hydranixx

Interesting idea. I might consider picking Harata over Mikhail to Mimic. His Distraction and his Debilitating Poison auras seem very strong in this keyword, he can hand out Distracted at range, targeting Mv, which synergises nicely with the Staggered Ivan is trying to provide, and he has a 2" melee attack. He is very flimsy in the keyword though.

100% percent. She's fast enough that she can always hop in to deny a leyline one turn, then early next turn inflict some damage and hop out.

I don't really see her as a min 3 beater since I think her best melee triggers are usually the stun and card draw triggers. A Stat 7 Stun is extremely punishing to some models, and drawing a card while getting to discard the top card of your deck if its bad makes for good card advantage - all the while handing out ~2-4 damage. As many have stated in the thread, most of the time you want Anya1 to push enemies around pinging them for damage, or run Schemes, or pick off isolated models - and basically only commit her to protracted melee when/where it's safe. However, if the pool or matchup allows her to be a little more aggressive, I'll pop Hidden Agenda onto her and just start swinging that Tomahawk as often as I can, basically whenever she's not under immediate danger. When I do this, I'll often look at Bleeding Edge more as a Leap with some extra text on it, using it just as a tool to get in range to swing 3 times. It's not as good as a Leap when used in this capacity, but it's serviceable. Even without having good cards in hand, the ability to cheat face-down, with a suit on every trigger, and those triggers ranging between good and great, is very powerful - especially since you can also use Price of Progress to bake-in whichever trigger is most dangerous to the opponent. If Hidden Agenda Anya cheats face down, the opponent has to either accept their total as is, hoping you were bluffing or throw in one of their best cards to try stop you - losing 1 wound from Hidden Agenda - and it might still not be high enough to stop Anya hitting them, depending on what you cheat with. Even if it is high enough to stop you, you've traded up; your opponent has to commit a higher value card than you to dodge this, and they might just throw in a Severe when you only used a Weak. Of course, every time they choose not to cheat, they risk the possibility that you committed a card only barely good enough to win the duel, netting you some relatively easy damage, a potentially powerful trigger and letting you mill away the top card of your deck if it's bad. Anya is fragile by nature, so this style is not viable in every game, but the Emissary, especially with Yannic nearby, can more or less safeguard her. With a Scheme Marker down, Yannic let's the first Take The Hit essentially buy you two more Take The Hits. Speaking of the Emissary, it turns out Df7 with Take The Hit cheating face down is also pretty fun - if indeed you have the ss available for a second copy of Hidden Agenda Corrupted Leylines Tech Since you brought up Union Buster specifically, I will just briefly mention that it can be game changing on Corrupted Leylines against non-Guild factions (or Guild players foolish enough to not put Lead Lined Coat on their Lodestone runner). If you go with Anya last, and your opponent has already activated their Lodestone Runner, she can yeet herself up to ~19" up the board with Bleeding Edge's Place trigger + Walk/Charge + Walk, ideally engaging/charging whichever model is last to activate, then use Union Buster to pull the Lodestone Runner away from the Leyline without a duel, and force them into her Hostile Work Environment aura, so that the opponent can't rescue them with another model. That's almost always 1VP they'll never get back, though you can't do this against Planted Roots / Laugh Off Lodestone Runners.

I've tinkered with Ivan2 a bit recently, and can confirm tech like Numbskull or Incorporeal makes him feel pretty silly. Even outside of that though, he doesn't have a melee attack, so your opponent can always just... walk away... from his mighty 1" aura. If it's ever not worth it to the opponent to actually attack him, they can ignore him completely. If the Ivan2 player really wants him to survive and plays conservatively, such as when Assassinate is in the pool, there's very little in the game that will put him down efficiently. Between 6/6/6 stats, 12 wounds, copious Concealing, cross-table teleporting, distracting enemies, and healing him from Gibby, he might just be Explorers most durable master. As a player intending to kill Ivan2... You need to bring the right tech as others in this thread have outlined and commit to chewing through his cards and Soulstones early and often.

