Yeah, it's basically Superior Infiltration with an auto pass on the roll. Combine that with a Viral weaponry and a potential no-LoF attack from a Symbiobomb...
Or even the protection afforded by a mate. 1 move to be in range, ignore the shot back and attack with viral pistols. And THEN you have 2 more wounds. All of that for 26 pts.
I think it's ~30 points for the Vanilla only version, but yeah. There's also nothing stopping you from having both a bomb and a mate in Vanilla, but he can't be your reserve if you want either.
If you have to deploy first, chances are you get the first turn as well. I would not mind deploying this guy first with Symbiomate backup near the most optimal spot in my opponents DZ, forcing him to deploy in a suboptimal way. Ideally, you can then hold back an Igao to take advantage off your opponents forced suboptimal deployment. I want to pull.this off so badly!
Oh yeah, placing a 2W+ marker state trooper with access to Eraser right outside their back yard is going to screw with anyone deployment strategy.
Will eraser benefit from surprise attack if used in active ? If yes it means -6 WIP reset to resist it, it would make anyone affraid
In a Face to Face Roll between the user's BS Attack or Hacking Attack and an enemy, the enemy suffers a -3 MOD to the relevant Attribute. This -3 MOD is added to other MODs caused by Camouflage and Hiding, Range, Cover, etc. My emphasis.
I've seen this point brought up a few times but I'm still trying to figure it out. The Smoke LGL seems so wasted on this unit. You dont want your smoke in your Link with your MSV if you can avoid it to make LOF less burdensome. You don't realy want drag a bunch of white noise zones around with your MSV either you'd rather have another primary shooter to make use of them. The range on the LGL is nice but not mess your pants worthy. Back on topic: My rough ordering for most to least interesting for vanilla: Kriigel - Gives good anti MSV and anti Link skills to the Tohaa Taagma - Provide some much easier to use and integrate Holo 1 for the purposes of deception and confusion. Kiuutann - Feels very interesting at first glance but the competition for the slot in the Igao and Clipsos mean I'm not sure how much we'll see this. Draal - Dependent on how Stratocloud exactly works. Neat unit but my gut instinct is to say it might not bring what we need to the table. Keil sann - Also interesting but doesn't feel like it fills in any major holes. Reex - Triple save Viral Pistol is neat. One thing I feel like we haven't really seen much of is if any of the original Tohaa rules are getting a reworking in this release. My instinct is to say we'll see a polishing of most of the basic rules that interact with spiral at least and I think that may shake some things loose as well. The Taagma's ability to really complement the Libertos, diplomatic delegate, the Clipsos, Igao and the Kotail in playing weird shell games is the thing I'm most excited for. Between the Kotail pretending to be a Chaksa or a Diplomatic Delegate to cover a points surplus and the Taagma as Neema or an Ectros in a triad to cover a points deficit. You can build so many visually identical but tactically different lists.
Not at all trying to argue, rules are rules and all, but is this intentional to leave out Pheroware, or old text from before it mattered.
Symbiobombs have been available on a unit that can Surprise shot since the invention of Surprise Shot. So I reckon intentional or a minor oversight.
It's a quote from Surprise Shot (an N3 core rulebook reference, so 2014) and Pheroware Tactics is an HSN3 abilities. The original Pheroware Tactics rules are from the Tohaa 2015 PDF, back when those models originally came out. Then Pheroware got updates in HSN3 when it came out a year or so later. So when the text for Surprise Shot was published, it was a distinction that didn't exist--all Comms Attacks were either Hacking Attacks or BS Attacks, or would have been CC Attacks.
Never had problems with the loss of two orders. First, mostly I gone second with Tohaa and second the points you spent in this unit aren't worth the one order. But I'm not a huge fan of cloak and dagger games of the Holoprojector.
