spooky_squirrel

25 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Most models come in boxes of more than you would be expected to actually put in a list. Stuffed are also summonable so the rare rating is probably related to that.

With many of those models that are in boxes of 3, you're probably only bringing 1-2. If a player hires all three, especially most the time, there's something that needs a good hard look (yeah, I'm talking about you, Oxfordian Mages). Things that can be summoned coming boxed with their rare limit is actually a pretty cool convenience feature, even if you wouldn't hire more than 2 of them to start.

5 hours ago, wizuriel said:

A lot of models come 2 or 3 per pack. I can't think of many models (outside of summons) that people will hire 3+ of.

On the top of my head Guild Hounds, Marionettes, spiders and Bayou Gremlins (for Somer) are it

I cannot say much about the other three, but if I have 3+ Steam Arachnids on the table, it's because I'm playing Ramos and not a single one was hired. I've had as many as 8-9 on the board with him at once, but that was an unusual circumstance. Other crews might hire 1-2 in, or I might summon them in if I hired the Mechanical Rider, but I'm not hiring more than that 1-2.

16 minutes ago, trikk said:

While Seamus is pretty hard to score ETL I can guarantee Nellie has one of the highest chances in scoring ETL against Seamus in Guild...

It wouldn't surprise me if she has several ways to do it beyond simply using her special activation control effects--I haven't played her myself and haven't played against her enough.

15 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

First of all, I appreciate your long and well thought out perspective. Thank you. As far as Sandeep, I've never seen him played, thus have not researched him much. Matter of fact, I've only played against Arcanists once. Most people I know play Guild, Neverborn, Outcasts, and Ressers. In my local group, no one plays the Wave 4 masters much. I know of one person that got Nellie and Parker Barrows when they first came out, and as far as I know, only played them once and went back to his usual crews. No one seems to think much of the Wave 4 masters, and personally, after just glancing briefly at their stats, they don't look all that good to me. It would be very hard to play them with success. So much has to happen right, the right card/ suit, etc, plus their abilities can be very confusing. Certain schemes would be impossible with them. For example, I couldn't imagine Nellie scoring Eliminate the Leadership against Seamus. 

 

No, I haven't. I only know of one occasional Gremlin player, and they are among my least favorite factions, so I rarely read up on them. I'll check it out though.

Nellie herself wouldn't go for it, but her crew might. She has some activation interactions that potentially let her delay her own activations. If she uses these abilities to wait until Seamus is committed somewhere, then her crew's beaters could go for the kill. A cagey Seamus player will try to not let that happen, which potentially limits his own contribution to the game. That being said, Eliminate the Leadership isn't the only scheme in the pool, and there may be others that she's playing for while making the opponent sweat over whether or not it's okay to leave  Seamus somewhere that an Executioner can reach with AP left over. Similarly, what the Seamus player brings to the table might affect the Nellie player's decisions.

With the exception of Reva*, most of the Wave 4 masters have some complicated stuff that they do to make them click. Reva was the first to draw the "ermahgerd!" reaction because she has a relatively straight forward approach to playing that is solid. The other masters took longer to unlock in general, though in some metas models like Parker, Zipp, and Sandeep were picked up at GenCon and practiced a great deal, allowing GenCon-purchasing players advance practice that steered the direction exploration of those masters went before the general population started in with them. The relative complexity means that the masters will take some practice just to figure out what they actually do, then more practice to wrap around why they're good at it.

*note: this does not mean that she doesn't have complexity to her, just that a straight forward way to use her was quickly figured out.

5 hours ago, Lokibri said:

Just a short question: Couldnt you also remove the slow from Banasuva with the effigy?

Yes, you can if you need to. It depends on how Banasuva got into play and what his limitations are (for instance, with Commands: immune to slow, but can't cheat vs. extended range, but can't move/push). A non-slowed melee master with 3" reach appearing in the middle of your line that can cheat its flips and copy abilities is nasty.

8 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Good morning. So I went back to page 1 and read this errata again. I was not familiar with the other models listed, so I looked them up to see what changed. A couple of observations:

- Not real clear on the Wind Gamin. It says they bury instead of being killed, but no friendly models may unbury them. So if you can't unbury them, what's the difference really? Not sure why changing that even matters. I must be missing something. 

- The Practiced Production change looks like a kick in the teeth to Collette players. So it appears now that she can't place scheme markers near her doves. I've never played against Collette, but after reading her card, she looks like a master that excels at schemes. That's her strength. She's not a beater like Perdita. So it looks like they just weakened her. This has happened twice to her in the last 6 months. If I were a Colette player, I'd be really P.O.ed right now.

• Wind Gamin because they did far more than they should for 4 stones. Others have already brought up why the bury mechanic had to go. Even with the bury mechanic as is, they weren't quite 5 stones in game value, and bumping their cost would just make them see more playtime with Sandeep and less playtime with other masters. If you don't understand why this might be a problem, you possibly have not run into Sandeep being played by someone who knows all of Sandeep's tools.
• Colette is the master that is hurt the least by this change. Other masters, especially masters that bring slower moving crews typically have limited ways to get scheme markers across the center line, let alone into the opposing deployment zone. They get to the strategy area (Extraction, Guard the Stash) and they turn into bricks to hold the line. Colette's abilities allow her to put models where she needs them, and lets many subtle quality models interact as (0) actions.

8 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Understand now on the bury part. But still wondering why they would change that, mainly because the Wind Gamin looks like a crappy model other than that feature. Only 4 wounds and a miserable Ml 4. That's it pretty much it. My Guild hounds are better than that with 4 wounds and a Ml 5 for only 3 points each. They better not errata my dogs! 

As far as Practiced Production, I get it now. When I see showgirl, it automatically makes me think Colette crew.

4 wounds with Armor +1. I can use that to tie something up for 1-2 AP, even if it's min damage 3 and ignores armor. Burying instead of dying was just an additional insult--because it wasn't worth spending AP to kill because you literally could not score VP from killing it, yet it could force you to spend an AP walking away from it to do stuff. All I need to do to stop a beater from charging is engage it. At Ml 4 and 2 attacks per AP spent attacking (built in trigger that goes off on resolution) I can force you to flip a lot of cards. Sure, I'm flipping a lot of cards too, but I'm deliberately doing it. Eventually you're going to fail a defense duel, and that min damage 1 seems "meh", but 1 damage is 1 damage no matter how much armor you have. I've killed Vik of Blood with a pair of Wind Gamin cycling cards and forcing stone use. Then there's everything @trikk mentioned:

8 hours ago, trikk said:

Wind Gamin have 2 attacks per ap, armor, flight and leap and are simply significant. They are also summonable.

