Jack's top crossroad picks

[Jordon]

Hey, 

I'm currently in the middle of painting the crossroad seven but I was curious as to what band members usually make it into peoples lists and which one's do you normally leave in the case. I understand it can vary depending on the scheme and opponent, but there does appear to be particular winners and losers. Here are my favourites

1) Lust - I like how she attacks the opponents deck, which Daw can utilize more than most crews due to the plethora of manipulative and horror duels. She also has some very powerful movement effects that stack with Daw's own. 

2) Envy - He's just a great model on his own, but his ability to hand out focus can really go a long way in helping out Montressor as his damage is very impressive if you can hit the severe. If you keep the focus for himself he can make two focused attacks with the assistance of twist and turn. 

3) Pride - His mechanic of forcing cards really plays into Daw's own abilities. His (0) adds another aura of non-cheating, albeit somewhat more situational than Lageia's. 

4) Wrath - He's just a solid beater in the same way Envy is a solid shooter. Daw has ways to almost guarantee him charging every turn. Nurses can further boost his damage if you have him positioned correctly. He's also reasonably durable due to his healing (at least compared to the other seven)

5) Gluttony - I think on his own, there isn't much that gets me excited. However when combined with crooked men, he becomes pretty amazing. It's a setup that you need to taylor your list around, but it can be quite effective - at least in theory. I think with crooked men, he's a must take but without he's probably a pass.

6) Sloth - I feel like he does fit into a particular style of Jack's if you playing with lots horror and/or paralyze. Overall he's ranked pretty low compared to the others and I feel like Daw has better options available to him with his huge hiring poor. 

7) Greed - I just don't really feel 8ss worth of work coming from this model. Bleeding stones is alright, but Daw already has a strong resource drain mechanic. She does get stronger once the opponent has used all his stones and now her Greed Spreads ability is hitting at full damage. Greed has to be my least favourite of the seven and I don't don't see the big gain from running her with Jack.

 

So what are other peoples thoughts? Do you know of some other interesting combos with Daw that I may have overlooked? What are other peoples best/worst or do they even bother using any of the seven at all with Daw?

[Azrrael]

So I'll rank them as follows: (of course this is speculative to my meta and my opinion)

1. Lust- card control is vital with jack as it empowers the curses as well as general card manipulation is very strong. Manipulative is huge again card control from spending cards to attack is beneficial. Combined with movement control and a high wk of 6 makes her the star of the band. Best choice almost auto take.

2/3. Greed- the ability to again be manipulative and high wk to keep up and be in a good position is essential. You mentioned the bleeding stones is alright but i think its the fact that the ability is polarizing in who can and cannot be affected is key. Knowing that non master/ henchman models have to take the dmg is huge as well as the 4 dmg ability on top of that leads to some punishing reliable dmg. The biggest thing here though is the ability and he manipulative for board control. Okay take reasonable for a lot of situations.

3/2. Pride- basically the same role as greed here except not as polarized due to the difference in cards vs soulstone usage. The only real difference is the zero in which pride is slightly better but needs an 8 so a little card intensive. Okay take reasonable for a lot of situations.

4. Wrath- terrifying basically the same thing as manipulative but if you were to take 3 of he four I've listed so far its better to mi in the terrifying over another manipulative choice to not restrict your activation ordering. The dmg is fine but he is kinda squishy kinda like a more mid range montressor pick but overall more reliable. def an okay pick but not the cream of the crop. Variable choice planning or specificity needed to justify. 

5. Envy- is okay with shooting power and his kit out with the zero is okay but honestly lacking as you are not really shooting with jack and with I pay better accessible not the best way to access focus for your army. Mediocre choice unless specific reason. 

6. Sloth- hard to wound is alright but the toolkit associated with sloth is pretty lacking. Trading 3 wounds for slow is mediocre as usually taking wounds to trade activation's in daw is unneeded as there are better ways to efficiently heal such as the nurse. The dmg along with the attack not giving enough to the table is kind of bland much better tanky front-liners out there. poor choice

7. Gluttony- just not a fan as he only becomes useful for scheme marker manipulation and deletion. However due to his incredibly short range hard to implement and hard to get a lot of mileage with his main attack also only being ca 5 and okay dmg just makes him a lackluster 8 point model for jack to choose from. Low value bad model.

When I take any of the 7 I usually take lust + greed or pride dependent on enemy faction sometimes adding in wrath. The rest or usually out of mind. 

[Rogue1]

While I agree with your assessment for the most part Azrrael something to keep in mind is that any model may discard soulstones to avoid damage from Greed.  The same goes for decapitate triggers as well.  I still often find it worth while to force that kind of bad choice on my opponent anyway.

[SlackerLM]

You can use Envy's (0) to give Jack Focus for a card, pretty decent for a first attack of a charge, when you really need to get a Curse shuffle started. 

Lust, Gluttony and Envy together in a scheme heavy game is Pretty fun. 

Rouge1 is correct on both points. Putting your opponent in the position to make a bad or worse choice will help you in the long game. The more times you force the choice, the more times your opponent is  in the position to lose the game. 

A mid level crow for Sloth's defensive trigger will stop pretty much anything in its tracks. 

The 7 are best when you overlap each aura, while you are narrating each effect, as this will wear down your opponent. Having to hear "Oh, you didn't do X, you lose Y!", will make him or her want to beat their head against the table. Or flip it...

[Fog]

I reach for Greed, Envy and Lust myself. With all the movement tricks in the list it isn't uncommon to get a 1st turn kill with Envy, and as Jack likes to run elite it can really help with activation control.  He is a solid damage dealer and his blasts enable some pretty painful situations.

Lust brings more movement to a silly movement team. Add in Now Kiss and my opponents are pulling their hair out.

Greed helps keep soulstones out of the game.  Even if she isn't draining them, the threat she presents makes it less likely that my opponent will stone to prevent damage from Jack, costing me a curse.

[Jordon]

3 hours ago, Fog said:

Greed helps keep soulstones out of the game.  Even if she isn't draining them, the threat she presents makes it less likely that my opponent will stone to prevent damage from Jack, costing me a curse.

I'm pretty sure Daw's curse trigger happens upon success not damage. So as long as you hit you'll be able to curse them unless they have some way to pass the attack onto another model. 

I haven't tired Envy with Popa Loco yet, but I image it's quite a potent combo. Lust also has a great severe damage and an amazing Ca7, so she can be another surprising way to dish out damage if you can guarantee the severe. I just really wish I could get my hands on Popa outside of Perdita's box

[SlackerLM]

Jordan is correct, the curses are attached on a successful hit.

[Fog]

Thanks! I'm always missing things like this when I'm not playing my main faction

[SlackerLM]

I was just considering Lust and Papa. Lust makes models Kiss, Papa comes in like an angry father seeing his daughter kiss a boy for the first time. He charges in and blows up! Lust seems completely embarrassed about it, but if you look really closely, she's wearing a "Winning!" smirk...