The Happy Anarchist

Surge is now good! Rasputina isn't the only one able to take advantage of it! What did you guys notice?

One thing to remember about Adaptive Fighter is that it is a nice benny, but not necessary in the slightest. Feel free to Cage Fighter, and cheat what suit you need. Or if damage is the most important thing just use the Adaptive for Rams and cheat another ram for crit strike pain!

Is he really that bad? He is clearly not Lady J or Lilith good, but I think you are underestimating the 0 actions, and his Wild Heart spell. Here is how I would run a melee Marcus turn. Requires nothing but a 3 or higher of Tomes for specific cards. 0 Action Wild Heart - cheat or flip the tomes. 3 effects Bear +2 Dmg Eagle Plus flip on attacks and Tiger/Serpent depending on if you need to charge. Alternatively, if going up against someone more dangerous that you can't kill in one turn then then Bear, Eagle, Fox and save the other 0 action for stare down. Against the more vulnerable target you are getting 3 attacks with plus flips to hit and 3/4/6 damage which is enough to kill most targets, especially with some cheating. One will even have a + damage flip. Against tougher targets you get 2 attacks with plus flips at 3/4/6 damage or 1 charge and attack and they are going to be minus to all flips while you are Def 7. That isn't bad, particularly for a more casting oriented model that will be healing up, dodging around, howling if Harmless/Terrify/Pandora is a problem. I'm not saying he is all that great, though more combos are going to be great. One thing I have seen is that he only really offers Howl & Primal Flame to support his own beasts, and Defend Me for them to support him. This means he doesn't need to go beast heavy. You can just as easily have a few key beasts and something like Joss for laying down beats. Also, he is probably the best Arcanist in the game for certain objectives. Not only can his beasts jump all over the world, but he can too with Hare. As for OP, Zoraida feels a little lost for me, and Som'er seems to have problems with certain lists. Ramos seems like he requires a fair bit of luck, and alot depends on what cards you draw/flip. More so than other masters.

Just realized it is actually worse off for the Ronin vs Punk Zombie than I thought. Punk Zombies come with Nicodem right? They are going to be Def 7 CB 9!!! So you charge in. You need to get a card at least 2 higher than him to even hit at all, at -2 flips. 8 higher than their card to be able to cheat and a regular fate flip. Remember, he can cheat too, and odds are that you have to cheat first. Hope you flip well. Odds are, even if you hit you will be at a neg flip for damage. Congratulations on your 2-3 damage on average. If you get lucky four or five times you might kill the punk zombie. In return, at CB 9, he needs to get only 2 higher than you for a cheatable damage flip which can quickly become the 5 damage needed to take you to 1. That is not even including that a crows suit on the attack roll means he only needs 2 less than your card for a cheatable damage flip, or if he gets 2 more a positive damage flip. Am I using a Master's buff? Yes. A master that they come with. Victoria offers no buffs to Ronin. In fact, most Masters don't have anything that will buff Ronin and if you are lunging them forward to first strike you are out of range of most buffs as well. Not to mention, it is actually YOU that are ignoring the rules in the book, not the Ronin. Poorly worded though that bit may be, you are effected by terrain. Still, most lists, even giving you the first strike swarm of death, I think there are several lists out there that would donkey stomp it, Nicodem + Punk Zombies.

I think you are underestimating how good guns are when wielded by the faction that uses guns. Most of them other than the dirt cheap ones do minimums of 3/4/5+. With a little cheating, many Guild guns can two shot the Ronin. Comparing cross faction is weird, but keep in mind that if you charge a Punk Zombie from the max distance, your actually not particularly likely to kill them. If they are running Nicodem then you are actually quite unlikely to kill them, as they will be Def 7. Then they slice and dice if cards allow, or walk up and chop once and the other punk zombie/canine remains/flesh construct wanders up and finishes the job. Then you charge more Ronins and they charge more zombies. If you play this game against the Resurrectionists you will lose the game. Every time. The Punk Zombie's advantage in the overall game that warrant the higher cost are 2 higher combat value, a trigger that can cause more damage, paired Katana, which mean it will hit and flurry which is a slightly less useful melee expert but can come in handy. Not to mention being hard to wound and having a couple of good spells for just putting damage on a lot of targets. So if you want to pick a model it is better than, the Punk Zombie is not it.

Huh. Should have looked a little closer. So it moves as fast while healing 1/2/3. Does that make up for the 2 extra defense?

Follow up question from me. If you are only taking one Victoria as a member of another crew, do you get the paired Masamune, Masamune + Pistol or either one of your choice? The way the rule is worded, it seems to imply that you pick one (your only one) and it gains the paired Masamune and loses the pistol. Is this a correct interpretation?

I for one find it ironic that you are claiming everyone else is newbs who haven't played when you are the one who got several of the rules wrong in such a tremendous fashion that I would find it very hard to believe your opponents didn't call you on it. Seriously, 12" move, two attacks and another 12" move? None of your opponents called you on that?

My main concern is that you are giving up on 2 points of defense when in swarm form. This would seem to make them much more vulnerable to enemy ranged. Also more vulnerable to being pounced on by a murdermachine and killed in one turn. Using the action to heal is a decent idea, but then you are moving much more slowly up the field.

It would seem like the best option is to advance them as individuals, hugging cover and taking advantage of a high natural defense (higher if Ramos can keep up with them and a defensive screen, admittably unlikely) Then you have several of them advance and do what needs to be done. Then you have one or two that hung back advance up, hit the combination button and then you have a whole new arachnid swarm ready for killing, with 1 action and 2 melee expert actions left to go! For more fun, if you stoke the last one you can reactivate for another 1+2 melee actions? You can even use it's 0 action to heal itself of any wounds the individual spiders took on the way up! This also leaves you more flexible to respond to opponents turns and with more opportunity to send expendable models forward earlier rather than later. Am I getting this right? Is there any reason to start off with arachnid swarms rather than individual spiders?

Read the freaking ability man! Open your book now and do it. Run Through -Push this model up to its Cg. (That is 6", not 12". Don't know why you think it is 12") Why do you think it is a 12" push when the model's Cg is only 6". Also, it is not a charge at all. Have you played the Ronin a lot? You are badly misreading this rule in just about every conceivable way you can.

Wow, I would think Ronin are really broken if I blatantly ignored the rules and had trouble with math as well. 14" you say? I assume you mean Run Through, Run Through 2" reach? Oh wait, each Run Through is a 1 action. That means one chop and one melee expert hit and then 4" away, unless you think models get 4 actions every turn. And Run Through giving +2 flips? Absolutely not. It pushes you your Charge, it is not a charge. Stampede is an example of an ability like Run Through that gives the charge bonus flip. Run Through does not, so you don't get that extra flip. Push wording is weird. It says "move a model x inches" but, and this is the key, it is the model that is not considered moving when you push it. The sentence "A pushed model is not considered to be moving" means that the model itself isn't counted as moving, for game effects like disengaging or maybe something that says if model x moves it takes a damage or some effect like that. Push would not trigger. However, movement does take place and thus does not ignore terrain or models, which is my reading of it. Definitely needs some errata to clear that up. So we have a model with a 14" threat range for 2 attacks with one plus damage flip each (and a combat value of 5, which isn't autohitting by any means) and if you damage the second one you can bounce 4" back. So I really hope you haven't "played Ronin alot" like this or you have been cheating or whoever has been playing against you has been cheating.