is incorporeal a bad defence?

[Ludvig]

4 minutes ago, Angelshard said:

But in your example the reason they don't die is because they're running by themselves and aren't near any enemies. Their survivability is still pathetic for 5 stones if something actually tries to kill them.

Again I'm not saying there aren't good incorporeal models. I'm saying that as a defensive mechanism it's very unreliable because there's too many counters

They're not tanks. I don't think they automatically got low wounds because of incorp but that it was factored into their general design as squishy but fast and with scary auras. I also believe Pandora and a few others can save them by transferring wounds? I'd say it's a design choice for her crew to work like that because they're pretty oppressive on the offence but glass cannons.

[Myyrä]

4 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Ryle is df 4 or 5 and armor +1 for 10 ss and his attacks usually cause less damage than that of the hanged. Hanged have wp 7 to his 5. Not sure on how many wounds they have.

It's the combination of low Df and low Wd (7) that makes them relatively fragile. It's the same problem Huggy has (and all wave 1 incorporeal models really). Without knowing what your opponent has, you can't rely on them being able to survive. That's why they are good summons, but pretty bad hires.

[Angelshard]

@Ludvig that might be the case with madness. But I don't think incorporeal models in general are designed to be glass cannons, although that would explain it

[Ludvig]

I think all of Pandora's crew is designed so that if you hurt them Pandora needs to protect them with her martyr ability or whatever it's called. As for incorp in general it might have been slightly overvalued as a defensive measure but it also brings mobility so it's a lot like having armour +1 and flying basically. Watchers have flying and armour and mature nephilim have it. Maybe Valedictorian as well? I guess those models would be interesting reference points. I think watchers and matures are both defence 4.

I'm really not sure this is a question of all models with incorp paying extra for the incorporeal rule specifically. I'd happily discuss on an individual model level and see if they only have incorp going for them or if it's possible their cost comes from other abilities. You'd have to compare to other stuff from the same wave, discounting the obvious survivability outlier since we all know some models are just silly when it comes to survivability. 

Hanged don't just have incorporeal, they also have that horror aura and an attack that is utterly devastating so it's not strange if they are easily killed. Compared to executioners who also have a dangerous attack but are ridiculously easy to kill I don't think hanged have it so bad in the survivability department. For refenrence executioners are df/wp 5 and have terrifying (living) and no other defenses whatsoever.

Nothing Beast and wretches don't have low defense because they are incorporeal but becuase they can also get up to 8 points of defense, if they started at 6 df they would be at 12 defense at the end of the turn so their low defense probably depends on that mechanic a lot more than incorp.

Not sure how many wounds huggy has but bloody Vik is 7 wounds and no built in defensive ability for a 0ss hench I think.

What other incorporeal models are problematic in the survivability department?

[Angelshard]

Sorrows are 3/4/4 and designed to stand next to enemy models. As you say they might be designed so that Pandora has to save them, but I still find it pathetic for a 5ss model.

The onryo is another 5 model and is a bit better protected than the sorrow. The jump from 4 to 5 wounds huge because you can't just kill it with two 3 damage attacks.

I guess it might just be that I expect too much from the defensive aspect of incorporeal and get frustrated at how easily it is bypassed.

[Myyrä]

56 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

I think all of Pandora's crew is designed so that if you hurt them Pandora needs to protect them with her martyr ability or whatever it's called. As for incorp in general it might have been slightly overvalued as a defensive measure but it also brings mobility so it's a lot like having armour +1 and flying basically. Watchers have flying and armour and mature nephilim have it. Maybe Valedictorian as well? I guess those models would be interesting reference points. I think watchers and matures are both defence 4.

I'm really not sure this is a question of all models with incorp paying extra for the incorporeal rule specifically. I'd happily discuss on an individual model level and see if they only have incorp going for them or if it's possible their cost comes from other abilities. You'd have to compare to other stuff from the same wave, discounting the obvious survivability outlier since we all know some models are just silly when it comes to survivability. 

