Outside of models I've truly never used before, there are some were I have to congratulate Wyrd on the flavor and abilities of when it comes to their models. Being the mainly Arcanist player I am, the first thing to come into my head when thinking of impactful non-Masters is the Coryphee and the Duet they become.
Back when I first started Malifaux, I had a very real problem with Scheme runners with Rasputina. With little experience with the Ice Witch and at a time where not even all the masters crew boxes were released, it was hard to generate a list for Breakthrough/Plant Evidence etc etc, Frozen Heart back then just didn't have any runners.
My first inclusion were the Mole Men and for a while they were great, that is until they were attacked or, for instance, they had already dropped more than enough markers. They have a Very focused job and can't really diverge from that role, I needed something else.
As a new player I brought both Arsenal decks for Arcanists just so I knew what everything did (This also being when Crossroads wasn't released, dark times indeed) and the Coryphee appeared to be exactly what I was looking for: Fast models who were able to attack but more importantly could leave combat and not get charged in response. The Duet looked insane and rightly so for sacrificing two 7ss models. So I set about a proxy of the dancers and took them to the table.
... And subsequently got them killed before turn 3 every game I had them. As a player in general I have this idea that new models exist in another dimension where opponent's will let them do exactly what they want and watch in awe as they do their home run lap. I can't fault my opponent's actions, I was playing the Coryphee dumb. I ran them in range of Anti-Armor which destroyed them quickly, if I had planned to run the pair separately, I would panic at the loss of 2 wounds and try to duet them only to have them standing out in the open. In games where I duet'ed immediately I would use them as pure scheme runners rather than assassination units so spending 14ss to be backfield doing Mole Men's job (forgetting that with their speed and 3ap, they could achieve a number of base rulebook schemes on turn 5).
I would either play too cagey or too aggressive, but as I came to learn, there is a delicate nuance of balance to the puppet's role on the field.
Fast forward to modern day, the Coryphee are released in plastic now and by budgetary reasoning, I've magnetized them to properly duet together. I know now not to run them into big nasties but rather assassinating smaller models. I almost never run them as a single unit anymore, the first turn is hopefully a double walk into a Dance Partner-Dance Together. Why not duet immediately? Summoning a fresh model that still has 2ap left to use up to 17" into the table is veritably useful, especially in dealing with well-placed From the Shadows models or taking down an early minion who safely assumed double walking was a good move. Picturing two marionettes gracefully spinning across the battlefield and effortlessly taking down a Guild Pathfinder is a thing of beauty.
I have found despite this that Rasputina still doesn't like the Duet. Not being Frozen Heart and not having much synergy in the crew leaves the puppets in the box. Mei Feng on the other hand loves them. Fast constructs that can keep up with her, that can get her out of trouble via Rail Walk and being able start or finish a fight alongside the Rail Boss is amazing. The Duet's main weakness against range becomes silly when they are within the protective Vent Steam and having another 3ap model dancing beside a master and the often 3Ap Firestarter provides fantastic opportunities for Vp gain.
With only one game with Kaeris right now I don't know if they have a place but in their one game with her they provided a means to draw an optimal hand turn one before duet'ing and acted as bodyguards to the rather frail Kaeris saving her Ap to use her burning effectively.
Judging the Duet on it's own, having Auto-everything in attack and defense paired with Agile and Disguised make the dancers impossible to pin down with melee attacks alone. Hitting them with conditions or ranged attacks is preferable but to get through Df/Wp6 with a built-in positive, it's an uphill struggle. This is not to say they are invincible, far from it but so long as I keep them away from tables that can focus anti-armor rounds, avoiding charging them into more than 2 models who can wear down those 7Wd OR being in a position where models around the Duet prevent them from escaping then I'm confident they will always make for an memorable game and an additional challenge to my opponent. It's 14ss that I don't regret spending to include them.
Dance like no one is watching and have fun out there.
Showing posts with label Arcanists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arcanists. Show all posts
Monday, 25 April 2016
Monday, 4 April 2016
Season Review - Winter
Since the start of the year I've kept a record of all 50ss games I've played noting the Win/Loss, the strategy and whom I played with and against.
I would keep track of schemes chosen, Vp total, crew member selection frequency and how useful each model was to the game in question but keeping it simple seems to work better for me than updating an excel spreadsheet on the fly. Maybe someday I'll gain the ability to gather data like a BOSS and detail every Ap spent and Vp gained by every model I use but for now, I'll settle for a straightforward Win/Draw/Loss with X master.
Without further ado:
Most played Strategies:
- 1st Place - Reconnoiter - 5 Times
- 2nd Place - Squatter's Rights - 4 Times
- 3rd Place - Guard the Stash - 4 Times
Despite randomly flipping the strategy each game, my favorite strat came up 5 times in the course of 3 months, even Squatter's and Stash I find enjoyable. It's almost like telling the universe what I like playing pays off. Strange.
Most played Masters:
- 1st Place - Rasputina - 12 Times
- 2nd Place - Mei Feng - 6 Times
- 3rd Place - Misaki - 3 Times
- Participation Award - Ironsides - Once
- Newcomer Award - Kaeris
Lady 'Tina is no surprise whatsoever this season, every game I play it's a case of really wanting to play another master but then Rasputina shows up and pushes everyone around with her Frozen Hearts getting up in everyone's faces. Ms Mei getting half of Raspy's total games is a given at this point but the Rail walker has shown me that she can rock the house just as well as Rasputina; favorites are favorites though so it'll be tough to gain the discipline of not auto-taking the Rasmus for every encounter; or going the other extreme and not taking Rasputina when I really should.
Misaki sneaked in for bronze due completely to the Growfaux leaving Ironsides with little more than a little flag saying "Everyone's A Winner!".
The last game of the month saw Kaeris wining her inaugural match and she shows a lot of promise. Not as killy as the Ice Queen, not as brutal as the Oybun Metal Worker but rather a master with a lot of ways to deal with any given situation. Watch this space.
Most games won:
- 1st Place - Mei Feng - 4 games
- 2nd Place - Rasputina - 3 games
- 3rd Place - Misaki - 2 games
Mei Feng got in a trio of close game wins on the last day of the month hence her resurgence to the top of the leader board, facing Nicodem's mass summoning in non-recon/interference games will do that though (Hunting Party, hallowed be thy scheme, Coryphee Duet's will be done, on table, as it is in Malifaux). What this also means is so long as I don't play Feng simply to play her and choose my games carefully, she is a very good choice in good match-ups, dare I say, better than Rasputina. I'll be very interested to see how next the season plays out.Rassy only winning a quarter of her games is a little sad but when my local meta is full of champions of malifaux as mine is, you roll with the punches besides, if I had decided to use Rasputina for my final three games, I'm confident her score would have been better. Playing many games with experimental lists such as "Team Mega Buff" and the abysmal "Casting Gunline" and I should expect nothing less than a bad on-paper score.
Misaki fares better percentually (Is that a word? It is? Really? Nice) winning two-thirds of her games much like Mei but considering that Growfaux was all about trying out new masters and models, the results are a little skewed.
Masters played against by faction:
- Outcasts - 8 games
- Viktorias - 5 times; Jack Daw - Twice; Levi - Once
- Resurrectionists - 4 games
- Nicodem - Twice; Yan Lo - Once; Seamus - Once
- Neverborn - 3 games
- Pandora - Once; Collodi - Once; Dreamer - Once
- Guild - 3 games
- Sonnia - Once; Lady Justice - Once; Perdita - Once
- Arcanists - 2 games
- Rasputina - Twice
- Ten Thunders: - 2 games
- McCabe - Once; Mei Feng - Once
- Gremlins - 1 game
- Ulix - Once
Viktorias appear to be everyone's favorite right now in my experience, with many people either slaying with them or attempting the subtle chess game of early turn blitzkriegs. Viktorias might be top but the impression I get from many players is that they are one-trick-ponies, they either get the job done and get killed with ease; or fail to do anything and get killed with ease, which I sense frustrates more players than it intrigues. Otherwise a pretty even spread throughout. Some late games against Resurrectionists supercharged their faction to silver granting my wish to play more against them. Talking of which, I played against Yan Lo! Which got me very excited to play the old man once again. Maybe I'll pull him out of hibernation for a certain casual event starting in April....
Season total:- 23 games
- 9 Wins
- 1 Draw
- 13 Losses
So draws a close to this seasons games, with half of my games being lost I have to really buckle down and start taking my own advice. I'm slowly but surely getting to grips with what every master in the game does as well my own models strengths and weaknesses. Here's to closer games next season!
Continue to kick arse in a sportsmanlike fashion and have fun out there.
I would keep track of schemes chosen, Vp total, crew member selection frequency and how useful each model was to the game in question but keeping it simple seems to work better for me than updating an excel spreadsheet on the fly. Maybe someday I'll gain the ability to gather data like a BOSS and detail every Ap spent and Vp gained by every model I use but for now, I'll settle for a straightforward Win/Draw/Loss with X master.
Without further ado:
Most played Strategies:
- 1st Place - Reconnoiter - 5 Times
- 2nd Place - Squatter's Rights - 4 Times
- 3rd Place - Guard the Stash - 4 Times
Despite randomly flipping the strategy each game, my favorite strat came up 5 times in the course of 3 months, even Squatter's and Stash I find enjoyable. It's almost like telling the universe what I like playing pays off. Strange.
Most played Masters:
- 1st Place - Rasputina - 12 Times
- 2nd Place - Mei Feng - 6 Times
- 3rd Place - Misaki - 3 Times
- Participation Award - Ironsides - Once
- Newcomer Award - Kaeris
Lady 'Tina is no surprise whatsoever this season, every game I play it's a case of really wanting to play another master but then Rasputina shows up and pushes everyone around with her Frozen Hearts getting up in everyone's faces. Ms Mei getting half of Raspy's total games is a given at this point but the Rail walker has shown me that she can rock the house just as well as Rasputina; favorites are favorites though so it'll be tough to gain the discipline of not auto-taking the Rasmus for every encounter; or going the other extreme and not taking Rasputina when I really should.
Misaki sneaked in for bronze due completely to the Growfaux leaving Ironsides with little more than a little flag saying "Everyone's A Winner!".
The last game of the month saw Kaeris wining her inaugural match and she shows a lot of promise. Not as killy as the Ice Queen, not as brutal as the Oybun Metal Worker but rather a master with a lot of ways to deal with any given situation. Watch this space.
