admiralvorkraft

Unimpeded is nice, as is walk 5 and not needing the suit for the condition removal. They do less damage without the burning built in, but with the change to burning it doesn't change things that much...

Or you hold it back and control board position? I guess I'd tweak it in two ways. The heal should be a free action and No Love For Witchlings should say "friendly fire or LOS" because the image of Sam punching a bullet clean through a Thrall to get a kill is just too good. Build in either trigger on the revolver? I think Ricochet. He's a faster, more fragile Alyce. But the delay on damage from burning means he should have a marginal other edge. The Quellers - build in blaze on Arcane Staff and replace Barrier to the Other World with "Flame Barrier - while this model hasn't activated this turn enemy models treat the area around them as hazardous Damage +1 and Burning +1" Sanctioned Spellcasters seem fine. Maybe make Negation Aura Ca 5? But probably not. Give the Handler a more reliable heal and/or a way to turn burning into soulstones. The keyword has schemers (Hopkins, spellcasters, Quellers), ranged pressure, ml presence, and a degree of durability (shielded, counterspell). They seem fine except that you can min-max by just hiring the best models cross keyword so why bother with average models or models that accomplish things in less-than-perfect ways?

So I do agree that they're is a bit of an issue, and that is cross-keyword hiring. The Kabuki Warrior is perfectly balanced in keyword. Cerberus is completely balanced in keyword (SSC cache is the issue there). Thrall is just fine in keyword, balance around the strengths and weaknesses of the keyword. But it's not good compared to Phiona. Who the keyword shouldn't have free access to because then it's not a keyword with unique strengths and weaknesses anymore... but that's a design issue with the game at large. You're Coming With Me places the Thrall in contact with the target so I don't see how that specific is a problem. Plus the Df Trigger should be enough to mitigate the consequences of blowing up early.

Kabuki Warrior is strictly worse in my experience. I just blow it off the table before it gets relevant. Sabertooth is better with SSC but otherwise it's pretty similar on paper. Leap is great of course, but clearly that's not the sort of trick Guild is allowed to have. Goryo again has a worse attack though Vengeance and Incorporeal are a great combo. Kentauroi has a very different role within the keyword thanks to Ride With Me. The Raider seems good on paper but I've never seen it played. Again, I think you're using the Thrall wrong if you're looking at it as primarily an aggressive piece. Your in-keyword alpha striker is Sonnia, the Thrall is there to bust her out of combat and mix it up in the mid-game before dying and splashing burning that lets you summon a new one...

I think that's more of a matter of the Students being over-tuned than the Thrall being bad. Throw anything forward 15" for one attack and a halfway decent player will melt it. That's not the Thrall's fault. It reads as a roadblock/countercharge piece to me. Hold it back a bit turn one as you get burning on the opponent and limit their ranged options, get it in the mix turn 2/3 with a stack of focus and let it clear out the center. It's got a better Ml than the student thanks to Crit Strike and You're Coming With Me. And yeah, it's more fragile, but again that's Schtook's crew being over tuned generally.

Oh yeah, I don't play her as a mainline combat crew at all. She's a skirmish crew. Some spikey scalpel damage, surprising angles of attack and decent maneuverability. I almost never cheat cards offensively but I set up to leverage cards into ap (through A Por El mostly). I bring a lawyer ook for Tools for the Job and Surge on Impassioned Defense. The shielded is nice, I guess, but the card is essential. If I bring a second ook model it's usually a pathfinder for his free actions, Favorable Terrain and Trailblazer.

You could also say "2 Non-Keyword Models" just like there was a two Merc limit in the previous edition. Nino is core to my crews as well... The way I see Family is that it's mostly a card management game - having cards to discard for extra AP is basically the whole thing. So that built in Family Values is essential.

I highlighted the big one from my perspective. I've spent a while the past couple days trying to club together lists that approach the game in a variety of different ways that have play against Cadmus and everything I've got runs into a mechanical counter. Play the avoidance game? Sorry there's Nests and (the aptly named) Omnipresent Influence. Go in hard? Your models die to their own damage. Scalpel out specific models? Not with FWC and the Emissary around. Blast damage? melts away to Shielded and We Are Legion. Attrition? Not in the face of massive irreducible damage and good summoning. Aggressive scheming? Thanks for fueling my summon engine I'd rework FWC - the discard a soulstone to cancel an attack ability should not be in the same model as the generate soulstones ability, because combos need to be breakable. Building in counter-play (counter-play not just counter-picking) should be a design concern. Change the Eyes and Ears summon to trigger off Web Markers or Nests in exchange for damage. Remove From the Shadows from the Nests and replace Ticks and Leeches with Venomous Strike at St 4. Either reduce the range on Omnipresent Influence to 6" make it 12, or change it to "When this model activates a second time in a turn..." Tweak the archivist; Cost 9, Ill-Omens +1. That gives some counter-play by limiting the ability of the crew to reach out and touch you. It makes it more plausible to scalpel out individual pieces, and it mitigates the overwhelming tempo control of Last-First activations. All while keeping the feel of the crew (which I love) more or less intact. It also gives play to the Nightsilk Creeper (which is a super cool model) by making the lure aspect of the crew more important.

