What do belles dislike

[Ludvig]

I'm a guildie but I figured I would ask the ressers since you usually know your own models best:

What have you run into where you can't just isolate and lure a single model turn 1 to get way ahead in points? 

It happened to me again last game: the table is setup so that any model outside of it's deployment zone will see and be seen by the opponent's belle(s). My opppnent had Sybelle with the upgrade that makes you walk furter and a belle. Turn 1: dead Francisco. 

Any suggestions for how I protect myself against belles? Assume that they will see me and that no way of blocking LoS exists.

[Bengt]

Counterspell aura, Vent Steam.

[Corn]

Sanctioned Spell Casters can shut it down as well.

[Falk]

Re-Lure with a Performer; don't play on a table without LOS-blocker; move your whole crew towards the resser - so he's too many targets.

BTW - the Belles were nerved - Lure is now only casting 7

[Adran]

Reposte, Counterspell and other things which remove suits. Hard hitting models. Francisco with Finesse. Tables with a decent terrain set up. Games where just killing an opponent doesn't win you the game and you need to leave your deployment zone. Negative flips. 

 

[lille354]

What they really hate is now needing a 5 to get Lure to work and having 1 less wound!!

 

[hydranixx]

Belles hate every simple duel. Their strength is in their Wounds count and spells, but their stats are terrible for their price. 

Manipulative and Terrifying are kind of difficult when you're chilling on Df/Wp 4.

[Ludvig]

12 hours ago, hydranixx said:

Belles hate every simple duel. Their strength is in their Wounds count and spells, but their stats are terrible for their price. 

Manipulative and Terrifying are kind of difficult when you're chilling on Df/Wp 4.

My beef is that I can't hurt them turn 1 but they always lure Francisco into a place where he dies. I fon't need to kill them after they've done their job, I need them to not manage a single lure before they die.

[Kadeton]

18 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

My beef is that I can't hurt them turn 1 but they always lure Francisco into a place where he dies. I fon't need to kill them after they've done their job, I need them to not manage a single lure before they die.

The simple answer, in that case, is to play Sonnia and take Counterspell Aura. If all you're looking to do is prevent Belles from Luring Francisco, that's an easy and 100% effective route. After a few games, your Belle-using opponents will probably cool it a bit on that particular tactic. As an alternative, Perdita's Aura Ancestral will put Francisco's Wp at 8, which makes him much more resistant to Lure.

A deeper examination might involve asking how you're controlling the activation order (or not). Are you activating Francisco earlier than is necessary? Dragging an un-Activated model across the board with Lure only to have them walk back to safety again (or charge and kill the thing you were planning to hit them with) is usually not a good plan. You also have the option of upgrades like Curfew to reduce the amount of Luring that can happen in a turn.

Another angle is to ask: What is killing Francisco? He's a solid Henchman with Hard to Kill (usually) and a  on incoming Ml attacks - he requires a concerted effort to put down. If your opponent is putting that kind of power into him, how much do they have available for the other tasks necessary for scoring points? Is there more you could be doing to keep Francisco alive? (Taking Defensive Stance, for example.)

[Ludvig]

I am trying to make McMourning work right now so swapping masters isn't an option for me.

Francisco was one of my later activations in that game but I wanted to put el mayor on someone, in retrospect that wasn't such a good priority since I lost it anyway. I saved my executioner and McMourning to the very last since I wanted to keep some threat to force my opponent to hang back with his force. It was the joker strat where you need to place markers on the other side of the board. I guess I need to look at my activation order or play it even safer. Sybelle with her upgrade that forces opponents to walk further and two lures from a belle gets me 14" up from more or less anywhere on the board so maybe I should just sit in my deployment turn 1.

After the lure, McMourning (mirror match) poison pushed into ml range, focused to get by finesse (or so I thought) and cheated in the red joker since I didn't think to stone the defense. That put me at hard to kill and then he expuged from the poison his attack placed and got a flesh construct.

Meanwhile my McMourning spent his activation turn 1 positioning himself like a chump.   Taking a couple of walks vs removing 10ss and gaining 6ss yourself just seems so unfair, even if you spend a couple of activations doing it. There just doesn't seem to be a guild equivalent to doing what ressers do and more or less automatically remove a major threat with your melee master turn 1 without exposing your own models. Guild can run up and hope to survive to be in a good position to charge something turn 2 but they can't play the low-risk game ressers do. Maybe I'm really asking for a way to emulate or counter that no-risk playstyle that is so brutally effective in some strats and schemes.

[trikk]

Sidir can use By Your Side.

Spellcasters have the (0) and quite useful triggers.

