scarlett fever

With the Shadow Emissary's action Aspect of the Dragon - Dragons blood the wording says 'enemy models which suffer damage from the Poison Condition suffer 1 additional damage from the Poison Condition'. Does this mean the model suffers 2 damage at once, the same as if it said +1 damage, and is therefore effected by armour. Or does the model suffers 1 damage, then 1 additional damage, therefore bypassing armour? I'm assuming it's just an alternative way of saying +1 damage so the model takes the damage in one hit.

Good advice. I have been guilty of all those sins at one time or another. I've just moved factions myself and can feel the internet claustrophobia and expert advice seeping into my brain, ugh. Yay for diversity.

Whilst shadow stride is fun, when you consider you have about a 60% chance of getting it off a turn it's not something that can be relied on. Even then it's probably lower as you may have something better to do with 12,13 of masks and red joker. When it works it's great, sometimes you'll get it off on 3 models in a turn, but on the other hand it's not uncommon to go 3 turns without getting it happening at all.

I concur with others in this thread in that there is nothing I always take with Shenlong beyond Wandering River upgrade and a Peasant. Everything else is situational. What I do have is a few core lists depending on what I want to achieve and a number of go-to models. It's this flexibility that makes him quite intensive to play, if he's not top of my roster I can loose focus. My core lists are; Shen, Peasant, Toshiro, Sniper x 2 (Interferrence mostly) Shen, Peasant, Emissary, Low River, Ohagaru, Swordsman (alternatively Yasanori. This is my killy, pincer list) Shen, Peasant, Sensei Yu, Wandering River Monk, Thunder Brother (More schemey list, Stake a Claim etc) Shen, Peasant, Iluminated x 2, Sniper x2 (Collect the Bounty, Minion based schemes etc) I've also tried a more aggressive control based Shen, Yu, Izamu, Yin list but haven't had as much luck with it. Mind you I've only run it a couple of times. One list I've made work is Emissary and double Thunder Archers, but I'd only consider it when the terrain and Strat is just so. Hiding the Archers behind a big piece of terrain and flooding the centre of the board with blasts of the Emissary is pretty fun. And no, I don't use Fermented or High Monks either. High are okay with McCabe and in theory they would be good if you know your opponents Frame For Murder target, but that's a lot of ducks in a row.

Alyce was on my mind too. Her Rapid Fire can force opponents to use cards plus if you end up out-activating there's an opportunity to reactivate the Deso Engine. She might make a good Desperate Merc babysitter come gunplatform though that makes their Disguised redundant. Agree about Oiran. They become feasible with their upgrade but that's Thunders only, which is a pity as it would sit well on Alyce. Plus all the crows in my Misaki crew are going to be going to Misaki. Also I see the anti-Charge thing as just one piece. Many crews just won't care, especially the caster blasters. But heavy damage tends to come from Melee attacks and what you'd be doing is basically slowing up Melee based crews, which would give the guns more time to cause problems.

Sorry I meant wild firing not rapid fire. I realise we're all primed to dislike them, I'm just exploring some potential corners. Being on a plus flip will make their average duel total just under 12, which is close to the average duel total for a def 5 model on straight flips. Given equal duel totals go to the aggressor I would expect them to win slightly under half the duels over time. Unfortunately you'd want 2 of them just to even your odds so it is a big ask. You don't expect all these factors to go your way during a game, but it could be enough do that they become worth 4ss. Cheap activation, potential card drain, potential soulstone, unable to be charged and cheap AP for schemes. I don't own them yet so next thing is to try it. Chances are I'm completely wrong but it's worth a try.

As a Thunders player recently moved to Outcasts I've been pondering this, especially as the internet likes to cast aspersions at Outcast Misaki. In Thunders I've used her similar to the Viks. There she has access to Sensei Yu and Recalled Training so becomes a very long range, high damage missile. In Outcasts I'm seeing her differently. I actually think she might be better to concentrate on her Assassinate trigger in an anti-charge crew. Give her Disguise and bounce her around the board tapping models for Assassinate. The models that might key into this would fufill soulstone generation(S), charge denial(C) or card drain(D). Models that spring to mind are Ronin(C,S), Desperate Mercs(C, S, D), Hodgepodge Effigy (S) and Desolation Engine (D). I think she'll still be a niche pick in Outcasts but this is where I plan to start with her.

