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Rising Sun Vs. Cheating Bastard


qoob

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Hello everyone. 

I would like to share my experience with these two upgrades with you... 

Due to having a really fragile Henchman, Rising Sun is my prefered upgrade. But in Collect the bounty there is no need giving the enemy the option of easy 3 bounty points. Therefor I took Cheating Bastard yesterday. 

My opinion on this one is that the Cheating Aura is very situational for Lynch because i usually try to stay 8" away. House Rules is the stunning one. It's pretty easy getting at least 2 :mask every turn. 

In addition to that, Gwyneth helps you a lot getting a potent hand. Final Debt with 10 dmg is no joke. 

What is your experience with the new one? Have you considered any other strat or specific scheme pool? 

Cheers! 

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2 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

I am always happy to see Rising Sun instead of Cheating Bastard on my opponents Lynch. Immortal Huggy can be simply ignored or neutralized in some other way, while being forced to cheat first is a MASSIVE disadvantage for me as Lynch's opponent.

Interesting. I wasn't aware that this cheat 2nd bubble is so troublesome. 

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23 minutes ago, qoob said:

Interesting. I wasn't aware that this cheat 2nd bubble is so troublesome. 

Cheating second is very powerful. It can be the difference between cheating a 12 and still missing or just saving that card while your oppoent cheats a 13 to guarantee you miss. Maybe you had a 13 too, now you can decide if it's worth that card to hit. It could also mean that instead of cheating that 13 to know you will hit you can check how high your opponent cheats and maybe make do with an 8 and still hit etc. 

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I actually used to play with Endless Hunger since I don't really care for the Brilliance theme, but I'm pretty sure I will be using Cheating Bastard as my go to from now on. The cheating auras are pretty huge when combined, and it's a good defense for Lynch himself. The heal everything 2 is great, especially when you're bringing stuff with Hard to Kill like Burt or The Lone Swordsman

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I've tried it and while very powerful I'm not quite convinced. Rising Sun allowed you to plant Huggy in the center of whatever part of a crew you found annoying - with Ht3 and :melee3 that's a whole lot of models you can tickle. Add to that some horror duels or obeys whilst among enemy lines and you're just being an unholy terror that can be dragged back to life and into the party at any moment. A well used Huggy is something you can't ignore, which gets all the more annoying if he can then pop back at any point.

Meanwhile with Cheating Bastard I was constantly forced to hold him back behind other units and with the so-so range on his Obey it was hard to get even a fraction of the use out of him. Cheating last naturally helped an insane amount but it didn't force actions out of my opponent the way an active Huggy did. I was lucky I haven't encounter ranged Casting as at Ht3 he really stands out. As someone who isn't a fan of just stowing a TCW in every list unless I have a specific plan with its upgrade swapping I don't like how I'll have to take one whenever I take this upgrade at the cost of far more focused models. Especially since this upgrade is only 1 SS, meaning you'll have to keep an extra stone just for swapping. I'd have gladly taken it as a 2 or maybe even 3 SS upgrade in a non-limited slot, but as it is now I get so much more disruption out of Huggy.

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11 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

As someone who isn't a fan of just stowing a TCW in every list unless I have a specific plan with its upgrade swapping I don't like how I'll have to take one whenever I take this upgrade at the cost of far more focused models. Especially since this upgrade is only 1 SS, meaning you'll have to keep an extra stone just for swapping.

I assume you're talking about swapping out Cheating Bastard for Rising Sun? If so, I don't think that'll work, since you need to have Rising Sun on Laynch the moment Huggy dies, otherwise he's gone for good.

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If I'm up against a crew with good casting vs Df I can't just say start of game "Such is life, farewell Huggster". And if you need to rely on what Lynch stands close to I won't be having that Lynch for long. The TCW has to be there to keep Huggy from dying if it ever looks like he won't survive another activation. I've occasionally used this with Endless Hunger but even there with both costing 2 SS I got annoyed with having to TCW it up and quickly reverted back to Rising only.

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The way I play Lynch is a way that won't allow me to pick Cheating Bastard as a viable option. I think of my playstyle as Huggy Missile. Turn 1 give him fast + 2 pushes from the Emissary (8" deep already) and then get into as many models as possible. Be annoying and soak up AP.

