Spinoff topic: Does Lucius crew suffer if he dies?

[Carcosa]

As a spinoff of the question I posted about collette (prompt), I have faced resistance on the concept that Lucius crews can get the job done without the masked crusader.

 

Personally, I think the kinds of crews that Lucius can bring to the table tend to operate quite fine without him, but are certainly boosted by his presence on the table, and I would say that weather he was in his Guild, or neverborn state (though for the purpose of this thread, let's stick to guild)

 

In all honesty all the times I have played Lucius, he starts as important for his AP multiplication abilities but when the rubber hits the road, the crew because it tends to be minion centric and generally largish nature tend to be able to fulfil most scheme marker or location based strategies all by there own. When you make a gunline, Lucius makes that gunline -better-, but it is more Dashel that makes it really rock and roll.

 

Lucius, to me, makes everything "better", and better IS, better, but better is not always "optimal".

[Dirial]

So, what is the question?

 

Lucius, to me, makes everything "better", and better IS, better, but better is not always "optimal".

 

I don't get this. What are you trying to say? That one doesn't need to be better to be at their best? That makes no sense.

[Carcosa]

The question is, does a crew built with Lucius as a master suffer if Lucius is dead.

 

The caveat is, he makes the crew better if he is alive, of course he does.

 

Given those two statements, if Lucius dies, does the crew fall apart?

I would say no as the kinds of crews he tends to lead are usually capable of fulfilling scheme based strategies without him. 

[Adran]

I thought the question was Can Lucius do things with out his crew? (better than Colette can do things without her crew)

 

Not can His crew do things without him, as the best approach to using extra AP is give it to the best things you have. So you want  a crew of good things in  the first place.

 

The only downside to Lucius is if you've taken models to help your horror duels, then they might eb slightly wasted if you no longer have to take horror duels. (But they are still better off than a corpse generation model when Nicodem is killed off).

[Dirial]

I thought the question was Can Lucius do things with out his crew? (better than Colette can do things without her crew)

 

That was my understanding as well.

[Carcosa]

If that is what you both got, I did not make my question clear enough, so my bad.

 

If you want to compare both questions, (Lucius Vs Colette) the question would be, is it fair that Colette can target any model, multiple times when Lucius cannot, let alone any model, (and let alone any guardsman)

[Math Mathonwy]

If that is what you both got, I did not make my question clear enough, so my bad.

 

If you want to compare both questions, (Lucius Vs Colette) the question would be, is it fair that Colette can target any model, multiple times when Lucius cannot, let alone any model, (and let alone any guardsman)

Colette is a way better Master than Lucius, if that's what you're asking. You could most likely build a Lucius-optimized crew and then switch Lucius to Colette and do better with the crew as silly as it is.

[Dirial]

You could most likely build a Lucius-optimized crew and then switch Lucius to Colette and do better with the crew as silly as it is.

 

To be fair, that's probably true for a lot of Masters besides Lucius.

[Carcosa]

Math

 

I agree with your assessment, which is why on the other thread I asked if prompt was too powerful.

 

This thread however is to determine if a Lucius crew is effective in running scheme based strats and schemes -if he dies-. I believe that given the restrictions of Lucius's abilities, a person is more likely to build a crew that -benefits- from his abilities, rather than -relies- on his abilities. 

[Math Mathonwy]

To be fair, that's probably true for a lot of Masters besides Lucius.

True that. Colette is top tier. I do agree with Carcosa's point that it is a bit surprising that Colette and Lucius came out with their abilities from the same beta

[Math Mathonwy]

Math

 

I agree with your assessment, which is why on the other thread I asked if prompt was too powerful.

 

This thread however is to determine if a Lucius crew is effective in running scheme based strats and schemes -if he dies-. I believe that given the restrictions of Lucius's abilities, a person is more likely to build a crew that -benefits- from his abilities, rather than -relies- on his abilities.

I think that both Colette and Lucius crews will function about as good without the Master around. In that both will be severely hampered but won't fall utterly apart. OTOH I can't think of a Master whose crew would just completely fall apart if the Master dies... Hoffman's might be the closest?

[Dirial]

Hoffman's might be the closest?

 

A Peacekeeper is still a Peacekeeper. Especially because Power Loop doesn't go away when Hoffman dies.

[Carcosa]

That still does not address the basic point.

Prompt is usable on any -model-, Command is limited to non-stringer -minions-. That distinction plays a major role in crew construction.

[Dirial]

That still does not address the basic point.

Prompt is usable on any -model-, Command is limited to non-stringer -minions-. That distinction plays a major role in crew construction.

 

I have to admit that I just don't get your basic point. I cannot see a coherent argument for anything here.

[Adran]

Command does slightly more than prompt does, its just trigger dependent, so you don't always know which effect you're getting.

[Dirial]

Command does slightly more than prompt does, its just trigger dependent, so you don't always know which effect you're getting.

 

You also can only target Minions, only once per turn, and need a slightly higher card.

[Carcosa]

@ Dirial

ALL of Lucius's abilities are tuned to minions (or mimics, all 4 of them), correct?

 

GIVEN this knowledge, would you choose Lucius as a master if you were playing all enforces or Henchmen?

No, of course you would not, you choose minions, or you choose a different master.

Given that most minions tend to be cheaper than enforcers or Henchmen, you tend to have a larger crew.

