Kharnage

8 minutes ago, Passenty said:

how do they heal with hayreddin when they get one-shoted most of the time?

This. So much min 3 in the game, or 2 with crit strike available, against Df 4, it's not hard to get a single AP taking these dogs out, where minimum 4 is much harder for a Tot and they have protected to layer on top of it. Not that every model ever is dealing 3 damage, but if it's all I have to deal in order to remove 2 significant AP you best believe I'm roasting some dogs as an opponent. There's only so much board the dogs can run to while running schemes, since most of them have specific locations they have to reach anyway that can be played against. And I find "but they provoke Insolence on death" to be a small comfort. 

So as it stands, for 1 more stone, Corrupted Hounds are outclassed by tots in basically every way. Spamming dogs for pack mentality sounds cool, but having 4 3 wound models with df 4 in a ball trying to tangle with anything that matters, especially for probably giving myself such a steep initiative disadvantage in the pass tokens department, is not that good. Tots have better defenses, and more synergy with their crew, which even at a 33% increase in cost, is worth the value, meaning Corrupted Hounds are likely to never see play.
As @Le gob mentioned in the Daw Vs Nekima report thread, what if we gave them a useful-to-Nephilim ability; digging up corpses? Does anyone have issues with this? 

Two things. Germinate is a Create effect, meaning you cannot place the marker in contact with other models at all. Two, base contact is not edge-to-edge necessarily. You can place the attacked model directly in the middle of the marker as this still qualifies as "base contact" AFAICT. The bases are just really, really in contact. 

2 hours ago, Saduhem said:

Enraged by Insolence: Taken off Nekima's card. Is now an ability on the terror tor's card that says "After this model is killed..."

I appreciate the idea of making this not action, activation, or Distance-From-Nekima dependent, but to be honest I don't have issues with the tots surviving. It would be less useful on tots than where it is right now, as it is right now, in my experience, as usually Young or Matures are the first priority to die anyway (Nekima heals too much for my foes' liking and so she is actually generally ignored)

As for your ideas at concealment, back when Hayreddin could hire Night Terrors, they were the bomb. So my thoughts for Hayreddin might go something like this: I will never ever use the extra damage for extra splash radius fast action, unless I'm completely out of cards to power the tot generation, for lack of anything else to do. Negative armor is a terrible, bad, dysfunctional idea, especially for so little benefit. That being sufficiently said, I always and forever want his Life From Blood action, so if that became the front-of-card aura that he has (maybe limit it to once a turn or something, falling in line with other summon effects) instead of that equally useless heal-on-splash-during-enemy-turns aura, that'd be cool.

Now something I would take damage for to replace Necrotic Infusion, would be concealment. Give him a fast action that does something to the effect of

Shroud of Blood: Friendly Nephilim models within Pulse 6" may suffer 1 damage, ignoring black blood, to gain concealment until the end of the turn. 

Put the ignoring black blood clause to make that NOT an AoE pustule. Maybe that'd be cool and we'd let it splash, I don't know. Anyway, shooting at nephilim surrounded by magically animated swirls of their own blood... sounds, like, so cool. Like, metal album cover cool.
 

2 hours ago, Domin said:

I'm personally thinking about an aura of drawing cards after cheating. 

That'd mimic showboating... not that we can't have similar mechanics, but having an aura of the same, or superior, mechanics, would probably make Zipp players feel lame. 
 

Discard-fueled weak-sauce butterfly jump doesn't do it for me. Why not something like... I think it used to be a marionette ability or something, but basically "friendly models can choose to not allow cheating for either side before an opposed duel." That way there's still a sense of uncertainty because they could still hit/dodge you topdecking, and it is only useful for NB players who believe themselves to have the weaker hand, but it still feels like a fun, game changing ability. 

4 minutes ago, Distruggiuova said:

You can stone to add a crow after you flip to hit in M3E I think

Page 30, soulstones used to enhance a duel are used beforehand. 

So Good Shot Dear. Can we please make this a 6 inch aura? She already has an aura, with this defined range, and having this be a global ability will probably net her staying in the back watching telenovelas while the crew is encouraged by her words, across sniper-rifle-distances and through terrain, buildings, and the sounds of combat. And it's not like the aura won't probably reach her gun-toting crew's ears anyway, I just want some consistency.
If Nekima's encouragement from Teach Them Fear is 6 inches, can the 5 stone enforcer face the same challenges? Or could we make Teach Them Fear global? I'm good with either of those outcomes, really :^)
Additionally, I find this combined with Finger on the Trigger to be... menacing. Not sure if it's super OP needs nerf, but menacing. 