While Cheating Bastard is great, Huggy just dies too fast to anything casting or targetting defense (cough 3 cough). When going anything else than Rising Sun I need to bring a lot more stones just to keep Huggy alive, so I might as well just invest those stones in Rising Sun.

The upgrade swapping with Terracotta Warrior seems nice, but it's basicly an upgrade that costs 5 stones AND requires really good timing on your part. A bit too soon and you lose a lot of power, a bit too late and Huggy is truly dead. I prefer to bring a Brother instead which gives me some cooler effects and decent scheme running potential in a Lynch crew.

I feel like the upgrade is extremely strong if it was on any other master, but Lynch has to sacrifice too much to bring it to the table.

  1. You don't want to activate last = no 2 free cards = lower Final Debt and less hand setup for next Turn
  2. Huggy becomes mortal unless you bring in a Terracotta Warrior for 5 stones AND manage to use it at just the right time
  3. Huggy is already made of paper against casting or anti-incorporeal due to def 3 which makes him rather easy to kill for good
  4. You can't use Huggy as a giant AP soak anymore due to him being killable

These downsides are too big for me to take the new upgrade over Rising Sun.

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56 minutes ago, whodares said:

The upgrade swapping with Terracotta Warrior seems nice, but it's basicly an upgrade that costs 5 stones AND requires really good timing on your part. A bit too soon and you lose a lot of power, a bit too late and Huggy is truly dead. I prefer to bring a Brother instead which gives me some cooler effects and decent scheme running potential in a Lynch crew.

I don't think the timing is that difficult. Endless Hunger Huggy does his fast recalled training thing, then has to survive an activation (or 2 if chain activation occurs) then the TCW flips Endless to Rising Sun. Then you have Schrodingers Huggy if you want it. I think late game once the opponent has decided to ignore Huggy you could flip to CB, which makes him a useful scheme runner/flanker which is where he ends up most of the time for me (due to opponents trying to avoid Huggy coupled with the fact Huggy without fast and recalled isn't as dangerous).  

I think first impressions are that CB is strictly worse that the other two upgrades, but that is because CB offers a different playstyle, one that we aren't used to after 4 books worth of Huggy missiles. I think CB will find some good use once we understand how to use it more. 

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6 hours ago, whodares said:

I feel like the upgrade is extremely strong if it was on any other master, but Lynch has to sacrifice too much to bring it to the table.

  1. You don't want to activate last = no 2 free cards = lower Final Debt and less hand setup for next Turn
  2. Huggy becomes mortal unless you bring in a Terracotta Warrior for 5 stones AND manage to use it at just the right time
  3. Huggy is already made of paper against casting or anti-incorporeal due to def 3 which makes him rather easy to kill for good
  4. You can't use Huggy as a giant AP soak anymore due to him being killable

These downsides are too big for me to take the new upgrade over Rising Sun.

Why don't you want to activate last when you have this upgrade? All of the effects seem like they would work well for activating last to do a huge final debt to a target you just brillianced automatically as well as scoring by placing markers as late as possible. I've been looking at it as being a great combo.

I'm thinking something like three or four stitched together that hang out in front of Lynch and Huggy so you know exactly what your enemy will cheat before deciding to cheat. You can also do their game of chance and let the opponent cheat before you decide if it's worth winning or just giving the opponent a card and hit your draw trigger with the right ace. When a few of them are down to a single wound you hopefully have three masks to heal them and let them carry on their business with reeactivate.

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Nobody tried the weasel with Cheating Bastard ? Most of its abilities are card intensive and i thought that could be used somehow... It's right you loose a 0 henchman and pay 4 for a peon, but maybe that's just something we could try...

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4 hours ago, bedjy said:

Nobody tried the weasel with Cheating Bastard ? Most of its abilities are card intensive and i thought that could be used somehow... It's right you loose a 0 henchman and pay 4 for a peon, but maybe that's just something we could try...

You're welcome to try it, but its really hard to justify losing a free model. You would need to get a huge payout from the weasel, and you are paying about 10-12 SS in effect for that payout. 

