'm buying one and trading away the Nomads for another set of the PanO from someone else's icestorm. I don't plan on playing Nomads.

Anyone have any ideas for building a Seraph? Google gets me advice for converting the Legion warbeast from WMH.

Given that it's a S6 TAG, you could use an older SQUALO TAG (if you can still find it) - because they ARE only about the size of the Geckos (also S6).

I'm working on one at the moment.

I'm sculpting a new face around the head (more of a knightly helm) and losing the bunny ears.

The arms have been repositioned (ball joints). The gun is being shortened and modified to look more like a spitfire (top rail will be done as well as the left hand is moulded onto it).

A spare SM terminator commander model's long power sword is being used for the APCCW (it's not ridiculously out of scale for the TAG).

A GS tabard will complete the conversion. Then I'll paint it.

Or you can wait for it to come out. (supposed to be out this year sometime).