Sandeep experiences so far?

[Blackraw]

1 hour ago, mythicFOX said:

The Soulstone Miner is fairly specific in it's use.  It excels in games of Squatters and Stake a Claim, especially in Corner Deployment.   Where you just need to get a scheme marker down PP & Raptor will do a better job but the moment you need to hold ground or interact in other ways up field then the SS Miner can be golden.  

In Squatters the aim is to drop him end of turn one on whichever marker the enemy hasn't got to that is most out of the way, normally one of the end/corner markers.  Once there it can then flip / contest the marker early next turn. Once in position the 40mm base totally protects the marker, and with; 6wd, Armor 1, and Use Soulstones it's not going anywhere in a hurry unless your opponent invests way more than 6ss in shifting it, and given it's out of the way that investment rarely shows returns.  If it's totally un-harassed you can even start mining Soulstones with it (or doing half of Claim Jump).

(I'll post on Visions vs Commands tomorrow as I don't have time to do that topic justice right now.)

 

PS: If we're posting our records I'm 8-0 (+35) with Sandeep in competitive play, I don't count causal games.

 

 

Thanks for explanation, that makes sense now. 6SS seems pretty good price when they contribute to your VP strongly. 

As for visions and command, I think that it strongly depends on playstyle and the rest of the crew. If you have Interference + Leave your mark and Dig your graves I see not that much sense in Visions (unless you believe that your opponent is playing interact-heavy schemes), where PP+Raptor and (0) Interact Sandeep has are more than sufficient to do the job. However with Headhunter + Recover Evidence + Mark for death I would rather opt for killy crew + Visions. 

Do you have any positive experience of using Mechanical Rider or Students/Valedictorian in competitive/casual play?

[Blackraw]

39 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Most of my opponents would disagree with this. A single Shastar Vidiya Guard can get a lot of work done, especially with the ability to give themselves focus for discarding a card, draw cards for cheating on Df, and having triggers on every suit (including handing out slow or ignoring all damage reduction) in melee. This work is all master-independent. As Academics and M&SU, they synergize with several of our masters right out of the box. Having 8 wounds and Hard to Kill means that it'll take some effort to kill them. He can also (0) to push a friend around, which makes up for inherent slowness of some models when getting into combat, or otherwise help them disengage.

Agree with you. However, I have mixed feeling about that model, my mind finds 8 SS kinda big investment for that kind of enforcer (Surely, I would rather pick Howard than Shastar+ Gamin for the same price if I want a reliable beater), but on practice whenever I used them they always appeared to justify their cost. With H2K I also find ability to heal back above H2K pretty helpful, so sometimes had to borrow Sandeep push solely for heal trigger. The librarian may also be helpful for this.

And hard to doubt mythicFOX saying about  being superior to  in most cases. I shall definitely try more killy crew with melee models. Just realized that in the last 3 competitive games I played with Sandeep (all 3 were won) I ended up killing 1/2/0 (3 in total) models of my opponents.

[Alexander Tsikarev]

I fully understand that half of my success with Sandeep is based on the low number of crews and models in our meta and on lack of players skill and experience. Maybe the key part of this success is this crew's ability to outactivate any non-resser crew (and i havent tried it against Mcmourning or Nicodem yet).

I understand that the meta will adapt to this, so i'm switching to other masters as i've got them at last. I think it wont be easy to adapt to all the masters.

This is a very good explanation of what SVG can do, i will try him again in some time. There are a few problems with his functionality: a trigger on all suits is cool, but it is a bit uncontrollable. You just get some random effect, like with the Gremlins. 

I totally agree with you on the Mages. If something drops inside their bubble, it will be really painful. To solve this problem, firstly, i split them. One goes with Sandeep, another with Amina, and the Nemesis mage has a tome built-in, so he's ok by himself.In my last 3-4 games there want a single moment when anything could engage the mages without dying/being pused out and dying. I think that I'm going to have problems vs Zipp with his crew's ability to move fast and Leap, but later matches against him havent proved it yet. Burying Banasuva is the main threat to him, and I'm always playing around this. But even without him the crew is powerful and provides various threats

[spooky_squirrel]

2 hours ago, mythicFOX said:

The Soulstone Miner is fairly specific in it's use.  It excels in games of Squatters and Stake a Claim, especially in Corner Deployment.   Where you just need to get a scheme marker down PP & Raptor will do a better job but the moment you need to hold ground or interact in other ways up field then the SS Miner can be golden.  

