Nagi21

So with this ruling, how do you resolve the once per turn restriction, since according to the above ruling the model controlling it is taking and controlling the action, not the model with the ability.

Disagree vehemently with this ruling, since it would also mean no obeying units out of enemy engagement ranges, among other things.

You've gone mad.

They're not bad but they get stepped on by literally anything and their movement bonus action requires something to be towards what it's going to, which presents some issues in a lot of situations. Still, they have their uses.

Can you say Fly with Me Alyce? Seriously though, the only correct answer for any faction, is SS Miners.

No, once per turn effects only apply to the model currently activated.

Mostly true, but other than the outliers that are survivable, other scheme runners have one of three things: A) A way to stay alive while they do their thing 2) A way to kill something at around its own cost to force a larger reaction C) A way to lay down more than 1 scheme marker per turn The bultungin fall under none of these. It does not survive against most other 5 stone models, it does not murder most other 5-6 stone models, and while it has deadly pursuit, that does not help in laying down markers like something like leap would due to the timing.

Look at the rest of the statline and their attack. They're fast, but the issue with them is dying to a stiff breeze.

Zoraida doesn't have a keyword really so she's entirely dependent on your opponent. Titania can be ok, but is barely hovering the average area. Pandora is literally feast or famine. Either she wins hard or she's struggling all game, and it seems the latter more often. They all have some good matchups, but there's far too many hard counter matchups in each faction.

This game is a lot of things, but balanced is not one of them. We all know how bad Guild is, and nobody hides it. NVB was barely viable pre GG1 and after the changes they've fallen into a virtual tie with Guild due to the Dashel buffs. Meanwhile 9/10 of the most broken crews are either TT, Outcast, or Rezzer. It's not completely broken, but we're far from balanced.

I'd say just barely. Dreamer is great, Nekima and Titania are so-so, the rest are too specialized or inflexible to be viable competitively. Lucius I'd say is also good in a schemy pool, but he takes soooo much time to learn that the juice is almost not worth the squeeze. Rezzers would wreck him so I'd avoid that unless you're going to play solely Seamus. Guild would be good, but they're arguably tied with NVB for worst faction right now. Arcanist has some interesting matchups, but there are a handful of hard counters on both sides (Pandora smashes Toni and Hoffman, but Toni breaks Nekima over her knee every time). NVB v NVB is actually a pretty interesting matchup, but I'd avoid it for the same reason as Guild. Outcasts are probably the strongest faction right now, but they do require a little bit of finesse to use correctly (unless you're playing Levi). The guns available are going to make his life hell though. Range is a huge advantage, and they have a lot of gunfighter too if needed. Bayou is good against most of the NVB buuuut aside from Mah, Nekima is a pretty hard counter to most of them, due to the grow mechanic combined with an abundance of shove aside. 9/10 vs not Nekima, 3/10 vs Nekima. You're probably gonna wanna invest in Tricksy (Mah Tucket). Ten Thunders present the same issue to NVB as Outcasts: Versatile guns. Samurai alone counter a LOT of things in the crew, and TT have a lot of ruthless to counter even the good crews like Dreamer. It's not the worst matchups in the game, but there's a significant uphill battle in a lot of those matchups.

Right but she also struggles into things like Outcast, TT, and Guild for various reasons. My point being that just because a crew is really good at taking on one faction (although Collette is a pretty good counter in Arc too...), they're not viable if they're terrible against everything else. It just makes them a niche tech crew.

It doesn't matter if they cheat though, the attack can still happen even if it's out of range due to the declared step. While I agree that Pandora isn't the worst NVB master, she has a lot of counter matchups that are basically unplayable which make her bad in a competitive sense. Example being she can be very good against some Arcanists like Toni and Hoffman, but dies terribly to Rezzers overall. Worst NVB master right now is probably Nekima, but she has a fantastic crew to make up for it. Euripides would probably be a close second. I'm not counting Marcus cause he's really an Arc master trying to play NVB. Worst overall crew I feel is Euripides, but that's mostly because marker crews aren't great right now anyway aside from Kaeris.

Yay it's catching on!

Hina, Stitched, Serena, Kunoichi. Literally anything you attack dies and you are so fucking tanky.

Get in line behind literally ALL of non-dreamer NVB then...

I've used Marlena to good effect with him with Levi's Kansas City Shuffle, since she's pretty tanky and people are always a little jittery to attack her because of her trigger.

The problem is that there are very rarely models that are unarguably bad. Hell I just had someone tell me the other day bloodwretches were fine 5ss models. I think the issue is that the balancing is all over the place. For example have models in Rezzers which are insanely overtuned, but nothing is done about them, going up against models in other factions which are technically balanced, but aren't overturned, making the model look fine in a vacuum, but have real issues on the actual table vs a lot of things. Follow that with "but it's really good against some things", and you get nothing happening. Just because a model is really good against something, doesn't justify it being really bad against a lot of other things.

