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2017 Errata - Dawn of Lucius ^^


Tris

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18 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I don't understand the clamoring for a buff for the DM at all. I think they are one of the best Minions in the whole game in their price class - boxing up dangerous enemies is absolutely incredible and using them as merely taxis is really doing them a disservice. Heck, I basically won my latest game by boxing up the enemy Emissary who would've otherwise killed my Master almost certainly.

In another memorable game I had an absolutely rubbish hand but then the danger of boxing fished out Red Joker and a king from the opponent when I Charged his Teddy with my DM and managed to force him to cheat first. Teddy then proceeded to eat the DM alive who dropped a Scheme Marker for Explosives and netted me VP.

Yeah, the mere threat of the box sucks out incredibly high cards from your opponent. That's why Newcius will love them with :+fate for those sweet dancing boxes and the ability to push into/out of dodgy situations. I have on occasion felt that hard to wound and 6 wounds is a really weird combination since severe dmg 6 is rare and min damage 3 is common but these guys usually perform really well.

I know I said earlier that I didn't want them errata'd but on second thought it would be sweet if they had the wounds of a flesh contruct and the Ca of a pre-errata belle. Only seems fair to me :D

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22 hours ago, JDAntoine said:


Edit: TLDR; I'm not worried about the changes or upset, just stating I personally lost a massive reason to run DM's in a crew.
Keep in mind, DM is not the only model who can burry models in the Guild either. 
 

The Loco trick was never used in marshal-themed Justice crews anyway so the thematic J crew didn't lose anything as far as I know?

Apart from marshals I only believe we have the emmissary to bury stuff. That's a 10ss model that has a once per activation (or is it turn?) action to bury a model that pops back out so it misses a turn at the most and sometimes doesn't miss a turn at all, just gets to activate after the emmissary next turn. As a general rule I think 10ss models are allowed to have higher stats than a 6ss models in Malifaux, especially when the effect is different (arguably weaker).

Death Marshals should still mesh quite nicely with the emmissary since they're allowed to bury masters which the emmissary is not. That interaction is still potent and useful regardless of opponent and it's only possible with a marshal. All of a sudden that engaged Sonnia is not engaged and her attack just popped up on the other side of the board for two extra AP worth of blasts on the squishy models you thought were safe. Next turn you go early with the emmissary and blast some more. The marshal can then try to bury the model that was engaging Sonnia and pop her back out (hopefully outside of their engagement range).

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25 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The Loco trick was never used in marshal-themed Justice crews anyway so the thematic J crew didn't lose anything as far as I know?

Apart from marshals I only believe we have the emmissary to bury stuff. That's a 10ss model that has a once per activation (or is it turn?) action to bury a model that pops back out so it misses a turn at the most and sometimes doesn't miss a turn at all, just gets to activate after the emmissary next turn. As a general rule I think 10ss models are allowed to have higher stats than a 6ss models in Malifaux, especially when the effect is different (arguably weaker).

Death Marshals should still mesh quite nicely with the emmissary since they're allowed to bury masters which the emmissary is not. That interaction is still potent and useful regardless of opponent and it's only possible with a marshal. All of a sudden that engaged Sonnia is not engaged and her attack just popped up on the other side of the board for two extra AP worth of blasts on the squishy models you thought were safe. Next turn you go early with the emmissary and blast some more. The marshal can then try to bury the model that was engaging Sonnia and pop her back out (hopefully outside of their engagement range).

Thats a lie. I used Loco with Justice :D

 

While I used th DM mostly for the Papa Loco, I managed to Pine Box Lilith, Kaeris, Izamu, Teddies and a lot of other stuff. I`d say the fact you can do it twice in a charge (even if its 7") is pretty scary as it draws high cards from the enemy. Drawing two severes from your opponent and sometimes still burying the model is pretty good.

 

I think DMs suffer from the same fate as Wardens. 

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9 minutes ago, trikk said:

Thats a lie. I used Loco with Justice :D

I think DMs suffer from the same fate as Wardens. 

Dammit Trikk! :D  Who were you buffing? Judge? 

What fate is that? Having their primary attack being stat 5 which is a garbage stat that can't even reliably hit a 4ss tot?

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19 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

When I first started playing I remember running 2 stalkers,  2 dms, and 2 hunters in a lucius list (and maybe 2 austringers).  Might be worth another look now.

Might want to fit in a guardian too. They are starting to look pretty survivable with the scribe.