Most games won:
- 1st Place - Mei Feng - 4 games
- 2nd Place - Rasputina - 3 games
- 3rd Place - Misaki - 2 games
Mei Feng got in a trio of close game wins on the last day of the month hence her resurgence to the top of the leader board, facing Nicodem's mass summoning in non-recon/interference games will do that though (Hunting Party, hallowed be thy scheme, Coryphee Duet's will be done, on table, as it is in Malifaux). What this also means is so long as I don't play Feng simply to play her and choose my games carefully, she is a very good choice in good match-ups, dare I say, better than Rasputina. I'll be very interested to see how next the season plays out.Rassy only winning a quarter of her games is a little sad but when my local meta is full of champions of malifaux as mine is, you roll with the punches besides, if I had decided to use Rasputina for my final three games, I'm confident her score would have been better. Playing many games with experimental lists such as "Team Mega Buff" and the abysmal "Casting Gunline" and I should expect nothing less than a bad on-paper score.
Misaki fares better percentually (Is that a word? It is? Really? Nice) winning two-thirds of her games much like Mei but considering that Growfaux was all about trying out new masters and models, the results are a little skewed.
Masters played against by faction:
- Outcasts - 8 games
- Viktorias - 5 times; Jack Daw - Twice; Levi - Once
- Resurrectionists - 4 games
- Nicodem - Twice; Yan Lo - Once; Seamus - Once
- Neverborn - 3 games
- Pandora - Once; Collodi - Once; Dreamer - Once
- Guild - 3 games
- Sonnia - Once; Lady Justice - Once; Perdita - Once
- Arcanists - 2 games
- Rasputina - Twice
- Ten Thunders: - 2 games
- McCabe - Once; Mei Feng - Once
- Gremlins - 1 game
- Ulix - Once
Viktorias appear to be everyone's favorite right now in my experience, with many people either slaying with them or attempting the subtle chess game of early turn blitzkriegs. Viktorias might be top but the impression I get from many players is that they are one-trick-ponies, they either get the job done and get killed with ease; or fail to do anything and get killed with ease, which I sense frustrates more players than it intrigues. Otherwise a pretty even spread throughout. Some late games against Resurrectionists supercharged their faction to silver granting my wish to play more against them. Talking of which, I played against Yan Lo! Which got me very excited to play the old man once again. Maybe I'll pull him out of hibernation for a certain casual event starting in April....
Season total:- 23 games
- 9 Wins
- 1 Draw
- 13 Losses
So draws a close to this seasons games, with half of my games being lost I have to really buckle down and start taking my own advice. I'm slowly but surely getting to grips with what every master in the game does as well my own models strengths and weaknesses. Here's to closer games next season!
Continue to kick arse in a sportsmanlike fashion and have fun out there.
Monday, 28 March 2016
The Immitation of the Sow
The first official tournament I attended this year was Boarfaux, hosted by Warboar's Paradise Bar. A fantastic venue and only really cramp because of the 30+ people that attended thus contributing to their biggest Malifaux event to date. Terrain was set up wonderfully and the T.O was clear, concise and kept players up to date with amount of time remaining. Everything you want in a tournament, casual or official.
I finished in the top ten, which is rather strange because I lost 3 games out of four... oh oh wait, had the results upside-down... I actually placed 26th. A result I'm pleased with as the talent and sportsmanship of players that attended was magnificent to say the least. It also highlighted that I need more games against the Viks and to actually study their threat range but more on that later.
I opted for Arcanists and brought with me Mei Feng and Rasputina. As usual Absolute Zero Sabrina took most of the limelight but Rail Walk Rihanna got a closing game in and played very well despite the disadvantages. Only knowing the opponent's faction means that I had to take into account that almost anything could be on the opposite side of the table, so I took the all-rounder in my stable unless Arcanist or Guild were sitting across from me.
Game 1 - Rasputina Vs Dreamer - 4-2 Loss
Standard Deployment - Guard the Stash
Convict Labour, Show of Force (Mine), Leave your Mark (Opp), Search the Ruins (Mine), A Quick Murder (Opp)
Announcing Neverborn in my meta normally means Pandy, Lily or Collodi. Lynch being mainly played Thunders together with Zoraida and Lucius being panned for being sub-par or plain boring. Imagine my surprise when Dreamer hit the table.
I've played against Dreamer exactly zero times but I know his card well enough and about his particular summoning/healing mechanic. It didn't really help in the long run but at least I wasn't clueless. As it was my first game I took:
Rasputina w/ Armor of December, Child of December and Cold Nights (6 cache)
Joss w/ Imbued Energies
Snowstorm w/ Imbued Energies
Wendigo, Arcane Effigy, 2x Hoarcat Pride, Ice Garmin.
With a flying summoning Dreamer and armor ignoring Teddy across from me, I knew I had a tough match ahead of me. My general plan was to have Wendigo and Raspy throw out walls to slow the advance of models drawing closer to the stash markers, if I obtain 1Vp over my opponent then all I needed was full points on schemes and I was set. Rasputina easily took Teddy down but failed to do anything of consequence for the rest of the match whilst Joss tanked hits admirably. Attempting to do the same with a Hoarcat Pride and Wendigo on the other stash marker simply wasn't working. The late game saw two damaged, reactivating Stitched Togethers Gambling for life 8 times total absolutely ruining the rest of my forces and closing the game. I scored nothing for Stash and 2Vp for Show of Force to my opponent's 2 Stash Vp and 2 Quick Murder Vp. It was brutal but at least it was a close game.
Game 2 - Rasputina vs Viks - 7-3 Loss
Flank Deployment - Squatters Rights
Convict Labour (Mine), Hunting Party (Both), Exhaust their Forces, Set Up, Undercover Entourage (Opp)
If Outcasts are named, it's normally Viks, Levi or Daw. Knowing what Viks are like in competitive play, I assumed the Sisters were coming to play but for whatever reason this didn't click in my head and I failed to give the Sub Zero upgrade to anyone. Taking five damage to the face is slightly more tolerable when it ends the activation, prevents Whirlwind and leaves a master that spent the turn buffed to the teeth in the clutches of frosty death. Sadly, as I don't use the upgrade nearly as much as I realistically should, I opted instead for:
Rasputina w/ Armor of December, Child of December, December's Pawn, Decoy (6 Cache)
Snowstorm w/ Imbued Protection, Decoy
Blessed of December w/ Killswitch
Wendigo, 2x Hoarcat Pride, Ronin
In hindsight, ditching the cats and Imbued Protection for a pair of Silent One and Sub Zero would have proven better in the long run but I have a weakness for the felines, something I need to plan a use for rather than starting every ARC list with "Two Hoarcat Prides with...".
The game started well enough, the Viks were being cagey for the early game which didn't help me out as my models were behind blocking terrain on brown alert waiting for the
impending beatdown. Wendigo and Hoarcat Pride took early Squat markers but then I just couldn't catch a break. Turn two my opponent brazenly puts the Viks out into the open on the last activation so turn 3 came down to Rasputina destoying her or the Viks killing Snowstorm and Ronin then tying up Rasputina. Initiative comes and he flips a face card....Kay.
I struggled for the rest of the game, the Blessed, bless her heart, failed to place enough markers for Convict Labour so tried to zero in on the Malifaux Child, needing only one hit to kill him scoring at least one point for Hunting Party, first attack wiffs and the second misses the trigger leaving the Child with wounds to spare. My opponent takes this time to walk Vik of Ashes over to my deployment and then uses the Malifaux Child to heal up to full with a top-decked 7 of Rams into a Red Joker heal. Blessed gets killed revealing Killswitch finishing off the child and at least scoring something. Final results, I only got 2 Squatter's Vp due to my crew being murderized, 1Vp for Hunting Party to my opponent's 3Vp in Squatters, 1Vp in Hunting Party (surprisingly) and full points for Entourage.
Game 3 - Rasputina vs Viks - 7-4 Win
Standard Deployment - Headhunter
Convict Labour, Take Prisoner (Opp, Silent One), Leave your Mark (Mine), Neutralize the Leader (Both), Public Demonstration
Outcasts again and again suspected the Viks and AGAIN didn't think Sub Zero was a good idea. With how much fun I found Blessed in the new Gaining Grounds schemes, I thought she would have the task of either backfield shenanigans or at least pick up some discarded heads. My list was as follows:
Rasputina w/ Arcane Reservoir, Armor of December, Child of December
Blessed of December w/ Imbued Energies
The Firestarter, Snowstorm, Silent One, Hoarcat Pride, Wendigo
With how often the Viks fail to kill important targets in one swing (which I say is outright strange) some healing was in order and after the beating I took last game, I thought it prudent to at least give the Viks a means to get distracted by some terrain hopping firethrower guy alongside a spattering of Silent One healing. In that beloved hindsight, I could have taken almost ANYONE ELSE instead of a Hoarcat Pride and Wendigo as they did nothing this game. The game once again started cagey as I was hiding and my opponent was hiding whilst getting into range. Blessed leapt up the board to start leaving marks everywhere whilst I was hoping and failing to bait out one of the sisters with a tasty hoarcat. The reckless Firestarter jumped out, gave the Vik of Blood Burning +4 then dived back behind cover only to be reminded that Viks have like 60" threat range and was beaten to a pulp by Ashes. Next turn Blood wisely flanked the Hoarcats and went straight into Snowstorm who was hanging out playing cards with Silent One. With Arcane Reservoir and some dead lucky top decking and soulstoning, Snowstorm survived only taking 4 wounds. Silent one attacked the Vik for weak damage and got off her healing trigger then healed SS 2 wounds bringing him back to full.
Rasputina then unloaded Frozen Hell into the melee and finished off Blood leaving S'torm and 'One on a single wound each; something my opponent said afterwards that he never expected me to do, which is why he was so brazen. Ashes seeing her chance, rushes in and kills Snowstorm forgetting that Storm explodes after death, damaging Ashes and killing off Silent One, heads falling everywhere like a pinata victory. Rasputina finishes the job and pushes to pick a head up. Thus after the upkeep of final turn head collection I scored 2vp for Headhunter, 2Vp for Leave your Mark, and full Vp for Newt Leader. My opponent scored 3Vp for Headhunter but only managing to score 1Vp for Neutralize.
Game 4 - Mei Feng vs Seamus - 9-6 Loss
Flank Deployment - Reconnoiter
Convict Labour, Hunting Party (Opp), Exhaust their Forces (Mine), Covert Breakthrough (Both), Occupy their Turf
Haven't had much experience vs Seamus either, but again his gun, teleporting and belle summoning are well known. I decided on Mei Feng if only because I wanted a game with her rather than choosing the right master. Mei Feng is well documented in being bad at summoning Recon but with Breakthrough and Exhaust on the table, I presumed I could at least get 6 points. The list:
Mei Feng w/ Seismic Claws, Imbued Energies, Imbued Protection (5 cache)
Blessed of December w/ Imbued Energies
Howard Langston w/ Imbued Energies
2x Fire Garmin, 2x Hoarcat Pride
I really need to find an alternative to the cats. Either way, the game was a great back-and-forth with every turn after the first being a chess game of activation control and Reconnoiter denial. I managed to deny my opponent the first recon point but failed to grab any myself and the rest of the game his models were either exactly where they needed to be or Slow Belles were summoned to walk over the thresholds. Whilst I did a great job at Exhausting and laying scheme markers down, so was my opponent in killing my Cats and Garmin and laying his own markers. I wouldn't ever call it a close game but it was a great end to a day of Malifaux goodness.
