Deathinabox

Hey, not sure where exactly this post should go. Anyways, Wyrd released the new Henchman Hardcore rules, and while I do like them, I do see one problem that may become an issue. With Vendetta as a mandatory scheme, it is possible to run into a situation where vendetta cannot be legally declared. A crew could hire an expensive leader, cache soulstones, and take upgrades. Then they could have models with low costs that would deny vendetta points to the opponent before the game begins. Not sure if this is a flat or a bully in risk of the game but I could see people having very negative play experiences during tournaments and not being even able to fix it between rounds. What do you guys think?

44 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Crossroads seven might be good? I haven't looked at their models, but four strong models seems a pretty good deal.

If I was to bring C7 into Henchman Hardcore, I'd want Pride, Wrath, Envy, and Gluttony as Lust, Greed, and Sloth are situational counter-picks and you can't change your crew between matches.

Here's the strategy I've picked up playing them. First off, recognize that you're a bubble crew. The C7 want to stay together so if you need to spread out, play someone else. Secondly, this crew eats soulstones like candy. You'll want a decent cache and likely someone who generates soulstones (Greed, Prospectors, Guardsmen, ect). You'll also want to take a versatile or OOK scheme runner. Keep an eye on sin tokens and try to kill models who don't have any as models with the tokens are heavily debilitated. Try to keep models in multiple auras as that severely limits that model's actions on its turn. 

2 hours ago, DanteJH said:

Could you give me a short description of each member? Don’t have access to the cards and I’m thinking of running them as bayou

Sure

Here's how the crew breaks down. They have several abilities shared by the entire crew. 

Resonance: Gain Focus +1 for starting near another C7. A nice happy bonus for playing the crew, don't forget about it.

Destructive Performance: Deals 3 damage to every enemy with a Sin Token in 3 in exchange for a sin token from each. Can be passed to another member with the trigger: The Beat Goes On.

In addition, each model has a 6 to attach sin tokens to enemies who do a specific thing and a 6 to remove a sin token when an enemy does a specific thing to penalize them.

Pride: The Cheating Sin 

Attach: enemy cheats a flip Remove: cancel a cheat and discard the cheated card, the enemy cannot cheat that flip again.

Pride penalizes enemies for cheating and makes cheating more difficult. His bonus action Solo is amazing as it allows Pride and nearby friendlies to always cheat second. His attack, "This Song Is All About You" forces opponents to discard multiple cards or take irreducible damage and distracted. Everything this guy does is amazing.

Greed: The Soulstone Sin

Attach: enemy uses soulstone Remove: cancel soulstone use and gain a soulstone, enemy does not get soulstone back

Greed likes to go against soulstone users and bunched up enemies. Unchecked Avarice can deal an incredible amount of damage or no damage at all as its damage stacks with how many enemies are near the target. Great against crews with attuned (Witch Hunters, Arcanists) and bubble crews (Plague)

Lust: The Drawing Sin

Attach: enemy draws a card Remove cancel an enemy draw to draw that many cards.

Lust is a control piece. She finds it difficult to deal damage as most of her attack don't deal any damage but she hands out distracted like candy. Her main action is Now, Kiss which allows her to place enemies next to other enemies and possibly give both distracted.

Envy: The Condition Sin

Attach: Enemy gains a positive condition (Fast, Focus, Shielded) Remove: Cancel an enemy gaining a condition, Envy gains it instead

Envy is a ranged piece and can deal incredible amounts of damage with his Gatling Gun. He will add to the durability of your crew by pulling Focus off enemies that they will use to try to get around the crew's plentiful Manipulative ability.

Wrath: The Damaging Sin

Attach: Enemy damages a friendly with an attack action Remove: Change the target of an enemy attack to any other legal target (opponent still controls the attack)

Wrath is a bodyguard for the crew and a huge part of their survival plan. He can make sure the enemy is spreading out their hits so your sins all stay up longer. Besides that, he's a decent beater with a 2/4/5 damage tack and the Violent Ghosts bonus action

Gluttony: The Interacting Sin

Attach: Enemy declares an Interact Remove: Cancel a scheme marker placement and place a friendly scheme marker near the enemy

Gluttony is a scheme denier. He can cancel scheme marker placement and remove markers with his Maddening Drums attack. This can also remove terrain markers, making him useful against crews that use those such as Fae, Firebug, and December.

Sloth: The Healing Sin

Attach: Enemy heals Remove: Cancel a heal and heal a friendly near Sloth for the same amount

Sloth can be a huge problem for crews that rely on healing to stay up such as Amalgam and Nephilim. He will also pass out Slow with both his attacks and can emergency heal with Resting in the Blues, but his aura is the best thing about him. If your opponent is not running a lot of heals, he doesn't do a whole lot for the crew.

