Jack Daw Project

[SlackerLM]

I'm really happy to see this thread active again!

I have a match up against Pandora coming up. Any suggestions? Not really sold on Jack's new upgrades for this match, as I'm thinking a more aggressive approach

Jack: (3 Curses, Bigger They Are and Oathkeeper or Scramble) 

Ashes

2 ABomb

Sue W/ Return Fire

Not sure about the rest of the crew. Was thinking about extra range with Trappers or Gunslinger. Or Vanessa to do some blasting...

[apes-ma]

2 hours ago, SlackerLM said:

I'm really happy to see this thread active again!

I have a match up against Pandora coming up. Any suggestions? Not really sold on Jack's new upgrades for this match, as I'm thinking a more aggressive approach

Jack: (3 Curses, Bigger They Are and Oathkeeper or Scramble) 

Ashes

2 ABomb

Sue W/ Return Fire

Not sure about the rest of the crew. Was thinking about extra range with Trappers or Gunslinger. Or Vanessa to do some blasting...

You definitely want The Bigger They Are for the extra damage. Jack is pretty fine against Pandora since his willpower is high, and his attack is on a 7 so you're even against Pandy. Ituhjt be worth finding space for Writhing Torment so he can't be paralysed (especially if your opponent likes to play the paralyse Pandora) - possibly Drowning Injustice, since (off the top of my head) I can't think of any minions Pandora might bring that are TOO troublesome. Otherwise, aside from Bishop, she'll be mostly attacking Would, so avoid some of the low Wp tormented models. A&D is a good take - even if he does Pandora will probably have trouble dealing with the core (armour 2 and Wp 8), and he also can't be paralysed. I can't think off the top of my head what has high Wp (Hannah and Librarian spring to mind, and are good even if they don't synergise a lot with Jack) but with Jack and A&D you've got two models attacking Pandora on evens, which is a good start! I'm not sure I'd take Aboms without a Nurse to heal back A&D after they draw you cards, but also a Nurse will melt against Pandora I suspect.

[Nukemouse]

Im not sure about scramble or oathkeeper. The new "heal myself and draw cards through curses" upgrade should be decent against pandora as pandy will likely bring insidious madnesses, journalists, sorrows or something else easy to kill. Desolation Engine is normally brutalized by its low defense but has 6 wp so it is very scary against pandora and its pulses will ignore that incorp some of her models have. Ama No Zako brings wp 7 to the table and a lot of key models like pandy, candy, doppleganger and probably more will be living. Swallow you whole lets you gobble candy! Hannah would enjoy her suit stripping abilities, give you a bigger hand and have plenty of casts to steal from the enemy. Ultimately since you seem to want to bring aboms maybe the list should look something like this

JD Triple curse Cursed Life Bigger They Are 2

Rusty Alyce w/ Desolate Soul 12

Desolation Engine 13

A&D 13

2 Abom

This list would be extremely aggressive trying to rip the enemies crew up and form another deso or reform the deso. Hopefully the summoned aboms would help sort out your lower activation count, as would A&Ds general shenanigans.

A less risky (and crow intensive) choice could be

JD Triple curse Cursed Life Bigger They Are 2

A&D 13

Ama No Zako 9

Hannah 10

Sue w/ return fire 9

Hodgepodge Effigy 4

Maybe other upgrades or a cheap activation to fill? Very low on activations here but you have some very spooky models for pandora to deal with. Ama should be able to munch widow weaver and probably threaten a teddy, especially with some help from JD like a curse. The low activations could be a problem and both my lists here don't have easy answers to nekima.

[SlackerLM]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to have a heck of a time deciding what to take! 😂 

[Fenriel]

It's interesting how many folks take bigger on Jack. I tend to put it on my "melee" model and have him be more about control and denial.  Johan is fun with it and being tormented makes up for his being slow. Bishop can be bonkers with it. 

Spent some time looking at both his new upgrades and I just can't get excited. I almost wish we'd have gotten another curse and then had to make the choice which ones to take. 

[apes-ma]

9 minutes ago, Fenriel said:

It's interesting how many folks take bigger on Jack. I tend to put it on my "melee" model and have him be more about control and denial.  Johan is fun with it and being tormented makes up for his being slow. Bishop can be bonkers with it. 

