hannibal

Follow up question on Hans: his sniper ability lets him ignore intervening models for targeting. How does this work for shooting into melee? Does this mean he doesn't have to randomize who gets hit?

And who says you have to mimic your enemies? Imagine a doppleganger borrowing Pandora's self-loathing & casting expert. Or borrow Teddy's Bite attack and Hard to Wound 2. Frankly, I see the Doppleganger as the tool-kit model for the Neverborn faction.

For now, I'm willing to give Wyrd the benefit of the doubt. Rules writing is very hard, as you have to strike the balance of page space vs clarity with a language that has multiple meanings for each word. I mean, for example, look at the thread regarding the word "Towards" as an example. Even if you do everything right, you can still have people interpreting things weird. And that's if you get it right. It's amazing how some combos just aren't visualized. I'll give you an example: I was doing some rules writing for this small company where we were adding specialty units. There was this one model that was a low level character, a duelist type. I personally played 8-10 games with this model in the army and then handed it over to another group (in another state with its own conventions) who played another 8-10 games. We were all happy with it, made a few tweaks here and there, and then published it. Less than a week into publishing a friend of mine put the duellist into a unit, saying "she makes a really good & cost efficient unit commander." My response was "you can't do that." To which he replied that it didn't say that. I was simply stunned. The model was called a duellist, all her story was about single combat, all her neat stuff was when facing single models. But he was right. Despite all that, I did not write anywhere a simple line about her not being able to join units. And in 15-20 games between my gaming group, another gaming group, and the head rules writer of the company it never came up. And so, out came an errata fixing what was a simple and bone-headed omission on my part. All because I started with a certain assumption in mind. And I promise you, I've worked with enough game companies out there to know that this happens a lot. You'd be amazed how many people, when exposed to the meta-concept of a unit/model, never try using that model against the intended concept. They're not Cuddling them. They're bringing them back in line with the others. The ability as it stood allowed the Resurrectionists to play with 33% to 50% more soulstones than their opponent. And nothing you say will convince me that having 50% more stuff than my opponent is fair.

Remember, undead models generate corpse counters, as do living ones. So what this allows the Resurrectionists to do is bring back models as other undead. Essentially they now "heal" their warband. Before, when Graverobbers could conjure corpse counters from nothing it allowed the Resurrectioniststo have a (big) net increase in the game. In essence, a Nicodem list could gain two flesh Construct early in the game, a net increase of 14 soulstones. Imagine playing a 30SS game where your opponent has 45 SS worth of stuff. That is what they prevented.

I'd be happy with this. I think it'd be easier to just add a line that says "Sacrifice this model." That'd prevent triggering Boom and it'd also not leave any corpse counters. Which makes sense since he's basically the epicenter of the blast and unless you intend to raise a the dread Blender Mist Wraith, there's not gonna be enough parts to make anyone. (actually the no corpse counters is just a side effect. Putting in sacrifice simply does what you'd like within the existing rules; either idea works just fine)

Except Take Ya With me requires him to be at 7+ wounds. On an 8 wound model that's much harder than it looks. Especially with how many weapons inflict 2 wounds on their weak damage. I'm all for learning to use a model effectively, but really, this is a guy who should be able to blow himself up. From a game use perspective and from a story perspective.

As Kealios said, we've been doing a lot of 30 SS games. I'd like to go up to 35 SS but might even consider 45. It would let me take Ramos and the Steamborg in one list along with all the needed arachnids.

They can't multiply with Som'er Teeth. With a Zoraida force, you don't have "Git yer Bro." I dunno, I figured the boomstick would be fun to run 8-10 times...

You know, I'm the first grouse when there's something I don't like, so it only seems right for me say thanks for being willing to make changes when you see problems. There's no way to say that without sounding like a fanboi, but it's true. I've met games designers who refuses to see a problem as it stared them in the face. So I'll say that 1) I think the change is a good one and 2) its cool that you're willing to take good, hard looks at your own creation for the warts. Now. . . Papa Loco . . ? Seriously, P'Loc needs to be able to blow himself up . . .

Huh, yeah. I'd read it that way too. I always figured that once a model made one Terrifying test then he could engage the Terrifying model, no matter how many spells/effects were stacked on the terrifying model. That make sense? My reading was that while it might be possible to have 2 Terrifyings on a model (one going out to 4" and one going out to 1") that one Morale Duel took care of both of them.