The day as a whole was incredibly enjoyable and facing new opponents and new masters is always welcome in my casual eyes. Dreamer is an absolute blast to play against and Seamus is such a tricky bugger that you never know where a game is going to take you when he's across the table from you. Facing the Viks twice in a row was harsh but it was a arse-kicking reminder that I should learn their threat ranges and (If playing the Rasmus) bring along Sub Zero when I'm facing Outcasts. I spent the majority of the early game activating and passing the turn because of the Viks reputation rather than what was actually on the board and that obviously doesn't help me win games.
Rasputina played a healthy game of Malifaux and I was glad to bring her along to her first tournament. I feel had I not been on brown alert all game against good Vik players, she would have easily brought me more victory points. Mei Feng, despite me dropping her AGAIN into a Recon game vs Summoning, completely smashed the scheme pool and if I had more knowledge of threat ranges, could have easily gone toe-to-toe with the Viks or at least Soulstone Prevention-Leapt Aside to score more Vp than I did.
More knowledge to bring to the next event. Keep aiming for the stars and have fun out there.
I finished in the top ten, which is rather strange because I lost 3 games out of four... oh oh wait, had the results upside-down... I actually placed 26th. A result I'm pleased with as the talent and sportsmanship of players that attended was magnificent to say the least. It also highlighted that I need more games against the Viks and to actually study their threat range but more on that later.
I opted for Arcanists and brought with me Mei Feng and Rasputina. As usual Absolute Zero Sabrina took most of the limelight but Rail Walk Rihanna got a closing game in and played very well despite the disadvantages. Only knowing the opponent's faction means that I had to take into account that almost anything could be on the opposite side of the table, so I took the all-rounder in my stable unless Arcanist or Guild were sitting across from me.
Game 1 - Rasputina Vs Dreamer - 4-2 Loss
Standard Deployment - Guard the Stash
Convict Labour, Show of Force (Mine), Leave your Mark (Opp), Search the Ruins (Mine), A Quick Murder (Opp)
Announcing Neverborn in my meta normally means Pandy, Lily or Collodi. Lynch being mainly played Thunders together with Zoraida and Lucius being panned for being sub-par or plain boring. Imagine my surprise when Dreamer hit the table.
I've played against Dreamer exactly zero times but I know his card well enough and about his particular summoning/healing mechanic. It didn't really help in the long run but at least I wasn't clueless. As it was my first game I took:
Rasputina w/ Armor of December, Child of December and Cold Nights (6 cache)
Joss w/ Imbued Energies
Snowstorm w/ Imbued Energies
Wendigo, Arcane Effigy, 2x Hoarcat Pride, Ice Garmin.
With a flying summoning Dreamer and armor ignoring Teddy across from me, I knew I had a tough match ahead of me. My general plan was to have Wendigo and Raspy throw out walls to slow the advance of models drawing closer to the stash markers, if I obtain 1Vp over my opponent then all I needed was full points on schemes and I was set. Rasputina easily took Teddy down but failed to do anything of consequence for the rest of the match whilst Joss tanked hits admirably. Attempting to do the same with a Hoarcat Pride and Wendigo on the other stash marker simply wasn't working. The late game saw two damaged, reactivating Stitched Togethers Gambling for life 8 times total absolutely ruining the rest of my forces and closing the game. I scored nothing for Stash and 2Vp for Show of Force to my opponent's 2 Stash Vp and 2 Quick Murder Vp. It was brutal but at least it was a close game.
Game 2 - Rasputina vs Viks - 7-3 Loss
Flank Deployment - Squatters Rights
Convict Labour (Mine), Hunting Party (Both), Exhaust their Forces, Set Up, Undercover Entourage (Opp)
 |
| *NOTE: Not my game |
Rasputina w/ Armor of December, Child of December, December's Pawn, Decoy (6 Cache)
Snowstorm w/ Imbued Protection, Decoy
Blessed of December w/ Killswitch
Wendigo, 2x Hoarcat Pride, Ronin
In hindsight, ditching the cats and Imbued Protection for a pair of Silent One and Sub Zero would have proven better in the long run but I have a weakness for the felines, something I need to plan a use for rather than starting every ARC list with "Two Hoarcat Prides with...".
The game started well enough, the Viks were being cagey for the early game which didn't help me out as my models were behind blocking terrain on brown alert waiting for the
I struggled for the rest of the game, the Blessed, bless her heart, failed to place enough markers for Convict Labour so tried to zero in on the Malifaux Child, needing only one hit to kill him scoring at least one point for Hunting Party, first attack wiffs and the second misses the trigger leaving the Child with wounds to spare. My opponent takes this time to walk Vik of Ashes over to my deployment and then uses the Malifaux Child to heal up to full with a top-decked 7 of Rams into a Red Joker heal. Blessed gets killed revealing Killswitch finishing off the child and at least scoring something. Final results, I only got 2 Squatter's Vp due to my crew being murderized, 1Vp for Hunting Party to my opponent's 3Vp in Squatters, 1Vp in Hunting Party (surprisingly) and full points for Entourage.
Game 3 - Rasputina vs Viks - 7-4 Win
Standard Deployment - Headhunter
Convict Labour, Take Prisoner (Opp, Silent One), Leave your Mark (Mine), Neutralize the Leader (Both), Public Demonstration
Rasputina w/ Arcane Reservoir, Armor of December, Child of December
Blessed of December w/ Imbued Energies
The Firestarter, Snowstorm, Silent One, Hoarcat Pride, Wendigo
With how often the Viks fail to kill important targets in one swing (which I say is outright strange) some healing was in order and after the beating I took last game, I thought it prudent to at least give the Viks a means to get distracted by some terrain hopping firethrower guy alongside a spattering of Silent One healing. In that beloved hindsight, I could have taken almost ANYONE ELSE instead of a Hoarcat Pride and Wendigo as they did nothing this game. The game once again started cagey as I was hiding and my opponent was hiding whilst getting into range. Blessed leapt up the board to start leaving marks everywhere whilst I was hoping and failing to bait out one of the sisters with a tasty hoarcat. The reckless Firestarter jumped out, gave the Vik of Blood Burning +4 then dived back behind cover only to be reminded that Viks have like 60" threat range and was beaten to a pulp by Ashes. Next turn Blood wisely flanked the Hoarcats and went straight into Snowstorm who was hanging out playing cards with Silent One. With Arcane Reservoir and some dead lucky top decking and soulstoning, Snowstorm survived only taking 4 wounds. Silent one attacked the Vik for weak damage and got off her healing trigger then healed SS 2 wounds bringing him back to full.
Rasputina then unloaded Frozen Hell into the melee and finished off Blood leaving S'torm and 'One on a single wound each; something my opponent said afterwards that he never expected me to do, which is why he was so brazen. Ashes seeing her chance, rushes in and kills Snowstorm forgetting that Storm explodes after death, damaging Ashes and killing off Silent One, heads falling everywhere like a pinata victory. Rasputina finishes the job and pushes to pick a head up. Thus after the upkeep of final turn head collection I scored 2vp for Headhunter, 2Vp for Leave your Mark, and full Vp for Newt Leader. My opponent scored 3Vp for Headhunter but only managing to score 1Vp for Neutralize.
Game 4 - Mei Feng vs Seamus - 9-6 Loss
Flank Deployment - Reconnoiter
Convict Labour, Hunting Party (Opp), Exhaust their Forces (Mine), Covert Breakthrough (Both), Occupy their Turf
Mei Feng w/ Seismic Claws, Imbued Energies, Imbued Protection (5 cache)
Blessed of December w/ Imbued Energies
Howard Langston w/ Imbued Energies
2x Fire Garmin, 2x Hoarcat Pride
I really need to find an alternative to the cats. Either way, the game was a great back-and-forth with every turn after the first being a chess game of activation control and Reconnoiter denial. I managed to deny my opponent the first recon point but failed to grab any myself and the rest of the game his models were either exactly where they needed to be or Slow Belles were summoned to walk over the thresholds. Whilst I did a great job at Exhausting and laying scheme markers down, so was my opponent in killing my Cats and Garmin and laying his own markers. I wouldn't ever call it a close game but it was a great end to a day of Malifaux goodness.
The day as a whole was incredibly enjoyable and facing new opponents and new masters is always welcome in my casual eyes. Dreamer is an absolute blast to play against and Seamus is such a tricky bugger that you never know where a game is going to take you when he's across the table from you. Facing the Viks twice in a row was harsh but it was a arse-kicking reminder that I should learn their threat ranges and (If playing the Rasmus) bring along Sub Zero when I'm facing Outcasts. I spent the majority of the early game activating and passing the turn because of the Viks reputation rather than what was actually on the board and that obviously doesn't help me win games.
Rasputina played a healthy game of Malifaux and I was glad to bring her along to her first tournament. I feel had I not been on brown alert all game against good Vik players, she would have easily brought me more victory points. Mei Feng, despite me dropping her AGAIN into a Recon game vs Summoning, completely smashed the scheme pool and if I had more knowledge of threat ranges, could have easily gone toe-to-toe with the Viks or at least Soulstone Prevention-Leapt Aside to score more Vp than I did.
More knowledge to bring to the next event. Keep aiming for the stars and have fun out there.
Monday, 7 March 2016
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Toni?
With Rasputina recently dominating my stable of Rasputina, Rasputina's BFF and Rasputina's close friend I decided that another master should take the limelight in playing Gaining Grounds games when the scheme stars line up for her (which honestly, I'm playing by default now). Ironsides having a part of my heart that enjoys Tar-pit masters who are consistently singing Tubthumping whilst cracking skulls.
Then I hit a wall, a wall I told myself that I wouldn't bother smashing my head against unless I had proverbial cause and reason to. The last game I played was Guard the Stash with Convict Labor, Take Prisoner, Exhaust Their Forces, Search The Ruins and Occupy Their Turf and I couldn't for the life of me find a reason to take Ironsides over Rasputina. Guard the Stash requires models to stand in two places and tank hits which to be fair any Arcanist master can do, it's the schemes that forced Ms Toni back into the box.
Take Prisoner is awful for Ironsides as she's the prime target for it and giving away 3Vp when both Feng and 'Tina can simply railwalk/push out of combat is plain silly; Exhaust Their Forces is even worse as Toni welcomes enemy models into combat, even when she's not trying, so now I'm 6Vp down. Quite frankly, taking Rasputina and choosing Search the Ruins and Occupy Their Turf was the better call and despite losing against a very good Jack Daw player, he was clearly struggling and only scored 3vp more than me by luck of the draw and expertly hiding what schemes he was doing until the very last moment.
