Math Mathonwy

Would this one work? Just replace the weapons with clawed hands:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Female-Werewolf-Tracker-Reaper-Miniatures-14617-/250864394380?_trksid=p4340.m263&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS%252BUFI%26otn%3D15%26pmod%3D250875939840%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D2372650627046820590#ht_1889wt_1163

For a more beastly look, this one might work (though I suppose it's a male): http://shop.dwarftales.com/index.php?products=product&prod_id=28

Does anyone have a suggestion for a Blessed of December model proxy. Hopefully one that will be easily recognisable as a were-woman.

I have a pretty sizable knowledge of minis but I don't have the book 3 yet, so any description?

1. Would you still take these models? Consider the cost? At 9 SS for 3 alps' date=' up to 18 for 6 (assuming someone doesn't take even more) , the damage output isn't all that impressive, is it? It's the fact one cannot avoid it which makes it good, not the #s. Models costing half that can go in 20ish damage with their triggers.[/quote']

If they keep their to the test, they are still extremely viable as it makes the WP duels uncheatable which is crazy huge. Are you willing to take the odds that you'll be taking when activating a WP 7 or less model with :-fate? As those are really shaky odds. Losing that AP, taking that damage - those are incredibly effects.

Furthermore, they are cheap, non-insignificant nightmares - that's huge for the Dreamer who is extremely good in doing certain schemes and strategies extremely quickly.

I would take away the extra tests and I would change the extra to a cumulative -1 to the test for multiple Alps. I realize that this is a huge cuddle, so I would add something back - a wound for example. And yes, this would take testing. And yes, I realize that this is somewhat unlikely to happen. The resistance from the NB player base alone would be tremendous.

They're called Soft Sciences for a reason.

I'm a Master of Science doing my phd currently, but I still respect humanities and even think that their methods are more applicable to things like this.

But my larger point is this: Without a definitive set of parameters agreed upon by everyone involved, tiers are a useless set of guidelines.

I don't agree. Tiers are used in other games and just as nebulously. I just think that your expectations for tiers might be too high. They aren't an exact science - they're an observable tendency.

I do agree that tiering in Malifaux isn't as exact as in many other games currently. In games with a longer tournament history and with a bigger player base tiers can be very well established and a useful gauge.

Still, I posit that Dreamer is Tier 1. Colette, Kirai, Hamelin and Pandora as well. Perdita and Zoraida I would personally also put there, but I can see debate on those choices and because of that, I think that they should be put to tier 1.5 along with Levi and Vickys. The rest of the Masters tend to be tier 2 with maybe a couple of Henchmen on tier 3 (going with calmdown's tiering that is the one I'm more familiar with - tier 1 being the top guys, tier 1.5 being the almost top guys and tier 2 being the guys that can win tournaments but don't do so quite as often with tier 3 being the guys that win tournaments only extremely rarely).

Folks, let's try to keep in mind that opinions are not facts, they're opinions - before another thread gets derailed in a useless argument.

This thread started out as something funny and is starting to degenerate.

I see no degeneration. I see an intelligent debate. Jonas is one of the most awesome guys here, I respect him immensely. His funny posts are funny (I consider him the funniest poster here by a very large margin) and his serious posts are thought-provoking. Absolutely no bad blood here!

Maybe it's the avatars that make us both look so serious

Finally, congrats on another victory, ukrocky.

Sure, we can trundle out the old "Perfection is the enemy of good" whrrgrble, but the alternative here is that we allow anecdote in the place of data.

Most of the human world is divided like that. You don't need exact measurements and tons of hard data to compare things semi-accurately. I don't know of any game where tier data would be available in a way that would satisfy hard science scrutiny. OTOH, soft sciences (humanities) do stuff like this all the time.

If no precision is required, what is the use of tiers other than just the vanity of players with competing narratives?

Tiers can be used as a rough gauge of how a game is likely to go if the players are approximately evenly matched skill-wise. Tiers can also be used to balance things as needed and to inform people new to the game on what they should get if they want a crew that's not handicapped in tournaments (or if they wish to be).

I get the feeling that you're taking this tier thing way too seriously.

The issue with trying to determine tier is as follows.

The first barrier is that everyone in this thread is using they're own, undefined criteria for how their ranking everyone. This is additionally being colored by their own experience, and maybe even by some odd stuff like fluff and ego.

The Second is that a Master's ability cannot be measured in a vacuum. In any game of Malifaux, the choice of crew determines the vectors by which the player can interact with the game. Each Encounter is a hybrid of the options built into a crew and the decisions made by the player. The Mutability of a Master's potential per Encounter is staggeringly big.

This means that the only real way to test for ranking is to take two players of identical decision making ability and have them run a series of games using every combination of crew for every Master, every combination of Strategey (Combined and Individual) and Scheme.

Everything else is wanton speculation.

Eh, that's a common misconception that unless you have all the data and the data is perfect you can't make any sort of use of data. It's, of course, a fallacy.