I dunno, it just seems the nominal cost is too high. You now get 2 gremlins for the cost of 3. Paying 1 extra SS for a pig or even a hog whisperer makes sense. But for a regular gremlin, I don't think so. And if you did, it would be more to have bid-macs for the pigs than to try a gremlin swarm.

Sweet! Thanks! So, uh, can P'Loc blow himself up yet? :flute:

I just wish Zoraida could take them without paying the +1ss cost. I was really contemplating a Zoraida-Gremlin horde. :disappoin

ah sweet, thanks! So it's just flesh constructs popping up we have to worry about. :

I hear what you guys are saying, but it still sounds like an overpowering combo. I mean, they do lose a turn, but even on a 3x3 board I've found you can get into the game by turn 3. Turn 2 if both sides are going at each other. And it's not like the dogs or sebastian will be out of it for long. Handing over the counters is a zero action, so they can move up on turn 2. And Nicodem can move up, summoning an undead every turn thanks to casting expert. As for the stratagies and schemes, most of them can end up being carried out by just killing the enemy. Assassinate and Slaughter are kill the enemy strategies, and claim jump & reconnoiter are ones where the enemy has to basically position himself in the center of board thus giving you the option to go kill him. As for schemes, hold Out is almost a gimme when it comes to VPs and Bodyguard is an easy to to achieve when you have a flesh construct standing by. That's 4 VPs right there . . . I'm not sounding the alarms yet and saying it's broken and must be fixed. It just makes me wonder how someone could come back from being 14SS down. And that's just flesh constructs. Two more canines (for a 25 SS game) and you can start placing desolation engines.

Still, this is a pretty ugly combination. In a 20 SS game you could take Nicodem, 2 Canine Remains, Sebastian, and 2 Punk Zombies. If all the grave robbers searched on turn one and then used their zero action to hand them to Nicodem, that'd give him 4 counters. Reanimator isn't that hard a spell for him to cast and that's two flesh constructs. Now you're playing a 34 soulstone crew vs a 20 soulstone crew. Is this something to be worried about or is this one of those "sounds scarier on paper" things?

We've been playing 30 ss games, where I drop Johan for Hans, and man is it fun. The only thing is that with 7 wounds a piece, the Viktorias can go down pretty easily. But they hit really hard, as do the rest of the crew. Bishop is awesome, Taelor is just a brick, and Hans . . . well what can I say? He's murder if there's lots of forest on the table.

Well, spells that are ranged attacks he could divert the damage. For example, Ramos's Electrical Fire.

Well, you've just quoted spells that, with exception to primal flame, I wouldn't rely on. Even primal flame is a "cast it a bunch of times with miranda" shotgun approach. I dunno I'd have Marcus do it unless he had nothing else to do. But on the bashy spells for Marcus, he can get those easily. Same with Myranda. The shapechange and Alpha really strike me as 'use once per game' kind of spells. Usually when you have the cheat card in hand, and expect to fail on the flip. Well, in fairness, the reason I've cooled to the idea is because you've done it and it hasn't worked. Not because of any great tactical acumen on my part. :thumb: Yeah, I think heals are not the be-all and end-all of spells. That's why I think casting like 3 of them at once. 3 points is nothing to laugh at. And you should get some moderates heals . . . Well, when I get to the two critters I'll say more, but for now: don't expect to cast them unless you have the card in hand. That's my thinking.

