Tohaa without fireteams and duo limitless

Excuse me, but what does this

have to do with this?

Now, I agree, I'm not a Tohaa player, and haven't played against Tohaa since N2. But - what would it add if Tohaa were able to use limitless Duo fireteams? Except from making them weaker by not allwoing them to use their trademark Triads?

Yes, I agree, Tohaa do badly need a refresh. A wave of resculpts. Perhaps new units (though I thought they got some new stuff with the release of Spiral Corp?). Maybe a rebalance / rewrite.

However, from the very get-go, they were designed around the concept of a mixed Fireteam of up to 3 models, available in unlimited numbers. It is a core concept to the Tohaa, just like improved BS and high-tech are to PanOceania.

Yes, Tohaa were from the beginning designed to function with these. Yes, this makes them behave more like a sectorial army than a vanilla one (if we interpret "vanilla" as being able to draw from the entire choice of the faction's troops available to different sectorials. Which is an outdated concept, because many sectorials can now use troops that aren't available to their parent vanilla army. And since N3, there are efforts to allow vanilla armies to use Duo Fireteams by one crutch or another). They are a very special army, with their own special rules, unique only to them - symbioarmors, pheroware, symbiobombs / symbiobugs, the now-non-aplicable vulnerability to Fire damage) - they weren't meant to be like every other army.

Once again, I agree CB should revisit them (and I hope they'll do that, and sooner than later!), give them resculpts and rebalancing of the units. Perhaps new troops. But taking away their unique qualities...? Nah.

 

How about no?
Seriously, no, all my models would go straight to 2nd hand market and I would never play again a CB game.

 

I'd love for Tohaa to get resculpts/re-released, but removing Triads? It'd be like going to PanO and lowering their BS by 1 across the board. You remove the identity of the faction.

... as for new units, the only thing I'd personally like to see is something that gives us hacking defense; specifically some way to get Firewall mods on our HI.

I don't mind us not being able to hack offensively (in fact, I think we absolutely should not be given better offensive hacking), but being able to defend a bit better against enemy hacking with either a Tinbot Firewall or even a simple EVO Hacking Device would make me feel a lot safer about taking our Hackable options.

 

Removing their triads would kill the faction. No only is this a fundamental in lore, it's also fundamental in gameplay.

Tohaa is in a very powerful spot at the moment. They might need some in-faction tuning to make some of the weaker profile a bit more interesting, but they definitely should not receive new profiles (at the risk of just being way too strong).

As for models, with the overlap from Spiral Corp, Tohaa is only really 1 box away from being available (2 Makaul, 1 Sakiel, 1 Sukeul in a singe box would mostly bring the faction back into production). Though, I really don't think this is necessary. With the proxy rule and the Spiral range, it's incredibly easy to get into Tohaa. (I started the faction well after they stopped being in production and I didn't find it to be much of an issue)

 

And I think that Tohaa gets weaker with Every year "of Tohaa", and changes in FT rules keeps them in the sameposition when all the rest moved forward. Why?
1. There are bonuses on unified harrises (+3Discover)
2. There are bonuses on BS in fireteam of 4 if unified
3. There are factions with 1 core+2harrises. How often Tohaa have more than 3 when you have IMPs, TO, chaksas?

Since everybody mored forward, every faction have mixed FT, and there is case of MORAT fireteam type now. Why isn't this the case for Tohaa? For crying out loud this would only give +3 to discover, but would make so much sense.

 

I'm not a competitive player, but people still regards Tohaa as one of the strongest Factions. I don't mind if we get behind the power curve a little bit.
What I want is new models for missing profiles, like the Sukeul HMG, or some form of Taqeul. But looks like this won't happen until 2030 or something like that T_T

At least we finally got the Chaksa LongArms, and now that we can link them we have an excuse to bring them to the table.

 

I think people will for the most part agree that the recent Fireteam changes did not, in fact, move everyone else forward.

