Think we should see into the future and wanted to know, what in your bring the new spiral units to Vanilla Tohaa and why? What are good additions to the Tohaa and what new ways to play them are now open with these units. One Unit I want give a try is the Kriigel Agent with SMG due to his Pheroware Tactics who can be a advantage against MSV2 troops. It's a littel bit redundent with the Makaul Smoke, but you can shoot through this Zone with your normal units.
Pheroware dude and impersonator are the two obvious ones for me as theyre new toolboxes and enable new tactics/counters. Counterintell is nifty so she'd get a pick for me if I was running two groups (I normally do)
Okay, here are my thoughts: Draal Saboteurs This unit is a specialist and will be an incredible objective grabber of the Tohaa. SymbiontArmor, Stratocloud, HyperD and Stealth guarantee extraordinary survivability while 6-2 MOV, Multiterrain and Forward Deployment L2 let him get to objectives very fast. He even has D-Charges for classified objectives and Antipersonal Mines loadouts to secure the objective once taken. Having access to a Pulzar he can also defend the objective from approaching targets having things like ODD or TO Camo. Being at the front close to the enemy with a large teardrop is very threatening to your enemy, anytime you could come around a corner and force big link teams into dodging, breaking or dying. Kiel-San Covert Assault Unit Even without the special triad option in vanilla this unit can stand for its own. Getting him into close combat could be a little bit tricky, but even his great firepower makes him useful even when you can't get in CC-Range. The main problem of this unit in vanilla is that I would pick a much cheaper unit for the job I want him to be done: Great firepower => Sukeul, Durability+Firepower => Rasail, CC Skills => Makaul or Igao. Kiiutan Imposters The really interesting loadouts only exist in Spiral Corps. In vanilla you only have the Combi Rifle loadout. The Inferior Impersonation ruling is a bit odd. Instead of just giving a -3 MOD to the WIP-roll of the impersonation skill it lets you only deploy in IMP-2 state (only requiring an unmodified WIP roll to discover you completely) outside the enemy deployment zone (so basically infiltration). So mainly I will still stick around with a Clipsos rather than a Kiiutan, because it can be deployed as far to the front as the Kiiutan and additionally is giving the enemy a -6 MOD on all Discover-Rolls and attacks against the Clipsos. Moreover the Clipsos has access to many more loadouts: FO(Specialist!+FlashPulse), Minelayer, Nullifier, NumbusPlusGrenades Sniper and BoardingShotgun options are just extremely versatile. For me even the Symbiont armor of the Kiiutan (eventually with a SymbioMate orSymbioBomb) can't beat these advantages. Kriigel Agents So the really really extremely sweet Light Smoke Grenade Launcher loadout is Spiral corps only... Well this unit does not suck even without having this option. I think in vanilla I will just bring it every time so I can deal with all these MSV troopers sneaking around recently. For me the Kamael LGL option never payed out so I think the only viable option for me is the cheapest loadout (SMG+PheroBooster). With his Eraser he can be very good for defending an area, but he can also be a good offensive piece by adding him to a triad approaching the enemy. You could just start isolating one enemy unit after the other. And don't forget the Viral Pistol ;) Reex Escorts For its cost this is a solid unit. Well, I would only use the 13 point loadout, there are better unit options for the jobs the more expensive models could do. K1+Shock Marksman Rifle Loadout is not that overwhelming considering that I mainly use K1 weaponry against heavy targets with multiple wounds (so I would pay for Marksmanship without needing it). If this unit is linkable in vanilla (I don't think so) the Spitfire option would be the cheaper and better Spitfire Kamael. Taagma Schemers Still upset the MSV2+ViralSniper option is SC exclusive... xD In vanilla you unfortunately only have two of those eight loadouts, the BreakerCombiRifle+Nanopulser option and the same option again but with a WHD. I would just take the cheap 16 points model for the counterintelligence. The other option is a waste of points and SWC in my oppinion. Additionally to using him just for counterintelligence you could try to play mindgames with your enemy using the Holoprojector L1. Disguise this unit as something heavy or scary (Sukeul ML, Gao-Rael Sniper, Neurocinetic Chaksa or Ectros) and let your opponent guess which one the holo-trooper is. Your opponent knows you have a disguised trooper as soon as you use counterintelligence and concealing him as an expensive trooper like the Ectros makes it very easy for your opponent to guess which troop is fake (Point Limit+Point Cost+Number of Units on field). The WHD option can be disguised as a non-specialist trooper. So your enemy could see him as an unimportant target in scenarios where specialists are important and he tries to kill them. Just surprise your opponent by taking objectives with a "non-specialist" unit. The main reasons to pick a Taagma over a Kotail is having counterintelligence and having very low point-cost. Even though in vanilla each of those units only have an unsatisfying number of 1 or 2 loadouts I think they are worth being included in your army list. The only thing I really hope is that the AVA of the new units is much higher in vanilla than in Spiral Corps (Draal, Kiiutan, Kriigel and Taagma only have AVA 1 in SC).
