moxypoo

*Virtually shakes hands* Remember that Sandeep is also a summoner even though his summoning is more limited than Asami's. My rationale for Sandeep being the best is that he's a summoner, and is a jack of all trades, and strong at all of them. He also has some control elements, so you can basically drop him into any objective pool and do well with him. This is exactly correct. Well said, Razhem. Every master can pull off some crazy stuff, and it takes a little time to figure out how to deal with those antics. Given all that, I don't understand why Reva has such a big target on her. To me, NPE is a poor argument. Every master is an NPE to someone, and I'm pretty sure you could dig through these forums and find a post calling every single master an NPE. The only way NPE becomes a good argument in my eyes is when a huge portion of the player base considers the model to be negative or disruptive in some way. For example, pre-errata Hamelin was an NPE for everyone, since he was nearly impossible to beat. Reva just has the new master surprise factor, and once people figure out how to deal with her only trick, I predict these types of threads will die down. There's been some comparison of Reva and pre-cuddle Levy, but I don't think it's a perfect comparison. Reva does one thing - solid, consistent damage with a long reach. Pre-cuddle Levy had a similar sort of reach and damage, with higher mobility, better summoning, and more versatility.

I don't understand it either. From my games with and against Reva, I remain unconvinced that Reva is anywhere near overpowered. Sandeep will turn out to be the strongest book 4 master (with Nellie in the top 3) - I'm open to taking a gentleman's bet on that. Exactly. When I play the Viks I generally pick out a 5" diameter circle anywhere within ~20" of one of the Viks and tell my opponent to remove all the models in that circle. Tara can drop Killjoy and a Desolation Engine out next to the enemy master on the first turn with high reliability (this is a one trick pony setup, admittedly). I can do disgusting things with Zoaroida, a Nurse, and Nekima, and easily murderize things with Lilith. Has anyone tried just bum-rushing Reva's crew? From most of the arguments, it sounds like Reva's opponent is allowing her to set up a corpse field while cowering behind cover for the first few turns.

The Rat Engine was tested during the Book 2 open beta at least with Hamelin. I posted 2 battle reports using the Rat Engine + Infectious Melodies to deliver Killjoy with Hamelin, and there were other people who played around with it as well. Unfortunately, I can't remember whether the Rat Engine was tested with the Viks or Levy during the beta. Apparently, it just took awhile to catch on in the tournament scene, or maybe it just took awhile for everyone to become aware of how it was taking over the tournament scene.

Teddy has a very nice combo with Audience with the Queen. Target a model within 6" of Teddy with Audience, then place the target in base to base with Titania while also in Teddy's melee range. Smell Fear triggers after Audience is resolved, allowing Teddy to attack. For added points, Teddy can use his push trigger to push the enemy model into base contact with a model with Pounce.

This is my point. RatEngine and Leveticus are two example of post release errata to cuddle models that were PROVEN to be overpowered. The RatEngine was in nearly every Outcast list at Adepticon if I remember correctly, and Leveticus was winning a large proportion of major tournaments. However, Wyrd waited about 2 years before cuddling them to gather enough data to PROVE that they were overpowered. The same approach needs to be taken with Reva and every other newly released model.

Crap. Forgot about that upgrade. But you neglected to mention all the other advice in my post, implying that the other advice is helpful? My main point with that post was to suggest that shes only been out for a short while, and there's been little to no discussion on how to deal with her. She might end up being overpowered, but it's much too early to tell. If she starts winning all major tournaments and no one can come up with any counterplay then I'll be right there with you crying "OP!" This sort of reaction happens with literally every new book, and there have been very few cases of errata cuddling a model after its been released. That suggests that the released product is generally fine, regardless of the initial impressions.

