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I have used Winston Finnigan in a lot of crews OOK. He brings a lot of useful tools to the table. Arcane reservoir, deck manipulation, don’t mind me, a potential multi model leap, etc.

I agree with @Pallas4 that if the Cadmus player decides to treat the parasited enemy as friendly then that model may also choose to suffer damage. 
Parasitic Grasp says:
"During friendly Activations, Cadmus models in this Crew may treat enemy models with a Parasite as though they were friendly Cadmus models (except for Schemes and Strategies)."

And Siphon Power says:
"After this model declares an Action, a friendly model with 4 may suffer 1 irreducible damage."

So rules as written I would say Pallas is correct and in theory it might score Hidden Martyrs. The point of discussion is whether this would then also count as "..killed by an enemy-controlled model". As the model taking the damage is choosing to die, even though the Ability is on an enemy controlled model, I doubt that killing itself counts as being killed by that model. But that is definitively a point for discussion.

36 minutes ago, Pallas4 said:

hum maybe yes. Damn.

 

But, question from french discord, it means an an opponent can use it to be score Hidden Martyrs? He choses each time to suffer damage?

No, as the Cadmus player "may treat models with Parasite Tokens as friendly". So as it is a "may" the Cadmus player will just say "No, I won't.... "

1 hour ago, Pallas4 said:

a parasited model is still friendly model. so, near a "siphon power" model...

 

 

But you can't siphon directly from the parasites model as that model is the one who "may suffer damage" and of course if its an enemy model it will not do so.

The only thing you can do is that you pass that damage with Will Of Cadmus but as it is irreducible it will not lower the damage you suffer on your model.

17 minutes ago, Kogan Style said:

Now the 3 Botanist list only has 2 stones in its cache, or do you drop something to keep the cache higher in assassinate pools? For my OOK heavy crews I now am forced to decide what is included since I cannot have it all. 

The one mentioned above has 6. or do you mean after your suggested change?

I think it might be the one listed here (

)?

Wow, ok that makes it a lot better. Thanks for the clarification!
Still, it kind of sounds not intended that way 😉, but ok if Wyrd says so..

On 4/19/2020 at 3:16 PM, hemgath said:

With the strange new reading on SVG' riccochet... they become better beatter ...

What do you mean with this "new" reading? Did I miss something here?

In 1.0.8 I could create a game using GG0.

With the new update to 1.0.9 it disappeared again and my games I created with it now show up with the red error message in the game list.

52 minutes ago, poulpox said:

I was thinking of Bishop as my beater/scheme runner. With fast and option to double drop scheme markers whilst potentially punching hard, he seems a lovely choice. Hamelin does lack an in keyword beater, and I think Bishop could deliver whilst multitask.

 

I also had some really good games bringing Barbaros. Especially with "Bring It!" to get enemies into the "death zone" with all the blight auras as well as Nix' no-severe damage aura and into range of the Rat Kings (and Barbaros himself of course). You have to be a bit careful with placement due to Black Blood, though. Together with Hamelins lure there is literally no escape.

7 hours ago, retnab said:

Remember this is a model with cost+1 health, and the same attack as the crew's melee beater henchman, on a supposed scheme runner.

It appears this was a bug and instead of health 8 cost 7 it should be health 7 cost 8.

that is at least how I interpret Matt reacting with thanks to my post in the grammar thread.

12 hours ago, Liched said:

[...] and if you can unbury in your deployment zone if you can't end fast.

It never occurred to me until now but that is actually a really good question.

For reference, this is what it says regarding unbury in the Rulebook:

Quote

A Buried model can only be returned to the table via an Unbury effect. When Unburying a model, the con- troller of the Unbury effect places the model back on the table as described by the effect. If the model can- not be Placed, the owner of the model instead places it anywhere inside their Deployment Zone.

and then the wording of the "From Nothing" ability:

Quote

From Nothing: At the start of this model's Activation, if it is Buried, it may end another model's Fast Condition to Unbury in base contact with that model.

