Hawkoon

I think focusing on the growth mechanic is a bit of a trap. IMO it's one if those abilities you want to keep in mind while playing for VP, and when an oppurtunity arises, you take it. BBS is quite good for this, as you want that focus anyway, and it doesn't really require much of additional setup.

First off Rougarou and Corrupted hounds requires Marcus to play for Neverborn, so you might get better answers there?. (Although I guess there are plenty in this forum that play both neverborn and arcanists) I have only played Marcus in NVB once, but I've played a fair amount of games with other nvb masters including Titania and Nekima. From this I can say that rougarou is a great beast for Marcus, but eldritch magic is really situational, I'd much rather go with inhuman reflexes. The fact that Marcus (and to a certain degree Myranda) can make it charge makes it really really deadly. With IR it can charge through models, dealing a point of damage to the models passed through, and even if engaged. This makes it impossible to pin down, and with it's MV6 you can pretty much get to any target you want. It's a bit squishy though, but Marcus can remedy that with a mutation. When it comes to corrupted hounds, they're basicly only good as cheap schemers and I think Marcus has far better options there. They die to a stiff breeze and black blood will damage your other models if you're not careful with placement. I'd rather pay 1SS more for a will o' the wisps, or just give a feathered wings cerberus or rougarou a "side quest".

Like a pukeworm? Mine looks more like a horned bouncer with hooves...

I think Rougarou are awesome and the Inhuman Reflexes upgrade turns them up to 11. The emissary is also worth having, it plays so well with what the crew does. (If short on points you can get the effigy with an upgrade that turns it into the emissary start of turn 3.) Other than that waldgeists and hooded rider works well. You also have Bultungin in keyword, which are fast but squishy. The crew can play very differently depending on which models you take. You have durable (but slow) models like knights and waldgeists, and then you have fast but squishy models like rougarou and bultungin. Common for all of them are the underbrush markers that slow down your opponent and gives concealment to your crew. Most of the keyword models can also make new markers (including Titania who can also move them around). Most of the keyword models benefits from either standing in them or the opponent being in or near them. So to play Titania well you need to maximize the use of the markers. Titania herself is quite tanky, mobile and can hit quite hard under the right circumstances. If you plan on taking models outside the keyword, you should only take models with unimpeded (or ignore concealment in case of shooting). The emissary fits the bill here and gains a lot of bonuses from being in severe terrain and attacking models in severe terrain. If you're bringing slow models like knights, aeslin or waldgeists, the hooded rider is good at helping them forwards and generally be a bully.

Here's a suggestion for a regular 30SS game: Nekima w/IR: 2SS Bloodhunter: 0SS Lilitu/Young Nephilim: 7SS 2x Shaman: 6SS x2 Terror Tot: 4SS Cache: 5SS. This is a rather generic list where I'd go with Lilitu for schemes/strats that require killing and young nephilim when mobility is more important. Lilitu can lure your own models up the board early turns, get them out of unfavourable engagements or pull out enemy models from safety. The young nephilim is quite fast and can bring the terror tot along for scheming using fly with me. It's best to keep them close to eachother for protected and fly with me shenanigans.

I always bring a Black Blood Shaman. I use them turn1 to attack my own to make corpse markers, which I remove to hand out focus to everyone within 3". When the shaman removes a corpse marker it also gets a grow token, so if you spend both your attacks the first turn hitting your own guys and make 2 corpse markers you can remove 1 of them turn 1 for 1 grow token, then start the second turn removing the other for another token (and handing out more focus), then immediatly replace the shaman with a mature nephilim with 2 more actions left.

I think the answer is yes and no, depending on your builds. Marcus with 2 cats-with-wings is hard to beat, but the nephilim are generally more mobile overall.

Guess it could have something to do with sculpts?

I'll just list what I find as I progress: Terror Tots go from minion(4) to minion (3) Black blood shaman goes from minion(3) to minon(2)

That list is 51SS...

I haven't tried it yet, but seems solid. I'd also take inhuman reflexes with him so you can have him zipping around the board doing damage at the same time.

Ancient pact should be on a minion, because the best part of the upgrade is the card draw. Waldgeist or Autumn knights are good choices as they are quite durable. If you start with the emissary it doesn't really need an upgrade, so I'd rather spend those points on something else. Rougarou are one of the best models in Neverborn for the Inhuman Reflexes upgrade, as that improves their defense as well as makes you able to charge them in through enemy models to get to the juicy targets. I wouldn't take a Rougarou without it unless I really need those SS for something else.

