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M2e Colette


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11 hours ago, Flint said:

. And please do not try to convince anyone that limiting Prompt is beneficial to her. It gives nothing in exchange.

Limiting Prompt doesn't make Colette a better master, but I would argue that Limiting prompt might well make Colette players better players. Most of the time people used to just use her as an AP battery for a big model, and not really bother to learn what else she can do. Now they have to have a different starting plan, and that makes them think more than they used to. They will probably have to make better use of their crew and be less vulnerable to putting all their eggs in 1 basket. 

This doesn't apply to all players, but it probably applies to a significant minority.

 

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On 1/5/2017 at 2:43 AM, spooky_squirrel said:

On the first point: you're right, there wasn't. I was one of the people that would only prompt 2-3 times in a game total. I'm also one of the few Arcanist players that I know that doesn't take Arcane Reservoir with every master ;)

Performers can join every crew, absolutely. In Colette's care, they can (0) to lob the marker at the feet of their target before using it to seduce them as a (1), then lure them in with the second (1).

Or just lob 2 markers out 6 inches to use for Dig Their Graves, then Lure something into range of your big beater. 

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1 hour ago, Mrbedlam said:

Or just lob 2 markers out 6 inches to use for Dig Their Graves, then Lure something into range of your big beater. 

Exactly, but that's something they can do (at least one marker) in any Arcanist crew as long as they bring at least one Mannequin (not a normal hire for masters other than Colette). These are the sort of interactions to look for, especially with the new GG2017 stuff. Frame for Murder is going to come up more often even as Hunting Party becomes less common, and that's something that can favor Colette's having a bigger crew of minions.

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On 05/01/2017 at 2:46 AM, spooky_squirrel said:

Saying that it's the only master-class action she can do implies that it is the only thing she has to offer. Especially when combined with complaints about being limited by LOS and 10", when her biggest passive buff to the crew also requires LOS and has a shorter range.

She could do all the things I described before Prompt was limited, but for tournament play, most players were not practicing those. They went with a beater like Howard Langston and relied on prompting him multiple times. The better players learned to rely on prompt less when their beaters would disappear, but many in my local and extended meta (which is the greater Seattle Area) would switch to another master instead of trying to learn the more complex parts of Colette's game. They subscribed to a common attitude that the only thing Colette had to offer was prompting, because it was the simplest and most direct thing on her card, and when it worked it worked really well.

What makes her more unpredictable is the fact that now when an opponent drops Colette into a strategy and scheme pool at a tournament, you can no longer safely bet that she's going to prompt the biggest beater as much as she can. With the update to schemes for GG2017, there's a whole new batch of interactions for people to figure out. As I've already said multiple times: when she drops scheme markers, she can drop them for AP from All Together Now, but she can also drop them for buffing her own crew or debuffing the opponent's crew. She could be dropping them for a scheme that scores where those markers are at now, or dropping them to move them to where they will score later on when there's little-to-nothing that can be done about it. These make her unpredictable and always have been on the card, but many players ignored that about her because prompting a single target multiple times was very simple to set up and use and had great return with the right prompt targets.

This has been my point this entire time. People could learn other ways to play her, but had no reason to and thus would not. When their favorite trick stopped working because their local meta started alpha-striking the prompt target off of the table, they switched to another master instead of playing Colette in the way that her fluff and design indicate she was meant to play.

That's not really good for the game, as it promotes the idea that the only master-class action/ability Colette brings is prompting.

She's actually a superb schemer and works really well with a crew of 8-9 minion/showgirl models into almost every strat/scheme combination that gets flipped, because even the ones that require killing are not out of reach with Coryphee and Cassandra in theme and getting extra AP out of models that function like glass cannons--the biggest flaw with using her this way is that it is a lot harder to figure out all the nuance involved, which requires more practice and patience, as well as a willingness to lose a lot of games because it is finesse play and mistakes in finesse play are costly.
I happily drop her with a minion-heavy crew into Hunting Party, because when those Performers die, they reactivate nearby minions and showgirls. Sure, my opponent gets a VP for killing it, but I get another activation out of Angelica, Coryphee Duet, Carlos, Cassandra, or Colette unless there's something more important for a minion to be doing, like a Union Miner spitting out 5 more scheme markers (3 stay after upkeep) in order to score 3 off of Set Up or Hidden Trap when there's little-to-nothing further my opponent can do to stop it.

