Errata on Walls (Sonnia and Rasputina)

[Math Mathonwy]

First of all, I know that errata and weakening models isn't popular. But hear me out.

I think that the Wall effects of Sonnia and Rasputina are too powerful.

All the new walls (like Zipp's clouds and Carrion Emissary's Shards) are very different in that they go away at the end of the turn as opposed to at the start of the model's next Activation. This is super important because it allows the opponent a window of opportunity to mess up with the placement of the walls (since they can't go over models). Furthermore, it forces activation order decisions on the waller as they need to activate early in order to gain maximum benefit.

Now, the walls become especially obnoxious when Malifaux Child and Wendigo can double up on them. This isn't doubly as effective but rather way more since it usually means that you can block several approaches.

The mere presence of these abilities has to be considered whenever you're building a table. Even if neither player ends up using Sonnia or Rasputina (which is rather unlikely since there's over fourty other choices) the battlefield must be built in such a way that blocking two 100mm passages indefinitely won't screw up the game. This is more important now that the official terrain recommendation was increased in the starter set.

And a game screwed up by walls is absolutely horrible. Smart use of the walls can win a game on its own, basically.

So yeah, I suggest an errata to Sonnia's and Rasputina's walls that makes them disappear at the end of the round. They would still be powerful but wouldn't be as obnoxious. I would also like it if Companion was removed from Wendigo to keep you from being able to set up the double walls in a chain activation. But I am open to other suggestions as well.

[Claymore65]

To be honest, I'm not really seeing this as a game-breaking issue. While the walls are certainly excellent in a wide variety of circumstances, and well worth the upgrade, they don't necessarily "auto-win" the game. Even in very terrain dense boards, there will pretty much always be a way around it, even if requires taking a significantly less optimal path around them. Models with flight or incorporeal can ignore the path around them. Most factions have access to mobility tools that can get them past tricky sections of the map, or at least move fast enough to mitigate it a bit. Many factions have tools to get around LOS, and can kill the squishy totems fairly easily. The Flame Walls also prevent your own models from shooting/charging the enemy, although admittedly both Sonnia and Rasputina have ways of getting LOS for themselves easily. The usefulness is also highly dependent on the terrain, as the walls can be significantly weaker in open areas of the board. Blocking off up to two 100mm passages can be incredibly useful, but it's not really game breaking. 

Keep in mind the opportunity costs for using these abilities as well. Every casting of Ice Pillar or Flame Wall is an AP not spent on doing something else. Sonnia isn't blasting away her opponents, Rasputina isn't freezing everything in sight, etc. Some of these casts come at a significant cost (the Malifaux child requires a 9+ to actually cast Flame Wall) as well, so it's not actually "indefinite".  Admittedly the AP costs are more significant than the card costs in most cases (I think Ice Pillars requires a 3?), but that can make a huge difference depending on the game. It also costs an upgrade slot, which has its own opportunity cost there. They also have order of activation concerns, since now you might have to carefully consider when to activate your master. I'm in no way saying the abilities are weak, they're extremely useful in fact, but there I'm not confidant it's hurting the game to a degree errata will be required.

[Omenbringer]

I would add to Math's argument that a lot of these walls should not also be Impassable.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I'd also point out, just for completeness, the Carrion Emissary and to some extent, Zipp, don't have the flexibility to put their markers where they want. The range on both of them is much reduced compared to other wall makers.

[solkan]

The thing is, it's a really striking coincidence to have a thread expressing concern about the power levels of the new masters (compared to the earlier masters) and a thread asking for a cuddle to the abilities of two of the book one masters.  Especially when part of the discussion involves removing Companion from a master's totem, which is sort of like complaining that there was a tree blocking your view so you're going to go burning down the forest instead of chopping that tree's branch off.

But I'm just bummed out that no one has mentioned Kaeris's walls. 

Flame Wall: Wave 1, Range 12, blocking, impassible, not within 1" of models or other markers, lasts until next activation, 1 1 damage pulse when removed.

Ice Pillar: Wave 1, Range 12, blocking impassible, not within 1" of models or other markers, lasts until next activation.

