Tohaa in Spiral Corps Colors

Thank you!

Here comes a very special treat. Originally, I had planned for the Chaksa to be the last model I needed to play my Tohaa list. I was still lacking a good Kamael proxy, but I would have just used the Kosuil if needed.

However, a couple weeks ago I got a surprise package in the mail. Turns out my good friends @moardredd and meangreenminis had colluded to find me the incredibly rare Gorgos Pilot and give it to me as a birthday present :D Not only is it the perfect Kamael proxy, but also one of the coolest Tohaa minis in general. Exceedingly grateful, I obviously painted her up as soon and as well as I could:

 

I took a group shot after I was done with the Gorgos Pilot. Added a few more minis since, but this was the collection I took to the tournament in February:

 

Not that well.

First thing off – all the missions were custom designed from our local warcor. He likes to tinker with the ITS format in every tournament, so you basically never play an official ITS mission. There were tournament extra rules in play that buffed limited insertion lists and nerfed GML play, so quite a few players brought LI lists. Every tournament there is also the chance to play "hard mode", which allows you to only bring one list, which is written by our warcor and can't be changed. The incentive is bragging rights as well as extra prizes when you play that way.

The mission lineup was:

1. Highly Classified, but with 6 classifieds and a "terraformer" in the middle that, once activated, gave you points and also activated a random battlefield effect from the new classified deck, based on a dice roll (like a panoply).
2. B-Pong, but instead of controlling the beacon in the enemy's half, you had to throw it into the enemy's DZ, like a football. If you did, you scored a touchdown and two points, and the beacon was reset at the next player's turn. The consoles were still there, but instead of simply controlling them, you could activate them. Each activation increased your throwing distance by 4", up to a maximum of 12". Every unit could throw the beacon, not just specialists.
3. Supplies, but with end-of-round scoring instead of end-of-game. You also scored only if you had the beacon in the enemy's half, and you got extra points if two troopers each controlled a supply box, and even more if your Lt controlled it.

Overall, very nice changes that made these missions better imo. Here's how it went:

Round 1 – Highly Classified
It was a 10 player tournament, with almost exclusively local players. Except for one, Locustron, who is currently placed 4th in the European rankings and who won the German Championships a couple years back. Of course, I drew him in round one. So, yeah... He brought an Avatar and a Raicho in an LI list.

Luckily I won the roll and went first, but I made one crucial mistake: When I had his Avatar in CC with my Makaul, instead of bringing in the rest of the Triad and finish him off, I left the Makaul there to make him my opponent's problem next turn in order to do classifieds. Unfortunately, his Caliban survived the rest of my attack, ate up the Sakiel and Kamael the next turn and shot the Makaul in the back (into CC). Died in the process, but his Avatar lived.

Lost 7-4 in the end. The MVP was the Nikoul who put two wounds on his Raicho and held up the Avatar for I think 6 or 7 orders. Against a former German Master, I didn't actually feel too bad.

Round 2 – B-Pong
This was against a local Steel Phalanx player who brought quite the cookie-cutter LI list: Phoenix in a 4-man team with Machaon, and Eudoros in a Haris with a Myrmidon and Acmon. The fluff pieces were a Red Fury Makhe in a Haris with Scylla and her bot, Hippolyta, and a TR bot.

Again, I had first turn, this time however not by choice. The really mid-tier player that I am, I made another crucial mistake: Instead of playing Annihilation first and football later, I tried to throw the beacon into his DZ right away. The beacon had to be totally inside the opponent's DZ, which I almost managed – everything but 1mm was sticking out before I ran out of orders. So no points for me and almost no casualties for my opponent. What I should have done instead was take my Taqeul Lt and walk up to the building where his Phoenix and Hippolyta team were lying prone on the roof and endgame them all to death.

Lost 5-3 because of those mistakes, which felt much more frustrating than the first loss.

Round 3 – Supplies
Last game I finally got to play Tohaa's famous second-turn-advantage against a vanilla Haqq (hard mode) list. The list had Fiddler with two bots, a Mukthar Rf + Lasiq MMR duo, Knauf, and a lot of chaff. Funnily enough, my opponent was our only local long-time Tohaa player who had switched to another faction for the first time, while I was playing Tohaa for the first time.

The game was really close all the way to the end, with the score being 3-3 round one and 5-5 round two. Sadly, my opponent's luck left him in the last turn, and his Mukthar and Lasiq both died while trying to get to the last box. I was able to capitalize on my CoC Taqeul and get all 3 classifieds that I had, which put me at 8-5 in the end.

Conclusion
Tohaa are expectedly strong, and definitely stronger when played by a more experienced player than me. I could have easily won all three games if I hadn't done the usual mistakes you make when you play a faction for the first time. But I still had fun.

Fun fact: The German Master who I played in round one had won the championship with vanilla Tohaa. He swears on the Draal AP MMR as the much better roadblock/attack piece compared to the Sukeul HMG, as well as the 12pt Kaauri E/M mine loadouts as anti-TAG insurance. That was the list he won the Chamipnships with. I guess I'm gonna try that out soon. Have some Kaauris lying around that I can still paint up.