Spent some time looking at both his new upgrades and I just can't get excited. I almost wish we'd have gotten another curse and then had to make the choice which ones to take. 

I agree about the new upgrades - I've tried very hard to be psyched about growing injustice, but I just can't see it. I'll give it a shot in case I'm missing something but I'm not too sure... And the other one is just a slightly better tally sheet - no thanks!

As for Bigger They Are it just makes jack into such an efficient beater with his 7 stat, and the alternative is expensive in terms of SS, AND hitting target numbers - I feel that jack's AP is more useful as a beater to be honest. The tormented lists are a lot of fun, but with 4SS of upgrades and a beater or two activations get tight, and making sure abilities means a lot of your hand is dedicated to making Twist and Turn work and the rest of the crew feels like it suffers a bit, in my opinion. I still play the odd tormented list now and again though since it IS a lot of fun!

[Nukemouse]

I never understand the beater jack stuff, he will never beat as well as a beater master, he is control and mobility at his core.

[Chou]

1 hour ago, Nukemouse said:

I never understand the beater jack stuff, he will never beat as well as a beater master, he is control and mobility at his core.

Me neither, if somebody could elaborate it would be great.

The best I can come up with is using "The bigger they are" plus "Death by firing squad" curse, then attack with the Noose with the Remember the injustice trigger you would get a 2 (minimal damage for my example) + 1 from "the bigger they are" + 1 from "death by firing squad" + 2 from "remember injustice" getting a total of damage 6, up to 8 with severe. Is this correct?

[apes-ma]

1 hour ago, Chou said:

Me neither, if somebody could elaborate it would be great.

The best I can come up with is using "The bigger they are" plus "Death by firing squad" curse, then attack with the Noose with the Remember the injustice trigger you would get a 2 (minimal damage for my example) + 1 from "the bigger they are" + 1 from "death by firing squad" + 2 from "remember injustice" getting a total of damage 6, up to 8 with severe. Is this correct?

Yeah, that's it - it's 8 damage minimum on the charge (assuming you hit twice). @Nukemouse I like beater Jack because when he isn't playing the beater he just dishes out the curses to make life really hard for enemy models, so he plays switch between assassinating a key model, and then disrupting the rest of the crew. Oldest Magic helps with the former since he can pop out through buildings. It also plays well with his Last Whisper action to get markers down. I like to play both builds of jack though, and the pushes from writhing torment are the best part about the other build. Twist and Turn is the upgrade I take the least these days. I find that needing a 7 or 8 to get off either of the abilities and then possibly having to cheat the resulting action means that he's quite dependent on a good hand and that my control hand gets skewed around making Twist and turn work. Also, unless using the copy/obey for shenanigans (which is very fun!) you're basically copying a big attack or obeying a beater (unless obeying to interact), and I don't know what you'd be obeying that would be better than just using beater Jack to do the beating (in terms of damage output, SS spent on the upgrade and cards used to get the ability to fire). I'm talking in general terms of course - there are times when you want to obey a tormented Lazarus for blasts, copy Jakunas lure, or make ashen core pulse damage more times a turn, or something like that. But when those types of combo are going to useful it's normally clear before the game and so I'll take a tormented Jack list. I'm not saying I prefer beater Jack, but I just find its a more useful baseline, and then I'll take tormented lists if I'm in the mood or if it looks like a good take!

[Adran]

3 hours ago, Nukemouse said:

I never understand the beater jack stuff, he will never beat as well as a beater master, he is control and mobility at his core.

Its a bizarre form of Control. getting +2 damage to attacks for doing what he wants to do anyway is always interesting. I'm not sure I'd be wanting Jack to be my beater, but at least if he is, he can get the bonus's because he sets them all up on his turn. 3 ap doing 12 damage on 3 weaks is reasonable beater stats if you want to look at it that way. (Thats more than a Vik. would get from 3 AP. Sure you can set them up to do more, and they have area threat with Whirlwind, but on raw damage Jack is at least in the same ballpark)

[Nukemouse]

"A Vik" isn't really a valid comparison, since that's like saying "well lynch doesn't do much" he comes with a second half to his master! No beater master would settle for 9 damage unless that damage also ignores things like armor, hard to kill, stones etc and jack doesn't really ignore any of that, heck he is truly messed up by armor. Though still plenty of non master beaters only hit for that much and they don't have jacks tankiness.

