Math Mathonwy

Ooh, I like what you've done here. Would actually love to see each one in a separate photo, to really appreciate your work (and perhaps steal ideas *grin*).

I, unfortunately, simply don't understand what you are saying. I'm not a native speaker *worried*

man what

Eh, GW wishes to support the brick and mortar stores, which, I believe, in the long run is the correct choice for the whole well-being of this hobby. Seriously, we need those twelve-year-olds walking into a GW store or FLGS and starting 40k who then grow up to be like us. Online sales are really killing brick and mortar stores and that's not a good thing. Now, I'm not saying it's all roses and bubbles, GW is essentially going for a similar strategy as Apple in their attempt to dominate. But I can see the reasoning as well. As for killing the bitz trade, well, wanting their stuff to be sold in their original packaging doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to wish for. Again, I don't see brick and mortar stores buying battalion boxes to sell them on the cheap as bits. I dunno, I feel that the straight up, unthinking rage reaction this has garnered is stupid. There are many sides to the story and certainly both view points can be argued, but most don't seem to stop and think. They just throw knee-jerk rage into the Internet.

I would so love to buy a single Metal Gamin (who would ever field three??).

Do them white. Cold white skin, warm white clothing. Then evil eyes and pitch black mouths.

That was a great read! Thank you so much for posting it. The only thing I'm kinda weirded out about is the incredible lethality of your matches. I mean, it seems that Masters were dying left and right on turn two and three at the latest. My own games seem to be a lot less deadly. Is this something that usually happens over there or were these games a bit of an anomaly?

I think that you might be able to make a better underdog list from the Arcanists, actually. Hoarcat Prides, Razorspine Rattler, Cerberus, Ice Golem, Fire Gamin - all led by aColette. Something like this, maybe: Arcanists Crew - 35 - Scrap Colette Du Bois -- 3 Pool + Colette, Avatar of Deception [2ss] Hoarcat Pride [5ss] Hoarcat Pride [5ss] Ice Golem [9ss] Myranda [7ss] Razorspine Rattler [7ss]

I think that the Avatars are an extremely mixed bag and I'm a bit weirded out how some of them passed playtesting. aColette, aHoffmann, aDreamer... a lateral shift, yes, but also a severe downward shift. These I can sorta accept that the playtesters responsible for these just weren't very experienced or played in a completely strange meta or something but then the true headscratchers are Avatars like aMarcus or aPerdita which just kinda downgrade the Master for almost no gain. All in all I think that book 3 is a very strange book in that stuff like aRamos or Warden or aSonnia are clearly powerful options but then the vast majority of the book is filled with absolute chaff. Some people claim that they are mostly just extremely situational but that's only true of some. I mean, Latigo Pistoleros aren't situational, they just out and out suck. Finally, a quick note on something that was said: Mercenary Hamelin subpar? He seems to be well regarded on the forums and I personally think he's extremely good and the most scary model in my friend's Vic crew. He's extremely versatile and brings to the table stuff that is hard to come by in other models. I mean, he is certainly on the expensive side but absolutely nowhere near Razorspine Rattler or Ice Golem -level.

To note a model for the OP: Flesh Construct bought with SS is a horrible, horrible minion. As a summon he's pretty OK, but in a Seamus crew he certainly is amongst the worst possible choices.

Damn, that pale yellow complements the dark turquoise so well. They look absolutely fierce! Also, pure love for the white socks of Misaki

They look like scifi from the sixties or seventies or something. What a fun idea - I approve! The brown is a bit drab, though - I would've gone for white leather (so sorta cream) on these. The shade of green you've chosen OTOH work really well.

As for just McCabe - he's the king of Slow. Slow is actually an extremely powerful effect to hand out. It limits the options immensely and since it sticks around until the next activation, it's just huge. No more Flurry or stuff like that. No more charges(!). Imagine a melee beatstick with Melee Expert. With some care, Slow takes away his uses almost completely. Netgun is crazy stuff. Take the horse healing and the armor to get the most out of it. Other than that, you can kit out McCabe to be a bit of beast in melee. With Paired Sabre he is very formidable and with Armor +2 he can tank extremely well. All in all, he is an extremely versatile Master with a lot going for him.

Good to hear that the game is still going strong (though naturally this is a very biased sample, but the UK tournament scene thriving for example gives some more objective data). It's just a shame that the minis side of things has kinda given way to the game side so much, but I suppose that is the way of things (I bought Wyrd minis before there even was a game simply because I really liked the style). Do note that the ICv2 stats are highly biased and not at all representative. Not saying that they are wrong, mind you (that is pretty much what I would guess the order of the game being in the US), just that they really don't prove stuff either way.

Here in my neck of the woods the scene has always been a bit random, so I can't draw on personal experience here, but how are things elsewhere? One thing that I found rather striking was that new releases don't seem to garner much excitement anymore around the forums even. The February releases have been shown for a week now and yet I've not seen anyone comment the minis. There used to be dozens of posts every month when Wyrd showed the new releases but now the response is basically zero. Is it that the minis aren't seen as exciting anymore? Anyone have a guess on why that is?

Kairai and Ikiryo from Bushido: http://bushido-thegame.com/catalog/kairai-villager http://bushido-thegame.com/catalog/cult-yurei-starter-set

I realized that funnily Seamus was originally considered one of if not the most durable master. Then second book's power creep and massive number of non-living stuff happened and suddenly Seamus became kinda squishy. Just an interesting historical note - he kinda lost his niche.