Sonnia has Ca Aura

Perdita has Aura Ancestral

 

I do think that the main issue was not stoning for the McMourning attack and staying in LOS of Belles. If they have to Walk for LoS it now is not that big of a problem and he has to overextend to get to Francisco 

 

If you have Sebastian and a Nurse with McMourning he has a 18" charge range and even more if you get the push Trigger on Rancid Transplant instead of a Walk. If you add Hermanos he's 10" up the board when he activates

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I guess I need to look at my activation order or play it even safer. Sybelle with her upgrade that forces opponents to walk further and two lures from a belle gets me 14" up from more or less anywhere on the board so maybe I should just sit in my deployment turn 1.

I'd suggest trying the opposite, actually - ram your crew down the opponent's throat as fast as possible. If that's your strategy going in, then the Belles are actually helping you from a certain point of view. In Guild vs Ressers, generally speaking, the Guild dominate the fight at the start since they hit harder point-for-point. Over time, the Ressers gain the upper hand through summoning, so the best counter to that is to beat them down faster than they can recover, especially by killing their Master. If you chill in your deployment zone you're just giving them the opportunity to pull individual models out and kill them where you can't retaliate, and they love that.

Basically, you're right - Guild can't play the low-risk game that Ressers do. Play the high-risk game instead!

(Also, it's never a bad idea to stone on defence if the attacker is likely to get a straight damage flip. I'd say you've learned that lesson now. )

[Tris]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

I'd suggest trying the opposite, actually - ram your crew down the opponent's throat as fast as possible. If that's your strategy going in, then the Belles are actually helping you from a certain point of view. In Guild vs Ressers, generally speaking, the Guild dominate the fight at the start since they hit harder point-for-point. Over time, the Ressers gain the upper hand through summoning, so the best counter to that is to beat them down faster than they can recover, especially by killing their Master. If you chill in your deployment zone you're just giving them the opportunity to pull individual models out and kill them where you can't retaliate, and they love that.

Basically, you're right - Guild can't play the low-risk game that Ressers do. Play the high-risk game instead!

(Also, it's never a bad idea to stone on defence if the attacker is likely to get a straight damage flip. I'd say you've learned that lesson now. )

This ^

No Belle player likes it if you charge them with half your crew as fast as you can.

Their purpose is to isolate your models and kill them one by one (most of the time at least), so just deny them that opportunity

[Ludvig]

2 hours ago, trikk said:

Sidir can use By Your Side.

Spellcasters have the (0) and quite useful triggers.

Sonnia has Ca Aura

Perdita has Aura Ancestral

 

I do think that the main issue was not stoning for the McMourning attack and staying in LOS of Belles. If they have to Walk for LoS it now is not that big of a problem and he has to overextend to get to Francisco 

 

If you have Sebastian and a Nurse with McMourning he has a 18" charge range and even more if you get the push Trigger on Rancid Transplant instead of a Walk. If you add Hermanos he's 10" up the board when he activates

I was out of LoS but I couldn't block it after mandatory Sybelle walks and places a belle in btb.

[Clement]

McMourning's 0 action Injection can be used to fish models back from the belle if you *REALLY* don't want to engage.  Having said that, I think the best advice is to cram your crew down his throat.

On a related note, if you are seeing a lot of condition stuff from your opponent, look into the upgrade "Numb to the World".   Nothing puts a damper on McMourning's wacky poison shenanigans quite like a heaping cup of "NO" to his poison.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Not exactly true as ressers aren't the only ones who can take Belles. While most Resser lists have a large issue if you just charge en masse, Levi might absolutely love it if you come charging towards him so Rusty Alyce, Ashes and Dust, and Levi can punch you to death.

Countering a lure List really depends on how they are set up. As suggested against most lure lists in ressers charging en masse can overwhelm them. You want to be careful in how you do it though as you don't want your best beater right up front because the lures will likely pull in a model or so before the rest of your force can get there. If you are able to hold off activating your best beater until late you want to because if they waiting on using the Belles they likely won't have anything to hit you with immediately, and if if they activate the Belles early to decide get something in for their crew to gnaw on immediately they won't have the best options on what to do it to.

Ressers don't have anything to adjust their initiative, and probably shouldn't get something because of this, and they can't really burn activations early in the game if they want to both lure and have models to deal with what they lure, again probably an intentional design decision. Late game is another matter. So countering them early or putting pressure immediately on their key pieces is important.

Other ways to counter it are to bring models that have deleterious effects just for being near models. Models that debuff or explode on death, black blood, etc... not only make gang piling not a good idea, but it also robs the opposing list of effectively putting together Belle bombs to multi pounce your models.

[Freman]

Peacekeeper with Precision...

[Mikey_C]

Sue has the (0) man in black that really hampers belles. Mind you it puts a bullseye onto Sue.

 

 

[Ludvig]

On 2017-03-04 at 0:52 AM, Freman said:

Peacekeeper with Precision...

That also goes down super fast if it gets lured close to McMourning and it's very easy for a nurse to paralyze it so not really doing much difference. More of an Izamu counter I think.

[trikk]

Peacekeeper with Numb to the World usually gets 6 dmg from McMourning.

[mo11usq]

Master Queeq with promises, is a highly irritating layer of WP defense