Reva wrecking face?

[benjoewoo]

One thought to echo others discussing Reva's relative simplicity compared to the other Book 4 masters--I don't think people misunderstand much of Reva's mechanics, while people may not "get" the other masters such as Nellie or Parker. The other masters have a lot of text, like Reva, but their crew roles are very different for the most part--basically only Titania is an in your face "fighter," but even she goes to set up her crew for improved attacks in addition to her own rather than just beats on you. Reva's text pretty much all relates to her beating on you, and most of the text is trigger based. Most of her triggers are also somewhat irrelevant very early into the game, e.g. the heal or the discard when you only have one legal corpse target that's also the one you need to attack through, so Reva's card, despite having the same wall of text, is largely just "flip, cheat maybe, flip damage, repeat until no AP left." I find in most of my games I'm usually just deciding if I have the range to attack with and then which 0 I'm going to use, but 80% of the time it's 0 teleport to the corpse candle I just summoned. 

As more food for thought, I played two games today with Reva. Again I won't go in depth for the battle reports, so here are the summaries.

First game was against Somer. Again, slow growth so battle box only. This game was literally crew box only, so not exactly the best comparison for even playing field, especially since Somer is a summoner, but it certainly highlighted something for me: Vincent is squishy and more or less a shoot until they die or you die model. Reva did work in killing bayou gremlins each turn and the skeeters, but Vincent literally just spent a soulstone turn 1 to give all 3 shield bearers fast before walking forward and taking his chances at shooting people. It was pretty much never in question he didn't serve a relevant purpose to running my schemes or contesting the strategy (Collect the Bounty with Convict, Take Prisoner, Show of Force, Search the Ruins, and Public Demonstration, I took Search and Public Demonstration, Somer took Show of Force and Convict Labor). Vincent scored me 0 points and the one time Somer shot at him, Vincent exploded to RJ damage (a recurring event in Vincent's life in the slow grow arena). Somer puts out better damage than Reva at lower range and nuked Vincent while simultaneously putting a shield bearer into spirit mode. 

Lesson learned: Vincent isn't all that great--for my play style at least and from what I see in model choices in 50 SS games, he's basically a SS use Turn 1 to give out fast to shield bearers and occasionally a way to give a condition to models to avoid reduction and SS prevention, but the cast is resource intensive and unlikely worth it compared to what other henchmen and/or enforcers bring to the table. I ended the Somer match 9:4, and the large difference was because Reva doesn't have too much trouble killing bayou gremlins, but Somer is no pushover and if there were more of them, my shield bearers would've probably crumpled to relentless reckless shooting with occasional dumb luck triggers.

Second game was against Nellie. Holy crap does she have a lot of manipulation. Strategy was Headhunter, Schemes were Convict Labor, Leave Your Mark, Take Prisoner, Public Demonstration, and Undercover Entourage. Also a box only game, so Nellie lost 2SS and Reva lost 1SS.

I took Public Demonstration and Entourage, Nellie took Convict Labor and Take Prisoner on a shield bearer. I was tempted to do take Leave Your Mark and Convict, but in a box only game, the resource intensiveness of accomplishing two marker and position heavy schemes leaves you really vulnerable to a Headhunter VP gimp, so I went with public demonstration and entourage figuring Reva gets entourage on her own, which Nellie won't contest, and Public Demonstration would be fine if I could just have 1 shield bearer not die to Phiona in some turn. A gamble, but if I could get 3VP on Public, I could more or less ensure I'd win or go even on Headhunter, as my box does better damage than Nellie's box, and fast shenanigans should get me more head markers.

The field reporters convert your scheme markers. I knew this, but didn't think it'd pose such a risk because I was faking I had convict labor and the TN requires a 9--Turn 1 I had Vincent stone for a failed 0 against a shield bearer to generate fast, getting me 3 "convict labor" markers by turn 2. 1 field reporter posed a risk of foiling my plans by converting 1 marker and getting Nellie's on convict labor--it ultimately failed, but revealed my bluff when I didn't declare the scheme. If there were two field reporters, the game would likely have been a tie.

