Why are Bayou Gators not Beasts?

[Cadaverousbirth]

I love the Bayou Gator models but do not play Gremlins or Zoraida in Neverborn. Why are they not Beasts for Marcus?

• Is there a fluffy reason that I am not aware of? If Marcus finds himself in a swamp do their reptilian brains counteract his magic? Please share any stories you know of that can shed some light on this dark corner of fluff
• Would they be too good with Marcus and for the sake of rules this has been omitted? I don't see them in play often or praised to high heaven on here - the consensus I gather is that they are "OK."
• Marcus can already get Silurids and the Spawn Mother/Gubbs who are NB Swampfiends, and the majority of Gremlin pigs. Is Zoraida jealous and hogging all of her gator friends?

Running a Marcus Swampfiend crew would be exciting to see. Hire in McTavish as a mercenary to replace Myranda and you'd be set. Getting some justification for this omission will help stem my crocodile tears.

[Dogmantra]

Hm, it's an interesting question.

I wasn't really active during the wave 2 public playtesting, so I don't know if there was anything discussed at the time.

My best guess would be your third point:not super fluff-based, but more in order to give Zoraida something unique she can take out of faction from her swampfiend rule that Marcus can't - As you noted, Marcus can take nearly every other Swampfiend in the game due to the beast rule, and can even have McTavish as a merc, and Gators made the most sense to give to Zoraida alone.

 

[LordZombie]

Same reason they are careful with Undead and Constructs, because of Leveticus. They dug themselves in a hole with masters that can hire too much. Because of Marcus, they have to be careful with Beast now. 

[daniello_s]

 

27 minutes ago, LordZombie said:

Same reason they are careful with Undead and Constructs, because of Leveticus. They dug themselves in a hole with masters that can hire too much. Because of Marcus, they have to be careful with Beast now. 

Might be truth but in fairness Gators should be Beasts by the definition, shouldn't they?

[Cadaverousbirth]

13 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

 

Might be truth but in fairness Gators should be Beasts by the definition, shouldn't they?

Exactly. I can understand the "hiring too much" limitation since Marcus is almost his own faction (The Cute Little Beasties faction) but why limit it on the gators?

[EnternalVoid]

Really I would have to say it was Marcus's fault.  As stated there is a problem when you made things associated with key words, you have to keep them in mind with each new addition.  Now you can always balance them, but you have to then balance them for their faction and then any master that can take them outside it.  Marcus was one of those issues here, sure Gators by definition should have been beasts but you could say that Clockwork traps should have been Constructs by definition.  But they felt that Hoffman/Levi *and maybe Mei Feng/Toshiro* would gain to much from cheap constructs like that.  Despite how obvious something might seem in reality, this is a game and they have to try and keep it Balanced regardless.  Most of the Pigs got Beast but when they made Ulix they had to make an upgrade that made his pigs not count as Beast to prevent a Horrible Match up there against Marcus.

The thing you have to remember is that this all happened during a Beta that was changing as it went.  From what I remember about the open beta Bayou Gators were a lot scarier at one point as a melee option.  It would have been a pretty nasty option for Marcus at that point if it had the Beast keyword.  One of the concerns was Marcus's D. Chant, its (0) push and charge range, and possible Alpha on top of it.  It could generate a lot of damage if the enemy was debuffed with the chant or the gator would be buffed and the enemy could not activate in between *Marcus can have plenty of activations for out activating*.  Now while you can do this with bigger beasts, or other monsters turned to beasts, the Gator is a 5ss option, making it a cheap expendable missile in this case.  I suspect they just did not want to give Marcus the option.

 

Almost forgot to add, one of the things they stated when coming to MII was that they had an issue with hiring abilities like Marcus's that grew out of control and lead to them having to use an ability called "animosity" which prevented certain models from hiring Said model.  Ototo and a couple others had animosity Zoraida to keep her from hiring them with her "Wp4" hiring ability back in the day.  There were a few other cases as well but it was one of the things Wyrd strait out and said they wanted to take another crack at fix, while they left Marcus's and a few other's ability they have been a lot more careful with the keywords.

[Cadaverousbirth]

Thanks for the insight. I still wish I could get them, but it will just have to be less money spent on shiny (muddy) models.

One thing I'd like to mention though about the Clockwork Traps not being constructs. I am under the assumption that a Construct has a human element combined with machinery. Easy to see with Joss and Howard being cyborgs, but aren't Peacekeepers, Guardians, etc powered by Soulstones? Soulstones which are being magically powered by human souls... The Peacekeeper fluff even points to developing "personalities" differentiating each other and also going insane at some points.

Clockwork Traps on the other hand I have always thought were only automatons - reacting like pressure plates when something gets close. Or like their name implies, a clock with gears and cogs turning about. Maybe that's just my perspective (don't remember the fluff) but that's an easy justification to deny Mei are cheap jump points  I find it harder to swallow that Marcus can't hire Gators for rules reasons (again, I get why) but I would love a Chronicles story explaining that. For example. Marcus getting almost eaten by the Bayou and having to retreat to study why he couldn't control these gators. All the while Zoraida giggles through her crystal ball.

[Jordon]

Well I remember from the fluff that Marcus had issues trying to control Cojo due to the fact that he was so intelligent. So maybe the gator's are just being of such high intelligence that Marcus has trouble taming them.... ? 

Or perhaps it was simply a matter of game mechanics over fluff  

[Dumb Luck]

Simple. They ain't beasts. They's logs.

[Cadaverousbirth]

So are Waldgeists! Walking logs.

[solkan]

1 hour ago, Cadaverousbirth said:

Thanks for the insight. I still wish I could get them, but it will just have to be less money spent on shiny (muddy) models.

One thing I'd like to mention though about the Clockwork Traps not being constructs. I am under the assumption that a Construct has a human element combined with machinery. Easy to see with Joss and Howard being cyborgs, but aren't Peacekeepers, Guardians, etc powered by Soulstones? Soulstones which are being magically powered by human souls... The Peacekeeper fluff even points to developing "personalities" differentiating each other and also going insane at some points.

There's no "human element" necessary for something to be a construct.  The arachnid swarms and the various animal themed Arcanist constructs aren't charter violations.  (Probably.  )

There's one simple rule at play:  Characteristics are assigned to models to create rules interactions, and if a characteristic is notably absent on a model it will be for the purposes of not creating a rules interaction. 

If you see a 50 foot tall shining steel robot in the game and it doesn't have the Construct characteristic, that's going to be the explanation.  Just like if you see a 50 foot tall giant lizard in the game and it lacks the Beast characteristic.  Because the designers end up with two options:

1.  Include the expected characteristic and then include an ability which says "No, that rules interaction you were expecting doesn't apply to this model."

or

2.  Leave off the characteristic.

That's why the Sow is a Beast, and Stuffed Piglet, Old Major, and Gracie aren't Beasts.

[Vorschlag]

15 hours ago, daniello_s said:

Might be truth but in fairness Gators should be Beasts by the definition, shouldn't they?

In theory rats are beasts, but the fluff from 1.5 stated that this was a creature Marcus could not control, perhaps the same goes for gators.
Perhaps only those who dwell within the bayou can tap into their minds, everyone has their boundaries, limits etc.

Zoraida for instance may have sway with the Gremlin population of the Bayou (when playing as gremlins) but she cant "mind control" just any gremlin into "zombiefied slavery" (when playing neverborn) even her mind control has its limits.  

It is a shame though, A Marcus led swampfiend crew has some appeal (imagining themed Marcus conversions) and gators are certainly a loss to that theme.