Yeah, I've been using Runaways/Eyes & Ears to proxy my Drudges in the meantime. It's not as nice as using the real models, but it gets the job done. I think with Anya2, 1 Surveyor is close to essential. If you hit the Hazardous Terrain trigger (Price of Progress makes this easy) on Anya's New Order to the Surveyor, he can stack that with Field of Steel to have 2 separate Hazardous auras up, which makes him absolutely devastating in melee. Bonus points for pushing enemies around in his hazardous aura with his own melee trigger. If you're going Anya2, and especially if you hire Yannic (which you should) you might also consider Vernon & Welles. They have some discard/interact synergy for the crew, but more importantly they give you a fast moving Schemer that can go forth and secure Symbols. As an aside, I do also generally like Apex for Symbols of Authority. Both Artemis and Model 9 can be very fast to score or deny on their own, and can combo with Ullr's By Your Side to secure enemy markers, while you can position your own Symbols in the open where Lord Cooper can make it very dangerous to be. If you play Lord Cooper2 or take a Vatagi Huntsmen (which to be fair I try to avoid most of the time) you can also deploy Pit Traps around some of your Symbols to make them very costly to remove, in a similar manner to the Geodes. That being said, just as you pointed out, I think Zipp in particular is a very difficult matchup for Lord Cooper. The only thing he's really got going for him in the match up is his Machete can cut through Terrain Markers to acquire flips while he swings at models, so he can be surprisingly dangerous in melee if he's near Zipp's Pianos.

If you're having trouble locking down your own Symbols in Syndicate, consider picking Anya2 (Rail Magnate) as your leader. I've found her summoning Drudges to be an efficient (and very cheap) way to guard Symbols - if you position the Symbol itself against a wall or rock, their 1" melee can defend the only part of the symbol that the opponent can interact with, and with 3 wounds, it takes more than token min 2 damage to remove them. If you're not fond of Anya2 or just don't want to play with her until she's released, another option I've found to be useful are Surveyors. Their 2" reach is good enough to defend a Symbol as long as they're close to it, irrespective of walls, but the real value is creating Geodes with their Chronicle effect to partially or wholly block your Symbols. The Syndicate Keyword makes it easy to chip wounds off your own models with Price of Progress (My understanding is that you can do this whenever you take any action, even just Walking), which you can then heal back with Democratic Elections, Stand Together, Glory of Ridley, etc, triggering their Chronicle effect. If you take Yannic and prepare in advance with a Scheme Marker, then instead of Discarding for the Geode, you get to draw, which is just icing on the cake. Look for corners, walls, blocking debris of all kinds, or even just the table edge itself. That's where you should look to place the Symbols. Up against a table edge for example, two Geodes can seal it off completely from base-contact, or 1 Drudge in base contact with it can defend it against non-Don't Mind Me models, forcing your opponent to commit significantly more AP to securing those strat points. It can be a little clunky to get the sequencing and positioning right at first, but with a little practise, you can efficiently seal off at least 2 Symbols while contesting your 3rd or 4th with models. Again, with their 2" engagement ranges, Surveyors make for an ideal candidate to protect friendly Symbols that are more exposed to the enemy. I recently used a combination of Drudges & Geode method to great success in vassal world series against Zoraida, who hired the First Mate and THREE Silurids. I held them up long enough that I had ceded only 2 Strategy points by the end of turn 5. I would suggest that most of the time, Anya1 is too frail in Assassinate pools, given how close she wants to be to enemies to do her thing. I feel Anya2 is much safer with Assassinate on the cards, as she's able to hang back generating value just by being on the table without needing expose herself to danger.

Looks like a good crew to start with to me. Just keep the Machinist safely tucked away from harm behind Kiya & Calypso so that it can repair them, give them Shielded and Focus, and cycle cards, in peace. 2. There's no reason to deploy Dr Beebe outside of Calypso, unless your opponent has tech that can attack Buried models. While you're learning the crew, you should just consider them to be one model that activates twice. 95% of the time, they'll operate as exactly that. 3. With regards to the above, I think some Marshal models can in fact attack/affect Dr Beebe while he's Buried - for instance, The Jury can. Ask your opponent before set up if any of their models can do that. If they can, you might consider deploying him separately - but still keep him near Calypso to support it. Honeypot features quite a bit of Incorporeal and Terrifying, so Kiya is perfect there. If you end up in that match up, prioritise getting Focus and Shielded on her from the Machinist, then swing for the fences. I haven't played against Last Blossom enough to really offer any advice there. 4. I personally think EVS' single biggest weakness is lack of raw Scheme Marker generation/denial, so if you're open to playing Anya, I'd suggest her. Fun Fact, the phrase "Scheme Marker" is only printed twice in the entire EVS keyword, while the term "Interact" doesn't feature at all. While this does not necessarily make EVS a bad choice for taking Scheme Marker Schemes (Dr Beebe & Calypso are still very good at most of these), I think there are other specialists out there who can operate in pools with 3 or more Scheme Marker Schemes a bit better. Anya is the single most prolific Scheme Marker based master in our faction, which is why I think she's a great backup master for Maxine. Also, her crew box comes with Winston Finnegan, who's terrific in many Maxine crews.