Nellie herself generates evidence fairly easily. The printing press, her totem, gives her +1 for a 0 and is not easy to take down without Littany or Vincent's trigger. Nellie gets +1 from discarding a card, and anyone interacting within 8" gives her a 3rd. She can generate up to 6AP of attacks between her actual attack and a model with a melee attack, which can be scary with Phiona and her upgrades. She basically makes taking scheme marker heavy schemes non-viable if she has a couple reporters. Manipulative 12 and no charge also really messes with melee centric crews like Ressers. I won the game 6:3 because my opponent had to leave and could only score 1 on Convict Labor and 2 on Take Prisoner since I had surrounded Phiona with shield bearers. Not sure how the game would have gone if we played Turns 4 and 5, but Reva had twice put Phiona to 1-2 Wds, and come Turn 4 Phiona would likely die between 3 shield bearers, Reva, and possibly Vincent if enough of the shield bearers were converted to Spirits. Two of the field reporters were nowhere close to the battle because they had to run convict labor in a safer location, and I killed the third and the printing press, surprisingly killing the latter with Vincent after successfully getting a 0 and then hitting for moderate damage with the built in corpse trigger.

Reva has no answers for scheme marker manipulators other than killing them faster than they can enact their manipulation. I asked the local group how they felt about Reva--the Marcus player from before, the Somer player, and the Nellie player. All three noted she didn't seem OP, and the Nellie player immediately stated she was extremely straight forward. It seemed like she gets the range, which can be daunting, but you can play around that by just going to the other side of the board, moving her corpse candle from Guises of Death before it can kill itself in range of someone for Reva, etc. The first master comparison was Raspy--they were thinking that if you can't deal with Reva's reach, how could you get around Raspy because most of the time, cover wouldn't have mattered when Reva tried to hit people--her corpse markers would be positioned so you didn't have cover anyway. In larger games, there would be manipulation to move you towards the markers and into the open, e.g. Lure, so what does hiding behind a Ht 1 wall with cover do if you're forced away from it with a Ca 8 Lure anyway?

[TheTrans]

So had a little casual 8 player tournament on the weekend, used Reva the entire day, will give a super quick rundown.

Game 1 was against Arcanists.
Opponent took
Meifang, Tiger Claw trigger upgrade, +ve initive flip upgrade and one more.

Sparks w/ imbued energies

Railgolem

Willie w/ some form of upgrade I think

Mechanical Pork Chop

Emberling

Fire Gamin

Rail worker

 

I took

Reva w/ No Armour Trigger, Decaying Aura, Tome Charge Trigger

Vince w/ MLH

Yin
Emissary w/MLH
2x Shield Bearers
Necropunk

Strat was collect the bounty. Myself and my opponent took Show of Force, I took CL and he took Search the Ruins.

Was a 10-4 my way.

Reva did exactly as she says on the tin. Murdered an over extended pork chop turn 1, then a Yin’d Golem and Rail worker turn 2. The rest of the crew supported and the Emissary with MLH managed to completely block out Meifangs -ve cast Aura so was a massive help.

2^nd game, I dropped Vince, put in Chiaki and moved MLH to Yin.

Was against:

Molly w/ horror upgrade, extra (0) upgrade

Sloth

Bete w/ Decaying Aura
Chiaki

Necropunk

Carrion Effigy

Flesh Construct (my take prisoner target)

Strat of was Head Hunter, I took Convict Labour and take Prisoner, my opponent took detonate the chargers and covert breakthrough.

So, here is a perfect example of how squishy Reva is, I totally over extended her turn 1, killed Chiaki and completely forgot about Bete, so Bete popped up and knocked the crap out of Reva and Paralyzed her. She was dead top of turn 2.

I managed a 6-6 draw against a very competent player, that had summons available, mainly due to double up of the Kythera shards on a pivotal turn and some terrain placement. Shieldbearers and the Carrion Emissary where by far the stars of this game, holding out far too long and also managing to block important moves. Think this shows that Reva words indepentantly of her crew, so If you bring a strong crew + Reva, you pretty much just have an extra ‘super beater’.

Finall round was a 10-2 win, with extraction etc.

It was a newish player who actively wanted to go against Reva, and god damn did he hold out well, we opted to call it turn 3 as he wasn’t going to get more points and wanted to have a talk about tara and a good drinking session. Not going to lie, Anus ( ) stood up to Reva’s attacks well, and my opponent used his cards really well, and quickly, without it being a detriment to his game, and made his void wretches frustratingly solid!!