16 minutes ago, Wenshai said:

Sorry to divert. Just lookjng for clarification, Von Schills Blast resistent, doesnt negate BB does it? Due to not reducing to 0 correct?

Correct.

1 hour ago, NeilH said:

So with a simple crow and taking 2 damage heyreddin can basically do minimum 5 damage (4 + BB) consistently.

I find that it's much harder to do this consistently than you think. "A simple crow" sounds cool, but often high cards in general are being saved for Nekima's activation, since with the focus she can get from a BBS and how much mileage you can get out of her generally, she eats every card that can guarantee a hit, and blindly stoning for a crow in hopes that Hayreddin hits is not good stone use, IMO. Additionally, other than having black blood and decently good defensive values, Hayreddin is kind of a squishball. Losing 2 HP a whack is not a small sacrifice, and you *have* to suffer the damage rather than stoning out of it to splash. Killing things to heal with Mom's Proud aura is a consideration, but often Hayreddin and Nekima aren't close enough to make this work for me, because they're so mobile. 

Just what it says on the tin. I've played two games with this dude now with his healy aura, and I've yet to heal a single model with it. I mentioned in a batrep some ideas, but I'm reposting them here for general consumption (I find it tedious to go through every batrep, myself)
1: Let it work all the time rather than just enemy activations. I'm not sure there's a scenario where Hayreddin taking a splat-bat action (trigger on Staff) isn't more impactful than instead choosing to heal people by pustuling himself or others, and to be fair the splat-bat could provoke this, but I'm not sure it's so unstoppably game breaking that we couldn't just let it work all the time to see literally any mileage at all out of his ability.
2: Let black blood heal the model being struck, and only the model being struck. Definitely caveat that we can't heal out of death with this, though. Make it "after resolving the damaging action" or something. That way, you're not getting exponential healing, and effectively it's a Nephilim-y way to radiate some damage mitigation, stopped by ability damage (since it won't provoke blood), heal prevention, and receiving a deathblow.
3: Card draw on death of models by black blood. It lets him power his tot generation easier, and gives Nekima and friends some better card manipulation to work with if we're willing to black blood our way to victory.
4: Make black blood, in some limited fashion, cause injured. Definitely not on every splash. Actually, make it only cause injured if no injured is present on the model. Not that all wounds don't hurt bad, but IIRC death by black blood hurts, a lot. If it's like being drenched in acid, I might have a harder time swinging a sword or casting a spell, especially if it's necrotically infused acid, a la a neat aura for Hayreddin to have.

Thoughts on any of these auras? I just want to feel like I have a cool guy when I take Hayreddin rather than "Well Barbaros left us so we're dealing with Soccer Dad Hayreddin now."

Actually, let me make this into a Neverborn thread, I want more visibility on this idea...

1 hour ago, Gnomezilla said:

Hayreddin's new heal ability never fired as I never attacked the nephilim while they were close together, not because it was a deterrent but because I always had higher priority targets

Can we please either come up with something different for this aura to do or allow it to happen during friendly activations? I get special dispensation had to go but Domadores get "You living models all undodgeably count as undead for my entire crew of undead hating models" and I get "Go ahead, try to remember that this aura even exists". How about card draw if things die to black blood within the aura? Or like "Coagulating Aura" where if a nephilim bleeds, it heals itself 1, but can't heal itself out of dying. It'd effectively function kinda like Fitzsimmons aura, except anti-healing would stop it, ability damage wouldn't trigger it, and if you kill it, it won't work. Or "if a nephilim suffers damage from a friendly model's action, it may suffer 1 damage." That might be a bit much if Hayreddin gets swift action triggers off on pustule, but also I'd be committing suicide to do it. 
I'm just spitballing here but it needs something. 
EDIT: Oooh! Or like "Intense Pain" once per activation, or even once per turn, models that suffer damage from black blood also suffer injured 1. There's options, man. 