Your Guild Hounds, except under McCabe when Luna comes along, have to stick relatively close together to interact for schemes. It's a minor limitation, but it effectively forces you to buy at least 2 if you're scheming with them. Wind Gamin can complete Claim Jump entirely on its own, with some moderate masks being flipped/cheated to guarantee completion.

If Showgirls only appearing under Colette was the perspective on PP and Showgirl, then you've been running into either very few Arcanists, or Arcanists that don't have or care for that combination for some reason. If a scheme involving placing scheme markers was in the pool, the question wasn't whether or not to bring Practiced Production, it was always who is going to carry it? in competitive play.

5 hours ago, trikk said:

They made everyone who bought 5 storm ravens pretty pissed IMHO. And it wasn`t a point change. The made everyone that doesn`t use magnets also pissed because plasma is the best right now.

I can`t agree about point changes because 

1) Malifaux has a far worse point granulation its 3-13 basically

2) In Wh40k most of the thing are based on equipment. In Malifaux each unit has special rules which means you don`t really have a good baseline

3) NPE become NPE even if you add an SS in cost. If you add 2 or 3 suddenly the NPE is gone along with the model.

Hiring resource granularity is a key piece to using cost to balance models. The current M2E hiring resource is soulstones. With everything else that's in play around this mechanic, we're not getting a more granular hiring resource (like Guild Scrip) without an edition change. Waiting for an edition change to fix unintended combinations, unexpected problems, and unbalanced play is a game-breaking NPE. As others mentioned, not having regular health-of-game and emergency checks drove a lot of people out of systems like WFB. Erratic errata schedules hurt organized play far more than scheduled/expected cycles. Even if the errata drops the day before a tournament, it was planned. It's up to the TO to either enforce it while the ink is still wet (and thus bring the errata information to the event and possibly attach it to any distributed materials for the tournament) or inform the players that while the errata is out, the tournament was planned and prepared for without it, and thus will run without it.

With Malifaux involving a lot more special rule use and interaction, it is a whole lot harder to evaluate a cost-to-effect. In systems like AoS and 40k you can assign a per-model cost that is strictly based on its statline and standard equipment, then base cost adjustments on special equipment; you can reasonably compare the base models and equipment in a vacuum. Things that modify the unit's battlefield ability (specific characters, etc.) have their own cost adjusted to reflect their force multiplication effect. There's line troopers that literally do nothing more than bring a bullet or blade to the field and there's specialists that modify the field in some way or are more effective themselves. With more granularity in hiring resources, there's more room for adjusting things.
In Malifaux most models typically hired are specialists of some kind, and even the ones that appear generic are hired with a specific purpose in mind and have a variable effect on the table that is dependent on terrain, scenario, opposing faction/models, and other friendly hires.

The NPE/autotake with Practiced Production wasn't Practiced Production itself, so adjusting the cost upwards would not have had a significant impact unless the adjustment was severe enough to make the upgrade a never take. Player-dependent, you would see combinations like:

• Angelica, Practiced Production, Malifaux Raptor (10 stones total)
• Colette, Practiced Production, optional other upgrade, Malifaux Raptor (12 stones plus cost of optional)

And these combinations were a guaranteed 3VP if you ignored the Raptor, or worse if you sank resources into chasing the 3 stone peon that was making it possible for me to drop scheme markers in areas that most other models would need a couple of activations to get to. As others mentioned, bumping its cost to 2-3 would just mean that it goes on Angelica effectively always for Leave Your Mark, and I'm still looking at spending less than 25% of my hiring resources for a guaranteed 30% of my available VP. The problem is is that bumping its cost removes it from legitimate non-autotake use as well. The only time it would get used is for LYM and it would effectively always score full points. That's not how the scheme, upgrade, or system in general is supposed to work. It doesn't address the actual problem with the combinations I mentioned above, which is simply:

Quote

The Malifaux Raptor is a 3 stone peon that by design can get anywhere on the table. As a peon it normally cannot contribute to scheme marker based schemes, so its ability to pop up anywhere on the table is nothing more than an interesting problem for the opposing player to solve if they want. Practiced Production made it possible to score marker-based schemes off of a model designed to get anywhere on the table, but deliberately designed not to generate scheme markers.

With GG schemes bringing more interact-based scheming to the game that scores throughout the game, something that wasn't really a problem under the basic rulebook scenarios became a potential NPE for opponents (near-unstoppable 3VP that has nothing to do with mistakes on their part) and an autotake for Arcanists. I might be off on this, but the intent of Practiced Production is to either:

1. provide a purely temporary scheme marker to power an ability or complete a scheme that called for a scheme marker being discarded, or
2. to displace the AP or ability used to generate the scheme marker. That is, Practiced Production puts out a "free" scheme marker, but if you want to keep it to score off of end-of-turn schemes, a friendly model will have to use a portion of its own activation to create a scheme marker to be discarded in its place.

4 hours ago, skoatz said:

I think you're also overestimating the effects of errata.  In most cases, models affected by the errata are still useful. People still use Austringers to great effect.  Guardians are actually used more often now.  Papa Loco still sees the table.  You're reaction really seems like, "this model was cuddled and now it's entirely useless."  And that's almost never the case.

This, 100%. I actually get more use out of some of my cuddled models now than I did before, because I don't feel like I'm abusing my opponent with them.

5 hours ago, Hot4Perdita said:

By adjusting points like what Wyrd did to the gremlin pigs, they still get to keep their abilities, but at a higher cost. So, it's not as likely to P.O. players with those models. 

You must not be following the Gremlin thread on this. Gremlin players are quite livid about it, with vocal members asking why the Stuffed Piglets didn't get stat debuffs instead.

