Pergli

Definitely need an FAQ on Marker vs Piece of Terrain on those. I think the intent is for them to be both but it's not listed that way in the actual cards. Same with poison fields or mines which means it can generate some absurd situations. 

Yes. The rule says if the unit starts in base contact so you can teleport before giving orders. 

On 12/31/2018 at 9:58 PM, Thisendup said:

Maybe I just have bad luck, but the Abysinia players I play against have most of their forces in glory by turn 2 if not turn 1. A 6 point margin on any flip is actually really, really easy, since they only need 1 on a squad of 3 plus adjunct to flip that unit to glory and so on. With how easily they draw cards cheating is rarely a concern either.

I have found that sending the crawler into combat with another titan is helpful. If you can get it into the Aby titan before it flips to glory it does not have a melee attack and you can pin it in place and beat it down.

Yeah, i'm realizing that it doesn't matter if I have the titan on the board or not for their glory so I may need to try it out. 

4 hours ago, Ghoul said:

Very important to remember! I made this mistake when I first started. I knew it felt too good to be true even when I was losing. Haha 

on another note, anyone else buy heavy rains turn 1? I have in the last few games and have not regretted it.

Sometimes i've done it but lately if I am attacker i've been taking spawning moon. 1 TT + 3 for a unit of Yarazi or +4 for Whelks or more Karkanoi turn 1 is just too good to pass up. sure they start with 1 fireteam but they reinforce and do the healing magic to add another 2 models to them. 

On 1/4/2019 at 10:04 AM, Thisendup said:

The Frenzy brings up a point and I want to make sure I'm am doing this correctly. Each model can take 1 melee action. If they have enough reinforcement tokens and are in glory, they can use Blood in the Water to do another melee action. So 3 melees (1 per frenzy) and 3 extra with tokens for a total of 6 potential melee actions plus one free moral action.

Possibly a 7th if you reinforce them during that same turn either during upkeep or Relic of Ancient Malifaux.

Yes you are correct. The Frenzy can take 1 action per model plus the unit itself can take a moral action. They can each use a reinforcement token to take another action and honestly... I'm not sure if this is limited at all so you could take as many actions as you have reinforcement tokens. The rules say you can't have free generated actions generate more actions but this doesn't seem to apply (correct me if i'm wrong).
Also, make sure you're adding shark tooth necklaces on them. I didn't pay attention until my most recent game and it definitely made the unit super powerful. Flipping two cards for all attacks, healing casts or even their nipping ability makes a massive difference. 
My turn 1 is usually: Nipping at the heels, move and then hand out 3-4 reinforcement tokens or replace dead units. It's extremely demoralizing to your opponent to just watch their entire turn 1 be erased as all the models come right back.

On 1/4/2019 at 1:48 AM, MajorUndead said:

Just a small remark though : you can't use the morphling to use the devouring eel's attack.
The morphling states that you can use an action from a  friendly non commander SQUAD.
Sadly, the eel is not a squad, so you can't use its actions.

The egg is a squad though, so you can indeed use the ability to flip to glory on a 7.

Yeah, I noticed that. It definitely brings their adjunct down in power for me to the point where I may not even take it in stripped skulkers anymore unless I have a point lying around.

Eggs: Make sure you're bringing back 1-2 of these a turn. With the GH ability to bring back units, it only applies to the squads killed the previous turn. You won't regret this in the later stages of the game. Things i've found a use for it: Flipping units that you've brought back to glory, flipping units to glory that are too far on the other side (yarazi are a good contender for this) and planning to take future objectives. I've dropped them on turn 3 with the intent of any that stay alive claiming objectives on turn 5 and its paid off.

Karkanoi: Get reinforcement tokens on these ASAP. Melee 8 with S4 is powerful in our army. Tie this in with an adjunt who is using another units attack with the +x to the AV, they hit hard. 

Tide Pools: Spawn as many of these as you can over a game. They are hampering to your opponent and beneficial to you. Do you have a 10 in your hand or an extra 3 Tactics tokens, it is always worth dropping more of them on the board. It allows your summons to come through closer to your opponent, make your opponents mobility dangerous and gives you massive control.