I think it's conceivable that chaksa longarms are just the smart missile and neurocunetics HMGs divided from chaksa auxiliaries? Alternatively TAK provides an example of an upgraded version of tractor muls (BS hike iirc). Maybe SC gets effective 7 chaksa? Change like that could have big repercussions for vanilla tohaa, currently its hard to consider an hmg or sml chaska when the 10pt baggage is so good at max ava.
Ah okay now I see it. I only got to look on the Unit Profiles before, but I haven't seen the Spiral Corps list so I assumed the AVA from the Unit Profiles were the Spiral Corps AVA. I was totally wrong, this changes many things ^^ Are those AVA from the Unit Profiles dummie values or the AVA in vanilla then? If it was the AVA of vanilla that would be the most disappointing thing at all, a punch in the face from CB, because then all those profiles would have the AVA of Characters (and not troops) not fitting into the whole picture of infinity armys. It would really be like CB shouting "Play Spiral Corps you [insert insult here]!" in my face. I Hope it is not the case or the profiles are changed before release.
Those are absolutely not the AVA of those units in Spiral. Just among other things, in the video battle report, Carlos had two Draal.
It's normal for troops whose natural home is in a sectorial to have ava 1 in their parent faction. Look at ava on pheasant, su jian and kanren in ISS compared to yu jing (spoiler alert: they are all ava lots in ISS, ava 1 in yu jing)
I wouldn't be surprised if these are the vanilla AVA. It's rather obvious that CB wants to incentivise opting into Spiral Corps and not just expanding vanilla Tohaa with the new models. The SC-exclusive loadouts are the strongest of their respective unit and if the AVA is restricted as shown above, that's just another indicator. It's not just Tohaa though. Playing vanilla Yu Jing, all the fancy new IA units are AVA 1, even the support-types like the Haidao. Zulu Cobras are AVA 1 in vanilla PanO and so are most MO-specific units.
Whenever CB spoils a new profile in their videos, they always use the AVA for the generic Faction, not the Sectorial.
The Clipsos has to roll a 9 or less to be deployed as far forwards as the Kiiutan, Inf Imp still provides a significant deployment advantage over Infiltration.
That's sad. Maybe I am a bit poiled playing NCA where most of the units have more than AVA 1 in vanilla except those seeming really special Aquila/Swiss Guard/TAG/Locust ^^
Think the clipsos was a bad comparsion for the Imposter, but the idea is the same. The slot of the Kiiutan Imposters can be filled with the IGAO, who has a 50% chance if you really need to start this near on the DC of your oponent. But I would always start him from the middle line. He is cheeper, has a BS and is a CC monster. The only advantage of the Imposter is the immunity to mines etc.
Just a heads-up, some of the rules content above is not correct, so be a bit wary about deciding which units are or aren't useful in Tohaa, unless they have no new abilities at all.
Nailed it. The fact you can get a symbio dude in marker state with viral weaponry next to enemy dz is just so good. Makes picking off exposed troops that much easier. A combirifle in its good bands it's no slouch at getting work done either, more than capable of killing the majority of profiles in the game and suppressive 2w dude takes some orders to deal with after he's plinked off some cheerleaders
Inferior impersonation allows deployment to the middle of the table or anywhere that isn't the enemy deployment? The difference is enormous.
anywhere outside enemy deployment, The diffrence from standart impersonaton is that you cant adopt Impersonation-1 state