Fetid Strumpet

Models that do regular consistent chip dmg. Titania coming in on her can kill or cripple her generally in 1 turn, because a good portion of her dmg is just constant infliction of multiple 1 dmg bites.

Unless she’s injured first I tend to have issues with Seamus doing it. Her defenses are mostly set up to prevent the kind of dmg he wants to do.

Depends on the master. There are masters that will each her for lunch, wipe their chins and go on the eat others without regarding her as any particular challenge.

Not sure how common the realization was, but we got that within a very short time of starting our first game of it.

I’m aware. It isn’t enough to go toe to toe. If he isn’t one rounded he 100% dies the next round even with the healing.

It isn’t the unsuited leap that makes him poor. As said one of my preferred solutions would have been to just remove it. The problem is he is just inconsistent all around, and there exist models that can do his job that are not inconsistent.
 

If you need a dmg dealing leaper Manos exists. If you need dedicated beater, The Dead Rider and Rogue Necromancy exist. Also if you aren’t playing in a dedicated singles environment, Seamus and McMorning exist.

You can’t rely on him to do your hitting because he can’t focus and there are so many often taken models in the game that have Serene Countenance, Manipulative, or high Terror Scores, all of which the general play around it to take less attacks but more meaningful ones, and Archie doesn’t have that option.

You can’t rely on him to provide disruption because he doesn’t have the defensive tech to actually go toe to toe with the majority of other taken beater models in the game.

You can’t rely on him to do your Scheme running because you can’t rely on having the leap when you absolutely need it.

Im not saying Archie is bad because he lost his reliable leap, again I personally thought he should have as I don’t think any model should have had leap and flurry. I’m saying he isn’t competitive because losing the reliable leap AND ruthless WHILE also keeping numbskull makes every job he would be hired to do inconsistent and high variance, and competitive models are not high variance models.

They do actually. Doxies. And the distraction is actually a side benefit since the action melts any accumulated focus. And focus is beyond relevant at this point, and being able to nuked any that has been accumulated is very useful since it comes wrapped in a distracted package.

No I think you pretty much can. It isn’t as if we didn’t have mostly the same situation with a good chunk of the other schemes and or strats in GG0. It isn’t as if Outflank wasn’t chosen pretty commonly and they could have served the same purpose, and mostly didn’t work all that well.

I mean by all means give them a try. I’m just old and opinionated. I just think trying to make Belles work just isn’t worth the time and effort, because Ressers have enough breadth that whatever effect you get out of them that you feel is beneficial, I’d argue could far more oftenly been achieved by something else, who could do it differently, but better, and with less effort.

I don’t think that would do it. Lure has significantly dropped in utility this edition. That’s not good or bad, and I think the increased mobility across the board is a good thing. And if it detrimentally affects lure, so be it. But just giving them a stat 7 Lure is lazy, and I don’t think it would really do anything to be honest. The fact that you almost always have to force through an opposed lure if it will be beneficial for you is certainly a component of why they aren’t good, but not the main one. The main one is just getting a lure effect isn’t that good.

No one hires lure bots. Lilith isn’t even talked about as a footnote. Jaakuna has Lure and it synergizes with the real reason you take her, the hazardous aura. Kade has a stat 7 Lure and in any description of him that’s always mentioned as an extra. A “oh and he also has...”. Lure has just exploded across models in all factions, and no one brings them FOR that. It’s always because it’s a nice addition. 

To make Belles good you have to make their lure, or themselves, do something that’s relevant to actually winning the game or synergies with the crew. Scarlet Seduction just isn’t a very relevant ability with how the crew is designed, and since Seamus almost always shoots with a focus, the Red Chapel killer synergy, while absolutely a good abilit, is almost anti-Synergy with the upgrade he almost always takes, The Whisper, because your attack flip then burns out all or almost all the known cards.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it, if you want gold standards for lure bots, then Beckoners are it. They specifically synergize with the crew by giving out a free and irresistible Brilliance at the start of the game, that the entirety of the Honeypot keyword can take advantage of. That Brilliance can serve as protection for them with don’t bite the hand. That Brilliance can help against scheme runners or opportunistic scheming by allowing them to use that Brilliance as control with their a pleasant distraction bonus action. And they have two useful triggers baked into their lure, one of which gives out Brilliance, thus meaning they are getting benefit even if the movement effect is a wash, and one that gives them reposition, which means they get to move themselves around even if they are luring their own models around, and can give them the ability to lure a model at 12” and force them into an extrended walk charge on a very specific vector if the lured enemy wants to use the free movement to engage.

