July 2017 Errata

[Hot4Perdita]

Good morning. So I went back to page 1 and read this errata again. I was not familiar with the other models listed, so I looked them up to see what changed. A couple of observations:

- Not real clear on the Wind Gamin. It says they bury instead of being killed, but no friendly models may unbury them. So if you can't unbury them, what's the difference really? Not sure why changing that even matters. I must be missing something. 

- The Practiced Production change looks like a kick in the teeth to Collette players. So it appears now that she can't place scheme markers near her doves. I've never played against Collette, but after reading her card, she looks like a master that excels at schemes. That's her strength. She's not a beater like Perdita. So it looks like they just weakened her. This has happened twice to her in the last 6 months. If I were a Colette player, I'd be really P.O.ed right now.

 

[trikk]

The issue with Wind Gamin is pretty obvious. They don't count as killed for scheme/strategy purposes. Thats a big deal, especially for Sandeep

 

As for Practiced Production: scheme marker placement that works on peons should be costly. PP isn't. Thats why the change. It make most Arcanists masters have a super easy was to score LYM or DtG with Super fast doves or teleporting Raptors.

[Adran]

1 minute ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Good morning. So I went back to page 1 and read this errata again. I was not familiar with the other models listed, so I looked them up to see what changed. A couple of observations:

- Not real clear on the Wind Gamin. It says they bury instead of being killed, but no friendly models may unbury them. So if you can't unbury them, what's the difference really? Not sure why changing that even matters. I must be missing something. 

- The Practiced Production change looks like a kick in the teeth to Collette players. So it appears now that she can't place scheme markers near her doves. I've never played against Collette, but after reading her card, she looks like a master that excels at schemes. That's her strength. She's not a beater like Perdita. So it looks like they just weakened her. This has happened twice to her in the last 6 months. If I were a Colette player, I'd be really P.O.ed right now.

 

Lots of things trigger on you killing an enemy model, such as dropping a head for head hunter, or hunting party, or even reckoning or collect teh bounty. If the model isn't killed because it buries itself instead, you can't use it to score points. So Winf gamin were great at scoring points, and really hard for the enemy to score points from.

Colette probably suffers less than most arcanist masters. A lot of people were recommend adding a showgirl to their lists just to put practised production in. She can still drop schemes all over the place, she just can't now use her doves to travel off to the place she wants to put a scheme, she actually needs something to go there (but she has a highly mobile force and can make it more mobile relatively easily, which is why I think it will hurt her game much less than other arcanists. But it was too strong if you are happy to spend 7 points to put it in your list as was sometimes the case)

[Hot4Perdita]

9 minutes ago, Adran said:

Lots of things trigger on you killing an enemy model, such as dropping a head for head hunter, or hunting party, or even reckoning or collect teh bounty. If the model isn't killed because it buries itself instead, you can't use it to score points. So Winf gamin were great at scoring points, and really hard for the enemy to score points from.

Colette probably suffers less than most arcanist masters. A lot of people were recommend adding a showgirl to their lists just to put practised production in. She can still drop schemes all over the place, she just can't now use her doves to travel off to the place she wants to put a scheme, she actually needs something to go there (but she has a highly mobile force and can make it more mobile relatively easily, which is why I think it will hurt her game much less than other arcanists. But it was too strong if you are happy to spend 7 points to put it in your list as was sometimes the case)

Understand now on the bury part. But still wondering why they would change that, mainly because the Wind Gamin looks like a crappy model other than that feature. Only 4 wounds and a miserable Ml 4. That's it pretty much it. My Guild hounds are better than that with 4 wounds and a Ml 5 for only 3 points each. They better not errata my dogs! 

As far as Practiced Production, I get it now. When I see showgirl, it automatically makes me think Colette crew.

[trikk]

5 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Understand now on the bury part. But still wondering why they would change that, mainly because the Wind Gamin looks like a crappy model other than that feature. Only 4 wounds and a miserable Ml 4. That's it pretty much it. My Guild hounds are better than that with 4 wounds and a Ml 5 for only 3 points each. They better not errata my dogs! 

As far as Practiced Production, I get it now. When I see showgirl, it automatically makes me think Colette crew.

Wind Gamin have 2 attacks per ap, armor, flight and leap and are simply significant. They are also summonable.

