Breaking up a firebase

[Bodiless]

I find that I am still struggling tremendously with how to advance against a block of high firepower models. Last night I went up against Dashel + 2 Riflemen + Austringer, set up in a mutually supporting blob. I was attempting to achieve Breakthrough and Plant Evidence, and found that I just.... couldn't. Even taking advantage of hard cover it was almost impossible to get a model to the point where it could engage part of the blob. In the one case where I did, a flying Coppelius that double moved to engage Dashel, the Austringer just pushed him out of engagement and a rifleman blew him away in a single activation. Riflemen also killed a Teddy and an Insidious Madness on the following turn, both in hard cover. Even running summoning Dreamer I could not create new models as quickly as he was able to kill them. 

 

How do Neverborn deal with the kind of shooting that can trivially remove a Teddy in hard cover?

[Dirial]

I struggled tremendously against a fast-moving Huggy last time I played that setup. It then "Heed My Voice"d Dashel to sacrifice the engaged Riflemen. It was a lot of fun... not.

[Omenbringer]

How do Neverborn deal with the kind of shooting that can trivially remove a Teddy in hard cover?

Fast moving, manueverable mobs. Terror Tots come to mind as well as Collodi and his dolls.

[Bodiless]

Nasty. That Huggy solution is pretty specific though - there are very few models 3AP models in NB that would be able to close the distance like that and still be able to do something.

 

Not to mention that if the Austringer has yet to activate, and my opponent last night had a lot of guild hounds so I was generally out activated, that reactivating rifleman would stand an excellent chance of getting pushed out of combat and then shooting huggy dead. 4 shots at S6 with a +flip, focus on two, and a min damage of 3. 

 

Edit:  I can see the Terror Tots working, since they could actually blast across the threat range on the rifles and engage without getting shot at. Although I think that solution is not going to last more than a turn or two, since they are reasonably easy to remove.

[Myyrä]

Take Lucius+Dashel+2 Riflemen+Austringer. Problem solved.

Or give them so many target's that they just can't shoot them all down and advance as a group. As cool as that infinitely long line of zerglings looks, it's not really that great a tactic against them siege tanks.

[Dirial]

Not to mention that if the Austringer has yet to activate, and my opponent last night had a lot of guild hounds so I was generally out activated, that reactivating rifleman would stand an excellent chance of getting pushed out of combat and then shooting huggy dead. 4 shots at S6 with a +flip, focus on two, and a min damage of 3. 

 

The Rifleman would randomize into an engagement with way more Guild than Huggys. Also, with Incorporeal and Prevention, Huggy is surprisingly resilient against Riflemen. Also, Fears Given Form or Aether Connection make him very dangerous.

 

And Huggy plus Graves is very, very fast.

[Bodiless]

Fair enough, although I think that in my game last night 15" would only have reached the one rifleman. Still, having Huggy rush to engage multiple riflemen seems sound, although I wonder if he wouldn't have been in range to get shot at that point. Alas, I was not playing Lynch.

 

Myyra: I set up second so wasn't in a position to concentrate my whole force to rush them.  

 

Edit: Whoops! _HE_ set up second.

[TehMik]

Again while being specific, a model with Obey (Zoraida) can move models out of position, or Lilith's various shenanigans (trees, tangled shadows, etc). Or could fight fire with fire and bring Lucius with his own guard entourage. 

[Bodiless]

I thought about Zoraida, but if she is in range to Obey she is in range to get shot. By a model that can focus for (0). I think Lilith is a very solid option, so solid that I feel like the ranged game in Malifaux is pushing me more and more towards running her at the expense of other masters. Either her or Lucius and indeed just fighting fire with fire. 

[Hateful Darkblack]

Yeah, the way to defeat Guild Austringers (and snipers in general) is, oddly, to send your fast scheme-runners to kill them. Silurids and Terror Tots and so on are great for this.

[StuffedKiwi]

Maybe it's just because we don't have any major gunline crews in my local group (aside from Gremlins, and they mostly either miss, do 1 damage, and/or hurt themselves more than me), but I've always found that if shooting models are clumped close enough to support each other, then two things should be true. One, my best option is simple being somewhere else on the board. And two, while there should be some shooting lanes, there should also be some ways to move across the board that don't involve moving up that firing lane. If that isn't true, then you need to read the various excellent threads on what terrain on game boards should look like.

Also, dropping Lilith's magic forest right in front of them tends to be pretty useful. Even Waldgeist (armour, soft cover) can be very useful, though slow. One of those tangle-shadowed into the midst of a gunline might give you time to get everything else up, if being in combat is really what you need to be.

