Spiral corps N4 army overview

Since N4 came out, not many tacticas got redone. given there's still interest in spiral/tohaa I thought I'd get round to writing down an overview primarily for newcomers as old salty vets like me don't really need them.
I'm no tournament pro (two youg kids stop me from getting out much to full day events nowadays) but I've been playing for enough years that I'll try and impart some wisdom on new players. Nothing in this guide is to be taken as 100% truth, infinity has enough variables that some things work for some folk and not for others.
Please chip in with comments, criticism and feedback!

Why play Spiral Corps?

Spiral mix human and tohaa forces and so play similarly enough to players maybe looking to expand to a 2nd faction but also gain a whole suite of new abilities and units that play very differently to "standard" forces.

Spiral's main strengths lie in their ability to defend in layers; utilising helots, mines, pheroware and conventional ARO games. Spiral have shenanigans aplenty however and feature some of the best attacking impersonators in the game and some very solid midfield pieces armed with spitfires as well as attacking CC models.

Spiral's main weaknesses lie in their lack of direct heavy firepower, particulary lacking apex pieces like main battle tags, elite HI with HMG that you find in the other main factions of the game. Spiral differs from Tohaa in that you can form a 5 man core as well as simulating a non-pure core based in a haris team, so can leverage sixth sense and core linked msv2 viral sniper, but most offensive weapons in-faction tend towards high damage/low burst. Spiral's hacking game is also sparse but functional but offset by good access to pheroware tactics on multiple platforms.


Unit review

Light Infantry
This section covers the bulk of Spiral Corp's forces and also the bulk of the stuff you're gonna be spending points on.

Kumotail
The dedicated support troop of the Tohaa also pass across into Spiral Corps.
Its a really vanilla profile, except that it mixes the doctor rule and the engineer rule and kit onto the same profile.
This does drive the cost up to 21points which is a fair chunk of points more than the single-discipline support troops you find in nomads/pano like daktari and trauma docs.
In missions like highly classified and countermeasures you can make an argument for running one, but for most missions, they're pricey/squishy and outcompeted by cheaper specialists for simple button-pushing.
They are WIP14 and can take chaksa servants but there's not that much to repair in-faction so the engineer half of the profile tends to go to waste outside of classifieds.

Chaksa Auxilia
Chaksa are in an interesting place in spiral. They take the roles of cheap DZ defender, zone holders and also, the roles of guided missile launcher and total reaction remote too.
They are pretty questionable in those latter two roles though as their BS11, shock vulnerability and generally high price makes them awkward to leverage and squishy. The baggage, sensor HFT profile is excellent however and makes a very good DZ protector, especially when linked in a triad to increase burst.
They can also link with chaksa longarms, a single brawler or wildcards which gives them flexibility to be towed up with a specialist and a heavier weapon to leverage the HFT and baggage in zone scoring missions.

Diplomatic Delegates
These Beyonce/Artichoke hybrids are as near to an auto-take as you get in-faction here and in Tohaa.
They function as a cheap, relatively disposable 2nd line button pusher and zone defender at a bargain price of 5 points. They hold territory by threatening Flash Pulse AROs, nanopulser templates and isolating enemy units in ZoC with Pheroware tactics: Eraser.
You can also use one to boost rolls in specops campaigns if you so wish, but the specialist operative profile gains the ability to do missions in ITS and will represent 99% of the picks when you take them.
The only downside here is that she's tied into an irregular order and she's not linkable. At 5pts though, she's a bargain!

Hatail Aelis Keesan
A named spec-ops from Dire Foes boxes, the original model is somewhat dated now but can be proxied nicely with the hatail from the Spiral corps army box if you can get hold of one of the early releases.
The profile is itself quite a pricey generalist, but as a named character with sensor, d-charges and a killer hacking device she can complete a huge swathe of the current ITS classified deck on her own.
She is a Wildcard option in links and has a choice between k1 and viral ammo for her combi rifle but keeps the KHD, nanopluser and flash pulse across both. The icing on the cake is the regeneration rule which might/might not get her back up after a wound. As a generalist, she does fall on the expensive side as all those rules and kit have to be paid for, but in missions like highly classified/countermeasures she makes for a solid pick for the sheer number of classifieds that she can accomplish.
In terms of her hacking potential, she's nothing special. WIP 14, BTS 3 and a KHD is a fairly average package in the scheme of the game, but she can utilise cybermask to cross gaps or skulk to safety.
Sensor is very useful in general, especially into factions like Ariadna but she can have a rough time into factions with Alpha hacking pieces like CA/Nomads/Aleph as they have better numbers and stats to out-hack her with and she lacks stealth to get through enemy repeaters.

