Math Mathonwy

Oh, I forgot from the first post Shambling Nests which are, IMO, by quite a large margin the creme de la creme of Totems (outside of the LCBs of the world). Even one would be amazing but getting two is kinda bonkers.

If we skip the obvious Huggies and LCBs of the world, which Totems do you consider the best? Either from a "anyone would love to have this" as well as from a more "the synergies with the particular Master are off the charts!" type of view point. I'll start with Shang who has good synergy with Misaki, great healing and as a giant cherry on top Arcane Reservoir. I feel that lots of Masters would take Shang over their own Totem as is, even without benefitting from the Misaki synergies!

Surely it's option 1) as 2) wouldn't make much sense at all (as you note).

I don't get it. Aren't most Summoners actually good purchases in that they tend to make good use of their keyword models? I mean, no matter the Master you kinda need three or four boxes for a "full" crew. I suppose you can make do with two but those will be quite weak crews for the most part. Looking at Summoners, Dreamer is four (plus Teddy, I suppose), Somer is four, Dashel is four, Hamelin is four, Kirai and Asami are five which is kinda a lot admittedly, and Sandeep is awkward but I don't see that as a massive downside and definitely not something I would strongly recommend to avoid. I mean, most keywords are four boxes, I believe. I would far more suggest avoiding the weaker keywords as those are much more likely to result in sadness and frustration down the line. (I remember someone asking for help with his Wong crew against his buddy's Tara and they both had only those crews )

Maybe a buff approach, then?

Colette as three models like her Avatar used to be. At the start of each round you replenish her to three models and then when one of the models takes damage, you either remove the one that took damage or take damage to the Colette card and remove a different Colette model.

Wong I could see focusing on his Three Demon Bag which is a massively powerful artefact but isn't really represented on his current version. It used to be able to Bury models as well as transform them into Piglets so a more control-oriented Master profile would make sense. Ophelia is a weird case - unless she gets new Totems then the Guns seem like they would be staying and if they stay her role would seem like it might be rather similar to what it is now unless something convoluted happens. The standoff idea does seem fun, though. Zipp could focus on his blimp so no rocketpack but a rope to hang onto? Zoraida used to be able to transform into a Raven and hire any living low-Wp models no matter their Faction - those are some blasts from the past that would certainly lead to a different playstyle. Alternatively I could see her summoning Waldgeists and Wisps. Mah has the stolen tech subtheme which I could see being explored more. Maybe she rides around on a stolen and modified Peacekeeper or a mining contraption of some sort. Brewie could turn from a debuffer to more of a buffer giving his crew bonuses from them having Poison. For example, an Aura in which friendly Tri-Chi can treat Poison as Shielded.

So has anyone managed to put VS onto the table after the nerfs? How was it?

Every Master already in the next book? Holy carp! That's like, what, 60 new Masters or something in that ballpark? Sheesh! I do like the idea but am a wee bit concerned about balance. That's a gigantic shake-up. I do like the different take on Sonnia quite a bit, though. A lot is different yet it is still definitely Sonnia. Should play quite different with her keyword as well. I wonder if the TOS Starter replaces individual Guild and Resser starters.

You could also play with five SS and only use them to draw and then discard your two best cards each turn

In M2e Killjoy started the game buried. A friend of mine hired him and then totally forgot about him until they were calculating VP at the end of the game. So that's one way to handicap yourself! Taking a Henchman to lead your crew is another possibility that hasn't yet been mentioned - some of them are way worse as Leaders than stuff like Rasputina or Wong that are the lowest rung of Masters. I was acutally thinking of a "Pauperfaux" format where you'd have Henchmen leading forces that had to include at least five Minions using just two different profiles for them (so 2+3). Would give a reason to field all those stupid duplicates everyone has painted but that never see the table... I also like the idea of the -5SS for each win - it has a certain inevitability to it.

Very interested in hearing your thoughts. Somer had (and still has) one of the highest skill floors and ceilings in the game, I feel, and when used by an experienced player he could feel rather oppressive unless you teched against him and knew what you were doing. I'm afraid that now there's a massive skill requirement resulting in a decidedly mediocre result. I also agree with @Rufessthat GG2 doesn't seem to favour Somer. I suppose Break the Line and Corrupted Ley Lines are possible strats for him but it seems like we have better options for both within the faction. Without the Summon nerf Somer would've been pretty legit for Break the Line.

