The Care and Feeding of Coryphees

[AllistorPreist]

I should probably start by admitting that part of what brought me to Colette was an exciting chance to use the paints I seldom use in my other games and factions. I think people call them "colors". The long and the short of it is, for the time being my Arcanists are pretty much limited to the Showgirls I got in ye Olde version 1.5: Colette, 3 doves, Cassandra, Angelica, 2 performers, a mannequin (two if I can find the arms), 2 coryphees and if I can find the arms a duet. Since I am determined to catch up on painting, that will probably be all my Arcanists for a while.

 

Although I came in to 2E as Guild player who loves Criid's elegant simplicity and Hoffman's order of operations style play, Colette was why it took me so long to get into 2E, what with her not being in the first wave. But she is back and so am I and I am about a week of painting away from putting her back on the table. I have been reading up at pull my finger while I paint and glue, but there is one mystery that still eludes me, how do Coryphees not die sudden, frequent and entirely unnatural deaths?

 

Even with all of their tricks, it seems like the low wounds would usher them to an early demise. Do you folks have tricks for keeping them alive long enough to dance their way into the hearts and livers of my enemies? Or am i just being paranoid after playing with my giant metal cats?

 

Perhaps this should have been the care, feeding and spelling of Coryphees

[Whut]

I love Colette and I don't think I'll ever use Coryphees for the exact reason you outlined, in fact I asked the same thing a long while back (Look for a thread with a title like "Low Wounds Models" around page 3 of the Arcanists forum). Basically as long as anyone has a Severe damage of more than 5, I'm too scared to use them.

The general response was to just combine them earlier if they are ever in danger.

[hippodruid]

Honestly, they really take care of themselves pretty effectively.  Armor+2 is nothing to scoff at, and they are insanely mobile.  They can't be charged, have a built-in push on their attacks to keep them out of engagement with a to attack natively, and they benefit from for almost any Rst flip they make.  If one gets hurt the other can dance to her and they can Voltron into something that can heal.

 

That said, keep them in cover if you find yourself against ranged attackers.  If your opponent is at  to attack with all those defenses, it will make them the most unappetizing target, ever.  Or forget cover and just keep them out of LOS.  Corphyee are possibly the slipperiest models in the game, and there's no reason to even expose them to danger on a well-designed board.  If you want to run them up the gut...I'd advise against it.  Engage along the flanks, score VPs, and use them to slaughter enemy objective-grabbers.

[Myyrä]

That said, keep them in cover if you find yourself against ranged attackers.  If your opponent is at  to attack with all those defenses, it will make them the most unappetizing target, ever.  Or forget cover and just keep them out of LOS.  Corphyee are possibly the slipperiest models in the game, and there's no reason to even expose them to danger on a well-designed board.  If you want to run them up the gut...I'd advise against it.  Engage along the flanks, score VPs, and use them to slaughter enemy objective-grabbers.

You can just use them to charge the enemy master on turn 1 and then have him waste huge amounts of time trying to kill the duet, while you win the game. YMMV

[Jordon]

I find that the key to the coryphee's success depends on how well you know your opponents models. You need to exploit their biggest advantages - speed and threat. If used correctly they can be one of the most frustrating models to deal with by your opponent, often requiring them to re-driect their resources in dealing with them. 

 

They're speed is incredible and you should find your target usually turn 1 or 2. I usually drive them into squishy back field support pieces or ranged models as they generally have poor Ml allowing the coryphee's  Df to keep them alive. The  to attacks also make disengaging nearly impossible, and they either burn high cards on DF, or take big damage. Use their push trigger to keep Ml threats from getting two swings, or simply stay engaged to prevent getting shot to pieces. Know your opponents strengths is key to getting the most from the Coryphee. 

 

A trick I've used in the past to keep the coryphee safe from big scary models is to use it's blinding attack before swinging. If you can make the opponent slow and then manage to push on it's second attack, it effectively shuts down the model from being able to attack the coryphee in Ml.