 

Assuming a scheme heavy environment, the loss of Lucius will have a far less effect on your crew performing it's role than a crew that has less, but more specialized models.

[Math Mathonwy]

Assuming a scheme heavy environment, the loss of Lucius will have a far less effect on your crew performing it's role than a crew that has less, but more specialized models.

Why?

I don't see Minions as being somehow more self-sufficient or automatically less specialized than Enforcers or Henchmen (even taking into account that there's more of them).

[Adran]

4 actions/abilities requitre minions, 2 don't care what the friendly model is.

So he won't give   to Enforcer/henchmen Ml flips, he can't make them take the extra action from a walk, and can't issue a command. Also can't make them drop scheme markers whilst engaged.

Can hurt them to get Soulstone back, and can move them around.

 

Would I build a Lucius crew with 0 minions? probably not,

But I don;'t actually understand any of the rest of your points?

Is a crew worse if its master dies? Yes

Does guild have several high cost minions? Yes, so a minion heavy crew isn't automatically smaller than a minion light crew, dependign on the models you select.

 

Edit

I honestly thought the question in the Prompt thread was is Lucius better than Colette if they don't have any crew around.

Minions might not be better with Lucius, than they are with McCabe, who reactivates thm, and gives them nimble. Perdita can make them do extra actions.

Justice can give Ml bonuses, McMorning pushes them around to drop scheme markers, Hoffman makes them take extra actions.

[admiralvorkraft]

In answer to your question, I find that Lucius' crew functions better if Lucius dies than Lucius does if his crew dies. This, combined with the fact that Guild minions are laughably fragile and slow (seriously, anyone complaining that Gremlins die easily needs to play minion heavy Guild for a hot second) means that Lucius really suffers against aggressive crews and probably wants more terrain on the board than any other Guild master. Also, it's really weird that as soon as a guardsman makes rank they feel like they can stop listening to the Governor-General's secretary, especially since McMourning can borrow that same authority to order around all kinds of things...

 

If people are interested I posted a brief comparison of Colette/Lucy in the other thread, along with my proposed "fix."

 

And all this being said, I love Lucius. Tied for Ironsides as my favorite master in the game purely for flavor.

[4thstringer]

I think one thing that is being hinted at here is that Lucius's control abilities really set up things in the early turns, What I do is use him to get extra shots off and focus my fire to try to turn the numbers to my favor early, while getting Lucius into position.  Once the game properly gets going, Lucius will go from AP control to opposing big hitter control.  His only job becomes getting red tape onto that Howard/rail golem/teddy and tanking him for a while.  This helps keep those minions alive.  Lucius will often eventually die during this, but even that isn't a big deal, if he has tied up enough opposing activations.

 

One of my favorites, is to charge lucius in, get red tape on the opposing model, and then t-port in one of the beefier supporting models (like warden, guardian, or lawyer if you have the cards to discard).

 

I think the survivability of the minions is dependent on the meta you are playing in.  If your opponents tend to bring a lot of 3 min damage models, guild minions drop like chaff (especially death marshalls),  Sometimes the proper move will be to shoot with them, and then use the activations they get from lucius to pull them back.. 

[The Zinc Lich]

[mod hat]

 

Cleaned up some posts that were not adding anything to the conversation. Let's all just take a deep breath and keep talking about everyone's favorite bureaucrat.

 

[/mod hat]

 

In reference to the original question of whether or not the crew suffers unduly from Lucius' demise, I don't personally believe it does. Most of the cool stuff Lucius does is connected to minions, yes, but he only has 3 AP in a turn. As long as you are running 4-5 minions in a list, you should be fine bringing enforcers and henchmen to suit your tastes. Just because Sonnia likes Witchlings doesn't mean she wants to take 10 of them in a game.

 

In reference to Guild minions being too easy to kill, I think that we need to check our Guild privilege. Ranged attacks are better than melee attacks, because you can, perhaps tautologically, make them at range. For all that our variety of "dudes with guns" aren't beefcakes or blazing fast, the fact remains that we can project a lot of force without physically committing anything is an advantage that we have, that a lot of factions don't. If you are really sore about your minions dying too fast, take Wardens. They have an even Wd to SS ratio, they don't have any particular weak stats, and they have armor 1 with a trigger for 2 more. For 6ss, you don't get much tougher.

 

No faction with access to Witchling Stalkers should really be complaining about their minion choices.

[bertmac]

Ive found like 4thstringer lucius is good early on getting extra rifleman shots off etc then tieing up enemy beaters with red tape and discarding cards to give - flips to opposing attacks!

[4thstringer]

An important note, guild guard are a decent toughness for their points, as are lawyers if you are looking for more survivable minions.

[admiralvorkraft]

Lawyers are quite tough - if Lucius is dead.

 

Guild Guard with a Pistolero behind them are a great formation for holding territory so long as your opponent isn't going to punish you for clustering but will die immediately if you're up against any blasting master (takes about 2 ap, 3 from Sonnia) or Molly (1 ap and a high crew -> Student of Sinew, give it reactivate for a (0)).

 

After some consideration, my final answer to OP's question is this; the crew benefits if Lucius dies early, because if your opponent is focused on killing Lucius, they aren't killing the models that are actively fighting/scoring points. Lucius can set up a winning game in the first couple turns assuming his crew hasn't been nuked off the board. If he goes down in turn 3 it's likely that he just decided to go firm up an alibi somewhere else.