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Hamelin the Plagued Advice


FrereSebastian

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Everyone seems so intent on focused strikes or spells so you don't have to cheat and let Hamelin draw. I don't see the point really. Why not just attack twice?

The purpose of focused stuff is when something bad happens when you lose, if you have a minus and want to be able to cheat, or if a model specifically requires it. None of that really comes to mind with Hamelin. Why not just attack twice and don't cheat either time?

Think of it this way: Focus means you flip 2 cards, pick the best. Two attacks means that card that was the best is going to get used anyway AND the crappier card gets a chance as well. If they are both high cards, you wasted an action and a high card. Without knowing the tops of each players decks there is no reason to focus against Hamelin that I can see.

In all of my games I have barely ever focused my strikes. The game against Lady J comes to mind as the biggest reason I have used focus because riposte is nasty.

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Oh, also, I don't see Hamelin as overpowered at all. I see him as a master that even a bad player can do well with because he is hard to play poorly. He is much like Perdita and the Ortegas. They aren't overpowered, but a bad player will think they are awesome because it's really hard to play them wrong. Their abilities are straight forward and hard to mess up, just like Hamelin.

<edit> Just reread that post and it kind of sounds like I'm calling the OP bad. That wasn't the intent at all. I have never played against the OP so I have no clue about his skill. All I am saying is that even some random hypothetical bad player would have a really hard time messing up Hamelin because all his abilities are so straight forward and easy to make work. <end edit>

Edited by Natty
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I find the idea of not cheating vs Hamlin funny. People think about this all wrong. How often do you discard a crap card at end end of the turn? The only time your giving him a card is when your getting a use out of it. Roughly half the cards in the deck suck so if you play some thing he is only getting a useful card half the time you win. People act like every time you play a card he gets a 13 or some thing. You are much better off just playing your hand.

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I think you're a enthusiastic player who does not know the rules of the game / models completely, and your exploiting opponents who are playing models that they themselves do not understand. normally I could care less about this, but when you post on the forums about how a tactic thread is worthless because the master is so overpowered tactics dont matter, your cheapening the game for people who understand the rules and understand the caster does in fact need strategy and finesse to work to his full potential. Below is a easy hamelin counter for almost every single master you listed. your opponents can feel free to PM me or email me at dolomyte at gmail.com and I will gladly walk them thru in full detail how to build a list to handle hamelin.

-GUILD-

Perdita -

Perdita is hamelin's worst matchup. Immune to influence on herself and abuela make them untouchable by any of hamelins cool effects. The stolen have the ability to remove it, but abuela can shrug off the effect, and perdita is def 8 versus a 5 cast, so can use her soulstones *I'll have 8* to ignore it whenever you might have a better cast then I have a defense. which you wouldent because you have no hand by turn 3, and I have six cards. Abuela can make you take terrifying 13 checks to even attack the family, which the rats will fail 1/2 the time. the family is also ridiculously fast with long range shooting, so in a single alpha strike they could kill 2 rat catchers and enough rats to prevent more rat catchers from coming back. I would ignore whatever the scenario is for three turns while I wipe out your force. Ironically, i always do that with perdita, cause she's ridiculous.

Lady Justice

is a bad matchup against hamelin, no doubt. If i knew I was fighting him I would take executioner and again probably most of the family and convict gunslinger. Card denial is hamelins enemy. abuela can still heal and make you take wp checks.

Sonia Criid

You're going to love the irony of this. I would hire hamelin, so I could take the essence of power, so my damage flips get a +. then, I would AOE the crap out of your army from afar. rat catchers dont get screened by the ht1 rats, so I would target them, with the three blasts I should be able to hit them both, unless you have them spread out, if you do have the spread out, I would just kill one rat catcher and all his rats in a turn. I would save soulstones and cards to kill hamelin or cheat away your attack flips, again, by not using them in turn one or two, im guessing you wont have alot of cards or stones by turn 3.

