Tara | Dead of Winter vs. Eternal Journey

[Clyde_Davis]

Heya!

 

What are your thoughts between Tara's two 1SS upgrades? 

 

Is your selection of either upgrade entirely dependent on the strategy and schemes? 

 

Would you consider taking Eternal Journey in a game of, let's say, Reconnoiter with Close Deployment? And then DoW in a game of let's say Squatter's Rights with Corner Deployment?

 

Or is it a matter of personal preference and good experiences using one upgrade over the other.

 

In my experience I see DoW very situational and useful in games were models will be closely grouped (Turf War etc.), whilst Eternal Journey offers Tara even more maneuverability than she already has, and making her very difficult for your opponent to predict. However, if you're playing Tara as a Resser, and you take Eternal Journey over DoW you lose the ability to hire the Death Marshalls? Does the loss of the Marshalls overtly concern one another?

 

  

 

[Barnaberible]

I have never taken DOW with Tara as either a resser or outcast. I dont rely on the Death Marshal burying with her but find EJ extremely useful for most games, being able to get Tara out of the way, to remove scheme markers or simply just to annoy your opponent is awesome.

[admiralvorkraft]

Dead of Winter is really swingy I think. If your opponent is packing any Wp tech (Guild Lawyers, for example) it's not hugely effective.

 

It does some fun stuff if you want to bring Montressor, Ama No Zako, Killjoy, and the Nothing Beast to the party... But terrifying lists are very dependent on your opponent playing along.

 

The Scion also has an interaction with Fast models that might make DoW more useful.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Dead of winter if you want to do anything offensive with burying since burying is WP-based and you're often going to be getting openings with it, and DM's are solid enough on their own and have a good enough gun and defenses that it isn't catastrophic if they can't be used for burying. (If only using it for the friendly teleport, her bury spell is far more economical.)

 

Eternal Journey if... uh, never? I've never bought this upgrade, and never felt myself wishing I had. Maybe if you're having serious issues with Tara surviving, but she's not defensively subpar (strong vs. ranged and CA, and average against the rest) and I've never felt like it's critical to hide her after she activates. I don't consider it worth 1SS and a slot to get a defensive action that conflicts with Reactivate, when I could be buying spare parts as a resser or any number of small buffs as an outcast or her bury/initiative upgrade as either.

[Breng77]

It doesn't conflict with reactivate, you take it during your second activation. I like having options when I play so I like having EJ. It allows Tara to move quite away sometimes and catch the opponent out of position. Also stealing an action from a burried model can be useful.

But it all comes down to playstyle I think. Though deployment zone does matter as corner is fa worse than any other set up, and close is better, both simply being a function of the area in which she can be placed.

[rythos42]

I was playing against Tara once and I swore my opponent was making an idiotic mistake by EJing back to his Deployment Zone instead of stopping me from getting points. I forget exactly the circumstances, but it won him the game.

 

I would take it if Assassinate was in the pool, I think, but tend to avoid it as I like her other upgrades a lot more.

[Barnaberible]

 

I would take it if Assassinate was in the pool,

 

 

Or to take prisoner on an objective runner, or to remove a power ritual marker, or to get out of combat and unbury a fully healed Bette in a safe place for bodyguard, or to avoid spring the trap (or is it plant explosives, I forget), or to outnumber a plant evidence marker, or to free up and walk 3 times to stop someone trying to get outflank, or to move closer to one of your distracted models and bury them so they don't score for the turn, or to stop someone who has lined up to deliver a message, or to, well you get the point, I think it's quite useful in many circumstances for 1ss.

[DeleteAccount]

Dead of Winter ONLY if I want death marshals in the crew, since with Karina and possibly the Scion, I'm not so desperate to open up her hiring choices and I'd rather take Spare Parts as the third slot. Eternal Journy... well, like Spiraling, I've never used it, the copy action is a card hog and outside of Hans Shenanigans, there isn't really anything amazing you can achieve with it outside of circumstantial. When I'm playing Taxi, I don't usually have any AP left over to use an action from what I'm going to set loose. The teleport to deployment is another tool I don't value much, Tara may have 6 AP, but she is still Wk 4, so I have to have a very good reason to retreat back.

[Breng77]

Again it seems playstyle dependent, in non corner deployments I see it as a redeploy not a retreat. I can push over to one side of the table. Have the enemy respond. Then shift back to the other leaving them out of position. I like the options it presents but that is just how I like to play with flexibility rather than a single game plan.

[admiralvorkraft]

I would probably never take EJ in corner deployment. It becomes much more tempting in Flank or Close though.

At least in theory.

[Breng77]

Yeah in corner it is far less good, in any of he others there are reasons to use it.

[Mikey_C]

I usually take both these upgrades and leave symbiote at home.

I really like EJ as a panic button to get Tara out of harms way, and often find myself using it on her first activation, because a dead Tara doesn't get to reactivate.

 

I find dead of winter extremely useful with Knowledge of Eternity to preform aggressive burying. On a reactivation I'll position Tara for next turn, and pop the fast pulse, I can count on KoE and soulstone use if needed to win initiative most times, and then I'll ping their  fast model up to 3 times for 1 damage and fast, forcing an essentially  TN15 wp duel each time. If it doesn't bury (though I find most times it does) it's likely thinned their hand quite a bit. 

[Erorior]

I really like EJ as a panic button to get Tara out of harms way, and often find myself using it on her first activation, because a dead Tara doesn't get to reactivate.

 

 

Tell me if I have misunderstood something now, but I was under the impression that you could only use eternal journey during her first activation. It states on the upgrade card that "This action may only be taken if this model is the first friendly model to Activate during the Turn". Hence no instant teleporting during her second activation.

