Boomstick

@GnomezillaI just want you to know that you are a treasure. Please never change.

Since they've changed his summoning upgrade to not make everything insignificant anymore, my biggest issue with the crew is gone. The few issues this leaves are pretty much all related to Steam Arachnids.

1) Summoning multiple spiders is highly disadvantageous, especially from a wanting to blow them up standpoint. They still give up pass tokens for models that won't get to activate.

2) The no way for Ramos's gun to ignore them for Friendly Fire, which seems anti-synergystic considering their debuff to Df when in base contact.

3) Each of them needs their own scrap marker when summoning multiple. In addition to being a major resource sink, this is also thematically confusing, as a swarm of three spiders needs one scrap, while three individual spiders need three scrap.

15 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Not really. Because you keep trying to make her mechanics be benefited by the enemy attacking her, while at the same time not allowing any attack to really significantly cost her anything. An opponent who is familiar woth the rules is never going to attack her at all unless there is a better change for them to actually accomplish something more for them than for her. In your suggestions an attack against her costs her a card. Maybe. And in addition to costing her a card she gets to completely disregard the attack, ignore any dmg, ignore any conditions, ignore any beneficial triggers the enemy might have, ignore forced movement, essentially ignore a large portion of the game, and at the same time get a benefit from it in repositioning and essentially stealing an action from the opponent, while at the same time saying that the attacks that still deal with other models are somehow specifically deadly to her.

I don’t have an issue even if the old fade away comes back. I care about her overall balance of impact, survivability, and mobility. Pick 2. And to be clear I like Colette. After Seamus, Molly, and Pandora she’s probably my favorite master. I’d like to be able to play her. I’d like her to be powerful. But I’d also not want her to go back to where she and Pandora were in 1e were they were stupid overpowered, practically untouchable, and ignored large portions of the rules of the game.

Id rather she get a better version of protect where she switches position with a friendly performer, and the other performer takes the full impact of the hit. Clever play and positioning or bad play on Colette’s part would leave her suffering, but the opponent would still get rewarded for interacting with her crew.

Control masters are just really hard to balance.

Very much agreed that control masters are hard to balance! And thank you for clarifying that you like Colette. I definitely also don't want her to be like 1e, but what about 2e (before wave 4-5 when irreduceable damage ate her left right and center)? Without meaning to, the suggestions I made very long check borrowed from her design there, and while it was definitely frustrating for opponent's to play against the first time (though once I figured out her weaknesses I'd generally just tell them what they wanted to do instead of attacking her), once they attacked her crew instead if her, it was clear she couldn't do everything by herself, even if she survived.

Albeit, in this edition, they're trying to g to make the Performer crew function around distracted, which is my bone to pick - it's not beneficial enough to her squishy crew, when so many medium damage models can focus to ignore the negative and still get the plus flip to damage, cheat high and kill ether of her primary minions with one severe attack. That underlying issue is leading to Colette and the Duet being the focus of the crew because they have to carry the rest of them since Distracted doesn't do enough for the lesser models, and currently Colette unburying is by far the best way to hand it out (which I also don't like. Agreed that her ignoring the attack should not allow her to be more effective, but since that's the aim the designers currently have, I tried to offer a less over the top alternative).

Personally, since mannequins have Take the Hit, give them armor 2, since all they do it that and a little healing. It would mean they protect their Showgirls, use more cards, which feeds into the theme of making a decision between wounds and cards, and further affects Colette's placement/fade away decisions.

1 hour ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

She shouldn’t be able to just negate the attack. Too much of the game is bound up in dmg or conditions. Making her essentially immune to both especially considering your proposed low cost of a single card, needing to still get through serene countenance, and then getting to have a large move after the ability, and it not being able to shut it down due to it jo longer being a trigger, doesn’t solve the problems from before.

If you want her to be basically untargetable that’s fine, but she has to then have minimal impact on the board, which isn’t something I think will fly with a master. An attack that buried the target and gets a massive reposition, and does dmg isn’t just handing out distracted.

