hydranixx

You could get away with either metal or wood - consider that by 1906, there were already enormous passenger ships like the Lusitania, not to mention all the various dreadnoughts and battleships and so forth that made up military fleets. There's lots of interesting ways to base EVS, if you're open to other ideas. When I think them, I think not just a ship - though that does also come to mind - but I also think of a nautical theme in general; open seawater, tropical beaches, estuaries, rivers, shipwrecks, icy rocks and so forth. One of the first concepts I wanted to explore was a beach shore, with lapping waves meeting sand, with little pebbles, starfish, exotic seaweed that had washed ashore and so forth. Since all my Explorers crews are tundra themed, I reigned that in a bit and settled for a mix of ice and water, plus the snow, bushes and trees (still WIP) that will help tie all my crews together. Note the line up of bases is prior to the water medium setting

Would you mind expanding on this a little bit, please? Specifically, what are you aiming for by milling the opponent? I might misunderstand your rationale behind it. Currently my thinking is: regardless of which suit you pick, you still only have a 1 in 4 chance (roughly speaking) of pulling a Ram out of their deck with each Discard. You might pull a card that isn't the suit you named, in which case you do get to Discard again, but if we assume you keep going until you hit the suit you named, then out of the other 3 suits, you still have only a 1 in 3 chance (again, roughly speaking) of pulling a Ram each swing. And of course you might pull the suit you named before hitting a Ram, in which case the sequence ends and you've eliminated no Rams at all. I compare this approach to where I would probably just name Rams if that's the suit I fear the most anyway, because then at least I know that any would-be Critical Strike cards against Maxine are now automatically missing her, and I also know for certain that I'll pull at least one out of their deck each time I connect in melee - and possibly 2 if the opponent happens to flip one against her in the duel, and if they still end up losing the duel. I'm only about 10-12 games in with EVS so far, and while I usually get what I perceive as good value out of Maxine each activation, I could very well be missing something - so I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on this concept. So far I'm exclusively picking Rams early on, and occasionally swapping it out for Tomes later on I tend to use this option on turn 1 while unpacking my crew if there's no immediate danger, such as on Corner Deployment, not just because it gives free movement, but also because you put more cards in your Discard Pile to fuel Machinist(s) and Maxine. I generally have Orville fling Calypso up the board twice, (making sure that it still remains in charge range of my Machinist) by hitting it once, then charging past/over it to hit it again, in order to throw Calypso even further in front of himself to block LOS to Orville, with Calypso relenting all the while. This puts a 8 cards straight into the Discard Pile, and if you happen to have a low Mask in hand when you start this process, you can Cheat that in with Orville to make it 9 cards in the 'yard and draw a card courtesy of Maxine's aura. I might be overvaluing it, but I find that popping all these cards in the 'yard after my first activation of the entire game makes it significantly easier to source Crows & Rams for Navigational Charts/Order in Chaos. After putting 8-9 cards in the 'yard, there's often 2 Crows sitting there for the Machinist to use as early as activation 2. Now, of course it's better to have 2 good Crows in the 'yard to cycle back into the deck rather than just any old Crow, but I often find I'm not getting through the entire deck turn 1 on Corner anyway, so it's not essential. By making sure the Machinist remains in charge range of Calypso (or Tidecaller if you pick him), he can easily heal it back to full, and might even hit his own Crow trigger while he's at it.

