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Zengar

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Everything posted by Zengar

  1. Honestly, the Hooded Rider is my least favorite of the four. I really want to like the Dead Rider, he's got some great abilities, but players around here know how to deal with Hard to Wound, and he rarely lasts long. I haven't played around with the Pale Rider much, but he looks like he'd be great for crews that are low on ranged attacks. Between Levi and Alyce, there's already quite a bit of damage out at 12 inches, but I could see the Pale Rider in the place of Alyce. Personally, the Mechanical Rider is my favorite. yes, she doesn't have the dead riders 3 inch melee range with drag along, but she's got the chain spear to drag people toward her and Wicked in case they want to try and get away. Since you say you have a model already, I would assume that it would only really fit the two you mentioned and would suggest Dead as being the better of them. The Hooded Rider is one of the first book models that were fine compared to other first book models, but should probably lose a soulstone or two of cost compared to book two or three models.
  2. The easy way to remember it is that with replacement, any actions taken by the initial model are counted against the second model's total. So only one usage of a zero unless Instinctual is involved. With the caveat (not applicable to steampunk arachnids in any situation that I'm aware of) that if the initial model used special actions like (+1)Nimble they don't count against the second model unless it also has that ability or one incompatible with it.
  3. In this case, I would assume that "can only vs may" should get trumped by "specific trumps general" . Unfortunately, looking in the Rules Manual, it seems that the actual rule only says that models' rules trump core rules and "can overrides may". The intention is clear, but there's always those players who want to focus on exact wordings and will argue about the definition of words like "is".... Perhaps there should be an official response that such people can be pointed to.
  4. Ramos doesn't exactly fit into the stated limitations, with only the box set Ramos doesn't have an Electrical Creation. However, he can hire some of Hoffman's constructs so he isn't as much of a one trick pony as he would be with just himself, the Steamborg Executioner, and a stream of Steampunk Arachnids.
  5. The mechanical Rider (going by the book, the model hasn't made it to the LGS yet) has Armor +1 as a basic ability and gains Armor +3 when in the Powering Down Stage of Power Cycle
  6. The Desolation Engine has a trait that says it can't be summoned but, as far as I know, you would be able to summon four Steampunk Abominations and have them turn into a Desolation Engine. Assuming that your opponent didn't kill any of them in between you summoning the first one and you being able to activate one of them to perform the transformation. Edit: Looking at your casting requirements, doing so would require 4 out of the 6 possible 9+ :crows cards and all the casting actions of both Nicodem and Mortimer if you wanted to do it in one turn, but you could do it.
  7. Hmm. I'm not a Hamlin player, so I can't speak to the specifics of this post, but I believe you've determined what I'm going to be doing some weekend not to far in the future. I wasn't a big fan of what I saw in a quick read-through of Avatar Leveticus and ended up feeling about on par with your earlier Hamlin post after playing with aLevi once. So now I'm going to have to give him a few more tries to see if I can similarly figure out what I was doing wrong.
  8. Just to elaborate on Hoyled's mention of Steampunk Arachnid(s)/Swarms: Yes, it's a lot of points on fragile, insignificant, 3 soulstone minions, just like with the Steampunk Abominations, but at least you only need three of them for the swarm instead of four. And for those nine points you've either got three models that can each give casting flips around them or enemies in base contact -2 Df, or you've got one model with melee master, a zero action healing flip, and a paralyzing trigger that you can make automatic with Levi's buff spell. That said, a pack of Necro Punks was my first purchase after picking up a Desolation Engine and a Hollow Waif pack. One thing the base Levi crew is noticeably missing is fast, non-insignificant models for strategies like Destroy the Evidence. Crooligans, which are part of the Molly Squidpidge box set and should be out as an individual pack shortly, could fill that role too. Watchers, the flying guild constructs, work well too but as far as I know they only come one to a pack whereas these others are three to a pack. Of course, if you can afford to, it would be best to get all of them so you could mix and match depending on the specifics of terrain and strategies
  9. That's a good question. looking through the rules manual, I can't see any reason the answer wouldn't be (3). I could see making a ruling (either house or general) that the totem could only be connected to a master or henchman that was within it's companion radius, but nothing in the rulebook puts any limitations on it. It only says that when hired or summoned the totem must be connected to a master or henchman, nothing else. Which means that in theory, a Leveticus crew that hired Molly Squidpiddge could end up with Levi having a totem, since he is only prevented from hiring them. Interesting. that could theoretically allow for him to cast three of his spells, Molly one of them twice, the totem one, and each Hollow Waif one. Oh, and since this is theory crafting, Rusty Alyce could use Burn Out on the Necrotic Machine to squeak out a ninth spell. Of course, with most of Levi's spells causing the caster damage, this would be inadvisable in most circumstances, but now I'm quite interested in hearing an official ruling on this...