First off, I also said remove Serene Countenance, and have been saying it needs  to go for a while. Colette wants to he attacked so she can do the extra bury/movement/distracted/however it ends up. She plays the game sideways, always has. Likewise, her opponents have to come at her a bit sideways as well. Turns out if you hit an illusion you find out it's just smoke and mirrors. And so, when you say she's negating the attack for a card, I say in turn that because she's used up that resource of a card *but* is now on the table instead of buried, you can continue to attack her and drain more cards. This means she may not *want* to bounce away again as it will make her crew less effective that turn, or she may want to stay in the area she is instead of bouncing away.

While killing Colette has been possible, negating (or very close to it) attacks at the expense of resources other than wounds has always been her foundation, a very cool way of showing you're hitting her illusions instead of her. If you want to damage her, fine, to indirect damage like always, there's more versions of it now, even. But the best ways to deal with her, really are to force her to have bad options and choices of position, spending resources, and assisting her crew.

As far as her damage output, I agree with you, that's not really her thing, which is why I like that her non-bonus attack isn't damage based, even with the mental trauma trigger built in it offered the target a choice: do you think this illusion is real or not? If you think it's an illusion, discard a card and just be dazzled by it. If not, keep standing still and realize it is, as you get hit for non-illusiory damage.

The issue with her burying is it protects for the entire turn too many resources the opponent could otherwise capitalize on, placing allows her to be targeted again and again, or be within blast range of another target.

I see her as similar to Jack Daw in than her wounds aren't really what you want to attack--can't really reduce hers as much though, because there ARE damages that get around her defensive tech, unlike Jack's. But weight of fire and forcing the Colette player to make choices with equally bad options is the way to go. 

Which is all why she needs to get rid or serene countenace, so *more regular attacks can go at her, and even if they don't do damage, mean something to the game at large. Can we agree on that much, at least?

I think a lot of the frustration on Colette is previously, she could not be hit directly. This isn't new, and there's always been things that don't directly target (and more in M3E with Shockwaves). And the worst thing she did of handing out distracted (and stunned in an ever shrinking pulse) was and still is dependent on A) being targeted and choosing to bury, or B) swinging her bonus action sword with a high mask in hand, or a soul stone for it.

I think what will help with her dual-sided frustrations at this point is this:
--Return her escape defense to an ability instead of a damage reduction trigger. BUT don't make it Fade Away. Burying her means the opponent can't continue applying pressure. Instead, make it so when she's targeted she can discard a card to make the attack fail, then place within, say, 6-8", within 2" of a friendly or scheme marker. This means she can poof around with a good illusionist feel, but allows all crews a way to repeatedly attack her hand by attacking her directly, and keeps her most likely near enough friendlies that blasts can come after her. This gives the Colette player the choice of using their whole hand to keep Colette untouched, or allow their crew to be effective by having cards to cheat.

--With this, Showstopper will need to change. I'd say allow her to pick one model in 6" to gain Distracted +1 with every place, as adding a TN for everyone in the current aura will really slow the game down with how often that could happen.

--Likewise, update her Saber to place the target within the same range, or have a trigger for Colette to place herself.

--Remove Serene Countenance. It adds insult to injury when targeting her.

Just now, Gnomezilla said:

I don’t speak 40k and context isn’t helping here—can someone rephrase ‘distraction carnifex’ for me in Malifaux terms?

It's generally a big, concern-causing model that doesn't necessarily measure up rules-wise to the concern it causes. Thereby distracting your opponent to focus on it while your other models get work done without as many attacks coming their way.

Having played a game or two with both him and Cass and with them each individually, I can tell you that not having Cass in the crew just makes you wish you'd brought her instead of Carlos.

With every change Carlos seems further from having a discernible role in the crew. For the same cost, Cassandra will live longer, work without needing to hurt herself, and cause as much if not more damage/board control. It seems like the current design is trying to make him work a little bit with the Performer keyword while still making almost link to the Wildfire keyword.

