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Von Schill... I Can't Seem To Get It.


the proxy union

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Fixed it for you. :P

 

I think this speaks more to why I boggle every time someone complains about Misaki just dying after she goes in to attack something. How much of the enemy crew are you exposing her to? 6/7/12 is an *awesome* stat line. People complain about Perdita's 7/7/10, which I personally think is pretty comparable (let's just ignore Francisco for the moment).  I think we can all agree, though, the for survivability, VS wins. Armor 1 and Freikorps Suit isn't nothing. He might not have anything close to Bisento, but he does have a damn good gun without being useless in melee. 

 

I think that we have pretty much hit on why people are so constantly disappointed in VS. He still really feels like a mark 1 henchmen. You look at how much Collodi, Lucius, Kaeris, and (especially!) Molly changed between the editions, VS feels like he was sort of left in the dust.

 

On the plus side:

+1 def

+2 wd

+1/0/2 on knife

He gets the Steam Trunk

 

On the minus:

No more Magic Resistant

No more Ruthless (!!!)

No more  :+fate  on damage vs. undead

Same amount of AP (he had nimble)

Augmented Jump cuddled (used to be a (0) that gave flight and immunity to disengage)

Aura is +1 wp instead of +4 (!!!)

No more construct slowing  :pulse

No more Crit strike on gun (!!!)

 

While we can agree that The Shirt Comes Off is a great upgrade, I feel like the other Freikorps specific upgrades are kind of pants. Outcast general upgrades are really good, so I don't mind that much, but I think they kind of lowballed his power because he was such a dominant force in the first edition...

 

One last thing on the Freikorpsman that no one has mentioned yet: Hannah really appreciates access to Reference the Field Guide for her Horror trigger and her Bury spell. I would pay the extra Soulstones for that ability on its own.

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I think I have figured out why I don't like Von Schill: he has no real movement or positioning tricks for either himself or his crew while the other masters do. he just stacks on the damage and buffs freikorps. He does well at holding the center for turf war/extraction, but outside of that one strategy I am not sold on him over my otherer two outcast masters (Vicks+Hamelin).

 

I've come to the conclusion that Schill just isnt a master that I can play well because I need the movement options to get my master and his crew into position. The way I see Schill right now is as a counter to Sonnia and McMourning. Even then, I think I can get fairly similar results with the vicks.

 

at the moment I think I will start getting better at Hamelin without Killjoy; I've been using him as a crutch far too much recently.

 

-Proxy

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I tried to wrap my head around VS and in the light of the incoming (at some stage in the future of course) Hodgepodge Emissary I was thinking about something like that:

 

VS - Survivalist, Hard & Relentless, The Shirt...

Steam Trunk

Librarian

Strongarm Suit

2x Freikorpsmann

Freikorps Trapper

Hodgepodge Emissary - Conflux of Conflict

 

It is nice, all rounded crew with two hard hitters, good shooting, healing, scheme running but... it leaves me at whooping 2SS in the pool. And what's worst there is no chance in manoeuvre with crew tailoring...

Then I noticed even without Hodgepodge Emissary, VS's crew would suffer similar problem - you can't really take Lazarus or Hannah as it would leave you with low SS pool again.

 

I think this is main problem with VS - if he tries to cover all necessary field with his theme crew he would be left short of SS. The easiest way would be replacing Freikorpsmann guys with two Void Wretches and therefore adding 2 more precious SS into the pool but I don't think it is what we are looking for.

 

I never had this kind of problem when taking Viks, Levy or even when tinkering around Tara's crew - I was able to get heavy hitters, support and scheme runners in one crew with at least 4SS left in the pool.

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I mean, theoretically Von Schill shouldn't care too much about initiative. The crew really is set up to minimize a lot of "Big Activation" tricks - blaster masters, mass condition application, etc.

 

Honestly I think VS is, in his heart of hearts, as much of a denial master as Jack Daw. He has a much more straightforward way to stop things from happening, but that still seems to be his thing. He shuts down other crews offensive tech.

 

That's my paper-faux read anyway. Not worth much.

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Given the Armour and hard to kill, and reasonable defensive stats, I don't think he's generally an 'initiative-critical' master.  Not like Viks if you're locked in melee or otherwise in range, lose initiative and there's a fair chance you've lost a Vik.

 

I'm starting to think about going for some void wretches, just because I'm losing faith in the Freikorps as scheme runners.  They're just too slow.  They're not too bad at holding terrain, but nothing in a VS typical list stands out as wanting to run out of reach of the opponents and drop scheme markers anywhere, and they're no good at taking on a group.