Looks like I will be repeating myself again... Yest that's her only master class ACTION she can do. Now let's take a look on her passive buff. Yup, looks powerful at first glance but it is restricted to showgirls and minions. Showgirls are rarely beaters (even Coryphee are more disruptors than killers) so this restricts player to use rather not so killy crew if he/she wants to spam the table with markers. If player want's to bring heavy beaters like Joss, he/she will be restricted in use of scheme markers (not so many on the table) and that all this powerful buff suddenly is not much worth. By seeing these beaters You can predict Colette's player tactics, and therefore she is not so powerful even if she use prompt three times on same target. With not so many scheme markers, actions like All Together Now or Disapperaing Act or any other that uses markers, are not powerful, versatile and easy achievable. That's quite a restriction but also a player's choice. With many minions/showgirls can put quite some scheme markers around but single minion/showgirl cannot just drop three markers on single activation. Rules states clearly that another marker must be more than 4" away. So that forces spending AP for walk. And even then placing markers might not be possible/convenient because of terrain, enemy models etc. Of course You can use Mannequin but he is not for free any more. Also Even if he is on table You still cannot throw markers just like that, mannequin must spend one action for Magician's Assistant. Then You can throw markers in 6" distance BUT again there is restriction to it: friendly model must be within 2" distance to mannequin. Now, how many models would You like to group together? 2? 3? Looks like great target for Sonnia or anyone with blast template. Also that means you will keep your crew together in one place only to use markers throwing. Sure, You can hire another mannequin. And that's another 4ss. And still this 4" bubble distance between markers is quite big. Any player who played her box crew knows restrictions and are aware that it is not so easy to throw markers everywhere. And there is Prompt, which i used very often for same Performer beacause that model was in position to drop marker and use that marker against enemy. Opponents know Seduction action is ant therefore do not hurry to end their model's activation near it. Prompting twice (or more) same performer which was in right position often surprised my opponents which do not expected that this little minion could be so dangerous. Now it's gone. Because Howard Langston (didn't You told that was predictable and easily beaten by You? if so it is not so powerful and do not need to be limited). 

 

On 05/01/2017 at 8:43 AM, spooky_squirrel said:

Performers can join every crew, absolutely. In Colette's care, they can (0) to lob the marker at the feet of their target before using it to seduce them as a (1), then lure them in with the second (1).

As said before, mannequin (4ss) required which was already activated and spent action for Magician's Assistant. Unless You run just next to enemy model (AP spent + manipulative do not protect anymore) and then throw marker. 

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I think Disappearing Act is a "Master level" action, only other Masters have place actions with similar range, e.g. Tangle Shadows, Lightning Dance, Hot off the presses. Now I understand if you would consider it on the lower end of the listed actions, but non masters don't get actions like it.

All together now I think also qualifies but with its massive setup it kind of feels like your opponent need to be asleep for you to use it effectively very often.

Her attack actions are rather lame for a master (does anyone use Hooked Cane for anything but occasionally poking a nearby friendly model for Costumes?).

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@Flint Your complaints can basically be summed up as 'she has weaknesses'. The thing is, ot make a model balanced it must have weaknesses. Game play and tactical decisons revolve around minimising your weaknesses and exploiting your opponent's.

Your arguments simply hold no water. 

When I play Colette, she tends to prompt at most twice. I usually play Cassandra, a duet and a December Acolyte - all of which are great prompt targets, and you can still prompt every single one of them.

Giving a big beater 3 extra AP and a potential 9" extra movement was very neary broken. It also made Colette the most dull and one dimensional master around - basically Perdita, but with someone else doing the damage. Bang, bang, bang. Done.

Being predictable only goes so far to make it less powerful. That's like saying the ability to remove a model  per turn for free is balanced because it's predictable.

You've managed to argue both that Colette is unbalanced because she has weaknesses, and that prompt was balanced because it has a (very contrived) weakness. You can't have it both ways mate.

13 minutes ago, Bengt said:

I think Disappearing Act is a "Master level" action, only other Masters have place actions with similar range, e.g. Tangle Shadows, Lightning Dance, Hot off the presses. Now I understand if you would consider it on the lower end of the listed actions, but non masters don't get actions like it.

All together now I think also qualifies but with its massive setup it kind of feels like your opponent need to be asleep for you to use it effectively very often.

Her attack actions are rather lame for a master (does anyone use Hooked Cane for anything but occasionally poking a nearby friendly model for Costumes?).

I do, all the time on enemy models. It might draw out a card or get me some free damage. 

