Azahul

So you think the current version in which Tara is able to kidnap a model back to her deployment zone is less oppressive than her moving a Lodestone Bearer? Because she can kidnap Lodestone Bearers currently too... This change is a subtraction. A big one. What she "gains" isn't something she didn't already have. And given that most competitive players seem to be unsure if she would have any functionality that would make her worth declaring over her original version without the kidnap I can't see her being any worse than Zoraida's Stat 7 range 20-something inches Obey to make your Lodestone Bearer run 10" out of position at the end of the turn.

Also, the sentence "Auras are not cumulative" doesn't appear in isolation. Not only is the paragraph that follows discussing how this relates to models specifically, but so is the paragraph beforehand. That line about Auras not being cumulative appears in the middle of text discussing the interactions between auras and models, not at the start. It seems very strange to me to treat it as an isolated sentence out of context with the very part of the rules it is in. Just add in the bit immediately preceding the line about Auras not being cumulative and you get: All models inside the Aura's area, including what is generating the aura, are affected by the aura as long as they stay inside the area and remain in LOS of the generating object. The "affected model" in these instances is whatever model experiences some change in game state. Auras are not cumulative. If a model would be affected by multiple auras of the same name (i.e. if the Aura would change its game state in some way) then it is only affected by one Aura of its controller's choice. Taken in context surely it's all part of this one big discussion on how auras affect models? The whole section flows as one topic without lifting that one sentence out and giving it an isolated interpretation.

Because the definition we are given for cumulative specifically calls out models. You could argue if we assume that definition only applies to models then Insurance will only ever add one Soulstone to a cache across an entire game. That would meet the strict dictionary definition of a cumulative effect if that's what we're going off. And hey, maybe that is the design intent. Soulstone Cache and Flush With Cash do only cost 2 stones. Maybe you are only ever meant to get 1 stone from them.

The explanation for why multiple models can Scamper would also apply to multiple Insurance effects going off, wouldn't it? The effect of two Insurance auras is two separate instances of "Add one stone to the cache" being triggered by the same in-game moment. They aren't stacking because they're resolving independently and the game's own definition of what constitutes auras being cumulative relies on a model. Otherwise logically wouldn't you only get one Scamper?

Exactly. Changing Rewind the way I suggest prevents Tara from kidnapping models without risk or tradeoff. 33 can't Rewind if they want to keep a model buried, which means the kidnap trick leaves 33 exposed in the opponent's deployment zone for every single one of their models to punch. In return a few more models can be impacted by Rewind, but offensive Rewinds aren't the part of Tara2 people are finding oppressive (Rewinding 33 is) so I think that's ok?

There is also the Dorian/Harata combo forcing Boring Conversation flips at a negative, though again that's one of those things that tends to be better in theory than practice.

I think the argument with Insurance specifically is that a player or crew is not a model, so by necessity Insurance is an aura that affects no model at all. Which means it can stack freely.

The rules are actually pretty clear on what they mean by a change in game state in that very paragraph: The *Aura* has to be changing a model's game state in order for them to not stack. A model dying independently of the aura is not changing its game state. So in the OP's original question, the answer is B. I like to think of Life Leech as the best way of remembering how this works. If a model activates in range of two Life Leech auras, the activating model only takes one damage. However both Life Leech models will heal. Edit: It is worth noting that in the case of Insurance no model is actually being affected by the aura though, not even the model with the aura. My understanding is that it still stacks since you're not applying multiple auras to a single model.

This is true, which I think ties into the goal of "remove the oppressive part and add some extra functionality to compensate".

My personal fix for Tara2 would be to change Rewind from "place the target base to base with the marker" to "bury the target. Then immediately unbury the target base to base with the marker". Since any model in 33's Pine Box gets unburied when 33 gets buried it effectively ends the Rewind Kidnap play. Turning Rewind itself into a bury effect adds some synergy with Aionus and 33's bonus action. Otherwise to all extents and purposes the effect works identically to the way it does now, but removes the most problematic interaction.

Surely Yan Lo isn't stoning to get Focus on your models very often? You could always just relent against the friendly on friendly attacks if you want to guarantee the attack goes back to negatives, which feels a bit inefficient.

At which point I'll need to sit down and make hyper elite Parker1 crews work for me again and make my opponents just hate all their choices.

I did it a lot initially. I'm increasingly of the opinion that doing so is a mistake. The kinds of crews Parker typically sees don't do as much AOE damage as the ones Hamelin typically faces so four rats are usually more difficult to deal with than one, as well as being harder hitting as the rats accumulate. And you get a lot of benefits from those rats dying (Kings dying too, but rats give more opportunities to proc the card cycle and marker drops). That said getting a Rat Catcher on the table early is quite attractive so you don't find yourself tripping over your own rats.

