Surviving the Viks alpha strike

[Loddfafnir113]

Morning all,

I've been playing for a couple of months now, and I'm starting to get a decent handle on the game, started with Lucius and now got McMourning as well (who I'm having incredible fun playing).

I'm racking up an impressive amount of losses, which is obviously just down to my own inexperience, but there's one opponent I am utterly stumped on how to beat. He uses the Vik bomb (bury Vik of blood, make Vik of Ashes fast, charge in, kill, flurry, unbury, chain, charge, lots of pain) and I can't seem to last past turn 2.

Obviously some of this is down to my own bad tactics due to crew build and positioning, as well as having the right cards at the right time, but do any of you fine folk have tricks and tips for surviving the initial hit? Any models or upgrades you tend to include when you know you're up against the Viks? Not looking specifically for ideas revolving around Lucius and Dougie as I'll be expanding anyway, so any advice you've got would be helpful.

 

[Ludvig]

A peacekeeper under Hoffman with the new upgrade that makes it impossible to ignore armor near him. That's about all I've got, the Viks delete shit.  

 

To use anything else you need to prepare to lose models. Be mindful of how close you have your models so she can't whirlwind effectively and try to out-activate and keep a very threatening model back so that if she kills something you have a good shot at killing her in return. You can also go the other way and spread out so much that they have trouble handling more than a single model at once.

I think their new upgrade that unburies Vik says that she can't chain-activate? Pretty sure it does that which gives you a single activation to put her in a box, put on red tape or paralyze with a nurse. Chaining just about any damage dealer with Francisco is also good if you can do that.

[Gnomezilla]

I think that's the void wretch/scion of the void variant, in which unburying is sadly legal. (Details may be misremembered, I'm not even a part-time Outcast...yet.)

However, we're Guild. Just taking a single death marshal recruiter ought to stop that nonsense.

[4thstringer]

7 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

I think that's the void wretch/scion of the void variant, in which unburying is sadly legal. (Details may be misremembered, I'm not even a part-time Outcast...yet.)

However, we're Guild. Just taking a single death marshal recruiter ought to stop that nonsense.

Does DMR do enough damage to kill a buried vik?

4 hours ago, Loddfafnir113 said:

Morning all,

I've been playing for a couple of months now, and I'm starting to get a decent handle on the game, started with Lucius and now got McMourning as well (who I'm having incredible fun playing).

I'm racking up an impressive amount of losses, which is obviously just down to my own inexperience, but there's one opponent I am utterly stumped on how to beat. He uses the Vik bomb (bury Vik of blood, make Vik of Ashes fast, charge in, kill, flurry, unbury, chain, charge, lots of pain) and I can't seem to last past turn 2.

Obviously some of this is down to my own bad tactics due to crew build and positioning, as well as having the right cards at the right time, but do any of you fine folk have tricks and tips for surviving the initial hit? Any models or upgrades you tend to include when you know you're up against the Viks? Not looking specifically for ideas revolving around Lucius and Dougie as I'll be expanding anyway, so any advice you've got would be helpful.

 

Maybe dual guardians blocking the way in with their def buff and scribe aura? 

[Gnomezilla]

45 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

Does DMR do enough damage to kill a buried vik?

Maybe dual guardians blocking the way in with their def buff and scribe aura? 

Maybe, maybe not--but if nothing else, the Outcasts player must respect the possibility and react to it, being on the back foot. Also, those blasted chained heals won't save her underground.

I tried Lucius' guardians and a general bubble of Df7 and 8 (Phiona), but of the few things in the game that will punch through Df7 double positive without cheating, Ml7 loads-of-positives is one of them. Then everyone was clustered around the Scribe for +1Df, and we all know how that ends.

[It's definitely got to be a Glimpse the Void bury of Blood to fulfill the conditions of the original post, now that I am awake enough to reason it out.]

[doubledragon]

Lady J with her new Ashwood Coffin upgrade is a good counter. If your opponent buries the Vik, Lady J will kill her while she's buried. If he doesn't bury the Vik, keep Lady J back for a counter charge and then kill her. Francisco is also a good counter, as he can "En Frente Me" (not sure how that's spelled), placing into base contact with her and pushing all friendly engaged models away, or straight up charge her or flurry if you have good positioning.

If you don't have Lady J, as @Gnomezilla said, a Death Marshall Recruiter will do some damage to her while she's buried. Two will have a decent chance of killing her.