We had a discussion after the game and I mentioned my wanting to play Toni Ironsides more but the scheme pool just wasn't great for her, he then asked me the sensible questions of: What scheme pool is Ironside's scheme pool? Like what would you put in a scheme pool that Ironsides would clean house with?
I honestly couldn't answer.
Not out of thinking she is terrible in all schemes but more so that I've never asked that question myself: What does Ironsides excel in? So I looked deeper.
Out of the strategies I would only take Toni in Extraction as the middle is exactly where she wants to be and enemies have to take part in the royal rumble in order to score. Feng would still do well, as would Rasputina but in terms of who I would prefer, Toni is better for it in my eyes.
Those of you with keen eyesight may well notice that Extraction is one out of four common strategies, thus my first complaint, I can't see myself wanting Ironsides over Raspy or Mei in the majority of games I play and that's a big problem.
Onto the schemes. Out of the suited/always available schemes that I would pick Toni over the other two for, I simply wouldn't. Toni can do Exhaust Their Forces but then my opponent can do exactly the same back causing Zero Sum. Convict Labor and Leave Your Mark I would prefer Mei Feng for as as much as I have wild fantasies about Toni being this vortex of aggression, for the most part a savvy player is going to stay the heck out of the way increasing the chance that my markers aren't going to be able to score. Show of Force any master can do but I would prefer Feng or 'Tina to lead an upgraded crew into battle and Hunting Party is much easier to do when you're not bogged down by two models and can pick and choose death targets.
Again, a massive problem as now I'm playing a master who can play one strategy and who won't be able to take half of the scheme pool made available. Need I go on?
My first thought was why I even liked Ironsides so much back in the day if with this improved scheme pool is so bad for her? Maybe it was beginners luck or playing against players who were unaware of how lethal Toni can be if you feed her models to ramp up her Adrenaline but maybe it was more due to her potential greatly outshining her actual presence on the table.
You see, when Toni was first revealed in Crossroads and even in beta testing, forums and players alike were saying how mad broken she was and what insanity she could perform when she got her adrenaline engine going. How she could break the game with Hand Picked Men and the combos that could outmatch Mei Feng.
The realization set in fairly quickly once the fog of giddy theoryfaux faded away. Hand Picked Men always seems to fall short no matter how one sets it up and Adrenaline?
There's never enough Adrenaline.
Make all your arguments, tell me how Mouse and the Captain are supposed to pull models into Ironside's melee range allowing her maximum Adrenaline when she activates; but even with maximum models in melee with her, everything you want to do becomes a detriment. Want to combo into Toni's Uppercut? Lose 2 Adrenaline, Want to combo again? Lose 2 more. Wanna move to another target? Lose 1 more. Heal? Lose all of it. Trying to save it for future turns? Lose one every turn to heal a single wound.
Even if you weren't to focus on Adrenaline, a 2/3/4 vanilla damage track even at Ml7 is lackluster and whilst I love Uppercut, trading a whole activation for a (2) action to do 4-5 damage and give out Slow simply isn't enough especially when it's Ml4 base before Adrenaline.
Let me be fair, what happens when the perfect set up happens? Allow me to share:
Toni is next to an enemy she charged last turn and is sitting on Adrenaline +2. The Captain then Airbursts a target into melee with Toni. The opponent activates and nimble + charges The Captain who takes damage allowing Toni to discard 2 low cards for Adrenaline. Other activations happen during which time the opponent activates the models in melee with Ironsides and activates Good Shot, My Turn thrice. Ironsides activates and with her defense trigger and Protective alongside the two enemy models within 2" she has Adrenaline +7. She opens with Brass Knuckles using the trigger to combo into Uppercut killing the first enemy model. She does the same with the second enemy and uses her final Ap to lure The Captain's opponent into her melee range and then uses her Stand Up, Stand Tall to heal 3 wounds in order to tank the next turns damage.
Again, perfect set up. To actually achieve this set of unfortunate events you needed to have Toni end a turn on Adrenaline +3 (Which requires you to discard cards, stone for the non-in-built trigger on her attack or pitching Tomes to her def trigger, a lot of resources that no one else can use). The next turn having the Captain be in range to grab a critter then conveniently take non-lethal damage twice within 6" of Ironsides (which she has to pitch more cards to) THEN having both enemies wound but-not-too-much Toni forcing more Tomes or Stones and then being on life totals that allow 6-7 damage to finish them off. Then, luring another model into the fray which may result in needing to cheat a card taking more damage then seeing Toni on little to no wounds after three models worth of attacks and forcing her to dump her Adrenaline so she stands a chance next turn. To those counting at home, 4 discards (two of which need to be Tomes), 2 high Rams/2 Soulstones then a medium to high card in order to ensure the lure. In other words, your whole hand and this is the perfect set up. You might ask "You don't need that much Adrenaline", you do if you want to actually hit with Uppercut.
"What about Hand Picked Men?" Okay, another way to play Ironsides is as a luring support piece. With models preventing her from taking the damage by standing in charge lanes and other friendlies getting in nice and close with auto-focus attacks. Great on paper but with proper terrain lay-out models are going to get stuck on corners or be out of LOS more often than not. If I wanted my whole crew to be focused all the time I would play Shen Long or Collodi. If I wanted to stay in Arcanist then Marcus or Collette can do exactly the same Focus/Lure tactic and have a LOT more options in a game in terms of mobility and winning Vp. Trying to make a master like Toni work by erasing 80% of her card is not going to win any hearts.
I won't go into what changes I would make as that's a slippery slope that leads to "Ml9 on every stat and every model in her crew gains Focus+2 when they activate" and quite frankly outside of an ENORMOUS errata, none of what I or anyone else says or suggests would make much of a difference. Toni is simply too much of hassle to play competitively with.
She is a great looking model and one of the few stories I really enjoyed reading in the books, alas, whilst I can rave all day about how she's this great threat in mosh-pit melee, when I look at cold hard facts and table experience, she just doesn't do enough. She wants to be in the middle of a brawl but lacks the capacity to survive within it. She wants to deal lots of damage to lots of models but once she hurts the first target, she suddenly becomes unable to do so to others. It's a sad sorry state of affairs to be in Toni's steel toe-capped boots.
As much as I really want Ironsides to be the great model that I once envisioned her to be, it's simply not meant to be. I could conjure up lists and ways to make her more manageable or find ways to make her "work", adding M&SU models haphazardly or adding models that I hope get ignored to score Vp but when I play a game and say to myself "I could be earning Victory Points so much easier if I had taken anyone else" that's a sign of a bad master.
It's a strange day when I would prefer to take Yan Lo of all models over Toni Ironsides. The old man's constant fidgety movement removing targets from areas they need to be is unfortunately more likely to score Victory Points more often than the brawlers rooted punching. Even Ramos with how dreadfully boring he is can at least fill the board with mobile scheme runners.
Fortunately, the remaining masters in my stable of champions I'm having a lot of fun playing and with Ironsides no longer being forced into games, it means at least Mei Feng is able to get the games that she deserves against more than just a gunline. Alas, Toni will have to join Ramos in the case of un-used masters for the foreseeable future until I find myself in the mood to playing inefficient or plain dull crew leaders.
Stay true to yourself and have fun out there.
Then I hit a wall, a wall I told myself that I wouldn't bother smashing my head against unless I had proverbial cause and reason to. The last game I played was Guard the Stash with Convict Labor, Take Prisoner, Exhaust Their Forces, Search The Ruins and Occupy Their Turf and I couldn't for the life of me find a reason to take Ironsides over Rasputina. Guard the Stash requires models to stand in two places and tank hits which to be fair any Arcanist master can do, it's the schemes that forced Ms Toni back into the box.
Take Prisoner is awful for Ironsides as she's the prime target for it and giving away 3Vp when both Feng and 'Tina can simply railwalk/push out of combat is plain silly; Exhaust Their Forces is even worse as Toni welcomes enemy models into combat, even when she's not trying, so now I'm 6Vp down. Quite frankly, taking Rasputina and choosing Search the Ruins and Occupy Their Turf was the better call and despite losing against a very good Jack Daw player, he was clearly struggling and only scored 3vp more than me by luck of the draw and expertly hiding what schemes he was doing until the very last moment.
We had a discussion after the game and I mentioned my wanting to play Toni Ironsides more but the scheme pool just wasn't great for her, he then asked me the sensible questions of: What scheme pool is Ironside's scheme pool? Like what would you put in a scheme pool that Ironsides would clean house with?
I honestly couldn't answer.
Not out of thinking she is terrible in all schemes but more so that I've never asked that question myself: What does Ironsides excel in? So I looked deeper.
Out of the strategies I would only take Toni in Extraction as the middle is exactly where she wants to be and enemies have to take part in the royal rumble in order to score. Feng would still do well, as would Rasputina but in terms of who I would prefer, Toni is better for it in my eyes.
Those of you with keen eyesight may well notice that Extraction is one out of four common strategies, thus my first complaint, I can't see myself wanting Ironsides over Raspy or Mei in the majority of games I play and that's a big problem.
Onto the schemes. Out of the suited/always available schemes that I would pick Toni over the other two for, I simply wouldn't. Toni can do Exhaust Their Forces but then my opponent can do exactly the same back causing Zero Sum. Convict Labor and Leave Your Mark I would prefer Mei Feng for as as much as I have wild fantasies about Toni being this vortex of aggression, for the most part a savvy player is going to stay the heck out of the way increasing the chance that my markers aren't going to be able to score. Show of Force any master can do but I would prefer Feng or 'Tina to lead an upgraded crew into battle and Hunting Party is much easier to do when you're not bogged down by two models and can pick and choose death targets.
Again, a massive problem as now I'm playing a master who can play one strategy and who won't be able to take half of the scheme pool made available. Need I go on?
My first thought was why I even liked Ironsides so much back in the day if with this improved scheme pool is so bad for her? Maybe it was beginners luck or playing against players who were unaware of how lethal Toni can be if you feed her models to ramp up her Adrenaline but maybe it was more due to her potential greatly outshining her actual presence on the table.
You see, when Toni was first revealed in Crossroads and even in beta testing, forums and players alike were saying how mad broken she was and what insanity she could perform when she got her adrenaline engine going. How she could break the game with Hand Picked Men and the combos that could outmatch Mei Feng.
The realization set in fairly quickly once the fog of giddy theoryfaux faded away. Hand Picked Men always seems to fall short no matter how one sets it up and Adrenaline?
There's never enough Adrenaline.
Make all your arguments, tell me how Mouse and the Captain are supposed to pull models into Ironside's melee range allowing her maximum Adrenaline when she activates; but even with maximum models in melee with her, everything you want to do becomes a detriment. Want to combo into Toni's Uppercut? Lose 2 Adrenaline, Want to combo again? Lose 2 more. Wanna move to another target? Lose 1 more. Heal? Lose all of it. Trying to save it for future turns? Lose one every turn to heal a single wound.
