PeregrineFalcon

A few things, NtL will come up rarely so I don't think its a big deal. Also, if it does just don't bury dreamer, and even better drop in a Scion of Black Blood who can remove his Waking. I mean its totally not efficient (cause have to chuck two cards, and you're hiring a SoBB just for this one 'cute' ability), but it could be a way for people who just want to play Dreamer to add a model that can help mitigate the chance of giving up points on NtL.

I think Dreamer (summoner variant has a slight edge over shooty here) is a champ at Occupy Their Turf. He can easily speed three Insidious Madness across the board in a single turn, jeez he could even do it turn 1 with the right hand. 

As far as everything else in GG16, I think that Illuminated are some of the best in the new set. I would suggest maybe a better way to 'discuss' this topic is to generate a scheme pool and let people discuss what they would take (maybe in a different thread, or multiple). Talking about each scheme alone is good and useful, but I think its the combination of the different schemes in some pools that really start to stress the question as to "what got better and what got worse". 

• Fears Given Form (if I take Candy, always on her)
• Mimics Blessing (always on my Doppleganger, also put on Teddy when they're hired)
• Pact (60% of time on Nekima and Barbaros)
• Retributions Eye (sometimes on Doppleganger or Graves depending on potential matchup; i.e. Outcasts or Arcanists)
• On Wings of Darkness (usually putting it on Collodi or Lilith sometimes Pandora, reason is not for flight, but the extra cards. Thing is with this one you want to stone ~4 turns to get value out of it)
• Hexed Among You (on Bad Juju when I want to deploy across the board, usually on corners)

Rest are rarely used by me or incredibly circumstantial if trying something wacky. That's just a quick, rough cut of my approach on the upgrades.

Oh and good to see you're back to faux-ing! NB is a lot of fun, I made the switch last year and never went back. 12 months in and its just a lot of fun with them. If/When I'm down in VA again for work I'll have to try and sync up for a game.

QUICK EDIT: Oh and with GG2016 I think some of this mindset will change, mostly because of schemes like Show of Force. So what I've mentioned above is rooted in non GG2016 but I think still translates mostly over to this season.

FYI here is a summary of the schemes. As always use the official document for full understanding, this is more of just a quick view summary not meant as a replacement for the decks or document.

Ran a demo at the Game Castle for a returning 1.5 player who wanted to learn M2E. He had a blast, did a demo game and than he played another game after. He was an old Dreamer player, and now seems to be pretty excited about M2E dreamer, even though different. Even taught him the new GG2016 schemes and he caught on quickly. Love doing demos

P.S. As always, happy to do demos anywhere, Feb is upon us, so if anyone is looking for demos let me know!

For anyone looking to hear more about GG2016 we were pleased to have Justin sit down and talk GG2016 on the latest Cheated Fates Radio. Episode link can be found here:

That's right Wyrdos were back for a healthy dose of Malifaux discussion. Sorry for the month hiatus but we have something special ... a nice chat with the Justin. He discusses Gaining Ground 2016 and we pick his brain on the design choices and dive into the schemes. 

Joe (@rancor709) also produces his own little parody song for your entertainment ....so sit back and relax, grab a copy of the document and open those ear holes!!

Let us know what you think ...comments suggestions and anything else about the episode can be discussed here. And thanks to Justin for joining us!

A link to the episode follows:

http://pca.st/JMoI

2 minutes ago, Breng77 said:

As it says the Tournament is Gaining Grounds 2016, I assume we are using the 2016 strategy rotation, will we also be using the new schemes?

@Drool_bucket is the TO for the Saturday Gaining Grounds event, he'll have to chime in on the final decision. Last I heard his plan for Saturday's Avatar qualifier was to run 2016 Strats rotation, but with 2015 schemes (do not quote me on this, as its his call). Than Sunday's Avatar would run GG2016 Schemes (not sure on strats).

But this is a very good question, and we'll get an answer sooner rather than later, as people need to be prepared.

1 minute ago, jonahmaul said:

In general I like the new schemes as it's nice to freshen things up as you say (although I'm personally not a fan of them all not being revealed) but having a scheme that completely contradicts the way a Master has been designed to play is ill thought out IMHO.  If it had said 'if you reduce a Master to below half wounds' and 'if you cause a Master to leave play' then at least you'd force your opponent to do something!  The way it's written means that once Levi has channelled twice your opponents goes 'surprise, thanks for the VP' at which point you're left deciding whether to continue playing him as his rules are written and intended or leave him on half wounds making it easy for your opponent to score the extra 2VP.  Similarly the first time Dreamer gets to enough Waking to bring out LCB your opponent gets 2VPs as it doesn't say it has to be revealed for the 1VP before you can score the 2VP.

Yeah I don't see this as a problem. Its like the old Murder Protege and Ashes and Dust issue. People still took A&D and people knew they could get Murder Protege on it. Same thing here people will take Neutralize the Leader against Levi. Another note, Dreamer can do just fine never burying by keeping his Waking low.

