I'm a Teapot!

19 minutes ago, trikk said:

You kind of proved my point. That's exactly why Hoffman was competetive garbage in M2E and that's why he will be even more garbage in M3E. Because everybody has means to counter him. And this will end up with getting the least-counterable-master or the most versatile one. Because playing Malifaux with 1 versatile master is a lot better than playing it with 3 counterable ones. 

That's exactly what happened in M2E. You had the most stable and versatile master (Nico/Kirai, Nellie, Collodi, Hamelin, Sandeep, Somer, Shenlong) being played in 95% of top player matchups.

And where is the problem with the agent then? If Lucius is declared u can be 99% certain there will be an agent in the crew. And then you counter him, problem solved, no nerf needed. Instead nerf the allstar Allrounder versatile masters so they don’t do everyone’s job at the same level as the specialists do. 

The problem of m2e wasn’t that raspy, kaeris, Colette, mei and Marcus were so counterable, the problem was that sandeep was better than them at all of their jobs at once. 

21 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Teapot That’s a terrible argument. You’re arguing for intentional tiered masters. If I’m introducing a new player to the game I should absolutely be able to that with any master. If there are awful mechanics that will chase a new player away if they face them then they shouldn’t exist. You’re arguing for beginner masters and advanced masters.

Trikk, Stop It! Stop being right and ninja’ing me at the same time!

The reason of balancing a game is for the end content to be tournament viable and fair. 

A new player will understand a Nekima or lady j but he won’t understand pandora or Colette or Lucius or whatever co pled master design at first until he played a fair bit. 

That is exactly the point I’m trying to make. Its ok if new players put a crew on the table and do not instantly win. 

If I tell someone hey I’m new to m2e, I love pandora... how can I play her and he says to me, she’s a difficult master, start with Lilith or expect to have some games with problems at first, until you get the strategic concept of the crew... either I’m saying ok I play nekima or I say ok I’ll learn pandora... that’s totally fine and way better then destroying Pandora’s mechanics to a point where she feels like a slightly different Nekima and everyone understands her concept instantly but she boring and not unique at all...

4 minutes ago, Hollingydale said:

I am surprised by this. Did the Brewie player not lure your poisoned models into his aura? Did they not move Brewie into position to apply the slow? Its very easily done. The problem I had with Mei's crew is, whilst I could escape, I was using my only available AP to get away (which then could have been lured back by Brewmaster).

I considered counter play heavily in my hiring pool. I deliberately hired the Arcane Effigy and Forgeling which have condition removal, Envy and Willie which have ranged damage and the rest of my crew had access to ride the rails or armour +2 which greatly reduces the effect of poison damage. I used condition removal every turn and, despite this, my opponent was still able to put extreme poison pressure on by constantly reapplying the condition through Brewmaster, splash triggers and other models in the crew. By turn 3 Brewmaster was in the middle of the board and had splashed poison, one way or another, onto the majority of my models, meaning that most of my models were slow. They had the choice between escaping by ride the rails (to a location Brewmaster could have followed up to), or standing there and trying to make good use of their 1 AP vs. a now df7 wp7 master. The 13" diameter bubble of slow was very oppressive, I don't know how you can defend this as anything otherwise.

Something has got to give. I am not saying there needs to be sweeping changes or anything drastic, but a slight reduction on Intoxication gives a little more breathing space from the chokehold Brewmaster currently can have on the board. Perhaps my game showed an extreme example of what's possible, but I hired and used counterplay and it had real minimal effect.

My choice would have been an oxforidan mage for his aura, but I see the problem. I think it was an extreme scenario tho. In my games especially vs condition removal crews, Brewie was threatened very hard by offensive condition removal. Most of his damage comes from his drunken strength trigger and that is based on poison on him. Lost love removed poison of Brewie and the monks several times from range and it was super hard for Brewie. Playing with 2/3/4 isn’t as scary anymore. The controll side is more focused on enemies having poison and on them being in close ranges. 

I think it might have been an extreme scenario in your and my games aswell, on both sides of the spectrum.

