Sonnia Criid's Pyrokinesis... How does it work?

[Brass Monkey]

Apologies if this has been answered before or if this belongs in Rules Discussion forum but I couldn't find an answer anywhere else.

 

I'm a relative noob that played Sonnia against a more experienced player the other day, who themselves is an experienced guild player. Their understanding of the Pyrokinesis ability differed from mine but I would appreciate any clarification from the community here.

 

I thought that normal blast marker placement required that the first (ie 'initial') blast marker had to be base-to-base with the target, and any subsequent blast markers had to simply touch another blast marker. Therefore an attack dealing two blasts could potentially reach models 100mm away and an attack dealing three blasts could potentially reach models 150mm away (assuming LOS and effects of terrain and elevation etc).

 

I therefore assumed that Sonnia's Pyrokinesis ability would allow her to place the 'initial' blast marker up to 2" from the target of the main attack. Therefore, moderate damage (two blasts) from her Flameburst attack would allow her to potentially reach 100mm+2" (approximately 150mm) and her severe damage (three blasts) from the same attack would allow her to potentially reach 150mm+2" (approximately 200mm).

 

However, if I understood them correctly, my opponent thought Pyrokinesis was intended to allow Sonnia to attack her own crew and then get the extra 2" to place blasts onto enemies.

 

It was a game where I made heaps of basic errors and was grateful for their greater rule knowledge in general, and I would have been trounced anyway, but their interpretation of this particular rule left me scratching my head. I went with their interpretation given their greater experience and I didn't want to be TFG (having never played them before).

 

Any clarification from this community would be gratefully appreciated. Thank you!

 

 

[Therril_83]

It sounds to me that you have a correct understanding of how Blasts work. You plase the first marker in base contact with the model suffering damage, and then the next marker in contact with the first and so on. Pyrokenesis enables you to place the first one 2" away, all other rules still apply.

However I don't clearly understand what your opponent meant... sure, you can shoot your own models and place blast of them, it's a good tactics against models that are hard to target. But that works just as it does when you're shooting an opponent, except that you control both attack and defense..

[jonahmaul]

Sounds like you were both playing it correctly.  Targetting your own models is a valid action in Malifaux and with something that can blast can often be better to attack your own stuff because you are able to control the outcome of the duel a lot more and give yourself an almost guaranteed chance of getting off the blasts.  It may end up costing you your own model but the double blast could be really horrible against crews like Pandora that bunch up naturally.

[Brass Monkey]

^{Thanks for your replies, folks.}

[MightyGodzilla]

I've got a question separate but related.  Concerning the 5   :blast  scenario,  if a model were to be hit by two of the  tokens they're still only taking damage once correct? 

[The Godlyness]

yes

[admiralvorkraft]

Apologies for the threadomancy, but this seemed like the place to ask.

Lets say that Sonnia wants to throw out some damage from behind her favorite wall. She does the natural thing and has her totem poke Burning onto a Witchling Stalker and the sacrificial Witchling runs forward. Sonnia targets the Witchling and scores severe damage, and uses pyrokinesis to place the blasts so that none of them are in base contact with the Witchling.

 

The way I've been playing it, the Witchling still takes the 5 damage, but I realized today that the wording of the blasts section in the rulebook states that models touched by the blast markers take damage, which could be read to imply that the Witchling wouldn't take damage from the action.

 

Have I been playing this wrong? Or am I going mad with power now?

[Myyrä]

It also says that the original target takes the full damage and blast deals dimished damage to other models within the blast. I think it's pretty clear how it works.

[admiralvorkraft]

True, and that's the reading that I had been going with. I just wanted to make sure that the original target still takes that damage, even though it's no longer "within the blast."

[Adran]

Read the section carefully.

The original target takes damage as according to the attack, andis immune to the damage from the Blasts. Your stalker takes the severe damage, and  everyone under 1 or more blast markers that wasn;'t the original target of the attack (the stalker in this case) will take the moderate level of damage.

[admiralvorkraft]

That is what I figured.