C.Hoffman

2 guardians, 2 hunters, ryle. maybe some other stuff. all that immune to influence means hamelin needs to get into melee with the crew to do anything, and franky. I dare you. ryle and the hunters will hunt stolen, as constructs they dont care about killing them

- Resurrectionists -

Nicodem -

my undead theory is the same for all of them really. hanged, bete noire, shikome, rogue necromany, punk zombies, some of the spirits, belles maybe. Lure rats or hamelin and then kill them when they are out of range. use terrifying to ignore stuff, make you come into melee with my big hitters. Shikome would hunt stolen.

Seamus -

I would not lure hamelin, I would lure other stuff. also, you do realize you can make crews without the stuff in the boxes. and sometimes thats preferable. I'd wait till your out of cards by not cheating at all, and then used hopefully a banked 10+ of crows to slit jugalar hamelin. you dont have the cards or soulstones by your earlier list composition. he's dead man, all dead. remember stolen are really easy to kill. shikome can hunt them down from afar.

McMourning -

I would take dogs and flesh constructs, mostly dogs. and then cannibilize my dogs for body part counters to make rogue necromancy and more flesh constructs. my roomate can make a rogue necromancy on turn 1 I think. not an easy matchup, but a bunch of flesh constructs and rogues should be more then hamelin can handle.

Kirai -

you can't deny sheishin. as was already stated. Kirai can summon a crap ton of terrifying spirits over and over, so whenever one is insiginifant, i would bring a new one to replace it. terrible matchup for Hamelin.

Arcanists -

Marcus -

I'm not going to argue this on principle, because marcus is terrible. anyone should beat him other then another marcus player

Rasputina -

with silent ones her threat range on aoes is like 22 inches. it would take you a few turns of blasts to get to her. I would again AE your important mobs and then go after hamelin in a single important turn. convict is a definite in this list. more card denial. more win.

Ramos -

I dislike ramos almost as much as marcus, so I'll give you him as an always win too. though I would say the same about anyone. well, cept marcus

Colette -

Colette should destroy hamelin, with the ridiculous threat range and paired coryphee I would dance around killing your stolen, Df 7 ++ flip so the rats would have a hell of a timing hitting it, and when the stolen were down *guessing turn 2*, I would warp in cassandra and Colette to unload on hamelin.

Neverborn -

Lilith -

would destroy hamelin. warp the rat catchers/stolen/finally hamelin into her own army, with lelu, lilitu, and nekima waiting to rape them. should not even be a contest.

Pandora -

been discussed before. I dont think you will win this game thursday.

Zoraida -

I use a papa bomb zoraida list, its effectiveness would be on how you deploy. slurids would hunt stolen though. should be an even matchup

LCB / Dreamer -

sounds like you had a crappy dreamer player. the alpha strike (which is doable turn 1) should be able to wipe out hamelin and his stolen. if you have hamelin and his stolen really far apart, he can't benefit from coming back to life *needs to be within 3 inches* so Im not sure how dropping 8 alps would not immediately kill hamelin and all his stolen

Outcasts -

Vickis -

Convict plus focused strikes.

Som'er -

Mosquito bomb. it does not target hamelin so insignificant does not matter. pigapult as well.

Leveticus -

I think Leveticus is terrible, I've never been impressed by him. I would stock up on immune to influence and terror.

Hamelin -

should come down to die rolls and respective player skilll.

------------

Now, I'm a generally not a nice person, but when in a debate I do open my mind enough to see both sides of the argument, as per every post I have ever made in this forum.

Even if I do disagree, I give solid reasoning behind why I disagree.

You have literally stooped to insulting me because I have been rebuking your claims. This is not the process of a debate and is relatively childish.

If you cannot win, secede.

And I'm not saying you aren't right in some of the things you've said.

But to be proven wrong is always better than to be considered an ass.