12 minutes ago, WildRose94 said:

If this is directed at the initial post then firstly the surgestions I made I felt were more lateral change as arguments could be made that making your opponent loss 2 cards (1 for discarding 1 for the cheat) to cheat is better than just no cheat as it gives an element of control over your opponent s hand similarly negative flips to all opossed duel with it can be argued as stronger as they can't cheat and have to take the lower value (if they don't focus). It was just to enable some counter play as I found it a really strong ability.

secoundly my main aim was to see if other people also Had an issue or if I was barking up the wrong tree. Like I said in the post, I had played 1 game against and hadn't answers to it so I was also asking for advise.

thirdly are you saying we should just leave everything as is and not raise concerns about abilities we think are too strong? In that case why bother with the beta just release it now. 

Im not saying this ability is broken to all hell, I was raising a concern, surgesting a solution to said concern and asking if others had the same concern. If the developers decide that the ability is fine as is then my concerns are unfounded, but I do think that I should raise any concerns I have while playtesting wether that be this model is to good or this model needs to be made better.

Wasn’t directed at you. 

Im saying if a model is to strong at a specific point in the game changes that have to be made should be trying to keep the uniqueness of the model rather then making it more like others so people have an easier time dealing with it.

a certain strong mechanic has more identity for the model than good stats or overall tankyness... 

if the agent really needs change, which he doesn’t in my opinion (I’ve play with and against him) then lower his wounds, take his deaf to 4 or weaken one of his sides in the game, but please don’t destroy the one core ability that makes him Unique. 

Guild has tons of generic beaters. And Lucius over all doesn’t need to have one too.

7 minutes ago, trikk said:

The old "Get gud" argument is the best argument possible. I love it.

 

I'm a 99% competitive player. I played maxed out crews in M2E and went to the UK 4 times. The reason I find and talk about those combos is because I don't the game to be decided upon master selection. And right now it kind of is. Its like rock-paper. There's a high chance you'll both pick paper and have an even chance, but there is a pretty good chance you'll have a rock and they'll have paper and suddenly you're in a very big disadvantage. And you know what competitive players do in that case? They pick the papierest of the paper crews where you can't be the rock. And this will lead to picking the most versatile master you can. And bam, all-star crews again.

 

I also don't want to tell the players I play against "Oh this guy? Well, you should have picked Master B, then you could have killed him." because its a shitty thing to say and it doesn't encourage getting into the game as much as getting tabled by M2E Viks turn 2 didn't. 

 

So if I can pick between a homogenous and balanced game and the new all-star teams, I'll go with the former 10/10

 

There are crews you play against new players and there are crews you keep hidden until those players have a better understanding about the game... would you introduce a player with m2e pandora? Was she balanced and Unique master? Yes.

The agent is in no way an allstar... he functions well if played in the elite crew. 

M3e works with declaring the leader first.

A general had easy access to mounted knights and the enemy was a legion of phalanx troops, and the general would still bring mostly mounted troops instead of paying extra for troops that were good against phalanx, that would make the general one thing: bad at his job.

if your opponent declares Hoffman and you declared a leader who has absolutly no anti armor tech in his keyword. You can hire anti armor pieces from your faction. And if you don’t do that, yes then it’s Rock Paper Scissors and ur the Paper to his scissor. 

But honestly if u refuse to go out of keyword after leaders have been declared and then become a Paper to a scissor and then ask to nerf the scissor. It’s nothing else then bad play.

playing the hiring game very poorly. The hiring is actually part of the strategic game, not only a choice about who looks the coolest or who is my favorite.... this has also nothing to do with allstars. 

If there are options in your faction to counter a mechanic that would otherwise be good against your crew. Use those options instead of crying for a nerf.

hell yeah im hiring 16ss mcmourning and 2 students of steel into a Seamus crew against Hoffman. Hell yeah im hiring honeypot models if the enemy declares Lucius and I declared whatever thunders master without rig the deck. That’s not allstaring that’s not powerplay that’s not breaking the game... it’s Smart. Simply smart hiring.

and no I’m not crying about how I wanted to play asami and then the enemy forced me to pick honeypot models which I don’t wanna play today... because it’s not a storytelling pen and paper... it’s a tournament viable strategic game with smart hiring options.

Open beta playtsting.... where people cry to nerf everything that isn’t a straight forward dude with a sword and def 5... 

srsly get creative, use ur minds and u will find ways to deal with him. The point of a Lucius crew is controll, so of course the only real beatstick in the crew is more controlly than a augmented beatstick or a nephilim. Thanks the point. 

It’s a good ability which is nice and thematic and asks the opponent questions. Which is exactly Lucius playstyle. 

