Maniacal_cackle

@bakaryu135, interesting! Do you not find McMourning dies a lot easier without some stones to protect him? I generally want him on about 6 health when he activates, so he can get full value of healing up. But to do that safely I generally need stones in case he gets focused. I definitely agree with the plan to kill the Charm Warders. My initial impression of Shenlong is you get a lot of mileage out of killing all the support models.

Oh, and the debt of gratitude trigger! Pretty potent piece. I also have run philip and the nanny as a slow bot before. For instance, against Nekima, I managed to keep some mature nephilim in check with One More Question + Projectile Vomit (not sure if it'd work against Kharnage 😜 )

I personally like Philip and the Nanny. I run it as a mobile scheme-runner, while people like Pergli like to abuse the aura. Some more details: At base, Philip and the Nanny has 14 inches of movement per turn, which is decent but not great. You can boost it by 5 inches with Philip's mask trigger (attacking your own dudes if necessary), or by standing near a Night Terror that discards a card. So Philip is my preferred Lodestone carrier on Leylines. Molly can force last activation against most crews, which means manipulative is more potent tech than it may appear at first. Although Philip is still super squishy, and the real 'defensive' tech for the model is the ability to avoid the fight with mobility. Philip and the Nanny are one of six options for teleporting crooligans. At their most mobile, they are more mobile than any other option. More realistically, they're second to Archie, and so are a good backup for when Archie might have to die or has to fight. If you check out my list-building guide, I think I recently took Philip and the Nanny because my plan involved Archie being in the fight, and I needed another option for crooligan teleports. Boring Conversation aura combos realllllly well with Scarlet Temptation (but I haven't tried this yet). Philip's fading can duplicate Molly's fading, handing out two distracted with no flip every time Molly discard (haven't tried this yet either). Options here are basically Necrotic Machine for accomplice, Rabble Riser for Challenge, or Constructive Criticism on an activated minion. And likely some other things I forgot. As you can see, there is a LOT of utility there, but it almost all relies on synergy. So you have to take Philip and the Nanny to fill a gap in a crew/complement the crew. Unlike Archie (which you can take into almost any pool or situation or crew build), Philip and the Nanny has some pretty precise applications IMO.

Yeah, I wish there was more communication. Like the Outflank change (after the initial change, they changed it twice xD).

I feel like it was missed rather than being intentional. They missed quite blatant things on Sparks as well (like an entire ability being added).

Another issue is that not every crew can be made playable with 2 boxes. Id take Molly to a tournament with two boxes and do fine, but many masters that is not the case.

Well, for Dreamer you've currently got 53 stones of models, and probably want to hold back at least 17-24 stones of that for summons, and even that is a big compromise. If the idea is to be remotely competitive, I think the current state is fairly misleading. 2 boxes is not enough. I also notice Titania only has 39 stones. It seems strange that if you buy all the green stuff you don't end up with a playable crew.

I didn't even think of that, epic!

AP is absolutely brilliant. But I would worry about the approach with Wisps. They are so squishy that they can be single activationed by lot of things (unless you give them camo), and they will be super high priority targets for the enemy?

You can hire their totem, but you don't get it for free (and have to pay the +1 cost tax). Masters and leaders get 3 actions by default, so still get their 3 actions, yes

I just played against a Bayou Smuggler in Zipp. he used them for card selection (along with Earl), and then when I went to kill Earl to flip Turf War markers he kept engaging me with the 2" engagement. Felt like a very brutal use of stones - his hand quality was much better than mine all game.

Just had my first game with him! Marcus & Jack Cojo with inhuman reflexes Myranda with inhuman reflexes Cerberus Adze Bandersnatch I really liked the inhuman reflexes. Combined with things like butterfly jump, stealth, disguised, armor, and heals, even my terrible play kept the models alive (though half the time I forgot about Scamper). Myranda seems like an absolute beast (even though she isn't one 😜 ). At all times she can provide what the crew needs. I reckon it'd take me another 20+ games to get the hang of playing her really well, but she seems good. Especially since she is up one upgrade the whole game compared to other options (since she can attach one turn 1 herself). I liked the approach of super-charging two models with upgrades and letting everything else be optional. Bandersnatch was... Okay. Built in onslaught was pretty weak, but as soon as it is in combat it dies (even when buried). I could see try making Bandersnatch the one that is super-charged over Myranda, but she just seems better (especially as she can shift into Bandersnatch if she needs to). Adze died pretty quickly, but I was pretty bad at using it correctly. I half think the correct build is probably two key pieces (like Cojo + Myranda), maybe an order initiate for support, and then take the strong Neverborn Versatiles. EDIT: you could of course even just have Marcus upgrade himself and be a bad Yan Lo? xD Final note: the entire crew being unimpeded is so good xD EDIT2: Oh, the sabretooth kitty was amazing! Definitely like it as an 8 stone expendable model that HAS to be answered. Not sure I'd supercharge it in neverborn (maybe play Arcanists if you want super-charged kitties).

