Tohaa Technology and Special Rules

If you're someone who obsessively checks the Infinity the Game website like I do, then you've noticed that the new rules, new weapons and some of the new profiles are available for download. They are not a complete set of rules yet, as you cannot access the complete Tohaa army list or rules for the campaign system, but the downloads give you a lot to chew on.

Today I'm going to take you on a little review of what's in there for the Tohaa, their technology, special rules, weapons and spikey hair.

Tohaa Triads
While the Tohaa do not have any sectorials armies at present (personally I doubt they ever will), they still have the ability to form special linked teams, called triads. Triads are 3-man linked teams with any combination of troop types with the special rule 'Fireteam: Tohaa.' They can only have 3 members, hence the name, triad, but they can mix units into the teams. This means you can have a linked team of a Tohaa Ectros, a Tohaa Kamael and a Tohaa Sakiel, unlike sectorial armies, whose fireteams must contain units of the same type. Furthermore, the Tohaa are not limited to one fireteam per army but an unlimited amount depending on how many troops with the 'Fireteam: Tohaa' special rule (they should have called this special rule 'triad' instead of the long winded one they chose.)

Swarm Grenades
For what we can tell from these downloads, Tohaa have the unique access to Swarm Grenades. These are grenades which can only be hurled at a target model (not a piece of ground), causes shock damage against BTS (no ARM rolls) and remains in play, creating a low-visibility zone (ignored by all levels of multispectral visors). What potential. Essentially this is a weapon that can be used offensively while creating a defensive zone against advancing troops. However, so far no revealed Tohaa units have any multispectral visors that would truly create a nice combo.

Symbiont Armor
Symbiont Armor is definitely unique to Tohaa and features some important advantages and disadvantages.

So far, two released models wear symbiont armor, the Ectros and the Sakiel. The Ectros is an HI model while his symbiont armor is functioning, yet only ARM 3, but maintains a high MOV rate of 4-4. The Sakiel is an LI with ARM 2 and, again, MOV rate of 4-4. So Symbiont Armor does not seem to slow its wearer.

It's main advantage seems to lie in its ability to preserve its wearer longer than traditional armor.
Its wearer has two profiles: active and inactive. Its wearer uses the active profile from the start of the game until he reaches 0 wounds or the unconscious state. However, instead of going unconscious, he changes to his inactive profile with 1 wound, so can continue fighting with a new, weaker profile. In a way, you have to kill the wearer once, then he gets a new lease on life, at a weakened state. Neat!

Its disadvantages lie in that it is vulnerable to fire, which kills him outright with a single wound caused. Fire weapons are becoming more numerous, too, so this could be a big potential drawback to playing the Tohaa. In fact, their swarm grenades are also vulnerable to fire so the Tohaa players are really going to have to be mindful of what fire weapons the enemies carry.

Interestingly, the rules indicate that the Tohaa TAG will wearer symbiont armor, have wounds instead of structure points and will be vulnerable to fire. Hopefully this will lessen the points cost of fielding one, as it would be the only TAG in the game that could be killed outright by a single wound from a flamethrower.

Viral Weaponry and Poison
Tohaa are the first army to have access to viral combi-rifles. Only two of their released units have them - again the Ectros and Sakiel, but combined with swarm weapons, they will have a distinct advantage against units with low BTS values, like Ariadans and most line and medium infantry troops.

The Ectros has the rare poison special skill, which grants all his CC attacks the shock special rule. In addition poison causes a DAM 9 hit on opponents whenever the bearer suffers an unsaved wound in close combat. Not terribly powerful, but interesting nonetheless.

Spikey Hair
Nuff said.

Conclusion
The Tohaa will be a unique army to play. I believe they will be fragile but hit hard - an example of glass sledgehammers. Viral weapons and swarm grenades will put a serious hurting on their enemies, especially those LI and MI models. Symbiont Armor can help them last longer, but instant kills from fire are going to really hurt.

Yet, we're still only able to look at 4 units that have been released so how knows what the full Paradiso book will reveal as it comes out...I'm guessing regeneration and metachemistry models will be somewhere in their list...we'll just have to wait and see. Anyone know when that book is coming out?