There are only a few days left until the end of the 3rd edition of Happy Days, in which Tohaa is the main protagonist. In the previous blog post we reviewed the troops included in the Tohaa Combat Force Repack Alpha box, so today we are going to find out who are the troops included in the Tohaa Combat Force Repack Beta box.
KAELTAR SPECIALISTS
Vaarso Battlespeak Notation: To identify support units that employ specific technologies outside the purview of regular operational tactics, the Tohaa Trident provides designations with two separate numerals. In Neebab Numerology, the number 2 represents dominance, audacity tempered by self-control and the capacity to influence others. By contrast, number 10 is tied to hard choices, ruination and personal loss. Consequently, the Kaeltar arrangement of these two symbols (10-2) stands for the management, control and authority over chaotic circumstances, particularly in situations that seem straightforward but take a sudden turn for the perilous.
The Kaeltar Specialists are the Tohaa Trident’s Dificult Circumstances Unit. They have received training in the challenging discipline of Corahtar, which allows them to command SymbioMates with which to provide tactical and defensive support to Symbiont-clad allies expected to run into substantial resistance. With their skills and pheromone-based gear, Kaeltar Specialists are tasked with containing and mitigating the effects of hostile fire. Simultaneously, they bring their versatile SymbioBombs to bear in enhancing and broadening the offensive capabilities of troopers with active Symbiont armors.
However, that is not the full extent of a Kaeltar’s tactical role. Due to their wealth of specialized technical training and their operational profile—which places them consistently in harm’s way—, every Kaeltar is a non-commissioned officer with plenty of field experience. These troopers can keep their head about themselves amidst the chaos and can even assume command when their team leader falls and everything seems lost. In the sorts of missions Kaeltar Specialists are assigned, the question is not whether things will turn sour, but when they will turn sour, and how badly it will hurt. And that is when these specialists truly shine. Outfitted with imposing uniforms and loads of esoteric gear, the Kaeltar nevertheless exude calm; but theirs is a vibrant calm, a peacefulness that conceals an inner fire. And when they are doused in the fuel of impending doom, their fire bursts forth and takes the reins.
SUKEUL COMMANDOS
Vaarso Battlespeak Notation: To Neebab numerologists, the double-zero symbol followed by a seven stands for a double-edged sword, sharp and powerful and capable of striking true in the name of justice and truth, but also a prospective tool for evil. In keeping with the duality of its nature, this number is associated with the gray areas of Intelligence operations and those who inhabit such a fine line. However, by integrating it into the tail end of the number twenty thousand—itself linked to the return from far-off places bearing arcane knowledge that sheds light on the spirit world—a new numerological motif can be ascertained. Number Sukeul (20,007) foretells this well-honed blade will be wielded by discerning experts who will unleash its destructive powers but never espouse either end of the balance.
They say old soldiers never die. Well, the Sukeul Commandos are formed by nothing but dead soldiers. Every one of its members is a veteran operative, a fatality of a past conflict whose skills were too precious for the Trident’s High Command to lose. They have all been recovered for their combat experience, and the only way to wring out every ounce of it is to keep deploying them. Each of their number has their own tactical specializations, so they get their pick of the crop when it comes to combat gear and armament. As highly trusted agents, they are responsible for the most dangerous Direct Action operations of all, those that fall under the designation Contact and Death, usually too classified to mention. Judging by their past performance, these veterans rarely fail to deliver violence and destruction where it is needed most.
Their record sheets are brimming with extraordinary actions and massive body counts, but the details are known only to a select few with the appropriate clearance. On the battlefield, Sukeul commandos never relax their trigger fingers, firing at will but maintaining startling levels of precision. They laugh in the face of heavily armored assault troops and TAGs alike. They will make an example out of any proud soldier stupid enough to stand in their way. They know every trick in the book and every shortcut to mission cleared. Sukeul never fail. They are the best of the best and anyone on their sights is about to learn that lesson for good. They leverage the experience gained in past operations and former lives to push a little further every time. They are the dead that always come back, and they always come back with a win. This is a superb unit whose members are self-sacrificing, but sordid. They have acquired a taste for blood that guarantees conclusive results mission after mission, gunfight after gunfight.
SAKIEL REGIMENT
Vaarso Battlespeak Notation: Given the relevance of number 3 in the Tohaa culture, all numbers that are multiples of 3 are reserved for designating prestigious multipurpose units, those notable for their mobile and adaptative qualities. The number 36, or Sakiel, refers to endeavor and stubbornness in the face of an enemy or a particular type of opposition.
