Math Mathonwy

Alp Bomb OP end of

You're in such a hurry to up your post count that you can't post even semi-coherently anymore?

Edit: that sounded harsher than meant - it was intended in jest.

I do it all the time with Shikome, because very often there is an angle of approach the Shikome can take advantage of to get into melee with just the dreamer and not one of his bodyguards, and then take at least one swing via her Fast ability.

You do know that as long as Dreamer is withing 3" of a Nightmare, you can't melee him - you melee the Nightmare even if it is outside of your melee range (and therefore the strike fails)? If coupled with a Stitched, Dreamer is completely unkillable for a turn.

Necropunks might have been an unnecessary investment though. They are no fighters and I'd take them only with a master who can replace them with more fighty stuff later on. I suppose the Strategy was the reason to take them (you don't mention what it was).

My strat was Reconnoiter (IIRC - the one where you take table quarters) - so I figured I needed speed and numbers. Also, Necropunks were actually really good in that Hard Kill makes them durable and their low damage is still sorta enough to kill Alps. Besides, their Slow really nullified one Stitched for a turn when I killed it and it got Reactivate. The problem with Necropunks was their low Wp which meant that Stitcheds targeted them to ruin my hand. OTOH, one more Wp wouldn't have made a difference in the duels that I remember on that front.

His strat was the one to keep my Master from his side of the table.

As for Bête, for her to do nothing or very little is clearly bad luck.

Aye. OTOH her killing LCB was kind of a long-shot (I still decided to try as my opponent had the Bodyguard scheme on LCB) so her performance wasn't a big blow either way.

Considering you expect to be on the receiving end of the bomb, taking a Crooked Man and a second Zombie could've worked better. Especially that area denial seems to be one of important tools against the Dreamer.

Crooked Men might've been a good choice, indeed.

Yeah, I have yet to face said alp bomb, but fortunately, it seems like my main faction, outcasts, is in a pretty good spot to deal with them.

Levi- Has a lot of tricks and access to any construct with an AoE.

Hamelin- Irresistible Lure, bye bye alp bomb.

Gremlins- Pere Ravage/Pull My Finger.

Mercs- Specialist.

I feel that having one model (Pere or Specialist) or two that can deal nicely with Alp bomb is not enough as LCB can so easily kill any model and putting them both into a position to counter the bomb effectively is not easy.

#1: Seamus is going to die.

This is a very good point. I'm not used to it (my Seamus has died once prior to this game) as usually Seamus is one of the most durable Masters. Unfortunately Dreamer nullifies so many of his tricks and has such absolute battlefield control that yeah, I should change my plans accordingly. I kinda realized that but hadn't truly vocalized or internalized it. Thank you for pointing it out explicitly!

#2: Use strikes that are not strikes if you can. I'm not 100% certain on this one but I remember alot of discussion going on about wether a Focused Strike on an Alp would trigger the dmg chain, and about whether abilities that granted a strike did the same thing. So if they do in fact get around the dmg chain these are the attacks you need to make against an alp. Use Lure even if you are in b2b to get the strike that might not trigger the multiple dmg chain against you. If you get lucky and avoid having the activating model slowed, focus strike whatever you are going at to increase the odds of killing an alp and stay alive doing it.

Aye, but as you acknowledge, slow really hampers this. And since the flips cannot be cheated I can never be sure of activating a model non-slowly and that really, really crimps my style.

I'm all about minimizing the effects of chance and that philosophy has served me well in all other games and in all other Malifaux match ups.

#3: Bring models the alp bomb is susceptible to. This one I'll admit you can't do in a tourney or according to the rules of the game as written, because in theory you don't know you are facing the alp bomb until it shows up after you have selected your crew, and many of the models I'd recommend bringing aren't usually included in a Seamus crew unless you know you are facing the bomb. The Drowned and a Shikome or two being my favorites.

I already weigh the odds in my favour by choosing Seamus instead of, for example, Ophelia

#4: Be lucky. This one obviously you can't achieve by anything other then getting good cards and flips, but you can help influence it by being very attentive. As I said the Dreamer is no easy win button, he does require careful play and a critical understanding of positioning and timing. Watch the Dreamer like a hawk and be prepared to punish him as mercilessly as you are able to for the smallest error in either department he makes.

You might be over-estimating the results of Dreamer mistakes. He is actually sorta forgiving by having such a huge cache and such super easy mobility for the whole crew.