21 hours ago, retnab said:

It's something I regularly do without Kandara and I can confirm it's very successful.  Effigy into Student of All into Banasuva immediately attacking is very nice  

...and considerably less complicated than some of the stuff I've pulled. I'm pretty sure that if I ran a paradox list under Sandeep outside of a tournament, I'd have opponents not wanting to play again. Unless, of course, they asked to see what the first turn of Sandeep could look like.
Of course, that's because of the AP and activation shenanigans..

Paradox: Arcane Effigy and Emissary in the same crew at the same time.

2 minutes ago, Bakunin said:

Since GG 18 is in the works, perhaps that's why the Rider was seen as an emergency fix? I wonder if some interaction with its scheme dropping was a pain in the new schemes, and tweaking its summon was something that they added since they were already changing the card.

That's one of those items I categorize under "I don't know what I don't know"

3 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

I totally understand your point, and I can understand how most of you like this errata, though I disagree with it. Every other game I play is balanced almost solely by points, and they do not make major changes until new editions to keep from angering people who just spent hundreds on their products. Imagine if GW nurfed the Primaris Marines that they just released that thousands of people have invested hundreds of dollars in. It would cause a worldwide riot!

 If a model is too powerful for its cost, then maybe up the cost instead. Or, preferably, produce a model/ upgrade to defend against it, like the many abilities and upgrades already in the game (i.e. Counterspell aura, upgrades to ignore armor, etc.). If the mech rider summon and scheme marker placement is such an issue that can't wait till a new edition, then make an upgrade that can be taken for your model to prevent scheme marker placement or summoning within "x" inches of it. That would cure the problem for the people that complain about the mech rider, yet not anger the people who bought and play the mech rider.

Other game systems use a different point scale. If you're playing on a 2000 point scale, bumping a 12 point model to 15 points is relatively small (less than 1% of the total hiring limit per model). If you're playing on a 200 point scale, a scaling of bumping something from 4 points to 5 has a larger impact on the total hiring limit, but bumping something from 16 to 17 does not. A single stone difference on a model in a 50 stone Malifaux game is 2% of your hiring resources.

Malifaux models don't have the same flexibility because the system doesn't have the same granularity. If a model (like the Wind Gamin) is better than other 4 stone models but not as good as a 5 stone one, it has to be one or the other and adjust for the one that it is in some way. In this case, it's a change to their dying mechanic that was giving it more utility than a 4 stone model should have, yet not making it quite as valuable as a 5 stone model.
If a model like the Mechanical Rider is bumped from 12 stones to 13 stones base, it falls into a very small circle that happens to include models like Nekima and Ashes and Dust. Mechanical Rider can seem over-the-curve, especially if played by a cagey Levi or Arcanist player, but it's not Nekima or A&D. It needs to survive until Turn 3 to really start being a problem; Nekima and A&D are doing the things that make them worth 13 stones from Turn 1 until they die. So if we compare Mech Rider to existing 13 stone models, it's not at that level. If we're wanting to readjust the whole scale, that's an edition-rolling change. So we have to look at what makes the Mech Rider better than its peers: its abilities.

The attack triggers by themselves are not over the curve. The trigger conditions have to be met for them to go off. The attack itself isn't all that frightening. So that's not an ability that really can be tweaked to bring the model closer to the curve. The Reactivate (0) is a Turn 5+ effect, so isn't going to be what comes up. Everything on the front of the card is the same as the other Riders. So that leaves the (0) for tweaking.
As @retnab mentioned, being able to push and summon a 4ss minion as a (0) is a powerful ability. It increases my activations, it gives me another significant model, and it gives me a choice of models that I can tailor for what I need. The cost of two wounds to the summoned model isn't even all that significant to me, because of what I can summon and why and what else I typically will have in my crew (especially as an Arcanist). I've summoned Fire and Ice Gamin to act as grenades. I've summoned Metal Gamin to do nothing but tie up a model and eat AP. I've summoned Steam Arachnids to reduce an opposing model's Df value in order to make the Mech Rider's attacks more likely to hit (and thus more likely to get me scheme markers and cards).

Malifaux has tried upgrades to fix shortcomings. That's why there's a bunch of 0-cost upgrades for models that were seen as lack-luster or too-far below the curve. It too runs into friction. Adding upgrades that would have to be taken to tech against an existing model that is over the curve (which costs an upgrade slot and possibly soulstones, as well as potentially making the model more vulnerable to certain other things) will certainly run into more friction; specifically why should players of factions A-D have to buy and use a situational upgrade on the off-chance that Faction E and F players might bring a specific model that is over-the-curve?

5 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

Problem is, no one playing against you will agree, so that's out of the question.

There is probably a very good reason that they won't agree to not use the errata. They may be more interested in tournaments and competitive play, and thus want to get games in under the current rules and cards. They may see that there was a reason for the change and thus feel it necessary and feel that its enforcement is good for the game.
If you're playing "casual" games with models that are above the power curve, I would suggest that you're not actually looking to play casual games. You're looking to play informal, but cutthroat games. That may even be why people won't agree to not use the errata.

1 minute ago, Astrella said:

I'm not even seeing the issue really, does this errata prevent you from using the Mechanical Rider? It's still a fine model.

No, it doesn't. It just means that a mid-range or better moderate card is required, instead of just a moderate. The change to the scheme marker trigger is actually really nice, because it lets me distribute scheme markers better. The summon is still a powerful ability, especially with the stable of 4ss (non-puppet/non-totem) Constructs available. It's a strong enough ability where it restricts what our new Minion Constructs will have and/or cost.

12 hours ago, -Loki- said:

No one is happy about Cuddles. Cuddles also get complained about faster than buffs are applauded because Cuddles destabilise the game faster than buffs, because a Cuddle will instantly alter peoples current playstyle, while a buff takes time for people to test and figure out.

However, dragging 'false advertising' into it is a bit absurd.

I dunno.. I'm pretty happy about the cuddles to my stuff. That being said, I already identified Practiced Production and Raptors as something on the short list of needed fixes and started planning different approaches to it months ago. Similarly, I've known that Wind Gamin did too much for their cost with their initial printing (even had people in my local meta thinking I was crazy for thinking that, until I showed them a couple things). They still do a lot, they just no longer completely deny killing schemes and let me bank 5" pushes for when stuff is set up later; now they die and a friendly gets an immediate push.

