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The Mechanical Rider needs to be nerfed.


Icemyn

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Being able to remove a model off a Scheme Marker is sometimes really important. Either so another model can remove it or so the Scheme marker can't be scored, same for models that are taking quarters for recognoiter

Sure and the Mech Rider does those things about as well as the other Riders.

 

Thanks. I've been called worse I guess.

 

Running the risk of being insulted again, but just out of curiosity.........why do you find it "narrow-minded"? Killing or otherwise neutralizing (Bury, Paralyze) are part of the game. I'm big on saying that killing doesn't win games myself, but sometimes, things need to die so you can do your thing.

It wasn't an insult.

Saying "Just kill it" ignores the rest of a crew, placement, terrain and everything else. That is why it is narrow minded. It's not an attack on you, rather on the philosophy.

I agree that killing a model can certainly win you a game. You presented the opinion that you could just kill the Mech Rider with Ease (edit)or turn your focus on the rest of the crew at no cost. That I disagree with. 

Edited by Icemyn
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You must have better hands than me, then, because in general, I have 2-3 cards worth anything, and the rest are usually 5 or lower. I just can't afford to throw an 8 or 9 on the Mech rider's (0) most games.

I played the Colette player, and let me assure you, mech rider made my Kirai cry that much harder. My list was not ideal to deal with Colette, but mech rider summoned from turn 3 onward and dropped scheme markers like they were 30mm confetti.

Fighting that crew was like trying to nail down jello.

EDIT: hit quote on the wrong post. The perils of mobile foruming. But let me assure you, mech rider seems a solid choice regardless of master if a scheme pool is heavily marker based.

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I'm by no means a top player, but I did play arcanists at adepticon and I did take the mech rider in one of my games (played raspy that whole tournament). I only regretted it because the play was a bit slow (me and my opponent were both warming up a bit, no judgement there) so I didn't get much use out of it.  I've never regretted taking it before though. I also think that if that game had gone to finish, I could have won it fairly easily and the mech rider was certainly part of why I felt that way.

 

I didn't take her in my other games because I generally just don't find the model to be all that fun. Laying out those stones during crew construction *feels* limiting (I have to remind myself that she'll be worth it, absolutely) and then keeping her alive during early turns is just boring. If all I *really* wanted to do was win at any cost though, maybe I'd feel differently.

 

I did hear A LOT about the Colette crew + mech rider really wrecking face, though some of what I heard seemed to be about more than just that combination. I don't know for sure as I never played against it or witnessed a game.

 

There are a lot of powerful models and combinations of models in this game. Most of those crazy things don't break the game (in my experience anyway). It's certainly something to keep an eye on though.

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Other riders don't win games?!?

Pale rider can comfortably drop 3 scheme markers a turn by himself. Trust me, he can go and win games.

I am actually curious how you are dropping more than 2 scheme markers with the Pale Rider in a given turn. 

Again the other Riders are all very good support models and I think they are balanced.

But if all a model can do in its activation is drop scheme markers no one would pay 12ss for it. The problem i have with the Mech Rider is it continues to win the game at no cost. It's not a very strategic model when there are no choices to be made.

There are much cheaper scheme runners in all factions for that. 

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Last turn of my last game he activated, used his (0) to push out of engagement and drop a marker in contact with terrain, walked once and used his last ap to plant a second marker on terrain - and used plant evidence upgrade to push and plant a 3rd - netting me 3 points for plant evidence all by himself and winning me the game. He'd also been thing up 2 enemy models all game too, preventing them being any use. Between his Df trigger, stubborn and healing, he was as safe as houses.

Planting 3 is not something he can do every turn, usually it's just 2.

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I played outcasts at Adepticon, but Archmage from my local meta played Arcanists and took Mech Rider every game.  Every single one of my arcanist opponents this weekend either took Mech Rider or specifically mentioned that they wish they had, after the game.  

 

It's just *not* going to die on the first turn unless something very bizarre has happened, and if that's the case it seems highly likely that your opponent has overextended themselves.  If it's died early in turn two before it can drop a metal gamin, then once again, your opponent has probably overextended themselves.  Dropping even a wounded metal gamin is still almost certainly going to take at least 2 AP to remove, and that's like pulling 3-4 stones off the Mech Rider's cost.  For every turn it lives afterward, it's dropping another significant activation on the board for you, no need for scrap or setup of any kind.  As mentioned above, flipping or cheating the card necessary is likely possible on turn 2 and nearly assured on every remaining turn.

 

The thing that became apparent at adepticon, however, was how immediately applicable to almost every scheme pool the rider was.  That's really the issue at hand that Icemyn, TheGodlyness, Archmage, and others we discussed with agreed upon.  There was never a time the Mech Rider was a sub-optimal choice all weekend.  It came down to:

 

Are you playing Arcanists/Leveticus?  Are there at least 12 stones in your hiring pool?  Bring Mech Rider.  Period, no conditions or questions.

