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TT Model range and competitive play.


Piccio

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Well, everyone knows we have many dual faction master with the capability to infiltrate many out of faction models, so we should be able to play many different model in function of battleground, opponent and scheme pool.

 

Nevertheless since GG2017 schemes are pubblished to nowaday, I noticed that the list of model I choose in my crew composition is now more limited than before. I play a couple of master more often than others, I recruit certain enchmen/enforcer more often than others, same for minions, some models alway stay in the sponge or on the shelf.

 

I feel more often the necessity to include mercenaries or specialized models to help against certain master/faction in specific scheme pool. This is fine and this is normal becouse the meta. But it take me SS. Some model as the emissary are really solid and make some things more easy then they're in play, anyway they take out SS and force you to make some choices. For example everytime I play the emissary it demands to me to include much henchmen/enforcers I can, to be sure I have always someone in range of it to be fasted.

So I realized I often I have no free space to include atleast one "thematic 5-6SS minion activation" that can do something different that simply be efficent scheme runners.

 

My most ricorrent minion choices are terracotta / katanaka snipers / low river monk / tt brothers while listing for a tournament match.

I sometime recruit a wandering river monk or a pathfinder to take the table sides (but katanakas often can do the same), a torakage (and dogs) with mc-cabe, Emberling/Effige as a cheap activation with mei feng.

Katanakas are all around (good ranged, good melee, resilient and advanced deployable scheme runners), terracotta w. are cheap supports, increaseing a lot the survability of our enforcers beater and the upgrade switching during game is really strong, low river is also a cheap good card draw engine with shenlong emissary upgrade and a cheap healer/condition removal, tt bro often tell me "pay me 5SS, I promise I will score alone claim jump".

 

During a crew composition I never feel a reason to chose anyone from high river/fermented, rail workers,  archers, illuminated, wrastels, oiran, komainu, oni....

-) high river m. is nice with mc-cabe because 3 attacks on charge in exchange of one card discard, but torakage is still a better option, I can say the same for rail worker, that are more durable (and this is ok) but very slow and also eats a card to gain :+fate .

-)archers are generally worst than katanakas (no melee engagement, ridicolous wounds, no resilence, less range, and the no-los shoting is very situational cos needs 2ap and still considering cover). I think they're uplayable model atleast the battleground is made "ad hoc" for them.

-)illuminated are not bad at all and for sure very good in lynch crew, but they are already in the same range point of enchmen/enforcers (that can receive buff from emissary, while illuminated generally not), they should tank but def5 is not so safe when the standard ml now is shifted to 6. I often still prefer yin or jebsen with smoke / equality as a resilient beater.

-)wrastel are slow and fragile as scheme runners (they were maybe ok with MCCabe support untill wave 2 but I think they're really out of date now).

-)oiran are still too much situational, +1wp for 5 points don't help (more) so much to be safe against nerverborn (many models with Ca7 and our wp is 5-6 so we still generally lose duel also with oiran buff), poor melee damage, lure is really hard to trigger. I think they could be an interesting option if atleast they will have -don't mind me- (they could be annoing under fast from they'r 0SS upgrade).

-)komainu and oni are great, but only as summon, I never pay SS for deploy them.

Obviously this judgment is related to my experience and can be wrong for sure.

 

Something similar can be perhaps extended to enchmen/enforcer range (I can't remember the time I wanted to play Ototo, Fuhatzu or Lust) except that some of them can works really better with the right master (ama no zaku with asami is an example) or against the right faction. But I feel no reason to not choose Kang over Ototo as high cost enchmen.

 

Is it just my fealing (the range of playable model is now expanded but the range of (competitive) playable model is istead restricted) or happened something similar also in your experience?

 

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I dont think the thunders are different from other factions in this regard. Some models are very strong and others rarely ever get taken despite the differences not always being that big because balance is tricky and some playstyles are easier to grasp. Every now and then a new player comes up with a trick to make a previously underrated model competitive.

