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Donner's Tactics Strategy Guides #13: Tachyon

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Donner's Tactics Strategy Guides #13: Tachyon

Tachyon

                Tachyon is the fastest character in the game, and one of the strongest.  But it comes at the cost of her own health.

Builds:  DPS

                Best Power Cards:  Push the Limits, Unrelenting Momentum, Lightspeed Barrage

                Worst Power Card:  Sucker Punch

 

                Strengths:  Able to move across the map, occasional strong attacks or large numbers of small attacks

                Weaknesses:  Burns herself up to use her strongest abilities.  Loses a great amount of effectiveness when at 1 health.

                Works well against:  Proletariat, Bunker, Unity

                Weak against:  Legacy, Baron Blade, Citizen Dawn

                Commentary:

                Tachyon has a ton of options that cover a multitude of situations.  Dealing with a target with strong defenses?  Overwhelm them with an aimed Lightspeed Barrage or whittle them down with Unrelenting Momentum and Nimble Strikes.  Have to get past Hazard spaces?  Use Hypersonic Assault to ignore them until the end of your turn.  A tough target is low on health, but your team just can’t finish them off?  Sucker Punch.  Tachyon’s biggest weakness is that her two strongest cards burn up her health.  Once she drops to 1 health, she is very limited in her options.  But, she is not out of the game.  Especially if allies can help pump her full of defense + 1 tokens.  Use Tachyon to close in on hard to reach targets and take them out quickly.  If Tachyon gets an incap against the other team before she goes down, she can keep trading incaps and stay in the lead in a match.

                Tips:

                Start with Push the Limits on your first turn to give yourself one more round of awesome before the enemies can respond.

                When getting back up from being incapacitated, consider Pushing the Limits to show your enemies why they don’t want to take you down.

                Save Lightspeed Barrage for turns when you have 6 movement.  For even stronger hits, also equip World Stands Still for a nice 7 die aimed attack.

                If you can, Aim your Lightspeed Barrages.  You have the actions for it.

                Tachyon is one of only two characters in the game who can have multiple dodge tokens.  Combine dodge with Synaptic Interruption and they may think twice about targeting you.

                Hypersonic Assault and Sucker Punch can take out multiple one-health targets.

                Lightspeed Barrage and Sucker Punch can be devastating.  If you drop the target to one health, they go down.

                If Tachyon is left at 1 health, Unrelenting Momentum and Synaptic Interruption become a great combo.  Attack 3 times and save an action for Dodge. 

                Remember that Hypersonic Assault has to take elevation changes into account.  Keep this in mind when planning your attacks.  Equip World Stands Still to increase your range and avoid this problem.

                If you have the choice of moving to a target or sprinting to a different target and then sprinting to the initial target, consider the double sprint.  It gives you one more attack and costs the same number of actions.

                Countering Tips:

                Tachyon is a melee character.  If you can, generate hazard spaces or equip abilities that retaliate when you’re attacked to take her down quickly.

                Tachyon loses a lot of strength when left at one health.  Consider getting her there and ignoring her until the final incapacitation.  She may use Pushing the Limits to take herself out, but that’s an off-turn incapacitation for your team.

                Legacy’s Danger Sense and Truth’s redirection make Tachyon’s Nimble Strikes almost worthless if they're not backed up by a Lightspeed Barrage.

                If Tachyon likes to over-extend, take her out early and often, especially if you can survive her attacks when she gets back up.

                If Tachyon takes out a member of your team in one assault, they should not stand up and immediately retaliate against her.  Trading kills with the enemy when they are ahead only helps them.  Instead, they should equip a defensive power and/or move away.  


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Powerhound_2000
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Don't forget Tachyon can spend her last health on Pushing the Limits and then take another turn.   It does mean your opponent gets credit for an incap but it may be worth it.   


Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31

 
bluedarky
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Powerhound_2000 wrote:

Don't forget Tachyon can spend her last health on Pushing the Limits and then take another turn.   It does mean your opponent gets credit for an incap but it may be worth it.   

Wanna be even crazier, incap her by using it one turn, then use it again next turn as it specifies once per incapaciation.

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Pushing The Limits specifies once each round.  The Tachyon pushing herself to incap trick is mentioned in the Countering Tips section.