Twist and Turn doesn't actually fit into my tormented crews that often, the high card cost is kinda hurtful though i wonder if with things like the prospector, freikorps engineer and Cursed Life it might be possible to make jack's hand feel a little better. Its the pushes, scheme markers on kill and the wonderful curses that tend to get use with jack for me. Plus he's an annoying tarpit.

[Adran]

I wasn't settling for 9 I was settling for 12 damage. And whilst I need to use triggers, they are built into the attack, so all that costs me is making sure the attack hit. He does sort of ignore hard to kill in that his upgrade removal is a separate source of damage,  but I agree armor +1 means he is only doing 8 damage. 

12 damage as long as I can do 3 Ca 7 vs Df duels is decent beater range.

Ironically Lynch does much more than that if he really wants to. 

 

 

[apes-ma]

1 hour ago, Nukemouse said:

"A Vik" isn't really a valid comparison, since that's like saying "well lynch doesn't do much" he comes with a second half to his master! No beater master would settle for 9 damage unless that damage also ignores things like armor, hard to kill, stones etc and jack doesn't really ignore any of that, heck he is truly messed up by armor. Though still plenty of non master beaters only hit for that much and they don't have jacks tankiness.

Twist and Turn doesn't actually fit into my tormented crews that often, the high card cost is kinda hurtful though i wonder if with things like the prospector, freikorps engineer and Cursed Life it might be possible to make jack's hand feel a little better. Its the pushes, scheme markers on kill and the wonderful curses that tend to get use with jack for me. Plus he's an annoying tarpit.

It sounds like we play our tormented jack lists quite similarly! Also on the topic of Cursed Life - I was about to say that Tally Sheet has been an option for a while, but then I realised that it doesn't have to be Jack killing the model! I am quite keen to test it out now (although I still don't think it will be great). The thing is, if taking it to make Twist and Turn work better, you will also be taking Writhing Torment, so what curse do you drop? I would have dropped Drowning Injustice in the past but there are a lot of nasty minions these days...

[I'm a Teapot!]

A well played vik of blood would do 4 times (oath keeper and melee expert) min 5 ignoring everything with ++ to attack and + to dmg and hitting everything around her.

 

[Virtus]

Man, I've been trying to get a card advantage list built with Jack and his crew, but it just doesn't seem that good. Anybody having any luck with it?

[Freman]

I'm thinking that "Tormented" might be a bit of a trap. It allows you to bring in models from different factions, but the Tormented characteristic doesn't really confer much synergy within the list, or against enemies. I've been playing a bit of Ressers, in a McMourning crew slow grow league (no McMourning yet) and handing out poison actually benefits your models. Some can heal from it, some can 1AP charge enemy models with it, others can force the poisoned model to take damage when it activates (very handy if they're on hard to wound and have reactivate), still others boost the damage on poisoned models, and McMourning himself can get pushes from being poisoned. Poison is the theme, and the theme is effective.

Guilty can Torment other models, but other than pushes from activating within Jack's aura, they don't really gain anything. Jack can Obey them, or copy their abilities, but no triggers so some of the better abilities aren't accessible. Hanged are good, but expensive, Nurses are very good, Jaakuna is pretty handy, especially carrying The Creeping Terror, but Crooked Men and Drowned are hardly taken even in Ressurs. Papa Loco is... situational, but you don't want him close to your own units when people decide to kill him.

Of course, if you're not taking themed models a Jack list ends up looking like pretty much any other Outcast list, just with a different master.

[apes-ma]

5 hours ago, Freman said:

I'm thinking that "Tormented" might be a bit of a trap. It allows you to bring in models from different factions, but the Tormented characteristic doesn't really confer much synergy within the list, or against enemies. I've been playing a bit of Ressers, in a McMourning crew slow grow league (no McMourning yet) and handing out poison actually benefits your models. Some can heal from it, some can 1AP charge enemy models with it, others can force the poisoned model to take damage when it activates (very handy if they're on hard to wound and have reactivate), still others boost the damage on poisoned models, and McMourning himself can get pushes from being poisoned. Poison is the theme, and the theme is effective.