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1 hour ago, Sordid Strumpet said:

@Flint Your complaints can basically be summed up as 'she has weaknesses'. The thing is, ot make a model balanced it must have weaknesses. Game play and tactical decisons revolve around minimising your weaknesses and exploiting your opponent's.

Your arguments simply hold no water. 

When I play Colette, she tends to prompt at most twice. I usually play Cassandra, a duet and a December Acolyte - all of which are great prompt targets, and you can still prompt every single one of them.

Giving a big beater 3 extra AP and a potential 9" extra movement was very neary broken. It also made Colette the most dull and one dimensional master around - basically Perdita, but with someone else doing the damage. Bang, bang, bang. Done.

Being predictable only goes so far to make it less powerful. That's like saying the ability to remove a model  per turn for free is balanced because it's predictable.

You've managed to argue both that Colette is unbalanced because she has weaknesses, and that prompt was balanced because it has a (very contrived) weakness. You can't have it both ways mate.

I do, all the time on enemy models. It might draw out a card or get me some free damage. 

Yes, Colette is weaker because now with restricted choice player is more predictable. You cannot make player less predictable if he has more choices.

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From a game play perspective it was necessary because Colette was quite boring to play against. She's not better by any means, but like it's been said before - having to rethink Colette will make people better players as they're now able to use her in more ways than before.

Edited by Sordid Strumpet
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Just a few things to clarify

On 05/01/2017 at 2:46 AM, spooky_squirrel said:

She could do all the things I described before Prompt was limited, but for tournament play, most players were not practicing those. They went with a beater like Howard Langston and relied on prompting him multiple times. The better players learned to rely on prompt less when their beaters would disappear, but many in my local and extended meta (which is the greater Seattle Area) would switch to another master instead of trying to learn the more complex parts of Colette's game. They subscribed to a common attitude that the only thing Colette had to offer was prompting, because it was the simplest and most direct thing on her card, and when it worked it worked really well.

What make You so sure that players who switch to another after being beat will "learn the more complex parts of Colette's game"  after limiting prompt instead of switching to another master again?

 

 

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7 hours ago, Flint said:

Since when arcanists masters (or puppeteers and constructionists) cannot hire Mannequin? Maybe You meant Doves?

They're not normally hired by other masters because they are a 4 stone peon, and mainly useful for schemes only when paired with something that uses them. I've used one with a Performer in Ironsides before, but it is not a normal hire for other masters. I did not say a restricted hire.

7 hours ago, Flint said:

Just a few things to clarify

What make You so sure that players who switch to another after being beat will "learn the more complex parts of Colette's game"  after limiting prompt instead of switching to another master again?

I'm guessing that what you're asking here is what would stop people from switching now that Colette's been changed. The answer is nothing. However, what has changed is that people are not coming to a master who is known for scheming and smuggling in all of her fluff and expecting to use her as an AP battery for a beater. People who pick up post-Errata Colette will not have that crutch in the first place, and if they have henchmen and plenty of casual play in their local area, they have the ability to take their time and learn how to use a finesse model as a finesse model. In more competitive metas the learning curve may be steeper, unless the local players are willing to review the game afterwards and go over strengths and weaknesses. By virtue of not having that crutch in the first place, they're not going to come in thinking that Colette could do everything so long as she brings a proper beater/shooter. They will come in knowing in advance that she's a tricky finesse master that schemes extremely well.

Before the errata, as I and others have said, people dropped triple-prompt Colette lists into their tournament queue because the list effectively ran itself*. Which brings me to this:

9 hours ago, Flint said:

It was not necessary. Spooky_Squirrel said that he won easily against boring "Howard Langston players". Being beaten is good reason to use more sophisticated tactics than 3prompt-beater all the time. 

The reason I messed them up badly playing Colette versus Colette, is they listened to people who felt that Colette's only purpose in life was to triple prompt a beater model. They had no idea what else was on her card, nor how to run a complex crew. *They expected the crew to run itself, and against people who don't understand it (typically found more in the lower/fun half of the tournament field) it does run itself. Their game got frustrating for them because they truly did not understand how Colette and her crew interact. They never had reason to learn why she's seen as the one of the most powerful Arcanist masters (even outside of prompt) and one of the strongest scheme masters in the game (prior to Wave 4).