For Marcus, I'm told Bandersnatch and Adze are what really make him shine in Neverborn, so would probably put those as the 3rd and 4th option? For Nekima, I almost feel like Terror Tots should be green with how brutal they are when Kharnage uses them. He is the best Nekima player I know of and he uses them to great effect. That said, maybe since they're just an incidental summon it is fine to keep them at orange, as I suppose people probably don't HAVE to have them? @Kharnage could give a more informed opinion.

I'm not sure upgrade masters will be that good unless they're upgrading themselves. After all, all their targets to upgrade will now be significantly weaker. Post nerf, McCabe with his upgrades is not that scary for example, and the minions he can boost are not fabulous (but they are pretty decent). 2 AP is definitely worth considering if things don't go well, but initially I quite like the epic feel of masters being just a class separate from the rest. It's like a Kaiju Clash.

But they can't use their dust cloud markers for Research Mission or the last point of Death Bed's, unless Sand Worm makes them permanent (or last an extra turn, whichever he does).

With dreamers nerf, you can't just run minions anymore. So with him I think it is best be realistic - all the minion boxes plus the spiders plus a beater need to be green IMO. I personally rate Teddy, but many others don't xD He is at least a 5 box master to play at minimum IMO.

Drowned are often the best summon for Kirai, so I would definielt make that box Green.

Fair points! Even if you're willing to use the red joker it is only like 80% turn one I think. And the lack of a sudden strike trigger could be influential, as well as having to rely on flips for those severe damages. But she does seem like a likely model to break the meta (although has some weaknesses, like bone piles for example might be quite tricky for her to deal with). Guess it just needs testing at this stage!

If you can land stun on jack daw before his On Your Heels, that will be pretty devastating. He likes his triggers and bonus actions, so it is generically good against him I imagine if he doesn't have condition removal. Rider with ruthless is probably a great idea. However, attacking Jack may not go well - ping damage is way better against him. The voodoo doll damage can be devastating if you do 5 separate pings to Jack.

I was more thinking that Lucius can have board presence all over the map, including decent damage. But I suppose it probably isn't good enough. Models like Lady Justice often rely on stones, right? Once she uses up her two stones, she will be completely reliant on having the card. And with defense 5, it seems like it should be doable to keep her locked down with things like slow + stunned? Though I guess she probably has access to condition removal xD

Interesting! In cutthroat metas, I often find 'durdly' lists that spend a lot of cards/actions/stones during the first turn getting set up are vulnerable to the really aggressive lists that start killing from turn 1. So I'm inherently sceptical of the McMourning summon engines (though the fact that it doesn't need a card is amazing). I don't like Asura for generating corpses as she often has to spend a stone or card to make it happen. That said, I haven't actually put her on the table, just looking at the card (since I don't own her). I have tried a McMourning summon engine with Reva, and it was almost awesome (since she produces so many free corpses and focus to cancel the distracted), but my opponent ate one of the corpses and I couldn't get the summon off. In general, I prefer just throwing McMourning into things starting turn 1 and aggresively killing stuff while the rest of my crew does the grindy attrition thing. But that could just be playstyle! In short, I suggest sticking with what feels right for you, but keep an eye out for if you start to feel behind in turns 2/3 since you spent so much time setting up. Or if during the game you feel Asura and Mortimer aren't doing anything useful, you could just spend those stones hiring two flesh constructs to begin with. Also, interesting thoughts on Rafkin! I haven't tried him yet because I don't own the model, but it is really hard for me to justify him over Sebastian (with blood poisoning) or a Kentauroi or even a flesh construct.

I imagine we'll get a little bit of both xD So would be good to know the rough limits, but will see. Overall, I'd lean towards making things unplayable than letting powerhouses run amok. Are there masters that can work with the 2 soulstone limit that people think will be particularly oppressive? Lucius springs to mind...

Probably worth testing it both ways!

I believe it is the same thing, but not sure.

Yeah, as far as I can tell, he has 2 fundamental issues (in addition to things like weak stats). 1. If you have a beast in combat with something, it is probably in trouble already. So it is a bit 'win more.' 2. His fail case (not having a beast to support) is a bit weak. It'd be nice if he could do something useful with a bonus. Forage is amazing on like a crooligan, but not nearly as good on a sniper.