To those that are not up to date N4 is coming and is scheduled for Summer of 2020. This tread is created to discuss Tohaa in the upcoming edition, Suggestions, ideas, wishlist's, opinions, things that work, things that do not work all are welcome if done in a polite manner. Now the most basic rule of the thread, be polite this is not a thread to be dissolved in arguing who has the correct ideas and who has not, all ideas are welcome and all comments and criticism is appreciated, as long as the tone is polite. For a more generic discussion of the upcoming N4 please use this thread Thanks.
My two hopes are that if there are massive revaluations of units across armies that Tohaa and Aleph will not be left waiting until the equivalent of HSN4 to receive attention, and that Tohaa get the Daedalus gate open again, so they can get back to being a prominent faction in the background.
My current expectation is low - don't Exrah the vanilla Tohaa, simple as that. Doing that after so many people bought all the vanishing mini range from Last Chance To Buy would be a complete dick move, but also the Tohaa are a great concept and a visually interesting army. #LetTohaaGrow2020
I don't really feel like Tohaa need all that much changing, just a few tweaks here and there. All just personal opinion and wishlisting but I know at least some of these opinions are shared by the majority of Tohaa players. Non-baggage Chaksa struggle to justify themselves. Chaksa Longarms, Kiel-Saan and Reex have little purpose in the faction as is. I know they're primarily "new unist" from Spiral, and should shine there, but Longarms don't even do that. Kamael White Hacking Device has little purpose, but thats a problem with the WHD not the Kamael. Perhaps smoke on the Mutan Kerails? I feel they struggle in comparison to the cheap and smoke tossing Surda loadouts. Kosuil really, really fall flat particularly since the Sukuel came out. We just don't need engineers all that much. Perhaps put minelayer on one of the engineer profiles? That gives it a solid advantage over some of the other tough specialist options we get. Nikoul could perhaps use something like limited camouflage? Sukuel needs an overhaul, its too damn good and covers a lot of bases that we once struggled with. Taquel needs a price adjustment. I actually love this unit but he's just too expensive. Ectros needs a total overhaul, its just not very good. It shoots worse than a Sukuel and is arguably more fragile against shooting. It doesn't really bring anything interesting and pales in comparison to Neema. Give it a price cut and/or an edge that it does better than a Sukuel or Neema and it will see play. I think Tohaa needs a multi-purpose pheroware profile. This rule has been all worked out, and then we get one use on bombs and some specific abilities on a handful of units. I'd like a Tohaa spell caster type with access to most of the abilities. Just seems like an incredible waste of potential! Definitely seconding the above suggestion of symbiobugs on another profile. Tohaa's heckler equivalent could have Mimetism, FD2 and bugs - would be pretty sweet.
Neema has Frenzy, that's where most the difference is. If an Ectros HMG was the same cost as a Sukeul it would be very competitive with it, but as is it's not. Giving Ectros Frenzy would make sense, you could even bloat them back a bit with MA1 or MA2, but Ectros suffer from the vanilla HI problem like many HI in the game do, except Tohaa makes it even worse because they get 2 "wound" troops for 20 points. I agree more could be done with Pheroware, but I'm not sure what could be done without making it more complex. Adding types and levels to Pheroware and assigning those types and levels to units could be interesting but leads to the same bit of bloat hacking has. In any case, the use of one-off tactics has made the Kriigel one of the most interesting units in Spiral Corps and Tohaa, and I hope CB notices that.
That really highlights problems within Infinity, rather than Tohaa. Frenzy discount fireteams are pretty BS and have been called out quite a bit. Budget wound alternatives are BS. Mimetism is BS. All of those things work against the Ectros and it shows in how often they get taken. Really it kind of shows how well overall CB have done with Tohaa if I'm having to pull them up on cases with so much in-system bias against it to find examples of bad unit balance. I wouldn't really like five pheroware devices each with eight variations of the same abilities, more just after having several pheroware abilities on one model as opposed to a random Kauuri with Nimbus Sphere and what not.
Wow never realized that Neema got frenzy...neema, sakiel, igao and libertos all got frenzy gotta try to remember that.