That said, my playstyle wasn't instantly altered because I was already starting to lean away from the combination as too good. Similar to when Colette's Prompt ability changed--I had already shifted my style so it was less of a shock when it became official. For other players who might not be paying the same kind of attention and keeping dialogs open with their TOs/Henchmen about power models/combinations, I can see why it feels like a sucker punch.

The Mech Rider change I wonder about, but I also don't know what I don't know about the motivation behind making it an emergency change. That being said, I know people who think that the push and summon is still over the top, even with needing to flip/cheat an 8 and have at least . I'll have to try it out a bit under the new rules to see if it's still something I have to find good reason(s) to not take.

I'm actually surprised that Myranda and Imbued Energies has not come up yet, considering that that combination is so potent that it restricts Arcanist beast potential and effectively lets me draw four cards in exchange for getting a model tailored to the scenario after the game is already started. That leads into why I don't mind the cuddles as much: it opens up possibilities for the future even as it tries to push over-the-curve things back into the curve.

12 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I dunno whether you are aware but PolishSausage is a highly accomplished and decorated tournament player who, for example, came in second in this year's Adepticon and is currently ranked number 11 in the US rankings. He probably knows a thing or two about list building  

I was not aware cool. That also means he's got a better idea of what has been working than others I've seen. Pardon me while I slurp up these shoelaces

In all seriousness though, I've noticed that here in the US there's a world of difference between the East and West coast regional metas. There's stuff that was dominating out here in the PacNW that doesn't even appear on the radar on the other side of the country, and stuff there that's been top tier that doesn't gain traction here. Many of the Gremlins players I've run into are either taking a goofball approach to the game deliberately (like I do) or are rather new and thus aren't entirely aware of what they have and what it does. The rest are trying to figure out how to take things that appear to work really well in other metas and apply them to the local metas, with mixed results. More cross-pollination might help with that disparity, but that requires time and other resources that might not be available.

I agree with @PolishSausage's sentiment that the game play seems a little too heavily focused on either alpha or first strike , which skews the game towards certain approaches to crews. If the strategies and schemes were less rewarding to hyper-aggression and mobility, it would probably help bring down the current value of masters like Sandeep and other models that ping high on the "why is this a thing" scale.
This skewing might be a result of trying to combine high activation counts with needing to play in a compressed time. Compressed time and the potential of not actually completing 3-4 turns, let alone 5 definitely contributes to picking schemes that reward alpha striking. It solves two problems at the same time: reducing total number of activations on the table and completing a scheme or strategy point. I've been frustrated in games where I needed to complete Turn 3 to actually score and time gets called before I can get the activations in to recover evidence or drop the last Search marker around the ruins, especially in games against an opponent with ample activations. I know it inspires me to design crews with lethal and control options in mind.
The flip side of this is that there are some masters whose whole shtick is kill them all, kill them now, and.. oh, yeah, pick up that stuff on the way back, which makes those masters weaker in a scheme heavy pool that requires consistently doing things to complete non-lethal schemes and a liability in schemes that punish you for being good at killing, and their signature crews more of a liability when it comes to schemes in which you need to leave models alive. It's a pretty complicated balancing act.

Idea: instead of generalist/go to lists, develop lists that are specifically tailored for the strategy and schemes of a scenario. Flip some schemes and build a crew to complete those schemes and completely throw the idea of "generalist" out.

• First look lists would be ones that play for 10 VP. That is, they focus on scoring the 10 points you need to maximize your own score.
• Second look lists would the ones that play for 11 VP. That is, they work on both scoring and denial such that 11 VP are accounted for by your crew. If you score only 9, you deny at least 2. This is substantially harder to plan, because you have to take into consideration opposing crew and what its player is likely to be bringing for the same scenario.

In both cases you build out your crew to be able to readily complete at least 3 of the available schemes so that an experienced opponent cannot look at your crew and know exactly what you're going for. Ideally you shoot for 4 schemes that you can complete, but sometimes the scenario flip has some schemes that are directly conflicting to the point of being mutually exclusive. This also gives you some flexibility to switch gears if your opponent drops a crew that is new to you or tailored to deny specific schemes that you might have been hoping for.

This allows you to play specifically to the strengths of specific models in certain scenarios.

You might even develop modules for specific scenarios. For instance, to score on Dig Their Graves you need something that can drop a scheme marker within 4" of your target, and an assassin to kill them. You've got no shortage of non-peon heavy hitters, so pair something like a Swine Cursed with something that can chain activate into it. Then during the turn, its paired model activates, gets to where it is needed, drops a scheme marker, and chain activates into the Swine Cursed to murder something for Dig Their Graves.

Some of your modules could even be single models. A Glowy/Magical Burt under Wong is going to deny regions of the board to your opponent, unless they have expendable bodies. So he can both be an Inspection scorer and denier. This also puts him somewhere to perform Claim Jump. He could even go Reckless and complete Claim Jump by himself while camping on the corner for Inspection.. all while being a constant threat to anything that might get close enough to threaten him. If the opposing faction is something that won't care so much about Burt's lethality, then you swap him out for a module that can do other work for the scenario.

For playing on a budget, a generalist list is not a bad idea, but if you're interested in competitive play, you're going to want to think about being exceptional at the specific tasks in front of you (the terrain, opponent, and strat and schemes that make the scenario) instead of just decent to good in general.

Now that sculpt might convince me to expand my TT in Lynch's direction...

1 minute ago, Math Mathonwy said:

To be fair, all models in all their iterations have survived testing shakedown. That's hardly a guarantee of perfection.

Very true, hardly a guarantee of perfection; but it's a far cry removed from "I dunno, just increase the cost and see what happens"

11 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Since it is a tournament rules set I think testing under time constraints is good, all games don't reach turn 5 which actually influenced the switch towards more and more incremental scoring and no schemes requiring you to reach turn 5.

Agreed, some of the testing should be done under time constraints as well. Ideally when the general gist of the scheme is smooth enough where the people testing it can give the time stress an honest shake. If we're looking at two week iterations, then the second week would be when I would introduce time-constraint testing (one week iteration would be end of week), unless I've got some playtesting buddies who are willing to make a weekend of internalizing a ruleset and going ham on stress testing a scenario.