In any game, talk about tiers is not meant to be a claim of that level of precision. Tau really, really are lower tier than Grey Knights. No ifs and buts about it. And even if a random dude, let's call him "Craig", wins with Tau all the games that he plays that doesn't mean that they are suddenly tier 1. Because tiers aren't about Craig. They are about the experiences of a sizable number of tournament gamers.

So yeah, I'm pretty confident in saying that Dreamer is on a different tier to Marcus (or, hell, Molly, if you want to give Marcus the benefit of the doubt because ukrocky wins every match he plays).

Now, the exact tiering is of course an unexact science but everyone knows that (or at least should know that) and take all such tierings with a grain of salt.

Tier 1) Guild

Tier 100000000000) Everyone else

Tier Marcus) Marcus

GUILD DOMINATION!

YEAR OF THE RAM!

End of line

Are you seriously going to keep doing this for a full year? Because man... It was amusing the first time or two but you're laying it a bit thick.

Is there a reason to take Samael instead of Nino, though?

nekima can be killed very easy, and lilitu, she gets 2wd in the resolve effect phase, so if you can damage her in turn 2 with 3 damage, she is dead,

I believe the idea to grow a Lelu.

those are more for collidi, they +2wp really is annoying

Huh? They work brilliantly in every Neverborn crew. The fog is such an insanely powerful ability against nearly everything and that's just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to Stitcheds. Lilith is the only NB Master who should even think of building a crew without one or two Stitcheds and even she can make use of them.

Any Neverborn: Stitched Togethers (best model in the game, basically)

The game is balanced faction against faction - you should pick up Vickys or Hamelin against the Dreamer. I don't think that Ophelia can really win the Dreamer if Dreamer player has even the faintest clue of what he's doing.

A good Dreamer player should neutralize Pere really easily, for example.

Have you noticed that Ophelia has paired, btw? She is extremely killy herself but unfortunately the Dreamer crew has perfect counter to her (and her whole crew) in the form of Stitcheds (and Terrifying, but Stitcheds are the real culprit in, when well-played, effectively neutering Ophelia's crew completely).

That's extremely awesome! Loving the glint work and the colour scheme works really well. The battle damage is executed very well. Be sure to take some photos once you get him based!

Shame about the bent sword, though - didn't boiled water-cool water treatment help?

If I have understood correctly, you aren't supposed to win with McM against Pandora and everything is working as intended. You shouldn't choose McM when knowing that you face Neverborn (since you might be facing Pandora). It's a bit like in other games making a really stupid move at the beginning except that in Malifaux that "move" is done well before the game begins. It's a bit like asking help in WHFB for a situation where you deployed your whole army backwards or something.

So my idea for this match-up is simply "don't". I'm actually hard-pressed to imagine a strategy and match-up where taking McM instead of one of the other three Resser Masters would be a good idea but this game is balanced on the faction level so it's all good.

But OK, let's say that you've made the huge blunder of taking McM.

Since Nekima can't companion the Lilitu, you have a chance to react before the lure chain hits. Is Nekima's ability an aura or a pulse? I don't have the book at hand currently, but I seem to recall it being an aura? Which would allow you to lure one component off position, right? This defaults to my belief that Belles are the Resser answer to almost all specific problem scenarios, but it would be worth a shot I think. All in all, Pandora has lots of things going on that need somewhat exact positioning and Belles are really good in messing that up.

Wow.

You clearly have no idea how to play this game.

I can see why your constant attacks on me have been so brutally ignorant.

I haven't even been able to read the third book and I already know more about the models than you.

Don't post this rubbish on the forums please.

Even though I'm not 100% convinced that Calmdown is correct in his assessment about the models, his post was infinitely better than yours was.

Dead Doxy is going to be money in a Seamus + Molly list. 9" walks due to Belles of the Ball and Extraordinary Dead. She will almost always get her Inviting Approach/Seduction chain off with that kind of movement.

Not sure how often I would go for that 9" walk but other than that I agree that she seems very interesting on paper. The switching places thing is very nice in some situations and I can see great utility for the model.

A somewhat weird idea would be using that for a Moleman - they are really rather awesome except for their really slow speed. And they're certainly something you can leave unsupported in the middle of the enemy since as long as the enemy is hitting them, they aren't doing anything more productive.

At the moment I started the game my Df was squarely between 5 and 9 across the board. It'd be between 3 and 7 for other masters' date=' but then other masters have different buffs (nurses for example).[/quote']

o_O I... honestly don't know how to even answer this. *shakes head*

Edit: do you assume Guild Cbs to be all sevens and nines since Lady Justice can do Inspiring Swordplay? And Belle's movement is nine since Seamus and Molly can get them to move faster? Do you honestly think that that makes for a meaningful comparison?

but both Df and Wp of the NB minions hover around 4, which is sometimes described as the lowest meaningful value in this game.

Rezzers, my other faction, tends to hover between 5 and 7 with WP and 5~9 in Df (especially when boosted by some of their buffs).

You can't be serious. You are honestly, with a straight face, claiming that Ressers have, on average, 2.5 more Df than Neverborn? Wow. And yeah, I know that you tend to calculate Nico's +2 aura every time you're discussing the capablities of Ressers, but come on! That's just ridiculously disingenuous.