Though also to be fair Ressers have some pretty significant stats backing up their claim that they deserve the most nerfs. I doubt the problem is entirely confined to titles but it seems hard to argue Ressers aren't on top of the game right now (or that Neverborn need some love).

Station strikes me as one of the worst ways to scale upgrades with, it's the essential problem with the current system. I mean why do Philip and the Nanny deserve less upgrade functionality than a Mature Nephilim? Station doesn't mean anything, inherently (besides Soulstone use for Henchmen, but even that doesn't necessarily mean the model will be more or less impactful with an upgrade) and using it the way the current system does creates incongruities as a result.

It is almost entirely in Keyword though. Shush. The Hanged comparison in particular though is funny because their version uses a Tome trigger which actually works the way Parker2 is seemingly designed to work.

It's a bit depressing when that joy only works in dual Master combos. So rare to have an event where that works...

...Hanged have Draw Out Secrets. How come they're better at proccing Perdition than Parker's own Keyword?!

Strats might actually be the place to do it. Imagine Turf War where you controlled a marker not by Interacting with the marker, but by having the most Scheme Markers within 4" of it. Getting a bit far from the original topic here I admit I apologise, I see a chance to make fun of my faction's upgrades, I take it.

The other two non-SoDP upgrades both require enemy scheme markers for one of their main abilities to function. It's such a weird design. We have one Keyword that makes them reliably (but has their own uses for them), and two models that make them unreliably/inefficiently. Such a weird niche of the faction to double down on so hard.

Some of them might be worth 1 stone on a good model...

I think the transition from Reckoning to Public Enemies in the GG0 to GG1 Strategies showed that the developers recognised that they probably overemphasised Station over Cost in a few parts of the design, so I don't think recalibrating upgrades to be more expensive/less effective on higher value models is a bad concept. But if you're curious as to how I play my Faction Upgrades, the answer is: I play Outcasts. I don't

Yeah, I 100% agree. Easily the worst of the cross-Keyword models we received in Malifaux Burns. Which is a shame because I do like the concept. Empower in particular is a rule I just really like the vibe of, having a model that could lean more into the idea of a battery you use up to power yourself is frankly very cool. I'd have liked to see it have an aura within which a Soulstone user can deal 2 Irreducible damage to the Battery to gain the benefit of having spent a Soulstone, or something to that effect. The version we got is trying to do a bunch of little benefits on a fragile chassis that don't really coalesce into anything.

On the contrary, I think my point of contention is that I know it theoretically isn't possible (insert Jack Sparrow "Not probable" here ). Like realistically there is no way those markers are aligned in the one specific configuration they are needed. To me that's the part of this that feels petty, arguing that anyone should be able to claim an advantage from a manoeuvre they can't actually perform even in ideal circumstances. I won't deny that you can get close, but the positioning required to get the advantage in this scenario is so specific as to be more hypothetical than real. It's an order of magnitude beyond the kind of arrangements the rule of intent is used for in all other circumstances in the game in my view. If this rule is followed and used regularly in the development process then the design intent must be that Bandidos are intended to only ever going to get their Trigger Finger attack in their own activation, and Parker2 is only getting a Perdition off Drop It the same way. I'm not discounting that possibility for certain, maybe that is the way those models are meant to work, but boy it's weird having Parker2 rocking a Bonus Action to make getting Drop It easier if he has no real interaction with Drop Its. Maybe the intent of the action was always just to be a do-nothing action that sometimes gets the Mask trigger for a free attack, but then I'm real puzzled as to why they invented a new trigger that's just a crow-based Quick Reflexes for an action to let you take an action that doesn't do anything twice.

But that won't be strictly correct. There will always be a minor imperfection in placement. Even with a ruler you aren't going to prevent an infinitesimally small line being drawn somewhere. Sure, this imperfection may not necessarily be discernible to the human eye, but I know it's wrong and it bothers me. It also doesn't change the fact that it doesn't seem like the devs or playtesters use these rules with any regularity. Like I can't think of any case where if you allowed tangent lines to be used to prevent LOS blocking in this manner, I can think of several models with rules that would actually begin to function seemingly as intended and I can't think of any rules that would be hurt by this? And that picture still looks like the kind of line I'd draw to demonstrate that I have LOS 😆 But like I said, I play other games where LOS on tangents is accepted so I likely have a bias there.