Also, detonate charges was a colossal pain to run. Not that I didn't get two points out of it, but it was way hard; with a pile of fast-moving un-engaged nephilim and an enemy target that LITERALLY CAN'T MOVE, I struggled to score the points for it. Not that Line in the Sandy Leyline wasn't reasonably difficult, but it felt more doable despite requiring more scheme markers. If you can artificially drop scheme markers, great, otherwise, it's a 4 scheme pool.
 

I find your rewrite to be potentially be even more punishing, as the agency now being on a player who has access to a theoretical 12 cards a turn with redraw-hand-move is really painful. You go from, maybe getting a couple late activations being stunned, to having only your big models that it would really suck to have stunned on, stunned. I've played with Zoraida a couple of times, and I found her penetrating stench to be much less oppressive than the amount of injured she can hand out. My opponent finds penetrating stench to be a non-issue, and has yet to have a model stunned by the ability. Maybe it was just garbage hands, or maybe it was because I also hand them a redraw, but they always hand the cards for it. 
All in all, my 2 cents is that it's probably just y'all  That being said, everyone's got their least favorite NPE running around, this just might be his. Leave Zoraida testing to others if he finds it particularly grindy. Though each game he suffers intensely by her hand, is a game he can use to prove its too much.

7 hours ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

3. never. Doll is useless and wasting models and stones on that mechanic is not competitive. 

 

Whut. The doll attaches the upgrade without interaction, so it's free unable to be juked injured! In the game I played with her, it was invaluable for getting that first injured on there with her pins attack. At that point, landing the rest of her kit is much easier, especially if you're just hex stacking so that the target is so useless you might as well you've killed it. I had an Ototo with Ml 3 (voodoo doll also did its thing) Making your opponent trade their kings to dodge for your queens to hit and getting hit anyway is really important for those stat 6 WPs out there. 

32 minutes ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

Gators are to weak. Their job is fighting (cause the keyword has way better schemerunners) and they bring nothing that assures they won’t die before they can fight(back) 

 

Thiiiis. I really enjoy the flavor of malifaux gators (I find gators/crocs terrifying IRL, so I'd hope their malifaux equivalent to be at least moderately reminiscent) but their payout is not worth it. They have the same problem as Bloodwretches; having a 'beater' model at this price range means they have a kit mildly intimidating enough to consider it worth it to slay them, and not really having any reasons as to why that is a challenge. Wasted stones, whenever your opponent would like to cash in on that disparity. They'd either have to be so cheap that I don't mourn their loss, or scary (and probably more expensive) enough to give them more staying power. Given that these are 40 mm based apex ambush predators who's winning formula has been relatively unchanged by extinction level events and millions of years of potential evolution, IN REAL LIFE, I hope their malifaux equivalents are beefed up   

In the current host of upgrades, Inhuman Reflexes is the only upgrade I even consider taking. Butterfly Jump is the point of the upgrade, Blade Rush doesn't come up enough for me, though maybe that's because I never end up putting it on a minion for the Diving Charge, even though I probably have some of the best minions for it, because I'd rather protect Nekima than a Mature with my 2 stones.
Ancient Pact would make sense for a summoner who'd be severely ruined by a bad black joker, but otherwise things like card draw at the end of the turn and +1 to initiative haven't impressed me enough in theory to take it, though in my defense taking this on a Mature Nephilim, the only Nephilim in the growth cycle to not throw away their upgrades when they grow, doesn't make sense.
Eldritch Magic is a pocket pick. If your foe declares McMourning, Kaeris, Colette, etc. then have this upgrade for the Dispel Magic. Otherwise, the Final Veil is a nice thought but if you're trying to keep a model alive Butterfly Jump is better and more reliable than on-death heals. The Counterspell ability is good, but IMO it's only really good when your whole crew starts piling it on a la Witch Hunters, because if only a single model is making you pay for your triggers, you have a decently likely chance of just having the bad cards in hand to throw away anyway, and it has to be a minion, so it's not likely to make you pay that badly for not declaring triggers against it.

Having played games with 6 stones and games with 10 stones as my cache and seeing how much nicer life is with more stones (at least for me), it's a really hard sell for me on upgrades generally, in NB. When I'm being a traitor and venturing to other factions, Arcanist upgrades I struggle to justify not taking, and you best believe Soulstone Cache on our minions would be a sight to behold, and Ten Thunders upgrades are literally just fun to take. Ninja Trained Luna is just kinda funny. 

