Flippin' Wyrd Matt

2 hours ago, trikk said:

It would work more when you get attacked than when you are attacking. Giving a nonstacking clause is like creating a an issue and at the same time creating a hotfix for it.

I agree with the problem, but I don't like the solution.

I disagree, inhuman psychology is definitely the issue in its current form, how would u suggest to fix the stacking issue. As i still think this is best suggestion yet. 

Inhuman psychology should be: discard a card to cheat against this model induels. 

Because he dose need to change, not sure what issues it causes with not being able to be stacked with other Discard effects will cause?

4 minutes ago, trikk said:

This becomes an issue with Betrayal of the Scribe as since it's 2 abilities you suddenly have to have 2 card to cheat.

That is a concern but in my games I have never managed to get the scribe to keep up with Agent 46. 

Could you not add that this effect would not stack with others to the end of the ability to keep it from doing this? 

I would say in light of abusing gun lines and agent 46

Inhuman psychology should be: discard a card to cheat against this model induals. 

would be the easiest to follow and keep the game moving. Stop this abuse of gun lines as well. Gives him some limited defensive ability in combat as well. Which will also give somthing to the players that say he is to easy to kill. 

In my opinion Inhuman psychology should be changed to:

Inhuman psychology - To cheat against this models you must first discard a card to do so. 

Puts both sides back into the game. It gains a small defensive buff and it also means that your opponent can chose to keep a model alive instead of just sitting there and watching Agent 46 remove a model one after another and nothing you can do to stop it even if you wanted to. 

With the end of the beta coming I have been thinking about models that need small tweaks to round out keywords. Actually, all in all guild are in a fairly good position I would say, just certain models I have found don’t really preform when put into a real game position. These ideas have been formed after playing more M3E games then I can really count and have spent a lot of time typing this post and really thinking about what is actually in need of a change and what is just a learning curve with the game. 

So, a few minor changes that I feel would go a long way to rounding out keywords and balancing models out in some areas in my opinion.

Orderly – Increase its Melee range to 1 (Make the Asylum great again!)

Agent 46 – Inhuman Psychology should be replaced with you must discard a card to cheat against this model. Giving it a small defensive buff to keep her going but also meaning that your opponent can attempt to stop you killing their models and in doing so not making your opponent feel helpless.

Guild Sergeant – Armour 1 to keep this model going, 7 stones and this model just drops.

Rifleman – Lose Execute Trigger and Give back Crit Strike trigger, with the changes to there stat they could do with a more consistent damage spread I have found that because Dashel’s crew struggles to move out of there deployment they seem to struggle to get going so the only anti scheme runner pieces are these rifleman and they are struggling to get the job done.

Field Reporters – Gain Sharp Wit

Domador De Cadaveres – One of the only models in the game to still not have a bonus action. False Accusation or Shrug off would be a good place to start or -1 cost 

Lone Marshal – Bonus action would be more effective if it was quick retreat, every time I use the lone marshal, he gets locked in combat and can never get away and which point death is certain.

There are a few whole crews that I can see needs some mechanic changes but all in all not far off.

Nellie – I appreciate we are still working on and I have posted thoughts on them in another thread already.

Family – I think family are not far off just currently they are to resource hungry and have no way of replenishing those resources, so they stall and fall over. I would investigate how they use pass tokens either using them as a resource of using them to give back resource.

As I was making this list, I was actually very surprised how short it was, but in the spirit of balance and fair changes this is the only things I would see changed to round out certain models. 

Please Kyle and Matt some change for consideration.

P.S 

ALL DOGS – Mindless on any model really devalues them as a summon, I personally would say mindless needs to go across the game as summoning has been limited to once per turn for the most part and this is limiting the summons even more. ( this maybe just my frustrations with Guild Hounds)

1 minute ago, 4thstringer said:

Interesting.  That archie kill must have really hurt.  He didn't want to discard soulstones?

had no cards left and no stones left to use otherwise i am sure he would of done

2 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

Do you think she will be as effective without a lucius crew to friendly obey her?  Honestly, it sounds to me like like a serious case of an over-extended opponent (though its not like you were playing a weak opponent).

