BananaHavock

I'll find out after a few games whether or not I need more soulstones (also I can get extra instead of taking schemes), but most of what Kaeris will do consists of spells that don't really have that high of a requirement.

Well the Essence of Power was more-so for Kaeris to use herself. Also, that totem will belong to Kaeris, meaning it won't have access to Arcane Screen as the Mobile toolkit is the one connected to Ramos. Well for one, the Coryphee is one of the best things in the game to heavily rely on, since its a beast, and its resilient as hell, especially with all the extra healing flips I have from other models in addition to the two the Duet can do in a turn by itself. Also, if spreading fire via Spider and then Accelerant-ing doesn't work, I have the ranged attack from Kaeris, the ranged spell from Ramos, and controlled detonations I can do, so I have more options if both the Coryphee and Accelerant aren't working.

Ramos Mobile Toolkit Kaeris Essence of Power Coryphee Coryphee Steampunk Arachnid Steampunk Arachnid +2ss Basically Ramos makes stuff, Kaeris blows it up, then Kaeris blows people up, and then the Coryphee runs around and cuts whatever doesn't get blown up.

The thing is its not 2 Austringers, its 2 Austringers and a Guild Guard. In the original list, there was 4 Guild Guard, one of which gave them all companion, therefore unable to attack. In my list, for 2ss less, you can replace 3 Guild Guard with 2 Austringers. In both cases, you have the same number of models attacking (3 GG or 1GG and 2 Aust), but since one Austringer will do more in shooting then a Guild Guard, not only do you save points, but you also increase your overall damage.

For two points less you could replace 3 of the Guild Guard for 2 Austringers. You end up with the same amount of models attacking (since with the 4 GG, one of their activations is wasted on activating the others), since you can use Deliver Orders to activate them all simultaneously. So not only do you save points, but its guaranteed that the Austringers will do more damage then the Guild Guard.

Of course WE don't need a book 3, but Wyrd might.

This is a very valid point. Although the "broadening you model horizon", isn't quite true except for the addition of LadyJ. Since you'll need to spend a significant amount of points (if not all of them) to get the models that Lucius depends on. Therefore not leaving much room for other models. But, this really doesn't matter much, since LadyJ is fills the hole of the incredible beatstick, and makes those Guild Guard capable of hitting something. Haven't read much on the new schemes, but now that I know this, that should help a lot. Yeah, there have been times where activating multiple models would have definitely helps a considerable amount. Problem with this is that as long as you have Austringers on the table, theres no point in Commanding the Guild Guard. Does this player usually run Lucius as the Master, or as a Henchmen? Also, thanks, the idea of taking Lucius as a Henchmen and/or doing Steal Relic definitely makes me see some value in Lucius I hadn't seen before.

I have played about 10 or so games with Lucius so far, and some of them went relatively well, but most of them have seemed somewhat hopeless. The biggest problems I've found are that Lucius, being completely dependent on his crew, can be severely limited by taking out his best Issue Command targets (mainly the Austringer). Also, I've found that many of the models preform rather mediocre when not being commanded by Lucius. The model that comes to mind the most is the Guild Guard, but you can't really bother using Issue Commands on them when you have Austringers out. It seems that how the Austringers preform is relatively dependent on how the terrain is. If there is impassible terrain in range of where the rest of the action is going to take place, they can just hide and shoot birds at you all day long, but if not, its hard to keep them protected, especially with how weak they are. The other models that can be taken have never been nearly as productive as the Austringers are. The Captain can hit relatively hard and accurately, but suffers greatly in speed and range. Also, for his gun to do adequate damage, he needs a high card (11+)for his damage flip, yet Lucius himself is also dependent on those high cards (8+), so most of the time I feel that after cheating my Issue Commands, I don't have enough high cards to use for my crew. The Guild Guard, have just never really done much for me at all. They have average speed, and decent range, but they don't really have much going for them, especially when an Austringer is only one point more. Their Armor 1 is helpful, but with a atrocious DF 4, most (if not all) attacks are going to go through, taking done their 6 WD like its nothing. They have decent melee skills, but their shooting CB is pretty terrible. The Lawyer has the same problems that the Captain has. He's slow, and he's dependent on the same cards Lucius has, and in order for him to operate to his full potential, he needs to stand still, which means he'll most likely be relying on a Reinforcements in order to get where he needs to be. Also, he's and expensive model that completely defensive. This helps with the relative squishyness of the crew, but takes away from the offensive power, and since Lucius doesn't have much in the way of heavy hitters, this is a problem. Also, his abilities themselves are situational. Censure is dependent on how Control Card dependent the enemy is, and Cross Examination is obviously useless against a large portion of the crews. Lastly, there is Ryle. Ryle, despite being a model immune to buffs in a crew based around them, is always one of the, if not the highest preforming model every game. He seems to go perfectly with Lucius, since Lucius' ability to Issue Commands is limited, and Ryle is a model who is more then capable to preform adequately on his own. He's a rather fast model when you take into account his Socially Repressed, and since this is usually all you need to get into position, he'll be making three attacks almost every turn. Not only is this aspect of him good, but he's by far the heaviest hitter out of the available models. His gun, which being average in CB, has excellent range, and can do massive amounts of damage in a single shot. Like the Guild Guard, he suffers in DF, but unlike the GG, he has the wounds to offset this. Generally the core of what I take in 35ss games is: Lucius 2 Austringer 10ss 3 Guild Guard 12ss Ryle 8ss Leaving 9ss to play around with. Generally I'll put in one of the 7ss models (Captain/Lawyer), and 2ss in the cache, or take the Governors Proxy. While in theory having a fourth Issue Command seems nice, he again suffers from Lucius' card hogging. In games, the games themselves seem very rock-paper-scissors-esque. Seamus getting Treasure Hunt with me getting Assassinate seems almost impossible, due to their speed to get the treasure, and Seamus' Hard to Wound completely neuters my damage (as almost everything I has requires Severe damage to actually matter). Another difficult match up is the Viktorias, regardless of strategy. They are all so fast, and hit so hard and accurately, they can just tear through all of my models with ease, especially Misaki and the Viktorias themselves. I have recently realized that I am not utilizing the utility of the crew to its fullest (in fact I didn't even know what Halt! did until the last game I played), but I don't see how using all of these utility abilities could have a significant impact on the outcome of the game. Cordon is difficult to go off, and requires my weakest models to go out in front. Halt requires me to hit with a model that sucks at shooting. Menace requires me to sacrifice doing other actions with a costly model that can actually hurt things on its own. The Lawyer requires me to sacrifice damage for situational utility that depends on the same cards Lucius does. tl;dr I have read just about everything posted about Lucius, but I still can't see how to fully utilize this crew. Its full of easy to kill models that are dependent on one thing or another. I understand that its in no way a straight-forward crew, but it just seems to have many weaknesses, and no strength that stands out very much, if at all. Also, I apologize for the massive wall of text, and very much appreciate anybody who actually reads it.