apes-ma

1 hour ago, SlackerLM said:

@I'm a Teapot!

Papabox Hold This doesn't work any more. Errata'ed out.

You're not using Hold This, just using a void wretch to bury him, then Hans as a long range papa loco delivery mechanism. Then if you give it to the NB then bury it but keep papa out the ground it works fine I believe.

4 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

Scion also allows you to pop your beater out with almost any model you take, not just Tara, so your opponent isn't always able to cover every avenue. Nothing Beast gets the most out of this because it's got a huge charge with a 3" melee and 4 swings thanks to Ml expert. I've seen strong arm suit and Bishop but I like NB best

Scion of the Void can only unbury minions or henchmen, so although Strongarm and Bishop are reasonable bombs (Bishop more so, I'd say...) they can't be delviered using the Scion as a vector.

I think Ashes and Dust is difficult to nerf properly. With Masters that have a way to sacrifice it for some benefit (Leveticus and Hamelin) it probably is a BIT too good, but with all the other masters I think that it's strengths are balanced by it's cost. For example, with Jack Daw or Parker Ashes and Dust is really good, but not at all broken or too much (especially with the decreased importance of the condition immunity with GG2018). It would be a shame to nerf the model so that it isn't too strong with Leveticus and Hamelin, and at the same time making it unplayable with other masters. Every faction needs a top-end expensive model, and it needs to be playable with all masters as well (Howard, Nekima, Archie, Yasanori etc.) - it would be a shame if an aggressive or heavy handed nerf took Ashes and Dust out of that list. I think one good way to deal with this would be to add some kind of clause that changes the reformation behaviour depending on whether it was killed or sacrificed?

9 hours ago, SlackerLM said:

Driven by Injustice is plused by the target when it fails the duel, not by Jack.

Im wrong, had to read the card. 

It pulses around d jack, and pushes everything all the tormented models towards the target. I only use it to push up the board early in the game, but with Monty being better I'm keen to see if it has any use to get enemy models tied up with Monty (with nurse backup).

43 minutes ago, MunkyMuddFace said:

- Writhing Torment: The Hanged would have gotten the 3 inch push, as would Jack. This would have put Jack into range to attack the Coryphee after his teleport to the Hanged, freeing up his second AP for an attack.

I might be wrong about my interpretation of the wording of this, but The Writhing Torment says "When another tormented model activates within 6, this model may push it up to 3" in any direction" - which (to me at least!) means that Jack himself doesn't benefit from the push part of this upgrade. As far as I am aware the only extra movement Jack can give himself is through the "Ghost of Malifaux" trigger on his Suppressed Memories attack (since the Driven by Injustice is a , and therefore doesn't effect the model that generates it).

Outside of Tara I am quite keen to try Talos with Jack Daw. First I thought he might just work like a nice min 3 beater that ISN'T 10SS to put into a tormented list (making the Guilty tax a bit less awful), but then I started to think that there might be a fun/janky list in there. I am thinking something like...

Jack Daw
- Twist and Turn
- Writing Torment
- 3x curses

Talos
- Oathkeeper?

Montresor
- Brick by Brick

Jaakuna Ubume
- The Creeping Terror

The Guilty

Nurse

Some other stuff...

This is probably a nonsense list - but none the less... The plan, roughly, is to torment Talos, and then at some point copy Into The Furnace with Jack, who is Wp 7, which ought to (or hopefully...) means that whatever he puts away is staying away for quite a while. To support this, Jaakuna is there to lure things into Montressors zone of -1Wp to make the initial bury a bit easier, which also helps with getting Talos to fire off his bury. Hopefully these two buried models stay buried for a while, and the Nurse keeps Monty in good health (if needs be), and Jack and Talos do their thing and terrorise the board... The remainder of the stones can be spent as needed dependant on strats and schemes - get some scheme runners, or another tough model or something.

Like I said, probably not good! But I am looking forward to trying it out!

5 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

There's no way Hamelin is giving up The Pipes to walk quickly.

Oh yeah - I always forget that's limited.

7 hours ago, Freman said:

Perhaps if it wasn't Limited.

