retnab

It's the weekend, I'm bored, there's nothing else to test, so let's do another poll!  How would you rank everything now that it's locked in?

Personally I'm considering a B rank to be ideal balance-wise, with some good times to bring them and some things it doesn't like to go up against.  S and D ranked things are what I would consider "problematic" in one direction or the other (M2e Sandeep, or "insert garbage tier M2e master here").

Also, when I say "counters", I don't just mean ignore Armor vs Hoffman (though that is obviously one), I also mean things like a summoner's ability to spam out models to get rid of Ice Pillars, effects like Up We Go that can force M&SU models out of the bubble without targeting Df or Wp, etc.

22 minutes ago, Chris Garstan said:

Nellie is still less then hench.
1. when you call an interact action you still need a result = you can't do interact without marker appearing etc. same goes to new trigger.

What I see now - Nelly worth to name a master only because you can't use journalists without her...

1) Sure you can.  You declare you remove all scheme markers b2b with you, which happens to be none

If you want, you can play with Phiona or Allison leading the crew too.

4 minutes ago, Chris Garstan said:

You forgot ALL neverborn masters have: butterfly jump for 2 SS

 

Not a trigger

It's important to note that for a long time the "beasts are versatile" thing didn't exist, its a fairly recent addition.  That said, I'm sure every dual faction master is eventually going to be considered to have a "correct" faction to play them as, like how Hoff really wants to be Arcanist

Where are you seeing a general reduction of actions?

• Step 5: Apply Results
• The model performs the Action’s effects, as stated on the card, in the order they are listed. If any of an Action’s effects cannot be resolved, they are ignored.

I'd argue based on the above that you'd skip the replace, but you could still draw the cards.  Probably needs a small rewording to only draw if the model was replaced.

Why not something like "Once per Activation.  This model's Activation only" in the cost?

2 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

Schemes only care about if an enemy model kills a friendly model, so it keeping insignificant or not doesn't matter for getting kill credit on an action that can only damage enemy models.

Nope.  As far as the strat goes, something that doesn't exist killed a friendly model.  Insignificant means the model doesn't count for schemes/strats in any way.

8 minutes ago, Winterfeld said:

Howard : he was never great, but I guess he won't see much, if any table time, after ironsides lost iwa.

She lost it for one week and got it back a while ago.

2 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

No, it’s a compelling argument—where else on a minion do you find that 2/4/X damage track which has extra benefit from avoiding weak damage?

Only other one is the Rail Workers, which makes them a pretty legit option for it personally!  Plus, the Coryphee have to lose the upgrade when they become a Duet so it feels like more of an option if you're only hiring one

Medical Automaton's a solid pick too, it wants to be near friendlies already and On The Move means less walk actions.  Not much use out of Charge Through though

So now that testing is over, let's just have some dumb fun and argue over what Construct Minion gets the best value out of this upgrade!  Choose your fighter, and feel free to argue why X is solid, Y is a garbage pick, and Z would kick their butts below  

1 hour ago, thewrathchilde said:

I am a little disappointed with the cost increase to the Blessed..... they fit well in the 7 SS range....

It was bonkers value for 7ss, something had to change on it

Yeah, with the announcement of an "early summer" release it's kind of now or never as far as locking this in (it takes time to get those new pretty cards and books printed and whenever they do their launch I'm sure they'll want stock to show off and sell).  I'm glad the lower Amalgam models got another look!

So now that everything in here is locked in, I'm considering moving it over to the normal Arcanists forum (this one thread's been with us for so long, I'd hate for it to die now ).  Matt and Kyle, would you rather I waited for launch or should I go for it?

Copying over everything relevant to us:

• Alphabetized Keywords
• Arcanists
  • Amina Naidu: -1 Df
  • Fire Golem: Flame Tornado- reworked so friendly models can choose to take Burning
  • Blessed of December: +1 Cost
  • Shasta Vidiya: Know the Warrior: clarifies which model needs Focused
  • Chimera: Adaptive Evolution discards the Upgrade after resolving the Action
  • Sabertooth Cerberus: -1 Stat on Leap
  • Moleman: Tunneling does not require LoS
  • Hoarcat: gained Stealth.
  • Gunsmith: -1 Health, -2 Stat on Target Practice
  • Sandeep: Command The Elements- +1 Stat +2 TN, Elemental Visions requires LoS
  • Soulstone Miner: -2 Wp
  • Wildfire: Smoldering Heart is Drop
  • Willie: Here Hold this is a Mv duel.
• Bayou
  • Sparks: Scrapyard Mines – includes Vice-Versa wording, Pack with explosives +2 TN
• Guild
  • Peacekeeper: gained Hard to Wound
  • Ryle (DMH): +1 Cost
• Ten Thunders
  • Kang: Hot Coals +1 Stat
• Multiple Factions
  • Protection: Now "After this model is targeted by an enemy Attack Action"
  • Insignificant: Reworked Wording to adjust for card size.
  • Arcane Reservoir: Changed to “one or more models”

Personally I'm on board with basically everything here.  I think our changes were pretty minor overall, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that out of all the factions we were probably in the nearest to a balanced state before today.  Some changes are pretty big (not noted above is that Summoning sickness is back, that's pretty huge for Wind Gamin shenanigans in particular), but most are minor or just typo fixes.  How do you all feel about this?

