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My best list, with some commmentary

Discussion in 'Tohaa' started by borings, Nov 5, 2018.

  1. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    so, @Cothel asked me in another thread what sort of lists i run, and i figured i may as well share some of my experience with yall. first up, a bit about me. i play in philly, which doesn't have a huge scene. sure, we are the 6th biggest city in the states, but for some reason CB doesn't think we warrant a warcor, which seems to have hindered community growth. We do have some decent competitive players, and i have played a couple larger tourneys. I don't really find the prize support worth the travel usually tho, and i find the trips to tourneys a bit too expensive compared with potential payoff. Which is why you prollly don't know me from the scene.
    That being said, i have about a 90% win ratio over the last 5 years. Maybe i just stumbled upon tohaa's secret strength, mebbe i am a naturally good player, either way i figure other people looking to perform well with tohaa could benefit from what i have learned.
    To that end, here is the core list that all lists i build are based on


    [​IMG] Best
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    GROUP 1[​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]10 [​IMG]5
    [​IMG] SUKEUL Lieutenant (Forward Observer) K1 Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Breaker Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)
    [​IMG] MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 13)
    [​IMG] MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW. (0 | 13)
    [​IMG] MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 13)
    [​IMG] MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 13)
    [​IMG] MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW. (0 | 13)
    [​IMG] KAAURI Sentinel Submachine Gun, 2 Nanopulsers, Nullifier / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] KAAURI Sentinel Submachine Gun, 2 Nanopulsers, Nullifier / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] KAAURI Sentinel Submachine Gun, 2 Nanopulsers, Nullifier / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] KAAURI Sentinel Submachine Gun, 2 Nanopulsers, Nullifier / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 12)

    GROUP 2[​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]10 [​IMG]1
    [​IMG] SUKEUL HMG, D-Charges / Pistol, Breaker Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 35)
    [​IMG] SAKIEL Paramedic (Medikit) Combi Rifle, Nimbus Plus Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
    [​IMG] MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW. (0 | 13)
    [​IMG] KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse + 2 SymbioMates / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0.5 | 21)
    [​IMG] KAMAEL Paramedic (Medikit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
    [​IMG] KAMAEL Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (0 | 10)

    2 SWC | 300 Points

    Open in Infinity Army

    First things first, yes this is 20 regular orders. I have never lost with this list against someone playing a 10 order list. As far as i can tell the reason is that i essentially get two turns for every turn they get. i can use one of those turns for positioning and trying to kill units, and another for doing objectives.
    Another thing you might notice is that there aren't really any classic aro pieces. that is intentional. Aros, while a great mechanic, are not a thing you as a defender want. if you are getting an aro, you are prolly getting shot at. if you are getting shot at, it is almost always on the attacker's terms, and any decent attacker will only attack when they have statistical advantage. any aros you do get, you want to get on units that the attacker has invested at least 3 or 4 orders just to get into position. what i mean is that if you can kill something after it has been moved across the board, the attacker will have wasted a good portion of their turn to no benefit. having aro pieces like the gao rael or chaksa hmg means the opponent will spend mebbe 1 or 2 orders removing them, and if they unit they are using to remove them dies they will not have lost any investment.
    positioning this many troops might be hard for some people. a thing i have learned is to have most of them prone, with a few in the back line standing. if you have one guy prone, a kaauri behind it, and someone else behind the kaauri standing you are in a good position to not get annihilated by someone walking up with a shotgun. try to position so that the chaksa can see people only when they are in flamer range, which usually requires them to not be in cover. them not being in cover is fine, if they are being shot you are usually doing either great because yer opponent is attacking your cheapest unit or you are already dead because they have killed everything else.