Your claims have thus been based on a small probability, and you seem to think that just because a model is capable of something, ala Teddy 1 shotting anything with his Teeth, or, well whatever, that it will happen each and every time.

And now, for the fifth time I want to state, and I pray I am heard, I have never once, and will never state that Hamelin is undefeatable.

He is not, no master is, no master has ever been.

There is a work around to all situations, (Except the whole "Your crew is insignificant and I don't care about anyone in my crew." dealy.) But Hamelin has thus far been no fun to play against for anyone that has played me.

I was wrong about the Blight Counters, but honestly, that was never really what was broken, and all that really changes is the effectiveness of Bleeding Plague (When compared to other (1) actions.)

After 6+ games of 0 challenge, I begin to wonder if I completely lack flaws, or if Hamelin is full of them.

----

Wodschow I'm beginning to agree.

The problem is, I can't play anyone else, (Except WUWU) to find out, because Hamelin (Who has been played by me, and by others) has a reputation of being brutally overpowered.

I will hope to talk people into games with him, but I don't really know how well that'll go.

----

I think this decision should be appealed. I hope when the new rules come out this is better clarified, and a better distinctions are made between terms, may and must being a good example.

Honestly, if Voracious Rats and his Insignificant deal is worked out, the immunity to forced Discards isn't so bad, really.

He is actually often resource starved, but due to Voracious Rats and Bully, it's never a problem.

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I find the idea of not cheating vs Hamlin funny. People think about this all wrong. How often do you discard a crap card at end end of the turn? The only time your giving him a card is when your getting a use out of it. Roughly half the cards in the deck suck so if you play some thing he is only getting a useful card half the time you win. People act like every time you play a card he gets a 13 or some thing. You are much better off just playing your hand.

He can also draw from the top of his deck.

Although I agree.

I don't care if I'm denied cards because when I play Hamelin I usually instantly throw them away on something anyway.

But some people save their high cards.

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He can also draw from the top of his deck.

Although I agree.

I don't care if I'm denied cards because when I play Hamelin I usually instantly throw them away on something anyway.

But some people save their high cards.

I think you mean he can draw them from the discard pile. yes players should keep this in mind when deciding when to cheat but going in with the idea I am just not going to use cards VS him is only going to make hamlin harder to beat. If he has a 13 or a red joker in discard ya don't cheat but hey if you would have cheated and he has a 4 sitting there use the card and move on.

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I find the idea of not cheating vs Hamlin funny. People think about this all wrong. How often do you discard a crap card at end end of the turn? The only time your giving him a card is when your getting a use out of it. Roughly half the cards in the deck suck so if you play some thing he is only getting a useful card half the time you win. People act like every time you play a card he gets a 13 or some thing. You are much better off just playing your hand.

Honestly it depends on the master I am playing, although I agree Natty is right in that 99% of the time just doing something twice is probably a better choice. My reasoning is that on turn 4 or so I would like to know what he can cheat up to. There are situations were if I know for a fact (black joker aside) what I am going to do is going to succeed, then I can plan a much better strategy around my game plan.It is not so much that I expect him to get a red joker every time, it is just that I can play better if I know that he in fact has a crappy hand. I am also not saying, never cheat, just do not blow your hand every turn. There have been plenty of times I would drop a 6 on top of a 3 just to get into that 5 and under range, or make them cheat too, even if they only had to cheat with a 4+ just to make them drop a card. Those tactics seem more harmful then helpful however against Hamlin.

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Honestly, if Voracious Rats and his Insignificant deal is worked out, the immunity to forced Discards isn't so bad, really.He is actually often resource starved, but due to Voracious Rats and Bully, it's never a problem.

My appeal is more based on the fact that it is a terrible ruling and seems counter intuitive. Nothing is forcing the player to discard cards, it is just an option. Unlike with say Somer's ability, where it is mandatory. If you do not want to discard them, then do not get hit, just like if you want to attack Hamlin, don't become insignificant.