 

Also a incredibly handy ability is it's trigger to use soulstones until the end of the turn. You can use this trigger if you need to activate the coryphee early and expect some retaliation. Since Colette is usually very resource friendly with her soulstones due to her artificial soulstone, you can usually afford to burn one or two for prevention flips, which always tends to catch opponents off guard. Usually with their armour, your only taking a single point of damage, so soulstones can actually be a very reliable way in keeping the coryphee alive.  

 

Lastly, sometimes the best DF is a good offence and the coryphee excel at this and be further amplified via Colette's prompt. More specifically the trigger for reactivate. This tactic only works if running both coryphee and only if they're together. Colette can prompt both coryphee and use the trigger to give them both reactivate. Just make sure the last AP is used to form the duet (or let Cassandra steal prompt and form the duet that way) and they will form the duet instead of being sacrificed. This tactic can turn the coryphee into a pact of wolves and can easily tare a huge chunk out of the opponents models (2AP during activation, 1AP for prompt, 2AP for reactivate, x2 coryphee, -1AP to form up into the duet, +2AP for the summoned duet). I usually only do this if both coryphee are ganging up on a single big threat piece, and usually only if that big threat has already activated. It can be difficult to pull off, but I've never seen a model survive a successful coryphee bomb. 

[Whut]

Hmm, never thought of that reactivate coryphee bomb idea, that's pretty cool. I thought of doing something similar with Myranda, actually, but it never clicked to use the coryphee.

Here's the tough question though: is the Coryphee reactivate trick more useful than prompting Howard for tons and tons of fun killy death, or a December Acolyte for draining half your opponents hand as well as slowing up to 5 or 6 models? Or Joss to have him prepare a nice 8 damage punch on his activation? Same goes for a nice Johan Flurry. My biggest problem with Colette is that I have TOO many options for how to ruin my opponents day, and all of them are so tempting, but she herself has only 3 AP to prompt with.

Another fun idea that I always wanted to try but never did is have a mobile toolkit give Lazarus +damage flips, then have Lazarus Assimilate and teleport to a friendly Coryphee and send off 3 shots with his massive gun. Sadly I feel taking so many armor 2 models is inviting a disasterous loss against anything which ignores it.

[paradoxstorm]

 2 coryphees and if I can find the arms a duet. Since I am determined to catch up on painting, that will probably be all my Arcanists for a while.

 

 

So it isn't just me looking for Coryphee arms.  I guess it is good to have company, but I am at a loss for how to replace the missing arms.

 

I have considered trying to use some wire to sculpt some of my own---but I can barely fill cracks properly, new arms seems likely to be well beyond me.

 

Any suggestions?

[AllistorPreist]

So it isn't just me looking for Coryphee arms.  I guess it is good to have company, but I am at a loss for how to replace the missing arms.

 

I have considered trying to use some wire to sculpt some of my own---but I can barely fill cracks properly, new arms seems likely to be well beyond me.

 

Any suggestions?

 

I am actually short a couple coryphee and a mannequin arm. I have a couple ideas in mind, one is picking up the Through the Breech Female multipart Kit and seeing if a couple of the arms from that kit would work. That or grab something like one of the reaper armature kits and sticking some implements of stabbyness on the ends. Really, I am jsut waiting for the plastic box and hoping it looks as good as most of the other plastics. 

 

but I am not gonna worry about that until me existing Corpyhees and manis are painted. Just to save me ulcers.

[Kadeton]

One thing I will say about Coryphee, based on last night's game against McMourning - don't leave them single if there's a Belle on the board. With Wp 4 and Wk 7, they'll be over in the enemy crew and dead before you can blink. They also really hate the combination of Poison, Induction and Catalyst.

[MasterDisaster]

I have considered trying to use some wire to sculpt some of my own---but I can barely fill cracks properly, new arms seems likely to be well beyond me.

 

Any suggestions?

