Buhallin

We may have different definitions of "half his card" and "majority". Things that don't work: Terrifying/Face of Death, Trail of Fear, and some Necrotic Ministrations (since it does affect Undead as well, including your own). By my count, Seamus has 18 different abilities on his card if you count the weapons. So generously, that's 4 of 18. Nowhere near a majority. A lot of people tend to overstate the Rezzer vulnerability to a non-living crew, and Seamus' isn't immune to that. But I think he actually handles it better than most - the only thing that he truly loses is his Terrifying, and even if I find it more useful than some it's not something that can (or should) ever win or lose you the game on its own. Corpses aren't a huge issue for him, because he's not a summoning factory and you can recycle off your own models just as well. All of his core tricks are still in place - despite the names, Excessive Bleeding and Slit Jugular have no living requirement, Undead Psychosis is one of the more awesome spells in the game, and works against anything (lacking Immune to Influence, of course). Honestly, the assertion that he's a Wp-based master just doesn't hold up either. Again, going to the count, of his 18 abilities only 5 target or affect Wp, and it's important to remember that constructs and undead can still be affected by the most important of those - Undead Psychosis - works just fine. Heck, even if you limit it just to offensive stuff, I count 3 Wp-affecting vs. 6 Df-affecting.

The Pig Charge/Swine Dash was a misspeak on my part. Sorry about that. My opponent missed the +1 damage, and I didn't catch it either. The interesting part here was that because of the woods, the Piglet never actually got out of the effect range, and never won the Morale Duel to be able to ignore it. Although now that I'm looking at it, it seems that even a Falling Back model has to take a Terrifying check. I think I'd always believed that a model wouldn't have to make any additional checks until it had Rallied. With that being the case, it's not quite as out-there a situation as I'd thought.

I can see this, but the ambiguity comes in the use of the word "defender", not because of the stat. I fully understand the potential for confusion when you're considering Engligh -> Stat translations (i.e. "defender" vs. "Df"). But Stat -> English transitions seem to be about as tightly defined as its possible to be. To build from your example, if Terrible Secret said it affected Df flips, there would be no confusion about it at all.

This isn't quite correct. "Range" is a game term - but it's not what North Wind modifies. "Rg" is NOT just shorthand for "range" - it's identifying a specific stat. If an ability has that stat, it gets increased. If it doesn't, then North Wind has no effect on it. That's why Ice Mirror isn't boosted. It's not "Rg: -", it just doesn't have a Rg stat associated with it. I'm honestly not sure why so many people find this one confusing. Nobody looks at the -2 Df for Undress and says "It's -2 defense so they're at -2 whenever they're defending". But for some reason, this one continues to cause issues. <shrug> ---------- Post added at 01:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:38 PM ---------- Not entirely accurate. Auras require some form of LOS path between origin and target. A simple "within X inches" ability like Ice Mirror does not. The biggest impact of this difference will be on indoor boards or tables which include other building interiors - If Rasputina and an Ice Gamin are in rooms completely blocked from each other by a wall, she can still bounce spells off it. If Ice Mirror were an then she could not.

Where are you finding this? I don't see anything about Terrifying (or immunity to) in Stampede.

Had an interesting interplay come up last night. I'm pretty sure we played it right, but wanted to drop it out there for verification, and because it makes for an awesome mental image. Scenario: Seamus avatar vs. a Piglet, in woods (severe). Piglet activates in range of the avatar, and fails the Morale Duel for Terrifying. Seamus heals one for the failure, Piglet Stampedes, charging across and past Seamus, hitting him for Severe (which does 1 damage because of Armor). Now, here's where it gets odd - at this point, the Piglet ends an action in Seamus' Terrifying, and so has to test again. It fails, so Seamus heals again. It charges him, does 1 damage, ends its move, has to take another Morale Duel. Wash, rinse, repeat for as many AP at the pig has (opponent was hoping for the trigger to knock Seamus off the Claim Jump). The main oddity there is the repeated Morale Duels allowing Seamus to heal off each. But since the Piglet never actually Falls Back (it Stampedes instead), and hasn't passed the Terrifying check, we couldn't find any reason why it wouldn't have to take the test, and thus give Seamus the point of healing for failing it. But even more than that, it's a really awesome mental image with Seamus trying to grab this terrified piglet as it scrambles around his ankles, nipping at him the entire time. Greased pig race, anyone?

You can have Seamus' hat when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!! See, NOW it's getting heated!!

