Emissary - Lend me your experiences

[Dogmantra]

Destined thought suddenly occurred to me - the hat of destiny action is random in that it can't be cheated, but you still pick the order you flip for models.

So with Merris using her Gremlin Cunning you could potentially stack the deck so you get results you want for up to 3 models (5 if I'm misremembering and it's not once per turn). Of course you would need to make sure you don't flip any cards between her and the emissary, so it should be an end of turn out activation thing.

To a lesser extent, you could do it with The Lovely Assistant and accomplice straight into the emissary. The downside there is Wong only, a tn on doing it, and you lose out on Old Cranky.

[Blacks85]

7 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

(5 if I'm misremembering and it's not once per turn).

Only once per turn

 

[Kobayashi]

Wooah.. sorry didn't think this is still on after a lot of people bashing on the Emissary :s

Guess I need to try it out to see it's effectiveness... as soon as it hits.

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, Kobayashi said:

Wooah.. sorry didn't think this is still on after a lot of people bashing on the Emissary :s

Huh? People weren't enamoured by the trick of using all of the AP of a 10 SS model to try to Paralyze something in order for another 10 SS model to kill it. I don't think that counts as "bashing" in any way. Aside from that, there has been lots of talk how Emissary's great with Zoraida and might work with some of the other Masters as well. Hardly bashing.

[Omenbringer]

2 hours ago, Kobayashi said:

Wooah.. sorry didn't think this is still on after a lot of people bashing on the Emissary :s

Guess I need to try it out to see it's effectiveness... as soon as it hits.

I agree with Math Mathonwy, it was hardly getting "bashed." The original topic was simply asking for experiences, that includes good and bad. Some have found it moderately useful others have found it less so. While I don't think it is necessarily a "bad" model I do find it lackluster compared to other options that are already available at the same points cost or less. My biggest gripe is the counter design of support on a model that doesn't want to be tied down providing it.

I would definitely encourage you to give it a whirl and see if your experiences differ, many of us already have been (remember that Avatar Som'er has been a legal proxy for the Lucky Emissary since publication).

[Math Mathonwy]

Just now, Omenbringer said:

My biggest gripe is the counter design of support on a model that doesn't want to be tied down providing it.

This sums up the Emissary's problems in a very neat way, IMO. It is at its best when the Conflux lets it go on a rampage as opposed to getting tied down in a support role as then the price tag is too hefty for a half-assed job. So Zoraida's, Mah's, Wong's and to a lesser extent Brewie's Confluxes seem the be the best as then you're free to let it go beat face and not worry about supporting your other models.

Oh, and the fact that it is neither Pig nor Gremlin in an extremely synergistic faction is a big weakness when compared to other models in that price range.

[Kobayashi]

8 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Huh? People weren't enamoured by the trick of using all of the AP of a 10 SS model to try to Paralyze something in order for another 10 SS model to kill it. I don't think that counts as "bashing" in any way. Aside from that, there has been lots of talk how Emissary's great with Zoraida and might work with some of the other Masters as well. Hardly bashing.

Oh... I didn't make it clear enough that while I knew what to do, that this would not the sole purpose of just be too situational (yet a possibility) and that the oppenent would catch onto it next time.

8 hours ago, Omenbringer said:

I agree with Math Mathonwy, it was hardly getting "bashed." The original topic was simply asking for experiences, that includes good and bad. Some have found it moderately useful others have found it less so. While I don't think it is necessarily a "bad" model I do find it lackluster compared to other options that are already available at the same points cost or less. My biggest gripe is the counter design of support on a model that doesn't want to be tied down providing it.

I would definitely encourage you to give it a whirl and see if your experiences differ, many of us already have been (remember that Avatar Som'er has been a legal proxy for the Lucky Emissary since publication).

Yeah, but it still seems to have been dismissive of Wong and Brewmaster, thus I thought people had given up on the model. The intel on Wong and Brewmaster was more "what we have on paper" and sounded that people didn't want to try it out.

8 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

This sums up the Emissary's problems in a very neat way, IMO. It is at its best when the Conflux lets it go on a rampage as opposed to getting tied down in a support role as then the price tag is too hefty for a half-assed job. So Zoraida's, Mah's, Wong's and to a lesser extent Brewie's Confluxes seem the be the best as then you're free to let it go beat face and not worry about supporting your other models.

