Kadeton

I have a rocky relationship with Bête, to be honest. She's one of those models that is incredibly effective in the right situation, but borderline useless in others. She's so strongly keyed to Living targets (Scent of Blood, Sever Spine) that when you come up against primarily non-Living crews she can feel severely underwhelming. Put her toe-to-toe with an armored Construct and you're just wasting your time.

In a lot of crews her main problem is that she's really card-hungry (discarding for Flurry, specific suits for triggers, and saving a 10+ for her inevitable death), so that at least is a lot less painful in a Nicodem crew. But if it came down to a choice between Bête or Sybelle for 8 stones, there's no question which I would prefer.

If you're looking for more of a "Haha, SURPRISE!" approach, maybe check out Tara or Molly - they're both pretty great at jump scares with Killjoy and Bête.

2 hours ago, Morgy said:

@Kadeton Love it....i really want to try something different! So no corpse bloat or markers to start the game?

Whats your thoughts on killjoy? I love the big fatman....expensive but he reminds me of WoW abominations

I'm usually not trying to grow my crew much during the game, just replacing the models that die is enough to create an unbeatable advantage over your opponent. You can always pick out the enemy Living and Undead models if you need more corpses.

Killjoy is a very hard hitter, but I find his biggest issue is getting bogged down. On the turn he comes out he might get a (1) Charge, a couple of triggers and really wreck something, but the turn after that he's probably only getting two attacks unless your Master helps him out... that's assuming he's still alive, since he dies fairly easily. I like him a lot more with Tara, since her abilities let him reposition every turn, gain Fast, chain activate and win Initiative to maximise his effectiveness. Nothing beats his visual impact, though.

Take any card from your hand, show it to your opponent, and put it at the bottom of your deck. All the damage is prevented.

Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I'm getting at.

(Though I utterly dispute Megahorse's notion that the Ressers have poor Ca actions. Look at the Undead Spirits!)

If you just want to flood the board with models, I don't personally think Nicodem is the best choice. Kirai is superior when it comes to pure summoning - but the models she brings will never be as individually effective as a model supported by Nicodem, and they're not backed by his incredible card-draw abilities. Nicodem dominates the hand-control game, and it's more than feasible for him to simply bash the opposing crew into the ground with a sledgehammer made from pure efficiency. Undead Crowning plays a huge part in that strategy.

In addition to new Master upgrades to change up their playstyles a bit, I'd really like to start seeing alternative specific upgrades for Henchmen. More variety for all!

10 minutes ago, Bengt said:

Using your Master AP to give multiple  to Ca/damage seems kind of terrible to me. That first  is always going to be the most valuable and lets face it, even with all the  (i.e. four card flips) you wont reliably get severe damage without cheating. So IMO the fact that Undead Crowning stacks is a trap, one application is by far the most efficient use and combined with Corpse Conductor makes Nicodem a very solid buffer.

The best amount, IMO, is whatever you need to affect your priority target with a net  on Ca and/or a straight (cheatable) damage flip on the 1-5 difference. In most cases, that's going to mean a single application is perfect. If the target you want to kill has Stubborn, or is under an effect like The Man In Black (or even cover if it's a  spell), two applications can end up being far more cost-effective. The same goes if you want to be able to cheat damage and the target has Hard to Wound. It's not often worth multiple casts, but it definitely can be.

(You will never see a look of triumph turn to a look of defeat as completely as having a Mei Feng player Railwalk into double Vent Steam, only to have Nicodem cast double Undead Crowning and completely negate the penalty while pumping everybody's damage through the roof.)

3 hours ago, Clement said:

By this do you mean single  to the attack flip and single  to the damage?  Or have I been reading this wrong for years....

So, every time I talk about this upgrade I have to check the cards again, because I still can't quite believe it's real.

The Undead Crowning action doesn't bestow a Condition on Nico, it simply provides a bonus in an aura. Unless otherwise stated, non-Condition effects stack (BRB p.53), and there's nothing in Undead Crowning that prevents stacking or limits it to being cast once per turn. If you cast it three times, for example, friendly Undead within 8" of Nico will get  on all damage flips and  on all Ca duels.

(If your opponents don't believe you, refer to FAQ #135 - Vent Steam produces a similar aura with a stacking effect.)

The Viktorias aren't much fond of anything that can shoot them at long range (like Freikorps Trappers), stuff that attacks back (like the Nothing Beast with Voided), stuff that explodes when it dies (like a bunch of the Arcanist constructs Levi can hire) and things that can't be charged (anything with Disguised). Shut down Viktoria of Blood any way you can before she goes off like a bomb in your crew, and you should be fine. Spread out a bit - one key anti-Viktoria tactic is to position your models such that Blood Vik can't reach more than two of them when she engages, and something nasty is still in range to charge her in return.