[Bodiless]

No offense to your local gremlin players, but I think dealing with our club's main Ophelia player would be an eye-opening experience on that front. His gremlins most assuredly do not hurt themselves more than their opponents.

 

Our board had plenty of hard cover, but not all that much to break line of sight. And with riflemen having access to focus as a (0) and positive flips from Dashel, shooting models out of hard cover was not terribly difficult. This firebase made a large percentage of the board a no-go zone - there wasn't a great deal of board left to avoid them in.  

[lusciousmccabe]

Sounds like it could be a terrain issue then. There probably shouldn't be anywhere on your board where a model can draw 14" of line of sight in every direction, cover or otherwise. Maybe double up some of your hard cover pieces to make pieces of Blocking terrain to break up the killing ground, or make parts of it count as Dense terrain so you can shoot into but not through it.

 

For what it's worth I'm more used to the opposite problem, most boards I play on are primarily solid walls and open ground and are usually cluttered enough that Riflemen are lucky to get one shot off before something engages them and chops them up. 

[Omenbringer]

Off topic but I have to strongly agree with Bodiless, Gremlin Gun Lines can be a very fearsome thing (especially under Som'er or Ophelia). Sure they may only do weak damage due to their low accuracy but each Bayou Gremlin can churn out 3 attacks per activation. Knowing that they wont be hitting well enough to cheat damage flips very often just means you can use those cards instead for hitting (again not worrying about hitting well just succeeding). Not much stands before a Gremlin Gun Line for long.

 

All those damage flips also increase your chances of pulling that Red Joker as well (bit of nostalgia but any one remember the old arguments from last edition about Hard to Wound making it more likely those models would suffer the Red Joker on damage?)

[Carcosa]

How is teddy getting whacked in one activation from a rifleman, or even 2 riflemen?

 

I mean, I know the gunline can be seriously nasty, I have used that very configuration myself, but I am still wondering how they pulled that trick off against teddy

[Bodiless]

Min damage of 4 with a ram+focus+Dashel+already activated guardsman (usually Dashel).  Almost certainly getting a positive damage flip on the focus shot which increases your odds of getting a severe for 6. One rifleman alone could do it with two severes and two rams to hit, one rifleman companioning to another will take him out on min damage as long as they are close enough to Dashel. As long as they have two decent cards in hand to make sure they beat his terrifying and don't flip the black joker on something two riflemen will reliably take him out before you have a chance to respond.

 

Teddy is very vulnerable to models with high min damage - his survival is all about Impossible to Wound letting him live long enough to regenerate.

[Carcosa]

right, that's all true, but it does require a certain chain of events to occur.

Dashel has to have activated, so what is he doing for his 2AP? He cannot leave the area, if he does, the riflemen loose their buff. If the Stringer activates instead, he cannot deliver orders later to get your bacon out of the fire from a charging teddy.

If you are planning to face the "fire!" mechanic from dashel, it reduces the range of the riflemen down to 12" range.

 

If you are in hard cover, that will negate the focus, or the rifleman has to take an action to get the focus, which limits him to one shot per round. Yes, that shot is probably at 3/4/6, but against teddy, it will be a non-cheatable, straight damage flip (in the scenario you are talking about), and that is only if the rifleman has focus2 when he fires. Now, sure we can add Lucius to the mix, and have him command the riflemen, but now you are chewing up your control hand with Lucius, giving you less chance of having a good card to cheat against teddies terror.

 

Here is a list I knocked up which may help you against them annoying guns:

Lynch, Huggie, baby kade, Mr Graves, Teddy, 3 tots and hans.

Graves can show teddy the door, kade can go looking for teddy, teddy can gobble you up, giving teddy 20" of movement before he has even spent an AP, and he can then flurry with an ace, and lynch can give it back to you!, plus because of gobble you up, all his attacks are basically focussed.

[StuffedKiwi]

No offense to your local gremlin players, but I think dealing with our club's main Ophelia player would be an eye-opening experience on that front. His gremlins most assuredly do not hurt themselves more than their opponents.

 

 

Off topic, but: In defense of our local Gremlin player, since he beats me more often than not, I meant not that his gunlines sucked but rather that he was usually doing other things with his Gremlins.

 

On topic: lots of helpful advice in here, thanks forum-collective, I always get great ideas here.