39 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

If it can’t charge after unburying, I’m not really interested in hiring one any longer.  I’d rather see it be able to unbury and charge than generate Soul Stones.

 

*EDIT: I don’t see anything that keeps the Miner from unburying and charging. It just can’t charge a model that hasn’t left its deployment zone without walking first. The Wp3 really sucks though.

Good catch, I read "enemy models" instead of DZ

Nope. It can even mine Soulstone, unbury, and then do something else if it'd like.

I hadn't noticed this before but the current wording disallows charging after unburying. I'm OK with that, how does everyone else feel?

54 minutes ago, GrumpyGrandpa said:

Slight side-note, but could we make the Demise (Delicious Bacon) a MAY-option? Some crews get so much from enemy schemes markers, and more often than not you don't actually want to give them one. Dashel is a prime example of this.

Not to mention when it is actively detrimental to you.  If you MUST drop the scheme but it's not in range of where you need a scheme dropped, the model's just created a situation where you either need someone to walk over and pick the scheme back up to scheme where you want, or you have to scheme somewhere further out of the way.  Making this a "may" seems like a solid choice all around IMO.

Sandeep is a tricky one, because while he can summon Gamin I'd argue the real synergy he brings is in Banasuva's Mantra, which is Leader-locked and is also on a 7ss Totem, making them a 24ss package currently which is one of the priciest of any secondary Master/Totem pair.  We could try and pare that skew down a bit by increasing Sandeep's cost and also decreasing Banasuva's cost, if people think taking Sandeep alone would be overly common.

Colette and Ironsides both have nothing Leader-locked and each have a unique effect they can bring, I could see them as 16ss (Colette has to pay 6ss if she wants all of her Totems, but she also can summon them, so I think that evens out now).

Raspy's core effect is Leader-locked, but she is also a super-solo on her own.  Mei isn't Leader-locked but she doesn't really bring much without a lot of Scrap on the board.  Hoffman brings Fast and repairs to Constructs, but both of the other Construct heavy crews (Foundry and Machina) already have access to Fast and repairs.  Kaeris is fast but bringing Pyre Markers in a crew that otherwise doesn't work around them would be about as much hassle for you as for the enemy.  I think these 4 Masters can stay at 15ss without much issue.

Marcus desperately wants Chimera or Beasts around and loses about half his kit when he's hired alone.  I could see him going down to 14ss easily.

9 minutes ago, LoyalSkritNa said:

This is very good news. I will love reading an entire book on what's going on with gremlins, and outcasts too.

With the news about a rulebook translated in french, i'm planning to get it in my natural language, to try and corrupt my friends to play with me.

 

Will the stat cards be printed in french too, when the french rulebook come? And what about these fluffy babies announced here, will it be translated?

From the M3e reveal page:

• An Accessible Rules Manual: M3E's rules and stat cards will be released online for free at release. The rules and stat cards will also be translated in seven languages at release as well: English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. 

Just now, 4thstringer said:

So here is the big question.  Lets say you win the initial flip, have the 13m in hand but no other masks.  Your opponent doesn't cheat.  Do you cheat in the 13m, even if it wouldn't kill the opposing model?

 

IMO if you're cheating second yes, because it's guaranteed damage, if first no, not worth risking not getting the trigger.

29 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

A 13m on the attack is going to make your sword hit (most likely with a positive damage flip).   Even a 13m isn't going to guarantee their miss, which is what you need to trigger the damage back.  You have a better chance of doing the damage with the attack.

EDIT: that being said, if you can get their hand down, pretty much guaranteeing the miss plus getting the damage can be a backbreaker for the opponent.   Worth considering the more I think about it.

What I mean is if you're using that 13M/RJ on the first attack, then you also need to succeed in the second attack's duel to benefit from Reflexes.  But if you use that 13M/RJ defensively and win, then you just DO the damage, no further hits required.

45 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

To me the problem with that is that those 13 and rj are almost always best used to attack with LJ or Judge, and trigger reflexes.  That being said, I will give a try in my next game to make that a focus, and include it in my next battle report.

That I actually disagree with.  Reflexes is good yes, but the counterattack trigger is basically gives you an auto-hitting attack, where the Reflex'd attack can still miss

1 hour ago, kaintxu said:

Yes, but that does not specify if he is close enough :S specially as he is being shot constantly, so though he might not be engaged (or even within 3")

He was close enough, that group was pretty clumped up

12 minutes ago, SerZaka said:

Ups, wrong thread. This is not the batrep of Mei 😅

Lol you're good, I hired Howard so I was playing with Vent Steam here too