(I'll post on Visions vs Commands tomorrow as I don't have time to do that topic justice right now.)

I'm curious what your take on Visions vs. Commands is. I know in my meta the general attitude is "if I kill everything, scheming is easier"--but I also love to play denial/control games, which is why I think Fingers is a solid Gremlin Henchman for a good proportion of the strat/scheme combinations. Reckless, chatty, and don't mind me in a single package is obnoxiously good into anything involving interacts. Visions Sandeep lets you pull off similar things on summoned models (harder to counter/predict than a single model--and they can keep coming back).

 

Other readers: What @mythicFOX said about Soulstone Miner: everything hired should be specific in its use and readily play into that role. Soulstone Miner pops up at the end of Turn 1 in position to start scoring/denying in Turn 2--your opponent must answer it or let it do its job, and it's quite a bit tougher than other similar costed scheme runners.
As a Sandeep player, If you're hiring model X because it's in theme or you cannot see why not--stop and ask yourself if you have a reason to hire that model. "It seemed like a good idea at the time" is something typically said in regret.

[JoeCL]

I played Sandeep in a 35ss event and went 3-0. I took fixed list with 3 mages and howard. I think summoning plus 3 discounted mages is pretty powerful if not OP in 35ss matches. That said the mages usually got some good activations and did a little damage early, but after punchy mage dies the other two were mostly distraction pieces while sandeep and gamin friends finished up the scheming. Howard was usually long dead after taking out some key piecessation. A Shasta would have been a useful Howard substitute and I good have started with a gamin to make banasuva easier to get out.

[Trample]

3 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Other readers: What @mythicFOX said about Soulstone Miner: everything hired should be specific in its use and readily play into that role. Soulstone Miner pops up at the end of Turn 1 in position to start scoring/denying in Turn 2--your opponent must answer it or let it do its job, and it's quite a bit tougher than other similar costed scheme runners.
As a Sandeep player, If you're hiring model X because it's in theme or you cannot see why not--stop and ask yourself if you have a reason to hire that model. "It seemed like a good idea at the time" is something typically said in regret.

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm questioning the value of the mages. They are only 5 point models - if you get the three. They do stick around and give some good and valuable activations for that price and are reasonable resilient with the upgrade, but I often feel like I can get more work from something else. I'm going to play around with it a bit. As I said, I've tried a pair of ronin instead of mages one time and will likely try with a pair of SVG, but would like to test a pair of rail workers with perhaps healer (silent one or librarian) to back them up and keep them above HTK. The six of rams with Sandeep's lure is a nice little augmented heal as well. 

[spooky_squirrel]

4 hours ago, Trample said:

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm questioning the value of the mages. They are only 5 point models - if you get the three. They do stick around and give some good and valuable activations for that price and are reasonable resilient with the upgrade, but I often feel like I can get more work from something else. I'm going to play around with it a bit. As I said, I've tried a pair of ronin instead of mages one time and will likely try with a pair of SVG, but would like to test a pair of rail workers with perhaps healer (silent one or librarian) to back them up and keep them above HTK. The six of rams with Sandeep's lure is a nice little augmented heal as well. 

I'm in a campaign right now where I started with a SVG and Bleeding Edge Tech and a pair of Rail Workers. Any time my opponent does not actually finish them off and they can still activate, they'll go above HTK when they activate. For other healers, I like the Silent One (and I have a Librarian), but I haven't stretched my legs a whole lot in that direction yet this year.

[mythicFOX]

11 hours ago, Blackraw said:

Do you have any positive experience of using Mechanical Rider or Students/Valedictorian in competitive/casual play?

It's been a while since I've had Mech Rider on the table, and never with Sandeep.  It's two direct and two lateral cuddles (Metal Gamin, GG16/17) in at this point and no longer the power house it was.  I don't see it adding meaningful value to Sandeep crews at this point, 12ss for a bit more summoning is too big an ask for me.

No practice with the Transmortis toys but whenever I look at the academic hiring pool it's all very meh, at least competitively speaking. I don't see what it's bringing that we don't already have better access to.  The same is true of the SVGuard, what job are they doing we can't cover better with;  Myranda, Cassandra, or Johan?

@spooky_squirrel made a great observation about hiring above.  I always think about crew hiring like the start of a heist movie where they're putting the team together. Ramos contact's Sandeep and asks him to do a job, Sandeep won't just grab the three closest mooks and go. He plans the job and hires the best people to execute it; a miner to tunnel into the vault, a performer to distract the guild officer and steal the plans from under his nose, Johan to deal with the Guards... etc.