If the strategy and scheme changes are less than a day old, I would lean away from time constrained testing because I would not expect all players to internalize them at a glance, which will create an artificial slowdown in the game not unlike playing against someone who is playing their first full game at a tournament. Ideally you'll at least get through Turn 3 (6-8 point game max, depending on the schemes), if for no other reason to see how they balance out against each other in a reasonable tournament game expectation. This helps determine if that scheme should be on a suit, number, pair, or joker (if it's going to be kept).

That slowdown isn't just on the play time, it's also on the crew construction. Later on in the testing period when we're fine tuning the scenarios crew construction for announced scenarios is something that can be done, because we can be reasonably sure that those strategies and schemes will still involve similar moving parts. Crew construction being part of the round time at a tournament is why it is players who can plan (and practice) crews prior to an event can get their stuff to the board and are more likely to complete Turns 3 and 4 (if not a full game).

So one way to introduce time-constrained testing is to play a 120-minute game in 100-110 minutes with actual scenario analysis, crew hiring, and scheme selection done off the clock; docking yourself 10-20 minutes to simulate what would happen in a normal (non-playtest) tournament game: first time looking at the table and terrain, introduction to opponent, tweaking of crews based off of opposing faction and terrain on the table, revealing/review of the crews, and scheme selection. This approach would even work on strategies and schemes that were posted within the hour.

21 minutes ago, PolishSausage said:

You will be surprised. I will not use any of the new upgrades or models for 2018 (because they are inferior to what we already have)

kind of sad compared to what other factions are getting

This is potentially a sign of a serious internal balance problem.
One of the players in my local meta has made the observation that the power creep is real because many of the new things open new doors or cover existing weaknesses in a way that creates a trade-off. If you're used to playing with over a dozen activations that die to a stiff breeze (or an Ashen Core's version of a breeze) and want to mix things up a bit, there exists models that are a little tougher with a slightly higher price tag. You end up with less activations at the beginning of the game, but you are also not looking at having half your activations becoming corpse/scrap/head markers by the end of Turn 2.

This observation seems true for all of the factions to some degree, especially from an outsider perspective looking in. If you're an insider and you feel that you will use none of the new stuff (Wave n+1) because your existing stuff is always better hands down, then there's either a perception or a balance problem.

I know a thing or two about the perception problems that can arise, because I tend to play askew from local wisdom and run into it constantly.

• Some of it is stagnation: people go with what they know works because they know it works (Arcanists with Ramos crews tend to look/feel cookie-cutter because there's a build that's worked for all of M2E that doesn't change much, if at all). Maybe this is because they don't have a lot of time for practicing new stuff, maybe they don't have the desire, maybe they don't have enough potential opponents to get a lot of practice in, maybe there's another reason that's less generic. Whatever the case, their experimentation is minimal at best and the desire to play (especially in tournaments) drives them to grab something proven.
• Some of it is newness and/or complexity: within various local metas players are trying to learn the game, learn new models, learn opponents. There's a ton of information to digest at the table, so something that requires more nuance or finesse to play might not get a good early shakedown. For players wanting to get to a tournament or get a quick game in, nuanced masters and crews are neither quick nor user-friendly. This causes them to end up on the bench instead of on the table. This even applies to upgrades; there are some that just don't get used because they have a wall of text and some nuance to play that acts like a bar to entry for play.

Perception drives metas, so it's not like it is "all in your head" when you're playing against your usual opponents. To overcome the first problem I describe above, you need players who are willing to risk the second problem and spend not just a game or two, but a dozen or two games shaking down something new or previously overlooked. That takes time, which might not be available; it also takes having an opponent that has time to sit down for an after-action review or even reset the board state so that you can try different things into the same conditions. If you cannot find other players who have the time and desire to do this, then you'll end up doing it on your own without the benefit of another set of eyes and a hostile actor helping you figure out its strengths and weaknesses.

Perception is also why it is there may be some disparity between where the design team and their testers feel a faction, model, or upgrade is at and distributed players feel it is at. Sometimes that's because someone isn't picking up on a subtle interaction, sometimes it's because the local meta is skewed one way or another that favors specific approaches to play over others.

With widespread playtesting and play, the perception variance can get smoothed out over time. People warm up to new ideas and things start seeing more play because certain schemes or terrain just make a model, combination, or even crew fully click.

Once perception variance is smoothed out, then what remains is actual balance. That's when errata testing for actual balance and/or health of the game issues and ideas get thrown at a wall to see what sticks.

Using this approach is actually pleasant (especially when compared to other game systems), because it helps discover the root of a problem. Increasing a 2ss model to 3ss in cost may feel ham-fisted to some, but it's a targeted change that survived testing shakedown. If it feels like it was done behind closed doors, it may be safe to assume that non-public testing was being tested against new stuff or with new stuff in mind, or involved a variety of ideas that were spaghetti noodles thrown at a wall that did not stick and thus don't need to be known to the general public.

One of the things to note (as several of us commented to Arcanist players about Colette's errata among others) is that not all changes are to benefit any specific faction or player directly. Some of the changes will benefit factions or players indirectly because they're aimed at the health of the game (even emergency ones that arrive just before major release events). They might be closing an unintended interaction because it was creating NPEs at the table or because they have something new coming that will make that unintended interaction worse, like a master upgrade that the master needed to bump its competitiveness in line with the other masters in its faction.

1 hour ago, Ludvig said:

What?! Are people going to be running their tournament with rules that change every week? That just sounds weird to me, how do you prep for that?How do you make sure every player has the latest printout that possiibly released a day before the tournament? The schemes you posted in the tournament description miggt be gone altogether when the tournament finally hits or they've altered two or three times. 

That's exactly my concern. Rules in test are not stable enough for a formal competition.
I do software development to pay the bills, and there's a reason we don't develop on production servers and don't ship code that's under development or in testing to customers. It's not stable, it's subject to change, and with emergent technologies, half the features might have to be pared away to bring it to something usable, functional, and maintainable. Heck, we even keep our QA efforts off of our dev environments as much as possible because we know stuff is broken or wonky, we're making tweaks under the hood that aren't going to do anything about that wonky behavior for at least a few more man-days of effort.

