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What about desperate mercenaries?


KID55

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16 hours ago, Brian Gresham said:

@Mason likes to use them as they tend to be ignored by opponents. I have seen him use them as effective scheme runners

Interesting, but I think necropunks is better as scheme-runner (I play Leveticus).

 

16 hours ago, necroon said:

If you pair them with a way to put the opponent at negatives (Like a Performer) your chances of hitting increase quite a bit.

Hmm, and outcasts have a models like a performer (who get :-fate to Df and Wp duels)?

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I wonder how something like this would work. Possibly fit some Abominations in there for more aoe defense duels. 

50 SS Outcasts Crew
Tara + 4 Pool
 - Dead of Winter (1)
 - Oath Keeper (1)
 - Eternal Journey (1)
Student of Conflict (4)
Hannah (10)
 - I Pay Better (1)
 - Oath Keeper (1)
Sue (8)
 - Return Fire (1)
Convict Gunslinger (7)
 - Return Fire (1)
Performer (6)
Desperate Mercenary (4)
Desperate Mercenary (4)

 (exported from CrewFaux)

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I expect to see some hilariously spammy wild firing on positives after Tara does her 'deal 1 wound + fast' on desperados. If it were me I'd try to squeeze in a Killjoy on the assumption that those mercs will die.

Too bad our only Tara player quit the game. Would love to see some approximation of this list in action.

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A hilariously bad list might be something like Tara, Karina, Aionus, and all the rest of the points spent on Desperate Mercs. Costing only 4 stones Aionus can make his entourage fast by discarding fives and above, and Tara can poke hers for fast for the cost of a wound. If nothing else it would be losing with style.

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5 hours ago, BaconBytes said:

I wonder how something like this would work. Possibly fit some Abominations in there for more aoe defense duels. 

50 SS Outcasts Crew
Tara + 4 Pool
 - Dead of Winter (1)
 - Oath Keeper (1)
 - Eternal Journey (1)
Student of Conflict (4)
Hannah (10)
 - I Pay Better (1)
 - Oath Keeper (1)
Sue (8)
 - Return Fire (1)
Convict Gunslinger (7)
 - Return Fire (1)
Performer (6)
Desperate Mercenary (4)
Desperate Mercenary (4)

 (exported from CrewFaux)

 

You need the knowledge of eternity upgrade to be able to use Tara to ping fast onto models.  Dead of Winter doesn't do much in that setup either, you can skip it.

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On 13.3.2017 at 4:53 PM, Brian Gresham said:

@Mason likes to use them as they tend to be ignored by opponents. I have seen him use them as effective scheme runners

So, they are good because nobody cares for them? :P

Or are there any other tricks/things to consider while using them, @Mason? :)

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23 hours ago, Freman said:

A hilariously bad list might be something like Tara, Karina, Aionus, and all the rest of the points spent on Desperate Mercs. Costing only 4 stones Aionus can make his entourage fast by discarding fives and above, and Tara can poke hers for fast for the cost of a wound. If nothing else it would be losing with style.

I think add in equal parts Desperate Mercs and Guild Autopsies so the opponent is afraid to spend that last card.

Tara - Knowledge of Eternity, Obliteration Symbiote
Karina - Faces of Oblivion
Aoinus - I Pay Better
3x Desperate Merc
3x Guild Autopsy
Void Wretch

Turn 1 Tara pings the Mercs for 1 damage and fast, Aoinus can spend low cards to make them Fast, or Focused, or both. Karina summons Autopsies, the void wretch heals them, Tara unburies them.
Lose with style!

 

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18 hours ago, Mikey_C said:

I think add in equal parts Desperate Mercs and Guild Autopsies so the opponent is afraid to spend that last card.

Tara - Knowledge of Eternity, Obliteration Symbiote
Karina - Faces of Oblivion
Aoinus - I Pay Better
3x Desperate Merc
3x Guild Autopsy
Void Wretch

Turn 1 Tara pings the Mercs for 1 damage and fast, Aoinus can spend low cards to make them Fast, or Focused, or both. Karina summons Autopsies, the void wretch heals them, Tara unburies them.
Lose with style!

 

That's absolutely disgusting. 

I love it. 

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9 hours ago, scarlett fever said:

I'm fairly new to outcasts and my books are on loan. Do we have passive(ability) options for pinging them for a wound, preferably outside of masters?

When people are saying "ping them for fast" in this case they are talking about Tara, a master who has an attack that does 1 damage and gives out fast or slow. 

Outside of masters you could just punch them with a model with a low attack profile and Relent. Use something with a weak damage of 1.

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8 hours ago, Mikey_C said:

When people are saying "ping them for fast" in this case they are talking about Tara, a master who has an attack that does 1 damage and gives out fast or slow. 

Outside of masters you could just punch them with a model with a low attack profile and Relent. Use something with a weak damage of 1.

Yeah I realise the Tara interaction. I was wondering if there we had access to something non AP intensive outside of Masters that could ping a couple of Mercs for 1 damage. Hitting each with a one AP attack from a model that could be doing something else seems inefficient. An Obidient Wretch could toss rats at them, but that is only really in a Hamelin crew.