Guilty can Torment other models, but other than pushes from activating within Jack's aura, they don't really gain anything. Jack can Obey them, or copy their abilities, but no triggers so some of the better abilities aren't accessible. Hanged are good, but expensive, Nurses are very good, Jaakuna is pretty handy, especially carrying The Creeping Terror, but Crooked Men and Drowned are hardly taken even in Ressurs. Papa Loco is... situational, but you don't want him close to your own units when people decide to kill him.

Of course, if you're not taking themed models a Jack list ends up looking like pretty much any other Outcast list, just with a different master.

I mostly agree. Hiring Nurses and Jaakuna is great (a Lure in outcasts is always handy!) but tormenting your own models means a) you've had to take a guilty (one of the most boring mediocre models in the game, in my opinion) and b), you get a push when you activate near jack and, if you have taken the (expensive) upgrade you can "obey" and borrow it's abilities - both of which are pretty costly to acheive. To me, it boils down to whether the push is worth the tax of taking a Guilty or not (and mostly, it's not... especially given how bunching up doesn't seem very good at the moment, especially with Storm Misaki seemingly everywhere...). Jack's abilities on Twist and Turn are a bit too expensive to rely on, and given that you often have to cheat to use them, and then cheat to make whatever you copied works out the way you want you end up investing a disproportionate amount of your hand into twist and turn. On the other hand you could torment enemy models, and that just seems even worse. Not only is the push much less relevant, but on top of that they get to resist the casting of the two abilities on Twist and Turn, making it even MORE expensive.

The more I have played Jack in the past the more I have thought the tormented list is a trap - too unreliable and too expensive to work (and I don't like taking a 2SS upgrade that I might get one or two uses out of in a game). That leaves us with a Jack Daw that heads up a pretty standard Outcasts list, functioning as a sort of wonky beater, but with Df4 and, now that flips are so prevalent, is pretty easy to kill. Cursed Life doesn't help with that really, especially since if you are playing Jack as a the spooky beater you have to give up an Oathkeeper to take the Cursed Life upgrade. Perhaps I am just getting a bit fed up in Outcasts, but I am feeling like Jack has become victim of power creep and is just another one of our masters that isn't that good outside of a fun pick.

As for your final comment, I think that's mostly true of ALL of our masters at the moment. You either take the void spam crew, and put Tara of the Viks in charge of it, or you take the Outcast all-stars (Johan, Sue, a Void Wretch or three, ashes and dust etc) and choose which master you want to be in charge to dictate the final few SS of models in your crew (Parker and some bandits, Jack and a Nurse, Von Schill and some freikorps, Hamelin and some rats, Leve and some Leve stuff). On top of that, we don't even really have masters that have interesting decisions between their limited upgrades (if the even HAVE limited upgrades), which means, to me, Outcasts are starting to feel a bit like a one-trick pony. Someone tell me I'm wrong! Roll on GG2018 perhaps.

Sorry for the rant...

[MunkyMuddFace]

New to the world of Jack Daw, played my first real game with him this week, here's the batrep.

50SS
Strat: Reckoning.
Schemes: Claim Jump, Frame For Murder, Dig Their Graves, Show of Force, Hunting Party

My Crew:
Jack Daw - Twist and Turn, Growing Injustice, the three Curses
Montressor - Brick by Brick, Fearful Whispers
Jaakuna Ubume - Creeping Terror
Envy - Oathkeeper
Dead Outlaw
The Hanged
Lady Ligeia
Schemes: Show of Force, Hunting Party

His Crew:
Cooper - the two new Colette upgrades, Dove summoning
Cassandra - Practiced Production
Killjoy
Coryphee x 2
Performer
Mechanical Dove
Hunting Party, Frame For Murder - Killjoy

