Is the pigapult mandatory?

[Clement]

13 minutes ago, codingCaptor said:

Favorite dumb list of dumbness:

• Zoraida
• Pigapult
• Stuffed PIglet x6
• Papa Loco
• Scion of the Black Blood
• Sparks
• Bayou Gremlin

 

Papa activates first, gives the pigapult  to damage.    Sparks activates next, giving the pigapult Fast and giving something packed explosives if there's an enemy nearby.   Pigapult activates reckless (for one damage)  Bacon loads (heal, gain concussed)  Ditches 2 card to remove a condition (From scion of black blood)

 

You now have a shoot 6 3/5/7 damage model with  to damage and 4 AP.  With the potential to be hitting a sparks target for an extra .    Delete whatever you want from the board.

Meanwhile, Zoraida and the Bayou Gremlin wander around the board earning VP.

Gross!  Though I did some looking into this and doesn't the Scion of black blood remove "all" conditions?  So the recent change to Papa loco making his buff a condition means this combo no longer works as labeled...

[codingCaptor]

1 minute ago, Clement said:

Gross!  Though I did some looking into this and doesn't the Scion of black blood remove "all" conditions?  So the recent change to Papa loco making his buff a condition means this combo no longer works as labeled...

I made this list before that erratta and didn't think about that at all.    That's unfortunate!!!  Hrm, I guess I'll have to head back to the drawing board to make something dumber.

[Omenbringer]

@Ludvig

Why pay to hire them when Lenny can provide all the free piglets you want for the Pigapult (the Pigapult is a great target for his upgrade attack)? Only the Taxidermist can summon Stuffed Piglets (he can only do it once an activation, requires a 9+, a corpse marker, and also a short range of 6") and well that is an additional cost to fielding the Pigapult. Their is a significant difference between Sh 5 and 6, especially when coupled to a damage flip. The two together make you less likely to get reach higher damage profiles and that you are paying a premium for (and not all crews need to cluster close enough to make the a real threat).  Also consider that Piglets can move the Pigapult via Truffles (making up for that slow Wk), aren't Insignificant (so can contribute to schemes and strats) and have more than one role in the crew. Piglets really are the superior choice to consistently fuel the Pigpault.

@cfrag

While I like that Sparks can give the Pigapult Fast it does come at a high cost and limits his presence quite a bit.

@codingCaptor

That is an awful lot of points tied to the Pigapult and a fairly tight radius to keep your most of your crew bound within. It also comes with some really big negatives in that you have two less cards for cheating, no method of healing the Pigapult outside of the single wound it recovers from Bacon Load, no method of summoning more Stuffed Piglets (so your opponent killing them becomes a major issue), and finally your activation is heavily scripted (at best your Pigapult is firing third in the activation order giving those mobile crews time to reach it or limit the effectiveness next turn). It might work well the first time but once a player has seen it it wont be difficult to pull its teeth (From the Shadows "Sniper" models present some real problems for this setup.

While I think the Pigapult is a decent option, getting it to consistently perform is an issue in many games, particularly if your opponent has seen it in action more than once (my players don't have much trouble limiting its effects) or the Strats and Schemes don't favor a static fire base.

@Clement

Good catch.

[Ludvig]

@Omenbringer I was operating on the assumption that you wouldn't bring anyone to summon but hire some ammo that would hang around and out-activate while the rest of the crew played more aggressively. I've seen this with Wong to make it glowy which creates a formidable threat for enemy models that could normally be considered hard to remove.

I'm not sure how often people focus with the pigapult to be able to cheat the damage, I've mostly seen it reckless to smack something three times at negatives. I don't remember the math but I think the likelyhood of scoring weak is very high even at a single negative. 

Regardless of damage I think the place effect is really strong. A master like Pandora isn't too happy when she starts turn 1 surrounded by stuffed piggies in a perfect triangle so she can't push away and if anyone attacks them she could also suffer almost half her wounds. There are a lot of crews who don't enjoy having enemies among them turn one. Normal piglets are respectably durable for their points so there is a chance of locking down key enemy models in their deployment.