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@Mrbedlam for the same LoneSwordsMan's stones I take Jebsen usually:  weak 2damage, totally random triggers, 2 cards needed to reactivate VS 3 ap always, better Ml damage output (selfbuild critical), nice Sh and tactical, more defensive tricks, higher WP. Imho SwordsMan is fine only under recalled training turn(1 more SS) if you are lucky and you don't flip any black joker. Bettari for the same SS is often better in many situations (ignoring trigger, damage always cheatable, ignoring terrain while charging). I sometimes still play LSM as a expensive scheme runner if I think my opponent plays many Sh models, but if I want a solid hitter I go for Kang. Yes Komainu are great, I like summon them with Toshi inside Mei Feng crew.

Almost everything is playable for sure on "normal game", but my feeling is about tournament competitive games when you have recruits the best crew. Any good reason to pay 7ss for archers over Snipers?

@Ludvig I think you're right, sometimes the problem is the balance between waves and every faction has some almost "autoinclusive" models and some out-dated, but I think other factions still have no-so-overpowered models that can still synergize well with the right master, this is my idea of playable model. For istance would be nice to have burning arrows option on archers to help with Mei claw, or some buff for last blossom while inside Misaki crew (advanced deployment for torakage/yorogumo?, ...), +1damage track on monks attack while in shenlong crew... just to write down some ideas. I don't think the Wave5 master upgrades will change much our games except to auto-include atleast 1 terracotta in many crews.

What I like about this game is the possibility to build the best crew concerning schemes&strategies and opponent faction, but at the moment, with GG17 schemes&strat and with "6 is the new 5" my competitive options are sadly very restricted on few models. I would like to chose models that can open tricks and options istead just evaluating stats, damage track and SS cost. I hope something will change in 2018.

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There's a Shen List that is pretty good for archers, but outside of that there isn't a reason to take them over SNipers. That's any faction though. I main Arcanists and there are a few models I never even purchased because they just don't make the cut even though that aren't strictly "Bad"

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There are smoke grenades that offer last blossom synergy for Misaki if you can spare the upgrade slot. The archers would probably not be taken with Mei even if they offered burning because their main weakness is being so extremely squishy but needing to get fairly close to enemy models so it doesn't solve their issue. If they got a couple of wounds and  armour +2 or dropped like two soulstones they would get taken a lot more.

I'm struggling to see where the other factions have such synergies, in guild almost every master wants Francisco and/or Phiona because they're simply great. There's a whole slew of guardsman models that no one ever takes and austringers got hit with a hard errata because every tournament list ever included them before. The thing that made people hire Loco with Sonnia got errata'd out so now he is rarely seen. McCabe can make a lot of models better by giving them increased mobility or making cheap weedy stuff hit above their station, I would assume this helps underappreciated picks in Ten Thunders just as much as it helps in guild. He also has great wastrel synergy. Hoffman has some construct synergy but he only takes the good constructs that you often see in other lists as well. If you look at his cross faction hires it seems like he also happens to take the two powerlifters from Ramos' crew quite often, he doesn't take the weedy constructs that arcanists wouldn't pick.

In neverborn there is really no incentive for Zoraida or Lilith to go heavy into their themes, they thrive with the faction all stars just like most neverborn masters do. Collodi has a few models that he likes more than the others because of his minion synergy but in all honesty I think his trapper + changeling spam could work for several masters since in the games that has completely decimated me my opponent didn't even need Collodi to buff them, it just zoomed around killing my stuff independently. Dreamer has summon synergy so uses some models the others don't like the twins but apart from that he likes a lot of the same stuff as the others. No one takes the hooded rider or mature nephilim because they can have Nekima.

Ressers mostly hire a card draw factory with Philip and a doxy and then proceeds to summon the same popular summons depending on which keywords they get. Every damn list I've seen the last year and a half had their emissary and ninety percent of the faction is never even considered when building a list regardless of master.

Arcanists have a couple of sideways masters like Rasputina and Marcus but most of the others seem to like a lot of the same stuff. Most masters like to hire december acolytes even when they have apparent synergy with gunsmiths and Marcus very frequently prefers Joss or Langston turned into beasts over stuff like Cojo or the slate ridge maular. When was the last time you saw an arcanist list trying a backfield marker scheme with something else than practiced production plus a raptor pre errata? I haven't seen leave your mark in the pool without that combo showing up.