Turn 1: 
He won initiative, but passed to me for Activation control, planning to play with Reactivation. We mostly took Turns shufflng models up. With just a few models left on either side, he moved a Coryphee up into a forest Dense forest.  I activated Jack and pinged my Hanged with a Suppressed Memories, using a soul stone to buy the Ghost of Malifaux trigger to place Jack next to the Hanged. Then he took a walk to get within 8 if the Coryphee in the Forest. Last AP, hit the Coryphee with Suppressed Memories, dealing 1 damage and attaching the Drowning Injustice Curse. 0AP Twist and Turn to make the Coryphee walk, taking two damage that ignores the Armor. I was hoping to move it away out of range for the other to do a Dance Together, but it had been a while since playing against Colette, and I forgot about all the movement shenanigans. Fearing that Envy might walk up and shoot the wounded Corpyphee, he activated Cooper was able to Disappearing Act the other Coryphee, then Prompt it for Dance Together - Summoning the Duet and unburying Killjoy. Duet charged Jack (ending in Jaakuna's aura and taking a point of damage) its positive twist Pair of Blades washing the negative twist from Jack's Oldest Magic, triggering Hypnotic Movements on Jack. Killjoy charged Jack - with both at negative twists, Killjoy had advantage with Ml 6 vs Df 4. Jack did manage to survive the attacks from the heavy hitters, but he was down to just a few wounds and out of Soul Stones.

Turn 2:
Jack Died to the Coryphee Duet. Montressor was able to contain Killjoy with the Paralyze trigger. The Hanged hit Killjoy and the Duet with Whispers from Beyond. Lady Ligeia was lured and paralyzed from the Performers Sirens Call. Envy moved around, but did not have any great shots at anything. Jaakuna moved towards the center to join Montressor and Envy in scoring position for Show of Force. I don't remember as clearly what else happened. Score 1 (show of Force) - 1 (Reckoning)

Turn 3: 
Montressor locked Killjoy down again, trading a wound from Black Blood for the Paralyzed condition. Duet killed Jaakuna, damaged the Hanged. Cassandra killed the Dead Outlaw. Envy stomped a Dove. Score 3 (Show of Force, Hunting Party) - 3 (Reckoning, Hunting Party)

Turn 4: 
The Duet goes nuts and finishes off the Hanged and Montressor. Envy fails the kill the Performer. Killjoy charges Envy, and I am tabled. Score 3 - 5 (Reckoning, Hunting Party)

Turn 5: 
Free points! Final score 3 - 7 (Reckoning, Hunting Party)

Jack's attack on the Coryphee in Turn 1 was the linchpin of the game. If I had killed it, this would have been a much different game: I would have been able to summon a Guilty off the death, Killjoy may have popped up field (likely engaged with the Guilty), and the Duet would not have summoned - Jack wouldn't have had the pile of damage on him. One thing we did miss is the transfer of wounds from the single Coryphee to the Duet. Had we realized that, I might have put more effort into attacking it.

While it was frustrating to have my master dead before his second activation, I do look forward to trying him again.

[SlackerLM]

MunkyMuddFace 

Glad to hear you had some fun with the Ghost of Malifaux! LOL 

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. I (we) would like to understand what your thoughts were and the strategies you were looking for.

Why Growing Injustice over Writhing Torment or The Bigger They Are? 

Why not a Nurse and Johan(a)? 

I don't want you to think I'm being critical of your list, these are models that I and many other Daw players have used. 

[MunkyMuddFace]

On 12/9/2017 at 3:23 PM, SlackerLM said:

MunkyMuddFace 

Glad to hear you had some fun with the Ghost of Malifaux! LOL 

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. I (we) would like to understand what your thoughts were and the strategies you were looking for.

Why Growing Injustice over Writhing Torment or The Bigger They Are? 

Why not a Nurse and Johan(a)? 

I don't want you to think I'm being critical of your list, these are models that I and many other Daw players have used. 

Sure!

On thoughts and strategies:
I wish I could say I had a game plan with this list, but I didn't. This was a list that I built before flipping for anything (yes, I did this, despite having been playing the game for 6 years haha!). Had I built after the flips, I maybe would have built differently. Quite honestly, it was just a matter of a new master - I was pushing buttons to see what works and built to the theme of Tormented characteristic.