The problem with playing against a multi-prompt beater build, regardless of the beater involved is that is is extremely boring to play against. If it's Howard Langston or Joss, you can expect Mobile Toolkit and Mechanical Doves give it boosts, if it's something that's not a construct, the Doves will give it boosts. In order for prompt to help, the beater must be in position before Cassandra and Colette activate, so it activates mid turn to get up the field and into the scrum. Once there the prompt play calls for activating Colette, prompting 3x, then activating Cassandra to Understudy Prompt and prompt again. Less experienced players will do things like play into a strat/scheme pool that doesn't actually require killing to win and they won't have the ability to complete the VPs until their opponent is wiped out. More experienced players will pick out and kill the key components of your overall plan, and you end up spending the game flipping against a model that's getting up to 9-10 more attacks than it normally would (reactivated Colette) as it pushes around, kiting from model to model.

Being beaten is a good reason to shift tactics, but for people who pick up Colette and beaters of choice to take them to tournaments, they were not. They literally just switched to another master (or even faction) simply because what they wanted to play was better done by another master. If what they want to play is a beater/killy crew regardless of strategy and schemes, that's fine. However, more than a few were poisoning the well as they did it, leading people to believe that the only thing Colette is good for is prompt.

Which is how we end up in this kind of discussion. 

A question you keep asking is "how does limiting a model increase its unpredictability", but you keep ignoring myself and others telling you that what we saw in competitive games and at tournaments were a lot of Colette Prompts builds and not much else. This is the very definition of predictable: you pull up to the table, your opponent declares Arcanists, you can see that they have Colette on their display board, and when the crews are revealed it's Colette and 1-2 beaters. Nearly every time.

We get less predictable because her Prompt ability no longer overshadows everything else that she can do. Before, when your opponent activated Colette, sure, they could Disappearing Act to move stuff around, Summon Doves, call out All Together Now, or they could Prompt something. When there was no limit to Prompt, there was no reason to not just prompt all the time, and very little reason to not build a crew around prompting 1-2 beaters to play like a Guild kill crew. With the limit to Prompt, lists will branch out from there and more players will explore more options. When you have one item that is far more likely and three other items that are equally likely to each other (for example: A (prompting) occurs roughly 85% of the time; B, C, and D occur 5% of the time each), you have a more predictable set of outcomes. You can safely bet on A happening. If you reduce the probability of A to the point where your split is more along the lines of 40:20:20:20, it becomes substantially less predictable.

Will Colette be killy? She has access to the same killers as the other Arcanist masters, so nothing's stopping her there. She's just not going to be "remove 1-2 models a turn, period" lethal--which is fine. She's a smuggler and schemer that relies heavily on her crew to get stuff done. With practice, Colette players will be able to bluff and double-bluff everything they do. Their scheme markers can have multiple purposes, and those purposes can even change in the middle of the turn. This ability to generate a chaotic mess of possibilities makes it harder to predict exactly what the Colette player is going to do, because they may not know themselves until they do it--their practice games have been about managing chaos and being flexible enough to respond to changing battlefield conditions while still working towards their strat/scheme points.

If you want to guarantee removing at least one model a turn, there are masters whose whole shtick is just that--and everything on their card reflects it.

12 hours ago, Bengt said:

I think Disappearing Act is a "Master level" action, only other Masters have place actions with similar range, e.g. Tangle Shadows, Lightning Dance, Hot off the presses. Now I understand if you would consider it on the lower end of the listed actions, but non masters don't get actions like it.

All together now I think also qualifies but with its massive setup it kind of feels like your opponent need to be asleep for you to use it effectively very often.

Her attack actions are rather lame for a master (does anyone use Hooked Cane for anything but occasionally poking a nearby friendly model for Costumes?).

I agree that Disappearing Act is on par with other master abilities of the same nature. As I've been nudging lately, All Together Now can be done quickly using Union Miners, or done in a way that looks like you're setting up for another scheme altogether. With the Claim Jump change from Convict Labor/A Line in the Sand, dropping a bunch of scheme markers around the middle of the board will look like something other than Claim Jump is going on, but if you're building your crew for it (and since getting the ability is a 2 stone upgrade, maybe the crew should work around this) you can also make it look like you're just setting debuff traps (i.e. seduction), scheme traps, or buffing effects (i.e. Envy's shooting, Hooked Canes, Large Steam Arachnids). It'll take practice, and if you're practicing it in your local meta, then the players there will be more alert to the possibility of it for certain.

Colette's not really supposed to beat anyone up. Cassandra's the one who fills that role on the stage. Colette's more the director of the whole performance. It's up to the player what that performance looks like.