[KrazyIvan]

2 hours ago, Tokapondora said:

@KrazyIvan, what McCabby horrors have you encountered that make you focus on him so much? Sure he's one the of the best TT has to offer but he still lags behind a few powerhouse masters, even if you bring Yasu and the Warriors. Just a quick shout-out in defense of Yasu; giving Yasu half your shit will no doubt guarantee something will die, but he's not built to last a crew prodding away at him and at that point you've lost half your shit halfway across the field. And besides that, he's quite weak against armor, incorporeal and defensive triggers so it's not like he can pick just any model. Saying something is an NPE because it can alphastrike is really stretching the definition of NPE to "things I don't like". Also Sabres are nice but they're hardly all you want to do with McCabe - with Promises and Badge of Speed being things you can't exactly throw away you can get a whopping +1 sabre. And that only if you also bring the Emissary.

I have no personal issue with McCabe or the Terracotta Warrior, or Yasunori and  any master for that matter. Hence my use of the qualifier "potentially" in front of "NPE inducing". You can't dispute that they have been a topic of discussion however (there are multiple long threads on Yasunori alone).

In the case of Yasunori I was simply pointing out that comparing what a master does to what non masters do isn't a good comparison. Masters have a schtick that isn't really comparable to what specialized thing that Henchmen or Enforcers do, because a master's play style usually color an entire crew. Its better to compare non-master models to other non-master models.

The only reason I mentioned McCabe was that @Hot4Perditamentioned that he was interested in McCabe.

Since he has errata issues and the interactions between McCabe, Levi and Terracotta Warrior has been a topic of discussion as likely unintended on many a podcast, including shows like Max Value where a large chunk of the Midwest and East Coast tourney set discuss things. If you follow the errata cycle there seems to be a link to results from Adepticon and NOVA, where those guys play, and what gets errata. I suspect that's because of the data that can be collected at those large events. I could be off, of course, but I thought I'd asy least put that out there for a specific guy, taking about adding a specific master to his line up. 

[Colonel Sanders]

4 hours ago, Adran said:

I'm really sorry to break your bubble, but have you looked at this page?

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Rules-Errata 

Games workshop do issue errata on a  fairly reagular basis, although with no known schedule, they just appear as if by magic (or at least they used to, I've not followed since the end of warhammer where some books were errata'd before they were a month old, I'm looking at Skaven) 

GW didn't fix things often enough, the whole WFB game was full of broken combos, so when they rebooted the whole thing I was left with several hundred models I never wanted to play with again. I'm sorry but I can't help but find the complaint about the Mech Rider cuddle amusing when compared to GW. I literally had just finished painting over 100 dark elves that now sit in a box next to boxes of other armies that I feel are worthless.

I'm happy for this errata. I might not like how the piggys were changed, but they needed a change. (Still may have preferred they be made Rare 3 and totem, because Somer needs skeeters, or something)

When you hear a top table at a tournament was Arcanist on Arcanist and both sides had 4 wind gams you know something aint right.

[Hot4Perdita]

19 minutes ago, aquenaton said:

Well, as said before, the wind gamins are not very good for punching, but they are vey good at scheme running. The fact it can put a scheme marker, jump and put another scheme marker can be awesome in certain schemes. I know there are other models that can do the same, but it is pretty decent for a 4ss minion. The armor 1 is a nice bonus too. The point is that in most games scheme runners tend to be fragile, what may cause to give your opponent some points in most cases. This errata tries to make them a bit less awesome, but maintaining their special tricks. You still can hire them, but now they are just one option, becoming less than an auto include if you wanted a scheme runner.

The practiced production upgrade change truly makes Colette a bit sad, but as other people have said, it hurts more other masters. Colette and her crew can put a lot of scheme markers (I play only her from arcanists), so giving her an option to do it from the other side of the board at no cost could be a bit too much. Did you know she can teleport moldels to scheme markers within 14"? And that she can use her totems as shceme markers for it? I like when my master is a good one, but not the absolutely best, because it makes me feel I may be cheating by playing it. The great trick of the upgrade was using a random malifaux raptor, that can teleport to the other side of the table and then complete easily most schemes because your 3ss peon was spamming schemem markers, moving a lot and maybe protecting with defensive.

