Cats Laughing

Ooooo very cool

Aeslin is fine, as others have mentioned. Aeslin may feel slow in a Corners set up game where you start so far away from your opponent, but for most other deployments, a move or two on turn 1 will put you in range to just blast away for the rest of the game. I don't use her melee attack often, but that depends on terrain. Injure causing Blasts are quite nice with the built in Into Thorns trigger (she doesn't fight with the rest of the crew for crows) for placement and extra damage. She can also drop a fair number of scheme markers at range. I also recommend the Emissary/Effigy box, you'll more likely want the Emissary, but since they come together... The Emissary's hazardous terrain blasts can be quite good with Into Thorns moving models around and iirc triggering hazardous. I like Waldgeists. They aren't perfect models, but they've got some interesting tricks that can be quite useful. The Heave trigger (combined with the italics of Tangling Roots) can move models stupidly far depending on your board's terrain. While your opponent won't voluntarily sit in such severe terrain, your other models (like Aeslin with Decay) can use your Undergrowth markers and into Thorns to put opposing models into larger pieces of severe. They can also be moderately tanky with armor, stench to deny triggers or discard cards, and the self heal. If you plan where your undergrowth markers go, they can be reasonably fast. Bultungin are very squishy and will disappoint you if you try to fight with them. They are fast and can easily remove scheme markers (even those protected by engagement or chatty or similar), so while they will mostly sit on your shelf, they might be useful in some pools. I suppose they can be useful in Hidden Martyrs as your opponent casually kills them to give you the first point. Or conversely they kill the other model while your Bultungin is far away and you just stay far away until the final turn and they swoop in from 17" away for the second point. They are the cheapest way to get another start of game undergrowth marker on the table, but that in itself isn't worth 5 soulstones. I want to get Rex soon (planing to from FLGS). Wicked Dolls are a very interesting tech piece if you want to bring Killjoy, one of the cheapest things to put his upgrades on, relatively difficult to kill with Stealth, relatively quick with Creep Along, and Threaten to apply Adversary (choose Fae) plus On Your Heels trigger then Complete the Ritual -> Killjoy to face will murder some poor sap.

My challenge will be to simply paint 1 more model during this busy season Not sure what yet, but looking at primed models, probably something Bayou.

Side note, we played a Keyword escalation league when M3E came out and I took the Fae keyword which meant Aeslin was my Henchman leader for the first game. 3 AP on Aeslin feels sooooo much better than just 2. Being able to move and then Decay twice was quite nice. Also as others have noted, Titania's ranged (no gun) attack is often better than the melee attack, and the Into Thorns trigger moving opponents around into or out of melee as needed can be quite useful control on top of the extra damage.

Yeah, I get that potential issue. Conversely there is a lot of summoning in the game that isn't really summoning, at least not in the "add additional models/Soulstones to a crew" manner. There's a bunch of Demise -> summon a Bayou Gremlin/Piglet/Rat in Bayou/Outcasts and several other models that "summon" a friend as part of their cost. Several no-upgrade summons are also insignificant which means the strategy/scheme issue is ignored. All this said, I'm in favor of adding summoning upgrades where specific summoning is an issue and could be solved by an upgrade. For instance giving Toshiro's summons a plentiful 2 upgrade could be quite reasonable if needed. Also in favor of other errata as needed where summoning is an issue. Such as making the Ikiryo double summon an "if Kirai is leader" thing. I'm not stating such are cases where things are broken but they are decent examples of where targeted specific fixes could work instead of generic fixes.

For new players to Molly, it might be good to explain the timing of By Your Side and Fading (Footprints) Also would be good to add in (to the main body of the guide) the clarification above about using By Your Side (needing the friendly keyword model there already) to lower your hand size before attacking.

Is supposed to be broken? Potentially the most inane support for a rules change proposal I've ever seen.

I think I'm basically done, other than basing, on my Kamaitachi for February. Only 4?soulstones but that's plenty for the peon/minion level I pledged at. @Caedrus

Still seems like a thing that isn't worth Wyrd's time, when there are bigger fish to fry (looking at Nexus thread and even the 10+SS premise of this one for two examples). In your particular example of Let them Bleed, adding summon upgrades to cheap summons has almost no effect. This again only really matters for expensive (and therefore specific) summons. Conversely, adding summon upgrades to all summons can quite possibly make the Jury broken against certain crews (her free damage every activation has no range). It's also a pretty huge buff (given what the Exorcism trigger does) for those previously mention models into crews that currently summon without upgrades. Then there's also Somer's summoning, where he uses an upgrade but can also remove the same upgrade. When he removes the upgrade his summons then count for Let them Bleed (and other hypothetical schemes/strats) and also avoid the various "Exorcism" trigger/ability. He's often considered a very strong summoner completely unaffected by your desire to add a generic summon upgrade. There's probably more that gets hit or missed by this proposed change (models that get bonuses against models with upgrades, not just summon upgrades, for instance would be buffed). I'm not sure adding a generic summon upgrade fixes more than it might break. If there are specific summons that are summoned without an upgrade and are problems for not having an upgrade it would make more sense to identify those and fix them.

