I don’t mean to complain, especially since Nomads are the spoiled child of Infinity, but why does Tunguska not get access to MSV2? It can’t be lore wise, so what gameplay factors does the sectorial have to justify it? Is it the multiple linkable sensors, the hacking dominance, or is it to prevent smoke tricking? It just seems strange to me as the biggest weakness of Tunguska seems to be trading its’ expensive units for significantly cheaper units. While this is clearly intended, I feel like a defensive MSV2 would at least help the faction significantly against WB smoke throwers. Am I crazy for thinking this, or do people feel Tunguska is fairly balanced against mass warbands already?
It's the smoke. It really feels like smoke + MSV2 is on its way out... I'd be surprised if it survives the next rules re-write. Personally, I think it would be more thematic to have MSV2 for someone rather than Perseus's smoke grenades. It would have been cool to see it on a unit like the Puppetbots. I don't think warband dominance has much to do with the factions so much as terrain. If you have lots of same-height terrain warbands are strong regardless of the match-up. If you've got enough of a Z-axis on your board it's not an issue.
Because you get HD+, AD, Multi weapons, a ridiculous amount of Mobility Skills, Camo, TO, Jammers, Mines and good multiwound solo rambos. TJC just ended up ticking too many boxes, something about them had to be hamstrung, looks like MSV2 was the tool of CB's choice as stupid as that turned out to be. It's also kind of hard to design a MSV2 troop for the same faction that has the Intruder.
Honestly I think its kind of an oversight, the issue ive seen for alot of tunguska is they can nearly auto lose vs mass warband, if enemy has 5-6 smoke units and you dont get first turn you have basically lost. As said the issue is with smoke being everywhere than not having msv (oddly enough looking at Vedic having no smoke but having good msv access is fine cause you just level the playing field) They have same weakness as bakunin with having no MSV, but difference is bakunin has tools to fight smoke warbands, namely morlocks they can just trade and also a strong midfield presence with prowlers and zeros to speedbump them. I think CBs logic is "well tunguska can white noise trick to stop others smoke tricking them by killing their MSV, the repeaters in securitate are great for it" which is fair but I think the issue is smoke is really prevalent in the game and all factions need something to hold back warbands in either their own warbands or MSV. Other factions lack MSV namely ariadna, but they have the next best thing to defend against warbands which is camo so they can atleast waste a few warband orders trying to discover them or use their own similar troops. In metas with only 2-3 smoke grenades going out its not too bad as it feels like a weakness but not crippling, but running up against a faction bringing enough that they can completely cover vision for most of the board (like the scots) can make it very hard to stop the enemy warbands just getting into CC with your expensive links. Personally I think what tunguska should get is a very close range MSV2 unit, either on a smg or even just someone running pistols to give it a different role (camo and warband removal) than the intruder (general rambo piece). This would also stop the intruder being an auto take in vanilla due to his MSV. someone budget and not good guns, but enough to keep warbands at bay, or even something funky like a neurocentic MVS 2 so it is only an anti warband unit. That or just hope they nerf warbands cause outside of that weakness tunguska is very nicely rounded, its just warbands are so cheap you will often be fighting 4-5 or get really unlucky and run into the 20 warband lists .
That's why I thought puppetbots would be ideal. If puppetbots could go up the board like a pack of terriers, ferreting out and destroying infiltrators and warbands, that would be pretty cool and totally on theme. Meanwhile, Perseus basically needs a whole flavor-text sidebar in a rulebook to explain wtf he is doing in the faction at all.
I definitely feel this is the case in that they gave us other goodies so had to leave something out, but strangely enough I feel like MSV2 would have been nicer than Smoke access? With Hollowmen, Puppetbots, Szally, and the Kriza, we have tons of brute force options that can shoot their way through problems without too much smoke reliance. I feel the same, especially since I come from USARF. Smoking the play area and blitzing warbands is pretty easy, and I just don’t see too many ways to hold this back. Hollowmen are pretty good at resisting WB’s just due to their jumping on rooftops strategy as well as their inherent HI strengths and their armament.
