OhRlyeh

1 hour ago, Liched said:

I know what the wording sounds like, but it's about how every Marcus crew or every Tara crew is just gonna look very similiar and with less option. I fully understand the change and their reasoning behind it. I do not agree that it would ease up balancing however

I think maybe you should play some M3E games against several different crews before making a judgement that extreme. I think you will find that you can still play a crew in different ways. They are more versatile than you think, and your hiring options are more impactful than you think and the play styles of crews. 

Being a game designer by profession I can promise you that balancing crews as groups with a lower hiring pools is easier than how M2E was designed. 

@Sebi I agree with everything you said except for the Winged Plague part... (sorry to break it to you, but as they are now in M3E, they are garbo ) Everyone in our Meta was in the closed beta and none of us play M2E anymore and we are all happier people for it (even with the loss of models we loved). 

 

17 hours ago, Liched said:

I just don't like the fact that Wyrd is pushing you to play a crew in one very specific way and the crews that are more powerful or have better inhouse tools are simply gonna come out on top, since the option is to pay more for a model that doesn't synergise with your crew (less bad for some). 

 

1

I don't think you are limited to playing a crew one specific way any more than you were before. M2E was a bit like a CCG where you had to build a deck out of a large pool of options. But the meta still dictated the list. Now with M3E you still have options for different situations,  but the pool is more limited because theme mechanics are tighter. If you want to counter pick you do it with masers instead of models. (Note: having 2 versions of each master is in the works somewhere down the road. This will add even more ability to pick and counter-pick while still staying within theme.)

The benefit to the game with this design direction is that with a more focus/constricted hiring pool for masters balancing is much easier and will yield fewer surprises when players craft the meta. I feel like you will see more masters in the competitive environment and games will be more diverse overall because balance will be less spiky. You will also see much less auto hires in M3E for all crews within a faction than in M2E (See Outcast and A&D). 
 

Yeah plans with WP and WP itself does not survive content with the enemy. It is true, we have different expectations. If I spend 4SS on a unit I would prefer it do more than maybe put out a couple extra plague markers  and soak 1 or 2 ap from the enemy. If your opponent is allowing your plagues to do more than that they aren't very good at game.

If you are playing a themey casual game for fun, sure they work. If you want to play competitively, there are better ways to spend your SS for every situation.

I want to use WP. I think they are cool models and they have some neat tricks... but they aren't balanced. 

You are basically spending 4SS to hope that you can get this thing in close enough to get one more blight a couple models before it dies. Hamlin doesn't really need any more help spreading blight. Diseased aura doesn't stack so having another model with it in the frey isn't really helpful. What Hamlin needs is an effective cheap scheme runner. The problem with the WP is that they have no survivability or escapes. Sure they explode and pass blight but if they are off in a corner of the map getting a scheme, chances are they are going to be dueling another scheme runner. Any other scheme runner in the game can duel a WP and win. Why do I care if a scheme runner alone in the corner of the map has a blight on it? Now I have to either break off someone else from my main bubble to run a scheme that my 4pt scheme runner failed to do.  I don't need a tiny fast model that can be one-shotted on my front line, maybe passing blight when Nix is going to be in there as a diseased tar pit. Those 4 points are better spent anywhere else. 

• If you have 8 points for 2 Winged Plagues buy a Midnight Stalker and watch him run train on the enemy back line and score all the points at the same time
• If the pool is more murdery than schemey spend those points on a Convict Gunslinger and watch him run train on anything that moves
• If you have 4 points for 1 Winged Plague buy 2 rats and get an extra rat king sooner and watch it run train on your enemy scheme runners.

@FlipOwl I made lots of noise about the plagues in Closed Beta to no avail. The consensus of every Hamlin player in our cohort was that these things were unusable. We all tried many many times to get value out of them until I just gave up. I had 4 possible solutions to make the WP worth the spend. 

• Give it some survivability. They need to take points, survive a fight with another runner and hold out. Its no use dropping a scheme on Power Ritual if a crooligan can just show up Kill the plague in one turn and remove the marker. 
  • Give them armor 1 (Hardened Boils) or
  • incorporeal (Made of Plague) OR
  • Give them a concealment aura (Stink Cloud) like a crooligan so they can at least survive being shot at in order to get in close making them useful against a shooty crew
• Give me a soul stone back when they die. 
  • Hamlin is stone hungry. Plague is worth 3 SS as he is. I would use them for a plague bomb if I got a SS back after they exploded 
     

He isn't a source of fast. He is just a ridiculously good model. If I'm going to go out of faction he's the best value for the SS cost.

I took Convict Gunslinger... MvP

14 minutes ago, SuperFly TNT said:

I've never witnessed problems with Tara summons unburying, either when using her or playing against. Karina's Heal will unbury if you can't get Fast on anything. Tara's second activation when taken late is usually good for getting a Fast on an activated opponent, when cards are low.