My recommendation: decide on a role for him to fulfill, and give him the tools to do it. If he's meant to be a tank (and Performer as a crew could use one) give him the Flaming Body ability the fire gamin and golem have to offload burning as damage reduction, or (perhaps more thematically correct) Blaze of Glory. Give him back Df6. Also, remove Playing With Fire and replace it with Celebrity. These two abilities will allow him to work with both his keywords effectively without him having to actively hurt himself.

37 minutes ago, Jordon said:

It's actually funny because I just finished a game using the Duet (bat rep soon) and I was actually pretty underwhelmed. I did the whole multi activation dance and even with all that AP, the Duet hits like a wet noodle (for it's cost) and it got completely wrecked by a great sword. 

Now I'm not going to just come out and say it the Duet sucks over this one game. It's a finesse model as it has always been and it requires some greater consideration during it's activation than say a Joss or Langston. That goes both ways though. It can be punishing to play and to play against and I'm all for models that require some skill to use/counter. 

So yeah, I don't think you can just take a glance at this model and theory faux it's usefulness. I do think it fills an important role in a Colette crew though. 

I'm so glad to hear someone else reporting a realistic outing for the Duet. I've had very similar experiences (though in my case it was something ignoring armor instead of a Great sword). Much like Colette herself (before the 1.31 update) the Duet is tough, but brittle in that it really doesn't care much about some of the most common approaches in the game (direct attacks, engagement ranges) but is especially hamstrung by a few specific things (ignoring armor, multiple high damage attacks, Wp attacks, Stunned). I truly believe a lot of the complaints about both the Duet and Colette herself is opponents not knowing them well enough to understand where the weak points are, and getting frustrated when realizing attacking an illusionist and her crew often leads to hitting nothing at all.

Looking forward to your BatRep!

35 minutes ago, trikk said:

I think thats a false premise. I'm pretty sure some of them don't. Especially not against all matchups and all schemes pools

I'm not saying a crew mechanic that can win every game by itself. I'm saying one that feels cohesive internally. Yes, If playing into a killy pool, Colette and most other Arcanists are bringing the Emissary, or Joss if they need Ruthless/ignore damage reduction, but they don't need those models to make their thematic crew function. All I'm saying is we should focus on getting Colette's defensive and offensive abilities/actions set before seeing if bringing a bunch of versatile models helps. They totally will. If M3E was released today and I was told the only master I could play was Colette, I'd be bringing versatile constructs more often then Showgirls and mannequins just because they have defensive tech designed without assuming Distracted would keep them alive.

36 minutes ago, trikk said:

I know its all about S&S but I think Colette can really use 1-2 high damage models so that the enemy has to pick where to focus his attention. Rider + Emissary or something like that might be a thing to test out.

Don't get me wrong, I agree. But with keyword themes being the central idea of M3E I want to make sure she (and all other masters) has keyword mechanics and crew that works without needing outside help to function.

7 minutes ago, trikk said:

Did someone tried the Emissary or more versatile/out of theme models with Colette?

I had a versatile Soulstone Miner with Magical Training on him. He felt rather awkward with how he's currently set up. I never used him for Soulstones, just buried, unburied turn 2, turn three dropped his bomb, and focused the rest of the time. I think it would be much less awkward if it could interact as a standard non-bonus action, but his un-bury bonus action stated the model couldn't ineract on the turn it unburied.

2 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Wow. I did not realize how rampant Stunned was. I thought Transmortis had too much and worried about it becoming unfun for opponents, but holy cow other factions have a plethora. Maybe this is a separate issue that needs a closer look? Stunned is a powerful effect to have that many models that can get it out there. And again with TT being way over other factions - why do they have 8 models with Irreducible damage?? 

I like your idea of changing it to a Place instead of Bury. If not, having the Trigger built in on WP would help, but still leave her vulnerable to Stunned. 