Monstruckers
Another irregular mercenary unit, the monstruckers are some of the cheaper specialists in the game as all their profiles are engineers. They also come with climbing plus which can situationally be useful.
They can also core link with brawlers, but if they use their irregular order, it will boot them from the team, necessitating expenditure of a command token to make it regular which rather offsets the cheap cost. As a solo piece the irregular order can be used suppressive fire or drop bears which isn't terrible. Defensively, the cheaper 12pt SMG/Chain rifle/Drop bears profile is my pick.

Kealtar specialists
Kealtar are absolutely amazing and are only hampered in-faction by their ava of 1.
In-game they bring symbiobombs/symbiomates in varying quantities depending on which profile you pick.
These act as 1 use ablative armour (mate) or 1 use pheroware tactic (bomb) that you can stick onto a model with transmutation (wounds) which is a good chunk of the faction. Its worth noting that these are assigned when you deploy the kealtar, so it can be worthwhile holiding it as a reserve drop so you can assign your bombs/mate once you've seen where your opponent is going. Combos like using a command token to reserve 2 troops can be handy incombination with this too; Jaan Staar, Kiutaan etc really benefit from the mater and can be deployed not in marker state if youknow you're going first and are making a decisive opening attack run.
Chain of command is also an extremely useful ability which turns the kealtar into a specialist and also insurance if your Lt goes down. It does cost 0.5swc however, but most lists, most of the time, will be running one of these guys. Linkability is good for the Kealtar and there are missions that give bonuses to specialists with chain of command so you can leverage their utility well. Even the shotgun has a decent long range ARO with its WIP 14 flashpulse. They are however, pretty squishy and have distinctly average BS, so dont lean on them to win face to face rolls for you.



Kaauri Sentinels
These little guys have been around for a long time but have always struggled to find a lot of love due to odd linkability and a mismatch between kit and stats.
In Spiral however, there is one standout profile; the paramedic FTO. It brings E/M mines, MSV1, discover +3, sixth sense and is also shock immune and has STR instead of Wounds- therefore can be repaired for classified objectives instead of being healed.
It can complete a good swathe of classified objectives and the extra burst on the medikit means it has a higher chance of landing a healing attempt and reviving fallen comrades, especially when linked.
Its link options are narrow however, tagging along with Kiel-Saan by default +/- wildcards or another Kaauri FTO. there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking one solo, but being towed up the board by a Kiel-Saan for free makes it more order-efficient in most cases. MSV/BMV and discover +3 do give it a good role in clearing out minefields and against certain metas (think where you have lots of camo models/markers around) but its only bs11 with short-middling range bands on most profiles so doesn't make a great gunfighter and only the paramedic profile can be linked.

