Spiral Corps article Came across this in my hunt for Infinity content. Spiral Corps stuff tends to be pretty thin on the ground outside of this forum, and most of the articles I've come across before still talk about Stratuscloud, so I thought this might be useful for newcomers like me. About half the article is focused on their favoured Tricore Triads, which is pretty central to SC to be fair! The section about Holomasks was interesting to me; I've never put more thought into it than having the Taagma be another Chaksa or Kaeltar since they're the only 'spare' painted models I have! The lists caught me off guard a bit; I was under the impression that people didn't leave home without a Chain of Command Kaeltar, but I guess some sacrifices have to be made when the Tricore Neema triad and a Viral Sniper take over half your SWC. Points seem tight in the second list. The lone Taagma lieutenant with no CoC in the first list makes me squirm; it feels vulnerable. But I guess that's something better players than I can work around with positioning. No love for the Igao or the Kiiutan either! They're pretty much my favourites! I'd be interested to hear what you wiser heads make of the article.
I wouldn't worry about some guy on the Web not liking the same profiles as you, the igao and imposter are both great for some missions and match ups. Holomask is situational and works best where you're up against people that don't know what models you own or don't know your faction in detail. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Depends how well you can sell it
I've found a battle report on YouTube which I suspect is the same guy who wrote the article: Combined Army vs Spiral Corps It's from the Combined Army perspective, but I found it interesting to watch anyway. Good discussion of the decisions behind the moves. The Spiral Corps list is only very slightly different to the one in the article; a BSG Clipsos instead of FO, and a second Kriigel instead of a Greif.
Close, the bat-rep was done by the Combine player, while the Spiral player is most likely the Goonhammer author. They play in the same community and talk alot and bounce ideas off each other all the time.
A Tohaa / Spiral article where "Jaan" is written a single time, as a comparitive to the Greif and Kiiutan aren't mentionned. Not only are thise the strongest profiles in Tohaa / Spiral, I think they're the best profiles in the game. I also think that Neema is a pretty poor pick in N4. I think the Draal are still much a much stronger pick. Avoiding it because you're scared a warband will get more value by templating it is a mistake imo. You want to play into your strengths, even if they come with some weakness, otherwise you're just playing a dilluted version of what you could do. And Spiral is already a quite dilluted version of Tohaa.
I do like Neema for countermeasures but she demands support from a kosuil, and makes a kriigel a hard pick, which is a problem because a tricore kriigel is a great unit. Then she also costs an extra .5swc. And yeah, Jaan is clutch.
Another Combined Army vs Spiral Corps battle report has appeared on YouTube; same combatants as the previous one I believe. This is from Robert Shepherd's Novacore battle reports: Combine Army vs Spiral Corps, Rescue The Spiral Corps list is bloody fascinating. (There is a general disclaimer that the author may have got the combat groups slightly wrong, but the pieces should be correct) No Tricore, no Clipsos, only one Haris. Three Draal as solo pieces, four minelayers. The other list, kindly supplied by Robert Shepherd again, was: Spoiler: Novacore Neema Novacore Neema (Countermeasures/Comms Centre/Supremacy) ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 8 1 NEEMA Spitfire, Nanopulser / Viral Pistol, Shock CC Weapon. (1.5 | 38) KOSUIL (Engineer) K1 Combi Rifle, D-Charges, AP Mines ( | GizmoKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 29) KRIIGEL Breaker Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher, Pheroware Tactics: Eraser, Pheroware Tactics: Mirrorball / Viral Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 20) WARDRIVER (Hacker, Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 14) KAELTAR (Chain of Command) Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse, SymbioBomb ( | SymbioMate) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0.5 | 21) CHAKSA AUXILIAR FTO (Sensor, Baggage) Heavy Flamethrower(+1 Dam) ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 10) CHAKSA AUXILIAR FTO (Sensor, Baggage) Heavy Flamethrower(+1 Dam) ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 10) CLIPSOS (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 25) HELOT MILITIAMAN (Camouflage [1 Use]) Submachine Gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 9) GROUP 2 5 1 HELOT MILITIAMAN (Camouflage [1 Use]) Shock Marksman Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 13) GREIF-OP (Surprise Attack [-3], Impersonation [IMP-2]) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Breaker Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (0.5 | 20) CLIPSOS (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 25) TAAGMA (Multispectral Visor L2) VIRAL Sniper Rifle ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 24) KUMOTAIL Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 21) KRIIGEL (Lieutenant) Breaker Combi Rifle, Smoke Grenade Launcher, Pheroware Tactics: Eraser, Pheroware Tactics: Mirrorball / Viral Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 20) 6 SWC | 299 Points Open in Infinity Army Far more of the usual suspects but notably no Tricore in either list. NovaCore had a mission lineup of Countermeasures, Supplies, Supremacy, Rescue and Comm Center (don't know what that last one is). The Spiral Corps player came in 10th in the end, out of a field of 70ish. So Spiral Corps did well, but with serious adaptation and in the hands of a very good player. But I do keep circling back to the no-TriCore bit!
Spiral Corps did very well, all things considered. I might have mentioned it in the video, but his only loss was against; morats (i.e. totally locked out of eraser AROs); going second (after losing the Lt roll); on a corridor table where Helots couldn't stall Kaitok engagements until terminal approach And I think he still clawed out some OP to keep him in 10th place out of 70. Having helped him test his lists for the event, I agree with his conclusion not to run tri-core in any list, at least for this scenario mix. It's just not really worth 20pts and half an SWC any more, which is a shame.