If I'm a TO and I'm putting together a tournament, I'm going to want to have a set of strats and schemes already planned, tables and terrain already planned, and players who are as prepared as they can be to go into timed rounds.
As a player, it can get really frustrating to lose or tie in a tournament game because you only made it to Turn 2-3 because you didn't realize how underprepared for the match your opponent was. It only gets worse when you have to confirm what the schemes actually state and how they actually score before you can move on to hiring your crews and picking your schemes based off of your opponents' crew. So on of the pitfalls that I can control as a TO is making sure that the scenarios themselves aren't wonky.

Dedicated playtest games can take as long as they need, and should.  All five turns are needed, six if the continuation flip calls for it. If both players are taking notes and those notes get to @Aaron and company, then they have useful information. They can look at how the strategy and schemes did and did not effect the game. It also allows for testing all schemes.

Tournament games are bound to a time limit. Unstable rulesets don't enable making the time limit, and the results of a game that does not at least reach Turn 5 don't describe the full impact/effect of the strategies and schemes. People defensively prepare for schemes that aren't incremental just in case they don't get to Turn 4, and this will eliminate those schemes from testing in that environment. There's even a chance that people will forget to play out a scheme because there's too much going on and too little time to plan for a scheme that they've never had a chance to practice and internalize.

10 hours ago, trikk said:

I honestly think Bushwackers and Survivors are pretty good models but they suffer to the awful Gremlin internal balance. I hope if Pigapult gets a discount then the pig sacrifice is start of turn to prevent the activation spam that was just fixed.

I'm inclined to agree with this. I also think that the Moon Shinobi are criminally underrated, but I also understand that internal balance comes into play.

9 hours ago, PolishSausage said:

What I disagree the most off is your above post, Bushwackers and Survivors don't just need cost adjustment, they need 100% ability and rules rework.

They suffered from "new model syndrome" and were not tested properly. I have never EVER seen one of these models hit the table other than "I tested it once and sucked" feedback from others.

Comments below

8 hours ago, trikk said:

But is it that they are bad inside the vacuum or just that Gremlins have a lot of better stuff (so internal balance issues). If Bayous were tweaked to be 4SS models (and by Tweaked I don`t mean just an SS update, maybe give them 5 Wds for example) I think Survivors would go up in priority.

Bushwackers also seem decent, especially when compared to Riflemen. If you Focus+shoot with them its what 2/4/5 damage? They also have Df6 and make cover. While I understand why the Gremlin players don`t take them I also think that they are not poop but instead suffer from the Internal balance issues

Internal balance plays a huge role. When I play Mei Feng as Arcanists in my local meta, some of the players are appalled at how much Rail Workers can do. One of the things that comes up is that other factions would kill to have a 5ss model that does that much--yet in the Arcanists they're often overlooked in favor of other models. "Why spend 5ss on a Rail Worker when you can get Oxfordian Mages at 5ss apiece when you hire three of them?" That's an internal balance (and/or perception) problem. Are Survivors Rail Workers? Not really. They bring something different to the table that doesn't play out quite the same way.. but they bring stuff to the table that is different, so it shouldn't play out the same way.

That's where newness and internal balance collide.
If you hand me a new model tomorrow and I'm practicing for a large event in a month, I'm going to look at the cost and role of that model first. Do I have something else doing the same role? What is the cost difference? If the new shiny is 5ss and I'm using 2-3ss activation filler and 4ss scheme runners and that 5ss model looks like a slightly upticked scheme runner, I'm going to have a hard time fitting it in on role and cost alone. I'll be trading down two activations for one to get another model that looks like it'll be doing a scheme running role. I'm not looking at the moderate/severe damage of 4/5 (because other models are doing the hitting), the armor, or the Hard to Kill (a 4 wound model with reckless will end up at Hard to Kill pretty quickly). If my priority is on activation count, that's a crummy trade by itself. If my priority is on hiring models for a specific role, it doesn't look like it's doing as much for its cost as some of the other choices I have.
It's easy to assume that it's because the model sucks or is unworkable. However, when it's being compared to 3ss significant models and 2ss models that can spike damage in a pulse with less effort while being activation fillers for activation/scheme roles, it's going to lose out. When it's being compared to someone who is 2ss more expensive but has the dumb luck trigger to not just spike damage, but double the spiked damage output, it's going to lose out on the assassin/beater role. When it's being compared to something with Regen, 8-10 wounds, and armor.. well.. Hard to Kill just doesn't seem as nice as something that can take two min 3 hits that ignore everything to the face and swing back. Utter lack of Squeal trigger and Bayou Two Card? Well, it doesn't have the same tricks as other scheme runners who might get hit, so it's definitely going to get hit.

After the newness wears off? If you hand me a new-to-me model tomorrow and I'm not in a focused mode (i.e. not practicing for a tournament or trying to tighten up my use of a specific master or crew mechanic) I will be looking at it with a different mindset. I will be looking for the things that add suits for triggers, the things that add positives (or put my opponent on negatives) and I will be looking for ways to get that moderate or severe damage off.. but that's because I did that for Rail Workers and realized that they punch well out of their weight class when properly supported and applied. Sure, the Porkchop's Walking Rage Machine aura and Reckless are going to tick two wounds off of a Survivor that goes reckless and charges from next to it.. but that's some furious fist slinging, especially if one or more of them ended up Fast. Two wounds and Hard to Kill still means that it's going to take two separate damage sources or someone like Joss smacking the Survivor to actually put it down.. that's a decent trade in effort. If Joss only removes a Survivor a turn, he's not removing Burt, Gracie, Francois, etc. etc. If I get that (0) with the reduced walk and no charge effect off? That's going to hamper more than just the model that the Survivor gets up in the face of. It ends up being something that must be answered once it gets into the fight. Who cares if a model has a Charge of 10" when it legitimately cannot charge.

I'll be frank, I would love it if the Survivors had the Foundry trait, and I have Rail Workers at the same stone cost. I wouldn't even have the benefit of things like Slop Haulers to keep them topped off. I'm coming from a different perspective though, as I'm used to paying for Arcanist models and trying to figure out which of all the tools I have access to that I should be bringing. I would be using them as a 5ss model to gum up the works of my opponent, forcing substantially more expensive and important models to deal with them and I'm used to paying 3ss for a peon or 4ss for a minion that does that kind of work when I'm not using Rail Workers in that role.
So from my perspective, rebalancing the cost of the Stuffed Piglets up to 3 and maybe taking a look at the Bayou Gremlins cost might help some of the other models see more play. That's the internal balance piece. Maybe if the swarm approach was only really useful under Somer and Ulix it would help?
I know that it's not that simple for Gremlins though, because the Gremlin cost balance across faction is very different than it is for Arcanists and 10T. With enemies that can threat pretty far, Gremlins currently count on their activations to keep their quality pieces in the game long enough to get stuff done.