Notably, while factions generally gained a lot of flexibility with how they make fireteams now, they lost a lot of straight-up power; gone are the days of BS16 HMGs being the "default" attack platform; it's now BS14. That Core-linked Grenzer sniper? Dropped from BS19 to BS17.

The latest changes deliberately targeted Mixed Core fireteams and hit them with a reasonably sized nerf bat. Considering that Tohaa has been one of the more competitive factions throughout N4, leaving us virtually untouched by the changes means that we actually improved relative to the wider playing field; our Triads and solo pieces are going to have a lot less trouble standing up to full Core-links now.

Considering that we also picked up a really sleek new defensive Haris option for Chaksa, Tohaa is looking to be in a very comfortable spot.

 

Hard disagree, but I like using what may be seen as more esoteric Tohaa profiles, like the Kotail or Nikoul, but there is also the Gao-Real and Gao-Tarsos.

As for the changes to the Fireteams, I think Tohaa are in a fine place, and I think the only real place they are loosing out is in relation to Steel Phalanx which received only boosts. This does not mean I do not hope for some fun new stuff in the future, but other armies having to spend more points for their best shooters to get the full BS bonus is only beneficial to Tohaa.

 

The Nikoul is my boy; he might not be the best sniper, but his ability to take a hit, go prone from guts, then pop back up later in the match without provoking ARO's is very fun. He also makes Ariadna very scared due to his combination of MSV + Viral.

He also just got a bit better now that a lot of attack pieces lost 2 BS; Core-linked BS13 HMGs are now going to be rolling 5 dice on 11's vs. his 1 dice on 12. Still not great odds for him, but if you position him as far back as possible he can cause some problems, especially with a Symbiomate. Even (usually) comes with Minelayer to help cover your DZ.

He's never done anything really spectacular, but he's always disrupted plans to a decent degree and he's cheaper than a Gao-Rael.

 

Their other strong point is that they get their best skills from the Foxhole state, so they do not diminish in effectiveness when they take a wound like many other Tohaa ARO pieces.

 

What? Why? I would be extremely confused to say the least...and it will be the last signal that CB do not understand how their own game and Tohaa works.

We ARE the main army. All we need are resculpts and goddamn Taqeul miniature. I'm not a competitive player, so I can't say much about infaction balance, but there are some units and options which even I never take. It would be interesting to see more fireteam options with different bonuses, not just triad, reex and chaksa.

 

I'm not sure if this is troll material or genuinely naive about the faction. I don't think very many Tohaa players would be thrilled about removing a core element of the faction identity, and I don't see any compelling reason given to do so.

Re; the rest, Tohaa is as solid as ever post FT change. Any negative feelings are sadness of 'missing out' or 'becoming less special' rather than genuinely related to the power of the faction. While its a bit stink to lose our schtick, its also design space that is better shared around than confined to one army. The comments of not needing to fight a +3 turret with our not +3 Sukuels any more are right on the money.

Would have been so fucking stoked if Triad was a keyword though. Normally I don't really care about giving my haris teams +3 discover, but thats something I'm a big fan of in Tohaa, having run them into Ariadna so much over the years.

Trying to force Tohaa to fit a 'vanilla' or 'sectorial' definition is a waste of breath lol.

I don't think the faction needs much in the way of internal rebalancing. Its been a while since I've played tohaa properly, but when I go over the roster (and disregard the bad mercs and the spiral only stuff) only like 3 units stand out as things I don't take because I think they are a bit crap: Keesan, Ectros and Kosuil. And I'm sure someone makes use of some of those.

How do you do the pop up trick? I own two Nikoul and probably used them less than twice between them, so I'm looking for reasons.

Really says something about Tohaa defense, because thats a profile I would be totally fine with in most other factions. But I love my B2 Gao Rael too much

 

So... you like the Reex?

