Lucius as neverborn

[Ikvar]

Greetings everyone!

 

I really like the new models for Lucius and his crew, however I simply refuse to play Guild, so I would like to hear how he plays as Neverborn.

 

I have never played him, or played against him, so I have no clue what crew he would normally play with, or what kind of playstyle he have. So if anyone could enlighten me a bit, it would be very much appreciated  

[EnternalVoid]

Lucius is another Neverborn master that does not do the dirty work himself.  Much like Collodi, Lucius favors having a good selection of Minions for you to draw from but as he is not the heavy hitter likes making sure he does have some muscle at his beck and call.  To me he really feels similar to Zoraida but each can excel at different schemes.  For me I often end up in one of two cases against my opponents; the first is that I overwhelm them with Minions thanks to Lucius's help, or I end up using trickery to steal the VP advantage from the schemes and then try to hold it as they slowly grind away my crew.

 

For me though I almost always have taken him with Secret Asset.  During the Beta it was slightly easier not having the ram in the TN at one point or having the Ram built in but even now I find it very useful to have a Range attack with no gun icon on him.  As long as it goes off thanks to Critical Strike you are looking at a 3/4/5. or a 4/5/6 if you cheat a Ram in as well.  Finished off a Vik of Ash that way after he burned almost all his cards trying to save the Vik of blood.  Mind you I used a focus action so that I could get a Strait damage as he was out of stones *needed Severe to kill her*.

 

I have tended to use 1-2 Illuminated and a Beckoner as well with him, as the Lure from the Beckoner can help me initially moving forward and then help me pull in elements of the opposing crew so I can gang up on it.  I have found I also like having the Beckoner's attack with Lucius if I did not bring an Austringer as it is a decent range and lacking a gun icon can be used to pick away at models in combat.  In turn the Illuminated give me some muscle in the form of minions and are excellent targets for Lucius's actions.  For the rest of my crew it is often based on insuring that I can accomplish my Schemes and compete for the Strategy.

[Nical]

In very short, Lucius' tactics are AP Transfer & VP Control. And if you want you can add Some Guns as Neverborn.   

 

AP Transfer - Lucius can give AP to his minions by Issue Command or Command Presence.   

VP Control - Lucius can make his minion take interact actions while Engaged. And he can "steal" opponent's Scheme Marker by Legalese Upgrade.

Some Guns - Lucius can get a Shooting Attack by Secret Asset Upgrade, And he can take up to 4 "Guardsmen" Models by Surprisingly Royal Upgrade.

 

So Lucius usually take good beatstick or boomstick minions to kill Something and get VP by himself or Scheme runners.

[lusciousmccabe]

Lucius is quite like Zoraida in that your crew can just be a grab-bag of stuff you like for the scenario, the difference is that he wants to have a fairly high amount of minions to delegate responsibility to. Ignore the guardsman/mimic related buffs, that's more of a Guild thing and doesn't really apply to most mimics anyway.

 

He's particularly good at making melee units around him more killy, but even something random like the Stitched Together or a Terror-Tot can benefit a lot from extra AP. I usually take the Surprisingly Loyal upgrade and bring along a Lawyer plus 1-3 Guardsmen, but if you really hate Guild you can do without them, although the buff to Commanding Presence from the Lawyer is quite tasty.  

 

My playstyle with Lucius is pretty negative. I go for objectives you can achieve easily early on and then spend the rest of the game trying to keep my opponent's score down. I'm not sure how much of that is just me, but I'd say Lucius probably sacrifices a bunch of models to maintain a small lead more often than wiping the other side off the table or winning 10 nil.

[EnternalVoid]

On a note of Guardsmen models, when I take Surprising Loyalty with Lucius I am rather partial to a Warden or two.  Thanks to Lucius's abilities they can often attack after other models activate, whether they have activated themselves or not.  In addition as they are Guardsmen he has the added range on Issue Command and the Warden gets a positive to Horror Duels so flips two cards when Lucius uses Commanding Presence.

[PeregrineFalcon]

Give a listen to some of our take on Cheated Fates Radio +Flip about Lucius.

 

http://cheatedfatesradio.podbean.com/e/cheated-fates-plus-flip-masks-it-up-with-lucius/

[4thstringer]

Don't forget Lucius's other abilities. 

1. The upgrade that lets him steal scheme markers at the end of the game is downright vicious against Breakthrough, line in the sand and power ritual. 

2. The trigger on his sword can make him great for keeping a big hitter tied up and out of the match.

3. His "thats what lackeys are for" is a great ability that combines dropping a scheme marker with moving models around.  Against things like Assasinate and murder protege, or when you have bodyguard or the one where you have to get to the other side of the board, that model switch can be fantastic.

 

I've honestly only used guild intelligence once, so I can't comment so much on that one.