Also if you ever end up on the East Coast, I will find a lot of people who would be more then happy to play you. Not afraid of Hamlin in the slightest. Colette and Pandora make me shiver, not so much Hamlin.

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It is not so much that I expect him to get a red joker every time, it is just that I can play better if I know that he in fact has a crappy hand.

Knowing he has a crap hand is never valid. He can draw more cards by sacing rats and gets a card every turn from his totem unless you have killed it. You also never know what he started with. To use a poker term he could slow play you acting like he has crap and when the time is right slam you with an unexpected hand. Only time you know a players hand sucks is when he has 0 cards or you have the ability to look at them.

The only thing valid about this tactic is trying to stockpile a hoard of high cards for a all at once go for the gold in the end. Problem with doing so is that your keeping high cards in your hand and not in your deck. Hell a better tactic would probably be ditch all the high cards you pull and keep the crap if you want to control his hand. Makes your odds of pulling solid cards better every turn.

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Got a game in against Hamelin last night. It ended poorly (again, but this time we didn't expect it).

Went for a relatively unorthodox list at 35SS. Pandora, 2x Terror Tots, Blood Shaman, 2 Desperate Mercs, Primordial Magic, Lelu, and Lelittu.

He brought Hamelin, 2 Rat Catchers, 2 Desperate Mercs, an Obedient Wretch, a Stolen (or one of the two, can't recall), and a few rats.

I had to activate dynamite, he had to disarm it. I went for Pandy's sheme and Kidnap (on original three rats). It's an odd choice, with the obvious setup to bring in Mature Neph, but I needed the Wing Buffet (1) to keep his guys away from the dynamite counters. He brought Holdout and Thwart.

Game started off relatively smoothly, with Lelittu Luring in Rat Catchers and Pandora sending them running off with her trigger. This is when everything went to hell. The rats finally got close enough to engage my models, and we realized that I had black blood. By now he had 7-9 rats. He figured out that his rats could 0-action the push into another rat (while in CC with Neph), 0-action the + to flips, and use the action to melee. While I could *usually* defend the Neph, he had so many rats that eventually something would get through. Once it did, Black Blood would kill off all the rats, and the entire process would repeat.

We spent about an hour with him doing his activations (mine were completely finished by then) to kill Lelu and Lelittu, and with 3 more Nephelim on the board and all of his rats with full activations, we just called it there.

At that point, he didn't have Thwart, but had the other. I had 4VP from my schemes, but had no chance of arming the dynamite due to the rats.

While there are things I would have done differently, I'm not sure if it would have made a huge difference. The black blood working against me was definitely a massive oversight to be sure, but the reactivations on the new rats is just obscene. Along with this, while I was able to keep the Rat-Catchers running off at a relatively reasonable pace, I had absolutely no chance of killing them or Hamelin off. Hamelin's bubble of failsauce was very frustrating for me. Not being able to keep anything dead near him was devastating for me, as well as his trump over RoE.

The best option I've come up with so far is if I had dropped the Neph for Insidious Madnesses to arm and dash, but again, with so many Rats and only 3wd on the Madni (Spirits aside), I'm not sure if it could have worked in my favor. It was definitely a weird move to bring in the combat models with Pandy's scheme, but again, I needed to keep his stuff (Rat-Catchers and Hamelin) away from the counters. The rats were not a worry, as Slow (-1) made it impossible for them to deactivate them.

I think my biggest complaints against Hamelin are the rats and his bubble effects. I'll wait for JMGraham (my opponent) to post his thoughts as well.

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You cant go toe to toe with hamlin. Sounds like he had a lot of models to attack when he finaly caught you. Spread out so that his i finaly caught you means he can only go after 1 or 2 models. Sounds like you did ok but few points.

Black blood models are very bad option vs him I think you figured this out tho.

Hamlin rat crews require they function in one big bubble and its not all that fast. They cant be everywhere at once.

