M2e Colette

[LulleK]

Hello!

I've just started working on my smoke and mirrors box, to prepare for some Colette action. What do you guys hire for her? I ordered the special edition performer from the black friday sale. Do you ever use 3 of them?

Thanks!

 

<modhat>  I'm arbitrarily designating this the generic Colette discussion thread. </modhat> 

<MODHAT>There is a new discussion thread </MODHAT>

[Flint]

I am usually using 2 performers with assistance of 1 mannequin. Instead of 3rd performer i take Angelica. Mech Rider works well with Colette due to markers dropping triggers.

[Sordid Strumpet]

Cassandra. Because I can't think of a crew where Cassandra is not awesome I generally only get one performer unless it's a very interact heavy scheme pool (distract, cursed object and so on). Mannequins are fantastic, but only really if a scheme requires you to get markers in specific locations (i.e. spring the trap). Or if you want to use the Performer's seduction ability on specific models.

Furthermore, December Acolytes are the best prompt target in the world. Ever. Because they make things slow just by hitting (you don't even have to damage), and have an inbuilt discard trigger. They also have an absurd 2/4/6 damage track on their weapon. And what's more, they're immune to Horror and Paralysed which means that if you play against some terrifying things, they're your go to option because they can reliably put damage on them anyway.

Also, Silent Ones because they can heal and shoot through the Acolyte, and it's another thing that doesn't care how terrifying your opponents crew is.

I only really hire one thing of each because prompt lets you basically use their AP wherever they work best, so you can always get AP where they matter most. The exception to this are Coryphee. If I take them, I take two.

As a beat stick, Coryphee are among the very best. You can even prompt one Coryphee, hit the reactivate trigger with it, then activate the other Coryphee and then later in the turn, reactivate the first Coryphyee and with your last action teleport to the already activated Coryphee and summon a duet so you no longer have to sacrifice the reactivating Coryphee.

That's a total of 6 AP from Coryphee, plus the 1AP (and push) from prompt, plus two activations from the duet. There will now be some very dead things around

Although it's important not to get too hung up on being able to do the above (it requires some lucky coincidences to work) and miss out on summoning the duet because one Coryphee got killed.

The duet is very very good all by itself anyway and considerably tougher than the individual Coryphee, so if you suspect you're at a 50% or higher chance of losing one Coryphee, summon the duet and use it's 0-action heal.

[LulleK]

Awesome guys! Thanks for the input. I own Acolytes and Mech Rider. When my black friday order arrives, I also own Silent Ones and Angelica. Do you ever use Howard or Joss with Colette? Or are Coryphee just better? I don't own Coryphee, but I have Howard and Joss. So if they are equal beaters, I would rather use the ones I have. Do you have any "standard" list you usually take with her?

[Sordid Strumpet]

Howard and Joss are just fine with Colette. The Coryphee are great, but expensive and if you end up facing the wrong opponent (i.e. one that can hand out lots of blast damage or ignore armour), they die really quick. Joss is a very good inclusion in Colette's crew for prompt, as is Langston.

The only danger with Joss is that he ignores defensive triggers, so if you're playing against someone with obey (like Zoraida, or Jakob Lynch with Huggy), they can obey Joss to whack Colette and ignore here OP defensive triggers. With 8 wounds, she'll be very dead, very quick.

[4554551//]

Has anyone ever used the ten thunders showgirls with her?

Are they worth it at all? 

The trigger that they can't hit showgirls seems really strong, especially on their big guy. 

Needing a suit to lure is pretty bad, but a 10inch threat range makes them a bit more offensive than performers for example. Just not sure if they're worth it. 

[Sordid Strumpet]

I like the lure (great understudy target for Cassandra). And it's just as powerful as the Rotten Belle's lure (it's even cast 8). So they're definitely worth hiring. Plus, if you bring Willie and use his set charge ability, with billions of scheme markers around luring models becomes absurdly powerful because you can create explosions and drain your opponent's hand for DF duels at will.

[Adran]

I like the lure (great understudy target for Cassandra). And it's just as powerful as the Rotten Belle's lure (it's even cast 8). So they're definitely worth hiring. Plus, if you bring Willie and use his set charge ability, with billions of scheme markers around luring models becomes absurdly powerful because you can create explosions and drain your opponent's hand for DF duels at will.

Its only about 25% as powerful as the rotten belles, because you only have 11 cards that will cast it rather than 41. 

