Liched

I wouldn’t worry too much about age to destruction. 
And forcing glimpse with anyone except Tara is difficult and it’s a trigger that goes up in value as your opponents hand is diminished. 

I’d recommend trying to score your points first and then keep your opponents occupied with your summons.  If something gets buried, great, it’s off the table and a lot of your models and can now charge and attack the buried model if you have no other target and need the mobility. But I don’t think it should be your primary gameplan. 

I have a question regarding the Drudges “Just a graze” talent. Am I reading it correctly in that the fated with the talent is allowed to chest damage flips from date master characters that are targeted towards her? 

Wait, why is Outcast considered to be good against armour? Is it on the random chance you’ll face Leveticus? 
 

There is 9, 10 with pride, models in the faction that can ignore armour in some way. One of them being analyse weakness and an ap trigger on Effigy. Another is a trigger on Viks secondary action. 

Ressers have 5.5 (if you count McM 2 since he can get any action)

By comparison 10T has at least 16 models capable of ignoring armor, 1 analyse and 1 upgrade that makes any model ignore armour in melee 

Has anyone tried the bayou smugglers with Parker?

57 minutes ago, Gort77 said:

So, i have not really paid much attention to the Outcast forums during the beta, as they are a secondary faction for me.  From the little i have read about Tara it sounds like she almost needs to bring Aiounus in every list, is that true?

It adds consistency to the crew, but you don't feel good about and you often wish you could skip him. (What he does is smack your Talos turn 1 and can unbury things)

25 minutes ago, Drfaust176 said:

This may be overly optimistic of me, but I wonder if this is actually all right. If we do end up getting alternative master cards, then likely there will be a variation on her that is not a "schemey-summoner". I get that it's not exciting play as a master, but it also means she's unique in her role compared to other masters. Plus it lets the Obliteration Beast punch face, and that model deserves to take some center stage, in my opinion.

It would be all right if she was designed to be a scheme runner with interesting scheme running abilites. Right now her scheme feels incidental. 

3 hours ago, Adran said:

Its also potential protection for a near dead model, keeping them safe long enough to activate again.

But then I would unbury them with Karina or Aionus instead of trying to play the fast mini game 

@Saduhem Tara's double activation is the core of Tara's gameplay identity, but there's nothing else in her kit that would benefit from spacing out your activations, beyond the benefit of having two activations and 5 ap. 

I'm also unhappy with the uninteractive nature of just leaping around and interacting. 

Making Aiounus beast bomb more realiably wouldn't make him more valuable because, if you want to bomb, Tara does it better and the other model that's worth bombing with can't be bombed and is just sort of tacked on to the theme 

Most of the time I did that I don't need to redeploy most of my models.  NB is move 6 and a 2" range and incorporeal, the wretches shouldn't be close to enemies except for certain purposes, in which case they are already there and the hunter often jumps up in melee anyways. 

The 2 models I'd want to redeploy are Talos, who I can't move around and Aionus, who I don't want in melee and is required for delaying their activation if I want to unbury on top of them. 

1 minute ago, Gesuma said:

Frankly I do not see 12HP changing anything really. What makes 12HP so much better than 11HP?

If people are struggling with her now, then more or something better than +1HP is needed.

12 HP is often enough to add another attack needed to kill her. They could probably up it to 13 without it becoming broken - but that might also be too much if they plan on anything else 

2 hours ago, Davos said:

When you think about it, all the C7 are very strong versatile models.  Which is good since there should good/strong non-keyword models in faction.  Is Pride (and the rest) strong?  Very much so.  IS it game breaking?  I don't think so (though I'll concede I haven't seen much testing involving them).  

Also, as a Business decision, it makes sense they would be strong models, since you have to buy the entire set to get one, so its in Wyrd's best interest for them to be strong across the board to generate revenue, on very specialty models.   Again, going back to the Non-keyword models, its good for the game (and Wyrd)

I agree. 

