without I gave you the link for dice calculator stratuscloud is only one turn T1 the TAG will be in total cover
Don't activate stratuscloud in deployment phase then, that's optional. Also, Kiutan imposter with e mauler. Here are the odds just for the smg without surprise shot, it's very easy to get them out of cover with the imposter. He can eat the mauler (a 50/50 to be imm2 and isolated) and still likely lose the ftf or lose the ftf and try and dodge on a really low number. Even if he Crits you you can just go again. Kiutan imposters are incredible, I've gotten a ton of mileage out of them in every game.
I know it's not "The List" But if I knew a TAG or Pain Train was coming I'd pull out some of these...each thing has Something to deal with a TAG whether it's Stopping Rambo, Slowing it Down, Immobilizing it, Hitting it with DAM 16 that's Marks it and unloading SHRL or in Aelis case making its armor a non issues... These things can effectively bring Armor to its Knees KRIIGEL Submachine Gun, Phero-Booster / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 24) KRIIGEL Breaker Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) KIIUTAN Submachine Gun + E/Mitter, E/Mauler / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) KIIUTAN Submachine Gun + E/Mitter, E/Mauler / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) HATAIL AELIS KEESAN K1 Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Flash Pulse, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 29) CHAKSA AUXILIAR Smart Heavy Rocket Launcher / Pistol, CCW. (1 | 15) CHAKSA AUXILIAR Smart Heavy Rocket Launcher / Pistol, CCW. (1 | 15) DRAAL (Minelayer) AP Marksman Rifle, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 40) DRAAL Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges, Dazer / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30) 5.5 SWC | 236 Points
@Sangarn Here are the numbers with Tricore and cloud. Active Player 59.19% Draal Saboteurs inflicts 1 or more wounds on Squalos (2 STR) 21.15% Draal Saboteurs inflicts 2 or more wounds on Squalos (1 STR) 4.04% Draal Saboteurs inflicts 3 or more wounds on Squalos (Unconscious) 0.32% Draal Saboteurs inflicts 4 or more wounds on Squalos (Unconscious 2) Failures 33.11% Neither player succeeds Reactive Player 7.70% Squalos inflicts 1 or more wounds on Draal Saboteurs (Symbiont Disabled) 5.54% Squalos inflicts 2 or more wounds on Draal Saboteurs (Unconscious) 1.90% Squalos inflicts 3 or more wounds on Draal Saboteurs (Dead)
It's ok. Just more of an observation based on a few of your contributions I've seen elsewhere. A tendency toward non sequiturs or jumping into threads to make a point that's maybe only very tenuously relevant. To answer your question that started the tangent: it depends on the TAG, but your three best tools are the Draal while its in stratuscloud, the Taagma smoke-shooting with viral rifle, or simply bogging the TAG down with ARO elements like the helots and focusing attention elsewhere. The Draal wants to use smoke and the team's general maneuverability to try to flank the TAG and catch it out of cover. If you can do this, and especially if you can get the subsequent engagement happening at 12-16", you're in a fantastic spot. If the TAG is trying to hide or in total cover, your team might be fast enough to take the fight regardless, but more likely they'll instead have to focus on establishing early damage to the enemy order pool then pulling back. The Taagma sniper is pretty reliable into the late game against anything but a Marut provided you can keep your smoke intact, especially against BTS6 TAGs (which are in the majority, but by no means universal). There's always a risk of just losing the F2F roll, but if you don't the viral sniper is a solid gun that can usually put some damage on a TAG and force it back into cover. However beyond these two solutions, your options for a good face to face roll with a TAG are limited. Spiral in general has a few very particular tools that are very effective against TAGs (Kiuutans with E/Mauler, the Kiel-Saan team, Preceptors, etc) but these won't go in every list (although you can make a case for the Kiuutan, it's pretty great). If you expect TAGs due to either the mission mix or local circumstances, favouring these over the more generalist list I posted for the episode might be a good idea. There's a lot of viable options in Spiral if you look for them :)
Let me add the Brawler to this list. The sniper variant rocks MSV2 (enabling him to pull down the smoke trick) and fires AP or DA ammunition stock. Effective against a fairly wide range of opponents (not a one-trick pony).