I was wondering about them as a card drain for your opponent. On plus flips against a Def 5 opponent you'd expect them to hit 2 out of 4 of their Rapid Fire attacks, but at numbers that would be easy for an opponent to cheat. So they could be similar to TN pulses.

With Rapid Fire, Disguised and the ability to give back soulstones when killed they could be useful in an Assassinate based Misaki crew. Rapid fire to drain cards, Soulstones to fuel the Assassinate trigger (Misaki is at her best when she can disgard her last stone to gain auto Assassinate) and Disguise to key into an anti-Charge crew.

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Only Problems I see... THEY DO NOT HAVE RAPID FIRE... their Wild Firing is like really not worth it even with a plus to attack. The only things they actually can do is to interact, walk and be disguised. Even their soulstone-generating ability doesnt feel like it makes a lot of sense. When the only thing they can do is being (in comparison) slow scheme runners... why would you want them to stick near your master or henchmen?
And no... being so bad that they usually get ignored isn't really a strenght ;P

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13 minutes ago, DXXXVIII said:

Only Problems I see... THEY DO NOT HAVE RAPID FIRE... their Wild Firing is like really not worth it even with a plus to attack. The only things they actually can do is to interact, walk and be disguised. Even their soulstone-generating ability doesnt feel like it makes a lot of sense. When the only thing they can do is being (in comparison) slow scheme runners... why would you want them to stick near your master or henchmen?
And no... being so bad that they usually get ignored isn't really a strenght ;P

Sorry I meant wild firing not rapid fire. I realise we're all primed to dislike them, I'm just exploring some potential corners.

Being on a plus flip will make their average duel total just under 12, which is close to the average duel total for a def 5 model on straight flips. Given equal duel totals go to the aggressor I would expect them to win slightly under half the duels over time. Unfortunately you'd want 2 of them just to even your odds so it is a big ask. 

You don't expect all these factors to go your way during a game, but it could be enough do that they become worth 4ss. Cheap activation, potential card drain, potential soulstone, unable to be charged and cheap AP for schemes. 

I don't own them yet so next thing is to try it. Chances are I'm completely wrong but it's worth a try. 

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  • 1 month later...

So I get the idea of wild firing as 'death by a thousand cuts'.  Some people are saying it makes opponent waste cards to cheat, though I'd think the opponent would just prefer to hack the 1dmg...1dmg...1dmg...1dmg.......rather than waste cards.

 

Rapid fire brings the Sh down to 2.  A Positive flip on that makes Sh roughly equivalent to Sh 4 again.

So, even against a weak minion (df 5), you're going to lose most flips even without cheating (and you're not going to cheat to win here).  And forget about anything in cover....

 

So, even using wild fire a lot, unless you're attacking something with Df4, I'm still struggling to see how this works....

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On 5/3/2017 at 7:58 PM, CapnBloodbeard said:

So I get the idea of wild firing as 'death by a thousand cuts'.  Some people are saying it makes opponent waste cards to cheat, though I'd think the opponent would just prefer to hack the 1dmg...1dmg...1dmg...1dmg.......rather than waste cards.

 

Rapid fire brings the Sh down to 2.  A Positive flip on that makes Sh roughly equivalent to Sh 4 again.

So, even against a weak minion (df 5), you're going to lose most flips even without cheating (and you're not going to cheat to win here).  And forget about anything in cover....

 

So, even using wild fire a lot, unless you're attacking something with Df4, I'm still struggling to see how this works....

While I will agree on paper you are right but it has been surprisingly more effective the times I have seen it used then you would think.  Having seen it and used it before though I have found that while not super effective it can add up.  The first reason is that it is damage 2 rather than damage 1 on a Desperate Merc.  Unlike many 4ss models it not only has both a melee and shooting attack but both are have a weak damage of 2.  Unless the target has armor or a lot of wounds 2 damage is not easily ignored.  It is one thing when you take one hit, it is another when you start risking taking two hits.  I have often found that it does put the defender on a bad spot, not terrible but frustrating.  They flip a ten and you flip a six, they are hitting.  You could cheat that 8 and make them miss, but that means you are dropping a decent card to stop a model that is likely not cheating its own attack at any point.  More so it is putting out volume of fire so it basically casting a net and setting what it can get.  In the off chance you can take 3 Wild Firing actions you are generating 6 attacks and possible flipping 12 cards across them.  Even if you have to walk and do it you are taking 4 attacks and 8 cards.  And the enemy cannot charge you.  They can shoot back if they possess the means, avoid you, engage you, or ignore you.  Depending when this happened in the line up you could even find yourself facing it again next turn before you activate.

I am not saying this is great combo but it has at least shown itself worthwhile enough to me to always at least consider taking one Desperate Merc to serve as part of my "Frontline" to potentially take one for the team and serve as the sacrificial lamb to get things started.  They often serve that role better than something like a Void Wretch as their defense is not determined by cards, they have disguise, and can use shooting attacks rather than needing to be in melee.

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