Dealing with Reva as NB

[sinistercats]

Title says it all. I played a game vs Reva last night with Chompy Dreamer. I was a tiny bit out of position and Dreamer was dead Turn 1. Wow! 

Totally my fault for being in the wrong place but it was still impressive. With being able to charge from downtown and then shift to a different charge target shes

pretty cool. 

What's worked well for folks? 

[TheJoyInGaming]

Don't try to plink her for damage. She can heal damage very well but it requires smart activation on the Reva players part to do so. Deliver a beater to her face and go to town. Pandora should do very well if you can incite Reva. Force her to activate with less than desirable targets and have her kill chaff or nothing preferably. As mentioned by Torsul Pandora also makes being hit by Reva an uphill battle with her 7 WP. 

If Reva brought along Carrion Emissary kill it as fast as possible. Shards of Kythera with My Little Helper can be nasty and you do not want Reva getting free moving corpse markers to shoot from.

Hope this helps!

[sinistercats]

Yeah in thinking the game through I should have gone after the Emissary first. Chompy and Teddy should be able to take care of that smartly!

[Four_N_Six]

If you run Zoraida (or pay the Merc tax) McTavish provides his own soft cover, he allows cover to count against everything except actions, he doesn't randomize into engagement, and he has a (0) to discard markers (including corpse markers). 

Edited October 23, 2016 by Four_N_Six
Spelling fix

[chryspainthemum]

Reva's attack IS a melee action (it's CA but it has the claws). He brings a nice source of discarding corpse markers close to him, but his cover is kind of meh vs Reva.

[Patzer]

Lilith is the natural predeator to Reeva. She can switch corpse candles for her beaters with tangle and disrupt Los with her markers. If Reeva overextends, Lilith can probably get to her and shave off a lot of wounds too. 

[TheTrans]

Oh mate, If Reva gets the drop on Lilith though, as long as the Reva player can push through 2 normal + 1 corpse pop attacks, Lilith is toast...

[Four_N_Six]

Masters aren't going to be the counter here, it's going to be models that can manipulate markers.  Although I still think Pandora would hold her own, just because of her 7 Wp/Df and just holding herself down.  I don't know Reva's abilities completely yet, but I assume that her markers don't give her engagement in regards to disengaging strikes, so it shouldn't be too difficult to navigate them a bit with careful positioning.

If she's like Rasputina enough, then Lilith can drop trees to block her LoS a bit and that should help out some.  It's how I deal with Rasputina as a NB player until I can engage with her.

[Passenty]

I play against Reva quite often. I dont think Lilith is such a good counter to her. She has the los blocking forest but Reva can strike from many difreny angles and Lilith\Nekima with wp5/df5 folds like paper against ca6 with decaying aura. Personally I was most succesful with Pandora either voices or box.

[Patzer]

18 hours ago, TheTrans said:

Oh mate, If Reva gets the drop on Lilith though, as long as the Reva player can push through 2 normal + 1 corpse pop attacks, Lilith is toast...

If that happens Lilith sure is smoked, and I won't deny it is a really deadly dance for Lilith too. Lilith has the tools though to make life hard for Reva. If Lilith don't make the best use of those tools, Reva can counter well.

[Wifstrand]

I am the Resurrectionist player @sinistercats faced. I have to admit I felt a little dirty after our game... :-)

[PolishSausage]

um... take widow weaver and have a free teddy?

[PolishSausage]

also she need LOS to the markers so lylyth and her forests are quite the menace to her

[Wifstrand]

Assuming she actually uses the markers to attack from, which is not her only playstyle - and I dare say not even her strongest. Her other playstyle is called "Satan's Pinball" (TM), and goes like this:

 

One of her limited upgrades is called Beyond Death, and it allows her to get to ANYWHERE. Basically, for those who don't know, here's how it works:

Reva gets Regeneration +1 from the upgrade, as well as a Tome trigger on her standard attack, which allows her to reduce damage dealt to immediately take a charge action, ignoring all terrain, models, LOS and so on.