I would agree that she losses some potency without the obey to back it up, but I would say that she is still more then force to be reckoned with.  as far as the game go's the models were not over stretched molly was right behind the 3 night terrors all in supported range of molly, Philip, forgotten marshal this just meant that Agent 46 could bounce between them all.

I know we have gone over this a few times already.... but Agent 46! I just played a game against @Flippin' Wyrd Jamie and Agent 46 killed 4 models by the first activation of turn 2. 2 night terrors and Archie with a execute trigger turn 1 then dispatch Philip start of turn 2 and if not for having no cards higher then a 6 in my hand by the time she activates turn 1 she would of killed Philip to. 

She is bonkers! Now I don't want to see her nerfed and I do think she should be a killing machine but my opponent not being able to stop her until she is dead is crazy good do we not think. 

We run the risk of people paying the stone tax to take her alot almost a auto take for me, as she is fantastic! And by that I mean proberly a Negative play experince to fight against. 

24 minutes ago, Flippin' Wyrd Jamie said:

Sounds fairly accurate. As the opponent that was what I found. Speed wise I didn't find any issues, the crew seemed around average speed with some neat mobility tricks on undercover reporters and field reporters. Damage wise that's not what the keyword is about. You could easily add it in with rider/emmisary/grimwell on top of Phiona if we're just looking at versatile. But that isn't what this keyword is for in the faction so adding it into the keyword will take away from what it actually should be which is your anti scheme/strat crew IMO 

I would agree she dose not need to be focused towards damage, a slight adjustment across the crew with the recommended change to slander will give them a better feel I would say.

But all in all any changes should be to look at focusing her on movement/support/control not Damage. Bring back a variant of Delegation I would say as a ability to support models around her.

From what I can see from the battle reports and my own game. She seems like she would benefit from having the convulsion trigger on her One more question. Not built in but as a option on the crow to give her the ability to manipulate the board state, which would also aid her using her exclusive interview aura. 

19 minutes ago, Flippin' Wyrd Jamie said:

Plant Explosives she's excellent 

Corrupted idols she's solid for similar reasons 

Turf war she can play as she can shut down markers and make them impossible to flip but not your best master for it

Reckoning probably not her best

Can't complain about that as a set of skills though! So much interacting in schemes and strats in m3e that being a great anti-interact master can straight up shut off some choices for your opponent and make strats really hard. 

 

I would say as Guild we have enough masters that can do reckoning 😄.

What we do need is a master that can scheme and buff the crew around her a real support tool box is where i think Nellie should live in the faction.

I think we can safely say she needs work still and i hope some of the changes we suggest  go some way to making her more viable in more then one game.

2 hours ago, trikk said:

I wonder how would they work in any other scenario. Because they seem built for Plant Explosives but if the scheme pool is a bit less interactable, I think they might crumble.

I would agree so we actually managed to flip a game that was very suited to Nellies play style but I would say in a more combat heavy game she will struggle. But she dose not need to be the master of all games In my opinion, but she needs to be better at what she can do. 

The Only other issue I had is that Field Reporters are missing half of there humiliation ability which may or may not had a impact.

They are also incredibly short range for a action that dose no damage - but that maybe a Frustration more then a weakness

But still worth 6 stones in the current formate very good model.

I would say that what ever Humiliation is going to be you could have somthing similar on Nellies card instead of scooped and it will have more of a impact on the game. 

So I have tested Nellie and here are my findings from my play test.

All in all i had a lot more fun playing with Nellie but i would say she still needs some work to make her effective as a support master. 

Breaking news - Worked very well, as a method of drawing cards. A few things i wanted to clarify, do you need to to take the focus to gain the card or may you chose not to take the focus but still draw the card? Also for a balance point of view should the card draw be only if this model is the declared leader? 

Scooped! - once again did not come up at all and really offers very little in the way of real game effect. Defensively it dose nothing and i would really like to see this exchanged for a ability that has more effect on the game either a defensive ability or something to offer some aid to others around her.

Exclusive interview - This was much better then I expected it to be, the range only being 2 puts Nellie and the others into harms way and you really need this to be in effect to get the real use out of her abilities. I would say it may need to be a larger aura. not a lot though.