The brawler is, for me, strictly worse than the Tagma. AP is only better than DA at arm 8+. The Tagma will outperform the brawler for 3 less points Vs every TAG except the avatar, jotun, gorgos, Marut and szalamandra and Vs those its still not bad. Additionally, viral is significantly better than DA Vs a broader range of non-TAG units. The most obvious being dog warriors and mcmurder. Its unfortunate but unless you know youre going against one of the above TAGs you're better off with the Tagma MSV2. And even if I knew I'd be going Vs them I'd still take the Tagma, holoprojector protects it from an alpha strike and shock immunity is top notch on a 1 W model like that.
You're aware the Brawler is DA and the Taagam is Viral, right? Because there's a huge number of targets where DA > Viral.
In defense of the MULTI Sniper, Stun is a really nice tool to have for both active and reactive turn when facing a TAG. It's particularly nice in ARO... Squeezing through a lucky AP or DA hit vs a STR3 TAG may not mean much. Typically it just means you got lucky once, but the TAG will keep coming and does the damage it's likely to do. But if you can slap it with a Stun Hit / Crit in ARO and shut it down while it's still sitting on 8-9 unspent Orders, that's a huge deal.
I didn't point out it was viral because I thought it was obvious. The tags listed are the only ones with arm and bts higher than 8. On every other tag viral is equal to DA or better. Except something like a gecko but that's going to explode regardless so it wasn't worth mentioning. There are just as many targets where Viral > DA so that's not really worth discussing either. My point is that the Tagma msv2 viral sniper will be more useful in more situations in more games than the brawler msv2 multisniper. - It doesn't require an expensive, mainly static, 5 man team - It can be hidden - It's 1 warcor cheaper - Viral also has shock effect - It synergizes with the rest of your army triads - shock immunity - dogs are vulnerable to viral The biggest point I've seen is that you lose out on stun ammo. That's definitely a valid, although niche, point. Viral can't always just kill the target and stun can stop the rambo
So I mentioned that one of our local lads had picked up the mantle of Local Spiral Player and that I'd keep track of what he was playing. He took a list to a local event I was running last weekend that I was super impressed by and tied his opponents in knots in back to back games, netting him first place overall. I'm posting it with permission here: Double Draal ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 DRAAL (Minelayer) AP Marksman Rifle, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 40) KRIIGEL Breaker Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) TAAGMA (Tri-Core) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 21) DRAAL Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges, Dazer / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30) KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse + 2 SymbioMates / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 21) TAAGMA (Multispectral Visor L2) Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 25) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor, Fireteam: Special Triad) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor, Fireteam: Special Triad) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10) KAAURI Sentinel Submachine Gun, 2 Nanopulsers, Nullifier / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 12) KERAIL PRECEPTOR Submachine Gun, Smoke Grenades + 2 Surda SymbioBeasts / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 28) SURDA SYMBIOBEAST Pulzar / Viral CCW. (0 | 8) GROUP 2 3 3 HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) HELOT MILITIAMAN Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 9) DIPLOMATIC DELEGATE (iKohl L1, Specialist Operative) Nanopulser, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 5) KRIIGEL Lieutenant Breaker Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) REEX Boarding Shotgun, Contender, Nanopulser / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) REEX Boarding Shotgun, Contender, Nanopulser / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 13) 6 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Something to note is that the triads are a bit non-intuitive. The Kaeltar and Draal with SMG both go unlinked, the Kaeltar hanging out in the safest spot possible and the Draal with dazers going in alone to launch a solo attack, claim objectives and generally set up either in suppressive+stratuscloud or drop dazers in the most annoying places possible (and bigods they're annoying). Meanwhile that MSV Taagma deploys as a warcor in a tower that just coincidentally happens to have a couple chaksas hanging out on ground level, which is a totally normal and standard deployment right up until he places whatever his reserve drop and declares that the warcor can legally form a triad link with the chaksas, which he pulled on me and now I have a stress response every time he deploys a normal warcor.