If you haven't seen it, there's another thread on this forum focusing on general banter about the Rex here: Within Apex specifically, I'd generally always hire the Rex, except when I strongly suspect my opponent will bring Obey. When I've declared Lord Cooper and found out I'm against Zoraida, I've had good success swapping the Rex out for Mikael (who's resistant to Obey by default, but is also powerful at shutting down models that want to cast Obey just by getting into melee with them, while also having that 3/4/5 at 2".) Where Rex falls short: Putting it's comical vulnerability to Obey aside for a moment, it's also vulnerable to conditions like Slow, and models with Ruthless or similar abilities, especially if those models have high minimum damage. I've had my poor Rex casually dispatched by Hooded Riders and Dead Riders more than I'd like to admit. Where Rex is good: Mobility. The Rex ignores Severe and Hazardous terrain and models entirely while moving, and can either move friendly or enemy models on a Free action. If you have a good card for that Free action when targeting an enemy, you can also get a free attack at your target, enabling the Rex to periodically fulfil the "3 attacks at min 3" beater role. While it's not always a dedicated beater, the presence of Ruthless is extremely relevant in Apex since your WP is almost universally poor across the board. Utility-wise, Tail Whip and its built-in trigger can be game changing in some match ups and in some scheme pools, and depending what models are able to take advantage of Wild Hunt, it can be pretty clutch sometimes. I generally agree with your assessment, and I opt for Tendrils 90% of the time. I would add, however, that with Wild Hunt active, if you can combine all three models in melee, you can absolutely shred an opponent's Control Hand, Soulstones, and occasionally, outright models. The discard trigger on Cooper's is much more dangerous than the one on his . When we swings with that built-in, your opponent is either spending a card to dodge your attack, or risks losing a card if you hit, or occasionally both if you Cheat Fate second and still win the duel.

That's fair. I generally shy away from relying on min 2 models on anything worse than a straight flip, but even I admit that I've hit some monster hits late in the round. I fondly recall putting down a 6 Wound Pale Rider with exactly 6 Irreducible damage while on .

This is pretty much the first thing I thought and the first tactic I tried with the crew. Slap Focus, Fast and Shielding on Kiya, fling her and the Emissary up the board, and let them rip shit up. It can be good against the right targets. One-shotting Ikiryo felt really, really good. But, there's a lot of things in the game that a swingy damage track like 2/4/6 is terrible against, even if you have Irreducible. Something with 10+ wounds and Hard to Wound is going to be a slog, and it's made worse by the fact that both the Emissary and the Tidecaller also have the same 2/4/6 damage track and like Adran points out these 3 models are a 28ss investment. So I think this crew gets absolutely boned by crews sporting lots of Hard to Wound. The biggest difference that stands out to me in crew selection is that Maxine2 wants to put a little more emphasis on models that can draw you cards, since she doesn't have the Captain of the Superior aura to lean on. However, I think I'd feel a bit safer bringing in squishier EVS models, or at least playing EVS models a little more risky, since Breachburnt gives you on demand healing whenever you're cheating efficiently. My general crew building mindset with Maxine 1 is to lean aggressively into the Construct-heavy list, since the only healing you have in keyword is reserved for Constructs (Dr Beebe and Machinists). But with Maxine2, and I suppose, Beau, I think I'll feel a bit freer to experiment with the likes of crews centred around Harata (who is amazing, but also has a massive target on his back and is very, very squishy).

I suspect you've already managed to answer these questions yourself by getting in some game time? 😃 If not, then yes Lord Cooper can bring fixed Keyword-heavy lists, and as for the Model 9 or Malisaurus Rex question, just bring both. Apex does well in a vacuum since you'll have plenty of damage, flips and movement tricks natively, as well as a decent amount of scheming, anti-scheming, card draw and special 'tech' (think Ruthless, Unimpeded, the Put It Down trigger on Lord Cooper's rifle, and the Rex' Territorial trigger) in those three boxes. If you're looking for a single fixed crew list, this is what I'd go for: Lord Cooper 3x Runaways Model 9 Malisaurus Rex Ullr Artemis Crypsis Corps with Flush With Cash Vatagi Huntsmen / Hopeful Prospect With a Huntsmen, this leaves 6 Soulstones free, which is plenty to work with. If you wanted to aim for a slightly more competitive fixed list, sub the Vatagi Huntsmen out in favour of a Hopeful Prospect (just convert/proxy one of your Huntsmen into a Prospect). With the extra 2ss saving, you can either opt for a Treasure Map, which is a pretty versatile upgrade in general, and fits nicely on a Hopeful Prospect itself to allow it to remove Markers and draw more cards, or on Lord Cooper who appreciates the Deadly Pursuit push to leave melee, or just put a second Flush With Cash on whichever model you like. Again, I'd probably put it on the Hopeful Prospect just to maximise your card cycling and chance for Soulstones from Insurance. The main weaknesses you'll have with this kind of fixed crew would be: Almost universally poor Wp (just hope you don't play against Dreamer 😉) Relatively fragile defensive tech. Riders, especially of the Hooded or Dead variety, dunk on the Rex hard, while anything that Ignores Armour, or worse, has Irreducible damage, will cleave through Model 9 in a heartbeat. No access to Condition Removal. (Hopeful Prospect helps!) Very limited Healing (Hopeful Prospect helps!) In some Scheme Pools, insufficient scheming/anti-scheming potential. (Treasure map helps!)

