Schemes & Stones Master Spotlight Titania

[Khyodee]

Let us know what you think of this weeks Episode.

https://schemesandstones.podbean.com/e/episode-60-master-spotlight-titania/

[MetaphoricDragn]

Twas interesting to here the push towards Barbaros, I had seen a lot of people drop that concept early on, I'll need to try that out some more.  I tend to value Audience even more than her beseech though.  Always seems like I want more upgrades on her than I can manage.  Hadn't really thought about shifting FGF to Barbie though, I'll need to try that next time as well.

A bit weird to be asking on the Neverborn forum, but your guest talked about some up and coming Tara list?  what was that all about?

[ringsnake]

He said it was about taking nothing but Tara and the maximum possible number of Void Wretches, which would be eleven in a 50ss game if you put three upgrades on Tara. Void Wretch and Tara have multiple means of burying a model, and each wretch has a pretty solid damage track on a (2) attack that works on buried models. You force your opponent to take a pile of defensive duels until their hand is exhausted trying to cheat to avoid being buried.

I assume you take the Voiceless Words upgrade that forces a model to take a WP:13 duel to avoid being buried when it kills a wretch. Knowledge of Eternity to bury at range, and Dead of Winter to knock 2 WP off models within 6" of Tara, so you can almost guarantee the death of any model that goes after her directly, and doesn't kill her.

Because if you pile on enough attacks they're going to get bad cards. In the meantime, you cheat the crap out of things to increase the wretch's Df to crazy high levels. Even when you have no cards in your hand (especially then) the wretches will be hard to hit.

Additionally you can pass around a lot of Fast to get extra positive flips on the attack, to guarantee the bury trigger will happen at least once. You can just concentrate on burying the highest SS thing your opponent's got with a bit of effort, and then leave it buried while your several remaining wretches fulfill schemes and the strategy. Or murder the buried model.

Nasty stuff. I'm still trying to think how best to deal with it. Neverborn at least have multiple means of wrecking low Wp models like the Void Wretches, but my first thought, Pandora, will be a fail. Tara can run up to her with her six actions, and drop Pandora's Wp to five.

[Adran]

20 minutes ago, ringsnake said:

 

Because if you pile on enough attacks they're going to get bad cards. In the meantime, you don't cheat anything, and hold on to all six of your cards so your Wretches can't be easily hit by attacks going against Df.

 

You might want to check a void wretches df. If you do this, you are on DF 2, so thats pretty easy to hit in my book...

[ringsnake]

16 minutes ago, Adran said:

You might want to check a void wretches df. If you do this, you are on DF 2, so thats pretty easy to hit in my book...

Oh, I got it backwards, so there's an incentive to cheat and INCREASE their Df?

I was working from memory, and assumed that would be stupidly powerful.

Back to the drawing board.

[Adran]

17 minutes ago, ringsnake said:

Oh, I got it backwards, so there's an incentive to cheat and INCREASE their Df?

I was working from memory, and assumed that would be stupidly powerful.

Back to the drawing board.

Having no hand to control the game is actually quite a draw back. To get the most out of the void defence, you want to very quickly lose the rubbish cards from your hand, and only hold a couple of good cards. But even that is a risky approach, and only puts them of DF 6, which, if you aren't going to cheat to save isn't that unhittable. DF 8 is good, but if you flip a 1, and can't cheat because you have no hand, they will still die. Its a very hard level to balance. 

[ringsnake]

On 4/18/2017 at 9:11 AM, Adran said:

Having no hand to control the game is actually quite a draw back. To get the most out of the void defence, you want to very quickly lose the rubbish cards from your hand, and only hold a couple of good cards. But even that is a risky approach, and only puts them of DF 6, which, if you aren't going to cheat to save isn't that unhittable. DF 8 is good, but if you flip a 1, and can't cheat because you have no hand, they will still die. Its a very hard level to balance. 

Then I think the solution is self evident:

Stitched Together, and lots of Ca actions that go against Wp. This might work best with Pandora or Lucius. Target Wp 5 Wretches with A Game of Chance, and give you more opportunities to do 'Tails you Lose' and force your opponent down to zero cards. Also works as an all comers list in case you're not certain if your opponent is really going to pull the Tara swarm.

Voices Pandora and Candy aren't exactly going to lock Tara down, but it could work.

 

[Adran]

Surely the solution to the swarm is allow them to bury a model, hit it a few times whilst its buried, then kill a wretch to unbury it so its once again safe, and they have spent a large portion of a turn not doing very much.

Don't try and prevent them burying your models if they aren't at risk, its not worth the effort, just kill the swarm and unbury when you need to. 

