Kaos

On 3/2/2018 at 5:50 PM, katadder said:

As a Levi player I enjoyed this.

Will say that gg18 however doesn't give any points away in eliminate the leadership for levi doing whathe does normally so don't be scared to use him in this.

Points are scored for first time a model is reduced below half wounds, when they are first killed, sacrificed or reduced to 0 wounds and for if not on the board at the end of the game. Levi can never be killed or sacrificed as when he is he is buried instead. Your opponent can score 3 points but has to reduce him below half wounds and to 0 wounds then not have him on the board at the end 

Well we can say the first objective is easily achievable since you are going to put the hurt on Levi a lot with channel. The second objective isn't impossible to achieve. Is it true you should in theory sacrifice each time but sometimes isn't possible, especially if rebirth was use to reposition or draw cards. The third part of the objective is fairly difficult to achieve, unless the opponent really focus on it. Killing anchors or waifs isn't impossible if the opponent put his mind on it.

I wouldn't say it's easy to achieve the full 3 points but doesn't look completely crazy to pick eliminate the leadership on Levi. It looks fairly easier to achieve against Levi than against masters with a more conservative play style, like Rasputina. 

I'm also starting to think that considering the quite poor choice of upgrades on Levi, isn't so crazy to put survivalist on him. Especially if paired with untimely demise. If Levi dive in hth trough a rebirth, keeping him on the table another turn is quite essential to let him die on your terms and then summon a waif (and eventually put that 2 unreduced damages on something).

Would help also of activated last in the eventuality he don't win the flip next turn and he is still engaged.

I play Leveticus and I think Lazarus is a quite situational choice. 

Vs hordes with low defense he is great and he can avoid to be even tied in combat due to his bayonet trigger unload ordnance. But vs high def and tough models he is quite underwhelming. He is quite pillow fisted and lack the oomph to take down big stuff, even if truth to be told, his assimilate ability can potentially give him one big attack if killy constructs make it in the crew (for example a peacekeeper or Langstone).

The problem is 10 pts are a lot to spend and even with his high range of utilities (healing, good abomination reclamation target, copying abilites) he doesn't always win the day. 
Since he is slow also he doesn't double up as scheme runner like stuff of the caliber of ashes and dust and even Langston can achieve. So mostly it's about running Lazarus and ashes or trying something like Ashes and Langston both of them with scrable (and oathkeeper on Langston if you want really exaggerate) and push into you enemy face 2 super tough, super fast and super killy models for a ridicolous alpha strike and aggression. 

So I think Lazarus if very good if you want to play defensive, but if you want to aggro then Strongarm suit is a much better choice for Von Schill, due to the wide rage of abilities he has to increase mobility and jump out of combat as it see fits.

So I will definitely take Lazarus in schemes where you need to hold the line, but not in schemes where you need to be aggressive and chase oppo objectives (or scheme in oppo table side)

Honestly I also find difficult to justify Paria of Bone when Paria of Iron can field so much more arrogance (from our friend Langston to Terracotta Warrior, Soulstone miner, Joss, Mechanical rider, mobile toolbox, etc). Someone argued Leveticus should be able to use corpse markers with his from ash upgrade (wasn't a bad idea honestly, since it's the most useless upgrade around). 

I think the process there is to hire something with Paria of Bone that can make use of corpse markers. The most egregious users are unfortunately living (asura roten come to mind).

Belles are good and on the other hand, kentauroi, even if not providing the good range of utilities he does in a resser crew, can still carry Levi around so he can focus shoot 2 times instead of a single one. And then still sacrifice himself. Or drop him in meless so he can sac himself and trigger the untimely demise upgrade. 2 damages to everything in range without reductions is nothing to scoff at.

3 hours ago, LexLock said:

I think the point cost reduction on the Desperate Mercs is pretty huge for everyone other than Hamelin, and Viks with activation control is going to be spooky.

I'm honestly surprised by the AnD nerf, they never struck me as particularly good for their cost compared to something like Nekima, Archie or even Langston. AnD just doesn't bring enough Killy to the table for 13ss and I'd already started replacing them with the Midnight Stalker when it came to scheming. I guess they're still quite good at holding an area of the board though and I'll find it easier to justify AnD with scramble now.

Well looking at the bright side, Leveticus with ashes and dust and Langston, both of them with scramble, is definitely a thing. Brace for 2 killy missiles rushing up the enemy lines.

I expected a point reduction for abominations...

Ashes and dust and Johan being hit was pretty much expected. But doesn't look like the buffs remotely balanced the nerfs.

Other factions got plenty of SS reductions and quite few increases. I think outcasts and gremlins got hit harder this round.

And raise the cache of Leveticus to 2 after last year turbonerf was something due.