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20 hours ago, Kogan Style said:

I don't think the timing is that difficult. Endless Hunger Huggy does his fast recalled training thing, then has to survive an activation (or 2 if chain activation occurs) then the TCW flips Endless to Rising Sun. Then you have Schrodingers Huggy if you want it. I think late game once the opponent has decided to ignore Huggy you could flip to CB, which makes him a useful scheme runner/flanker which is where he ends up most of the time for me (due to opponents trying to avoid Huggy coupled with the fact Huggy without fast and recalled isn't as dangerous).  

I think first impressions are that CB is strictly worse that the other two upgrades, but that is because CB offers a different playstyle, one that we aren't used to after 4 books worth of Huggy missiles. I think CB will find some good use once we understand how to use it more. 

Once you swap over to the other upgrade, you'll have a "weak" Turn where you have Rising Sun. You can't just swap back because you expect Huggy to die. You're paying 5 stones for that flexibility with the TCW, but I feel he barely has a place in a Lynch crew.

Huggy without Fast and Recalled is plenty dangerous though. He can kill enemy models rather easily and doesn't die fast against ml/sh-based opponents. He has a trigger to heal 2 and another to up his damage track to min 4. If the opponent can just ignore Huggy or if Huggy isn't a threat, I'd say you're playing Huggy wrong.

15 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Why don't you want to activate last when you have this upgrade? All of the effects seem like they would work well for activating last to do a huge final debt to a target you just brillianced automatically as well as scoring by placing markers as late as possible. I've been looking at it as being a great combo.

I'm thinking something like three or four stitched together that hang out in front of Lynch and Huggy so you know exactly what your enemy will cheat before deciding to cheat. You can also do their game of chance and let the opponent cheat before you decide if it's worth winning or just giving the opponent a card and hit your draw trigger with the right ace. When a few of them are down to a single wound you hopefully have three masks to heal them and let them carry on their business with reeactivate.

Lynch doesn't need this upgrade to Final Debt something to death. Placing scheme markers and healing stuff is nice and add to his arsenal.

Taking 3-4 stiched togethers is not something I'm really going for. They are way too card intensive to hold that many AND have other models be able to do something useful. Yes you can cheat Game of Chance second, but to really use that power you needt he ace. Don't have the Ace? that's 4 models with a huge chunk of their power just taken away.

Stitched also hit themselves if they fail and it's not like they are that durable to begin with. Send a beater inthere and watch them crumble :(

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@whodares

I've seen stitched get a lot done. If you can time that heal they could last a long time. But sure, no stitched or maybe one or two then.

Even if you don't have the stitched I don't see how the upgrade makes you not want to go last with Lynch? From what I see it could work just as well going last as going mid turn, probably better sinc you get more chances to get masks into your hand.

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42 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

@whodares

I've seen stitched get a lot done. If you can time that heal they could last a long time. But sure, no stitched or maybe one or two then.

Even if you don't have the stitched I don't see how the upgrade makes you not want to go last with Lynch? From what I see it could work just as well going last as going mid turn, probably better sinc you get more chances to get masks into your hand.

You're right, I didn't comment enough on that. My apologies.

The main benefit I see of giving something Brilliance for free is that your other models can use that Brilliance. Most of my activations with Lynch right now are Play for Blood, Final Debt and walk to place myself in position for the next victim. I blow up the models without any problems already. If you don't walk, you can do Play for Blood, Final Debt and another Play for Blood or just shoot at something/place a marker, whatever you want to do.

I feel like this upgrade is trying to push us to spreading Brilliance around in order for our other thematic models to abuse it. You can spread 3 Brilliance in 1 activation, Final Debt something and then drop aces on something else to do a whole lot of damage. Combine this with Gwyneth Maddox who is also spreading Brilliance a lot confirms this for me.

However the downside is that you'll have to activate start/mid Turn in order to really use this. There's no point in spreading a ton of Brilliance if it goes away after that activation. If a model is about to die (stitched together as per your example), you're being forced by the opponent to activate Lynch earlier than you'd want and I don't like being dictated by my opponent.

Don't get me wrong, I can see why you WOULD use it and what benefits it could bring on activating last. If you really want to nuke something, you don't have to possible cheat in a card to give Brilliance, it's automatic. The heal can be nice but as mentioned earlier, you'll probably be forced to activate early if you need it. The scheme markers can be really clutch to get a Leave Your Mark, Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves or any of the other ones that rely on the markers. Activating last for that can possibly win you a game.