Taagma Schemers
One of the power pieces of the faction, these guys are wildcards but also keep pure link team bonuses with brawlers so can create 5 man pure core links. they have holomask which is of minimal use in a brawler core as they're only ava 4 and monstruckers are irregular so lack good decoys, but that kit works better if making use of them in other links as a wildcard. Counterintelligence is universally useful too, reducing the impact of an enemy strippingorders from your order pool with command tokens by 1- often enough to dissuade the act in the first place. All of the weapon load-outs are a massive insult to ariadna players as they all target BTS.
The most useful of the profiles here are the MSV2 sniper armed with a viral sniper rifle and the tricore with breaker combi.
A pure core linked Taagma has 3 shots on 15s with a viral sniper rifle which is really deadly to a lot of models in this game, but especially nasty against meta picks and alpha strikers such as bearpode, mcmurrough, mirage 5, cameronians etc and the msv2 negates the effects of their smoke grenades which denies them a line of advance. I'd honestly say this profile is nearly an auto-take, even if it doesn't get the benefit of a full pure-core as it gels extremely well with smoke from sources such as kriigel and kerails to impose -6 mods on enemy face to face rolls, drstically increasing odds of success for the Taagma.
The tricore is more situationally useful, mimicking the effects of an impure 5 man team for a haris/triad.
That confers +1BS, sixth sense and +1B on all 3 members of the team but stops working when the team takes a casualty. This can make things like Chaksa longarms, Anaconda links and such situationally more deadly/resilient but costs 0.5swc in a faction that tends to use all its SWC quite quickly, but may leverage more out of units that otherwise struggle or need a boost if you really like their models.
Also, the holomask on a standard lieutenant can help them be disguised as a profile that otherwise wouldn't be eligible to be a lieutenan, keeping them safe from being assasinated by a fiday/speculo and can optionally pick up a very poor hacker profile to allow it to complete hacking related objectives which is pretty situational but potentially passable if you've got 0.5swc to burn and the mission you're playing has hacker bonuses like +3 wip/re-rolls. It can also pose as an obvious lt to lure fiday/speculo runs away from a true lt if you're savvy.

Kriigel Agents
The statline for kriigel is pretty bland but it's more than outweighed by an extremely useful spread of loadouts, pheroware tactics and Lt options. It can join Triad teams or Reex teams, both of which have their uses.
My personal favourite is the Lt with smoke grenade launcher with a pair of reex shotguns sat back in the deployment zone as its cheap, can fire b2 smoke grenades up to cover a taagma/brawler sniper and has pheroware and reex have templates to slow/isolate and shred DZ attackers. Mirrorball pheroware tactic baked in is also excellent for advancing across dangerous firelanes and a godsend on open terrain boards that feature in certain metas if you find yourself hemmed in or unable to reach objectives as it acts as an eclipse grenade that you roll WIP to place.
The viral pistol also makes it relevant to attacking pieces in close quarters, especially things like bears/mcmurrough that are otherwise smug behind their Total Immunity skills.

Reex escorts
Initially these guys look very unappealing, low BS, poor choice of links and a lean towards gunfighter loadouts that lack the BS to leverage them. I've come round to them however, the winner for me is the 13point boardin shotgun. In a link of 2 reex and a Kriigel, they cover a huge swathe of your DZ with templates or AP slugs which is enough to deter Van Zant/M5/Carlotta type rear-attacks and they're cheap enough that if you need a room clearing like in "the armoury" mission, you can happily send one in, dump 3 templates into the room and not care too much if you trade your model for 1 or more enemy models. They're also easy to get into position given that the kriigel has smoke and eclipse via mirrorball so they can ignore enemy overwatch to drown enemy scoring pieces in templates! Not an auto-take by any means, but better than they seem at first glance.
Like Kaauri, they are also part-mechanical and have STR instead of wounds- meaning they can be repaired for classified objectives but not healed by a doctor.

Wardrivers
Generic mercenary hackers, there's very little to recommend them for in spiral corps. If you need a competent hacker, you can get a brawler for less SWC with a better combat potential that is also linkable.
The 12point shotgun/zero pain hacker is passable as an emergency button pusher however, but remains very vulnerable to apex hackers of other factions and needs to lean on other models to punch a hole to get up to do classifieds or main objectives as it has short ranged guns and poor stats.

Warcor
Basically a 3pt disposable flash pulse ARO. If your opponent is spending orders to clear this out, thats fine.
You might get lucky one day and stun something important!! You can also leverage a command token to make its irregular order regular which can be handy late-game.

Cube Jager
This guy is the only airborne deployment option available natively to the faction (at the time of writing there are some time-limited free options available for certain ITS missions), but its a horribly unoptmised profile that pays 0.5SWC for a monofiliment CCW that it hasn't got the skills or stats to use and poor gunfighting stats which are linked to short ranged weapons like shotguns and SMGs which put it directly in harms way.
It does act as an upfield specialist that you can hold off-board until you've punched it a hole, but that approach hurts your order pool and its a distinctly average wip 13 specialist unless you're getting a mission-specific paramedic bonus or classified to complete. I think you can safely skip these most of the time and save the 0.5SWC for a kealtar CoC.

