spooky_squirrel

The Creative Salvage of Large Steam Arachnids comes in very handy for Ramos, which has already been covered. The consumption of scheme markers is amazing. I'm actually surprised you haven't at least tried them in a Grab and Drop Kaeris list, since that can drop scheme markers all over the place. I use them in many crews for the explicit purpose of eating scheme markers in order to deny scoring and getting a full round of fully focused hitting. They are minions, so Bleeding Edge Tech helps them recover if they haven't been killed outright.

It was up here in Washington, Seattle area. One of the Seattle players has been rampaging around with Sandeep.

I can see that. If you're looking for Gamin and activation control from the top of the game onwards, for the same cost you can put 3 Gamin on the table and just start with them (especially if you're looking to copy abilities for Big Blue). She gets a lot of work done for me, but I tend to try and keep her somewhere where if the opponent goes after her early, they aren't getting strat/scheme points if they're not playing into A Quick Murder or similar scheme. At the last tournament I was in, the overall winner played Sandeep all three rounds, but I didn't get a chance to see what he was putting on the table (my first round was against the second place Neverborn finisher, which put me on all the wrong tables to see what was happening). From my understanding he was playing the control/utility angle (with the ability to summon as a cherry on top) and presenting more troubles than a more summoning-focused Sandeep could. My own inclination is to go the Academic route, which doesn't leave much room for something like the Mech Rider. I still need to pick up a Librarian (or kit-bash one out of the Male or Female TTB kits I have), but I'm eyeballing the Sanctioned Spellcasters with their control collar and Singularity as a counter-control element. This would be further helped by the hiring pool that's available to Arcanists and tailored to work around strat/scheme pools and opposing faction (Sandeep with nothing but casters into Sonnia would not go well, for instance). Going along this route I'd be looking at dropping a couple of Henchmen in with Warding Runes on both of them so that they can get work done while making the most of their abilities. From the Wave 4 Henchmen: running Kudra screams to me "bring a Performer!!"; Amina would dial up the control aspect, especially if she starts disabling my opponent's ability to interact.

Yeah, this is why I think it's interesting, just not interesting enough to build for. I'm trying to use Sandeep more for his control than his summons. If I need more gamin on the table, the Mechanical Rider is more than happy to provide. Otherwise, my point-denial-focused mind is going to be looking for the various angles that I can come into the strat and schemes and make my opponent work for their points. Summoning in something that will drop a scheme marker when it arrives is good by itself. Spending extra activations to try and get it a second time in the next turn is not ideal. If it's that important to do, I would hire in Kudra with her zap-a-Gamin and do it that way. Hans is more likely going to find himself in other crews (like Ironsides) that are going to get stuck in, so that he can plink targets at will and give out Slow or deny Ml attacks to models that are tied up with things that they don't want to be. Sandeep is a completely different direction of play for me.

The caveat I have on that is I have a hard time fitting in a pair of Coryphee if the schemes don't call for for a beater slant in the crew. Marker and placement schemes end up having my roster primarily filled with things that give me more control (Anjelica, need I say more?) with only room for one non-Cassandra beater/tank/distraction (because Cassandra's going to be there most of the time).

Min 2 looks low, until it's happening 2x in one activation, prompted a couple of times, reactivating, and then merging into another one that also put out 2x min 2 damage attacks during its activation. Minions with armor tend to have lower wound counts, which helps when you're doing death by a thousand cuts, so pick targets appropriately. After merging, that damage gets a baked in on a Swift model, which can help with damage output even before the prompting. When you add in other force multipliers like the Mobile Toolkit and Mechanical Doves, as well as immunity to charges, they end up being a mean package.

Would be hilarious to nuke fire gamin next to relatively low wound models and apply burning.. Just make sure Firestarter doesn't claim credit after he twirls the gas can.

...Reading through the Self-Righteous Man scenario.. It seems like a free 3 VP if you're running Ironsides. You lookin' at me? to pull them in, they get a swing, cheat low with Tomes, they do first bit of damage. Your counter attack flip is second bit of damage. Continue using Ironsides to keep people from interacting with the Objective.

I recently picked up Hans just to hard counter Jack Daw (shooting the curses off of my own crew), turn down Guild heat a little, and give me a potential edge in the Show of Force scheme (especially in a Colette crew). It would be an interesting way to strip a restrictive upgrade after it's no longer needed and/or would be better put to use on a second run (able to interact when summoned, I could use that on the next summon..). Very card dependent, however, since he needs that Crow and the summon on Sandeep needs the Mask.

Ah, that's what I was overlooking. Thank you!

Yes, but the walk off and fall down would cause the wall itself to only cost 1" (climbing up), instead of 2" (climbing up and down), which was the distance in the quote I initially replied to. My intent here was to clarify for the OP that models can fall down instead of climb down. Misunderstood 2" in post initially replied to.

It's a variant on the cost of clearing a Ht1 wall, instead of climbing up and climbing down, the model climbs up and falls down, reducing the total move cost.

This is something I've seen a minor variant of: with the falling rules the way they are, models could "fall"/jump down from Ht1 and Ht2 obstacles without movement loss or damage (beyond the movement required to get the base completely over the obstacle). Edit: clarification I was going for here was pay the movement cost for climbing up, voluntarily fall down for no climbing cost going down.

It's in the Wave 4 book Ripples of Fate. It also appears in the generalist upgrades 2 box.

