So what does Tara actually DO?

[MalifauxDave]

I've been back at Malifaux for the last few months played probably 10 or so games with Tara and I am struggling to find a reason why I am playing her at all. 

On her base card she has generally poor defenses, 12 wounds some triggers, nothing too bad though. 

Actively however she has a 6ml 2/3/5 with a glimpse trigger built in, a pretty lame gun, mass fast as long as one enemy is hit and a choice of 0s, chatty or a conditional reactivate. 

My problem with this is that it doesnt feel like a master model at all. The mass fast ability conflicts with the reactivate, unless you are ditching half of your control hand in your first activation. 

Upgrade wise she gets some cool stuff Obliteration Symbiote (2SS) being the obvious one, but is master AP really worth repositioning a model? Especially when you need to have the model buried in the first place.

Knowledge of Eternity (2ss) offers + flips to initiative and an ability to give fast/slow, do a damage and a glimpse trigger @ 8" range. Going first can be extremely valuable, but the ability is pretty similar to the zero you get on your void wretches... as a 0... granted you can fast your ally and choose to fail the buried trigger but what benefit does buried give your allies? Using Obliteration Sym to reposition? great so you spent your master's 3 ap moving a model lets say 13" and chain activating it. Ok thats not terrible but you need 4ss worth of upgrades, a high crow, your model gaining a damage and 3 master ap (1 pull from the void, 2 move your walk, 3 Faces of the void). Is this really on par with other masters?

Out of time (1ss) encourages you to take void wretches by reducing the cost of an ability that can only target buried models. Burying models in an of itself can be hard a lot of the times. +flips when you have no cards in hand is pretty good if you can get Tara to reactivate at the end of turn after using your hand, or if you ditched 3 or less cards to the fast pulse ability. It also gives a CA action that does damage equal to the turn amount, but can only be used once per activation. 

Dead of Winter (1ss) protects void models at the cost of discarding cards, and offers price of haste that lets you weaponize fast but you are still giving your opponents fast...

Eternal Journey (1ss) lets you blink back to the deployment zone if you are the first model to activate and allows you to use buried models actions but no triggers. I'll pass. 

Emptiness (0ss) lets you attach a bunch of these mediocre upgrades, discard them to draw cards and gives you another incentive to bury enemies. 

 

So after all of that you get a master who likes to bury things but doesn't really help with the consistency of that and likes to abuse enemies with fast but largely is only useful for slingshotting a beater into the enemy. 

Am I missing something? This model feels like 5 different people were working on her at once and also seems like theres a lot of hoops to jump through to get anywhere and even the end result isnt always spectacular. 

Edited June 13, 2018 by MalifauxDave

[Mikey_C]

40 minutes ago, MalifauxDave said:

Actively however she has a 6ml 2/3/5 with a glimpse trigger built in, a pretty lame gun, mass fast as long as one enemy is hit and a choice of 0s, chatty or a conditional reactivate. 

2/3/5 done 6 times, each causing a TN13 WP duel adds up quickly, and burns the enemy hand.

41 minutes ago, MalifauxDave said:

My problem with this is that it doesnt feel like a master model at all. The mass fast ability conflicts with the reactivate, unless you are ditching half of your control hand in your first activation. 

It doesn't actually. Fast does not go away at the end of turn. Fast goes away at the end of activation. So on Tara's reactivation she can pulse out fast (even if she already has no hand) and get a bunch of your models fast for nest turn.

44 minutes ago, MalifauxDave said:

Knowledge of Eternity (2ss) offers + flips to initiative and an ability to give fast/slow, do a damage and a glimpse trigger @ 8" range. Going first can be extremely valuable, but the ability is pretty similar to the zero you get on your void wretches... as a 0...

I always take this upgrade. Every time.  Tara does fast/slow at 8" instead of 4",  at CA vs wp instead of CA 5 vs df, and hers has a built in bury test and does a damage. 
Also, end of turn you pulse out fast, next turn win initiative with +flip, then use this to remove fast from the enemy that gained it. 

50 minutes ago, MalifauxDave said:

Out of time (1ss) encourages you to take void wretches by reducing the cost of an ability that can only target buried models. Burying models in an of itself can be hard a lot of the times. +flips when you have no cards in hand is pretty good if you can get Tara to reactivate at the end of turn after using your hand, or if you ditched 3 or less cards to the fast pulse ability. It also gives a CA action that does damage equal to the turn amount, but can only be used once per activation. 

Ignore what this ability does for void wretches, that is just a situational bonus that might happen. You are taking this upgrade for + to all flips when out of cards. This is huge. It make her really scary late turn when your opponent is low/out of cards. It's a plus to ALL flips, duels, damage, damage prevention. This alone is worth a stone, and then it comes with the added bonus of an attack that damages without having to flip for damage, and heals at the same time.

56 minutes ago, MalifauxDave said:

Dead of Winter (1ss) protects void models at the cost of discarding cards, and offers price of haste that lets you weaponize fast but you are still giving your opponents fast...