And a similar wording on the "Glimpse the Void" trigger:

Quote

 [...] at the start of its Activation, Unbury it within 1" of an enemy model.

So if there is no model with fast on the board the activated, buried model cannot be placed and thus, in theory, is placed in Taras Deployment Zone. 
What do you think? How should this be interpreted correctly?

Ok, I think the Student would be a good target for it.

Not sure if anyone has done it before but just to give an overview this is a list of things that the Child could copy other than Covetous Cravings (same also for the Dead Outlaw who has the same action). I am not sure about actions that refer to a keyword (e.g., Vermin) but not a model. Those are probably allowed (as it does not refer to the "model name" but that might be a misunderstanding) thus I included them (with a *).

Prospector
 - Appraise: This might actually be useful for card cycling. The Child could drop a scheme marker and then do card cycling. However, it still requires a 6 to go off so you might come out below your investment.

Montresor:
- Cursed to watch*: basically turning the copy into any Attack action of a Tormented.

Hamelin
- Pustulent Tumors*: Due its long range could be useful to blow up Rats from far away.

Karina
- Channeled Healing: Would require a 9 for the heal plus an additional card to unbury. Not sure if this is worth it.

Vanessa
- Healing Energy: Might be useful for a 6 you get another long range heal.

Librarian
- Healing Energy: same thing.

Drache Trooper
- Move or Burn: more condition removal at the cost of 1 dmg in a large pulse (10") could be useful.

Hodgepodge Effigy:
- Plenty of Wares: Another heal with less range and a higher TN.

Doc Mitchell:
- Emergency Surgery: close range heal with the option to give shielded for a 7

Sue:
- Walk the line: Push and potential card draw with a trigger to remove markers. Could be useful to copy.

Parker:
- Bandit Raid*: Requires an 8 but pushing and letting it perform a action. This is actually a pretty good option.

Leveticus:
- Essence Transfer: As it has a good range this could be a good option to do for the child. However, the action itself is very situational on Levi already. Not sure if it will come up that often for the Child then.

Actions that only make sense as some kind of offensive option which is probably a bad idea for the Child to be:

Jack Daw
- Whispered Truths

Nothing Beast
- Accelerate Time

Tara
- Timeslip

Pride:
- Destructive Performance*

Desolation Engine/Ashes and Dust/Ashen Core:
- Draw Essence

Actions that could be copied but don't make any sense for the Child to do:

Winged Plague
- Festering Wounds

 Rat Catcher
 - Rat Snack*

54 minutes ago, Khormy said:

I mean 3 ss, can scheme now, has manipulative and disguised, and can copy action from nearly anyone (of higher ss, but it is not like there are so many 3ss or lower models), plus he is versatile.

Only non- tactical actions can be copied (and that model needs to be within 5"). Is there any particular such action that you think is too strong when copied?

Thanks for the report. Slapping people with Aionus to give them fast is nice but I'm not sure if this is what Aionus should be doing. As you found out he will be lagging behind after that and almost all of his auras and actions require him to be close to be useful.

One thing I noticed: At first I thought oh cool the Malifaux Child finally has a useful action to copy. But unfortunately that does not work. Aionus' Sever Timeline is an attack action and Just LIke You! says:

Quote

Once per Activation. Target a model with higher Cost than this model. Select one of the target's non-Tactical Actions that does not Attach Upgrades or list a model by name. This model may take the selected Action with a penalty of -2 to its Stat

So unfortunately this is not allowed. So the Child will probably never see play in my games 😢. 

One could argue, why is Sever Timeline an attack action at all? I guess 99% of the time you would unbury your own model with it anyway. So it could easily be reworked to be a tactical action somehow. Alternatively, you could copy Karina's Channeled Healing to unbury but that requires a 9 + another card for the Child which seems a bit too expensive.

