Maniacal_cackle

Ugh, I just realised that Lampads still need a 5+ to get their Hovering Flame off, which is the main reason I stopped hiring them anyway. So my prediction is that they remain a model I don't really want 😕

Another very significant nerf is that the summoned terror tots are a lot worse at scoring now, so that's an issue. Can someone explain why she is so bad? A ~10 health model with disguised and the potential to do two heals on top of her other shenanigans. She has two triggers to reposition enemy models, so can mess with positioning most of the time if you save a high card for her. I think maybe she isn't as 'auto-pick' in every crew, but she still seems great in Dreamer's crew (and getting her melee attack boosted to stat 6 in that crew is sweet).

Well, for those who want to try out a new way of doing Dreamer, here is what I recommended in the other thread: Take a list with four elites such as this one: The Dreamer Lord Chompy Bits Widow Weaver Serena Bowman Bandersnatch Teddy Daydream - Ancient Pact Daydream 2 - Ancient Pact 7 stones This is one list I used in GG0 and it wrecked.

I think Belles have a very clear role - they're the only melee willpower attack in the keyword. They're designed to swarm the enemy and tear them apart as a group. Doxies are more stand alone.

Yeah, you could say it is a function of role, but you only need so many roles. Either way you end up not needing more than 2-3 support cheap mods in most cases, so then you only need lots more cheap models for unusual crews or for beaters, which is tricky. Whereas it sounds like in M2E, the clear role of cheap models was being a pass token, and it scaled really well so you could take many. Roles don't scale as much in M3E?

Sorry, to spell it out more. Your Youko obeys my Manos to hit my Crooligan. Manos is friendly to the Crooligan, so does not suffer from his distracted condition. If your Youko obeyed my Manos to attack your Bill Algren for some weird reason... Manos is enemy to Bill, distracted applies.

No distracted penalty, distracted is enemy only Enemy controlled is a completely different thing from enemy and not relevant for Distracted.

I think crew (and enemy crew) make a big difference too. Stacking focus is usually for when you have a 2 damage jump from weak to moderate (like 2/4/5, 1/3/4, or 3/5/6). This strikes a good balance of good damage with minimal card investment (often not even needing to cheat for the result you want). Or if you need to bypass minus flips (like concealment). And occasionally it can replace card draw in a crew by giving positive flips (like with Reva). But then against like Ressers with hard to wound, you're probably not wanting to spam focus and instead just want to spam attacks. Although there is an element that a certain type of player is attracted to crews that stack focus xD

Touchdown explained it, but you may have missed it with so many comments. Friendly and enemy controlled is only used in the wording of schemes and strategies (so you can't do things like obey them to pick up a Symbol of Authority). As per the core rules, if you obey a model to drop a scheme marker, they drop one of your markers still

Of course when I first started I did crazy combos to the point of inefficiency. Philip and two rabble risers can stack a LOT of focus. I remember Philip running around with 7 focus with ease.

It varied from crew to crew, but quite a bit. Especially some players save the focus for really important stuff so don't even use it when they get a chance. Examples: Reva crew pulses focus everywhere. Seamus crew stacks focus on Seamus Molly crew dodges the enemy and just sits there stacking focus for two turns sometimes. Crooligans stack 2 focus a turn initially, so have 4 by end of turn 2 Just tried guild Lucius today and the whole build was based on obeying my beaters to stack focus. So I would say that is something that will be felt quite a bit. I just realised now how strong a nerf it is for my crooligans

Interesting fact - Redchapel has the worst (damaging) willpower attacks of the entire faction, despite their whole theme being penalties to willpower attacks xD