 

The fact that there was literally no situation in which those 12 stones could be better spent tells me the model is a little over the top.

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I can say to the early question the Raspy player played it every game because of me.  We play a lot and he started to notice how good the Mech Rider is.  The model does have several weaknesses if you are playing against it, the first of which is to those factions with a sniper bring a sniper because early damage is easy and the model doesn't have early armor.  Target it with blasts as it doesn't get armor vs blasts pulses and auras.  The 6 I agree is a low number to need but it will also drain some cards from your hand to make sure it goes off so if you use a 8-9 to get a push and a 2wd slow model its still good but what else can that card do.  Later in the open beta this model was cuddled several times toward the end lowering the amount of scheme markers and cards as well as more target restrictions.  

 

That being said the model is amazing like all of the riders and it might be the best of the riders not sure on that because the taxi that is the hooded rider is also really amazing.  The biggest issue with you wanting a cuddle though is so many aspects on the card you can't change because they wanted symmetry between all the riders so the aspects that can be changed is for the 0 action lowering the push and changing the summon(which will never go to needing a scrap or scheme because they want it to used with all the masters), or they can change the triggers on the attacks to something else and these had been tweaked down to where they are now.

 

I think that a cuddle now should not happen because of lack of data (one tournament is not enough data, stealing this from Fetid) but if they think that they have the time before the cards go off for printing to re-balance a model in house so we get actual cards then more power to.

 

Also to the original opp that says it didn't see much play for tweaking the play test that is just fundamentally untrue as normally there were 2-5 battle reports with it a week and a thread on it every week about the changes that had happened the week before since it changed quite often.

 

(I do agree that I bring this model in about 75% of games with the Arc and 95% of games with levi)  The one big cuddle that would be easy to make is give the summoned models the Peon Characteristic if anything changes.

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(I do agree that I bring this model in about 75% of games with the Arc and 95% of games with levi)  The one big cuddle that would be easy to make is give the summoned models the Peon Characteristic if anything changes.

 

I like this suggestion.  Alternatively, bringing the models in at 1 wound remaining would circumvent the issue where everything summoned has hard to kill.

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I would hate having them get peon for the rest of the game, solely from a book keeping standpoint.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing the TN on the (0) go up, or seeing a second suit being added to the triggers either. They'd be small changes, but would tend to make them less "all the time"

 

That being said, I think right now there is a bit of overreaction to a single tournament. It's powerful, but it's 12 SS. at nearly a quarter of your crew, it should be.

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I would hate having them get peon for the rest of the game, solely from a book keeping standpoint.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing the TN on the (0) go up, or seeing a second suit being added to the triggers either. They'd be small changes, but would tend to make them less "all the time"

 

That being said, I think right now there is a bit of overreaction to a single tournament. It's powerful, but it's 12 SS. at nearly a quarter of your crew, it should be.

 

I agree the book keeping would be terrible didn't think about that, I think it would be hard to change the TN on the (0) because all the riders are a 6 and adding a suit would also be hard for the same reason of symmetry.  

 

I also agree that for 1/4 of your crew it should be amazing but Me and Dracomax have always been on close to the same page.

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I am actually curious how you are dropping more than 2 scheme markers with the Pale Rider in a given turn. 

Again the other Riders are all very good support models and I think they are balanced.

But if all a model can do in its activation is drop scheme markers no one would pay 12ss for it. The problem i have with the Mech Rider is it continues to win the game at no cost. It's not a very strategic model when there are no choices to be made.

There are much cheaper scheme runners in all factions for that. 

 

I'm of the opinion that each rider just amplifies its factions abilities. Also why wouldn't you pay 12SS for auto scheme markers. I would quite happily pay that to get my protect territory markers set up from turn 1, and then have him be able to single handedly run round the board placing markers for sprint the trap/plant explosives/plant evidence/breakthrough/power ritual. Especially for a faction where many of the minions find it difficult to go place markers. The Hooded Rider which I see as the weakest choice, can still put out 5/6/8 damage and also be used as a transport for models like Nekima/Teddy/Hungering darkness/Lillith etc. It may not look as effective as summoning, but if you move Lillith from safety behind a building, into melee/transfixing gaze range of a massive threat that has already activated (such as a master/mech rider) then I'm pretty sure that 0 action will be game winning. The Dead Rider can also cause a lot of horror duels, or pull an enemy model out of a bunker, into wherever the rider wants. After playing against it this week, trust me that is very effective. Also forcing a TN17 horror duel on the final turn when its in the middle of everything is one hell of a nice card burning ability, as most people will be looking to sure up VP's at the end game stage.

 

I'll agree that the Mech Rider in small stone games can be very hard to control, but in 45/50SS games I think you should have enough tools in your arsenal to deal with it. I've faced it twice with arcanists (without using a mech rider myself) and been able to take it off with a leaping Cerberus, or Joss denying him the ability to declare defence triggers and nullifying his armour.