9 minutes ago, valkirsWrath said:

I'm not sure at I think of the duet change, there's no way in keyword for it to heal now.

That is not entirely correct. Cassandra can copy The Power of Dance to heal the Duet when she is near it.

11 minutes ago, valkirsWrath said:

I'm not sure at I think of the duet change, there's no way in keyword for it to heal now. It's still ridiculously tanky but maybe not 12ss tanky.

Its still the only model with Armor +2 and Df 7 (it is actually one of only 3 models in the entire game that have Df 7. Sun Quiang and Dismounted McCabe are the only others if I saw it correctly).

20 minutes ago, mythicFOX said:

Not tried the Molemen but it's probably worth noting that the Blessed is a little under costed looking at it. 

Now that you say this I think there is a bug in the Blessed's card. In one of the last updates the changelog stated an increase of its cost from 7 to 8 but instead its wounds were increased from 7 to 8 I guess that was not the intention 😋.

3 hours ago, retnab said:

The resource cost is a good point, especially since I don't know if that means the model's still activated or if they can then activate it next?  If it's the former, that's super good, if not it's a bit awkward. 

As it states "the opposing player is instead treated as passing their Activation" I would assume it is the former.

4 hours ago, Alerteddonkey42 said:

My first impression is that Buffering is too expensive to use. Activation control is a powerful mechanic and just giving it to your opponent is not ideal. Then you top it off with the troubles a summoning crew will have with getting pass tokens. 

Remember that Aionus now also has the Fleeting Moments trigger on Sever Timeline to get 2 pass tokens for any (assuming you are unburying your own model and relent). As well as you don' loose pass tokens from summoning now (however, of course the next turn you are one down). 

I like the changes to Obliteration and will definitively try to test them in a game or two.

Number One on my list is also the Hoarcat. It does not need 3 ways to heal where all of them involve killing something which with 1/2/4 it probably not do very often. Someone mentioned replacing Eat your Fill with something like Deadly Pursuit which I think is a good idea. But then again it has Swallow you Whole which is a moot trigger when you also have a Bonus action that heals even more (at least against living/undead models).

Then there is the Moleman. In order to work properly as a scheme runner you need 2 of them. Why would I spend 8 SS when I can get the Blessed of December for 7 which is more than 2 times better than a Moleman. Also comparing them to other 4SS models (e.g., Ice Gamin, Fire Gamin, MEdical Automaton, even the Mannequin) it does not really bring enough for this cost. The Bury trigger does not really help when with Df 4 and Wd 4 it can be one shotted by almost any decent model (e.g., with focus).

5 minutes ago, Kelto said:

Envy did not get a VP vor the kill, because he did not survive Envys activation.

Thanks for the correction. I updated the original post.

7 hours ago, Jordon said:

Overall I'm loving the change and hopefully it results in Mech being able to do her scheming while also still being engaged with the fight. Her ultimate ability still brings up concerns of it either being bonkers or useless depending on pass tokens. I wonder how often it'll just be "okay"

The problem seems to be the pass tokens for additional activations. I think the ability would be fine if it would just reactivate one key model (or spend 2 pass tokens per additional activation). But having a chain (!!) activation of arbitrary  1 to X (in my case 3) models without any chance to interrupt is not something that should happen.

9 hours ago, cbtb11235813 said:

Thanks for the response. Knowing now what the Rider can do, was there anything you'd have done differently about it? Something that catches you off guard can definitely seem too good, when in reality you just didn't play it correctly. 

Not really, I could have sent a beater (Nothing Beast) after her but then she could have just slipped away (having Ride and MV 7 she outpaces almost everything, and even if Ride With Me fails Mv7 it is a guaranteed disengage against something 1) which would have left the NB far away from the action. Maybe again it was a bad match up as Tara does not really have access to ranged attacks which could have threatened the rider at least a bit and encouraged it to spend the tokens to survive rather than for the reactivate trigger.

