How would you help Tara?

[SpiralngCadavr]

Jordon,

Sympathetic Echoes, yeah, stupid situational. but with it built in, her attack volume could make that really nasty. Hypothetical errata, I'd change it to a suit that isn't valuable to her.

Yep. Glimpse is like a lame horror check. Think it was overestimated.

Voiceless, yep, right again. Problem with those upgrade patches still taking a slot.

Never use whispers since it's so demanding

Oblit symbiote yes; KOE, not really- there are lots of ways of burying.

And yeah, I feel her abilities could be slightly cheaper, especially as other things have started taking similar roles.

[D_acolyte]

1 minute ago, valhallan42nd said:

There are only two models that do that, but if you play Neverborn and Gremlins, how many times do you see Doppleganger and Trixiebelle? Being able to cheat initiative is very powerful. Also, multiple "Expert Sleuth" discards is key to  getting an excellent turn 2/3 Sonnia nukefest. There is no defense against Ill Omens. There should be.

I think in all my time playing neverborn I have only field the Doppleganger twice. As for a defense vs ill omen, speaking as a person who get it used on them often I am meh. Yes it is a pain but it does cost the other something, often a high card. I am of the opinion that taking an upgrade to counter the reason someone takes a model or another upgrade is not a fix but more of just a complaint. It is like saying I am sick of snipers so I want an upgrade that prevent focus actions on the boards, is that really an upgrade suggestion or is it just a gripe vs another faction.

[decker_cky]

To go back to the OP - no single upgrade will untangle her abilities. If Wyrd really wanted that, I think they'd have to burn down what's been put together for Tara and release new rules for all the Tara themed models. She's messy, and there's now a half dozen bandaids, so you essentially have to remove the lot of them and begin anew to make it look clean. I think we can safely say that Wyrd isn't taking that route. 

That said....Tara isn't weak (in either faction). She's a damn good master, just she doesn't excel at what you'd initially think when you glance at her card. She also benefits from being an off-balance choice in both her factions (general counters to the factions strengths don't really apply to her).

[Mikey_C]

6 minutes ago, D_acolyte said:

I think in all my time playing neverborn I have only field the Doppleganger twice. As for a defense vs ill omen, speaking as a person who get it used on them often I am meh. Yes it is a pain but it does cost the other something, often a high card. I am of the opinion that taking an upgrade to counter the reason someone takes a model or another upgrade is not a fix but more of just a complaint. It is like saying I am sick of snipers so I want an upgrade that prevent focus actions on the boards, is that really an upgrade suggestion or is it just a gripe vs another faction.

It's fine as it is now, as well as Tara is fine as she is now. 

The complaint is fairly legit though. Tara has an upgrade that is supposed to give her an advantage on initiative (she's a time mage it makes sense) but it easily cancelled out by a model you see in nearly every NB list (you may not take a doppleganger, but I assure you that you are in the minority in that regard). Not only is the advantage cancelled out, it's usually a small disaster, and the model that provides ill omens also brings a whole lot else to the table. 

I think in hindsight instead of Tara getting a +flip, enemy crew should have gotten a -flip, that would have solved ill omens neat and tidy. 

As it stands if you want to run Tara vs Neverborn, you'd best build a list without the void creatures. Vs Gremlins I've found it to be much less of a problem as Trixie seems much easier to remove off the table.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Yeah... she can run, it's just that she'd really messy and there are a lot of poor choices- in that regard, she feels a lot like a 1e piece where you needed to filter out corner case options.

[D_acolyte]

1 minute ago, SpiralngCadavr said:

Yeah... she can run, it's just that she'd really messy and there are a lot of poor choices- in that regard, she feels a lot like a 1e piece where you needed to filter out corner case options.

That I think is a bigger problem then the initiative issue.

[daniello_s]

One thing you forgot to mention when talking about Tara: her cache is very good especially when the rest of the masters in the faction have a whooping cache of 1 or 2  

[decker_cky]

19 minutes ago, Mikey_C said:

It's fine as it is now, as well as Tara is fine as she is now. 

The complaint is fairly legit though. Tara has an upgrade that is supposed to give her an advantage on initiative (she's a time mage it makes sense) but it easily cancelled out by a model you see in nearly every NB list (you may not take a doppleganger, but I assure you that you are in the minority in that regard). Not only is the advantage cancelled out, it's usually a small disaster, and the model that provides ill omens also brings a whole lot else to the table. 

I think in hindsight instead of Tara getting a +flip, enemy crew should have gotten a -flip, that would have solved ill omens neat and tidy. 

As it stands if you want to run Tara vs Neverborn, you'd best build a list without the void creatures. Vs Gremlins I've found it to be much less of a problem as Trixie seems much easier to remove off the table.