I feel your pain. I bought ressers pre owned so they were all assembled and I had to do only some minor cleanup. But I did had miserable experiences with other models. I lost ashes and dust ashen core skull and the small hand of course broke. I swapped the skull for a gw skull and remade the support. Actually, better than the original. Had I another korgorath skull, was going for a head swap also on ashes and dust. One of the abominations had a two piece head (you figure) and the mandible fell and I lost it. Resculpted with greenstuff. One of the necropunks have ridiculously fragile appendages, one broke and got lost. I will need to cut it and substitute it with something else. Already got and idea, just need components.

But yes, all these small things almost drove me away from the game. I didn't have so many difficulties in assembling other manufacturers models (gw go together like a dream) and mold lines are difficult to clean. For example ashes and dust have so many gaps a extensive greenstuff work is required, and probably even a resculpt in some areas. Mine didn't come out so well, and some gaps are visible even if I tried to cover them with textured paint.

I love my models so I tend to get angry when they break or I lose parts. And lastly, I prefer to spend more time painting and playing than assembling. So would be actually appreciated if wyrd would take a look at gw solutions and employ some of them. Also their plastic keep details better, but this is another story.

Wanting to play undeads without undeads is really a contradiction. Let's take a different approach. What do you don't like about painting undead and why and what do you like to paint?

I'm expecting a wave of "reincarnated" masters. Masters going trough big changes both in models and rules.

Yesterday I tried a summoning list with from Aether and from ash.

Just no.

From ash is completely unplayable. Didn't get anything out of it and I was lacking the third big model.

The list was:

Leveticus

2xwaif

Rusty Alyce

2x necropunks

Ashes and dust

2x abominations

Was playing extraction with claim jump and leave your mark.

The aim was to summon a desolation engine after having the abominations source some cards hitting themselves but it worked very poorly. 

I was able to score full points from claim jump and leave your mark but was unable to clean the jam in the middle, so the opponent could score 4 pts from the strategy and 3 from claim jump, finishing 7 to 6 to him.

I wasn't able to summon a single abom from the from ash upgrade and one from desolate soul. Although I killed one model first turn, the subsequent turns were quite sad.

From ash looked horrible and confirmed to be so. For a 2 pts upgrade has too harsh requirements to really work.

Looks nice, I think I'm crutching a bit too much on a&d so a list without him always strikes me as strange. But lots of models and lots of beating power isn't something to scoff at. I find Lazarus not so good, since he will miss if he just autofire, maybe you want a bit more stopping power there.

1 hour ago, Mrbedlam said:

Levi is the best master in the faction IMO for entourage as well. He has no problems being there while spending the rest of the game aggressively harrassing models. You just have to make sure you also have a model anchor (necropunks) to be within 6" 

You can use the soulstones miner for that. Cost 6 and can unbury anywhere on the table, outside the deployment. Would be a nice behind the enemy lines model, who can provide ss for Leveticus.

Leveticus can kill a big model if you have the right cards in hand and you HTH it. I don't see how he can draw a ton of cards thou, since he can draw 2 but he must sacrifice a construct. 

I think is bigger advantage is the non linear threat range, but you can get something similar with rasputina and her spell arcing crew. 

Now truth to be told, I'm able to table an opponent with Leveticus and his crew, and he usually gets a tally of 3/4 models per game. 

But this doesn't mean you will win, if you don't complete your schemes. 

20 hours ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

many spirits in ressers (onryo, goryo, shikome, datsue ba), taelor & strongarm (on suits), lone swordsman (on suits), joss if I am not mistaken, kang and eveyone in his aura, aionus (rarely sees play, but still a possibility), every single neverborn enforcer - just from top of my head. man, your local group must be really small.

Is not small but atm people don't have too large collections, so apart of standard crews and some fillers you don't see many different gameplays. 

I'm starting to understand about the concern of armor and on a less degree incorporeal being useless defend mechanics since they can be completely ignored. 

To be a bit out topic, I still think leveticus was overnerfed considering what's around right now. And the new upgrades didn't do anything to correct this, they made him a bit more interesting to play (especially untimely demise) but didn't address some of the main issues (no crew support, difficulty to get around covers). And it would actually be fine if other masters were affected in the same way but instead looks like they have no weak points while Leveticus was offering different angles of weakness while having one strong removal ability. People difficulty to play into Leveticus is probably more centered of the fact they didn't attack the right angle.

Well I'm waiting for January FAQs, hoping to see Leveticus restored to former glory or have the other things toned down as well. Is not ok to get your favourite master toned down when things like Reva and thunder Misaki are floating around (but I think thunder Misaki was a bit of a mistake, they just didn't realize how strong the upgrade really was).