Even the squishiness thing is over-stated I feel. LCB isn't squishy, Dreamer is almost unkillable if a modicum of care is employed in positioning him (seriously, not difficult), Stitcheds are very durable in a way, Daydreams are squishy but cheap and easy to hide/keep out of reach due to float and Coppelius is average durability. Alps have poor defenses, but their special abilities make them also non-trivial to kill.

In closing, a very well written post, Strumpet, thank you for that! Gave me stuff to think about.

Short of seeing terrain its very hard to say what would work better.

Some suggestions.

Aggressively target daydreams. they are the mobility of the force.

Aye, I tried to kill them ASAP but they are extremely easy to hide due to float.

From Chompybits, only really try to stop onslaught attacks against your master. You're going to take damage, and so try and pick when. It still might not work, but is the best use of your resources against him.

It is, but those Flays hit like a ton of bricks, too. Since he can appear into close combat so easily, he gets three attacks guaranteed, has paired and better Cb than Seamus' Def and a bigger cache.

Use your extra activations in the early turns to arrange your set up in such a way that there aren't ideal spots for the alps and stiched.

That's seriously easier said than done.

In your game you were largely killed by Chompybits from the sound of it.

Alps seemed to have done very little.

Don't get me wrong its very hard to counter this still, but its not an alp bomb here that you are struggling with, its a general dreamer crew.

Slow is a crazy huge effect. It more than halves the effectivity of a model since it denies things such as flurry and charge actions and really gimped my models. Alps did some wounds but didn't really kill anything except maybe a Necropunk and Seamus (when he had only one wound left), but slowing is the big thing and it's almost impossible to avoid. In Seamus' case I had bad luck since I flipped an ace and then the soulstone brought a three but the whole rest of my crew was way more likely to fail than to succeed in the tests and once slowed, only the Samurai is relatively assured of killing an Alp (let alone a Stitched).

I did leave out stuff (like Stitcheds ruining my hand) since it didn't seem all that important. LCB killed two models (Necropunk and Bete) plus basically Seamus, so not that much all in all compared to what he could have done.

A quick transcript of my first loss. I had Seamus, 3x Necropunks, a Belle, Sybelle, a Punk Samurai and Bete. My opponent had Dreamer, 3x Daydreams, 3x Alps, Coppelius and 2x Stitcheds.

First turn he gets into position behind a building, I spread out in anticipation of the three Alps keeping the Belle to one side and Sybelle on the other so as to keep one out of the bubble of doom with Seamus in the middle.

Second turn starts with a Necropunk leaping to melee the Dreamer - he burns soulstones and suffers no damage. Dreamer paralyzes the punk, flies to me, pops the bomb, turns into LCB and almost kills Seamus burning through my cache and hand in the process. Seamus activates, gets damaged further by Smother, casts Psychosis on an Alp, Coppelius and a Stitched. Can't do much more as the Alp means that meleeing is a death-sentence and there is nowhere to go. Companions the Belle who fails the WP duel and then lures Coppelius to be between her and the Samurai zombie as Alps were situated so that they couldn't be lured.

Stitched or Alp (can't remember which one) activates and kills Seamus. The psychosied Nightmares fail to do anything and the Necropunks and Sybelle kill an Alp and damage a Stitched. Samurai kills an Alp.

Next turn, Samurai kills Coppelius and dies in return. LCB kills something, Bete pops out but whiffs three times against LCB and dies next turn (didn't draw a single 10+ card that turn, but managed to Mark for Death LCB). The rest of my force runs away to perform the strategy and the scheme with one Necropunk keeping LCB occupied. I lose 4-6 and I seriously failed to see what I could've done differently.

Does LCB need to test for Mark for Death even if he is buried at the end of the game, btw? If not, then I lost 4-8. Oh, and we played with only one test for multiple Alps as, even though I argued it to be multiple tests, my opponent said that it's insane and that Alps are quite broken enough with just one test. And this was with just three Alps, not a "proper" bomb, mind.

By placing the Alps and Stitcheds intelligently, my opponent made it impossible for me to move them away/destroy them efficiently and it's seriously pretty easy to do unless the playing area completely lacks terrain.

It's correct, you only make 1 Wp duel no matter how many Alps are around you. You just suffer the for each Alp around. It was cleared up a looonngg time ago when Book 2 hit shelves, though the ruling is apparently gone or burried to deep in old stuff.

There's a thread about it from September 2010 and that received no official answer. So are you absolutely sure that there was a prior thread that has somehow vanished (and that you didn't link to in the September thread) or do you just remember your own argument from that thread?