Von Schill likes to group up his crew so they benefit from his auras, so beating him is all about breaking that synergy. Kill the Steam Trunk as a first priority (Trappers are good at this), then focus down other support models like Librarians. If you can, separate your targets from Von Schill - bury them (or Schill himself if you can) with Tara or the Nothing Beast, for example, or hire Belles with Levi to lure them away. Depending on the Strategy and Schemes, having Von Schill's forces concentrated around him can make it easier for you to pursue objectives that require spreading out across the board.

My usual beater to hire with Nicodem is Izamu - with Nico's  to Ml attacks and Izamu's built-in  to damage, his basic attack needs no further enhancement to really do a number on someone. Izamu's also pretty damn tough for most opponents to deal with, and a little extra healing goes a long way.

If you're running Necrotic King, I've found Datsue-Ba to be a cheap and surprisingly effective beater. Within Nico's Undead Crowning aura of  to Ca and damage (which can stack with itself, omg), you can rely more on her high Severe damage, and she's great for punching through targets with high Armor. Summon her a Shikome friend and the two of them under Nico's influence will rip apart just about anything.

1 hour ago, daniello_s said:

That's how I see this as well but imagine yourself that in  my local group all other players take damage reduction/prevention into account before effect on attacking model is kicking off so it is not taht obvious as you might think

I don't think it's obvious at all - I had to trawl through a lot of FAQ answers to realise that there was a consistent pattern in how "suffering damage" was treated. I'm just hoping to get that knowledge out there (hopefully with some official support), so people can understand the basic reasoning behind these specific situations, and from there work out how to resolve other damage-related rules questions that might come up.

5 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

I know that, I'm more talking about the inconsistency of the meaning of "suffer damage". It can currently mean the damage flipped or the damage a model takes, and that's just going to cause problems as the game is expanded IMO.

While it would obviously be preferable to have distinct terms for these measurements (damage before reduction/prevention versus damage that reduces the model's Wds), is it actually that inconsistent? As far as I can tell, here's the consistent underlying principle:

If an effect is based on an amount of damage suffered, and it affects the model causing the damage, use the amount of damage caused before reduction and prevention to measure the effect. If it affects the model upon which the damage is being inflicted, use the amount of damage by which the target's Wds are reduced (after all reduction and prevention).

The above is consistent across Dumb Luck (FAQ 64), Gada/Haberdasher (FAQ 103), Zero Damage (FAQ 17), Organ Donor (FAQ 92)... are there any answers I haven't found that are inconsistent with it?

48 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Impassable means impassable, no deploying or entering it of any kind.

Impassable doesn't always mean impassable, unfortunately. A wall is impassable, for example, but because it's also climbable models can get up on top and walk around on it (or climb over it). Similarly for buildings - the brief definition on p.61 says that buildings default to being both impassable and enclosed, which would be meaningless if you couldn't end your movement inside the building. (What really seems to be meant in this case is that the walls are impassable, rather than the entire building.)

So impassable can be tricky unless very precisely assigned to individual parts of the terrain. In this game, if the cliff face alone was impassable that would not prevent a Trapper from deploying at the top of the cliff, but if the entire terrain piece was impassable the Trapper would have to go elsewhere.

43 minutes ago, hydranixx said:

Assuming your Zombie is on 2 wounds as you say, and that Pandora and at least 1 Sorrow nearby (6"), as soon as you cast and hit the zombie with Shriek, it dies, because it loses both wounds to Misery, before Shriek gets to make a damage flip. This will hand 2 ticks of damage back with Black Blood if he's really close to them, but it's not going to be handing out 4 damage like you say, and certainly nowhere near 8 damage... since he dies before the Blast can be placed.

FYI Misery deals damage after resolving the current Action, not immediately upon failing the Wp duel. Any damage from the Action, Blasts, Black Blood etc will get resolved before Misery kicks in.

3 hours ago, Mutter said:

Should have clarified that I meant Pandora's paralyze, because she has neither or , like Kadeton mentioned.

Sorry, I can see how you got there from what I said, I should have been clearer. Doesn't stop the Paralysis, but you're not dealing yourself damage in the process, which can make it pretty slow going for Pandora, and you're still spraying Black Blood all over the place.

You've got some interesting ideas, but...

12 hours ago, PossiblyInsane said:

Unless there is a terrible run of bad luck/mismatched deployment, the enemy crew now has a Rat King, a SotV, a Fast Nothing Beast, and Killjoy in the middle of their deployment zone, and will probably have a rather bad day.

I feel like this is the point at which this strategy can simply fall apart. Most of the enemy crew is still able to activate at this point, and while you've got a fair pile of nasties they've got their whole crew, including their Master. You've spent resources getting all your stuff into their deployment zone, but everything they've got is still raring to go and it's probably the enemy's activation. Imagine unburying that clump of models into a Viktoria crew - after their activation, you'd have nothing left!