You keep making these "how things should be compared and proven" posts yet your own level of discourse is that??

Not only are we debating the balance of a book that nobody here could possibly have gotten significant play time in with but, amazingly, everyone is still on the exact same side of the debate after having experienced it.

I think we really have given up on trying to lend any sort of actual experience or real evidence to this argument, and it has just become a dogmatic pursuit on both sides.

I almost get the feeling people are sitting there, sifting through the book they must have just gotten looking for things to support their arguments.

Dude, there was one person who said anything about balance in book three and that was mostly about pointing out a trend. No one else said anything else of consequence about book 3 (Karn said something, I replied to him - neither of the posts was saying that book 3 is broken or anything like that).

Please stop trying to make silly strawmen and paint all of your opposition with a big brush only because it suits your argument (or here, apparently, your sense of superiority or something like that as there doesn't seem to be a real argument there) - it doesn't reflect well on you.

The 5 - 6ss slot is very heavily contested for the faction and here is Iggy adding to the mix.

Is that supposed to be a negative now? Wow.

Unless one, again, considers having options dangerous since bad players can make bad choices.

Triggers are declared by the model with the lowest total first, or the defender in a draw. Not that that bit is relevant here.

Triggers are done before duel effects are applied.

So:

You do the duel and get totals. Chompy hits.

Belle declares a trigger (none)

Chompy declares a trigger (All Done) and everything buries.

The effects of the duel are applied (damage to the Belle).

Belle dies, she gets a StD action. Chompy is not in play at this point.

All there in the rules manual. Pg 28.

Thank you!

That's how we played but couldn't find whether triggers by default resolve when they've been triggered or at the end of the effect.

If the change means they disappear forever from the tables' date=' then it clearly isn't a good change.[/quote']

Naturally.

I realize that this is an example and engaging it is a bit beside the point so I will address the larger issue as well, but just a couple of things:

1) Belle's lure is so much more than just getting models into Seamus's range. I mean, that's the most obvious use, but also one of the weakest. All in all, Seamus's gun, though doing nice damage is a bit of a red herring really. His power is elsewhere and focusing on the gun leads to defeat.

Lure allows you to disrupt enemy synergies, mess up their strategies and schemes, isolate targets, move your own models, clumping the enemy up for AoE, mess with people through clever use of terrain and so much more besides. Lining models up for a shot is very far down the list.

2) The point of "giving the opponent a free move to engage your crew" is that you choose the model you give the free move to. Rami really doesn't want a free move to engage your crew, he's quite happy being 16" away, thank you very much. Even in the case of combat monsters, you can get them isolated and lure them once they have been activated and then gang up on them with your beatsticks. Lilitu even comes paired with her own beatstick with a completely crazy damage table (on par with Seamus's and usable multiple times per round).

All in all a lot of defense of NB seems to revolve around the idea that giving options can be a double edged sword since the player can do completely stupid things with those options. Which seems like an extremely weird argument. Giving options is basically always a bonus since even mediocre players will avoid doing completely silly things with them.

As for the real meat of the post (as opposed to a single, flawed example), of course it will take some forethought to make the cuddles in a way that doesn't make the models useless. That goes without saying. But the suggestions I've seen (for example, the ones in the OP) are very conservative. Stitched are crazy good even if you were able to get VPs from them in Slaughter. If someone leaves them on the shelf because of that... well, mission accomplished, I guess, as right now they are a complete no-brainer choice.

So, the Ophelia thing totally works.

:(

Arguably' date=' the Book 1 Neverborn models were the most specialised of the lot. While many Arcanist, Guild and Ressurectionist masters exchanged their minions freely, Lilith has been locked into Nephilim crew with Waldgeist as an option, Pandora was all into Woes and only Zoraida had some hiring freedom.[/quote']

Arcanists were about the same. Outcasts were even more rigid. Only Ressers and Guild had wide interoperability. Book 2 came up with Stitcheds, Insidious and Lelu and Lilitu - all top tier models that work with all NB masters.

But the point was that Malifaux seems to be operating quite highly on the idea that there are "proper" places for many of the models and using them outside of their designated Master will seem them performing under their full capabilities. Which IMO is a far better idea than making them work very well for all and broken-good for one Master, which would be the other possibility.

So if Alps are too good under the Dreamer, they should be cuddled no matter if that makes them a sub-par choice for other Masters as that is how all the other highly synergistic models work. Getting the full use out of Coppelius under Hoffman isn't as easy as under Dreamer but it isn't supposed to be.

Alps taken with other master are not un-balanced so Cuddling them just because the dreamer can drop them anywhere is detrimental to those who take them with other masters.

How is that a problem? There's loads of minions that are weak at best unless they are in a crew with a specific Master. I would go so far as to say that that sort of forced synergy has been one of the most important design philosophies of Malifaux since the beginning. Now, the fact that Neverborn tend to have their most powerful models being awesome under every master doesn't make it so that every one of the their minions should be that way.

All in all, trying to balance the minions to be worthwhile with every Master while having huge synergy bonuses with one is a fool's errand at best and extremely harmful at worst.

Making Ice Gamin worth it for Colette is something that I'm not at all interested in.