A little less so now, since the nerf bat hit us for 6 ----- If he does take Maxine, there's two things that specifically come to mind to me: 1) EVS has a lot of models that ignore Hazardous and a few that can also ignore terrain entirely with either Flight or Place effects. So, if you had hoped to rely on Pyre Markers via Kaeris 2, Hazardous Scrap Markers with Mei or Ice Pillars etc for value and scoring etc (which would be great in the pool for you), be mindful that EVS have a lot of options to play around that. Calypso in particular is a big problem, as it can not only ignore E V E R Y T H I N G terrain wise, but it can also remove all nearby Destructible Terrain with an action. 2) If they decide to hire Kiya, you need to have a plan to neutralise her. She is very clunky, and not popular in general - but a 2/4/6 damage track with Irreducible, backed up by Focus and good cards, is still able to one or two shot almost anything in the game - so long as she doesn't receive a to the damage flip, at least. I know Arcanists lean on Shielded and Armour more than most factions, so that Irreducible really stings if you're not prepared. You could consider hiring more Soulstone users, models with Hard to Wound, or just put Soulstone Cache on your key Minion/Enforcer to get access to that on demand.

*Obligatory "Get out of here you filthy Arcanist" comment * ----------------- For me, that pool looks very, very open and pretty much any Master could handle it. I think it depends more on the board. That said, with Death Beds + Research Mission in the same pool, it does encourage crews that generate easy Terrain Markers to some extent. Nexus, Jedza, or Ivan could easily go all in on that plan and aim to score big on the schemes. Probably best to bring an Arcanist keyword that can create and remove markers easily. If it were me personally, knowing I'm against Arcanists, I'd lock in Anya. Depending who the Arcanist master is, I can either go Anya 1 to manipulate movement and go for the death of a thousand cuts approach to overcome Armour, while running schemes of my own, or I can go Anya 2 with Treasure Map (for Deadly Pursuit) to deny Spread Them Out, Research Mission, and Death Beds, while relying on Winston to Scheme, Vernon & Welles/Sovereign to run the strat, and probably taking Hidden Martyrs on an Operative and one of our numerous 7-8ss keyword models.

I'm completely in awe how long that game took. Was your opponent playing a new crew, or what?

We all know Wyrd has a thing for Pigs, so they probably stacked the deck so Porky would win

Part of me wonders why they didn't adjust the Porkchop in that case... but I suppose it's probably better to reduce the overall number of models being errata'd. Since they needed to change the Alpinist to fix Climbing Gear anyway, they may as well change his version of Tin Feast to be in line with Porky while they're at it. Tin Feast Grim Feast symmetry begone.

😄 you know, I originally had this written up as part of the topic. But then I remembered they nerfed Tin Feast. I liked that it was a perfect mirror to Grim Feast but I guess the poor goat just can't have it all. I think you might see it show up on particularly egregious boards now

Right you are - I completely misread the adjustment!

I presume you mean that the player opposing the Emissary risks missing an enemy (potentially the Emissary itself) when attacking, and therefore healing it? If so, then yes, that still provides some value. It's kind of turned into merely a deterrent for throwaway attacks/shockwaves, which is probably still fine since the rest of both cards is still very good when compared with their counterparts in many other factions. I kind of wish they renamed it from Aura of Courage to something else while they were at it, though. Hoping you get attacked but manage to dodge the attack doesn't strike me as particularly courageous - and if anything, it's your opponent who has to be courageous by sending attacks, throwaway or otherwise, into a Df7 model.

I didn't even notice that it changed to no longer being irreducible, but yeah, ouch. Cadmus has no other way to get through Armour, so irreducible here felt... kind of necessary in some match ups.