 

9 hours ago, Sordid Strumpet said:

From a game play perspective it was necessary because Colette was quite boring to play against. She's not better by any means, but like it's been said before - having to rethink Colette will make people better players as they're now able to use her in more ways than before.

+9000

This has been my core point this whole time. Colette is not better, but her players will become better players for this change.

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35 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

I agree that Disappearing Act is on par with other master abilities of the same nature. As I've been nudging lately, All Together Now can be done quickly using Union Miners, or done in a way that looks like you're setting up for another scheme altogether. With the Claim Jump change from Convict Labor/A Line in the Sand, dropping a bunch of scheme markers around the middle of the board will look like something other than Claim Jump is going on, but if you're building your crew for it (and since getting the ability is a 2 stone upgrade, maybe the crew should work around this) you can also make it look like you're just setting debuff traps (i.e. seduction), scheme traps, or buffing effects (i.e. Envy's shooting, Hooked Canes, Large Steam Arachnids). It'll take practice, and if you're practicing it in your local meta, then the players there will be more alert to the possibility of it for certain.

Colette's not really supposed to beat anyone up. Cassandra's the one who fills that role on the stage. Colette's more the director of the whole performance. It's up to the player what that performance looks like.

My point is that you want to do something with your Master's AP every turn that feels somewhat significant, and you are not going to trick someone about All Together Now more than once per game. Not that it should be impossible to get a little ahead in AP (or break even while trading it to harder models) even if the opponent knows exactly what your doing.

I didn't mention her attack actions because I expected them to be good, just to note that it's not the first stop when you are looking to do something "master level".

---

All in all I'm still so surprised that some of you guys seems to be absolutely overjoyed that Colette got Cuddled. ;)

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2 minutes ago, Bengt said:

My point is that you want to do something with your Master's AP every turn that feels somewhat significant, and you are not going to trick someone about All Together Now more than once per game. Not that it should be impossible to get a little ahead in AP (or break even while trading it to harder models) even if the opponent knows exactly what your doing.

I didn't mention her attack actions because I expected them to be good, just to note that it's not the first stop when you are looking to do something "master level".

---

All in all I'm still so surprised that some of you guys seems to be absolutely overjoyed that Colette got Cuddled. ;)

Fair enough. I honestly never expect to get All Together Now off more than once in a game. With good timing, that once may be enough to shift momentum in my favor. For me, her attack action is mainly there for the triggers if I need them.

What I like about the prompt limitation is that is all that they did. They didn't go after the models that were being prompted, so Hank can keep being Hank, and they didn't go after the synergy support elements that boost other models until the end of the turn or their next activation. They went straight for what was causing the problem of Colette and auto-take traps. Someone who wants to still have her be a super-prompter can still have her prompting models, but now it's not just one model that's been given all the buffs and being piloted. Now it's prompting Envy to take another shot, prompting the Emissary to push and walk into charge position, prompting Angelica to push her up and have her push someone further away into position. There's still prompting the Coryphee to give it reactivate so that it can maul some stuff and merge, prompting the Coryphee to merge and then prompting the Duet to attack, and you can still prompt Howard Langston to get that extra min damage 4 attack with a kill trigger, but now it's something that must be more carefully considered. 

It also opens up some wiggle room for new models (don't we have a werewolf lawyer coming?) to have (1) actions that don't need to go through a sieve of "if this model uses this action 4-7 more times in this turn, does it still seem balanced?" or have a set of constraints on how/when to use the ability that are confusing unless viewed through that lens.

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Prompting a single model three times after said model had been buffed to the eye balls was reminiscent of the 'death star' tactics used in WHFB, and that tactic was extremely toxic to the overall health if the game. The Colette thing wasn't as bad, but it had the same flavour and just felt disingenuous to use and play against.

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A Colette crew played as a "killer" list in most competitive builds, I hated that.  It felt wrong, these were the Showgirls, glitter, glam and misdirection - not blood, gore and unreasoning aggression.

I play Colette, I love her concept and crew and yes she has become harder to play in terms of tactics and more restricted in her use of powers, undoubtedly, 100%, totally agree.  By the metric of raw power she has become weaker.