Even if you weren't to focus on Adrenaline, a 2/3/4 vanilla damage track even at Ml7 is lackluster and whilst I love Uppercut, trading a whole activation for a (2) action to do 4-5 damage and give out Slow simply isn't enough especially when it's Ml4 base before Adrenaline.
Let me be fair, what happens when the perfect set up happens? Allow me to share:
Toni is next to an enemy she charged last turn and is sitting on Adrenaline +2. The Captain then Airbursts a target into melee with Toni. The opponent activates and nimble + charges The Captain who takes damage allowing Toni to discard 2 low cards for Adrenaline. Other activations happen during which time the opponent activates the models in melee with Ironsides and activates Good Shot, My Turn thrice. Ironsides activates and with her defense trigger and Protective alongside the two enemy models within 2" she has Adrenaline +7. She opens with Brass Knuckles using the trigger to combo into Uppercut killing the first enemy model. She does the same with the second enemy and uses her final Ap to lure The Captain's opponent into her melee range and then uses her Stand Up, Stand Tall to heal 3 wounds in order to tank the next turns damage.
Again, perfect set up. To actually achieve this set of unfortunate events you needed to have Toni end a turn on Adrenaline +3 (Which requires you to discard cards, stone for the non-in-built trigger on her attack or pitching Tomes to her def trigger, a lot of resources that no one else can use). The next turn having the Captain be in range to grab a critter then conveniently take non-lethal damage twice within 6" of Ironsides (which she has to pitch more cards to) THEN having both enemies wound but-not-too-much Toni forcing more Tomes or Stones and then being on life totals that allow 6-7 damage to finish them off. Then, luring another model into the fray which may result in needing to cheat a card taking more damage then seeing Toni on little to no wounds after three models worth of attacks and forcing her to dump her Adrenaline so she stands a chance next turn. To those counting at home, 4 discards (two of which need to be Tomes), 2 high Rams/2 Soulstones then a medium to high card in order to ensure the lure. In other words, your whole hand and this is the perfect set up. You might ask "You don't need that much Adrenaline", you do if you want to actually hit with Uppercut.
"What about Hand Picked Men?" Okay, another way to play Ironsides is as a luring support piece. With models preventing her from taking the damage by standing in charge lanes and other friendlies getting in nice and close with auto-focus attacks. Great on paper but with proper terrain lay-out models are going to get stuck on corners or be out of LOS more often than not. If I wanted my whole crew to be focused all the time I would play Shen Long or Collodi. If I wanted to stay in Arcanist then Marcus or Collette can do exactly the same Focus/Lure tactic and have a LOT more options in a game in terms of mobility and winning Vp. Trying to make a master like Toni work by erasing 80% of her card is not going to win any hearts.
I won't go into what changes I would make as that's a slippery slope that leads to "Ml9 on every stat and every model in her crew gains Focus+2 when they activate" and quite frankly outside of an ENORMOUS errata, none of what I or anyone else says or suggests would make much of a difference. Toni is simply too much of hassle to play competitively with.
She is a great looking model and one of the few stories I really enjoyed reading in the books, alas, whilst I can rave all day about how she's this great threat in mosh-pit melee, when I look at cold hard facts and table experience, she just doesn't do enough. She wants to be in the middle of a brawl but lacks the capacity to survive within it. She wants to deal lots of damage to lots of models but once she hurts the first target, she suddenly becomes unable to do so to others. It's a sad sorry state of affairs to be in Toni's steel toe-capped boots.
As much as I really want Ironsides to be the great model that I once envisioned her to be, it's simply not meant to be. I could conjure up lists and ways to make her more manageable or find ways to make her "work", adding M&SU models haphazardly or adding models that I hope get ignored to score Vp but when I play a game and say to myself "I could be earning Victory Points so much easier if I had taken anyone else" that's a sign of a bad master.
It's a strange day when I would prefer to take Yan Lo of all models over Toni Ironsides. The old man's constant fidgety movement removing targets from areas they need to be is unfortunately more likely to score Victory Points more often than the brawlers rooted punching. Even Ramos with how dreadfully boring he is can at least fill the board with mobile scheme runners.
Fortunately, the remaining masters in my stable of champions I'm having a lot of fun playing and with Ironsides no longer being forced into games, it means at least Mei Feng is able to get the games that she deserves against more than just a gunline. Alas, Toni will have to join Ramos in the case of un-used masters for the foreseeable future until I find myself in the mood to playing inefficient or plain dull crew leaders.
Stay true to yourself and have fun out there.
Monday, 29 February 2016
A Rose by any Other Name
So far my stable of Arcanist masters are performing admirably well although a distinctive podium has occurred where Rasputina is tippidy top, Toni is taking silver and Mei is hanging onto third place by default. This is most likely due to the Ice Witch being my favorite master in Malifaux to play and her weaknesses not being so blatant as the other two. Having a master who straight up kills fools as well is pretty handy as a strength and one I have missed, playing a lot of Yan Lo and Mei Feng; Yes, Feng's total damage is up equal or dare I say higher than Rasputina's but December's Chosen is a lot more consistent with it.
Bad habits have formed mind you, the inclusion of Wyrd actually releasing Wave 2 tech in plastic for all our consumer needs, particularly in the advent of the Effigys, has not helped me in terms of good decisions in list making. Brutal Effigy is almost in every Guild list I face now and my own use of Arcane Effigy is absurd. Shadow Effigy being in "Mei Feng" place for most useful out of the seven. My game has suffered and not due to age old rantings of "this master is fun but struggles against Blank". No, my Win/Loss total in January sitting at an eerie 1-6 loss with 'Tina has shown me that despite the AWESOME POWER of a Winter Goddess at my disposal, I need to step back and rethink my strategy. Let me explain:
Lately, I've been running Rasputina as the core of my crew, to a degree it works and why Vp gets awarded to me but the problem now is I narrowed the focus too much and use more than half of my crew to simply buff up the Lady of the Tundra. Essence of Power gets pushed alongside Raspy by The Captain in order to use it's Amplify buff, then an Ice Garmin wanders up and with Bite of Winter buffing her damage followed next activation by the Arcane Effigy giving out Arcane Radiance.
Theoryfaux smiles greatly at this as now Avalanche Alice is Ca8, getting double duty out of her soulstones, a 3/5/6 damage track and has discard-or-burn attached to her already fairly aggressive attack options without relying on fragile ice mirrors being pushed so far up the board.
Theoryfaux can taking a running leap!
If you read back to my Mei Feng rundown here, you might notice why your humble writer putting all his hopes and dreams into a single model is a bad idea no matter how magic or kung-fu that model is. Cassie Cold spending 4ss on upgrades, 4ss on cache and then another 24ss just to spend a turn buffing her up is sheer lunacy in retrospective, especially considering that the opponent can see it coming 3 activations beforehand!
I try to be good at this game guys...
All these buffs are all well and good but thinking back, does Rasputina really need them? More damage is great. More out of my soulstones, neat. Sacrificing half my list to do it is insanity though and being an Icy death incarnate anyway, being death incarnate +1 seems overkill if it wasn't telegraphing every activation being so. Surely I have better things to spend points on than a dude who does nothing, a dude who does nothing and can explode, a dude who has nothing to do if no one has a condition and an old feller who helps all the useless dudes out before taking to midfield and effecting the actual game.
One game had Levi destroy Winter Wanda after I threw caution to the wind and nuked two Waifs that were in range. I felt at the time it was a good play, it put Levi on the backburner and stopped him from bamfing around the board wherever he wanted, then I sat back looking at Essence of Power posting C.Vs looking for a new job, Arcane Effigy lost in the woods with nothing to do and The Captain, bless his heart, pushing them both to tar-pit enemies. It was shameful to say the least and didn't give a great reason for Snowy Sandra (I'm running out of nicknames...) to stick her neck out. Even if it did hurt Levi's effectiveness in the long run, without that support to back up her noble sacrifice, all it did was rend an already tentative synergy with her models asunder. Without casters nearby, EoP literally does nothing, without a leader, the effigy is left as a defenseless medic all the while the shambles of the rest of my list were left with toothpicks to fight sharks with.
So, I put a new plan into action, no more "Team Mega Buff", no more un-cooked omelette sloshing around a basket, I set aside what December Diana could potentially do and started asking what she could do alongside her crew.
What is Rasputina good at? Blast damage, paralyzation and board control in the form of her Ice Pillars. Against crews that struggle against armor, she can boost the longevity of the models around her. So a good all-rounder. Who helps alongside that?
My totem of choice for so long: Essence of Power has been my go-to because of it's Ca and soulstone boosting. It has made recent games of "Malifaux Bowling" a treat, yet even with it's toted ability to increase Rasputina's soulstone use, most of the time it's hoping that Icy Alison doesn't move so it can give out it's Ca boost. My Rasputina moves basically the whole game, getting into range, getting around corners, moving in and out of cover, getting out of melee. A 3" push is a snails pace I agree but it's all Snow Mountain Maggie needs to be where she's required.
Sadly this puts E-O-Pow in the position of doing little else but double Tundra Tina's soulstone use, which is fine if not for her other totem: Wendigo doing a lot more for her as a whole.
Wendigo I never really got on with at first, he's frozen heart, a fast significant bugger yes but he's also Def4 with 6Wds. Very easy to kill and just the right amount of Wk6 non-peon that trigger fingers everywhere start getting itchy because of. The Essence is a insignificant peon, apart from adding to activations (something it doesn't even really use) it's pretty much a non-scoring, non-threat to all non-blast players.
So what does 'Digo give me? Is it even worth taking? Well lets take for example, Essence moves towards the Rasmus then she does her thing. Now lets do the same with Wendigo, instead, Frosty Florence (I guess I wasn't running out of nicknames) does her thing then passes the torch to Wendigo as a chain who then moves to a better location and copies a spell at Ca4. Ca4 doesn't set galaxies on fire but it's still extra pressure on the opponent or an additional buff, plus in a pitch he can at least charge and throw some fists on a near-dead dude. Devour is a powerful threat in a crew that can so easily paralyze.
Next on the agenda was greatly lowering the amount of buffs unless they effected more than just Rasimir Putina (the nicknames just keep on rollin') Ice Garmin has a very good 12" diameter buff that effects Frozen hearts so it's an option for more Frozen heart heavy lists but if Garmina del Ice isn't out buffing at least 2 models a turn, it's not worth using outside of thematic lists, or explosion spam which I enjoy sometimes.
When these lists aren't so chock full of Slush Puppy Valentines, or I'm potentially facing a lot of conditions, the Arcane Effigy is grand. More focus on it's (1) action is required as the Discard-or-Burn is nice but leaves the Effigy twiddling it's thumbs otherwise. The slow condition being used against DJ Ra-Ra-T's already plodding team is a nightmare and something the effigy is great at removing.
