Other titles in I had in mind were
"Frame for FUN"
"Just, Just Go Sit in a Corner"
& "Guys? Control Hand? Guys!?".
The more you know.
What I've found out and touched upon late last year was, sometimes in a game of Malifaux, some models just plain don't matter anymore. A recent game had Snowstorm face down the fury of a very angry Mei Feng but with activations remaining and the necessity of getting past opponent's high cards and the rather likely Vent Steam, I felt it best to leave it to fate.
A very sad, possibly in slow-motion, Snow and Storm, with a single tear running down both of their faces to the sound of a resonantly somber song, stand defeated. They both stare at Rasputina, no hatred in their eyes but rather tearful regrets.
Time stops. If only for a moment.
They smile as a suitably aggressive heavy metal music slowly fades in followed swiftly by Mei Feng's Tiger Claws destroying their very essence rending them asunder...
I want the thank the academy....
What actually happened far, far away from imagination land is Mei Feng flipping higher numbers than Snowstorm's numbers, my decision not to cheat higher, then removing the model depiction of a fictional character from the table.
The above prose sounds better in the grander scheme of things mind you.
It's a skill that beginner players learn to adapt into their games and it took me quite a long time to consider that with only a finite resource of control hand available for semi-assured actions, using them wisely and knowing when to "not bother" for certain models is not only reserved for just for when my control hand is empty but I don't want to repeat what I previously said in "The Devil Makes Work of Idle Hands" for hand management. I want to talk about those times when your one of the remaining 7 or 8 models is just not worth keeping around. They've lost that glow, they aren't the same model you've hired anymore and you want to move on and concentrate on your work. You're in different places and you feel a Oh good they're dead, man it was getting to be a drag being with that model dude.
I've had it happen in many games, turn four rolls up and I'm either winning or drawing with a chance at a comeback and my opponent activates and concentrates their fire on some dude who is out of position who's not ever going to score this game and who can only really attack for no gain. The rest of my models are protecting schemes, scoring for strategy or in a position where they can end the game where they need to be.
This guy This Guy though, he's getting nowhere in life, riding the coat-tails of my more successful models and not keeping up paying his half of the rent. If my opponent is courteous enough to, lets say, Evict this particular individual from my life; well I suppose I'll look the other way during this, shall we say, Intervention.
Sometimes you have to take advantage of your opponent's blood lust by being Zen and accept losing a model in this instance is a natural part of tabletop life. If they cheat cards in order to hit the poor individual then all the more better. When I'm on a speculative 7-6 victory and only really need those 4 models around to ensure that assumed point total, models 5 and 6 better be stopping the opponent's Vp or else they get no control hand to assist them with breathing. It's late game and the loss of a Key model is brutal so if my opponent wants to throw their fate at a small fry, so be it.
This is of course assuming I'm winning. When it's likely that loss is on the cards (and with a year's total win/draw/loss standing at 5/1/10, for me its certainly likely) getting to even decide what models live and die is sadly out of my hands. Most of my models by game end are either engaged or 12ft under, so I have absolutely no choice in letting a model die, most likely I'll need all of them to have a chance at a draw. In these situations who do you save cards for and who do you give the face cards to? They're all required to score!
Quite honestly, without the game in front of me, I can't give a general answer. If the strategy is low, focus on your guys who can score it and if a scheme is score-able, let your guys who have a chance take a shot I guess....
If both are low (as what most happens to yours truly, look I don't follow my own advice all the time, okay) then the fate deck will have to unfortunately cover you. I've had scoring models who have taken a LOT of heat and lived much longer than they had any right to by top-decking fate. When a Sister at the chapel of Viktoria takes more than 4 swings to take down Joss with all her relevant buffs and all I had were those lucky top decks, I call that a win even if it resulted in Vp, model and game loss.
Then there's the time the deck screws you and the models you'd expect to be able to take a series of hits and stay standing, are left as little more than dust in the wind. It happens. How many of you have suffered a face card vs Black Joker only to see a Red Joker in the damage flip? Devastating.
I've learned in my recent games to plan for eventualities. It's not always clear but by the middle of turn 3, I can roughly imagine how things are going to go down and what the score is likely to be by game end. What me and my opponent can do to change that can be at least assumed at this point also. By the end of turn 4, I have a detailed idea of what points are left to be scored so I attempt to make key models in advantageous positions long beforehand, which in turn (presuming my opponent is doing much the same) creates closer games than if I were to attempt purely last turn Vp gains. Gaining Grounds 2016's new schemes has leveled this out somewhat by allowing players to score throughout the game rather than the all or nothing at game's end that was the base rule book schemes but even so, with enough Malifaux experience, you get a gut-feeling how scores will go down by mid-game. It's shown me greater depth of forward planning and knowing what models are most likely to achieve that objective. And also what models are best left as bullet sponge punching bags.