[mythicFOX]

I said I’d comment on why I generally prefer Commands to Visions;

The underlying principal for me is that in Malifaux combat power scales much more than objective running power. That is to say a scheme marker is the same if it’s placed by Howard or a Metal Gamin, their attack actions however vary much more significantly in impact. Also in most objective sets the value of extra interacting power reaches redundancy way before more hitting power does (there’s normally more stuff to kill than to interact with).

As a faction we already have some of the best objective running in the game, it’s one of our key strengths.  Doubly so as the entire crew can already get access to Don’t Mind Me, and (most of them) a form of leap via Sandeep’s zero actions.  So I haven’t found that Visions scales my objective running significantly over where it starts.
 
With commands I find access to the [+] attack aura more useful.  Dropping that onto a Metal Gamin next to Johan (for [+][+]), or onto an Ice Gamin near an Acolyte (+1 Dg and [+]) makes them really brutal.  Plus commands opens up Banasuva as a much more viable summon for increased hitting power.  In short it delivers a greater overall power boost than Visions. 

That’s not to say there aren't objective sets where Visions it better (normally games of Squatters) or other players styles won’t make it a better choice for them.
 

[Blackraw]

6 hours ago, mythicFOX said:

It's been a while since I've had Mech Rider on the table, and never with Sandeep.  It's two direct and two lateral cuddles (Metal Gamin, GG16/17) in at this point and no longer the power house it was.  I don't see it adding meaningful value to Sandeep crews at this point, 12ss for a bit more summoning is too big an ask for me.

No practice with the Transmortis toys but whenever I look at the academic hiring pool it's all very meh, at least competitively speaking. I don't see what it's bringing that we don't already have better access to.  The same is true of the SVGuard, what job are they doing we can't cover better with;  Myranda, Cassandra, or Johan?

@spooky_squirrel made a great observation about hiring above.  I always think about crew hiring like the start of a heist movie where they're putting the team together. Ramos contact's Sandeep and asks him to do a job, Sandeep won't just grab the three closest mooks and go. He plans the job and hires the best people to execute it; a miner to tunnel into the vault, a performer to distract the guild officer and steal the plans from under his nose, Johan to deal with the Guards... etc.

Thanks for info. I though of Mech rider as suiting for some particular schemes (like dropping markers in engage for setup/dig their graves, summoning more gamins for interferance or doing 10" charge whilst being incorporate via Sandeep's (0). I do understand that definately it's not unique and not best choice for it, but just trying to make my hiring pool more diverse.

As for the Commands I see your point. (0) Ice gaming ing the Acolyte looks brutal since for (1) AP of Sandeep you give an extra activation and solid buff to already good unit, (though I am still in love with Vision's denial potential, I gotta give it a try in such context). Normally with Commands I did Metal/Poison and Immune to Slow Banasuva. I made it like 4 times, but I never hit a single attack with Banasuva, because every time I've got deck cancer when I tried to do this trick and "Immune to slow" bans cheating. With this taking my 2AP per turn I normally used the last one for repositioning (pushing own models). Which made my Sandeep absolutely not-damaging master.

Can't disagree with wise statement of @spooky_squirrel . I try to analyse my crew post-factum, thinking whether the model played the role that I expected from it, and if it had to do different stuff, whether I could use someone else to make this stuff better.

Imagining your heist movie scenario, I bet all the Academics would ask Sandeep "wtf, boss, why we are learning that stuff, if noone need it"

[JoeCL]

The one thing to say about visions  (and this isn't disagreeing with anyone because no one has said commands is always better) is that against a skilled opponent, who has denial in place for your other schemes runners, it is game winningly invaluable to pop out that gamin who can interact that turn and potentially even take Sandeep's "don't mind me". Grabbing that head or whatever that otherwise was out of reach. I'm playing with the belief that Sandeep is OP in the GG2017 scheme pool.

[spooky_squirrel]

1 hour ago, Blackraw said:

As for the Commands I see your point. (0) Ice gaming ing the Acolyte looks brutal since for (1) AP of Sandeep you give an extra activation and solid buff to already good unit, (though I am still in love with Vision's denial potential, I gotta give it a try in such context). Normally with Commands I did Metal/Poison and Immune to Slow Banasuva. I made it like 4 times, but I never hit a single attack with Banasuva, because every time I've got deck cancer when I tried to do this trick and "Immune to slow" bans cheating. With this taking my 2AP per turn I normally used the last one for repositioning (pushing own models). Which made my Sandeep absolutely not-damaging master.