Eternal Journey (1ss) lets you blink back to the deployment zone if you are the first model to activate and allows you to use buried models actions but no triggers. I'll pass. 

Emptiness (0ss) lets you attach a bunch of these mediocre upgrades, discard them to draw cards and gives you another incentive to bury enemies. 

Dropping a card to prevent damage can be amazing, also turning TN 13 bury tests into TN 15 bury tests should not be under estimated. There are so many things in this crew that target wp debuffing it by 2 can be huge.

Blinking back to your deployment zone can be a game winner. Popping up next to an enemy scheme marker and removing it can deny points so easily, and you can do this on your reactivation.

Emptiness is 0 and doesn't even take up a slot, what more do you really want from it? Start spamming out glimpse tests and you'll see it take effect.

Slingshotting a model up the board via Tara and Scion is a real threat. I think it's the most boring way to play the game, but it is legitimately effective. 

Tara is certainly an unusual master, and it takes a lot of practice to know what tools to use when. Once you get a handle on her though, I think she is greatly under estimated by opponents.

 

[Seadhna]

Tara just screws with your opponent, really.

When done right, she plays the long value game by not caring about a resource and abusing the random element of Malifaux. Void Wretch spam makes the playing field even when your opponent has to spend cards to not get mass slowed.

When you see an opportunity (read: 2-3 Severes in hand, a 9 for Malifaux Child's copy of Pull the Void, a low card to cheat the simple duel; but most importantly, a high value target), you can just slam Nothing Beast in your opponent's face Turn 1 with Scion of the Void and watch them get the double Focus-Attack for 14 damage with the bury trigger about 20" from your deployment zone, then win initiative Turn 2, empty your hand with Tara and watch them attack the NB's Df 9 through 3-4 SS and Void shield protection, because otherwise he'll just rinse and repeat.

Her major weakness is getting an alpha strike on herself and BJíng The Clock is Ticking on late turns (that is one of the strongest attacks in the game).

Her major strength is Ca 7 at Wp all around with very low, but consistent damage and debuffs.

Her quirk is she has the most unintuitive set of abilities in the whole game, there's so much contradictory text on her cards it takes forever to stop forgetting about triggers, start of activation effects, her chatty aura and end of turn effect, not to mention Glimpse the Void unburies.

You gotta learn to drink your opponent's tears, remember that there's an ability for every time and space, and topdeck like a sexy undead extradimensional god of war if you want to play Tara right.

[beergod]

Keep in mind with her up grade fast enemy models in 6in are -2 wp, so fodder for a fast nothing beast. 

The discard, with the void shield makes the Nothing beast harder to take down.

Out of time at twice a turn is great dmg turns 3,  and 5, combined with survivalist makes her hard to take down

As was said above the discard plays into the crews theme as the less cards in hand the stronger the Void crew gets. 

She is a support Master not a beater and gets better as the game goes on.

Her being able to bury models is a trap as it is not her focus but a nice little bonus that can force your opponent to cheat or to beast bomb something else 

[nunorod]

Exactly. I haven't played for a while but I was playing Tara a lot. The messing around I can make to the opponent is just precious. Learning Tara's game comes in a steep curve. Lot's to try out. Try a specific combo one at a time. Dedicate some time to burying mechanics, then some time to fast mechanics and only later putting them together, but you can always go either way. Beasty bomb is usually too obvious, but you can make it work a few times before your oponent knows how to handle it. Dead of Winter looks a bit meh... but the -2WP in some combos...oh dear... I am thinking of Bishop...

I just love the shenanigans she can pull. But it's not a easy of forgiving master.

[beergod]

2 hours ago, nunorod said:

Exactly. I haven't played for a while but I was playing Tara a lot. The messing around I can make to the opponent is just precious. Learning Tara's game comes in a steep curve. Lot's to try out. Try a specific combo one at a time. Dedicate some time to burying mechanics, then some time to fast mechanics and only later putting them together, but you can always go either way. Beasty bomb is usually too obvious, but you can make it work a few times before your oponent knows how to handle it. Dead of Winter looks a bit meh... but the -2WP in some combos...oh dear... I am thinking of Bishop...

I just love the shenanigans she can pull. But it's not a easy of forgiving master.

Dead of winter with a fast NB= Dead models His attack is a 7 base that targets willpower, so even against most masters  that's a +2 to 3 advantage with 4 attacks. that's huge.

it also means that out of time will hit more often as well keeping Tara upright and doing solid damage mid to late game 

[Kolath]

Also very important things about dumping cards to pulse fast at the start of the turn. If you are playing a thematic void crew, dumping 3 cards means you just gave most of your models +3 Df at the start of the turn. This is HUGE as the main time that her crew is vulnerable is the beginning of the turn when you still have a large control hand. Sure, if your hand is amazing, this isn't as appealing, but most of the time this means you dump the crap cards you already didn't need and buff all your guys. Plus this gets you even closer to having on all of your duels, which is a pretty huge ability.