On my last year of experience, with the new profiles additions, i am using less makauls than ever, usually 1, totally agree with you Our Friend Kriigel deals with that situation, althought only 1 dice roll, it also give you the opportunity to hit the VSM2/VSM3 and apply the -6 if he wants to shoot back (FireTeam Cores apart) hehehe AVA to 2 seems good for my playstyle Normal smoke to them seems good for my playstyle Hear this man!!!
I don't think eclipse is the problem with Makauls, it's that they do too many things at once. They're dirt cheap link fillers, clocking in at just one point below the Kamael, and they're AVA6 so you can put one in every triad. They have eclipse, which makes them your primary way of moving around the table and cutting off AROs. They have big template weapons, which combined with their very low cost makes them fantastic corner guards in any triad. They have insanely optimized CC skills. iKohl1 + MA2 is better than MA3, because combining iKohl and MA1 is literally MA3 with +1 DAM. All of their CC weapon options force two saves on a hit. And they have a 4 inch Dodge/Engage to boot. When you consider the elements you want in a 5-man link team, Makauls do three of those jobs, which is one of the reason triads are so strong. Look at Triads in Spiral, for comparison. If you want a big gun, you have to take Draal (or Neema to a lesser extent) + Taagma Tricore, which forces you to make weird decisions about the third unit. Do you add a Kriigel for mobility and corner guarding at the cost of fragility? Do you take the Kumotail because the mission demands it? Do you take the Kaeltar to have a backup specialist and didn't have room in your list for another triadable piece? Do you make the objectively wrong decision and take Aelis or the Kosuil? (I'm joking about that, at least partially.) Do you start with the Taagma MSV2 Sniper in the triad and know you'll have to reform the link on turn one? For me, Spiral Corps' more restricted triad composition is both a source of frustration and interesting list-building decisions.
Sometimes even four, they can also CC destroy consoles in the Loot / Sabotage mission, as they have the DA CCW which is Antimateriel, so they act as if they were a Specialist clicking in that scenario ;)
Out of interest based on some recent experiences, I checked to see what tohaa models are any good at spec fire by filtering Army for models with grenades and e/m grenades. As a result I have been reminded that chaksa longarms exist, something I didn't need in my life right this very moment.
I feel that my spammy lists with a crapload of makauls have been the closest to ez-mode I ever got with Tohaa. Spend ten orders eclipsing across to the objectives and back, and the other ten orders eclipsing to a target and killing it. I mean I fucking love Makaul but shit the opponent seemed bored and I can totally see why. Uninteractable (or nearly so) strategies like this are not great for the game imo, so maybe eclipse or smoke needs a better variety of counters than mines and a few of the perimeter effects you could get to stick to a stealthy triad. That said, with the comments about N4 I would rather see Tohaa re-balanced towards the flexi-triad, makaul based CQB strategy, than the makaul nerfed and tohaa go in a different direction as one optimized BS-based fireteam faction amongst many. The whole "remove Sukuel" argument. I liked the identity as a flexible, close in army we used to have and the addition of an incredibly powerful HMG platform really shook that up.
Just remove the "Fireteam: Triad" rule from the Sukeul and they'll be fine. And regarding Makaul, the problem lies in the heavy disconunt provided by the "extremly Impetuous" rule that is nullified by making them linkable. I hope N4 rebalances the point cost formula and take interactions like this into account.
Fine as in "nobody will take them" and instead take Ectros HMG / Sakiel LRL? Becuase those weapons will still somehow need to get into a triad.
With White banner shaping up to be a Yu Jing power fantasy I think this Friday we will be able to stop meditating on how to nerf Tohaa.
Well Mates will work way better vs crits than they currently do if they come back with the same rules in N4
But those alternatives don't have "BS13 + Mimetism". The Sukeul would remain a as powerful lone trooper in Active Turn, but vulnerable in Reactive without the Fireteam bonus or a pair of Makauls guarding it. It ould still be a nice "Specialist Lieutenant with Antimaterial and Antiarmor capabilities", something very uncommon in Infinity. I think it would be a nice thing if people took the Ectros, Sakiel and Gao-Rael more instead of relying only in the Sukeul. The problem is that people wouldn't turn into those "classic" troopers and would just replace the Sukeul with another Draal :p
Nerfing the Sukeul's BS by just 1 point makes a huge difference, I think. If that happened, then the incoming movement changes for MI is just a big enough buff to the Gao-Rael to make those units very even choices. The Draal can stay a pricier but reasonable competitor for longer-range weapons.
Nah man, the Sukuel is always cut before I ever consider dropping my precious Gao Rael sniper. Feel totally naked without it. But that said, Gao Raels plural just sounds weird, I very rarely take more than the one. Maybe when the spitfire is 4-4 I'll reconsider Dropping triad from the Sukuel would just shit all over the non-HMG loadouts. I think the optimized K1 combi LT and so forth have a place in the faction, but that place is likely in a triad. The comment about x-impetuous and link teams is definitely accurate, but its not just the makaul that is unbalanced by it. Definitely one of my least favourite elements about links and the points formula in general.
Which is more triads than it is in right now. The Ectros is still 10 points more than the hypothetical BS12 Sukeul, and lacking Mimetism makes it a generally worse gunfighter even though it's more resilient. Ideally, the Ectros, Draal, Gao-Rael, and Sukeul find themselves all as specific choices that fill specific niches, instead of the Sukeul being almighty and the rest having tiny corner-cases where you consider them over the Sukeul (especially the Ectros).
Greetings. I like Tohaa for what they are. An different army. Nothing here really screams overpowered or I wish we had unit like that. From my experience this is a well balanced faction, that need to be played in order to be known and understood. I had great and very bad games with them. After while what I personally noticed is that I tend to take the same units simply because they are working and do what they meant to. What I would like to see is some interesting Pheroware skills, exclusive to us. This is in my opinion very interesting Tohaa thing (well hacking) that can have possibilities if CB would be interested. Symbio mates for me are finished and not taking them any more. I would like them to come back. Symbio bombs used a couple of times with random effect, what I will say we could have some kind of Symbio bomb spawn unit that could "produce them" every turn if wish to do. Like never ending mines disposal but limited to two per turn for example. Units like an Officer, Igao and others sadly have no place due to need of links to carry the game. I like them but only used a couple of times and left home. Tohaa is unique faction, please keep us that way.
Later on he confirms that rules for all the out of production factions are still planned for release by end of year.
