Playtesting jank shit

Now that CanCon is over we're going deep into the praxis labs to test weird shit that might work as part of some unexpected second- or even third-order strategy. My mate actually discovered a very powerful way to play Tohaa using this method. He started by trying to build a list with highest wound count possible, using things like Rasails, preceptors (super cheap 2 wound model) and lots of cheap Sakiel paramedics. We discovered a couple of things. First, double makaul + sakiel paramedic triads are fierce. They score well and the Makaul eat anything in close combat. The best your opponent can do is put a useless wound on the Sakiel. Tohaa melee was born. Second, guerilla warfare with heaps of cheap direct template weapons on cheap units is a very effective counter to most alpha strikes, especially if the templates are flamers. Trading with things like Chaksas works especially well in a ~31 wound list. These were golden insights that are now informing all sorts of weird shit that actually seems to work. Below are other things we intend to try:

CanCon Battle Reports

Well CanCon is over for another year. Went 4-1 and finished 3/70. Pretty happy with the result. Only loss was a close one at 4-1 and might have flipped to a win if we had time for turn 3. All other games were major victories. Aside from maybe one moment I managed not to be a dick at any point, which is the main thing. Battle reports below. I have omitted my opponent's names.

Ikari Tactics and Playtesting

God I love this sectorial!

• I love the fluff: Japanese revolutionaries and deserters from the Chinese penal corp committing dishonorable war crimes; mercenaries; machismo
• I love the units: a shit-tonne of impetuous dudes including the amazing (top 5 units in the game) Yuan yuan backed up by HI link teams, the Rui Shi (another top 5 unit, though maybe not at 1.5SWC) with smoke support, and cheap specialist profiles from Keisotsu
• And I love the playstyle: BANZAI!!!!

The only thing stopping me from completely committing to this faction for the next 12 months is that I freakin' love STARCO as well. 

Alright let's break the faction down and do up some initial lists (date: 03/04/2018):

A crack at Vedic

I'm mostly playing mercenaries at the moment, but took a break from that to take Vedic for a spin. I ran a list very similar in playstyle to my Tohaa lists, but craftier and, it turns out, not as effective. To wit:

Vanilla Nomads at MOAB

This is a summary of all the playtesting I did of my vanilla nomads lists in the lead-up to the Mother of All Battles 2018 (MOAB) in Sydney. I should note that I have been trying to make a list like this work for ages. Like at least 18 months. If you go back in the blog you'll see a lot of discussion of it. It has never quite come together. That changed a bit with Tunguska. The heckler with Red Fury filled a huge hole in Nomads, namely the sweeper piece. In the past I was having to use zeros with combis to kill stuff in the late game. Now I have this much more reliable killer. The heckler with jammer and fastpanda filled another huge hole - deployable repeaters in the midfield. Together, these guys also increased the camo shell game substantially. Finally, Mary problems gives you a potent hacker with an ideal device (HD+ is wasted without REMS and AD), and she can deploy straight into the midfield to score and never drain orders. So when this rundown begins I am working with an infowar list that you can see in the second post, below.

Tunguska drops and Nomads work...kind of

So Tunguska is out. I will do a full analysis shortly. In the meantime, some quick updates to my recent post about making nomads work.

Onyx lists

Onyx has to be one of the best factions right now. They have average matchups against the other top factions (Marut with TO snipers is especially bad), but there is so much raw power in the faction. They were good before, but with Kernau they've improved dramatically.