For what it's worth my friend just beat a Reva 9-0 in a tournament this past weekend while using a fully in theme Rasputina list. A lot of the "Reva is OP" comments smell of throwing one's hands up in the air and giving up. She's been out in a limited capacity for what? Two months? It's much too early to determine whether she's OP or not. There are many counters that aren't being mentioned in this thread. Use the corpse counters yourself (Ressurs, Maniacal Laugh especially, Levi, etc.). Remove the Corpse Counters (Hooded Rider, Mysterious Emissary, Friekorps Specialist, etc.). Shoot back at her (Guild and Outcasts are especially good here. 10T has some solid ranged models as well). Run across the board and engage her crew aggressively (almost every faction can do this). Use models that don't drop corpse markers to limit her attack avenues (pretty much any non-living, non-undead crew). Reva has no way to mitigate armor, so heavily armored crews won't be as scared. She may eventually turn out to be overpowered, but it's entirely too early to tell, especially because there's been so little discussion on how to counter her. When M2E first came out, I remember months of, "How will I ever beat ranged masters like Perdita and Rasputina?!" Neither of those masters are considered over powered now.

I haven't tried the Primordial Magic with Titania yet, but I've gotten success with the Gorar by waiting until right before one of my important minions is about to before running towards the center of the board. The Gorar can also provide some nice support from 10" away if your crew is capable of reliably handing out Slow.

This is my experience too. Roughly 90% of my games include a conversation like this: Me: I want to position this model such that it's out of line of sight of that model. Do you agree it's out of line of sight? Opponent: Sure. Me: Great, your go. Opponent: Hoffman shoves the Rail Golem 47.2 miles across the board and the Golem proceeds to obliterate the model you carefully positioned. Me: Sigh... Anyone who starts seriously arguing invisible units of measurement with you is being a TFG, and you should attempt to avoid playing with them. Some estimation of measurement is required in all tabletop wargames simply due to their nature. Once players start arguing over microns, the game breaks down and becomes unplayable.

I'm a professional scientist, so I feel compelled chime in here. You're mostly correct. There are a few main factors of competition in science, some of which predominate in certain settings. In academic research, the main competition is for limited capital to perform the research and pay salaries. A secondary, but not lesser form of competition, is recognition for your research. Being the first person to make a huge discovery is a massive boost to your career, so there's competition amongst scientists to make the next big discovery. This is connected to obtaining funding, because granting agencies are more likely to fund prominent scientists. In an indstry focused setting there's the natural competition of product development. In an ideal world with infinite funding and perfect job security, this is exactly how scientific research would work. Unfortunately, there are many examples of bias or poorly performed or fabricated science that take a long time to be discovered. Many of these examples do not get challenged for various reasons, most of which relate to obtaining funding. Almost no funding agency will give you money to repeat other studies, because you think they're incorrect or biased. There can also be political pressure to "discover" a result in a certain way in areas that become very political, such as climate change. Also, a pet peeve - consensus is not valid scientific criteria. Now for on-topic! I think this is a great point. The balance of Malifaux is very, very good, but perfect balance in this type of game is unattainable due to a nearly infinite number of variables, many of which aren't anticipated by the playtesters. Therefore, some models will be more competitive than others, and it's necessary to honestly evaluate these things to determine how to improve the lesser performing models. To add my own opinion from observation of human competition. Humans naturally want to take shortcuts/learn from others/not reinvent the wheel, which means that netlisting is a natural outcome of any competitive human event from fighting, to sports or gaming. As follows from LunarSol's point quoted above, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel unless you think you can improve upon it. If a new payer wants to play Sonnia competitively in a tournament, why should s/he waste time reinventing PapaBox instead of netlisting it? If a player thinks there's a more powerful Sonnia list s/he is free to test and innovate. Do I think netlisting is a bad thing? Well, that depends. If netlisting becomes so predominant that the meta completely stagnates into a small number of lists, then yes. I'm not heavily involved in the Malifaux tournament scene, so I can't comment on whether this has occurred. However, in my gaming group it's fairly rare for anyone to netlist, unless they're interested in trying out a combo they read about online. An interesting comparison is Magic the Gathering (assuming the tournament scene hasn't changed much since I played). With every new release there's a new set of netdecks that predominate, and new releases tend to shake up the predominant decks, especially if entire sets rotate out of a particular format. The Malifaux release schedule is much slower that MTG, so Malifaux and other miniature based games can't draw on this constant rotation of "game pieces" to refresh the meta, making them more prone to stagnation. Gaining Grounds seems to be a force that can be used to combat stagnation if it exists.