7 hours ago, Ghoul said:

I know there is already another thread about this but the damage these factions put out is gnarly.(seemingly when compared to ours). My karkanoi connected infiltrators turn 1 and they lived for all 5 rounds as well. Maybe I just flip cards like burnt pancakes but I could not kill the buggers 

 

Where you taking focused effort and grabbing reinforcement tokens while in combat? +1 per token to their AV helps them hit much more often.
Also, speaking of reinforcement, give them reinforcement from the healing magic ability from that upgrade, when they are swinging with AV 8 and S4, they hit like a truck. Just had a full unit bring down the aby main titan on turn 2 with 2 extra reinforcement tokens.

I haven't worked out the balance either. Some games i'm eating my own units too much and some games i'm not eating enough.

If its only 25 scrip and the starter set, I wouldn't bring eggs.

Storm Siren
Conch horn maybe
1 depending on what you're opponent is or give a morphling to either of the units below. Consider bringing Relics of ancient malifaux. This will allow the storm siren to pass out reinforcement tokens if necessary to your units.

2x skulkers - 14
1x Karkanoi - 8

If you don't bring the above you don't really have the models to compete against another 25 scrip army. Sure there's other models but we're talking about starter set plus upgrades. 

Using focus effort turn 1 sounds great on paper but if you're up against KE or Aby, you're going to get shot to death if you aren't advancing forward. Definitely spawn some eggs and advance forward and try to eat those. The ones you eat, bring them back immediately to be eaten again, repeat until full glory, continue repeating to claim objectives and annoy the enemy.

17 minutes ago, retnab said:

This is a big one, even if you never give out a single ST you still get to see every card they draw during the activation phase which against Abyssinia will be huge.

yup, being able to know exactly what they are capable of is insane. There are quite a few times where you can decide not to cheat as the attacker because you know they don't have the card in their hand.

Figured we could use something where we can give advice based on our experiences to try to learn our horde better. Might help the newer players as well as those who are constantly losing :).

General:

tide pools - place them closer to your half of the table than their half. I was placing mine too close so they qere able to walk up and ignore the cover penalty.

speckled crawlers - flip yo glory asap. They can flip to glory and then gain 2 reinforcement tokens to be passed off.

frenzy - take the general upgrade which gives them healing magic. Being able to pass out 3-6 reinforcement tokens and immediately reinforce is a huge deal.

morphlings - i just figured out recently that you can use them to use the hatch ability on eggs to flip to glory on a 7. Do it last though as it ends the activation. The other good ability is devouring eels attack which generates reinforcement tokens and can completely wipe fireteams.

Aby: take the 1 point earyh upgrade which passes out shaken for each drawn card with a mask.

thats all i got for now. Looking forward to hearing other tips and hints! May have more later when i get more time.

Played 3 games against aby and lost all three. I think its more to us learning the game but a couple of ideas and stuff ive learned from my mistakes.

Alpha crawler is a no take option. They are an elite force so giving them a huge 10 point model to shoot with def 3 is going to end badly. Top that off with them going to glory much easier off of it.

Dont hire eggs unless youre going first and even then it should only be a single egg. Your first activation needs yo use it by either spawning moon or eating it. They are too easy to snipe and easy to give glory.

Take the upgrade which passes out shaken for any drawn mask card. It costs 1 and youre going to get to hand out shaken like candy.

Electrocutioners are gross and need to be taken down immediately. With the card draw mechanics and the strat which gives them a 15, they can remove 3 markers a turn (objectives, tide pools). If he only takes a single unit give all shaken to them so you can burn the shaken on their gigawat ability. My most recent game he removed all three of my scavenge markers turn 1. Clawed my way back to 6-8 from 0-5 turn 1.

Pick your stratagems carefully. 

Steel legion, if you can kill the cutter before they activate.. do it. That pulls most of the teeth out of their extra actions.

Frenzy teleporting with the tidal sceptor is always a fun surprise.

17 hours ago, Sybarite said:

After playing against the Hordes starter twice I'm underwhelmed with them too. Is it just a weak starter? We felt my Cult was more mobile, hit harder and did a bunch of reinforcing with the Warped too so with their armour of 7-8 they're very resilient. The regular troops of the horde allegiance box feel lacklustre, other than maybe the karkinoi.