The downside however is that you'll have to hold Huggy back and not use him to his full potential. If you do want to go crazy with Huggy, you'll have to bring a TCW and swap when things start to get dicey. This brings the risk of permanently losing Huggy due to unforseen circumstances. I'm also not a big fan of bring TCW with Lynch, but that has more to do with my playstyle and ymmw with that. I prefer a Brother with Lynch pretty much all day any day due to them usually being my MVP in a Lynch match.

If you're like me and you don't like TCW with Lynch, you'll be losing out on missile Huggy, possibly losing Huggy if you get surprised by damage potential of an opposing model AND you'll be using 5 stones for the TCW.

The upgrade you get in return is powerful, don't get me wrong on that. If I want to use it, I'll probably go Turn 1-2 with CB and use TW to swap it out around Turn 3 or when Huggy starts to get targetted. I'll probably play around with it as the rest of you are doing, but I find it hard to justify spending that many stones in something that makes a lot of things harder for you instead of easier.

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I was kind of thinking that you might have multiple targets within 8" of Lynch so one target gets hit with final debt with you only having spent a single ap and you have plenty of ap left for attacking other stuff. I don't have terracottas, I was working under the assumption that you would probably skip missile huggy and play him more as a second wave model when the worst threats are hopefully gone or at least tied up.

It might not turn out to be worth the loss of missile Huggy in the end, this is very much theoryfaux. Cheers for the extra explanation.

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22 hours ago, whodares said:

I feel like this upgrade is trying to push us to spreading Brilliance around in order for our other thematic models to abuse it.

Some people may try to use it this way, but the first purpose of this upgrade that came to my mind was to increase Lynch's survivability (and we want him to survive as long as possible, because we want him to activate last, don't we?) by draining your opponents resources via forcing them to cheat when it is not necessary and generally play poker-like psychological games with them. This is not the defensive ability sensu stricto, like armor or incorporeal, but it proved to be a kind of indirect defense in a game I had recently against Lynch.

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1 hour ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

Some people may try to use it this way, but the first purpose of this upgrade that came to my mind was to increase Lynch's survivability (and we want him to survive as long as possible, because we want him to activate last, don't we?) by draining your opponents resources via forcing them to cheat when it is not necessary and generally play poker-like psychological games with them. This is not the defensive ability sensu stricto, like armor or incorporeal, but it proved to be a kind of indirect defense in a game I had recently against Lynch.

Completely agree, but Lynch still isn't a master you want to get in the thick of things. This upgrade can still the opponent, but Lynch still goes down easily to a focussed barrage.

Don't forget that we already had a pokerface cheat upgrade (cheat face down) and this upgrade completely invalidates that one. No point in cheating face down if you always cheat second anyway.

I feel like this was an upgrade to make Lynch make compatible with his crew as the cheating is more like an extra side-effect and the other parts of it are already plenty strong. Brilliance, scheme marker and heal just for REVEALING cards, not even discarding, is something several other masters could only dream of to have as an upgrade. Can you imagine something like this on Yan Lo? Adversary, scheme marker and heal on Ancestors for revealing cards would be insanely powerful and possible push Yan Lo to top-tier as he still has a free upgrade slot left.

I'm agreeing with you that it's a drain and indirect defense, but they already have an upgrade with that purpose which is completely invalidated if they made this upgrade with that in mind. That would seem like a strange design philosophy.

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It's a super strong upgrade but being limited is a big downside that really affects his playstyle as has been pointed out. 

Cheating a secret card first isn't as strog as cheating last. If you really want to hit someone you're going to need to secretely cheat a really high card but if you're cheating last you can just wait and see exactly which card you'll need. If you are attacking someone with a higher stat the difference gets enormous since you can sqve that 13 because it won't hit anyway qhen iur opponent decides to cheat.

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On 10/5/2017 at 4:51 AM, whodares said:

I'm agreeing with you that it's a drain and indirect defense, but they already have an upgrade with that purpose which is completely invalidated if they made this upgrade with that in mind. That would seem like a strange design philosophy.

Expert Cheater is not completely invalidated, since it takes effect in LoS (no range limit), but I'm sure it will be very rare someone will take both for that.

