Tunguska speculation

White noise is going to get me to do an interview with them to dissect Tunguska when they drop. In preparation for that, I've been thinking about the sectorial a bit. Here are some thoughts on what they would need to be viable.

First, some fundamental problems that Tunguska are likely to have:

• The core gimmicks of Tunguska are hackers and high BTS, neither of which is good in the game at the moment. Being able to set up a repeater web with interventors backing it up will slow down anything that is hackable to a crawl, but it doesn't kill anything and isn't offensive. Most weapons hit ARM not BTS. KHDs will give you grief, BTS 9 or not. 
• In order to get offence out of that hacking network, Tunguska would need a decent attack REM. The Nomad REMS, for all their vaunted superiority in the fluff, suck. They are expensive, don't have MOD stacks for the offensive guns and don't have staying power for the defensive guns. At present, the best you can do is take 2 TR bots and give them both supportware for your first reactive turn. Pretty lame. 
• At the moment, the link teams are average to bad. Securitate are getting a work-over, obviously, which is totally in order given how amazing the models are (hello CSU proxy). I hope securitate become dirt cheap, bare bones dudes with repeaters. That will allow them to repeater web the backfield and prevent any AD or other assassination annoyances from getting at your interventors. Grenzers are OK but too expensive. The ML is 29 points. For an extra 4 points and 0.5 SWC you can get a riot girrl with an extra wound, better PH and hyperdynamics. They are a much better defensive team. The bare bones grenzer defence (2 MLs and 3 chumps) comes out at 29 points, and I suspect you want the sniper rifle. This is just too expensive. They are better than Bao but not by much, and that does not bode well for them. Additionally bad for Grenzers is that they are 4-2 so the spitfire guy can't be used as a lone sweeper because he is too slow. I expect most Tunguska lists to involve a securitate defensive link instead. 
• Tunguska will have clockmakers as their engineers. Paying extra points for more WIP is basically never worth it. Zoe is almost always the engineer in nomads and she won't be available in Tunguska. 

What does Tunguska have going for it?

• The Kriza is awesome. This unit is basically an HMG in a 5-man link team. It has the only MOD stack in the game that can't be overcome by some counter-tech and in suppression it is basically immovable without putting 10 orders in. It's also not that expensive (50 points for the HMG - compare that to a Hsien). 
• Interventors remain a top 3 hacker. They can actually survive KHD assassination runs, they bring a huge suite of programs (including white noise, which I suspect will be indispensable for Tunguska) and they're reasonably cheap. The KHD is only 20 points.

What might Tunguska's play style be?

I suspect Tunguska will be quite elite, rocking maybe 14 orders with a bunch of cheap REMs. This will support one or even 2 Kriza, a couple of TO (my understanding is that the hollow man is a TO unit) and a securitate team for backfield defence and overwatch. I suspect they will play a bit like Shasvastii in the sense that they will advance at a crawl and then dig into a very irritating tarpit. The Kriza/s will go into suppression down 16" corridors surrounded by hard to reach repeaters. Flamers will be their primary enemy. 

What Tunguska really needs:

• Hollow men need to be a REM. At the moment, nomads have some of the best hackers (cheap HD+) in the game but nothing to use gadgets on. Their AD units suck (hellcats are worse than tigers and tigers are average) and their REMs are very underwhelming compared to Yu Jing and Pan-O. Hollow men REMs, preferably with a MK12 (or at least a spitfire) moving at 4-4 or better with marksmanship lvl2 would be start. They then need mimetism or some such. 
• Hecklers would ideally be an infiltrating+camo hacker. I think nomads in general actually need this to complete their shell game, but for Tunguska I think they'll need it to have specialists that can efficiently press buttons. Slap on a repeater, keep the cost down (like a 24 point KHD or something like that) and please, for the love of god, give me a shotgun not a combi.
• AVA 3 on transductor (flash pulse + sniffer) REMs. This will help to complete the repeater network and provide orders.  
• Grenzers in mixed links with cheap dudes. A mixed securitate + grenzer team would perhaps make the grenzer sniper and ML viable.