The problem of many troops is that they have a use that is stepped on with others, since right now it is only a generic, so no matter how much rework some troops receive, such as the Ectros, they may still see little, so include sectorials might resurface certain troops So, we need few Sectorial Armys (anyone have, we just want them badly) Triumvirate (Spiral Corps + More Tohaa models/units and NO non Tohaa units) Exalteds / Expeditionary Force, however you want to name it (Tohaa Sectorial with high number of exalted units) Trident main army / The classic Tohaa representative face or however you want to name it (The most vanilla force) More pheroware tactics, yay Something to improve or temporaly boost the Kaauri or Reex? More pheroware tactics users, yay! A sanitary with Revitalis or First aid? A shock trooper with Pandemonium? NEVER AN ENDGAME PHEROWARE TACTIC USER, TO OP More exotic equipement, we still seeing new virals, and other equipments, we like it, keep on!
First: don't remove us from the game. Now that the priorities are clear, I copy/paste the list I already posted in the other thread (I'll use this chance to expand it a little bit), it's just a little bit of rebalance to increase diversity when list building: - Improve bad units like Chaksa Longarms and Reex. Just adding something like Mimetism or Dogged would improve them for a little % of cost increase, and make them interesting alternatives to their close counterparts (Chaksa Auxiliars and Kawaii Sentinels). - The Neurotic Chaksa is incredibly bad when compared with the TR Remotes. Either make it cheaper or better (I wouldn't mind paying the cost of a Sin Eater if it where more powerful). - Improve Symbiobombs, maybe giving them more uses, or changing them so you don't loose them if you fail an unoposed normal roll (still loose them if you loose a FtF roll). - Give some Pheroware to the Kumotail (Revialis is "one use per game" after all, won't break the unit). - Make Symbiont Armour 1-2 points more expensive (it's on a weaker profile, but it is a very cheap second profile). - Make Symbiomate-Kaeltars 3-4 points more expensive (they are still very good for their cost). - Give Symbiobomb-Kaeltars a Chain of Command option. - Remove Fireteam:Triad from the Sukeul, so it turns a powerful "solo" trooper, not the spearhead of a Triad of mass destruction while taking objetives and filling the table with smoke simultaneously. - Replace/remove useless profiles that no-one ever takes (like K1 Sniper Sukeul or the Combi Makaul). - Give a Viral Pistol or something-Shock to the Gao-Rael so it can really kill Shasvastii effectively. - Replace the Contender on the Mutan Symbiobeasts with more interesting options, like a plain Combi (for a high burst, low damage attack when paired with the Kaeltar) or a light shotgun (for a devastating close range multiple teamplate attack). - The Taqeul is "bad" because it is expensive. The Taqeul is expensive because it has Regeneration. Regeneration is expensive because it gives very little to 1 wound troopers for its big cost. If the Taqeul could Regenerate it's Symbiont Armour... problem fixed. Alternative solution: make Regeneration and Automedikit automatic, like Holoproyector 2. - More profiles for the Nikoul, like a Forward Deployment option with Marksman Rifle or an Ambush Camo, it's a cool and interesting trooper (also fluff-wise) that opens many design posibilities.
If Sukeul doesnt have Fireteam Triad I am not sure if I would take any profile besides the HMG. Maybe sometimes the ML. It would for sure make the sukeul less taken but his K1 profile without a triad doesn't look intresting to me. Same the sniper and partly the ML. So while it would be a good nerf for the sukeul for me it feels like it is to much. Also I play Tohaa because I love taking multiple fireteam triads so am always sad to see triad option go ;)
I understand it, maybe the Lt. Sukeul profile could get something as compensation. The problem with this profile is that the moment it appeared, the Kosuil K1 dissapeared from every list (and the Kosuil had already replaced Aelis). Many of my suggestions (and specially the one regarding removing Triad from the Sukeul) come from the idea of making Tohaa a less powerfull army when attacking; we are the "endurance" Faction, after all, surviving and standing on our feet after taking many blows. But the Sukeul came along the reworked Symbiomates, and suddenly we could deploy cheap but very, VERY deadly Fireteams that could kill anything in the game while taking objectives at the same time. Look at the Rasail or the Igao: they are powerfull attack pieces, and they can also be used for defense (somehow), but they definetly don't have any Specialist profile.
Just leave them alone imo. Honestly I don't think you need to make any faction specific tweaks to Tohaa. The few areas of internal balance such as Sukeuls being too ubiquitous would be resolved by game wide changes to points. Perhaps some of the Spiral corps stuff needs a once over but that should be done in the context of their own faction rather than investing time into a now discontinued(ish) line.