One More Question - so besides one more question not being the most effective attack action, it did the required thing it handed out the triggers.

Slander - The Trigger was fine for giving out distracted, but the rider of plus one damage needs to be changed to any Scheme Marker not just friendly to get any real use out of it. would go a long way to help the crews damage output 

Reveal Source - Unfortunately this ability dose not work with Nellie's current build. it needs to go i would say and be replaced with a action that she can use to enhance the crew around her somehow, as with the current interact actions way of doing things this ability never get any traction on the table. With the interacts being the new way of getting markers down you are limited by the not withing 4 inch rule of another scheme marker. This means that this just did not work and i found myself using it once for the trigger but with no scheme markers around.  For me that means that actually Nellie would benefit for a more control or support ability in place of this as she is not there to try and do damage. maybe a more rounded out version of betrayal as the action so she has some board control or something similar to molly or Hoffman, Fast or Reactivate. Anything instead of reveal source that works better for her in her new direction.

Slow News Day - Was let down by not really wanting to waste time on the slander trigger, favouring the Headline over slander means that i did not also want to waste a AP on this action. I believe that this should swap into the position of the bonus action and have "get the story" as a normal action as again it would go some way of letting her control her models more, and really dress her up to feel like a support master again. 

To summarise I was very happy that the new direction worked as a idea and happily proven wrong as a sceptic to start with. That being said it dose need a fair bit of work before i would say it was in a good place again. 

Anyone else played her yet and had some thoughts? do you agree?

6 hours ago, trikk said:

I don't think Nellie had power issues. She was pretty decent power-wise.

I'm still curious why Reveal Source was left when it was the worst action on her card. 

For me the issue with Nellie power wise was she was dull and her impact on the game was a upgrade a turn and that was it really and her crew just ran around hoping they would not die and not really being able to stop the enemy crews plan. 

Reveal Source I think is just a terrible ability as way of dealing damage as a scheme marker denial peice maybe but that's alot of setup from your models and now because drop it is gone you have to obey the rules of interact actions so you can trigger to get the enemy to place one then.... you can't do it again within 4 inches of the marker they just placed? That seems like that maybe a issue because any scheme marker near by will block this trigger really.

So her trigger to interact will be wasted you may have some luck in plant explosives with this but to the point were she will another NPE as she and her crew will just stop you touching the bombs. 

To me seems like reveal source has been made even more limited 

Please go back to the drawing board with nellies abilitys or at the very least reveal source? 

And the one trick I did use to use keep her crew alive has now gone was the ability to attach the upgrade and through a model out of position. 

The crew needs some engagement to give them ability to lock models and definetly needs some more movement for board control. 

3 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Well, good news: now she doesn’t give any upgrades at all, and far fewer conditions. I am not sure I like the...change in power level, but journalism just got a great deal simpler to track. I expect there will be a rematch around here ASAP, if not necessarily with the same players.

 

It appears that RAW, Temper Steel now overwrites Analyze Weakness, and Analyze Weakness no longer tracks amounts of Shielded.

Was not the direction i was expecting to take Journalists in 😂 

I am going to test them out tomorrow and feed it back but my initial reaction to Exclusive interview is.... what am i doing with the interact action i am controlling? 

will be interesting to see the play tests but i already feel this may not work or just not come up a lot. 

I agree she feels like she may have just slipped further down the table of power level, we will see! to the cards!

On 3/6/2019 at 2:22 PM, trikk said:

Priority Critical, numero uno:

• Nellie and the back of her card. I can give a ton of ideas for Nellie. Maybe you'll like some of then or maybe they'll inspire you to figure something out.
• Misery on Lady J's Totem. Doesn't work

Priority useless/very weak:

• Newsie: remove the option for Thrown Newspaper. Just make it discard a card. Or make them Mv 6. Frantic Search is very situational (both on them and Greed)
• Grimwell (make him 8SS and 8Wds)
• Orderly: give them a  or  to thte attack action or make Emergency Surgery range longer (4"?). Or even both. Or make them 4SS
• PK: Terryfying/Df5/Mv5/9SS. pick 2.
• Alan Reid 8SS or just tone him down and make him 7SS. Nefarious Pact will make him worth taking in other crews but 10SS is bleh for his card.
• Nino: he's worse than a Freikorps Scout. Give him Df6 (no other Family model has Df6 and they have no defensive abilities basically) and a toned down M2E spotter (discard card to interact when in LoS)
• Allison: she could really use "You can't escape the truth". Give Blackmail the built in . Or just give her attunned and a trigger for FImpassioned defense.