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3 hours ago, Ludvig said:

They have such good-looking models that they don't need to be overpowered to be played.

Because of the good looks I always play both wardens. Cape warden (Flashheart) draws the aggro while plain warden (PRick) survives long enough to use the high cards. *adds Vik of Blood to the paralyze list*

Off the back of the McCabe discussion, I have to say I'm very excited to have a crew which will get positive flips without dragging a Promises carrier along. I'm getting very bored of Master Queeg, excellent though he is.

3 hours ago, Ludvig said:

 

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@4thstringer

1 hour ago, trikk said:

if you focus before the shot, you can do 2-3 damage which is not that easy to prevent.

Cheated in severe damage after cheating in red joker to connect, stone prevention flip was a moderate. I felt that postponing the blender for another turn was worth the two very high cards. (Also I wasn't yet certain she wasn't the Frame for Murder target. How he spent the stones then told me she wasn't.)

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10 hours ago, Ludvig said:

The Loco trick was never used in marshal-themed Justice crews anyway so the thematic J crew didn't lose anything as far as I know?

Apart from marshals I only believe we have the emmissary to bury stuff. That's a 10ss model that has a once per activation (or is it turn?) action to bury a model that pops back out so it misses a turn at the most and sometimes doesn't miss a turn at all, just gets to activate after the emmissary next turn. As a general rule I think 10ss models are allowed to have higher stats than a 6ss models in Malifaux, especially when the effect is different (arguably weaker).

Death Marshals should still mesh quite nicely with the emmissary since they're allowed to bury masters which the emmissary is not. That interaction is still potent and useful regardless of opponent and it's only possible with a marshal. All of a sudden that engaged Sonnia is not engaged and her attack just popped up on the other side of the board for two extra AP worth of blasts on the squishy models you thought were safe. Next turn you go early with the emmissary and blast some more. The marshal can then try to bury the model that was engaging Sonnia and pop her back out (hopefully outside of their engagement range).

The Loco trick most certainly was used by several Masters, in fact if you missed out on that synergy I think you cannot objectively critique it's uses. So far the comments I've seen being made about how this affects the Death Marshal seem to have come from several non-Guild players. So sure, it's great to not have to worry about that if you do not play Guild. The question is however if there is anything that significantly shows us that Guild is preforming much better as other factions both in the US and UK. What we see from those results is that Guild is actually preforming poorly...
Now is this to blame to one model or one faction? Most certainly not. Did Guild just get a powerful combo removed? Most certainly. I feel I have to remain honest about it. :) 

For me the reason to pick up the Emissary actually isn't because of his Back in the Box ability at all, instead we recieve good to great survivability for a good cost with a very good anti-swarm damage output option, by large because of how great the Never Bluff a Six Gun can be for you if your single model higher damage output options are allready there. 

Being able to bury your Master for 6ss with Death Marshal isn't worth the hassle most of the time, by large because you severly restrict the uses for your Master. Doing it with a 2 :melee Pine Box most certainly would open another favourable option there. This is not me calling out a Death Marshal being bad, but this is me objectively stating that 'a bury' at this point in the game isn't always better as straight up dealing damage. Every minion can contribute to the removal of key models. While the Guild isn't known for explicitly doing this extremely well in melee, we are still in a game where several non-Guild factions can do this well, even extremely well.

We will see how the Death Marshal's future will be in 2017. Good luck with your tournament :D 

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The bury comment was in response to something you said in a way earlier comment. I'm having trouble quoting properly on my phone.
"Keep in mind, DM is not the only model who can burry models in the Guild either."  Sorry about the confusion.

I'm not sure about fetid strumpet but everyone else in this thread I'm fairly certain play guild, Math may not have it as his main faction currently. I play guild more or less exclusively (I dabble in neverborn since they made Lucius dual faction in m2e).

I used the loco box way to frequently with both Sonnia and Perdita. For Lucius and McCabe I have tried it and not been happy with the results. With Lady J I'm not very experienced since I've only tried a couple of games but she herself shouldn't be itching that bad for more plus flips as far as I can tell. 

The point of my argument isn't that the box isn't powerful. My point is that the box was a boring, unintended exploit that was bad for the game. That it went away will probably not hurt death marshals as much as it will hurt Papa Loco because he is such a liability. A model that is balanced shouldn't have such a big drawback that it's worth 6ss to not have it on the table, I find that to be horrible design. His explode on death should probably have been optional (like the ability of stuffed piglets) since he is such a massive liability when not boxed.