Sandeep and Kaeris are both good in that pool, and Hoffman/collette are not lacking either. So please enlighten me on how much fun Kaeris v. Pandora would be. I'll wait. Dreamer is strong because he doesn't have any bad matchups. He's only busted when he brings along Zoraida.

I mean... we know we have Euri who needs work, and Marcus (although I refuse to acknowledge the latter as NVB. We never wanted him and still don't). Luci is good but complicated, and Titania's in an ok-ish place. I'd say she needs less a tweak than Pandora. Your idea for a second ability might work. Might make sorrows more like they were in 1e (hovering around Dora specifically). I also disagree in your thought that Pandora is a counter crew. You can't counter pick entire masters since crew selection is blind, but she doesn't have the ability to counter build to at least one matchup in each faction. A counter crew is a crew that can get an even game in any matchup, i.e. Dreamer. Also I'm not saying to change the aura rules, I'm talking about changing misery itself. We have abilities that say "within x" without it being an aura. Would not be the craziest thing, particularly with the once per activation restriction.

I knew I was forgetting someone. Ironically the second best model in the crew. As far as the require an action, remember that most of the Woes can only stun on a bonus action, meaning they get one chance to do it. If your opponent cheats to stop it, you do exactly 0 damage. I think you're missing the core issue. The main issue is that Pandora has one effective way to play competitively, which goes against the entire theme of her crew. Can you play a cheap misery trigger bubble and just hand out short ranged stun vs some crews? Sure, but it's going to take significantly more effort and be a lot higher risk than just using opportunist on expensive models like Candy and Carver, and supporting them with things like Rider and Kade. The lack of being able to play her in any other kind of good way, combined with the handful of just counter picks across the factions make her a risky and unattractive crew competitively. It's basically the same as Raspy and Euri. If it's great, it's borderline broken. But that great only happens maybe 20% of the time and the rest of the time it's an uphill slog.

This is patently false unless you're giving yourself conditions. Woes have one thing that gives out a condition without having to take an action, and that's Pandora's defensive trigger. Everything else requires AP to use (whether that be regular or bonus AP). 6" is not very good for an ability that both requires AP and is severely limited.

Aversions are ok in that they're tanky, but they don't really benefit the crew in any kind of synergistic way other than moving Candy up. It's kinda like a worse version of an insidious. They also do basically no damage at all even with misery. I mean a single 4/5/6 model should, but you get 1 damage from 1, 2 damage from 2, etc. It's not heresy to have high damage output from complementary cheap models (also look at things like bushwackers...). Honestly having Misery go from an aura to a "within 6" would probably be best. Yes you can hit for a lot of damage but it's still once per activation, and it's still stoppable, and it's still within that really short range bubble to maximize damage. I mean really, how many times have you been completely clustered in a 6" bubble where you could put out 4 misery pulses. It's usually 2, maybe 3 if it's the main bubble, but often you have to spread out unless it's a completely one sided pool. My main complaint is that there's no reason to play a risky cheap woe bubble when it's better just to take expensive woes and use them similar to Asami's models in giving and taking conditions to get positives instead of using the main theme and ability of the crew.

Here's the thing though: Woe only have so much damage (and their damage is really overstated unless your opponent walks into you) vs crews they're already good against. And yes sure you can say the obvious thing like "Well don't take them out of good matchups", but the issue is, with the blind picking of crews, each faction has bad matchups for her, and her crew suffers the same issue Rasputina does in that if she's in a bad matchup, it doesn't do very much. Sure Pandora and Candy do a lot of damage, but the rest of the crew is just not good. Kade has some use, but against wp crews its not so great and he's squishy, and all the other high damage woe options are extremely expensive, so you don't get a Woe bubble, you just get a bunch of expensive woe models because the alternatives are not viable in the current state. To your examples: - An aura to reapply stunned might work, but that leaves Aversions and Lyssa's in the same place. - I fail to see the effectiveness of giving staggered as well as stunned, especially in an aura half the size of the already short misery aura. - Could work but it doesn't help the issue at hand, being that Lyssa/Sorrow/Aversions are easily deleted and don't do damage for their cost. Also an aside: That's 4 models your opponent paid for. Assuming they're sorrows + 1 whatever, that's 20+ points of model to do 4 damage. Frankly that's a bargain of damage for cost.

Hmm... Stat 7 lure... 6" aura... where have I heard that before... Oh right, Toni. Actually no... hers is better since it's mv + 2...