Nicely done - I agree with most of your ratings, but I definitely don't see Harpooners as 1 star models :L

I don't play Wastrel, but as far as the new pool of available Strat and Schemes goes, I think she looks very strong in Death Beds, marginally interesting in Bait and Switch, and better than ever for Strats themselves. In Death Beds, she can remove either of the Markers that your opponent needs, and you might even luck out if you hit a and just happen to earn a Soulstone while doing it. The fact that she also adds Scrap Marker is strong if you play Wastrel, or Calypso + Dr Beebe, or if you happened to choose Scrap as your own Death Beds Marker too. But it goes even a step further that this if you instead hit that trigger to place a friendly Scheme Marker down, as that sets up both Conditions to score Death Beds for yourself while denying the opponent, all in just one AP. That's just incredibly efficient, especially since all you need is a 6. I think this might be enough of a reason to bring her in when this Scheme shows up all on its own. As for Bait and Switch, she can pull the enemy model you selected for the scheme either 3", or 6" if you hit her trigger, across the centreline and away from the centre of the board itself to score the first point, and potentially pull enemies out of your Deployment Zone in the extreme late game to score the 2nd VP. Alternatively, if you suspect your opponent has taken it on one of your models, she could even pull that model 3" or 6" back to deny the opponent. It's marginal, but if you see this scheme in a pool with Death Beds and/or Research Mission, it could have some play. Speaking more generally, her Soulstone Flare is stronger than ever when it connects since your opponent has to take the Interact Action in 3 of the 4 available strats to score the Strat, and the 4th still rewards being able to take the Interact Action to throw the Lodestone around. Anytime she hits and they fail can have big consequences - but the main problem with it has always been that if your opponent cares about it, they'll just cheat the duel to win, and if they don't care about it, then it's only 1 damage and Distracted 1. So, can we make it reliable? Well I've been thinking about what might happen if you just throw Harata into the melee to tag enemies in his Distraction Aura so that they're on a to resist the duel before she throws in the Flare. Most non-Soulstone users will fail it, and it'll either tax Soulstone users just to get back to a straight flip or if they don't, then they're most likely going to fail it too. While he's there, he can have a few swings with that wonderful 3/4/5 Taiaha. Should you bring Harata and Jessie to every game? No, of course not. But certainly in EVS I think they're a really strong pairing, especially if you already have Calypso and Dr Beebe, and especially in Schemey pools (Don't forget Harata's Echoes of the Ocean and ranged anti Scheme Marker attack).

One issue with trying to punish all OOK / Versatile models is that some Keywords really struggle against other Keywords, so you're making some hard match ups even harder. If player A declares a Keyword reliant on or rewarded for handing out Distracted, and player B just happens to lock in English Ivan, it's an uphill battle if player A stays completely in keyword. Other examples might include pairing against Hoffman when your Keyword has no anti armour or chip damage tech, or if you declare a Keyword that relies on specific defensive tech that your opponent's Keyword completely ignores. If a nerf or SS tax comes in that hurts a player taking the Alpinist for the second time ever as much as it hurts a player auto including Fuhatsu, or locking in a Dead Rider for the 10th game in a row, that'd be a shame, so I'd much rather see individual models targeted by nerfs or SS increases, or other models buffed.