I've run into this problem with Immune to Slow Banasuva before. How I end up working around it is having both the Arcane Conflux Emissary and the from a supporting Gamin. If you're on double to attack and no longer have a hand, it won't matter that you cannot cheat when Banasuva activates. That being said, the immunity to slow does not typically come up after the first turn of Banasuva being in play, and I often find myself trying to figure out where I can get the most use out of him. Without support when he cannot cheat, he's just a big distraction. Sometimes not even that, if my opponent is playing a paralyze/horror crew that can target him (Terrifying(All) X) he's in a world of hurt. Not being able to cheat when you get hit by The Nothing Beast means you may end up buried for a while.

So when I'm running Commands, I find myself putting the Fire upgrade on a Wind Gamin and flinging that Gamin into combat. It has 4 attacks when charging unless something strips its suits (nearby Librarian, for instance) or triggers. I don't expect it to do much, except be an activation that jams a charge threat (they end up spending their AP 'killing' it or pushing it away so that the charging model has a clear lane). If they kill it, not only did they spend their AP killing a summoned Gamin, it's not really dead (so they don't get credit) and a friendly model will get a 5" push at the start of its activation, allowing me to summon that Gamin back in, and potentially get someone important somewhere.

 

With the Visions versus Commands, one of the things I see with Visions is less reason to summon Banasuva. A 'chatty' 50mm model will shut down a large region of the board, but it may not be necessary. This reduces the card stress because all of the things I'll summon in are coming in on a 8+. This ties into what @mythicFOX was saying about scaling: a 4 stone minion's interact does just as much towards the strat/scheme as an 8 stone minion's. It makes me less reliant on cheating or top-decking a 12+ (and stoning as needed), and presumably allows me to focus on scoring my points and shutting my opponent down just enough to guarantee that I come out ahead. That being said, we have many similar effects organically--a Performer with a Mannequin can drop scheme markers everywhere for 9 stones, Performer alone is 5 stones for someone who can interact while engaged. What summoning in schemers gets us is two things:

1. Renewable runners. A dead performer cannot scheme, so if her job isn't done yet, you're stuck trying to make up for it. Possibly with having more costly elements take up scheming. Being able to summon in something that can scheme immediately (and then kill it outright with Kudra's next activation) gives you an ability to pop scheme markers all over the place for the cost of cards in hand and some Master AP. Doing this with a Wind Gamin gets you a 5" push, so it helps make up for the use of the Master AP to pop a quick activation in for a scheme marker.
2. A massive bulls-eye on Sandeep. An opponent who is paying attention will realize that your crew might scheme, but your summons will. Every AP spent killing something summoned isn't hurting the crew, and every AP spent hounding the crew isn't stopping the summons. If your opponent has a killy crew, they will probably try to address this by tackling the master before worrying about the crew.

That being said, if you have renewable runners, you can have lone wolf beaters and tanks running out and jamming/killing things in your opponent's crew--but you're reliant on the summons to get the scheming done. As such, Sandeep is going to spend the game trying to stay out of reach and still summon into strategic positions. He's a fast mover for an Impossible to Wound model, but he'll still fall to dedicated beaters. This mode of play is similar to how I play Colette--early position grab and scheme racking, then as the crew gets wiped out collapse back and keep scoring everything I can with what survives. The more effort they put into killing Sandeep, the more time his crew has to do what they were hired to do (see closing paragraph under Commands).

The flipside is Commands, where you're summoning in things that support fighting or scheming.

• The Gamin that cannot fight is making everything else around it more accurate--which means that models like The Valedictorian, the Emissary, Sandeep himself, etc. are all able to land their attacks more reliably (barring the accidental Black Joker fish). That same Gamin in the middle of a Oxfordian gunline makes your ranged attack game look terrific (note that previous remarks about ranged versus melee still apply). I've done something like that to a Dreamer crew, and all the incorporeal in the world doesn't matter when that happens.
• The Gamin that is immune to slow can charge, walk/attack, double walk, or full out attack the moment it hits the table. This makes it great for blocking counter-charge lanes and jamming up support elements like healers and shooters. This makes life a lot easier for the things that are beating down the front line.
• Then there's the Gamin with the extended reach that cannot be pushed/moved. Fire Gamin shoot further, becoming interesting turrets (except for their abysmal attack stat), but where it really comes into its own is when Banasuva is summoned into a knot of opposing models with 3" and still being able to attack after taking a (1) action, like Sandeep's Lure (which it can cheat) to get even more people to the party.