The mech rider change certainly lowered her summon capabilities, I see her now equiparable to the other riders. The four big factions have each one horseman, and untill now, in tourneys you would only see the arcanist one because how awesome she was. The others are not bad models, but require some work to use them properly. Summoning a 4ss minion with just a 6 seems very good for me. As a mostly resser (and gremlin) player, I tend to see I need for any summon at least a swit and another random resource (could it be a corpse, another gremlin, scrap, etc). In most cases, if I want a 4ss minion, I will need at least an 8, so making the mechanical rider summoning equiparable to other factions summons is  not that strange for me.

As a gremlin player, this errata changed the cost of the stuffed piglets from 2 to 3 ss. Even as we know it was needed, because the activation advantage was a huuuuge problem, most players wished the change was not only a cost increase, as it almost invalidates the option of the model being hired, because now competes with other models that are more "according to their cost". I think it is not a huge problem, I can still summon them, but now they wont be hired that much. Is it bad that a model is not hired in almost every crew? I think not, it lets other models to start shining.

Gremlins are the faction I know least about, not many people play them here, but I agree more with what they did to the gremlins, due simply to the fact instead of nurfing them, they increased the cost. Instead of nurfing practiced production, they should have just raised the cost to 2 or 3 stones to reflect the power of the upgrade. I would gladly pay 13 stones for the mech rider rather than 12 to keep the summon on a 6. Besides, you're not guaranteed to get a summon until turn 3 anyway, and the rider is fragile until around turn 3, giving your opponent ample opportunity to kill it before you can summon or it gets harder to kill.

[trikk]

3 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Gremlins are the faction I know least about, not many people play them here, but I agree more with what they did to the gremlins, due simply to the fact instead of nurfing them, they increased the cost. Instead of nurfing practiced production, they should have just raised the cost to 2 or 3 stones to reflect the power of the upgrade. I would gladly pay 13 stones for the mech rider rather than 12 to keep the summon on a 6. Besides, you're not guaranteed to get a summon until turn 3 anyway, and the rider is fragile until around turn 3, giving your opponent ample opportunity to kill it before you can summon or it gets harder to kill.

I really don't understand now. You're saying the errata as an idea is not bad but you dislike the changes? I think having a summoning baseline on significant models is a good idea. Its a lot easier to balance. Thats why I like the idea for an 8.

Practiced Production was an NPE to play against, especially if you had a specific table setup where you eother had to leave a bunch of your crew to try to block the teleporting Raptor or try to deny somethibg else and let him get 3 VP. Now the upgrade is still good but requires more of a risk to work.

[Adran]

5 minutes ago, trikk said:

I really don't understand now. You're saying the errata as an idea is not bad but you dislike the changes? I think having a summoning baseline on significant models is a good idea. Its a lot easier to balance. Thats why I like the idea for an 8.

Practiced Production was an NPE to play against, especially if you had a specific table setup where you eother had to leave a bunch of your crew to try to block the teleporting Raptor or try to deny somethibg else and let him get 3 VP. Now the upgrade is still good but requires more of a risk to work.

`No what he is saying is he would rather the rules remain as the card says, but that they are costed correctly. so the only changes you would need to make is to the soulstone cost of something. 

I can see the attraction to it, but I don't think it can always hold true, as since you would break it as a rule on occasions ( we have had at times infinite combinations) you might as well just use it as one of the possible tools. 

 

[Hot4Perdita]

19 minutes ago, Adran said:

`No what he is saying is he would rather the rules remain as the card says, but that they are costed correctly. so the only changes you would need to make is to the soulstone cost of something. 

I can see the attraction to it, but I don't think it can always hold true, as since you would break it as a rule on occasions ( we have had at times infinite combinations) you might as well just use it as one of the possible tools. 

 

Exactly, like I have constantly hammered before, I hate errata that changes models abilities, especially when it's for the worse. If something is too strong, (which I think there should be a huge litmus test it must pass before calling it too strong) then the better avenue would be to adjust the cost of the model/ upgrade to better reflect the strength. So in other words, they should have left the rider alone, but, if I had a choice, I'd take a hike in SS cost before I would a nurf to the ability. Someone mentioned earlier about new 40k errata. What did they do? Adjust points! By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

[skoatz]

52 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Gremlins are the faction I know least about, not many people play them here, but I agree more with what they did to the gremlins, due simply to the fact instead of nurfing them, they increased the cost. Instead of nurfing practiced production, they should have just raised the cost to 2 or 3 stones to reflect the power of the upgrade. I would gladly pay 13 stones for the mech rider rather than 12 to keep the summon on a 6. Besides, you're not guaranteed to get a summon until turn 3 anyway, and the rider is fragile until around turn 3, giving your opponent ample opportunity to kill it before you can summon or it gets harder to kill.

