MuMantai

New operations document, now with even less moral

5 minutes ago, trikk said:

This trigger requires crows. I don't know how can you manage it multiple times.

Have you seen abyssinian card draw? That is a minor issue, to be honest. I have used 13s for this, it is that good in my opinion.

No real info, but here is what I expect:

- Kirai and Sonnia as commanders

- At least one unit on each side. There was artwork in the kickstarter of guild and court which showed some mages for the guild and some masked ghosts for the court, may as well be them. One of the mages is also seen on the box in the GAMA picture

- The GAMA picture also shows Ikiryo, so she will be in there as well. Probably not as champion, but as "Solo", as both sides have champions already. There will be one for guild as well, I assume, the kickstarter artwork showed a guy with a machine gun on sandbags, so him, probably.

Most of that art is also found in the rulebook, also there seems to be an archer unit for guild coming somewhere down the line. We'll see, I'm excited Also, the new malifaux-side allegiance are the Kimon, mythological asian beasts and spirits, for the most part.

10 hours ago, solkan said:

This is either hyperbole, or you're playing Reinforcing wrong.

When a unit reinforces, it can discard one (1) Reinforcement token to return two (2) models to the unit.  You don't get to discard multiple tokens to bring back more than two models.  That's how it works whether it's a start of the turn reinforcement or a "Target Reinforces" effect in an action.

When you're dealing with squads composed of three model fireteams, spending a commander's activation to bring back four models feels like you're really doing a lot.  But I think that's just on par with what everyone else can accomplish.

I am aware about the limitations. One action of Unathi gives them a reinforcement token and the trigger lets them use it immediately.

I am mostly speaking about the Combined Arms fireteams. That is seven models, so three reinforcements are necessary to bring them from one model to full again. Also, two are enough to bring them to almost full fighting strength, as the first fills up the fireteam, while the second brings back the titan and the second fireteam. It gets more ridiculous in combination with A Lion among Gazelles, which is a shame. I would really like to use this stratagem on the Lord of Steel, but it is so much better on Unathi, because he keeps my troups alive.

After the game is out now for a bit, I would like to ask of your opinion on whats good in our faction, what seems a bit underwhelming and what seems really friggin great (borderline overpowered)

I will start, as is tradition.

Good:

- Lord of Steel seems in a really good place, especially combined with The Lion among Gazelles and some defensive Assets.

- Crow Runners, after some getting used to, are fitting really nice in their role as "scheme runner" and harasser.

- Steel Legion packs a punch, but that is to be expected. A bit on the slow side, but when they get there, it is a blast!

- Mechanized Infantry, fully fitted (Prototype Asset plus Engineer). The combination of Tracer Rounds and Versatile Tactics is really strong, in my opinion. When supported correctly, the cannon in glory shoots with AV 13, and every shot that hits with at least 2 margin is a card draw. If everything goes right, it is up to 8 shots in one activations and can kill units in one go. Maybe a bit too good?

- Rail Gunner have a nice balance between shooting and card draw, with a good way to get to glory via the extra power action. The attack with AV 12 is scary, though, for a 2 scrip model.

Bad:

- I never seem to get leverage out of the Mehal Sefari. They are too slow for a counterpunch unit, too fragile for the front line and too expensive to just be bodyguards.

Ugly:

- Unathi with his trigger "It's dangerous to go alone". This trigger alone makes him feel oppressive and mandatory, as as long as one model is alive, any unit can come back to full strength over one to two activations.
- Dreadnought plus Kassa plus Emergency Repairs. Same as above, the thing just doesn't die, and even when it does, it just comes back. This, combined with the point above, makes Abyssinia feel like the better Gibbering Hordes. They may come back, we just never go away.

- Electrocutioners plus Unwaivering Resolve. First, this stratagem is gold for Abyssinia, as it is one safe glory for any unit with prototype asset. But with the 1.21 Gigawatts trigger "We changed history", this can break operations.

Good point about the morale. Foreign person here... may actually fix that Maybe I can actually take the symbol...

You can print it in card size if you print 9 pages (3x3) to a page. The font size is big enough that it should be easily readable.

Yes, it is only to actions. Also, Armor is not an acting value, as the penetration flip is not a duel

The trigger says immediately. So you declare it, increase the strength, and then remove the suit(s) from the duel total. That would be my assumtion as to how that works, and it is how I played it until now.

I did a bit of work that I wanted to share with you.