Flank deployment

Strategy
Turf War

Schemes
Outflank
Vendetta (Scion vs Joss, Envy vs Talos)
Take Prisoner
Search the Ruins (Tara, Raspy)
Hold Up Their Forces

Attacker (me):
Tara
Karina
Nothing Beast 9
Aionus 10
Talos 8
Scion 6
Midnight Stalker 8
Void Wretch 4
5ss

Defender (@Kelto😞
Rasputina
Wendigo
Ice Golem
Joss
Silent One
Mechanical Rider
Envy
5ss

Turn sequence (from memory so might not be 100% accurate).
Turn 1
Lots of movement and Turf Marker flipping on both sides. Joss commands the Mech Rider to charge the Wretch on the flank bringing it down to 1. Raspy and Silent one place some Ice Pillars to block the way for Tara and Aionus. Tara summons a Void Hunter which gets unburied next to the Silent One who got fast from Nothing Beasts Pulse. Void Hunter kills Silent One. Envy shoots at Nothing Beast for 2 dmg. Karina buries Scion.

Turn 2
Nothing Beast charges Joss but fails to do much. Joss brings Nothing Beast down to 4Wd. Tara attacks Joss and buries him. Scion fails to hurt Joss. Raspy creates some more pillars and Shockwaves Nothing Beast giving it slow and staggered bringing it down to 3 Wd. Karina buries Nothing Beast to bring it to safety. Golem, Talos, Envy move towards center. Rider charges Tara but fails to hurt her. Stalker moves and drops a scheme for StR. Aionus kills Wendigo. Both score Turf War. Tara 1 - Raspy 1

Turn 3
Tara summons another Void Hunter and buries the NB. Joss unburies near Envy moves and charges Tara. Raspy gives Talos slow and staggered and boxes it in with Ice Pillars. Talos removes one of the pillars. Hunter unburies from . Golem charges Aionus but does not do much damage. Aionus attacks Golem and give it fast. Rider drops 2 markers for StR. reactivates Golem, Joss and herself. Golem with fast brings down Aionus to 2 Wds Joss brings Tara down to 3 Wds. Rider kills second hunter. Karina heals Scion gives fast to Raspy buries Tara. Envy kills first hunter. Stalker dops 2 more scheme markers for StR, At the end of the round Scion, Tara and NB are buried with no way to unbury as the only fast was consumed by the reactivations that the Rider gave out. Both score Turf War and StR. Tara 3 - Raspy 3.

Turn 4
Aionus unburies Tara. Raspy creates Pillars near Aionus and Tara uses Freeze over and Shatter to kill Aionus flipping one of Taras Turf Markers back. Talos moves and charges Joss to bury him. Envy kills Talos (not scoring Vendetta as Talos was dead by the end of Envys activation) then shoots at Midnight Stalker. Scion hurts Joss (scoring Vendetta). Tara kills buried Joss, gives fast to Raspy and damages her. Golem flips center marker. NB unburies from Raspies fast. Tara Vendetta. Raspy scores Turf War. Tara 4 - Raspy 4

Turn 5:
Golem Kills Nothing Beast. Tara attacks Raspy without much effect. Envy shoots Stalker but can't kill him. Stalker lays down more scheme markers for StR. Raspy kills Tara. Karina tries to heal Scion but Black Jokers it. Tries again and fails. Rider kills Karina. Rider lays down scheme markers, reactivates Envy who removes one scheme marker to deny StR. Raspy scores Vendetta. Final score: Tara 4 - Raspy 5.

Thoughts:
MVP Tara:
Void Hunters. Good price, good synergy. Impactful actions. Good summon. I really like them. They felt like I want the whole crew to feal. All abilities and actions on the card can be used to a good impact. Nice intrinsic synergy between giving fast and getting (+) flips to attacking that model then. Decently survivable. Second place goes to the Midnight Stalker. Did what he was hired for. Leap plus fast and good survivability worked really well in this pool. 