Titania had a super solid win rate and Zoraida's was positive as well and neither was touched in the errata (other than the everpresent Serena, I guess) and the new GG2 seems, on paper, to fit both of them well.

Ah! I can actually see both readings. I took the "more" to mean that no other targeting Abilities trigger but now I can actually see both readings for the whole FAQ entry. So either they are saying that no duplicate effects trigger or that no targeting effects of the new target trigger when the target changes. We need and FAQ of the FAQ...

Isn't that completely at odds with the example provided in the FAQ? "For example, if a model with Take the Hit changes the target of an Action to itself, it would not benefit from any of the initial target’s Abilities such as Manipulative that require the Action to target “this model”, nor could it benefit from more of its own abilities that resolve when it is targeted (such as Terrifying)." (bolding mine) Or am I misreading it?

Yeah - I mean, VS is an absolute top dog in the game and so I can easily solo him in a tournament so I can put in a bit more work into him as I don't need a whole faction painted. ...wait. Anyway, Student of Steel. Really love doing this type of zombie skin.

Does this work? It apparently doesn't even let me edit the original post there anymore for some reason...

I heard that Von Schtook is super competitive so decided to paint him up! Also his Assistant. Really liked how the faces turned out on these. Why is displaying images on the Internet so damn hard???

I know that there are tons of ways of pumping models up with silly amounts of Focus but I was kinda more interested in whether you actually saw it happen on a regular basis. I haven't been travelling to tournaments during M3e like I did in second edition so my experiences are mostly limited to a small circle of friends and a couple of local tournies. I haven't seen massive stacks of Focus outside of Shlong and Rat Kings (I've never seen Sandeep on a table but yeah, I've understood that Golems usually do tons of Focus) barring singular cases and I'm interested in how common it was for other people to see.

I play Mah and Von Schtook so pulsing Focus is something I do a lot of but even then getting to 3+ Focus was really rare for me (talking of the time after the Mah nerf, naturally). And I'm not sure how often doing something else besides getting that third Focus would've been an obviously inferior option. But of course both of those crews tend to allow for good opportunities to project force in various ways and a more static crew might be more inclined to stacking Focus if they don't have obvious other things to do.

Is that a function of cheapness or a function of role? You don't generally want three support models or any other very specialized model. The only model that you'd want three of usually would be a generalist or a beater. I feel that this is a constant in skirmish games no matter the system. And both of those roles are some something that cheap models in Malifaux tend to fail at because they aren't durable enough for beaters nor good enough for generalists.

The new errata changed Focus to not stacking over +2. How often did you see over bigger stacks in games before? Were they mainly limited to a couple of Masters or did you see large stacks sometimes outside of the usual suspects? Hamelin and Shen Long were kinda notorious but who else? In general, do you feel that this change will have a general effect or be limited to just a couple of keywords?

It lost a Blast from Weak so not "intact" as such (even though it certainly doesn't break the ability but it does impact the Injured thingy quite a bit). Also, I dunno, for a Master attack I wouldn't call it "exceedingly powerful". It is certainly fine and good but about on the level I would expect from a Master who isn't primarily a fighter as such.

It is kinda funny that they nerfed all he does. I mean, at least IME, VS wasn't amazingly powerful after the first turn's Focus Pulse and Upgrade + Fast thingy. The rest of the game he actually felt like one of the weakest Masters in a way but of course that first turn was great and his keyword was amazing. Now his power play is giving a Minion Fast at the expense of a Scheme Marker which really kinda pales in comparison to any other Master in the game, basically I dunno, it sort of feels to me like the nerfs to VS should've been options to be considered but someone accidentally applied them all to him. Coupled with the Undergrad and Necropunk nerfs he really took an enormous blow. It's kinda funny seeing how some of the Dreamer players are completely gutted over the nerf on him and then comparing that to what VS got And all of that is not to say that I disagree with all of the nerfs. Necropunk and Undergraduate nerfs were likely needed. Undergraduates were one of the very few Minions that didn't feel at all bad taking all three (and Malifaux cannot have that! ) and By Your Side was most likely the correct nerf to them. Similarly, I do like that the Vale missile is gone - it was very imbalancing and not fun at all. But all of the rest of the VS nerfs seem a bit much on top of those ones.