So a win of the tournament overall for what its worth, but Reva can clearly die a peasants death if she over extends, and unless you have a good hand or have Yin’d something, her actually hitting isn’t super reliable if it is against a solid model (if they have a WP or DF of 6 or above, she has a very very hard time pushing through. She is how my Vampire Counts used to work back in fantasy, they generally couldn’t hold their own against an equalish enemy, but they where excellent bullies, and that is what Reva does, she bullies lesser models, or hunts specific Henchmen or masters if she can somehow get something with a 5 in it’s WP or Defence.

 

So it would seem you can certainly build a crew to assist her in killing things, but at the same time, if you could build a variety of generic 45ss based crews that were pre-prepped for certain schemes etc, you could happily slot in Anti-SS user Anti-Armour Reva into any of them and let her hunt the harder to kill or reach models.

 

So again, solid artillery piece, but not the earth shatterer people think she is.

 

[Paddywhack]

17 hours ago, TheTrans said:

So again, solid artillery piece, but not the earth shatterer people think she is.

Soooo.... you wrecked face?  

Except in the game where you admit you made a giant mistake and got her paralyzed. Being able to take out a rail Golem and another model in the same activation is pretty nasty. Would the tied game have gone vastly differently if you had not lost Reva so soon? 

[Manic Mouse]

10 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Soooo.... you wrecked face?  

Except in the game where you admit you made a giant mistake and got her paralyzed. Being able to take out a rail Golem and another model in the same activation is pretty nasty. Would the tied game have gone vastly differently if you had not lost Reva so soon? 

The argument that you can lose with her doesn't really prove she isn't on the higher (or too high) end of the power curve.

I'm sure lots of people lost games with pre cuddle Levi too - especially when they made catastrophic mistakes with him. Doesn't mean he didn't need a cuddle. And 2 massive wins and a draw through bad play isn't even a loss! Seems like wrecking face indeed.

We shall see how Reva fares over the next few months. But I highly suspect we have another Levi on our hands for reasons that have already been repeated as nauseum so I shall not waste everyone's time by repeating myself.

Time will tell!

[daniello_s]

I played against Reva first time in my life last Saturday (I run Levi) and I lost 6-7 but they mere fact that she can hit me almost virtually anywhere on the table from turn 3 wasn't fun at all. I had to avid any Corpse Markers like plague which is half way for her to win a game - forcing opponent to play her game. 

[Paddywhack]

2 hours ago, Manic Mouse said:

Time will tell!

Yep. I do think there is a learning curve still, but she possibly might be a tad too good. 18" is just so much of the board. 

Even if the powers that be agree, I don't expect any changes for months if not more like 1+yrs. I don't think she'll ruin the game too much in the mean time, though some play groups might ban her temporarily. 

[Terwox]

On 9/22/2016 at 10:48 AM, Paddywhack said:

Other than Ressurs, Lady J and some summoners there aren't that many ways to get rid of corpses I can think of. A lot of models get rid of Scheme markers, but I had trouble finding many that could get rid of corpses, though I am not an expert in all the factions. I was looking in TTs though and had trouble finding much. Maybe we should start a list?

It also leads to having to build your crew specifically to face Reva rather than building a crew based on schemes/strats, which I think is generally a bad precedent. 

 

Ten Thunders has Toshiro, who summons off of corpses.  That's pretty good against Reva -- you turn her corpse candles into your Ashigaru.

[TheTrans]

4 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Soooo.... you wrecked face?  

Except in the game where you admit you made a giant mistake and got her paralyzed. Being able to take out a rail Golem and another model in the same activation is pretty nasty. Would the tied game have gone vastly differently if you had not lost Reva so soon? 

Rail Golem had also been stung by Yin, so it was a 2 Master AP, some damage already on there, so it wasn't just her hitting it by herself. The worker was just lucky it went through.

I think any game that you can tie after losing a master top of turn 2 would of ended in a win dude, Reva or not.

Also as a note Game 1 and 3 where against...either new or..players of...middling tactical acumen, so wouldn't see those as balls to walls wins if that makes sense.

4 hours ago, Manic Mouse said:

The argument that you can lose with her doesn't really prove she isn't on the higher (or too high) end of the power curve.

I'm sure lots of people lost games with pre cuddle Levi too - especially when they made catastrophic mistakes with him. Doesn't mean he didn't need a cuddle. And 2 massive wins and a draw through bad play isn't even a loss! Seems like wrecking face indeed.

We shall see how Reva fares over the next few months. But I highly suspect we have another Levi on our hands for reasons that have already been repeated as nauseum so I shall not waste everyone's time by repeating myself.