On the Pyre: Wave 2, Range 6, blocking hazardous terrain, not within 1" of models or other markers (until moved by totem), lasts until end of turn.  Note that Pyre duration is consistent across two upgrades, one of which creates singular markers, so there's a motivation to remove everything at the end of the turn.

Zip's up to three 50mm cloud markers have a pretty good reason to expire at the end of the round instead of next activation.  And Shards of Kythera seems to be designed with the same sort of motivation, if only because it's a non-master ability.

 

[Clousseau]

Not seeing this as a problem looking at the UK tournament scene.

[decker_cky]

To add to the list of similar abilities, the Captain's wind walls are neither dense nor blocking, but last until his next activation. 

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, Claymore65 said:

While the walls are certainly excellent in a wide variety of circumstances, and well worth the upgrade, they don't necessarily "auto-win" the game.

Most certainly they don't necessarily auto-win games - the board requires correct terrain for it to happen. And auto-win is maybe a bit hyperbolic of me, admittedly. But it can confer an advantage where, if players are about evenly matched skill-wise, it is close to impossible to crawl back.

2 hours ago, Claymore65 said:

Keep in mind the opportunity costs for using these abilities as well.

That's actually a great idea - making them (2)Actions would solve everything and put them in their proper place power-wise.

11 minutes ago, solkan said:

The thing is, it's a really striking coincidence to have a thread expressing concern about the power levels of the new masters (compared to the earlier masters) and a thread asking for a cuddle to the abilities of two of the book one masters.

I see nothing strange there. First of all, I didn't post any concerns about the new Masters - different folks might have different concerns which I consider perfectly normal. And second, I'm worried of the ability as opposed to the overall power level of Sonnia and Rasputina.

11 minutes ago, solkan said:

Especially when part of the discussion involves removing Companion from a master's totem, which is sort of like complaining that there was a tree blocking your view so you're going to go burning down the forest instead of chopping that tree's branch off.

I would argue that your analogy is a bit heavy and that Wendigo is a fantastically powerful totem so weakening it a bit wouldn't be too much. That said, that is the part I'm least passionate about and in fact would prefer if a different solution was offered.

11 minutes ago, solkan said:

But I'm just bummed out that no one has mentioned Kaeris's walls. 

It goes away at the end of the turn and isn't Impassable. I think that it isn't a problem and is representative of the design paradigm that seems to have come into effect after the first book.

11 minutes ago, solkan said:

Zip's up to three 50mm cloud markers have a pretty good reason to expire at the end of the round instead of next activation.

Note that due to how they are placed, I would argue that they are less potent than Sonnia's and Rasputina's even if they did stay for a similar duration. If they did stay, however, I would argue for weakening them as well.

4 minutes ago, Clousseau said:

Not seeing this as a problem looking at the UK tournament scene.

What I have seen it looks like you favour pretty open tables so I can see it not being a problem.

[Math Mathonwy]

3 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

To add to the list of similar abilities, the Captain's wind walls are neither dense nor blocking, but last until his next activation. 

Just to clarify, I think that problems only happen if they stay until next Activation and are Impassable. And if you can put four of them down on your first Activation.

[daniello_s]

I played quite few times against Lilith, Rasputina and crews with Carrion Emissary on the typical tables we have here which are pretty dense with terrains.

When Lilith's illusionary forest was annoying utmost, Rasputina's and Carrion's markers were game breaking in few of my games as my opponents used their Impassable markers to shut me down way too easy. So I'm fully convinced those should be Dense, Severe markers rather than Impassable. 

Also as Math said if those markers stays till model's next activation it is a bit too much.

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

To clarify, in advance, I'm not taking sides on this, I just like that there is discussion.

I think the issue is that it is VERY hard to design abilities that are fairly costed, that heavily interact with Terrain, because you can never effectively plan for what the terrain will actually be. I apologize for yet another Seamus analogy, he's just the master I've played the most.