Tara has an upgrade that gives her an advantage on initiative. Neverborn have a model that, if the neverborn player chooses to burn a high card for initiative (giving them a weaker and smaller hand for the rest of the turn), puts them in a better position. There is no issue there. 

If that's your big concern, limit that upgrade to games against the 6 factions that don't have dopplegangers. 

There are abilities to complain about for Tara.....this isn't one of them. Seize the day, which is flat out worse upgrade, is a very competitive master upgrade option for Arcanists.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Personal opinion, Glimpse isn't over estimated, it's just not an ability that should have been explored at all. 1st edition had tons of issues with the Burying Mechanic, so they toned it back in 2E, but then making a master whose focus was on interacting with Burying models just wasn't a great idea. If you make burying enemies reliable it, in my opinion, becomes WAY too powerful as it is effectively more powerful than paralyze, and you see how carefully they've tamped down on paralyzing models, especially when the game turns decreased from 6 to 5. Make it unreliable and you have what Glimpse is now, unsatisfying, and an ability that while alright, tends to cause people that pick up Tara to think she needs to be trying to interact with Burying. Aside from the beast bomb trick there really isn't any reason to pay any intentional attention to offensive burying. Though players see it and the uniqueness of it tends to cause the dissatisfaction that this thread is based on I feel. I think Tara would have been better served by not going down the Bury route at all and focusing more on her time manipulation abilities, and with abilities that perhaps passively removed non-station characteristics (and maybe station characteristics, though doing that messes with the actual way to gain VP so that would have needed to be tested VERY carefully), so that she would mess with synergies and marker generation. I think if she had been designed in that way, with perhaps some of her own minions being able to begin Buried and pop out of the void, rather than trying to actually bury people, she might have been better received. As it is she is a perfectly respectable master with a lot of inelegance around her rules.

[decker_cky]

8 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Personal opinion, Glimpse isn't over estimated, it's just not an ability that should have been explored at all. 1st edition had tons of issues with the Burying Mechanic, so they toned it back in 2E, but then making a master whose focus was on interacting with Burying models just wasn't a great idea. If you make burying enemies reliable it, in my opinion, becomes WAY too powerful as it is effectively more powerful than paralyze, and you see how carefully they've tamped down on paralyzing models, especially when the game turns decreased from 6 to 5. Make it unreliable and you have what Glimpse is now, unsatisfying, and an ability that while alright, tends to cause people that pick up Tara to think she needs to be trying to interact with Burying. Aside from the beast bomb trick there really isn't any reason to pay any intentional attention to offensive burying. Though players see it and the uniqueness of it tends to cause the dissatisfaction that this thread is based on I feel. I think Tara would have been better served by not going down the Bury route at all and focusing more on her time manipulation abilities, and with abilities that perhaps passively removed non-station characteristics (and maybe station characteristics, though doing that messes with the actual way to gain VP so that would have needed to be tested VERY carefully), so that she would mess with synergies and marker generation. I think if she had been designed in that way, with perhaps some of her own minions being able to begin Buried and pop out of the void, rather than trying to actually bury people, she might have been better received. As it is she is a perfectly respectable master with a lot of inelegance around her rules.

Tara stands out as a model that just plain wasn't tested enough. She and the Transmortis models are the only models not to have gone through public playtesting, and it shows. Transmortis got a rules update, and Tara got a bunch of patches. 

 

Burying could have been a fine mechanic to focus around (maybe it ends up more focusing on her models than on enemy models? Who knows.

[valhallan42nd]

1 hour ago, decker_cky said:

Tara has an upgrade that gives her an advantage on initiative. Neverborn have a model that, if the neverborn player chooses to burn a high card for initiative (giving them a weaker and smaller hand for the rest of the turn), puts them in a better position. There is no issue there. 

If that's your big concern, limit that upgrade to games against the 6 factions that don't have dopplegangers. 

There are abilities to complain about for Tara.....this isn't one of them. Seize the day, which is flat out worse upgrade, is a very competitive master upgrade option for Arcanists.

It's not so much the initiative; it's the late turn Nekima activation followed by the early turn near-guaranteed Nekima activation removing at least two models without any repercussion or ability to redress the issue. The issue of "damage to the NB hand" is mitigated by Lilith drawing 8 cards + 3 for a stone.  You can't just look at the initiative issue in a vacuum.

[Khyodee]

I've play a lot of Tara and have given it much thought on what I would change for it and its roughly these...

I don't think making her Df 6, Wp 6 wouldn't really break anything, but its not a big deal for her to stay at 5/5.

Add My Darlings to the front of her card (can hire wretch, nothing beast, scion of the void, and death marshals) and if you need space you can ditch the re-flipping to end game ability (rarely gets used).