Priority "needs a push:

• Field reporters need Don't mind me IMHO
• Queller

 

Nellie:

• Make the upgrades removable for 2 cards.
• Combine Press Release with One More Question. Make it a built in trigger with : if target doesn't have upgrade, give upgrade. Give One More Question the Fake News trigger
• Make Public Apology her second action That forces a move towards another enemy model and if they touch each other they kiss and get distracted.
• Give Nellie the Field Reporter Rapid Action. Almost all of Nellie's activation are: walk, Press Release, interact.

I would agree with a lot of these changes, hope that we can see them come through before M3E go's live. 

The Nellie changes and the Asylum ones i would say as a priority. 

Sad to say it seems like we may be stuck with Nellie how she is with the beta coming to a close.

Not sure she will see much play as a solo master. You may see her pop up in crews as a second master though.

So played another game with Nellie tonight and i can safely say that it was one of the most un-enjoyable games i have ever played, it was frustrating and dull and took so much longer then it should have because all nellies crew managed was to hand out distracted to everything and then.... nothing they have no way of capitalising on any of this.

Game was plant explosives against YanLo 

I took 

Nellie, Phiona, Allison Dade, Field reporter, Undercover reporter, Newsie, False Witness, guild steward and Printing press.

Some highlights of frustrating models- Nellie her self misses the finesse of her control i found she just seem to want to try and put a upgrade out and then.... walk. she gave a few models slow but as masters activation's go it was dull. whats happened to her ability to control the battlefield. she really dose need t have some more triggers on her one more question i would say.

Coordinated strike - would help her with the low damage in the crew.

Convulsion - would give her some control back over the board.

the bonus action get the story seems to be of limited use i found she would of been better off with follow a lead. it would give her a opportunity to get moving again and get around.

Reveal Source - i have yet to find a use for as i really want to be using my own scheme markers for scoring points i would happily see this go and make way for some more triggers or some utility that gets the crew going better. like any way of being able to step the damage output up when you need to. 

Phiona Gage - The only real damage out put in the crew and it is just so underwhelming, feels like in a attempt to avoid her being like she was in M2E she is just not getting the right tweaks she needs to be the melee beater for this crew. she killed nothing this entire game. can she not just be Min 3 damage?

Alison Dade - I can not see a reason for you to ever spend 8 stones on taking this model. Her one more question works but is not very unique seeming as its just another model in the crew that has this ability. her gun is not a reason to hire her and the trigger is so hard to get into a position to get off as she cant afford to go hunting enemy models as she can not take a hit manipulative just dose not offer the defence she needs. going back to a henchman to give the option to stone may help but the issue is she is just a expensive field reporter that i cant really see you would bother to waste the stones on her. Has anyone had any luck with this model?

I don't think its a million miles away from being in a place were fun can be given back to Nellies crew in my eyes, just as it stands i cant see why you would run Nellies crew. You would just add Nellie to the list of masters that's only place in this games is as a second master position like Collette and Seamus. 

10 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

Yeah.  The problem is the press release it's incredibly strong.  While the trigger on reveal source has situational potential, id honestly rather use her other 2 actions to treat her as a scheme runner than try to get much out of her.

I think her press release upgrade was fine at the start of the beta but since the game has moved on it feel a like it has been left in the dust and I don't feel that my master should be running my schemes in a crew that dose not do much else besides run schemes. 

3 hours ago, 4thstringer said:

You know, I thought that too, but my game (I purposefully left the IR out to see how the other guys would do) was very interesting.  I ran 2x Field reporters, 2x newsies, 2x false witnesses to try them all out.  The field reporters came up huge, and the false witness and newsies (despite being worried about manip not getting the job done) did an admirable job of getting me turf markers and getting me detonate the charges.  Granted I think my opponent will be better prepared to deal with my crew next time he faces that, but that group got stuff done.  Dade on the other hand, I guess did some killing for me, but really I can't justify why I would pay 8 points for her unless I have triggers I really want to cancel, and I thought she could survive doing that cancelling.