4 minutes ago, MCOLL81 said:

I was initially of the same opinion. Or at least skeptical with them being "beta". But there's already been resounding buy-in from players and TOs in our region.

I hope that they cool down just a little. The reason for the beta test is to open up the field for better exploit/problem discovery. The schemes and strategies might change every week, which isn't good for organized play (no stability) or player planning and practice purposes (strat/scheme scenarios announced a week or two in advance). It might be interesting to set one up that accounts for this, but the results of the tournament should be treated as just a more intense testing session.

Up here in my region there's excitement to test them too, which is great. The more of us that test them, the better the data is for Wyrd's team.

I'm pretty sure that Wyrd would not intentionally neuter an entire station out of people's playable models. If the GG18 strats/schemes seem like they completely eliminate bringing peons or insignificant models, bring it up during the beta playtest. As @Ludvig mentioned, peons and insignificant models are not supposed to be really used for directly scoring on something, and the Raptors have a mobility shenanigan that lets them reenter play and disrupt the board prior to scoring--but if all the schemes and strats are set up in a way where even denial cannot be done by peons/insignificant models, it could have a strong negative impact on taking non-offending peons/insignificant models.

If the schemes are not designed in such a way where peons/insignificant models can contribute to the scenario win conditions (even if they're not directly able to score), yet can still be scored off of (e.g. Hunting Party) then they start to be a serious liability to play and competitive play will lean away from them as a result. Moreso than they do now. Models that have nothing to contribute are only rarely going to leave the case.

Raptors have an interesting advantage over other peon/insignificant non-masters, however. Being 40mm bases they can block LOS to markers. They can appear anywhere and disrupt your opponent's planned first activation of the next turn, if not the strategy itself. We'll still have uses for the birds. It'll be other models that will feel that sting moreso than they do now.
Sure, Raptors have triggers that aren't built in.. but for a 3ss model, those triggers should not be built in. Heck, baked in triggers on the Wind Gamin attack are one of the things that make them interesting for deck manipulation purposes.
When I'm running Raptors with Ramos, I'm pitching Masks I don't need to set up the Tomes that I do need or even cycle that Black Joker out of the way so that nothing interferes with my getting 3 spiders that turn.
When I'm running Raptors with Ironsides, each one is a 3ss activation that can help by scratching up M&SU models to get them on positives. Sure, there's other approaches, but in a relatively elite crew I would rather make sure that I'm keeping my activations up enough where I have the ability to affect the board state more throughout the turn. Otherwise, my control game is going to be hurting.
If I'm running Raptors with Sandeep, it's for activation control so that I can delay committing Sandeep (and Banasuva and whatever hired beatstick is included) for as long as possible, so that I can put them where they will do the most to disrupt my opponent's plans  while my hired Wind Gamin can run around scheming. The trigger for peeking at the deck is interesting, and if I have a low Mask, I'll certainly think about doing it if I know that it'll help my next activation (not as guaranteed as it is in Ramos Spider Factory) or there's a way for me to draw that card to hand right away.

11 minutes ago, KrazyIvan said:

Why is it that folks seem to think that a bump in SS was the only thing discussed behind closed doors. Anyone who has been involved in Wyrd play testing knows that all kinds of ideas get discussed  before a decision is made. I got to be honest that it rubs me the wrong way when the Malifaux game designers are accused of lazy development, given the complexities designed into the game already.

In this case the ultimate issue with the Stuffed Piglets wasn't their wound count, or their selective self-detonation, or anything else about how the models performed. It was specifically that 2SS is too cheap for a non-totem activation (non-Totem because by and large totems are Rare 1, and the ones that aren't are integral to the associated master's intended play style), complicated with the fact that the designer didn't want to make major changes to the actions and abilities on the card. How do you specifically address the design direction of "1 activation > 2SS"?

All I see is either giving them a Rare limit, which would have to be like Rare 3 to avoid the spamming 2SS activations issue, or bump their SS cost.

Exactly this. So far I've only participated in open testing, and from the changes that took place over that it looks like the design team starts with as many things as they can and shake things down to a workable solution. Handling errata and closed testing in the same way is what I would expect--because it lets all of your testing go in parallel and produce results that can be tested and handled in parallel. The reason for closed doors can be many things and it would not surprise me in the least that the testing behind closed doors is related to game design and new content--stuff that Wyrd would like to be in control of.

As for the solutions...  I think the reference to non-Totem is key here, because masters and totems are bound to each other--I'm not bringing the Emberling without Mei Feng (important, because cheap, significant activation), I'm not bringing a wing of Doves without Colette (important, because cheap activations that can sac themselves to be a force multiplier)--and are thus a little easier to account for when designing other models. Mah having a 2ss activation or three is quite different than Wong or Zipp. Rare limit would hamper summoning them (sorry, Taxidermist) and merely cut down on the number of 2ss activations every Gremlin master would have, without addressing the actual problem area as it applies to a handful of masters and model combinations.

2 hours ago, catbat07 said:

Gremlins are not a particularly powerful faction. While they can seem that way, they can be played around fairly easily. However, in GG17, they are incredibly strong. Take the average schemes pool: Claim Jump, Dig their graves/leave your mark + some other stuff. In any given game, there will be two schemes (on average) that benefit heavily off activation control. Gremlins, being a faction with plentiful activation control were able to score 8-10VP very easily, and have no problems with any of the strategies. This is exactly the same reason why Tara and Sandeep are broken right now. The meta has devolved into summoning and cheap activations. With the right scheme pool, it can be very difficult to win against one of these lists. 

Gremlins will be perfectly balanced in GG18 (hopefully). Also, Gremlins aren't the biggest problem. Hamelin, Collodi, Tara and Sandeep all desperately need fixing, mainly because they do gremlins better. Sort of.

So here's where it might be necessary to be pedantic a bit and make sure that "powerful" is well-defined.

