So following a recent ITS event, I am becoming more and more frustrated by my inability to solve this particular match-up. The list I took for the event was this: Hunting Party - Vanilla ────────────────────────────────────────────────── GROUP 1 10 KRIZA BORAC HMG / Heavy Pistol, CC Weapon. (2 | 54) JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10) JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10) HECKLER Combi Rifle, Jammer, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23) HECKLER Combi Rifle, Jammer, 1 FastPanda / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23) TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8) REAKTION ZOND HMG / Electric Pulse. (1 | 26) BRAN DO CASTRO Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 33) PUPPET MASTERS Submachine Gun / PistolKnife. (0 | 12) GROUP 2 3 1 BANDIT Light Shotgun, Adhesive Launcher / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 22) SECURITATE Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 13) SPEKTR Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 36) TOMCAT Engineer Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 22) 3.5 SWC | 300 Points Open in Infinity Army Keep in mind, I didn't know I would play against Tohaa coming into this. The idea was that I would use the hecklers to jam any HD specialists after they reveal, potentially hunt down things with Bran Do and the Bandit, and do objectives or de-stick LTs with the Tomcat. So I win the roll off, choose deployment. My Opponent chooses to go first. In my head, the strategy was to try and hold out until my last turn and then blitz either a specialist or the Lt so that my opponent didn't have time to just take off his symbiont armour. The game was fairly even until the last turn, when he managed to glue gun my Securitate on his last order. Bran Do went down trying to get to his LT and the heckler wasn't able to isolate his specialist, so I lost 8-2. Is this strategy the way to go for this match-up or am I missing something completely? I think for the next match, I'm going to consider bringing a moran or lunokhod, which I had avoided for fear that they will make it very easy to suicide a specialist post-classified.
Intruder LT is going to be much safer than a non-camo lieutenant. I'm not sure unsticking lieutenants helps does it? I also took zeros for emaulers and a prowler for adhl. Krispy is a no brainer. Heckler wasn't an option at the time I last played the mission. I took an ADHL Hellcat to do the job of Bran, it couldn't achieve it in the end as his lieutenant was completely hidden away and too open sides to walk on near him. Morans and Lunokhods I'm not sure about, Koalas aren't necessarily good as you've already spotted because they can run specialsits into them. I played against Ariadna though in our league so there were multiple impetuous specialists on the board.
Mary Problems (Zapper), Hollowman (ADHL), or ZondNaut (ADHL) would seem a better choice than Bran for going after your opponents LT. Mary would be best against Tohaa. Intruder LT is a good choice, as mentioned above.
I agree that the Intruder Lt is strong, however the Securitate Lt did do exactly what I wanted it to do, which was completely take away the option to spec fire E/M grenades. I have played with both and can make cases for both. Mary Problems I hadn't considered but seems like a good pick up. I will have to try hollowman next time, that's prob a good call.
I haven't beaten any of the three players that I've faced in this mission. They all have played completely different lists also.
Why not concentrate on taking them Unc/strip their Symbio Armour and then glue them? That's the only thing I'd do differently in terms of strategy. Basic tactical ideas (most of which you implemented): 1. Go second 2. Keep specialists off the board until T3 (if possible) 3. UNC and Isolated/IMM still scores. 4. It's worth risking killing Engineers / Symbio Armour so that they can't just repair/shuck the state 5. If you boop more buttons and end the game with nobody glued/ISO'd/stunned then you win. So my basic strategy is: T1. Clear defensive units, kill orders and threat pieces. Glue exposed points. T2. Go after the Lt/Specialists T3. Reveal specialists. Unglue friends, boop Buttons. With Nomads I also try to run as many B2 ADHLs as I can. I'm particularly fond of the Prowler and the Hellcat. I usually don't run any AHDs. Given the amount of glue flying around, HI and TAGs aren't great choices in this mission. My only other comment is that you're relying a lot on B1 Attacks: T3 a Stun Pistol is more effective than an ADHL/Jammer if you can prevent them getting a subsequent Reset ARO.
I forgot to say Kaeltar are squishy. If you can trigger COC then you have a single non-Symbio armoured target for both specialists and Lts. COC is optional. But if they don't trigger it, then you can just stun the corpse.
Another thing to consider is that the Kriza Multi-Rifle lets you fire B2 Stun rounds. It's not nearly as plug & play as the HMG, but Stun should be pretty effective against Tohaa. They don't have particularly high BTS iirc.
The Kriza already gets an Adhesive Launcher and Stun Pistol from the mission rules, so there's not a huge need to trade the HMG out.
Stun rounds have the same effect as Nanotec DA rounds which should be better than PH-6, although possibly not by enough to justify the loss of firepower.
Morloks have a E/M CCW option, and also have a pistol so if you get them into CC they have the option of Immobalizing with a stun pistol or Isolating.