Oh, and the fact that it is neither Pig nor Gremlin in an extremely synergistic faction is a big weakness when compared to other models in that price range.

McTavish isn't that either, but is considered very good (with Wong) and I guess even in another Crew he is packing his punches. Granted 14" sniping into engagements, snacking markers of any kind is beast...

- - -

How do you rate the pushes? It seems to have an abundance and with a tome it seems to have a lot of reach 6" Charge -> Charge Through -> 4" additional placement -> 6" Charge seems that you can engange what you want to engange easily...

[Blacks85]

I've tried it again, with Zoraida this time.

• The upgrade which give you  on Obey? That was disappointing...after you hit someone with emissary granting the condition you don't know what to do with multiple obeys on him. And it's engaged with at least the emissary, so even if you want to shoot you have to disengage with 1 Obey and then shoot with 1 Obey, which is not really good. Also attack in melee is very conditional because you need a multiple models brawl involving your emissary...overall not good imo.
• The new (0) on the upgrade was very, very useful...you can likely change a low card with an high card and prepare whatever you want for the next nurse activation. (or for the next duel if you didn't out-activate your opponent)
• The combo with the "summoned slow doll" and the (1) AP paralyze is amazing. That grants you the possibility with a 12+ in hand to paralyze anything in 16" radius with only the Zoraida activation using 3 (AP). Sure, you trade a master for a non master but being a support for Zoraida is overall a good option (Yesterday I've paralyzed Francisco on turn 1 forcing my opponent to make a choice: keep perdita still on the next turn to have the +2/+2 bonus or leave francicso alone losing the bonus for 2 turns. That basically swing the game in my favor and gave me the win)

After all, I'm unsure if it is worth with Zoraida...I think not. Nurse is extremely strong, cheaper and it's more flexible. Only real benefit is that you can Obey emissary to paralyze when you summon doll, just a 7+ of any suit required...and you can't get squeezed by a turn without .

Regarding Emissary in general....After 6-7 games I don't think is good enough to deserve the 10SS spot it takes...~without any synergy with other Gremlins.

• Incredibly durable, mostly because people focus it don't really know isn't that good...It has handled thousand of attacks (thanks to the many source of healing in Gremlin)...but it won't be the target in the near future...as soon as people realize is not that threat.
• "Not enough" dmg for a gremlin 10 SS model
• No synergies with the team...

Negative so far, but next time I will try it with Wong and "oooo glowy" and so on, maybe going into the brawl with 4/5/7 ignoring everything and buffing the blast? I don't know, we'll see.

[Kobayashi]

 

4 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

Negative so far, but next time I will try it with Wong and "oooo glowy" and so on, maybe going into the brawl with 4/5/7 ignoring everything and buffing the blast? I don't know, we'll see.

I will look forward to that. Also give the full list rundown with Wong. I would be VERY happy!

[Omenbringer]

On 7/19/2016 at 4:43 PM, Math Mathonwy said:

Oh, and the fact that it is neither Pig nor Gremlin in an extremely synergistic faction is a big weakness when compared to other models in that price range.

This is another huge deficit for the model, though one that was likely due to balance concerns with our support options more than anything else.

Mctavish suffers a bit from this as well, that is one of the reasons he isn't often considered outside of Wong or Zoraida.

Compared to many of the other Emissaries ours seems to take the most work to get utility out of and I would argue is much less "universal" than them as well (universal in the sense that the faction as a whole really benefits from their inclusion). It is a wonderful looking model though one that I fear will be a shelf sitter in most situations.

[Blacks85]

On 7/20/2016 at 2:33 PM, Kobayashi said:

I will look forward to that. Also give the full list rundown with Wong. I would be VERY happy!

So Yesterday night I've played this game vs Pandora. My List was pretty awful (almost ridiculously bad...) because I had only two goals in mind:

• Try most new models possible
• Try to optimize the power of Emissary to see how it works

http://bythetree.net/?f=6&s=50&l=317|231&t=211|1|0|&m=248|0|*209|0|*283|0|*285|0|*307|0|232*309|0|261

I think I've consolidate some thoughts about this new big boy:

• It's absurdly durable, I think the most durable model we have access to. 
• Damage very low for the cost, even with the wong condition. This makes, imo, a not ideal target for the Wong condition.
• 3" engage with such durability and being rare in gremlin, definitively nice.
• The (0) destined action is useless. It's more likely to be for fun than for something else...at 4 / 5 turn you have very few models and this random flip won't really help you anyhow to achieve something. Never used in many games.