If your crew is going to primarily run schemes, then Banasuva (Earth upgrade) and Gamin (Wind, Fire upgrades) will be running interference by getting in the opposing crew's face while your own crew sits back and does what it was hired to do (similar to Sandeep being a massive distraction under Visions).

This is where 15 stones for the Oxfordian Trio gets questionable. If they're there to push things up the field to get the whole engine running, Angelica can do a similar thing (except for Sandeep) for 6 stones, no flips, and no friendly fire damage. Unless you're counting on a Turn 1 dive into the opponent's deployment zone to start the game off with your opponent in a blind panic, Sandeep doesn't necessarily need the additional pushes to get up the field himself. That leaves you 9 stones to put into things that will be doing different work. Like an additional stone for Practiced Production and 3 more for the Malifaux Raptor to complete Leave Your Mark or Claim Jump, then dropping 5 stones on something that's going to work towards another scheme or support the crew. If they are there to contribute to the fight, is their contribution worth the opportunity cost? Sometimes that answer will be yes, sometimes no.

[retnab]

We're getting some awesome conversations in this thread, I'm loving it  One question to add to the list, what do you all see as your "must-haves" with Sandeep?  I find myself almost always taking Sue and the Arcane Effigy personally, but he polishes everything so amazingly well you could really argue anything into his lists from what I'm seeing.

From my experiences with the Valedictorian and the Students, I'd be hard pressed to find any time I'd hire the Students.  Viscera's not bad with Slither and the focus on killing Living models, but for 2ss more you get Flight, a focus on killing everything, and access to Soulstones Warding Runes, and Imbued Energies.  Valedictorian getting a teleport followed by a charge is really nice and I find she typically has no trouble killing or severely injuring whatever you throw her at.  The biggest problem I have with Val is the sheer cost to get her fully running.  At bare minimum she'll cost you 11 (Unaligned Sage), but if you're doing the full threat module it goes up to 28 (IE, Warding Runes, 3x Ox Mages decked out) and that's quite a bit to ask for 4 models.  Not to say she's not worth it, but that she's not always worth it, and you need to have some idea of what she's going to be nuking on the board in your games with her.

[Nikodemus]

7 minutes ago, retnab said:

I find myself almost always taking Sue and the Arcane Effigy personally

What does Sue do for Sandeep specifically, or do you think Sue goes well with everyone?

[spooky_squirrel]

1 hour ago, retnab said:

From my experiences with the Valedictorian and the Students, I'd be hard pressed to find any time I'd hire the Students.  Viscera's not bad with Slither and the focus on killing Living models, but for 2ss more you get Flight, a focus on killing everything, and access to Soulstones Warding Runes, and Imbued Energies.  Valedictorian getting a teleport followed by a charge is really nice and I find she typically has no trouble killing or severely injuring whatever you throw her at.  The biggest problem I have with Val is the sheer cost to get her fully running.  At bare minimum she'll cost you 11 (Unaligned Sage), but if you're doing the full threat module it goes up to 28 (IE, Warding Runes, 3x Ox Mages decked out) and that's quite a bit to ask for 4 models.  Not to say she's not worth it, but that she's not always worth it, and you need to have some idea of what she's going to be nuking on the board in your games with her.

I've noticed a similar opportunity cost with The Valedictorian. Properly supported, she can blend things after disabling their triggers, but without support you're looking at sinking 13 stones into a Henchman "beater" with min damage 2 (10 for her, 1 for Sandeep's upgrade, and ~2 for upgrades on her) that doesn't threat as far as other options we have in faction. Those same 13 stones is a Howard Langston. Yeah, Hank will likely die, but he's going to take something with him and you aren't going to be sinking resources into keeping him alive. Those same 13 stones is a fully kitted Captain pushing models out of scoring positions and charging into put his own Relic Hammer to work.

In the beater family, 10 stones gets us the force multiplication of the Arcane Emissary. Want to make your opponent's eyes cross in analysis paralysis? First activation of turn 1: Flesh and Metal discard a card with Emissary to hand off an AP to something like a Gamin. Gamin uses Beacon to Lure Sandeep up. Sandeep relents, Gamin cheats what he needs to cheat for success with a , Sandeep discards a card to take a 1AP action himself, and summons in an immune to slow or unable to attack Wind Gamin. One activation in and you've had three models do something and have dropped another activation on the table. Oh, and you still have 3 more stones to hire models with. Need a second Raptor? Maybe turn that first Raptor into a Soulstone Miner?