Took 1st in a limited insertion tournament with Spiral recently, I was surprised how strong they felt Vs other beefy lists. 1sr list was for supplies and Frontline, 2nd list was for acquisition. The standout model for me so far has been the kiutan imposters. Game 1 Vs Shas he dropped a dazer and it's shrouded minelayer, a jayth cutthroat and then locked down a gwailo with an emauler so it was pretty much out of the game till round 3. On supplies it killed shinobu and soaked up a ton of the opponents orders. On Frontline it tied up a maghariba guard in CC and did 2 wounds with the viral pistol lol. The Draal and Kriigel are amazing but that's kind of obvious just looking at their profiles, I've been really impressed with the kiutan so far. Orlando Beta ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 DRAAL (Minelayer) AP Marksman Rifle, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 40) DRAAL Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges, Dazer / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30) DRAAL Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges, Dazer / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30) KIIUTAN Submachine Gun + E/Mitter, E/Mauler / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) KIIUTAN Submachine Gun + E/Mitter, E/Mauler / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) NEEMA Lieutenant (Advanced Command) Breaker Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, Nanopulser / Viral Pistol, Shock CCW. (+1 | 46) KOSUIL Minelayer K1 Combi Rifle, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25) TAAGMA (Multispectral Visor L2) Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 25) TAAGMA (Multispectral Visor L2) Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 25) TAAGMA (Tri-Core) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 21) 7 SWC | 298 Points Open in Infinity Army Orlando Alpha ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 10 KIEL-SAAN (Special Fireteam: Triad) Mk12, Panzerfaust / Heavy Pistol, DA CC Weapon, Shock CC Weapon. (0 | 53) DRAAL (Minelayer) Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 31) DRAAL (Minelayer) Submachine Gun, Pulzar, D-Charges, Antipersonnel Mines / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 31) NEEMA Lieutenant (Advanced Command) Breaker Combi Rifle, Panzerfaust, Nanopulser / Viral Pistol, Shock CCW. (+1 | 46) TAAGMA (Tri-Core) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 21) TAAGMA (Multispectral Visor L2) Viral Sniper / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 25) KRIIGEL Breaker Combi Rifle + Smoke Light Grenade Launcher / Viral Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 27) KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse + 2 SymbioMates / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 21) TAAGMA Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) KIIUTAN Submachine Gun + E/Mitter, E/Mauler / Viral Pistol, Knife. (1 | 28) 6.5 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army
@Metal730 can you comment on what triads did you use ? Did you put two viral sniper in one triad for first turn ARO and then reform with neema for assault ?
First list I would start with both snipers in the triad with 1 up. Would reform with neema or kosuil as needed, when I'd cleared out long range threats I'd leave both snipers up and move out neema kosuil and tri-core model reforming with Draal if needed. 2nd list was 3 triads, special Kiel saan 2draal, neema in tri-core with sniper and the other 3 to lay smoke. If Kiel saan went down Draal would fill into the aggressive tri-core. I should've been more aggressive with the Kiel saan. He's a lot of points but I think he shines as a fire and forget Rambo to go really deep. He's a real pain for everyone to get rid of. And if they don't then he's in a great position to punish them even more.
Thats because CC14 is pretty bad against most targets you would want to use mono on. Its an option but its a gamble most of the time, a gamble you are more likely to loose than to win. Tags have often CC18 or similiar so 4 points better.
Basically this. CC14 x DAM12 means there's only a 44% chance you mono something per order w/ unopposed rolls. Bad odds means you could be spending 3-4 orders trying to stab something with unopposed rolls. Just unload your SMG into it, you'll be happier most of the time, and the results will be more consistent.
The CC trip is hard to pull off but in a pinch... But as for the Cube Jager generally... That E/Mitter will do the trick