Basics on Vanillas and Sectorial Armies
The basic concept in terms is that 'Vanillas' refers to the main generic army for a particular faction while 'sectorial' is playing a sub-faction within the faction. So with a faction like PanOceania, the Sectorials for that faction is Neoterra Capitaline Army, Shock Army of Acontecimento, Military Orders, Varuna Immediate Reaction Division and Svalarheima Winter Force to use as an example.
Vanilla armies are what started this game, but sectorials got added in Human Sphere in N2 with variations and new sectorials being added and how fire teams works. However that is for another post and this is more about the benefits and weaknesses of both.
Benefits to Playing a Vanilla Army
-Full Toolbox of units available to that faction. Which means you can tackle all missions in a line-up potentially
-Tied to the second point, allows you to pick most of the models you may like between a few sectorials and pick and choose what you want to take.
-Ability to spread out models across the deployment zone without much of a downside.
-The ability to spread out certain models and also have the full range of models in faction means you can easily combo without having to risk that many models so close together.
Downsides to Playing a Vanilla Army
-Most lists may come out to be somewhat Min-maxed, relying on a few power pieces that will be too common.
-Facechecking against a fully-linked ARO piece may prove a bit challenging if you are not skilled or do not have the right tools for the job.
-Tied to the first two points, you are often going to have to take models specialized in something but might struggle to spend orders efficiently on them.
-Most of the cognitive load is front loaded in list building, considering that there is a lot of options in vanilla.
Benefits to Playing a Sectorial
-Thematics. Playing a sectorial means you are playing a specific force in otherwise a large army.
-Link teams, which is the selling point of sectorials. Learning how to play them and around their weaknesses can be quite powerful.
-Higher AVA on units in that specific unit, which gives you a reason to run some profiles on some units you may not see in a vanilla lists.
-Smaller Selection of units, which is good when starting out.
Downsides to Playing a Sectorial
-With a limited toolbox, some sectorials may struggle to do some missions or how to deal with some situations.
-Link teams. They are both a blessing and a curse as a poorly deployed link team can cost you the entire game.
-Information obfuscation and mind games are harder to pull off due to the fact there are less profiles with camo or Hidden deployment to play with most often.
What do I prefer?
While my batreps for the blog have has been more on the vanilla side, I tend to consider a sectorial player more at heart. I tend to like the thematic restrictions imposed by sectorials and trying to figure out how to deal with missions and problems within that framework. That said links are a bonus I really love because they are powerful but can be countered still.
This said, I tend to also play a bit of a dark horse so I'll play what is not played in the stores I go to (which most of the time is vanilla factions). Personally I do not think one is overtly more powerful than the other and it comes down to personal play style and taste to what one likes. If I had a little hot take it is the fact vanilla might be a little more flexible because of having more tools at your disposal.
Thanks for my reading my take on the matter! Hopefully there is something to take away from here even though it has been talked about to death.
No comments:
Post a Comment