    on individual units in this list, and why they are included:
    sukeul FO lt.: our best lt option, hands down. with the new classifieds, this might actually be the best lt in the game. it is an elite troop, with forward observer, d-charges, and stealth, meaning you can pretty much walk wherever as long as you have some makaul smoking up places. k1 combi is just icing on the cake. also it carries a symbiomate? what? running these will make your meta jealous. don't forget you can spend a short skill to rip off yer own symbioarmor to remove isolated, immobilized, and some other stuff. run it upfield and do objectives, or run it upfield to shoot some guy with a lot of armor, or just run it upfield and have it drop into suppressive fire. sure it loses the makaul fireteam when you do that, but the makaul will almost always have something to do
    makauls: best unit in our faction, point for point it is also the best cc unit in the game. 3 of these at 39 pts is like bringing an ajax with an extra wound who also brings 2 extra orders every turn and who can actually get across the field and who attacks at burst 3 in cc somehow. To optimize their use, you want to throw smoke onto whatever unit you are trying to kill, and then spend an order double moving in to base to base. with the stealth rules, you can do so without giving them an aro. then, ask yer opponent if armor or bts is higher. attack with viral or DA depending on the easier stat. usually its worth breaking the link to force them into a bad face to face, but you can choose to let them give you an unnopposed if you keep the fireteam. if they face to face, they are getting -6 to their roll, due to i-kohl and ma. if they give you unnopposed, increase the damage by three, so they have to make 6 rolls vs damage 18 with the worse of their defense stats. against tags, if you are feeling extra lucky you can bring up both links, and be rolling 6 dice. if you dont want to use smoke, you can always just double heavy flamer, or if they declare dodge just shoot them with pistols. i see a lot of people put makauls in triads as the third wheel. they really shine when you let them group up and run amok in your opponents backfield. try it sometime, it is pretty amazing.
    kaauri smg: this is a profile that almost always blows people's minds. it has so many things going for it. i use the symbiomate minis for these guys personally, as i don't like the goat men look that cb went for, but thats not really on topic. as for the why, well, they are the third best profile in tohaa (behind makauls and suk lt). why does it have double nanopulsars? it seems excessive really. and biometric visor? and nullifier? you know tohaa are the only faction that can bring nullifiers right? if you are playing against someone trying to smart missile you to death, just coordinate deploy some nullifiers, and boom, nothing in those zones can get forward observed. i normally try to put these guys into suppressive fire the first turn i get with a CO. because of Sixth sense level 2, when they are in suppressive they essentially act as mini TR bots, with 360 visors for people that are trying to kill them. try to position them in bottlenecks so you can delay your aro while in suppressive, to force some hard calls from your opponents. the fact that these dudes can do a classified objective (due to biometric visor) is pretty wild to me as well. also, they are they only unit we can bring with structure, so they are the only thing you can use to complete that one engineering objective
    Sukeul HMG: tohaa's best shooty guy, by the numbers. mine usually don't last much past the first turn, but they can do some damage if used right. In case you weren't aware, tohaa is the worst army at shooting. Just flat out. Ok we might have slightly higher bs on our line troops, but we also can never get +3 bs from 5 mans, or marksmanship. really the only thing that we can use to shoot is this one profile, and that is only because it gets the bonus burst from fireteams. sure theres an ectros profile with hmg, but an extra wound isn't worth being hackable, losing mimetism, 10 extra points, and a random fire weakness. if you can get into a position to trigger multiple mines and aros with it at once, go for it. just symbiomate all the things and put all your burst onto one guy. then have a makaul (either one from group 1 or this one after it leaves the fireteam) throw smoke onto it so you can reposition. if you manage to get it across field, its usually best left in suppressive, as a thorn in your opponent's side.
    sakiel paramedic: i see a lot of people asking for a box of these. i don't understand why. the only time i've ever run more than one was for headhunter, where i was running 2 of these to get extra glue guns for cheap. i guess they take extra hits from being shot before they die? i dont see how that is advantage, isn't it better to be able to actually kill things or complete objectives? this would be a 7th makaul if i were allowed. It isn't, so this guy is here for paramedic (to save the suk) or for the occasions i want to blow my opponent's mind with nimbus plus grenades. if you can get across field with the fireteam alive, throw a nimbus plus at a corner of a building where some baddies are hiding. then have yer makaul walk up. yer opponent can then choose to shoot the makaul at -9 (cover, nimbus+) or dodge at -3 (-9 if you manage to get them in the numbus template). yer makaul can feel free to fire two heavy flamers (just have them target two guys to ignore the -1 burst from saturation zone). if they shoot you, they will prolly miss you and die, and if they dodge and they dont die you can do it again.
    Kaeltar CoC: this guy is just here for CoC. symbiomates are whatever. i guess they let us potentially ignore some damage. i think people that hate them don't realize that tohaa, in addition to being the worst shooters, have the worst armor in the game. if we average the amount of armor for symbioarmor vs no symbioarmor we get 1 armor for almost all our guys that have armor at all. and we top out at 3 armor. heavies from other factions all top out at least 4, if not 6. so yeah, CoC is great. the suk LT will prolly die if you are using it at all, and this guy can go do an objective or just hide as needed.
    kamael para and combi: these guys are just filler. bring 2 FO if you wanna. they are just here to provide orders, and occasionally do objectives if everything else dies. they would be more kaauri or chaksa if i was allowed.
    Chaksa Baggage: Tohaa's greatest strength, after CC. We have the best baggage in the game! who cares, right?? well any mission that cares about victory points, thats who. in quadrants you can spend 1 CO to move all 4 into the 2 quadrants on your side (usually 2 on each side of the map) and then you have 60 points in each of those quadrants. What's more, they are prone and have heavy flamers, which means that digging them out is a risky endeavor for anyone so inclined. the fact that we can bring double the baggage than any other faction is a thing that i don't see being discussed much here in the forums. and they can be prone, which no other baggage can do. i know i've said it twice, but it is a big deal. almost all other baggage comes on squat remotes, that are hard to hide behind buildings, with crappy weapons and who cannot lie down behind cover. ours can, which means we can do things with them that no one else can. sensor on them is also occasionally useful. you can have them all walk up and do a CO sensor if you really wanna find an oniwaban or something. in missions where you don't need them for baggage they are good as chaff, to trigger mines or whatever, since if they live through it they can continue walking and heavy flamer some guys.