 

So, this is an example turn order, somewhat taken from my game with @sinistercats:

When she activates, she discards a card to summon a Corpse Candle within 5”. Then, as a (0) action, she casts Death Shroud on an 8, and places into base contact with the Corpse Candle (5” away + ~1” base +2” Reva’s base. She then either hits something through a corpse marker up to 18” away and in LoS of her or takes her regular 10” Unimpeded charge for 2 AP. If she can’t one-shot the target, she attacks it once and deals damage, then attacks it again and triggers her Tome charge (Screaming Death). Then she gets a free charge against something within 10”+3” range (no LoS, terrain, or models block this charge). Two free charge attacks, and after that, she has 1 AP left. If she initially charges a squishy target (like a Daydream) she can just trigger the Tome on her first attack, and if she ends up in range to attack the squishy initial target after her second charge, she still gets the second attack against it from the initial charge, after her second charge is completely resolved.

 

What would you do against this? The Widow Weaver/corpse marker trick doesn't really work against this. Also, you need to get the Widow Weaver somewhat far up the field for that to work, in which case I'll just murder the Weaver I’m really curious to know, as I genuinely enjoy using Reva but she can be a little daunting to face.

[PolishSausage]

by your definition just play pandora / dople

push push move move and hit her with your highest card + crow for paralyze

If they did not take Chiaki its over.

 

Also Tannen is a great reactive model with cooler aura, and so is the emissary with hungry land markers

Funny thing is if you use all 3 models the emissary will be able to copy the cooler aura from Tannen and double it up 

[Wifstrand]

Ok, I will try to counter that as a Reva player.

 

Pandora: Sure, but then you're reducing the Neverborn faction to just Pandora.

Tannen: True, that could be a major pain. However, I only need the Tome trigger once, and that should happen when I'm far away from Tannen. or I can just kill Tannen before I get close enough to him through corpse markers (candles, zombies) or simple select him as my secondary charge target. I can, after all, hit him from 13" away. Then I just need a high-ish non-Tome card saved for the attack flip.

 

Reva has a decent answer to many things that are based off proximity like that.

[valhallan42nd]

21 hours ago, Passenty said:

I play against Reva quite often. I dont think Lilith is such a good counter to her. She has the los blocking forest but Reva can strike from many difreny angles and Lilith\Nekima with wp5/df5 folds like paper against ca6 with decaying aura. Personally I was most succesful with Pandora either voices or box.

Smart Reva players will just put a corpse candle in Lilith's woods and therefore gain LOS to her through the Candle.

[Wifstrand]

4 minutes ago, valhallan42nd said:

Smart Reva players will just put a corpse candle in Lilith's woods and therefore gain LOS to her through the Candle.

Clever. Gotta remember that one! 

[sinistercats]

4 hours ago, Wifstrand said:

Assuming she actually uses the markers to attack from, which is not her only playstyle - and I dare say not even her strongest. Her other playstyle is called "Satan's Pinball" (TM), and goes like this:

 

One of her limited upgrades is called Beyond Death, and it allows her to get to ANYWHERE. Basically, for those who don't know, here's how it works:

Reva gets Regeneration +1 from the upgrade, as well as a Tome trigger on her standard attack, which allows her to reduce damage dealt to immediately take a charge action, ignoring all terrain, models, LOS and so on.

 

So, this is an example turn order, somewhat taken from my game with @sinistercats:

When she activates, she discards a card to summon a Corpse Candle within 5”. Then, as a (0) action, she casts Death Shroud on an 8, and places into base contact with the Corpse Candle (5” away + ~1” base +2” Reva’s base. She then either hits something through a corpse marker up to 18” away and in LoS of her or takes her regular 10” Unimpeded charge for 2 AP. If she can’t one-shot the target, she attacks it once and deals damage, then attacks it again and triggers her Tome charge (Screaming Death). Then she gets a free charge against something within 10”+3” range (no LoS, terrain, or models block this charge). Two free charge attacks, and after that, she has 1 AP left. If she initially charges a squishy target (like a Daydream) she can just trigger the Tome on her first attack, and if she ends up in range to attack the squishy initial target after her second charge, she still gets the second attack against it from the initial charge, after her second charge is completely resolved.