If guild cannot place in competitive play without the Locobox then we don't have a problem with death marshals but with the entire faction. I hope we will find other ways to in games. 

Thanks, I'll try to post a mini-report on my progress with Newcius. :)

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25 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The point of my argument isn't that the box isn't powerful. My point is that the box was a boring, unintended exploit that was bad for the game. That it went away will probably not hurt death marshals as much as it will hurt Papa Loco because he is such a liability. A model that is balanced shouldn't have such a big drawback that it's worth 6ss to not have it on the table, I find that to be horrible design. His explode on death should probably have been optional (like the ability of stuffed piglets) since he is such a massive liability when not boxed.

If guild cannot place in competitive play without the Locobox then we don't have a problem with death marshals but with the entire faction. I hope we will find other ways to in games. 

The Pine Box Papa Loco interaction has been around since late 2014. If it was unintended it would have been changed earlier. What I see is a clean up, not a power fix and as a result Pine Box tactically has become weaker. 

Papa Loco is far from a liability since Numb. Its just that not all Masters are personally damage focused. Those who are used his DM combination.

My point remains, if you restrict tactical Pine Box uses, why not reconsider its stats game wide. In lieu of this clean up, does rng 1 feel right? I do not think so.

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We will have to agree to disagree on the reasons for the change. :) Extra range is always nice but I don't see how it gives that much more tactical flexibility for burying your own models.

I'm also curious on what you meant by guild having other ways to bury stuff if you weren't talking about the emmissary.

Papa takes large chunks out of your crew if he dies in a cluster of your models. That doesn't just happen through obeys although it is worse if he first blows up. I've tried playing him without the box and the problem is that he needs to be near whatever you are buffing before he activates so you can't keep him far away and move to whoever you want to buff, you need him to be there before he goes which puts restrictions on both movement and activation order as well as being really dodgy when your opponent brought a couple of snipers or a lure.

For me, the box was a way to make  Loco  function and not something the marshal needed to justify it's existence. Some of the appeal of the box for me at least was to keep the buff up and still deliver Loco where he was needed instead of hanging out behind Sonnia and wasting 7ss ap on nothing due to having crap range. If you only use him for the buff and he dies causing damage to your own models it makes you wonder why the mobile toolkit is 3ss for the same buff, easier to applyand without the drawbacks on death. If you run him up and don't get to use the buff it makes me wonder why the buff ability is on him and if he is really worth the investment without it. 

 

Sidetrack not 100% errata related but a fun one: Right now I'm trying to figure out if the emmisary could actually do some nice trick to just deliver Loco at a scheme marker. That lead me to ponder how many models Lucius could reposition with changelings copying Back in the box :D Sorry if I'm slow on the uptake, I'm not sure I've seen/thought about that combo properly.

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@Ludvig Absolutely no problem, agreeing and dissagreeing never is bad, just a personal opinion or choice :D Due to the rather excellent balance found in Malifaux there is always a whole lot of room for legit discussion. Regarding the Death Marshal I don't see it being bad, I didn't see it as overpowered and I didn't see it as being a key model for the faction that should always be there, by large because this game works so well because you always have a ton of choices to make. What I do see is that there is a decreased use for him within the Guild and increased use for him with Tara. 

Death Marshal 
Regarding other ways to bury models I was indeed suggesting the Brutal Emissary however only because it is another example we have of being capable of burying other models. Better put, the bury ability that was unique way back when the Death Marshal saw the first book is no longer unique to him. In addition there are models now who also bury other models better as the Death Marshal do, Tara and Brutal Emissary being the examples. Because of this I think the Pine Box ability is open for a reconsideration. Adding another inch to the range might not seem like much but it's the difference between having a 'great threat' range to a regular one troughout the game. 

In almost every faction we see a serious contention between Minions/Enforcers. Next year will increase our 4SS slots and also our 7SS slots, to the point where I believe the 6SS slots are getting very cramped. Many of the 6SS choices want to be just slightly worse as 7SS choices, almost all of them are specifically worse. For Guild the real exclusion is and remains the Austringer so the Death Marshal recieving some form of love is not something I'd consider a bad thing to happen, not because I play Guild but because of overal competative game choices ergo 'an improved balance'. 

Papa Loco 

In my games the most dangerous aspect of Papa Loco was not him blowing up himself upon death or better put "BOOM", instead for me it has always been "Te Lievare al Inferno Conmigo" because this allows an opponent to easily set up "BOOM". In recent games I've used Numb to migate a huge chunk of it and I believe Papa Loco has become totally viable again with that Upgrade.