The problem with the interaction between practiced production and malifaux raptors was the fact that it was an almost guaranteed 3 VPs for the arcanists player with Leave Your Mark.  That kind of interaction is bad for the game.  Increasing the costs doesn't really fix that.  Let's say you increase the cost of the upgrade to 3 stones.  Arcanists players might see the cost as worth it.  So they continue to use the combo and get the quite nearly guaranteed 3 VPs.  Now let's say it the cost of the upgrade goes to 4 stones.  Now, Arcanists players no longer find the upgrade worth the cost.  No one is using the practiced production combo and malifaux raptor combo.  The cost is too high.  Not the greatest solution.   Because the end result of raising the cost is that either players will continue to pay for the upgrade or they won't at all.  There's no meaningful choice there.  It's either all or nothing.  For 1 soulstone, autotake, 2 soulstones, autotake, 3 soulstones, autotake, 4 soulstones, not worth it and it won't be used again.

Changing the upgrade slightly so that the upgrade is still good but Leave Your Mark is no longer so trivial to complete gives more meaningful choice.  In the end it's the better choice for the game.

That being said, it's sometimes a good idea to raise the soulstone cost of a model but in this situation it really wasn't.

[trikk]

7 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Exactly, like I have constantly hammered before, I hate errata that changes models abilities, especially when it's for the worse. If something is too strong, (which I think there should be a huge litmus test it must pass before calling it too strong) then the better avenue would be to adjust the cost of the model/ upgrade to better reflect the strength. So in other words, they should have left the rider alone, but, if I had a choice, I'd take a hike in SS cost before I would a nurf to the ability. Someone mentioned earlier about new 40k errata. What did they do? Adjust points! By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

They made everyone who bought 5 storm ravens pretty pissed IMHO. And it wasn`t a point change. The made everyone that doesn`t use magnets also pissed because plasma is the best right now.

 

I can`t agree about point changes because 

1) Malifaux has a far worse point granulation its 3-13 basically

2) In Wh40k most of the thing are based on equipment. In Malifaux each unit has special rules which means you don`t really have a good baseline

3) NPE become NPE even if you add an SS in cost. If you add 2 or 3 suddenly the NPE is gone along with the model.

[WWHSD]

36 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Exactly, like I have constantly hammered before, I hate errata that changes models abilities, especially when it's for the worse. If something is too strong, (which I think there should be a huge litmus test it must pass before calling it too strong) then the better avenue would be to adjust the cost of the model/ upgrade to better reflect the strength. So in other words, they should have left the rider alone, but, if I had a choice, I'd take a hike in SS cost before I would a nurf to the ability. Someone mentioned earlier about new 40k errata. What did they do? Adjust points! By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

The problem with balancing primarily through cost changes is that if you miss the price change, you now have an illegal crew rather than one that just has an ability that works a bit different.

I'm also of the opinion that just adjusting costs is kind of a ham-handed way to achieve balance. If you have a model that is filling a role and a price-point for a faction adjusting the cost of the model can push it out of it's intended niche. Often there are abilities that would require significant price changes to balance. You are then left with a model that is a waste of points if that ability can't be used.

A five point Wind Gamin doesn't really change much, you might see a few less of them taken but most people were only hiring one or two of them so the single point bump is negligible. Sandeep doesn't really care that he needs a 7 or higher instead of a 6. People who were pissed about not being able to score killing schemes against them are still pissed.

At 6 points, no one is hiring Wind Gamin because other than denying some scoring they can't do for your crew what you need a 6 stone model to do. Sandeep isn't jazzed about needing an 8 or higher to summon them but in pools which matter he's still happy to summon them. People who were pissed about not being able to score killing schemes against them are still pissed.  