[Kharnage]

Viktoria of Ashes has WP 6, which is not to escape the agony of getting hit with a nurse's cast. Make her only able to take melee actions, but only outside of her crew, give her neg flips to everything and then precise through the armor you gave her, or, you know, just paralyze her. If blood is out of her pokeball, she's only got WP 5. 
Ashes only has straight flips on her sword and can't use the (0) to get positives if she wants to unbury her sister, so useless duplications makes her feel pretty bad if you go mimic heavy in Lucius. Granted, blood will still maul you, so it's only a partial solution. For Lucius with the doppelgänger, initiative can be relatively assured thanks to ill omens, and thusly using a hunter to command/pimp walk into chain harpooning and trying to kill ashes before she goes, or with "watch my back", you could try some combination of 1-2 punch to get her in the ground before the vik bomb goes off, once again assuming you have the doppelgänger and the other models to make it work. 

[Gnomezilla]

Brain's turning back on again, slowly....

Glimpse the Void burial must unbury when something dies, no? Bring the weakest, cheapest model you can and something with a 12" or better gun. Once Blood is buried, run your sacrifice to a safe spot (or deploy it far away from everything else--in severe terrain and/or behind walls preferred) and shoot it to death. Bonus points if you wanted it dead anyway, i.e. a Malifaux Child who has done her job for the game, or walk your sacrifice into hazardous terrain. Out pops Blood somewhere where she can comfortably ignored for awhile, far away from sisterly buffs (but not heals).

[Ludvig]

Unles the errata changed it, glimpse the void can't bury if anything else is buried so if that'show they're doing it you could bury something of your own as your first activation of the game.

I guess a sacrificial model would also do. You might be able to set that up so she is unburied in a place where you want her. Hoffman might for example be able to let a fast peacekeeper near cyborg Francisco take something out with it's first attack followed by a flurry and then companioning into Francisco.

[Myyrä]

Viks will also have to think twice before they Charge Perdita, who has been buffed by Frank. Doubly so, if she has her finger on the trigger. They also can't deploy out in the open if they don't want to get killed.

Although, I suspect that is going to help you about as much as all the other posts suggesting masters other than Lucius and McMourning. I don't think they have access to any easy answers. You could try using sniper models like freikorps trappers to limit where Viks can safely go. The other good alternative would be to hit them with conditions, but it isn't as easy as one would like. Wave 5 also has some pretty good answers coming, but they haven't hit the stores yet: Guild investigator can make it so that Vik of Blood can only attack once per activation and Disguised protects them from charges, Thalarian Queller can almost guarantee they can't use Whirlwind and Riot Breaker can rob Blood of extra AP like fast and Melee Expert.

[Kharnage]

On 9/14/2017 at 4:05 PM, Myyrä said:

I suspect that is going to help you about as much as all the other posts suggesting masters other than Lucius and McMourning

Truly, if the nurse can kill something on a ram trigger syringe, and then paralyze/uppers the resulting viktoria, you're fine. Nurses I think are the reason McMourning exists.
As for Lucius, kill some poor guardsman with Dashel, chain into lucius, who then smacks the resulting viktoria with red tape. Easy money. 
The Viktorias were OP for the-first-few timers, but as OP gets more and more games under their belt, I'll guarantee the 7 wound mediocre defenses start to really feel flimsy. Flimsy enough to be balanced, anyway.

Wyrd NDA.pdf

[trikk]

McMourning with Badge can probably survive Blood attacks and then kill her back.

[4thstringer]

25 minutes ago, trikk said:

McMourning with Badge can probably survive Blood attacks and then kill her back.

I thought Vics don't allow reduction of damage.  Badge reduces damage to one IIRC.

[trikk]

1 minute ago, 4thstringer said:

I thought Vics don't allow reduction of damage.  Badge reduces damage to one IIRC.

Viks ignore Armor etc. Reduction is still ok.

[4thstringer]

8 minutes ago, trikk said:

Viks ignore Armor etc. Reduction is still ok.

sweet

 

[Eorek]

To follow up on the death marshal recruiter counter... Would he be able to pull it of with the upgrade a debt to the guild? 
If you are sure you will face the vik bury bomb could even bring 2 just to make sure you get the job done ^^. might atleast make your opponent go for another build if he/she knows you have a counter to it. 

[Loddfafnir113]

Thanks for all the advice guys and girls!

To clarify it is indeed a Void Wretch that's burying her.

To be honest I can't believe I missed the sacrificial model idea, I normally take a couple of changelings with Lucius so one of them may be getting it in the back next game, possibly from a guild rifleman stood next to a second rifleman and Dashel. With a Witchling Thrall nearby, for extra insurance.

