Calamari's Tohaa adventures

[Calamari]

What with the official forum going off line soon and my Tohaa about to make their table debut soon, I figured I would start a small log to share my experiences and get some advice on these aliens. To give you some context, i have been playing Infinity for around a year now but have only properly got involved with it since February this year after jumping ship from 40K. I started with vanilla Haqqislam but decided I needed a break. The Tohaa models appealed to me and I like the idea of lots of link teams. I have yet to play a proper game with them.

My first tourney with them will be the Bournemouth beginners event on 26/07/14. While I'm not strictly speaking a beginner, I have less than 30 games under my belt and I'm taking an army that I have no first hand experience with. It should be interesting. I have read a bunch of Tohaa reviews and lurked on the forums a lot and with that in mind I have come up with a few observations that have influenced my approach to the Tohaa:

1. Viral is awesome as I have learned from the Lasiq except that nearly everyone in Tohaa can pack viral in some form.

2. Aelis Keesan is awesome with a nice model to boot, I'm deffinatley going to try and include her.

3. Aside from the Clipsos, I have no infiltrating speacialists. When using Haqq, I used to love Hawwas, Hunzakuts and Farzans. Sadly with Tohaa I'm going to have to run my specialists around on foot. This could be a bit of a culture shock.

4. While I would love to put the Gorgos on the table it seems to take a lot of work to use it well so for now I'm going to leave it out until I can get my head around the "easier" parts of the army.

Having come to these conclusions I've put a list together for the tourney:

TOHAA
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GROUP 1 (Regular: 10/Irregular: 0):

HATAIL AELIS KEESAN K1 Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Flash Pulse, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 34)
MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Zero-V Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW. (15)
KAMAEL Paramedic (Medikit) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (16)
SAKIEL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 24)
KAMAEL (Forward Observer) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (15)
MAKAUL Heavy Flamethrower, Zero-V Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Viral CCW. (15)
CLIPSOS Minelayer Combi Rifle, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (10)
GAO-TARSOS HMG / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 40)
GAO-TARSOS Paramedic (Medikit) Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (35)

GROUP 2 (Regular: 4/Irregular: 0):

GAO-RAEL Sniper Rifle / Pistol, CCW. (1 | 37)
KAMAEL Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (12)
KAMAEL Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (12)
CHAKSA AUXILIAR (Baggage, Sensor) Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW. (10)

5 SWC | 300 Points
ARMY CODE: eNo9yzsOwDAIA9DT4BnzSThZph6+hEpdnoxliiKuKilMGPgU2BK7NeTk9ff7a3SOmIdAtA6H9bRGXu/I5MQLLowV6g==

It basically has a bit of everything so that I can try it out. I would have liked some HMG Chaksa but I couldn't seem to fit one in anywhere. The triads are as listed above.

The idea being I'll try to blitz my opponent's side of the board and get into good ARO positions (using the Makauls to lay down smoke) and let my link teams go to work. The Clipsos is to block people from assassinating key models in the first turn, like a Kitsune making a run for my Gao Real or something). Aelis is the TAG/HI hunter and the Sakiel is there to throw lots of dice at people until they go away. I have all the classifieds covered (bar Test Run) to get some extra points.

I'm sure I'm going to learn some harsh realities but this will be a nice change from Haqq.

EDIT: The missions I'm playing will be Frontline, Quadrant control and Annihilation. Single list only, no SpecOps.

[Spears]

The main groups triads are all pretty short ranged, outside the spitfire you might struggle to win longer engagements. I'd be inclined to drop the tarsos triad and consolidate it into the main group.

[Calamari]

That is a worry I have with this. By Tarsos triad do you mean the Gao Rael? What should I replace it with?

[Spears]

Sorry yes i meant the rael, I would maybe look at moving him into group one and drop the group2 kamaels upgrading the group 1 kamaels to sakiels.
Its mainly a matter of taste though, I'm not a fan of half groups.

[Spambot]

I often run Tohaa with 1.5 combat groups - Tohaa can do a solid 10 man group for under 300pts and the extra can pick up some Chaksa HMG, or a few sensors or Makauls, alongside a cheap diplomat

Sensors are particularly good for territory missions on account of their baggage

Edit: Half groups are also a great place to put Chaksa HMG or other board watchers. That way, when they die, your main order pool is untouched

[Calamari]

I got a chance to try this out the other day and I was rather pleased. My friend was playing a ninja heavy JSA army with a Kiesotsu link team. I had sensor coverage over all my important models so his ninjas/Oniwaban were discovered and gunned down in ARO before they could do much. The Clipsos made him waste orders avoiding mines and the Gao Rael was the man of the match. I think he got around 4 or 5 kills by himself.

I didn't mind the small second combat group, it's mostly defensive and didn't do much moving around so I never really felt order starved. If I had an aggressive model like a Tarsos or something in there then I would probably start running out, as it is I'm happy with it though. Just need to get more painting done before this weekend.