Yeah I realise the Tara interaction. I was wondering if there we had access to something non AP intensive outside of Masters that could ping a couple of Mercs for 1 damage. Hitting each with a one AP attack from a model that could be doing something else seems inefficient. An Obidient Wretch could toss rats at them, but that is only really in a Hamelin crew. I was wondering about them as a card drain for your opponent. On plus flips against a Def 5 opponent you'd expect them to hit 2 out of 4 of their Rapid Fire attacks, but at numbers that would be easy for an opponent to cheat. So they could be similar to TN pulses. With Rapid Fire, Disguised and the ability to give back soulstones when killed they could be useful in an Assassinate based Misaki crew. Rapid fire to drain cards, Soulstones to fuel the Assassinate trigger (Misaki is at her best when she can disgard her last stone to gain auto Assassinate) and Disguise to key into an anti-Charge crew.

I'm fairly new to outcasts and my books are on loan. Do we have passive(ability) options for pinging them for a wound, preferably outside of masters?

Good point, I'm a big fan of talking intent as well. There can be situations to do with range, LoS or Cover that things have to be placed just so to take advantage, particularly on 'scenic' terrain. So stating intent really helps in later activations

Good feedback. You must have an interesting perspective playing in the big UK tourneys as I imagine you'd get a meeting of many metas there. To expand upon point 1, how far do you take this? Is it just within the models activation or is it a 'case by case' situation? Forgetting your chant of Cthulhu what if 2 activations into turn two you realise you didn't push your Hunter at the end of turn one, or forgot to heal 2 wounds from Equality? What about part way through the first turn you forgot Shenlong's free 0 action or to use Scout the Field?

So something I'm curious about in other metas is how people deal with take-backs/'mistakes' in tournaments. In both the metas I've been in in our wee country the core of the metas I would say are fairly strick with take-backs, not necessarily with their opponents but on themselves as players. I like to think I take this approach myself. As a side note I consider once a card is flipped there is really no going back. Sometimes you have to figure it out because the Action/Ability turns out to be illegal, but otherwise. Nope. However I have lost quite a number of games to these 'mistakes'. I'm going to split them into 3 cateogories to help unpack what I'm getting at. The first is the Abilty/Action order. This is something that frustrates me greatly as with the more complex Masters, unless they're the top of my play roster I will make these mistakes all the time and cost myself VP. Examples are, activate my model, move it then realise I didn't drop recalled training/oath keeper/discard a card for begining of activation ability or simply declare begining of activation ability. After initiative is flipped abilties (Shenloooong). Moving my Charge before doing my 0 action or begining activation ability, ugh. What tricks do people have to remember these things? I'm keen to be strict on myself with this stuff but need to practice my memory game as in the heat of the moment I get carried away trying to keep my game speed up and these things happen. Moving models. I have proxy bases which I use to see where I can get to first, in the case of a critical move that requires accurate measurement I feel like there shouldn't be take-backs. And the big one, mucking up your Scheme. Now in this case I'm not going to give examples, as a courtesy to my opponents, but in a number of games, including in a large tournament overseas, my opponent has mis-read/mis-written/not detailed their Scheme and yet still claimed on it. In these situations I'm too lenient perhaps, when it's been brought to their attention they've made a mistake I leave it to them to take the honourable course of action. These are rare cases though and don't really effect the above 2 cateogories, just a clash of my competitive/fun natures and perhaps my fun nature should harden up and make a scene. Or not as the case may be. So how does your meta deal with this stuff? Particularly curious about the culture in the big US and UK tourneys. What is everyones comfortable balance between competitive and relaxed?

I played against someone who used resser Yan Lo to good effect, would be equivalent in a thunders build. Yan Lo's crews already tanky but with the ability to re summon ancestors I realised I wasn't going to deny his last stand with the crew I had.

I mentioned something similar yesterday to one of our players who's done well with Hamelin. He insinuated using nix as blight bomb end of turn one and beginning of turn two (at least that's what I got from the conversation). This has really stuck in my head and I'm keen to try it out. Setting up early to get big blight stacks to key off bleeding disease and the like.

I think one is plenty. I almost never take 2 of anything. Though it denies armour it's weakness is also armour denial/death by a thousand cuts so I don't like multiplying my weaknesses. Also it's gattling canon is something your opponents will learn to hate.

All you're really missing is something to deal with armour. Lone swordsman is brilliant but he really becomes dependable with the emissary. I'd also suggest samurai or Kang if you want to spend the ss.

That's a good idea. That's the only time I stop to consider my rat activations, my first game I got the order wrong and missed a rat king when I was planning for it. I've played for years but this is the first time I've used activation markers as well. I'm also going to use dice to Mark my rats wounds, another first. @hydranixx I agree on the Tara build. I know who's crew you're talking about and that crew is frustrating af when I lay down an elite thunders build. I've had worse times against Kirai though, ugh.