If Pride becomes a mandatory hire in every competitive list then Of course that's a problem. Sadly it hasn't really been tested because of how the beta tends to work

It also became problematic with "Glimpse of the Void" and similar effects. If you manage to bury like 3 models or for some reason the majority of their crew and killed the remaining models, would the buried models just be permanently buried since there's no ally to unbury to?

I too, like niche actions and high-risk - high-reward actions. But when they are unintuitive/clunky in an edition that tries to remove it (say flipping your deck once, checking the cards and the flipping again or Aionus gaining arguably more value from running around smacking his friends). Or is high-risk, low-reward - and promotes a playstyle where I'm not interacting with my opponent unless they do a major mistake are all things that detract from my enjoyment (most of the time). And when your turn is either pre-planned to a T or relies on your opponent doing something incredibly dumb, I'm all in favour of mechanics that adds more interesting choices.

Not that I believe Tara have had high-risk, high-reward this edition

In my match yesterday, Tara did not once actually interact with my opponent and he was powerless to stop it. Which I don't think was fun for either of us. 

Strategy: Turf war, flank deployment.
Schemes: 
Harness the leylines
Search the ruins
Take prisoners
Power ritual
Deliver a message

Crew list @Liched
Tara Blake
Karina
Aionus
Scion of the Void
Pride
Nothing Beast
- Servant of the Dark Powers
Talos

8ss

Turf war: 3 points
Harness the Leylines: 1 point
Power Ritual: 1 point

MvP model and why: I mean, I have to give it to Tara for just scheeming I guess. Nobody did anything truly exceptional this game. And the obliteration crew is good and not bad. But it's very dull to play with and I would assume against. 

What I could have done better: If the game would have continued beyond turn 3, then I'd have played Tara a bit slower, summon more and dropping an extra scheme marker and I wouldn't have lost much. 

Crew list @Paradigm
Youko Hamasaki
Chiyo
Kabuki Warrior 
Kabuki Warrior
Bunraku
Bunraku
Charm Warder
Geisha
Tanuki

6ss

Turf war: 1 point
Search the Ruins: 0 points
Harness the Leylines: 0 points

So this match was  4-1 after turn 3 to Tara. Only like 4 models died during the whole match (3 on Taras side, 1 on youko) and it was a very dull because of a lot of failed flips on both sides along with terrifying being good if you don't have anything ruthless, but it was also an enjoyable match because of my opponent.

So, some crew thoughts and what they did. The Obliteration crew is still very unfocused and not especially flavourful. I almost feel like a re-flavoured Misaki would be almost, if not more thematic than the current Tara.

Tara: Having up to 5 leaps a turn is very good, but it doesn't solve the problem with her being boring. She scored 3 points by herself and helped set up a 4. out of 15 actions, I summoned twice, didn't use her bonus action a single time and walked twice and swung once. She's not very exciting to play at all, I think that she should be able to copy buried models actions, remove fast for reactivate on models and have a trigger to give fast to friendly models on her stutter time. 

Aionus: Ah, still bad, but not aggressivly so. He has potential, but it requires a lot of work on a model of poor strenghts and speed (and theme), but most of the time he just slaps around his friends for fast. The thing he does which is great requires a lot of set-up which is a little annoying - but mostly he just doesn't get anywhere. Drop his cost and /or give him agile and allow him to take two different zero actions in a turn. Another ability that would make him a little bit more appealing is if he models could also choose to unbury next to him when ending fast. I think he needs a combination of things, but barring an almost pure redesign, these are the things I'd suggest. 