It does feel that way but I think hordes is more finesse than it looks originally. If you're playing the starter, your hardest hitting unit is your storm siren. Flipping her to glory and then dragging enemies into your 3-5 tide pools is devastating. Keep your skulkers touching terrain so they are always doing + flips and the karkanoi are there for clean up/egg spawning.

Honestly not sold on the alpha crawler anymore and maybe its because i'm playing him wrong.

1. KE - Shoots him with grenadiers (if they are in glory he becomes useless fairly quickly)
2. Aby - I can't justify bringing a Df 3 model against an army that has to beat you by 6 to flip to glory AND gets a ton of cards. Seems like they could just take pot shots at it until their entire army is in glory.
3. BM - Haven't had any problems in this match up but not sure if its worth 10 points still.

Also, I think overeager might be a trap. Sure you can get +2 to your AV when you charge but you're going to charge maybe once or twice a game depending on if you get tarpitted? It might be better to take the leg upgrade where you can place within 6 and get a melee attack. If you kill whatever you charged in the previous turn, you can take focused effort to gain another reinforcement token, then place 6 inches and swing on whatever you can. Also, this means you're going to get another attack which the overeager upgrade doesn't give you and it can allow you to place away to grab objectives. This is my current line of thinking for the next time I try it out but i'm still not sold on him. 

Yes, two separate activations means you can hit it multiple times. Hell, you can hit it three times in a turn with the Stratagem which zaps them and then moves them 3 inches lol. 

2 hours ago, solkan said:

 

1.  Even though the effect says "Target enemy fire team moves ...", the other Fireteams in the unit move at half the speed specified due to the "Fireteams and Moving" rules.

 

 

 

Didn't read that part of it, so the only benefit of flipping to glory is you canm move them the full distance instead of half distance. Interesting.

Honestly, its a debate in our group as well.

My understanding is when they are moved through it, they suffer a S3 hit but they are only immune during that activation (Storm Siren). Then they activate and suffer damage for starting in it or moving through it. THEN they become immune during their activation per the rules.

My group thinks this is too strong because you're suffering 2x 3 hits a turn which can be devastating. I agree but I think that was the intention and gives our Stormsiren some hitting power (she is underwhelming in general from what i've seen).

17 hours ago, envyizm said:

Which facebook group? I find it hard to believe that US orders are starting to get fulfilled at this point. If this is the true, this is excellent news. 

Group is called "Contiones de Rege Flammae". They changed it as a joke and realized their mistake after changing it. Facebook prevents you from changing your name more than once every 30 days so they have to wait to change it back.

There's been multiple people showing fedex deliver notices and packages that they have received. Some are receiving and not getting the notices from FedEx that they have a delivery. Also, it looks like it is by backer # but that could just be coincidence.

Check your spam. One of my friends got his and I didn't get one. Checked in spam and there it was. I get all all wyrd emails but for some reason gmail thought this particular email was spam. Probably because it has a redirect link.

I'm not sure how Wyrd has mishandled this kickstarter. Most Kickstarters i've seen or been part of ends up being delayed as they run into unforeseen issues and i'd rather them take the time to make sure its done right rather than half ass it to rush out a bad product.

Sure the delays suck but i'm betting Wyrd is more upset about the delays than anyone else. They were most likely shooting to release TOS at Gencon and were unable to hit their mark so they missed out on some sales and potentially bringing in a wave of new players. Also, i'm happy that they did not sell TOS at Gencon when they could have easily done so since they are now getting their shipments in. That was handled well and in the interest of their backers 100% vs their profit margins. They are going to make sure we get our orders before they end up selling that and I see that as loyalty to those who helped them launch their game.

33 minutes ago, Clement said:

Well that's vile.  It's so exciting to know he has another upgrade (along with Their Last Breath) that can be so ruthlessly exploited by the enemy crew.  At least post nerf Sandeep will be relatively easier to murder in retaliation? (assuming you have things in play that can do such a thing) 

Speaking of...  I've found that running "Necrotic King Nico" and a passel of undead is really effective.  It won't run the board like drowning the enemy in summons will, but it's plenty functional.