This isn't an exhaustive list or even the best models with Titania, but so far- Insidious Madnesses seem to work well, because they're great scheme runners and Titania's themed crew has lots of "Lure" effects to bring enemy models into their anti-cheat aura. Stacking "I Can Hear Them" can also make some important actions punch through. It seems that having a big beater like Teddy, Hooded Rider, or Nekima (haven't tried her yet) works well with The Queen's Champion. Titania can also keep them healed up nicely as well. I like the Mysterious Emissary a lot, because it combines area denial with the Hungry Land Markers, boosts up some of our strong minions like the Autumn Knights or Illuminated with its vanilla Conflux, and popping out Changelings is always a nice bonus. I've had some success with Fae models as well. Running 3 of the Autumn Knights doesn't seem to work well, but running 1 or 2 seems strong depending on what you need. So far, I like Claw the best followed by Tooth. As for totems, I haven't tried the Puke Snake, but I would probably run that over the Gorar unless I had some strong, aggressive minions. If I run one or more Autumn Knights, Illuminated, Rougarou, or something similar, I'll often take the Gorar. It can be really demoralizing for the opponent to dump AP into killing a powerful minion only to have it immediately return. The themed crew also has a lot of pushes and places so models with Pounce (Lelu, Baby Kade, Rougarou) work really well with this. I've only used Rougarou so far, but I can see Lelu'Lilitu working well too.

Honestly, I think it's just going to take some time and experimentation. She's not a simple master and her rules have been out for less than a month. I certainly haven't won all my games, and I'm still playing around with crew composition and combos but Titania definitely has potential.

I've gotten in a number of games with Titania, and my initial conclusion is that (1) she has a completely unique playstyle in the Neverborn, (2) she's very subtle and complex, and (3) she excels at certain objective pools while being poor at others. Essentially, people haven't figured her out yet. I come from the Outcasts, where Tara is one of my main masters. Both Tara and Titania are support masters that don’t really appear to be support masters at first glance. These two masters are AP amplifiers – they can give their crew more AP than they’d normally have and mess with enemy models to reduce the number of useful AP they can get. Some examples. The Queen has Risen gives movement for 0AP, Deal with Him gives essentially 2 free AP, the heal from My Loyal Subject is equivalent to an AP on other models, and A Wicked Silence drops a scheme marker (1AP) and potentially gives you movement (1AP) in addition to damage. Because Titania is so tanky, it’s a natural assumption that she should be mired in combat the entire game. However, I find the most success with her when I use her to tarpit key enemy models, especially since Titania can use the Queen Has Risen or the trigger on Wicked Silence to leave engagement if necessary. Audience with the Queen (which doesn’t seem to have much discussion in this thread) is key to this, and is probably one of her best actions along with Bloody Command and its triggers. Here are two examples of cool things I’ve pulled off with those actions that support the “AP amplification” I mentioned. 1. Audience with the Queen pulled in a weak, damaged model, then Bloody Command dealt a little damage, while Deal with Him allowed the Hooded Rider to move ~6” and kill the enemy model to gain the Queen’s Champion. Hooded with Queen’s Champion is pure Brutality. 2. Audience with the Queen pulls in a key enemy model while Teddy was nearby. Smell Fear triggers, allowing Teddy to attack and push the enemy into b2b with a Rougarou, allowing it to get an attack. This takes a little setup, but you get 2 extra AP and a potentially dead enemy model.