 

Or is there an errata or something that I have missed?

[Adran]

Tell me if I have misunderstood something now, but I was under the impression that you could only use eternal journey during her first activation. It states on the upgrade card that "This action may only be taken if this model is the first friendly model to Activate during the Turn". Hence no instant teleporting during her second activation.

 

Or is there an errata or something that I have missed?

 

The arguemnet goes something like this.

Was Tara the first friendly model to activate this turn? Yes. So even in her second activation, she was still the first friendly model to activate this turn.

[Erorior]

The arguemnet goes something like this.

Was Tara the first friendly model to activate this turn? Yes. So even in her second activation, she was still the first friendly model to activate this turn.

 

Ah, I see. Well that's good news. Thanks for updating me on the earlier argument. I'm fairly new to the game, so it's easy to miss stuff that has been previously discussed.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Yeah, the language is a bit silly, and I'm still not sure if it was intended to work that way, but, in absence of a correction, that's how it works.

[Ausplosions]

It's worded fairly clearly. It's was clearly intended that way. It's a yes/no situation. 

[SpiralngCadavr]

It's a rule that's easily and often misinterpreted or at least overlooked, and if it were because it was unintended, it wouldn't be the first time RAW looked obvious and it turned out RAI was different. Malifaux is better about it than most games, but hardly infallible.

 

Furthermore, I really don't know why that limitation is even there. It doesn't seem like it would be notably more abusable to use it in the middle of a round than at the end of your first activation or last/one of your last activations, and odd-seeming rules are strong grounds for suspecting a gap between RAW and RAI.

[Arash_Suri]

I played 5 games with Tara this weekend, 4 as a resser and 1 as an outcast. I didn't take any of these upgrades and found it pretty alright, didn't feel like I was missing anything. 

 

I think Dead of Winter is good, but when are you taking more than 1 Death Marshal? Are they really worth the 7 pts? (Even if you take two, are they worth 6.5?) 

[asrian]

I played 5 games with Tara this weekend, 4 as a resser and 1 as an outcast. I didn't take any of these upgrades and found it pretty alright, didn't feel like I was missing anything. 

 

I think Dead of Winter is good, but when are you taking more than 1 Death Marshal? Are they really worth the 7 pts? (Even if you take two, are they worth 6.5?) 

I've played 5 games total with Tara so far, for what that's worth, and have taken a DM every game. Thus far, they have done their job beautifully (even Pine Boxed a couple masters). Last game I ended up pine boxing my own Tara just to get her out of combat and heal her back up with the Void Wretches which helped out a ton honestly. I'm sure a Librarian would have done the same job better though for heals/attacks, but I find I like the Cthulu (or Bishop) in a box turn 1 tactic then having Tara deliver it to the enemy's doorstep without using up her own AP to bury it initially.

[SpiralngCadavr]

I think Dead of Winter is good, but when are you taking more than 1 Death Marshal? Are they really worth the 7 pts? (Even if you take two, are they worth 6.5?) 

I started taking one in 35 SS games and felt it was overpriced; stopped for a long time and just took her bury spell; went back to trying DM's and now usually take 2 and have certainly considered 3+.

 

Considering the native Ronin are 6, and DM's are worthwhile in their own faction without fancy bury tricks or WP shenanigans, I wholly consider a somewhat situational ability and the option to take a tough, fast-ish model with a good gun and a bury interaction worth a point. Maybe not in smaller games, but at 50 I basically always take them since even if I'm not expecting to use bury aggressively they're still strong models.

[Mikey_C]

I played 5 games with Tara this weekend, 4 as a resser and 1 as an outcast. I didn't take any of these upgrades and found it pretty alright, didn't feel like I was missing anything. 

 

I think Dead of Winter is good, but when are you taking more than 1 Death Marshal? Are they really worth the 7 pts? (Even if you take two, are they worth 6.5?) 

 

There's more to the dead of winter upgrade then just unlocking death marshals. 

-2wp to fast models within 6" of Tara is huge. Taking a TN13 wp duel to a TN15 wp duel is an enormous burden on the enemy hand.

If the target model is wp 6, it now needs a 9+ to stay on the table.

Also having a death marshal around for friendly burying is worth the point if you ask me.

6.5 for a death marshal (6.25 really because I usually take 2) and .5 for the wp debuff, is worth it in most of my games.

[daniello_s]

Looks like Tara will be my third master after Viki and Levy

[SpiralngCadavr]

I wouldn't call the WP penalty "huge" because I consider it rarely worth it when the other half of said penalty is fast, so your opponent is getting a buff and then losing the penalty, so usually the best you'll get is a chain activation taking advantage of the penalty if you set up the chain, a tough choice for your opponent, and then an/another activation with the penalty on a model.

 

It's certainly more than nothing and you can do some nasty (if situational) things with it, but I think it generally looks better on paper than it is in practice.

[Mikey_C]

I wouldn't call the WP penalty "huge" because I consider it rarely worth it when the other half of said penalty is fast, so your opponent is getting a buff and then losing the penalty, so usually the best you'll get is a chain activation taking advantage of the penalty if you set up the chain, a tough choice for your opponent, and then an/another activation with the penalty on a model.

 

It's certainly more than nothing and you can do some nasty (if situational) things with it, but I think it generally looks better on paper than it is in practice.

 

On this point you and I would disagree.

Since you are in control of when/wether or not to give out the fast, it is easy to minimize the drawback.

If it's the opponent who gives their own model fast, then they also get -2wp. 

 

In my experience, when I've wanted to take advantage of the -2wp, I've succeeded in burying the target, or draining the opponent's hand significantly.