The long awaited errata's in, and with it, we see some perennial favourites knocked down a peg, and our 'top two' masters nerfed. Intrepid Effigy/Emissary: Aura of Courage now only heals if the duel is generated by enemy models, which I assume means you now no longer heal, ever, unless an enemy model attacks or throws a Shockwave at you and you win by 2 or more. This is a big deal, and to be fair, was probably needed to bring them down to the level of other Effigy/Emissaries in the game. I suspect many of our opponents were really hoping to see that spicy Df7 on the Emissary to come down, or for Take the Hit to go, but neither happened, so it remains a huge problem for some enemy crews. It kind of solves the problem of just how squishy so many of Masters are, so I'm glad Wyrd were mindful of that when they took a look at it. Archivist: Ill Omens +2 is gone and Killer Late Fees trigger no longer provides +1 damage. If you mainly just hired this guy out-of-Keyword, you probably won't anymore, but even within Keyword, he's lost some great all-purpose value. Dust & Cobwebs seems reasonably useful in Keyword, as you can activate him early to set Nexus up with suits and a free Web, or just throw out a Web for the Nightsilk Creeper to teleport to without needing targets. Unfortunately, with the Spin Web trigger being removed, you now can't throw such Webs directly at enemies from 10" away as part of your attack (which was great at setting up the Nightsilk Creeper to hop 12" and take 3 melee swings). Dust & Cobwebs also means the Archivist now won't get bogged down Webs, which in my experience wasn't really much of a concern anyway but it's nice to have I guess. The Hush trigger is a nice addition, as he's now also able to contribute to the Keyword's strategy of spreading Parasites. The duel it requires of your opponent is not massive, but the net result of your attack is packed full of value - you deal 2/3/4 damage, your opponent either discards a or you draw a card, and they also now need to top deck a decent card or cheat from their hand as well. It's probably good that it's once per turn. Overall, Archivist feels like his role is much more slanted towards being a Keyword support model, rather than a general all star. No longer having a 3/4/5 attack at 10" or Ill Omens means I don't think you'll see him out-of-Keyword very often, though if you are absolutely desperate for access to anti Demise/anti HtK I suppose you might still consider him. Calypso: Similar to the Archivist, I think you'd be surprised to see Calypso out-of-Keyword now, since the Calypso + Dr Beebe combo now cost 14ss if Maxine isn't your leader. Df5 feels fair since you already have Armour +2; Df6 felt over the top before and the slight nerf to Onward is meaningless if you're managing your s well anyway. The Mass of Tentacles triggers is gone from Thriller Driller, a change in my opinion which is correct since beforehand it offered an unresisted option to damage and move models, which feels awful as the opponent. I'm glad to see the trigger is still present on his melee attack, as it is fun and powerful, but feels fair since you still need to win an opposed duel to do it. Nexus: Omnipresent Influence is now 12" as opposed to 12" outright, though Nexus is now Sz 3 to partially compensate for it (though this does also make Nexus more easily targeted by the opponent, and the opponent now at least has the option to block your LoS to deny nodes). Summoned Eyes & Ears are slightly more expensive to summon (one card value higher), you can no longer summon 4 from a Red Joker, and they essentially become Mindless the turn they show up; they can't activate, but the opponent doesn't get a Pass Token. Presumably if you summon an Eyes and Ears and grow it into a Berserker Husk in the same turn, it still misses its activation. Will of Cadmus TN is 2 less, which will be a welcome change when it comes to end of turn control hand requirements, and the Uncomfortable Twitching trigger moves the model 2" before taking the action, rather than afterwards. This seems like a pretty big plus to me, as you can now push 2" (potentially out of Engagement range) and then Interact, or even just push out of Engagement before taking a standard Walk. With the Cryptologists' Antique Timepiece now being Minion/Wastrel only, Meredith can no longer grow two Berserker Husks a turn, and the Nightsilk Creeper can't hop 12" out of activation any more, for that matter, which does feel like a pretty big swipe at Nexus specifically. I don't have much authority to speak further on the Cryptologist outside of that specific interaction, or on English Ivan/Brocken Spectre having never played any of them. Interested to hear what our DUA players think about that one. What do you think: did they go far enough with their nerfs to Nexus or Ivan? Too far? Nexus still looks great to me - and in fact even got some slight buffs - but I am mindful that I've only played a handful of games with Nexus so am keen to hear what veteran Cadmus players think.

Considering it's Break The Line, this crew exudes more BDE than I've ever seen before haha. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of in love with it. Though my rational side is saying: "I'm not sure how all the ranged attacks present in the list will handle 4 Concealing markers in the middle of the board - over and above the question of how will they score them." I look forward to seeing the gameplay video and learning how he mitigates it!

