tmod

Yeah, but that's one mage. Should be possible to tangle away, gang upon by something else, slow, kill, or something, right? I mean, I keep hearing there are three of them, and killing just one will be inconsequential. If you kill one to disable to two others the problem should be prettt much solved...

How are you slowing/pushing Nekima when engaged? I cannot see anything on the mages' cards that allows a push when engaged. You could always use the Captain for airburst or something, but then Nekima would be charging right back in next activation... I might have missed something, as I don't play Sandeep myself, but I cannot see it...

I've noticed, and I think it's a good idea! :-) Thought I'd have commented earlier, but must have missed it somehow. Actually I think this is the kind of creative thinking that is key in any rebalancing in something as delicate as Sandeep. Hamfisted errata will likely send him to join pre-errata Luscius, but this is a nerf to his most common build, not to Sandeep himself (well, kinda, but I hope my point get across). In a similar vein, a buff and cost increase to Myranda (as well as maybe a IE at an extra ss) might make her better outside the IE combo, and slightly worse in (without removing it outright), and promote more varied play. Desperately need those four cards? It's gonna cost you 2 extra ss, and you will miss out on the awesome power of Newranda... Not sure this is even viable, but this is my thinking anyway: errata that are not strictly neccessary (ie "quality of life" or game health changes) should promote varied playstyles as much as possible. In my opinion, of course... :-)

Well thought out, and well-reasoned post! I think you touch upon something important when you mention that most actions are ok master level actions, but when addes together with Beacon becomes a little too much. It seems to me also that there are a lot of drawbacks and weaknesses to consider, but most are to easily mitigated. Basically the cogs seem to fit together a little too well. I think the first of your list that should be dropped is attacking his resilience, as that makes the melee build even less relevant. I also think his cache should come down!

This I agree fully on. There's no doubt in my mind that Sandeep is a strong master. Gamebreaking strong? I don't know, and remain sceptical. But he is certainly not a 4 ss cache that need any free help in my opinion. He could very easily be cache 1 or even 0. I would fully support a change like this (and I suspect there will be a few others come July). I never said the whole faction was based around every crew USING IE Myranda. The trick (or exploit if you dislike it) has been known since book 1, so every wave have been built with thr knowledge that IE Myranda is available as an option; every crew MIGHT take. It's not without it's costs, so will not always be taken. But IE Myranda and Arcane Reservoir have been around since wave 1, and are probably a reason why Arcanists lack other card engines. Removing them during an errata means that card hungry models across the faction lacks a resource they've been designed for. That's why, IF the card surge of IE Myranda causes Sandeep to be op then it'd be better to tone him down in some other way. I've not seen Myranda in every competitive crew, so I suppose I, along with reality, will have to be wrong... 😛

Can't split up properly due to being on cell phone, so please bear with me... 😉 I agree on the stay on topic bit, you're more than welcome to contact me by pm if you want me to elaborate what I have issue with in the communication. Of nothing else it could help avoid misunderstandings in the future! 🙂 On the Myranda + IE thing I kinda agree. This particular trick has been with us from the start, and is somewhat balanced by costing many points and the summoned beast not getting upgrades. Still it reduces Myranda to a ridiculous role, and it is very strong. All the faction is balanced around this, so I think it's hard to remove without hurting the whole faction. IE could probably cost 2 stones, but otherwise I'd prefer Myranda to get a buff so it'd be less of an auto-choice to sacrifice for cards. If this is indeed the trick that pushes Sandeep over the top, then the least intrusive solution is to nerf Sandeep more directly. Tldr: is it fair? No, not really, but it's been around since the start of M2e, and should probably stay. Many things in this game are unfair, that in and of itself is not reason for a nerf. The easiest, but least elegant solution, would be to errata Myrands so she couldn't be taken by Sandeep... Personally I think the issue with Sandeep is the following: it's basically been taken for granted that with the scheme/strat structure of the game the specialist will always outperform the generalist. To compensate Sandeep got too much flexibility and is a little too strong in too many aspects of the game. Fixing this is going to be hard, but I think they either have to reimagine him as more of a specialist, or do many small changes to tone down each aspect slightly while also buff the perceived weaker masters in Arcanists. In that way Sandeep should be a considerstion in all games, but never (or almost never) outright stronger than everyone else. He'd still likely be a strong master, as it's easier to learn just one master than all of them, but less dominating. He could also probably use at least one serious weakness, mainly to strengthen the perception of counterplay. Even of a master is not strictly superior, the perception of invincibility is almost as bad as the real thing in my opinion...