Time will tell!

It's more how easily you can lose her if you over extended, which IMHO with her Tome charge is where you get that extra AP for an attack.

 

Honestly I still think Levi got nurfed due to the rat engine also, if the rat engine wasn't as big a thing as it was, I don't know if it would of happened. It was like he was almost double nurfed. They should of got rid of the rat engine, seen how things went, then continued. 

 

We shall indeed mate, we shall indeed.

2 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Yep. I do think there is a learning curve still, but she possibly might be a tad too good. 18" is just so much of the board. 

Even if the powers that be agree, I don't expect any changes for months if not more like 1+yrs. I don't think she'll ruin the game too much in the mean time, though some play groups might ban her temporarily. 

Learning curve is certainly a thing with her mate. The 18, to me, doesn't massively come into it. If you lowered it to say 14" I don't think there would be much of an issue for her, except now it is sitting almost at her charge range, meaning you'd have to shorten it down, but then the tome trigger wouldn't be nearly as good, so that would need some rejigging etc. 

It's one of those things that if they drop range on it I feel they'll need to rewrite most of her card haha.

 

None of my mates and regular opponents have found her a game ruiner, an eye opener and a common master to rag on yes, but not a ruiner. As to the banning, it would be interesting to see in those groups what people are running that push for the ban. Think of how much she knackers the whole nico summon cycle thing. Morty activates, pulls out a corpse blah blah, goes down to 8 wounds...poof... Reva starts smashing through the corpse, possibly killing him and pops the corpse on the last attack to boot!! I'd be dirty to if I couldn't summon my hanged turn 1....

[benjoewoo]

A point on the Hamelin, Leve, and Ratjoy changes. My outcast main friend and I were talking about the cuddle process and what it could mean for Reva.

Hamelin was very powerful initially, and saw some rather major cuddles. He was then non-viable competitively outside of the ratjoy combo in M2E. Leve was good outside of ratjoy, to the point that people complained outside of his use of ratjoy. Ratjoy certainly exacerbated the situation, but it didn't single handedly tip Leve into the "need to cuddle Leve" status. Ratjoy saw a cuddle in which Outcast masters could utilize the combo, and then Leve saw a cuddle because of his near invulnerability to most masters--his bury mechanic made him inaccessible to some factions, and nearly so for others in a pre-Aionus meta.

In the Adepticon report, the winner played against a Hamelin player who ran Ratjoy, so Hamelin had better activation control, but still lost to the winner's non-Hamelin ratjoy set up, which I think was Viks. I only point this out because both players were high level and Hamelin, the thematic choice for ratjoy, couldn't beat out another "more" optimized version using a different Outcast master. Now that ratjoy is only viable as it once was for Hamelin, maybe he'll be more competitive, but we haven't seen the results in major tournaments yet. 

Reva faces a similar situation in facing the cuddle bat. If Cuddled, will she become non-viable competitively, and will she be worthwhile to play in casual? I have yet to see a Hamelin player despite traveling to tournaments--my outcast main friend almost never plays Hamelin because there's always a better master for the strategy and schemes pool. 

Fetid pointed out that Reva currently competes for Seamus' spot--assuming this is true, would anyone play Reva over Seamus if she saw a cuddle? She has strictly inferior scheme marker dropping abilities, cannot travel as far, and has inferior summoning outside of ugprades. Her one advantage over Seamus is her ability to attack from greater safety--~21" compared to Seamus' 10". 

If you cuddle Reva's range, why take her over Seamus--ever? If you cuddle Reva's damage, why take her over any other master?

Most importantly, if you cuddle something about Reva that's perceived as overpowered, how will you balance it? Reva essentially does 1 thing, and that's reach out through corpse markers for her Ca actions, upgrades included. Why would anyone play her if that ability of hers is barely better than her above average charge?

[Fetid Strumpet]

Huh? Hamelin never received errata in M2E, and I see him regularly turn up in Outcast master reports from tournaments. I wouldn't say at all that he is uncompetitive. The main complaints I hear about him are the expense, and the repetitiveness of his thematic crew.

[solkan]

39 minutes ago, benjoewoo said:

A point on the Hamelin, Leve, and Ratjoy changes. My outcast main friend and I were talking about the cuddle process and what it could mean for Reva.