Thunders irreduceable damage is mostly from the monks/archers on a trigger, but they can use the chi they make every activation to use that trigger...

Thanks! I thought it would be a good compromise. You're right, building the trigger in on WP doesn't help vs stunned, or things that ignore resistance triggers, or things that do irreduceable damage. Having already played her plenty in late M2E, I'd rather not repeat the process for M3E, so making it a non-trigger, non-damaging reducing option is the way to go, I think/hope.

Having enjoyed Brewie in M2E, I'm also enjoying the more damaging take on him this time around. Designing control masters/crews is tricky, as the core concept is disallowing your opponent from playing (look at all the issues getting Colette balanced is having). I think as is, Brewie's control game is more passive this edition and more wide-spread to his crew. Even them having a 2" engagement to hand out +2 poison is subtle control, since anyone wanting to get away will need to Disengage, so no interacts. Overall I think it's a good way of keeping a control theme and not having it lead to the swingy games of M2E where either Brewie died right after they killed Wesley, or you got the party going and your opponent sullenly stared at you from across the table until you felt you owed them a drink in real life.

For Brewie himself, I think he's in a good, but different spot. Riddles in the Dark could be tweaked, it's definitely the least often useful thing on his card. Other than that, I could see building in the poison trigger on his Lure.

Thanks for pointing that out! Be sure to bring it up in batreps.

The magic of dance heals all!

8 hours ago, valkirsWrath said:

On the topic of dancer and Carlos. I believe that their problems lie in the fact that the performer theme works with all crews but the ice pillar and pyre marker themes doesn't work with performers. I feel like I have to hire something like a silent one to get value out of my dancers, or anything that works with pyre markers to use Carlos. I might still be thinking of him like the tank /tarpit he was in M2E however,gonna play him today and see how I feel

Please let us know what you find with Carlos. Every time I've used him I've wished I'd brought Cassandra instead. I think the issue is they don't have a solid design for a niche he should fill. Cassie's a solid generalist, he needs a niche.

If they wanted to give him a little more direction, I'd recommend removing playing with fire and replacing it with Celebrity and Blaze of Glory, so he can hand out Distracted without burning himself, and use burning he gets helpfully, like the rest of Kaeris crew (or you know, a fire dancer) does.

11 hours ago, Morgan Vening said:

Coryphee Duet splits apart. Coryphee A continues that activation. Coryphee B is considered not to have activated.

Opponent has a turn.

Coryphee B activates, and Dances Together.

Really, the end mentioned here isn't the end of doing damage to the Duet. When the Coryphee dance together they combine their wounds for the Duet, so if one's down to 2 and the other hasn't been touched, the Duet will form with 7 wounds. The healing occurs when it next dances apart into two separate Coryphee, which, if the duet is at 5 health or above, will come out at full with 5 each. If it's at 4, they come out with 4 each.

So really, your opponent has between when the Duet splits to when it next activates starting as a Duet to lay the hurt on it. Ideally, you hit one Coryphee for 5 damage with something that ignores armor. Really not that difficult to do, the hard part is catching it.

Overall, I think for 12ss it's fine. It looks way too good when first seen, because there's nothing to compare it to, it's in a weird place between masters and 10ss models.

Actually: compare it to a single Viktoria, they're 11ss, if I recall, and a Duet can't use stones.

36 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

The Colette player picks which scheme markers enemies unbury next to. I'm not sure from what you wrote if that is how you played it. 

Thanks for checking! It is indeed, just that the schemes he had down were positioned well so I'd have been putting the target (Sybelle, in this case) in less preferable position to where she was already, and burying Colette was also less than helpful, as I really needed her in a different spot, not off the table.

16 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Do you think changing it back to an ability would be sufficient to up her survivability?

Or do you think her defenses need another  complete rework?

How did she feel offensively?

I think given her abilities in 1 and 2 there is a lot of design room to change the way she functions while still staying in theme. 