I've heard Envy makes a good leader but I have concerns about not being about to steal fast from enemies as he won't gain any benefit from having it, but I don't play arcanists so I haven't tried it

I've played several games with the C7. You really want to take about 5 of them in a crew. Pride, Wrath, and Envy are auto-takes as their auras are universally useful. The rest are counter-picks based on match up and strat/scheme. I like Pride as a leader as This Song is About You is incredible if you use it three times. Also hodepodge is a great support for them in both forms as healing is something the crew doesn't naturally have a lot of without sloth in a good counter-pick. I often take the top three sins, two counter-pick sins, the effigy with Fate, and then fill out points with scheme runners. I like Prospectors as they give you quite a few stones and this crew eats through stones like crazy. I've also had good use with the midnight stalker and ashes and dust.

I've had some good times with sloth. I generally have him get close to the action to leverage him aura and then he passes out fast to key undead

34 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Sounds like Yan Lo is a good Master to pickup, in that he is good as a main or contributes a lot OOK.

The main issue is that he's dual faction so if you're not planning on maining him often you'll have a lot of models just sitting around from ten thunders

11 hours ago, whodares said:

when you respond to a thread which has doubts about game balance and your answer is something trolly like "git gud", I don't owe you any respect either.

I don't think those people have been rude to you for the most part. But look at it from their perspective. Some guy suddenly showed up saying that Titania is OP based on a single game which he admitted that he was unprepared for. Titania could be too good. I've only played against her once but I won. I wouldn't know. There's a reason the developers told us to play lots of games and not just theory craft. Malifaux had a ton of variables in it and it's difficult to simply look at a single action or even a single card and know if it's too good. If it is too strong, then you'll need to prove it if you want anything to change. Play some more games against. If possible, play some games using her. Then if you still feel she's too strong, post again. You'll have more data to work with rather than just theory crafting and your opinions will hold more weight. You can continue to discuss on here but nothing will happen from this thread as your conclusion is not backed by any credible data whereas the opposite conclusion (that Titania is strong but not a problem) had significant data backing it up. Either way, I wish you the best.

This is fun, I'll do Yan Lo and the retainers as well

The Good

     Yan Lo: This guy is a beast. Early game, he will provide support by pushing models and handing out shielded. Mid game, he will kill everything around himself. Late game, he will push everyone where they need to be to score you points.

     Manos: This guy scores points. With an easy leap, he can move about easily. He makes a great scheme runner, anti scheme runner, and reserve beater. Bonus points for lantern of souls as that will counter several other crews and models.

     Toshiro: Amusingly, the Daimyo if actually better OOK than in. His bonuses help minion heavy crews like experimental and forgotten, but don't add a lot to the elite retainer crew.

The Bad

      Soul Porter: Without a number of Ancestors to push our reliquaries to catch, this little guy doesn't have a lot to do with his actions

     Yin: A decent scheme runner/tank with the problem that Manos does most of her stuff better.

     Ashigaru: A decent bodyguard but OOK is likely too expensive for what he does. He can be summoned by toshiro however, which is a more efficient way of adding them to your crew.

I've played a decent amount of Von Schtook and the Transmortis crew, I'll do one for them. 

The Good: 

     Anna Lovelace: Anna benefits greatly from Gravity Well and Hostile Work Environment, which can be good counter-picks against certain match-ups. She also brings card draw and a reliable amount of damage both in melee and at range. 

The Bad:

     Von Schtook: The Headmaster himself. While Von Schtook does bring the unique ability to turn off upgrades, as well as an impressive blasting attack, Von Schtook costs too much for what he does as a secondary master. Many of his abilities are tied to the Transmortis keyword and he will certainly feel their loss. He won't be able to hand out many upgrades and won't be able to pulse out focus to as many models. He also won't be able to drop scheme markers as easily. 16ss is a steep price to pay for a single model and I don't think he's worth it without his crew.

     Undergraduates: A terrible pick OOK. Their abilities are all tied to the Transmortis keyword with Patronize, Made to Kill, and By Your Side being difficult to use OOK.

     Research Assistant: Move along and the ranged scheme marker placement are really useful. The one problem is being tied to Von Schtook. As explained above, Von Schtook doesn't really like going anywhere without the rest of his class so this guy will likely stay at the university

The Between:

     Necropunks, Valedictorian, Students: All of these I put in one group as they all fall under the same category. These models are strong as they are generic but above curve and are good counterpicks and efficient models for their cost. When you add the OOK tax in, these models likely fall about on curve. It could certainly be worth it to take any of these as they're very self-sufficient but the keyword may have something that synergizes better with the rest of its crew.