That seems to only really be a problem for Leve and Parker though, right? And I don't think Leve really wants it, and Parker doesn't want to take any generic upgrades that don't discard themselves (in my experience anyway). It IS weird that it's limited though - I like the limited mechanic for upgrades that dramatically alter a master's playstyle, but sticking it on Scramble of Badge of Office (I think that's the name of the guild one?) is more annoying than anything else...

1 hour ago, Adran said:

He has an interestign package of support abilities, but you probably really want to build m to use them. Marker movement can be strong, or useless, fast for a card is pretty good, but you need to make sure the AP you gain is worth the card you lose. He has 3 AP which is good, and whilst it isn't as good as swift, it is at least set up to give you the action you are most likely to want at the time (baring a later turn rush to drop markers), but at least his (0) actions will allow you to drop 2 markers a turn. He can hit fairly hard, especially if you build to give out lots of slow, so a 3/4/6 damage spread isn't shabby

I find that on the later turns when Aionus gets casting expert I often spend the extra AP to give out slow to the target, and then get stuck in with the 3/4/6 (which is, as you say, not too shabby!)

12 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

Scramble on Bishop does wonders, and flurry with that extra move is amazing.

or Oath Keeper to charge and charge or charge and flurry something big is impressive.

Whilst that's true, I feel like Bishop is way too easy to take down to feel good about the 12SS investment (in the case of Scramble - as a small digression does that upgrade REALLY need to be 2SS?!). I LOVE Bishop - I think he's such a useful and flexible model, but at the moment he is just one small tweak away from being a good take. His main problem, to my mind, is the ease with which he is killed. I think something minor like Hard to Wound would put him in a great spot.

On 02/12/2017 at 7:22 PM, Hatter said:

Ah yes, Von Schill's "finish the curtains" action.  So crucial when attempting to properly decorate...

It's just AP efficiency - if you aren't using all your actions to score points, then you might as well use the leftovers to get a head start on the interior design of the hideout.

8 minutes ago, Ajatros said:

These were my first thoughts also, because fluff-wise the guy is supposed to be this super scary jack the ripper -type, but his damage output and abilities are really not reflecting this well. He's just the perfect solo schemer, who does not care about being tied up and can dish out a moderate amount of hurt if needed. in GG2018, I feel that he is going to be very strong in Symbols of Authority and Ours, and can do a bunch of schemes really well.

He's also really good at murdering small to medium isolated models at the top of the turn - and he kind of stalks them too! Imagine the opponent has an isolated model - he can teleport over to it at the start of the turn (ideally with fast) and then he has 3 AP to do what he wants to them. Then he can put up his anticharge defense to make it hard to counter attack him on a charge. If there is nothing even in charge range the opponent is faced with either having to commit a fair amount of AP and positioning to take him down when his defenses are down, or just leave him to keep on scheming/hunting small models or whatever. Then, when his job is done (say he's already done what he needed to do) he can have a turn or two with some devastating charges. In testing I had a game where he had got my covert breakthrough markers down and well out of the way, and quickly repositioned for a charge into 3 models at the top of turn 4 which has him swinging at min 5. He died that turn, but he scored me 3VP and killed a model - not bad I thought!

It depends what else you hired. I almost always take Hannah - very ability to copy casts and friekorps (0) means she can copy the librarians attack, and heal, she can copy charge up from strongarm and self repair (or even assimilate) from Lazarus, Anna's attack, and finish the curtains from Von Schill. On top of that, a lot of Von schills thematic models want discards, so the extra card is handy, and it also helps ease the pressure on your limited cache. Sonic normally take Hannah, and then fill the other 10ss slot with strongarm, Lazarus or Anna, or possibly the emissary. I occasionally switch Hannah for anna. But basically the question for me isn't "Hannah or?" but "Hannah and?"

4 hours ago, FunWithKnives said:

 

Stalker is the second strongest outcast model atm

What do you have as the strongest? Ashes and Dust?

12 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

Here's what he does: He kills A model per turn (not a tanky model or any that uses SS). He is almost completely safe from assassination (unless Aionus or Tara is on the field).  He draws a TON of cards in a turn. He is highly mobile. He takes models he kills and turns them into aboms, gaining AP advantage. has a wildly flexible hiring pool for any situation. 

