Neverborn Generic Upgrades

[wrabbit37]

For the new year, I think I am planning to move into Neverborn.  I used to play them heavily back in the day, but with M2E, I have been exploring other factions.  Hard to stay away forever though.  I was wondering what people felt about the Neverborn generic upgrades, though.  Looking through them I am having a hard time being wow-ed by many of them.  Fears Given Form is fantastic, and the Mimic's Blessing seems like a decent investment, but what about the others?

Aether Connection, Depression, Fears Given Form, Hexed Among You, Nexus of Power, Obsidian Talons, On Dreaming Wings, On Wings of Darkness, Pact, Rapid Growth, Retribution's Eye, Stone of Tyrant Echoes, The Mimic's Blessing, Useless Duplications?

[PeregrineFalcon]

• Fears Given Form (if I take Candy, always on her)
• Mimics Blessing (always on my Doppleganger, also put on Teddy when they're hired)
• Pact (60% of time on Nekima and Barbaros)
• Retributions Eye (sometimes on Doppleganger or Graves depending on potential matchup; i.e. Outcasts or Arcanists)
• On Wings of Darkness (usually putting it on Collodi or Lilith sometimes Pandora, reason is not for flight, but the extra cards. Thing is with this one you want to stone ~4 turns to get value out of it)
• Hexed Among You (on Bad Juju when I want to deploy across the board, usually on corners)

Rest are rarely used by me or incredibly circumstantial if trying something wacky. That's just a quick, rough cut of my approach on the upgrades.

Oh and good to see you're back to faux-ing! NB is a lot of fun, I made the switch last year and never went back. 12 months in and its just a lot of fun with them. If/When I'm down in VA again for work I'll have to try and sync up for a game.

QUICK EDIT: Oh and with GG2016 I think some of this mindset will change, mostly because of schemes like Show of Force. So what I've mentioned above is rooted in non GG2016 but I think still translates mostly over to this season.

Edited January 28, 2016 by PeregrineFalcon
gg2016 notice

[D_acolyte]

Aether Connection: love it especially if I plan on getting my master into a possible compromising situations, which happens a good amount of time.

On Wings of Darkness: good if you want more mobility or cards for your leader.

Depression: It depends on who you put this on, but I have not been disappointed with it on Kade or Candy.

Fears Given Form: I am iffy on it just because it has a chance to determine you activation order. though it is fun with Dreamer and black blooded models as long as the Dreamer is not near the model with fear given form.

Hexed Among You, Obsidian Talons, Rapid Growth and  On Dreaming Wings: these really depend on your crew. I have used Rapid Growth and  On Dreaming Wings to some good effect and they are nice.

Pact: it is not good till you need it then it is great.

Retribution's Eye: the faction does not have a lot of Anti Armor and this fixes that, watch a arcanist cry when you hit them for 3-4 damage ignoring armor. by the way that is from our week flips on most 8+ stone cost combat models. I love it on a mature nephilim.

Stone of Tyrant Echoes: it is a stone upgrade, those are normally not worth it.

The Mimic's Blessing: I like it on models that I think will get a lot of attention early and I tend to activate late like Nekima and Barbarous on turn 1 and 2.

Useless Duplications and Nexus of Power: have not used them

[lusciousmccabe]

Aether Connection and Nexus of Power are nice as a safety safety blanket, but you might not end up using them if your game goes well.

Fears Given Form is strong enough that I nearly feel i have to take it on anything with 3" reach that makes my list.

Wings of darkness is solid but I find it hard to fit in a lot of the time. 

Retribution's Eye is always tempting as insurance against armored heavies and there's enough armor out there it seldom goes to waste. 

The Mimic's Blessing is nice if you have the stones/room. There's pretty much no other reason not to take it since it's all upside.

Useless duplications I use a lot if I have two or more mimics. It's good but not really as general as the others. 

Echo Stone and Pact, no thank you, although I can see why people use Pact.

The rest are similar to Useless Duplications in that they're pretty good but depend heavily on list composition.

 

[wrabbit37]

Thanks for the tips - having played 10 Thunders a lot, I know which upgrades I like to reach for there.  Good to get some perspective on the Neverborn options.

 

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Oh and good to see you're back to faux-ing! NB is a lot of fun, I made the switch last year and never went back. 12 months in and its just a lot of fun with them. If/When I'm down in VA again for work I'll have to try and sync up for a game.

Yeah, I'm getting back into the game a bit more heavily.  I'm actually not in Northern VA anymore, which is part of why I've been gone for a bit.  Last year was a wasteland for Malifaux for me - new kid in April, and then house-hunting and moved to Pennsylvania at the beginning of the Fall.  Took me a while to get things into a routine, but I think I found a decent store down in Bel Air, MD that I can get more games in.

[rhysmcdo]

I think Retribution's Eye is one of the best generic upgrades in the game. I usually take it on Hooded Rider, by turn 3 he's min damage 4 and the ability to ignore Df and Wp triggers at a critical moment is really under appreciated.

[Nical]

By my experiences...

 

Fears Given Form

Good upgrades for control, but you must remember this upgrade can deal your other models.

Candy is best for this upgrade, but Bad juju (as second upgrade) may use it well.   

 

Mimic's Blessing

Good "Insurance" Upgrade, But useless duplication may be more useful for some mimics.

And this upgrade is not useful against Ca attacks.

 

Useless duplications

Good Upgrade for mimics. I like to take it for Lucius and / or some mimic enforcers.

But Mimic's Blessing may be better than this. (Sadly, Lucius can't take Mimic's Blessing)

 

Depression

Good upgrade, but don't forget Melancholy is given to only "other" woes, not upgraded model. 

However, this means if you take more woes, it become more useful.

 

Pact

In my experiences, it was almost useless. But some models like Bag of Props Collodi can use it well.

 

Retribution's Eye

One of best upgrade for heavy hitter. And don't forget this upgrade affect damages themselves.

So this upgrade works with every damages by abilities / attack actions / tactical actions. 

 

On Wings of Darkness

Flight is good, but this upgrade is usually taken for additional draw by SS.

So if you don't want to invest SS for this upgrade, other upgrade may be more useful.   

 

Hexed Among You

Good upgrade for swampfiend crew. But if you don't have clear plans and / or synergies for them,

Trappers may be better. At least, they have gun.

 

P.S : Don't forget mercenaries in our crews can take our generic upgrades, too.

[lusciousmccabe]

@Nical-good call on the mercenaries. I had Fears Given Form on Ama No Zako there recently and it really helped her bog down a bunch of scheme runners and kill them.

[Mxbedlam]

I may very well over use fears given form. I put it on anyone who I know is going to stick around melee or be a threat that my opponent is going to want to get close to to eliminate. Hooded Rider, Candy, Nekima, and Barabaros all love Fears.

[Pikciwok]

Hooded Rider cannot take Fears Given Form because he's an enforcer and Fears... has Master or Henchman limitation.

[Mxbedlam]

On 1/29/2016 at 7:38 AM, Pikciwok said:

Hooded Rider cannot take Fears Given Form because he's an enforcer and Fears... has Master or Henchman limitation.

You are correct, my bad.

[Brewie]

I am new to Malifaux and inlove this thread.