One weird angle to consider is that when cheap models are good, they tend to be so good that you don't actually need to hire a lot of them. Like with Molly, 1 crooligan tends to get the job done (although can hire 2 if I need redundancy for whatever reason). Tried out Guild Lucius today, and a lawyer + changeling was so much support for the crew I didn't feel the need to spend any more than that. In Reva, a restless spirit + shieldbearer + bone pile covers so many bases I don't really need swarms of little folks beyond that. Reva is the most I spend on small models, and that's only 16 stones of models. But they're so good they do everything I could ask of them. The only thing small models tend to be quite bad at is combat, and it kind of makes sense they're not as good at combat as a ten stone beater, although even then there are exceptions (three Rotten Belles together can dish out 10+ damage in melee with the opponent on a minus flip). There's an occasional exception (such as undergraduates, I hear some people would triple hire them), but if a minion is so strong you're actually taking multiples of it consistently it probably needs a nerf (as happened with undergraduates). The Rotten Belle case is an example where the right answer is either 0 or 3 I think because it is so synergy reliant. So there's quite a fine line for Wyrd to be walking. I think probably the best thing to do to tackle it is to go hard on the synergy route, and make more models like Rotten Belles (although maybe a bit stronger on their own 😜 ).

Oh good point, that's a big deal then

I think you're stretching the math quite a bit there. When you lucid dream, you have a 75% chance to hit a weak initially. Even when you've removed 10 weaks, you have almost a 50% chance to hit a weak each time. So if I had to guess it'd be like 1 severe, 3 moderate, and 6 weak. That said, I've always been of the opinion that even without Lucid Dreams the crew is pretty powerful, and it still gets to use lucid dreams to an extent now. And you have access to stitched via Widow Weaver combos, or via hiring them, or by hiring them and rebuilding them when they die with WW. So I definitely think it merits testing.

Keep in mind that now you can remove an enemy scheme marker no matter what you flip, just as long a minion is within 2" of it. So that rework is also a buff to his usefulness late game. Gruesome Lecture is also exceedingly powerful and that ability is still intact, so I wouldn't worry too much about not having anything to do. I think people are getting caught up in thinking that fast is still a turn 1 thing, whereas now it looks better the longer the game goes (and the more incidental scheme markers you have floating around). Since you don't have to worry about getting upgrades on you can also give out fast more widely. I'm looking forward to trying out the new crew xD

Yeah, I think this was intended as a rework and not a nerf. I think it'll make the crew a LOT less card hungry which is going to be super sweet, and now McCabe will probably do more scheme running, freeing up his crew to focus on the enemy? Not sure. Will have to see how powerful the artifact cursing is, it helps that it lets you pass it around easier now.

Yeah, worth tinkering and experimenting!

I have played a magnificent like 3 games with ES McCabe, and in a few weeks I'll play TT McCabe. So I really have no idea what I'm talking about. Right, that out of the way... One of the key differences between the two factions is minions. TT simply has better minions (samurai, Jorogumo, etc). So you get much better mileage out of the artifacts there is my impression because you can put them on stronger models. In ES, what we have going for us is our better synergies with some of the enforcers. We have stuff like Beebe & Calypso (to drop scrap), Archivist (for initiative, card draw, and other tech), Emissary, etc. No idea how it'll shake out with the changes, but I assume they favour TT.

Wait, Just Like You doesn't give the triggers, does it? Mimic specifically says it copies the triggers, but I think Just Like You only gets the action. So only Youko can produce the pass tokens, i think. But I also agree with what someone else said - at 4 health and armor 1 with poor defenses, it is easy for the opponent to remove your engine. EDIT: Not that that should stop anyone. Getting a couple of useless obeys + tying up an elite model that has to spend time killing the warrior is still great value for 4 stones.

A bit clunky, but the fact that you can snag two pass tokens is pretty darn sweet. Especially turn 1, that activation control is really cool.

Well, also worth noting that the data basically summarises a handful of people. Like we have 20 games of Molly which seems like a decent sample size, but I'm pretty sure almost half of those are me.

With the distraction buff, I wonder if McMourning has been stealth buffed. You just spam projectile vomits on flesh constructs + use Manos (or similar) to hand out staggered, and away you go. Possibly best done with a summoning engine.

Good point! I've never had that problem before, but can imagine my opponent might put more work into killign the spiders if summons can't do the strat. Could always swap in Coppelius or Hooded Rider for Teddy or Serena.

True! The key answer to all this stuff is basically always: "Merits testing!"