I agree it would help her survivability, but then we're right back to everyone complaining she's too hard to hit, which is why I recommended it be a discard to place instead of a discard and a wound to bury, and then pick one enemy in a short range to gain distracted instead of a pulse. That will allow another way to affect her by targeting her multiple times and putting pressure on her hand.

Offensively, she needs the crow back in her melee attack, or else it's not worth the action (not for the damage, but for the opponent needing to make the choice of a card or damage, same as she would need to make defensively). Her sword seems fine, it just didn't work for me this game because of flips and placement.

9 minutes ago, Sebasthos said:

Hm...as someone who loves Colette more than any master, I find this sad. Thanks for the report and the Analysis. Let's hope Wyrd are watching. Will try to post my report tomorrow, even though it was from 1.23.

I'll definitely be getting in as many games as possible this week. She and Brewie go back and forth as my favorite masters, due in large part to the fact that they don't just play a damage based game.

4 minutes ago, Ming said:

Distracted works on Resistance flips, too. Any opposed duels.

"Distracted +X: This model suffers a - to 
opposed duels that target enemy models. After resolving such an opposed duel, the value of this Condition is lowered by one."

Resistance flips are the result of being targeted by enemy models, not targeting them, so Distracted only works on offensive flips, not defensive.

11 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Can you talk more about what made Collette feel

 

It seems like the opponent worked hard to place blasts and damaging auras on Collette, who was still alive at games end.

Happily. Essentially, this was a crew that did not have terribly many of the now quite numerous ways to deny her defensive tech, and I still spent several stones on her to keep her alive and well (getting a few lucky flips on her stone reductions). Ultimately the reason she was still alive is because A) we didn't get to 5 turns, and B) he was trying to use her for Hold Up Their Forces as she was more expensive than anything but Seamus. It was an excellent play by @mrjasonguy, I just happened to decide not to try to bury Sybelle and instead teleported Colette out to run schemes.

What I was really referring to with the brittle statement is due to her burying defense changing to a trigger, she's now still well affected by blasts, pulses, shockwaves, indirect damage from blade rush and similar things, and now has a large number of models in pretty much all factions who can entirely ignore her primary thematic defense either by ignoring triggers, doing irreduceable damage, or stunning her so triggers and bonus actions don't work for her for a turn. This in a version of her that is otherwise designed to be right in enemies faces. She'll die very quickly against 3-4 factions now, and it will not be anything close to a fun experience.

All the while, she now effectively has one action in her card that feels useful with the influence a master generally weilds, and that needs a specific suit to work.

I've already submitted this via the form, but with as much traffic as both Colette and Seamus have been getting the last week or two, I felt it would be good to have public eyes on this batrep as well. There's a bit more here, as I'm limited by the size of the form. I have issues and recommendations to fix them near the end, everything is sectioned out.

Overall, we did not take step by step notes in an attempt to better gauge how long the games are taking. We did discuss a few things as they came up, which added a few minutes overall, but the time given is more accurate than not.

Strategy:    Plant Explosives

Deployment: Standard

Scheme List
3) Harness the Ley Line
5) Dig Their Graves
6) Hold Up Their Forces
7) Take Prisoner
10) Deliver A Message

Time & Rounds Played    2:45 hours, 3 rounds
Final Score    4-4

Boomstick's Arcanists - Attacker
Crew List    Colette w/ 6ss
Doves x3
Carlos
Coryphee Duet
Angelica
Showgirl
Mannequin
Soulstone Miner w/ Magical Training

Strategy VP Scored    2
Scheme 1 & VP Scored    Harness the Leyline - 1
Scheme 2 & VP Scored    Dig Their Graves - 1

If you could play this same Encounter again, what would you do differently?    Take Cassandra instead of Carlos, in every game. He doesn't seem to have a role that sets him apart from her, other than "hurt himself".
Also, if we're being realistic, if this weren't a beta test, I'd not have taken Colette (despite her being my favorite master) as she now has all the weaknesses she had at the end of M2E, plus more, while also now wanting to be closer to the fighting. She's gone from "able to be hurt/affected in specific ways" to "brittle like the Titanic".