'Slinging in' Papa Loco with the Brutal Emissary is very effective and I can certainly advice giving it a try. I mix up Abuela and Papa a lot for my Perdita crews, both have their cons and pros. It really boils down to a difference in "speed" versus "damage output", it depends per opponent what you want but due to Perdita being capable of hitting sufficiently hard enough most of the time I've generally picked Abuela over Papa but this is not to say either is significantly better.

Lucius too can do some awesome work for Papa, in general Papa is just great and I believe Numb is what allows us to always consider him for Sonnia and Perdita. Others usually are looking for different means to increase their effectiveness, be it trough Construct, Upgrade/Black Sheep, Guild Marshal or even Mimic ;) 

Errata 2017
Unlike Ludvig I believe the total intention of this errata really is to "clean up the old", almost all changes if not all do not seem to be focused on power levels too much and if it focusses on them it's only because the old rule was one not inline with all the akin variants. What I mean by this is the following:

- Death Marshal with Void just makes more lore sence.
- El Mayor being a Condition makes more technical sence.
- Hold This being a Condition makes more technical sence. 
- Guild Austringers without added Focus range makes more lore and technical sence.
- Lucius being in his current form makes way more lore and technical sence.
- The Scribe becomming what he is feels like a general nod to Lucius fans, I didn't feel it was required but every bit of help is obviously very welcome.

So this left me with the one question as posted :D , do you feel Pine Box's rng 1 makes a lot of sence?
In both cases there is always something that can be said for the powerful aspects of it but to date I don't feel Pine Box from a model and logical standpoint should be put on rng 1. Obviously this is a personal preforance and obviously changing that range would increase the model's effectiveness.

I also agree that we have more subtypes that would love some boosts such as Guild Guard but I believe we have a Guild Guard summoner somewhere down the line. To me it is clear however that despite the many logical changes here Lucius/Tara went up a notch or two and Lady Justice went down a notch. Something that likely wasn't intended but did just happen.



 

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@JDAntoine I also value the discussions here, I just worry that I sometimes come off as unfriendly. Thank you for interpretsting me in a friendly way. :) Written discusions so easily go sideways even if these forums are usually keeping it civil. 

I have always considered Lady Justice to be on weak and unwieldy since she has such a limited threat range and very few support tricks when compared to Perdita, McMourning and McCabe. Perdita does nearly as much damage in melee but also has excellent range and the ability to deny several defenses. McCabe has mobility, support and the ability to deny a lot of defenses at the cost of one point of weak damage. McMourning has weaker damage but some really cool utility and movement.

The influx of new models makes a lot of stuff seem lackluster, especially the early "elite" minions at 6ss who have attack stats of 5. A lot of models up to 9 soulstones and even masters made do with attack stats of 5 in wave 1. Examples include Judge's sh, Samael's burning upgrade, Candy, McMourning's expunge, Liliths Tangle shadows and a few others. Those models have a hard time keeping up when more and more models get base stats of 6 or higher.

In a game with such model diversity it's hard to keep everything equally popular and/or objectively "on par" with everything else. Burying models remains a rare ability and if marshals were good enough to compete in every other aspect it would ptobably lead to the argument "why take a similarly offensive model that doesn't have an equally great toolbox ability as a fallback".

Pineboxes and their range make sense to me since they've been that way for a long time. From a fluff perspective it could be considered unwieldy to put someone in a box compared to poking them with a greatsword but it could easily be explained with them being magical. From a mechabical perspective I think models with decent ranged attacks are generally designed to pay for that ability by having a shorter ml threat range to create a safe zone for specialized ml models. It's hard to find generally applied design rules, earlier (waves 1 & 2) I believe it was extremely rare to have more than 1pt of weak damage on models with a ss cost of 5 or less.

 

I'm probably just so happy about Lucius recieving so much love that I go into fanboy mode ;) With his new ability to heal and push I might give ronin another shot (also 6(7)ss models with a 1" ml 5 attack).

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@Ludvig if it wasnt for you and others I wouldn't even know where to have begun playing with the Guild :D So all my thanks are to the community and their imput so far! Even when discussing matters that have different viewpoints. 

