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An Adepticon Tournament Report - 1st


Icemyn

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9 hours ago, 4thstringer said:

So I have 2 questions,  abd they may be stupid.   1.  Why didn't we see this more last year? Is it the new gg or just a new discovery?

 

2. What was your brothers plan for dealing with it?

1) I had been playing Rajoy off and on last year just with Hamelin, but I hadn't thought to port the infectious melodies until about 6 months ago. The 9 activations with 8ss has been known since the beta. 

2) He will tell you nothing is ideal, but he had some Aionus, Hoffman, Emissary,Toolkit thing set up to deal with buried Killjoy iirc. 

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6 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

This whole post was solid gold but I couldn't agree more with this last part! I think that a book's worth of new models every year is going to wreck Malifaux. Things like these come up in betas but they don't really take off until the models are released and there have been betas for two new books before the second book's models were even nearly fully out. And the more models, the more interactions and stuff like this becomes even more difficult to spot. And the more models, the harder it is to make a new edition or a complete balancing pass.

No games company waits until the current product shakes out to start developing new stuff.  Having rules running down the pipeline in parallel with sculpting is how these things work.  They need to sell a product to stay in business after all.  Most games actually farther out than Wyrd is, the only reason we're so aware is simply because its so public.  

Longer betas honestly wouldn't even help.  The longer they go the less interest players have in them.  Less testing happens and certainly not the kind of "try this model outside the intended parameters" kind of testing needed to catch things like this.

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1 minute ago, LunarSol said:

No games company waits until the current product shakes out to start developing new stuff.  Having rules running down the pipeline in parallel with sculpting is how these things work.  They need to sell a product to stay in business after all.  Most games actually farther out than Wyrd is, the only reason we're so aware is simply because its so public.  

Longer betas honestly wouldn't even help.  The longer they go the less interest players have in them.  Less testing happens and certainly not the kind of "try this model outside the intended parameters" kind of testing needed to catch things like this.

There should be less stuff in each book. The first one was big but it's very understandable since it started it all. But book two was gigantic and should've been two books and then books three and four should've been three more books so that the material in the four books should've been spread out into six books over six years.

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Yeah not sure I agree, for the most part books 1 and 2 were for models from 1.5 and earlier so it is understandable to want those out quickly.  I don't feel like the number of models in book 3 was too many.  Perhaps you could have not put any new models into book 2 but I feel that they wanted to keep all the factions balanced for number of models.

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18 minutes ago, Bengt said:

Apart from gremlins there are only a handful of new models in book 2, right? Sh'long, Ironsides and?

Yeah shenlong box (so 4 models?). Ironsides box (4 models), a bunch of gremlins.  Beyond that i only really know arcanists stuff.  The fire starter and eternal flame.  I'm sure there is some other ten thunders stuff.

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8 hours ago, Armour said:

The wretch is certainly strong, but simply making him Hamelin-only won't stop the combo; starting with another two rats instead gives almost the same result for the same resources, only losing a single activation.

That said, it is difficult to say what should change with the combo.  It may be a seemingly unrelated change like Metal Gamin's cuddle which actually was to make the Mechanical Rider more reasonable.  Justin and the other Wyrd crew are good at finding tweaks that reduce NPEs and keep the game fun, and I'm confident we will see a fix here.

My meta is only starting out so we don't have anyone using the trick yet, but from a pure theory standpoint I can't think of any reliable counters to it for my faction (Arcanists).  

As  fellow Arcanists player ive been working on the same problem the best solution i could come up with is a dove Aionus and Colette just promted him to remove kill joy from the whole thing. But i will also say im not a big fan of a single model that abliet anyone can hire he starts to feel like a must own model which is bad for design space.

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11 hours ago, LunarSol said:

No games company waits until the current product shakes out to start developing new stuff.  Having rules running down the pipeline in parallel with sculpting is how these things work.  They need to sell a product to stay in business after all.  Most games actually farther out than Wyrd is, the only reason we're so aware is simply because its so public.  

Longer betas honestly wouldn't even help.  The longer they go the less interest players have in them.  Less testing happens and certainly not the kind of "try this model outside the intended parameters" kind of testing needed to catch things like this.


