TOS-Curious

[James Dyson]

With the new Vassal Module out, and a local who went all-in on the TOS Kickstarter, I've been looking into the game.

I was wondering if folks who have played the game could share their experiences with how different factions perform.  Sure, they all have write-ups that give a general feel ("Kings Empire is shooty", "cult is mobile and hits hard").  What I'm curious about is what surprised you on the table.  What models perform well?  How much scrip do you sink into assets?  What do you find a good average game size to be?  What gotchas have you found (as the rhino appears to be)?

Thanks in advance to folks for any insight they have!

[MuMantai]

King Empire: The main schtick of Kings Empire is shooting. That`s what they do, and they do it quite good, with long range and good accuracy. I think they are most hampered by terrain of all factions. They have melee capability, and I think going all in on shooting is a mistake, but shooting is their best bet. For that reason, they tend to play as the least mobile faction, but that can also be a mistake, as mobility wins games (operations tend to have their objective around the center line).

The best units in KE are, imho, the Royal Rifle Corps, and the Kings Hand. They are the most efficient when it comes to getting to glory, and especially the Corps is getting deadly once in glory. Keep in mind that I am an Abyssinia player, so I may be biased here. South Wales Borderers and Grenadiers are also quite good, the rest is ok, I think. Dragoons are too squishy for a pure melee unit, imho, but again, I play Abyssinia. They should be a lot better against Hordes or Cult, to get the enemy melee units out of the gunline.

For commanders, Charles is very good, for shooting and making things shoot (getting things in glory is surprisingly difficult for KE), and Kassa is a very good fit for the Kings Hand (and enables Abyssinia Envoys). I am not a fan of Margaret. I don't think she does what she is supposed to do very well (killing champions), and while she is very mobile, a commander unit as operations runner is not worth it imho.

As for assets, you generally want to load out commanders and titans fully, so unless you desperately need one scrip, the only debatable assets are adjuncts. Sharpshooters are ok, I think.

 

Abyssinia: Abyssinia tends to be a slow moving faction, with less range than the Empire, and usually less forces than the rest. But they have two things going for them: Resource advantage and raw power. They have the best card draw, some of the best reinforcement capabilities, and with prototypes, they have good action efficiency for their units. They also tend to have good armor and damage values which, combined with their card advantage, gives them excelent damage capabilities. They tend to have to choose their battlefield, as they cannot easily reinforce everywhere, but when they strike somewhere, it tends to hurt.

As I see it, there are two types of units Abyssinia has: Punchy and Shooty. Punchy is mostly Steel Legion, Electrocutioners and Mehal Sefari. They advance slowly and kill everything that comes too close. Shooty includes Mechanical Infantry, and the Dreadnought. They still have to advance, as the ranges are not great, but these units can threaten a good chunk of the board, especially combined with Rail Gunners and prototype assets. In the end, a mix of both is usually best, but it also depends on what you play against. More ranged combat is good against Hordes, while against Cult, you want melee, as you will probably not have the opportunity to shoot at them. Mortars and Flare guns are very good at killing Stalking Portals, though. Against Kings Empire, you want shooting capabilities, I found, to my surprise. Some of Abyssinias Units have greater range than the Empire, and even when not, as soon as they close the gap, the damage tends to be higher.

For commanders: all three are good. I tend to have Prince Unathi with me, as he is the one that keeps the troups in fighting shape. Call for Reinforcements, in combination with It's Dangerous to Go Alone, is just absurdly good. And for Abyssinia, it is very easy to get to glory, at least for anyone with an action that requires a simple duel. The Lord of Steel is just a killer, and one of the few mobile options we have. I quite like him. Kassa is just as good with the Dreadnought as she is with the Kings Hand, and has at least some synergy with the Walker and the Shredder (former more then ladder).

Abyssinian Engineers are very good. Assets are better for expensive units as for cheap ones, and the abyssinian units are usually on the expensive side, so that fits. Take them, they are good!