First, I love the Schemes and Strategy cards of Malifaux, so I did my own for The Other Side. On the front, you find the rules for deployment as well as the deployment zones for that particular suit (please note that, if you flip two different suits, you find your rules and deployment zone on different cards). On the back, you find all rules you need during play.

Second, I wanted a good overview for the start of game rules as well as the turn order, so I did that as well. Again, start of game rules on the front, turn order on the back. Some of those are also on the back of the allegience cards, but not all of them.

You are free to use them as you see fit, any feedback is welcome

Cheat Sheet.pdf

OperationsAndDeployments.pdf

No, Tokens cannot be used to modify a penetration flip.

On 2/3/2019 at 3:57 AM, solkan said:

As far as I know, 1.21 Gigawatts doesn't invoke the "says otherwise" clause in Fireteam placement, so you place all of the fireteams in the unit.

I would argue it does, as it specifically says "this fireteam". All other examples you mentioned either say "target", or "unit" (Tidal Scepter).

On 2/3/2019 at 8:39 PM, solkan said:

• Electrocutioner's 1.21 Gigawatts "Then Place this Fireteam within 12"."
• Adeodatos "Place the target in base contact with a Portal Marker within 14" of this Fireteam."
• Stalking Portals' Draw in "Place the target into base contact with any Fireteam in this unit."
• The Frenzy's Toss Around trigger "If the target is a non-Titan, Place it into base contact with another Fireteam in this squad."
• Tidal Scepter's Master of the Waves "When any Fireteam from this unit starts an Activation in base contact with a friendly Tide Pool, it may place in base contact with any friendly Tide Pool in play."  (Relevant to The Frenzy, as a Squad Commander).

It may be a lot of resources, but keep in mind the stratagem Unwaivering Resolve. It counts as a very high tomes and can instantly do three to four damage to a Rhino as long as you hit.

What faction(s) are you playing?

Abyssinia. I really like the asthetic, and I like the elite style gameplay.

What faction(s) are you playing against?

Gibbering Hordes, mostly, but we do have all four factions distributed over the four players that are active here.

One or double commander?

I have not played a two commander game yet, unfortunately. I am looking forward to it, though!

Overall impression

I like it. The game rules are nice and fluid, the gameplay feels good. The models are really great!

What do you like/dislike about your chosen faction?

I love the mini-titans. Both the sculpts and the idea of having a combined element to your army. I just think they are a bit too strong, they tend to swing games. But I have to see if that evens out in two commander games.

I like the prototype mechanic, but they are not balanced at all. Flare Gun is really strong, while Discus Grenades look weak in comparrison. I like the situational nature of Active Defenses Armor and Shock Batons, though.

Anything you are concerned about, ruleswise or anything else?

Balance is an issue. Some units are too strong for what they cost (eel, rhino, mechanized infantry), some are too weak (artillery). But the game is new, lets see how things pan out. I am also a bit concerned for the imbalanced distribution of resouces over the factions. Abyssinia has a lot of card draw, Cult has some, Empire and Hordes have almost none. That may be a problem in the future.

Looking forward to....?

More fleshed out guild and court. Interested in what the kingdoms and Kimon will bring in terms of playstyle. Also, more Abyssinia. Always more Abyssinia

The penetration flip is not a duel, and inspired and shaken token may only be used to modify duels.

34 minutes ago, DerangedGamer123 said:

Assuming models are fixed how would you upgrade differently? Would you drop a model for more upgrades?

The easiest would be to drop one of the madmen. If that, I would probably drop the one with the Doomseekers? They would need him the least, I would assume, as they don't want to be that near to the enemy. Also, if I remember correctly, the Warped want to be in glory before them, so they need the protection more.

Otherwise, I would think about maybe dropping a set of Stalking Portals. I am not quite sure what you would want to do with the last scrip, and yes, the mobility of a second squad of those is nice, but they have low def, so they may help Abyssinia as much as they help you, getting their units to glory via margins. And they die even to flare guns. But then, that may be the idea behind having two of them, to have redundancy? Not sure here.

From an abyssinian players perspective:

- ECB are brutal against us, because of prototype assets. Just something to consider.

- Goryshche with just Fast Regeneration is risky. If I get to activate before it, and can get a shot of with a flare gun, you risk losing that asset before it ever does something. If I get to shoot with something more powerful, like a walker, you risk losing your goryshche.

48 minutes ago, retnab said:

Citation?  Auras of the same name don't stack, but there's a discussion going on right now about non-aura abilities, and if you've found a citation saying that that'd be great.