Helot Militia
These guys are excellent ablative layers of defence that your opponent has to bleed through to get work done.
they're ava 3, cheap and kitted with a variety of mid-long ranged weapons to make use of their neurocinetics in ARO. the rule does hurt them in the active turn however, so it's unliekly you'll get much use out of them as attacking pieces.
Try and overlap them in such a way that two can cover an objective or line of advance to cause your opponent most annoyance in dealing with them.
I personally prefer the marksman rifle/camo state and SMG/LRL variants dependent on board and SWC needs. I tend not to have enough SWC left to consider the red fury/MSR on what are otherwise dispensible ARO pieces.
These guys willdie. thats fine. the idea is that they cause your opponent to waste orders avoiding/discovering/taking them out. They're very good at that, but they do clog your order pool with irregular tokens which pretty much gives up the game on what they are and what they do.

Rasail Boarding teams
These guys have jumped over from Vanilla Tohaa and represent solid midfield atacking pieces.
They're not tied to cover as they bring their own nanoscreen which combines with their chaksa peripheral for them to be able to flank an opponent and pour fire into them by denying them cover or by pouring literal fire into them by the chaksa if they don't declare a dodge ARO.
They have Transmution (wounds) so can take a bomb/mate which gives them tremendous ability to fork AROs between pheroware, shooting, templating.
The viral combi rifle is a great and deadly gun that syncs well with the range bands the chaksa can leverage but there's also mileage in the spitfire for the area of the board this team wants to hunt in, as the chaksa can be thrown away or utilised as a disposable corner guard as its loss doesn't hurt your order pool, but the opponent has to spend orders to remove it. It is however hampered by a middling BS12 (try to leverage getting opponent out of cover by remembering you have a nanoscreen!) and the fact is has a sync peripheral means it can't partake in co-ordinated orders.



Beasthunters
Another generic irregular mercenary available to most vanilla factions, beasthunters land in Spiral corps too.
There's nothing particularly outstanding about them here; though the decent CC ability, forward deployment and DA CCW make them a solid, cheap threat in the midfield and pretty useful against things like heaters/AC2s in certain ITS missions. Natural born warrior also turns CC with heavy hitters dependent on martial arts into a d20 crapshoot which can be a fine trade if you're prepared to gamble a cheap beast hunter into someting bigger and nastier. Mines and a HFT round out the loadout which gives multiple options for dealing with clusters of minis or holding terrain. all in all not a bad pick and finds a niche in some missions well.

Medium Infantry
Not a massively in-depth section for the faction, these can be some of your best utility and combat pieces however.

Brawlers
Generic mercenary troops available elsewhere (druze/ikari/etc), these guys represent rank and file mercanry soldiery. They are pretty ok, BS12, arm 2, bts3 is pretty standard for what they're pitched and they also cover off some solid specialist roles in-faction. There's an engineer, a doctor and a standard hacker which can all get objectives completed and many of these profiles have the old rifle/light shotgun combination which ensures a +6/+3 range band split out to 16" and templates from the shotgun in active or ARO makes them good at room clearance or ARO, especially when core linked for sixth sense.
Heavy weapons include the Multi sniper rifle which is paired with MSV2 which is good for hunting big game, especially with smoke support from kriigel/kerail but does rather step on the toes of the Taagma viral sniper.
The HRL is also laughably cheap and brings impact templates to the party.
The brawlers do suffer from WIP12 however, which impacts a bit on how good its specialist are at completing their individual missions, but given cube re-rolls/mission specific bonuses, they can still fulfill their role well.
As mentioned up-thread, the Taagma can round out their AVA4 into a fully fledged 5 man pure core team, as can monstruckers/Aelis Keesan. The monstrucker is irregular however so will get kicked from the team if it uses that order and Aelis will ruin the pure team bonus so I'd personally stick to 3-4 brawlers and 1-2 Taagma and run these as a fairly defensive core to start with and push up late-game to push buttons. Pick specialists that receive mission-specific bonuses to offset their low WIP and you can get work done.
You can also link in a haris with an anaconda to have it tow a specialist up-board if you have a particular penchant for light tags.