After that, it's really just a case of playing more to Sub-Zero Sally's strengths rather than avoiding her weaknesses. For a while now, I've been playing general Arcanist crews and placing Raspy (or Feng) in the center without any clear synergy or thought. Joss is great, Mole Men are great, Coryphee are glass cannon all-rounders yeah but when it came down to master activation, it could have been anyone. So I decided to populate lists with more frozen heart choices dedicating pieces not to Ice Mirror fonts of power but rather making every model be aware that 16" paralyze ray is a thing. Allowing in-crew synergies that didn't rely on Rasputina to use a (1) action to create as well was a boon. Snowstorm can push or can fire freely into F-H melees, Silent Ones heal F-Hs as well as using Ice Mirror herself and Ice Garmin being able to buff more than a single model making December Acolytes even more annoying and giving Snowstorms damage track some actual bite. Nice little things that I had left behind because of this narrowed down focus on making Rasputina the greatest thing ever.
The closer you look, the less you see.
With these old tricks re-implemented Freeze Over becomes a real pain for my opponents, engaging Frozen Hearts to stop the Ice Mirror is a well-known tactic but when that same frozen heart steps into base to base, slaps your model in the face and watches Gloria Glaicia paralyze you without even a chance to defend against it it's a work of art. With help from Snowstorms base size, even if she's engaged, she can pull other friendlies base to base just outside of melee engagement and have Ice Stalactite Stacy use Ice Mirror no problem. Wendigo being on protection duty by setting up really annoying walls messes with opponents movement plans and Ice Golem spreads slow as well as being a primary target, allowing the weaker parts of my crew to get where they needed to be.
as for non-Frozen Hearts, I've found great success in Hoarcat Pride, being another font for Devour allows Rar-Rar-Rasputina to do her paralyze thing and rely on more than Wendigo to finish the job.
And Joss, because Joss.
Every activation, Rasputina uses her "full" Ap, no more does she Push 3", make someone Frozen Heart and deal two damage. I still use Joss when Armor is prevalent but with more sense of synergy now, my games have gotten a lot more tighter and closer than if I were to rely on these general lists.
Never forget your master isn't the only model in your crew and have fun out there.
Bad habits have formed mind you, the inclusion of Wyrd actually releasing Wave 2 tech in plastic for all our consumer needs, particularly in the advent of the Effigys, has not helped me in terms of good decisions in list making. Brutal Effigy is almost in every Guild list I face now and my own use of Arcane Effigy is absurd. Shadow Effigy being in "Mei Feng" place for most useful out of the seven. My game has suffered and not due to age old rantings of "this master is fun but struggles against Blank". No, my Win/Loss total in January sitting at an eerie 1-6 loss with 'Tina has shown me that despite the AWESOME POWER of a Winter Goddess at my disposal, I need to step back and rethink my strategy. Let me explain:
Lately, I've been running Rasputina as the core of my crew, to a degree it works and why Vp gets awarded to me but the problem now is I narrowed the focus too much and use more than half of my crew to simply buff up the Lady of the Tundra. Essence of Power gets pushed alongside Raspy by The Captain in order to use it's Amplify buff, then an Ice Garmin wanders up and with Bite of Winter buffing her damage followed next activation by the Arcane Effigy giving out Arcane Radiance.
Theoryfaux smiles greatly at this as now Avalanche Alice is Ca8, getting double duty out of her soulstones, a 3/5/6 damage track and has discard-or-burn attached to her already fairly aggressive attack options without relying on fragile ice mirrors being pushed so far up the board.
Theoryfaux can taking a running leap!
If you read back to my Mei Feng rundown here, you might notice why your humble writer putting all his hopes and dreams into a single model is a bad idea no matter how magic or kung-fu that model is. Cassie Cold spending 4ss on upgrades, 4ss on cache and then another 24ss just to spend a turn buffing her up is sheer lunacy in retrospective, especially considering that the opponent can see it coming 3 activations beforehand!
I try to be good at this game guys...
All these buffs are all well and good but thinking back, does Rasputina really need them? More damage is great. More out of my soulstones, neat. Sacrificing half my list to do it is insanity though and being an Icy death incarnate anyway, being death incarnate +1 seems overkill if it wasn't telegraphing every activation being so. Surely I have better things to spend points on than a dude who does nothing, a dude who does nothing and can explode, a dude who has nothing to do if no one has a condition and an old feller who helps all the useless dudes out before taking to midfield and effecting the actual game.
One game had Levi destroy Winter Wanda after I threw caution to the wind and nuked two Waifs that were in range. I felt at the time it was a good play, it put Levi on the backburner and stopped him from bamfing around the board wherever he wanted, then I sat back looking at Essence of Power posting C.Vs looking for a new job, Arcane Effigy lost in the woods with nothing to do and The Captain, bless his heart, pushing them both to tar-pit enemies. It was shameful to say the least and didn't give a great reason for Snowy Sandra (I'm running out of nicknames...) to stick her neck out. Even if it did hurt Levi's effectiveness in the long run, without that support to back up her noble sacrifice, all it did was rend an already tentative synergy with her models asunder. Without casters nearby, EoP literally does nothing, without a leader, the effigy is left as a defenseless medic all the while the shambles of the rest of my list were left with toothpicks to fight sharks with.
So, I put a new plan into action, no more "Team Mega Buff", no more un-cooked omelette sloshing around a basket, I set aside what December Diana could potentially do and started asking what she could do alongside her crew.
What is Rasputina good at? Blast damage, paralyzation and board control in the form of her Ice Pillars. Against crews that struggle against armor, she can boost the longevity of the models around her. So a good all-rounder. Who helps alongside that?
My totem of choice for so long: Essence of Power has been my go-to because of it's Ca and soulstone boosting. It has made recent games of "Malifaux Bowling" a treat, yet even with it's toted ability to increase Rasputina's soulstone use, most of the time it's hoping that Icy Alison doesn't move so it can give out it's Ca boost. My Rasputina moves basically the whole game, getting into range, getting around corners, moving in and out of cover, getting out of melee. A 3" push is a snails pace I agree but it's all Snow Mountain Maggie needs to be where she's required.
Sadly this puts E-O-Pow in the position of doing little else but double Tundra Tina's soulstone use, which is fine if not for her other totem: Wendigo doing a lot more for her as a whole.
Wendigo I never really got on with at first, he's frozen heart, a fast significant bugger yes but he's also Def4 with 6Wds. Very easy to kill and just the right amount of Wk6 non-peon that trigger fingers everywhere start getting itchy because of. The Essence is a insignificant peon, apart from adding to activations (something it doesn't even really use) it's pretty much a non-scoring, non-threat to all non-blast players.
So what does 'Digo give me? Is it even worth taking? Well lets take for example, Essence moves towards the Rasmus then she does her thing. Now lets do the same with Wendigo, instead, Frosty Florence (I guess I wasn't running out of nicknames) does her thing then passes the torch to Wendigo as a chain who then moves to a better location and copies a spell at Ca4. Ca4 doesn't set galaxies on fire but it's still extra pressure on the opponent or an additional buff, plus in a pitch he can at least charge and throw some fists on a near-dead dude. Devour is a powerful threat in a crew that can so easily paralyze.
Next on the agenda was greatly lowering the amount of buffs unless they effected more than just Rasimir Putina (the nicknames just keep on rollin') Ice Garmin has a very good 12" diameter buff that effects Frozen hearts so it's an option for more Frozen heart heavy lists but if Garmina del Ice isn't out buffing at least 2 models a turn, it's not worth using outside of thematic lists, or explosion spam which I enjoy sometimes.
When these lists aren't so chock full of Slush Puppy Valentines, or I'm potentially facing a lot of conditions, the Arcane Effigy is grand. More focus on it's (1) action is required as the Discard-or-Burn is nice but leaves the Effigy twiddling it's thumbs otherwise. The slow condition being used against DJ Ra-Ra-T's already plodding team is a nightmare and something the effigy is great at removing.
After that, it's really just a case of playing more to Sub-Zero Sally's strengths rather than avoiding her weaknesses. For a while now, I've been playing general Arcanist crews and placing Raspy (or Feng) in the center without any clear synergy or thought. Joss is great, Mole Men are great, Coryphee are glass cannon all-rounders yeah but when it came down to master activation, it could have been anyone. So I decided to populate lists with more frozen heart choices dedicating pieces not to Ice Mirror fonts of power but rather making every model be aware that 16" paralyze ray is a thing. Allowing in-crew synergies that didn't rely on Rasputina to use a (1) action to create as well was a boon. Snowstorm can push or can fire freely into F-H melees, Silent Ones heal F-Hs as well as using Ice Mirror herself and Ice Garmin being able to buff more than a single model making December Acolytes even more annoying and giving Snowstorms damage track some actual bite. Nice little things that I had left behind because of this narrowed down focus on making Rasputina the greatest thing ever.
The closer you look, the less you see.
With these old tricks re-implemented Freeze Over becomes a real pain for my opponents, engaging Frozen Hearts to stop the Ice Mirror is a well-known tactic but when that same frozen heart steps into base to base, slaps your model in the face and watches Gloria Glaicia paralyze you without even a chance to defend against it it's a work of art. With help from Snowstorms base size, even if she's engaged, she can pull other friendlies base to base just outside of melee engagement and have Ice Stalactite Stacy use Ice Mirror no problem. Wendigo being on protection duty by setting up really annoying walls messes with opponents movement plans and Ice Golem spreads slow as well as being a primary target, allowing the weaker parts of my crew to get where they needed to be.
as for non-Frozen Hearts, I've found great success in Hoarcat Pride, being another font for Devour allows Rar-Rar-Rasputina to do her paralyze thing and rely on more than Wendigo to finish the job.
And Joss, because Joss.
Every activation, Rasputina uses her "full" Ap, no more does she Push 3", make someone Frozen Heart and deal two damage. I still use Joss when Armor is prevalent but with more sense of synergy now, my games have gotten a lot more tighter and closer than if I were to rely on these general lists.
Never forget your master isn't the only model in your crew and have fun out there.
Monday, 22 February 2016
Joden is in a Stable Relationship
After fixed master events, you tend to run into the problem that the master you chose kinda sorta gets killed on certain tables. It's nothing new but in these situations the Perdita's, the Levi's, the Lilith's and others get called OP or "Beginner mode" masters simply because their presence on a board requires an action that they are (mostly) very well defended against regardless of the scheme or strategy. Lilith and her crew doesn't NEED to be killed in Squatters Rights but when the Waldgeists have severe soft cover near Lili's dense severe soft cover on top of Squat markers, that whenever you get near or in, Nephilim keep pushing you out of, you sort of have to answer the question which that master is proposing:
Misaki in Growfaux did remarkably well as a whole. Having a master so dedicated to two things: Movement and Death, means that the only weakness she has is bad positioning, which to be fair, I'm quite proficient at. At the same time though, she was very basic.