Yeah, you did mention it in the video. You also called him a 'giga-chad' for taking to Spiral Corps to the event at all, which got a chuckle out of me! I'm not as certain that the TriCore's day is done, but then my lists look very different. I'm still working on multiple Haris, and in those setups having a Taagma as a kind of 'wildcard glue' to patch holes is really handy. And if I'm taking a Taagma anyway then it only feels like 4pts and 0.5 SWC. At the same time, though, your opponent is clearly (much, much!) more experienced than me and is playing in a more competitive environment; I don't have to be as bleeding-edge to play pick-up games at my local store. It's going to be interesting to see how Spiral evolves going forwards though.
Wow, that's a crazy list that I really don't understand. :D The third Draal, coming in more expensive in pts and swc than Jaan, kind of blows my mind. I can see a case for 2... I get the Chaksa spam, they're great for board presence and coordinated orders. I get the double-mate kaeltar to big up your two draal on point. And I 100% agree with the Kosuil love, that profile is becoming more and more central to how Spiral have to be these days. But why the 1 smg draal? It's frankly exciting to be so confused by a proven-good list.
My inexpert assessment was that the list is very much focused on the mission; that was the list for Supplies and Rescue: - Both of them involve going forwards, picking something up, and heading back to your DZ. - Supplies needs a specialist to extract the supplies, Rescue allows specialists to scoop two civilians - Supply boxes and civilians cannot be taken by markers. So whilst Jaan or a Kiiutan definitely has the edge in deployment range and attacking capability, they would need help to extract the supply crates and would have to leave the marker state to shift any of the scoring maguffins in either scenario. It's kind of a waste of their talents. By contrast the Minelayer Draal can cover the tech coffins and enemy civilians with mines, is a faster-moving forward deploying specialist, and between mim-6 and +3 dodge it's much more survivable than a naked impersonator. So there's a lot of advantages in terms of the missions. I did wonder if an FO Clipsos could fulfil a similar role for fewer points, but it is squishier and you lose the minelayer.
I had a chance to catch up with Ed at the LGS this evening and spoke to him about this. Here's what we discussed: Ed basically always takes a Greif. It's his signature piece, and he much prefers it over Staar. Any inclusion of Staar would mean diminished returns if only from fighting over the reserve spot. Meanwhile, the Draal can fill a different role. Staar is a piece almost entirely oriented around going first. He's eminently less disposable than a Greif, less comfortable trying to land deep into the enemy DZ like the Greif did in Ed's game vs me (Staar can risk that as well, but failure takes a larger portion of your army out of action if he fails and doesn't at least put a rifle-band weapon in your DZ), and in Spiral can't be used as an enemy DZ bomb holder as easily as in Tohaa when going second as there are fewer Kaeltar. In general, his general high risk low reward as a piece when going second the big reason why Ed only occasionally uses Staar but almost always uses the Greif, and part of a conclusion I agree with him on that Staar is a little overhyped. Staar's preferred prey - light infantry links supporting ARO pieces you want to disrupt - hasn't been around that much recently, at least locally. Meanwhile the Greif is just about as good at eliminating isolated future-problem elements like hackers or guided missile bots, at a cheaper price. As @Jayward speculated, there's a scenario element as well. The mine in particular is high value in Rescue and Supplies, and pretty handy as part of a defensive mix in Supremacy and potentially Comms Center (although in the matchup he chose his other list for the Comms Center round, although basically lost to the table + matchup). The exclusion zones aren't as hard on impersonators as on infiltrators, but if you don't want to risk the infiltration roll, they do matter. The strip between 12" and 16" is often the most neglected in terrain setup (at least by table makers who've gotten around to remembering the back 6" of the DZ exist) and while Ed is comfortable hard rolling a Greif wherever he thinks it'll be most annoying if the DZ is the safest spot, Staar is risking more to make that WIP13 roll (as noted above). So yeah, overall the TLDR is 'he didn't take Staar because he doesn't think Staar is as good as the things he did take', but there's a fair bit to it and we did a lot of testing in the months ahead of the event. Spiral is unquestionably in a tough place after the link team update, and Novacore was a challenging mission mix on top of that, but in spite of both I really like the Draal-centric list and would encourage other people to give it a shot. But if you like Jaan, by all means swap him in.
That's some really great insight to how he approaches Spiral. As someone who's currently busy painting about 30 of them, and planning on playing them quite a bit, I gotta say I have been having trouble building a list that "feels" good. There's such a lack of content for them out there and it feels like very few things that I've learned in other armies can be taken into Spiral.
If there's one thing I've learned watching Ed play it's that Spiral are a sectorial that wants to focus on defence, and that's tough but rewarding in Infinity. Tohaa are a good defensive faction with symbiomates, multiple wound elements, pheroware and flamers, but Spiral add Helots into the mix (plus more pheroware, plus mines). Learning how to be miserable to attack for multiple turns in a row is something you want to focus on if you've settled on spiral.
They definitely do give off that vibe. The lack of a high BS attack piece does just shout "play defensively" to me. Which hey, as a primary Shaz player, I think will suit me just fine! The presence of actual ARO pieces though does really differentiate them to Shaz for me, which is the main reason I picked them up. And to be totally honest, I also only picked them up because picking up Tohaa is totally impossible for a player in South Africa haha
I think that list is almost like playing it like vanilla. If you have the tools without fire teams, why not?
The Greif is my all-time favorite model and seeing someone else use him to such success fills me with the warm fuzzies. Love that guy; even if he gets crit and dies you only wasted 20 points. And he usually does much, much more.
Bit late to the party on this, can you share why you think they're the best profiles in the game? I'm struggling to see it...
https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/tohaa-tactica.41479/ Rehosted my analysis of Jaan Staar here! :)
Thanks. Interesting thoughts. I always figured kiiutan has more utility thanks to e/m so better able to tackle big threats. does assigning a symbiomate mean they cannot enter impersonation? I vaguely remember something from n3?