There are two main requisites to be part of the Sakiel regiment. The first is to possess combat experience with a good record of frontline actions. The second is to have suffered a personal tragedy. All Sakiel are native to the Colonial Systems, all coming from Tohaa worlds that have fallen under the Evolved Intelligence’s domain. They have all seen their cities and their loved ones burn. They are all uprooted soldiers without a home to return to, without families with which to reunite. However, they all share a personal objective: Vengeance. Their sole purpose is to make EI pay for the atrocities it and its associated races have committed. A cold hate is nestled within the hearts of the Sakiel which erases any other emotion they might feel. None of them will fail in their commitment and not one will renounce their mission; the Sakiel are willing to make the ultimate sacrifices to strike back at their greatest enemy without hesitation, doubt, or mercy.
NIKOUL AMBUSH UNIT
Vaarso Battlespeak Notation: According to classical Neebab numerology, the number 40 700, called Nikoul, stands for the Digger, a symbolic figure connected to the underworld, the land of the dead. Often hidden, the Digger represents forbidden knowledge, capable of killing whoever should uncover it.
In Tohaa history, the name “Nikoul” is shrouded in legend. Two centuries before the Unification, a valiant team embarked in a guerrilla war against invaders from the expansive Vaaronian Empire. What started as a self-defense group disrupting convoys and assassinating officers soon became the core of a popular resistance movement that, inspired by the heroism of the Nikoul, eventually drove out the invaders, bringing about the very downfall of the Vaaronian Empire. With this, the Nikoul joined the Tohaa pantheon of heroes as an example of opposition to tyranny and were assimilated by the Tohaa cultural tradition as the subject of numerous works of fiction, particularly tales and derring-do.
Centuries later, when hope dwindled in the face of the IE onslaught, the Tohaa Colonial Command of the Romaanti system resolved to create a new unit that would use guerrilla tactics to harass the Combined Army forces, buying time for the civilian enclaves to be evacuated. In order to raise the morale of the troop and create a symbol of hope for non-combatants, this new team was named after the legendary Nikoul, which seemed fitting given their predilection for ambush tactics. The new Nikoul, like their ancient namesakes, acted alone or in small groups, stalking their prey and dealing with them with silent precision fire from concealed positions. More remarkably they, as their predecessors before them, surveyed the area of operations before combat, located the key strategic points, and dug foxholes that would be their fire positions during combat…or their graves. Despite their deadly efficiency, not even these executioners could halt the numberless forces of the EI, and many Nikoul fell to the overwhelming firepower of the Combined Army. The unit shed its blood and obtained many victories, but the Combined Army is an unstoppable flood and in the end the Romaanti system fell in its clutches.
The Nikoul survivors were evacuated last. The unit had fulfilled its duty: they inflicted very heavy casualties, slowing the enemy advance and ensuring a successful civilian extraction. But the war was not over, certainly not for them. Nowadays, the Nikoul are present in every open front against the IE, fighting in the frontlines and honoring the noble name they bear. To other soldiers, such exalted legacy would be a challenge or a heavy burden, but not to them. To the Nikoul, legacy is immaterial; whatever the original Nikoul achieved, what matters now is what they do next. The Tohaa Trinomial is in danger, so it must be protected. That is their mission and that is their only concern.
HATAIL AELIS KEESAN
Aelis Keesan was a young archeologist with a fascination for the past, whose life was leveled by the shockwave of the brutal realities of her present. As an assistant professor in the Xenoarchaeology department of the University of Opbaaen, she was studying the burial mounds of the extinct Doylya race when the planet Doymas came under attack from Combined Army forces. While the other personnel were being evacuated, Aelis volunteered to finish cataloguing the remains so that the memory of the Doylya could be preserved. But Shasvastii troops care little about the past, and concern themselves only with the future of their species: despite being clearly marked as a civilian settlement, the encampment was razed. Aelis managed to survive the destruction, only to fall into the hands of a notoriously vicious Shasvastii Intelligence officer named Hasht. By the time the Tohaa rescue units were able to drive the Shasvastii away, Aelis Keesan was on the verge of death from hours of torture at the hands of the Corax. It took weeks of surgery, reconstructive treatments and military-grade regeneration technology to bring her back to health.
Under Tohaa law, the use of military resources for direct benefit of a civilian automatically entails the affiliation of said civilian to the military establishment. This is explained by the need of Tohaa society, involved in a perpetual conflict, to funnel talent into the war effort. Aelis was offered a position as an Intelligence analyst, but she declined it. Only one thing had kept her alive throughout endless torture and painful regeneration treatment: the thirst for vengeance.
She despised the Shasvastii for being capable of destroying the knowledge and memory of a bygone race, and thinking of the Corax who had tortured her filled her with icy rage. Aelis knew she would never find peace until she had exacted her vengeance, so she took the advanced tactical training programs and joined the Hatail unit, where she excelled as an infotracker and in the-field system breacher. However, she kept her goal in sight at every moment, and continued to peruse each intel report for a clue that would lead to her detested enemy. She located him once, and had a chance to end him, but she chose to let him see her face and know her name. The Corax Hasht will be even more cautious, more slippery now, but that will only make her revenge all the sweeter. Next time, it will not be an honorable death in combat he will find, but an act of justice, a well-deserved summary execution.
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