Myyrä

Why emissary?

The right toughness for a 7ss model is not determined only by how durable other 7ss models are. It is determined by how durable all the models in the game are. I know quite a bit about that, because I have run quite extensive simulations at one point, to compare how much punishment different models can take. I also have a huge excel file that has all the models in the game ranked by durability, but it used old beta rules and the way I collected the stats caused a lot of wrong stats and other weirdness into the tables. You can take a look if you want, but you don't have to come to tell me there are mistakes and weirdness in the data, I know. The calculated durability does however match the stats visible on the sheet. I only computed the effects of armor, incorporeal (probably using the old incorporeal) and hard to wound. The simulator does support other kinds of defensive abilities and attacks as well, but I couldn't gather the data for those so easily. Maybe I should ask if someone already has all the stats in a nice big table. https://www.dropbox.com/s/vu41zm0cvmalnkq/durability_comparison.xlsx?dl=0 It's better to download that and look at it in excel, because you can sort the data based on the cost of the models or whatever.

All of those are ranged models, so in an actual game they are not easier to kill than investigators. Besides, other models being too squishy doesn't make investigator any more durable.

It's as tough as most 7ss models and most of them are too easy to kill to be viable.

I think they suffer from the same problem as so many other Guild models in the 3rd edition do, they are just not durable enough for their cost. This kind of leaves you with a 7ss model that cannot do anything reliably. Either he's in a wrong place or the opponent chooses non-marker schemes and he does nothing, or he would be in the right place and able to disrupt the opponent's plans, but the opponent will just kill him in one activation. Like 4thstringer said in the first post, that leaves them only being able to reliably draw some cards and give out a couple of pushes.

It does not require LoS. You only need LoS if the ability or action specifically tells that you need it or if it uses the word target. You don't even need LoS to the marker you are starting next to.

My order was also split quite weirdly, and both parcels were sent at the same time. Could be just cheaper to ship them to Europe like that.

I'd take magical training any day for the extra card. Of course you could also put it on another model, but I like it on the Guardian.

I think the difference isn't that significant. Diesel Engine is nice, but so is LLC. Magical Training is the only thing I would really miss on Guild side compared to Arcanists. Cheap spiders might be useful on occasion as well, but there are very few scenarios I would actually use them in. I know some guys are pretty hyped about Arcane Emissary with Hoff, but I don't think it's that great because it cannot actually benefit from power tokens, and those form a very significant portion of Hoffman's toolkit. Edit: Actually forgot about SS Miner, those are nice as well. Arcanists have such good versatile models.

You play such weird lists... Here's my rankings. Take them with a grain of salt, because I haven't actually played all of these yet. 1. Hoffman 2. Justice 3. Sonnia 4. Nellie 5. Dashel 6. Lucius 7. Basse 8. Perdita I put less weight on the master itself than some people seem to do (though Hoffman would land very near the top even if I ranked just the masters). I think a lot of the keyword's power comes from the available models.

Similarly it's more difficult to hit something when sight lines to it are partially blocked by a forest than when they are partially blocked by a concrete wall, when you aren't close to either of them. Doesn't make any sense in real life, but that's what the rules say.

So finally, the sight lines are used and defined in function to check los, as those are one of the steps you follow in the process to verify the los between two models. But if a moxel ignore the los, it means that ignore all the steps of the process to verify if there is los or not to a target model. Essentially, the only thing requested to a model ignoring los is to check range, that formally it's a different thing. So, by rules (and common sense...) a model that can attack ignoring los shouldn't be affected by concealing/cover terrains. Remain the black-hole of concealment granted by some abilities, that it's not los check based. And again I think the concealment rules are poorly written... Just because sight lines are used for something that doesn't mean they can't be used for anything else. Your logic is faulty.

Watcher's base cost is now 4, so you would have to pay 5 to get it outside keyword. That's bit too rich for me under normal circumstances. I would usually go with whatever is available to the master for a reasonable price, and my current favorite might be Death Marshal. They are not the fastest of models, but they are really durable for their cost and hit fairly hard too. If they encounter another scheme runner they can probably kill it. This seems to be the only viable strategy for most guild masters, so nothing new under the sun.

3/4 strategies require running around and interacting and the schemes tend to require more actions per point than in M2E, so I would say cheap actions still remain quite valuable.

Be that as it may, it still increases the gap between good masters and not so good masters in many factions.