At over 7 points, you'll probably never see anyone ever hire them. Sandeep may still occasionally summon them if he really needs to make sure that his opponent can't score killing schemes and strategies off of them but is probably going to summon something else even if there killing schemes and strategies in the pool. People who were pissed about not being able to score killing scheme against them are probably satisfied at this point because it is a rare enough occurrence that requires some resource investment from their opponent.

 

[skoatz]

Also, practiced production is taken for other schemes other than Leave Your Mark.  So if you increase the cost, you're negatively impacting its use in other situations.  For Leave Your Mark, practiced production might be worth 2 soulstones, but then it's too expensive in all other situations.  Modifying the wording slightly results in the upgrade still being useful for Leave Your Mark, while also maintaining its usefulness with other schemes.

[skoatz]

1 hour ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Exactly, like I have constantly hammered before, I hate errata that changes models abilities, especially when it's for the worse. If something is too strong, (which I think there should be a huge litmus test it must pass before calling it too strong) then the better avenue would be to adjust the cost of the model/ upgrade to better reflect the strength. So in other words, they should have left the rider alone, but, if I had a choice, I'd take a hike in SS cost before I would a nurf to the ability. Someone mentioned earlier about new 40k errata. What did they do? Adjust points! By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

I think you're also overestimating the effects of errata.  In most cases, models affected by the errata are still useful. People still use Austringers to great effect.  Guardians are actually used more often now.  Papa Loco still sees the table.  You're reaction really seems like, "this model's ability was cuddled and now it's entirely useless."  And that's almost never the case.

[WWHSD]

When it comes to balancing models upwards I definitely prefer errata to 0 cost upgrades unless there's a real reason to have the buff fill an upgrade slot.

 

That may be some baggage that I'm bringing from playing X-Wing.

[spooky_squirrel]

 

8 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Good morning. So I went back to page 1 and read this errata again. I was not familiar with the other models listed, so I looked them up to see what changed. A couple of observations:

- Not real clear on the Wind Gamin. It says they bury instead of being killed, but no friendly models may unbury them. So if you can't unbury them, what's the difference really? Not sure why changing that even matters. I must be missing something. 

- The Practiced Production change looks like a kick in the teeth to Collette players. So it appears now that she can't place scheme markers near her doves. I've never played against Collette, but after reading her card, she looks like a master that excels at schemes. That's her strength. She's not a beater like Perdita. So it looks like they just weakened her. This has happened twice to her in the last 6 months. If I were a Colette player, I'd be really P.O.ed right now.

• Wind Gamin because they did far more than they should for 4 stones. Others have already brought up why the bury mechanic had to go. Even with the bury mechanic as is, they weren't quite 5 stones in game value, and bumping their cost would just make them see more playtime with Sandeep and less playtime with other masters. If you don't understand why this might be a problem, you possibly have not run into Sandeep being played by someone who knows all of Sandeep's tools.
• Colette is the master that is hurt the least by this change. Other masters, especially masters that bring slower moving crews typically have limited ways to get scheme markers across the center line, let alone into the opposing deployment zone. They get to the strategy area (Extraction, Guard the Stash) and they turn into bricks to hold the line. Colette's abilities allow her to put models where she needs them, and lets many subtle quality models interact as (0) actions.

8 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Understand now on the bury part. But still wondering why they would change that, mainly because the Wind Gamin looks like a crappy model other than that feature. Only 4 wounds and a miserable Ml 4. That's it pretty much it. My Guild hounds are better than that with 4 wounds and a Ml 5 for only 3 points each. They better not errata my dogs! 

As far as Practiced Production, I get it now. When I see showgirl, it automatically makes me think Colette crew.

4 wounds with Armor +1. I can use that to tie something up for 1-2 AP, even if it's min damage 3 and ignores armor. Burying instead of dying was just an additional insult--because it wasn't worth spending AP to kill because you literally could not score VP from killing it, yet it could force you to spend an AP walking away from it to do stuff. All I need to do to stop a beater from charging is engage it. At Ml 4 and 2 attacks per AP spent attacking (built in trigger that goes off on resolution) I can force you to flip a lot of cards. Sure, I'm flipping a lot of cards too, but I'm deliberately doing it. Eventually you're going to fail a defense duel, and that min damage 1 seems "meh", but 1 damage is 1 damage no matter how much armor you have. I've killed Vik of Blood with a pair of Wind Gamin cycling cards and forcing stone use. Then there's everything @trikk mentioned:

8 hours ago, trikk said:

Wind Gamin have 2 attacks per ap, armor, flight and leap and are simply significant. They are also summonable.