Talos: The model which is basically just a worse Nothing Beast. Since my Nothing Beast was focused on this game, Talos just came in and smacked (buried 2 models) my opponents crew instead. Between no ruthless and no reliable armor-ignore, he drained a lot of recourses, after the nothing beast was dead of course.  He doesn't do anything with his own crew and requries help from being slapped by Aionous or have the Emissary move him. An easy solution would be to give him an ability to be counted as an enemy when targeted by the "Stutter Time". This would make him chug along and have more synergy with the crew. You could lower stat for it or increase the TN when he's targeted. Just something

The Nothing Beast: Was targeted and killed by a Kabuki Warrior. Did not respect their damage. So I can't properly evaluate it with the  herald upgrade. However, it did it's job of draining recourses and being distracting. Would love for it to be upgraded to a minion (so that we can keep the void evolution line) or to a henchman. Or give him an ability to be summoned if Tara is the crews leader, but suffer 4 irreducable damage when summoned.  Otherwise really solid and could be printed as is.

Karina: Hooo boy - what is she doing? I've yet to find a totem as bad as her. She can't keep up with Tara, has no flavour, is move 4 and costs 5. I'm boggled by why she's so bad. The simple fix would just to be giving her Arcane reservoir - then atleast she would help Tara and the crew and we could just forget about her excistance. I think that the proper thing to do would be to have her be the summoner, but that's radical. I will however maybe try it out in a project. 

Scion of the Void: Finally, I was able to have her and an enemy buried - she only managed to hit 1 of 2 swings, but still. It happened. Mainly because my opponent wasn't aware of it and let his buried models be buried - but it was late into the game and we just had a flank each and any attempt to breach it would be met with death. For 6ss I guess I really can't complain all that much with her range, she just sort of feels "meh" to use. 

Pride: Died early in turn 3 because I forgot about his manipulative, but I see why people think he's really good. He's slightly less good however, when you are forced to play without a hand, since the "Cheat last aura" isn't useful. His damage and control is pretty impressive though and if the enemy can't deal with him he can be brutal I'd assume. 

The Void Wretch and Hunter: I summoned 1 hunter and 2 void wretches across 2 actions. They were decently inconsequental, one wretch dropping a marker. That's about it. still not sold on them and I don't think you'd ever hire either of them in the vast majority of games. A good question is if you can unbury in your deployment if you can't unbury with the "From Nothing" ability.

Youko and her crew

Youko Hamasaki: Mostly annoying. Interesting master that basically causes you to play without a hand. I think that she could gain another use for pass tokens, because after a certain point my opponent had so many of them. An interesting ablity to try and fit into there would be to give an enemy model a token that can be spent on a forced cheat. Could probably set Riddles in the dark to a flat 2 and add it as a built in trigger on Blackmail or Riddles in the Dark. 

Kabuki Warrior: Scary models. Killed Pride and the Nothing Beast and almost denied me a scheme point. Don't know if they are 8ss. I think you could add "Grit (True form revealed): This model adds a ram to all it's duels" since they are Kabuki (warriors). This would make them a bit more dangerous, since right now their cards are very empty. They are a minion however so I guess the potential of having a full uppgrades balances it out... (well not really) 

Bunraku: Seems to be completely fair models. A question is when the "Dissapear" trigger resets. We played it as the end of the Bunrakus activation, but rereading it maybe it's after the attacking model has finished their activation. 

Chiyo: Didn't really do anything so I can't really make a comment. 

Geisha: Finally a fine 4ss model, or decent atleast. Having them as a 1 off is probably good. Could maybe become a demise of ability of  the Kabuki Warrior to become a geisha instead. 

Tanuki: Solid as always. Sadly didn't do a lot this game. But also wasn't awful. 

Charm warder: Having something that can ignore incorporeal is scary. A fair model. If I had something to improve it might be to make the crow trigger built in on the Chi blade. They seemed really cool however. 
 

I'll excuse my grammatical and writing errors by me writing a lot of this at around 2-3 in the moring. I'll let @Paradigm sum up and post his own thoughts wherever he please, but hopefully below

19 minutes ago, S4lt said:

Had a game with new Tara today.

Aionus is improved and helps the crew work but he feels like a 10ss tax to make the crew work. You don't want to hire him but the crew can't function without him. I think with very little time left in the beta just drop him to 9ss and call him done??

