Reva wrecking face?

[Rogue1]

Having recently played against her in a tournament I brought the arcane Emmisary (not so much as a counter pick as just a good pick in its own right).  His ability to clear all of the corpse markers within  3 after a charge really made my opponent frustrated with me removing Reva's attack vectors.

[benjoewoo]

55 minutes ago, Rogue1 said:

Having recently played against her in a tournament I brought the arcane Emmisary (not so much as a counter pick as just a good pick in its own right).  His ability to clear all of the corpse markers within  3 after a charge really made my opponent frustrated with me removing Reva's attack vectors.

There's also 40mm+ models that sit on top of corpses so as to deny their use for the most part. I've had that happen a couple times.

Asami turns all corpse markers into extra turns of activation as well for her summons.

[TheTrans]

2 hours ago, benjoewoo said:

Asami turns all corpse markers into extra turns of activation as well for her summons.

And there I start to feel that maybe we are seeing balance within the book 4 Masters. Titty-Anna and Asami either punish you for placing scrap and corpse markers, or gain a decent benefit from it.

That's off the top of my head. But 3 out of the 7 (Reva against Reva) can punish you for dropping corpse markers everywhere. So that's not a bad start. We all know the entire Resser faction can punish you for it also. 

Maybe us players that think Reva is powerful but within the realms of the game should create a list of models/abilities that can discard/make use of corpse markers to stop peoples bleating?

[benjoewoo]

I think that's a good idea. I only know a few off the top of my head but here they are. I think one of the new gremlins models can eat corpses or some kind of marker to heal Wds.

Universal Option: Aionus

Guild: Lady J

Arcanists: Emissary, Mechanical Rider

Ressers: Spare Parts, Corpse Bloat, Muahahah, Philip, Carrion Emissary, Nico, Seamus, Reva, Toshiro, Archie

TT: Toshiro, Asami

Neverborn: Lilith, Emissary (I think his 50mm markers are blocking)

Outcasts: Leve (Toshiro, Archie, Philip)

[Bengt]

26 minutes ago, benjoewoo said:

I think that's a good idea. I only know a few off the top of my head but here they are. I think one of the new gremlins models can eat corpses or some kind of marker to heal Wds.

Universal Option: Aionus

Guild: Lady J

Arcanists: Emissary, Mechanical Rider

Ressers: Spare Parts, Corpse Bloat, Muahahah, Philip, Carrion Emissary, Nico, Seamus, Reva, Toshiro, Archie

TT: Toshiro, Asami

Neverborn: Lilith, Emissary (I think his 50mm markers are blocking)

Outcasts: Leve (Toshiro, Archie, Philip)

Some more:

The Judge has Final Response like Lady J.

Gaki can eat corpse markers to heal, Carrion Effigy can give a similar ability to the leader.

Mysterious Emissary's markers are not blocking (only hazardous, severe) but he do a have trigger on his attack to discard the usual markers in 4.

Freikorps Specialist (mercenary) remove corpse and scrap without AP.

Steam Trunk give a (0) to friendly models to remove corpse and scrap.

Mei Feng has a trigger to remove the usual markers.

Leveticus, Rusty Alice, Abominations, Desolation Engine, A&D prevents models from dropping corpse markers when they kill them with the Desolate Warping trigger (the Abomination summon).

Sue (mercenary) has a trigger to remove corpse and scrap markers.

 

[Clement]

From Gremlins:

McTavish (mercenary) can eat any counter as a (0) action.

Taxidermist can turn a corpse into stuffed piglet as a (0) action.  (Notably, these will *not* become counters again)

[Paddywhack]

I believe however that some people are saying the biggest problem with Reva is that you have to make your crew specifically to face her. Malifaux has generally been a game where you built your crew to succeed at your strats/schemes and you didn't have to build around your opponent's list (necessarily). Of course if you know who you will be facing or general strengths of a faction you might build to help that. Reva almost makes you build your crew to face 'Reva', not just Resurrectionists.  I think this is where some people are having trouble.

I do feel though that the best faction to face Reva is actually Resurrectionists. I would love to play Nicodem against Reva  That can go for many dedicated summoner as well, with Asami being the most recent addition. taking just one model that can summon limited (like Toshiro) may not make a huge dent in Reva's corpse count though. I know some people have tried and found it an uphill battle. Nicodem or Asami can use up several corpses in one summon, making them much more efficient. The Steam trunk giving the (0) action to others nearby could also be good, but that means they're not using one of their own, often better, (0) actions. 

Taking out corpses when possible is a good tactic in general against Reva, but if you focus too much on that you will lose valuable APs. If you can do it while also accomplishing something else that will help you gain VP (summoning a new model, healing, etc.) then great. Blocking her LOS is also good, but not easily available to all factions. 