I tried to frame this as a model stat (and feel) comparison but maybe I should've included it in the title. Mea culpa. An interesting point. You see, I actually am not a huge fan of that extreme synergy. When you encounter a Collette crew, you can guess with about 90% accuracy the models it will include. The same is somewhat true, though not quite as extreme, of Hoffman and Dreamer as well, with Hamelin also often falling into the same old same old thing (not so much in certain strategies, though). I feel that Kirai is the only one of the book 2 Masters who has a pretty wide selection available to her, though certainly nowhere near most book 1 Masters. The book 4 Masters fare a lot better in this regard that they have themes, sometimes very strong ones, but aren't utter cookie cutter lists. Or that's how it seems to me, anyway.

Oh aye, which is why they should be priority targets (along with Hamelin and Convict Gunslinger - that's a lot of priority targets...). But yeah, you are correct that Guardian isn't the best of choices against a Vik crew.

With a sizable amount of the minis from the fourth book now out, what's your opinion on the Masters and Minions in the four books? The first book showed that it was a first book but despite that I actually rate it rather high. I mean, yeah, there's quite a few things that were rather underpowered like the Arcanist beasts or, say, Hans, but on the whole I really like the book 1 stuff. Well, one niggle is that caches are apparently somewhat governed by fluff, which is weird. Book two went a bit off the high end of the power curve with Dreamer and Hamelin and the Stitched and the twins and such. After all the errata it is still the high-powered book with stuff like Kirai and Collette. There were a few under-performers as well (Guild Autopsies, anyone?) but yeah, this was definitely the power book. Third went the opposite way. It seems that the developers and playtesters got timid and produced a load of stuff that's almost never seen in competitive lists. Stuff like Latigo Pistoleros, Crooligans or Collette's Avatar. All in all the Avatars are IMO all over the place and currently I'm not really a fan of what they bring to the game. I mean, the oft stated intent of them was to alter the playstyle as opposed to providing a simple boost in power but in practice this is true of very, very few Avatars. The most used Avatars like Ramos or Sonnia are quite simply boosts. I mean, sure, they lose a trick or two but mostly they do what they did before, just a lot better. And then there's stuff like Collette's or Perdita's Avatars which kinda cripple them. The few Avatars that I consider a real success like Lady Justice* or Som'er seem more like flukes than the product of a meticulous development process. So yeah, this is my least favourite book by a fair margin. *Well, one could argue that turning from a combat monster to buffing your troops in the midway point of a game is a really stupid idea, since the troops tend to start being dead at around that point, but she does meet the criteria of changing focus while retaining the approximate power level she had. Finally, the fourth book. Here they managed to finally provide slow, tough, high-costed melee beatsticks worth taking. Ice Golems and Flesh Constructs (has anyone ever hired this as opposed to summoning in a competitive environment?) are replaced by Rail Golems and Izamus. The new Masters seem to be powerful but not so much as to overshadow the previous tier 1 stuff. All the factions got many new and useful choices but no new twins as far as I can tell. So I guess this one is my second favourite book, balance-wise. Now, it would be interesting to consider what would've happened if the second and fourth books would've changed places. Would Storm of Shadows then be seen as the over-powered one with Rising Powers being a solid entry with some long-awaited new stuff? What do you think?

So that's only a couple of hours, then.

I believe the most common choices besides Taelor are Convict Gunslinger and Ronin. I'm also personally fond of McTavish.

5, but yeah, you're right that it is a bit low. Her great defensive asset, however, is the Riposte trigger and the ungodly damage she does. With a high cheated mask or a lucky SS flip she turns the defense into an attack. She also has 12 Wd, which is respectable. With a Guardian in tow she is supremely dangerous to try and kill in melee.

First of all, I agree that Hamelin is an extremely potent minion and should be prioritized. OK, your list is not something I would've chosen. 8 cache is where it's at. 7 is possible, but aim for 8 if possible. Never change a scheme into cache - you need VPs to win the games and having two schemes and one strategy means that your opponent has to worry about foiling more stuff that you're trying to do thus making things harder for him. I personally prefer Death Marshalls, Witchling Stalkers and Austringers to most 7SS Guild dudes, though Nino and Santiago are both good choices as well. Oh, and I love a Guardian. The idea here is that Vickys can kill stuff in melee quite easily. However, two Death Marshalls pose a problem. With proper positioning you should end up in a situation where either the opponent's dudes get shot by a DM or they deal with him and then get shot at by his partner. They do an awful lot of damage for 4SS minions, you see. Finally, though Perdita can certainly win and she is, I feel, the number one Master in Guild, I think that against Vickys LJ and Sonnia are both better. If supported by a Guardian, LJ can match Vickys in melee and Sonnia can limit their movement and blast them to pieces. In the latter case, preferably aim at your own Witchling Stalkers to blast the enemy away, starting with their crew and only then going for the Vicks themselves. Some ideas, anyway. ---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:05 PM ---------- Oh, one more thing. If the Vicky player is a friend of yours, I suggest talking to him. Ask him to field a bit less powerful list by taking some of the less-used minions like Bishop and Misaki. That should result in a better experience for both in that close games are more fun than one-sided ones and also allow him to use minis that he probably owns but doesn't use much. I'm a big fan of this sort of thing since it's educational for both and allows for a tight game with both still playing as good as possible since the "handicap" is in the list, so to speak. Alternatively you could try switching forces, which would be even more educational but of course requires a certain amount of trust, in a way.

Could you detail your and your opponent's crews, strategies and schemes? And maybe a bit about what happened - not a full battle report but some important turning points? I mean, Viks are nasty, especially the sword Vik in melee, but them dominating completely for several games sounds like there should be some stuff that could be done to alleviate that.