I don't consider the other profiles you mentioned as bad as the Reex:
- Aelis Keesan: she got hit hard when the Sukeul appeared as a two wound specialist with K1 for the same price but better equiped in any aspect, but she's still our only Killer Hacker and thanks to Sensor she can Auto-Discover inside her ZOC. Triangulated Fire also got me out of trouble a couple of times. I sometimes use her as a WIP14 hacker when the mission calls for hackers.
- Ectros: it's still our only linkable HI. The light armour is a problem (only ARM3 means even Combi Rifles consistently punch through), but three wounds means that it can survive against several ARO's if your dice hate you. I only use the Vulkan and HMG profiles, and paired (triared?) with Neema; while a expensive Triad, their 9-wound total means that they are very resilient and can push through the enemies as long as the oponent doesn't have a wide Repeater net.
- Kosuil: it's like a more expensive Specialist Sakiel but with better weapons and WIP14. It's not a flashy profile, but they all carry Deactivator and D-Charges. If the mission needs an Engineer, I'd say he's pretty good.

On the other hand, I never find a reason to field the Reex. Why link the Kriigel with the Reex if, for a similar price, I can link it with a Makaul and then add other different profile to the mix to provide extra utility? The main problem I have with the Kriigel-Reex Triad is that neither of them has a Specialist option, so you are just paying points to improve the Kriigel's burst and giving it a couple of bodyguards that cannot be resurrected with a Medikit.


BTW, now that we have Fireteam Specific benefits the Reex-Kriigel Triad is the perfect place to try and give it some bonus. It's also very thematic, because those units are meant to work together.

Any suggestions?

 

Ok so here’s how it works.

You put the Nikoul on a rooftop in Sapper mode like normal. When something deals a wound to it (or pops the symbiomate), you can choose to fail Guts and have the Nikoul go prone. This cancels Sapper and puts him in total cover.

On your next turn, you spend an order on the prone Nikoul to use an Entire Order to reactivate Sapper. No one can see him, no AROs are generated, and then during resolution he enters Sapper, cancelling Prone and becoming S3.

It’s a cute trick to have him stand up without generating AROs, which can really mess with an opponent who wasn’t expecting it.

 

No. Reex are the most redundant and useless profile I've seen in a long time. But I put them under the category of Spiral Corps shit. They look sucky there too but I don't care enough about that faction to find out for certain.

Rumor had it that they were originally a puppetbot type unit before Tohaa got in CBs bad books. I'd believe it - the trend was clearly to give tohaa access to everything good in the game except hacking lol.

I hear that, but what I focus on is different. Single hacker (and often single hackable) in army is adding vulnerability at least as much as it is adding capability. And she is just too expensive to justify for what she brings. I love linkable sensor but I cannot justify her.

I went off this guy when I found that a BS13 B5 HMG wasn't a consistent sweeper. He's ok, but doesn't really do anything that excites me, while simultaneously opening us up to hacking vulnerability. Neema does what I want this guy to do. With the sectorial changes the basic bitch HMG might become an ok sweeper again and so the NCO guy might see some game. I really hope thats true because after playing NCO +1 LT in other factions I'm absolutely hooked on it

I really dislike the specialist specific missions as a balancing argument for crappy specialists. If they cannot stand on their own merits, I'm not interested. Is that the most efficient decision? Not necessarily. But it is the one I'm making. If the Kosuil was a Doctor I'd consider it. I'd also consider it nullifiers returned, it would be a really cool engineer for a

Not really. I don't like the Kriigel and don't field it. Its not on my list because I know other people do use it and it does a thing even if that thing isn't in my wheelhouse.

Main suggestion would be to can the Reex entirely and make this a puppetbot type team as I mentioned above. Or otherwise change Reex to not just be random generic models that do nothing.

For link specifics, well, what is this team supposed to do exactly? An expensive, non-marker jammer is a bit of a weird design. In Spiral, he is specialized in providing both types of 'smoke' to cover other teams.