MVP model (and Why?)    Angelica. She did 5/6 of the work of getting 2 points for Harness the Leyline herself, a good counterplay using a Dead Dandy stopped me at the last minute.

Mrjasonguy's Ressers - Deffender
Seamus w/ 3ss
Copycat Killer
Sybelle
Bette
Mourner
Dead Doxy
Rotten Belle x2
Dead Dandy

Strategy VP Scored    2
Scheme 1 & VP Scored    Harness the Leyline - 2
Scheme 2 & VP Scored    Hold up Their Forces - 0

If you could play this same Encounter again, what would you do differently?    Bring models that give out Stunned, ignore resistance triggers, or more that do blasts/shockwaves.

MVP model (and Why?)    Points-wise, probably the Dead Dandy, as it denied a point for my opponent at a crucial time. Overall, probably Seamus, as his ability to jump around made him excellent at scheme running and dropping explosives for the strategy.

A Brief Breakdown of the Game:

Turn 1: Mostly positioning, though between Doxies, Seamus, and Colette's push and teleporting, we got into the middle pretty fast. Carlos got in and gummed up Seamus and Sybelle for a bit before dying. Sybelle also made good use of blasts onto Colette, which all told, ate through half my soulstones this turn.

Turn 2: 2 doves died ensuring Seamus couldn't enter a building to follow Angelica, the Duet finished killing a Belle and moved deep into Resser territory to drop a bomb. Bette dropped her own Bomb and Seamus ended up swapping with the Copycat to drop one on the opposite flank. Sybelle ties up Colette, a Showgirl, and a Mannquin to give them all injured +1 during their activations. Colette spent her turn Presto-Chango-ing the Showgirl with the remaining dove, so she could drop a scheme near the Duet and Belle for Dig before the Belle died. Angelica gets the final 2/3rd of Harness the leyline down herself (thank you, Suddenly Doves!), with the 3rd being from Presto Chango. The rest of Seamus' minions harness their own leyline.

Turn 3: The SS Miner, which 2x focused and buried turn 1, popped up, walked, and focused again turn 2, finally lays down it's bomb, and walk-charges Bette, she buries, and the Duet walks back to stand on the bomb she was setting up to remove, and place another scheme on the centerline. Angelica does her double scheme dance again. Sybelle injures Colette again with her aura and focus-kills the Showgirl. Somewhere in there the Mannequin and final dove was finished off. Colette Presto-changos away to pick up Bette's bomb from the previous turn to try and deny a point, but Seamus finds a secret passage and drops his 2nd one, along with a scheme marker. The Dead Dandy replaces an Arcanist scheme with a Resser one, to ensure the tie. We both agreed that the Ressers would have pulled ahead, as the Arcanists were down to 4 models, leaving the rest of the Ressers to focus them down through weight of fire, and/or ignore Colette.

Concerns and/or Confusions?  
Carlos, despite many different games of feedback, seems to just keep getting worse, and further from having a discernible role in the crew. For the same cost, Cassandra will live longer, work without needing to hurt herself, and cause as much if not more damage/board control. It seems like the current design is trying to make him work a little bit with the Performer keyword while still making almost link to the Wildfire keyword.
My recommendation: decide on a role for him to fulfill, and give him the tools to do it. If he's meant to be a tank (and Performer as a crew could use one) give him the Flaming Body ability the fire gamin and golem have to offload burning as damage reduction, or (perhaps more thematically correct) Blaze of Glory. Give him back Df6. Also, remove Playing With Fire and replace it with Celebrity. These two abilities will allow him to work with both his keywords effectively without him having to actively hurt himself.