The bad ones:
Tara:
She tried a lot but apart from summoning 2 Void Hunters and pinging people for damage and fast she did not feel like a master in this game.
Temporal Shift is so super situational it is a waste of space on her card. Fast on enemies is much to valuable to her crew to "waste" it with an action. Especially if it is a master action. I constantly had the feel that I didn't have enough fast on enemies to achieve what I wanted to and I used Stutter Time in about 80% of my models activations. 
Same applies to Time Warp. Why the heck is this a master action? This is even more situational and the benefit is marginal. So why is this a Master AP (and yes, I know she has 5 AP but still this is another waste of space). I used it once but just to use it and that was when I only had 6 cards in my discard pile where there were 3 > 10. But even then you don't really have control and it is a wasted action. I think Sanguine evocations from Levis card is 100 times better and it is even a bonus action.
Age to Destruction didn't happen a single time. And both Aionus and Tara waste space for this.
Why not give her a ranged attack similar to Eventuality that Aionus has to make her more than a scheme runner.

Aionus
The worst model in the game. All he did was walking around and killing the 3ss Totem.
10ss for what? He is also super squishy (Df. 6 does not help very much against almost all beaters). Maybe he should have some defensive trigger that ends the opponents activation (Frozen in Time) or similar. In his current shape he is worth about 8SS I would say. Compare it with the Nothing Beast which is 9 but 100 times (ok I'm exaggerating now) better.
Sever Timeline is the only thing that is somehow useful and that only because there is never enough fast on enemies to efficiently support the unburies of Taras crew (not only her summons but the other part of her core mechanic using stutter time to bury her own models). But then you are paying 10SS for a model that walks and unburies stuff (oh wait that is what the free Karina can already do somehow) Maybe having this as a bonus action might improve this situation.
A Stitch in Time and Time is a Flat Circle: Too situational. He is bad at killing and why would you want to give a buried opponent fast when you need that on the board?
Tick, Tock and Eventuality: While I like the general theme of these actions they don't pull the weight of a 10SS model.

Other models in the keyword that are ok but don't really do much:
Talos:
While not as bad as Aionus, does very little for the crew as well. And particularly in this game. He was shut down by pillars and slow and staggered then killed by irreducible damage from Joss and shots by Envy. Maybe its just some tiny things but he is not really convincing me to take him in his current form.

Void Wretch: bad as a summon even worse as a hire. They are not even good scheme runners (compared to things like Necropunks for instance). But ok they are only 4SS.

The models which I think are in a good spot are:
Karina
Channeled healing as a reliable unbury (although costing 2 cards most of the time) seems necessary to have in the crew. Also healing Scion and other buried friendlies worked relatively well.

Nothing Beast:
Worked relatively well although had some bad flips so did not do nearly as much as it could. But for 9SS it is decent enough.

Scion
Useful and flexible when attacking buried models or through minions. Was really useful for Vendetta. Even though in this game in the end he could not be unburied and died at the end of the game. For 6SS this still is a good model.
 

Raspy & crew
MVP
Rider was the MVP on my opponents side by a huge margin. It scored schemes (Search the Ruins) and held a Turf Marker on its own. Then reactivated 6 (!!) models over the course of turns 3,4 and 5. And those activations turned the game around (2x Ice Golem, 2x Joss, 1x Rider herself (is this even possible?), 1x Envy). Especially the additional activations in such an elite crew, meaning having a couple of pass tokens available each round, are super powerful. Now that the range restriction is gone the Rider is near untouchable somewhere in the corner and the big beaters get double their weight in later turns. At least in this game it felt too good. Not really sure how to fix this, though. Maybe restrict the reactivation to non-henchman? It was a perfect counter to Taras fast mechanic. The rider could simply reactivate the models I put fast on in order to benefit from it instead of having Tara get the chance to use this essential resource for her own. Really bad matchup for Tara I guess.....