1 minute ago, Angelshard said:

I agree at the moment that it makes no sense. I just have a hard time ignoring the rules as written. Additionally black blood used to trigger on abilities too, so I guess I just put that on top of the aura as that made more sense than a useless ability. 

I get where you're coming from, but stop-gapping to read it as probably "also" instead of "instead" has a lot less collateral damage than adding ability-provoked-damage back to the list of things that trigger black blood. They'd infinity splash on each other, which I would argue would be too bonkers to even consider theoretically, to speak nothing of how much better black blood would be if it still was provoked from abilities generally. 

1 minute ago, Angelshard said:

Maybe. But it does say instead and that has a whole other meaning. 

The meaning as it currently reads is not worth considering. Black blood, even if you could suffer damage from it, doesn't itself provoke black blood. The aura is 100% pointless RAW.

The clear intent is to allow them to heal for being splashed on rather than provoking black blood as well, because you can't splash black blood from an ability (which, if you took damage from black blood, as it is an ability, it would not generate any more splashes) This would also recursively table whole crews instantly if that worked; I suffer damage, splash onto my ally, who splashes on to me, I splash back onto him, etc.
They, I would argue, clearly mean to say
"Revitalizing Ichor: During enemy Activations, when a friendly model within a6 would ignore damage from Black Blood, it may also Heal 1."
Edit: If I'm intentionally suffering damage or pustule-ing to splash friendlies for healing, burning AP in the process I could have used to attack the foe, is this so overpowered that Hayreddin's aura must not work on friendly activations? I'm giving up what used to be access to Night Terrors for this ability, I'd at least like it to work fairly well

Being a Nephilim fanboy, I actually like Nephilim for Idols. They have access to healing mechanics even beyond universal regen to mitigate idol damage, and are quick enough to get to an idol to move it. Zoraida herself is also a solid pick for idols because of obey-mongery. Reckoning and Turf War in my opinion are more about VP denial than VP gain, and as such, piles of tanky models are the best picks, so... Titania?... Nephilim play keep away, I'll say that much. I'm used to playing into Armor 2 Spam Hoffman, and for an entire faction devoid of Analyze Weakness (Bring Angel Eyes or forget it), ain't no tanky like Hoffman tanky, so I'm not super impressed with what we're capable of as Neverborn. Plant Explosives, needing to drop bombs in enemy turf, requires in theory a fast crew that can also run interference against enemy bomb runners. So, Nephilim Zoraida however is also super good/lame for that one because she can just obey enemy models to drop bombs on their own half of the board. 
I like Marcus for his offense, but I like cats more than dogs (Cerberus/Hoarcats out of Arcanists over Rogarou/Corrupted Hounds out of Neverborn, though it's a close fight) and onslaught triggers with soulstone use and empower is too good for me to run him as Neverborn.
I'm not sure what I like Dreamer for, to be honest. He can summon but it's weirdly based on his opponent's failure of WP duels, which is fine, but unreliable as a "drop dudes on the point I want" mechanic, and none of his models are particularly tanky to begin with, so he's not good for Turf War or Reckoning.
Pandora... Turf War maybe? I don't like playing Pandora to begin with, but if I had to pick something they're good at, it's holding an objective and making people suffer for staying too long, so it sounds like Turf War to me. Pandy wants enemies clumped for auras and Mood Swing, and Turf War is arguably the most forcibly clumpy strategy. 
Savage keyword in general I don't have any experience with. They seem like a good fit for Reckoning on paper though, with the Frozen Vigor and decent wound pools, along with hard hitting damage tracks.

My opponent when I last used him complained that he was too difficult to bring down (using Misaki and friends, a historically capable crew for murder) So I think that we're probably in an okay spot if he's considered squishy by some and tanky by others.

2 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Also, since we seem to have gotten away from future proofing baked in suits that don’t do anything, am I missing an action on an upgrade or something that would necessitate the suits on his attack that don’t tie to triggers he has?

It's so he can make use of his Studied Opponent ability, I would presume.

Edge case here, but vs Mv duels like the Drache Troopers will also roast her alive now as well since she has no defense beyond Serene now. Which I guess if I was going to kill a showgirl,  fire might work pretty well, but still. 

"And this week for Colette changes include..."