Boomstick

1 hour ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

It’s interesting because Colette players have been complaining at how useless performers are. 

Kinda hard to know considering all the extra synergy the red chapel crew got with moving models around into the engagement ranges of other models. 

Just finished a game of Colette vs Seamus, and even from across the board, I really like the changes to Seamus' crew! I agree Belles might need a tweak to attack stat 5 or so, but otherwise, they seem to do what the crew needs.

In comparison, showgirls have a lot of things on their cards that just don't get used. The Lure is nice, as is Seduction, but I'd drop one or the other in a second to get a built in trigger on either. 99% of the time throughout both open and closed betas, it's more relevant to walk and drop a scheme marker than hope you lure something and get the distracted trigger, and I've found Distracted more often leads to dead Showgirls faster since it got changed in the closed beta to just be a negative on attack and not damage--it's now an invitation to focus and charge/shoot, getting a straight on the attack and a positive on damage (often becoming straight flip on damage from differential) and even from a 2/4/5 damage spread that spells death to every minion in the Performer crew. 

That's why you're hearing complaints about Showgirls dying so easily, the condition that's supposed to be their lifeline is more often their death.

3 hours ago, retnab said:

I've been proposing changes for her for a while, but she's not exactly one of the masters in the spotlight so there's not much testing happening with her

I've been doing the same with her and with Marcus. Colette keeps getting the spotlight. I almost feel like we Arcanist players should divvy up who's testing who each week so the same masters don't keep getting left out in the cold without new tests.

Luckily I can get in more games this week than usual, hopefully this'll get fixed quickly.

14 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

That list doesn’t include anything that would stuns (all of Swampfiend) or prevent her from Cheating does it? Both of those will shutdown her ability to use her trigger as well. Also add in any attacks that target Mv or Ht, those completely bypass her trigger.

Holy crap you're right! Well, there's more reason not to bring her against Bayou (Zoraida) or Neverborn for the same reason (Zoraida and Pandora).

I have utmost sympathy for the design team, Colette is such a specific type of difficult to deal with that changing her defenses a little bit takes her from being vulnerable to indirect damage, positioning, and card discards (which I maintain is enough, though it will be a tough fight for some crews) to ineffective against sooooo many things.

I'll add more later, but my initial concern with the changes to Colette (agree they feel knee-jerk, hitting so much at once) but defensively, changing Fade Away to a trigger that reduces do puts her right back into the problem area from the end of M2E: anything that does irreduceable damage now eats her for lunch, same with things that don't allow resistance triggers. In M2E this effectively made her a dead pick into Guild, Gremlins (due to Zipp), Thunders, and a bit into Outcasts.

Major difference is in M3E you announce you master before crew building. Ideally so you can add an out of theme model or two if the opposing crew needs specific tech to take them down.

Here's a rough breakdown of current models that do Irreduceable damage or disallow resistance triggers (not including shockwaves and blasts, which already get around them)

Models that do irreduceable damage:
-TT: 8 (1 at range), plus a hench with an anti trigger 6" aura, and 2 anti-trigger minions 
-Arcanists: 1, and an Enforcer and a minion that don't allow triggers
-Bayou: 3 (2 at range)
-Guild: 1, plus executioners not allowing resistance triggers.
-Neverborn: 0, but lots of Wp attacks where she'll be needing the suit (which she needs for her self-bury and presto chango)
-Outcasts: 2, both ranged (Levi and the bandmate), a versatile minion that doesn't allow triggers, and another Jack can bring in from Ressers.
-Ressers: 2, 1 ranged, 1 anti-trigger minion for Jack.

For any I missed, apologies, as I said, it's a quick list.

Based on this, Colette is never going to be taken against Thunders, three separate themes all have easy access to ignore her defensive tech, and easy access to focus to ignore serene countenance.

She's probably is going to have a rough fight of it into Gremlins as well: Wong's models are the ones with irreduceable damage, plus all his shockwaves, and his crew is going to be a good take against Arcanists anyway to ignore armor.

Guild doesn't seem as bad as in M3E, just keep away from the few issue models.

Outcasts, probably not a good pick either, since Levi will again be a good pick into Arcanists in general to ignore armor, a versatile minion anyone can grab, and Jack does a lot with Wp.

So, looks like she's once again in a very bad place against almost half the factions.