[deleted]

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[Ergonomic Cat]

Llesh, have you played Titania?  You end up with scheme markers all over the place.  Saying "if you have them" - you *will* have them.  It is a by-product of everything that you do.  Your models drop scheme markers while doing other things.  If you simply play with Titania and a Knight or two, you'll be generating 3-4 markers a turn without even trying.  

And Titania is tanky in a "constantly heals in large quantities without spending AP" way.  Hence the "If you focus her, she dies."  Perhaps "Survivable" is a better word than "Tanky" but I've spent enough time playing RPGs and MMOs to know the difference between a Regen tank and a Defense tank.  

I'd go on, but 1. you said you listened to 10 minutes, and a lot of the things you are complaining about were discussed in the fullness of the podcast and 2. you seem to have some serious salt against both the podcast and Titania (and NB in general) which I'm unlikely to impact.

 

I enjoyed the podcast.  It solidified my thoughts that I have got to get the Rougarou on the table, and took me out of "Well, Lelu and Lilitu can make a great pounce engine for 14" to "Yeah, Rougarou is 8."  I still think QC is a trap, but I could see it in an elite crew - if everything on the table is happy to get QC and will be killing, it might be worth adding.  

[ringsnake]

 

On 4/18/2017 at 9:51 AM, Adran said:

Surely the solution to the swarm is allow them to bury a model, hit it a few times whilst its buried, then kill a wretch to unbury it so its once again safe, and they have spent a large portion of a turn not doing very much.

Don't try and prevent them burying your models if they aren't at risk, its not worth the effort, just kill the swarm and unbury when you need to. 

I must be misremembering. I thought the rules on the void bury effects were that if a model is already buried, and a model is buried, the previously buried model comes back. The idea being that you can generally only keep one model buried with the glimpse of the void effect at a time.

I don't recall anything about killing a wretch bringing back a buried model like you can with Death Marshals.

I think I have a better comprehension of why the list is powerful now that I've slept on it. Your opponent has eleven incorporeal reasonably fast scheme runners with the ability to either hand out Slow to wreck your opponent's ability to do anything, or hand out Fast and then pounce on the Fast model like a tank of piranha in a Bond film. It also acts as a strong disincentive for using tricks like using one model in your crew to grant Fast to another model in your crew. Your opponent will get at least one activation to go after the Fast model with two positive flips to go fishing for the bury trigger.

The wretch's are Ht1, and can hide behind pretty much anything.

There isn't any one trick to that Tara list. There's a vast catalog of dirty tricks. Some annoying schemes that most crews won't bother with like Inspection would be easy for her.

[Adran]

13 hours ago, ringsnake said:

 

I must be misremembering. I thought the rules on the void bury effects were that if a model is already buried, and a model is buried, the previously buried model comes back. The idea being that you can generally only keep one model buried with the glimpse of the void effect at a time.

I don't recall anything about killing a wretch bringing back a buried model like you can with Death Marshals.

I think I have a better comprehension of why the list is powerful now that I've slept on it. Your opponent has eleven incorporeal reasonably fast scheme runners with the ability to either hand out Slow to wreck your opponent's ability to do anything, or hand out Fast and then pounce on the Fast model like a tank of piranha in a Bond film. It also acts as a strong disincentive for using tricks like using one model in your crew to grant Fast to another model in your crew. Your opponent will get at least one activation to go after the Fast model with two positive flips to go fishing for the bury trigger.

The wretch's are Ht1, and can hide behind pretty much anything.

There isn't any one trick to that Tara list. There's a vast catalog of dirty tricks. Some annoying schemes that most crews won't bother with like Inspection would be easy for her.

Glimpse the void normally only allows 1 model buried at a time, and that model will unbury when a model on the table is killed. (Any model). I've not really used her since the errata so I might be missing something, but a Ml 4 model with and a 2/3/4 damage track, that on a trigger can force me to take a TN 13 wp duel or be buried until something dies does not really scare very many fast models. Yes you can scheme fairly well, but I can't see enough of a threat in the list to stop your opponent schemeing and removing your schemes. 

 

And

Ht 1 does not make you any easier to hide unless you are facing Ht 1 models. 

 

[Sharp_GT]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person comboing titania with barbaros. Has anyone tried that combo plus a will-o-the wisp? I haven't gotten them painted up and on the table yet but I'm guessing that will be pretty boss to have even more scheme markers to heal off of. Plus it's only another 3ss.

 

[D_acolyte]

I find the nights are really about the same for me, which is I think they are all good but I tend to bring Claw and Tooth but sometimes I switch Claw for Thorn but it comes to the faction. Tooth keeps Titania alive.

Changeling and Hans are a great combo, as the do not randomize into melee is on Han's gun.