The more important reason it isn't totally in validated is that Expert Cheater is not Limited, so it can be of use with the other two limited upgrades where Cheating Bastard cannot.

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All things equal, I will favour The Rising Sun every time. Aggressive Huggy is just the way to go.

On the other hand, with Terracotta Warriors around Cheating Bastard can be pretty neat to Switch into in a number of scenarios. For instance, when you do not think you will get Huggy back or to start with Cheating Bastard and switch to The Rising Sun when things start to heat up for Huggy.

 

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I've played a game against Zoraida with Cheating Bastard and a Terracotta Warrior. I got 3 amazing hands to boot (3x Red Joker) in the first 3 Turns, which meant cheating against me was incredibly hard. My plan was to swap CB out for The Rising Sun around Turn 3, but I just demolished my opponent before that happened due to amazing hands, some misplays from my opponent and some amazing luck.

I'm thinking of combining CB with Mr. Tannen as that is just a completely nasty combo to do. Having to discard a card to cheat blind is an even greater discouragement and fairly extreme hand pressure.

The main downside to playing with CB is that you're forced into taking a TCW in order to keep Huggy and the minions alive in case of need. You'll also need to bring some extra stones just to keep Huggy safe in case you misplayed or the opponent manages to suprise you and get the jump on Huggy. Losing Huggy is extremely painful as you have an entire flank that you can't use CB on anymore.

The main upside is that you get the benefits from CB and schemes like Hidden Trap, Dig Their Graves, ... become a lot easier. I activated my Lynch early on Turn 2 and 3 in order to blast Zoraida away, while keeping Lynch alive with stones and CB. Don't forget that CB makes it very annoying to attack Lynch as you have to cheat first AND take damage when you cheat against Lynch. Unless your opponent is sure he can make the attack go through, he will most likely not cheat the attack.

I'll be testing it some more as I liked it. What I didn't like is that the TCW feels like such dead weight in comparison to the Ten Thunders Brother. My TCW didn't to anything besides using his 1 action to try and protect stuff and walk. He managed to net me 2 VP thanks to Guard The Stash (1 Wound FTW GOGO Armor!!), but a Brother could have also done Claim Jump together with that, while making better use of the aces Lynch has.

My next game will be testing out Tannen, Graves, TCW and CB and hope it somehow manages to be viable :P

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1 hour ago, whodares said:

I've played a game against Zoraida with Cheating Bastard and a Terracotta Warrior. I got 3 amazing hands to boot (3x Red Joker) in the first 3 Turns, which meant cheating against me was incredibly hard. My plan was to swap CB out for The Rising Sun around Turn 3, but I just demolished my opponent before that happened due to amazing hands, some misplays from my opponent and some amazing luck.

I'm thinking of combining CB with Mr. Tannen as that is just a completely nasty combo to do. Having to discard a card to cheat blind is an even greater discouragement and fairly extreme hand pressure.

The main downside to playing with CB is that you're forced into taking a TCW in order to keep Huggy and the minions alive in case of need. You'll also need to bring some extra stones just to keep Huggy safe in case you misplayed or the opponent manages to suprise you and get the jump on Huggy. Losing Huggy is extremely painful as you have an entire flank that you can't use CB on anymore.

The main upside is that you get the benefits from CB and schemes like Hidden Trap, Dig Their Graves, ... become a lot easier. I activated my Lynch early on Turn 2 and 3 in order to blast Zoraida away, while keeping Lynch alive with stones and CB. Don't forget that CB makes it very annoying to attack Lynch as you have to cheat first AND take damage when you cheat against Lynch. Unless your opponent is sure he can make the attack go through, he will most likely not cheat the attack.

I'll be testing it some more as I liked it. What I didn't like is that the TCW feels like such dead weight in comparison to the Ten Thunders Brother. My TCW didn't to anything besides using his 1 action to try and protect stuff and walk. He managed to net me 2 VP thanks to Guard The Stash (1 Wound FTW GOGO Armor!!), but a Brother could have also done Claim Jump together with that, while making better use of the aces Lynch has.

My next game will be testing out Tannen, Graves, TCW and CB and hope it somehow manages to be viable :P

Have you played Huggy more defensive? Or hunting more on the outside? 

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