Hamelin was very powerful initially, and saw some rather major cuddles. He was then non-viable competitively outside of the ratjoy combo in M2E. Leve was good outside of ratjoy, to the point that people complained outside of his use of ratjoy. Ratjoy certainly exacerbated the situation, but it didn't single handedly tip Leve into the "need to cuddle Leve" status. Ratjoy saw a cuddle in which Outcast masters could utilize the combo, and then Leve saw a cuddle because of his near invulnerability to most masters--his bury mechanic made him inaccessible to some factions, and nearly so for others in a pre-Aionus meta.

Are you referring about the beta process from 1.5E to 2E for Hamelin?  Because the errata list for Outcasts:

Quote

• Malifaux Child: Just Like You may not be used to take Actions that list a model by name.
• Howling Wolf Tattoo: Comradery is granted to the model with the Upgrade.
• Leveticus: Dropped Cache to 1 and Channel Ability rewritten. (7/6/16)
• Malifaux Rat: Added Hamelin’s Pets Ability. (7/6/16)

suggests that you'd have to be.

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

That's what was confusing for me too. I don't remember anything like that happening during the open, thought to be fair I might be misremembering. 

[benjoewoo]

The Hamelin cuddle was not from 1.5 to 2. It was my friend's note of what happened to Hamelin on his release during 1E I believe. 

I brought it up based entirely on 2nd hand knowledge, so I could be full of air on that, but it was a sticking point to my friend at least, who felt the cuddles, while needed conceptually, went too far. I don't want to see that happen to Reva so early, considering crew building can easily create bad match ups for her. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Not to get too far off topic but I remember that cuddle, and I believe your friend was being a wee bit disingenuous. 1.0 Hamlin literally broke the game multiple times. He had infinite chains, time issues, and all sorts of other things that made the game completely unpleasant. If my memory serves Wyrd errata'd him or models in his crew multiple times. 

When the big errata finally hit him it brought him down to acceptable power level with the majority of masters. The issue wasn't that it made him too weak, the issue was in 1.0 the balance was very different, and much worse. Wyrd was still toting the balance of faction vs faction rather than master v master, and several masters just did everything too well. Skill was still certainly a factor, but which master you played could almost out trump skill level. Basically if you weren't one of the small number of top tier masters you had very little hope. 

While there are imbalances in M2E at least as of book 3 there was nothing even close to how unbalanced 1.0 was. The issue wasn't cuddling Hamelin so he wasn't playable it was the fact the the structures of the game itself basically only allowed for Tier 1 masters and models to ever be played competitively. That isn't really the case in M2E.

I don't think if they eventually decide to take her down a little she will be unplayable. I do think it will be tough to tone her without basically a rewrite though. Though to be clear I don't think there is anywhere close to enough data to justify a change.

I do wish they had open tested book 4 though.

[Adran]

Benjoewoo

Comparing 1st edition Hamlin and his cuddles to 2nd edition Hamlin is completely pointless, there are so many changes to what he does in the edition change. I'm not sure what your friend didn't like about the changes to his first edition, but his infinite turns did need to be stopped, and Bully was flavourful, but by the time the entire enemy crew couldn't ever attack him I can see why they did change it. 

You also seem to have confused your timing regarding "RatJoy". It was widely discussed on this forum only about 20 month after the rules for it were released (about Easter time this year I think, Just following the adeptacon win). Until that time I hadn't seen or heard too much about the out activation options. I'm not saying they weren't used, but they weren't a "big" thing, so something taking 15+ months for the community as a whole to discover, and learn to abuse I think speaks fairly well of the design/playtest situation.  Leveticus has had people complaining about him since release, and he went through a lot of changes during the beta testing, to the extent that his rules release was held back a year, appearing in Crossroads rather than the main rule book as they first intended. 

 We have had models erratad after Playtesting produced a "final" card but before the model was released, not only with 2 conflux upgrades but also the Mech Rider. 

[Bengt]

It's kind of odd that it took so long for the rat engine to be a "big thing" as there is an article in Chronicles 14 (October 2014) singing its praise and encouraging Outcast players to use it with other masters. The article doesn't mention Killjoy but it points out how much for instance the Viks can benefit from activation control.

[Myyrä]

13 minutes ago, Bengt said:

It's kind of odd that it took so long for the rat engine to be a "big thing" as there is an article in Chronicles 14 (October 2014) singing its praise and encouraging Outcast players to use it with other masters. The article doesn't mention Killjoy but it points out how much for instance the Viks can benefit from activation control.