 

Cult of the Burning Man: Mobility has arrived. These guys have it in spades, and then some. They also tend to have good offensive, mostly at the cost of defense. They want to strike hard, and then retreat, to do it all again next turn. Playing them, you need to know the portal mechanics by heart, and all the tricks they allow. Playing against them, you need to know them to know how to shut that down. Which is surprisingly hard to do. The cult has some shooting, but not that much, they mostly rely on portals to get their melee guys where they need to be.

Cult is very opportunistic in playstyle, and have some very fun options in units. Warped are the main battle unit, as they not only hit very hard, they are also quite sturdy, which is something not often found in Cult. The Rhino is also in that category, as is the Goryshche, but that one has some interesting options to boost either mobility, survivability, or damage with assets. ECB Black Ops are very good against what are usually "hard targets" (commanders, titans, Abyssinia in particular), as they scale their damage with assets. Twisted Horrors and Broken try to emulate the Self-Replacement mechanics of the Hordes, but are far less reliable at that. Twisted Horrors and Doomseekers have good ranged damage, as well as (in the case of Doomseekers) another teleport mechanic. I am not sure if I would ever take a Breachling to start with, but it could be a fun combo with Brahms. Cult usually tries to find the weak point in their opponents ranks, and strikes there with the hard hitters, while holding the other parts of the battlefield with the more sturdy (and/or cheaper) units.

Adeodatos reinforces the teleportation aspect of the faction, and has some fun abilities that move units and give out shaken token, as well as at least a bit of card draw. Fenton is a bit more offensive(ly capable), and gets his units to glory faster. Horomatangi, then, is another big beater, and gets quite nasty with teleportation. I think. I never faced him.

As for the adjunct, he's nice. He mostly saves the unit from losing shaken token, which can be good, and our local Cult player uses them a lot, but I am not quite sure if it is worth it.

 

The Gibbering Hordes: The theme of these guys is a fast paced, squishy melee army that wants to be in your face and stay there with units that replace themselves. That part tends to not work that well, I feel. They also shape the battlefield to their advantage, and that part works quite well, at least as long as there is a storm siren. In some of my games, I felt the storm siren was the only thing keeping the game at least somewhat even. They also give out a lot of reinforcement tokens, which can be a fun mechanic when set up right.

The hordes is an interesting bunch, with a variety of units that do a variety of things but not the one thing that I would have expected: They don't have a clear "tank", meaning a protector unit that can soak hits and has a good defensive capability. They have some of that, the crawlers have a lot of hitpoints for very few scrip, the Striped Skulkers have positive flips on everything as long as they in terrain (and why would they ever not be), Armored Whelks have good armor and prevent pinned token (which would remove reinforcement token), the Alpha Crawler also has ok armor, and the eel has very good defence. But none of those things has a set of defensive abilities that would indicate them in a tank role. They all are individually quite squishy, and they kill themselves to get to glory, and rely on reinforcement tokens and their Endless Numbers ability to keep in good enough fighting shape to overwhelm their opponent. In terms of roles, Alpha Crawler, Striped Skulkers, Karkinoi and Eels are the main damage dealers of the bunch, with Armored Whelks mainly for support against Pinned Tokens. Speckled Crawlers and eggs are there for giving out Reinforcement tokens and being eaten.

The Stormsiren is, in my opinion, the strongest commander in the game and absolutely necessary for the Hordes. In glory, she makes parts of the battlefield (Tide pools, to exact) deadly for the opponents forces, and makes them go there. Especially deadly for units with multiple fireteams. The Frenzy want to be a deadly melee commander, but do not quite get there. They have either not the staying power or the damage output to really shine, which is in part because the Hordes have the worst card draw of all factions, even worse than the Empire (which at least has access to Kassa). Horomatangi should also be good in this faction, where he can more easily get to glory, but does not have portals. Again, never seen him on the table.

The adjunct of Hordes is the worst in the game, and because of Endless Numbers, you probably don't want him anyway