During the first open there was a particular player who had a massive issue with one of the first public versions of Seamus. He felt that Back Ally was just too good and needed to basically be massively reduced in ability. He said that his crews were getting picked apart and there was little he could do. When he showed the terrain he was using, to me, it looked like almost a maze with the amount of terrain that was present, which of course would make it exceptionally difficult to ever get LoS to any one individual model. Whereas on my terrain Even though there is a good amount of it, it was always very hard to keep Seamus out of LoS to use that ability. So I never, nor did my opponent's have an issue with it. And his point was that he felt he should be able to use any terrain they wanted, and still have a balanced game. And that's just so hard given how varied tables can be, and how valuable certain abilities become depending on how the terrain is set up.

The same kind of thing happened in 1.5 now that I think about it, with Lilith's Avatar in that if there was a good amount of a specific terrain on the table she became a monster and a half. If there weren't any or very little, there was no reason to take her. 

Since terrain isn't standardized, nor is it something that has a mechanic to set up specifically, so that the players have some agency in altering the terrain to assist themselves, you are at the mercy of the board set up which is just going to make certain abilities better or worse. 

[LunarSol]

1 hour ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Since terrain isn't standardized, nor is it something that has a mechanic to set up specifically, so that the players have some agency in altering the terrain to assist themselves, you are at the mercy of the board set up which is just going to make certain abilities better or worse. 

I think defining competitive terrain is definitely something the community needs a bit more focus on in general.  There's some good guidelines, but its interesting when say, there was some comments from the European players about the GenCon tables looking rather sparse.  It certainly made me curious if its a big part of the Guild power level disparity for example.

GenCon tables are an interesting discussion point in general simply because they're as close as we get to samples of the kind of tables the game is designed against.  In general I find table design to be an under-discussed aspect of minis gaming.  I get that there's a desire to maintain the artistic freedom to construct custom battlefields from the diorama roots of the hobby, but at the same time most virtual implementations of our hobby (RTS, MOBA, FPS, etc) live and die by their map design.  Sample maps are something I've always found surprisingly lacking in minis games; increasingly so as I've gotten into more games where there's more map than model at play.

[Math Mathonwy]

9 hours ago, LunarSol said:

GenCon tables are an interesting discussion point in general simply because they're as close as we get to samples of the kind of tables the game is designed against.

I'm not certain that is all that true, though. Big tournaments need lots of terrain which is difficult to transport and since it's a showcase event, the terrain must look great. I think that seeing Justin's (or Aaron's nowadays) playtest table, that would be closer to that.

But otherwise I agree with your post wholeheartedly - well put!

[katadder]

as a raspy, kaeris and sonnia player I can say I rarely use the walls (and when I say rarely, raspy for me never uses them) and in encountering them have never really had issues with them either

[Tapdancer]

couple of comments.

Very regular UK tournament play, the scene does not favour open boards in any sense.  You can have relatively open boards when terrain is short but that is the exception rather than the rule.

 Play Sonia regularly and whilst she is competitive she is by no means overpower when compared with the top tier of masters.  Changing her wall which are general a must take, use frequently ability to drop at end of turn would be a significantly reduce her competitiveness. 

 

[Omenbringer]

20 hours ago, LunarSol said:

I think defining competitive terrain is definitely something the community needs a bit more focus on in general.  There's some good guidelines, but its interesting when say, there was some comments from the European players about the GenCon tables looking rather sparse.  It certainly made me curious if its a big part of the Guild power level disparity for example.

GenCon tables are an interesting discussion point in general simply because they're as close as we get to samples of the kind of tables the game is designed against.  In general I find table design to be an under-discussed aspect of minis gaming.  I get that there's a desire to maintain the artistic freedom to construct custom battlefields from the diorama roots of the hobby, but at the same time most virtual implementations of our hobby (RTS, MOBA, FPS, etc) live and die by their map design.  Sample maps are something I've always found surprisingly lacking in minis games; increasingly so as I've gotten into more games where there's more map than model at play.

Historically speaking Wyrd has done a very poor job of meeting even their minimum terrain recommendations at GenCon. The tables are often very sparse, though this years were a huge improvement over past GenCon Tournaments (still have a long way to go though).

I agree though that these boards generally provide the standard that others build to. That is unfortunate because, as you point out, terrain density and composition play a huge role in model balance. I really wish the books actually showed laid out tables so players had a good expectation. This is one reason I posted the tables I used for my last tournament (though admittedly those were primarily 50% coverage).