And there still is a lot of good stuff. But a hyperbolic claim that this happens more than 50% of games, backed up by "I've played more than you" and "Your opponents just don't know how to take advantage of it" condescension doesn't qualify.

So... About the only thing more often than once every other game would be every game. Hmmm... Well, despite the classic Calmdown "Everyone but me is an ignorant n00b who only plays against incompetent people" argument, I think I'm going to have to call BS here. I'm sure it's just because I only play Seamus in 75% of my games, and I never play against anyone who knows how to exploit the downside of Hard to Wound, but it works fine for me!

Except... Not all those cards are coming from Hard to Wound. Half of them are - the other half are just the standard way of doing things. So the actual increase from H2W is somewhere around half that - 1 in 6 times that you get three hits on Seamus, HtW2 should make a Red Joker appear. But even then, the numbers aren't the whole story here. That's the problem with Theoryfaux. Events don't happen in isolation. Because 5 out of 6 times, your opponent isn't going to see the Joker, and what happens then? You've just dropped 3 weak shots on Seamus, who gets a chance to respond, heal, etc. You have anywhere from 7-13 cards out of play in a given turn, between your discards, hand, and initiative - we'll call it an average 10, which is about 18%. That's an 18% chance the Red Joker won't be available for a turn AT ALL - which your numbers ignore - which means that you won't even face the risk at all, which reduces your best-case numbers to occurring about 12% of the time. So, slightly over 1 in 10 chance of H2W2 actually making a difference, and that's in your worst-case scenario. <shrug> I'll take that to guarantee you can never cheat damage against him.

How do you figure that a player flinging the Dreamer deep into enemy lines with zero support is "through no fault of their own"? It is admittedly too low-risk a move for what it is with the Dreamer, but it's still a risk - for project management we'd classify it as a "Low Probability/High Impact" risk. If a player chooses to accept that risk and fails, then I'm pretty sure it's their fault.

All of this is pretty much true (well, except for the last line, which is a matter of opinion). But it doesn't look at the other side of the equation at all. Namely, what does Hard to Wound 2 give you? Simple: It means that it requires extraordinary circumstances for your opponent to cheat damage against you. Hard to Wound 1 can be overcome, if not easily then at least by a number of models. With Hard to Wound 2 it is effectively impossible to get an even damage flip. That's a pretty big deal. It means that high cards accomplish nothing, and that held Red Joker won't smack Seamus in the face. It means that if your opponent wants to make this work they can't draw the Red Joker, and if they want to get it back in play they'll have to burn it at a less than ideal point, and it'll still be gone until next turn. It's also far more meta, but every high card that goes by on a twist is a high card wasted, and that takes its toll as well. I suspect this may be one of those things that's like whether or not you hold the Black Joker when you draw it - a matter of personal playstyle. But given the choice between my opponent being able to cheat to Severe on multiple attacks, or having to spam through half his deck hoping for the Red Joker for damage, I don't consider the Red Joker risk to be the "I'm squishy" side of that equation. Edit: As a final thought on this - when I try to mentally think about the number of times I've seen a Red Joker flip against Seamus, and the number of times I've seen someone cheat the Red Joker after managing an even damage flip, I know which one scares me more. Or, look at it from the other side: Which would you rather have if you were facing Seamus - the chance to cheat the damage, or a slightly improved chance to get the Red Joker during spammed attacks?

There are certainly plenty of nonliving models in the game, but I think the rest is overstated. The vast majority of minions have a Wp from 4-6. It's pretty rare to go above that, which means a 6-8 to beat a pretty standard Terrifying -> 12 check. Not insurmountable, but also very possible to fail and make the opponent cheat on. I'm not sure what abilities you're talking about that boost Wp - most of the ones I can think of (Stubborn, Fear Not Death) don't help with Terrifying checks. Same for abilities that protect from Terror - except for the previously mentioned Construct/Undead/Spirit/etc, there's a pretty short list of abilities that make a model immune to Terrifying. Terrifying isn't an ability that's going to win a game on its own. But you can certainly reinforce it to make it more effective, and while it doesn't fit the priorities of the "Killing matters most" crowd, the impact of failed morale duels can be pretty devastating.

It's separate actions. There is no "(2) Run" action in Malifaux.

To drag it back to a rules issue... <ahem> I don't know that I'd ever considered it for some reason, but if you Lure a model into a Terrifying range, the Lured model would have to test, correct? As long as that model is the one moving, and it comes into range, WHY it's moving would seem to be irrelevant.

