Starting With PanOceania

This article is meant to take a look at the flexibility and the basics of list-buildings. For new players, Infinity and the building of lists can be a little bit daunting. So many options, units, special rules and equipment. That can be a bit much for most of us.

With the Starting with series, we’ll take a look at two or three lists per army, showing some of the options you can choose.

(We’ll update this article once Army5 is up and running. Then we can link to the lists, with ease. 😉 )

To keep your budget in mind, we’ll start every list using the Starter Box of every army, which is an awesome deal for the amount of models you can get! Two list will focus on your first endeavors with Infinity. Your first shoot-out. It will allow you to get the hang of the basic mechanics of the game. The last list will focus on the Infinity Tournament System where Specialists (units with special abilities) are needed to capture objectives.You can get a solid grasp of the game mechanics and workings of Infinity with these lists!

Why go ‘Vanilla’?

The term for a non-sectorial army is ‘vanilla’, so if you see that term somewhere people are talking about an army without the sectorial rules, found in Human Sphere. What are the benefits for playing a non-sectorial army? First of all, you’ll have access to every model in the entire range of the army. So you can put all the best apples into one basket, making list building much more diverse. You won’t have access to link teams though, so some of the less heavy models can function more as an ‘order monkey or a ‘cheerleader’’, generating orders to walk the big guys around, while performing no real role in the army themselves. Another thing to keep in mind is the change in availability of units. You might have access to three Aquila Guards in NCA, but in vanilla, you have access to only one! Keep that in mind when deciding to start an army. You can of course choose to play two sectorials, and sometimes mix them up to go vanilla with your games, that’s not a problem at all! It is also a good start if you can’t decide which sectorial you want to play with. You can start with vanilla and build up towards certain playstyles after you learned yours.

The Starter Box

The Starter Set of PanOceania has been released very recently. We saw it included in Operation Icestorm opposed to the new Nomad Starter previously, but it has become a purchasable starter on its own this month!

PanOceania is a high-tech faction and the starter box shows this; access to many tricks like visors, Multi-weapons and technology like Mimetism. With PanOceania, you pay the price. Fortunately, they are the Hyperpower, so they can afford it! 😉 The high-tech of PanOceania is to be found in their TAGs; large and mobile combat robots.

PanO Starter

The PanOceanian Starter Set

The PanOceania Starter Set gives you the following units:

  • Fusilier – combi rifle
  • Fusilier – combi rifle
  • Fusilier – combi rifle
  • Akalis – combi rifle
  • Nisse – Multi Sniper Rifle
  • ORC Trooper – Multi Rifle

126 points and 1,5 SWC. Not bad! It leaves us enough room to play around with some options! What is included in the box?

Fusiliers are PanOceania’s standard line infantry. You can’t go around them.

The Akalis is a very elite droptrooper, and coming from the Sikh (a large minority in PanOceania) religion, they are hard to get rid off. It’s a great flanker and his E/M close combat weapon makes him a feared opponent.

The Nisse is another elite medium infantry, equipped with anti-camouflage visors while it’s protected by Mimetism-technology. His sniper can take out enemy units from afar, even if they are camouflaged.

ORC Troopers are PanOceania’s most standard Heavy Infantry; infantry fighting in an exo-suit with servo-muscles. They are equipped with the rare Multi Rifles, that allow them to choose the ammunition they use. Very handy! 😉

A nice and versatile Starter Set that gives you a force that’s 126 points/ 1,5 SWC. Let’s see what we can add to it to create a couple of nice 200 points/4SWC lists for your first deathmatch. 🙂

After that, we’ll take a look at a effective 300 point list, fit for a tournament.

Thijs "Scorch" van Tienen

Infinity enthusiast and longtime cyberpunk fan. Also enjoys some good quality tea and Thai food. Runs Data Sphere together with Arachas.

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44 Responses

  1. Great article – started something similar on a German Blog, but I started with Combined. I think especially now it’s essential to provide new players with all possible support.

    • Scorch says:

      Same idea here! 😉 We’ll follow CB’s sequence: PanO (+ sectorials), YJ (+), Ariadna (+), etc.
      Gonna be an awesome series.

  2. Jarrett says:

    Might be good to do vanilla Nomads first so you cover both sides of the starter set.

    Plus I’m biased as I’m building Nomads 😀

    • Scorch says:

      I’ve been thinking the same thing! 😉 Will check with the writer of the Nomads article! Otherwise it will be the PanO sectorials first.

  3. Stiopa says:

    Great article and cool lists for beginners, but… “Feart” the Hyperpower??? 😛

  4. Jason says:

    I really want a Squalo. What else would be good with a starter/Squalo combo?

    • Scorch says:

      I’d look into the Auxilias for sure. Cheap order monkeys with very effective Specialist skills. The Squalo is expensive so it might be hard to fill out on orders. Next to that, it’s all about preferences.