I've been mashing F5 all morning, but that doesn't seem to be working... Really excited about all this news. The guilder program seems really cool, so I'll have to start hunting down some tournaments. Revealing all the artwork is a nice touch from a marketing standpoint, because tabletop gaming with models is visually dominated. If Wyrd can get people drooling over the artwork, they be likely to buy models made from said artwork. Also I'm really enjoying how all the Malifaux artwork is coming together in a coherent visual style. The orange trash monster things look sweet, and I love the half gremlin/half pig/half man guys. I'm super cereal.

I took this photo while on vacation. I have no idea what "Tading" is, but I assume it's a front for the Ten Thunders. Also, the breach is in Flushing, NY! Confirmed everyone!!!

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but keep in mind that the Neutralize the Leader argument (at least in a competitive tournament sense) hinges on it being an undue burden on Leveticus. You'd have to prove that this scheme was responsible for making Levy's win rate drop much lower than that of other masters.

I feel compelled to chime in on the Neutralize the Leader conversation. Yes, playing Leveticus (or Dreamer) the way he's intended if your opponent picks Neutralize the Leader will give up VP. However, both of those factions have 6 other masters (7 when Ripples of Fate comes out), so just pick one of them when that scheme comes up. In regard to the stated design goals of M2E, remember that "viable" does not mean "optimal" and it certainly doesn't mean that every master is equally powerful in every strategy and scheme combination. Fetid_Strumpet has a good discussion of this point a few pages back. The reason you see the scheme pool before choosing your list is to tailor your list to the objectives. If you choose a crew unsuited for the objectives, that's simply poor play. Choosing Leveticus for Neutralize the leader both pre- and post errata is a sub-optimal choice for Neutralize the Leader, just as Ashes and Dust is a poor choice for Murder Protege when used as designed. It's a poor argument to say that you can't use a model "how it's designed" when you're deliberately choosing to run crews that are contrary to how the pre-game setup (choosing objectives and crews) is designed.

Love seeing all the cool previews Nathan posts for us drooling Wyrdos. The friendly couple from the Other Side look really good, and I like all the little details, such as the hair covering the woman's face except for one crazy eye. The fluff behind those two should be interesting. The titans are hit and miss for me. Hit because they look really cool (I especially like the robot's gun and the monster's face), and miss because I'm not a fan of giant models. In fact, a major reason I left 40k was the decision to supersize all the models. But it makes perfect business sense to use The Other Side to expand Wyrd's customer base rather than simply pulling over people from Malifaux. If the Other Side isn't for me, I'll still have Malifaux and Through the Breach to spend time with. I can understand the complaints about lack of detail on the fish monster titan, but I'm not in complete agreement. Too much detail tends to make a model too busy, and I think that Wyrd tends to find the nice middle ground between lack of detail and too much detail. The Brutal and Shadow Emissaries are great examples of having enough detail to keep me interested but not so much gribble that the focal points of the models are obscured. The downside to this feature is that good painting skills are required to really make the model "pop." The Emissaries are really impressing me! In order of most to least favorite: Brutal, Shadow, Mysterious, Carrion, Lucky, Arcane. I'll certainly be picking up Mysterious for my Neverborn and might grab Brutal or Shadow in the future simply to paint.

She brings some unique features and utility to the Outcasts,so even though I haven't tried her yet, she's high up on my list to try. I have heard of people having success with her in a Jack Daw or Hamelin control list with lots of overlapping auras that prevent your opponent from doing certain things. For example, run Nix with Hollow (immunity to and damage, no severes), Hamelin's The Piper Upgrade (no charges) or Rusty Alyce (no charges), Anna Lovelace (no pushes or places), and Sue ( to enemy Ca actions) combined with other similar models to really shut down your opponent's crew. You could do a similar thing with Jack Daw.

Whoops. You're absolutely correct. Editing my previous post to avoid misinformation.