Considering - in Gremlin - the overflow of models with incredibly high damages...despite not being either a Gremlin or pig, this model might find his spot being incredibly sturdy in games where you have central strategy like "Extraction" or "Guard the stash". He may be able to patrol a side on its own and never go down.

In these games I never lost this model and - I haven't done the math - it has taken ~25 average dmg per game (plus all missed attacks). Incredible.

Despite my feeling about his model is that it doesn't pay off, the fact that it survived and tanked all these damages (spreading also some damage around...), make me think about it and rate it a good model to deploy.

Back to this match and regarding Wong synergies:

• The (0) action is so and so...draw 2 but give 2 cards back, well I don't like much these trade because unless you are at the end of the turn or have the certainty of what would be the next flip (turn 1 or never I guess)...you can't get much out of it
• The +1 DMG to blast in 4"? This is surprisingly strong. I've shot 3 times to my emissary with Wong to kill pandora with blast and pulse damage, it did work out. (and also my minion to save a VP from hunting party)
• Magical condition on it? Not worth

Lucky effigy gives Wong the ability to being virtually immortal flipping thousands of cards per turn, but nothing else.

Sparks and Mechanized pork....First one is virtually useless? Being around to spread 1 fast per turn isn't a good way to invest 7SS...I've tried it also to add  to moderate/severe for emissary synergy? This is definitively unusable despite accomplice. The pork as well...isn't the Old Major and is very fragile for 7SS, I will try it in a crew designed to maximize it next time.

Another test next week...it will be the time of Somer or Ulix (the only two left...despite being quite un-effective in the second case, I think)

[Kobayashi]

@Blacks85 Thanks for the intel ^-^o

[Math Mathonwy]

9 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

http://bythetree.net/?f=6&s=50&l=317|231&t=211|1|0|&m=248|0|*209|0|*283|0|*285|0|*307|0|232*309|0|261

In these games I never lost this model and - I haven't done the math - it has taken ~25 average dmg per game (plus all missed attacks). Incredible.

I'm most likely missing something obvious, but why is it so durable? That list doesn't seem to feature all that much healing and Destined only amounts to a somewhat limited amount?

[Blacks85]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'm most likely missing something obvious, but why is it so durable? That list doesn't seem to feature all that much healing and Destined only amounts to a somewhat limited amount?

This list is awful and with not too much.

Its naturally durable thanks to HtK, armor1, df/wp 6 and the healing of destined condition.

In this list i've absorbed many damages with

- old cranky buff to wp/df

- extra armor1 from spark

- healing from lightning bug

- regenerate 1 (ooo glowy)

That is not a lot, but enough to bring him to an awesome level of sturdiness

[Four_N_Six]

I only would really use the Emissary in a couple of cases, I think.  If I need a heavy beater, or if I'm running Som'er to summon.  His conflux for Som'er is great if you're going to just bathe your opponent in bayou gremlins.

 

I don't know why I've never considered it for Ooo Glowy, but I'll have to try that next time I run Wong.  I tend to be at a loss and just throw it onto Burt, which is fine, but he's becoming a crutch model, along with Lenny.

 

The main thing I've used it for (having only hired it two or three times) is with Mah.  She can move it around pretty reliably, and it's fast enough on its own, too.  Throw in Mancha if you want to be 20 stones deep with only 2 models, but having Mah, Mancha, and the Emissary moving up the board is relatively terrifying, and should be able to cover most of your damage requirements.

[Kobayashi]

MORE. TELL ME MORE!

[Blacks85]

Just tried it with Brewmaster, I can confirm you is not worth at all

You can't spend 10SS in a model which doesn't beat hard enough considering your master doesn't do any damage directly.

And the (0) is very poor...super conditional and - even if - opponent has two conditions to avoid it to be applied.

30 minutes ago, Kobayashi said:

MORE. TELL ME MORE!

[Kobayashi]

Just now, Blacks85 said:

Just tried it with Brewmaster, I can confirm you is not worth at all

You can't spend 10SS in a model which doesn't beat hard enough considering your master doesn't do any damage directly.