      You want Remotes? Go for the Bulleteers. More Infantry? Better take a look at the Crocmen and Hexas. Rather a Heavy Infantry? Look no further than the Aquila of Guarda. 🙂 In the end it comes down to what you prefer.
      If you’re starting out, make sure that you at least get to 10 orders in a 300 game, and 8+ in a 200 game.

  5. Ian says:

    Great write up. By the way is there someone who is doing a similar article for combined army. This month I am starting in an escalation league (150,200,250,300) and I could really use some advice on how to incorporate the new CA starter.

  6. KinslayeR says:

    Multispectral Visor L3 doesn’t negate ODD. Only Visor L2 can do this.

  7. Wolf says:

    Hey scorch, I’ve been trying to make the list with the bulleteers on army V but I seem to be going over 200 points by 2. Did they change one of the units’ points value?

    • Scorch says:

      It appear so, although my MayaNet has me going over 200 by 1. :/ crap! Thanks for pointing it out. I’ll take a look into it!

      • Wolf says:

        No problem, and thanks!

      • Wolf says:

        Ok, this is really weird…I tried again today on army V, and the lists now works at 199 points… Im 100% sure it didnt fit yesterday…sorry about this.

        Btw just a quick question, would you make a fusilier a lieutenant or the orc trooper?

        • Scorch says:

          Haha! That’s not you! 😉 I changed a thing so it would get back to below 200 points! The FO fusilier is now a regular.

          That’s up to you; you want to hide your lieutenant? Fusilier. You want to have one better armoured and more of an attack piece, go for the ORC. Both have their merits, just different ones. 😉

  8. Jeremy says:

    http://www.infinitycreator.com/users/4705/army_lists/print?id=62468

    This is my experimental Jotum list. Im new to infinity and need help. Please check it out!

  9. Jeremy says:

    Thank you for the article, I found it very helpful! And no, I dont even know where id play in a tournament yet xD. But I figured the TAG looked, and from what ive seen, played out just how I imagined a giant death robot would work. So I wanted to try it! Do you have any reccomandations for my list?

    • Scorch says:

      Try it out! 😉 That’s all I can really say. The list looks OK; has enough orders, has couple of heavy weaponry. Nothing more is needed to play. Whether you like how the list works is up to you 😉

  10. Jeremy says:

    http://infinitycreator.com/users/4705/army_lists/print?id=62494

    Can you check this two hundred point list for me and tell me what you think? I made it out of the icestorm starter pack i have and the auxilia pack. Do you think it would be ok? But thanks for the feedback!

  11. Neatpete says:

    Thank you for this! Just picking up some models to get going and this is very informative and digestible. I also appreciate the verbiage explanations. Great info for a slightly overwhelmed starter, thanks!

  12. Neatpete says:

    Ps. What is SWC?

    • Scorch says:

      Special Weapon Cost. You get 1 SWC for every 50 points that the game is set on. If you agree on 300 point game, both players can spend 6 SWC. If you agree on a 200 point game, both players are able to spend 4 SWC.

      You pay SWC for heavy weaponry,or weapons/options that are out of the regular profiles of the units. It’s mainly there for extra balance.

  13. Neatpete says:

    roger, thanks!

  14. MasterCombine says:

    Hey, I’m using the Aleph Toolbox army builder, and the second 200 points list comes out to 5 SWC, not 4. Is this correct?

    • MasterCombine says:

      Actually, scratch that. I’m getting 204 points and 5.5 SWC on 200 points list with the Bulleteers and the Order Sergeant. That’s a few points too expensive and way over the limit on SWC for a 200 point game.

      • Scorch says:

        We’ll look into that later today! 🙂 Maybe something changed for the point cost with ArmyV (which wasn’t released yet at time of writing this article! Thanks for pointing it out to us! 😉

        • MasterCombine says:

          No problem, glad to help! I’m a new player and was really liking the look of that list, but alas, it seems the Order Sergeant really tips it over the SWC edge.

  15. kris says:

    Hi
    You mentioned that a hacker is required to run bulleteers? They are a G. Remote presence in the rule book and it looks like G. autotool is the one that requires a hacker?? Please correct me otherwise.

  16. kris says:

    Sorry spoke too soon. iv’e found the remotes section of the rules…..facepalm!

  17. Bazlord_Prime says:

    HELP!! Corvus Belli have done WAY too good-a-job making awesome mini’s, and now I don’t know where to start with Infinity!!

    So, I’m trying to get a starter force on the cheap (cause that’s how I roll…), and there’s a lot of good sales on right now. But:

    – How many models (at 300pts) do you guys recommend having? For instance, with Pan-O Military Orders, I could just take 7 Knights and have a 300pt army. But is that far too few models, re: Orders, and wound/shots count? Does Infinity lend itself to spam lists, simply because you’ll have more orders and more shots/ARO’s? Am I right in thinking that if you have say, 7 orders, you can spend all of them on the 1 model, so it’s possibly better to have a couple of really good models in your list, backed up by loads of cheap models providing Orders for them?