How did you find Nellie as I found her back of her card very underwhelming? 

32 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

Honestly, I think this reaction comes from "I've played one game with this master"

Actually I have played Lucias 3 Times since the changes last week and 15+ games with over the course of the beta. 

And we make a point about not taking to the forums with snap opinions after 1 game because u don't get a fair test of what we do so we try them out a few times and then post are opinions so we can back them up with first hand experince instead of wild accusations. 

We do post quicker about things we do believe are potentially open to alot of abuse. But the aim of all of this is balance. Not breaking one faction over another. 

So my opinion of lucias and the points i have raised are out my personal experince from playing against my team mates with the guild masters I comment on. 

3 hours ago, Maladroit said:

So when you say that Agent 46 did this perhaps flesh out some of the detail, what was the true cost of what he agent did?

My agent 46 had a lead lined coat upgrade. Turn 1 Agent 46 was moved from my corner deployment towards the left corner that a canine remains was making a break for power ritual. 

On the way over there have him shielded 2 from a lawyer and got him over there with a push from a investigator. 2 obeys and a command from lucias. 

Iicias killed the dog with a lucky hiden sniper. Agent 46 was my last model to activate who charged a kenturai who had just dropped of McMourning dealing it 4 damage and exciting twice, with my card draw I had the crows and my opponent had used alot of his hand setting up poison. Douglas then came in and failed to agent 46 3 times as I had cards and he did not. 

Turn 2 Agent 46 gets stunned by a nurse. No Triggers. Kills the nurse with ease because she can't cheat so can easily get her on a straight. Point reckoning. The kenturai hits her twice she takes 2 points of damage thanks to armour and Is poisoned. 

McMourning attacks her 3 times and after stones (No Armour he ignores it) she is alive on 4 wounds because lucias ripped the 2 high cards out of his hand and I was still drawing from the rest of the board even though during turn 2 she was to far away to be affected by my crew.  

Turn 3 I get initiative she uses analyse weakness with the on the heals trigger to jump away from McMourning to the kenturai that pushed away hits it cheats the trigger to jump to the little dog that I can't spell (lol) misses it because it's DF6 (it should not be)

She then takes 4 attacks from rafkin thanks to his rip and tear trigger and manages to survive with 1 wound I have 1 stone left. 

Which she then gets issued a command by lucias this turn who makes her attack the total stoning for a mask. Hits and kills then jumps to the kenturai and hits and kills. Because the fact you can't cheat against her means that she can get u on straights very easily. 

She then gets charged by McMourning and exits this world.

So like I said she went blow for blow with him for 3 turns. Of which he ignored any armour or shielded and that is a ML7 combat master. So you can see why I don't think she needs buffing right? She killed 3 models and tied up a master for 3 turns which left the crew unsupported. I think she played a massive part in this game and certainly was not useless. 

11 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

How about this as a compromise (since you seem determined to make him just a worse in every way doppelganger) :Agent 46 always cheats second?

Not sure what you mean? Agent 46 is still very good and I am unsure what is wrong with the suggested changes to inhuman psychology. it would mean that the crew would not have to be so reliant on card draw as you would have a piece that took away the resources of the enemy. 

So I have to agree with @Flippin' Wyrd Jamie on this, she went toe to toe with Mcmourning, Kentorai and Rafkin for 3 turns before she finally bit the bullet and in the process she took 3 models with her over those turns and 3 stones out of his soul stone pool.  i am not sure how anyone can stand there and say she is not good. she cant take hit sure but she can kill things and to well still because you cant cheat against her. inhuman psychology should change to you have to discard a card to cheat against Agent 46 at least you are giving the option back to opponent but are burning cards to make the make that choice.

this models is definitely designed to be played with some finesse and you can no longer play her like a cannonball, firing her into the crew and watching things die. she has to be played like a stealthy assassin who jumps in kills and leaves.