Your Guild Hounds, except under McCabe when Luna comes along, have to stick relatively close together to interact for schemes. It's a minor limitation, but it effectively forces you to buy at least 2 if you're scheming with them. Wind Gamin can complete Claim Jump entirely on its own, with some moderate masks being flipped/cheated to guarantee completion.

If Showgirls only appearing under Colette was the perspective on PP and Showgirl, then you've been running into either very few Arcanists, or Arcanists that don't have or care for that combination for some reason. If a scheme involving placing scheme markers was in the pool, the question wasn't whether or not to bring Practiced Production, it was always who is going to carry it? in competitive play.

 

5 hours ago, trikk said:

They made everyone who bought 5 storm ravens pretty pissed IMHO. And it wasn`t a point change. The made everyone that doesn`t use magnets also pissed because plasma is the best right now.

I can`t agree about point changes because 

1) Malifaux has a far worse point granulation its 3-13 basically

2) In Wh40k most of the thing are based on equipment. In Malifaux each unit has special rules which means you don`t really have a good baseline

3) NPE become NPE even if you add an SS in cost. If you add 2 or 3 suddenly the NPE is gone along with the model.

Hiring resource granularity is a key piece to using cost to balance models. The current M2E hiring resource is soulstones. With everything else that's in play around this mechanic, we're not getting a more granular hiring resource (like Guild Scrip) without an edition change. Waiting for an edition change to fix unintended combinations, unexpected problems, and unbalanced play is a game-breaking NPE. As others mentioned, not having regular health-of-game and emergency checks drove a lot of people out of systems like WFB. Erratic errata schedules hurt organized play far more than scheduled/expected cycles. Even if the errata drops the day before a tournament, it was planned. It's up to the TO to either enforce it while the ink is still wet (and thus bring the errata information to the event and possibly attach it to any distributed materials for the tournament) or inform the players that while the errata is out, the tournament was planned and prepared for without it, and thus will run without it.

With Malifaux involving a lot more special rule use and interaction, it is a whole lot harder to evaluate a cost-to-effect. In systems like AoS and 40k you can assign a per-model cost that is strictly based on its statline and standard equipment, then base cost adjustments on special equipment; you can reasonably compare the base models and equipment in a vacuum. Things that modify the unit's battlefield ability (specific characters, etc.) have their own cost adjusted to reflect their force multiplication effect. There's line troopers that literally do nothing more than bring a bullet or blade to the field and there's specialists that modify the field in some way or are more effective themselves. With more granularity in hiring resources, there's more room for adjusting things.
In Malifaux most models typically hired are specialists of some kind, and even the ones that appear generic are hired with a specific purpose in mind and have a variable effect on the table that is dependent on terrain, scenario, opposing faction/models, and other friendly hires.

The NPE/autotake with Practiced Production wasn't Practiced Production itself, so adjusting the cost upwards would not have had a significant impact unless the adjustment was severe enough to make the upgrade a never take. Player-dependent, you would see combinations like:

• Angelica, Practiced Production, Malifaux Raptor (10 stones total)
• Colette, Practiced Production, optional other upgrade, Malifaux Raptor (12 stones plus cost of optional)

And these combinations were a guaranteed 3VP if you ignored the Raptor, or worse if you sank resources into chasing the 3 stone peon that was making it possible for me to drop scheme markers in areas that most other models would need a couple of activations to get to. As others mentioned, bumping its cost to 2-3 would just mean that it goes on Angelica effectively always for Leave Your Mark, and I'm still looking at spending less than 25% of my hiring resources for a guaranteed 30% of my available VP. The problem is is that bumping its cost removes it from legitimate non-autotake use as well. The only time it would get used is for LYM and it would effectively always score full points. That's not how the scheme, upgrade, or system in general is supposed to work. It doesn't address the actual problem with the combinations I mentioned above, which is simply:

Quote

The Malifaux Raptor is a 3 stone peon that by design can get anywhere on the table. As a peon it normally cannot contribute to scheme marker based schemes, so its ability to pop up anywhere on the table is nothing more than an interesting problem for the opposing player to solve if they want. Practiced Production made it possible to score marker-based schemes off of a model designed to get anywhere on the table, but deliberately designed not to generate scheme markers.