People take pretty small differences in model power and make them a big thing. Some models also fit your playstyle a lot better so others that might require a radically different approach get passed over. I have seen people swear guild lawyers are amazing but I can't make them do squat and neither can my local opponents. When I wanted to diversify my guild tactics I decided I wasn't allowed to pick Francisco which helped me learn a few tricks with other similarly costed models. In neverborn I have purposefully not gotten Nekima and am trying to make the mature nephilim perform. So far it has worked out well, I don't find myself missing the models I've excluded since I can win games in other ways.

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If you want to make archers work I would stay away from snipers for a while. Use McCabe to make one nimble and give it reactivate. That should allow it to rain death on the opponent as the last activation turn 1, preferably from out of LoS. Both torakage and rail workers are interesting models to carry the glowing sabre as well. 

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Every list will have Yu or the Emissary but beyond that the "staples" and how they're mingled with thematic picks vary wildly. Which master you play, what playstyle you prefer and what schemes, board and opponent you're facing, at least for me, changes at least the small details and in most cases the vast bulk of my lists. When building a list you're composing it out of roles you need to fill. Especially in a limited space you have a lot of options to weigh out allowing you to go for a lot of different models.

For Beater you have your Big Beaters in Izamu and Yasunori, which mostly depend on if you can spare the stones, the 8/9ish SS Gang where each unit compliments an entirely different playstyle with Kang, LS, Graves, Crimes Bosses, Bettari, Ama and probably a few I missed (each of which I'd consider a completely viable option in their respective specialties) and the Budget-Range if you need to squeeze out a stone here or there with Illuminated and Yokai or Komainu. And none of all those are a universal "bad pick". 

For Range you admittedly only have the Snipers, Sidir, Archers, Samurai/Fuhatsu and the Clockwork Trapper Guild Pathfinder, of which the Snipers are the go-to guys and I'd argue only Trappers are a fine budget alternative, and that's only if you want to take range to begin with. 

And then you have scheming and utility, which touches on at least half our models in one way or the other. Even at just the 4-6 SS range you have the Effigy, LRM, TTB, TCW, Charm Warders, Obsidian Oni, Lotus Eaters and Chiaki. At higher levels you'll generally look for Beaters instead but even here Yin, WRMs and Toshiro pop up in the occasional list. 

And that's just the general models. Once you look at specific masters you'll get to use an even wider variety of units.

McCabe will get amazing use out of the Jorogumo or Dawn Serpent, Gwyneth+an Illuminated, some Guild Hounds and maybe a Torakage. Lynch likes things that flip loads or use aces to discard, and the odd thing with Terrify. Mei demands tailoring a list to her the most, and tends to leave out most staples to further specialize. Yan Lo likes his Ancestors, Brewmasters prefers beaters like Ama and Yasunori specifically, Asami can honestly work with any list with maybe one beater specifically being an Oni to capitalize on her aura and something to draw cards...

I guess Misaki and Shenlong are the biggest offenders of living in Staple City, mostly because they don't need their crew to be or do anything specific. Misaki because she moves separately from her crew and Shenlong because whatever his crew, he'll buff it. And even with them I find myself picking different options for similar roles every time I play because there's always subtle difference about the game I'm facing.

 

If you find yourself consistently going for the exact same models whatever your masters, board and schemes it may just be your preferred playstyle - sure - though maybe you just feel pressured to pick them because these are the names thrown about the most. The big names that keep being paraded around do fairly well in just about all situations, no doubt, but if you know how and when to specialize you'll get so much more out of your units than if you just have another TTB because "He's kinda sturdy I suppose".