Colette is a whole bag of contrasting frustrations, as I'm sure the design team is more than aware. I break this down further below but currently, her defenses are either so solid it's not worth attacking her (which hurts her crew, as she is designed to be the best way to get out a large amount of Distracted, which has it's own issue, more in a minute) or the opponent properly anti-techs when she's announced as the leader for the crew, and she will be cut down like wheat made of soggy tissue paper

Underlying Distracted Issues
The Performer crew being built around Distracted in general causes some problems. Primarily, with Distracted only being a negative flip to the attack flip only, it effectively invites the Distracted model to Focus to get a straight flip attack and still get a positive to the damage. For the relatively squishy Performers (especially the minions) this is death from anything and everything with a 5 in their moderate or severe damage for a cost of, at most, 2 cards (1 cheated to hit, one to do the moderate or severe damage). I don't know why the negative flip to damage was removed from Distracted in the first place in the Closed Beta, but I have to assume it's because people thought Distracted was too strong, and probably because they weren't using Focused to counter it.
Showgirls specifically benefit very little from Distracted. If Colette is ignored, they need to activate and give up their Manipulative to put Distracted out...which is essentially a single instance of Manipulative. This is the reason that every time I've used Showgirls' actions instead of just walk and interact (handing out Distracted +1 for free to someone nearby), that it feels like a wasted action. Lure has occasionally been useful for scheme denial, but very, very occasionally. I still think Distracted would work best as the full opposite of Focused: negative flips to attack and damage.

Mannequins can help a bit to give the Performer crew some much needed survival, with just a little nudge. They already have Take the Hit and healing, just give them the barest bit more survivability so they can take more of a hit than a Showgirl. Another wound, or up them to Armor +2 total. They can't hit or give out Slow reliably, so make protecting the Performers their niche (like it is in the fluff).

Additional Feedback?    Seamus and the Redchapel feel much more cohesive after the 1.31 updates, and are much more fun to play, and appropriately challenging to play against in a thematic way. Excellent changes made! Belles still feel a bit lackluster, just there for their lure, which was ok when it was the best/longest in the game. Now it's standardized and they are straightforward to the point of boring. Sybelle is more worth her points, but still not directly as synergistic with the crew as she could be. Giving her some ability to buff the Belles might solve both issues.

Colette's 1.31 Breakdown:
Colette, while frustrating to play against in her previous iteration, is now still frustrating to play against, and more frustrating to play. As a long time Colette player (my 2nd master, and by far my most played over my almost 4 years playing Malifaux), with the 1.31 changes, she has the same weaknesses as she did after Wave 4 and worse in Wave 5 of M2E (easily killed by attacks that don't allow Resistance Triggers and irreducible damage, which were often taken because they were good in general) PLUS the additional condition of Stunned in M3E turning off the Df/Wp trigger and bonus action she lives by. This is in addition to the things that have always been able to effectively hurt her all through M3E (forcing card discards so she has fewer options to Bury, Shockwaves, and Blasts).

A quick breakdown of the current models that do irreduceable damage, don't allow resistance triggers, and do stunned, by faction:
-TT: 8 (1 at range), plus a hench with an anti-trigger 6" aura, and 2 anti-trigger minions, 8 stunned
-Arcanists: 1, and an Enforcer and 2 minions (1 versatile) that don't allow triggers, 6 stunned.
-Bayou: 3 (2 at range), no denying resistance triggers, but 9 models that give stunned (many without needing to target her)
-Guild: 1, plus executioners not allowing resistance triggers and 15 stunned.
-Neverborn: 0, but lots of Wp attacks where she'll be needing the suit (which she needs for her self-bury and presto chango), and 16 models that hand out stunned (many without needing to target her)
-Outcasts: 2, both ranged (Levi and the bandmate), a versatile minion that doesn't allow triggers, and another Jack can bring in from Ressers, 1 stunned on Hans (versatile, ranged)
-Ressers: 2, 1 ranged, 1 anti-trigger for Jack, and 8 stunned.