With GG schemes bringing more interact-based scheming to the game that scores throughout the game, something that wasn't really a problem under the basic rulebook scenarios became a potential NPE for opponents (near-unstoppable 3VP that has nothing to do with mistakes on their part) and an autotake for Arcanists. I might be off on this, but the intent of Practiced Production is to either:

1. provide a purely temporary scheme marker to power an ability or complete a scheme that called for a scheme marker being discarded, or
2. to displace the AP or ability used to generate the scheme marker. That is, Practiced Production puts out a "free" scheme marker, but if you want to keep it to score off of end-of-turn schemes, a friendly model will have to use a portion of its own activation to create a scheme marker to be discarded in its place.

4 hours ago, skoatz said:

I think you're also overestimating the effects of errata.  In most cases, models affected by the errata are still useful. People still use Austringers to great effect.  Guardians are actually used more often now.  Papa Loco still sees the table.  You're reaction really seems like, "this model was cuddled and now it's entirely useless."  And that's almost never the case.

This, 100%. I actually get more use out of some of my cuddled models now than I did before, because I don't feel like I'm abusing my opponent with them.

5 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

You must not be following the Gremlin thread on this. Gremlin players are quite livid about it, with vocal members asking why the Stuffed Piglets didn't get stat debuffs instead.

Edited August 4, 2017 by spooky_squirrel
limited ways != no way; brick crews might have a dedicated runner try.

[Hot4Perdita]

19 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Wind Gamin because they did far more than they should for 4 stones. Others have already brought up why the bury mechanic had to go. Even with the bury mechanic as is, they weren't quite 5 stones in game value, and bumping their cost would just make them see more playtime with Sandeep and less playtime with other masters. If you don't understand why this might be a problem, you possibly have not run into Sandeep being played by someone who knows all of Sandeep's tools.

First of all, I appreciate your long and well thought out perspective. Thank you. As far as Sandeep, I've never seen him played, thus have not researched him much. Matter of fact, I've only played against Arcanists once. Most people I know play Guild, Neverborn, Outcasts, and Ressers. In my local group, no one plays the Wave 4 masters much. I know of one person that got Nellie and Parker Barrows when they first came out, and as far as I know, only played them once and went back to his usual crews. No one seems to think much of the Wave 4 masters, and personally, after just glancing briefly at their stats, they don't look all that good to me. It would be very hard to play them with success. So much has to happen right, the right card/ suit, etc, plus their abilities can be very confusing. Certain schemes would be impossible with them. For example, I couldn't imagine Nellie scoring Eliminate the Leadership against Seamus. 

 

27 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

You must not be following the Gremlin thread on this. Gremlin players are quite livid about it, with vocal members asking why the Stuffed Piglets didn't get stat debuffs instead.

No, I haven't. I only know of one occasional Gremlin player, and they are among my least favorite factions, so I rarely read up on them. I'll check it out though.

[KrazyIvan]

3 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Exactly, like I have constantly hammered before, I hate errata that changes models abilities, especially when it's for the worse. If something is too strong, (which I think there should be a huge litmus test it must pass before calling it too strong) then the better avenue would be to adjust the cost of the model/ upgrade to better reflect the strength. So in other words, they should have left the rider alone, but, if I had a choice, I'd take a hike in SS cost before I would a nurf to the ability. Someone mentioned earlier about new 40k errata. What did they do? Adjust points! By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

The issue is more nuanced than that because you have to consider internal faction balance as well, especially when changing point costs. Take Gremlins for example:

In the post-errata meta it can be argued that Stuffed Piglets are not worth the new cost of 3SS because Bayou Gremlins are also 3SS, are significant, and have better attacks and abilities. Bumping Stuffed Piglets has thrown the Gremlin faction out of whack, and opened up the question if Bayou Gremlins have the correct cost, or should they be bumped to 4SS?

The point I'm trying to make is that increasing the cost of a model has a larger impact that simply making that model more expensive.