I agree with your Lady Justice analysis. There are several factors as to why I do not deem her extremely potent but many of them come from the core fact that she's bound to Guild choices for melee support and Guild just doesn't do that in an amazing way (McMourning for example isn't completely bound to something). While we certainly have great Henchmen or Enforcers finding them specifically for Lady Justice is difficult. In general I would say the models with the subtype models of Guild Marshal are not too imposing in quality and the same applies to Guild Guard but these do become good in quantity, a fix that is 'easier' made by eventual summonning options. While the Death Marshal Recruiter certainly makes Lady Justice very difficult to thake out it doesn't adress any of the output issues these models have especially not by other subtype comparisons such as our Constructs or Family or condition "boosters" which is seen with our Burning or Poison.

An 'unwieldy' Pine Box should not affect it's range, instead we would see a Rg, Ml or Ca being effected by that. As an example, you could have a 6 foot sword, it would be unwieldy but would not affect it's threat range. In that same manner, using a gun without required skills does not affect the threat range of the gun. 
However lore does not even state that the Pine Box is unwieldy either, it just states that it is an unlikely weapon... I quote:

Quote

Skilled not only in the use of standard Guild weaponry, they have also mastered a more unlikely weapon - the enchanted pine box.

Page 104, Malifaux M2E, Book 1, Core 

Quote

They know all manner of weapons so as to be better
equipped to handle their difficult task. Only the most
skilled and dedicated survive their training to earn
the mantle of the Death Marshal.

Page 152, Trough the Breach

So yeah, my opinion remains.
I read a lot of lore stating that the Death Marshals are the most skilled and dedicated yet in terms of abilities (for the Guild) this isn't extremely clearly seen. This 'disconnection' wasn't as clear a few years back but the slightest of powercreep in wave 3 and 4 has shown us that the Death Marshal isn't that skilled by comparison as we have found new models to use. 

Lady Justice actually leads them less well as Tara/Lucius/others do now... Which is something to think about. As appearantly Lady Justice trains Death Marshals in the first place. As such a Ca 6 :crow or more likely 2:melee is still something I'd vote for in an next 'update'.

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Actually, I´m probably ok with the Death Marshals as they are (although I´m not against any buffs :p) but would like to see a usable Governors Proxy ;)

I mean, it would even make sense lore wise, as a new Governor means a new proxy, am I right?

And Marlow for sure doesn`t want to be represented by that useless bold guy...

 

Just to break up your discussion a little bit^^

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55 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Lady J could do with a support ability tagged onto a new upgrade. She could give an offensive stat boost to all marshals or something.

Possibly but a Lady J upgrade wouldn't increase the general use of DMs either. I feel an upgrade to DMs is more likely to increase the sight of Lady J play. Likewise the reason as to why Sonnia and Perdita are common ranged Masters for us to pick comes from the Austringer/Watcher as much as it comes from their own ranged offense. 

From my perspective Lady Justice as a single Master isn't too bad but she rewards a Guild Marshal theme that currently relies on a lot of older Guild Marshal models that either feel slightly too expensive or slightly too lackluster in melee, ranging from the 9 point Judge, to Lone Marshal to Death Marshal. Really the Death Marshal Recruiter feels designed just well but the others are showing their age. 

14 minutes ago, Tris said:

Actually, I´m probably ok with the Death Marshals as they are (although I´m not against any buffs :p) but would like to see a usable Governors Proxy ;)

I mean, it would even make sense lore wise, as a new Governor means a new proxy, am I right?

And Marlow for sure doesn`t want to be represented by that useless bold guy...

Just to break up your discussion a little bit^^

I like the suggestion but in general I feel a lot of Totems might be on the design board again :D Guild is not exclusive with it's hit/miss rate on them, most of them are either great or rarely seen. However a global change to the sight of them might also come in new Schemes for tournament play.

What I hope is that a Guild Guard orientated Master is the first on the list and I feel Marlow would make a ton of sence for that also because Lucius saw a massive GG increase upon his arrival to Marlow again. A Guild Guard summoner akin to a Guild Sandeep variant would be very interesting. I really want to consider Guild Guard models more often in my builds. Austringer is the only one commonly seen and all the others are extremely rare. 

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1 minute ago, JDAntoine said:

 

I like the suggestion but in general I feel a lot of Totems might be on the design board again :D Guild is not exclusive with it's hit/miss rate on them, most of them are either great or rarely seen. However a global change to the sight of them might also come in new Schemes for tournament play.
 

I doubt that Schemes&Strats could up the appearance of totems, they would need very strange wording to achieve that.

Which totems do you think are hit/miss, throughout the factions? ->don´t want to derail my own thread, just a little bit bored and curious :)

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