Basically, making this trick work relies on the enemy crew being unable to handle the pressure of several dangerous models in their midst. In many cases that will work fine, but sometimes it will just fall flat. Try it against controllers like Pandora or Brewmaster to get a sense of how badly things can go.

Still, give it a try - if your local meta is light on control and heavy on ranged damage crews this could be really effective.

6 hours ago, Obeisance said:

Undead have crap DEF, so you'll often hit. And regardless of HTW you'll end up taking damage. Multiple models with multiple shots just whittles your stuff down. Like a Perdita crew, for example. Or guys that strip HTW or ARM. Even the big stuff like Imazu just gets shot to death easily.

What do Resurrectionists do about being shot off the table? What models would you take?

Correction: Some Undead have crap Df. Some Living models do as well - across the game, most models fall into the Df 4-6 range, and Undead in general are roughly on par with everyone else. They do perhaps have more low outliers than other model types (Flesh Constructs, for example) but there are plenty of Df 6+ Undead to go around.

The major advantage over other (shootier) Factions is the ability to replenish losses. As Nicodem, if your minions are getting whittled down by shooting, they're dropping corpses - summon some more! Having Undead die around Nicodem is generally awesome for him.

Other things you could try include:

• Bete Noire - Df 7 with an anti-shooting aura, and can pop up unexpectedly in the enemy ranks and cause havoc;
• Crooked Men - cheap minions with Df 6 and damage reduction +2 versus shooting;
• Sybelle - Df 6, with an upgrade to make those Belles Myyrä mentioned even better at Luring shooters in;
• Night Terrors - super cheap fliers with Hard to Kill and the ability to push towards anyone that shoots;
• Crooligans - able to drop Soft Cover over big areas of the board;
• Any incorporeal Spirits - shooting damage may still get through, but won't hurt them badly.

Kirai is also aggressively anti-shooting, with the ability to summon Ikiryo in base contact with any model that hurts her nearby stuff, regardless of range.

For the most part, though, shooting just doesn't do enough damage to stop the Resser advance. Losing a couple of models per turn should hardly slow them down. I'm happy to go through some of the Nicodem tricks I've learned at the next Outpost night you can make it to.

Just now, DrEvilmonki said:

If you can see how confusion could arise sort of implies there is ambiguity.

No. There's a lack of clarity, not an ambiguity. The confusion arises from a simple misunderstanding based on the terms used. The rule itself is not open to multiple interpretations unless you've misunderstood what it's saying.

The phrase "end Push or Movement effects" is what seems to throw some people here. The end of a move effect isn't describing a point in time (in the way that ending a Condition does), it's describing a point in space. The effect applies to the model, and the position where that model stops is the "end" of that effect. If that model is an enemy model, the move effect may be restricted by Clockwork Dress.

Importantly, the model that generated (applied) the effect is not the model that ends the effect, unless it pushes or moves itself.

I can see how the confusion arises, but there's no ambiguity here.

The only other thing to note is that the Defender cannot declare Triggers if they relent.

1 hour ago, Omenbringer said:

May I just ask that all of you who are either posting from memory or posting without having actually played against Reva please abstain.

Don't ask people not to post, thanks. Everyone is free to contribute, though it's always useful to indicate what your opinions on Reva's performance are based upon.

1 hour ago, ttsgosadow said:

Got all my 50ss set this way, and am unsure what I could drop for that Yin you're mentioning. But I so see the value of TBtN!

For me, it's usually Mortimer that gets the cut. When I'm running Nicodem he's usually more about buffing (with summoning to replenish losses) so the more Undead I have the better.

The enemy model can choose not to suffer the damage regardless of whether they have any soulstones left in their pool.

(If they choose not to take the damage and don't have any stones left, Parker still gains a stone.)

4 hours ago, benjoewoo said:

A question I have, if 2-5 attacks from Reva herself between her various potential upgrades is giving you trouble, how do you deal with Sandeep? He allows friendly models to use his attacks and trigger him to attack out of activation. He can easily generate 6 AP of attacks outside of his own activation--5 SS, 7 Wd, essentially armored oxfordian mages can cast Sandeep's spells once each, and on a tome trigger--which I think they can get from being near each other--sandeep gets to cast one of his spells out of activation. This is in addition to being able to summon his totem twice a turn without slow.

Not to derail into a Sandeep discussion, but this isn't at all how Sandeep works. First, Beacon allows each spell to be copied once per Turn - Arcane Storm, The Mind Among The Senses, The Path To Salvation, and As Your Deed, So Your Destiny can be cast once each, and that's it. If one Oxford Mage casts Arcane Storm, no other model (except Sandeep) can cast Arcane Storm that turn. Second, Student of All allows Sandeep to take an action once per Turn if one of his spells is cast with a Tome in the total. He can only generate 1 AP outside of his activation, ever.

That's not to say that he's not a really powerful and flexible Master, he's just not as crazy as you've suggested here.