I've not persoanally found it worth including them, but there are certainly times when it can be useful. 

Howard and Jposs are fine prompt targets. They do more damage than the corephyee, but are less mobile. Sometimes you might want the mobility rather than the hitting power, but its not essential. 

[Sordid Strumpet]

Ah. For some reason last time I read their card I didn't realise they had BOTH suits printed in their cast. That's very powerful.

[Sybarite]

Pretty much always use Cassandra, a performer, december acolyte and Howard Langston. Then Johana, Joss a gamin or mech rider. Langston and acolytes are ridiculously good with Colette. Sometimes I use two performers depending on schemes but most often just one.

I haven't used the coryphée much. A playstyle thing I guess. They're not bad.

Mannequins I don't use at all.

[MagicGis]

I dont get why not more people use the orian... if you play a bit themy they are very flexible models that cant be charged with a 4" bubble for wp and the ability to deny opponents the ability to attack showgirls ... that can render beaters nearly useless... on top of that they have a usable lure.

[Ludvig]

I dont get why not more people use the orian... if you play a bit themy they are very flexible models that cant be charged with a 4" bubble for wp and the ability to deny opponents the ability to attack showgirls ... that can render beaters nearly useless... on top of that they have a usable lure.

They should have a place in Colette because of their showgirl synergies. It's just the comparison to belles and the fact that you pay more stones (merc tax) for a lot less survivability and a lot worse lure that makes people in general not like them. 

[Sordid Strumpet]

But Lure is all Belles reall do, whereas Oiran can neutralise your opponents biggest beatstick and help mitigate that atrocious Wp of Coryphee, not to mention making your crew more resistant to Wp shenanigans - like lure.

 

However, if I had 6 stones to spare I'd be hiring a Silent one first. It just does more things for me. Which is a shame because the Oiran models are fabulous fun to paint and made me want Misaki very badly indeed.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Sordid Strumpet

[Bengt]

The Wp aura is situational, against some crews it will do absolutely nothing. Both No Witnesses and Lure require suits so may not be available when you really need them. You're also paying 6 SS for a model that on second thought wasn't considered to be worth 5 SS (hence the existence of Hidden Agenda).

I agree that they look nice, but I probably wont get any unless I plan to use them in a TT crew with Hidden Agenda.

[Flint]

But Lure is all Belles reall do, whereas Oiran can neutralise your opponents biggest beatstick and help mitigate that atrocious Wp of Coryphee, not to mention making your crew more resistant to Wp shenanigans - like lure.

Well, Belles also sell slow quite easily, engage enemy models stealing them at least 2-3ap and still do more damage than Oiran.

Cassandra goes with Colette without saying, that's obvious, plenty of interesting interactions between them, like: Colette prompts Cassie,->she moves 3"->shoots Colette-> Now You See Me moves 6" anywhere (even through walls) ->Cassie swirls additional 4" = Cassie moves 7" and Colette moves 6" all that for 1ap+mask+marker.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Flint
Typo

[LulleK]

It seems that people only bring 2 or maybe 3 minions with colette. Is that enough for Colette's free tactical actions?

When do you guys bring 2 performers instead of 1?

[Ludvig]

But Lure is all Belles reall do, whereas Oiran can neutralise your opponents biggest beatstick and help mitigate that atrocious Wp of Coryphee, not to mention making your crew more resistant to Wp shenanigans - like lure.

 

However, if I had 6 stones to spare I'd be hiring a Silent one first. It just does more things for me. Which is a shame because the Oiran models are fabulous fun to paint and made me want Misaki very badly indeed.

Belles lock down beatsticks with their ridiculous survivability and can more or less always deny protect territory since their lure is almost impossible to resist. Since protect territory is considered one of the easiest schemes in the game that's a pretty big deal. The same card the oiran just need to actually do their ability would also make your opponent discard a card if it was a belle casting. Discards are pretty mean in this game.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Ludvig

[Ludvig]

It seems that people only bring 2 or maybe 3 minions with colette. Is that enough for Colette's free tactical actions?

When do you guys bring 2 performers instead of 1?

It's not like you're paying anything for that ability so you don't need to bring anything. 2-3 minions with all the scheme shenanigans will be enough to complete all your marker schemes. If you need it you can interact with something else like normal people have to do all the time.  

[LulleK]

It seems that people only bring 2 or maybe 3 minions with colette. Is that enough for Colette's free tactical actions?

When do you guys bring 2 performers instead of 1?