Myranda: So the thing about Myranda is that I think she shoud have a disclaimer next to her Shapechange spell that says "Use with Caution." I've seen her action transforming early into both the Ceberus and the Rattler and I just don't think its a good idea. I mean, she has Melee expert, beast companion, furious casting, and the poisonous trigger. Frankly, unless I needed another rattler/cerberus/waldgeist right then and there I'd just keep her as is. I think Myranda is a swiss army knife. She's a support caster who can perform the ultimate support: being decent at melee on top of it. Really, I think the secret to her success is companion, because it lets her play the support role and then have the beasty go out there and do some damage. Let's start with the obvious combo: Beast Companion + Furious Casting: Let's say you have a beast who's taken a beating. Three primal flames and our battered beasty is now Cap'n Roid Rage, getting to attack right mutha-frakkin' now! Almost a perfect combo with the Sabertooth, who can lose his extra attacks if he drops to 4 wounds or less. The great thing about this is you can cast it in melee to help out a beast and then attack with your free melee expert attack. But who says its got to be healing? How about casting roar a couple of times (because somebody has got to fail, right?) and then shapeshift into a cerberus for two more free attacks? And remember, Marcus is a beast (and so is Myranda). So that's some synergy with Marcus casting howl and then Miranda roaring. Where it really gets ugly is if Marcus activates first, companions with Myranda, then does his thing. Somewhere in there he howls. Myranda then goes, roaring as much as is necessary (because that Cerberus is right by, right?). Then she finishes with beast companion and the Cerberus pounces on anyone who's fleeing because of the minus flips they have. Albeit a little more situational, and assuming everything goes right, if Myranda is in base contact with an enemy she can assume the rattler shape after companioning with the Cerberus (so two roars, companion, a melee strike, and then transforming to rattler). Now she's terrifying, for when the enemy activates. The Cerberus does his attacks, taking Smell Fear as his zero action, thus netting a free charge after he's activated. Granted, highly situational, but goes to show what she can do. Right, so let's say she's got to get into melee. I don't think this is the best use of her abilities, but she's really good at it actually. With clawshape she can do some decent damage and then she's got three attacks (if in melee) or a charge and extra attack (if she nots in melee). And somewhere in there is poisonous for that forget-me-not damage. Where I think 'Thumping Myrand' comes into play is when she's being companioned. Say if Marcus uses Pack Leader to companion with her and he takes the Wild Heart (BEF) spells. Now you have two pretty thumpy models able to activate right frakkin' now and put a hurt on someone. I can't say I'd build a start-of-game strategy around this, but in the second half of the game when people are whittled down and its Marcus & Myranda? Well, that's a combo that might off a model and take the game. What makes her so useful, I think is that if you treat her like support that can fight, you'll also have access to beast spells thanks to animal instincts. So if Myranda is within 6" of a rattler and in melee against someone, she casts constrict. Does a little damage and also slows the enemy. But really, like I said, I think its all about primal flame and beast companion. The melee ability is just the I'm-not-some-broken-down-old-man-Ramos-who-you-can-negate-by-charging-punk part.

The only thing is that if you do stare down before alpha, then the attacks by the guy you just took over will be at -1 flip. Kinda seems to defeat the point. I mean, if you're taking over Hans who's gonna do a concentrated strike anyway, sure. Actually, the Wild Heart (BEF) + Pack Leader is a straight up "knock'em upside the head" combo right up their with Lilith and the other bruisers.

So I've been looking at the Marcus box set, after playing a couple of games against Kealios. My thoughts: Marcus: I'm convinced the guy is all about getting up in people's faces. He just doesn't strike me as a 'sit back and support' master. The big thing with him is that even with Instinctual, he just has too many good zero action combos, so you have to work out the most synergistic zero actions. Wild Heart, for me, is really the base zero action. It seems like something you'd just take every time when he's getting bashy. I really think it's worth it to drop a tome from your hand to get three, usually Bear, Eagle, & Fox (BEF from now on). Wild Heart + Stare Down: I see this as a good combo for when you're not going to kill what you're attacking, such as during a charge. You cast Wild Heart, then charge the enemy and be sure you hit (dropping cards/soulstones if necessary). Then you trigger Primal Reaction making the guy a beast. Then you use staredown, so that the guy's counter attacks aren't great. You're essentially relying on Fox to help you survive until the moleman can run up behind you. Also, the state down lets any guys who follow up attack the enemy as well. Wild Heart + Pack Leader: all about the Alpha Strike. You do the same BEF for Wild Heart but now you've got some other beast (except the rattler) coming along for the fight. The permutations for this one are all over the place: You can go for the one-round kill, in which case the beast in question charges the same thing as Marcus does. Or you can go for swamp-the-lines, where each model targets a different enemy. Or you can go the defense route and use the Cerberus for Roar. A coupe of roars and you should thin out the counter attack to prevent/reduce the inevitable counter charge. Or you use the Waldgeist to move around some forest, maybe between Marcs & the enemy. Can't see Marcus, can't hurt'em. Wild Heart + Blinding Strike/Feline Speed: This is when Marcus is simply on his own, and can't use companion. Essentially, you're burning that second zero action for a free charge. No you can't use staredown, but instead you make 3 attacks. Basically this is when you just want to kill the enemy right frakkin now. Feline speed is basically the same idea, except its for when Marcus is already in melee. Feral + Alpha + Stare Down: I'll be honest, I think this one is very situational. You have to succeed at a lot of spells and your opponent has to fail a lot of resists. If he succeeds at any of them, this combo comes to a screeching halt. I'd only use this one if I had lots of 10+s in my hand and was willing to burn 2-3 soulstones to drive up the casting total for those resists. So it's really a once per game thing. But if it works, you can probably kill an enemy model. If a model is already in melee range of a friendly model, and the model has melee master, that's 3 free swings. Plus the target model is out of commission for the turn. When you're all done, you drop Stare Down on the target model so you can later follow up with another model of your own to kill him. Feral + Alpha + Pack Leader: so this is basically the above, except that you then activate a beast of your own. See the above with Wild Heart + Pack Leader for the general idea. But really, this can be devastating because, if things go well you kill on model, the Alpha'd model is out for the turn, and then you can charge a third model with one of your guys. If things go poorly, and the Alpha'd guy doesn't kill his buddy, your beast charges in to finish the job. Feral + Staredown + Primal Flame: this is one of the few support combos I see. You use it against a model in melee or about to attack one of your beasts. You heal a beasty up with your two actions and then make it so one enemy model has fumbilitis. That's certainly not all the combos, and this could go on forever if I described every single one. Wild Heart (Hare) + Howl + Pack Leader in combo with the Cerberus's roar comes to mind. As does Wild Heart (Hare) + Primal Flame + Pack Leader lets you hop forward, heal a beast, then activate him. Or conversely heal-walk away-activate beast. So okay, this got way long. I'll post some thoughts on Miranda in another post later.