Yeah, its definitely something you have to be aware of as an option that could ruin Nico's day. There aren't many situations where its it can do that though. The only two I can think of the top of my head is Banasuva and then dreamer but most people don't run dreamer. Dreamer with 3 ap + shoot expert + melee expert with his bat, turns out chompy who then chain activates to kill nico. 

I've never actually run Necrotic King because the upgrade slots were all in use. It may be more viable now that his summons aren't really that great anymore. 1 AP to summon, 1 AP to full heal then 1 AP to give them all + flips to dmg and Ca actions. Maybe swap out circling buzzards for the upgrade since all you're getting is 1 corpse. This will make running beaters in your list much more powerful. Archie, Izamu or Valedictorian with + flips for dmg sounds gross. Not even counting your whatever you summon. PZ's 2/4/5 becomes much worse if he is most likely hitting straight flips for damage.

Definitely going to try this in my next game and see how it goes.

On 8/14/2018 at 2:02 AM, Freman said:

So his main change is that you have to commit even more to summoning to get the best out of him?

Not sure what you mean by this as the best way to play nico was to always commit to the summoning. There were other ways to run with him but they definitely weren't as competitive as fully embracing his summoning. 

I'm sure there are other ways to run him with his changes but with only a month of practice before gencon, there really wasn't enough time to experiment with other variations to see what else could be competitive. I had a couple of options I was tinkering with in my head but I'd rather play something i know in a tournament than flip to something unknown on the fly.

While Love Thy Master works best with punks/kentauroi/students, it isn't exclusive. If they have poison, you can use a shikome, if you need to do some pushes for quick positioning, belles and doxies are still good or if you want a scheme runner you can summon a necropunk at one wound, chain activate him, heal 2 wounds and run him into a safe position for scoring next round. The biggest thing that you have to be wary about is Love thy Master applies to all models summoned within 6 inches of nico. San Deep can summon Banasuva next to nico, attack nico and then chain into Banasuva to swing at him to turn him into mush.

10 minutes ago, Franchute said:

@Pergli What is your opinion on Sebastian for a card and a stone?

Not worth the points anymore (I never liked it anyway but even less so now). Not only do you get 1 less card but you're removing a corpse from the game every turn to get the card and the stone. Before, losing a corpse marker wasn't a big deal because you generated so many excess corpse markers but now you need every one you can get your hands on. 

You need at least 2 corpse markers a turn in order to get an effective summon and you aren't generating that constantly enough. Honestly, it all comes down to my overall game plan of adding as many corpse markers to the field as possible so I have the resources I need to be overwhelming with my summons and board control. Anything that inhibits that game plan is an absolute no go, at least in my book.

Ontop of the above, I have no idea where you'd pull the points from unless you're going minimal cache. The list I posted is as min/maxed as I could get minus the circling buzzards (corpse or a stone, thats your choice).
 

1 hour ago, Da Git said:

Thanks for the write up!  Just out of curiousity, how does the Kentauri taxi both Belle & Nico up the board first turn on 2 AP? Does he just not walk very far with Nico to remain 2" from the Belle (so about 4" up the board, then Nico places as far forward as possible)?

Yes, that is exactly what you do. Kentauri has a 3 inch base so when you move, you stay just within 2 inches of the belle. That means nico moves 2 inches + Kentauri base size of 3 inches+ his 1 inch base. Pretty much a 5.5-6 inch move for 1 AP and then the belle just gets dropped somewhere else! Pretty much wherever you plop him down, this is where he will sit and control the flow of the game. He may move if necessary but that is mostly all he needs to get his positioning right for turns 1-3.

1 hour ago, cbtb11235813 said:

I was one of those draws, and I vouch for the fact Nicodem is still good. Is he as good as he was pre-nerf? Obviously not, that is the point. But he is still difficult to play against. Anyone that can summon a model, make it fast, chain activate into it, hit me 4 times (flurry + fast) at positive flips, and basically just shred whatever is near, is decent at least

Which game? Yeah, he definitely is still pretty solid. The only real problems I run into is when people try to assassinate him but I'm thinking with the extra zombies block movement and charges (you can try to walk away but they are swinging at ml 6 and + flips) it definitely helps keep him safe. That is the problem I was running into whenever I dropped muwahaha, he just kept getting killed. Even if I killed a beater turn 1/2, it was just rough.  I'm not as sold on making a model fast unless I definitely NEED the AP to put something down. Trading 2 master AP for 1 full wound minion who then can flurry for 3 AP is a good trade but 1 master AP for a minion AP doesn't sell it to me unless it's a critical situation. Like moving and then charging or something along those lines.

