Ryin

This is something that was said between m1e and m2e. People said it would be way too simple. I do not miss m1e one bit, personally. Players will find the subtle complexities in the game and as the new edition expands, it will blossom in completely, same as m2e

Definitely interested in it. I’m someone that felt a new edition had become necessary. Just a few points. +2 Def is better than Especially considering that Focus had become ubiquitous to the point that we’re almost irrelevant as well as the addition of new mechanics and themes. Sure, you can cheat if you HAVE to hit a model, but you might be using a 12 or 13 if your model is injured. This edition also seems to have much more focus on hand control over activation control, and so you might not HAVE that card even if you need it. Speaking of, they already teased that some crews will chew up pass tokens for abilities or be able to manipulate them in other ways, so it’s definitely still a factor.

Headless Horseman/woman Philip and the Nanny.

Ive used Bete in a few games with her. Sometimes she dies, sometimes she doesn't. It's about knowing when to pop her out. Turn one I didn't mind holding the ten. Sometimes I don't mind if she dies. A lot of times I'll pop her out just to have her go snatch up an objective, where even if she dies, I'm getting points. She's a distraction if I hold the 10 or a scalpel if I don't. When an Archie or hanged is bearing down, sometimes Bete is just not a priority target, even if she's right in their face. I have yet to use the Emissary with her though. I'm not usually sure who to take out, really.

Just won another game with Reva. I think I have 10-12 games with her under my belt now. I've won all but two which were ties against Asami. The last game I played was against a Zoraida with a McTavish, couple of sillurids, Iggy and a dop. won 9-5 but he was not really prepared for Reva, which I have found is what happens a lot. If you aren't ready for her, she can throw you so off your game that she just snowballs. His two silurids were dead on turn one because he activated them too early. He spent most of the game hiding his crew in the forest, hemming my stuff and slowly burning it down, and it worked pretty well against those models, but Reva didn't care about McTavish's aura and was still wrecking his stuff in the backfield, just slowly moving up with her (0) action. At the end of the game I only had Reva and Bete Noir left on the table, but he only had Zoraida left. (I was actually surprised Bete lived, but I also brought Archie a hanged and Yin) Archie, by the way, I love. I don't think he's ever survived a game Ihave brought him with, but for Reva he just does a lot of work. Aside from being able to throw corpse counters, he's such a huge damage threat, that people HAVE to divert attention to him, which means they are spending less time trying to get at Reva or my hanged or Vincent if I take him or whoever. He did also take Eliminate the Leadership, and got Reva down to one wound, but she ended the match at 5 or 6 wounds up thanks to her triggers and front of card ability. I don't think she's unbeatable, but you definitely have to KNOW how to beat her and I think that for people who have not played against her and sit down across from her, it's going to seem like there's nothing that you can do against her. McTavish was eating a corpse marker every turn and I still had enough corpses to do Look on My Works with 1-2 corpse markers on a couple of turns and still have plenty to attack anything I needed. My opponent never got a model on my half of the table, which is something I find to happen quite a bit with Reva as I have played her.

@Ludvig yeah. I think there's a big difference between trying something out or finding a niche list for a model and it having serious consideration. For me, that's really what it comes down to. Is this model being seriously considered by players during list building. Nothing is going to be taken ALL the time, but if people are seriously considering it, they are buying it and putting it in their bag. If THEY aren't finding a use for it, they still may talk about it or recommend it to someone who will.

@Ludvig that's arguably over half the generic totems and more than a few master specific ones. I think an issue was, even by book 2, there really weren't faction metas. The game was still growing. Wyrd was still sort of figuring things out and still transferring rules from 1.5 most of the generic totems really do not have metaplay taken into account. (The same could be said about some of the effigies too, I think)

I guess to bring it back around to the topic at hand, what generic totems aren't just niche or corner case use totems? I feel like the Primordial Magic, old cranky and maybe Malifaux Child to a certain extent do not fall into that category, but, as mentioned, I have never even seen anyone take the essence of power, governor's proxy or grave spirit. I wouldn't even take the grave spirit with anyone but maybe Tara (I am still not a big fan of Karina even WITH her summon upgrade, tbh) or MAYBE Molly if you weren't summoning the Necrotic Machine. I think Kamaitachi si probably only useful in SOME Lucas builds, but I don't play Ten Thunders, so i can't really say. Maybe Asami? I have heard some people don't really care for Amanojaku. Another question is, what is the ratio that makes the most sense for balancing a totems use? As in Master's Specific Totem/No Totem/Generic totem Where do you want that at? 60%/10%/30%? I don't know where that number is (and it could/should probably be different for every master, too, maybe. also, @Ludvig , I actually to think that the scales of justice becomes better in other crews outside of Justice. I would maybe consider taking it in a Nellie crew over the printing press, since her hand pretty much evaporates, you're probably getting both cards each turn. (well, if the rest of the scales card wasn't utterly useless. It's so fun to pinball things around the printing press)

Still too much. ;P Shows you how much I use it. I don't think I have since 1.5. I'd still take the 2 extra points for fast. Even if LJ only gets it once a turn, there's rarely ever a turn where it is not giving fast to SOMEONE. Student only ever needs to move on its own maybe one turn or, unless the whole game's just gone to pot, but I don't know if the scales are saving me THEN, either.

I don't think it is worth four points and definitely not better than fast, even at one less cost. everything else on his card might as well not even be there. Maybe I'll give it another shot, but, I dunno. I've taken the proxy in preerrata Lucius lists and he was surprisingly able to keep up and get off his fair share of healing. I have also taken him in perdita obey lists where he most certainly gets his points worth. I mean, those aren't exactly auto include situations, and I'm not even really saying the proxy is GOOD, but, I just do't think he's useless.

I think that the scales of justice is the most garbage totem in the game, personally. There are situations I can at least THINK I would want to take Governor's proxy. There is no universe where I wouldn't take Student of Conflict over Scales in a Justice list. I also find Pandora's totem to be pretty awful, too. The primordial magic existing is certainly not helping with that opinion. I just feel like I'd get more use out of a sorrow and I don't even take THEM either. Cranky definitely has his uses in certain Ulix crews, butPenelope is pretty good too. The problem isn't necessarily the totems, though. Even if some of them probably do need buffed/Cuddled. When building for a meta, there's no reason to fix something that isn't broken and the totems that get used a lot are so synergistic, that there's no reason NOT to take them. When you're looking to min/max, there's no room for a lot of the quirkiness that totems often bring in. Sonnia, for example. I don't think that purifying flame is necessarily BAD as a totem or for her, but, malifaux child just does a lot more work for her than the flame does (because it's basically a one time use bomb). People tend to only think outside of the box when trying to break the meta and a lot of times one disastrous attempt can kill that even if it wasn't necessarily the model in question's fault. Having a model that could be used during a certain strategy against a certain faction/master is great, but not if those situations never come up and I think that is where some of the unused totems are at. (if they aren't just outright bad)

Took him in one of my Adepticon matches with Reva. Held one point for the scheme where you need models on each side of the table at the centerline (the name escapes me) Hung out there for two turns and then rode off to kill things. Seemed fine with me. I certainly wouldn't be getting the mobility out of an Izamu, that's for sure and a RN isn't as survivable. For ressers, the mobility is what makes them good. If you ONLY need schemes ran, there's better options, but if you need something mobile that can survive AND kick some ass, they do a little bit of everything. Which, in a game where, increasingly, specialization is king, they tend to get overlooked. All the riders do, kinda. Cept ol gear hips.

For those that think it's terribly too easy, try playing it as Guild. It's not undoable, but I certainly wouldn't call it "easy" The only time I really outactivate anyone is with Nellie and usually only on the first turn and while her and her crew are certainly decent at it, I still wouldn't call it a cinch. She's much better at denying Claim Jump than scoring with it. Or, maybe it's just me. I always find CJ to be more miss than hit whenever I try and take it unless I'm playing someone like Reva, but then, I have Necropunks and she's pretty well good with any scheme/strat. But I play Guild, Reva/(resser)Tara and Pandora more than anything else.

Breachside Broadcast 1-7 (I think) Tells the story of Kythera. The gist of it is December thinks he can transcend there and Seamus wanted to summon the Grave Spirit, because crazypants. Nythera was the 2015 worldwide event. It was sort of a race to find this new source of power, which turned out to be Titania, who was kind of pissed (whoops) that fluff is in the Nythera TTB book

You could play for schemes and try to win 7-4 or 6-4 or bring some killy crew and try and just murder the lot of them and try and score whatever you can when the dust settles. the guild is just lacking in durable low/medium cost models that are also either self sufficient or mobile. It's really not what we do. though, if you even THINK you might get against a summoning crew, just bring Taelor. Even if you're completely wrong, she's still a really solid 10pt model, especially in a Nellie crew. Her Ml rng alone should be able to tie up a bunch of models and she's fairly durable.