It's odd that everyone didn't notice it at the first glance of Obedient Wretch.

[moxypoo]

2 hours ago, Bengt said:

It's kind of odd that it took so long for the rat engine to be a "big thing" as there is an article in Chronicles 14 (October 2014) singing its praise and encouraging Outcast players to use it with other masters. The article doesn't mention Killjoy but it points out how much for instance the Viks can benefit from activation control.

 

2 hours ago, Myyrä said:

It's odd that everyone didn't notice it at the first glance of Obedient Wretch.

The Rat Engine was tested during the Book 2 open beta at least with Hamelin. I posted 2 battle reports using the Rat Engine + Infectious Melodies to deliver Killjoy with Hamelin, and there were other people who played around with it as well. Unfortunately, I can't remember whether the Rat Engine was tested with the Viks or Levy during the beta. Apparently, it just took awhile to catch on in the tournament scene, or maybe it just took awhile for everyone to become aware of how it was taking over the tournament scene.

[Omenbringer]

20 hours ago, Terwox said:

Ten Thunders has Toshiro, who summons off of corpses.  That's pretty good against Reva -- you turn her corpse candles into your Ashigaru.

Just for clarification I assume you mean after Toshiro (or something else) has killed the Corpse Candle that he can then attempt to summon an Ashigaru from the resulting Corpse Marker if you have the Command the Graves upgrade attached to him?

Corpse Candles and Mindless Zombies are only considered Corpse Markers to friendly models, not opponents models.

[Terwox]

1 minute ago, Omenbringer said:

Just for clarification I assume you mean after Toshiro (or something else) has killed the Corpse Candle that he can then attempt to summon an Ashigaru from the resulting Corpse Marker if you have the Command the Graves upgrade attached to him?

Corpse Candles and Mindless Zombies are only considered Corpse Markers to friendly models, not opponents models.

 

Yep, you got it.  Corpse candles die very easily.  

Toshiro seems like a decent pick against Ressers in general if you can make him fit.

[Math Mathonwy]

18 hours ago, benjoewoo said:

Her one advantage over Seamus is her ability to attack from greater safety--~21" compared to Seamus' 10".

This is true but to be fair, Seamus is a bit silly these days now that he can shoot his gun three times a turn, attack Wp or Df with it and thus circumvent most Triggers and Def stance and such while also ignoring Armor.

 

 

 

 

[benjoewoo]

Going more back on topic--my comments on Hamelin then seem off base. It seemed an appropriate comparison given the information I understood, but now I think differently.

As to defending Reva from the cuddle bat again, recently played at a local tourney.

First round was vs. Viks, corner deployment, strategy was interference, Viks took search the ruins and show of force, Reva took inspection and convict labor. Tied because I was one activation away from winning on time. I would have denied Search the Ruins, but had the game gone to Turn 5, I'm unsure I would have maintained the lead given I lost my Emissary and Viks had only lost Vanessa and student of conflict. Tie was 4:4.

Second round was vs. Perdita, standard deployment, strategy was guard the stash, Perdita took Frame for murder on Papa Loco and Hunting Party, Reva took Frame for murder on Emissary and Hunting Party. I won because Carrion Emissary RJ'd damage against Perdita, which double blast into Nino for 4 damage--Perdita SS only prevented 1 damage, leaving her at 3/4 Wds, and she in a last cry killed Emissary in 1 activation. Reva was able to finish off Perdita using 3AP to finally hit her and discard a corpse marker for her 4/5/6 track--Df/Wp 7 is no joke--and used her 0 to kill Nino. The unusual event went downhill from there because no Perdita or Nino leaves a Perdita crew fairly toothless. Score was 10:4. 

Third round was vs. Asami, CLOSE DEPLOYMENT, strategy was Headhunter, Asami took Detonate Charges and something else (did not score), Reva took Detonate Charges and Quick Murder (Jorogumo hire). Asami player made the mistake of moving Asami and crew up the board as much as possible so she could set up her own attacks for devour, Jorogumo, and flicker tricks. But, that was a lot of AP to get to me, and I was able to put Asami, who only has Wp 5, to 1 Wd Turn 1 with Reva--blew my whole hand to do it, but by this point it was pretty clear Asami's summons didn't have the ability to finish my people off. Turn 2 Asami healed to 5 via her marker discard, Reva attacked with all 3 AP to finish her, 0 teleport. Vincent actually did something by solo-killing my Jorogumo target--the +2 damage from built in trigger is pretty nice if it works, and Jorogumo are not very good defensively beyond Df 6 (might be 5, but I attacked 3 times between a repeat trigger and a severe flip somewhere in there). A very important note was I deployed back from the center line, knowing the schemes didn't allow for scoring without getting close to or engaging the opponent, while my opponent deployed as far up as possible. Score was 10:3. 