I realize this probably sounds doom and gloom, but having to mostly shelve her after many brutal games since Wave 4 and 5 hit (when more models with irreduceable came out), I've already been through this once and was excited for the closed beta to ensure she'd be in a good place for M3E.

*Puts on a costume for the next performance* Don't worry, I'll be backing this up with batreaps. So many batreps.

In Arcanists Carlos got the same reduction. It's weird (Wyrd?)

Thanks for posting this, while I adore Colette's style, I definitely want more of the Arcanists to be a good balance of fun AND functional this edition. My concerns:

Marcus: The crew with the biggest deficiency I've tested currently, and it really hasn't changed much since the closed beta. They're card hungry due to discards, TNs, and wanting specific suits at specific for triggers to function. Leaves them feeling like they use up any halfway decent cards in hand as set up for their tricks, and then have no hand to support attacks or defense. Marcus himself doesn't do much more than attach upgrades to his beasts and then tell them to charge--or if they're already engaged, move them out. He's like a watered down mix of M2E McCabe and Colette, minus the fun parts. Myranda's shapeshifting should be an ability like Vogel's, and neither should cost a discard. The Jackalope's demise should discard a mutation off of him, and not just be once per turn. THose changes would go a long way to help the crew, but Marcus probably still needs help, currently don't know why you'd ever take him instead of Sandeep, since Sandeep ACTUALLY has M2E Prompt, and still has enough interesting things on his card that it's a "when needed" action.

Toni: Mostly just needs a little more Adrenaline (build in the suit on her attack) and some way to help keep people from ignoring her by disengaging and running away so she can actually use actions to attack instead of chasing down a target.

Ramos: The change they made to his summoning attachment upgrade helped a lot, and summoning Mecharachnids has been very solid for me. but I'm still concerned that his likely, useful summons are essentially Mecharachnids, with the occasional Swarm if you have the high card for it. A single Steam Arachnid needs a 7 and multiple each need their own scrap marker, and if you're summoning them it's probably to blow them up, which is giving away a lot of pass tokens. And his gun really wants to shoot at things his summons are engaging, but he has no way of ignoring friendly fire...

Kaeris: I've been finding her to be fine and fun, but also got good work out of her in M2E...Definitely like the idea of her crew using Burning to do things instead of just as setup for more damage later.

Sandeep: No real worries on him specifically, which is a nice change. I actually want to play him as opposed to last edition, where I was opposed due to the number of people acting like he was the only worthwhile Arcanist master. BUT, I'm confused with the Poison Gamin. What the heck do they do/ what purpose do they serve other than "put near Kudra, make her target take poison damage at a different time. They seemed to have some sort of role in the closed beta with Rafkin, but without that option, I think they need another look. The few Poison elements in Arcanists don't share a keyword, but there's just enough of them to notice that there's not a way to run poison focused lists.

Mei: haven't tried her enough to get a solid idea, but she seems fine, bit of a learning curve to use the rail jumping to best efficiency, but not necessarily broken.

Hoffman: Seems solid but straightforward...to the point of boring? Haven't tried him, what are everyone's thoughts?

Mech Rider: I've honestly been a bit meh, not on the model as a whole, it's solid like all the riders. But the tome-expensive triggers seemed very corner case or crew dependent when last I looked at them.

Emissary: It works, I just wish it weren't a cruise missile we are expected to let die to a decent focused counter attack (compared to other emissaries, the defensive stats are notably lower, and lack of hard to kill isn't great).

Saboteurs: I like them, I just wish that roughly 2/3 of their card wasn't entirely dependent on scheme markers, and their front of card draw ability only works with their 0" range attack.
 

29 minutes ago, Razhem said:

Well, I was mostly satisfied with hiw the wastler crew ended, but since he will be looked at in more detail... I do hope part of ot neans we get propper foot McCabe.

I was thinking about this last night. Given that currently he becomes a Ruffian (ignoring model limits) with an upgrade, making a regular Dismounted McCabe card makes sense, otherwise you need 4 Ruffian cards and the upgrade card, whereas Dismounted McCabe would be its own card, for a less cluttered play space.

Yes. Yesyesyes. Yes please. He shall commence with Operation: SneakStab. And then, again!

18 minutes ago, wizuriel said:

Brewmaster stat should probably be lowered to 5 across the board. He doesn't need to be secretly stat 8 (especially for blood poison which just needs to tie to do full damage). 