  10. I agree that it looks like Wyrd tried to tie in many different mythologies here, and I hadn't heard of Baba Yaga's knights before. But in addition to this, you said this in a previous post: Which I think is the key to fitting the rider's to the horseman of the apocalypse. Not so much the symbolism of the individual model, but the faction it is associated with. The Arcanists are engaged in pushing outward the frontiers, Conquest, and that doesn't fit the Mechanical Rider's fluff too poorly, does it? Also the power cycle, Charging in fast, fighting hard to gain ground, and then turtling up to try and hold the gains. The Neverborn are the other faction for whom militaristic motives fit, and the majority of the Hooded Rider's abilities are weapon based so a connection to War wouldn't be unreasonable. The Guild are trying to stamp out all of the unnatural threats to normal life, creating a Famine of magic so to speak. And the Pale Rider kills at range and more effectively the more people have already died. Could also work for pestilence, but I'm working off of a skim through the entry a couple of weeks ago, I don't acually have the third book yet myself. And the Resurectionists, well I think that any list that doesn't have the Dead Rider as Death probably has the burden of proof Although, if one wanted to have War, Conquest, Famine, and Pestilence for these four riders, with Avatar Leveticus as Death, a good case could be made for the Dead Rider being pestilence what with the poison and being more deadly the closer it is to death... As for Levi, I think it pretty much says what he is in the entry, He's the Avatar of Entropy. Chaos, dissolution, void, sterility. If he isn't death, then he represents then nothingness that is left behind after the passage of the other four. And paradoxically, the beginning anew of life from the wasteland. The outcasts don't have any particular goal and are actively headed of in different directions than each other, quite a reasonable depiction of chaos, don't you think?
  11. Really, in the situation you're talking about, this is the best answer. If you've got your usual opponents scared enough of Levi that they are focusing on taking him out as fast as possible, use your waifs as bait for traps. Also, remember that Unnatural Wasting followed by Entropic Transformation (with a Necrotic Unmaking in between if the target has 8-13 Wds) will turn most living or undead models into a replacement Hollow Waif, so if you activate Levi after they've already killed a Waif, they'll need to take down 3 instead of just 2. Lastly, you don't have to let Levi die. It can be hard to prevent it with a defense of two and so many of his abilities injuring himself but, if after killing your waifs your opponents don't finish him off, then you can use a soulstone to (most likely) prevent Unstable Necromacy from killing him and get your waifs back so that they have to kill them again next turn. Yes, you'll be limited, but if Alyce is in range of levi you'll get two cards there, and can get up to three card from Disciplined Caster no matter how low your Wds are, since Unnatural Wasting doesn't inflict wounds on you, assuming you can get a target. But mostly, if they are that focused on taking out Levi, use that fact to lure them out of position. Take a small (or even no) soulstone pool and send every minion out to complete objectives. Don't even make a second waif unless you can make it out of one of your opponents models. They'll either have to choose between taking out your master or your objective grabbers or you're facing something as "unsporting" as Alp bombs, which require specific tactics to deal with.
  12. I freely admit that against an opponent that isn't using constructs, Rusty Alyce's 8 soulstone cost is a hard sell. However, there are situations where a friend of mine is perfectly willing to pay the 10 soulstones to use her with Ramos. First off, as I'm sure you are aware, she's got that clockwork seeker. 12 inch range, 6 CB, 3/4/5 damage, rapid fire, and a Headshot trigger. But against constructs or targets with Armor, she should be using her signature spell Rust. Sure the damage is one less in each category, but it ignores armor so if the target has any it does the same or better damage, applies Slow, and when she's got a CA of 7 when teamed with Levi or 8 when working with Ramos, making it easier to hit. Destabilize is a freebie trigger when you hit a construct with her melee attack and it lasts until the end of game. Considering that Hollow Waifs can also make the opponent discard cards, this can help counteract the card advantage opponents often have over Levi. Burn Out and Willful Animation are the abilities that are most likely to get mentioned but really,they're rather situational. Really nice when the right situation comes around, but strictly situational. Defensively, 7 willpower is nice, but the 4 defense turns some people off. This is where her zero action comes into play. Remember, Hard cover gives a negative flip on the attack which means that unless they can pick up a positive flip somewhere, they can't cheat it while you can cheat your defense. And the point of armor from the hard cover makes it safer to use Nothing to Live For if you need an extra card or two. And Boobytraps gives you yet another way to do direct wounds, albeit at significant risk to Alyce, and can be quite a deterrent to people running up to melee her if they don't think they can kill her right off. I think that if she was cheaper than 8, she would be a must have, so that even if she isn't worth the soulstones when you're going against someone like the Marcus or the Ortegas, she's worth having in a sideboard for matchups against Hoffman, say, or to persuade Rasputina not to take gamin/ice golems.
  13. Devour, or any other ability that sacrifices a target, keeps more rats from being summoned by Hamlin or by rat catchers, since their abilities talk about models being killed. Stolen and the wretch say killed or sacrificed, so the rats will be summoned the first time, but you can at least keep them from coming back. Death Marshals with their pine box can bury stolen so that Hamlin can't use them. Use Terrifying to herd the stolen off the table edge without triggering either Horrible Realization or Inevitable Fate. A Pandora crew might be happy about all of the willpower duels a Hamlin crew provokes....
  14. Thanks, I knew it had to have been asked before!
  15. I suspect that this had to have been asked before, but a quick search didn't turn up anything. How many wounds does Jack (or any other current/future model with an * wound total) have for purposes of spells like Leveticus' Entropic Transformation which can only effect target that have 2 or fewer wounds? For that matter, if a Steampunk Abomination hit Jack and the damage wasn't prevented, would it get even one point of healing from consuming touch? My first inclination would be that he has zero wounds for the purposes of variable effects and is unaffected by things that require a specific wound level, but figured I should see what others think. Unrelated: with Jack Daw's VP reward and ability to switch sides, if he switched over to your side could you kill him yourself (much easier since you don't have to discard cards to save him) for quick VP?
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