It makes it really hard to justify dropping The Valedictorian in, because we have no shortage of harder working models in the same price range.

What she does bring, however, is Terrifying (All). If you know or have reason to suspect that your opponent is vulnerable to Horror duels (Gremlins come to mind, but anyone who is not immune to it will suddenly feel very vulnerable if you have a nearby Performer blowing up scheme markers), this will get cards out of their hand in a hurry or leave them with a number of paralyzed models. Especially if you pull out all the stops to get her in the middle of their crew.

[retnab]

1 hour ago, Nikodemus said:

What does Sue do for Sandeep specifically, or do you think Sue goes well with everyone?

I think Sue's pretty good in general, but I think he's specifically great with Ramos and Sandeep because he brings min 3 damage shooting, extra card draw at the cost of 1 damage (with Reservoir you're looking at 8 chances of getting the card you need for your summons in hand), and your choice between very nice burning or anti-cast auras which aren't always useful but are golden when they come up.

[Blackraw]

5 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

I've run into this problem with Immune to Slow Banasuva before. 

...

I see a lot of rationale about the Visions with Commands comparison and I do not challenge anyone's love for Commands since it is really great in what it does. However, from my observations most of Sandeep people has general preference with one of the upgrades and build the crews bearing that in mind

I like Visions for being good for reactive play. Yet again, I completely agree that there are situations when none of Visions perks grants you any benefit, whilst Commands will give you extra attack and extra flips buff and with the statement that Banasuva gets almost nothing of Visions (except for anything deriving from bigger base, but I doubt that you would want it to be left without attacks for Earth).

Speaking about whether to summon or not to summon. From my experience, even when you do not need any interactions and all you can get with visions is 2 Banasuva attacks and 1 other gamin attack, I still summon for few reasons: 1) engaging the opponent forces him to spend AP to kill gamins; 2) killing single ice/poison gamin and Banasuva stolen gamin's demise actually forces your opponent to spend AP to kill my summon models (where each model is like 0,75 SS) to deal damage to his own hired models; 3) if for some reason opponent decides that it is better to ignore my summon gamins to the big extent, I've got models on the opponents part of the table which is good for subsequent turns and I can always (1) toss my gamin into opponent and get a chance to deal him 2 dmg + damage from demise and free my upgrade for next summon.

Thanks for wind gaming charge combo on first summon, I like this idea. 

Also getting ice with  by the acolyte as @mythicFox said above in my short list of things to try out too.

As for Students and Valedictorian. I like the whole thematic idea and the plot about it, but it is hard to admit that it is not optimal pick for competitive play due to sheer numbers on the cards.. I asked about anyone's experience as I thought that maybe there are stories of good picks of Sinew/Steel against Ressers/Arcanist, since overall it gives us terrifying, rare combination of armor and H2W (which means that if (terrifying) we receive any damage, it will most likely me minimal (H2W), which will be also reduced (armor)) and ignore of main defensive feature of opponent (H2W/Armor).

I am inclined to give it a try as I do like exploring option, so maybe I will test it out when going against ressers/arcanists. As even badly invested 7SS will not ruin my game I guess.

With Valedictorian the pricing is really an issue.. With incorporeal from Sandeep and mages bonus her survivability is immense. Let us say, that in general with an expensive model, you will make sure that it can not be killed in any case before its own activation on turn 2. So it will have first turn for positioning and second turn for potential teleport + flurry. Her survivability means that your opponent has to commit many resources to kill it or ignore it. Let us say if he kills it, it may do 3rd turn activation or may die before it. but it gets some AP and resources from opponent whilst being killed (and some stolen with terrifying activations potentially). If he ignores it, it gets 3 and 4 activations (and not always a tournament game has time/sense left for turn 5).

So ideally you get 3 flurry (turns 2-4) with 2-3-6 damage, costing you discard card each turn. You pay SS/masks card for teleport. You pay SS for  trigger if you want to deliver good damage and cheat a card. You keep the mages around and you keep them in crew (even if you would not want to hire all of them). Which means that you commit hell lot of resources on crew building stage and hell lot of resources each turn to get a mediocre benefit.

Just to think about: 6SS Ice dancer has the same 6MI, the same 2/3/6 damage spread, but it can make it 3/4/7 when charging into melee with Ice gamin's (0) pop'd up (p.s. do not encourage to use ice dancers to rush forward instead of doing claim jump though).