The last bit in parenthesis is a kinda important caveat that was missing earlier is all. With it, your statement is a lot weaker (some Swede(s) I know as opposed to all Swedes in existence), but also a lot more useful, truthful and not hyperbolic. I got involved in this thread only because a lot of you "ganged up" on WWHSD when he presented suggestions for some changes and against some of the more extreme suggestions. Maybe this is largely a language thing, and maybe you didn't intend to come across as hyperbolic. That's fair, but at the same time I didn't want to stand by and watch while seemingly well-meant suggestions got attacked with hyperbolic and ad hominem attacks. That's why I pointed out how it came across for a neutral observer. I think the most useful direction of this thread right now is what @bedjy asked for; advice from strong Sandeep players on how to actually beat him! Unfortunately I cannot help here, but hope someone else can. Otherwise we'll all see Aaron's conclusions come July! 🙂

It was implied by claiming he is on a whole different level than everyone else (excepting maybe Nico). Ie "God tier". But good we can agree the claim is hyperbole! 🙂

"All of those events" are three, and Sandeep presumeable also placed lower. A master winning three somewhat big events is not proof of anything, but three wins is certainly more than one win. There's no strawman here, so keep dodging. Note that I do in fact support Sandeep getting an adjustment, and I have all along, I just don't support hyperbole! And you might also want to quit ad hominen attacks while you're at it... All the Swedes..? Honestly this is excactly the kinda of sweeping claims that undermines all the rest of your argument. It comes across as a group of players who wish for a change and tries to flood the forum with similar sounding claims with only each other as support in order to force a change. That's not the best way to improve the game. Wyrd has strong (but not perfect of course!) history of paying attention to the meta to create a balanced game. They are very aware that the recent twice-a-year errata schedule have created a lot of noise making good errata harder to achieve (Aaron said so in a podcast interview just this fall). Trust them to treat the game with respect! Coming on here and starting this thread after the Polish Nationals was great IMHU; discussion is good, and it's vital that the big shots know about your experience (and everyone else's for that matter!). Unfortunately this discussion have deteriorated badly, where a lot of opinions gets thrown around like facts, and that can get toxic to constructive debate. This thread is on track to get closed down by the mods, and then we all loose out. There have been many ideas of how to make subtle change to Sandeep, and hopefully this will contribute to a better game in the fall (after the July errata), but hyperbole will not! Honestly I wonder if there's more to be gotten from this discussion as the "Sandeep is OP, it's a fact no one can disagree with"-shouts seem to have drowned out any attempts at finding good solutions... Hope this can still be turned around! 🙂

No, it's not. And if you've read my posts you'll see I'm not opposed to Sandeep getting a change. I'm opposed to the hyperbole. That's not a straw man, that's me saying wild unsubstantiated claims get us nowhere. I'm sure tournaments during the spring will show if Sandeep is too far above the curve stay as he is, based on many anecdotes, and in the end Wyrd will make the right call. But claims like "you cannot win except with Sandeep" will just create noise, and lower the signal to noise ratio, and either have no impact, or make it harder for the Wyrd guys to hit the sweet spot where Sandeep is still good but not op.

No and no. (Well, technically I have all masters in the game, but I mainly play Outcast with Gremlins as my second. Never played Sandeep in fact, and he doesn't seem all that fun to me, powerful or not.) On the Welsh and Swedish Nationals they don't really support what you're claiming for a few reasons: they're also singular tournaments, and from the results we cannot infer that Sandeep is dominant. But perhaps more importantly, you claimed the numbers doesn't really matter because "all of the Polish meta agrees" (not an excact quote, but you get the idea. The numbers from Poland doesn't really support Sandeep's dominance, but then you claimed "special knowledge". Do you have "special knowledge" of all players in Wales and Sweden as well? As others have pointed out there's nothing to support the notion that Sandeep is breaking the game yet, and you quoting every sucsessful Sandeep player as "evidence" isn't going to change anything until we start seeing real evidence for it. I'm pretty sure you'd gotten more support for moderate changes to Sandeep if you didn't present your subjective opinion as objective fact. I subjectively support Sandeep getting a closer look from Aaron and co, but I strongly oppose when you and others present your personal feelings as objective facts. They are not. So it seems either you are trolling or you have very little knowledge of discerning facts from opinion.