People will lose their fear of her abilities soon and just start coping with her reach. If you face her you just have to know that you will be losing models and plan for that. 

[daniello_s]

9 hours ago, Bengt said:

Some more:

Freikorps Specialist (mercenary) remove corpse and scrap without AP.

Leveticus, Rusty Alice, Abominations, Desolation Engine, A&D prevents models from dropping corpse markers when they kill them with the Desolate Warping trigger (the Abomination summon).

Sue (mercenary) has a trigger to remove corpse and scrap markers.

 

Specialist - you need to keep him close to opponent because his gun has 10'' range only and his walk is dreadful so if you want to add to this corpse marker removal task then he is vulnerable like hell and just friendly reminder - Reva ignores Armour and cover

Levi and other Abomination summoners - you need proper suit to do this trick so except Levi and Rusty who can burn SS to turn enemy model in Abomination it is not reliable way to counter Reva and her corpse marker tricks.

Sue - needs a suit to pull of this trick so you rely heavily on your luck with cards. Small note: in my game against Reva I brought Sue to actually do this trick as much as possible but thanks to the lack of proper cards (and bad flips) he didn't achieve any single success in this area...

[benjoewoo]

Outcasts can hire many of the non-master Resser options for manipulating corpse markers, given so many of them are undead. I put in Leve because he's the master who would do it that way. 

I have to disagree that malifaux is just building the crew you want to accomplish the schemes and playing around your opponent, at least as a general maxim. Meta as a gaming scene term describes players' game piece selections to better compete in a given field of players.

Players may use the idea of building for schemes, but they're generally tooling for their opponent to best support chances of winning--by winning I mean have fun or to win in VP. Otherwise model variety would be rather pointless except for power ramp. 

You should have to consider your opponent may play an unorthodox master. Seamus fills that role in Ressers. One of the major selling points for Outcasts as a faction is each master operates very differently--excluding ratjoy. Nellie does that now in a much more major, and imo concerning, way for guild. If you choose not to tool for Reva and your opponent takes her, he/she should get a benefit for you choosing not to prepare. 

In the last few posts or so several people have listed multiple options for every faction to deal with corpse markers specifically.  That means no faction can complain there are no answers--they're choosing not to use them in the event Reva is picked. If you picked those options and your opponent picks Kirai, then you incorrectly read your opponent. 

It's part of gaming to surprise someone with a dark horse pick or game new options in picking meta. Doesn't mean Reva should be Cuddled because she requires putting in special tech for her. 

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, benjoewoo said:

In the last few posts or so several people have listed multiple options for every faction to deal with corpse markers specifically.  That means no faction can complain there are no answers--they're choosing not to use them in the event Reva is picked.

You do realize that the Gremlin side that has been listed, for example, is two models one of which is generally considered one of the worst in the Faction and is an extremely easy prey for Reva to boot, right? So that leaves one 10SS Henchman who has a (0)Action to remove one Corpse Marker very close to him. And Guild has one Master who is not the best choice for all Schemes and Strats and then Judge whose ability to "deal" with Corpse Markers is that models that he kills don't drop them. So yeah, that's not a very wide range of counters to say the least.

If the take home message is that Reva doesn't need to be weakened since you can always play Lady Justice against her then I'm not sure very many people will agree with that message.

[Clement]

15 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

You do realize that the Gremlin side that has been listed, for example, is two models one of which is generally considered one of the worst in the Faction and is an extremely easy prey for Reva to boot, right? So that leaves one 10SS Henchman who has a (0)Action to remove one Corpse Marker very close to him. And Guild has one Master who is not the best choice for all Schemes and Strats and then Judge whose ability to "deal" with Corpse Markers is that models that he kills don't drop them. So yeah, that's not a very wide range of counters to say the least.

If the take home message is that Reva doesn't need to be weakened since you can always play Lady Justice against her then I'm not sure very many people will agree with that message.

This could be a back-handed way to improving the stock of corpse removal tech?  There's a lot of it "out there" in varying degrees of good as you note, but it's "generally considered" wasted value because corpse markers just aren't threatening enough by themselves.  Not saying this is an excuse for Reva to run free as is (only ever had one game against her, it went poorly but that was my deck more then anything).