Kosuil pioneers
Combat engineers that have transmutation (wounds) are good picks for many missions as engineers and d-charges are necessary in many ITS missions to score classifieds and main objectives. There's also a 0swc minelayer option with a k1 combi for missions where you don't necessarily need the engineer component of the profile. I personally like the 25 point shotgun/panzerfaust profile most but k1 combi can keep even a jotum honest if you can get inside its 0 band!! The mines also give it a good utility for mining approaches to mission objectives, covering lines of retreat or sealing off chokepoints.
There's not that much to repair in-faction, so I tend to like the Kosuil as a linkable specialist and will sometimes assign a symbiobomb on them to leverage WIP 14 for mirrorball/endgame/eraser to give them aditional options. All in all, a really useful package and one that can claim +3 bonuses/re-rolls on mission objectives in several missions.

Chaksa Longarms
Much maligned since their introduction to the game, they're beset by their relatively-high cost and middling stat-block whilst being attached to premium firepower. In Spiral, they do provide a potential opportunity in that the firepower they bring isn't really provided on other platforms unlike the competition longarms face in the other sectorals they're present in. I could forseeably see some utility in a missile launcher or portable autocannon teamed with a mk12 and a Taagma Tricore to give them the extra burst, BS and sixth sense, but its quite the chunk of points and SWC yet still only gets to BS13 despite all that investment. Still, a burst 3 portable autocannon has to be taken seriously by any opponent and it will command respect (and retalitation) when on the table.

Armand le Muet
A named generic mercenary, Le Muet has been around some time and is available to quite a lot of vanilla factions and some na2. Being Tohaa, he fits in right at home in Spiral and represents one of our best gunfighting pieces.
He is a candidate for bombs/mates thanks to his symbio-armour and he sports an amazing combo of BS13 and mim -6, plus has an MSV1 profile. The multisniper rifle is a godsend for big-game hunting and he can bully enemies with range mods, mim -6 and potentially even smoke'n'shoot if you needed to. In terms of utility, he's equipped with breaker pistols +1B, natural born warrior and CC21 so he's very capable of moving up the board to secure zones in points scoring missions and as a named MI character toting MSV1 he's also able to complete quite a few of the current classified deck objectives too. He's potent in CC thanks to being B2 in the active and his natural born warrior turns off enemy martial arts so he can survive well in CQB, plus both profiles also have a direct template weapon. I personally prefer the MSV1 profile over the minelayer but I can see a use for both depending on what else you chuck in the list. All in all, an excellent pick in Spiral.

Heavy Infantry
Not really why you're playing spiral corps, but our two options both have their niches.

Neema Saatar
A named character Ectross, she represents one of our better gunners. As a HI she benefits from 6-2 movement, BS13, PH14 and she's also blessed with acceptable armour and excellent BTS which makes her decently durable thanks to 2 wounds on her symbiont armour and 1 in her transmutation state. What also makes her solid in the midfield is a solid WIP15 and BTS 9 making her relatively resilient to hacking and her stealth meaning she can get through repeaters without getting hacked (sixth sense aside!). She's also very capable in CC given her CC22, martial arts level 2 and a viral pistol.
Being a named character, she also picks up the veteran classification for ITS missions, meaning she's eligible to complete a number of classified missions.
She's one of the better attacking liuetenants too, I particularly like the breaker combi/panzer LT profile as it gives you a bonus 1 SWC to play with in a faction that can be very hungry on SWC. Combined with the Kealtar CoC you were likely taking anyway, you can offset the effect of having an obvious LT if she goes down and her breaker ammo is excellent against a variety of factions/units that lack good BTS defences.
Given she is a HI, she's also one of the only models we can lean on in the Frostbyte mission and links as a triad but she can pick up a bomb/mate to further increase her flexibility or durability.