Her main theme seems to be having a lack of soulstones and more crew options because of it. Sadly, my Ten Thunders collection is lacking in any sort of defenses or ability to deal that mad damage yo. So when Misaki or Mei Feng take the wheel, they are wholesomely the center of my crew's damage potential, which means even when the heavy hitters: Izamu, Rail Workers, Torakage etc etc get to where they need to be, they are taken out with relative ease and then the master has to charge in anyway. At some point, buying the Dark Debts box for Illuminated, buying the tag-team of Mr Tannen and Mr Graves, then buying the Temple of Dawn box for Sensei Yu and hoping and praying for Ten Thunder's Brothers to come out in plastic means to extend my options in Ten Thunders would take a fairly large chunk out of my wage packet to play Master's that are fun but I have tremendous trouble winning even games with.
Really though, what this event has shown me is that I am so very tired of bad match ups that I bring onto myself. I've tried the single master ideology and it sort of worked with Yan Lo.
Forcing myself to take on every challenge as the underdog; it was with the goal in mind to find a way to make Yan Lo work and in essence I achieved that and gave a more narrowed focus on what his strengths and weaknesses are. With Mei on the other hand, I already know what she does well and what she doesn't so I'm not learning her so much more that I'm re-defining my own tactics that I bring to the table with any master. Simply having one master to bring to a game means I need to have a master who is a good all-rounder to avoid that bad match up occurrence, staying with a single crew leader is normally to my disadvantage and this fact is cemented even more so with the advent of Gaining Grounds 2016's scheme pool.
Mei Feng is primarily good at two things, defending her crew from ranged threats and chip damage in melee. Her secondary role being mobility and displacing enemy models yet so far, with a well distributed terrain layout, most of the time she's forcefully planting her limbs across a targets vital organs whilst they lean against a wall. With Vent Steam, whilst it's a great deterrent, the moment a model comes within charge range, it's up to those models to either deal with the threat or have Mei Feng rush into melee thus moving her away from the ideal location to put up the steam and many players know this to be the case. Sure they'll take a whole bunch of damage but they've traded one model to put the crosshairs on the rest of my crew. Ten Thunders Mei has Yamaziko to lead a hand for this, Feng Venting and Yama bracing, protecting each other's weaknesses but outside of Captain pushes, Arcanist lack a way to deter charges other than with the reply of the 5 point palm exploding heart technique.
It's a balancing act.
Reading back on past posts, you know who gets mentioned the most? Ironsides and Rasputina, more than likely due to those being the masters I played a lot with before Yan Lo but all the more because the high points of my time in Malifaux have these two masters kicking bottom and taking no notice of names (whilst being out of gum...). I had loads of fun with them and really wish I could have them back in the limelight.
Now I could start playing purely Ironsides or purely Rasputina but quite frankly, I've grown tired of the aforementioned bad match-ups. Those games where I've chosen my master beforehand and then you flip those strategies and those schemes and voila! Before the game has began I've already lost 4Vp. Negativity aside, having a well-rounded stable of Masters, in this case The Defensive Mei Feng, the Offensive Rasputina and the Stasis Ironsides, stops poor match-ups from happening as frequently. It means I only have my own skill to comment on when it comes to victories or defeats as I'm wiry of saying "Welp <Master> is no good in this game".
If I get my face kicked in, I don't wanna be the guy who laments on what could of been if I had only brought <list of models> instead.
Being able instead to say "I'm bringing this master and these models because they have the greatest chance of winning" is more logical to me than "Well I've made my choice, I'd better place my head on this grindstone". If I were to face Molly again, would I bring a master who struggles against one wound models or do I bring a master who is immune to black blood and can handle a crowd. If I were playing Turf War with Deliver the Message and Distract on the table would I bring a Melee threat or keep everyone dead at range? If I'm playing Squatters against a superior ranged opponent am I going to use models that have a hard time against that or bring a master who can protect them from it? Logically speaking, why would I gimp myself just to remind myself that in bad match-ups, a particular master is bad? I already knew they were! A player gains no further knowledge by repeating the exact same action again and again and expecting a different outcome.
Toni and Rasputina have their fair share of weaknesses like Mei Feng as well to be sure.
Ironsides hates schemes where the opponent benefits from the master staying in one place and any amount of pushes are her bane as it means her well crafted Death Metal Mosh Pit turns into a quiet sunday Pub Lunch. If Toni can't tarpit, she can't get Adrenaline and then she's "simply" a taunt/luring master. This does mean the opponent has to deal with Toni in order to effectively do anything within a 24" inch diameter bubble that isn't attacking Toni but she's happiest when she has 3 models in the thick of combat and kicking absolute royal behind.
Rasputina is harder to talk about when it comes to weaknesses as I've played her enough to circumvent her most well known ones. Melee is nothing to be feared when Snowstorm or Armor of December can be used to righteously punish a would-be attacker after sub-zero shuts them down. Engaging her Ice Mirrors is also well known but I personally don't rely on mirrors for this very reason, I keep my plans to 12" range and expect the added 10" only as a bonus. Range attacks and de-buff auras are a problem but that's where the Ice Pillars come in or keep in mind that the typical range of these threats are also 12" so the Raspmas can still attack back.
This is hard. Back in the day all the above really bothered me but, as above, I "fixed" them so they were more manageable. Okay, try-over, lets start again:
Summoning that aren't cluster summons can really drain Rasputina's killing potential, as at least 3/4's of the time, it's a toolbox summon and spending even 2Ap dealing with them is beneficial to my opponent's single Ap to summon it. If my opponent is able to summon an "effect when model dies" or 3" de-buff aura next to Rasputina, that pretty much end's her as they're no longer attempting to tar-pit 'Tina or using melee attacks against her. Willpower spam she also has a hard time with as if Counterspell isn't helping, it takes it toll.
Summoning and auras there we go, they're weaknesses. Moving on.
So far as Mei Feng goes, I see her more as a defensive master so if I'm facing guild for instance, Feng will likely appear if I feel Rapsy and Toni can't deal with the damage output. Vent Steam x2 is tricky to get through for anybody at range and so long as I don't stand in one place all game in the cage of hands I've created myself, I would at least have a chance. Mei Feng can and has dealt with a whole range of non-armored foes but if she can deal with them, Rasputina and Ironsides can do so better.
It's easy to see Rasputina as an all-rounder but Ironsides is better at pure shut down and out of the three it's clear to see that Feng has the best crew shield. If 'Tina kills a Crooligan after it's dropped it's breakthrough markers, it will take a whole lot of Ap to pick that one marker up. If on the other hand Toni has charged it head-on or taunt/lured it before that time, she has successfully shut that model down from doing it's job. Facing a marker-summoner? The summoner in question will love it if you killed that 4ss model so they can summon that 8ss model from it. Toni will hold them in place without necessarily killing them having the summoner provide their own rather than saying "Thanks for the easy summon mate". If I'm facing that wall of gunfire and casting though, Feng steps in and makes card flipping that much harder, as well as being able to scout the board once the pieces are in place. In essence all masters covering for the other's weaknesses, like a good stable should.
Time will tell how successful I am. Keep those tactics sharp and have fun out there.
Misaki in Growfaux did remarkably well as a whole. Having a master so dedicated to two things: Movement and Death, means that the only weakness she has is bad positioning, which to be fair, I'm quite proficient at. At the same time though, she was very basic.
Her main theme seems to be having a lack of soulstones and more crew options because of it. Sadly, my Ten Thunders collection is lacking in any sort of defenses or ability to deal that mad damage yo. So when Misaki or Mei Feng take the wheel, they are wholesomely the center of my crew's damage potential, which means even when the heavy hitters: Izamu, Rail Workers, Torakage etc etc get to where they need to be, they are taken out with relative ease and then the master has to charge in anyway. At some point, buying the Dark Debts box for Illuminated, buying the tag-team of Mr Tannen and Mr Graves, then buying the Temple of Dawn box for Sensei Yu and hoping and praying for Ten Thunder's Brothers to come out in plastic means to extend my options in Ten Thunders would take a fairly large chunk out of my wage packet to play Master's that are fun but I have tremendous trouble winning even games with.
Really though, what this event has shown me is that I am so very tired of bad match ups that I bring onto myself. I've tried the single master ideology and it sort of worked with Yan Lo.
Forcing myself to take on every challenge as the underdog; it was with the goal in mind to find a way to make Yan Lo work and in essence I achieved that and gave a more narrowed focus on what his strengths and weaknesses are. With Mei on the other hand, I already know what she does well and what she doesn't so I'm not learning her so much more that I'm re-defining my own tactics that I bring to the table with any master. Simply having one master to bring to a game means I need to have a master who is a good all-rounder to avoid that bad match up occurrence, staying with a single crew leader is normally to my disadvantage and this fact is cemented even more so with the advent of Gaining Grounds 2016's scheme pool.
Mei Feng is primarily good at two things, defending her crew from ranged threats and chip damage in melee. Her secondary role being mobility and displacing enemy models yet so far, with a well distributed terrain layout, most of the time she's forcefully planting her limbs across a targets vital organs whilst they lean against a wall. With Vent Steam, whilst it's a great deterrent, the moment a model comes within charge range, it's up to those models to either deal with the threat or have Mei Feng rush into melee thus moving her away from the ideal location to put up the steam and many players know this to be the case. Sure they'll take a whole bunch of damage but they've traded one model to put the crosshairs on the rest of my crew. Ten Thunders Mei has Yamaziko to lead a hand for this, Feng Venting and Yama bracing, protecting each other's weaknesses but outside of Captain pushes, Arcanist lack a way to deter charges other than with the reply of the 5 point palm exploding heart technique.
It's a balancing act.
Reading back on past posts, you know who gets mentioned the most? Ironsides and Rasputina, more than likely due to those being the masters I played a lot with before Yan Lo but all the more because the high points of my time in Malifaux have these two masters kicking bottom and taking no notice of names (whilst being out of gum...). I had loads of fun with them and really wish I could have them back in the limelight.
Now I could start playing purely Ironsides or purely Rasputina but quite frankly, I've grown tired of the aforementioned bad match-ups. Those games where I've chosen my master beforehand and then you flip those strategies and those schemes and voila! Before the game has began I've already lost 4Vp. Negativity aside, having a well-rounded stable of Masters, in this case The Defensive Mei Feng, the Offensive Rasputina and the Stasis Ironsides, stops poor match-ups from happening as frequently. It means I only have my own skill to comment on when it comes to victories or defeats as I'm wiry of saying "Welp <Master> is no good in this game". If I get my face kicked in, I don't wanna be the guy who laments on what could of been if I had only brought <list of models> instead.