But I approve, it will make me think more, I'll have to go back to coming at opponents more 'sideways' and utilizing exactly the feints, misdirection and multi-layered tactics that originally attracted me to the Colette crew in the first place.  In a land of deadly fanged nightmares and brutal gunslingers a group of women (traditionally an underclass of the historical era) and dancers (lets face facts never a group highly regarded for the combat prowess or startling intellectual-philosophical contribution to the wider world - and here I say that this is the perception not reality, most parents want their kids to become doctors and not so much a stage dancer) are regarded as a powerful and dangerous force.  I love this idea, since time immemorial the 'cute bit of strumpet' has been discounted, objectified and ridiculed - Colette and her girls change the script and burn the narrow minded not by punching out your lights but by making you stare at the light while they steel the shirt of your back, convince everyone around you you're meaningless and twist the narrative to their goal, all while you watch them like a hawk for all the wrong damn reasons.

This is the Colette crew I want to play, the one where you watch me beat you but you're not sure how.  This is what this change is about for me, it is a cuddle in every sense because it has "reduced" her power conventionally but its also renewed my love for what the crew should represent.  Colette is better for what she has lost, as players I expect the same will soon become true for those who love her crew.

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3 hours ago, dancater said:

A Colette crew played as a "killer" list in most competitive builds, I hated that.  It felt wrong, these were the Showgirls, glitter, glam and misdirection - not blood, gore and unreasoning aggression.

I play Colette, I love her concept and crew and yes she has become harder to play in terms of tactics and more restricted in her use of powers, undoubtedly, 100%, totally agree.  By the metric of raw power she has become weaker.

But I approve, it will make me think more, I'll have to go back to coming at opponents more 'sideways' and utilizing exactly the feints, misdirection and multi-layered tactics that originally attracted me to the Colette crew in the first place.  In a land of deadly fanged nightmares and brutal gunslingers a group of women (traditionally an underclass of the historical era) and dancers (lets face facts never a group highly regarded for the combat prowess or startling intellectual-philosophical contribution to the wider world - and here I say that this is the perception not reality, most parents want their kids to become doctors and not so much a stage dancer) are regarded as a powerful and dangerous force.  I love this idea, since time immemorial the 'cute bit of strumpet' has been discounted, objectified and ridiculed - Colette and her girls change the script and burn the narrow minded not by punching out your lights but by making you stare at the light while they steel the shirt of your back, convince everyone around you you're meaningless and twist the narrative to their goal, all while you watch them like a hawk for all the wrong damn reasons.

This is the Colette crew I want to play, the one where you watch me beat you but you're not sure how.  This is what this change is about for me, it is a cuddle in every sense because it has "reduced" her power conventionally but its also renewed my love for what the crew should represent.  Colette is better for what she has lost, as players I expect the same will soon become true for those who love her crew.

Exactly this.

Her fluff features her planting a soul stone on someone coming to kill her and manipulating the situation so that the witch hunter investigating her ends up trying arrest the would-be assassin (who dies resisting). When smuggling through the sewers she relies on trickiness to get as many of her people out alive as she can, and then starts demanding better compensation for her smuggling because of the increased risk to her girls.

That's the flavor that she's set up to have (by most of the text on her card, by her starting crew box, and by the various showgirl models that she can hire). She draws people into traps, she sets them up to be hammered by someone with far more aggression and legal weight than she has, and she can make most people around her think that she was the innocent victim in the whole thing. This is what makes her different than the other Arcanist masters.

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23 hours ago, Flint said:

Yes, Colette is weaker because now with restricted choice player is more predictable. You cannot make player less predictable if he has more choices.

Actually you can. 

If you roll 2 d6 you have 11 possible outcomes. But if you were to bet on a number you should bet on 7. 

If you roll 2 d6 but always re-roll any results that are 7, you only have 10 possible outcomes, but if you are to bet on an outcome you have probably split the choices between 6 and 8. 

So fewer choices, but less predictability. 

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So, uh. I'm late to the game of Colette here, but the nay-sayers who claim Colette isn't Master-class any more...

1) In a game based on AP, where a significant proportion of the game's victory conditions rely on (1) Interact actions and most Minion models lack a (0) action, how is giving them a free (0) Interact Action not Master-class?

2) In a game where Soulstones are limited, how is getting a free Soulstone for +suit a turn not Master-class?

3) Going to her upgrades, in a game where activation control is king, how is it not Master-class to be able to summon a model that can activate when her turn's over, move up to 20", then give a friendly model a positive flip Condition AND let that mode Activate immediately? Doves are awesome! Or to give multiple models +1 AP with proper planning?

 

If the Arcanists had a tier system, Colette dropped from Rank S(S?) to Rank A - yes, she lost power, but she was way too strong and it was due to a negative interaction between her Prompt ability giving a single beater model 5 AP total during a turn. There was no reason to do anything else on her card. It looks... boring. Noninteractive.