That's exactly it. As every model is considered for adding to our/any faction (or infiltrated in for some masters), it has to be balanced against what exists already in faction and who can hire it. Infiltrated models are easier because their way in is dictated by the crew's master, which eliminates the most dangerous force multipliers right off the bat. For models coming in, however, we have to consider what they will do with what we already have (and a prompting Colette is one of the things to be wary of) and whether or not the cost fits. What is the trade off and limiting factor? Asami's ability does damage to her to launch her oni at someone for 1AP. This is intended (and used effectively) for launching oni from summons, but can be used to try and get more shots in with a beater oni if it wasn't just summoned in. While she can heal herself, there's a cost associated with it and it only works for Oni within 4.

If the push would end within 8 of her, the push would be stopped. If their push would take them out of Anna Lovelace's line of sight (and thus, out of her aura) it would still go off. If the push is only part of the action, the rest of the action might still happen, depending on how it is worded. The key is the wording of her ability: Emphasis on 'end' is mine, but that's the crux of it.

No worries. There's a lot of interesting nuance and interplay in Colette's crew. In answer to your other questions, it depends on what you want to do with her. If you want to use/abuse prompt, having things that hit hard can be fun. One of the other Arcanist players at the last tournament I was at was running an elite prompted-beater crew with summoned doves and a Mobile Toolkit to hand out various buffs to Hank, Coryphee Duet, or Mechanical Rider. It doesn't run well into all schemes (I was able to deny him most of the available points during our game), but that's what her other builds are for. Myranda's addition to the crew is additional card draw (from Imbued Energies) when she shifts into a beast and adding another hard-hitting beater to Colette's prompt crew. She can also run scheme-heavy crews that have more bodies than elite crews rather well. Schemes and Stones talks about her some here, with some comments about play that I didn't see earlier in this thread.

With Colette's crew and Practiced Production the only thing we care about is whether or not the model is friendly and on the table. It lets you use a model that normally would not be considered a scheme runner as a scheme runner. You can pull similar stunts with the Mechanical Dove, but you might find that you're using your Doves for other things.

I recently finished using TTB:Female Kit to kit-bash a proxy for Amina. I'm going to practice using her to up the control game available to Sandeep (and Ironsides, but that's another thread). Her being an Academic helps work within the synergy/theme, but how often that will come up remains to be seen.

All of the pre-Wave 4 upgrades are available in the upgrade decks (generalist/arsenal). The Wave 4 upgrades are in the upgrade box (not yet general release) that has a Bunraku on the box.

Page 53, under Damage Prevention: This seems pretty straight forward. You determine how much damage they would take, then make the prevention flip.

I just finished putting together Sanctioned Spellcasters, and I'm looking forward to using Beacon (with Tomes as much as possible) and Collar to get extra work out of them. Since Sandeep works off of Masks, Oxfordian Mages can build their own Tomes in, it leaves me more opportunities to cheat in a Tome from my hand to get that extra bit of work. I've only seen the Students across the table from me in Ressers summoning and am not a huge fan of the look/feel of many of the undead models (exceptions exist, like Titania's crew), so I haven't put as much thought into them.

One thought regarding Mei Feng: she has immediate access to things like the Mechanical Rider, Metal Gamin, Rail Golem when running as an Arcanist. As a Ten Thunders, she ends up infiltrating the Foundry models in and cannot bring in the Mechanical Rider or the collection of spiders that bring down Df, eat scheme markers, etc. So this looks like a limiting factor because she loses out on having a crew hiring pool that supports her being a long-range non-linear threat. With constructs roaming around (to include Toshiro summoning Komainu off of the Porkchop's dropped tail), she still has impressive mobility and can run schemes really well if her crew is handling the strategy, but compared to the M&SU menu, it's not as exciting/absurd. So her role might change to a more supporting role. Vent Steam near some 10T Brothers and watch them get ignored by casters, shooters, and beaters as too hard to deal with. Select upgrades that will put her in better positions to support and be a counter-charge element instead of minion-slayer. I don't have my TT upgrades cards in front of me and I've been using her in Arcanists more, so I don't have a lot of refinement of this idea. From my own experience with her, her model selection in Arcanists supports her better; depending on the strat/scheme and hiring pools, the Ten Thunders models might be better supported by her.

The wording "Enemy models within 6 that suffer damage from the Poison Condition" might be what's throwing people off. When you take into consideration various interactions with the poison condition, the wording makes better sense. For instance, Poison Gamin heal instead of taking damage from poison. It's a modification to the damage sustained (like added damage from crit strike), as was already mentioned.

All of this, right here. For the first month after GenCon, the wider area meta in my area was wondering how to deal with Sandeep. Baked in triggers on nasty abilities, reliable summoning to bring in Gamin that are specifically modified to do something they don't normally do. Nellie's abilities and crew are so controlling that I'm surprised that I'm not hearing more "how do I deal with this?" ..except I'm not that surprised. Controllers are a different learning curve than beaters are a different learning curve than summoners. Beaters have the most gentle curve of these, because they advertise what they do on their card and upgrades. There's not much more you need to know about them to immediately use their strengths. Summoners require knowing their limitations and range of options; some summoners are more straight forward than others, but they all take a little more effort to get order of activations down and can be a lot harder to counter. Controllers require not only knowing your own stuff cold, but reading the battlefield and knowing enough about your opponent's crew that you can correctly gauge what they're trying to do and stop them from doing it; thus they have the steepest curve. Countering a solid controller being run by someone who knows their stuff is rough and intense. Over time, as the beater shock fades, people learn counters, etc., we're going to see people trying to figure out what to do about control/denial masters.