 

They are all good for thier points, but all great in thier own aspects. Mech for activation control, Pale for Scheme control, Hooded for Movement/Board control and the Dead Rider for enemy manipulation control.

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It's not about killing it dead on turn 2 - it's about weakening it so that it can be easily removed. This isn't as difficult as it sounds.

It's a great model, but there are certainly times when I don't regard it as the optimum choice for a crew. That said, I'd love to take a look at the strategy scheme pools used in the masters event at adepticon - could anyone post them up for me?

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Yeah, it's worth mentioning that the riders are in the Nekima range of model costs. They're all very potent models (personally, I think the model control and pure damage of the dead rider is the best, but they each do something very well).

 

Mech rider is a funny model, since its biggest advantage is that it's flexible. It summons the model you need, bringing a tool to the game, which is a huge advantage. It's a good choice for scheme based games, and gives you a few extra cards. It's certainly worth including very often, since it covers so many bases, but in no particular way is it hugely potent. The actual shooting isn't particularly good with only an 8" range, and charging it into combat will often expose it to swarming, something it's quite vulnerable to. In a lot of ways, aside from the summoning, it has all the flaws of a typical jack of all trades model. It does lots, but the different parts don't support each other. 

 

But being so flexible, and having this success, it's worth keeping an eye on.

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In beta it was Gremlin hordes, then it was Lynch, last week it was Belles, tonight it's Mech Rider's turn to enter the 'M2e OMG OP' hall of fame. I expect we'll admit many more members to it.

I'm at the very least reassured the 'OP' calls are being made against different factions. Also as an Arcanist I'm very pleased my faction has power worthy of such concern.

As things stand I see the Mech Rider as a top tier choice right now but it's far from invulnerable. At 12ss it's a model which punches below it's weight on offence but needs to fight to be effective, can't stand in the center ground, and produces liabilities in Reckoning. Is it still OP / broken? I don't know, time will tell. Right now though colour me skeptical.

Let's see what happens once people have time to react to it and plan defences.

My 2p.

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in our small group we are all of the opinion that the riders are perhaps a bit too good. the mechanical rider with Ramos in recon is just rude, damn spiders everywhere. our Arcanist player took it in all three games of small 4 player tourney we ran, he used three different masters and it performed great with all of them. he is our best player so this was also a factor( the main factor), but he does see that model as a "always take" model in a competitive enviroment. They are vulnerable the first two turns, but you just keep them out of the front lines for those. their mobility gets them into the mix quickly when you need them. And Their late game abilities can really push you over the top. I used the Hooded rider last game and came away very impressed. have faced the palerider and was similarly impressed. 

Just my two cents.

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They are vulnerable the first two turns, but you just keep them out of the front lines for those. their mobility gets them into the mix quickly when you need them. 

This is where the debate loses credibility to me. With that big a chunk of your crew not doing anything for two turns, what's the rest of the crew doing? If I can bring 45ss worth of my crew against 30ss of yours.......well I'm going to get rid of or seriously damage quite a bit by the end of turn 2 and be in great position going into 3........even if the mech rider has been hiding and is untouched at this point, you're down half a crew and I'm scoring VP.....and in position to earn more.

 

In theory.

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This is where the debate loses credibility to me. With that big a chunk of your crew not doing anything for two turns, what's the rest of the crew doing? If I can bring 45ss worth of my crew against 30ss of yours.......well I'm going to get rid of or seriously damage quite a bit by the end of turn 2 and be in great position going into 3........even if the mech rider has been hiding and is untouched at this point, you're down half a crew and I'm scoring VP.....and in position to earn more.

 

In theory.

 

My last game I used the hooded rider to get me power ritual( flank deployment) and claim a squat marker first three turns, then moved it into the mix. in turns 4-5 it killed enemy models and removed scheme markers with its melee trigger. It was a very good investment. The Mechanical rider can start summoning from turn 2 onwards if you have a six of tomes. I think you could usually find jobs for them to do early game. if you dont then perhaps they are a waste.

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I've played against the Mech Rider just once so far - Guild McMourning vs Kaeris at the deciding game of a tournament in January (so this was back with the 1/14 beta rules IIRC).

Knowing what it could do, I hunted the sucker down with McMourning and killed it in turn 2. Had I not done that, my opponent would have scored full points for breakthrough and probably reconnoiter.

The Mech Rider is definitely strong and might be an auto-take, but it's only an auto-win if your opponent doesn't appreciate how powerful it can become.

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The only Rider I've faced is the Pale, but it got dragged out into the open turn 2 and just fell over.. I think you do need to deal with them early.

 

And to be honest things that don't care about armor type abilities will cut straight through them, Sebastian for example can be doing 6 Dg easily a turn.

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