1 minute ago, jonahmaul said:

Most announce schemes on the day (every one I've been to has anyway though I'm going to one in March that is going to announce the schemes in advance apparently).  The fact you couldn't full score Assassinate against Levi was pretty stupid but it would have been better to fix that than make up a new scheme that completely negates the way that you are supposed to play certain Masters (who's abilities etc. are factored into their gameplay design).  The fact that if you're a Levi/Dreamer player and your opponent doesn't actually have to do anything to score VPs with it just seems daft.

The beauty of this is that this is just to change things up for 2016, who knows what 2017 will bring. Its a pendulum, to give different tools and masters a new look or different look. Its healthy to "Shake Things Up" and forces all of us to re-think our game play, game style, and maybe even will get us to use models we weren't seeing a lot. This is a lightning rode of energy Wyrd has just surged into the game!

1 minute ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

I like how the update to schemes that put conditions on models now prevent the condition placed from being removed by abilities or actions. No more removing scheme conditions with Levi or the Dreamer Burying/ Chiaki or Johann's condition removal/ Scion of Black Blood removal. Only way to get them off now is the action the scheme itself allows and no other way I can think of. VERY much approve of that change!

Yeah this is a great decision. Very happy with this change as well. A lot of thought put into these. Seems as though past experience and 2+ years of feedback from tournaments def helped clean up some of this stuff. Well done.

Just now, Aaron said:

???

Rapid Growth is 2015, but the others are 2016.

Ah I see they're all in there, excuse my oversight.

Great news! Very exciting. Will have to dive in, love that we can print these out too. Well done!

One thing I noticed is that all of the title pages say 2015 Edition.

7 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Just as a note, The emissary can't copy abilities from a NB Master.

The Arcane Reservoir podcast covered their opinions on the emissary if you want to take a listen. In general their opinion was don't bother with him unless you are playing Pandora or Collodi.

They did have a lot of great things to say, a few things I disagreed with, mostly because of my success with the Emissary. @rancor709 and I did an episode talking about our specific experiences with the Emissaries we had used.

http://cheatedfatesradio.podbean.com/e/cheated-fates-radio-and-a-conflux-of-emissaries/

Mysterious is very strong if you spend time learning its strengths and weakness as it can do a lot. Two best IMO are Collodi and Pandora.

1 minute ago, yool1981 said:

Nothing special for this emissary, it's just a dragon, like thousands before it.

I do not like the idea at all of Wyrd starting to make minis that are unplayable because they greatly exceed their base. It's difficult to say without the scale but how are we supposed to put stuff near this mini?

Transportation in a bag will be a pain also.

 

I don't see any issue transporting this. No different than any of the other awesome 'big' models Wyrd has given us. Wyrd is known for dynamic models. Be creative and find a way to showcase the model while still making it playable. I for one think this model is great and as a dragon, I also find it very cool as it fits the 'flow' and posture when standing next to the mei feng, misaki, or shenlong models (as well as the other 10T) and their crews.

Great job Wyrd!

If you want for me to post this in the New England thread (pinned above) I can. Just post up there the info you want listed. Here is the post where I list demos in the area for reference.

2 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

I need to read up on envy. Does that wording have more interactions? I can think of McTavish denying it straight away.

Well yeah, but a smart player just keeps Collodi away from McTavish pretty easy with Collodi's push.

Envy's (0) is called Sinister Organ Music, he discards a card to let a friendly model within 6" take the Focus Action. That's all it says. So yes if Collodi were in the McT 6 bubble (easy to stop with terrain or just smart placement by Collodi player) it would stop him from taking it. I don't see this being a 'huge' counter to it.

7 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Collodi can only shared conditions gained from effigies and his own actions.

yup and he "takes the focus action", its pretty clear.

I almost always take it on Barbaros and Nekima for reasons above. For them to be effective you need them to succeed on everything they do and they (for my playstyle) are the two best candidates. But I also agree with other concepts mentioned above.

Also mannequins with Collodi and Envy (envy lets collodi take focus to hand out to crew) is great. Mannequins can let models throw scheme markers and Envy can then shoot at them getting the +Sh and Tome to his shot. For example the doppleganger is a great model to help throw scheme markers (she doesn't care if engaged and doesn't get randomized when being shot at).

Just added an event on March 5-6 in NY to the Calendar. First 3 months looking good for Malifaux around these parts!

Awesome Arash. I have added this to the google calendar.

I'll get this added to the NE Malifaux Google Calendar. I don't have FB, but make sure Jonah McCreary shares it on the New England Malifaux FB page.

13 hours ago, aj46 said:

Please add our tournament on 1/24/16.

 

Thank you.
 

 

Added it, double check and let me know if you see any issues. Looks like fun!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this. I'll be doing a prize via a raffle. I'll shoot out an email to those who participated.

Stay tuned for the info on a small local tournament.