Fist, because unless the table is completly cluttered with terrain, it is difficult to spread AND simultainously get into cover or partial cover several models that you have to move in groups of three. Second, you bothe are making it sound like EVERY Tohaa model is ALWAYS carring a Symbiomate. Somehow, I've never managed to put more than four in the table. Weird... Let's say your teamplate caughts a Sukeul, a Makaul and a a Kaeltar, a typical Triad. Just killing the Kaeltar and forcing the Sulkeul to spend the Symbiomate makes that Triad very weak. Even better if using a Camo with a Shotgun, where you can easly win the FtF roll and also get several model under the Template. And, if you win the FtF roll, you cannot eat a that Burst 2 ARO. Not only that, after killing just one member of the Triad the Burst bonus is gone. You don't need luck to use Teamplates, just work a little on attack vectors so you get several models at the same time. Models that usually dodge not very well, don't have SS, and have low ARM to allow to tank even something like a Chain Colt. Really, why do you thing why many Tohaa players agree that their worst matchup is Ariadna? Camo + Infiltration + Teamplates + Orders to fuel them. Second to that, über-profiles like Transformer-Cat or Achilles.
It's not that difficult to spread three models out within 8 inches of each other (or 2 models within 8 of another one to be more accurate), even on moderate terrain tables. B2 Eclipse helps a lot with this. Every Tohaa model that matters is carrying a symbiomate. The rest are chaff. Execept mabye Makauls... This is the crux of the issue. Ariadna is good against Tohaa not because of camo or infiltration. Nomads can do that too, and it's not very effective vs Tohaa in my experience. What makes Ariadna so good is that they have so many orders that they don't care about Tohaa's resilience. They can just keep pumping orders into their strikers until the target is down and move on.
They don't need to also have a symbiomate. They already have the symbioarmor to tank the most common of templates; chain rifles. If the first ARO the Tohaa link team is getting is the whole team reacting to a template, then of course it's a good trade, but in circumstances like that, you're not really playing against a competent player. Sure, it might be different if you're going against a bunch of IIHFT grunts that got lucky and have the first turn, but you should be able to counter deploy for that unless you're on a barren table. You're much better off recommending shooting them with HRLs. These games don't operate in a vacuum. With multiple links providing B2, Tohaa are able to field a very strong ARO prescience, especially in the midfield. A good Tohaa player will leverage that by using layered ARO fields. Unless the board is a complete junkyard, the multiple links can watch each other's backs/approaches. Almost every Tohaa link I play against has a Makaul (apart from MSV2 firebase) who make excellent close range corner guards to anchor the side of a building, or some other B2 nasty for more range. To get your templates up there you need to get rid of the Gao-Rael over watch (who wouldn't put a mate on him?) That's at least 2 orders minimum. Then march up to template a corner guard, but maybe get the whole link if it's a barren table/bad positioning and lose that piece as well. It doesn't sound like an efficient way to deal with things. Then you can say, "just wait for them to get closer" but then they will be in their sweet spots. We can go back and forth about tactics, terrain density and player skill all day. In the end, yes, Tohaa are beatable (no one has argued this), especially when you know you are going to be playing against them (though they have built in counters to a lot of play styles in "unprepared" tournament play). I'd like to say though that players can't reasonably argue that something that allows a unit to ignore the firepower (apart from crits) from an entire army while being able to shoot back is something good for the game, especially for the costs and benefits they receive it for. I'd be plenty appeased if it were to be changed to cancel the hits from one target (still great in reactive), rather than all hits, or sacrifice it to bring your armor back to active, but as it stands, for the active and reactive turn, it's incredibly powerful for the price, exacerbated by the cheapness of symbioarmor.
If it was changed keeping it the same but only allowing it to block one target sounds best to me. This also allows the active tactic of facing two guys and focusing on one, canceling the second, then finishing off the second on the next order.
