I played a game yesterday running Sally with Lizzie together (fun as hell) so take the following with a few pinches of salt: I just wanted to write that I find it hard to believe we're discussing if a killer hacker (marker state, hacking offence, specialist) that shoots B5 dam 16 on 11s at 48" AND is 6-4 with S7 for vaulting AND has 3 wounds, arm 8 BTS 9 AND brings two orders is good or not. There is literally nothing in the game that combine these features. Infinity often asks that you fight your way upfield through hard aros and hacking defences to get a specialist to do a mission, and this girl can do all of those things by herself, which she doesn't even have to because she's in nomads so she still gets all the normal nomad tricks of smoke, eclipse smoke, white noise, repeaters, etc.
Just so you know the TAG cannot go into Cybermask State. Also sure B5 is good but, when you are up against Mimetism you quickly drop down to 11s or 8s even when in good range. Also the TAG is a decent sweeper piece but it's nowhere near as good as other factions TAGS. That said Nomads has the best support, Hackers, Engineers, Smoke and White Noise. Sadly being a manned TAG is a bit of a detriment.
I'm not really sure I understand what you're saying in that it's not as good against Camo - it is, equal to the Zeta, literally the best tag in the game except the Marut (MSV2) and Dragoe (+1BS) against Camo. How is it "nowhere near as good as other factions TAGs"? The direct comparisons are the Dragoe (gets +1BS, loses 3BTS, gets rem presence, has shit engineers and rare smoke, loses KHD pilot), the Zeta (gets climbing plus, rem presence, loses 3BTS and KHD pilot) and Overdron (only 4-4 and S6, loses 2ARM and 3BTS, gets -3 against Hackers, loses KHD). Those trades have their uses, but I wouldn't say any of them were strictly better than the others (except 4-4 S6 Overdron, his slow ass can get left behind).
Agreed. I feel like while Remote Presence is very good and gives great benefits to repair, Manned is fine. Plus the faction has the best engineers in the game with Clockmakers.
It's not just camo, it loses effectiveness drastically against any mimetism, which funnily enough tends to be almost the ARO pieces left out these days (and often in fireteams), which the szally has a snowballs chance at taking down. Additionally, most other pieces tend to be tucked in tight in cover meaning if you send it to go hunting which will mean it will need to get in to sub 16" band to fight it and more than likely be over extended, which again will result in the szally having a real bad time. The lack of Rem Pres, has a couple of VERY important effect on the piece, namely the shitty repair options (theres a reason why ariadnans seldom doctor stuff), and the lack of courage, which prevents us from leveraging it defensively. Why something like the Zeta is considered better is because of the C+ and rem pres, the C+ means it can engage stuff at better angles and at farther range meaning it doesnt need to be all up in knife fight range, as well as having a good number of secondary effects (stay safer from melee troops by hiding somewhere inaccessable, impact on opponent's strategic and tactical decision making due to increased angles of engagement, etc.), and the rem pres means it can take fights you wouldn't take with the szalamandra as you can easily fix it afterwards. The szalamandra is by no means bad, it is actually quite a good profile, it is just poorly suited to the current state of the game. No matter how good a shovel is, it sucks at hammering in a nail.
Can you give an example of the ARO piece you're talking about? I can't think of any that actually are much of a problem for a Salzy. I do agree Manned is awkward (I'd prefer to associate the Order with the Pilot for Manned TAGs and remove Tac Aware from all Non-operator TAGs), but overall I'm firmly in the opinion that Nomad TAGs are mostly fine to really good, but that's not because of our TAGs but because Nomads (outside of CA) probably have the best and most varied support for TAGs available. Finally, I find the suggestion that Sazly is "poorly suited to the current state of the game" a completely absurd suggestion. TAGs are stupid good right now, to the extent that Lizzie is a solidly good option in Bakunin.
Definitely. I've been getting solid results from my NCA by just throwing a Squalo at every problem, and aside from its bonus against Hacking (not an issue for Nomads) the Squalo is pretty much inferior to a Szally in all respects. The speed and ability to ignore incidental AROs like SK Rifles that TAGs have often makes them the fastest way to achieve many objectives outside killing missions these days.
Dont entirely disagree with this, we do have some of the best support that enables us to use them (despite access to certain other better attack platforms). Ive just found anything that isnt the gecko or zeta to be completely underwhelming or an unnecessary application of force as something else can do it for cheaper and better. can't disagree with this sentiment more, TAGs for the most part have been dead (barring the usual suspects) for a while, jumping to 400 has brought them back a little and has made losing them less crippling. but given most people are still (for some reason) 300 points they just get, bricked, stolen, or otherwise trivially destroyed. as for ARO pieces they have issues with, the following are the very few hard aro pieces ive found to still exist, most of the time there are no AROs meaning you have to go bug hunting in close quarters most of the time which it isnt suited for (that -9 hurts), but when there little to no hard aro's in the game and the ones that do exist outclass it why bother? Bolt sniper Grenzer sniper Taagma (wont do any damage but will bounce your shots resulting in wasted orders) Phoenix Karhu KoJ then anything with a long range weapon and HD + Vis mod can be a headache
I've learned for N4 that TAGs used offensively are best sent up a flank, where their speed and deceptively good mobility (S7 can vault some whole buildings) can allow you to get easy shots across the enemy's defensive screen then withdraw to safety. Shifting a TAG in Suppressive Fire can also be very difficult if you use them defensively, though this is the one area in which Nomads are at a real disadvantage- most of them have to deal with Guts, which is rare for TAGs. It's important to note that while TAGs are somewhat vulnerable to common pieces in many lists, there will only (usually) be 1-3 real threats per list, so sending in a Hellcat or one of the assassin Characters like Bran to take down that key Sniper or Hacker can give a TAG the run of the table, and often force the opponent to spend an entire turn or more dealing with it to contest objectives again.