For some, the idea of powerful is that a powerful thing can kill/destroy almost anything in its path. There are game systems where that is certainly the case, and indeed, there are even some strat/scheme combinations (scenarios) in Malifaux where that is the case as well. Some masters are the Red Joker at this, others the Black Joker. Fortunately, not all scenarios are won by the person who brings the biggest gun and/or fastest blades, so this view on powerful does not actually apply--because it does not reliably win games.

For others, myself included on this one, powerful has to do with the ability to achieve victory. What makes Ramos, Ulix, Somer, and Hamelin powerful at attrition-based scenarios is their ability to crank out Activations in an effectively unlimited fashion. What makes Sandeep powerful in general is that he has no weak scenarios and can increase his activations and share effort, giving him considerable flexibility. Being incredibly strong in a scenario set (GG17) fits this view on what powerful is. Being able to set up an undeniable combination to score points for the scenario is extremely powerful.
Balance between factions is very close, and as long as we maintain a reasonably close balance between factions no faction should be particularly powerful when compared to the others. Some factions will be stronger at some kinds of play, some masters will be stronger into some scenarios. That is by design.

1 hour ago, Soil said:

Is this sentence not saying the opposite of what was intended?

It says the upgrade prevents you from placing scheme markers near non-peons and non-insignificant friendly models. Thus, you can only place markers near peons and insignificant models

That looks like a typo on Aaron's part. The card itself has the correct wording for the stated intent of only being able to use significant non-peons as targets. Added bonus for people playing against Arcanists: turn our stuff into peons and you shut off Practice Production.

30 minutes ago, retnab said:

Mech Rider one was unexpected, but in theory I like both of the changes. The positioning of the Scheme Markers is more restricted in the early game but better end-game, and being able to do it multiple times per turn is pretty sweet for some schemes. I haven't played it in a while now, and this might convince me to give it another shot. The AV cuddle makes sense seeing as how strong a summon it was, though I hope this means Wyrd will be willing to give us more 4ss Constructs now!  

It does potentially open up more design space. I also appreciate that the modification to the Rider's trigger does allow me to still drop up to 2 scheme markers, but in a manner that might actually be more useful in the long run--given that marker schemes tend to have spacing requirements and I've been playing more Dig Their Graves lately. I can spread the markers out to better support schemes, including having an insurance grave-marking scheme marker, trap marker, or just plain old scheme marker for later exploitation.

I'm in a similar boat: I haven't really bothered with Raptors for Leave Your Mark or Covert Breakthrough because I knew it was over the top and needed to change.

@Gnomezilla: which browser? Chrome is acting a little odd when I pull it, but it does download, and Firefox gets a permanent redirect on the initial response, followed up by a nicely encrypted bytestream that becomes the PDF. I'm loathe to start up IE11 on this machine.

2 minutes ago, trikk said:

Swinecursed and Tavish are pretty good and don`t die to a stiff breeze. 

Leaving them at 2SS means you can spam them for activations.

The key thing here is what the top tier players are doing. 2ss spammable (not limited by a rare value) models lets them work around one of the most important things to a Malifaux turn: Activations. Normally, if you're wanting to have model A do something that sets up model B and model C, your opponent gets an activation between model A and the other two. Companion/Accomplice lets you work around that directly, but is only available on select models, and doesn't let you get both B and C to do their thing without your opponent having a chance to interfere.

With spammable 2ss models, you bring your power combination and flood the table with many cheap activations. Now your opponent has no chance to interrupt your power combination. That can be a pretty significant NPE when the game mechanics are built on (and advertise) back-and-forth play.

13 minutes ago, Bane said:

This idea that Gremlins are supposed to be the swarm you army of cheap activations and minions sounds great in theory. Then you look at their mid-tier priced units - Burt, Francois, Swinecursed, Trixie, Taxidermist - and you realize that these models all punch way above their 7ss price tag.

[... bit about bad players]

When you look at the competitive gamers in the Malifaux tournament scene, I think if they're being honest about it, most will tell you that 2ss activation spam is oppressive and too strong for the investment - particularly when it's included in the same faction that after out-activating you, alpha strikes you with the likes of Glowy Burt or 2x Swinecursed, or pulls Francois up with a Skeeter and goes Fast/Reckless/Charges for likely 4 dumb-luck attacks on your Master or key piece. It's why the Rat Engine was broken. If you don't think activation control is more important than ever in GG 17, I don't think you're playing enough.

And yeah, you won't see Piglets now, but that's because Bayous should be 4ss. No one should have access to spammable, summonable, Significant Minions at 3ss. Sorry.

The trade-off on those 7ss models is supposed to be their fragility or some kind of vulnerability. That fragility/vulnerability does not come up if the Gremlins player doesn't need to move them forward until everything that could hurt them has activated and is committed to a specific area.

Even if they're not summonable, spammable Significant models at 3ss is probably over the top. The hard part about Bayou Gremlins is that they rely on other models to stay alive if you're using them for persistent activation control and scheme running. That's why it is when someone asks for Somer advice the first, second, and third response is "kill the slop hauler"--it's a critical piece. Newer players or players that don't grasp that interplay in the Bayou don't negate its power; they just illustrate its subtlety/discoverability.

Just now, Nikodemus said:

Raptor or two has a place so long as there's strategies/schemes that don't score off of peons. I love being able to throw a Df6 Wd4 model next to something important to eat up AP, consequence free.

Exactly, and they also provide some cheap activations for helping delay activation of something that's supposed to counter-punch or go as late as possible to scheme without your opponent being able to deal with it.

2 minutes ago, trikk said:

This question is from a totally non-Malifaux perspective. Which faction is better. The one that is consecutively 2nd or 3rd or the ones that are either 1st or 10th?

 

Yes, they were. You had faction-wide 2SS models which are exactly the reason rats were changed. They also are super durable for 2SS (4Wds) and blow up volunatarily for silly damage while often denying points.

To the first point: spot on. If a faction is consistently in the top three at a large event regardless of region, it has some tools to it that give it greater reliability and/or stability.

On the second: the rats presented a problem when combined with the super-high quality models that the Outcasts have. We're seeing more high-quality Gremlins arrive, especially under Wong (the master that internet wisdom here is suggesting would be the only master to use them with the change).