You realise you only have to take a single Wp duel regardless of how many Alps are there right? (sorry if you do but 'at least once' made me want to check)

Even though the ability says "one or more Alps" each Alp has it, so it triggers for every one of them. Or that's my reading. I could only find one thread on the rules forum about and it was never answered by a Rules Marshall.

Edit: Q also seems to agree with my reading.

The way try to beat alp bombs is to not walk or strike, assuming you can pass/live through the initial WP duel. Instead, Charge, or use abilities or spells that are not strikes.

Unfortunately, since avoiding getting slowed at least once is almost impossible, charging tends to use up too many AP.

But beating Alp Bombs is honestly not easy. Most people who tell you it can be done are playing against players who aren't using them right. There really is no effective answer to them except with some very specific models, most of which are masters. Even if you kill them all, they're going to maul your crew with wounds. They're incredibly powerful. That they also happen to be dropped by the biggest combat monster in the game... well, we all know the math.

Oh, and while your crew is being mauled with unavoidable wounds and a giant four armed monster, they also have to deal with an attrition unit that can't be effectively killed and will ruin your control hand.

Welcome to Dreamerfaux.

This is kinda my experience.

With Seamus, make two camps with belles and lure the most important target out of the bomb?

I've never faced an alp bomb, so clearly, I'm just speculating.

Aye, that is what I tried, but Stitcheds can block Luring sorta effectively (the fog area that is deep enough to block is huge when you need to see to the other side of the fog). It's also kinda hard to have enough Belles to make this really work (it would need four - two in each group - and that is stretching it a bit especially as Seamus himself is so squishy to LCB assault trying to go against paired onslaught-triggered claws with his low def).

Many of the suggestion seem to be missing the key ingredient in the problem - an intelligent Alp bomb. The Dreamer player is in charge and can mitigate the effects of AoE through clever placement. Only very few death explosions match Alp's range of 3". The same is true of many AoE pulses. Ranged AoE attacks can be handled through putting the Alp (or some other Nightmare like LCB or Stitched) into melee with the ranged model. Stitcheds can be used to wall off possible retaliation routes to the bomb and so on.

This all happens in the Dreamer's terms. He gets to choose when and where he deploys the bomb. Experiences like Drake's simply highlight that the Dreamer player wasn't very smart and those sorts of stories aren't useful to me however amusing they may be.

Furthermore, discussing the Alp bomb divorced from the reality that it is accompanied by Stitcheds and the LCB makes the discussion utterly useless.

The psychological aspect stuff I've always considered complete crock as I'm honestly convinced that I'll lose 90% of the games going in yet my win percentage is something ridiculous and well over 90. Maybe I'm a well-functioning pessimist or something.

As for the crew, let's say Seamus as he's the Master I've played the most, and the only game I've ever lost with him was against the Dreamer (so I like to think that I know what I'm doing with him).

How are you supposed to survive an intelligently deployed Alp bomb? Six Alps is only 18SS so very affordable and still leaves room for Daydreams and Stitcheds and whatnot.

If you clump together, you die.

You can spread out, but unless the playing field is a featureless plain and the strategy involves no fixed objectives, you need to group a bit and since Alps have silly long ranges it's pretty trivial to, in a real gaming situation, have three or four Alps on every enemy model that matters. Besides, you probably have some sort of synergy that you could take advantage of it you're a bit closer to one another, so spreading out too far makes your crew really useless.

Finally, you can form small teams of two and three models. This means about three teams and Alps can still cover two of those easy. The last one can be blocked off through Stitcheds.

So now you're in a situation that activating a model kills it with extremely high odds regardless of it's Wp (Zoraida is the sole exception, basically). The only one who has an OK chance of surviving activation is your Master. Now, since Chompybits is so killy, he might've already mauled your Master enough so that they die to activation. If not, you've likely used terrain and your other models to shield your Master (well done! It's extremely difficult to pull off with the ridiculous melee range of LCB), which means that your slowed Master can probably kill only one Alp. Which doesn't solve the problem and your crew is still doomed.

So yeah, is there a way to consistently beat an intelligent Alp bomb?

Firstly when building a list, you need to make the decision; do I want to make my own corpse counters, or do I want to get them from the enemy? A lot of Rezzer players take dogs and spend a turn killing them, getting lots of corpse counters at the cost of SS and also the cost of a turn. That's normally bad as it puts you on the back foot.

Datsue-Ba actually seems like she might be a valid alternative that doesn't slow down the crew by quite as much.