I'm sure I am the one missing something, but apart masters, who ignore armor? If a master is out there to get your models, you should be able to punish him. Which other non master models have such abilities? I didn't encounter many of them but could be meta related. In outcasts we got Levi and Marlene (that is, anyway, a very expensive model), in ressers there is Anna Lovelace, who else?

So has been on my mind for a while to try a sort of hard control / brick list with these:

Leveticus 

-Desolate soul

-Paria of Iron

Hollow waif x2 

Alyce 

-From Aether

Engineer 

Obsidian Statue 

Anna Lovelace 

fillers (scheme runner or another piece as seem fit, probably a condition removing Johan would be useful) 

The idea behind the list is to play this brick of hard denial (statue that can't be pushed, Alyce can't be charged and Anna deny placements) and shoot everything out of the table due to a combined Leveticus / Anna attack, with +1 damage to cast ignoring all reductions. Anna go first, Levi finish the work and summon abominations. 

Engineer can use Alyce scrap markers to draw cards and give +1 ARM to the statue, throwing a ARM +3 construct to break face.

Is a bit different than the usual Leveticus list, since you probably want all the pieces to stay together in a big ball of death. But the can efficiently lock down a large area of the board and eventually annhilate anything trying to get past them. 

My jump target is usually ashes and dust. Give me 2 more activations same turn I jump, one fast construct and he come back and the end of turn.

If things go wrong jumping to a waif can mean losing both of them of Leveticus get killed before being able to bury himself. 

Ashes is really Leveticus bff.

Also abominations look more sacrificable for jumping purposes, the only problem is they don't drop scraps to resummon them.

Now they're resummonable but still...

I wouldn't even sac one of them to jump Leveticus trough Rebirth. 

Probably conditions removals will be more important next year, when every arcanist crew will have a steamfitter giving something like a rail golem, ice golem or Langston a no severe damage condition. Lifting something like that can be quite important. I image a Langston charging into a clump of enemy models with no severe damage condition can be terribly devastating if not deal with quickly. Probably we could even see "to the earth return" upgrade on Levi more frequently so he can still put a reasonable amount of damage with his moderate damage value.

Explain some choices here.

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

And how do you exactly use Sue?

Well masters doing HTH damage aren't so bad as masters or pieces that can do such damage from range. Unless the master charge a isolate model, is basically trading himself for another model. And unless you're trading for another master, I don't know how much this is convenient. In other models unreducible damage come with a hefty ss price. On top of my mind there is Anna and Marlene and they don't do so much damage unless paired with other stuff, like a Obsidian statue. But then the price goes up sensibly. Surely a combination of leveticus/Marlene/Anna can erase any piece from the board, but is basically 30+ ss worth of pieces actions traded to kill what?

Ok but let's consider that with no abominations you don't draw extra cards. 

So you have the hodgepodge to stone. Also you probably don't have sacrificable undeads to reposition Leveticus with rebirth, apart A&D that doesn't mind dying. Also these abominations will probably end up in the middle of enemies meaning they will be easily killed and probably not able to form the desolation engine. 

I am able to get one or maybe 2 summons per game, but per turn? Looks very difficult.

Possibly, but getting the right suite at the right time, with the right damage isn't always so easy. 

The librarian nonetheless cost 7 stones so a self healing construct is always well received. I will probably try to shuffle leveticus crew a bit when the engineer come out. Looks like he can substitute abominations in the card drawing engine department. Then Lazarus can be dropped to put in a cheaper construct and a librarian. And maybe have some points left for a couple of good scheme runners.

I don't know yet but I'm looking at something like Joss, librarian, engineer, Alyce lineup with favour. With the possibility to get in Josh for decontioning. 

I just wish leveticus had a best summon engine available. I suppose I need to make better use of desolate soul and stoning for suites.

Could be, but I was playing with someone I know and I know which models he owns and what he likes to play. 

But the point is: 

Better one abomination or the effigy?

How good is Lazarus in respect to things hitting harder? He has 2 big (even 3 if we look at Langston) constructs to compare with. The new riot breaker, a nice package for 6ss, being able to shoot in melee without randomising, and the peacekeeper, with his drag and horrific damage track. Yes they can't heal and unfortunately there is nothing in outcasts doing this.

Another Lazarus perk is assimilate. I didn't find anything worth of assimilating in my crew. How do you use it and on what?

Something I'm finding really difficult to fit in is the hodgepodge effigy.

I find useful acquiring card advantage trough abominations (to be honest I think vile reclamation should be a 0 action, so is possible to reclaim and walk 2 times).

Now the problem is the effigy works in a limited range and got a quite a-ok action under soft cover form that is not anyway incredible. So I'm not sure he can benefit Leveticus so much since he jumps around his waifs and he could not be always in range of Loyalty to the coin.

I can try to play with no abominations and with the effigy to stone crows to the trigger and see how it goes but I don't know...