That's a really interact heavy pool, so I'd bring Pandora along. As a 29 SS core, I'd run this the following. This core gives you some solid activation control along with the capability to make lots of enemy models Insignificant to prevent your opponent from being able to complete his/her objectives. Parking Candy on top of a Squat marker will make life miserable for any enemy model that gets near it. Teddy is there as a countercharge model to protect Candy or Pandora from getting ganged up on, while comboing well with his ability to push enemy models around as well as Smell Fear. Pandora Fugue State, Aether Connection, The Box Opens Primordial Magic Candy Best Behavior, Fears Given Form Teddy Depending on which schemes you want to take, I'd consider the following. For LiTS or Breakthrough: 1-2 Insidious Madness. They're fast, cheap, and combine very well with Pandora once they place their scheme markers and have to fight. I'd favor them over Terror Tots, because they have a whole lot more synergy with the crew. For Protect Territory, Take Prisoner, or Cursed Object: 1-2 Waldgeist. Probably some of the tankiest models we have in Neverborn, they easily lock down Cursed models to prevent them from removing the condition and protect scheme markers well. I rarely select Take Prisoner, but Waldgeist do well here too, because they can have a huge engagement range and are really tough to kill. 1 Sorrow works really well in Cursed Object and Take Prisoner as well, since they can teleport in from 8" away to either Curse a model or score a last minute Take Prisoner.

Here's how it works. A model with a face-up Cursed upgrade can take a (2) tactical action called Penance and discard a card to flip the Curse upgrade face down. While face down, the upgrade has no effect. At the start of his activation, Jack can discard a card to remove one of his Curses and reattach it to himself face down. He can then reapply the Curse with a trigger from either of his attacks on his base card. If a model uses Penance to flip the upgrade face down, the Cursed upgrade stays on the model until Jack takes it back. However, there's no way to flip the upgrade face up again once Penance is used.

Also remember that the Pursuits from the Fated Almanac start with a General Talent which can be generally roughly equivalent in power level to the level 0 talents from Into the Steam. Just wanted to point that out. EDIT: I forgot that the Into the Steam characters also start the game with a general talent. But the main goal of RPGs is to have fun, so as long as your fatemaster can adjust the power of the campaign to make it a fun challenge to the players, then house rules are perfectly fine.

I play Jack (and most of the Neverborn masters) frequently, and Jack's odd in that he has a mostly passive way of forcing the opponent to react to him. Most masters who can quickly put the opponent on the back foot are very aggressive, but Jack forces this reaction by setting up a series of crappy choices for the opponent to choose from. His main and most obvious mechanic to do this are his Curses, but other combinations Jack crews favor, such as Jaakuna Ubume+The Drowned can do a similar thing. Playing against Jack is an exercise in repeatedly choosing the lesser of two evils. You have to turn the table on Jack and force him to be the reactive one so he can't set up the overlapping fields of poor choices. In my experience, the best way to beat Jack is twofold. First, have multiple redundancies built into your crew. One high damage melee model can be shut down by Firing Squad Injustice, but it's more difficult for Jack to stop two. Same goes for scheme runners. Secondly, Jack is often the linchpin of his crew, so if he overextends or wanders into a dangerous area, take the opportunity to kill or seriously wound him. This is especially true in a more-or-less themed crew, but I've dabbled with some mercenary heavy lists that are less dependent on Jack. As an honorable mention: if you suspect Lady Liega, bring Iggy. Our friendly childhood pyromaniac is a cheap and effective way to deal with Liega in a mostly melee faction. The inability to cheat near Liega makes her nearly immune to anything but the most focused (pun!) melee assaults. Eclipse gave some very good advice too.

Would you mind giving me a rundown of how you use Hodgepodge with Jack? I've tried that combo before, and I would have rather spent the 4SS on something that provided more Jack synergy. But I could be missing something important, so if you've had success, I'd love to hear about it!