    – Line Troops. You don’t HAVE to take them to make the backbone of the force, but is it the “done thing”, to get a solid base of cheaper troops then add a few specialists? Just cause I’m looking at the aesthetics of various troops. For instance, I wouldn’t want to take a core-Fusiliers list as I don’t really like the models (I want a more dedicated Anime/sci-fi feel), but that leads me to the above situation, re: more specialists/too few models…

    – How often do you take REM’s and TAG’s? Across all the factions, I reckon they’re some of the best models, but it seems that you’ll only ever take 1 or 2 REM’s, and probably never a TAG – too high a points cost. The breadth of really cool REM’s and TAG’s is what got me interested in Pan-O to begin with, but I’m suspicious that I’d hardly ever get to field them (I should point out that I’m NOT a prolific painter, so I won’t just be getting all the models to paint up and display 😉

    – For gameplay, I primarily want to play sneaky tricks, and just have fun rather than play to win (think Gobbo’s in WHFB, Gremlins in Malifaux, etc), so which factions fit that best? I’m intrigued by the Aleph Proxies (although it sounds as though you’re putting 2-3 models on the board and can only control 1 per Order), and Remote Presence Tactbots etc, but are the Nomads the “Grin-factor” faction of this game? Or does every faction pretty much have that? Also, I’m curious about how effective the Hacking/digital combat side of Infinity can be if you build a specialised force.

    Anyway, I’m really loving these guides – they’re a great resource for easily learning more about the game. Thanks! It’s just that I can find models that I love in ALL the factions, and there’s so much flexibility in the lists that I just can’t put my finger on what I want to start with!

    Bazlord

  18. Patrycjusz 'Alkasyn' Piechowski says:

    For 300 pts I recommend having 14 models at least. That way you ahve 1 full combat group and can replace casualties by expending Command Tokens.

    Correct analysis on the “coupel good models with order generators”.

    TAGs and REMs are very rarely taken. Maybe soemtiems more often on Yu Jing, Nomads and PanO, but otherwise not.

    Ariadna is the king of shell-games and camo. Apart from that all teh factions have some aces in their sleeves.

    Glad you liked the article.

    If there’s anything specific you want us to write about, let us know!

  19. Bazlord_Prime says:

    Thanks Alkasyn! I just looked at my ridiculous wall of text, and am amazed that anyone replied – I appreciate it!

    Sad to hear that TAGs don’t get taken often – or even REMs! – as those are by far my favourite sculpts so far. Especially the Pan-O ones. Manga-PLUS! But, I guess they could go into the “Collectibles” basket 😉

    Shall have a closer look at Ariadna. Not into the USAriadna aesthetic, but the SAS, (new) Antipodes and Khazak/Spetsnaz soldiers are all excellent. My will is currently being pulled in different directions by Pan-O and Haqqislam. With Tohaa and Aleph close behind…

  20. Patrycjusz 'Alkasyn' Piechowski says:

    That’s usually how it is – all the factions have their draws 🙂

    I chose my faction, for example, because the others I liked were already being collected by my friends. There’s no bad way of going about choosing your faction. Just go with what you like the most.

    If you do want to use REMs and TAGs then Yu Jing, PanOceania and Nomads are the best bets, other factions have limited choice in that domain.

  21. ClassyMog says:

    Hello, there. I found this article very informative. I’m only just learning the game, but, on a purely flavor aspect, I really love the look and style of the PanOceania. Especially the “knights” and “Crusader” type units. I haven’t even had the chance to play yet, so, I was wondering what you thought about them?

    I mean, in your opinion should I even bother with them? If I enjoy the game as much as I imagine I will, I’d like to at some point be able to really put together efficient teams. Sorry for the long message, haha. Thanks again for the helpful article regardless. ^_^

    • Bryant "Claudius Sol" says:

      Generally, most everything in the game is viable and a worthy investment. I’d say go for it! Worst case scenario is you’d have a bunch of really sweet looking models you could use to proxy for something else or as conversion material.

  22. Panos says:

    Hi,
    Great article covering PanO, however with Army 6 there are few changes on the points so all above armies are less points than the cap by up to 5.
    Which for 200pts army means the ORC can get Deflector 1 with the multi rifle, making him a harder to dislodge 🙂 And keep it ofc to 300pts games 😀

    • Patrycjusz 'Alkasyn' Piechowski says:

      Hey thanks!

      We have thsi idea of updating all the starter articles when HSN3 comes out to better reflect the changes that both N3 and HSN3 have brought. Your points are very valid 🙂

  1. October 3, 2015

    […] Here is an overview of the PanOceania Starter Box […]

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