Incorporeal and Armor were both quite overvalued compared to defensive stats in wave 1, leading to models like Huggy, Ice Golem, Rail Golem, Poltergeist, Nothing Beast and the likes.

56 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Hanged don't just have incorporeal, they also have that horror aura and an attack that is utterly devastating so it's not strange if they are easily killed. Compared to executioners who also have a dangerous attack but are ridiculously easy to kill I don't think hanged have it so bad in the survivability department. For refenrence executioners are df/wp 5 and have terrifying (living) and no other defenses whatsoever.

Hanged are bad hires, Executioners are bad hires. What's your point here?

56 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Nothing Beast and wretches don't have low defense because they are incorporeal but becuase they can also get up to 8 points of defense, if they started at 6 df they would be at 12 defense at the end of the turn so their low defense probably depends on that mechanic a lot more than incorp.

Nothing Beast is not really a fair comparison. It was one of the worst models for its cost when it debuted, but it has had it's survivability boosted twice since then.

56 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Not sure how many wounds huggy has but bloody Vik is 7 wounds and no built in defensive ability for a 0ss hench I think.

They both have 7 wounds, and saying that Blööd Vik doesn't have any defensive abilities, isn't exactly true. She has pretty good Df 6, for Df and Wp when you have lots of cards in hand and a heal. She also has the ability to kill most models that can threaten her, unlike Huggy.

[-Loki-]

2 hours ago, Angelshard said:

But in your example the reason they don't die is because they're running by themselves and aren't near any enemies. Their survivability is still pathetic for 5 stones if something actually tries to kill them.

Again I'm not saying there aren't good incorporeal models. I'm saying that as a defensive mechanism it's very unreliable because there's too many counters

I consider the mobility granted as contributing to their durability. If you set up a killing strike on an Incorporeal model, and next turn they zip through a building, which means it takes you a whole activation to set up to hit them again, it just contributed to keeping it alive.

With Insidious Madnesses, it's hard for you to even get a chance to attack them because of that mobility. That makes them hard to kill, so contributes to their durability.

[Fetid Strumpet]

In my experience a high defense is better in most cases than almost any amount of defensive abilities that try to compensate for low defense. There are exceptions of course, but generally I'd rather have defense 7 than armor, incorporeal, or the like.

[Ludvig]

My point is that I'm not sure incorporeal as an ability is the problem but some wave 1 models were never really powerful. The premise of the thread seemed to be that incorporeal in itself was the reason those models were bad, in that case they ahouls be worse than the other low-powered ptions from the same release wave that weren't incorporeal, otherwise the problem might be something else. Lots of stuff from book 1 with htw also got crappy stats so it's not just incorp that was overvalued.

The executioner isn't a straight up bad hire in my book, against defence triggers it can be a gamewinner, it just needs support.

Both Viks together are better than Lynch and Huggy in my experience but I'm not sure that it's solely incorporeal and not a ton of things together that results in that.

 

[Myyrä]

4 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

My point is that I'm not sure incorporeal as an ability is the problem but some wave 1 models were never really powerful. The premise of the thread seemed to be that incorporeal in itself was the reason those models were bad, in that case they ahouls be worse than the other low-powered ptions from the same release wave that weren't incorporeal, otherwise the problem might be something else.

That's more of a philisophical question. Incorporeal in itself doesn't bring any disadvantages, so if you add it to any model the model becomes better. As for whether the ability has been overvalued in some testing rounds, that's a lot more difficult to prove definitively. I think comparing incorporeal models to low power models won't be useful, because all that could tell us is whether they are worse than other bad models, which isn't exactly useful information. What one should be looking at is whether all or most incorporeal models are bad. That sure seems like it could be the case, especially when it comes to wave 1.