The last list I played was Pride vs Yan Lo

My list was

Pride -

Effigy w/ Fate upgrade 2

Wrath 7

Envy 7

Sloth 7

Lust 7

Ashes and Dust 10

Prospector 6

4ss

His List was

Yan Lo -

Soul Porter -

Izamu w/ stealth upgrade 12

Lone Swordsman w/ stealth upgrade 10

Yin 8

Sun Quiang 7

Komainu 6

Shadow Effigy 4

2ss

Flank Deployment, Plant Explosives, Hold up their Forces, Assassinate, Vendetta, Power Ritual, Harness the Leylines

I took Hold up their Forces and Harness the Leylines. Ashes and Dust and the Prospector ran off to drop bombs and scheme markers away from the group while everyone else bunched up on the other flank for the scrum. With the overlapping auras, my crew was very difficult to take down. Many times, a model would drop to just a couple wounds before being healed by Sloth or the Effigy/Emissary. A+D wrecked Yin when she tried to stop him. Pride is a killing machine and killed a Komainu, finished off Yan Lo, and took Izamu down to 2 Wounds so Envy could finish him off with a focused shot. Crossroad 7 is a very strong crew and Pride with 3 actions functions very similar to Leveticus as he's able to put out large chunks of irreducible damage.

2x gravediggers I think is a little better. The gravedigger is a decent model on its own and you can bj one of your dig graves and still be ok

First off, I think the new studied opponent ability is decent. It'll keep them competitive without the clunkyness of the old rule. I thought up an alternative version I'd like to share. I know it's probably too late to do anything like this but I thought it was cool so I figured I'd share. Also who knows, maybe wyrd will have a use for it someday for some other model, either in the Transmortis crew or another one. Here goes.

Studied Opponent: While in an opposed duel with an enemy, this model may add any suits in the enemies duel total to its duel total.

Basically, this could represent the model watching the opponent and learning from what they do. The models could have special triggers on their attacks that are very strong, but require both you and your opponent to have the correct suits. these triggers would be difficult to get off, but could be assisted by things like Undergraduates to give a required suit to your opponent.

Here's a couple ideas for the triggers that could be used with this format

Df/Wp (Outsmarted) Immediately after this trigger is resolved, the action fails.

 (Evisceration) When damaging, damage from this attack is irreducible

Just throwing this out there, tell me what you guys think 😁

As long as the books aren't mandatory and the rules can be got elsewhere, I'm fine with this. I left Warhammer 40K due to the ridiculous price tag associated with trying to just get the rules to the game (it'd be like $100 a year for my factions, plus any extra books for additional rules). It honestly felt like a membership fee to be able to play the game I had already dropped thousands into in models.

Haha, yeah I realized after I posted, I should have put this in Ressers, even though chiaki is TT

Hey guys, just wanted to share a cool little trick I found while playing Chiaki. Give her the Whisper! It feels bad to spend 2ss on it when you only truly get one ability (let's be honest, Chiaki isn't killing anything, so you're not getting research specimens) but she get's soooo much use out of intuition. It helps you mine for masks for split the soul (which needs to also be on Yan Lo btw ), hit her TN on beckoning call, and if you setup her turn properly you get to pick what you draw with nefarious pact. Try it out

As far as I'm aware, if it doesn't explicitly forbid  actions, they can be taken as they're still actions.

15 hours ago, aquenaton said:

I would love to see some kind of Undead Obey as used against death marshalls when he lost his mind, but it is not mandatory.

I approve of this. It'd very much fit his theme. Or he could get something like Unclean Influence, but for mindless zombies

On 3/11/2019 at 6:43 AM, retnab said:

Studied Opponent giving card draw when the suits match sounds solid to me

Yeah, I really like this idea. I've felt like the Transmortis crew needed more card draw. Most of their draw is unreliable, often needing a specific suit or corpse/scrap or both. Albus needs to hit two moderate TNs each turn and Undergrads want to be teleporting to really take advantage of their abilities. This is a good solution and it feels thematic. I wouldn't go the damage increase route, as Transmortis damage is already pretty great.

Yeah, I don't feel like we should have to bribe Henchmen with OP masters to get them to organize events. From what I've been hearing, Reva is in a decent spot right now, with little tweaks occurring. Pretty much all masters have been toned down. Reva was one that definitely needed it from M2E so I don't expect her M3E version to look anything like what she used to. If Reva's fine then she's fine and if the locals don't like her playstyle, they can play something else. If not, they'll stop playing. It's pretty normal for there to be some turnover during edition changes as some people are very attached to how things used to be.