Now the real problem I have with Tara is she honestly should have 1 of 2 of her upgrades on her base card. She should either have Knowledge of Eternity's Pull of the Void on her base card or her Obliteration Symbiote ability to unbury friendlies. If you need to make space then drop her fast pulsing ability in exchange for Pull of the Void (and add it to an upgrade instead). Also remove the pull of the void not being able to be used if she is the last model to activate....That way her stitch is giving models fast/slow and reactivating herself. Then she unburying stuff is still there, but not the main focus of her.

I would also bump up her SH action to a 6 (6 shots at min 2 damage for a master is good, but isn't broken).

I think more of the fixes actually need to be on her other models. I would ditch the Df mechanic on void and nothing beasts (lower Df with less cards). It would also be nice to see the nothing beast with ability that allows it to bury itself (either like Bete or something like scion).

 

[lusciousmccabe]

19 minutes ago, valhallan42nd said:

It's not so much the initiative; it's the late turn Nekima activation followed by the early turn near-guaranteed Nekima activation removing at least two models without any repercussion or ability to redress the issue. The issue of "damage to the NB hand" is mitigated by Lilith drawing 8 cards + 3 for a stone.  You can't just look at the initiative issue in a vacuum.

I think that's an issue with big hitters rather than Ill Omens. That kind of double activation can be ridiculously swingy and come up purely through chance, or (heaven forbid) because of a positive flip to initiative paying off.

[valhallan42nd]

36 minutes ago, lusciousmccabe said:

I think that's an issue with big hitters rather than Ill Omens. That kind of double activation can be ridiculously swingy and come up purely through chance, or (heaven forbid) because of a positive flip to initiative paying off.

I think it's an issue of a heavy hitter's impact being multiplied by Ill Omens.

[decker_cky]

1 hour ago, valhallan42nd said:

It's not so much the initiative; it's the late turn Nekima activation followed by the early turn near-guaranteed Nekima activation removing at least two models without any repercussion or ability to redress the issue. The issue of "damage to the NB hand" is mitigated by Lilith drawing 8 cards + 3 for a stone.  You can't just look at the initiative issue in a vacuum.

Unless she hires Hannah, Lilith starts with the same number of cards in hand as anyone else...she just gets to cycle for more good cards. 

[Mikey_C]

The ill omens / initiative thing only effects one Tara build, other than that a beater getting to go twice in a row (end of turn, start of next turn) is a possibility that all crews must face.

I feel like we're getting pretty far off topic with all the ill omens debate, I'm regretting bringing it up at all.

[Jordon]

I dont want to give the impression that Tara is underpowered because I don't believe she is. In the right hands she can do some pretty impressive things that can be extremely difficult to counter. 

What I would like is a better method to explore some of her other abilities. I want to be able to use Whispers From Darkness, I want to use Sympathetic Echoes, I want to try out Voiceless Words and Long Forgotten Magics. I would love to rely on Glimpse the Void (basically drop the TN and simply bury a model as long as no other enemies are buried). I reeeallly want to run her in theme and have a reason to do so (better synergy with her void buddies)

She's got a bunch of other neat mechanics that I think are worth exploring, but she just seems to gravitate to a select few. Maybe it's impossible at this point to try and clean her up, but I still would love to see some direction with regard to making some of her other abilities more accessible. 

Maybe an upgrade that could either increase her Ca, or decrease her TN's. Maybe make it a (0) so she cannot get 6AP worth of it though.

Give her an upgrade that is exclusively tied to void models. I couldn't really tell you how to give better synergy between these models, but maybe giving her a way to offset the drawback of the low Df (from having lots of cards). I'm sure people here could suggest better things than what I can think of ATM.

Maybe an upgrade to give her a little more survivability, give her a void-ish trigger on her Peacebringer to help it stand out, give her a on her sword attack, or play more with the fact that she has a soulstone sword, which should be more interesting than it actually is.

  

[apes-ma]

5 hours ago, Jordon said:

I dont want to give the impression that Tara is underpowered because I don't believe she is. In the right hands she can do some pretty impressive things that can be extremely difficult to counter. 

What I would like is a better method to explore some of her other abilities. I want to be able to use Whispers From Darkness, I want to use Sympathetic Echoes, I want to try out Voiceless Words and Long Forgotten Magics. I would love to rely on Glimpse the Void (basically drop the TN and simply bury a model as long as no other enemies are buried). I reeeallly want to run her in theme and have a reason to do so (better synergy with her void buddies)

She's got a bunch of other neat mechanics that I think are worth exploring, but she just seems to gravitate to a select few. Maybe it's impossible at this point to try and clean her up, but I still would love to see some direction with regard to making some of her other abilities more accessible. 

Maybe an upgrade that could either increase her Ca, or decrease her TN's. Maybe make it a (0) so she cannot get 6AP worth of it though.