No need to hate it, thank you for letting me know! 😃 I clearly need to brush up on my Hazardous Marker rules - or leave Surveyors on the shelf haha.

Heresy! 😄 I understand some of the hate she gets since she's made of paper, and is completed invalidated by anything nearby that ignores Armour, but also, she's a free totem haha. Sure, she's not a Lord Chompy level of totem, but when I consider that some Masters have to settle for the likes of Mouse or Eternal Flame etc, I feel pretty good with Sovereign. Add on the Crow trigger to New Orders on Sovereign, and your 50mm slicing through cards and wounds in no time. At least, until anything with anti-Armour looks at Sovereign. I think the trick with Thunderstruck is to gauge whether or not its worth exposing her to cast it, and if so, when. You can get a tonne of value by shoving Thunderstruck into a position where it effects several important models, and healing herself back up as she does it but the best targets are usually much further than Emissary/Brawler can reach to defend her - and you also have a fair number of TN's that you need to meet yourself - 5s for New Order and multiple 7s for Obey and Thunderstruck. I'm keen to try Mr Ngaatoro as you describe though. It does sound pretty good if you can hit multiple enemy models with - plus you get to basically do a Zoraida + Bokor impression with 5 potential Obey effects per turn and who doesn't love that. You might occasionally get the perfect storm where your opponent just happens to bunch up near your tanks, where Sovereign can just dive in and shred their Control Hand and chunk models over several activations like you describe. Though, I suspect that most good opponents respect that she can do that and will try to play around that by not bunching up. Sovereign as a Schemer As an alternative take, I've gotten good value out of her by playing her as if she's exclusively a Scheme Runner/ Scheme denier; use her as a mini-Rider early on playing taxi with Fly With Me, and Concentrating each activation. Then after that, sending her off a flank on her own to Scheme and/or crush enemy scheme runners. I'd back her against pretty much any Scheme runner in the game. With Fly With Me and Flight she can go after tricky schemers with Disguise or Butterfly Jump and still get two attacks in, and with the potential for inbuilt Puncture and the Focus you stack on her early in the game, she can often take out some of the game's 'tougher' scheme runners such as Necropunks or Wind Gamin in a single Activation - possibly in even a single Action when you take into account the chip damage that Sound of Thunder threatens. Exactly. Because she plays the game so radically different from Anya 1, your opponent might have a headache at crew selection just trying to figure out what to bring, more so than many other title cards in my opinion. Both versions pump out Scheme Markers and abuse them, sure, but that's pretty much where the similarities end - plus one version can literally make Scheme Markers unremovable. So, does your opponent build a crew with marker removal that actively tries to deny Detonate Charges/Spread Them Out etc to stop Anya 1's Hazardous overload, with the risk that you'll show up with Drudges and shut down their denial? Or do they build to try compete with Anya 2's massive control potential, only to get ripped apart by the incredible movement and Stat 7 spam that Anya 1+Corvus+Emissary offers? Keyword vs Versatile/OOK So far I feel that Anya 2 wants to play a bit more in Keyword than Anya 1. There's so many things that having more Keyword models around unlocks: More options to summon Drudges, on demand, anywhere on the board. More value from the Unionized Trigger on said Drudges. More targets for New Orders. More 'nodes' for Hidden Rifleman to shoot from. More healing for Keyword-only models, since you have access to Drudges. If playing Yannic, Shouting Orders. I could be wrong about this as I'm only a couple of games in, but Anya 2 seems less likely to use her own free action every activation than Anya 1 is, so having access to Shouting Orders on Anya 2 herself is good to have as an option. To Emissary, or not to Emissary? The Intrepid Emissary is probably the biggest potential outlier of the Keyword vs Versatile debate here. Even with the reasons suggested above to go Keyword-heavy, he's still worth it most of the time. Anya 1: Always want to hire the Emissary since she's a squishy melee Master and needs to be close to enemies to get maximum value. He can rescue her from combat if need be and gives her some Shielded, but the real gem is the healing aura since she has an extremely accurate attack and a good Df stat, so can heal a lot. Anya 2: Sometimes wants to hire the Emissary. It's still durable and annoying for your opponent here, but I felt fine without hiring it in the games I've played with her so far. The main concerns I have with the big guy is that he can't get any support from Syndicate keyword, outside of Chain Gang - and that he doesn't really score or deny well in the scheme pools that Anya 2 is likely to want to play in. I think this is compounded by the fact that the Catalan Brawler can fill a similar role to the Emissary in Anya 2 while being cheaper and staying in Keyword. Since you're more likely to put Scheme Markers down closer to your own models - as opposed to throwing Scheme Markers closer to enemies like Anya 1 is fond of - he will likely have more potential to protect your squishy crew. Plus those Scheme Markers are harder to remove, since Drudges are a thing.