It might be personal preference or style but I really like how Tara herself plays. I summoned some models, sent models into the void to be attacked by the rest of the crew, forced models to pop out in their deoyment zone and moved all over the place.

I was surprised at all the TNs and how card and stone intensive the crew was however and Talos basically just spent 2 turns trying to keep up. 

Did they just keep a model in their deployment zone the entire game? 

2 hours ago, CrimsonWraith said:

My point is that there is a lot of talk about her being boring and only a scheme runner, while when other options are brought up the response is “get rid of it, I don’t use it.” It reminds me of ‘when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ I think the same is true for only using a hammer. If her mobility and summoning are the only things you will use, then she is a summoning scheme runner. I don’t tend to use her for schemes, often getting in the thick to give fast and bury enemy models. Then I can control where they are, to a degree. And, often who will go next as my opponents don’t want to leave fast or buried models available for me to play with. I only use her to run schemes late game as her double activate helps put her in weird places.

On Time Warp, since it is still on Karina(which hurts it), it’s not about building the perfect discard pile to get the ultimate flips. Time Warp allowed me to know what was coming. I could tailor my action order to the cards I would flip. It was about removing randomness. Now, instead of knowing Tara’s turn, I have to use Karina, hope my opponent doesn’t use my cards past where I want it to be on my next activation. Not unusable, just more difficult and prone to being monkey wrenched.

Oh, but don’t get me wrong, I still am advocating for her to be able to steal actions of buried models.

I have never had the stance of "I don't use it, remove it" - I've always advocated for, it's super niche/bad, replace it with something else. If that has not been apparent I'll excuse my bad communication skills.

Played a game versus Hamasaki today (will try to put out a battle report soon). Tara was a scheme runner and secured 3 points and summoned two times over 3 turns - but it was so dull, like the whole match was dull. I always feel like my best option with Tara is to scheme and leave the fighting to the Nb and Talos. Aiounus is still bad, just slightly less so now, but with his help, I could finally use the Scions buried Trigger   but he mainly went around and gave models fast. Out of 4 attack actions, one was aimed at an enemy. 

Karina is, well, Karina - and by that I mean that she was very inconseqentual. My opening flips each turn was also really bad, so time warp meant wading through a lot of 1-6 before I could get anything higher. 

A question that came up was the wording on the Scions "Mark of the Void" and if you can unbury in your deployment zone if you can't end fast.

Yes, stealing buried models would give her more internal crew synergy and make her more interesting and rewarding. Also, can the Nothing beast be promoted to a henchmen again? Pretty please

Time Warp wasn't really a fun action because it would happen very infrequently (Crimson, you're probably the only person I've heard to get frequent use of it). 

Most people don't really like their masters to be scheme runners, look at the Seamus forum threads from earlier if you want proof. I think it's great that you have the option of having Tara run around and completing schemes, and she's certainly very good at it with infinite leaps - but it's not very exciting. 

Tara doesn't really have a role beyond scheming however - she doesn't support her crew all that well, she isn't a summoner in either versatility or interactions with her summons and she isnt a control master or beater either.  

1 hour ago, S4lt said:

 

Expert thief - stat 6, once per turn limit, its a good upgrade then. 

Not really, because it's already very situational in when you can use it, and limiting it to once a turn would just make less effective when you get the golden opportunity. It would also encourage a behavior where people would feel forced to use it once a turn

5 hours ago, Aemaru said:

well, you paid 2 SS to gain 3 AND to make your opponnent loose 3...

Very profitable in fact. Interesting I'll try it.

 

It's pretty highroll considering it's stat 5. Also, he had 4 actions, which you don't have in a row

1 hour ago, touchdown said:

What if Tara had a tactical action that let her end fast on a friendly model to take an action printed on it's card?