From my point of view the Rest of the crew works really good. Raspy as a board control Master plus interaction with Shockwaves etc works fine. A lot of ruthless (Raspy, Joss and Rider) was a good counter to the Void Creatures terrifying. Irreducible damage from Joss good against Talos and NB.

11 minutes ago, cbtb11235813 said:

1) Was it any worse of a matchup that someone bringing the Arcane Effigy (or any sort of condition removal)? Using the Rider's "super" trigger to remove fast seems akin to building a catapult to cross the street. There are much easier ways to do it. 
 

2) This part also confuses me. How was the rider able to be so far into the corner to be untouchable, but still score points on a scheme that requires it to be on the opponents half of the board? Please don't take this as me being rude, I'm actually curious. The rider is fast, but not that fast

1) The main thing was not removing the fast which is not the big problem but actually taking benefit on its own by reactivating the model that had fast on it. And granter enough pass tokens this can be done to a lot of models potentially and ANYWHERE on the board not only next to the Effigy.

2) This was due to flank deployment. He held the Turf Marker on one flank and dropped markers near that corner on my half. Sure I could have focussed more on this flank but unfortunately I couldn't.

Maybe it was just me not knowing good enough what the Rider can do and next time I need to focus it down early.
 

I'll post a battle report today on this as well.

51 minutes ago, Adran said:

 

I also view burying your own crew for safety as defensive tech, so whilst its nice if you can keep Karina near her, its not essential for the way I play. The 2 cards cost is worth it for me for the certainly of an unbury.

 

This is one thing that actually worked for me as well, somehow at least. And I also think Karina is ok as she is for this purpose. She healed the Scion back up as well as I buried the Nothing Beast when it was in trouble (I think I even used her Stutter Time for it) then she healed it and could unbury it in a safer place. I also used her to ressurect Tara once. So I think she really did was what she was supposed to. My real concerns are mostly with Tara herself as well as Aionus. As I play also Arcanists I unfortunately have a direct comparison to Sandeep. And Sandeep is so much better in almost every aspect: Better (more versatile, more than one at a time) summons without any hoops to jump through, better Totem (Banasuva is great), better buffing for his crew (Shouting Orders, Command the Elements, Guru, Mantra, etc.), better attack (with arcane storm, and even his Gada Attack is situationally better than the Soulstone Sword). His whole card is full of stuff which is useful in so many occasions. Where as Taras is super situational + the Fast mini game. I get that she needs to pay a tax for her second activation but then again if you factor in the impactful activation that a Banasuva gets even this is a moot point.

Sorry for the rant but I really like her and her theme and I want to enjoy playing her which is currently not the case.

Just one additional general impression I gained after several games of M3E with (mostly) Arcanists and Outcasts: Most of the games I played with other masters felt like achieving something by the actions performed. This game with Tara was the first game were I had to jump through a lot of hoops to achieve the main mechanic of the crew with the result of next to no effect in the game.

I think in addition to this and the matchup was kind of bad. I played against Raspy with Golem, Mech Rider, Joss and Envy. Without a way to get around Armor or get rid of slow on my models (maybe I should have brought Johan?) I had a hard time. Additionally, I really felt the lack of a ranged options in Obliteration. Being boxed in/out by Ice Pillars made it hard to get models into position (especially Talos and Aionus, not so much the void creatures due to incorporeal). Also the Mech Rider with its reactivate made it really hard to find good spots to apply fast to without the fear of getting e.g., a reactivated Ice Golem with fast to the face. The only more or less reliable target was Raspy as fast does not affect her and she can't be reactivated.

The game ended with me only having Midnight Stalker and Scion (who was buried so counted as dead) alive and on Raspys side only Joss, the Wendigo and a Silent One died. Points-wise it was still ok I only lost 5-6 and I could have potentially (if I had played better and not made some stupid positioning mistakes) gotten at least to a draw. But the general impression was just that it is not fun to play the mechanic due to the reasons stated above.