For this mission you only need to get 3 counters. He cant realy hold down more then 2 at a time and you basicly have 2 stupid easy VP being neverborn just pick 3 rats. Dont have to try and get them all just more points then him. Try and Keap 2 counters activated and then jump in for 3rd with pandora at the end.

Edited by tadaka
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Hamelin's ability doesn't counter Actions that give you Blood Counters.

And hm, the black blood and the rats issue is indeed an issue, anything that could have 4 or so models activating a dozen times each is an issue... then again, with 2 rat catchers and Hamelin each rat can already activate 4 times before the enemy has anything to do with it...

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It seems like you were trying something a little different, which I totally support. It does seem sort of like a train wreck in the end though, but I think it is safe to say any of us who has tried something that was out of the box has been there. That rats thrive on black blood, so having so many models with it is just asking for trouble I think.

With Pandora, the key to success is manipulating the turn. Incite/Pacify can basically kill every stolen near enough to Hamlin to be useful on a single activation. I think I would limit his hand as much as I could the first couple turns. On turn three or four, once I felt confident, I would activate Pandora, incite/pacify the stolen to death, the incite Hamlin. Do whatever else she needs to do during the activation, and then let Hamlin activate. At this point he would need to summon a new stolen, and finish his activation. This would leave me the rest of the turn to kill the stolen and then try to off Hamlin. Then on turn 4 activate Pandora, this time Pacify Hamlin, so now you have all of turn 4 to try and take him out as well. It is not a sure thing, but I would never play Pandora without a doppelganger, so initiative should be relatively in my favor. Use the fact that they have to stay together to hurt them. Make the rat catcher take wp->13 duels at :-fate to even move. If the rat catcher can not move, then neither can the rats he is with, or the will both be overly vulnerable. If Hamlin needs to spend an action to summon a stolen, and an action to move, it leaves little room for much else (granted more then some other people would get), but again if Hamlin does not move, neither do the rats he is with.

When my friends and I were at Templecon, we all noticed most of the other players played more defensively then we did. This was in spite of the fact most of the players were Lady J players. I think if you play this way against Hamlin, he will seem a lot stronger then he is. Keep him on the ropes.

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It seems like you were trying something a little different, which I totally support. It does seem sort of like a train wreck in the end though, but I think it is safe to say any of us who has tried something that was out of the box has been there. That rats thrive on black blood, so having so many models with it is just asking for trouble I think.

With Pandora, the key to success is manipulating the turn. Incite/Pacify can basically kill every stolen near enough to Hamlin to be useful on a single activation. I think I would limit his hand as much as I could the first couple turns. On turn three or four, once I felt confident, I would activate Pandora, incite/pacify the stolen to death, the incite Hamlin. Do whatever else she needs to do during the activation, and then let Hamlin activate. At this point he would need to summon a new stolen, and finish his activation. This would leave me the rest of the turn to kill the stolen and then try to off Hamlin. Then on turn 4 activate Pandora, this time Pacify Hamlin, so now you have all of turn 4 to try and take him out as well. It is not a sure thing, but I would never play Pandora without a doppelganger, so initiative should be relatively in my favor. Use the fact that they have to stay together to hurt them. Make the rat catcher take wp->13 duels at :-fate to even move. If the rat catcher can not move, then neither can the rats he is with, or the will both be overly vulnerable. If Hamlin needs to spend an action to summon a stolen, and an action to move, it leaves little room for much else (granted more then some other people would get), but again if Hamlin does not move, neither do the rats he is with.

When my friends and I were at Templecon, we all noticed most of the other players played more defensively then we did. This was in spite of the fact most of the players were Lady J players. I think if you play this way against Hamlin, he will seem a lot stronger then he is. Keep him on the ropes.

The problem with that strategy is that you're assuming the Hamelin player is doing nothing for the entire turn.