I agree, I would never purposely throw a game but I've played a lot of beginner/demo games and games versus casual players over the last few years which is why I set myself up with harder lists in those situations. I think it's respectful to your opponent to play strongly but equally not fair to put yourself in the position where you can obliterate them. Against a new Levi player I took an Austringer one time, the rest of the list was pretty soft but I regretted the choice of the Austringer as soon as we started playing. My opponent was gracious but I felt like a dick. There do seem to be a couple of approaches to gaming I come across, the competitive gamer, of which you're obviously one, as am I, doesn't tend to have the same sense of NPE from getting stomped, even in their early games, as long as the opponent isn't gloating. That's just a cue to play harder and learn from your mistakes. Your points about Strats and Schemes are also relevant, which do you think he struggles at? My one game was Interferrence. I can see your point about all the peons would be significant in Reconnoiter in particular. Good points. I've played against Hamelin a few times and the only NPE I would personally get from playing against him is the same against any master and that's slow play (of which I have been guilty of at times). Games that drag make me loose my interest and focus. The set up for alpha-strike is something avoid in beginner games. It can be a huge game changer and against newer opponents can basically shut down their game and they don't get to learn their models. It's something Thunders have access to in a different capacity but I'm guessing the strength of Hamelins activation control will lean this way. Interesting you think the activation control is not so relevant after turn one. Whilst it's not so dramatic it still felt fairly important in later turns. You'd get the all things off you needed at the beginning of the turn and then had the ability to delay between other important activations as the game progressed.

So I've decided to swap over to Hamelin from my usual Thunders for an upcoming league. I'm pretty excited after one game, where I got decimated by a new player with Rasputina after taking a pretty much solely rat based list, but I learned a heap. With new crews I like to just get them the table then read their cards properly after the fact. But that's beside the point, sort of. When I play games against new players I like to take lists that will challenge me, be fun to play against but will make me work hard to get VP. I'm a fairly erratic player in general and can flip from top of the pile to the bottom depending on whether I'm trying out weird/fun stuff, playing hard or just generally making a mess. My concerns are that Hamelin has a reputation as an NPE and I don't want to put anyone off. A couple of our new players look they'll be kicking my proverbial soon enough but there are a couple of unknown players and I don't want to give them bad games, but want to challenge myself at the same time. It's also good to just to develop lists just for new players in general that showcase Masters without stomping the opponent. I have a bunch of tactics for this in Thunders but Hamelin is unkown to me. So what's some good ideas for challenging lists and tactics (for me) that won't make my opponent groan with despair, especially if I start to get the hang of him? Off the bat I can see that I should concentrate on activating and transforming rats as quickly as possible. Just pointing to a rat and saying 'that rat activates, over to you' without making it do anything seems solid advice. I can also see 'The Piper' upgrade being an auto-take for me, so removing this access to Obey might be a good tactic. Also no Killjoy, Deso or Ashes etc. What other ideas do people have? Of course I could just totally bomb for 20 games running (wouldn't completely put it past me) while newbies roflstomp me and then I won't even require your wisdom.

To expand on what spooky_squirrel mentioned killing with conditions is good denial. Obey is a double whammy, make the opponent kill your FFM target with his own model then kill their FFM with their own model also. This is the scheme for obey.

Interesting take on the headhunter +schemes. Often when I make a list for headhunter I feel like I'm trying to build a poor imitation of a belles list, trying to target and isolate one model at a time. I need to bust out a totally new approach to the strat.

Aweome, cheers! Thought as much. Just thinking that this initiative plus the refresh of the UK/US rankings site last year make for great tools for wyrd to use. I love data analysis and these tools give interesting insights into the metas. Before these I was relying on scraping twitter/facbook/forums/podcasts to get some sort of vague oversight. I still do but these give a more solid foundation. Obviously with a game with almost limitless iterations n=400 or even n=10000 casts just a slither of light across possible power curves/trends but it's fascinating nonetheless.

Well done, this is pretty fascinating on many levels, particularly when you start breaking it down into formats and tournament/casual play. Is it possible to have the 'Most Played' in the Masters section as a drop down to show all Masters (as per the win ratios)? It would help make sense of the win ratios. Awesome work, look forward to looking at this in depth in 6 months time! Great tool for Wyrd.

If you're determined to use S&S as a key part of your plans you can always take Tannen (leave it to luck) for leverage.

I'm a little concerned with this. As far as I can tell can't an obey from anyone, friend or foe, just trigger additional attacks until yasanori misses? *edit* never mind, I see this is already answered in the rules discussion, once per activation triggers are once per activation of the obeying model also.