To be clear, I only bring in OOK models as tech picks for the board, or for the Scheme & Strat pool and/or as counter picks against specific Masters/Factions; I don't think there are any auto-take OOK picks for Apex. Austera and Twigge are very board-dependent, but they can be extremely useful for Apex. The biggest counter I've found to Cooper is simply blocking his LoS, while a soft counter to him is hiding in/generating Concealing - plus he really wants to hog most of your good cards. Herald, Mv6 and Unimpeded coupled with two great actions lets them either scheme or snipe at key models hiding away from Cooper, while going wherever they need to be and cycling cards if you need better card quality. Winston Finnegan is often great in Recover Evidence and is hilarious against enemies with innate on their attacks due to Luck Thief. I've used him to tie up a Rogue Necromancy for half a game, while picking up Evidence Markers and generating Soulstones off Sharp Wit. When I bring him to Apex, I staple Flush with Cash to him and try keep the Runaways near him so he can harvest stones as they die to enemies. Bribery adds a lot of extra durability to him as it technically causes the action to immediately fail, so Winston immediately heals him 2 thanks to Luck Thief. Against some crews, if you can get him in a key position and cover him with auras (say, Concealing from a Crypsis Corps' Beneath The Leaves aura, or Vernon and Welles' Head in the Clouds aura), he becomes untouchable. And of course, Arcane Reservoir is always welcome. I have had tremendous success bringing in Archivist against some Outcast crews, since almost half their entire faction has Hard to Kill or Demise, and he can ignore those abilities consistently. He's also a great source of card draw for you or card drain on the opponent, which means he supports Cooper's hand, rather than competing with him for it. Lastly, Ill Omens helps keep initiative closer to even in the early turns where Runaways essentially just give the opponent free Pass Tokens, and give you the edge in Initiative when it comes to the late game. For example, in last week's Vassal match against Parker Barrows on Symbols of Authority, I brought Archivist in to neutralise The Midnight Stalker that I suspected would be hire - every Outcast will instinctively reach for him in Symbols. He was indeed hired, and the Archivist killed him middle of turn 2, before turning to help clean up the rest of the Bandit crew, which included multiple additional Hard to Kill targets (Mad Dog and the Hodgepodge Emissary). To the best of my knowledge, Ill Omens helped me win every Initiative Flip which let me dictate the pace and direction of each turn.

The other thing to consider is that Vatagi Huntsmen really want a friendly Apex model within 2" to draw a card, and you're spending 9ss on an OOK model so you have fewer options to get value from that ability. I hire Versatile and/or OOK models with Cooper a fair bit, but I would hesitate to take Vatagi Huntsmen when I do precisely because their Keyword-reliant card draw is often one of the biggest incentives for me to take them in the first place.

Chi certainly helps, but also Fuhatsu has an inbuilt so he's less card hungry than he looks. Sensei Yu will often wail on Fuhatsu for the Good for a Laugh trigger for draw 4 and discard 2 which is usually enough to keep the crew operating well - and then Juggernaut/someone else heals him back up.

Stoked to see someone else else on the Harpoonist hype-train. Definitely give them a spin in Apex too. They're great precisely because they don't compete with the s needed to fuel other Reconfigure () models in EVS, and can use any low cards via Deep Discovery, which for a crew that sometimes struggles to get value from 1-4 cards, is a big deal. Plus they have 3 different ways to either rescue Cooper or push enemy models engaging him away.

I think for most crews it's a fairly tough ask to spend 15ss on Versatile models. The crews I've played so far (Apex & EVS) are very Keyword-oriented, or at least the way I've played them so far. Most of the rest of the faction reads very Keyword-focused too. When you're stepping out of your Keyword, the models you reach for generally need to solve a specific problem that the Scheme Pool, board, or your opponent's Master poses. The Emissary solves a lot of enemy Master and Scheme Pools combinations (ie Vendetta, Assassination, and to some extent Take Prisoner and Catch & Release) The Goat solves some terrain-specific board issues and can help some movement. If those problems overlap, and you can spare 15ss, I think you might see both being hired in some keywords. But that situation seems like it'd come up pretty rarely.