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Trajector
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Where is Sucker Punch?

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Trajector wrote:

Where is Sucker Punch?

Sucker Punch is Tachyon's promo card.  You can get all the current promo cards in the store.


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Ahh, gotcha. I haven't investigated Tactics promos yet!

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They are pretty awesome and add some much-needed capabilities to some characters.  For example, Legacy's flying smash gives him some mobility with an attack, helping get over his 2 actions a turn slump.


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Donner wrote:

You can get all the current promo cards in the store.

 

Where? I see there's an option for "Replacement Tactics Card"-- would that be it?


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I see it listed here https://greaterthangames.com/store/sentinel-tactics-the-flame-of-freedom but no way to buy just the promo pack. 


Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31

 
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Hmm.  It used to be available separately.


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Powerhound_2000 wrote:

I see it listed here https://greaterthangames.com/store/sentinel-tactics-the-flame-of-freedom but no way to buy just the promo pack. 

Ah.  Yes.  They also had them available at PAX Prime last year and PAX South (don't know about GenCon) for Sentinel points and/or purchase.

 


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Well balls. I bought them all at my local game store.


Bowie S, pronounced like David, not like Knife, can be found in Minneapolis and has Monomaniacal Reverse Engineer d10
Death and the dice level all distinctions. -Samuel Foote
 

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Hey! I remembered a thing!

They're available via the BGG store


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Huzzah!  Thanks, Matchstickman!  I thought that was the case!


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Powerhound_2000 wrote:

Don't forget Tachyon can spend her last health on Pushing the Limits and then take another turn.   It does mean your opponent gets credit for an incap but it may be worth it.   

Are you sure about that? My understanding was that you paid the cost before the effect took place - so she would knock herself out, and then the effect wouldn't take place because the card is immediately picked up.


Australian living in Toronto. I make a lot of games. http://about.peterchayward.com

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PeterCHayward wrote:

 

Powerhound_2000 wrote:
Don't forget Tachyon can spend her last health on Pushing the Limits and then take another turn.   It does mean your opponent gets credit for an incap but it may be worth it.   

 

Are you sure about that? My understanding was that you paid the cost before the effect took place - so she would knock herself out, and then the effect wouldn't take place because the card is immediately picked up.

Hmm.  It's research time!

My research says:

1.  Spiff's FAQ has no answer either way.

2.  Two guys I don't recognize on Board Game Geeks say Peter is correct.

And this means we call out to Christopher or Luther for an answer!  If either of you read this, could we please get a clarification?


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PeterCHayward wrote:

 

Powerhound_2000 wrote:
Don't forget Tachyon can spend her last health on Pushing the Limits and then take another turn.   It does mean your opponent gets credit for an incap but it may be worth it.   

 

Are you sure about that? My understanding was that you paid the cost before the effect took place - so she would knock herself out, and then the effect wouldn't take place because the card is immediately picked up.

Yep, it's the ruling provided by Paul https://greaterthangames.com/comment/108449#comment-108449

edit: It's also the reason why I think other health cost abilities should let you complete them before being incapped.  


Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31

 
Donner
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Thanks!  And I'll quote it here for quick reference.

Paul wrote:

Spiff, I don't think I'm entirely clear on what you are asking. There are two things going on here that are true and cover this situation (and many others).1) If a character loses their last point of health for whatever reason (except for Citizen Dawn's card the specifically says it does not result in points), they are immediatly in capacitated and the other team gets a point.2) If Tachyon uses Pushing the Limits, her next turn follows immediately after the turn in which she does so instead of waiting for her turn order to come back around in the round order.So, if Tachyon is at 1 health and using Pushing the Limits, she is immediately incapacitated where she is standing, and the other team scores 1 point. Pushing the Limits cannot result in overkill Push for a number of reasons, not least of which is because it only costs 1 health.Immediately after being incapacitated and the other team scoring, Tachyon takes her next turn. She stands back up, regains her full health, and may play a power card during the Power Up phase. If she then opts to move through a hazard space and takes enough damage to be killed, she is incapacitated in that space and the other team scores a point. If there was overkill, she is pushed.Note that there is absolutely nothing special about an extra "Pushing the Limits" turn except that it immediately follows a previous Tachyon turn.


"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett