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M2e Kaeris


mythicFOX

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1 hour ago, decker_cky said:

Try your hardest not to have Kaeris do the burning, particularly if your opponent has lure. Had one game where I flared Kaeris, then she got lured forward, and not only was my master pulled way ahead, but I burned the rest of my crew. 

Malifaux child is very good at getting two burning. 

Firestarter, Captain and Union Miners are other good choices.

Had a Beckoner beckone me today. Had to push back with Captain.

 

51 minutes ago, Griffin839 said:

I've been taking wings of fire kaeris with the arcane emissary. Turn one flare and suck it in to draw 3 cards. Everyone moves up board. Turn 2 flare then everyone scatters. Works really well.

Don`t have the model. Since I`m more of a Guild guy I`m actually spying on Arcanists ;)

 

Current model pool is:

Kaeris box,

Metal Gamin x1

Johana

Arcane Effigy

Miss Step

Mech Rider

Gunsmiths,

Malifaux Child,

Willie

 

(and almost painted Captain that won me todays game vs Lynch)

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I forgot the other easy burning source - turn 1 vent boiler from a rail golem. 

Regarding grab and drop, I tend to use it more for positioning and to get Kaeris out of a bad place than for damage (it's rare to get the difference to cause significant damage in my experience). 

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On 6.05.2016 at 7:15 PM, Griffin839 said:

Oh I don't have it either. I'm using an avatar as a proxy. My emissary is raspy in ice armor

Don`t have those also :P

 

I recently used the Captain and I really like him (he is pricey, but he Airburst is definitely something I needed).

 

What do you guys think about Myranda in Kaeris? Is she worth it? Does taking 1 or 2 Hoarcats change things?

Same question for Oxfordian Mages and Steam Arachnids.

 

Buying Rail Golem, Gamin, Hoarcats and waiting for Marcus box now :D

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After playing around 6-8 games with Kaeris, here are my conclussions:

 

Kaeris: very versatile master. I use Immolate more often than Flaming Halo although Flaming Halo is way better versus HtW.

  • Arcane Reservoir: theone game I didn`t take it my hands were awful the whole game. Last time I took it I had the RJ 3 turns in a row. Its not statistics, its fate :D 
  • Seize the Day: I try to squeeze it in if I have the SS. There`s not a lot of games when you won`t SS for initiative at least once.
  • Grab and Drop: repositioning enemies, placing them off of your engaged Howard Langston or 3" from a Stash Marker is totally worth it.
  • Puryfying Flame: it might be me but I don`t know when it would be better than G&D. The heal is nice, but you can get other heals. The 6" range is a bit too short but if you`re not against Neverborn (hoards of flying) it might actually work quite fine.
  • Blinding Flame: had it once, but not with Mx child and used flare + 2-3x immolate the whole game.

 

Eternal Flame: its balanced and I would probably take it with Puryfying Flame but I would skip it for G&D. The heal is nice.

 

Malifaux Child: my G&D go-to totem. with a low Tome you can set 2 things on fire. Has a heal and can finish off burning Models (:+fate:+fate to attack and no negative damage flip means you can even get a straight flip)

 

Gunsmiths: Unfortunately I`m dissapointed with them. If Easy Way would give :+fate to all duels and flip vs burning I would like them. 2/3/4 damage flip with a :-fate(usually) is not that much for 7SS. I think they really need to get the fast to be worth it. I also think that they need to focus to have the best effect and I will definitely try them with Ironsides.

 

The Firestarter: Does Leave Your Mark by himself. Can shoot most scheme runners especially with Imbued Energies. He`s great in some schemes (LYM, Inspection, Undercover Entourage, Undercover Breakthrough etc.) and this is when he shines. Apart from that I would probably skip him.

 

Howard Langston: Board control king. Go-to pick for Quick Murder (until I get the Cerberus/Myrando-cerberus). 

 

Mech Rider:  very fragile early on - got alpha striked by a Tangle Shadows + Nekima and lost it T1 (the only game I lost). Very versatile model that turns into quite the tank turn 3. I find it good in Interference.

 

Willie: I didn`t manage to get a lot out of Willie tbh but I might be treating him "enforcer level" instead of "minion level". He`s definitely better with G&D as flying and marker generation help with his other (0) but I`m not really sure what I should do with his activations.

 

The Captain: Oh Boy, the Moustache-man has won me 2 games in a row (and I played him for 2 games). I was definitely lacking that 1 extra move on a lot of models. I take him with Patron`s Blessing because I don`t know when I wouldn`t use the 3rd AP (either 3rd Airburst or Wind Wall). Immunity to Disengaging Strikes is really good and with a ram he has more or less 5 min damage. Apart from that he is quite fragile for his cost so be careful. He might drop for Angelica when I get her but he seems to be a stellar point in my lists regardless of Strats and Schemes. I think I`ll give him Warding Runes as his second upgrade as he is quite easy to Lure.

 

Johana: If I`m playing vs Ressers I would probably take her. Otherwise I would probably use something else for the 7 (potentially 8 SS) and rely on:

 

Arcane Effigy: I always take him and I usually forget the buff (not to cast, to use). Yesterday vs Nico he took Paralyze off of Kaeris and slow off of Howard. Tough, nice buff, condition removal. Accoplice. Worth the 4 SS

 

More to come!

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5 minutes ago, bertmac said:

Willie gets targetted by everybody nobody wants him nearby!

Which is kinda weird. He is annoying but the damage track is not that great. 

5 minutes ago, bertmac said:

Grab and drop is good for scheme marker schemes but for anything else healing and pyre markers seem much more useful than a 1"ml attack for me.

Its a (0) 1" Melee attack with a 5" placement for the opponent and 7" placement for Kaeris. Pyre Markers would be good with a 10" range or if Eternal Flame could move both of them.

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12 minutes ago, trikk said:

Which is kinda weird. He is annoying but the damage track is not that great. 

Its a (0) 1" Melee attack with a 5" placement for the opponent and 7" placement for Kaeris. Pyre Markers would be good with a 10" range or if Eternal Flame could move both of them.

Willie walking and dropping blasts is fun especially vs people like pandora and sorrows due to having low defence and pandora not being able to use WP as it's a simple duel.

Blasts burning and ignoring armour really add to the damage he does.

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One thing about the Firestarter is that he's the only enabler of Kaeris effectively spreading flame and popping accelerant. Usually, when it's 1-2 burning and 1-2 more damage, models shrug off accelerant and take the hit. With the firestarter, you start to cause enough damage to worry models, making it more likely that your opponent takes a few paralyzed results (and if you get that off once, your opponent will be leery of it even if you haven't twirled the gas cans yet). 

Even normally running schemes, it's not too hard for the firestarter to pop into range and twirl the gas cans.

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14 hours ago, bertmac said:

Also firestarter is good for keeping kaeris healed when she is carrying purifying fire.

7SS is kind of big investment for that. Malifaux child does it for less than half the price and you can also try to have an additional heal.

 

17 hours ago, bertmac said:

Willie walking and dropping blasts is fun especially vs people like pandora and sorrows due to having low defence and pandora not being able to use WP as it's a simple duel.

Blasts burning and ignoring armour really add to the damage he does.

I agree, that vs pandora its nice, but I think vs Pandora he would get Paralyzed/Incited/Mood Swinged etc...

Blast burning requires a trigger and you have to get a blast in the first place (which is not that easy as its moderate). I think its just you should probably use the no-LoS thing and focus to try to get 2 blasts off.

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6 hours ago, trikk said:

7SS is kind of big investment for that. Malifaux child does it for less than half the price and you can also try to have an additional heal.

Firestarter with reckless can reliably put 6 burning out in a turn. Malifaux child can only flaming halo once, which only reliably causes 2 burning.

That's not to mention that firestarter is an incredible scheme runner, that just happens to have a great ability to heal models within Kaeris' aura. 

But it's a weird argument...I'd say you want at least Kaeris, malifaux child and firestarter if you have purifying flame, so you have options to spread burning from multiple sources and activations that occur throughout the turn. Depending on the strats and schemes, the captain might be a good idea too (24 SS committed with the usual upgrades at that point, but it's a very flexible core to build around).

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6 hours ago, trikk said:

7SS is kind of big investment for that. Malifaux child does it for less than half the price and you can also try to have an additional heal.

 

I agree, that vs pandora its nice, but I think vs Pandora he would get Paralyzed/Incited/Mood Swinged etc...

Blast burning requires a trigger and you have to get a blast in the first place (which is not that easy as its moderate). I think its just you should probably use the no-LoS thing and focus to try to get 2 blasts off.

It's just even more healing that you can use if required. one turn of burning/healing before flying off and scheming can really help if kaeris is taking a kicking.

Willies point is to do a bit of damage then die and blow up, tends to cost opponents cards as df6 is decent and for a 6ss model he's worth it for me.

We all have our own playstyles I've certainly found Purifying to be better for me than grab but hey ho.

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Interesting, I always thought of the firestarter as a cheap investment. It's not the healing, it's anything that requires a mobile source of burning. Healing is one of those things if you happen to take purifying flame. He is very useful and reasonably expendable, which is a rare combination. Save for the extreme lists (full of constructs + powered by flame etc.) my roster always begins with the malifaux child and the firestarter. Ofc it can be a playstyle thing.

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I will take Imbued energies+reckless+firestarter every single game I play kaeris. The firestarter doesn't just set things on fire, he scheme runs, tied up shooters, positions himself to score points from burning. He is a very versatile model. Shut down a pig-a-pult turn 1 by walking him 4 times across the board and engaging it and you will appreciate him like never before. :)

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  • 2 months later...
On 5/14/2016 at 2:47 AM, Griffin839 said:

I will take Imbued energies+reckless+firestarter every single game I play kaeris. The firestarter doesn't just set things on fire, he scheme runs, tied up shooters, positions himself to score points from burning. He is a very versatile model. Shut down a pig-a-pult turn 1 by walking him 4 times across the board and engaging it and you will appreciate him like never before. :)

This is definitely one of the better targets to engage early on, I agree. He's super flexible in who he can sap AP from because he can burn SS to survive longer and keep annoying things.

You can fling him into a cast-heavy crew, or summoning engine, with Bleeding Edge Tech, then use the (0) 3" ability in much the same manner. They can't reliably walk away, their Ca Actions become decidedly weaker and a lot of their abilities just straight up won't work if they're in an engagement. It forces a metric tonne of pressure on the opponent to free up their casters and use AP from the get go. Against summoners, even 2-3 models AP mixed up or delayed is everything, and The Firestarter can gladly die late on turn one after having absorbed most of the opponent's resources.

If you're against physical damage crews, such as Guild perhaps, another option could be to take Imbued Protection and fly into as many models on turn one as you can. Between Df 7 (!), 6-7 wounds, SS damage prevention usage and the discard ability on Imbued Protection itself, he is so much tougher to shift than you'd imagine, especially if he's engaging models that want to be shooting, not stabbing. It works nicely with Kaeris because she doesn't usually need to burn SS for cards if she's doing her Truth in Flames turns 1/2 and she rarely needs to spend her SS for extra suits imprinted either.

Kaeris with Grab & Drop already excels at scheme marker games, but with The Firestarter +Imbued Energies , it's just salt in the wounds for your opponent. He can feasibly move 10" (with flight) and drop 3 scheme markers along the way in a single activation, and that's just obscene for 8ss.

If all you use him for is a 7ss mobile source of burning, you'd still be impressed with his performance. The fact that he can also convert models killed by burning into VP in some schemes, or places tonnes of scheme markers with impunity in other schemes, is icing on the cake. He contributes so much in most matches he's an auto include for me as well. 

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  • 1 month later...

I took Kaeris to the Nova Open GT this year, 6 games, as a way to finish out my year of Arcanists. She is my favorite of the Arcanists, versatile enough that while not the obvious choice for some strats/schemes (one of the things that annoys me about Arcanists, the obvious choices are beat-you-over-the-head glaringly obvious), she can do remarkably well in any situation. I don't consider myself terribly competitive (but no one likes losing, eh?), and walked away with a 3/2/1 record which was better than expected, and not quite what I hoped for.

I spent a lot of time struggling with Kaeris when I first started playing her. The anti-synergy in some of the things you think you want to use always made her feel a bit clunky to me. You want fire, but getting it out there in any great amount is unreliable at best, card intensive at worst. Oh, well here's Rail Golem, he can help, but then he's out of fire he really wants to get work done. So many "that doesn't work the way I was hoping" moments. Anyway, lots of time spent working out what I liked about her, what clunky things I could live with and what wasn't worth it.

In the end, what worked for me was getting a little bit away from the standard burning crew and going more with steam. My go to crew was Grab and Drop Kaeris, Malifaux Child, and 2 large arachnids. If I owned a 3rd I might sometimes have used it. Flying, flaming, robotic scheme marker dropping spiders are a wonderful thing. Being able to use their own scheme markers when needed, or the enemy's when available, you can fairly regularly surprise your opponent with 6 point damage hits where needed. As long as you have any tome at all in your hand (and even without you have two cards flipped to luck into it), the trigger to allow the Child to put burning on both spiders guarantees two scheme markers per turn that can either be fuel for their attacks or VP for schemes, and your opponent has to constantly guard against either of those.