Want to make Belles good? Make them the equivalent of Beckoners in some way for red chapel. Make it be an actively bad idea to get caught in melee with them, in a way the entirety of the Red Chapel crew can actively, not passively, take advantage of. Give baked in triggers to their lure so they are getting actual persistent value out of using the ability, so it is worthwhile to generally, not situationally, to use the ability. Give them a useful bonus action, since I can think of very few models who are taken without one, unless they are just amazing in some other way.

And to be honest, while I’m disappointed Belles got hit with the ire stick this edition, they’ve been great models for 10+ years, and if they sit an edition out in my display cases that’s disappointing, but that’s about it. Sybelle and Bete Noire are a different matter entirely. They’ve both been awful statistical models for pretty much the entirety of the games existence. Sybelle had a period at the beginning of M2E where she was...ok for a year ish before the design of the game rapidly moved past her, so from my perspective, I’d dearly like to see those 2 improved before anything else specifically because they’ve been bad for so long.

Can’t comment on much else other than the Emissary. Disagree entirely here. If you are really weighing his undead movement ability into his cost you’re playing him wrong. It’s a nice ability and it certainly figures into his overall cost, but his utility far, far exceeds Asura, at least in my experience.

You’re missing the point. The point is that high variance models are not used competitively, period. Let’s not forget in 1e there was only one player who ever got Marcus working in a competitive environment, and that it was partly because of Marcus and the difficulties of playing him that we moved to a lower variance environment.

Models do not exist in a vaccuum. The fact that there exist models that do Archie’s role better than Archie means Archie isn’t that good any longer. That’s just a fact. He absolutely needed to be hit, and I was one of the most vocal calling for a nerf, and I believe calling for the most since most people thought he needed a 1 as cost increase and I said 2. But the way they did it makes no sense. They changed him more than any other model, and they really didn’t need to.

They could have cut Flurry and he’d have been fine.

They could have cut leap and added some form of healing and he’d be fine.

They could have increased cost and he’d have been fine.

Instead they changed the movement, removed Ruthless, added rush, changed the stat number and removed mask from leap, and added another ability to try and slightly mitigate the removal of ruthless. That is a giant mish mash of unnecessary changes. 
 

He was absolutely too good, way over the line, totally agree he should have been hit, but I don’t agree with how they did it. 

I’m arguing he isn’t durable or reliable enough for his cost. The rider is reliable, Archie is not. Competitive models are low variance models because the game itself already has such high variance you cannot count on anything that isn’t.

If his leap was reliable, then he has arguably too much durability. If he leap is unreliable (which it is now) then he isn’t durable enough for the role he is going to be forced into, a Bite and Hold piece. He is regularly one rounded whenever he tries to stand up and force engagement, instead of relying on hit and run tactics.

While your math may or may not be correct, you are discounting the fact that there is a sizable amount of masks in the deck would generally be a waste to spend on leap. If I have to spend an 11+ on leaping then that is seriously degrading the functionality of the crew. You aren’t likely to get very many high cards, and if you have to spend one of them on leaping you’ve just significantly degraded your entire crew’s defensive options, offensive options, and so on. At that point, again, just hire another model that doesn’t have that problem. At the moment I feel you can mostly just remove Archie and Slot in Manos or the Rider in all crews, including Molly’s. 

Best beater Ressers have? Not by a long shot. Even if we limit it to non-Masters the Rider has Archie beat by a large amount. Archie had enough durability, and actually arguably too much, when he could leap realibly, he doesn’t have the durability to do any kind of bite and hold maneuvers because he is regularly 1 rounded now.

Or just hire a necropunk. A large portion of his cost is tied up in his hitting potential, and there is no reason to pay for that if it’s unreliable, and since he can’t focus it’s inherently unreliable. If you need him for mobility you might as well hire 2 necropunks for about the same cost as 1 of him and an upgrade.

Agree. I find high variance models annoying to play. Still would have preferred just removing leap and adding some form of healing ability.

Disagree. They don’t force the opponent to do anything. If you are making the opponent jump through hoops, you forget you are jumping through hoops too. You have to hire a model that has limited and niche utility, you have to wait until those niche situations occur, then you have to be willing to spend the resources necessary to have any kind of chance to force the duel through, as opposed to just doing something else that is just as useful, but more useful more of the time. Or has attritional value, like doing dmg.