Give her an upgrade that is exclusively tied to void models. I couldn't really tell you how to give better synergy between these models, but maybe giving her a way to offset the drawback of the low Df (from having lots of cards). I'm sure people here could suggest better things than what I can think of ATM.

Maybe an upgrade to give her a little more survivability, give her a void-ish trigger on her Peacebringer to help it stand out, give her a on her sword attack, or play more with the fact that she has a soulstone sword, which should be more interesting than it actually is.

  

I have just started with Tara, so I don't really have enough to chime in with (other than to agree with the target numbers - it seems like EVERYTHING is a chore with her), but the soulstone blade - that ought to be SUPER cool, or super weird, or SOMETHING. I mean it's made from the material that the entire colonisation of Malifaux is driven by - but it has a mediocre damage track and a trigger that doesn't even DO anything unless you get really lucky, and your opponent is spamming the same model. On top of that, there's almost no way you ever want Tara in melee (as far as I can tell).

The main advantage to Glimpse triggers is to get cards out of the opponents hands - but since you are so incentivised to ditch your own hand as fast as possible this doesn't seem like an advantage so much as just levelling the playing field.

[decker_cky]

Soulstone blade generally sucks, but occasionally it's a great hard counter to something you're facing. Because it's so corner case, many people don't think about it and it can be misplayed. For example...while the arachnids get armour on it, it's a great tool to have against Ramos. 

If Tara had any individually potent ability that didn't need some setup, her 6 AP would be a real issue, so when looking at something like the Soulstone blade, remember that she could use it twice as often as most masters use their melee attacks.

[Mikey_C]

12 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

Soulstone blade generally sucks, but occasionally it's a great hard counter to something you're facing. Because it's so corner case, many people don't think about it and it can be misplayed. For example...while the arachnids get armour on it, it's a great tool to have against Ramos. 

If Tara had any individually potent ability that didn't need some setup, her 6 AP would be a real issue, so when looking at something like the Soulstone blade, remember that she could use it twice as often as most masters use their melee attacks.

Legitimate question. Is it actually good vs Ramos?

Ramos himself is just going to push away after one hit and the steam arachnids are immune to the  damage from Sympathetic echos. It would take Tara 4 hits at min damage to kill a full health steam arachnid, or 2 moderates, or 1 severe. 

Am I missing something?

[decker_cky]

I was forgetting that the spiders were immune. But the idea stands - there are certain choices that get spammed and the sword can catch a player off-guard and cause a fair bit of damage. It's a corner case, as mentioned.

[Karolicker]

I'd like to offer her an alternative totem:

 

The Remembered Marshal (Not a serious name) 5ss

Totem (Tara), Minion, Undead, Guild Marshal, Horror

Stats: As Death Marshall

Hard to Wound +1

Get Three Coffins Ready: May hire up to two Death Marshal models out of faction. They lose living and become undead.

How'd that get in there?: When a buried model is unburied, this model's controller may discard a card to have it unbury in base contact with this model. If more than one player uses this ability, whoever is activating may decide.

(1) Found Limb (Ml4, Rst Df, Rg1, Melee): Before making this attack, you may discard a corpse marker within 2" to give it (+) to attack and damage. (2/3/4)

(Crow) Toss Away: After succeeding, place a corpse marker within 2" of this model.

(1) Pine Box (As Death Marshall, Ca5)

 

[Patzer]

11 minutes ago, Karolicker said:

I'd like to offer her an alternative totem

This idea is great, for every master! I would prefer that she got some other cool Void creature.

[SpiralngCadavr]

On the alternate totem, yeah, if every master/many had one, that could be cool as a nice patch to some of the ones that didn't work right.

Not really a fan of that concept except one part- a totem that actively interacted with burying should have been a thing for her, and Karina just can't do it, she's got a nice summon now, but that's not the same as a cheap source of another model with a bury (or unbury) action, which would have meshed far better than some highly situational stuff plus a gun and fragile stat line. 

[Jordon]

10 hours ago, decker_cky said:

If Tara had any individually potent ability that didn't need some setup, her 6 AP would be a real issue, so when looking at something like the Soulstone blade, remember that she could use it twice as often as most masters use their melee attacks.

I would tend to agree with this in most circumstances, but the need for both a high crow and a soulstone makes her trigger virtually impossible to use. Not only does it require a very optimize setup, but it burns a tremendous amount of resources for what amounts to a glorified blast damage.

I think at the very least it should have been a different suit as high crow's are almost always going to be used to fuel any of her other abilities.  

Seeing as her sword IS a soulstone, I would love it if once per game she could declare a free trigger (ala sympathetic echoes). That way it prevents it from being abused, but that one time when you need it, you can use it reliably.