Kaeris' Limited Upgrades

[ierthling]

Hi folks. Played my first game with Kaeris last night, a hard fought battle against Collodi that I lost at the last second due to serious Collodi shenanigans - in other words, a very satisfying game for my first time out with a new master. But what I found was that I was getting a lot out of Kaeris' base abilities, and not quite sure what to do about her upgrades. I took Grab and Drop and did manage to use it once to great effect; but the Wings of Fire part never came into play.

 

I'm wondering if more experienced Kaeris players can talk me through her two limited upgrades. Do you have a basic method for deciding whether to take Grab and Drop or Purifying Flame? Have you found really effective ways to take advantage of the Wings of Fire part of G&D? It seems to me like you have to put a lot of energy into it to have something activate with burning near Kaeris in position to move twice and drop a worthwhile scheme marker; I can see it for maybe Plant Explosives, ALitS, I suppose Protect Territory, but it just seems like you have to sort of hold Kaeris back and spend a bunch of AP handing out burning just for a couple of free scheme markers. What am I missing here? Or do people prefer Purifying Flame?

Thanks!

[MasterDisaster]

Grab and Drop is amazing! The (0) gives her a great chance to screw somebody over and get the eff out of dodge. Wings of Fire is were it's at though. Start by using Kaeris' (0) Flare to set your entire crew on fire. They then gain Burning +1 and Flight. Activate them, Fly around, end activation you drop a scheme marker and REMOVE the burning condition. What's not to love? It's pretty hype!  It works amazingly with things like Protect Territory, Breakthrough, Plant Explosives, Plant Evidence etc. Kaeris can use it to play extremely aggressively giving her crew more freedom when moving and can go utterly nuts on scheme markers. It's not the sort of thing you do every turn although you can but at key moments you can have your crew fly off and drop a metric tonne of markers when it really matters and bag some big VP. Grab and Drop is just awesome when it works. I've dropped a Belle and caused a load of damage before then had Kaeris scoot of to safety. It was a big middle finger to the quadruple lure she had just faced from 2 Belles 

 

Purifying Flame is another great choice! Any source of healing in this game is a fantastic asset. The fact that Kaeris allows her crew to heal via the condition they throw around all day long is even better! She can hurl out a load of burning without hurting the crew and then the Eternal Flame can use it's ability to force the burning to resolve the burning condition later for an instant heal. It's more of a support upgrade though and it comes in very handy for me from time to time. On the Pyre is yet another (0) which contends with her other 2 but it's really useful! Creating those Ht 5 Blocking and Hazardous markers is great for denying charge lanes, blocking LoS etc. My only beef with it is it's a toned down version of Sonnia's flame wall as the Pyre's are removed at the end of the turn so you need to activate them early in the turn to get maximum use out of them. Again the Eternal Flame can interact with this and relocate them using it's (0) Follow the Flame. Just remember the healing thing doesn't work on Fire Gamin. 

 

Both upgrades are great and have their merits. Often it comes down to personal preference. I'm by no means a Kaeris expert but I've had a lot of fun with both upgrades and the scheme pool often dictates which I take. Lots of Scheme Marker objectives? Go to Grab and Drop. Killy or Protective objectives? Purifying Flame is where it's at!

[LunarSol]

Wings of Fire is super dumb with Raptors.

[Adran]

Wings of fire is an ability you need to plan to use.

I think you get your best out of it by having fast models, and other models to give burnign ratehr than using Kaeris. MAlifaux child or Union Miners are good cheap wasy to hand out burning, and Malifaux raptors have one of the largest walks, but any modle that is going  to move works well.

 

Remember you know what the scheme pool is before you pick your crew, so if you aren't planning to do do any scheme marker dropping, you might not want to pick Grab and Drop (althouigh Grab and drop is an awesome attack).