    overall, in my opinion this list lets you play with tohaa's strengths to their fullest potential. i use this as a core when list building, changing as needed for specific missions.
    other units that sometimes make an appearance:
    kumotail: basically just for highly classified. drop the sak and kam paramedics and have her run around. have one of the makauls move to group two, so she can use group ones orders to do missions while the hmg tries to kill things.
    clipsos FO: if a mission doesn't care about killing at all, i will sometimes drop the suk hmg and sak para for kamaels and put a clipsos in group 3. people don't expect a 21st order. have him take the spot of a dead guy from group 1 or 2 to get a buncha orders, and do objectives or put down mines, and then go into suppressive while prone. these guys are terrible at killing things, but can be a real pain when in suppressive.
    diplomat: what a goofy profile. if you wanna run some more expensive guys instead of kamaels or sak, she can be used in a pinch. have her standing around for AROs if you like gambling, she can occasionally blind people if she doesn't just get murdered.

    other units to consider:
    Gao rael spitfire/Lt: if your meta runs a lot of camo lists, and by that i mean if you expect to see at least two camo lists in a tournament, you could benefit from one of these. Bringing one means dropping the sukeul lt, which makes specialist reliant missions harder, but for missions like quadrants and annihilation the gao rael will prolly net you more points if you run into camo. The spitfire has an extra burst, bringing the lt lets you use yer lt order when you need it, and lets you bring a kaeltar with symbiobombs instead of a kamael. Ive found symbiobombs to usually be a waste of an order, but mebbe you will have more luck with them than i. You'll need to deploy the gr as far up as possible when going first to make up for their slow speed, but overall they should keep up with the makaul as they stop to throw smoke occasionally. If you really wanna be crazy you can drop your coc kaeltar and bring a kerail to throw smoke around, i wouldnt do that though unless your meta is full of people that have people standing on every building trying to get aros, and your tables are hella dense.
    As for the rest, tohaa has a buncha weird middling profiles. our best shooty guys are about as good as the average from other factions. all of the profiles not listed here have unfocused skill/weapon loadouts which makes them just gimmicky, or for lists where you can't run multiple groups at 300. run them if you are just trying to have fun. if people are really interested in hearing my rants on individual units you an ask, and i'll say why i don't find them worth their points.


    Anyways, i hope that was helpful to at least someone. Please don't feel personally attacked if i don't like your favorite profiles. mebbe they work for your playstyle. i just know what works for my playstyle, and i know that my playstyle has allowed me a lot of wins. Especially if i go first. i dunno if i've lost any games with this list going first.