Which doesn't prove a thing unless it's the same across the board in most if not all metas. What you've seen could easily be just random, but it could also be that the Polish meta suck against Sandeep; ie you need to learn how to beat him. From the data points we have that seems much more likely than him being simply on a different level than everyone else. I think you'd rallied broad support behind adjusting Sandeep so he'd be less dominating within Arcanists, and provide more difficult choices for the Sandeep player. Hence my suggestions (no, plea more like it), focus your energies on how to make the game more interesting rather than just cry "omg, he's unbeatable and breaks the game" when the evidence we have CLEARLY don't support that (maybe outside of the Polish meta). You are right that we (non-Polish Nationals players) don't have the whole picture, but neither do you. Maybe a few Polish players have managed to break the game by using Sandeep better than anyone else, but the more likely explanation is that they've broken the Polish meta. If this success is not replicated across the board the onus is on you Polish guys to learn how to take Sandeep down a notch, not om Wyrd to bail you out.

Hyperbole. Because you don't provide a shred of evidence for your pretty strong claims. You only provide anecdotes, and only anecdoted that are ambiguous at that. If Sandeep was on a whole different level than everybody else then a mediocre player with Sandeep should consistently beat great players playing other masters. This is not happening. Or every good player should transition to Sandeep (or Nico) or stop winning. This is not happening. So this all comes down to wild, unsubstatiated and hyperbolic claims, and you (and others) are called out on it. I could make the claim Sandeep is crap, and we'd be on about equal footing when it comes to presenting evidence. I'm sure I could find an example of a player coming dead last in a tournament soloing Sandeep. Of course, this doesn't PROVE Sandeep sucks, it simply proves one Sandeep player sucks, but it's basically the same exercise a lot of the Sandeep critics have engaged in here. I think it's plausible that it'd be good for overall game health if Sandeep get an adjustment, but the discussion suffers when wild and unsubstatiated claims are thrown around as facts.

This is excactly what I'm talking about. This is pure hyperbole. He IS NOT the #1 master in the game, you BELIEVE he is. You might be right of course (I personally think he should get a small adjustment), but there's not been a shred of evidence for this, and you present it as a fact. That is pure hyperbole, and it won't help promote a helpful discussion about what, if anything, should be done. Please stop!

This is hyperbole. I think it's likely that Sandeep does a little too much a little too good, but a lot of players from one meta (Polish) getting together and deciding he's too good is NOT evidence of anything, really. We've seen large metas dominated by several masters during M2E, but very few have been consistently dominant across metas. Unbeatable Colette has been menioned, but the equally invinvicble Belle spam Seamus list from Chicago a few years back is also worth mentioning. This last one is clearly relevant: one highly competitive meta is dominated by one build, yet nowhere else is it dominating. Most people seemed to agree that Belles were probably a little too good/cheap, but the list didn't dominate elsewhere, and evetually faded away... It could very well be that Sandeep could use an adjustment, but please stop saying "we all know", "he has been dominating", "he is unbeatable", etc, as this is pure hyperbole and NOT proven in any way. One meta reports a clear dominance, and that means it's worth having a look at; UK #2 says Sandeep is too good to consider other arcanists, that's certainly worth listening to. Remember in early January when "everyone" agrees that Gremlins were "dead"? Then on January 27/28th they win UK Masters, probably the most prestigious tournament there is? If something is problematic it will show over time, and one group, even a big and competirive one, agreeing it must be overpowered is not evidence it actually is... To be fair, Gremlins winning Masters doesn't really prove anything either, but it hopefully exemplifies why hyperbole is toxic to a balanced discussion of what is to be done and why. Don't leap to conclusions guys, present evidence instead! 🙂 Full disclosure: I have Sandeep, but not played him yet. From a theoryfaux perspective he does seem strong, not because he's best in everything, but because he seems reasonably strong in unreasonably many things. And with a large cache to boot! Both sides probably have some good points here, he is probably a little too good, and that's further emphasized by the other masters in Arcanists being a little weak. But team Nerf Deep has so far resorted to far more hyperbole and unproven claims, hence my words of caution goes mostly to you guys... In the end I hope the overall game balance keeps improving, and that includes a better in-faction balance in Arcanist. And probably a small toning down of Sandeep overall power level...

Nooooooooooo! :-(

Why did the "sad" button have to be removed just when I needed it...?