What he does not do: Kill masters or henches. He just can't anymore unless your out of soulstones. Hold points, he has to stay mobile which isn't conducive to keeping points down. 

So Levi kills but not as well as the Viks, he controls AP but not like Hamelin does. He does draw cards and turns AP around mid game, which can be swingy but he's not gonna be delivering major punches to the tankier masters. He cannot be pinned down which is awesome. Levi is the most generalist master at what is probably supposed to be the power level for generalists (unlike Sandeep who is way over the threshhold). He's solid at a few things but not amazing at any one thing.  Best comparison is to Resser McMourning since they both trade an enemy model for one of theirs. 

I like Levi, I play him a lot. He's not Hamelin or the Viks though. 

Ah, I see - actually LIKE a scavenger then! That's kind of cool and I feel a bit dumb for not seeing it! So generally the plan is to make sure that the Waifs are a) in locations that gives Leve an option to attack across most of the board, and b ) protected, and then at the end of turn pop Leve out where he has the best chance to take out a model (say a 6-8 wound model?) without having to walk, burn a stone for the for his summoning trigger (if you need to) and turn it into an abom? Then let the rest of the crew take up the slack from there? I assume that means you're always taking Desolate Soul on him? I imagine the skill here is clever Waif placement/protection to make sure that the Leveticus has a good vector of attack for the start of each turn. I assume the card draw is coming from Aboms rather than his (0), since he'll want to be making a Waif each turn?

Assuming playing within Outcasts (i.e. no pariahs) what do you think of his new upgrades? Would you consider going with Pariah of Iron just for Terracotta Warriors?

4 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

I don't think we will see any more Levi changes until 3rd edition happens

 

I'm dutifully painting up Leve because I love the models and the theme, and although I am looking forward to playing with him no matter how much I look at the cards I can't really work out what he's meant to be doing. So... roll on 3rd I guess?

5 hours ago, Freman said:

I'm thinking that "Tormented" might be a bit of a trap. It allows you to bring in models from different factions, but the Tormented characteristic doesn't really confer much synergy within the list, or against enemies. I've been playing a bit of Ressers, in a McMourning crew slow grow league (no McMourning yet) and handing out poison actually benefits your models. Some can heal from it, some can 1AP charge enemy models with it, others can force the poisoned model to take damage when it activates (very handy if they're on hard to wound and have reactivate), still others boost the damage on poisoned models, and McMourning himself can get pushes from being poisoned. Poison is the theme, and the theme is effective.

Guilty can Torment other models, but other than pushes from activating within Jack's aura, they don't really gain anything. Jack can Obey them, or copy their abilities, but no triggers so some of the better abilities aren't accessible. Hanged are good, but expensive, Nurses are very good, Jaakuna is pretty handy, especially carrying The Creeping Terror, but Crooked Men and Drowned are hardly taken even in Ressurs. Papa Loco is... situational, but you don't want him close to your own units when people decide to kill him.

Of course, if you're not taking themed models a Jack list ends up looking like pretty much any other Outcast list, just with a different master.

I mostly agree. Hiring Nurses and Jaakuna is great (a Lure in outcasts is always handy!) but tormenting your own models means a) you've had to take a guilty (one of the most boring mediocre models in the game, in my opinion) and b), you get a push when you activate near jack and, if you have taken the (expensive) upgrade you can "obey" and borrow it's abilities - both of which are pretty costly to acheive. To me, it boils down to whether the push is worth the tax of taking a Guilty or not (and mostly, it's not... especially given how bunching up doesn't seem very good at the moment, especially with Storm Misaki seemingly everywhere...). Jack's abilities on Twist and Turn are a bit too expensive to rely on, and given that you often have to cheat to use them, and then cheat to make whatever you copied works out the way you want you end up investing a disproportionate amount of your hand into twist and turn. On the other hand you could torment enemy models, and that just seems even worse. Not only is the push much less relevant, but on top of that they get to resist the casting of the two abilities on Twist and Turn, making it even MORE expensive.