    Weaknesses (sorry i didnt think to include this at first)
    Camo lists: showing up to a knife fight where yer opponent just isnt there is real awkward. If all they have are line troops in the back line, usually its better to just play super conservative, whcih means not utilizing this lists biggest strength. If yer feeling frisky, run a chaksa or two up and sensor. mebbe youll find some big costly unit to kill before yer oppopent has time to hide them again.
    AD lists: i have to assume people werent using ad heavily anywhere which is why it got buffed this season. If they are having people drop from everywhere, try to get kaauri into positions to be able to shoot as much as they can. I wouldnt even bother putting them in cover, they just want to see everwhere to make dropping in a hassle. Honestly tho, i havent seen anyone walk in more than 2 units in years
    JSA: i dunno if theres another faction where everyone is good at cc, but jsa has so many weird profiles that just seem great at everything. If yer playing jsa just try as hard as you can to get objective points, you will almost definitely have more orders to emable you to maximize point gain. Mebbe leave some makaul standing around in the open at the end of yer turn to make yer opponent think you have some bizarre plan. if you like gambling you can go for the kills still, i mean three makauls are still better at cc than everyone in their army but shinobu and musashi.
    TO troops with missile launchers: really just the swiss guard. If yer opponent can gauge yer angle of approach correctly and you dont build yer smoke tunnel correctly you can lose a whole fireteam to a single shot. Not the end of the world, but usually a real hassle.
    Sparse terrain: if your meta doesnt use enough terrain for all yer guys to be lying around behind of at the beginning, yer prolly gonna lose every time you go second. The chaksa dont normally need cover, they are usually fine standing around. Same can go for the kaauri. If your meta doesnt have 12 " worth of terrain for the rest of yer guys to hide behind. I would say talk to your meta about having 25% table coverage. One thing i see a lot is people setting up tables with 25% coverage, but only about 10-15% coverage inside DZs. You will need to bunch people up for this to work, which means people will really love bringing shotguns over, but that is fine because almost eveything else about the list negates their hmgs and sniper rifles. That being said, if yer meta likes having sparse tables, you can still be fine if you play carefully. I played someone last week where he had an hmg in a 5 person fireteam who could see about 80% of the table. There were no reasonable lines of approach. So i bit the bullet and spent my entire second turn just moving around, not even clearing the midpoint of the table, so that i could spend my thrid turn just moving some more, finally getting into position to kill with only a few orders left.
    Impatience: Deciding to let them aro because you are throwing smoke anyways, and will prolly with the roll. trying to kill whatever is closest whenever you can. Take yer time, plot out yer path of approach. Most of yer order should be spent on positioning, which might feel weird if you are used to smaller order lists where you have to spend a larger proportion on trying to shoot things. You will have a ton, dont be stingy. Instead of throwing smoke and letting them have an aro, throw smoke from somewhere they cant see. Dont just kill whatever, kill the units that get them points for the mission.

    Again, hope this was helpful, and remember to have fun
     
    #1 borings, Nov 5, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2018
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  2. Cothel

    Cothel Well-Known Member

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    While this type of list isn't my thing, I really appreciate you taking the time to go through the units you use and why you use them. This is extremely helpful for other players. Your using max AVA for the Chaksa and Kaauri entertain me quite a bit as I am a fan of both units and they both end up in a number of my lists. The only thing I will point out is that Combined Army now also has access to Nullifiers. The Nexus Operative with EI Hacking Device comes with Nullifiers.

    I agree with your comments about the Kaeltar. Most people seem to think that armor is worthless however. It's something I have noticed in a number of threads on the forum. I can't speak to the cost of armor, but I can say that I had lost more of my fair share of units/symbiont armor to being out gunned with BS and failed those armor rolls by 1 or 2 points. Over many games it adds up.
     
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  3. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    that is good to know about the nexus op. i doubt i will ever see anyone use that, but its still good to know. and yeah, even having just one less point of armor means we are losing troops 5% of the time more often than other factions, which can make or break a game. the symbiomates just allow our guys to live through shooting a bit longer than normal, which equates to overpowered to a lot of players who don't realized tohaa's weaknesses are shooting and armor.
     
  4. SN0flux

    SN0flux Member

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    Thanks for the overview! I've been trying to do something similar lately, around 15-18 orders. I like my Clipsos so tend to include them more.

    How do you go about initiative/deployment choice? Obviously this is mission dependent, but more onto do you deploy differently having first/second turn, or first/second deploy? With the amount of units provided, sometimes I'm finding it hard to position everyone safely or make use of my first turn (going second) because the opponent was able to set up a decent board control with no ARO pressure. You mention the positioning of prone models, but maybe it's just my terrain that doesn't hide them completely.
     