[Bodiless]

When I have run this setup with Lucius, and what he did last night, is Dashel activated first. I honestly can't remember if Dashel was in range to get a shot off at Teddy or not or if he took a shot at something else. But that gives you the activation you need for firing line. On at least two AP when the riflemen were shooting at Tedddy he flipped or cheated a ram. Since you only need to beat Df 3 you've got a lot of leeway in what card you pick, which gets you a min damage of 4. But even without that four shots from a rifleman within 12" and the Dashel bubble will reliably kill a Teddy. And since they can companion that basically turns within 12" of the riflemen into a no-go zone for him once Dashel has activated. 

 

I agree, it isn't just point and click and takes some setup, but that min damage of 3-4 is just murder for a low Df model with no armor. 

[Carcosa]

For sure, Teddy -is- vunerable to that kind of pummling, but teddy should not be in a position to get pummeled in the first place

 

if you leave teddy to activate last, or second to last if you want to take woke up with a hand for lynch, that will hopefully limit the chances for teddy to get shot to bits by the gunline.

 

Also, with that kind of movement shenanigans you should be able to wipe out the guild activation control models to a degree (hounds for example)

[Bodiless]

For sure, Teddy -is- vunerable to that kind of pummling, but teddy should not be in a position to get pummeled in the first place

 

if you leave teddy to activate last, or second to last if you want to take woke up with a hand for lynch, that will hopefully limit the chances for teddy to get shot to bits by the gunline.

 

Also, with that kind of movement shenanigans you should be able to wipe out the guild activation control models to a degree (hounds for example)

 

For sure, I did not do Teddy any favors with my game. It definitely didn't help that my opponent was very good and I was half asleep:) But when I used a riflemen firebase with Lucius, backed by a Beckoner to lure them back away from jamming models, the result was fairly similar. The level of fire they put out is just murderous. 

[Carcosa]

Well, NB do have a ton of their own lure monkeys, so you could go the counter lure game and pull the firebase apart to a degree?

[Adran]

Edit:  I can see the Terror Tots working, since they could actually blast across the threat range on the rifles and engage without getting shot at. Although I think that solution is not going to last more than a turn or two, since they are reasonably easy to remove.

 

I think 1 terror tot that engages 2-3 models in his fire base is going to ruin at least 1 turn. They aren't that easy to remove, Df 6 and black blood splashign onto his nearby models makes a mess. Also, you are using 4 ss model, it is generally stopping 20+ ss really work so if it only does it 1 or 2 turns, its still worth it.

 

Dreamer makes your models fast, which lets you cross the diatance.

Lileth Tangles shadows. does double duty in disrupring the fire base by putting one of your models in it, as wella s takign one of theire out.

Lucius gives extra actions to your models,

Zoraida give extra actions to your models.  (She could make a model like Teddy start outside range, and walk 3 times to engage the firebase before he activates amd eats the firebase)

Collodi makes your models fast, and can do extra actions.  

Jacob shoots hard, comes with a free Huggy.

Pandora has high def, large engagement range,a nd every time they miss her she can get closer. Its not hard to get her to enage the firebase.And with a Large engagement range, she probably engages most of it.

 

But a board that has no line of sight blockign terrain is a board that it is very hard to deal with this sort of crew. We will make large clumps of Trees dense so you can hide behind them, even if we don't have any buildings. If you have no way of blocking line of sight you have a table that is crying out for a ranged crew to dominate.

 

Terror tots, Silurids, Insidious Madness all can engage the firebase starting from safety.

 

Big hitters like Teddy and Mature can have a surprisingly large threat range with a little help.

[Carcosa]

To add to tots, lynch in specific:

Once you get that mask of aces in your hand, those tots have sprint for the rest of the game pretty much (which is why there was 3 in that list I knocked up). Move 20" in one activation will play exactly into Adran was getting to with those tots.

[Therril_83]

As a non-master specific tip I think I would either second what others said before and swamp him in either tots or depleted. The tots are fast and for their cost reasonably hard to take out, and the depleted are probably even harder to take out, but aren't as fast on their own. For them, my second tip is adding even more..

 

the second tip is Beckoners. Using Lure to disrupt his formation could really mess up his plans, if they are too far away from eachother to benefit from the extra rams and stuff. And even better if you can lure them towards you, then quickly engage them in the middle of the board so they can't move back and can't shoot at your other stuff.

 

And including master specific tips, personally I think I would go with Pandora to engage the group as fast as I could. With her terrifying 13 and sort-of-Df7, she should be able to keep them engaged without dying until your crew catches up. Especially if you also take Aether Connection on her.

 

Now, all of this is ofcourse without knowing the rest of your opponents crew, so he could possibly have counters to some of this, that's hard to know..