Thinking of starting out infinity with Nomads because I like all their infiltrators and hackers. I was wondering if the TAGs are any good? They don't seem to have the overall power of those in Aleph or CA, but seem alright. They don't just ignore certain aspects like some of the better TAGs do though, and don't have the mobility of others. I'm especially wondering about the Salamander, since with ARM 8 it can mostly ignore nonAP fire and mines just by walking forward. Relatedly, has anyone had luck with the mercenary racer pilot? Stacking even more armor or boosting it to BTS 12 both seem to totally shut down one type of counterplay to a TAG for example. More BS is always good too. Thoughts?
I'm not a Nomad player so can't really speak to the TAGs much, but REMdriver skill of the REM Racer mercs only applies to the Remote(REM) troop type, so can't buff a TAG.
gfUGbm9tYWRzDVVubWFza2luZyBsaSCBLAEBCwGBpAEBAAKBsAEBAAOBpQEDAASBpQEDAAWBlAEBAAaBlwEFAAeBiwEEAAiEQwGPnwAJhg8AAgAKgZYBAQALgakBAQA= I ran this a few days ago in unmasking, and it did serious work. Probably would swap the zondnaut for a meteor zond if I wasn't running unmasking tbh Sent from my SM-G780F using Tapatalk
Szalamandras are awesome. No-brainer HMC, BTS 9, and the pilot has KHD so if there's a tick behind a wall trying to hack Szally, you can just dismount and cook them(btw you should be careful entering into enemy's repeater, it seems like a fashion to hire cheap hackers in numbers nowadays).
Szalamdra is great, though the KHD on the pilot is more a trap than anything but the HRMC will kill pretty much everythinng you point it at. Lizard is a pretty solid if uninteresting MBT Geckos are amazing, either a dam 17 MK12 or a dam 15 +1B Multi marksman will also shred what ever they get set on. Iguana, use it as a Lizard proxy.
Nomads TAGs are Ok. Not as good as Combined or PanO. Nomad support for TAGs can be excellent. - Great for cost Hackers - Great Engineers (esp linked with B3 gizmokits) - Great WB to make a skirmish line to defend them - Good infiltrators for same. So it seems it can work out well holistically, depending on your play style.
We also have the only TAGs without Courage, so there's deliberate weakness built into them. I'm with Hach though: Nomads don't have the best TAGs but we have great TAG support.
Geckos are amazing but they aren't going to give you that TAG gameplay you might be looking for. Without 6-4 movement and 14 BS it just isn't the same. They are great thou.
Even nomad pilots seem to know they are steering second-rate quality :D Not a big deal though, just handle most of them (Geckos, Iguana) like HI rather than real TAGs and you are good. TAG support is premium though. (Apart from the fact that even the college dropout engineer from PanO has better odds in reviving a TAG than our elite thanks to remote presence reroll, B3 Gizmo maybe migrated that a bit)
Found as soon as something has mimetism, Sally just can't handle it any more. This made me incredibly sad as I returned the newly painted model to its place at the bottom of the cupboard... I dunno about that TAG support. Its hard to actively prevent a hack rather than beta strike the hacker after the fact. Hard to deter missiles at all. Do have good CC deterrance in morlock and chimera. Engineers are great but man that lack of rerolls is *so* shit
Most TAGs have to deal with this issue, Szally at least can try and force hits through by weight of dice, and is a little better at it than some of the other options in the army/sectorial. With the death of the KHD this edition the concept of defensive hackers to prevent enemy hacking is dead with it, but with ECM the missile approach isn't exactly reliable against TAGs, better off carpet bombing everything else. Found TAG based lists to be very much in the go first or die style.
Szalamandra is ok. Absolutely gorgeous model, arguably the best in the entire range. BTS 9 helps out immensely. However, its very unfortunate that it exists not only in the same faction, but sectorial as the B6 Kirza Borac. If you really want to bring one, then use double interventors (one with KHD), along with heaps of repeaters to completely shut down their hacking (and REMs, TAGs and HIs). An interventor, while fearsome, can still be killed, but 2 is usually too much for most people to deal with. Possibly, the only good TAG in the entire game is the MO Tikbalang. A few of the PanO ones and maybe the Szalamandra are average, but all are easily replaceable by infantry. TAGs are still way too vulnerable to hacking, and bring too little value to the table. You're almost always better off bringing more bodies to the table.
I had a good run at an interstate event this past Saturday with vanilla nomads, relying on a Szalamandra in both lists as the primary active firepower piece, with her in group two supporting aggressive hacking, missile strike and close assault elements in group one. I really rate her, and I don't think there's anything that really competes as a firepower piece in vanilla. Now that's a spicy take. What would you replace a Szalamandra with in vanilla nomads? A kriza sure as hell won't cut the mustard if I need to engage an enemy ARM8+ element.
Question regarding Szalamandra: If the pilot uses Cybermask and then mounts the TAG, is the IMP-2 state transfert to on the TAG. The rules state When Mounting a TAG or Vehicle, the TAG or Vehicle Profile will apply all Game States that the TAG was in and all Game States the Pilot was in (if applicable).
I believe IMP-2 is not considered a state applicable to the TAG so doesn't transfer. Paging @inane.imp for a more learned response.