  5. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    i always go first. there isn't a mission where swarm doesn't want to go first. going first i will be able to have at least 2 makaul in their backline, potentially even killing a lt. there's been a few discussions in my local meta about this actually. one of the things about this list is that because it always wants to go first, when people win the lt roll at the beginning, and it is normally a mission where one wants to go second, it turns into an actual tough decision whether to go second and hope they can weather the wave of dudes, or go first and have a disadvantage in the mission. having 18+ orders a turn (lets assume they strip two orders the first turn) allows you to position yourself to do missions that care about position, or to kill any specialists/datatracker/whatever your opponent needs in order to get points. i will run this list in tag missions, and just kill their tag with makaul. the key is trying to deny your opponent points with about 10-15 orders while using about 5-10 orders to secure a few points for yourself.

    as for positioning your guys, theres a pretty big difference between 1st and second.
    going first: triad of makauls/triad with lt in the middle, and the triad with the hmg in the middle of the board. they can literally be standing out in the open. just make sure you have a makaul prone standing behind the other guys if you are doing this with no cover. the makaul can throw smoke from behind the line during your turn to cover the advance of the rest of the guys. you prolly wanna leave a small space between yer guys at an angle that yer opponent will not be able to see through if you wanna optimize this. whichever triad from the first group that isnt in the direct middle i put as close to the middle as i can and still be in cover. two of them will be prone next to corners, the middle guy standing facing the wall. this way if somoene walks out and tries to shotgun i can potentially still get aros from two of them. the triad with the kaeltar lies down somewhere, on a rooftop in cover if at all possible. the kaauri stand in positions where the furthest they can see is about 16-24", but in places where they can cover approach. this way they can go into suppressive and be relevant. chaksa go wherever they can hide and not be seen until a person is within flamer template. almost always prone. almost everyone should be starting prone.
    going second: try to put the triads that i normally put in the middle as far back behind buildings as i can get them. look at the paths of approach to your opponent. just choose the shortest path. doesn't matter what aro pieces they have on the table, if they are getting aros it is because they pop out with a TO guy or because you are not being patient with building your smoke tunnel to the other side. Or because you can tell you are shooting the hmg with a numerical advantage (it has numerical advantage against almost anything without msv).

    one of the key things with this list is patience. i often have games where during the second turn i am not attacking at all, only repositioning units. you have the orders to get the makaul to any point on the board (unless theres like a giant building with no ladders i guess). makaul are extremely reliable at taking out threats. but they have to get to those threats, which sometimes means spending 10 orders building a smoke tunnel across the board so that the triad from the other group can waltz across (provoking no aros at all because of stealth) in 3-4 orders and then spend a few orders killing key targets. obviously, don't try to use makaul against units with cc skills if you can help it. just kill all their friends as they stand around wondering why theres all those screams coming from the ominous smoke that just billowed forth from the distance.
     
    #5 borings, Nov 5, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2018
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  6. SoEinBasti

    SoEinBasti ShasBasti

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    Wow, this is a approach I never thought of. Definitely have to try this soon.
    I appreciate the hard work you put into this and really enjoyed the detailed description of every role. Thank you very much for this. As a new player, this really helped me.
     
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  7. Zsolt

    Zsolt Well-Known Member

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    Really interesting write up! Some random bits of info:

    Sukeul has Veteran, so won't get Isolated.

    CA (Nexus hacker) also have Nullifiers.
     
  8. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    True true, the reminder for sumbioarmor was more a general thing, but yeah, veteran is another great strength on a great unit. As for nexus, even if they got nullifiers, we are still the only faction that can do a coordinated to drop 4! Thats gotta be useful somehow?! Right?
     
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  9. Zsolt

    Zsolt Well-Known Member

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    Don't know, never used them :D Also didn't see anyone use Guided in my meta, ever :)

    On Symbiomates, imo what you get there is a free order to do stuff. You can do stuff, and you know your troop will survive. In other factions your ARO piece will go down to a single HMG burst, or your main attack piece can have a bad roll, and get shot down by that ARO piece. With Symbiomate you know if anything goes wrong, your troop will be safe, because the mate soaks up the damage for free. Even if crits happen (and I think people over mystify crits), your dude has a Symbiont armor, so an extra wound, so will still walk away (there's a pretty low chance to get two or more crits, but whatever, shit happens), no matter what. Then you also have loads of Exlipse smoke, so Tohaa just can ignore most of the game, your opponent, and just walk on doing it's thing.