Cool, i'll work on it tonight. Honestly, this is the best way I've found to run Nico and after rereading the post some of it is just disjointed thoughts. Need to make it a bit more clear too.

Hey guys,

I thought i'd post about Nicodem after having some time to play the nerf and honestly, it isn't as bad as everyone feared. Was he hit hard? Absolutely. Does it make him unplayable? Definitely not. I played at Gencon with only a month of being able to play him in practice and did pretty decently. I'm sure if I had more time with the nerf, it would've been better, especially considering my loses were due to personal mistakes and not the list itself.

Here is my basic Nicodem list:

Nicodem
- Love They Master - If you do not take this upgrade, you're playing him wrong. Being able to chain activate your one wound minions still gives you the AP advantage and definitely can cause a surprise to someone who wasn't expecting there to be a punk zombie or shikome attacking them.
- Maniacal Laugh - Sure, we don't draw cards because of zombies but that doesn't remove their uses. You still keep activation control, they are still ridiculous with Asura's attacks and they are useful blockers. Also, laughing up your spare corpses prevents your opponent from being able to remove them or abuse them.
- Circling Buzzards - I take this for two reasons. 1. Corpse markers are a valuable resource that just became a difficult resource to keep in the field since we need 2 corpse to make any summon effective. 2. If take prisoner is in the pool, people love to take prisoner on the malifaux child. I can summon a vulture and sac the child to deny this.
(I opted last minute to swap this in for undertaker. The card draw just isn't worth it anymore and the trigger on your summon is laughable. I am NOT paying 1AP and 2 corpse markers for a 3 wound model. The only time that is useful is with a punk zombie because HtK)

Malifaux Child
- Incredibly useful for giving fast out to Philip for card draw or doing a decay to heal a model to full without expending Nico AP or forcing Nico to activate to save a model.

Mortimer
- Corpse bloat and MLH for obvious reasons. Still the most effective way to generate corpse turn one. I tried the desperate merc method and I don't like spending my first turn attacking myself. Too many things can go wrong which deny it. Morty is just reliable and essential.

Asura Roten
- No upgrades. She hangs back to debuff enemies, add zombies and let zombies hit above their point cost. Also she drops a scheme for Philip as needed.

Philip and the Nanny
- Haunting cries because why not, its free. The card draw is also ridiculous and required in this list. 

Kentauroi
- Explained in turn 1 strat

Rotten Belle
- Explained in turn 1 strat

This has actually been my list (minus swapping the buzzards and undertaker upgrade) from pre nerf. It's just too powerful and gives more options than the traditional summoning engine. It may not look like it, but this list is an alpha strike list and when it hits, it crushes whatever you've decided is going to die turn 1.

Turn 1 strat
Pick an enemy model. WP 5 is preferable but something that is a linchpin in their plan is the optimized choice. Your goal, is to kill that model this turn and it is pretty easy even if they can burn their stones for damage reduction. Goal is to have an 11 and 12 in hand minimum for your summon combo.

Activation:

Asura - Drop scheme for Philip, move for better positioning and summon a zombie
Summoned zombie - Grasping hands on something. Doesn't really matter, just force card flips and decisions. Or move to be better abused by Nico.
Morty - Runs 8 inches and drops 2 corpse markers
Child or Philip Decision time (do you think the kentauroi will be able to charge something? Do you need 3 lures to grab something? Rotten belle is normally the choice so we will go with that)
Philip activates, eats a scheme and then drops another scheme to prep for next round.
Child activates and gives the belle fast.
Kentauroi - Grabs nicodem and moves him 5-6 inches up the board to the best position for summoning. This prevents nico from wasting AP walking since his AP just became super valuable. Then he grabs the rotten belle and moves her to a nice lure position. Alternatively, if you have the 11 and 12 in hand while also having a 9 crow+ in hand, you can bring mortimer up so he can drop 3 corpse for a total of 5 corpse on the field turn 1.
Rotten Belle triple lures whatever you want dead to your corpse markers and hopefully they don't have an answer or way to stop this.
Nicodem
AP 1 - Summon a kentauroi
Ap 2 - Summon a shikome
Ap 3 - Cast decay on the shikome, sac a corpse to full heal her to 8.
0 - Zombie out of any spare corpse markers within range for activation control next turn.
If your opponent still has activations, chain activate the kentauroi and charge the sucker model. The goal is to get one success and put a poison on the model. Kentauroi dies and drops 2 corpse markers for next turn (you now have 3 corpse on the field)
Bring in the shikome. Cast adversary, hopefully get it off but no biggie if not. Charge in for 1 AP and murder the model. Alternatively, you can summon a punk zombie within range to flurry. Times I would bring a punk zombie instead would be if the shikome engaging the enemy would mean that I would have to leave Nico's bubble. The PZ has an extra inch on engagement range which can make all the difference. Although, if you happen to have a 13 in hand to make sure adversary goes off, then it doesn't matter :).

The damage output on this is insane and will break most models down. SS users may end up burning all their stones to reduce damage and keep their model alive which is great. I'd rather my opponent have 0 stones going into turn 2 than 5-6 stones. It limits their options and you can always flurry with initiative to keep the pressure on the poor model.

---------------

The rest of the game should be pretty standard in terms of how you play and what you summon based on your needs. Summoning a model in at one wound needs to have a purpose and thankfully Love They Master allows them to fulfill it. PZ allows you to output damage (shikome are great but I don't run alot of poison), Kentauroi hits like a truck at range, necropunks can self heal and run schemes, dead doxies can push models around and die to give other models fast (trading 1 master AP for 2 AP + 0 + fast on something nearby). Nicodem's general AP is much better spent summoning a single model and then giving it full wounds for 2 corpse markers. It puts big threats on the field, doesn't require as many cards to pull off and still allows you AP control.

Quick bit about GenCon, I went 2W/3D/1L, 1 of the draws was a huge mistake I made because it was 12:30 am and misplaced a scheme marker, 1 was extremely hard fought and required some crazy planning to go off to work and the final one was me misidentifying my opponents schemes. Overall, I think it was pretty solid and if only I was a better player or had more TIME to practice the nerf before the tournament. The circling buzzards was something i've never played with before and decided to do the day of the first tournament. It ended up making a big impact with activation control and available corpse markers. If people are genuinely interested, I may be able to create a report of the games with a basic run down and such.

Hopefully this helps some other Nicodem players out there to try something different than the old school summoning engine which is definitely not as broken.

Apologies in advance if things are mispelled or don't make alot of sense. I didn't proof read this before clicking submit.

 

1 hour ago, Clement said:

Based on the March FAQ, this doesn't work.  At least not fully.   The "second model" doesn't have the condition.

Ahh, I forgot about that. Then he is useless in those!

I was just about to come back and argue of course he isn't immune to those but those are strategy conditions not scheme conditions. I don't see any schemes that use conditions unless i'm missing something.

He is definitely just an alternate scheme runner to counter the necropunk. While a little less mobile without a corpse marker, I definitely prefer him over the NP. More wounds, pile of bones and he can counter another scheme runner setup on the otherside of the table much better. 

I have a limited experience in all the various masters but I don't see him really being used in Seamus or Nicodem. Nico has much better pick options in the 10 SS range and you wouldn't hire him in ours because he needs all the support models to function.

Reva is the only place I realistically see this being used due to her corpse marker placements. Ours is a guarantee but ply, shed blood and symbols aren't too bad. 

Ours - Obvious, just sit him in a corner as a 12 point model and be really annoying, if they get too aggressive on him, just use his 2 action to pop up somewhere else.
Ply/Shed - He counts as two models so if he has one of those conditions, he is 2 of that making him extremely valuable. His Sh with a focus shot can easily kill something to give him the shed blood condition.
Symbols - I haven't tried him in this but I could see the merit. Place your first corpse candle near an outlying symbol and then have him pop up next to it at the end of turn 1 and pick it up on turn 2. My reva list is slow moving in the beginning so this definitely could be a way to get around this.