Som'er summoning is already good in interference, the ability to simply place a model anywhere with no random factor and surgically remove any chance they have of scoring even if they played really well is also quite strong for 8ss.

 

I'm not trying to have it cuddled but if someone asked me if the pigapult is a really good tool for their arsenal (like this post) I would say that it's a good tool.

[Dogmantra]

4 hours ago, Ludvig said:

. I've seen this with Wong to make it glowy which creates a formidable threat for enemy models that could normally be considered hard to remove.

You were swindled there I'm afraid - Wong can't give the Magical condition to peons.

 

I super agree with placement being its best aspect though - particularly hurling stuffed piglets upfield instead of using them for ammo.

[Ludvig]

4 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

You were swindled there I'm afraid - Wong can't give the Magical condition to peons.

Whoah! I need to have a chat with someone... I'm glad they were that clever in design, even between two books no less.

Any other shenanigans that the peon characteristic excludes it from?

[Dogmantra]

Not as far as I know, but yeah the magical one tripped me up too. I posted here something along the lines of OMG glowy pigapult and my dreams were crushed too. I mean it's a very reasonable restriction

 

On the topic of focused Piggypult, if you have two face cards to drop, it's more efficient to focus and cheat to hit then cheat the damage flip than it is to cheat to hit twice for a 2/4/6 damage track (even for moderate tbh, because you have a much better chance of not having to cheat the damage flip compared to being on negatives). A 3/5/7 one too, but obviously no cheating there due to stuffie boom.

[codingCaptor]

11 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I don't remember the math but I think the likelyhood of scoring weak is very high even at a single negative. 

Surprisingly lower than you'd think!

54 card deck, with 21 cards that will cause weak damage.   ~37% of a weak card per flip, or a 63% chance of moderate+.   Chances of flipping 2 63% chances in a row is ~39%.

So around a 60% chance of hitting for weak damage with a single negative.   Goes up to around a 75% chance on a double negative.

(Note that this is assuming a full deck with replacement, and ignores the Red joker's unique rules.  These numbers can and will vary wildly over the course of a turn as you flip.   These numbers will never actually be right, but should always be in the general ballpark.)

@Omenbringer

There's a reason I called it my "Favorite dumb list of dumbness."  it's not supposed to be good, it's supposed to be HILARIOUS.  Really bummed that it doesn't work now though.

 

If I wanted a good list, I wouldn't hire a pigapult.

[Omenbringer]

17 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Regardless of damage I think the place effect is really strong. A master like Pandora isn't too happy when she starts turn 1 surrounded by stuffed piggies in a perfect triangle so she can't push away and if anyone attacks them she could also suffer almost half her wounds. There are a lot of crews who don't enjoy having enemies among them turn one. Normal piglets are respectably durable for their points so there is a chance of locking down key enemy models in their deployment.

I would argue the Place potential is the better reason to hire the Pigapult, though even here I am not a huge fan of it for the cost. That positioning comes with a huge downside in the Paralyzed condition (especially in regards to the most recent errata change). Flinging Stuffed Piglets up field no longer locks down opponents like it used to, at least on the turn they are Paralyzed (they can be killed on this turn without worrying about triggering Bacon Bomb, relevant text underlined and bold below)

Quote

Errata to core rules Page 52: A model with the Paralyzed Condition generates no AP and can declare no Actions (whether or not its the model’s Activation). The model is also not considered to have an engagement range or to be engaging any models (and therefore cannot take Disengaging Strikes).”

This makes the Pigapult a lot less dangerous unless you can massively out activate your opponent (not as easy as it once was) and fling the Stuffed Piglets after your opponent has activated all of their models (or at least those in a position to attack the Stuffed Piglets). Again the issue becomes forcing your activation order which is a major downside in my opinion.

As for Wong's Glowy ability, the Pigapult is the reason it is worded the way it is. I am not convinced the Pigapult would be all that bad even with access to "Glowy" (it is still expensive to run consistently) but am happy with the playtester's decision to omit it from the discussion.