    Then you are stuck with your cardboard armor and shooting skills of a Fusilier or Kamau, best. Though Sukeul HMG is a surprisingly good shot, mostly because of it's mimetism and the obvious high Burst in active turn. B5 can solve a lot of problems and hide a lot of bad decisions. If not, just pop that symbiomate and try again.

    I tend to use Gao Rael with it's MSV and B5 Spitfire as another attack piece, because -3 and -6 BS mods can be nasty. I suppose bludgeoning to death with Makaul under smoke also solves most of the problems in life.

    Except for mines, mines don't care about smoke.

    I really liked your writing, a bit different point of view than it was present in the forums. Now I want to play Tohaa. Too many armies, too few games.
     
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  10. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    I have to say, I'm curious what your tables look like. I know there's a huge amount of Eclipse in there (and lots of Orders), but having run extremely Smoke-heavy Nomads in the past (one game involved about a dozen templates on the table at once), I can see that list being an uphill struggle on local tables - if going second you wouldn't even be able to hide everyone!
     
  11. Nemo No Name

    Nemo No Name Aleph Cultural Atache

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    Mmm, but this has advantages of Triads compared to what Nomads would bring.

    Meaning those Makauls can be left to ARO while both keeping Cover and throwing that Eclipse at B2. Sure, you'll lose a Makaul or two but I think it could work.
     
  12. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    Yes, I'm aware of the differences between Morlocks and Makauls, I'm just saying that I have experience using massed smoke rather than firepower. Which is why I'm wondering how table layout and density differs between metas.
     
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  13. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Locally we play on a mix of dense and medium tables and I've found a similar approach (about four fewer orders depending on how you measure it but functionally almost half again as many effective wounds which I find gives better overall consistency and reduced vulnerability to a sparse deployment zone) and can confirm it's very effective on the denser tables and variable but still strong as the density thins out. Eventually you hit a point where there aren't enough corners to hide flamers behind and you have to begin positioning makauls for smoke AROs.

    Your firepower loadout also depends heavily on meta. The Sukeul HMG is sometimes right but locally I get equal mileage out of the Nikoul as we have several Ikari players and being able to regularly put Tankos at 7s to hit and have a higher lethality ammunition for that improved chance to kill even a HI outright. Backup firepower pieces are also useful against the very small number of armies you can only at best fight evently in melee against (phalanx, some JSA - you're still favoured thanks to burst advantage but the odds are lower and the amount of orders spent to approach melee for less reliable payoff make the strategy less attractive), but if they're not present there's not as much need.

    On a final personal note I've found triads of one sakiel and two makauls better to three makauls. Just apart from the specialist and gun, being able to walk a sakiel and makaul into melee lets you get burst advantage while stopping an enemy with knife or pistol from having a chance to trade their life. It's more expensive though, and Boring obviously has good cause to prefer the higher order count.
     
  14. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Above notwithstanding I definitely agree with Borings that melee tohaa is a list with a huge amount of potential and perhaps underappreciated strength.
     
  15. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    We try to keep coverage to about 25% max, with a decent amount of smaller scatter terrain in the form of short walls, crates, barrels, and stacks of pipes. Going second on sparse tables does usually mean i leave some makaul out, but if they are prone on the ground sometimes they cant be seen for a few orders. Having them throw smoke is often enough to hinder someone's plans of running across shooting everything. This does bring up a good point tho, which is the list's weaknesses. Ill try to edit the post to talk about prollems people can run into
     
  16. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    Much appreciated!

    EDIT - and I know how much this list depends on good decision-making during the game, so hearing about the 'how' of the list is really interesting.
     
  17. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    If you get a chance I'd be very interested to see a picture of a standard local table with a sample deployment for your list in it.
     
    ijw likes this.
  18. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    Im playing tomorrow, ill try to get some pics then.
     
  19. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    Awesome. Look forward to them :)
     
  20. borings

    borings Well-Known Member

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    And in regards to nikoul, i really like them too, i have two actually. On missions where defense is super important ill try to squeeze one or two in. Theres a decent amount of msv snipers in my meta tho, which has really destroyed their utility. Aaand ive found the kaauri can end up being better aro pieces because it requires such an investment from the opponent just to get into position to try to remove them.
     
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