40SS, What Am I Missing?

[MONSTERNOGGIN]

As a bit of a disclaimer, I've only played M2e and so have no ties to previous versions' formats or carryovers.

Forgive me if I've skipped over a previous discussion on this topic, but I feel I'm missing something. I understand the premise behind the 25SS Henchman Hardcore format (not a fan myself, but I can appreciate why people like it and support its growth), but the 40-45SS bracket leaves me scratching my head.

From what I gather, the game is designed for optimal balance at 50SS. My local group plays 50SS almost exclusively (save for the occasional grow league) and generally the only time we play at the 40-45SS level is when a new player doesn't have enough models to round out 50SS rather than because we want to run a smaller crew. The few times I have played at the slightly smaller crew size I don't know that it brought a different aspect to the game. If anything, it implied a arm-behind-the-back handicap with the masters not hitting on all cylinders more than any additional nuances to strategy. A 5-10SS differential is a model, maybe two, or a slightly smaller cache and again, not 'game-changing' (again, my observance, no trolling implied). I realize the flipside to this reasoning is that "If 5-10SS isn't a big deal, then why do you care?". And that's a valid question too. I guess for me at the end of the day, with the manner in which Wyrd packages their models, if you have 40-45SS worth of models then you more than likely have the 50SS so go ahead and play it at 50SS where it's intended.

The ultimate reason I'm polling the group is that I see a proliferation of 40SS tournaments floating about, and it leaves me asking...why? Is it a tournament time management tactic (fewer stones, fewer models, shorter turns)? Is it a nod to the newer player to help encourage more folks to play? Is it a quest to have a optimally optimized optimal build?

I know there are those of us who love this format, so now is your chance to sell me on it.

Thanks for your thoughts, I'm interested to see where this goes.

[Math Mathonwy]

I'm all for 50SS but 40SS games are indeed a bit faster and given the choice between a full 40SS game and a 50SS game that is called on turn four, I know which one I would choose every time. Malifaux is very fragile in the timing department in that if a game is called early, it can mess up the game utterly for some Schemes so even a little bit helps.

When people know what they are doing, know what their models and know what their opponent's models do, the game can be pretty fast. But when this is not the case, it can be very easy for a game to go on for quite a bit longer than the time tournament time limit would allow. So especially for newer players, the 40SS can be a boon in this regard.

40SS also forces you to make really hard choices in crew construction so you are more likely to encounter the most crucial staples as opposed to the stranger outliers again meaning that games go faster since the models are the more usual ones.

[zFiend]

Really well said Math.

In 40ss games you usually lose either the big beater or a few minions. So it really does come more to crew building. Then again it swings a bit if you bring the beater and your opponent brings the minions instead. But I haven't yet found our 40ss games that unbalanced.

[MasterDisaster]

40SS also forces you to make really hard choices in crew construction so you are more likely to encounter the most crucial staples as opposed to the stranger outliers again meaning that games go faster since the models are the more usual ones.

 

Amen to that! I often find finalizing a 50ss crew can be difficult but at 40ss I often end up beating my head against a brick wall wishing I had those extra 10ss to play with! 40ss is an interesting level to play at, it's no quite as balanced as 50ss but more so than 30ss and can be really good fun. 

[mythicFOX]

The only advantage at 40ss is it makes for slightly quicker games.  While the game is still broadly balanced it's variance at 40ss is much higher. 

 

You lose redundancy so having a model killed by a bad flip will cost you more VP Diff than it would at 50ss. Bad match-ups for specific masters are made worse as it becomes harder to cover weaknesses in crew selection, making switching masters during the event more necessary.

[rancor709]

The game is best balanced at 50. 40 ss you'll see a slight boost to summoning masters. I have little trouble getting 50ss game done in an hr and a half. Ideally we can get everyone to improve speed of play

[MONSTERNOGGIN]

Thanks for the input guys. Ya'll are talking sense, I just wanted  an outsiders perspective because 40SS games are too common to not have some basis for the decision. We have an interesting Meta here. Our local store has a very fast, aggressive playstyle so we very rarely have games that are called due time. Our better players will have a game done, or their opponent tabled, within 45min or so. Models start leaving the table and markers are down starting turn two, and it's not uncommon for Masters to be locked down/removed by end of turn three. Also, our top players all play summoners, so the lower SS tends to amplify their power level.

 

It's definitely an interesting Meta to 'grow-up' in. Frustrating at times, but it teaches to you move fast. Most of us are getting 3-4 games a week and have been since first edition (and now we're having monthly tournaments), so the general advice around here is that you need 50-60 games with a  Master before moving to the next. I logged around 30 games with Lynch, 25-30 with Collodi, 30 or so with Dreamer, and 25-30 with Ophelia in 2014 and I keep being heckled for jumping Masters . We also follow the "I am going to punch you in the face until you learn to dodge the punch, then I'll start sweeping your leg...." method of teaching the game, so mistakes are costly. 

 

Again, thanks for the replies.

[SpectreEliteGaming]

What you're missing is 10ss.

From a purely competitive perspective I would never ever take a non-summoning master in most any game less than 50ss.This leads to skewed gameplay and nigh-unplayable masters (specifically relevant to finesse masters where every piece is important).

[LunarSol]

Personally I don't feel that 10 SS contributes significantly enough to the game time to even consider that an advantage for 40 SS games.  You're looking at 1 or 2 additional activations and often not even that when the drop causes players to split a higher cost model into a pair of lower cost models to keep their activation count up.  In any case, I find the difference a negligible factor compared to the opponent's play speed.

[Math Mathonwy]

Thanks for the input guys. Ya'll are talking sense, I just wanted  an outsiders perspective because 40SS games are too common to not have some basis for the decision. We have an interesting Meta here. Our local store has a very fast, aggressive playstyle so we very rarely have games that are called due time. Our better players will have a game done, or their opponent tabled, within 45min or so. Models start leaving the table and markers are down starting turn two, and it's not uncommon for Masters to be locked down/removed by end of turn three. Also, our top players all play summoners, so the lower SS tends to amplify their power level.

45 minutes for a 50SS game of, say, Nicodem, is certainly insanely fast o_O

 

Personally I don't feel that 10 SS contributes significantly enough to the game time to even consider that an advantage for 40 SS games.  You're looking at 1 or 2 additional activations and often not even that when the drop causes players to split a higher cost model into a pair of lower cost models to keep their activation count up.  In any case, I find the difference a negligible factor compared to the opponent's play speed.

It's quite a few activations per game but, more importantly, it means the added complexity of taking into account the threat ranges and capabilities of the extra models. I mean, it's a 25% bigger game - that's not negligible (though note that this figure is naturally skewed by the presence of the free Master). Try playing a 100SS game and see how super slow that is!

[MONSTERNOGGIN]

Yup, Nico is the favored master of our top player and he rolls with it without blinking, I swear. Between Nico, Seamus, and Molly, they've got me where I just assume everything in their lists is terrifying, hard to wound, hard to kill, and fast . It's pretty ridiculous.