Woo! <does a happy dance>

I think Soundwave hit it all (except his last one, obviously). I don't see any reason why the models that take the secondary effect should be considered targets. They don't say target, and there is a very clear distinction in a lot of abilities between picking targets and just picking models. If it's not a target, it doesn't require LOS.

I think it would actually be 2". We've made distinctions in the past between the range of something, and the Rg stat. Specifically with the Silent One's range booster, which explicitly increases Rg, and abilities like Frozen Heart that just say things like 'within 6"'. I'd apply the same here. Bent Barrel reduces the Rg stat by 4", but Gunfighter effectively removes the Rg stat from consideration by saying "within 2"". There are a few other good precedents for this - McMourning's Scalpel Slinging lets him make a melee attack at a target within 6", but doesn't actually change his melee Rg. The Waldgeist's ability to hit a target in woods lets it select targets outside of Rg, but doesn't do anything to his melee, so you can't use it to finish a charge or stop a target from making ranged attacks. So: The Rg of the weapon stays the same even if Gunfighter is used, whether it's the base or reduced by Bent Barrel. You just ignore the range when using Gunfighter.

It used to be that only the actual target needed to make the resist. The line you quote from the RM changed that, much for the better (although Seamus saw several of his tricks take a hit with this - it was even more fun with Undead Psychosis )

Has anyone confirmed that this would work? It seems off to me... If Molly copied Magical Extension, she'd copy the exact text - and gain the ability to cast one of the spells of the master she was connected to. Since she isn't connected to a master, it wouldn't accomplish anything. As for the rest... It would certainly be nice to see it pulled off, but even if Molly can copy Magical Extension to its full effect (without which you lose about half your castings) it seems like it would require a great deal of lucky positioning/cards/setup for it to actually work.

This is one of the things I love most about Malifaux, for the simple reason that it makes sense. As a general rule, most wargames take a "Two armies were out for a stroll..." approach to matchups. Sure, that can happen, but really - how often do generals select forces with no regard to who their enemy is or what their objective is? Especially as you move into small unit actions like Malifaux, a master wouldn't grab the nearest six guys and say "Okay, what's the job?" On the gameplay front, I like the variety it injects. I've never been one to build a list, buy that list, and play that list. I had most of the models available for the factions I would play, and I'd pick a different army for any given day. Malifaux obviously fits that, but it also encourages others to experiment with that same level of variety. I do like the idea of revealing the master being used before the rest of the crew selection, or perhaps making it optional via a soulstone purchase - call it paying off an informant. It would need rather considerable testing, though, to see what it did to the game. As much as we have the ability for matchups that completely screw one side now, it could be just as bad if masters are known - many masters have a very specific playstyle without a lot of room for flexibility, and knowing that cold create the very situation the reveal was meant to fix.

Sorry, I think I was unclear on the why (or just plain wrong, take your pick ) Onslaught (and all the other chain-attack triggers like Overpower, etc) triggers "after damaging", which means it doesn't actually go off until the end of the full damage resolution process. Both go immediately when their conditions are met - for No Escape its when the movement occurs, so it interrupts that movement. For the attack chains, it's after damage has been completely resolved. This is part of why you can't trigger a chain attack if you hit a master who prevents all the damage via soulstone.

Assuming you're willing to use both the Belle's AP, you could double Lure the target, or Lure Seamus out first and then Lure the target, allowing Seamus to charge back in at him Second way is a bit easier (because you only have to worry about one resist) and will work even on models fast enough that the Lure might take them out of Seamus' charge range.

http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24382&highlight=escape+seamus The thread can be a little confusing because Sketch updated his answer, but I think the end result is clear. Basically, when the movement happens, No Escape activates and interrupts the movement in order to resolve. This is different than Onslaught because Onslaught generates an additional action, which doesn't interrupt the current one.

No. You have to activate No Escape when the model begins its movement, and you can't charge something you're already in melee with. You could Lure the target twice, potentially, and charge it on the second one. Not really... People frequently get wrapped around needing both conditions to manifest, but it's not strictly necessary. You can reliably Trail of Fear on the first two turns, and then use the (2) to manifest on 3 - Seamus will still have one more AP and his (0) to move or do something with, and his Avatar exerts such incredible passive potential I'll frequently just get him manifested and moved into position. Completely decimated a Neverborn opponent who had gotten too clustered by doing that, without ever having him spend another AP.