Or end fast for reactivation, because spending 2 actions for 1 is often times pretty bad economy. Or have it so friendly models don't lose fast. But then you'd just give the NB fast and smack people 3 times with his melee attack. Wrote about how she could take actions from buried models (at range that time, but you know).

Thanks for the report

Unless they've changed anything the maximum amount of actions you can take per activations is 3+1 bonus action. 

Thanks for doing this @Kolath

I mentioned in the other post some models but to go through those I didn't 

* The Guilty needs something just a little more - if it's a push towards markers or tormented models/upgrades. Or maybe maybe a small push if a cursed model walks within an aura. If you give them more mobility and up the defense of some other models in the crew (specifically the drowned(?)) then I think they could stand to go down to DF5 instead of 6 (sorry @Saduhem). It might also be that there's not enough Wp attacks. 

* The Winged Plague, another seemingly underperforming 4ss model. I do think that they could gain a small aura that causes enemies blight to go up at the end of the turn. 

* Johan Creedy. Please, just him an in-built tome on rebel Yell. Sure he might work fine in a Zipp crew (even though the added mobility often times is better on models with better mobility and have more reliable ways of doing their job). Maybe rush could be cool to have.

* Abominations. Hello there second 4ss minion on this list, will you be hired? Probably never, seeing as you're a better incedental summon because the main value is in the no heal aura, and a model with 4 move and 4/4 stats is not gonna get anywhere important. And it's only support model is the scavenger...

* The scavenger. Their support action is pretty mediocre. You could give the Scavenger adaptive, a 2/3b/4b damage track and change time-slip to condition removal and the model would be sooooo good. Maybe also lower the TN of the support action so that you didn't need a 9 to use it on anything other than the aformentioned model. 

* Karina. I'm actually starting to get a little bit tired of talking about the Oblteration crew in so many threads, but here we go. Give her Arcane reservoir and she won't be a waste of space. Done. She's still not a terrible exciting model, and I doubt she's ever gonna be one, but this will make me not hate her beyond intense bitternes. For the rest of the models I've mentioned please go read the long post about them.

* Talos. Ha, I lied. Give him an ablity to be counted as an enemy when targeted by Stutter time. All we need to do to fix him on a surface level.

* Dead outlaw and Wokou Raider. More lies be abound - I think this seems to be a general problem with most Dual Crew models, in that they don't fit in either. The Outlaw doesn't function in either of their crews and the Raider is worse than the Gunslinger and T10 has better options. Make them more reliable in their scheme marker dropping and maybe drop their price a little bit.  

I think you've forgot to make the upgrades multiple choice. Because bot soldier for hire and Wanted Criminal are bad

15 hours ago, Kolath said:

Oh right! That guy needs to go on the list of models that need work.

Is there any way to make a poll that allows voting for multiple options? This topic would be better as a poll.

If you want to make poll please do  

1 minute ago, Saduhem said:

Yeah, in a bandit crew it's a self push. On the other hand, Bandits would benefit from the "Drop it" trigger in other ways. In tormented it had no purpose prior to this update.

Overall I like the extra push. I'll take anything at this point.

Thats fair for torment, but in bandit there are other ways to get markers and there are better models in that price range. I don't like how fragmented and unfocused a lot of the dual crew models seem to be

2 minutes ago, Saduhem said:

Being able to push any tormented model  (with no range limit!) is nice, and the crew can use as much of that as it can get. If you refer to having to be within 6 of the marker when it drops, yeah, it's making the guy even easier to kill. 

I'm just so tired of all the widespread low stats and no defensive tech to make up for it. It's not like you have any means of healing or summoning back. This is also a keyword that relies a lot on inter-model synergies, yet you always end up having to hire out of Tormented to get heals and extra movement.

The change to the Dead Outlaw addresses part of that, although not sure it can live long enough to make it happen.

Didn't the tormen part of the ability. Though it was just for hm. But that also makes him less useful in a bandit crew

My question is why you'd want to push into melee with a ranged model? When you don't need to be closer than 6"