If ur an opponent that doesn’t really have answers to that kind of questions, maybe ur just not really trying or not creative or just not very good vs that kind of playstyle.... 

there is a lot of counterplay against the agent.

first of all, obeys need line of sight.

also, m3e has lots of indirect damage. Stampede, misery, blade dance, blasts, veangence, black blood, pulses, etc.

and there are plenty of good options to hit without cheating: 

rig the deck, focus, high stats, intuition, mass attacks, the old ways, obeying Lucius models to hit the agent, limiting his cheating via betrayal kind of auras (betrayal and arcane emissary aura) 

and it’s not like the agent Auto hits and murders everyone. He has to deal with minus flips aswell and he doesn’t copy any plus flips from other actions. 

Honestly this movent of „I don’t immediately find a solution, so my solution is to go to the forums and cry till it’s nerfed“ just ruins Malifaux. 

80% of the Games beaters are 3/4/5(6) stat 6 with basically a few minimum difference triggers already... stop making the Game more homogeneous, it’s already super boring compared to m2e when it comes to model choices. 

Competitive players can’t even post any really good combos in the forums because there would be 10 people instantly crying about how op that would be... 

that kind of behavior and the behavior that leads to it hurts any progress the beta should bring to the game. 

The goal is to balance m3e, not flatten it till it’s 7  models vs 7 differently looking but rulewise equal models.

2 hours ago, trikk said:

Howard has Vent Steam which is pretty nice against ranged crews and Mv 5 compared to Mv4 on Peacekeeper, but I think Vent Steam is his only selling point.

I think the Peacekeeper is probably worse than the Emissary (Brutal, don't know about Arcane) and Joss anyways for Hoffman

Vent steam is nothing u want to bring to an Mnsu crew and Hoffmann its the only real selling point for him in Hoffman, I agree. 

I dont know... he feels so lost at the moment. I mean Jamie is right, he doesnt have to be in his m2e state where he is just the best beater for every crew. 

But thats not the thing I was aiming for. He should be a valid alternative for specific scenarios besides anti def trigger situations. 

And I think he should be SCARY in that specific situation. I mean... he is Howard Langston, the steamborg executioner... and at the moment there are like  50 models in this game that scare me way more in their prefered situations. Not talking about non optimum Situations. 
I mean if i'm playing a def trigger master like Zipp. I pay attention if the enemy brings an executioner or Howard. But does it scare me? Not really.. at least not as much as a 2ss Upgrade from Ten Thunders does, which accumulates its effect with every modell attacking zipp while he is in that aura. 
 

Srsly, akaname went from: Do I need corpse or scheme markers in my setup turn 1? Akaname is my answer.

to

why would I ever spent 4 stones that do nothing at all and die instantly.

And yes I played them with brewmaster and tried to utilize them. 4 Stones u can spent in luke 20 better ways. Another bayou cheap minion totally unplayable, right next to bayou gators and wrestlers.

From a competitive perspective.  Fluff wise they are filth... but thats a good thing..

Quick question:

How am I supposed to place a pit trap with a crow trigger on a bonus action without a stat and target number. I assumed no cards are flipped for the actions with - - - - - instead of values. Is that right?

The first mate has a leap with no mask and the same ram trigger. It’s a nice way of balancing a leap with a mask built in which would be to much utility into a slightly better version of a leap without a mask. At least you have the option to stone for the ram and cheat the mask or vice verse if u need a big activation in an important turn.

15 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Could you maybe dispense some advice on counter play? 

Hiring choices seem pretty straight forward, but could you give tips or suggestions on countering the crew in game? 

Brewie himself and the low river monks need to get a lot of poison onto themselves to be very effective. Offensive condition removal really limits their power, especially when it comes to dealing damage. 

Also brewmaster is really only tanky against people who already have poison. This means striking him from either ranged or with huge charge threatranges is crucial to putting a lot of pressure on him. Hurt him while you are not poisoned.

Anti healing knocks his crew out. But that is a resser thing, appearantly. 

Usually games tend to go well vs opponents who try to play a defensive, passive game and not so well against offensive crews with condition removal. Putting a lot of dmg on Brewie and separating him from the whiskey golem and Wesley or killing Wesley early with ranged fire is a good way to disrupt the brewmaster effectiveness. All of trip chi rely on self healing mostly and once that 0 is out they are pretty vulnerable.

shrug off models are very good vs tri chi.

any kin of ranged models.