Hm, if you put it that way, I do not have a citation. Serves me right for assuming things. The only thing I can find is this:

"If a model gains a second instance of an Ability it
already possesses (most often from an Upgrade),
the second instance of the Ability has no effect
unless the Ability has a value (such as Armor +1)."

But that is for a single model. I do not know how this ability works with multiple models.

Quote

Arcane Reservoir: Crews containing a model with
this Ability increase their Maximum Hand Size by 1.

Abilities with the same name that do not have a +1 do not stack. Confirmed.

Magical Training changed late in the closed beta to not have Arcane Reservoir +1 any more, and it was suggested to bring it back but not let it stack. This seems to be the way they chose to do it. Quite elegant, I think.

7 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

In my opinion Mason was absolutely wrong about that. It’s actually counter to the way the majority of the people who I know want to play, and even if you accepted it as true, it just creates the Sandeep problem all over again, where the only masters you are going to see in events are those that don’t have criticaly flawed matchups. Why bother learning multiple masters with multiple failure points when you can learn 1 that doesn’t have those flaws.

There is a problem the other way around, too. If we say all masters should have game against any other master, then we can't have all that many interesting mechanics.

In this case, we either have to change the whole Kaeris crew to not utilize burning in the way they do now, or change the way Sonnia interacts with burning. Either master would lose an interesting mechanic. Either Tara loses her burying interactions, or Justice loses hers. What will it be?

I think having bad matchups is a necessary evil if you want interesting and deep mechanic. Sometimes your strengths can be used against you and that is fine. If it is just a master that counteracts another, it is not so bad, what we should watch out for is single models countering a masters mechanic, because then we definitely cannot take master X into faction Y.

Also, in a single master tournament, if I take Kaeris and my opponents happens to have chosen Sonnia, thats just unlucky. It is not as if Kaeris is not able to take on the guild, just one master.

I got three Fate Decks with my Pledge:

The one in my Allegiance Box was the "earth side"-Deck that usually seems to be there and is card board

The special Kickstarter one that every backer gets is also card board

The allegiance specific deck you could also order with the Kickstarter as an addon is plastic

Prince Unathi has an action called "Field Test". It makes a fireteam take a prototype action, then draw a card.

Question is, does this actually require an action to be taken? What if:

1. The fireteam does not have a prototype asset attached?
2. The fireteam has nothing in range of it's prototype assets action?
3. I do not want to discard a card to use the prototype assets action?

Or, easier, can I use the action  to just draw a card? And if yes, what would be the necessary circumstances?

This quote from the rulebook I found seems to allow that:

"ADDITIONAL ACTIONS
Some Actions (or their Triggers) are capable
of generating additional Actions.
If a Fireteam is unable to take an additional
Action (perhaps because there are no
targets within range), the additional Action is
ignored." (page 23)

4 minutes ago, Gullinbursti said:

Oh I know, really looking forward to Three Kingdoms and Kimon. When I said new units, I meant new unit types sorry. At the moment we have Fireteams, Combined Arms Fireteams, Titans, Commanders and Champion. My bad examples aside, I'd personally like to see some additions just to give more diversity to the rules and list building. It would also open up commanders to supporting more specialized builds, say a tank commander who gives tanks a bonus token or a Arm buff.

We kind of have that in Kassa, supporting titans in particular. More variety will come with time.

On 1/12/2019 at 5:29 PM, Jesy Blue said:

Schemes and Stones posed an M3E episode. 

If he's posting about all the beta stuff, then everyone else should be fine.

Depends on whats in there. If he is talking about his experiences in the beta, that should be fine. If he is reading the beta cards, that would probably not be fine. Also stupid, as everybody gets the cards next wednesday.

On 10/11/2018 at 12:11 AM, cbtb11235813 said:

With Arcane Shield that reduces to 0, it can. You pick the order that the reduction happens in. In the case of armor this makes no difference, but with AS they can reduce with the aura first, then their own ability 

You cannot. The general timing of abilities does not permit this (see Page 46 of the big Core Rule Book). The mage, as the defending model, has to resolve its abilities before Fitzsimmons, so Arcane Shield triggers before Protected by the Union. Still Armor +2, but not to 0, unfortunately.

Still I really like Fitzsimmons in a Ironsides crew. I usually give him Armor +1 with the Steamfitter, instead of Toni, because he is a priority target. He makes the crew so much more survivable, and hits well enough for his pricetag.

To add to this, if it's true that models lose damage across the board, this also changes the equation, as the lower level models are hard pressed to lose lots of it as they will propably keep their min damage of 1. So this will in theory hit the elite models harder than the "chaff".