There are 4 models with the Exorcism trigger and then there is the Jury's Exorcism Ritual, So 5 total models would be affected, 3 in one keyword. It's probably not a worthwhile change for the game.

Conversely iirc, in 1st, spending a soulstone on a flip flipped an additional card and *added* that to your total, so you could totally just have a moderate (or even weak if you felt risky) of your needed suit in your hand to cheat in and soulstone to get high enough to meet the TN. Overall, one issue I see with some proposals in this thread are that they target summoning as a whole instead of targeting specific 'issue' summoners. Touching Mindless Zombies (or other cheap & weak summon or even mid-level but reasonable summons) with the same nerf that hits a "10+SS problem" summon is not the way to fix potential issues. If problem summoning exists and needs to be fixed, then specific fixes to the specific problems should be the way to fix things.

TBH, reading a bunch of the comments above, taking out the Emissary will be a big move towards bringing the keyword down. While Cadmus does have other ways to hand out shielding (and create the related We Are Legion + Shielding issue), the Emissary is the most efficient way to do so. This will bring down some of the shenanigans and help make the crew less of an issue for your local group. The Emissary also brings other defensive & healing tech that pushes the Cadmus bubble to the edge (over the edge) so I think you'll find the experience less of an issue if you don't take the Emissary. Not saying removing the Emissary suddenly makes Cadmus weak, but you can read in this thread many instances where someone proposes a counter to the Cadmus list being used and how often some sort of Emissary tech is used to stop said counter.

In previous editions, Master's had a Cache (soulstone cache) pricing, which wasn't how much they cost, but instead how many additional soulstones they brought for their pool (which could not be spend on models during hiring). As such you could only have multiple masters in a scenario that specifically allowed it (and likely was a custom or non-tournament one). You could play Molly/Lucius/Collodi/Kaeris with other masters in 1.5 when they were just Henchmen, but that changed when they got promoted to Masters.

While only having one game with them in M3E (none in M2E) this was kind of my experience as well. It was my opponent's first game of M3E (he played M2E, and even played crossroads against me at least once, but it had been years for him), and so while neither of us knew our crews well, I could tell it was getting very frustrating for him for me to use the denial aspect of Sin tokens. Towards the end of the game I kind of stopped triggering the denial aspect and just used them for Destructive Performance. Sure 3 damage explosions hurts a lot, especially if I could chain it, but at least most casuals (of which I'm one) are used to getting their models damaged/killed. It will probably feel better into the more experienced members of my local meta who will be more capable of taking apart the bubble. Even the guy above might learn to work into it if he gets in more practice with his crew(s).

Yes, too much diversity in list building (which includes dual faction masters or masters that can hire too much out of keyword, like Zoraida or Levy in 1.5) is very hard to balance. More combo mean more chances to create balance problems. This is a reason PP has gone hard into themes (sort of similar to Malifaux keywords), where you get so much benefit from staying in theme that PP doesn't really need to playtest (except at a cursory level) out-of-theme combos. Translating their themes into Malifaux terms: Imagine if the OOK tax was just a straight 12 ss cost for the game (not per model), and taking any non-versatile OOK models turned off your Master's "if this model is the leader" ability, then add onto that you're limited to 2 OOK Versatile models(one of which has to be a minion to be able to have 2) if you want to avoid the 12ss tax and the loss of the leader ability. That's effectively how PP chose to deal with their overly large collection of models and trying to playtest the millions of combos that are available outside of themes.

Not dead, and there's an online community running leagues and such, but it is dead in many stores (before the pandemic). Many gamers don't like massive change and will use an edition change to branch out to other games they might have had an interest in but didn't feel they had time for due to their previous 'main' game. Some of these gamers will find their way back to the edition-changed game, but sometimes the changes (or things after the edition change) will put them off for longer/forever. Warmahordes has an issue of size and complexity that makes getting back into it very hard. I mean at some point during 2nd it had over 150 warcaster/warlocks (effectively masters) across the 11+ factions, and they've only been adding since then. With all of the ways to instantly lose via assassination or certain scenario plays you need to keep up on things or you fall massively behind. There's also a bit of spam X in the game, which becomes very very expensive when X is nerfed or eclipsed by Y. Malifaux is pushing similar issues (fewer Masters/Factions, but more complex base rules), but does have the benefit of alternating single (or two at most) activations and the slower scenario scoring that allows you to not feel as blasted in the face by a better player (at least in early turns, by end of turn 3+ you might already know you've lost due to scenario scoring). Malifaux is also cheaper to play, so it doesn't feel as bad to put down $150 for a new crew and take time to get up to speed or need to make changes/buy additions to face the new power crew. To respond to your psychological/emotional question, I was pretty psyched by the announcement of M3E (I've always loved the theme/background), but that also comes from a place where I had been somewhat disconnected from the end of M2E (helped with wave 4 beta, but was doing other games as primarily then and put game on back burner), so the announcement of M3E was a great chance to get back in. If I'm still super into playing M3E when M4E gets announced, I might have a different reaction, but I'm a bit of a butterfly gamer so we'll see. The changes to the rules/faction alignments/etc... do just feel like story progression to me, and I might have a more negative reaction if it was a favored character who died/was removed from the game. Nothing feels like a betrayal of the background, even if some characters come of worse than others in the story or end up leaving behind a faction (that was probably always secondary to them).