Engaging him with Summons was very effective.

There are also factions who just have hardcounters vs him. The Scorpius for arc/neverborn Marcus and the necrotic mashine of molly just wreck tri chi.

The carrion emissary is so good vs tri chi.

Albus von schtook is one of the hardest masters to play against as Brewie.

Ingame tho, removing poison from Brewie himself repeatedly is the most important thing. And watch out for low river monks for the same reason. The rest of the crew is manageable.

5 hours ago, Shadow Effigy said:

I've been thinking about McCabe. Running around scheming the hell outta everything. I've heard of youko and misaki. Meh. Theirs gotta be something better

Lynch and misaki + Shang. Lynch has the best card manipulation, arcane reservoir from Shang gives it more space, misaki is one of the best in faction uses of high cards.

Asami and McCabe, some obsidian only scrap McCabe synergies and bladed artifact jorogumos, although pretty tricky to pull off.

Lynch plus a solo asami. Cards plus high value summons to fill gaps of the Lynch crew. Also AR.

I’ve played a lot of Brewmaster.

Brewie is so synergie based that if u want to play him it’s as your leader 99% of the time. Every faction has a good access to condition removal and brewmaster is fully condition based. This is one of the largest windows for counterplay against a crew mechanic that is even possible in the game. 

Even Kaeris has less counterplay because she doesn’t need to Stack burning on her models and the enemy and pyre markers do provide burning while with brewie its all on ap to hand out poison.

Brewie is in a very good spot while the Enemy doesn’t actively Use condition removal, in a good spot if he manages to kill the condition removal models early and in a mediocre to bad spot while the enemy knows what he is doing and protects his condition removal.

The aura is a pretty ok tool for tarpit scenarios but far away from oppressive. Killing key models one by one is way more effective than tarpitting the whole enemy team and trying to tank it, like the m2e aproach was. If you get stuck in Brewies aura with to many models in the current strat and scheme set and you can’t manage to put enough pressure on Brewie before all your models are totally drunk, I suggest you should think about different approaches to counter his crew ingame and while hiring. 

Foundry is one of the most mobile crews in Malifaux and they can even escape the Brewie bubble vis ride the rails. 

There are tons of ways you can play so Brewie and his debuffs are far from oppressive.

Mechanis based on conditions are a problem for the master/models using the mechanic, not the enemies. Conditions have such large counterplay against them in m3e it’s easy to use them against new m3e players and very very hard against players who know how counter hiring works in m3e and bring a correctly built crew to deal with Brewie. 

I would absolutly love to see brewmaster or mcmourning as the declared leader of my opponent in a tournament. Hiring is so obvious and straight forward against them. 

Played against the basse crew on Friday, and it was a lot of fun. 

I focused on removing basse and Reichart. Which was a bad choice considering it was turf war.

The frontiersmen and pathfinders seems really really strong to me, especially for their cost. 

I think a 6ss Minions that’s summons a trap which is not mindless and instantly makes it move is really really good. 

But then I realized they only worked this well because I didn’t see them as a threat and focused all my killing on the big models.

frontiersmen are very good but I could have dealt with them easily since they are squishy. 

Pathfinders and traps are a pain. Especially the traps who denied my claimjump reveal for 3 turns in a row...

I think traps should be mindless or slow at least. 

Austringers were fine in my opinion, tanky annoying snipers but that’s ok for their cost . Over all I think they could use a better 1 ap choices to make them less raptor dependent. 

The basse crew was really fun to play against and it feels like a characterful, nice thankful crew who really uses terrain very well and  challenges the opponent to make smart kill priority choices. 

I wouldn’t nerf frontiersmen to hard. Or, if for example their moderate would go down to 3 (4 is the key to their strength as a 5ss Model with puncture, in my opinion) give them some sort of survivability in return. 

2 hours ago, Distruggiuova said:

I just bought her box and I’ll try her vs Pandora with Emissary, Gracie, Trixie a couple bushwhackers and either Burt or a third Bushwacker and Inferiority Complex on someone. I’m a bit worried about stun and Pandora herself shutting down my beaters too easily but I should be able to outscheme her with 2-3 bushwackers in Cursed Idols I hope

Be carefull with them bushwhackers! They drop like flies. 

Don’t you dare changing this upgrade! You will find yourself in a Wrestling Match vs Mancha Roja rather soon if you do.... he likes his mines! 

