Infinity/N3 Tactics/Tunguska

Why Play Tunguska

The Black Hand of the Nomad Nation. Lots of high technology and weapons.

Faction Features

• Hackers: The best hackers in the best combinations in the game. Combined Army still has the EI devices, but Tunguska has a lot of repeaters, high WIP, and good options across the faction.
• Action Pieces: A heavy focus on active-turn pieces. There's stuff that can ARO if needed, but they're all going to be more expensive and rarer than other factions. The one exception being your hacking coverage.
• Expensive Toys: Much like the Combined Army, Tunguska has a lot of expensive units and limited ways to provide them orders. Your cheapest LI is 13pts, and you have limited AVA for cheap remotes.

Special Skills and Equipment

• Cybermines: A mine (duh) that fires a Comms Attack template. It can't be dodged, and has to be countered with a 'reset'. If successful, the target is immobilized. Only works against hackable targets.
• G:Marionette: The models with this skill acts instead of the controller model activating. Risky, because the guy running the marionettes can get sniped; but powerful because it's a cheap quasi-HI haris.
• Counterintelligence: The main reason to take solo Puppetmaster. Cuts effectiveness of enemy Strategic Token strategic use in half - i.e. instead of taking two of your orders, they only take one.

Unit Overview

Light Infantry

• Ashcroft Hunting Party: A somewhat expensive ODD specialist duo. Given all the other toys available and specialists, you can probably pass on this unless you like the fluff.
• Clockmakers: Same as usual. Great engineer, with good willpower.
• Daktari: Same as usual. Still a decent doctor with good willpower.
• Hecklers: as their name implies. BTS3 with some fun toys to make your opponents life annoying. Special call-out to the KHD/Cybermine combo. Force your enemy's HI or hackers to decide between an attack from a gun, or a BTS roll against an IMM-1 attack. They're going to take one in the face either way. Possibly the only ARO piece (outside of suppressive fire) in the list, but maybe not. Season to taste. Other highlights - Jammer profile (less effective on a WIP 13 model than on Mutts, but still annoying as fuck), and 1 SWC Red Fury.
• Mary Problems: the list's Star Hacker (which is saying something in a list of KHDs, Interventors, and repeaters all over the place). She has both a KHD AND a Hacking Device, giving her a wide set of options that can spread across the board with pitchers and repeaters.
• Puppetactica: an immobile puppet master that can control a haris of bots. Also comes with Counterintelligence. Be careful of where you put the puppet master though, since if he dies the bots go down too. Bots are cheap, are Lo-Tech L2 (an erzats-HI), and have Hyper Dynamics L2 (falls to L1 after first wound) to counteract REM Dodge penalty. Downside - G:Marionette skill makes them unable to use Support programs. Highlights - solo Puppetmaster is the cheapest Regular order Tunguska has (12 points); AP Marksman Rifle Puppet also gets Marksmanship L1, so you get 3 AP Shock shots (4 with Haris bonus) for 14 pts.
• Raoul Spector: Can Haris with Perseus and a Stempler Zond, AND counts as a Securitate and Grenzer for lnking purposes. Irregular non-linkable profile is your only AD option.
• Securitate: What would be basic infantry/cheerleaders for your core link in any other list. Here, the cheapest is 13pts and they swap a (common for cheap core links) Missile Launcher profile to 1SWC Feuerbach. Instead they have a wide toolkit for extra points, and some built-in repeater options. These will be toolbox filler units for an active Core link with Grenzers. Veteran L1 means a Securitate Core Fireteam is surprisingly resilient and will remain combat effective even if you lose your Lieutenant or are Retreating.
• Interventors: Still the best non-character hackers in the game. A single interventor can join a Grenzer link, so consider that if you have the points.
• Zondnautica: AI Bike that counts as LI. Fills a similar role to Yu Jing's Su-Jian, but the bike can follow the Zondnaut around if it dismounts.

Medium Infantry

• Grenzers: Now Core- and Haris-linkable! And also count as Securtates for linking purposes, so can be a bit easier on your points. Got a new profile, too - the only Biometric Visor available to Nomads to annoy all those pesky asassins and shasvastii.