[Ludvig]

True true. In wave 1 I think all defenses were overalued. In later waves they slapped armor on df 6 models and the like because low stat models are just to easy to mess with. That is true for a lot of models with incorporeal, armor and hard to wound from wave 1 I would say. It's tricky to rate them compared to raw df/wp. I'm not sure what later releases are incorporeal.

[Dominion]

1 hour ago, Angelshard said:

Sorrows are 3/4/4 and designed to stand next to enemy models. As you say they might be designed so that Pandora has to save them, but I still find it pathetic for a 5ss model.

The onryo is another 5 model and is a bit better protected than the sorrow. The jump from 4 to 5 wounds huge because you can't just kill it with two 3 damage attacks.

most 5 SS models are killed by two 3 damage attacks, even 6SS models are killed by that damage

but you need four 2 damage attack to kill the sorrow where  many models are killed by the 2nd or 3rd attack

[Angelshard]

You may have a point that wave 1 and 2 are simply behind the curve.

Looking at wisps, bandersnatch and goryo they all have markedly better stats.

@Dominion but they are usually also harder to hit and you can cheat to save them. Cheating to save a def 3 is usually pointless.

[Math Mathonwy]

9 hours ago, Angelshard said:

You may have a point that wave 1 and 2 are simply behind the curve.

Looking at wisps, bandersnatch and goryo they all have markedly better stats.

@Dominion but they are usually also harder to hit and you can cheat to save them. Cheating to save a def 3 is usually pointless.

You can cheat but that is costly - especially if you need to do it often. Incorporeal is always on (except when it's not, natch) even when you aren't willing/able to cheat from your hand.

[Myyrä]

42 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

You can cheat but that is costly - especially if you need to do it often. Incorporeal is always on (except when it's not, natch) even when you aren't willing/able to cheat from your hand.

Shitty defense is always on as well. A model with two Df less is going to get hit a lot more even if no one cheats.

[Ludvig]

I found an interesting comparison about incorporeal as a defense, namely the guild wave 1 totems. All of them are 3 soulstones and in the same faction so they are good for comparison in regard to defensive stats and how incorporeal affects them.

Scales:
Df 3, Wp 4, Wd 4, no defenses.

Purifying flame:
Df 4, Wp 6, Wd 4, incorporeal.

Enslaved nehpilim:
Df 4, Wp 5, Wd 4, no proper defenses but black blood (kind of a defense against 1 attacks).

Governor's proxy:
Df 3, Wp 6, Wd 4, no defenses but punishes you if you kill it.

So a straight up comparison of what effect incorporeal seems to have on the defensive stats of otherwise very similar models seems to show that incorporeal didn't in itself affect the stats at all since the Purifying flame has the highest combined defensive stats of the four similar models and even a higher defense than two of the models that don't have any sort of defensive ability. There doesn't seem to be some sort of automatic equation where incorporeal automatically drops your defense.

The emberling from Thunders in book 1 has even better defenses with Df 5, Wp 6, Wd 4 and incorporeal on a significant minion for only 3ss. The poltergeist also has decent defenses with Df 5, Wp 6, Wd 5 on an incorporeal, significant minion model for 5ss. The only comparable model in faction seems to be the bloodwretches who are Df6, Wp 5, Wd 5 and have thick skin (immunity to pulses). I'd say the poltergeist holds up well in a raw stat comparison despite being incorporeal and I think incorporeal is a better defense than the pulse immunity which I think is mostly there to avoid friendly black blood.

Maybe it skews in a different way on more expensive models but I thought this was interesting to point out that it seems like a problem with specific models and not some general rule about incorporeal autocamtically forcing down your defense and wounds stats compared to similar models.

[Bengt]

Totems have very weird pricing so I don't think comparing them to each other says much of anything. You could for instance argue that comparing Wendigo and Essence of Power mean that incorporeal is a grossly expensive ability.

[Ludvig]

46 minutes ago, Bengt said:

Totems have very weird pricing so I don't think comparing them to each other says much of anything. You could for instance argue that comparing Wendigo and Essence of Power mean that incorporeal is a grossly expensive ability.