Two Canines and Datsue. First canine activates and damages the second one without killing him. Second one activates and does the same to the first one. Then, Datsue kills them both and turns them into corpse counters and Gaki/Onryo depending on cards. These fresh Gaki/Onryo can move straight away, so the slow down in minimized. Finally, Chihuahua or someone can pick up the corpse counters so the slow down to the Master is minimized as well.

The end result is two corpses, two spirit minions and a pretty nice activation sequence on the first turn giving you the possibility to react to enemy movement as you are likely to out-activate them on the first turn (though there are some exceptions).

I haven't tried this in practice (and my Rising Powers is loaned away currently) so this is all theory but it sounds nice enough on paper I think.

I think you'll find only a few pages in I conceded the point and accepted the difference between what I thought and the majority thought. My posting since has only been in response to people misquoting my earlier posts or when people directly quote me etc.

So thanks for your constructive input there mate.

I believe that jty3's post was in response to ispep, actually (it would make more sense that way).

There's a mama rat and a papa rat who love each other very, very much, and they perform a special hug. After three weeks have passed, mama rat gives birth to a litter of tiny little rat cubs.

If I cared about any ones delicate snowflake feelings, I'd sugar coat my posts. I don't care, so I'm not going to be polite just for you.

Which means that you calling others out for "classy" is complete crock.

Correct, a painting competition is indeed a competition for painting. This isn't about those though, this is about a gaming competition that recognizes the best looking models, regardless of who painted them or how much they paid for it.

Sure, if you change the definition arbitrarily you might convince yourself that what you're saying is somehow valid. You also convinced me that there is zero reason for me to try to engage you.

Really burying your own models is its best use and using marshal as a delivery system.

How does this really work, btw? I mean, it's a (2) action, so first turn you don't move. Second turn, you move, but Marshalls really aren't super fast. So it's only on turn three that you are likely in range of the enemy and then that's only if they don't kill the DM. I feel like I'm missing something very obvious that makes the DMs move faster.

Take Neverborn against him.

My primary intent is not to derail the thread or provoke anyone into an emotional response. I couldn't care less if anyone has any response, emotional or otherwise.

Which is why you throw out those "low blows" that you admitted to doing?

Seriously, if you're interested in a real conversation, lay off of those. This is something that every human adult should be aware of and I'm dumbstruck that I need to spell something like this out.

But OK, I'll take you at your word (against my better judgement) - perhaps Soundwave has it right and you're misunderstood - and will now engage your points.

What I see is people complaining that someone else has a perceived advantage because that someone else spent money that they wouldn't. This isn't the case, as either way you are investing something in the painted figures, whether it is money or time.

People are saying that a painting competition is a painting competition as opposed to a money-earning competition (that you seemingly wish it to be).

If you were confident in your painting skills, you wouldn't care whether someone paid to have their army painted.

This is a fallacy. Unless I'm delusional enough to think that I'm one of the top ten painters in the world, I know that money can buy better painting standard than what I have. Nothing to do with confidence, really (unless you define confidence in a way that makes it an extremely negative trait to have, I guess).

If you had money to spend on having your minis painted by someone else, you also wouldn't complain.

This is fallacy. I certainly have a thousand euros that I could burn to get a very talented pro to paint the twenty Malifaux that are needed for a competitive crew. But I don't because I like to paint my own models. To me, minis wargaming is a multi-faceted hobby that includes painting and I enjoy that. If I didn't enjoy painting, I would play other games.

The bottom line is - you enter a tournament (and perhaps even pay for the privilege) to play games and, as a side thing, have a shot at all the prizes including the best painted. If you don't enter the tournament, why should you be eligible for the prizes?

As said, you don't crown ukrocky champion in tournaments he doesn't take part in so why should you crown commission painter X the best painter in tournaments that he doesn't participate in?

So, what's up with this new trend about dismissing posts as "trolling" when it doesn't sit right with your own reality tunnel?

Valid points were raised that ispep chose to ignore demanding yet more valid points and at the same time throwing out random veiled insults and strawmen. If that isn't trolling, I don't know what is.

Or are you honestly of the opinion that comments in the vein of "All of you people who are so worried about a commissioned crew beating you must be pretty bad painters." are somehow valid points of view expressed in all sincerity?

It has NOTHING to do with who pays what. It is about how one chooses to use their time. You spend a month painting your crew, Jack over there will wait a month for the painter to finish and do other things like work or family or whatever while the painter does his thing. Just because someone pays to have their crew in a miniature tournament, not a painting competition, painted by someone else, that does not diminish any one who wants to waste all their time paintings work.