I think that's one of the problems with Levi, and why I think this he is often very frustrating to play against (and sometimes to play as). Sure it's only Stat 5, but it's precisely because of its low stat that the action itself and the rest of his card is made incredible to make up for that, so much so that if it does hit a few times on the right target(s) it can just win a game by itself. Some crews just don't have access to high enough stats to overcome powerhouse actions like this. It reminds me a bit of the old Clockwork Arm action in M2e which iirc was often a Stat 5 1/2/8 damage track or something to that tune. Most of the time your opponent either dodges it or takes 1-2 damage; even if you have Focus your stat is just so appalling you can't hit relevant targets and be able to cheat damage with it reliably. So, it was frustrating to try and get any value from it. But then sometimes you would just randomly flip Severe damage for flat 8 in spite of being on a double . You can't ever rely on that happening, of course - sometimes your opponent just turns up with Df7 models, or has something with Take The Hit or so on, so you'd just never land a relevant hit on anything that matters - but when it does happen it just feels awful for the opponent. I will say that I'm really glad M3e drifted away from that sort of action for the most part. It's substantially further than 10" if the summoner wants it to be - 10" is merely the range of the Action itself. Before the Summon occurs, the target gets placed 3", then potentially Walks another 4-7", so it's not impossible that at the end of the action, the Orderly is Summoned over 20" away from the model that Summoned it. I feel that that level of reach for a Summon action, regardless of whether its from a trigger or not, should not exist in the game. TLDR: This is an awesome crew concept, and the master is full of flavour. But I think it would feel fairer to both players if you make the Stat 6 and then tune down the overall power of the action to be more reasonable.

I love the theme of pretty everything that you've suggested as concepts, but I think this action is absurdly powerful against low WP models. With a 10" reach, you get to Place a model 3", possibly straight into Severe/Hazardous, or just over a wall/into Severe so that the model is no longer relevant, or into base contact with its own Scheme Markers/ destructible Terrain Markers, so that it then; Gets pseudo-obeyed to remove its own Markers, or just Walks somewhere where it becomes even more irrelevant (possibly walk into Severe/Hazardous). Summon a significant model into base contact with it if you hit a , which at this point can easily be 18-20" away from Sigmund, which is an insanely long distance to Summon a model. Granted the stat is only 5, but if your opponent has mediocre WP, which is common on many beater models and in some cases entire crews, you still probably win with a good card, and if that happens to your WP 4 beater essentially making it irrelevant for 1-2 turns, that's gonna be a pretty big NPE. I'd probably look at increasing the Stat to 6 but reducing/altering its raw power a bit, by applying some combination of: Reduce the range of the action and/or the Place. Or remove the Place entirely. Or change the General Action effect to just be a straight 4" push in any direction rather than a General Action. To be clear, I adore the theme of the action itself (and the Master concept as a whole), but I think this specific Action does way too much to low WP models, struggles against high WP models, and flat out doesn't touch masters, so it could be NPE at times for both players.

Out of curiosity, how many teams signed up?

Thanks for commenting. Woo hoo Russia! I think fixed factions could be a pretty interesting stipulation.

Hey all, Has anyone had any experience running team events? I'd be keen to learn how people have successfully balanced teams pairing off, and managed selecting boards, picking and banning masters and so on.

Even in that niche space, I can't see myself spending 5ss for an Alpinist. If the board is so cluttered with big vertical terrain that it's ever relevant, picking a master whose signature trait is using a 14" linear gun is probably the wrong decision anyway. But I'd happy to be proven wrong if someone is seeing success with an Apex Alpinist as the model is kind of hilarious. Bellhop Porter and Alpinist aside, is anyone having any luck bringing other Versatile or OOK models to Apex crews? Or does the Adversary theme reduce your incentive to bring other models? For my part, I've tried Tannenbaum and Vernon & Welles each once to add some dedicated Scheming and utility, and will happily hire them again in selected scheme pools. Tannenbaum seems amazing in schemes like Leave Your Mark and Research Mission as he can nudge Markers one way or the other in your favour with Haphazard Topography, or even Study to outright turn a Corpse or Scrap Marker into a friendly Scheme Marker. I think with Leave Your Mark in particular, it's almost impossible to score it against Tannenbaum, unless you have a trick to out-activate him or you can kill him; in my game with him he had Markers in the centre under lock-and-key to secure Leave Your Mark for me and deny it for my opponent. Rewrite The Story looks especially useful in Apex should you pick up a 13 or RJ in the mid game. My reasoning is that a typical Apex crew will often opt for Schemes like Claim Jump, Leave Your Mark, Hidden Martyrs, Vendetta or Assassinate, as they're not an especially Schemey crew. However, once revealed, these schemes can be very difficult to secure that 2nd point off, as they give a lot of agency to your opponent. Swapping one of these out for a humble Spread Them Out or Sabotage on turn 3 or 4 can give you a much more feasible way to score your second VP. Rules Lawyering Time: I'd be interested to learn how it works with swapping to Assassinate in particular, because while Rewrite The Story stipulates you have to choose models that are in play for your newly-chosen Scheme if that scheme selects model(s), Assassinate doesn't stipulate choosing a model at all - you simply earn a point if their Leader is not in play at the end of the game. So, if you have already killed their Master, can you swap a scheme to Assassinate? If so, you've just automatically scored a 2nd VP come the end of the game. Vernon & Welles can operate as independent Scheme runners like no other, with access to Walk + Interact, then Walk + Interact, or even just triple Walk + Interact, so naturally they're excellent in Symbols of Authority, and any Scheme which requires positional Interacting. They offer ways to attack Wp and Mv, which is something sorely lacking in Apex, and have some really game changing triggers (such as Glimpse the Void, at 10" range no less), many of which are tied to a , which Apex seldom has any relevant triggers for. I've found their best ability to be Head In The Clouds, which puts incoming WP attacks on a for nearby friendlies. Apex has such terrible WP values across the board that Vernon & Welles seem almost mandatory against any WP attacking crew. I used this against a Dreamer + Zoraida crew to great effect. Definitely a model I want to play with more in Apex.