TBH I'm probably not the target of this question as I own large portions of most keywords, and have since 1.5. I'm not super bothered that my Ramos, Lilith, or Collodi aren't useable in tournaments that restrict dead man's hand, though I think it's cool that Wyrd created dead man's hand rules so that I can still use them when my opponent is cool with it. I think I have a Nicodem in my to be built pile, so he's now at the very bottom of that pile. I do have a friend who was initially fairly annoyed by the Collodi being dead man's hand, but he doesn't play in tourneys and I'm happy to let him destroy me with Collodi whenever he has time to play, so that issue is solved. The keyword/faction changes have messed up some of my collections, but not in a huge manner. I've now got random models that cost an extra soulstone to play if I want to take them, or I need to actually buy the rest of their crew (many of these are "Miss" or Alt Sculpt models). Stuff like my outcast dip being the "Hamelin" kitten crew, Alt Hannah, and miss Johanna. Once upon a time, Somer was my dip into Outcast master, so the faction change thing is sometime I've already dealt with. The one I'm most sad about is McMourning leaving the Guild, and that's entirely because I thought it was pretty funny that he was there. But even that sadness is theory, as my McMourning is unassembled and my Guild consists of Perdita & Hoffman, which wouldn't really provide good thematic models for McMourning (though McMourning leading constructs and family models would be funny).

Forgot to show off my completed models @Caedrus. Sparks plus 3 survivors is 23ss and quite a bit more than my minion entry, but I did most of the work during 2020, so feels a bit... I'm pretty satisfied with these guys, where contrast paints worked pretty well.

Well @Caedrus I'm definitely not doing the sprue to painted in one day, since my terracotta warriors are already assembled, I'm a slow painter, it's busy season at work,, and my assembly workshop and painting spaces are about 20 miles apart... I have started on the Danger Weasel (kamaitachi) so I've got 4ss on the docket, which will satisfy my peon* level pledge. I'm not super happy with how it's looking so far though. *minion (I finished my January stuff in early Jan but forgot to post an update and will do so soon, I'm going for the on a base counts as based, even though I'm probably going add flock at some point)

TBH I don't recall, but my first faction was Rasputina (sorry Arcanists) so eventually I had Marcus and a reason to take Neverborn beasts, but I also had picked up WP4 gremlins as my Outcasts (at that time), so I might have thought about picking up Zoraida as she could take any WP4 or less, which meant all of my gremlins. In the end, I know I ended up getting Lilith and Pandora crews (including carrying case and Collette) via a friend who was consolidating his games and therefore cutting out ones he no longer played. I think I may have bought the Zoraida crew before then, but if I hadn't I definitely did shortly thereafter. I also picked up Collodi and later Dreamer & Titania. Now that I think about it, Collodi might have been first.

Frozen Heart never actually stopped Pandora from being good, it really only stopped some of Pandora's excesses. Paralyze was a bit too good in M2E and probably a reason it doesn't exist in the game in M3E. The old idea of Frozen Heart being translated to Ruthless in M3E would be a good buff against terrifying and manipulative models (which are quite honestly strong against a card hungry crew without access to easy focus), but not a terribly huge one, given that Rasputina is already Ruthless herself and can spot clean individuals. Of course Frozen Heart having some other buff interaction with Ice Pillars could be interesting too.

TBH, I miss when December models all had Frozen Heart and it was effectively Ruthless (more or less) and I feel like bringing that back could make her keyword an interesting counter pick for certain opponents. It might not help her overall game, but being a tech pick would make her interesting.

Not in mine at least. The last few times I played her, my opponents pointed out how easy it was to spot & counter my first turn (and subsequent turns, tbh), due to the set up required to get any usage out of ride the rails. The last time I won a game with Mei, I declared Mei, then took nothing in keyword (except the totem) and Asami as second master and summoned 3 Jorogumo over the course of the game... Felt dirty but I was super tired of losing.

Your last paragraph points to a big difference between Zipp's pianos and Rasputina's Ice Pillars. A good number of models in Zipp's keyword have flight or leap to ignore Zipp's pianos, or can be carried around by those with flight. Zipp himself ignores the cover from his pianos with his gun, as does Merris. There's a bunch of other differences (which imho is important for keeping crews different and the game interesting), but I agree with you that Rasputina's crew should face fewer drawbacks from her own pillars.

Minor point to the overall theme of buffing Raspy, but I'd be somewhat concerned about straight buffs to the Ice Gamin/Golem due to their Elemental keyword inclusion, especially since they can be summoned there (and not in December*). Obviously this could be worked around by making their buffs more December keyword focused or even "If the crew leader has the December keyword, this model gains..." I do think that a buff that is only related to Ice Pillars (for the Gamin/Golem) could be still an issue in the Academic/Elemental keyword, given that they have access (relatively easy access, iirc) to Ice Pillars there. *Now, of course, if Rasputina could summon Ice Gamin, then the Gamin might not need a buff.