On Growing Injustice vs Writhing Torment/The Bigger They Are:
My opponent actually asked the same question when looking at my stack. That definitely seems like the tried-and-true well-oiled-machine build for Jack. Growing Injustice just looks interesting to me, and I wanted to try it. I fully recognize that this could have been a liability for Reckoning with Hunting Party - more things to kill that my opponent can score off of (in the end, it didn't matter - he had no problem scoring for those).
In the end, though, I don't know that Writhing Torment or The Bigger They Are would have made much difference because I misplayed dealing with the Coryphee. The way it actually played out was I was trying to prevent the Duet with positioning. If I had been smart about it and gone for the kill, I could have thrown the card for Severe on the attack. Looking back, the impact for the other common options would have likely been:
- Writhing Torment: The Hanged would have gotten the 3 inch push, as would Jack. This would have put Jack into range to attack the Coryphee after his teleport to the Hanged, freeing up his second AP for an attack.
- The Bigger They Are: Nothing changes on the attack as it played (without Writhing Torment he still would have needed to teleport, walk, attack). Maybe if I had this, I might have hung back to counter attack on Turn 2...
Scanning this thread, it seems most people wrote Growing Injustice off. It looks interesting to me - I like the idea of cycling the upgrades and models.

On Nurse and Johan(a): 
Most of what I put on the table is still pretty new to me, so I was trying things out to see what they do. Also, despite being very familiar with Johan and mildly familiar with Nurse, I did forget about them as a pair. I could definitely see dropping the Hanged and Dead Outlaw to work them in. 

So there you have it  Probably disappointing to see that I played the game wrong (building the crew before the strat scheme flips HAHA), but it is what it is. I plan on playing Jack this weekend for a small holiday themed tourney. Between that and a game on our normal Wed game night, I should have some better bat reps

 

[SlackerLM]

Playing the game you want to play  means you played the game right! I have a very static Daw build. I played on a league and should have declared Jack... 🤦🏽‍♂️

Growing would be great if you didn't have to neuter Jack's main mechanic. I would rather have Jack running strong than any amount of Guilty.  

Because you were themed Tormented, the crew would have an extra 3" movement. And don't forget his (0) Driven by Injustice(?). It's a great way to get movement, as well as, test your opponents hand.

[Virtus]

I haven't tested it, but I like the idea of hiring one Guilty, the Emissary, and Growing Injustice, and giving the Guilty the reactivate trinket as a way for Jack to get all his Curse Upgrades on turn one.

[apes-ma]

43 minutes ago, MunkyMuddFace said:

- Writhing Torment: The Hanged would have gotten the 3 inch push, as would Jack. This would have put Jack into range to attack the Coryphee after his teleport to the Hanged, freeing up his second AP for an attack.

I might be wrong about my interpretation of the wording of this, but The Writhing Torment says "When another tormented model activates within 6, this model may push it up to 3" in any direction" - which (to me at least!) means that Jack himself doesn't benefit from the push part of this upgrade. As far as I am aware the only extra movement Jack can give himself is through the "Ghost of Malifaux" trigger on his Suppressed Memories attack (since the Driven by Injustice is a , and therefore doesn't effect the model that generates it).

[MunkyMuddFace]

4 minutes ago, apes-ma said:

I might be wrong about my interpretation of the wording of this, but The Writhing Torment says "When another tormented model activates within 6, this model may push it up to 3" in any direction" - which (to me at least!) means that Jack himself doesn't benefit from the push part of this upgrade. As far as I am aware the only extra movement Jack can give himself is through the "Ghost of Malifaux" trigger on his Suppressed Memories attack (since the Driven by Injustice is a , and therefore doesn't effect the model that generates it).

Yeah, you are right on that. I was shooting from the hip when writing up my last post. Internally, I noted that I was unsure about this and meant to go back and check how Writhing was worded. Forgot by the time I was done. Also a little distracted (the dangers of writing posts on-the-clock haha). My apologies!

So, since Jack doesn't get the push, then nothing changes in my Coryphee scenario if he has Growing Injustice/Writhing Torment/The Bigger They Are. Either way, Jack needed to Teleport/walk to get within range to get at the Coryphee with his last AP.

[SlackerLM]

Driven by Injustice is plused by the target when it fails the duel, not by Jack.

Im wrong, had to read the card.