Kiel-Saan
The big-boy model from the starter box, the Kiel-Saan are another generalist HI pick designed for the mid-field.
They link only with Draal/Kaauri/Wildcards but for missions where competition is rife in the midfield, their weapon loadouts and CC focus can be very useful.
Like Neema they have a CC value above 20, martial arts L2 but also pick up natural born warrior to counter enemy martial arts alongside beserk and potentially some nice buffs from metachemistry (but this is obviously luck based). The obvious dowside to the Kiel-Saan is the price tag, 46 points for either profile makes them quite a commitment, but for missions like frontline/quadrant control/frstobyte they can be invaluable for dumping a large blob of durable points into the midfield where they can leverage their 24" range guns and CC prowess. Watch out for hackers that have sixth sense and repeater nets however and assasinate them with extreme prejudice using our efficient impersonators.
I personally don't rate the red fury for the SWC cost, I like the mk12 for the higher damage code, but linked, the red fury can put out 5 shots which increases crit rate nicely to help win face to face rolls. The Kiel-Saan makes a great tow for a Kaauri Paramedic or potentially Aelis if you need some hacking support and the link can prove durable and difficult to shift.

Skirmishers
This is where spiral really comes into its own, a solid chunk of attacking alpha strikers and midfielders here, you're going to be spending a lot of your points in this class so get well acquainted with these profiles:

Clipsos
Sitting fairly square in between price brackets of zeroes/spektrs, the clipsos fulfills the same role as those troops but with the benefits of hidden deployment and mim-6. Total Terrain helps with mobility with a lot of the ITS mission rules nowadays so its very well placed to camp out in hidden deployment near an objective as a forward observer and pop out late game to cap an objective or classified. Surprise attack and mim-6 make it a passable late game combatant but BS11 makes the sniper a risky gunfighting choice as you tend to need favourable dice when you've got low odds to hit.
The minelayer gets a nod too as you can sell the mine as an Igao/beasthunter by utilising hidden deployment and mines can be very handy in the midfield for covering off lanes of approach/objectives/hvts etc
Overall, they have a niche, especially if you're used to leveraging similar pieces in other factions.

Igao
Take the Clipsos above but now make it all about ripping the enemy to shreds in CC!
A downgrade of mimetism allows for maximised CC potential and frenzy brings a healthy discount to make the unit cost 26/28pts. Martial arts L3, cc attack -3 and surprise attack -3 mean if you stack it right you're imposing -9 mods on your opponent if he fights you in CC in aro.
A very deadly CC focussed skirmisher, he really excells in the midfield or near/around enemy DZ if you can get him a line of approach. Just be aware that once you make a kill, frenzy triggers in the states phase so he won't be able to utilise camo from the next turn. Given its such an attack focussed piece, generally its sent forwards early to gut an important piece or two and then inevitably dies to a hail of AROs which is fine if the attack run worked. Infiltration, marker state and DA CCW make it a decent option for dealing with AC2's/heating units in missions that feature them and mirrorball pheroware tactic also syncs well with other units like greif that are equipped to deal with them too.

Draal
A premium skirmsher, the Draal Saboteurs are a mixed-role unit that are equally at home in a triad or leaning into their status as specialists with forward deployment to act as more durable forward operators as solo pieces. They're eligible for mates/bombs and their mim-6 makes them excellent gunfighters coupled with their BS13. 6-2 Movement and dodge+3 makes them quite tricky to pin down as they can cross firelanes well with 6" cautious moves and reliably dodge around corners.
They're a nice source of ammo types too as they all have a mix of shock/viral/AP rounds available in one form or another.
My personal pick is the premium option; the AP marksman rifle minelayer. AP ammo broadens its threat and minelayer skill helps bolster defenses/play shell games with other camo markers like beast hunters/igao.
The lack of a template weapon is a bit annoying but the viral pistol and mim-6 can often be enough to deter close-assault, especially when linked.

Kiuutan Imposters
Alright, nowe we're on to the fun stuff!
Impersonation.
Read the rules and read them well because impersonators are some of the best alpha strikers in the game, especially if your opponent is leaning into a strategy that links into one key piece like a guided missile launcher or TAG. Spiral pays SWC for impersonators and lacks big guns, precisely because these profiles are our big guns.
The Kiuutan itself has transmutation, which gives it an extra wound on a diferent profile like much of what you've seen above. this makes it a candidate for bombs/mates if you deploy it not in a marker state and drop it down before a kealtar. Given you can use a command token to hold 2 reserves, this is a tactic often used with Kiuutan and Jaan Staar. The Kiuutan can roll to start in the enemy DZ, but its usually better to hold as a reserve and start on the edge of it, leveraging your marker state, multiple wounds and your rifle/viral pistol to pick off obvious liuetenants, guided missile launchers and key specialists on turn 1 to screw your opponent's game plans right from the first orders of the game.
Picking off the moderator lt prone behind a planter and making your opponent start turn 1 in loss of liuetenant is a very effective way of ruining their game chances but it does take a bit of knowledge and savvy opponents can plan for it and will try and sell you a dummy.