The more I have played Jack in the past the more I have thought the tormented list is a trap - too unreliable and too expensive to work (and I don't like taking a 2SS upgrade that I might get one or two uses out of in a game). That leaves us with a Jack Daw that heads up a pretty standard Outcasts list, functioning as a sort of wonky beater, but with Df4 and, now that flips are so prevalent, is pretty easy to kill. Cursed Life doesn't help with that really, especially since if you are playing Jack as a the spooky beater you have to give up an Oathkeeper to take the Cursed Life upgrade. Perhaps I am just getting a bit fed up in Outcasts, but I am feeling like Jack has become victim of power creep and is just another one of our masters that isn't that good outside of a fun pick.

As for your final comment, I think that's mostly true of ALL of our masters at the moment. You either take the void spam crew, and put Tara of the Viks in charge of it, or you take the Outcast all-stars (Johan, Sue, a Void Wretch or three, ashes and dust etc) and choose which master you want to be in charge to dictate the final few SS of models in your crew (Parker and some bandits, Jack and a Nurse, Von Schill and some freikorps, Hamelin and some rats, Leve and some Leve stuff). On top of that, we don't even really have masters that have interesting decisions between their limited upgrades (if the even HAVE limited upgrades), which means, to me, Outcasts are starting to feel a bit like a one-trick pony. Someone tell me I'm wrong! Roll on GG2018 perhaps.

Sorry for the rant...

On 19/11/2017 at 5:40 AM, Sanik said:

Am I missing anything? did the podcast mention anything about Hamelin? what did they say it about? 

Oh, no, by that I meant that I have also never played Nix - I guess that was a bit roundabout!

24 minutes ago, KID55 said:

It needs. Frequently she's in engagement (in my meta many aggressive players) and can't use furious casting because 1" range.

Oh yeah, I mean APART from that. It would be nice, of course, if she had an extra wound or two, could furious cast the healing, or had a (0) action to teleport, but I think the 2" range is enough to make her a totally good 7SS model (which she already is to be honest, it just totally sucks when she gets engaged by a 2" model).

I think there were a bunch of great suggestions here. Starting with the Friekorps models (I love the Friekorps).

Making Von Schill cache 4, giving him a built in on his knife, and making friekorpsmann 4SS would, all together, be fantastic. I think that way a player is encouraged to play a friekorps theme, which VS supports with his aura, without being hamstrung on model count. Excellent suggestions! A cheaper, Wk5 specialist would also be superb, but I think that AND the suggested trigger to spread burning might be a bit much? Perhaps the trigger, and the walk, and keep the cost would all add up to be pretty great. The suggestions for the librarian are nice too, but I think aside from a 2" range not much needs to change there!

As for Parker, having no upgrade limit is obviously a benefit, but I am not it would go that far to fixing him. Dropping the target number for his push, and letting changing plans cascade into other (0) actions is exactly the right way to fix Parker I think, whilst maintaining his playstyle. With no upgrade limit I can see that leading to a game spent building up upgrades, rather than choosing the right one for the right situation, and then him blasting something off the board, or buying a lot of upgrades at the start so that Parker can take one massive shot at the start of the game with, for example, min damage 7 or something like that. I don't know if that would be that good for anyone... Making the gunslinger a bandit would also be great, and especially increasing it to a 21" range. It would not only give Parker more mid-cost bandit options (which I think he needs), but also make the convict gunslinger hireable in it's own right. At the moment I can almost never see a reason not to just pay 1SS more to hire Sue instead of a convict gunslinger - he is a stat point less accurate, but in return you get card draw, great auras, better damage and some other random utility - he's basically the same but better in every way.

As with the friekorpsmann, reducing the cost of the guilty is a good plan for sure. They DEFINITELY feel like a tax, to the point where I don't even bother with tormented Jack lists anymore - and that's problematic since then Jack Daw becomes another one of those masters that, more or less, heads up the same crew of generic outcast good stuff. I would also go a bit further and make them do SOMETHING other than just woo-woo around the battlefield being spooky and doing almost nothing after they have tormented something - even at 4SS they would still be extremely bland. Allowing them to torment a friendly model, but also be able to have one enemy tormented at the same time? Or perhaps give them a front-of-card ability to torment a friendly model when deployed so that they can also use their Share Guilt ability on enemy models? I think there is some fun play in Jack with using tormented as an offensive condition to increase his control game, but it rarely gets used since, outside of his curses, it's functionally impossible to torment an enemy model (and Jack is normally killing what he curses). In keeping with that theme, I think the horror duel trigger on Montressor would be flavourful, and powerful in making him the tarpit he is meant to be. The big problem with Jack at the moment is the increasing number of natural flips that are spreading through all factions - his main defensive ability is randomly hosed all the time, and the old adage of "don't take Jack into Ten Thunders" is starting to apply to a lot more factions...