I got in a second game tonight with Anya 2, this time vs Lucas 2. The pool and crews were: Corner Symbols (2:3 to Lucas) Vendetta (Anya; Yannic->Rough Rider; scored 2) Bait & Switch (Both; both scored 2) Breakthrough Outflank (McCabe; scored 1) Let Them Bleed Lucas 2 (Ten Thunders) El Doggo, Dawn Serpent, Sidir, 2x Rough Riders, Huckster, Desper 4ss Cache Anya 2 El Birdo, Yannic, Winston, Catalan Brawler, 2x Catalan Riflemen, Operative, Surveyor 6ss Cache 6-6 tie. I tossed up whether I should take Treasure Map and/or Corvus Rook, and decided not to take either to see how Anya felt without them - and in the case of Treasure Map, I regretted it sorely. The 20" worth of free pushes that Deadly Pursuit provides over the course of 5 turns would have allowed me to score at least another point on the strat, and almost definitely deny Lucas' second point of Bait & Switch. I love Corvus but I didn't feel completely naked without him, like some keywords can without key models. I think he's a good model often but not as auto include as I previously thought. Catalan Models: 2x Riflemen is almost definitely over the top, but I wanted to push it to the limit to see what they can do. They're really interesting with Yannic, but even without the synergy they share, they have some great potential. At the end of the day, this is a model that can spend 2 AP and a low tome/wound to secure a Stat7 14" 2/3/5 attack ignoring Friendly Fire with built-in trigger to hand out Stunned - for a measly 5 stones no less. They're kind of amazing for Vendetta too since they're super cheap and again, that 14" lets you reach out to score very easily. Add in the cute Interact synergies that they have with Yannic and I really do like them. Still, they need some babysitting if they get tagged in melee, so I think 0-1 in most lists still feels about right, leaning more towards the 1 with Yannic and more towards the 0 without her. Drudges: These things are insane for free models, especially on Symbols. Absolutely insane. If you forget everything else this model does, you can just have it Walk to defend a Symbol with their 1" and that's still awesome value; you barely spend anything and your opponent has to work much harder to score it. I honestly don't understand why Drudges have a 1" melee with a 1/2/4 with easy access to a plus flip, and the potential to build-in Galvanise trigger. These things are nuts, even before you look at their Scheme Marker shenanigans and their powerful tactical action. I didn't pilot them as well as I should have (didn't realise Desper had Don't Mind Me) but I can see them being absolute menaces on Symbols. I managed to achieve this, and added in a Geode Marker nearby for good measure. Add the Surveyor's own Hazardous Aura with the built-in Mass Hysteria trigger on melee and you end up with min2+1+1+1 damage. I know that's not new to Surveyors in general, and you can do similar things with Anya 1's Hazardous Scheme Markers, (which I've used to some mixed successes), but it's never felt as easy/safe to set up as it was with Anya 2. Even so, their Mv 4 felt pretty crippling on Corner, even with Chain Gang, especially when Anya 2 is also Mv 4. If I had to construct the crew a second time, I'd probably sub out the Surveyor and one Rifleman for Vernon & Welles (my go-to for Symbols/Break The Line) and pop Treasure Map on Anya.

Yeah, that's not intuitive in the slightest. Good to know though, I'll try store that one in the memory bank! Was Gwisin 2 the one that ran into the bush in the middle mid turn 1, or the other one? Yeah, probably a fair call. Manos can do a lot of heavy lifting in this kind of scheme pool if he managed a few more activations.

Yeah, that Red Joker really came up clutch there. I'm curious what the reasoning behind that being a mistake is though? The Fade Away trigger timing is "When resolving," - so on my first read I would have actually thought it may be declared, suit depending, regardless of who wins the duel as the Action resolves whether it hits or misses. What stops it? Is it that the Scribe has to have lost the duel, outright, or that the Scribe has to receive damage as part of the duel in order to reduce the damage and Bury? Overall it looks like a game of lots of small things happening that were largely overshadowed by 3 really big moments: Manos gets kidnapped and killed before doing anything (other than removing a crate). Yan Lo's Treacherous Paths on the Scribe failing. Agent 46 stoning for and simultaneously top decking a high Ram to one shot the Soul Porter so that he could immediately pick up a Symbol. Look at it in retrospect, would you have made any changes in list creation, or Scheme selection? Or do you reckon it's largely just a case of the crew and Schemes being ok, but that exposing Manos alone cost you one of your best scoring assets, Activation control and all your Soulstones at the same time, all extremely early in the game.