Jaan Staar
Jaan is the named character version of the Kiuutan above.
He trades a combi rifle off for massively improved CC prowess over the basic variant and shars AVA with basic Kiuutan meaning you can have both in one list.
All the above-mentioned strategy with mates/bombs and kealtar in reserve applies here, except that Jaan is one of the premier assault pieces in the faction and deserves highest priority if you're planning an alpha strike. His main CC prowess comes from stacking the -3 enemy mod with surprise attack but also gaining burst 2 in active CC by using your viral pistol as your declared CC weapon for the extra burst.
To be clear, you're not going to be able to take out someone like mushashi in CC reliably, but if you have a symbiobomb, you can manufacture a fork between being shotgunned, fought in CC or hit with endgame pheroware tactics to force a bad ARO to which you can happily pick the better option on. The symbiomate means you're arm9/BTS9 and gain total immunity for the order so you can often walk through a hail of fire unharmed and assasinate a key piece within a couple of orders. Savvy opponents will expect Jaan when you declare your faction but tohaa/spiral are uncommon enough that many players won't necessarily see it coming or defend adequately. If you're going for Jaan in your list, play aggressively if you get first turn as he's easy to outrange and bully in his reactive turn.

Grief Operators
The last skirmisher option is the budget one but is very intersting for Spiral.
All profiles come with msv1 and the non impersonators are mimetic and have forward deployment +8"
They are relatively unimpressive otherwise but do not break the bank but the real winner is the impersonator profile at 21points/0.5swc.
This profile allows a triple impersonator list which can be a real skew and even the best defences are usually only good against 1-2 impersonators. The impersonation grief obviously gains a marker state that doesn't trigger deployables and is armed with d-charges which makes it a risk-free suicide piece to attack an AC2/heater/etc in missions that feature them and makes classifieds like Sabotage 100% success rate if you take one as they can complete it in one order on turn 1 if you're going first. Breaker pistols and MSV also give utility for dealing with particular problems ariadna can bring to the table, albeit at relatively low odds of success.

TAGs
A very short section for spiral corps!!

Anaconda
So this is another generic mercenary TAG available in several other factions in the game. Its a pretty bland light TAG in most places but it has improved in utility with its various revisions of its profile over the years.
It remains at heart though, a generic "light" TAG. Profile-wise it has +1 damage baked in alongside tactical awareness and ECM-6 vs guided munitions and has a choice of AP spitfire or heavy machine gun, a panzerfaust and a template weapon to defend against close range threats.
BS13 places it squarely in the unlinked-HI levels of shooting competence however, and it willc ertainly struggle to deal with apex shooter pieces like swiss/hac-tao etc.
That said, nearly everything in the game does, and thats what Jaan Staar is there to assasinate, so don't feel pressured to use the anaconda to act like a main-battle-tag. You're basically paying 56 points for a shooting focussed Kiel-Saan and at ARM7 is the most durable gunfighters we have to small-arms.
It is also linkable, can potentially get to a more respectable BS14 with tricore and gain sixth sense to head-off smoke'n'shoot tactics. If you invest heavily into it, you can kinda make the old girl a passable gunfighter at B5, dam16, BS14 and tow up a brawler specialist to push buttons.
That said, the old girl is very very average, relatively easy to hack and lacks effective hacking support in-faction so will be very rough when taken into a competent hacking match-up like CA/Nomads/Aleph.
Its "escape system" rule also makes it risky/pointless to attempt to repair as if you fail, it blows up and leaves the operator kicking about who's really pretty average as well.