So obviously we must have very different metas, which is great to get insight about how other people are using stuff. The people I play online on tts and here in Germany definitely find TAGs in general good. Against the hard aros pieces you've listed I can't see what else in nomads has a better chance of taking them down eg Sally vs linked kamau sniper has (with n3 maths) a 37% chance to wound vs 26% chance to be wounded, what other unit can do better? MSV2 and sixth sense ignore our mimetism, shooting through smoke or white noise, so in a straight firefight we have to rely on bs, burst, arm, and wounds, which Sally has the most of in the faction. Obviously sacrificial template weapons are nice, but they have other hurdles including mines, hard aro pieces, and the loss of your piece. The point of the tag is you get to contest and defeat hard aros for very few orders because you have the speed, reach and resilience to win the firefight. If the opponent has a null deployment where we cant get shots in over 16" then we can just do the mission, it's generally my favourite outcome. Who null deploys against Überfallkommandos and puppet bots anyway? Even without support pieces a tag can just waltz up to the midfield, jump out and press a button, then go in suppressive fire. With a Moran nearby you've got an interventor preventing more than a single hacking attack, which that BTS 9 Sally will probably survive. Pitchers are an issue just like with HI, except you have more BTS. Here's a 6/300 list I've been enjoying - plenty of normal nomad shenanigans with smoke, white noise, repeater bubble etc, and two tags for twice the fun. Lizzie can use grenades to remove pesky repeaters, hackers, or 1 wound hard aros like the Grenzer or Kamau, and then you can just run one tag up and go nuts with it, go in suppressive, and if the opponent spends a whole turn removing it you've still got one left. If the opponent null deploys you just do the mission, move repeaters up, drop mines and crazy koalas like normal.
Just jumping in to say: firm agree. I've played multiple games with or against every Main Battle TAG in the game in N4 and I'm pretty strongly of the opinion that the Guija is just a tiny bit undertuned, the Maggie is extremely well balanced, and also that those are the two weakest MBTs in the game. Every other MTB sits north of them and extremely useful to any force.
No real comment on the Nomad TAGs other than the lizard shouldn't be the same cost as a Szal for obvious reasons. The Guijia is fine in a vacuum. Its issues are firmly lodged in metagame issues, its home faction isn't strong enough at infowar to make it an unattractive target and suddenly having a super jumping flamethrower/hmg on an S7 pogo stick in your DZ can be utterly catastrophic. I am aware of the utter irony behind the rule I specifically demanded for it to gain causing some of the biggest issues for it in N4.
Lizards using Grenades to remove ARO pieces or hackers is not a great idea that should be considered with regularity. Even being in the "good" range for Grenade Launchers, the Lizard is only hitting on 8s. Which is not something you really want to sink more than one order into. Use the TAC Aware order for it, but I wouldn't bother unless you have nothing better to do with your orders.
That's a fair assessment, as I've watched most of your battle reports on YouTube. How do you think about the Geckos and Iguana? Are they serviceable?
Iggy *shudders* Poor Iggy. Now there's something in need of serious love. Mostly her problem is lots of tech that wants to be forward on something that just isn't good enough as a fire-support piece. I'd really like to see her as a fast-attack TAG. 8-2, AP Spitfire (on the operator as well).
Not in the same league as Main Battle TAGs, unfortunately. Once you drop below the ARM8, 3 Structure threshold you start assuming a lot more risk taking face to face rolls, which is a problem for the Iguana because she's basically just not very tough for her cost and a problem for the Gecko because they're basically just not quite good enough at winning face to face rolls. Of the two, Geckos are closer to good thanks to how cheap they are and how much the pilot slaps as a backup combat option. But they're not the same kind of tough, fire support, ARO-in-a-pinch piece that a full Multi HMG / HRMC ARM8 TAG is. A Szalamandra never needs to run through an enemy hacking net to accomplish her goals (elimination of targets of opportunity at long range and suppression of enemy overwatch to allow the close assault pieces free reign), but a Gecko is fighting at shorter range bands and doesn't have that luxury.
I agree it's not a first line option, but assuming you don't Spotlight the enemy with your midfield repeaters it's still a 23% chance to wound a Kamau (PH11, ARM1) so you should expect it takes 3-5 orders, with Spotlight it's 35% to wound. As you see in my above list, Lizzie has 8 orders available, so might get to take out 1-2 key pieces every turn for no risk, and then group 1 still has 8 orders to muck about. It's just a backup option for when you are truly pinned down, but it's there. Having the grenade launcher also makes deployment difficult for your opponent as they can't risk bunching up.
That sounds alot like you should've just thrown white noise in front of the Kamau and ignored it, especially since you're probably going to have to white noise the damn thing anyway to move the Lizard forwards because you're not hitting shit from your DZ with a BS5 grenade in its bad range bands.
Agreed, it's a waste of orders to try and Spec Fire Grenades unless you have nothing better to deal with the situation.