Being able instead to say "I'm bringing this master and these models because they have the greatest chance of winning" is more logical to me than "Well I've made my choice, I'd better place my head on this grindstone". If I were to face Molly again, would I bring a master who struggles against one wound models or do I bring a master who is immune to black blood and can handle a crowd. If I were playing Turf War with Deliver the Message and Distract on the table would I bring a Melee threat or keep everyone dead at range? If I'm playing Squatters against a superior ranged opponent am I going to use models that have a hard time against that or bring a master who can protect them from it? Logically speaking, why would I gimp myself just to remind myself that in bad match-ups, a particular master is bad? I already knew they were! A player gains no further knowledge by repeating the exact same action again and again and expecting a different outcome.
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| Have I ever told you the definition of using only one master? |
Toni and Rasputina have their fair share of weaknesses like Mei Feng as well to be sure.
Ironsides hates schemes where the opponent benefits from the master staying in one place and any amount of pushes are her bane as it means her well crafted Death Metal Mosh Pit turns into a quiet sunday Pub Lunch. If Toni can't tarpit, she can't get Adrenaline and then she's "simply" a taunt/luring master. This does mean the opponent has to deal with Toni in order to effectively do anything within a 24" inch diameter bubble that isn't attacking Toni but she's happiest when she has 3 models in the thick of combat and kicking absolute royal behind.
Rasputina is harder to talk about when it comes to weaknesses as I've played her enough to circumvent her most well known ones. Melee is nothing to be feared when Snowstorm or Armor of December can be used to righteously punish a would-be attacker after sub-zero shuts them down. Engaging her Ice Mirrors is also well known but I personally don't rely on mirrors for this very reason, I keep my plans to 12" range and expect the added 10" only as a bonus. Range attacks and de-buff auras are a problem but that's where the Ice Pillars come in or keep in mind that the typical range of these threats are also 12" so the Raspmas can still attack back.
This is hard. Back in the day all the above really bothered me but, as above, I "fixed" them so they were more manageable. Okay, try-over, lets start again:
Summoning that aren't cluster summons can really drain Rasputina's killing potential, as at least 3/4's of the time, it's a toolbox summon and spending even 2Ap dealing with them is beneficial to my opponent's single Ap to summon it. If my opponent is able to summon an "effect when model dies" or 3" de-buff aura next to Rasputina, that pretty much end's her as they're no longer attempting to tar-pit 'Tina or using melee attacks against her. Willpower spam she also has a hard time with as if Counterspell isn't helping, it takes it toll.
Summoning and auras there we go, they're weaknesses. Moving on.
So far as Mei Feng goes, I see her more as a defensive master so if I'm facing guild for instance, Feng will likely appear if I feel Rapsy and Toni can't deal with the damage output. Vent Steam x2 is tricky to get through for anybody at range and so long as I don't stand in one place all game in the cage of hands I've created myself, I would at least have a chance. Mei Feng can and has dealt with a whole range of non-armored foes but if she can deal with them, Rasputina and Ironsides can do so better.
It's easy to see Rasputina as an all-rounder but Ironsides is better at pure shut down and out of the three it's clear to see that Feng has the best crew shield. If 'Tina kills a Crooligan after it's dropped it's breakthrough markers, it will take a whole lot of Ap to pick that one marker up. If on the other hand Toni has charged it head-on or taunt/lured it before that time, she has successfully shut that model down from doing it's job. Facing a marker-summoner? The summoner in question will love it if you killed that 4ss model so they can summon that 8ss model from it. Toni will hold them in place without necessarily killing them having the summoner provide their own rather than saying "Thanks for the easy summon mate". If I'm facing that wall of gunfire and casting though, Feng steps in and makes card flipping that much harder, as well as being able to scout the board once the pieces are in place. In essence all masters covering for the other's weaknesses, like a good stable should.
Time will tell how successful I am. Keep those tactics sharp and have fun out there.
Monday, 21 December 2015
What's in the box!!? - Arcanist Mei Feng
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| Mills, you look a little different... |
Mei Feng - Mei Feng actually has a number of choices when it comes to upgrade selection, the only auto-include is Seismic Claws for that sweet sweet combo action, then a (not very) tough choice of whether or not to use Arcane Reservoir; after that it's up to my opponent. If I suspect they're playing with incorporeal or ranged game, Vapormancy is a must and with the Vent Steam trigger making Ca & Sh actions that much harder. Marker manipulation? Thunderous Smash can lead a hand, deleting with ease all common markers, if it's a more lower end defense crew I'm facing, Price of Progress or Recharge Soulstone to take advantage of the situation and of course, the ever-present Instill Energy if I need a even more Ap. Lots of options but it makes for crucial decisions during the list building step, I can't take upgrades for the fun of it then find out they aren't being used whatsoever.
Emberling - Unlike push totems, Emberling won't feature in every list but as a Wk5 significant Incorporeal 3ss model, it has merit to scheme run if necessary. Depending on my opponent's models and their damage output, I could charge into a model (10" threat range) lay 0-4 burning on it then have Feng join in and get her +damage flip against them without having to spend her own trigger, end of turn via Stoke the Flames the burning deals damage and doesn't fall off.
Amazing if this actually happened but it's nice to think about if the situation comes up.
His Cool Down ability is far too costly but it's worth a blind flip if there's nothing else to do.
Kang - A model with mixed reactions. He is a tank to take down and hit's like one too but damn is he slow with average threat range and head of the Wk4 club. His Rousing Speech and The Worker's Champion buffs are the main reason I would take him, against horror duels, undead or constructs he's turns the regular model into a real threat... if he could just get up the board, which is why I take...
The Captain - If there's one crutch I have in Arcanists, it's this guy. Being able to increase my deployment zone by 5" for up to three models and generally assisting models afterwards makes The Captain a hard cut. If I'm already filling my ranks with 10ss-12ss he can stay at home but if I require speed over brawn, The Captain w/ Patron's Blessing is at my side.
Joss - Playing Arcanists? Give me two good reasons why you aren't packing Joss. He's got decent defenses, one of which grants him reactivate, an Axe which ignores all common barriers and a (2) action God Punch with 5/8/10 damage that can paralyze and can turn dead targets into Mei Feng bounce pads (as well as being one himself). Such a good model and a hard cut when he doesn't fit a list (for some strange reason).
Howard Langston - Psst, if Frame for Murder is in the pool and I've hired Howard, he's the guy you have to kill to give me 2 or 3 vp. Tell no one.
Hank is unfortunately the model that does a lot but never survives the game. In the past I've used him as a scheme runner, as who the heck is going to mess with him but that's 12ss/13ss for a job that could be done by a model who's a third less expensive. Not this time round.
Terrifying (Living) 12 and Armor +1 are not wonderful buffers against an average def/wp but Nimble with Flurry are evil and having an easy Decapitate trigger going off with those three attacks is a model killer right there. In the future I need to pick and choose my targets and avoid using a quarter of my list as one scheme runner.
December Acolyte - From the Shadows with the ability to slow models and force discards is the primary reason I love bringing these guys so much. Their Smell Weakness is situational as if the Acolyte is on the table they are a massive target but when it comes into play against a target already in combat it turns that difficult to end model into a plate of instant mash potato. Lacks any synergy with Feng out of weakness smelling but when it offers this much to a crew, it doesn't need any.
Psst also a Frame for Murder choice...
Metal Garmin - Ouch These guys took a beating with errata, nonetheless, against a crew that can't deal with armor these guys can hold the fort quite well and against constructs they provide a basically unbeatable 2 damage snipe attack through Magnetism (16" - 24" threat range). One of the most famous members of the Wk4 clubhouse, so again, it limits my choices when list-building. They've changed from an auto-include to a defensive model protector and that's fine, their job has changed drastically yes but they still have a place in my lists and for rail-walking purposes they're golden.
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| Take it away! |
Moleman - What another non-construct!?
I like Molemen for their sheer fanatical dedication to solely one thing: The Mole Train! A pair of leap-frogging Molemen can cover a field in scheme markers and only long ranged armor busters can deal with it. Keep them out of the action and watch the markers hit the floor. Only really helpful for Breakthrough, Plant Explosive/Evidence and Protect Territory though, otherwise they do 8ss worth of nothing.
The Firestarter - His (most of the time) 3Ap and Flight makes him wonderfully mobile and if I really need an activated non-armored target to die at the end of the turn, pouring some tomes and soulstones on a model can almost always place a death mark on a model in question. Very fragile so I have to ensure he stays out of the way otherwise but for Vp gaining, this guy is a fantastic all-rounder for Arcanists.
Coryphee - The Coryphee's movement is ridiculous. As scheme runners and sometimes more importantly: Scheme hunters, you can't ask for a faster model, this speed with their native +flips to their def6 with Armor makes them hard to take down in one hit and so long as they aren't in the thick of things, they do their intended role perfectly. This is to say nothing about the complete absurdity that is the Coryphee Duet but sometimes a 14ss model is a lot to ask out of a list unless it's going to win this game all by itself.
Mechanical Rider - Sometimes you just want marker based schemes won. Pro-terri, Breakthrough, Power Ritual, both Plants, you just want to say "Yes I've won them" and Mech Rider has a high chance of doing just that. With the new errata on Metal Garmin you can even summon more than one thing now, giving it much more options. Just gotta keep it out of the limelight until turn 3, otherwise it goes down pretty darn easily.
Johan - Condition removal is big, being able to end ALL of them from a 10" range is even better. A 4+ of rams isn't guaranteed every turn but it's a least a decent probability so if my models are rooted, poisoned, etc etc the M&SU Merc has my back. A member of the Wk4 club so it does limit my options if I require Johan but with Finish the Job, a Relic hammer and flurry so long as he's where he needs to be, he hits hard.
Blessed of December - When possible, I always bring a leaping model in the box purely for times when Stake a Claim rears it's head or my regular scheme runners are likely to have their armor ignored. The shields to her wounds are almost non-existent but if needed she has a pretty mean attack that can heal so for backfield purposes she performs well.
Fire Garmin - Cheap, ranged burning with a melee that gives burning and a def trigger that gives burning and upon death, gives burning...
Damage is sub-standard but the Garmin aren't here for damage, they are here to set up the rest of the crew for burning goodness.
Wille - I have to be honest, I've never had luck with Wille the Demo man but that was due to who I was throwing him up against. Ideally I want him going against def5 or armored targets, as anyone else sort of chuckles at Wille's attempts at offense. His LOS ignoring attack Demo Charge is fine but going down to Sh4 kills it unless it's the very last activation or I just want to plink some cards out of the opponent's hand. Ranged attacks also drop him so he's going to be bunkered down at Sh4 anyway. sigh I want to try him out as the times I have seen across from me he's made an impact in the game so I think he just needs the right table.
Can't stay long, Mills says there's a club he wants to take me to, says he can't talk about it though. Have fun out there.
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