Warbands
Only one to speak of here and its fairly non-standard

Kerail Preceptors
These fantastically alien models have drawn the eye to these guys since release some years ago but a lot of folk scratch their heads on how best to use them.
I personally don't like the contender profiles on the mutan due to low BS and prefer to take the SMG/smoke and x2 surda profile myself. Smoke grenades give the synchronised team a line of advance and the surda are very respectable in CC and present a grave threat to most non-CC optimised profiles, including TAGs.
They're also ridiculously mobile, have dogged and template weapons and thus make great trading pieces for hitting clusters of models from awkward angles that aren't expected. Two Surda in opposite ends of ZoC of a kerail dumping those huuuge templates can cover a vast swathe of an enemy DZ or scoring zone late-game so they can be good to hold back initially and use for mopping up later on. The kerail itself can take a bomb/mate but given you're quite limited on them, there are probably better bets, though a bomb can be nifty for forking AROs with the surda. The surda themselves can be considered disposable, so ram them into enemy lines, threaten templates on clustered models and go tie up nasty things in CC that you otherwise can't shoot your way through.

 

Pheroware Tactics
These are often misunderstood or largely unknown by players that don't frequently face tohaa/spiral and that lack of knowledge can be both helpful to you as a Spiral player but can also trip you up if you don't know what you're doing.

The rules are spread about a bit so I just wanted to highlight the pertinent points for new players here for clarity:
Pheroware tactics are listed on each profile that has one "baked in". The Kriigel has Eraser and Mirrorball, Kaauri have mirrorball etc. Symbio bombs can be used to do any of the three available ones as a disposable (1 use) attempt.
They are technical weapons, so use the standard BS attack ARO or short skill declaration, which means it can be used in conjunction with other link team member's ARO using shotguns/rifles/whatever.
As a technical weapon, it uses WIP as the attribute for the attack/ARO which is often higher than BS in Spiral.
The activation range is the model's zone of control. This means you can declare the ARO against units on the other side of walls, out of line of sight and which is what makes our defences so effective. If the opponent blunders into ZoC with a second short skill, it can end up eating an 'Eraser' and ending up isolated!
Endgame is available only through use of a symbiobomb but is a bioweapon. Its use causes loss of wounds following unsuccessful saves, which allows you to take out enemy models out of LoS!
Eraser causes the isolated state which is brutal. An Isolated lieutenant causes loss of liuetenant for the opponent, it also kicks models out of link teams, disables hacking devices, makes the mini irregular for the rest of the game and it cannot receive orders from the order pool.
It completely shafts order-hungry attacking pieces until either an engineer spends a short skill to remove it or they succeed at a wip -9 roll! That can completely stall an opponent's alpha strike and layered defenses can stall an Uxia/Fiday before they've even got rolling if you play it right.

As technical weapons and comms attacks, the enemy opposes these Pheroware tactics with the "reset" skill, but gains no bonuses for cover. The opponent can however claim the benefits of Tinbot: Firewall against Eraser and Endgame, so bear that in mind when selecting your targets.
As mentioned up-thread, symbiobombs and pheroware tactics in general set up amazing ARO fork opportunities.
What this means is, if a Kriigel moves around a corner into LoS of a fusilier, that fusilier then has to choose to shoot/dodge/reset. If the Fusilier decides to dodge, the Kriigel is then free to choose Eraser as the dodge will not be effective against the pheroware tactics (which are opposed by reset).
By forcing bad choices on your opponent you can maximise your effectiveness, especially using Endgame via symbiobombs on minis that have template weapons and normal weapons. You can either auto-hit with a template if they reset or shoot, endgame if they dodge or shoot at higher burst if they shoot.
Although very powerful on paper, there are good counters to pheroware;
1) units with STR instead of wounds. You can't Eraser that Chimera burning that flank up! Neither can you Endgame that Jotum.
2) units with stealth- you can't pheroware in ZoC from the other side of the wall if they have stealth!
3) tinbot: firewall -6. Tinbots protect all members of a team from comms attacks so will make them
vastly more resistant to your attempts, so look to catch "free" aros from them blundering into ZoC with 2nd short skills to deny them a reset opportunity.
4) units with the Veteran skill. Druze, Morats, Securitate etc are all profiles that are veteran and therefore ignore the effects of the Eraser tactic. Use endgame instead if you have a symbiobomb or choose another, more useful ARO otherwise.

 

Great input mate, thanks, this is exactly what I was hoping to generate. hopefully everyone piling in with tips/tricks can be a good resource to new players!