[rover1013]

As others have pointed out, the wings of fire is FANTASTIC with a fast crew.  I tend to take a very mobile crew with Kaeris for that reason and always use the Grab and Drop upgrade (personal preference).  Usually hand out burning with the Malifaux Child, but Kaeris, The Captain (trigger), or  the miner (or Cassandra's Understudy if you're REALLY desperate) can do it in a pinch for extra.  I tend to avoid doing the burning giving with Kaeris if I can because I don't like how it forces me to activate her and then stay within 6" of those models for them to activate.  In the game I played last night against Viks:

 

Strat: Turf War

Schemes: Entourage, *Breakthrough, *Protect Territory, Murder Protege, ALITS

50 stones

 

Kaeris

-Arcane Reservoir

-Grab and Drop

-Seize the Day

Malifaux Child

Cassandra

-Practiced Production

Freikorps Trapper

The Captain

-Patron's Blessing

Performer

Union Miner

Malifaux Raptor

 

Crazy mobility through just plain fast models and all the extra pushes and I was spitting out scheme markers like I was playing a colette crew between wings of fire, the union miner and practiced production (which is also pretty stupid, in a good way, with raptors

 

It's the kind of list that asks a lot of questions of your opponents trying to deal with it and also has a lot of answers from pure utility.

 

I can't speak for Purifying Flame as I can't even remember if I ever bothered to try it... maybe in my very first game with her

[mythicFOX]

I've placed well at events with Kaeris using both upgrades. This is one of those choices where neither option is bad but the wrong one for the game will harm you significantly. Kaeris will get more from Grab and Drop, her crew will get more from Purifying Flame.  After an initial scheme marker rush Grab and Drop is all about, well Grab and Drop. Purifying Flame does much more to support to crew as a whole, protection from the LOS block of the pyres and healing.  LOS blocking is easily under-rated, and can be huge.

 

As a master Kaeris needs to pick her fights fairly carefully and does best just behind the front line or skirmishing in and out of combat. For a support role go Purifying Flame, for a skirmishing role go Grab and Drop.

 

I'd definitely recommend playing with both.

 

If you go with Purifying Fire and Blinding Flame remember you can drop the pyre markers and then push the enemy into them for a pair of bonus damage flips.

[ierthling]

Thanks guys! This is all very helpful. I particularly like the idea of pushing people into the pyre markers.

 

I think with my first game I just had too many new models on the field to make everything line up right - I didn't realize until it was too late (very dumb mistake, but I'd never taken them!) that Fire Gamin can't easily hand out burning without also doing damage; I didn't take my Union Miners, so it was just Kaeris and the Firestarter; TFS wasn't in the right spot to do it Turn One, and after that the crew was too dispersed and Kaeris was too busy flinging puppets around for it to work.

 

Another trick that occurs to me is that you could use the Rail Golem, have it Vent Boiler on Turn One to disperse Burning +1 to everyone nearby (I assume you round up the half, as usual), walk it out of the Wings radius so it won't be losing its burning anymore, and then a single Flaming Halo from Kaeris could give it two, three (with a flipped/cheated tome from Kaeris), or even four (with him cheating a low ram) burning on it to wreak mayhem after that. Anyone tried this before? Is it too annoying to have to keep the Rail Golem away from Kaeris to avoid giving up his burning?

[rover1013]

The only problem with the Rail Golem's Vent Boiler is that there's no rule that allows a model to relent on a simple duel.  So if you use this and happen to flip a high card for the model's walk duel, you have to cheat a low card to fail it. It can SERIOUSLY drain your hand quickly and heavens forbid you actually have a GOOD hand   You'd be surprised how often I've had to succeed a simple duel that I would rather have failed.

[ierthling]

Thanks, Rover - that is a really good point. Somehow I had been thinking they could all just choose to fail the Wk duel, but of course they can't. So, a question for the team: assuming you don't want to use Kaeris to hand out burning (because you couldn't move her!), what's the most efficient way to do it without also causing damage? I see the Firestarter and Union Miners being reasonable ways; are there other options I'm not thinking of?

[mythicFOX]

Cheapest way is to hire the Malifaux Child and have it Flaming Halo a model, it relents, thow a low tome to do it again to another model.

Failing that, you've listed the other meaningful ways without doing damage.

[ierthling]

Malifaux Child! I'll have to think about that, although I was pretty impressed by the performance of the Eternal Flame this time out. I'll probably field Kaeris again at my weekly game later this week, so I'll let you all know how it goes!