Right, and in a more perfect world each keyword would have strengths and weaknesses and you could bring in a couple specific tech picks to a specific matchup but fundamentally the game would be about playing to your unique strengths and exploiting your opponent's unique weaknesses. Open hiring leads to problems where Colette is balanced in keyword but broken as all hell when she plays with the faction all-stars. As this is a game and literally does not matter, I prefer to lose or struggle in-keyword over playing the "best" models because that's the puzzle I like.

No, for sure. It's a me thing - I wish the 15ss ook maximum was a universal rule because I hate list building and it would make balancing keywords more plausible.

Glad to see someone having success with Perdita - even if the trick seems to be 2x LLC and more ook models than I'd like. 😛

I've only really gotten more games in with gg1 - I think I played one and a half games of gg0. Baseline I just can't win by scoring the schemes exclusively anymore, which is totally fine, it just gives a natural edge to crews that can slug it out over known scoring vectors for five turns.

I'm disappointed in Lucius' showing. I need to get my reps in with him and try to turn that around... He looks so good. And not just 'cause he's a fancy dresser. I do think the schemier masters have a harder time in 3e because of the easy scoring is structured. It's much harder to dance around and score your points than it used to be.

Real hard mode is playing it all in-keyword. Looking at the data I'm not shocked that Guild's performance was largely driven by terrain. One model with flying, no incorporeal, one keyword with unimpeded, one leap (on a master). The faction just lacks the normal ways of dealing with impassable terrain.

Massively better upgrades (esp magical training). Marginally better non-keyword constructs, but that extra card is insane.

To be fair, she is very good.

*checks username* Makes sense. 😛

I got plenty of use out of Santiago late in 2e running him with Lucius, mining stones out of him and then companion activating to murder a couple things with that stat 7 and positives to dmg (or whatever it was). And I'm a lot less salty now that non-prjectile attacks are mitigated by concealing. Family works great when you draw crap cards and flip good ones. Their actions feel balanced around being able to spam them and if you can't then the action economy of the crew is all thrown off. Some resilience against hand shredding in the form of defensive tech and terrifying mitigation is all the crew "needs." More built in Family Values triggers (even just on the melee actions) would be nice but may be over tuning.

I think it's important to note that I actually really like Family as a keyword. It's just that they walk a razor's edge of resource management and anything that puts hand pressure on them can make them fold really quickly. A little bit more resilience in the face of that pressure is all I'm really asking for.

Theorycrafting incoming; Amina almost always - expanding the Injured Workers bubble is too good to pass on. One of Captain/Fitzimmons depending on matchup. Howard could replace the Captain if Assassinate or other heavy killing is required. Otherwise he's overkill imo. Amina, 2x miners, 2x gunsmiths would be my baseline. Envy and Effigy are versatile picks that seem good. Obvious upgrades are obvious.

Oh sh!t it is! I've been playing myself then

Mostly the tax currently serves to thin out your cache. I play with 6-8ss every game so even if aesthetically I wasn't committed to keywords, practically I would need to be. I think that's an okay place for the tax to be. Though the dominance if the "superfriends" style lists in competitive play does indicate that hiring OOK is too easy. Honestly I'd have removed the tax entirely and gone with something like "no more than too non-keyword models may be hired." out of the gate. But I hate list building, so I'm for anything that makes that part of the game less involved 😛

The game has really moved away from built in triggers generally, so it's not too surprising to me. Maybe give Franc Middle of the Storm? I don't have trouble keeping him alive in melee really - even without LLC (which I refuse to use). I'd go for a model with built in Crit strike over min 3. Though as I said above, I'm not surprised that we don't have that already. 'Dita either needs Family Values moved to her pistol or built into Analyze Weakness, I'm fine either way. Then add "ignoring engagement" to Finger on the Trigger so it actually works and we're good to go.

Call it "Anti-Psychotics: Once per activation when a friendly model within aura 6 would fail a wp duel it may immediately gain Poison +1 to add +2 to the result." Replace Research Specimens on the orderlies and Heartsbane with that and there would actually be a reason to take them. Especially if Emergency Surgery became a claw attack...

Seems like a LLC problem to me... just swapping Hunker Down and Armor +1 as far as the minion only ability should do it.