Around 80% of the time there's a performer in the list. Their utility is never in question anyway, and having extra scheme markers around that may blow up for double negatives gives even more for your opponent to worry about. Rail Golem when you need damage output (chosen slightly for fire synergy, mostly because he's my favorite model in the faction, Howard being the more obvious if boring choice), Joss if you need staying power and consistency. Firestarter for speed or more fire.

Kaeris herself on any given turn is what I need her to be. Damage output if really really needed, but much more just a target. There was never a time she was attacked where I said "if she dies I'm totally screwed", but then, never a time she actually died, she can take a punch and soak up enemy activations quite well. People want to attack masters, even if it's not the best thing to do, especially the one with the big flaming wings. Sometimes dropping an extra marker in an inconvenient place. Often repositioning models, getting the most out of grab and drop can be huge. In one game, I used it twice, first turning a loss into a tie, and then turning the tie into a win. Learn well to place an enemy model on one height (top of a height 2 box, building, whatever), and Kaeris within 2" but at a different height. For most models this breaks engagement, allowing Kaeris to fly away. Did this twice to McCabe (and his horse! ha!!) allowing me to pick up head markers that were otherwise completely unattainable.

Some masters, you read their card and you know exactly what you're going to be doing (game after game after game.. blech). With Kaeris, half the time doing what you think you should based on reading her card, you find some other card or ability that screws up the obvious things. Finding the other, less obvious ways to pull out the most from her abilities is what's going to get you where you want to be with her.

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I run a similar list, plus Cassandra almost always (good on her own, drops some extra scheme markers that don't require burning, brings practiced production to put markers where the arachnids need them, and gets good use out of the performers Ca actions).

I find I usually set up burning turns 1 and 2 (set up markers for arachnids to get them dangerous when I need them), but once they get stuck in, the spiders produce enough scrap that I'm not too worried about the scheme markers too much (unless they're needed for performer, or to score me points). 

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51 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

I run a similar list, plus Cassandra almost always (good on her own, drops some extra scheme markers that don't require burning, brings practiced production to put markers where the arachnids need them, and gets good use out of the performers Ca actions).

I find I usually set up burning turns 1 and 2 (set up markers for arachnids to get them dangerous when I need them), but once they get stuck in, the spiders produce enough scrap that I'm not too worried about the scheme markers too much (unless they're needed for performer, or to score me points). 

Queue up Kaeris with Large Arachnids and Cassandra practice for me, right behind Mei and Ironsides practice. I didn't even think about the large spiders' marker interaction when I was trying to think of what I could do with all the scheme markers G&D provided me.

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I wonder if Carlos will carve out a spot in a good many Kaeris lists. His potential min damage 5 makes him a bit of a wild card. He also has a bit more synergy with the eternal flame tossing pyre markers around the table. However he's not exactly cheap and Cassandra is very tough competition.

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14 minutes ago, Jordon said:

I wonder if Carlos will carve out a spot in a good many Kaeris lists. His potential min damage 5 makes him a bit of a wild card. He also has a bit more synergy with the eternal flame tossing pyre markers around the table. However he's not exactly cheap and Cassandra is very tough competition.

The trigger adds the damage in a second burst so he falls apart a bit against armored targets, and he's way less reliable than the Firestarter at getting burning on your own crew... I ran him once the other day and he just did nothing that I wanted from him. He's got a role somewhere, I'm just struggling to find it.

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On September 8, 2016 at 1:13 PM, admiralvorkraft said:

The trigger adds the damage in a second burst so he falls apart a bit against armored targets, and he's way less reliable than the Firestarter at getting burning on your own crew... I ran him once the other day and he just did nothing that I wanted from him. He's got a role somewhere, I'm just struggling to find it.

Well yes and no. I think the firestarter is better at getting burning out there where and when you need it. However I think you can get an awful lot of work from Carlos' Pyrotechnics ability with a little bit of setup.

Also since he's a Showgirl, he has access to the amazing practiced production upgrade. Now obviously you can take Cassandra and do the exact same thing, but I think Carlos will synergies a bit better with Kaeris and with his upgrade, can tank for days. Making him a very versatile piece (damage/resilience/schemes/speed).  

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