Stripping Perseus of his Smoke Grenades would not do the trick entirely. We still have Zondbikes with those lovely Smoke grenade launchers. And I wouldn't exchange Zondnautica for a MSV2-equipped unit With Hecklers, hidden Spektrs, MSV1-Grenzers and Puppet-Haris I have no fear of Warbands with Smoke and it is definitely no auto-loss. It is sure no auto-win. You still have to adapt to the deployment of your opponent.
But they could have resolved this with not getting Tunguska normal smoke but eclipse. Don't know if that would have a big impact on vanilla, but it could be restricted to the sectorial.
Except Ariadna: "my fluff says I have lots of weaknesses". Meanwhile: Ariadna hacking device. My actual preference would be for MSV1 to treat Smoke like a Poor Vis Zone. But that would be an N4 level change.
For those of you saying that Tunguska can't defend against warbands. That is the reason you were given forward deployed Jammers. If a WB gets into the midfield, just jam them. They won't be able to receive more orders from the pool, becoming sitting ducks, and smoke can't protect them from that.
While I wish this was the case, I don’t think it is completely true. Most warbands seem to have the same if not better WIP than the Heckler making the odds of it being successful a little harder in F2F. Even if you get them isolated, warbands will still have their impeteous as well as irregular order.
A strong but conservative ARO game focusing on one's own half of the board is important with Tunguska to keep light troops and warbands at bay. It is something that would be made vastly easier if they had a warband and/or MSV2 which is why... they don't have one.
Yeah, having to buy expensive-ish troops to help with DZ protection and area denial is a deliberate design component of playing TJC. It's as deliberate as Corregidor having expensive Lieutenants. I'm only a dozen-ish game into playing TJC, but I found at least one one Jammer (and ideally 2+ Hecklers) to pretty much be mandatory, to project the threat (or at least the illusion) of having your DZ protected by possible Jammer Hecklers. TJC has such a squishy backline, and so few cheap troops for defending it, that it really seems like you need to pay that tax before you start building out the rest of your list. I found myself draw to the idea of fielding the Minelayer Puppetmaster without any Tactical Puppets at all. A DZ Minelayer who is reasonably cheap and also provides Counter Intel wouldn't be too bad in the context of TJC.
The Puppets are just terrible for your Order Pool in TJC. They're pretty much only good as roadblocks, but fail to do that with the efficiency a humble Warcor or not so humble Chasseur can do it. Not being able to have the Puppetmaster defend himself or to use him as an opportunistic attack piece (Mine + SMG is quite scary) is a real problem. The Minelayer is great on his own. On the plus side you can have a KB+Hollowmen BSG/Spitfire Duo with firepower closer to a core than a Haris. Vertical attack vectors is probably Tuguska's biggest strength. Another thing are both KHDs with Cybermines - being able to screw HI/TAGs/REMs with them is very nice but unfortunately useless against Tohaa/Ariadna and a bunch of other list concepts. Tunguska has a couple very bad matchups, that can go South off a single Smoke FTF roll.
I'm super agreeing with @barakiel and @Solar . Tools I've found very useful; Heckler e/marat Heckler Jammer Mine layer puppeteer (solo) Transductors Dismounted Zondnautica Against spamming you need to play the ARO game to drain orders. Placing powerful durable aros out to cover lanes is important. (I.e. Kriza, hollow men, Sally, Perseus, maybe HD spektr). They need to be deployed so they can retreat into total cover when things start going south, and as always you don't want to over extend them either. You also have some fairly durable, and deadly direct templates (especially when linked). You can trade linked nano pulsars and chain colts with warbands, sacing wounds like Bakunin would sac morlocks. Yes it's less ideal, but you need to survive. Never forget the amazing transductors for their flash pulse either! If you see the potential to coordinate a lot of warbands accross the board, limit the command tokens use instead of dinking two orders. It will slow them down more.
Hecklers are one of my favorite units in TJC, and their profiles all being useful in different ways gives them such a threat matrix before they pop out of camo. I’ve gotten good use with the Puppetbots in conjunction with a Hollowmen Core/Haris as it really gets value out of a Clockmaker.