I agree Blood Poison can drop, since by design the target will have plenty of Poison on them already, but dropping his other actions to 5 would put him in danger of not being able to get poison on a target in the first place, meaning his whole design goes sideways, and his crew is focused too much on getting poison out for him instead of playing the game (which starts to sound like M2E Brew Crew in some ways). There're plenty of condition removal in the game, and it's an easy enough counter to 80-90% of Tri-Chi's tricks.

5 hours ago, Morgan Vening said:

from a thematic point, unless EVERY model in Malifaux is a degenerate alcoholic, why would a drink keep you from disengaging?

Given all the terrifying, mind-breaking events that happen on the regular in the fluff, I find it hard to believe that everyone in Malifaux *hasn't* turned to a bottle or similar to drown their fears. If a small, amusing Gremlin ninja offered/slipped you something that went down smooth and dulled some of the most recent daily trauma, why would you want to go anywhere else? 😄 🍻

On 1/23/2019 at 7:46 AM, retnab said:

Personally I think she should have tomes built in instead of rams, but if Follow Through was not built in and required spending resources it might make it too niche in use.

I've been saying she should have the Tome built in since my 2nd game with her. Agreed if Follow Through wasn't built in it would he more niche, but I don't think that's a bad thing, she just needs some way to keep enemies from just Disengaging and running away, so she can actually use her actions to attack and not just run after them or pull them back in.

On 1/28/2019 at 10:45 AM, hemgath said:

I really think Tony need a "come get some" ability... for ennemy don t run away and don t take any care about tony...

A wp resist who obliged enemy in tony s area to walk or charge her instead of go away...

Like this!

Well, I guess we just need to get more batreps in to show the issue is not based around a handful games. Maybe after Colette gets restructured this week we'll be able to make some noise on Marcus.

46 minutes ago, Yajnho said:

Well the issue with Colette is you only get one swing at her.  Dreamer doesn’t get to just disappear.  So if they get around serene countenance and hit she spends one card and takes one damage and then nothing else attacks her until she’s ready. And she has 10 life.

Dreamer has to choose between serene countenance or protected.  If he chooses the former he gets incorporeal, but -1 damage only goes so far on a 7 wound model.  If he is within 2” of a nightmare he can choose instead to pitch a card and shuck off the attack.  If it was a daydream, the the daydream is dead.  And he is still sitting there waiting to get hit again.  

The real difference is her defenses stack and he has to choose which to use.  Plus she only takes one damage ever, but Dreamer and his crew are still eating all the damage.

Now I am not saying Dreamer is bad, but in an edition where masters have become tankier in general he is still quite fragile.  If he could summon next to himself, or if the range of protected was increased even just a little it would really solve the problem.  

Maybe if daydreams (only) could unbury themselves next to Dreamer without a failed WP check as a 1 ap action?

I should have specified, I wasn't trying to compare Dreamer to Colette specifically, was more remarking on how the same ability can be barely workable or broken based on what it's pared with (for what it's worth, Colette has to decide to fade away or not when targeted, not once she sees if they hit. I'm intrigued to see what tweaks they give to her tomorrow,close but not quite, currently).

Definitely agree that Dreamer's current defenses don't stack, and if they did it would he a great boon to him. Daydreams having the ability to unbury close to him would be effective and thematic.

5 minutes ago, crimzzen said:

What if we increased the range, say to 6" and you passed off the damage flip, not the whole attack?  IE: You swing on dreamer who benefits from serene countenance, you flip damage, it's reduced by incorp., then you pass it off to a nightmare within 6". Too good?  You could make protection a trigger, maybe built in on wp and not for df?  Then there's play with some models turning off triggers.

I like this idea in theme, but for two things: 1) Malifaux is about making decisions, and this design basically removes agency in the Dreamer making a decison to throw damage to his nightmares, he's always going to do it so long as he has an unneeded card in hand. 2) This would either need for protected as an ability to work differently for everyone who has it, or for Dreamer to get his own different ability/trigger.

Not saying it won't happen, but those are the hurdles in terms of design. Is there a way to swing it so he can still make a meaningful choice? Maybe give Daydreams a version of something like Take The Hit that allows them to ignore distance and unbury/place next to Dreamer?

1 minute ago, Nukemouse said:

Personally i also think Riddles in the Dark on Youko and Brewmaster is a bit weak too, especially now that "assist" exists.