If you remove the Triad from the Sukeul, people will just divert over to the Gao-Rael Spitfire. In fact, depending on the meta, this already can be the correct choice. It also wouldn't fit the unit. Why wouldn't a veteran troop be able to follow the most basic concept of the Tohaa army? As for changes I would like to see: 1. Just give the Bomb Kaeltar CoC for the already stated reasons 2. Adjusting the HI profiles to actually make them viable would be great 3. Please, for the love of all gods there are, leave the Makauls as they are.
keep tohaa keep makaul - some unit in the game is going to be the best warband for CC, i would like it to continue being them. rebalance the points for neurocinetics, theres no reason the chaksa hmg should cost the same as every other factions TR bots. It should be at least 7-8 points cheaper. Make it so we can do hacker classifieds with symbiobombs/kriigel, or at least give the kriigel spec. op. Replace the gorgos's chaksa buddy with symbiobugs. Our tag sucks. Not being able to be in coordinated orders is a decent chunk of that. Theres no reason to have our tag be so crappy, it just drives down sales for an expensive model. Really just bad design from a busniness standpoint. If yer gonna mess with the sukeul, please keep in mind tohaa is already worse at shooting than literally all of the sectorials (no 5-man bonus) and in the bottom tier compared to vanilla factions. If the makauls get cut, or if eclipse grenades go, and the sukeul is gone, tohaa will be a bottom tier faction with no way to push upfield against any of the higher tier shooting factions. im fine if the sukeul get messed with, im just saying if you also mess with makauls theres a danger the faction at large gets crippled. Please make a CC unit (MA 3+ would be nice) with symbioarmor that isnt heavy infantry and overpriced due to bloat. Please make a doctor with symbioarmor. The kosuil would be about 10x better as a doctor than an engineer. Engineer is next to useless in Tohaa. Figure out how to make regen work in a reasonable way. Right now, its just a points tax. i would love for the taqeul and aelis to be more relevant. Please dont give tri-core to Tohaa. Its clear you think it is worth so much more than it is, i cant think of any other reason for why spiral is such a bad faction. Im afraid that you think cutting makauls, sukeuls, and sakiels is worth getting 5-man bonuses to a group of 3. Losing our best ways to deal with long range threats for very fragile bonus to a mid range shooter is a raw deal. Ava 2 kriigel, or a unit with corahtaar lvl2 would be nice. Kerail getting superjump (for the handler), or at least changing it so the mobs can jump while the handler walks would be nice. Igao losing frenzy, or at least having a point reduction because of how bad it is for them would be nice. The chaksa longarms are just awful, but i believe you can make them worse. Why not go for it? Make a longarm with HMC, and one with multi-hmg, for like 50ish points each. A single wound model with crappy bs with the most expensive guns in the game is great for memes. People love playing with the worst versions of things, and these guys are almost there. General purpose stuff: stop making skills that auto include other skills. For one thing, it just needlessly restricts you from a design standpoint, but it also is confusing for players. For example: regeneration gives shock immunity, but it doesnt say that in the rules box, it says so in reminder text, which makes no sense. You could just give all the guys with regen shock immune, or even just some of them shock immune. Cc skills auto giving stealth doesnt make a lot of sense, one of the better balances ive seen for makauls is removing stealth from them, but that isnt possible in the current ruleset. Really tho, i seriously doubt tohaa is even gonna be in n4. I feel like theres been some pretty clear signals the faction is not looked upon happily by the designers, and i doubt they view a redesign as worth their time. By the time it gets released (prolly 2021, if n3 release showed anything), there wont have been any significant numbers of new tohaa players for 2 years due to the line getting cut. Since most wargamers dont stick to a single faction that isnt seeing releases for years at a time, the tohaa group should be mostly gone by the time n4 comes out, they should be able to safely cut the faction with minimal outcry, especially if they keep spiral. My prediction is that if they do include tohaa, they will cut makauls and sukeuls, and just have the faction be the worst in order to wean off the few remaining tohaa customers. I mean, CB clearly hasnt cared about the tohaa players for quite some time, which from a business standpoint seems to make sense to me.
Just deploy the chaksa out of coherency if you would rather co-ordinate the Gorgos than have the flamer, personally I find the flamer kills more things than the damn Tag though.