Of those 3 rounds, only one was an actual landslide for play, mostly due to the Asami player not being familiar with Reva and unlikely familiar with Raspy. I wasn't familiar with Asami, but I play Molly, so I understand generic summoning tactics. Asami probably shouldn't have used 2AP Turn 1 to walk and then summon a Jorogumo into my team. Additionally, telegraphing schemes by dropping 2 scheme markers on the center line for detonate charges (convict labor seemed unlikely given close deployment) really hurt Asami's AP efficiency. Decaying Aura is also a pain if your master depends on healing and SS not to die. Finally, and most importantly, the terrain set up was a bunch of low Ht buildings, fences, and some mesas that  measured < 2" but we defined as Ht 2. It was a perfect storm for Reva to murder oncoming units as it was close deployment, strategy and schemes prevented scoring without being near enemy models or interacting with them, and my opponent's local Reva player, in my opponent's own words, was not very good--not saying that Reva player is bad, but he/she never utilizes fast tricks, Corpse Bloat, etc. to attack a variety of defensive stats while generating greater AP efficiency. 

In hindsight I probably would have lost the Viks game had it gone to Turn 5 barring bad decisions by Viks or lucky flips/hands for me. Perdita match was unusual because Emissary getting RJ damage on a master was just luck--Perdita figured a negative flip wouldn't result in 6 damage coming through after SS prevention.

 

43 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

This is true but to be fair, Seamus is a bit silly these days now that he can shoot his gun three times a turn, attack Wp or Df with it and thus circumvent most Triggers and Def stance and such while also ignoring Armor.

 

 

 

 

 

Reva offers more damage, yes, but potentially less efficient. Does this mean Seamus > Reva? Not necessarily, because Reva can attack from further away and can ultimately do more damage. Seamus has to move to be within 10" of an enemy model to shoot. He's also much easier to hit than Reva, but the balance is he is one of the most resilient masters in the game for his uncapped healing ability. Reva's healing is not capped either, but it's much harder to trigger, heals half the amount per instance, and goes against her maximizing her range.

Different masters with different very different play styles--in GG 2016 the difference may not be as noticeable or pan out as much as it does in the core rule book schemes, but they are more efficient for different strategy and schemes pools. I was playing against a Nellie player and we agreed to play Reva v. Nellie, but once we flipped the strategy and schemes I noted I would much rather have played Seamus to give me access to 2 of the schemes that were much less favorable for Reva--they were Leave Your Mark and Catch and Release. 

I don't want to fight over whether Reva is strictly better than Seamus, but I bring up the point above, based on max damage calculations, because if Reva's damage efficiency is compared to Seamus, a mostly middle tier master, I'm happy. It means Reva does good damage, but she isn't at a meta destroying level. 

[Wifstrand]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

This is true but to be fair, Seamus is a bit silly these days now that he can shoot his gun three times a turn, attack Wp or Df with it and thus circumvent most Triggers and Def stance and such while also ignoring Armor.

 

 

Was there some errata I missed??

[benjoewoo]

Math was comparing Seamus and Reva--Reva can hit 3 times against Df or Wp while ignoring defensive triggers depending on the stat she attacks. She can also avoid Defensive stance by targeting Wp and potentially ignores armor with a 2 SS upgrade. Seamus can shoot against Df only and doesn't have those advantages, though his raw damage output is comparable and arguably as efficient, if not slightly more. 

[Clement]

3 minutes ago, Wifstrand said:

 

Was there some errata I missed??

He's exaggerating.

 

In theory, Reva's damage output directly ties to how many corpses she can litter the field with.   Generally speaking, no one I've played with really *cares* about corpse generation because the corpses themselves weren't  really a manageable threat (Nico, for example doesn't get his corpses removed because generally he only 1 or 2 to be a huge nuisance).  Does Reva have a much harder time when her opponent is much more aggressive about cleaning up the field?  In theory it's counter-picking more then I'd like, but it might just a a slide in the anti-resser meta.