All of you people who are so worried about a commissioned crew beating you must be pretty bad painters.

I'm still waiting for a valid reason why a crew that was painted by commission is somehow less great looking than one someone painted themselves.

"I'm jealous he has more disposable income than me" isn't a valid reason.

Way to keep it classy. Can't think of a comeback so just completely change the thread.

Dude... I can't believe that someone could contradict oneself that much in three consecutive posts so I can only draw the conclusion that you're trolling.

As a little extra what would do you think the best varnish is on the market? I prefer a mat/satin finish

All the US people seem to love Dullcote. Another good one is Army Painter's - it's somewhat temperamental so be sure to shake the can extremely well and avoid spraying in humid conditions, but that goes for all spray varnishes, really.

i am in the middle of a dispute with GW as their spray wrecked some models (26 hours of my life wasted!)

How did it wreck them? If there's dusting (like a fine, white mist on them), then they can still be saved by applying a second coat of varnish (maybe even play it safe and use paint-on stuff - I like Vallejo's matt varnish).

It's not so much "I" should win, let me reiterate that this was never about me wanting to win but more about not understanding whether it was the crew or the painter that was being judged and objecting to being excluded based on thinking it was the crew being judged. I'm totally cool with the consensus now I know it's about the Painter, not the Painted.

Go back, read my initial post(s) and you'll see what I mean [and no, there's no edits ]

I believe it was these sorts of posts that kinda muddled the issue:

And working to earn money, finding a painter, giving them ideas for the look I want and then paying them with money I could spend on beer and women instead doesn't count as effort?

If they came pre-painted or I won them or something fair enough, but when I've had to pay for the work to be done I reckon that equals effort.

It seemed pretty clear that you thought that getting them painted was effort enough to see you win the 'best painted'.

Finally, I must say that I really appreciate every self-painted force. No matter how it looks, you have put work in it and I appreciate that. Everyone can learn to paint at a nice level. If your motor control allows you to move the minis on the table, you can learn to paint. There's a million shortcuts that allow for great looking crews to be painted in a single afternoon by a complete newbie if need be.

That doesn't mean that I'm vehemently opposed to "pro painted" stuff. Just that I, naturally, have no appreciation of the player's painting skill then, and I feel that something is then sorta missing from the full experience.

She has a Def 6 and 11 Wds, plus with all her card manipulation it is a safe assumption that she will usually have more cards than you. I think you and I have different definitions of what easy is. I mean come on she's Neve....

:hypnotize

- Y e s Z o r a i d a ' s A v a t a r I s V e r y F a i r. I n F a c t I T h i n k Y o u G e t F a r T o o L i t t l e F o r H e r C o s t. Z o r a i d a ' s A v a t a r S h o u l d B e F r e e , A n d R e q u i r e N o M a n i f e s t a t i o n C o s t. A l l G l o r y T o Z o r a i d a. -

That was seriously extremely funny!

:clap::clap::clap:

Same. Though even with the higher Dmg line I still didn't feel her Avatar was worthwhile. As much as I'm disappointed personally by her avatar I recognize it is for purely selfish reasons, as she is one of my favorite characters in the game. As Kirai is one of the stronger masters in the game I can't exactly be sorry her avatar doesn't offer her more solid choices. Other than for the previously stated selfish reasons.

That sounds like a really stupid way of balancing things, though. I mean, the idea that they give the good Masters useless avatars strikes me as extremely silly and I really doubt that that was the aim of the developers. All in all, models that won't ever be used is a bad idea all round and doesn't really balance anything.

Actually, Cassandra would be interesting, though Showgirl-wise I'm not sure what other theater characters we haven't seen yet. The only ones I can think of are maybe a bartender and various backstage workers/performers. The ones who aren't on stage as much-- they still sing and dance, sure, but mostly just get stuff done.

We could see a juggler/knife thrower, an acrobat, or perhaps a bearded lady. Oh, wait. Maybe not that last one.

A bit more circus than cabaret but OTOH there's already stage magic and fire breathing so the line is somewhat blurry already.

I guess this would pertain to Tuesday specifically. Why would Cassandra need a upgrade? She already has use ss. She doesn't need anything else. She is by no means lacking in any department at the moment so why would you feel she needs upgraded to hencmen/master?

The obvious thing that springs to mind is that then she could lead the crew.