Heavy Infantry

• Kriza Boracs: Assault HIs that can now join Duo and Haris with Hollow Men (although it's probably unnecesary, because FA Burst bonus doesn't stack). Full Auto lvl2 prevents them from getting an extra burst, but it provides some bodyguard protection, order efficiency, and flexibility to an expensive unit. Combine with Religious or Veteran troops to ignore Loss of Lieutenant.

• Hollowmen: Either babies saved from abortions or volunteers living in a pure VR world, these are STR2, 6-2 Mov Super-Jumping Heavy Infantry with a mix of toys. G:Remote Presence make them harder to take out for good, and combined with Religious mean they both stay Regular on Retreat, and get to choose the result of any Guts roll. The Tinbots will protect your Core or Haris (Cores are expensive) from hackers while you move up the board with a Spitfire. Consider pairing them with a Spectr w/ cybermines to really annoy Heavy Infantry and Tags. TinBot profiles can also provide Krizas with Deflector in a Duo link. These can take 1 Stempler bot in their link to be a bit cheaper AND have a FO specialist with them. Downsides - their PH is only 10, so beware of DTWs and Spec-fired templates.

Tactical Armored Gear

• Szalamandra: The only TAG you've got, so you're either building the list around her or you're not taking one. Obliterates things at long range with the HRMC and roasts them alive if they get too close with a Heavy Flamethrower. It's big and scary with heavy armor so it makes for a great distraction unit that will probably do most of your active-turn killing, but like all TAGs it is somewhat vulnerable in the reactive turn. It's a big points investment, so if you are taking one then seriously consider also taking a Clockmaker with a Zondbot to provide it with engineering support, just in case it gets glued or zapped with E/M ammo.
  • The pilot is armed with a Contender and a KHD with WIP 13, so she can be a great way of pushing buttons and scoring points.
  • AVA 2 in Tunguska which is both gratuitous and hilarious at the same time.

Remotes

Same as vanilla with a few important exceptions:

• Stempler: has a linkable profile (two options here - with Raoul and Perseus, or with Hollow Men), which also gets Super Jump.
• Tsyklon both profiles get a Tunguska-only analogues, which for 1 pts price increase get Forward Deployment.

Skirmishers

• Spektr: same as vanilla - TO/Camo, Infiltration. But also gets a Tunguska-exclusive profile: KHD, and Cybermines with WIP14. Use them to clear the way for your HI and laugh maniacally as you do it. Your ONLY infiltrator.

Warband

• Perseus: your new Rogue Myrmidon. Counts as a Securitate for linking, and also has a custom Haris with Raoul and a Stempler bot. Also the only guy who has an Antimateriel CCW that might get to enemy objectives, so an auto-include in some ITC missions.

Building Your Army

The starter set is the newest stuff, and there are some related pieces across Beyond Icestorm, blisters, and packs. New models are coming, and we just got a bunch of new profiles that don't have models yet (Mary Problems!). Securitate SWC and Hollowmen SWC boxes have been announced and look amazing. Other stuff like the Zondnaut will require proxies or conversions for the time being.

If you're not sure what to field yet, pick up an Interventor box, at least one jammer Heckler, and some proxy models. You'll want the Securitate SWC box too when it comes out, but beyond that proxies will be your best bet for the time being.

Strategies and Hints

• Tunguska will naturally struggle against a meta where there are high order count lists that lack major hacking, HI, and TAG threats (e.g. Ariadna, Haqq, some JSA, some vanilla PanO). Your specialists are mostly FOs or Hackers at a high point premium, limiting your ability to button push while still threatening multiple targets. Hollowmen, Kriza, and Securitate are going to be more valuable than your variable hacking threats.

• Otherwise, make other hacking, HI, and/or TAG based lists weep with your threats. Make sure you've got two lists to handle high tech and low tech threats.

• Your profiles look amazing (and they are!), but you pay for the skills, wide threat coverage, and skilled hacking. Be careful about your lists, because it'll be easy to overload your lists with expensive infantry that won't contribute to your main or backup battle-plan. Even your line infantry are relatively expensive compared to everyone else, but that means they can handle themselves better too. Don't be worried to bring a couple extra Securitates for supporting orders and pinch-hitters.

Tactics

• TBD: probably hackers, anti HI/TAGs, and pushing with Kriza/Hollowmen