Speaking of painting, here's one last mini I painted for the tournament: A Sukeul ML, converted from the SMG Kriigel using a 3D-printed missile Launcher:

 

Yeah, especially since he didn't even stand up Phoenix in ARO. He basically served it to me on a silver platter and I instead told him to hold my beer while I tried to score a touchdown...

So far, I got most of my stuff from friends who have printers. Because of time constraints, however, I ordered directly from Monstrous Makings this time. A bit expensive with customs and shipping to Germany, but the quality is impeccable.

I took the advice from my last tournament and tried out a list with a Draal AP MMR and a Kaauri last weekend. Played the first of the Endsong missions from the book with a friend. Admittedly, he brought a built-on-the-go White Company list that mainly incorporated models he liked and had painted, which... wasn't very optimized against my hyper-optimized vanilla Tohaa list. This was his list from what I remember:

White Company
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
GROUP 1 8
HAWKWOOD (Chain of Command) Red Fury, Nanopulser(+1B) / MULTI Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (1 | 45)
ORC Feuerbach / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 38)
ORC MULTI Rifle ( | TinBot: Firewall [-3]) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 32)
FUSILIER (Paramedic) Combi Rifle ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
FUSILIER (Lieutenant) Combi Rifle / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 10)
TIGER SOLDIER Spitfire / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 34)
DANAVAS (Hacker, Hacking Device Plus [UPGRADE: Oblivion (+1B)]) Combi Rifle, Pitcher ( ) / Breaker Pistol, CC Weapon. (0.5 | 22)
PATHFINDER DRONBOT Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
GROUP 2 4 1
NISSE Heavy Machine Gun / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1.5 | 34)
PEACEMAKER Heavy Shotgun / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 24)
AUXBOT_3 Heavy Flamethrower / PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 4)
VARANGIAN Submachine Gun, Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Heavy Pistol, AP CC Weapon. (0 | 12)
MECH-ENGINEER Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 15)
YÁOZĂO PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
YÁOZĂO PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 3)
6 SWC | 299 Points
Open in Infinity Army

So, no Karhu, no Guilang, no Blade-OPs, and no 15 orders. While I brought this:

Masterclass
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
GROUP 1 9 1 3
DRAAL (Minelayer) AP Marksman Rifle, D-Charges, Shock Mines / Viral Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 40)
TAQEUL (Lieutenant [+1 Command Token]) Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Pheroware Tactics: Endgame, Pheroware Tactics: Mirrorball / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 33)
MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Contender, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, Viral CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
TAQEUL (Chain of Command) Viral Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Pheroware Tactics: Endgame, Pheroware Tactics: Mirrorball / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 42)
SAKIEL (Paramedic) Combi Rifle, E/M Grenades ( | MediKit) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 19)
MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Contender, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, Viral CC Weapon. (0 | 13)
SUKEUL Missile Launcher, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Breaker Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (1.5 | 35)
KAELTAR Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse, SymbioBomb ( | SymbioMate) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
KAELTAR Light Shotgun, Flash Pulse, SymbioBomb ( | SymbioMate) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-3). (0 | 15)
MOTORIZED BOUNTY HUNTER Submachine Gun, Chain-colt(+1B) / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 9)
GROUP 2 3 2
JAAN STAAR Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Viral Pistol(+1B), CC Weapon. (1 | 31)
KAAURI Sentinel Submachine Gun, Nanopulser(+1B), E/M Mines / Pistol, PARA CC Weapon(-6). (0 | 12)
CHAKSA AUXILIAR FTO (Sensor, Baggage) Heavy Flamethrower(+1 Dam) ( ) / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 10)
LIBERTO (Minelayer) Light Shotgun, Shock Mines / Pistol, CC Weapon. (1 | 8)
DIPLOMATIC (CC Attack [-3], Specialist Operative]) Nanopulser, Flash Pulse, Pheroware Tactics: Eraser / Pistol, CC Weapon. (0 | 5)
4.5 SWC | 300 Points
Open in Infinity Army

He went first, which allowed me to place my Sukeul ML in such a way that it face-checked both his Orc Feuerbach and his Nisse HMG, the last one in bad range should he stand up. That alone almost decided the game. He moved up his Peacemaker, who was shot down by my Liberto though. He went and repaired it with his Mech-Engineer, only for it to be shot down by my Liberto again. All it was able to kill was the Kaauri. His Orc died against the Sukeul, the Nisse died against the Sukeul, John Hawkwood died against the Sukeul, and the rest of his core died to Jaan Staar. The game was basically over after turn two, but it was still a lot of fun. And since it was only a friendly game, my friend didn't take it too badly.

Of course, I had to paint up a Kaauri for the game, so here it is:

 

There's nothing like taking a finished project and starting it all up again :P

Turns out there are still a few Tohaa models I want to add to my collection. One of them was the Greif Operator. The model is just too cool, the unit is useful in certain scenarios, and I wanted to see what the mini looked like if I painted it in the studio scheme, but with the Sygmaa head that comes as an extra piece:




For comparison:

 

Finished another Tohaa mini, Aelis Keesan. Had fun trying to translate the Spiral Corps color scheme on this older sculpt. Definitely one of my favorite Tohaa minis:

 

Thanks for the tip! Sadly I don't have any Tohaa with big CCW left to paint... The last ones were the Igao