Tohaa's New Toys - Kaeltar and the Symbios

The Pokemon are out. Or as they're known in the Tohaa language, the Kaeltar's profiles have been revealed. The boxset comes with two models and 4 sculpted Markers, which is what the SymbioMates and SymbioBombs are. The stats for the Kaeltars can be found in Army 5 while the rules for their pets can be found in the Downloads section of Corvus Belli's website under "Tohaa Special Skills."  I'll give you a quick summary so you won't need to hunt them down unless you want to know the exact rules.

The Kaeltar Specialists do have a Specialist option in the form of Chain of Command.  This is a pretty exciting Specialist option, as it is the only way for Tohaa to get CoC aside from a SpecOp. I'm always a fan of this Specialist option just because it gives you redundancy on a limited resource that an opponent would target in a heartbeat if they're given the opportunity. To counteract this, they do not have Fireteam: Tohaa so they won't be joining any Triads.  Otherwise, they have solid stats: BS 11, PH 11 and WIP 14 with MOV 4-4. The skill that lets them use the Symbios is Corahtar Discipline.

The SymbioMate was previously spoiled as being a fire nullifer. The details on how these little buggers work has been fleshed out in the document.  Essentially, the Symbios come in pairs but only one of each type can be assigned to a Symbiont Armour. There's no need to be within ZoC of the Kaeltar for this assignment, simply adding them to your army does this. The Symbios are removed if the Symbiont Armour becomes inactive or if you use a Symbio. This means if you take two Kaeltars, you could provide 2 SymbioMates and 2 SymbioBombs (or perhaps 4 of one type). With the unit's AVA 2, this makes this purchase worthwhile in my mind, as a single purchase gets you everything you'll ever need.

The SymbioBomb is also a one-shot use that attaches to Symbiont Armour also with the restriction of the destruction of Symbiont Armour removes the SymbioBomb. SymbioBombs, meanwhile, allow the Tohaa to enter the realm of pseudo-Hacking.  I ripped the chart below from Corvus Belli's document of the options a SymbioBomb opens. By spending the SymbioBomb, you got defensive anti-Visor or Burst weaponry or you can go on the offence with ZoC attacks against models with Wounds. I'd like to think of the SymbioBombs as a CrazyKaola and Skunk's lovechild. It poops on you for damage, Immobilization or Isolation.

I don't play the artichokes but I think that the unit is overall a great addition to the game. The only qualm I have is CB's decision to head off cries of "Too many tokens!" with some awesomely cute miniatures. If Janissaries and Wu-Ming came with little Wall-E tokens for their Tin-Bots, I'm not sure I could be upset. The Symbios will certainly look better on the table than increasing clutter of tokens to indicate the status of models. Also, Carlos said that Armand can be legally proxied with any Tohaa miniature here.

Looking for more obscure rules? Cervantes compiled a list of where rules are located, which we have here.