Everybody has models they prefer and dislike. The Illuminated are amazing budget beaters who are sturdy enough to hold up to any similarly costed unit if I need the SS elsewhere. Komainu I feel are the perfect balance between offense and defense especially for their price to the point where they're my go-to guys if I don't need TTB's scheme protection or the Warders' unit protection. The Obsidian Oni are perfect for getting scrap on the field, be it for Toshiro or Asami rather than being summons themselves. It's more about some units being auto-excludes if anything. And in a game where every SS bracket has a dozen or so models there always will be models that just don't measure up, but the fact that in every bracket about half the models are all very much viable picks is really just a sign that our faction is doing great in the internal faction balance department. 

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13 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

 

For Range you admittedly only have the Snipers, Sidir, Archers, Samurai/Fuhatsu and the Clockwork Freikorps Trapper, of which the Snipers are the go-to guys and I'd argue only Trappers are a fine budget alternative, and that's only if you want to take range to begin with. 

If you are listing mercs then I would assume Sue and perhaps convicts could be considered. You also forgot the faction native pathfinders.

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1 minute ago, Tokapondora said:

My bad, I meant the Guild Pathfinder. Sue I find not quite interesting enough. I guess I should've included Lazarus though I'd sooner fit him with the likes of Izamu.

Ah, of course you did, silly me! Those names are really backwards :D 

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14 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Ressers mostly hire a card draw factory with Philip and a doxy and then proceeds to summon the same popular summons depending on which keywords they get. Every damn list I've seen the last year and a half had their emissary and ninety percent of the faction is never even considered when building a list regardless of master.

I hear a challenge in this... How about a list that forgoes the Emissary and Phillip and most summoning altogether and instead includes.... The Forgotten Marshall. When was the last time you ever saw that guy? Have you ever seen that guy at all lol?

Now that you've inspired me, I'm actually keen to try him out in an aggressive, in-your-face-with-my-whole-crew-via-teleporting list:


Seamus w/ Sinister Reputation, Corpse Bloat, Do You Know Who I Am & 6 Cache.
Copycat Killer
Datsue Ba w/ Spirit Whispers, My Little Helper
The Forgotten Marshall w/ My Little Helper
Bete Noire w/ Decaying Aura
Bone Pile
Bone Pile

It actually sounds insanely fun, at least for the Ressur player.

Pad out activations early with Datsue Ba and 1-2 Seishins, your 2 Bone Piles and TFM disappearing with their (0)s, then Seamus back alleys in, does his best to shoot something, and then drops his spleen right on your opponent's face, which opens a portal of doom for pretty much your entire crew to teleport in at the end of the turn!

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I actually believe objectively we have only few models that are not competitive.

I think the underlying issue is the practicality of knowing all your models so well that you can play each one fast and efficiently when you're in tournament play. If a model has only a few of Strat/Scheme/Deployment/Maps/Opponents where it is the best pick you're probably better off learning the model which does it's job in more pools back to front. Once a model is committed to muscle memory you can concentrate more energy in-game on actual play.

Unless you're an idiot savant you're better off learning a pool of solid models that you can field in most situations and perhaps a couple of corner cases to surprise you're opponent. This floats models like Emissary/Yu/Sniper/Brother to the top of the pool as they can be used in most crews with any Master, not to mention Strats/Schemes and still bring the goods.

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last Sunday I won a small 3 turns tournament, probably my last before wave5 upgrades, and (most important thing) I finally received my Broken Promises book.

I played 2 times "summoning" Mei Feng (interference and guard the stash). I think emissary, Toshiro and Sun Quiang are almost auto-inclusive with her, Sun is really really strong at guard the stash and makes komainus really tanky.

I also finally played my lovely "stalker" Misaki (old but gold Reckoning) in the second game, with Emissary, Kang and Sensei.

 

Enchmen/enforcers: Emissary 3 games, Toshiro 2 games, Sun Quang 2 games, Kang 2 games (my opponents got resser and archanist), Sensei 1 game.

Non-totem minions played: 1+2 katanakas, 1 pathfinder, many summoned komainu. I put in play an archer in the first game but his presence on board was not relevant.

 

About new book: I really like Gwyneth, I want play her and a couple of Illuminates also out of Jakob's crew, perhaps with Brewmaster or McCabe, I also want to try the new Brewmaster with the selfbuilt :mask obey on poisoned, Tanukis and a reactivating Whisky.

.

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