And the (0) is very poor...super conditional and - even if - opponent has two conditions to avoid it to be applied.

Oh well, tbh despite starting with brewie, he doesn't see much table time currently. It's all about the kin and Magic explosives (And there is nothing wong with that).

 

Though it's a shame to bring Brewie back on my Radar...

 

Currently I think that Zipp is better than Brewie in being a control master

[Omenbringer]

Would really have liked if the Lucky Emissary Brew Master upgrade would have provided a method of generating modifiers for models around him. Would have been helpful as a debuff for opponents models and a buff for the Moon Shinobi's.

[Math Mathonwy]

On 7/23/2016 at 11:54 AM, Blacks85 said:

Lucky effigy gives Wong the ability to being virtually immortal flipping thousands of cards per turn, but nothing else.

Did you notice that Lucky Effigy only heals when flipping rams in a duel so damage and pulse flips and such don't count? The only Gremlin Master who has the potential to flip enough in duels to get a use out of the Lucky Effigy is Ophelia IMO.

[Blacks85]

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Did you notice that Lucky Effigy only heals when flipping rams in a duel so damage and pulse flips and such don't count? The only Gremlin Master who has the potential to flip enough in duels to get a use out of the Lucky Effigy is Ophelia IMO.

No, I've lost that part lol...

I've read any kind of flip...that makes lucky effigy even less lucky....lol

thanks for pointing it out

How useless is our poor effigy?

 

[Omenbringer]

A lot of those abilities are a lot less reliable than they look on paper. It likely has to do with trying to prevent it them being called broken given the Gremlin proclivity to cycle the deck as well as Som'er's ability to provide required suits.

[Dogmantra]

6 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

How useless is our poor effigy?

It's not bad, but it doesn't get much better than "okay" in my opinion. I occasionally use it with Ulix when I have 4 stones spare to heal him a couple of extra wounds that he takes from all the summoning, but it's not really an optimal choice. Armour 1 and HtK is fairly nice though, and if you can manage a focused hit for 7 damage that's always hilarious. Normally I'll just take a Bayou Gremlin for one stone less, a Piglet for the same price, or a Lightning Bug for a stone more over it though.

 

Back on the topic of the Emissary, I had a chance to play it with Mah on Monday, which was my first time actually getting to play it instead of theorise about it. It was a super bloody game, and the Emissary got kind of brutalised by poison (Sebastian...), and the fact it's not a Gremlin or Pig really hurt it there. I could see the potential of it but it did seem to be getting countered at nearly every opportunity (an example: I had a Rooster Rider paralysed on 1 wound tied up with three enemies, I got Crows on my initiative and ditched a low Tome to add that so I would draw a card and deal 1 damage to all the enemies near it... it ended up getting devoured and therefore sacrificed so it didn't trigger either of those things)

a 3" range is great since that's so rare in and out of faction, and a Ca 6 vs Wp Slow is nice too. The (0) to push was surprisingly useful - it's only 3" and requires a 6+ which had me skeptical, but it helped decently with positioning. I'd definitely like to try it again.

[Kobayashi]

So my whole take away is:

Depends;

Can it provide sth. you currently don't have available, then take it. Are you able to select from full faction, you might find more pleasing stuff elsewhere...

[Omenbringer]

12 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

It's not bad, but it doesn't get much better than "okay" in my opinion. I occasionally use it with Ulix when I have 4 stones spare to heal him a couple of extra wounds that he takes from all the summoning, but it's not really an optimal choice. Armour 1 and HtK is fairly nice though, and if you can manage a focused hit for 7 damage that's always hilarious. Normally I'll just take a Bayou Gremlin for one stone less, a Piglet for the same price, or a Lightning Bug for a stone more over it though.

Definitely agree, our "staples" generally do an awful lot for our crews that make other models difficult to justify. This is particularly true when pieces lack either the Pig or Gremlin characteristic.

4 hours ago, Kobayashi said:

So my whole take away is:

Depends;

Can it provide sth. you currently don't have available, then take it. Are you able to select from full faction, you might find more pleasing stuff elsewhere...

Pretty much. The model is nice looking and can do some work though, it isn't auto-include like some of the other Emissaries.