 

With a little GS and some minor sculpting skills I've been told you could use GW Hormagant Arms? But I'm not so sure myself as my scultping skills are basically none existent. They appear to be a little too big but I've never compared them to the Coryphee bodies to check. Still, they are 10 a penny so if you decided to go down this road and it didn't work out you wouldn't be terribly out of pocket. 

 

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[papa smurf]

Just to clarify Colette can only reactivate one of the corphyee. Not both. But it still is quite devastating.

[johnd37]

I am still new to this, but I read it as, you can reactivate both with the following...

1. Activate Coryphee 1 for 2 actions.

2. Activate Coryphee 2 for 2 actions.

3. Activate Colette, to do 3 Prompts on the Coryphee giving 3 more Coryphee actions, moving them up to 3” each time and on the last one, add Reactive and Sacrifice at the end of the turn, which can only be done once a turn.

4. Activate Cassandra to to have an action and then use her second action to either Dancer's Saber in to, or just do , an Understudy of Colette's Prompt to do a Coryphee action and so give the other, one Reactive and Sacrifice at the end of the turn too.

5. Activate one of the reactivated Coryphees for 2 actions.

6. Activate the other reactivated Coryphee for an action and then for its last action, Dance Together and summon the Duet, sacrificing the 2 Coryphees.

7. Actvate the Duet for 2 Actions as its slowed but has an extra AP.

8. At the end of the turn, you don't have either Coryphee to sacrifice but do have a 3 action Duet for next turn.

 

The main Problem, apart from range and Suits, would be the enemy killing one of the Coryphee before the joining. But that is both Coryphee reactivated for a total of 11 Coryphee actions plus 2 Duet actions, which if they can get Hypnotized, and Soul Dancer, working quick, it would give disadvantage to the target Df and you would be able to spend soulstones to boost the attacks, or help defend them.

[thegoatgod_pan]

You can also just give one of the Coryphees reactivate and not be greedy (still ensuring that its' reactivation ends with the Duel forming).I tend to run mine up my flanks, and then return them to the middle in a single activation when needed, and form the duet. That was they drop a scheme or murder a flanking models and come back for the finale. 

 

Coryphee have a few perks that are overlooked: their bases are fairly large and they can't be charged, making them useful for blocking Colette and Cassandra and their performers from charges and shooting. The impossibility of charging Coryphee synergizes well with their built in attack trigger: the coryphee can hit and then push out of engagement range where they cannot be charged.  

 

They are getting   on nearly everything that matters (MI, defense & willpower) making them far less card intensive for you and far more card intensive for your opponent. The low four wounds is scary, but as long you avoid the Joss types of the universe, and cheat away sniper attacks, the coryphee will survive.

 

 

Their single most unpredictable and dangerous ability of the coryphee is that it can teleport halfway across the board to a friendly showgirl. You need a card for it, but rapidly relocating a model like the coryphee and then prompting it, makes schemes like assassinate a lot easier, or a lot harder, if you drop it between Colette and a would-be assassin (not that Colette has to worry about assassins: if there are scheme markers everywhere, you are almost always safe).  

 

This is especially relevant if either Cassandra or Angelica or both are in play: they can be far upfield by the end of turn one, especially Cassandra, with her nimble and extra 6' push at the end of the first turn. Either model can serve as a beacon for a coryphee to leap in, make a 7' move and be in position for turn 2 prompting, or you can prompt them to do their teleport first, setting them up for turn 2 (or 1 with Angelica) charges. 

 

Finally, I know you said you aren't getting more Arcanists for a while, but if you do: December Acolytes really fill in some gaps in the Colette crew (namely ranged attacks), while getting a lot of what they are missing (mobility) back from the prompts and pushes Colette can deliver. 

[admiralvorkraft]

Also worth noting, the Coryphree Duet's (0) Orchestral Crescendo is absolutely devastating late-turn. Especially since Colette can deliver scheme markers (sometimes Dove shaped) and the duet basically anywhere on the board without any effort whatsoever.

[Baalbamoth]

Are acolytes better than makes for ranged attacks?