Icemyn Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 What follows will be my personal thoughts and opinions on the design of Hamelin's pipes action and how I find it to have been fundamentally flawed. You may even call it a rant, I would. For Reference: (1) Pipes (Sh 6C / Rst: Df / Rg: z14): Move target model its Wk. The target must end the move as close to this model as possible. If the target has the Blighted Condition, it may be moved its Cg instead of its Wk. C Haunting: After succeeding, target suffers 1/2/3 damage. So first lets talk about the myriad of flavor fails here. Can someone explain to me why there is a gun symbol on this attack?anyone? So you get cover from sound? That makes sense. Why does this attack randomize? Are we saying that his crew wouldn't be immune to the siren song or that Hamelin does not have a mastery over his pipes? Why does the only built in trigger do damage, hell why does this attack do any damage at all? Is Hamelin a Noise Marine? Let's now ignore all of that and focus on how this ability plays in game. (spoiler alert: poorly) Let's start with the obvious comparison of Lure. Lure has a wide range of Ca values (5-8 iirc) the most prolific would arguably be the belles, regardless of the variant though they don't have a gun and thus ignore cover and do not randomize. Also the Lure has a range of 18" Pipes only has a range of 14", 14 is fairly sizable don't get me wrong, but the comparison is there. Already this ability is not off to a good start. If we ignore the upgrade for just a moment nothing in Hamelin's crew can apply blighted outside of 3" and thus the target would likely be in combat (randomize). So the secondary clause of moving their charge is basically meaningless, it is however thematic and cool so I will give this one a pass. Most people agree that the Piper is an auto include upgrade for Hamelin and I will not be the voice of dissent. The reason for this to me is that Obey is basically everything that Hamelin wants to be doing as a sewer King. In the early game it is basically pipes letting you move them towards your hungry blight spreading friends in the late game it lets you command your dudes to complete schemes or stop your opponent from completing theirs. I consistently find that I have to obey a model first and walk it out into the open and then pipes it to apply blighted (upgrade). 2AP to apply blighted+1 is not great for a master. Applying blight at range is something Hamelin's crew desperately needs imo so let's talk about the upgrade. The reason I say he needs it is that his best thematic models Rat Kings and Nix are much better when they can 1AP charge. To allow this to happen we need to spend 4ss on two separate upgrades for Hamelin to effectively apply blight at range which isn't great design. There is literally no reason I can think of that handing out blight is on the upgrade while damage is on the base card. Or why "The Plauge" upgrade costs 2ss, it has alot of text, but none of it is too meaningful. Personally I feel that pipes should have been removed completely in place of Obey, it's basically pipes anyway. Obviously, that didn't happen and we got both, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the gun symbol was added here. If it had to keep the gun symbol for whatever balance reason I am obviously missing, then it should have ignored either cover or randomization. TL;DR: Did no one care about Hamelin in the Beta? I know I didn't really watch him too closely I was too busy with other masters. Some of the design choices with Hamelin have made me sad and I wish I had. I know he was a menace in M1E, but he deserves better. PS: No I don't expect anything to change, I just wanted to rant. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Brightside Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 Can someone explain to me why there is a gun symbol on this attack?anyone? Probably added the gun so he couldn't perform the action while engaged. Why does this attack randomize? Are we saying that his crew wouldn't be immune to the siren song or that Hamelin does not have a mastery over his pipes? Why should they be immune. He's a tyrant, and he's playing pipes. He wants somebody to come, I guess he doesn't care who. Why does the only built in trigger do damage, hell why does this attack do any damage at all? Is Hamelin a Noise Marine? Could take the damage away if something strips the suit while he's shooting it. I don't play Hamelin (even though I'm considering it), but just my take on your questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Godlyness Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 Hamelin does not have pipes he has a blow gun that after sticking you With the dart you get all woozy and by random chance you stumble in his direction. Yep blow gun and if you buy the upgrade is darts are blighted but they ignore the 1/2/3 damage cause disease is painless. Or he had some anesthesia with blight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asrian Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 The range and the damage don't bother me, but as a potential future Hamlin player (just acquired a starter crew of them pretty cheap) I'm with you on the SH for the pipes. And I have to disagree with you Brightside as it makes no comparable sense (I know. I know. Apples to Oranges) when a Master has to randomize or is unable to perform the action while in combat himself when others (Belles, Baby Kade, Lilitu, etc) do not. I've only played against Hamlin one time, and the player, though new, basically just didn't bother luring at all with the pipes during the combat, even though it would of been beneficial to him had he done so, due to the randomization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icemyn Posted July 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 Probably added the gun so he couldn't perform the action while engaged. Why should they be immune. He's a tyrant, and he's playing pipes. He wants somebody to come, I guess he doesn't care who. Could take the damage away if something strips the suit while he's shooting it. I don't play Hamelin (even though I'm considering it), but just my take on your questions. 