One thing I've noticed is that this game can be lopsided, but being a skirmish game things can swing back your way. I too have played 40K and I always say the game is fine if you stop at turn 4. Because the game's pretty much decided by then and those last 2 turns are just crunching the numbers. In 40K if you lose half your army and he still has most of his, it's basically over. In Malifaux, I've noticed this isn't the case. For example, I played my Viktorias vs Pandora. By the end of a turn, it was just Pandora in melee with both my Viktorias and I had Taelor and Hans to back them up. A string of wiffed Wp duels and some spells by Pandora later, and both Viktorias were dead, leaving her to face off Taelor and Hans, who were both having to close some distance while pandora cast her spells. Luckily the game ended, but had it gone on, the winner would've been the player with A model left. Just last night, I lost my Steamborg Executioner in one fell swoop. I promptly killed the chick who popped my Steamborg but I was facing down a three headed sabretooth tiger and a pi$$ed off giant rattler with only a (weak in combat) master and my remaining melee dude (who is good, but there are limits . . .). A good combo of spells and judicious use of multiple activations later and we had a crispy kitty and a rattlesnake halfway to being bayou sashimi. So yeah you can have big swings, but I think the thing is simply not give up because you might have swings the other way. The upside of being whupped: you can splurge your control cards on those last two models, cause what do you have to save them for? :guns:

Kealios and I played two quick games last night, him taking Marcus and gang with both. The first game was in the Hag's Territory. His crew was: Marcus, Myranda, a Moleman, Rattler, Cerberus, and a Silurid. My crew was: Ramos, Joss, the Steamborg, the student of conflict, and 2 Arachnids. For strategies, Kealios got claim jump and I had Reconnoiter. My schemes were Hold Out and Stake a Claim. He picked Hold Out and Breakthrough I think. The game never made it past turn 4. And believe me, it was an absolute slugfest. The silurid never got to do anything because Ramos summoned an electrical creation which passed over it and then exploded. Later an arachnid charged and killed him. Kealios responded by one-rounding the Steamborg with a transformed Cerberus. He cheated with a damage roll, placing a red joker and then getting moderate damage on the continuation flip. A follow up attack finished off the steamborg. At this point I thought I was in a ton of trouble. So did Kealios. But Ramos came roaring back with an massive companion strike. The student activated, gave Ramos fast. Ramos responded by zapping Myranda with a couple of Electrical Fires, bringing her down to two wounds. With his last AP he cast Arcing Screen. Then he linked in with an arachnid who charged Myranda and killed Myranda. The Rattler then charged the arachnid, missing and allowing the arachnid to skitter away. The ceberus cam around the corner of the objective hut and killed my arachnid, taking two wounds in the process. So the next turn opened with a Rattler and ceberus bearing down on Ramos and Joss, with Marcus off to the left thumping on that last arachnid who'd killed the silurid earlier. It would all come down to initiative: I got it. Kealios burned a soulstone . . . and failed. So now it was all about the alpha strike. I'd win here or that was it. The Student of Conflict went, making Joss Fast. Then Ramos went and killed the Cerberus with electrical fire (!). Then Joss charged the Rattler, putting a few wounds on him. The rattler's return attacks simply wouldn't do anything thanks to Joss's high defense. The tide had turned. Marcus dispatched the arachnid and then withdrew behind the objective building. He'd spend the next turn getting away from Ramos and his sniper-like spell and healing the Rattler. We agreed whoever won the Rattler/Joss fight would be the winner, as the game would basically be over and we could squeeze in another one. So Ramos gets the initiative, going for the alphastrike. Ramos tried casting electrical creation and failed twice, despite burning a soulstone. I literally needed a 3 or higher to get the spell off with the soulstone. Drew an ace. :laugh: But then Joss went and killed the rattler. So Marcus agreed to pay his delinquent union dues and Ramos went home. So we played a second game. Kealios kept the same list and I pulled out the Viktorias. I had the 2 Viktorias, Hans, Taelor, and Bishop. We played Bogs, and flilled Fog for our feature. We ended up having to call the game early because the store closed, but the game was essentially over. So the fog never came out. Kealios got Treasure Hunt and I got Reconnoiter again. His schemes were Bodyguard and Eye for an Eye. I chose Thwart and Eye for an Eye. We placed some thick forests in the center of the table because there were more shooty models on the table. Kealios showed a lot of respect for Hans. His ability to see through those patches of forest was amazing. I could basically see through terrain where he was on the other side. So he sent forward the silurid to grab the treasure and then tried leaping him behind the line of Myranda (in rattler form), Marcus, & the Ceberus (with the actual rattler) ready to come around the corner. Sadly, it wasn't to be. The silurid failed his leap and Hans finished him off. Myranda moved up to charge the sword Viktoria. Unfortunately, Bishop followed up, tossing Myranda out of melee from Viktoria and closer to the center of the field. From their, Myranda got gang tackled by Taelor and pistol Viktoria, and that was all she wrote. Meanwhile, sword Viktoria charged the cerberus and a combination of the Masamune and the Fury spell one rounded the triple headed beast. At this point, we knew Marcus was in trouble. The Rattler was out of position and had to spend a turn slogging through the forests. Marcus tried a desperation move of Feral+Alpha on Bishop to get him to attack pistol Viktoria. Sadly, despite 3 attacks he couldn't do enough damage to kill her (but he did bring her down to 2 wounds). So we decided to call it there. Taelor was going to charge the Rattler, at which point it'd be just Marcus and the Moleman against a nearly entirely healthy Viktoria crew. Some thoughts: We're finding the schemes to be almost no brainers. Granted we haven't played a ton of games, but it seems that Hold Out is an almost granted 2 VPs. I mean, if your opponent has the ability to bust through your lines and deny you that scheme you've probably lost anyway. Whereas some I just don't see the point to take. Like Eye for an Eye. Having to be within 1 model of your opponent means that if you wipe him out, you actually lose VPs. Similarly, Breakthrough is the flip of Hold Out: I don't know that I'd take it. Maybe its just we're playing 30SS games where you don't have the spare models to go on these wide sweeping manuevers? Ramos: okay, so I get the idea of summoning arachnids, I just found myself not doing it. The linked in with Joss was just so much more valuable. It gave me the ability to get Joss stuck in and inflict some damage before he got charged or feral+alpha'd. The end result is I left like 3 scrap counters right in front of me. And yeah, Joss is all that and a bag of potato chips. I can see why people say him over the steamborg. Arachnids: man are they flimsy. Only 3 wounds. That means if you don't use them right, they're gonna die to harsh language and a wet sneeze. Now granted, I meant to use them as a picket and replace their numbers. But as Ryan Phillippe said in the Way of the Gun: a plan is a list of things that doesn't happen. All in all it was fun, just not Kealios's night.

I thought so, but worth double checking. Thanks!