Well considering there are still models that haven't seen release from book 2 yet, this argument isn't all that strong. This is before considering that there are other methods of generating income for the game, such as alternate models and such.

I agree that needing to sell product is important but not at the cost of your game. I wholeheartedly disagree with the assumption that longer beta testing wouldn't benefit. Having participated in more than a few of them for Wyrd, both public and private, that was one of the number one requests. I have more than a few opinions on the testing cycles I was a part of but that is a discussion for another thread and likely one that wouldn't be all that interesting anyway due to non-disclosure agreements.

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20 hours ago, chris_havoc said:

This would still bring the problem of other Masters benefiting more from Hamelin's models than he does in that hiring them is a cheap and efficient way to soak activations and still benefit from their own internal synergies. So perhaps it should rather be that Hamelin is the only one able to hire Rats and limit the Obedient Wretches Rat Summoning to one.

Why not make it something like a Rat-Tax.  Like, all the moving parts of the Combo had an increased ss-Cost, but Hamelin had a default discount for Hiring them?

Then they're more efficient for him, but slightly curbed for everyone else.  Although that would be a lot of cards to errata, so I'm sure that isn't anyone's first choice for solutions.

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A perhaps too radical solution to this problem might be to give the rats a special rule stipulating that if you are able to activate a rat, then you must do so, and let Hamelin ignore that rule. That way taking several rats leave you open to alpha strikes, but taking one or perhaps two would still not be too much of a liability, as long as they were killed off rather early in the game. This might not help at all against more defensive opponents.

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7 minutes ago, Runeman said:

A perhaps too radical solution to this problem might be to give the rats a special rule stipulating that if you are able to activate a rat, then you must do so, and let Hamelin ignore that rule. That way taking several rats leave you open to alpha strikes, but taking one or perhaps two would still not be too much of a liability, as long as they were killed off rather early in the game. This might not help at all against more defensive opponents.

I was thinking something similar like making rats suffer when they start their activation apart and then forcing them to Chain Activate. E.g.:
"Scurry and Swarm: This model gains the Slow condition if it activates more than 3" away from another friendly Vermin model. At the end of this model's activation, if there are any other friendly Malifaux Rats in play that have not yet activated, one must activate as a Chain Activation."

Maybe Hamelin should then ignore the Ability.

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17 hours ago, Armored said:

As  fellow Arcanists player ive been working on the same problem the best solution i could come up with is a dove Aionus and Colette just promted him to remove kill joy from the whole thing. But i will also say im not a big fan of a single model that abliet anyone can hire he starts to feel like a must own model which is bad for design space.

Could you do like a Rasputina counter alpha-strike.  Roll with Raspy, Snow Storm, and a december acolyte, have snowstorm advance raspy, december acolyte deployed with from the shadows to set up your mirror point, and then just drop some damage onto whoever (rats, nix, wretch) using raspys main attack to destroy the core of his crew.

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1 hour ago, CougDyver said:

Could you do like a Rasputina counter alpha-strike.  Roll with Raspy, Snow Storm, and a december acolyte, have snowstorm advance raspy, december acolyte deployed with from the shadows to set up your mirror point, and then just drop some damage onto whoever (rats, nix, wretch) using raspys main attack to destroy the core of his crew.

You could certainly try. Though in all likelihood all that you will end up with is a dead/engaged Acolyte. 

That's assuming you get to deploy second and take advantage of From the Shadows. 
If you have to deploy first you are going to be hard pressed to have any real targets. 

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1 hour ago, CougDyver said:

Could you do like a Rasputina counter alpha-strike.  Roll with Raspy, Snow Storm, and a december acolyte, have snowstorm advance raspy, december acolyte deployed with from the shadows to set up your mirror point, and then just drop some damage onto whoever (rats, nix, wretch) using raspys main attack to destroy the core of his crew.

 

3 minutes ago, Icemyn said:

You could certainly try. Though in all likelihood all that you will end up with is a dead/engaged Acolyte. 

That's assuming you get to deploy second and take advantage of From the Shadows. 
If you have to deploy first you are going to be hard pressed to have any real targets. 