Yes, I would be sold to take it with 4/5/6 damage or maybe even with 3/5/6 or with melee expert instead of flurry etc. 

But in fact in her damage dealing, unless you flip severe - damage track is inferior even to 4SS fire gamin or 5SS Ox mage if you count burning contribution.

50mm base with 3"  and easy reposition due to flight/teleport is awesome too, but not for that price. Again as was said above, SS miner is at least twice cheaper but cope with holding the ground when you need it. Though it may be not bad choice for Guard the Stash since it is hard to be lured out due to counterspell and hard to be killed either. Though not irreplaceable.

With malifaux being a game with resource management, it is like picking a retro cabriolet, which looks really adorable, but indeed you need a small car with low consumption to drive to work and a family wan for countryside trips and what is more important, for cabrio price you could get both.

Sue

That is the model that I bought almost right of the start, just because one simply can't refrain from buying Johny Cash inspired unit. Unfortunately unpacking is the only thing I've done to it yet. So still struggling to find it place. As for must have, I doubt that 9SS with most of his abilities being situational, can fall into this category, yet he seems good when he's needed. Sh5 with  built in is good against empty hand of your opponent with his damage spread and potential to flip the rams. Thus with H2K as the only defense and potential self-damaging I think when opponent wants him killed he will get him killed. 

 

P.S. apologies for my English as its gets ugly at night time.

[Blackraw]

As for "must-have's" what I am happy to have in every list is effigy. Its accomplice thing is quite nasty when you activate effigy, trigger students of all, get the summon and activate newly summoned model.

Evident choice is getting Banasuva, where it can still demise/armor+2/else from gamin so there is no room to kill him w/o armor or to Paralyze him.

However, with visions there are some tricky situations possible also. Like your opponent just killed your model, dropping a head out of close to his model and you just get it instead of him. Or you are trying to do some interact thing, and seeing that you summon the gamin for this purpose, opponent will lure/push/kill it to hinder your plans. And now I do not give him that chance.

Plus for 4SS effigy statline is just a bargain as extra scheme-runner with condition removal.

[spooky_squirrel]

@Blackraw, your bit about comparing The Valedictorian's damage track is one of the reasons why her damage output is seen as lackluster for her cost. For the same 10 stones on her card I can bring in two Rail Workers, which can give themselves positives on the attack and damage flips as a (0) for a card, and go nuts with a similar damage track--just with more attacks and more opportunities to spike damage without needing to cheat or spend stones for triggers.

Ice Dancers can hit harder, but I wouldn't distract them from earning scheme points or hunting scheme runners. Banasuva can copy Frozen Heart as a (0) and get min damage 4 as a melee expert (as well as immunity to Horror duels and Paralyze) from that Ice Gamin. Another model that can spike its own damage (while being a minion for using Beacon and substantially cheaper) is the Large Steam Arachnid, which has a trigger to ignore armor. You can also bring in a Shastar Vidiya Guard for 2 stones cheaper on the card and shoot for high damage spikes off of the discard-for-focus mechanic and potentially getting other useful perks, like damage not being reducible. The thing that the Valedictorian is bringing is the ability to disable triggers and be terrifying--neither of which are things you should count on generally (if you're using the (0) to turn off triggers, you're not placing off of Sandeep's (0), and metas that feature terrifying crews also tend to feature things that just don't care about horror).

That's actually where Visions seems to gain some favor in my estimation, when the rest of the crew is relatively hard hitting and tank-like so that they can just camp on the front line screening Sandeep while he summons things that can interact when summoned or while engaged, or stop your opponent from interacting. It's a different approach to play than the hard-hitting headbutt of Commands because it's turning around the roles. In the Commands environment described by @mythicFOX, the crew is hired for scheming. This tends to be a more reliable approach, as you are not relying on the summons to get your your VP.

[mythicFOX]

Great points from @spooky_squirrel and @Blackraw above.  

There's definitely a link between your hiring balance (objectives vs hitting) and which limited upgrade will be better.

15 hours ago, JoeCL said:

The one thing to say about visions  (and this isn't disagreeing with anyone because no one has said commands is always better) is that against a skilled opponent, who has denial in place for your other schemes runners, it is game winningly invaluable to pop out that gamin who can interact that turn and potentially even take Sandeep's "don't mind me". Grabbing that head or whatever that otherwise was out of reach.

I just want to pick up on the above point quickly.  The issue with this line of thought for me is that it begins from the premise; "When my opponent out plays me..." which isn't a place I'd want to be making my choices from.   That's not to say it isn't a valuable / powerful play.  