 

Ahh cool, thanks! I missed the second sentence of the ability. Will note that in the next game. 

17 minutes ago, FlipOwl said:

 

I don't see the winged plague as useless, but quite situational.

 

Yes, Very situational and dependent on a map with a bunch of tall buildings. Without that they just die before being able to do anything.

If your opponent has any flying as well they still die before being able to do anything. 

This has been brought up several times in Closed beta and a bit in another thread. I had my first M3E Tara game last night (which I will be posting a batrep for) and I found what others have been saying to be true. Getting Tara's summons on the board is a challenge and rather frustrating. 

I was able to summon a model every turn, but was unable to get any models (including my scion which buried turn 1) on the board until turn 3. The game ended with 2 summons never fully coming into play. The reason is a few-fold first having fast on an enemy at the start of my summons activation is rather difficult. First, I need to be within 6 inches and line of sight of an enemy model. My opponent needs to activate the model I want to summon onto. Then they need to allow me to win the opposed duel. Then they need to not assist the model I target to remove the condition. All of this together puts summoning for tara very much at the whim of her opponent. It is an activation puzzle to be sure, but one that is more than a little unreliable.

Right Now it is more reliable to have buried models and focus on burying enemies that then get ghost mobbed in the void. This works but leaves her crew with models who hand out pass tokens upon summoning and every turn after who need for either the stars to align perfectly to hit the board or wait for some poor sap to get sent into their house. Having models sitting on cards that do nothing is not really that fun

I have a few suggestions to resurface to help Tara play more smoothly and reliably. Some of these have been suggested before. I think adding any one of them would help
 

• Have Stutter Time also attribute an Obliteration token to the target model if that model does not already have an obliteration token & make From Nothing trigger off and remove an obliteration token & fast. (or even just the token if you think this would be too strong) 
  • This gives one less star to align. The opponent can activate the target and utilize the fast but not remove the impending void doom ready to drop on their head. 
• Give Karina an ability to unbury a model in base contact with herself
  • Ok Karina is super squishy and already a valuable enemy target, but having one way per turn to unbury a summoned model if all else fails is one way to remove the pinch. Karina's unbury could even give a negative condition. 
• Give Tara's Crew a way to give fast to her own models
  • This is probably the least balanced option since the risk of fast on enemies is why tara's models get summoned without any detriment, but hey... it eats up an AP to do. 
     

Thoughts? 
What have other people found playing M3E Tara?

2 hours ago, whodares said:

Since they'll also be stacking Blight from being close to the Rat King and several other models, they will have to time their moves well.

Remember. Abilities with the same name do not stack in M3E so you can only ever get 2 blighted in a turn onto a model from Hamlin Crews auras. One from "Diseased" aura and one from "Source of contagen" aura.

I love Midnight Stalker with hamin. Bringing him and emmisary is a bit redundant. He is so versitile and is easily the mvp in every game.

My core list that I landed on at the end of Closed Beta was:

Hamlin/3 Stolen

Midnight Stalker

Rat Catcher

Benny

Nix

Fill with Johan, gunslinger, Barbaros, Taelor depending on opponent.

Never take a winged plague they are worthless

By dropping 3 scheme markers and using Benny you can easily get a rat king turn 1. 

29 minutes ago, Kolath said:

You're going to have waaay more luck summoning lots of rats with Benny. Obedient wretch in my experience so far is barely worth hiring anymore.

Kolath and I have been disagreeing a bit about this for a couple months now I don't think OW is useless but def isn't in the core list anymore. Hiring a Rat catcher is the better option unless the other crew has a lot of shielded. Then I think QW is worth it. 

He is absolutely right about Benny tho. He is an auto-hire if you want to get reliable summons off with Hamlin. 

playtest him and find out!

Yup changes happen with new editions. We've all lost a model or two. I still cry a little every night over Killjoy. But The game overall is in a better place with more focused themed crews and a smaller overall hiring pool. 

It does suck a little bit, but if you've ever played a Games Workshop game where anywhere from 50-100% of your gigantic army becomes irrelevant with a new edition the pain of losing one model feels a little softer. 

Your anger will fade and you'll be playing a better game

Yeah, that is a good point. That makes it extra weird when Mercenary is a keyword that the Hired Mercenary upgrade has nothing to do with nor does it attribute the Mercenary keyword. Crossing terms and titles = no bueno.

For fluff sake; sure the Viks are mercs but other masters aren't. Masters hire mercenaries generally.

This is fluffy and nitpicky but Putting an Upgrade called Hired Mercenary on a master is kinda weird. Now that it gives HtW it's definitely going on some masters. 

I am looking for Alt Barbaros and the NM McCabe crew. I am guessing they will be filling out the rest of the models needed for a full Ulix Pony crew like they did with Hamlin last year.