1) I hadn't considered that option. If that is the case this was a sloppy way to achieve that. 2) That was a flavor question. As such you should know he is based on the pied piper of Hamelin who played his pipes and only targeted rats and then later played the pipes only taking their children. Flavorfully it doesnt makes sense that he couldn't distinguish. 3) My point was flavorfully and I suppose functionally why does this ability do dmg at all? It seems unnecessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uktena Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 I play against Hamelin once in a while. My friends and I chuckled about the projectile symbol when it came out and then promptly didn't care anymore. I'm way past the days of letting fluff ruin gameplay for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadeton Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 Yeah, that ability was a bit of a bugbear of mine during the beta, but nevertheless it stuck the way it is - Hamelin doesn't play melodies on his pipes, he fires noise harpoons. C'est la vie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocSchlock Posted July 24, 2014 Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 This thread is hilarious. / grabs popcorn In all seriousness, fluff must give way to game balance if the game wants to survive. Plus, he isn't the actual Pied Piper, is he? Just an inspiration (I have no idea what his fluff actually is, so am very open to being wrong). There's about a billion ways Wyrd can justify the Pipes as they are without getting near your idea of what they should be. They're pretty great as is, esp the trigger for adding damage on. It's essentially a Lure, with a bonus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icemyn Posted July 24, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2014 This thread is hilarious. / grabs popcorn In all seriousness, fluff must give way to game balance if the game wants to survive. Plus, he isn't the actual Pied Piper, is he? Just an inspiration (I have no idea what his fluff actually is, so am very open to being wrong). There's about a billion ways Wyrd can justify the Pipes as they are without getting near your idea of what they should be. They're pretty great as is, esp the trigger for adding damage on. It's essentially a Lure, with a bonus. Not to be a jerk, but I don't think you could have missed the point more thoroughly if you tried. This is not a fix it omg thread, just a rant on an ability I wish ended up better. I never claimed, nor would I claim, that the game should be balanced around fluff. I made the Pied Piper comment in response to a Tyrant comment, comparing fluff to fluff. If you had read my post you would know that everything I said was just my opinion and I don't expect Wyrd to change anything. As for your claim that pipes is "pretty great" obviously we disagree, if you want to know why scroll up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausplosions Posted July 25, 2014 Report Share Posted July 25, 2014 Pipes IS amazing. I like having models close to my rat catchers so they can interact, but my opponent can not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulGambit Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 I feel like its a holdover from 1e. It was amusing even then. But ultimately its -shrug- The big dissonant thing for me that you didn't mention is that its resisted with Df. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdhay Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 I play Hamelin and really like pipes. Only use it occasionally but when I do it is deadly. For example tonights game i used it on McMourning turn 2 to walk him out of his crew and towards all my models. McM subsequently died turn 2. In my opinion if it wasn't a gun and you could just do it on anyone even if engaged it would be overpowered Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hateful Darkblack Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 Hamelin is shooting little cartoon music notes at them. Some of them are sharp, and some of them are Blighted. In play, Hamelin does great with his Pipes but often uses his Obey instead if he has it. Pipes is great for luring in an enemy while softening them up. It's not as strong as a Belle's Lure, but a Belle can't do all the many, many other things that Hamelin can. And if you want a proper Lure, you can always hire Kade through Sewer King. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clement Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 Why would the charge clause on it be meaningless vs engaged targets? It doesn't make the target charge, it makes them move their charge distance. Engagement has no say there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hateful Darkblack Posted August 7, 2014 Report Share Posted August 7, 2014 Yeah, the Blight clause is nice. You thought you were getting away from my ratball of disease? No way, get back here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimTullis Posted September 11, 2014 Report Share Posted September 11, 2014 I have no thematic problems with Pipes doing damage. I've heard more than my share of PAINFUL music. To me it seems right that the MAGIC music that drags you closer would also give you a blinding headache. I'd love to see it lose the shooting symbol, but I'm not going to cry if it doesn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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