A model that can do that stuff, and just indecently has lure as well got slightly better as a result. Lure bots that don’t do such, not so much. So I see increased utility for Jaakuuna, Kabuki Warriors, The Doppleganger, and Kade. Even slightly Sybelle, but Sybelle is still 2 to 3 stones overcosted.  In Belles, which do absolutely nothing useful aside from Lure, hard pass.

Making Belles useful? Give them a universally useful but limited bonus action, similar to the Beckoner’s one, and bake some triggers into their Lure so you get some benefit on top of the reposition, since the mobility increase in the game has drastically reduced the utility of Lure. I personally think the increased mobility across the game makes the game better, so I don’t mind that Lure is reduced in utility, I just mind that certain models are being punished because of how good their thing was last edition.

If it were me I’d bake the distracted into their lure, or and or the reposition trigger, and give them a bonus action that either gave out rams to Friendly Red Chapel models engaged in an opposed duel with an enemy model within a 1” aura of the belle in question. Or instead allows a belle to put up a 6” aura that allows them to remove distracted from an enemy model in range to prevent an interact action. I think Beckoners are a very good example of what an effective lure bot should be, and anything that doesn’t rise to at least that level isn’t really good.

I’ll agree to a point. Seamus himself is not trash. He himself is pretty good. Distracted as a condition is fine, the trap is trying to make distracted do anything else. 
 

Anyway, back on topic, I don’t think the new GG document changes, at all, which masters and models are better. The same masters and models that were tier 1 are still the tier 1 models. Albus, Molly, and Kirai are still going to be cleaning up.

I don’t think lure is going to be the powerhouse you seem to think.
 

You’re still counting on niche scenarios to come up to make the lure useful. Belle has to be in or able to get into range and LoS. Most likely has to activate after the model you want to lure or they will just move right back. Have to save a high card that you now can’t use for Seamus who might just be able to kill said model. And you have to hope the model you are trying to lure doesn’t have some of the very common abilities that prevent you from moving them, and that they don’t have anything else in their crew that can move their own model back. Or have Cover. 

I personally think Sybelle and Belles are still garbage. I honestly don’t see any reason to change up the models he took in GG0 or the basic book scenarios.

I think it makes his Terrify action *slightly* more useful, and that’s about it.

10 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Yeah, really wish they had hit damage (the reason every other crew takes him) and left his mobility (the reason Forgotten takes him).

Except that would have been a gigantic thematic failure. Archie is supposed to be a beater. Every single story appearance he has ever showed up in portrays him as a massive bruiser. So I personally am not fussed they hit leap because it was so out of character for him. I just hate they removed ruthless on a model that can’t focus.

Personal opinion, old version would have been fine at 11 stones for Molly, 12 for everyone else.

Or old price remove Leap add Juggernaut.

Have no idea if the new version is worth it in Molly. But losing Ruthless with no ability to Focus makes me pretty much want to leave him in the case. 
 

Archie was absolutely to ubiquitous, but I all this change is going to do, I suspect, is make Manos the ubiquitous model every resser takes.

Not really.

Probably trying to minimize cards changed.

There is also the possibility they don’t agree anything is wrong with them.

I believe he meant Asura since he mentioned a 50mm base.

Not sure I’d include Seamus on the initial list.

Other than that, I agree, if you are looking to play competitively you’re going to want to play the absolute heck out of each master in your line up. Personally I would advise picking one master, and playing their keyword over and over and over again, even if your scenario or opposing master are bad matchups. If you get used to playing when everything is against you, even if you are losing, it’s going to feel like taking the shackels off when you get a more favorable matchup, and you’ll really intimately see what the master’s keyword is good at, and what it struggles with, which will then give you a better basis for choosing the second master to add to your roster. This has the additional benefit of allowing you to more intimately understand the non master models real strengths and weaknesses and how they might overlap the next master so you can plan a more efficient purchase plan.

I don’t disagree with your assessment, but I do disagree with your fix. Leap is super powerful and they gave it to too many models, but the fix isn’t to nerf leap, it’s to claw leap back from the models that shouldn’t have it, and potentially replace with nimble.
 

Also the cost structure for leap never seems to be taken into account. During his time as lead designer Justin said it always surprised him how good models just became if he gave them leap.

If there was an upgrade available that could just give a model leap what would it need to cost to stop every crew from always taking it every time? Granted that is combining abilities so that’s not the actual true cost of leap but I do think most models that do have it are undercosted as well.

But its here so we just have to deal with it.

Only real thing I’d change in the carrion effigy is a generic heal rather than stitch up. Too many masters and high value models aren’t undead for stitch up to be universally useful in anything but a Molly Crew.