She's still strong, but not a no-brainer piece any more. She requires some thought and planning, as befits her established personality.

There's always a lot of hyperbole from players whose favored SS choices get Cuddled. The pattern is inevitable, I've seen it a dozen times. "Oooh, we can't use this any more, it's broken now, we're done with the game," then they try out the new version to find it works just fine. Sometimes they even post retractions or apologies. Sometimes.

Heck, now I'm wondering how well a Beater Colette would work with a Union Miner spitting out 5 Scheme Markers for her to use as Hooked Cane fodder. A 4/6/7 damage track looks pretty to me... but that might just be the Johnny in me looking to do something unexpected with a model. How to support that properly... hmm....

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The argument started because some people claimed that Colette was better off (in some vague sense) with the cuddle. I don't think anyone has claimed that she sucks now.

1 hour ago, iamfanboy said:

Heck, now I'm wondering how well a Beater Colette would work with a Union Miner spitting out 5 Scheme Markers for her to use as Hooked Cane fodder. A 4/6/7 damage track looks pretty to me... but that might just be the Johnny in me looking to do something unexpected with a model. How to support that properly... hmm....

Hooked cane gets +1 to the attack flip, not the damage, so at best you get a Ml 8 1/3/4 attack if you spam scheme markers. You might be thinking of Titania?

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On 09/01/2017 at 8:46 PM, spooky_squirrel said:

They're not normally hired by other masters because they are a 4 stone peon, and mainly useful for schemes only when paired with something that uses them. I've used one with a Performer in Ironsides before, but it is not a normal hire for other masters. I did not say a restricted hire.

I'm guessing that what you're asking here is what would stop people from switching now that Colette's been changed. The answer is nothing. However, what has changed is that people are not coming to a master who is known for scheming and smuggling in all of her fluff and expecting to use her as an AP battery for a beater. People who pick up post-Errata Colette will not have that crutch in the first place, and if they have henchmen and plenty of casual play in their local area, they have the ability to take their time and learn how to use a finesse model as a finesse model. In more competitive metas the learning curve may be steeper, unless the local players are willing to review the game afterwards and go over strengths and weaknesses. By virtue of not having that crutch in the first place, they're not going to come in thinking that Colette could do everything so long as she brings a proper beater/shooter. They will come in knowing in advance that she's a tricky finesse master that schemes extremely well.

Before the errata, as I and others have said, people dropped triple-prompt Colette lists into their tournament queue because the list effectively ran itself*. Which brings me to this:

The reason I messed them up badly playing Colette versus Colette, is they listened to people who felt that Colette's only purpose in life was to triple prompt a beater model. They had no idea what else was on her card, nor how to run a complex crew. *They expected the crew to run itself, and against people who don't understand it (typically found more in the lower/fun half of the tournament field) it does run itself. Their game got frustrating for them because they truly did not understand how Colette and her crew interact. They never had reason to learn why she's seen as the one of the most powerful Arcanist masters (even outside of prompt) and one of the strongest scheme masters in the game (prior to Wave 4).

The problem with playing against a multi-prompt beater build, regardless of the beater involved is that is is extremely boring to play against. If it's Howard Langston or Joss, you can expect Mobile Toolkit and Mechanical Doves give it boosts, if it's something that's not a construct, the Doves will give it boosts. In order for prompt to help, the beater must be in position before Cassandra and Colette activate, so it activates mid turn to get up the field and into the scrum. Once there the prompt play calls for activating Colette, prompting 3x, then activating Cassandra to Understudy Prompt and prompt again. Less experienced players will do things like play into a strat/scheme pool that doesn't actually require killing to win and they won't have the ability to complete the VPs until their opponent is wiped out. More experienced players will pick out and kill the key components of your overall plan, and you end up spending the game flipping against a model that's getting up to 9-10 more attacks than it normally would (reactivated Colette) as it pushes around, kiting from model to model.

Being beaten is a good reason to shift tactics, but for people who pick up Colette and beaters of choice to take them to tournaments, they were not. They literally just switched to another master (or even faction) simply because what they wanted to play was better done by another master. If what they want to play is a beater/killy crew regardless of strategy and schemes, that's fine. However, more than a few were poisoning the well as they did it, leading people to believe that the only thing Colette is good for is prompt.

Which is how we end up in this kind of discussion. 