While you're out killing his stolen, he's going to be spreading Blight Counters and spamming insignificant as much as possible so when the third or fourth turn rolls around, half (If not all) of your crew is going to be unable to help in killing Hamelin, and if you do wipe out his Stolen first No Humanity is going to drop Pandora to 5, (Or below if the Hammy player was smart and hit her with Rabies as well.) And so targeting / defending against you won't be a problem.

Though I think if properly executed that would 100% drop Hamelin to dead.

But against Pandora, here's what I would do.

1. Spam Blight.

2. Spam Rabies with the Blight.

3. Intelligently Sack Stolen (Via Abandon) to spread No Humanity.

4. Once Blight is spread and Wp is reduced to an average of 4 or less, I'd start spamming Bleeding Disease via Stolen and Insignificant via Hamelin.

This way, I can send the Rats, Rat Catchers, Nix, and a few extra Stolen out to do that dirty work, while Hamelin sits back and literally factory's out Stolen so when turn 3 or 4 comes around, I have a decent number of Bleeding Disease cannons so that I can spend Hamelin's extra AP on Obeying / Insignifying whatever needs to be.

This is assuming that the Pandora player is actively attempting to complete Strategies and Schemes until either completion / realization that Hamelin must be dealt with first..

Edited by Sandwich
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Remove Sorrows from Pandora first. It seems to me that a lot of people on the board aren't taking them anymore, so even better.

Kill or Sac rats to get more activations/wait for Pandora to get in near range. Blow up a Stolen to activate Useless Toy triggering No Humanity, and cast Understand the Soulless on Pandora. Profit.

Easier said than done, sure, but this wont be uncommon. I picture the Pandora/Hamelin matchup decided on who can get the jump on the other master, to either Mental Anguish or Understand the Soulless. Pandora has the maneuverability and Hamelin has the activations to turtle up and wait for his shot. Pretty close call, but I think the Neverborn might have a slight advantage here.

I haven't seen a ruling for it, but I believe RAW Hamelin would get +2 Twist from Useless Toy against Expose Fears and +2 Twist for whatever attack he is making against her. Pretty decent.

Edited by WUWU
Useless Toy
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I haven't seen a ruling for it, but I believe RAW Hamelin would get +2 Twist from Useless Toy against Expose Fears and +2 Twist for whatever attack he is making against her. Pretty decent.

I believe you are correct on this as well.

The problem with that strategy is that you're assuming the Hamelin player is doing nothing for the entire turn.

While you're out killing his stolen, he's going to be spreading Blight Counters and spamming insignificant as much as possible so when the third or fourth turn rolls around, half (If not all) of your crew is going to be unable to help in killing Hamelin, and if you do wipe out his Stolen first No Humanity is going to drop Pandora to 5, (Or below if the Hammy player was smart and hit her with Rabies as well.) And so targeting / defending against you won't be a problem.

Well the first turn is usually a bust, and people are sort of standing around and getting in position. Also what is your list composed of, almost every time you cast a spell you lose a rat or a stolen. Which means you will be down a rat or you will need to spend another action on summoning a stolen. Hamlin only has 3 AP a turn, he can only do so much. Pandora can kill a Stolen from 12 inches away without any problem at all, missing the drop to her wp completely. Depending on how you are deployed though I could see there being a good chance that you might drop some rats or a rat catchers wp by 2 however, so that works to my advantage. In an early post you said you had between 3 and 45 stolen, I assume you were kidding right? In a 35 ss game, the most stolen even possible would be 17. That is if all you took were stolen and never once did anyone kill them. Quite a feat for a 1 wd model. I also would have an entire crew, my strategy revolved pretty much on one models activation, the rest of my crew would have free reign to tie up lose ends.

For Schemes I would take Bodyguard and Kidnap, so those would pretty much complete themselves.

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Well the first turn is usually a bust, and people are sort of standing around and getting in position.

You must play with a far different meta game then i do. I find it rare when first turn does not end up in dead models or objectives done. Hell I consiter it normal when a game is basicly over by turn 3.

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