50ss Flank Deployment, Turf War, Detonate Charges, Outflank, Power Ritual, Deliver a Message, Take Prisoner

Resser: Outflank, Power Ritual

Yan Lo

Soul Porter

Manos

Izamu

Chiaki

2x Komainu

Gokudo

6ss

Arcanists: Detonate Charges, Deliver a Message

Collette

2x Doves

Dove w/ magical training

Cassandra

Carlos

The Captain

Coyphee Duet

10ss

Deployment

I deploy in SW corner with Izamu, Chiaki, the Gokudo, and a Komainu in the east edge and  Soul Porter, Manos and a Komainu on the north edge. Yan Lo in the center

My opponent deployed in the NE corner with his models in the center of his deployment zone

Turn 1: Models moved up, I didn't get the suit for Chiaki's Split the Soul Trigger so she couldn't hand out a reliquary. Yan Lo joins the northern group after dropping a scheme marker. I grab SW marker, he grabs NE and center marker. After all the moving, Collette swaps Izamu and the Captain, puttin both Izamu and Chiaki in a bad spot.

Turn 2: Izamu fails a couple swings at the Duet. Duet does its trick and kills Izamu, Chiaki grabs the reliquary. Chiaki pushes away the Captain who throws shockwaves at her and the Gokudo.  North group moves up.  Komainu drops scheme marker in SE corner. Manos rushes to NW corner. I score 1 for strat, 1 for outflank, 1 for power ritual. Opponent scores 1 for strat

Turn 3: Komainu rushes to Chiaki to protect her with Take the Hit. Carlos charges Yan Lo, hits once, and Yan Lo stones away damage. Duet punches Komainu for 2 damage after armor. Manos places a scheme marker in the NW corner and leaps to the Turf marker. Yan Lo attaches blood and tears Carlos apart. Cassandra places two scheme marker next to NW Komainu. Collette grabs the SE marker. The Captain fails to cause damage with his shockwaves. Opponent scores 1 for Detonate Charges and 1 for strat

Turn 4: Cassandra delivers a message to Yan Lo. Tan Lo claims NW marker and runs away. Manos gets to NE marker by charging a dove, then leaping. He flips marker to friendly. Duet knocks Komainu down to 1, then Dove finishes it off. Chiaki shoves half the duet away, to prevent them from reassembling. second coryphee kills Chiaki. Collette kills Gokudo and buries herself. I now have no models in the SE corner. Captain hoofs it to NW corner. I score 1 for strat.

Turn 5: Cassandra drops a scheme marker and flips NW marker to neutral. Manos flips BJ on leap and fails to place a marker in NE corner of the board. The Captain tries to place a second marker for Detonate charges but can't place properly with the other one so close. Collette unburies near Yan Lo and coryphee and places a scheme marker. Yan Lo is last to go and places next to coryphee, pushing it away, then runs off. I score 1 for Power Ritual

In terms of models. I felt like the Duet trick was really strong. It is the only 12ss model though, so it may very well be balanced, but boy did she do a lot of work. I also wish Split the Soul was also on Yan Lo. I didn't get any useful masks on turn 1 so I just didn't get to use that ability and later in the game I needed purity more.

9 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Sinew I think has a kind of trap with Obey Corpse. It's so hard to hope for that 6Crows, which Albus also needs by the way, just to give an action to someone else. It can be situationally useful I suppose, but after game 1 I just forgot it was even there

Yeah I can't really think of many situations where this would be better than just having the Student do something. You need a card with the correct suit and number, (There's only 9 in the deck) and Albus also wants the same card. And really, what's the highest card you would spend on this ability? (I couldn't see myself using an 11+ so that only leaves 5 realistic cards) I'd like him to either gain a crow to the action, if that's too strong then he could gain an ability to gain a crow when targeting friendlies.

1 hour ago, Morbius said:

I'm not real sold on his free action ability as its very situational.

I don't really get this, being able to take any action (ignoring italic in the correct situation) seems like it's the most versatile bonus action you could get. You need to escape? Take back alley. You need to kill something? Take an extra attack. You need to scheme? Take an interact action. Really, there are plenty of other masters who have situations where their bonus action is not useful (Mama Z might not want to reset the hands, if Molly is out of cards she can't discard for her ability, Albus could be only near students who already have the upgrade) but there's no situation I can think of where Seamus wouldn't want an extra action. 

7 hours ago, MajorUndead said:

Don't you think the valedictorian would be in the box as well? There's usually a henchman in boxes, no?

This is usually the case, but there are several boxes that break that mold. (Kirai, Yan Lo, Tara used to be one. That's just in Ressers) So it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary

7 hours ago, MajorUndead said:

he limit of how many times you can take a model seems to be the number of models in its box.

Also typically correct, but there are exceptions as well (Rats need the Hamelin and Brotherhood box, Canine Remains get three from their box and one from McMourning, Seishin are split between Kirai and Datsu Ba)