Agreed, and such a wonderfully named action could definitely be a bit better. And Distracted is pretty weak anyway, in my opinion. Just focus and attack/charge. So long as you cheat to hit (at a straight flip with the focus) you'll be able to cheat the damage so long as you do better than tie their Df, since Distracted doesn't give a negative on the damage flip. It's a lot of tracking and concern on these forums for a condition that's easy to ignore.

I'd certainly have no issue with the crow being built in, it's essentially helping his crew's defense and utility. Seems odd it's wouldn't be, honestly.

On 1/28/2019 at 5:08 AM, kaintxu said:

The issue we find is that his wounds are way too low with a bad defence (Serene counterance only goes so far and there are many sources of focus and + to attack).

It's fascinating to me how Serene Countenance can be not quite enough in some cases, like Dreamer, but on Colette it's one level of defense too rediculous. I agree Dreamer needs a little something defense-wise, maybe +2 Shielded at the start of each turn, to give him, essentially, a beefed up version of incorporeal?

On 1/27/2019 at 3:59 AM, Passenty said:

Marcus has too many tns in the crew, him and myranda need a 6 for almost anything they do. Shapeshift needing a 6? Really? That should be automatic. Here i would make a comparison to mccabe. As both masters give out buff but Marcus is not doing anything except for this while Cabe can do some other stuff.

Completely agree about Marcus and Chimera in general: to many TNs (and discards!) for what is essentially a combo of watered down M2E versions of Colette and McCabe. Glad to see I'm not the only one getting those results.

I know Colette's been getting all the concerned attention, but has anyone else submitted any tests (forms or batreps) for Marcus and friends? I know we were talking about some pretty significant issues for them still being so card hungry/feeling ineffective, so it worries me a bit that Chimira wasn't listed on Kyle's list of keywords getting significant tweaks.

Anyone notice anything fresh to report with Marcus?

Thanks @Purple Mist! I really like your Bad JuJu this month, the little touches of more vibrant color on the foliage and eyes really pop out!

6 minutes ago, Flint said:

Doesn't work too well when I tried, opponent using focus and/or ss easily overcome that.

I've had the same experience with regularity, both in the CB and the OB.

So far I've only played against Big Hat once or twice, and and my opponent said, "Som'er is solid, if a bit green-vanilla, and that's ok".

My one concern is Banjonistas. They seem very meh. The movement tricks are cool, but that's really all they do reliably, since (unlike the crier) they only have cheating in a Tome to ensure they have condition removal. Anyone notice any secret use for them that I'm missing? Really trying not to compare M3E with M2E models in general, but their old ranged attack seems like it would fill a good niche for Bayou: a little range vs WP for low damage, but ignoring armor, and it would make them more fluffy as well.

I joyously agree with the update being good for him overall! Part of me is still concerned that every model needing it's own scrap marker to summon from is going to be prohibitive for multiple Steam Arachnids, but I'll have to test it out to be sure.

Really the only thing I'd for sure still like to see is either models with Latch On not count for Friendly Fire, or Ramos' gun ignoring Friendly Fire, since I definitely felt in my games so far that he was generally in good positions to shoot, but the friendly fire negative was keeping him from being effective at it.

16 hours ago, emiba said:

For a relatively small amount of resources? To get 4 zombies it's at least 2 soulstones and she needs to topdeck or cheat 4 5+ cards or add even more stones for the suits.

I'm not saying she isn't powerful but I don't agree that that's a relatively small amount of resources.

When I've faced her, she's had the Whisper on her, so she knows the next 3 cards, and knows when to stone for a crow or a mask depending on what's coming up. It's meant spending the 2 stones, yes, but beyond that it's been at most cheating 2 6s on turn one. The Whisper pays for itself easily with her. 

Also, to be clear, it's not the number of Zombies she  puts out I'm concerned about, it's that she can do it with such crazy range (that's almost entirely dependant on terrain blocking LoS to the board edge). In standard deployment I'm not worried about her nearly as much, but in corner and flank she can put those zombies right where she needs them to either scheme or clog up the opposing flanking scheme runners. 

I'm thinking her default should be to summon a zombie at a short range, say within 6", with a trigger to do it on the board edge, instead of her currently needing a trigger to summon one in base contact and summon along the board edge by default.