Awesome, I'd say leave as is...

I think the difference is mostly in people's head: when saying 2.5 they think of a smaller change where model stats are not invalidated (ie change in elevation rules), whereas by 3.0 people think of a rewrite/rebalancing where larger changes are on the table and all cards will change. I think it's somewhay of a false dichotomy as stats can change within an edition (M1.5E), but can also remain valid between editions (warhammer 6th through 8th ed, unless new stats/army books where released). Though the x.5 is a bit of a misnomer there is a distinction between calling for a big reset and a small adjustment. Personally I think the first would be overkill, tha latter a welcome change...

I disagree that the topic is outdated. You can disagree with specifics (like Perdita), but using a wrong term (Obscuring is a typo and should be dense) does not make the rest invalid. The post is written for the current edition of the rules, and as such is still valid. When it comes to the specifics of Perdita, using cover in combination with incorporeal/armour against her has been a staple advice since the release of M2E as she can only ignore either armour/incorporeal or cover...

I know, I've got it, but they might still want to adjust faction/do something about dual faction that's not directly in conflict with TTB Core. (Not advaocating it, just mentioning it because I've heard people talking about it)...

I think there are two equally important sides to this coin: Models and objektives. Whenit comes to models I agree that a cleanup should be getting nearer; "ignore abilities that ignore" is starting to become hard to grasp. On the other hand we got Leveticus and cannot be reduced already in 2014 with Crossroads. Also increasing model complexity is kinds inevitable with an expanding range and older models not rotated out. How many different stat 5 4ss models could each faction take? The arms race could probably have been handed better, and can be reset with a new edition, but there will always be a need for new abilities and tricks, and increasing complexity will inevitably follow. When it comes come to s&s I only partly agree. There is a significant complexity increase from book 1 to gg15, but I don't think the complexity increases all that much from gg15 to gg18. All the gg changes tend to be to promote varied play and listbuilding, and remove exploits. I may not like every single scheme and strat, but I think this is the only way of keeping the game fresh and alive, and I sincerely hope that the book strats/schemes when next edition hits will be closer to gg18 than the M2e book ones! On a related note I think the game could easily take a few more years before a new edition is needed. Elevation rules are wonky, but that could be fixed with a rules update. If they want to clean up the models that could be done through errata, and if they (for example) moved all stat cards in M2.5E to the foil style they could pretty easily replace all cards needed. A proper new edition is needed for two things: a full rules rework and a full on rebalancing of all models. Neither is needed right now, and for example reworking all model stats in one go is easier, cheaper and less costly (in terms of lost sales) than reworking all model stats AND AT THE SAME TIME rework the rules and withdraw a lot of products from sale pending updates. At some point I'm guessing Malifaux will move to 100ss games with increases in cost to increase granularity (and slightly increase model count to increase profits), but unless they are planning that now I can't see a compelling reason for M3e right now. I for one would be all in favour of a 2.5 rules manual being the new book this GenCon, with maybe one or two mew models per faction, and a 2.5 reworked models book being the core of next year's release. Oh, of course they might want to release M3e to rework factions and or a fluff reset, the above deals with minis and rules...

Interested, but worried about logistics and taxes when distributing within Europe (located in Norway myself). I don't have access to a reasonable LFGS stocking Malifaux (available to order, but prices are then ridiculous, ie more than £50 for a crew box, and waiting times are genereally 5 weeks+), so mail order is the name of the game for me, and postage is expensive...

She's described as the biggest Nephilim in existence, so she should be at least significantly bigger than a mature...

I'm afraid I'll have to pass this year, as my wife's still got six months left of her studies and all our savings are gone, but it seems like a great sale this year! Under any other circumstances I'd drop at least $300 on this, so I hope the extra cat stuff and alt Rasputina returns later. Don't really get the cost to Europe thingy, but that might just be my "local" (not really!) shop charging a heft markup for regular stuff (about $100 for a crew box). Also the EEC rules screw us over i Norway when ordering from the rest of Europe; as we're EEC we usually have to pay sale taxes in the country of origin, and we still have to pay 25% VAT on top of that (including on foreign taxes and shipping costs) in customs. I guess my local store is well aware of this, and that's the reason for their markup (as a business they get away from the taxes on tax and shipping issue)... It means that ordeing a single crew box from somewhere, will often cost even more than $100. It's an expensive hobby here, and then you might as well spend the extra to get the coolest stuff...