People always bash me for comparing between factions so I tried to find a good selection of similar models within a faction. I took a full wave from the same faction, these totems should be fairly balanced against each other even if the game has power creep between books.

If incorporeal can sometimes be on model with bad defenses but is not the sole reason for those bad defenses, as was my claim, we would see incorporeal models of all varietes kind of like totems seemingly differing in defensive stats regardless of incorporeal or not. That would make the problem individual models and not incorporeal as a rule.

If incorporeal in itself results in an automatic downgrade of defense and/or wounds somehow baked into the ability then I find it hard to explain why some incorporeal models have better defenses than similar models without the ability. That was all I was trying to say.

I'm not saying there aren't incorporeal models that seem squishy compared to similar models with armour or wounds as their primary defensive ability, I'm just saying it seems like a problem from model to model.

There are models with armour that become really squishy if you ignore armour but that is a problem with those models, not armor as a rule.

[Myyrä]

Even if you look at Guild totems from book 1, 100% of incorporeal models are bad. I don't see how that is evidence that incorporeal isn't overvalued.

[Adran]

In itself Incorporeal isn't a bad defence.

As the model pool becomes larger, it is easier to build a crew that is able to invalidate it (as with all defenses including high stats) because there are more and more models that are able to ignore it. Where the problem comes is when a faction consistently relies on the same form of protection, because then it is easier to build a list to counter it. Its one of the reasons why the Ice Golem is so poor. If it were in a different faction, one which didn't rely on armour, such as Neverborn, then it would be a safer choice because it is much less likely people would put armour ignoring models in crews to face Neverborn. 

The question you are really asking is do models "pay" too much for Incorporeal?   and in some cases that is probably yes, but its hard to judge. They are unlikely to be high wounds (which is typically ss cost +/-1) or a high Df stat. But they do coem with the other bonus of extra mobility, which is very much board dependent. 

[Ludvig]

54 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

Even if you look at Guild totems from book 1, 100% of incorporeal models are bad. I don't see how that is evidence that incorporeal isn't overvalued.

Three out of the four guild totems from book one are usually considered bad so that is hardly an argument relating to incoporeal. Swapping incorporeal for armour +1 on the purifying flame wouldn't make it awesome all of a sudden unless I missed something. The malifaux child has ridiculous synergy with Sonnia's walls while the totem is a few abilities away from having any real synergy. It's a bit awkward that it seems to be designed to be used as a blast point for Sonnia but has the only defense she ignores and can't make itself burning or come back like the wendigo but I find it hard to believe the other abilities would have changed just because you took incorp away, it's still an issue with the particular model and possibly with the design of wave one guild totems as a group.

[Myyrä]

5 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Three out of the four guild totems from book one are usually considered bad so that is hardly an argument relating to incoporeal. Swapping incorporeal for armour +1 on the purifying flame wouldn't make it awesome all of a sudden unless I missed something. The malifaux child has ridiculous synergy with Sonnia's walls while the totem is a few abilities away from having any real synergy. It's a bit awkward that it seems to be designed to be used as a blast point for Sonnia but has the only defense she ignores and can't make itself burning or come back like the wendigo but I find it hard to believe the other abilities would have changed just because you took incorp away, it's still an issue with the particular model and possibly with the design of wave one guild totems as a group.

So, the dataset you chose has such a huge variance because of multiple reasons that it's impossible to pin down the effects of incorporeal on the usefulness of the model? That armor +1 argument doesn't make much sense either as Incorporeal is just better than armor +1 most of the time. I did also say earlier that armor was also overvalued compared to stats in wave 1 testing.

[Ludvig]

17 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

So, the dataset you chose has such a huge variance because of multiple reasons that it's impossible to pin down the effects of incorporeal on the usefulness of the model? That armor +1 argument doesn't make much sense either as Incorporeal is just better than armor +1 most of the time. I did also say earlier that armor was also overvalued compared to stats in wave 1 testing.