 

What would you do against this? The Widow Weaver/corpse marker trick doesn't really work against this. Also, you need to get the Widow Weaver somewhat far up the field for that to work, in which case I'll just murder the Weaver I’m really curious to know, as I genuinely enjoy using Reva but she can be a little daunting to face.

It's true- that's what he did!

 

[TheJoyInGaming]

5 hours ago, Wifstrand said:

One of her limited upgrades is called Beyond Death, and it allows her to get to ANYWHERE. Basically, for those who don't know, here's how it works:

Reva gets Regeneration +1 from the upgrade, as well as a Tome trigger on her standard attack, which allows her to reduce damage dealt to immediately take a charge action, ignoring all terrain, models, LOS and so on.

I will say i'm glad you're a proponent of Beyond Death. There are not many others that choose it over Guises due to a misconception that Reva is extremely squishy. Beyond Death is quite nasty and allows her to be much more flexible with her attacks. I have derailed enough threads into Reva gushing though so i will not continue. lol

[TheTrans]

2 minutes ago, TheJoyInGaming said:

I will say i'm glad you're a proponent of Beyond Death. There are not many others that choose it over Guises due to a misconception that Reva is extremely squishy. Beyond Death is quite nasty and allows her to be much more flexible with her attacks. I have derailed enough threads into Reva gushing though so i will not continue. lol

I'd have to agree Joy. Regen +1 and the ability to tome charge is so much better than 1 marker in the enemy deployment and the ability to use guises while in combat (which IMHO is a moot point any way, as with a card drop and an 8, you are out of combat for a (0). ). I lost Reva for the 2nd time on Saturday, but that was after 3 molly activations, 2 punk zombie activations and 2 Bete activations...

[Wifstrand]

To be fair, I don't consider her overly resilient. She's only Df 5/Wp 7/Wd 13/potentially Regenerate +1. However, you should be able to alpha strike your biggest threats, does that count as resilience?

[Fetid Strumpet]

I personally prefer Guises of Death myself.

[Manic Mouse]

9 minutes ago, Wifstrand said:

To be fair, I don't consider her overly resilient. She's only Df 5/Wp 7/Wd 13/potentially Regenerate +1. However, you should be able to alpha strike your biggest threats, does that count as resilience?

But she is resilient, as she can attack you from 21" away.  That is her single biggest form of defence, the fact she can attack you from the other side of the map.  If I were a Reva player I would never have her anywhere near danger - she doesn't need to be in order to be effective and all it does is give your opponent a chance to hurt her.

[Wifstrand]

Just now, Manic Mouse said:

But she is resilient, as she can attack you from 21" away.  That is her single biggest form of defence, the fact she can attack you from the other side of the map.  If I were a Reva player I would never have her anywhere near danger - she doesn't need to be in order to be effective and all it does is give your opponent a chance to hurt her.

 

I don't really think of "not being hit" as the same as resilience. If you manage to get a beater up to her, she can crumble. I had it happen once when Myranda managed to walk up late in the turn, shape change to a Blessed of December, then get initiative next turn. That's a lot of damage on Reva. To be fair it was one of my very first games with Reva...

 

Anyway, if you only consider her "sit back and snipe" playstyle you're missing out on a LOT. I sincerely hope every Reva player will give Beyond Death a try sooner rather than later. It opens up a completely new playstyle for her and is very hard to counter. It makes her super mobile (hello, schemes that require models on the opponent's half!), and the potential of getting off four attacks... Jeez.