 

So that leaves me wondering - what on earth are people using to drop Scheme Markers? 

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VS - Survivalist, Hard & Relentless, The Shirt...

Steam Trunk

Librarian

Strongarm Suit

2x Freikorpsmann

Freikorps Trapper

Hodgepodge Emissary - Conflux of Conflict

drop hard and relentless for oathkeeper. Drop trunk for cache.

with a librarian in there you dont need the extra healing that is card intensive

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Maybe try this

Schill - OK, TSCO, Survivalist - Cache 4

Librarian

2x Trappers

Johan - OK

Lazarus

2 Void Wretches

 

I have had decent amount of luck with this list and ones smiliar to it. The lack of starting Cache always hurts but can always get at least 4-6 usually in his lists

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I do not agree that Specialists are poor performers.  What they are is card eaters.  When I take a specialist I open my Control Hand and look for the highest cards.  The Specialist gets that highest card most cases.  Plus I love I Pay Better on Hannah so his other issue, getting to his blasts, isn't as hard.  I also hold him behind my frontline models to keep him safe for a bit.

 

Ranged Scheme removal is awesome.

 

Also, I have never really seen Von Schill as a Generalist as much as I've seen him as a Denial Master.  Take whatever the opposing Crew plans on doing and counter that with the crew's (and Factions) myriad of abilities that deny the opponent.  I haven't found a Master yet likes what a VS crew does to their "plans."

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Good to see someone standing up for the Specialist! I agree that their abilities are top-notch (Wildfire and Move or Burn are insanely useful), it just bothers me that he pays so much for them and he walks so damn slow. If he was 7 stones, and had Wk 5, I'd be all over that.

 

On the subject of Lazarus with other Outcasts, he's pretty great with Hamelin! Obey makes all things better, especially things with awesome (2) Actions. I imagine he'd be nice enough with Jack too, for similar reasons.

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I have felt Lazarus too easy to negate / too slow to function properly in the Outcast side.

 

Tell that to Tara as she teleports him all over the board. As an aside, I think that the generally slow move distance and lack of non-master means of accelerating things is sort of by design. That's the price we pay for having the second best ranged game in the game, after the Guild.

 

If I were to add one thing to the Outcast faction, now that I have those skirmishing Blight-spreading models for Hamelin, would be the Guild Sargent, but for the Freikorps. Literally, if it was just a Freikorpsman, but with a +1 wk aura, for 6ss, I'd be all over it.

 

Well if something gets that damn thing to move he might be good. Kinda sad that his close to useless in his theme crew of Freikorps.

 

I initially thought that, as well, until someone pointed out that Hannah can copy Lazarus' (0) actions. It gives her an alright heal without having to bring a Librarian, and she can copy his frankly badass gun. I do find it a little funny that I build my VS lists around Hannah's synergies, but the man himself isn't much for support, even with his cool buff aura.

 

Is that our problem? The Freikorps are a pretty cool bunch, but they share a lot of similar weaknesses. Maybe Von Schill would actually work better with some out-of-subfaction support?

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 I initially thought that, as well, until someone pointed out that Hannah can copy Lazarus' (0) actions. It gives her an alright heal without having to bring a Librarian, and she can copy his frankly badass gun.

Huh? She can borrow (1)Ca action only so no healing from Lazarus (it is 0 action) and no shooting his gun as it is Sh action.

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Huh? She can borrow (1)Ca action only so no healing from Lazarus (it is 0 action) and no shooting his gun as it is Sh action.

 

She can borrow non-casting (0) actions of Freikorps models, as Lazarus is one. She can copy his gun by using Make a New Entry to copy Assimilate, then targeting Lazarus with the copied Assimilate to copy his gun. It's weird, but it works.

 

As an aside, Assimilate and Vanessa's Command Construct are a little bit pants in Outcasts right now. I'm still really hoping that we get a construct master (maybe someone from Ampersand?) so that they can get a little more mileage out of them. That being said, I'm a big construct fan, so I always hope we get more of them :P

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Got a headache now as one guy wants to sell me his Von Schill box really cheap but still I can't figure out how to utilize this box fully... I think I'll pass and wait for Jack Daw release...

edit:

Well, there is an option that can slightly help - in the list I offered few posts ago it is quite sensible to drop one Freikorpsman and take Hodgepodge Effigy instead. Hodgepodge can be used as scheme runner if needed, grants Loyalty to the Coin for Von Schill and can make Mist which I think Hannah can copy. This small tweak adds 1 precious soulstone to the pool. 3 is still low number but with Loyalty to the Coin and extra card from Hannah is do-able.

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