I'll be picking up Hoffmans box at some point in the future so his 'always armour' bubble should be a fun counter. DM recruiters might be hitting the list as well.

 

[The Governor-General]

Ashwood Justice,

Death Marshal Recruiters,

Aionus

All take care of Blood while buried, ignoring her cheeky card flipping defenses.  Bonus, each of those models give you an opportunity to do the exact same thing to Ashes once you box her.

That or a rifleman line.  If blood charges in the range of a focused rifleman line, she takes 6 to the face.  I know the internet derides the Dashel/Rifleman line, but it has consistently served me well.  Heck, catch Blood in the open, and you can likely get four focused shots off in a row between Dashel auras and companion.

With McMourning, nurse shenanigans are great, as is badge of office to keep Doug alive long enough to counterattack, which usually spells the end of a Vik.

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, The Governor-General said:

Ashwood Justice,

Death Marshal Recruiters,

Aionus

All take care of Blood while buried, ignoring her cheeky card flipping defenses.  Bonus, each of those models give you an opportunity to do the exact same thing to Ashes once you box her.

That or a rifleman line.  If blood charges in the range of a focused rifleman line, she takes 6 to the face.  I know the internet derides the Dashel/Rifleman line, but it has consistently served me well.  Heck, catch Blood in the open, and you can likely get four focused shots off in a row between Dashel auras and companion.

With McMourning, nurse shenanigans are great, as is badge of office to keep Doug alive long enough to counterattack, which usually spells the end of a Vik.

If she has trappers they oneshot the riflemen from 28" away. If she has stones left she can stone for each instance of rifleman damage separately so they will not cause a lot of damage when she charges. She could also be unburied so close that she doesn't need to charge or walk into combat instead. Another fun one is unburying to block LoS to one or two of the riflemen so that at the moment the charge is taken she isn't in all of their auras. Walking something else in to engage one or two of them will also limit their use.

[RustAndTheCity]

I had a game at a tournament last week against the viks. I was playing Nellie. 

Turn 1 used my cards and weak activations to keep out of Vik range while be activated his whole crew. I then activated my big models and put some damage on a few of his.

Turn 2 he got Vik of blood into the heart of my crew. Amazingly, he got whirlwind off for all three attacks. I used cards and stones to keep my models above hard to kill. 

I then hit back quickly killing Vik of blood, taelor and Johan. Eventually, I used Nellie's delegation to heal my own models a bit and took out his core. I was lucky to win the game overall. I won the attrition game after surviving the alpha strike and managed to deny him scoring extraction a few times.

 

Things I think could help against the viks:

-know that they will probably alpha strike. You'll lose a model or two. That's their main trick though. They're pretty squishy after that.

-make them make bad choices. I knew he was going to hurt me so I threw my models in to cause damage and put pressure on his crew.

-use defensive tech on vulnerable models: soulstones, defensive, buffs, etc

-try to stop Vik of bloods attack before it triggers whirlwind (soulstones for -attack flip depending on her buffs, use your high cards)

-spread out enough she can't whirlwind everyone 

-try to craft a strong hand for turn 1 or 2 when the strike will come. Soulstone for cards, keep your high cards for the important attacks.

-beat them on points. It's hard to out damage them but you can focus on scoring and denying their points.

 

They are a really tough crew to play against. Good luck!

[entropolous]

Anyone else finding the new Misaki thunder alpha scarier than the viks?  Being able to charge in and drop 3 damage blasts that can't be reduced on models 12 inches away from her target on top of the 5 she's doing to the target makes her scary good at removing your key models. Its a heck of a lot easier to control what the viks can kill compared to limiting what Misaki can kill.

[Gnomezilla]

55 minutes ago, entropolous said:

Anyone else finding the new Misaki thunder alpha scarier than the viks?  Being able to charge in and drop 3 damage blasts that can't be reduced on models 12 inches away from her target on top of the 5 she's doing to the target makes her scary good at removing your key models. Its a heck of a lot easier to control what the viks can kill compared to limiting what Misaki can kill.

Scarier? No. But still quite respectable, with the added range over whirlwind. Harder to cancel with positioning.

[entropolous]

37 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Harder to cancel with positioning.

Understatement of the year.

[4thstringer]

9 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

Scarier? No. But still quite respectable, with the added range over whirlwind. Harder to cancel with positioning.

And misdirection making it hard to hit her back.