What do our Syndicate veterans think about Anya 2? My first impression of her was that she's obscenely strong in Scheme Marker heavy pools. I played her for the first time in a small local tourney yesterday in one round, and while this was only a single game, it only reinforced my impression, which is more or less: Overshadowing Presence in particular is kind of nutty. Unless your opponent is actively planning on killing Anya, this ability strongly influences which Schemes your opponent can take. I think one way to get more out of this ability is to add Treasure Map on Anya herself, as Deadly Pursuit's 4" push at the end of the turn lets you get LoS & range on Scheme Markers that your opponent is trying to score with (plus it helps make up for her measly Mv 4 and gives her an alternative free action that is also great in Schemey pools). Though I only have 1 game under my belt so it might be unnecessary. Labour Contract looks terrific too. I summoned 3 Drudges over the course of the game, more or less as a side effect of just playing the game. I barely scratched the surface of what they can offer, sort of just sending them to stand in annoying places to get in the way and soak some AP to remove. Outside of that, it's no surprise the reducing your opponent's Control Hand size by 1 and increasing yours by 1 courtesy of Winston is a massive psychological edge, especially with Flexible Morality. The keyword has lots of TNs you want to meet, but it seemed more affordable having 2 more cards to play with than your opponent . The back of Anya's card felt pretty modest in comparison to the front, but it's still useful. Exert Control is monstrous for Schemes like Death Beds, Detonate Charges and Bait & Switch. Hidden Rifleman doesn't have a great stat, but between being able to draw LoS & Range from friendly Syndicate models and that incredible tome trigger it's arguably one of the most flexible and threatening actions in the entire keyword, maybe even in the faction. In my game, I put Staggered & Stunned on Izamu, and Stunned and Slow (Winston!) on Manos in back to back turns, more or less crippling them. I didn't really have much of an opportunity to experiment with New Orders. I'd really like to hit the trigger to turn a Surveyor into an absolute cyclone of Hazardous damage. I wonder if you ended up posting this? I'd be keen to read your thoughts! Especially on Anya 2.

I haven't played that specific match up - though I have played a fair bit against Zipp in general, and have played a tonne of Lord Cooper vs similarly annoying masters that try tie you up, block your LoS and out manoeuvre you. Assuming you're playing Original Lord Cooper, your Machete should in theory be an absolute workhouse in the match up. Each swing can remove a Terrain Marker within 1" as part of the action, even if you miss with it, so you can efficiently remove Pianos, while threatening good damage if you hit plus a potential Discard if you hit the trigger, which is fairly reliable if you have Rex's Wild Hunt Aura up as I've detailed in this thread before. You can supplement this Marker removal with Treasure Map, which I highly recommend whenever Research Mission and Death Beds show up in the same pool, and with Jessie Halliday. Either or both of these will give you additional options to deny Zipp's scoring and keep the Piano count to a minimum. Target number one should be Earl. He's pretty easy to kill with a 5 damage moderate. Pop Adversary on him and you'll either pop him in one shot when he shows his face, or he'll be forced to hide away, reducing his effectiveness. While Concealing can be annoying, Adversary more or less can cancel it out on at least one key target each turn. If you have good cards and LoS to a good target, don't be afraid to throw in a Soulstone for another +1 to the Attack Flip with Lord Cooper, which you can swap to +1 to the Damage Flip with Predatory Instinct. 7 Severe damage comes pretty close to outright killing an Iron Skeeter. There's not a lot you can do about The First Mate except punish him if/when he comes in close to you. I have once managed to bait The First Mate in (against Zoraida), then position Lord Cooper to be exactly 4.1" away from him so he can't Butterfly Jump into me to tie me up, and then two-tap him with the rifle, which killed him. But I understand you're not always going to have that kind of opportunity. Treasure Map again comes up clutch, either helping remove Markers he's placing down for scoring, or using Deadly Pursuit to avoid or catch him.