I got into this game around 2017 and it seems these glorious TAGs have been OOP for a while. Will these ever see a return? Has CB ever done made it order of old miniatures?
I think there's a decent chance that the "Tikbalang of Montesa" will be available when Military Orders gets redone next year. The others, yeah, that's going to be a bit of a wait. They are unlikely to become available before their OOP Sectorials get redone, and that's not likely any time in the next few years.
No mines, AP HMG and probably a different look. But my point is that I expect the Tikbalang back as a single model before any of the others.
As much as I like the Profile, 88 is way too much to ask next to a Cutter for 97, Tik for 68, Dragao for 73 and Swiss for low 60s. Could have really used a defensive Upgrade (Decoy! or Hidden Deployment) to sell it. Looking at the gap against the Squalo (used to be 7 points cheaper, now 13) and Cutter (used to be 18, now 9) everything around it gained more. The only thing the Uhlan gained is an AP CCW and +1B on its Feuerbach. That's not going to compensate for an even bigger gap in value against the competition than before. Honestly wish they stripped the HMG from it, that would have been really interesting
The b3 lets it focus on its sniper role better. The HMG becomes its utility piece that it can suppress with or just throw more bullet when necessary. Expensive, but not the worst thing in the world.
I think the Dragao is the real winner here. It has a very competitive price and a weapon system that's highly relevant in N4. Neither of the other TAGs can claim those two advantages.
The whole problem and selling point of the Uhlan has always been to be a lot of things in one body. Being a heavy hitter, a camo unit and a back up specialist is something unique in NCA. You won't need it every time, but I still think this TAG is worth its points just with how many things it is in just one slot.
The dragao is the best PanO TAG from a cost effective point of view (with the MO tik maybe), the lack of close range weapon on the ulhan/cutter is just game breaker at least the cutter will survive turn one I would clearly exchange on the ulhan his HMG for a cheaper SF gun and a heavy MULTI pistol and a reduction in points
If we could get an Uhlan with an SMG instead of the HMG (and the accompanying discount from that exchange) it would immediately jump from "meh" also-ran to "hmmn" option to consider.
I'd actually say SAA is fine with either TAG choice and likely only wants one. SAA used to support TAGs very well in N3, N4 just made them better on all fronts: Regular Minelayer Sensor 1|0.5 cheaper Sensor has been tough to fit in lists or to get across the board, SAA will pretty much always have access to multiple, that happen to be AVA Total Minelayerson top, not to mention a WIP13 guy in a Core Link and a +6 is pretty good at discovering Camo Markers even from your DZ Regular Hacker+GL+Fastpanda 7|0 cheaper Always loved the kit, but not the pricetag, especially the 1 SWC used to be hard to justify in N3, now though? SWC are an easy fit, 1 point more expensive than a Fusilier and WIP13 alone makes that worth it, Spec Fire across half the table on 9s in a Link, Fastpanda to project Scylla's punch. The guy is a menace. The humble Orc Being much cheaper its very easy to fit a Feuerbach for ARO with more staying power and Active Turn bunker busting to supplement a Tik. The C+ Firewall option is less good than elsewhere for lack of flexible Haris buddies but still solid. Dart There's basically no excuse not to run her now. She fits like a glove into any TAG list, the average SAA list has can pretty much add her for free compared to N3. E/M Grenades are more devastating than ever and have more valuable targets. Singh Not Hackable (sans Spotlight), competent CC with a 75% to take out a BTS6 target after winning FTF and Combi + LSG option is no longer terrible in N4. With Engage gone we can no longer easily place CC threats in LOF for Triangulated Fire and TF now hits our own troops on misses. As result CC is the more secure bailout for CC, Stealth CC to not allow free Dodge AROs on the way there is even better. NCO is terrific, COC remains odd, but is the only unhackable AD Specialist we have in a more affordable package than N3. Scylla Pitcher, ECM:Hacking (-3), DAM16 Trinity and her Bot(s) pretty much grant free Firewall. Her default FTF against other Hackers is +3 -6 B3 DAM16, that's better than Lightning or Redrum used to be. Hits hard enough to punch straight through a Firewall or BTS9, before giving her the choice to use HFT+BSG instead to force bad choices. Don't see much use for her EVO option in SAA and her whole kit synergizes significantly better with the HD. She's definitely top shelf Hacking and by far the best Hacker available to a PanO Sectorial. Taking that into account both Tik and Dragao are bith value packages with all the support they need available. Tik remains 5 cheaper, easier to hide and more Order efficient against low ARM opposition thanks to C+. BS15 ARM8 HRMC HFT is just good, at 14 points more expensive that makes the Jotum look bad and certainly doesn't do the Squalo any favors.