I feel like most of my lists don't care about changing -2 orders into -1 order. I typically run a ton of orders or two medium sized groups. If you are running a 10 and a small group this becomes more relevant. Personally feel that the 2W infiltrator is the biggest addition to Tohaa, followed by the Impersonator. The infiltrator is a different scoring skirmisher for us to replace running just multiple clipsos. He is sufficiently different from the Clipsos and not just a bad imitation. The AP Marksman Rifle loadout looks like a very solid unit though expensive, and the cheaper varieties are solid at taking and holding objectives and then denying areas using their BS13, wounds, mines and templates. Not even considering stratocloud as we don't have the full rules yet. This guy seems totally boss The Impersonator is nothing like the Clipsos or Igao as mentioned earlier in the thread. A model that always succeeds at landing on the enermy front line is not the same as a model that has to roll for it. The trooper itself is sufficiently underwhelming that this is not an autoinclude, but it gives another avenue of attack that can cause the opponent have to deploy with it in mind. It is solid for shooting up warbands or order pools with the right angles but is *not* an assassin in the style of the Fiday. I quite like it for my more defensive orientated lists that need a mandatory "kill something if you go first" play. The big guy looks useless. A multi-wound spitfire in a faction of multi-wound spitfires. Meh. The CC isn't fantastic and he doesn't bring specialists with him. Not for me. The Pheroware guy looks pretty mediocre too. Yes its a jammer, but jammers on non-5pt guys are not automatically fantastic, and its expensive and fragile and doesn't score. This limits the types of triads that actually want to run him as he is filling the scoring slot or the makaul slot. Mirrorball is not a big deal for me, a Sukuel can already sweep any MSV2 we are running into pretty easily. Jury is out on the pherobooster, if it is some kind of repeater the usability of that jammer goes way up. The robots seem like they just added one profile to the existing mini-robots. The base profile has some game as an alternative to the cheerleader profile on the Kaauri, but the others don't appeal. As much as I hate losing MSV when I can get it, the shotgun/nanopulsar/viral pistol/contender loadout is a pretty cool defensive cheerleader that isn't breaking our bank.
My take on the usefulness on vanilla, now that I had some time to think about all of them instead of just what interested me the most: Draal Saboteurs Triad specialist. Ok. FD2 is kinda weird if the rest of the triad is not forward deploying too, but at least it frees up space on where to put the mine. He brings a lot more to the table than the standard Sakiel specialist, but his price does show that. Stratocloud *might* be worth bringing in at least one, but in general you can consider him a upgrade to your Sakiel, with the higher pricetag that it entails. Kiel-San Covert Assault Unit Umm.... he is good in CC. But you have makauls. He is a decent shot, but he is comparing against Sukeuls. As a solo piece, he compares with a rasail - who does the same thing, *much* cheaper. Not really impressed by him. Metachemistry might give you a 8-4 move and a ridiculous assault range, but thats pretty much it. Kiiutan Imposters Having a unit with 2 wound and potentially a Mate / Bomb starting the game 1 move away from half of the oponent deploy is ridiculous. This is a game changer for tohaa, because even if he is not able to be in imp state and have the mate/bomb, you can most definitely deploy him withouth the marker state and the symbio armor will allow those other tactics. If your enemy deploy far away from him, you just dictated how your enemy will play one very important part of the game. Kriigel Agents He can easily take the place of a makaul on a triad, providing smoke. Even better than the makaul if the triad has MSV2. His pheroware makes it very dangerous for enemies to get close to said triad. Its just that makaul is much cheaper. Might see some play, but not counting on much of it - replacing a makaul is a very tall order. Reex Escorts Meh. Taagma Schemers Counterintelligence will make sure he sees some play. Holo-1 will make sure your enemy waste his command token BEFORE you have to declare your counterintelligence. That is already enough for his cost, being able to fill a triad is just a bonus. His holo-1 state can also make some mind games possible, as posing as a makaul can be a nice deterrent for getting too close and is very viable, as makauls are onipresent in triads. Or you could pose him as a sukeul ML, putting him in a ARO position. Yes, he will die when the enemy tries to shoot, but it will probably force your enemy to spend orders shifting his things around trying to get a good weapon in view / range. Just dont put him opposite to a HMG, make that HMG guy have to spend 3-4 orders to get to a position to shoot him. His counterintelligence already paid for himself.
One small detail: the Draal Saboteurs have Symbiont Armour. They are way more expensive than the Sakiel, but they also provide much more.
Nothing stopping you being in a marker state with a mate/bomb, Kotail have been able to do it for years.