As a challenge, I would invite Tohaa players to try something else for a few months and see how it treats them. Based on some of the responses in this thread, I have a feeling a lot of Tohaa players are overrating their own abilities because the faction has so many features that mitigate bad play...
I play a little SP on the side, will dive into OSS when it drops, and I realize how much safer I am in Tohaa, even without mates. SP isn't even all that vulnerable, besides shock, but I'm always scared of playing them because even if dice are being garbage in Tohaa I can recover most of the time. I cannot imagine playing something like Haqq or Ariadna where everything is so easily munched.
I also own a small Aleph force (that will grow thanks to the Vedic releases), for the days I want to hack something or just go around on a killing spree with Achilles or a buffed TR Remote, and a small JSA force when I want to play full-assault with a HI-Fireteam and go Lt. Hunting with the Oniwaban. The hardest of the three is the JSA, because going full assault never worked for me, in strategic games I always prefer playing defense first and counter attack later. And that's why even before HS:N3, when it wasn't considered strong (when we didn't have Sukeuls, Kaeltars, Smoke-combo...), Tohaa worked perfectly for me.
I have to point out that the biggest advantage Tohaa players have on average is the general inexperience players have in dealing with them, they are a rare faction that is not widely represented.
Can confirm. Although I'm playing an MO few years now people seems to be shocked when they do discover a fact that MO actually has an Holo2 unit.
I think this certainly exacerbates the perceived strength of tohaa. That said, tohaa has been under a bit of a pendulum. Initially they had too many weaknesses to balance their strengths. Now I feel CB swung a little far the other way in removing the weaknesses. I agree with what other players have said though in its probably more of a case of kaeltars CoC and sukeuls being too good for their price compared to most of the other units. I don't see why symbioarmour didn't drop stats significantly like lotech does. As of right now I think the armour is still priced like it has a huge fire vulnerability. Whereas it's pretty much just a second wound.
I dunno, many of the Symbioarmours tend to lose the same as Lo Tech, only they substitute the BS loss for loss of ODD or Holo2 or a heck of a lot more ARM, though there are some that doesn't. Small note, and not a sign of a pattern, Ectros seems to not pay at all for the Inactive profile, their price is nearly spot on for a Heavy Infantry with those active profile stats and weapons.
And if you see those in *every* Tohaa list... it's not like Tohaa are forced to bring the weak units. You're right. Part of their power relates to CB's tendency to game their own points system; power comes to whichever faction has the most/best profiles that CB felt making undercosted.
Ok, sometimes I'll be able to catch two models in a triad, you're right. Counting on being able to hit three is ludicrous, however; if my opponent is that bad on the regular it won't be an issue. Sukeuls are just fine at gunfighting without Triad support. Again, if you use a Chain Colt on a Sukeul they'll just shoot your model in the face and be fine. I think it has more to do with Ariadna being able to play the "noninteractive button pusher" game on par with Tohaa. Tohaa's abilities discourage actually interacting with them, so the way to in theory be the most efficient is to ignore them and focus on achieving the scenario. The issue is that Tohaa have crazy order efficiency with the Triads, and there's plenty of missions where you're forced to interact with them.
Then use other Template weapons, like Rockets, Missiles, Grenades... did I mention Shotguns? I was sure I mentioned them several times...
Nice of you to move your units to give the enemy the freebie hits. Not every Tohaa player is that forgiving. Plus, trading anything for a Makaul is generally bad; they're very cheap.
No I don't. I know, that Tohaa has an advantage when both player not really know what they are doing. And Tohaa forgives more errors and punish the mistakes from the opponent hard.
Must you grind this axe at every opportunity? This isn't even a reasonable conclusion because I think symbioarmour was probably overcosted or just right when they auto-died to fire. All CB have done is remove a weakness which was (probably) too punitive and shored up some weaknesses and swung the pendulum a little too far, while not adjusting costs - which is not something they've done outside of the release schedule very often.