Keep calm, remain Zen and have fun out there.
Monday, 21 March 2016
Monday, 14 March 2016
Me? Deny your Vp by Support? No Mr Bond, I Expect You to Die!
I once had a very short and prompt discussion on the topic of Support masters versus Killy masters, with both of us agreeing at the time that Killy masters on the surface appear to have the advantage in terms of gaining and denying Vp; whereas a support master can easily score 10Vp but maybe have trouble against preventing the opposing players.
In my relatively limited and casual experience, this seemed to be the case. Yan Lo can and will score 10vp unless his crew is taken out to the point where it's no longer possible. Any common model (read non-peon) can score marker based schemes and every faction has a tanky model to stand and take hits whilst accomplishing interact actions or protecting future Vp investments but after that? How are you going to deal with your opponent scoring just as well with their models? It's something which killy crews can take advantage of easier than support masters
Most players I've pitched this question to have stated that masters being denoted as simple Death-dealing or Support is much too black and white which I stand to agree with. Rasputina is very killy but with Ice Pillars and handing out Armor +1 with Silent Ones healing alongside the fine Freeze Over, one could easily argue that hand-in-hand with sheer unadulterated death, that she's also great at supporting her crew allowing them to win games.
Nicodem is very supportive but with all his summons being buffed to the teeth and a general disregard for them un-living for too long, his crew can also be described as killy. Ramos creates spiders and does a bunch of Ap-oh-who-cares (I'm not a fan) but when his spiders are positioned with care, taking down a Df3 or less henchman with constructs having every buff they need is a simple job. Thus it comes down to what scheme pool is on the table and taking it from there.
How often does a table wipe happen in your meta? Many out there might be in agreement that winning a strategy with no one left across from you turn 3 onwards is the easiest thing ever (in most of circumstances mind; Collect the Bounty with a bunch of schemes requiring interactions or keeping your opponent's models alive will more than likely result in a tie) but really how often does it happen? Every game? Every one in five? If it happens a lot then either there's no terrain whatsoever or your opponents are making a lot of mistakes often. It's hard to come back from massive out-activation yes, especially when the Viks have Whirlwind'ed any model that's vaguely threatening from the table early game but, even if it's the most flukeiest luckiest set of circumstances ever, you could still win with nothing more than Wk4 significant models. Without living in a dream world though, facing down perfectly positioned death squadrons is tough without knowing exact threat ranges and a small amount of card counting, thus why Perdita, Levi, Sonnia, Viktorias are normally met with an audible "ehh" from new to advanced players.
On further musing, in my meta at least, the same "oh jeez, really?" can also be said about Dreamer, Collodi, Colette and Jack Daw. Masters and core crews that don't strictly rely on murder but still absolutely mess with your models to the point of stasis.
Jack Daw for instance isn't what you would call a damage dealing god, but being able to (effectively) shut down 3 models with basic ease, he doesn't need to be. He doesn't kill your models, more he gives your models the opportunity to kill themselves. With so much control on the board, your models don't have to be dead to stop doing what they need to do in a game.
Collette isn't killing any master but with enough experience playing Colette, she and her crew have free range of the table. Her showgirls and doves can pretty much be anywhere on the board and get out of trouble fairly well, interacting and placing scheme markers regardless of what's in their way. Hell, in emergency situations playing a purely thematic list, Prompt a Showgirl thrice, handing out 6 poison, then give the 8th posion and Siren Call them to A Sip of Wine. It's not perfect but it's an option (Or yaknow just Prompt Coryphee Duet a bunch and make me hate you).
It shows you just how much a mainly-support master can turn the tides when played well.
Thus I'm at an impasse, Killy masters can kill everything to win games, Support masters can tank that very same damage and win theirs. On the surface of things, Murder-makers have the upper-hand but looking deeper, I've found that it's simply not the case when looked at as a whole. Yes board wipes will win the game more often than not but getting to that point is a hard won battle if facing a support master with experience under their belt. Outside of not knowing the crew you're facing, a total party kill just doesn't happen that often.
From a new player perspective though, or even from the perspective of someone who has exclusively played killy masters until choosing to play a more control/support master, it may well seem to be that killing half the opposing crew seems the solution to all of life's problems. It's that clean-up duty that tweaks the details. A friend of mine has a fast support crew which typically runs up first turn to drop necessary markers, then second turn and beyond uses those models to tar-pit and drain Ap. They leave one or two models aside to gain Vp outside of combat with back-up summoning and the Slow condition being thrown everywhere. A Killy master still kills everything sure but can't always do that all important clean-up step to win the game when the dust settles.
So who wins out in the end? Both really. If you are pure kill-crazy, you lack ways to deal with Slow or Paralyze or an illusionary forest popping up. On the other hand, pure support only works for so long until you've gained board control but lack ways to do anything but deny some more. Solution? Have both. Joss in a Collete crew is synergistic well with her Prompt, whilst a Showgirl in a Ramos crew can get key models in very tough situations. Zen and Balance ladies and gentlemen.