I haven't played Hamelin, and I have also never hired Taelor - but perhaps with the suggested change I might do? The same applies to Ama No Zako, but even with some errata I don't think I'd buy her - I just don't like the model... I feel like in addition to the mentioned models Bishop could do with a bit of love - despite his flexibility and potential power, he just dies WAY to easily for the SS investment. I think a simple fix of giving him a 2" range might help, or perhaps hard to kill or something like that.

14 hours ago, Davos said:

 

14 hours ago, Davos said:

Agreed.  I personally find Nythera Aftermath more useful, but Oath of theFreikorps can be good for more cheesy effect.  I think its a choice of one or the other.  My games were I bring both are generally the ones I do worse with.

GG18 seems like its moving away from the need of 10+ models, so the more elite crews, like VS's could be more viable. 

I've had similar experience - taking both puts a weird two-way pull on VS's AP.

As for GG2018 I hope you're right - I can't wait to play Von Schill other than just for fun.

14 hours ago, Kaos said:

Johan for example, great to remove conditions for sure, but he works well with ms&u models. So in a crew not containing such models it looks like he will do less than what he's supposed to do. I saw someone posting a list with both Joss and Johan so he start to make more sense

A good way to think about models like Johan is to just pretend that there are no M&SU-based abilities on his card at all, and then think "would I hire this guy for 6SS?" The answer is clearly "hells yes I would" - he's a 6SS model with a 3"  attack, a min damage of 3, flurry, hard to kill and condition removal. That is a GREAT deal for 6SS. And sure, when he's hired into Arcanists and the M&SU stuff kicks in he is even better, but the fact is even without those on his card at all he would be great. Essentially, don't let potential synergies hide the basic facts of a card! 

e/g. Imagine a 3SS model with an unsuited leap, and when it is within 4" of, say, a friendly beast it gives that beast +2"   and +1 damage. Obviously that model would be insane in a Marcus crew, or a crew with Beasts, but you would also 100% hire it to run schemes in ANY crew, regardless of whether it had beasts or not!

2 hours ago, Kaos said:

I will read it again, 3 actions for a waif doesn't look like a good deal to be honest. You're probably right.

You take the (1) action "To Dust" and then if you remove more markers than there are Waifs n play you get o take the (2) action "Connect Soul" for free without spending AP (since it is during the resolution of the "To Dust" action).

7 minutes ago, Davos said:

I can see the Obsidian Statute being good with both Levi and Anna.  Since Anna doesn't randomize, her CA becomes really strong, CA 7, dmg 3/4/5 i think (i haven't played her much)  and with Levi being CA 3/4/5 ignoring EVERYTHING seems strong.  Though I haven't gotten to try it yet.  My levi lists of late have been basically static.  Gonna have to start playing around with some of the new stuff.  

As an aside on the new stuff, the engineer is rather fun.  Dropping a marker next to it right away and farming cards is nice.  And giving out the extra ram is pretty nice, though limited to the armor +1, or construct, makes it somewhat hard to utilize.  I mostly find tossing the ram/armor onto a trapper for a nice turn one, min 3, max 6 kill shot is nice, or onto Von Schill to go rekt some folk (though he should be min 3 to start, since he's a MASTER and a master with min 2 is kinda crap.  In my opinion, he should have a built in ram at all times)  

Anna is Ca6, 3/3/4 at base - which will be 4/4/5 if the statue marker is nearby - pretty tasty!

I use most of them to keep Parker alive when he's in the shit, since that's about the only defensive capabilities he has and he generates them pretty freely. Other than that, I stone for cards or flips for whatever henchman I have in the crew. Between the soultone generation and Parker's other little draw abilities here and there I find you can cultivate a pretty good hand most turns.