[JoeCL]

2 hours ago, mythicFOX said:

Great points from @spooky_squirrel and @Blackraw above.  

There's definitely a link between your hiring balance (objectives vs hitting) and which limited upgrade will be better.

I just want to pick up on the above point quickly.  The issue with this line of thought for me is that it begins from the premise; "When my opponent out plays me..." which isn't a place I'd want to be making my choices from.   That's not to say it isn't a valuable / powerful play.  

Lol when you need a crutch you need a crutch. 

You're probably right and I'm relying on some anecdotal evidence on games I played this weekend. My wind gamin flew away from the last game contemplating the value in a phyrric victory as it was a 7-5 win but the Wong crew murdered every other model including the wind gamin's father who got mauled by a war wabbit right after he was born.

I guess the philosophical question is - when you win on VP, have you really been outplayed? 

But seriously I see where you're coming from and coming around to your line of thinking. I think I caught some people unaware of the vision tricks. In a few months those tricks may not work and I'll need a more proactive commands style of play.

[mythicFOX]

22 minutes ago, JoeCL said:

I guess the philosophical question is - when you win on VP, have you really been outplayed? 

Nope. A win is a win.  

[Blackraw]

11 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Ice Dancers can hit harder, but I wouldn't distract them from earning scheme points or hunting scheme runners. 

Exactly, that is why I mentioned that I do not encourage to use them for charge.

But the reason I met the comparison is that both models can (0) Sandeep to Teleport and then charge with a decent range to deliver exactly same damage 6MI and 2/3/6. So if one takes Valedictorian for its damage output only, I bet he is overpaying. If he is sure he gets a benefit (contribution to victory) from its enhanced survivability, it may worth it under some circumstances. 

I like what @JoeCL said about Visions having part of its effect from "surprise" effect. Surely when opponent does not bear in mind Visions' effects when planning his scheming/denial or picking schemes. When players will get used to it and get ready to counter it, its effect may diminish. (Though still nuts in Headhunter  ). With commands getting close to no surprise, but getting more material and reliable benefit (i.e.  is , and interact ban is nothing when noone was going to interact).

[retnab]

The general newness of Sandeep is almost definitely helping, especially when Commands and Visions give such different effects to the summoned models as well.  I know in my games my opponent has been confused occasionally by what the Command and Visions upgrades have in common and where they're different, but over time that'll probably change.  Personally I would say Visions should be considered when the following are in the pool (assuming GG17):

Headhunter

Claim Jump

Accusation!

Dig Their Graves

Hidden Trap

Recover Evidence

Set Up

Search The Ruins

Mark For Death

Tail 'Em

That's a pretty decently sized list, a 25%-ish chance of the Strategy, and 9/15 of the schemes which can benefit from either a summoned model being able to Interact immediately, getting Don't Mind Me, or potentially denying your opponent getting these with Constant Yammering.  Banasuva with Constant Yammering gives him a good defensive buff for your crew without limiting how much he can punch things (as long as you can Path him where he needs to go), and summoning some trash Gamin to Mark/Accuse/Spot the enemy, or put Schemes down without your other models needing to waste their more valuable AP is nice.  This is especially true of Recover Evidence, since those Scheme Markers come B2B with your opponent you probably literally do need Don't Mind Me to grab them, and having a model with that built in means you can use Sandeep's Deed & Destiny with some other model to grab multiple Evidence in a turn before your opponent can stop you.

[Blackraw]

That is really cool that some discussion continues here. Sandeep, being kinda popular master and leaving many questions (and options) for crew-building.

Maybe we will deserved "sticked" thread one day  

For anyone eager to continue the discussion interesting to know your thoughts on the following:

1) Your favorite mercs for Sandeep?

2) Your favorite beaters for Sandeep (both)?

3) What henchmen do you use more often? Which one you never use with Sandeep?

 

And some more narrow topics:

1) Angelica vs. Cassandra for leave your mark games. With Cassie having nimble/understudy/decent attack and SS use in extra case, 2ss seems like a good price to pay. Though I like Angelica's pushes too. 

2) Heal options, do you prefer to have silent one/librarian to have some healing options apart Sandeep push trigger. I find it useful with H2K on some models but not sure if I would commit resources for some model only for this reason.

3) Have you ever find yourself in need to take trapper/Hans with Sandeep?

 

Not trying to make a questionnaire But I think that sharing some preferences with Sandeep crew-building can help people discover new options and most likely will prove how flexible Sandeep hiring can be.