It’s a scalpel Model with a scalpel ability in elite, which is a squishy Controlly crew. There are ways to get around inhuman physiology. Shockwaves, demise abilities, blade dance, stampede, vengeance, rig the deck, focus and good stats, the old ways... 

the Agent is in a good Place, has his strengths vs direct targeting and crews who Sololy rely on that but Is weak vs others. 

Play a few more games vs him and the Lucius crew and you will find ways and get to know how to kill him. 

I killed him with Datsue Ba and the whisper in 2 activations for example. 

Wong is really good vs him, pandora kirai etc etc etc 

he is a thematically fitting very good model but really doesn’t need a nerf, especially not while he is the central and only scalpel in elite. 

I’d like to express my feelings about the beloved Howard. 

I feel like he isn’t really worth taking in most of the lists and doesn’t bring anything unique other beaters don’t already have to offer. 

Ignoring def triggers is a super rare occasion and otherwise the model is really lackluster. 

Even in his niche dream scenario, a mnsu augmented crew, he gets outclassed by other models like the peacekeeper, joss and the emissary. 

I’d say it would be a nice thing to make him unique again and give him something that makes him a dedicated pick for a situation that is more common than ignoring def triggers once every 10 games. 

Maybe some unique triggers or a mechanic thank makes him more scary towards elite models.

He one of the most iconic arcanists models and i just cannot find reasons to bring him in my lists, compared to other options of similar cost. 

I think he should either be more optimized towards a specific strength, like being a very mobile beater like he was in m2e or take a step towards a new niche via being better at something specific to make him worth hiring if that specific thing is needed. Resistance triggers tho, are so rare, he almost never gets to actually see the table for strategic reasons. With the new hiring, Colette, zipp and ironsides on the other side of the table are the major things that would scream Howard. But that’s just a bit to rare I think. 

11 hours ago, Jingizu said:

It's not a problem, because:

So Hannah can copy actions.

Lazarus, for example, can't, because his Assimilate forbids it: "Select a non- Action printed on the target model's Stat Card". There is no such restriction in Hannah's Adaptive Tactics.

Thanks for clarification! That makes Hannah way more appealing!

4 hours ago, Jingizu said:

Hannah can copy Arik's Charge Up for +1 dmg, then Critical Strike for +2 (first ram from card/ss, second from Siphon Power), dealing 5/7/9.

Isn’t it a bonus action trying to copy a Bonus Action which is Limited to once per activation? 

fingers toasts and draws cards 😃

1 hour ago, BornOnTheBayou said:

Would be cool if they added that test subjects can in fact charge while engaged.

I don’t think it’s to hard to get out of engagement via pushing, which is the fuel of this ability 

2 hours ago, HipsterWhale said:

I've thought about the Gators before too but they haven't ended up in a list yet. 

 

I think then having stealth would more than make up for their defense issues. 

 

Or If they worried about that making them too good for too cheap maybe stealth while they are in concealing terrain?

Stealth is goods ranged crews but not too good vs charges. This would give them a window to survive one charge attack and at least have a chance to hit back once. 

On 2/2/2019 at 10:58 AM, Sybarite said:

Maybe he's the brewmaster and not specialised in fighting? Although he has the trigger Drunken Strength so I guess that would suggest he is actually physically fighting.

Well it’s the best thing that he does at the moment. He’s one of the most potent gremlin beaters.

3 minutes ago, Da Git said:

Unlike Shenlong, The Brewmaster can actually handle his alcohol! 

A pitty tho.. 

I like the new synergy with pushes. It seems more fitting to work with mah herself than with trixies occasional melee fights. 

Mill put them on the table and see how it works this weekend. Hopefully they don’t die before they can do some fighting. 

1 minute ago, Paddywhack said:

Were you able to make use of his Df trigger this game? 

I agree about a second small bonus action. Still wish he had a way to Place undergrads somehow, but I realize movement shenanigans like that in this crew would probably be way too good  

I’ve played him from a bit of a semi defensive position mostly, and the „hunting missiles“ have been priority threats to my opponent, so he didn’t get attacked a lot. Offensively handing out injured and stoning for specific suits against important enemy triggers have helped to win important duels tho. 

I feel like he only has to be in an attackable positions when the situation absolutly needs his aura and attack. Or against hardcore  alphastrikes.