So it's not as targeted to 1-2 factions (beyond thunders) as it was in M2E, but the fact that you declare masters means you can tech against them, so this is actually going to make it more likely she's mostly being brought as a secondary master than she already is currently. And never facing Thunders, Bayou (Wong and Zoraida), Neverborn (Zoraida & Pandora). But every faction has plenty of ways of entirely ignoring what keeps her alive and, more importantly, functional. If M3E were launched as is today, Colette would only ever see play as a secondary master, and even then, there's a good chance something will be able to deny her.


Recommendations:
I think a lot of the frustration on Colette is previously, she could not be hit directly. This isn't new, and there's always been things that don't directly target (and more in M3E with Shockwaves). And the worst thing she did of handing out distracted (and stunned in an ever shrinking pulse) was and still is dependent on A) being targeted and choosing to bury, or B) swinging her bonus action sword with a high mask in hand, or a soul stone for it.

I think what will help with her dual-sided frustrations at this point is this:
--Return her escape defense to an ability instead of a trigger. But don't make it Fade Away. Burying her means the opponent can't continue applying pressure. Instead, make it be when she's targeted she can discard a card to make the attack fail, then place within, say, 6-8", within 2" of a friendly or scheme marker. This means she can poof around with a goo illusionist feel, but allows all crews a way to repeatedly attack her hand by attacking her directly, and keeps her most likely near enough friendlies that blasts can come after her. This gives the Colette player the choice of using their whole hand to keep Colette untouched, or allow their crew to be effective by having cards to cheat.
--With this, Showstopper will need to change. I'd say allow her to pick one model in 6" to gain Distracted +1 with every place, as adding a TN for everyone in the current aura will really slow the game down with how often that could happen.
--Likewise, update her Saber to place the target within the same range, or have a trigger for Colette to place herself.
--Remove Serene Countenance. It adds insult to injury when targeting

With those changes made to her defensive tech, I think her offensive tech could afford to be boosted back up a bit. As I mentioned to @mrjasonguy last night, it really felt like the only actions worth taking in our game for her were Presto Chango and, early on, her bonus saber (though her bonus push was nice turn 1). The saber got turned off turn 2 when he flipped the Red Joker on Df, and after that, I didn't want to bury any of his models, as he had enough schemes out that they would be able to come up in more problematic places. Without the built in crow on her melee illusion attack, it doesn't feel worth the action, where as with it, it was a wonderfully bad choice for the opponent to make: discard or take damage. I have yet to use False Reality, but I think with the proposed changes to her defensively to hand out smaller but potentially more concentrated amounts of Distracted, and wanting more cards to be able to discard, I think it would become much more attractive.

Thank you for reading, I hope this helps make M3E the best it can be!

1 hour ago, Sabbac said:

The  change on the  range of the Emissary puts him in a huge disadvantage against similar damage dealers models with range 2.

If his range was a problem I would rather keep his range 2 and M6 and change the +2 on charge for other ability.

Like Hard to Kill or upping his Df/Wp to 6 like the other Emissaries? I feel like he had previously been designed to be a missile, which apparently enough people were complaining about that he no longer is one, so why not just make him a solid model like the other Emissaries?

7 hours ago, NotSoEmpty said:

So whats the result of your game? I'm really curious about the score and Strategy?

After 3 turns (when the store was closing, playing Plant Explosives, we were tied at 4-4, but only because I was doing everything I could to ignore his crew directly, losing all doves, Carlos, and a Mannequin as speed bumps to block off lanes to actually important models).  I'll have the BatRep up later with more details, but so long as @mrjasonguy kept doing a good job of not attacking Colette directly, he was going to pull ahead by turn 5, just because I would be down to just Colette and maybe the Duet, and they can't do everything alone, especially right now she herself feels effective at Presto Chango and occasionally her sword - but after turn 2, he had enough scheme markers out that burying his models would only give him pretty good options no matter where I unburied the target, and I'd lost enough models that burying Colette would lead to her being out of position.