A question you keep asking is "how does limiting a model increase its unpredictability", but you keep ignoring myself and others telling you that what we saw in competitive games and at tournaments were a lot of Colette Prompts builds and not much else. This is the very definition of predictable: you pull up to the table, your opponent declares Arcanists, you can see that they have Colette on their display board, and when the crews are revealed it's Colette and 1-2 beaters. Nearly every time.

We get less predictable because her Prompt ability no longer overshadows everything else that she can do. Before, when your opponent activated Colette, sure, they could Disappearing Act to move stuff around, Summon Doves, call out All Together Now, or they could Prompt something. When there was no limit to Prompt, there was no reason to not just prompt all the time, and very little reason to not build a crew around prompting 1-2 beaters to play like a Guild kill crew. With the limit to Prompt, lists will branch out from there and more players will explore more options. When you have one item that is far more likely and three other items that are equally likely to each other (for example: A (prompting) occurs roughly 85% of the time; B, C, and D occur 5% of the time each), you have a more predictable set of outcomes. You can safely bet on A happening. If you reduce the probability of A to the point where your split is more along the lines of 40:20:20:20, it becomes substantially less predictable.

Will Colette be killy? She has access to the same killers as the other Arcanist masters, so nothing's stopping her there. She's just not going to be "remove 1-2 models a turn, period" lethal--which is fine. She's a smuggler and schemer that relies heavily on her crew to get stuff done. With practice, Colette players will be able to bluff and double-bluff everything they do. Their scheme markers can have multiple purposes, and those purposes can even change in the middle of the turn. This ability to generate a chaotic mess of possibilities makes it harder to predict exactly what the Colette player is going to do, because they may not know themselves until they do it--their practice games have been about managing chaos and being flexible enough to respond to changing battlefield conditions while still working towards their strat/scheme points.

If you want to guarantee removing at least one model a turn, there are masters whose whole shtick is just that--and everything on their card reflects it.

I agree that Disappearing Act is on par with other master abilities of the same nature. As I've been nudging lately, All Together Now can be done quickly using Union Miners, or done in a way that looks like you're setting up for another scheme altogether. With the Claim Jump change from Convict Labor/A Line in the Sand, dropping a bunch of scheme markers around the middle of the board will look like something other than Claim Jump is going on, but if you're building your crew for it (and since getting the ability is a 2 stone upgrade, maybe the crew should work around this) you can also make it look like you're just setting debuff traps (i.e. seduction), scheme traps, or buffing effects (i.e. Envy's shooting, Hooked Canes, Large Steam Arachnids). It'll take practice, and if you're practicing it in your local meta, then the players there will be more alert to the possibility of it for certain.

Colette's not really supposed to beat anyone up. Cassandra's the one who fills that role on the stage. Colette's more the director of the whole performance. It's up to the player what that performance looks like.

 

+9000

This has been my core point this whole time. Colette is not better, but her players will become better players for this change.

If there are players who just want to beat opponent crews and nothing more then no amount limitations of Colette will change their mind. They will switch to another master and will keep beating other crews with another masters, ruining other players games. The answer to that is learn how to beat boring player and as You said it is possible. Then they will see their beating tactics (with any master) do not work and change it to something more effective, more finesse maybe (which could be requirement for winning game).

You keep ignoring what I am saying all the time: prompt is the only master class action Colette has. You did not show me any other versatile action that can be usable most of the game. Not on her card, surely. Disappearing Act looks nice at first glance long range and middle card required , but after taking a closer look You'll see that there is Scheme Marker required, somebody must be there to place it first (6" max range with mannequin after using Magicians Assistant). Opponent must  not see this coming or he sees that and decide that it is not worth to react or he can prepare suitable welcome comitee there. Setup required, not versatile, limited, predictable.

So You need to buy upgrades (spend precious SS). There are some actions which are mostly situational  - requires setup (easily predictable then by opponent) or high cards and suits. So heavily resource draining - limiting player in use. Colette has ONE free soulstone, or rather one free suit to add (no other options to spend that free SS) as long as You HAVE at least one. And Colette need suit for summon, defensive or cast purposes.

Colette is now forced to focus on scheme markers dropping/using. Looks more finesse. Problem is that kind of game requires much more effort than for other masters to counter it (masters, not necessarily players). If You spend three turn setting things up it may be already too late to use it because opponent already has enough VP. 

Imagine chess game. White side is without queen. White side player is now beneficial because he will learn more finesse tactics to beat enemy, not just another easy win with the brutal equality of forces. He will learn to think more and be a better player.

 

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