[spooky_squirrel]

15 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

First of all, I appreciate your long and well thought out perspective. Thank you. As far as Sandeep, I've never seen him played, thus have not researched him much. Matter of fact, I've only played against Arcanists once. Most people I know play Guild, Neverborn, Outcasts, and Ressers. In my local group, no one plays the Wave 4 masters much. I know of one person that got Nellie and Parker Barrows when they first came out, and as far as I know, only played them once and went back to his usual crews. No one seems to think much of the Wave 4 masters, and personally, after just glancing briefly at their stats, they don't look all that good to me. It would be very hard to play them with success. So much has to happen right, the right card/ suit, etc, plus their abilities can be very confusing. Certain schemes would be impossible with them. For example, I couldn't imagine Nellie scoring Eliminate the Leadership against Seamus. 

 

No, I haven't. I only know of one occasional Gremlin player, and they are among my least favorite factions, so I rarely read up on them. I'll check it out though.

Nellie herself wouldn't go for it, but her crew might. She has some activation interactions that potentially let her delay her own activations. If she uses these abilities to wait until Seamus is committed somewhere, then her crew's beaters could go for the kill. A cagey Seamus player will try to not let that happen, which potentially limits his own contribution to the game. That being said, Eliminate the Leadership isn't the only scheme in the pool, and there may be others that she's playing for while making the opponent sweat over whether or not it's okay to leave  Seamus somewhere that an Executioner can reach with AP left over. Similarly, what the Seamus player brings to the table might affect the Nellie player's decisions.

With the exception of Reva*, most of the Wave 4 masters have some complicated stuff that they do to make them click. Reva was the first to draw the "ermahgerd!" reaction because she has a relatively straight forward approach to playing that is solid. The other masters took longer to unlock in general, though in some metas models like Parker, Zipp, and Sandeep were picked up at GenCon and practiced a great deal, allowing GenCon-purchasing players advance practice that steered the direction exploration of those masters went before the general population started in with them. The relative complexity means that the masters will take some practice just to figure out what they actually do, then more practice to wrap around why they're good at it.

*note: this does not mean that she doesn't have complexity to her, just that a straight forward way to use her was quickly figured out.

[trikk]

29 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

First of all, I appreciate your long and well thought out perspective. Thank you. As far as Sandeep, I've never seen him played, thus have not researched him much. Matter of fact, I've only played against Arcanists once. Most people I know play Guild, Neverborn, Outcasts, and Ressers. In my local group, no one plays the Wave 4 masters much. I know of one person that got Nellie and Parker Barrows when they first came out, and as far as I know, only played them once and went back to his usual crews. No one seems to think much of the Wave 4 masters, and personally, after just glancing briefly at their stats, they don't look all that good to me. It would be very hard to play them with success. So much has to happen right, the right card/ suit, etc, plus their abilities can be very confusing. Certain schemes would be impossible with them. For example, I couldn't imagine Nellie scoring Eliminate the Leadership against Seamus. 

 

No, I haven't. I only know of one occasional Gremlin player, and they are among my least favorite factions, so I rarely read up on them. I'll check it out though.

While Seamus is pretty hard to score ETL I can guarantee Nellie has one of the highest chances in scoring ETL against Seamus in Guild...

[spooky_squirrel]

16 minutes ago, trikk said:

While Seamus is pretty hard to score ETL I can guarantee Nellie has one of the highest chances in scoring ETL against Seamus in Guild...

It wouldn't surprise me if she has several ways to do it beyond simply using her special activation control effects--I haven't played her myself and haven't played against her enough.

[Hot4Perdita]

46 minutes ago, trikk said:

While Seamus is pretty hard to score ETL I can guarantee Nellie has one of the highest chances in scoring ETL against Seamus in Guild...

With 1/3/4 damage in her only attack action? Hardly.

It took me three turns, 3 activations with Howard Langston and one with Mech Rider to kill Seamus.

[Nikodemus]

4 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

With 1/3/4 damage in her only attack action? Hardly.

It took me three turns, 3 activations with Howard Langston and one with Mech Rider to kill Seamus.

Pick a guild model with +4 weak damage (after built-in crit + Debt if need be). Then another one. Third one if you're feeling cheeky. Now give Fast to all of them. Maybe give 'em one or two free attacks with Nellie's triggers.

Nellie doesn't kill stuff herself. She augments her crew to do the killing. She's quite possibly best in the Guild for that. This isn't a game of Master vs Master. This is a game of Master +50ss vs Master +50ss. And Nellie really revs up her 50ss.