I didn’t take that from the post. It’s just that comparatively speaking, with how much value the Tikbalang and Dragoes brings, the Jotumn’s value (having high ARM) is a negligible advantage over those two TAG’s and certainly when you compare how much you pay for that. There’s also the weird paradox of having ARM 8 or above, becomes sort of a double edged sword, because that’s the value where AP starts to drastically have an impact. This is further exacerbated when you consider that a lot of new attack pieces have been buffed to oblivion with AP+DA ammo, AP HMG’s with +2 damage and now we have an AP HMG or a Feurbach with +1B and continues damage. This isn’t even speaking of the new Oblivion of B2 and AP With all that in mind, it’s just more appealing to invest in firepower and FTF rolls, rather than investing heavily on ARM. Just my take.
Pretty much that. 14 points for a worse gun, 2 ARM, 3BTS, a pip of WIP and a Panzerfaust that adds -1 DAM +AP "option" for ARO. I'll take the HRMC and a free Krakot, Auxilia etc deal any day. There's always something important to spend points on in a TAG list, upgrade a Machinist to a Karhu Engineer and a Palbot, almost upgrade a Regular Sapper MSR to an ORC FB... seems more important than downgrading the main armament on my big TAG. Dragao and Jotum are very straightforward in competition with each other. Wouldn't have ran a no frills TAG in Vanilla till now. The Zapper Squalo with Firewall in Varuna? Yes. Cutter in Vanilla or Varuna? Sure. Tik? anywhere, definitely. Jotum? Maybe. In terms of features it's mostly the HFT, the extra pips of defense are fairly pricey, wouldn't even consider it if it was in direct competition with the Zapper Squalo anywhere. The game is so littered with AP that you mostly get to use your ARM in your Active Turn against successful AROs while you get to pick your engagements. The Jotums defenses making the difference between losing the TAG and keeping it vs dedicated countermeasures? I don't trust +1ARM vs AP, +1 WIP and +3 BTS to make a difference every game. +1B and a 0 Rangeband beyond 32? That's going to be relevant a lot. Relative value also increased. The Jotum is pretty much all raw stats and got *only* 16 points cheaper, same for the Dragao, who got a whooping 21 points cheaper. That should have been reversed. Given a redesign in stat costs, you'd expect the gap in points between them and Jotum to get smaller, instead it grew 5 points in favor of the Dragao. That's 6% net gain in point efficiency relatively speaking. Heck our boy the Dragao used to be more expensive than a Squalo, now it's cheaper. Used to be 4 points more expensive than a Szally now it's 1. Definitely improved more than his peers in an edition where ARM8 and BS15 DAM16 HRMCs are very nice.
The Dragao and Tik have strengths in the fact that they win f2f more easily than standard TAGs. Especially for a TAG, there's order efficiency in winning your f2f as often as possible, because that's primarily what a TAG does. Both the Tik and the Dragao are very good at this, one for mobility + Mimetism, the other for simple high Burst value. Thinking on the Tik a bit, I think it's so cheap that I don't mind that it misses AP. I think it's a big hit for the Tikbalang, but not crippling, since the Tik can still utilize its mobility and high-probability f2f to hit hiding targets. N4's new cover rules hurt the Tik a lot I think... Previously it was easy for the Tik to flank, and get its HMG hits past ARM. In N4 though, that's tougher, and a Shock list will need to have a couple of good backup anti-armor options as a recourse. That's actually the most interesting thing I see about Shock, and it reminds me a bit of OSS; anti-armor options exist, but you have to deliberately reach for them during list building. Yes, the ORC Fuerbach is good, but you can't guarantee that you'll slog the ORC and his entire Core team into LoF of the hard target you want to kill. As a result, I'm paying a lot more attention to unorthodox anti-ARM choices, such as monomines or EM grenades, and that's pretty interesting.
And we've been there before; back in N2 MSRs, Dragao, and Monomines were our primary tools for dealing with TAGs. It could be a struggle back then.
the new N4 cover rule is catastrophic for the flanking gameplay, it favor a lot the brainless brute force ftf gameplay ... .. well PanO are very good at that so we should manage ^^ yes the tik lose his ability to get ppl out of cover with weird LoS thx to c+ but also N4 give him a easy cover by just being able to get on rooftop so there that ^^