 

Yeah, the issue isn't that you can't possibly stop it.  I can think of lots of contrived situations where I could stop a ratbomb.  The issue that Icemyn is trying to underline is that its takes close to total commitment from your crew to do so (and a decent hand to not be outcheated, and a favourable terrain setup), which is unreasonable to counter 8ss.  And of course, your opponent can at any time opt out of the rat machine to just murder one of your critical pieces with the Viks, or Levi, or a Strongarm, or any of the other long-range beaters they can field.

What a lot of people seem to be ignoring is that the Outcast player can do this at literally zero risk.  Without snipers, you could just deploy the engine on your back edge and be beyond reach.  With snipers there probably will still be pockets of deployment totally out of line of sight.  

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You can make it so that rats are only hire able by Hamelin, but that won't fix things. All that will do is create a stale meta as everyone plays Hamelin and anti Hamelin lists. The problem is rats by design break the rules of malifaux in a very low skill level and cost- efficient way. They are more AP, for less ss, and simply by existing in more numbers than your opponent provide you activation control to a degree un-obtainable anywhere else. Super Cheap models break malifaux, and rats are able to compound this effect via their combo. I feel that unless wyrd goes back and re-designs the rats this issue will remain.


As for what that re-design should be I do not know. I personally would like to see the rat king become a stand alone model. Remove the ability of rats to form it. Outcast players can spend their points on rats to buy activations but it won't allow them to combo off in such a negative way. Rats become a tactical risk. More AP for more squishy targets. Sometimes it will pay off, others it will be a liability. Either way it would be better for the game.

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I've often thought the Rat King > Catcher was the oddest bit of it.  I doubt that's enough to break the combo, but that's the one bit of the chain I'd break.  The Rat King itself is kind of the point; its important for managing how much space that many cheap models can take up.  I would be curious if it would help for Rat Kings to come in paralyzed instead of slow?  

 

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5 hours ago, Griffin839 said:

You can make it so that rats are only hire able by Hamelin, but that won't fix things. All that will do is create a stale meta as everyone plays Hamelin and anti Hamelin lists. The problem is rats by design break the rules of malifaux in a very low skill level and cost- efficient way. They are more AP, for less ss, and simply by existing in more numbers than your opponent provide you activation control to a degree un-obtainable anywhere else. Super Cheap models break malifaux, and rats are able to compound this effect via their combo. I feel that unless wyrd goes back and re-designs the rats this issue will remain.


As for what that re-design should be I do not know. I personally would like to see the rat king become a stand alone model. Remove the ability of rats to form it. Outcast players can spend their points on rats to buy activations but it won't allow them to combo off in such a negative way. Rats become a tactical risk. More AP for more squishy targets. Sometimes it will pay off, others it will be a liability. Either way it would be better for the game.

I don't think this is true. Hamelin is balanced around out activating his opponent. He is a control master whose only power is in dictating the  pace of play. 

Sure it's many activations but very few are actually troublesome. 

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Why not do something like what the Coryphee and Duet have, where it's limited when they're able to combine (for this example, Arcanists only).  Could make it so only Hamelin lets Rats become a Rat King, or (maybe a bit more realistic as noted above by LunarSol) make it so only Hamelin can make a Catcher & Rat from a Rat King.

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 A question to Icemyn, and others that utilise this, trying to focus on the actual issue that is wanted to be changed. 

How many Activations beyond the enemy are you actually looking for?

I'm well aware of most of the turn one alpha strikes, and they are used because they happen in 1 activation space. Out activating only gives you a safety from the retaliation that turn with those. I can think of a few combinations that would really strongly benefit from multiple activations (Rusty Alyce reactivating a desolation engine for example, but knowing that it needs to survive on 1 wound before it gets to activate and heal) that I struggle to pull off in most games due to the vulnerability in allowing the opponent to activate part way through. but I can probably still get that to work without the activation control the rats grant. 

 

How much are you using the swarm and the catcher in the game?

If you could only have rats, that didn't turn into anything, would 8ss spent on 2 rats and the wretch still be viable? That's still 4-5 activations on the first turn for the cost of 8 stones, giving you a 2-4 activation cushion.  

 

 

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I think forcing chain activations helps. 6 rats becomes 3 activations. It's not nothing but without the ability to bring as many as Hamelin can to the table, the investment is not as worthwhile. Maybe giving Obedient Wretches/Rat Catchers Crows :crow should be something Hamelin then does to get rats out more easily.

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