What you want kinda depends on what else you're bringing. I always take Serena, she might seem as a support model, but she actually hits quite hard, and the ability to draw LOS form a friendly nightmare is just awesome. I find that she works really well in a tagteam with teddy. Have Teddy move up the board with Serena a little behind. She will be able to keep Teddy alive, and also strike "through" him, and if anyone goes after Serena Teddy can move her away. Taking out Serena is also quite hard to do with df6 and demise, so together they are quite tanky (for neverborn atleast). Twist reality is also great against models engaged by Teddy as he will heal if they fail a wp duel (and you get to unbury a summon).

Had a game this weekend against Lynch with the following list: Titania was the leader though, but the list was really solid. I used the Hooded rider to place Zoraida in a forest close to my deployment with view to both waldgeists which ran towards the centre of the board. I made sure to litter the center with underbrush markers after deployment and also make a few more with waldgeists and Titania. From there Zoraida had a great point for Obeying pretty much anything that weren't hiding out of LOS (and with the ability to draw LOS from the waldgeists that severely limited the places to hide). Just note that Zoraida doesn't ignore the concealment from underbrush markers, so I had to use focus every now and then, but she was still a great pain for my opponent (he even used the RJ to prevent an Obey to his emissary, and I think that was a great use of it as it would have severely messed up his plans if it went through).

The games I've played against Zoraida has been exclusively against @Barmution so our collective advice is pretty much tainted by his playstyle with her. But I have to admit that those games have been really tough games for me, regardless of which crew I played, so I would definitely listen to his advice.

Edit: Ninja'ed by @Barmution... as usual

Not sure "during" would give the needed definition of the order things should take place in. However I think maybe the rule book should have a more precise wording of "before" and "after" effects. Each step could be subdivided with a start and end phase to put these effects properly into the order of resolving actions. But the detailed timing list would get a lot longer, and it's quite long as it is...

Despite owning the model, I haven't played Zoraida myself yet, but I do have a few games against her, and I mostly play neverborn myself so I'm quite familiar with the faction. Eldritch magic is a situational upgrade that I only take when I know the opponent is bringing a lot of conditions. (if your oppnonent declares masters like McMourning, Brewmaster, Kaeris or Sonnia etc.). I also think you should have more SS cache with Zoraida. To get the most of her you probably need a few stones just to ensure the trigger on Obey every turn. You'll also want some SS to keep your henchmen alive longer, I'd reccomend around 4-7SS cache. I won't comment much on the crew selection, but I have noticed wisps beeing really good in combination with the voodoo curse. That and the fact that you don't really want to do much walking with Zoraida, so you should always include something that can move her around outside her activation. (Hooded rider is really good at this, as you don't waste any AP moving Zoraida with "Ride with me")

I think the best way to work with these "before" and "after" wordings is to squeeze them in between the steps defined in the rulebook. Say we have steps A and B (just examples for clearance). If something says an effect takes place "after" step A, it would squeeze in between step A and B so everything else related to step A resolves first, but before anything related to step B can be resolved. Likewise if something takes place "before" step B, everything related to step A resolves first. Then the effect will be resolved before anything else related to step B. In the case of intimidating Authority, this suggests that your opponent declares it's target, and then before anything else happens the player with intimidating authority has to choose to discard a card or not to give the . As use of focus is "before" performing a duel, that would (according to my logic) have to be chosen after the model with intimidating authority choose to discard a card or not.

Tried Dreamer and Pandora today. Besides making some bad choices they seem to work well together. Nightmare models really like opponents failing wp duels, and Pandora really brings a whole lot of those for unburying summons and feed om dreams. Poltergeist is also valuable for bringing in distraction and stripping ruthless, though it is quite squishy so you need to play it right (which I didn't this do today). Also worth mentioning Carver as he shares keywords with both. The only issue I found here is that it's hard to get much use of Lucid Dream, as you just won't have many models with that ability on the board turn 1.

Those dual faction masters are such a slippery slope. I started playing tara in 2e, but I really liked neverborn better visually as a faction. So I got a lot of neverborn, including Lucius. That in turn led med to more guild models, so I got Lady J. And then I figuered I already had some outcasts, and those Viktorias look fun.... Figuring I already had a fair bit of outcasts, that cat lady nightmare crew looks damn good too, should be fun right? Que M3E, and Marcus is now a dual faction Neverborn master with some nice looking models, got to try that too... So now I'm trying really hard not to buy some cool looking arcanist models as well.... We'll see how long I can hold out.

Hooded rider seems good with her as well. She gets a lot of use out of ride with me, and with mv 7 he gains an insane threat range with obey into the mix.

I initially thought Pandora/Carver could remove focus before the attacking player got to use it. If it's the other way around that changes a lot of the usefulness of opportunist in regards to focus....

Wouldn't it be better for new players to jump straight to M3E? Learning 2E rules now, when 3E is just weeks away sound like would cause a lot of confusion later on.

Well right you are! Somehow I was thinking they were on 30mm bases. Thanks👍 Haven't played Tara yet with 3e rules, so might just have to give her a go soon.