It's not like you're paying anything for that ability so you don't need to bring anything. 2-3 minions with all the scheme shenanigans will be enough to complete all your marker schemes. If you need it you can interact with something else like normal people have to do all the time.  

Hehe that's true of course. I just thought of it like one of Colette's big "things", because she need markers for a lot of stuff.

[Ludvig]

Yes but because of that ability in conjunction with a mannequin a single minion can place 3 for you in a turn instead of 1. I have faced collette crews with an awful lot of showgirls but some of the meanest ones have only had a couple. Super dependant on what schemes you picked.

[MagicGis]

I dont get the bell comparison here... it is about a Colette crew and she simply can not hire those or am I overlooking something?

 

That Belles indeed should get the hammer now after they opend pandoras box with the metal gamin and other factions must includes should suffer the same fate is the topic of the most current thread (or maybe shouldn´t) in the resser forum, there I think this compariosn would be very very interesting for the discussion. However for this crew it is kinda useless. 

Maybe a Bell would be doing most things better... though you can´t have her. So Orian are your only option to bring those new abilities and their unique uses to the crew. Also making a big beater unable to attack my crew for a round would be a trigger for which I would spare the respective card. Especially this trigger seems slightly more powerful than anything they can offer in TT. Is it worth 6ss... depends on the game I guess. 

If I expect quite some WP tricks, or a single big beater with high point invest (Howard or so) I would give it a try.

[orkdork]

I've not played with Coryphee yet, deciding early on to go the Acolyte + Rider route because I preferred the models at the time (the Coryphee have since grown on me) and play the long game, i.e. don't fight until turn 3, if possible.

It works great against ranged/summoning opponents, where I could get ahead in schemes then hold them up with very hard to kill models (cass and rider) until the end of the game. However, when I tried my own Pandora, which is extremely aggressive, my Colette crew folded fast.

So now I'm looking at having alpha-strike power of my own: Myranda -> Blessed/Cerberus and Coryphee. My models won't get here until next week, but I'll let you know my thoughts when they do!

My old baseline crew (swapping models and working in IE as appropriate for S&S):

Colette, Production, Choreo

Cassandra (favorite model to play)

1 Acolyte

Rider

1 Performers

Fill with Angelica, more acolytes, more performers, the Captain, occasionally Hank, IEs

 

My intended new baseline crew:

Colette, Production, Choreo

Cassandra

2 Coryphee

Myranda, IE

Fill with Angelica, Acolytes, Performers, Rider, Captain, Hank, IEs, etc...

 

 

[Rurouni Benshin]

With Colette, I find that her box crew and the Coryphee run very well together.  Substitute one of the Mannequins for Angelica, and you have a very thematic, yet effective list for quite a few different missions.  Wouldn't recommend bringing her for Reckoning (amongst the other Arcanist Masters, anyway), but for the other 4 strategies and any scheme requiring scheme markers, I like this crew for them. 

Here's what mine would look like most of the time:

Colette: (Cache: 5)
- Cabaret Choreography
- Nothing Up My Sleeve
- Arcane Reservoir
Cassandra
Angelica
Coryphee
Coryphee
Performer
Performer
Mannequin

My usual strategy is starting the first turn by summoning 1 or 2 Doves.  Arcane Reservoir helps with card draw, so having a couple of low cards early on isn't too bad since they can be used for "Nothing Up My Sleeve" to add a soulstone.  The majority of Colette's AP's after that are spent "Prompting" the Coryphee/Duet to move and attack.  Along with Cassandra's "Prompt" trigger, that's potentially 7 attacks with the Coryphee when it needs to really kill something.  Performers and Mannequins help with scheme running, and Angelica is there for back end support, or dropping scheme markers for Colette to escape to when she's in a jam.

 

[Sordid Strumpet]

I like the idea of Soul Stone manipulation, but at the same time find it rather uncomfortable that it costs Colette 1AP. It costs 1 stone to get the upgrade, so you have to do it once just to break even, at which point it really is an ability that costs 15% of the AP she will have during the game just to get a single extra stone. 

She can do so much more with that AP, and you can get surge on prompt for free basically. Once you factor in dove summoning, I think she's way too limited to also spend AP on stones or cards.  

I would rather use her with recharge soul stone and keep her in the thick of things.

[Bengt]

What do people think about the Shell Game upgrade? Specifically the Surge trigger (the zero action seems rather niche), you will Prompt a lot after all.