Keep those cogs in your mind moving and have fun out there.
In my relatively limited and casual experience, this seemed to be the case. Yan Lo can and will score 10vp unless his crew is taken out to the point where it's no longer possible. Any common model (read non-peon) can score marker based schemes and every faction has a tanky model to stand and take hits whilst accomplishing interact actions or protecting future Vp investments but after that? How are you going to deal with your opponent scoring just as well with their models? It's something which killy crews can take advantage of easier than support masters
Most players I've pitched this question to have stated that masters being denoted as simple Death-dealing or Support is much too black and white which I stand to agree with. Rasputina is very killy but with Ice Pillars and handing out Armor +1 with Silent Ones healing alongside the fine Freeze Over, one could easily argue that hand-in-hand with sheer unadulterated death, that she's also great at supporting her crew allowing them to win games.
Nicodem is very supportive but with all his summons being buffed to the teeth and a general disregard for them un-living for too long, his crew can also be described as killy. Ramos creates spiders and does a bunch of Ap-oh-who-cares (I'm not a fan) but when his spiders are positioned with care, taking down a Df3 or less henchman with constructs having every buff they need is a simple job. Thus it comes down to what scheme pool is on the table and taking it from there.
How often does a table wipe happen in your meta? Many out there might be in agreement that winning a strategy with no one left across from you turn 3 onwards is the easiest thing ever (in most of circumstances mind; Collect the Bounty with a bunch of schemes requiring interactions or keeping your opponent's models alive will more than likely result in a tie) but really how often does it happen? Every game? Every one in five? If it happens a lot then either there's no terrain whatsoever or your opponents are making a lot of mistakes often. It's hard to come back from massive out-activation yes, especially when the Viks have Whirlwind'ed any model that's vaguely threatening from the table early game but, even if it's the most flukeiest luckiest set of circumstances ever, you could still win with nothing more than Wk4 significant models. Without living in a dream world though, facing down perfectly positioned death squadrons is tough without knowing exact threat ranges and a small amount of card counting, thus why Perdita, Levi, Sonnia, Viktorias are normally met with an audible "ehh" from new to advanced players.
On further musing, in my meta at least, the same "oh jeez, really?" can also be said about Dreamer, Collodi, Colette and Jack Daw. Masters and core crews that don't strictly rely on murder but still absolutely mess with your models to the point of stasis.
Jack Daw for instance isn't what you would call a damage dealing god, but being able to (effectively) shut down 3 models with basic ease, he doesn't need to be. He doesn't kill your models, more he gives your models the opportunity to kill themselves. With so much control on the board, your models don't have to be dead to stop doing what they need to do in a game.Collette isn't killing any master but with enough experience playing Colette, she and her crew have free range of the table. Her showgirls and doves can pretty much be anywhere on the board and get out of trouble fairly well, interacting and placing scheme markers regardless of what's in their way. Hell, in emergency situations playing a purely thematic list, Prompt a Showgirl thrice, handing out 6 poison, then give the 8th posion and Siren Call them to A Sip of Wine. It's not perfect but it's an option (Or yaknow just Prompt Coryphee Duet a bunch and make me hate you).
It shows you just how much a mainly-support master can turn the tides when played well.
Thus I'm at an impasse, Killy masters can kill everything to win games, Support masters can tank that very same damage and win theirs. On the surface of things, Murder-makers have the upper-hand but looking deeper, I've found that it's simply not the case when looked at as a whole. Yes board wipes will win the game more often than not but getting to that point is a hard won battle if facing a support master with experience under their belt. Outside of not knowing the crew you're facing, a total party kill just doesn't happen that often.
From a new player perspective though, or even from the perspective of someone who has exclusively played killy masters until choosing to play a more control/support master, it may well seem to be that killing half the opposing crew seems the solution to all of life's problems. It's that clean-up duty that tweaks the details. A friend of mine has a fast support crew which typically runs up first turn to drop necessary markers, then second turn and beyond uses those models to tar-pit and drain Ap. They leave one or two models aside to gain Vp outside of combat with back-up summoning and the Slow condition being thrown everywhere. A Killy master still kills everything sure but can't always do that all important clean-up step to win the game when the dust settles.
So who wins out in the end? Both really. If you are pure kill-crazy, you lack ways to deal with Slow or Paralyze or an illusionary forest popping up. On the other hand, pure support only works for so long until you've gained board control but lack ways to do anything but deny some more. Solution? Have both. Joss in a Collete crew is synergistic well with her Prompt, whilst a Showgirl in a Ramos crew can get key models in very tough situations. Zen and Balance ladies and gentlemen.
Keep those cogs in your mind moving 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.
 |
| 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)