Is incorporeal bad as a defense was the question here. I am arguing that incorporeal models can be badly designed but that it isn't always the case of a simple "incorporeal models always get less defense and wounds". 

These four models have very similar defenses and we are lookingat pure defensive stats of incorporeal models compared to similar models with incorporeal. We disregard everything else on the model becuase the original question asked us to focus on the pure stat penalty incorporeal apparently applies to df and wds. While the malifaux child also has decent defensive capabilities I have never chosen it over the purifying flame because of it's ability to tank damage better. I usually take it because it grants me flame walls but that reason shouldn't factor into the question posed in this thread. So if we include the child into this comparison it has exactly the same defense and wds but one lower point of willpower. Disguised is good against charges but not shooting and manipulative is generally annoying but circumvendable in many ways. I don't see any pure stat reductions because of incorporeal on the flame.

 

The premise of this thread according to Angelshard was:

"The more I look at it the less I like incorporeal as a defensive ability.

The ignore terrain part is awesome, but it seems to me that models with incorporeal gets punished so very hard on df, wp and wd for a defense that is quite easy to bypass.

Ca attacks aside there are so very many ways to bypass this ability.

And that is before factoring in that you round up. Incorporeal is only better than armour +1 If you take 4 damage or more and only beat armour +2 at 6 damage or higher. 

I honestly think the stat penalties for gaining this ability are too harsh.

When my hungering darkness looks at my effigy with envy something is wrong.

Unless I'm missing something and incorporeal models are supposed to be fragile little flowers that pay heavily for the ability to ignore terrain."

 

Nothing about the incorporeal model as a whole being useful but the issue that the pure defensive stat penalties for gaining incorporeal are too harsh. I'm trying to argue that I don't think there is such a stat penalty. From that point it seems my comparison is fitting.

[Ludvig]

I wouldn't mind continuing the discussion on the premise that incorporeal should be reworked, I'm just not a fan of assuming every incorporeal model should have their wounds doubled and +2 df or whatever would be appropriate if we accepted that inroporeal automatically leads to you having half the wounds of similar models. I don't think it's meaningful to discuss any defensive ability based on attacks that ignore them, those attacks are supposed to be rare but powerful in that matchup.

I think armour suffers from a similar problem as incorporeal, there are just so many models ignoring it these days. I can't help but feel that defensive abilities should have been harder to ignore from the start. In the case of incorporeal some general design implementation of Ca attacks very rarely causing damage or causing roughly half as much damage as ml and sh attacks on similar models would have kept incorporeal models more relevant. I wouldn't mind attacks only ignoring it if they specifically said so or ignored all damage reduction. Ca attacks could also always target wp because I believe incorporeal models often have decent wp. Incorporeal could also have been made into some sort of threshold so that no model could ever cause more than a certain number of wounds with a single attack. That might not reflect the ghostly quality of being incorporeal but it would make incorporeal models a lot sturdier while differentiating it more from the other defenses. At the end of the day the common defense abilities don't save you from nasty conditions so any model with low defenses gets hurt by that.

[Ludvig]

On 2017-09-19 at 3:52 PM, Angelshard said:

It's not only durability. A lot of control abilities also gets through easier due to low defensive stats.

But a 0 stone henchman that is a huge part of the masters power should be more durable than a 4 stone model

Have you ever looked at Huggy compared to Bad Juju? If we go by the cache given for free when they are taken as leaders it seems they are of equal cost. They both come back when they die if you take an upgrade for 2ss but have different requirements for doing so. Juju is also df 3 but has hard to wound, regen and two more wounds. Bursts of damage and high min models kill Juju very fast and I don't think he is twice as survivable as the effigy. He is also as succeptible to control abilities since he even has lower WP than Huggy. Just thought it was a more similar model to compare to than the effigy.