They could get Sixth Sense as a bonus? This makes the jammer harder to bypass, and plays into the 'bodyguards' thing. Seems like low hanging fruit

 

Kriigel + 2 Reex is a great little defensive Triad in Spiral, because A: 13 points is actually cheaper than any other unit with "Triad" in Spiral, B: You have access to the rather excellent Kriigel SGL, which can combine with the Taagma MSV2 Sniper for the ole "smoke-trick" maneuver, and C: Taagmas have Wildcard, so you can even put the Taagma Sniper in the same Triad as the Kriigel as a way of avoiding the nerf.

The Reex themselves are still kinda meh, but the Boarding shotgun works for DZ defense, they're one of the only units in the entire game that are immune to both Hacking and Pheroware, and honestly 13 points for Triad Filler is fine if you have 0 intention of moving it out of your DZ.

We used to take Kriigel + 2 Reex and Taagma Sniper + 2 Chaksa FTO as a cheap way to get some decent defensive Triads; now you can just move the Sniper over to the Kriigel Triad, swap the 2nd Reex to a Kaauri or spend some points to upgrade it to a Longarm ML and get a 2nd long range ARO triad.

As for Tohaa, there was a short period of time where the Kriigel lost the ability to join normal Triads in Tohaa, so the Reex was the only way it could link. They fixed that with the latest update, so it's going to be hard to justify taking Reex in Tohaa when you could instead throw the Kriigel into a triad with 2 barebones Kaeltar. Or an offensive Triad that doesn't have a Taquel.

IMO the Kriigel is a bit of a weird pick for a Triad when compared to a Taquel, but he's cheaper and does bring the enigmatic Pherobooster, which can situationally be great as it ignores Cover, so it's B1 on 16 from 8" to 24" and hits with Damage 16. A lot of people also forget about the Viral Pistol.

 

Yes, he's the perfect complement for "+1 Lt Order Neema", because he covers the long range, high burst needs for opening a path towards the enemy. Will have problems against enemies that pile up several negative modifiers, but apart from that having two "free" B5 HMG attacks gives you great Order Efficiency. And a B5 HMG will always be a B5 HMG.

He isn't that crappy, he's just a niche profile because we don't have remotes, neither we can repair our TAG. There's the Kawaii Sentinels and the Reex (and now a repairable TAG that I have yet to test), but usually he won't be around to repair them if they fall. Still, the Kosuil provides extra utility and more firepower and surviability than your average Engineer.

I guess I disagree with you about balancing profiles around missions, because that adds variability to the gameplay and list building. I don't want to play Infinity as if I was playing a ETC tournament where I was penalized for not bringing an über-optimized list.

I still have to try more the Kriigel, to find out how to use it. So far, I've only used it a couple of times and didn't perform well.

Yes, an easy bonus to implement, and might be enought reason to use this Fireteam.

Agreed, they made the Taqeul way too effective with unlimited Endgame. The Pherobooster is an interesting weapon, it's a pitty that it's only B2 in Burst Mode, it's difficult to make it work as a way to target enemies at long range without depending on pitchers and hackers.

 

The Kosuil can also join an Ectros/Neema in a Triad to remove the effects of hacking programs

 

The Pherobooster was a really cool and nifty weapon in N3: it got Fireteam bonuses and put enemies into Targeted even if they passed their BTS save.

When they moved to N4 though, they switched a bunch of rules around and made it incredibly weird. It's the only Comms Attack in the game that requires LoF, the only Comms Attack with a range greater than 8", the only weapon in the game that requires LoF but ignores Cover, the only weapon in the game that is affected by both Mimetism and Firewalls... They also made it stop working against STR units, even though the lore explanation is that it's more like a miniature railgun firing the user's pheromones that can punch holes in concrete.

It's mechanically super awkward to use, and trying to remember all the weird ways it functions can make you go crosseyed.