rythos42

How do you think Accomplice on Ramos is best used? I often look at that upgrade and wonder. Combining your newly summoned 3 spiders into one?

Seize the Day and I are having an argument. It tells me that it's a ridiculously useful upgrade that can't help but put me in a better position to win, for only 1ss and an upgrade slot. But then it gives me a 3 and a 4, or an 11 and a 12 against my opponents 13. I feel like I love it a hell of a lot more than it loves me, and that's not a great place for a relationship to be in. But yeah, I did forget Seize the Day.

Totally fair! I just haven't played with them, so don't know any of them! I was going to start writing about how awesome Imbued Energies/Imbued Protection/Arcane Reservoir was, but that wouldn't have helped at all.

Emberling is the hardest working 3ss you'll ever buy...unless, as noted above, he's costing you VPs. I take him a lot in Breakthrough, Line, Reconnoiter, Squatter's, etc, anything that requires some speed (Wk 5 and Incorporeal) and a Minion/Scheme marker. Opponents are often surprised that a totem is significant and a minion. Hard Worker is great against Ressers/Arcanists, but I tend to take it on Kang instead of Mei. Mei has a lot of great upgrade choices...most of which you don't have as a TT player, I just noticed before I started typing them out. I never leave home without Seismic Claws, but that's a personal choice I think.

Fair point, $20 for $20 doesn't seem to benefit anyone. Buuuuuut, it benefits you in a few ways: Surprise!! Who knows what you'll end up with! Exciting! Mail! Mail sucks because of bill, bill, garbage, bill, but no longer, now mail is AWESOME! My giver last year sent me a lot of cool stuff, including some Malifools swag. Some of this stuff you don't know you want until you get it, others you can't get on this continent. I bought some extra kit from a local tournament, just so I could ship it across the water to someone for this event. Or maybe someone sends you something that you want, but wouldn't buy for yourself. You have a slightly more personal interaction with at least 2 of the forum members. I like it for the same reason I still like Christmas, even though it's a pain to find things to buy for people. At least here, I know what to buy! (...don't need to send socks. Unless they're Malifaux branded...hmmm)

Iin Crossroads they finally decided to spill the beans and tell us what everyone had already assumed -- that his first name is Charles. My assumption is that they didn't want to point too strongly at the Charles Xavier inspiration initially, and maybe decided "eh" in Crossroads.

I meant that there are two handfuls of hard counters, not that there were two exactly. Another good one that I run into, is someone playing anti-armour against Joss, the Rail Golem and 6 Metal Gamin. They all gonna die!

Oh, and set up terrain such that she can't clump AND get her points. Terrain set up is huge in this game, and this is one of those important moments. If she's rolling her steam ball around buildings and through severe terrain, focusing on playing defensive, then you have the movement advantage. With proper setup of terrain, her best bet may be to split her group to efficiently move through/around it, which gives you effective targets. Then the Mei player is choosing the right things to keep in the steam. Alternatively, maybe if you set up terrain such that she doesn't have to VS in order to survive, you may get more windows to shoot. I played Asyouwish on Vassal a few weeks ago, and there was a building in the middle of the board that helped keep Mr Sniper Nino off my back, so I didn't have to vent as much. Which meant her other shooters actually got shots off. (downside...the building gave me enough to avoid most of her other shooting as well...it's a balancing act, that terrain is. )

I'm a big fan of Vent Steam, and I think that this is one of two handfuls of "hard counters" in Malifaux. I chuckle to myself if matched against Sonnia in Turf War. Here's a few things I can think of, but nothing here will reduce the fact that you'll have to change something or else rely on luck to help you out: Don't play Sonnia or Perdita if you know your opponent is playing Mei. As noted above, Mei is "good" in melee, but she's a lot easier to take out there, particularly with a solid melee beater. Pick another Master, someone who brings more melee. Target other models. This is harder in Strategies that clump models together, so watch for it in Reconnoiter or Squatter's Rights. Watch for the turn when she turns it off. It's a good ability, but if your opponent hasn't taken Vapormancy, at some point she won't have enough AP to do everything, and it won't be worth keeping on. That's your turn, but she'll probably be engaged so...this may not be great for shooting. Out-activation. I tend to activate her early in turn one, then late in turn two in order to maximize VSs efficiency, and this works perfect if I can out-activate my opponent so I can do Mei last and then apply VS again. If you out-activate your opponent and leave a good shooter, he'll be forced to use another AP to VS. Spread out yourself. This is more of the "achieve your schemes" advice, but the VS ball has to stay tight in order to protect everyone. If you spread out, Mei's crew isn't fast enough to stop you. Mei is super fast, so be careful not to provide to juicy a target to her, but her crew usually doesn't move much faster than Wk 4. If nothing else works, Focus and/or a Soulstone to give + flips. I think it's a waste of Soulstones and AP but it may be your only choice.

I'm also astounded at how much you typed, given your apparent disinterest in the subject! Thanks Justin. I was thinking that the 2VPs mentioned in Shindig would apply, because they are the reason to continue the Shindig (otherwise there's no reason not to end it immediately). But I wondered if Race provided enough reason to not end it -- the Attacker needs to use the Mingle action to get points, and the Defender needs to keep the Hunter alive and it's easier to do so if nothing can attack.