Night Terrors can be great in some pools, so I often have one in my Molly crews (and one Crooligan - always bring at least one Crooligan). Night Terrors are especially strong reactivate targets since they can cover the entire board in one turn and still have AP spare to scheme. iirc in one of Varney's TFW podcasts he suggested that he even played some lists with 2-3 of them in addition to Crooligans. It's quite interesting on Mourners since they not only remove Ruthless from enemy models within 6" (so Terrifying is way more impactful) but also Mourners give you a free Corpse Marker at the start of the game that they can use Blasphemous Ritual on to give your entire crew Focus +1. GST giving them Regen and Terrifying on top of their native mix of Disguised, HtW and Final Veil makes them extremely tough to deal with. Are they strong enough with GST that you'd hire them out of keyword? Maybe if you're full of Terrifying models, but probably not. But since you bring up that you also play Seamus, I've built Seamus crews around abusing Terrifying in the past and had good success. One list I was experimenting with was basically along the lines of: Seamus Copycat Killer Mourner + GST Carrion Emissary Any 2-3 of: Sybelle / Yin / Archie / Bete Noire / Datsue Ba 0-2 Dead Dandies / Rotten Belles / Dead Doxies Sorry to derail this magnificent Molly thread!

You know, I've played Molly dozens of times, and it's never occurred to me that making the opponent draw cards with Strange Behaviour could be an advantage via Gorgon's Influence if you immediately activate Molly. Brilliant!

Well, Molly can 2 shot Tannen too, with either of her spells in the right setup, so now she has to be within 6" instead of within 8"? I guess he feels that Tannen's such an integral model to his plans that if he's going to bother spending 6ss hiring him, he ways as well spend another 2ss to make him as hard to reach as possible.

It's interesting you say this because I feel like the crew has a lot of ways to use low cards. You've got Cooper's Trigger draws 2 and discards 1 card, and Hopeful Prospect cycles away a low card and draws a new one, and he's basically auto include for my Cooper crews. Lastly, I really, really rate hiring a Harpooner in my Cooper crews, and it's partially because it can use low cards, especially , to terrific effect with Reconfigure & Deep Discovery. Still, I do like the idea of Hidden Agenda on Cooper in the sense that if you're trying to optimise his rifle, then you're actively trying to take as many out-of-activation shots as you can, via Ullr's trigger and potentially Vatagi Huntsmen traps, so you'll have multiple opportunities to Cheat Face down each turn - all the while potentially chipping damage from the opponent. The more I think about it, the more I'm pretty keen to take it on him next time I get Apex on the table!

Watch out for Beckoners' free action if you're thinking about hopping in to pick up an Evidence Marker. It can straight up steal games. Trained Ninja on Tannen is kind of frustrating, as you really, really want to put him down as quickly as you can. Still, your Focus +2 Crooligan can carve him up in no time once you ditch most of your hand.