given that pfSense is inaccessible from WAN, I had to VNC in to the VM and add a rule to permit my Laptop to connect to it from WAN. pursuing that, setup was almost just like establishing on bare steel.
the leading https://macktechbiz.com/blogs/news/unleashing-the-power-of-micro-appliance-pc-firewalls-a-revolution-in-open-source-firewall-solutions-with-zenarmor-and-opnsense-support