I'm looking in detail at the Crossroads Scenarios. (because I want to play all of them!) The Race Begins (the first one) says that it uses the Shindig rules. I get everything that's written in Crossroads, and I get everything that's written for Shindig, but I don't get how they combine. Specifically: Shindig says to flip an additional Strategy card. I assume you don't? Since then you'd have two goals. (The Race Begins has it's own) Are either of the Shindig Red/Black Joker Actions available? Shindig says to score 2VP for the first Crew to suffer damage from an enemy's Attack Action, are these VPs scored in addition to those noted in The Race Begins? The rest of the scenarios seem to line up pretty well on second read, just this one that got a little funny I thought.

That would be brilliant, Mako! A friend of mine (somehow...) spent some time making blanks for a Neverborn creature in a story encounter for Walpurgis that I filled with text, but it would have been great to have a resource available (and the rest of the factions!)

Hells yeah.

Arcanists cannot hire Guild constructs. (except that when Avatar's come out again, there might be an option for Ramos to do so). Guild (Hoffman) can hire Arcanist constructs through the Upgrade "Arcanist Assets". (But none of that has to do with the "M&SU" keyword. All that keyword gets you is the two Johan interactions, this other stuff is other stuff that happens through other rules).

Some gameplay - Johan(na) can heal M&SU models. I think that's about it right now though. But if you're playing that Ersatz Henchman format you could choose M&SU and hire Ryle (not as your leader...this format confuses me...).

It is the most wonderful time of the year! And this year I'm ready...

I did enjoy the Arcanist one on Mei for a bit, but other things have been prioritized higher for a while. I liked that if I had a mid-high Mask that I could use a stone to make it a really high Mask for her Df trigger. And she has no other (0)s and using it to get 2 more cards was nice for when I wanted an alpha strike. So really, it was useful, but not as useful as the other options, in the end.

I don't believe it can be -1 or pi as easily, although I agree that the rulebook may not support where I'm going. Pi, I think is easier to remove -- there is no way to spend 3.14~ AP, nor any support for what happens if you try. The rules don't say you can spend fractions of an AP, so you can't. -1 is a little harder to deal with. If AP are a thing you can have, in the same way I might have a bag of carrots in front of me, one cannot have negative AP. Negative numbers are a trick of accounting and mathematics, rather than something that exists in the real world. Which is why I was trying to talk about counting/natural numbers earlier (and was shot down by 0 "sometimes" being in the set >.< stupid 0). And this is also why 0 has an argument, because I can have 0 carrots and 0 AP, and I can eat 0 carrots and spend 0 AP. And I'm with you - if that # was better defined, this argument would not exist. Mmmm...humus....

Unfortunately, Defensive Stance is the only case (that I recall) where you can spend a variable amount of AP, so we don't have a lot to compare against. I don't think (ALL) is used in this edition? You're a little behind Oathius.

I actually took solkan's post to be the best explanation of why it should work! Oiran (rather than Onryo) does care, because the model says that when it takes the Defensive Action, it gains an additional +1 Defensive. This means it could (0) Defensive Action and just gain the additional +1 Defensive without spending any AP. It doesn't say that it has to gain +1 Defensive to gain an additional +1 Defensive (that wording would have been clear and very different). Another reason why I'm stilling kicking around this thread -- I'd love to be able to take (0) Defensive Actions on everyone in my Tara crew. There is no mechanic to chuck cards for no reason, but if this was intended it would certainly fit the bill!

What Rathnard said. It doesn't say what other models can do with a (0) Defensive, it only says what Shenlong can do with a (0) Defensive. My belief is that the rules for the (#) Defensive Action already contain all the rules we need. You cannot do things that aren't in the rules. You can do everything that is in the rules. The Defensive rules say that you gain #*Defensive+1, for each # AP you spend. It doesn't say "spend 1+ AP". Which makes the question -- Is '0' a valid value for '#'? I believe the answer is yes, because 0 is a counting number, like 1 or 2 or 3 (or 4, if you're Bishop ). You may not like the idea, or you may think it's silly, or you may have spoken with the rules designer over beers and he told you that no way was that possible, but with just the rulebook, I think it is possible to do this.

I would bet the "separate login" thing is mainly for technical reasons. Also -- woot woot!

Looking at Shenlongs ability, I don't think it changes the argument: "Friendly models within 6 may take the Focus Action as a (0) Action and may take the (1) Defensive Action as a (0) Action". This says to me that the model may take a (0) Defensive Action and treat it as though it were a (1) Defensive Action, which gives +1 Defensive. Whereas this conversation is about taking a (0) Defensive Action to get +0 Defensive.

Thanks for the feedback! I fixed this in the web app this morning (which was also a great real-world test of my new deployment system!), but the phone app will have to wait. I have a small handful of things in the queue for the phone app and can't update it yet.

This is a sweet, sweet list! You may call it redundant since she's listed 1 line above, but I find Mei (in my local) to be helpful using Vent Steam to Disrupt Casters, as opposed to Providing Cover. However, both are wickedly useful.