[DeleteAccount]

OK, maybe I'm being dense, but I just don't see how 3 long ranged attacks that in the most likely of scenarios are going to be damage 3 with a hitting stat of 6 (won't deny the power of choosing Df or Wp though) is generating sooooo many issues for people. Perdita has been doing this for ages and with more reliable damage spikes, yet Reva is suddenly an insane mess?. Yes, for a cost she can also stop stone use and ignore a good chunk of defenses, but still, it's 3 attacks per turn with ok stats, 4 if they go for the upgrade with the charge which also means Reva can now get her teeth kicked in. I expected people to get caught off guard at the start, but once the smoke settled, avoiding corpses the first turn should be relatively easy and from then onwards accepting a couple of hits will land per turn and do your mission. Reva's 100% reliably and flexible threat comes from her dumping her own corpse candle at the start of the activation which is pretty close to the threat you are getting from the Carrion Emissary or Lovelace with their also damage most likely 3 guns, she can push it, but now she is down to 2 attacks, outside of that, it is decently telegraphed where the ugly area is going to be. She is also surprisingly easy to kill if you just bumrush her, I remember a match where Perdita just nuked her in an activation.

I insist, I may just be missing the point, but I fail to see how such a straightforward bruiser can be considered one of the scarier masters in the wave when in my eyes she is on the bottom of the pack (Nellie and Asami I feel are a lot scarier for example and Titania can do some evil stuff too).

[daniello_s]

Well, I'm not sure if Dita can attack from across the table ignoring most of the defensive abilities and cover not to mention if she can decide whether to attack Df or Wp but I might be wrong. 

You know, Levi was a straightforward bruiser as well and see how much cuddle he needed.

[spooky_squirrel]

The things I would take in Arcanists to counter corpse markers (Mei Feng with kick upgrade, Arcane Emissary) are models I'm already bringing for other reasons, so there's no real focus on anti-Reva in that crew hiring session. If my opponent is playing Ressers and I've declared Arcanists, there's a bit of bluff-counterbluff on what's going to be on the table for both of us (that depends heavily on what the local Meta has been churning out), but my top master grabs in general are Mei Feng and Ironsides. In either case there's going to be some 40mm+ bases on the table, and in either case the Emissary helps dial up what the masters are selected for. If my resser opponent does not drop Reva, I'm not hurting because the options I have for countering corpse markers do it as a side effect of doing their real job: the Arcane Emissary does it as an optional side effect of charging, and if its charging in it's doing the job I hired it for.

I'm not sure why the Mechanical Rider is listed as a counter, as she doesn't actually do anything to corpse markers (except maybe camp on them, but if she's camping she's not doing what I hired her for). Summoning gamin/spiders to keep Reva engage is an interesting idea, but takes some set up and puts the Rider somewhere where her life expectancy drops.

 

Other factions (and even other Arcanist players) will have a different take on this, because if they feel that the only way to deal with one specific master is to bring a specific master, crew build, or model that they don't normally use it will drastically affect their game play. It's different than not bringing a specific master/build because of a single master (i.e. Guild player not playing Perdita into clustering strat/scheme pools because they're concerned about Mei Feng) because other options exist that can play well into crew builds from that master's faction portfolio. You're going from skipping a single master in order to drop one of several others to skipping all others in favor of one master; just in case your opponent drops a specific master/crew. It looks to me like many in the overpowered camp feel like this. Whether or not it is true will shake out over time.

 

Related to time: there's still the whole "shiny new" thing going on. She hasn't been out very long and people are still feeling their way around with her. There's a chance that people using her are accidentally doing something wrong, and that's making her more effective than intended (I did this with Ironsides when I was first learning to use her). There's a chance that there's some interactions that are coming up that weren't tested as thoroughly as others. There's also the strong chance that people are facing her who haven't (as was recommended on page 6 of this thread) had the opportunity to try and play as Reva to learn where the fragile points are. I put emphasis on this because when you understand the strengths and weaknesses well enough, your range of options to counter her opens wide.

If you can't or don't want to play as Reva, after you play against Reva do an after action review of the match. Some of the usual boilerplate questions are along the lines of "what can I do better?"; ask it in a different way: "what were you most concerned about with the crew I fielded?" If your opponent shares with you how they felt the game went and where they felt the most threatened, you learn the strengths and weaknesses as your opponent perceives them.

However you learn it, @Kadeton mentioned several things right away: she needs line of sight, to not be engaged, to not have Ca being neutered by counterspell (and other counters that work well against a wide range of masters and crews), and to have reliable sources of corpse tokens near where she wants to work. The focus on this page of the thread appears to be on tackling the reliable sources of corpse tokens via token removal. That's not the only lynch pin that can be pulled to undermine her power and influence, and there are many ways to monkey with the other three mentioned.

 

This being the Resser's subforum, as people play with Reva there might be posts to the community about crux moments in various strats/schemes and how to work around certain obstacles that are unique to Reva within those strats and schemes. Until those show up, talk to your local Reva players and local meta in general. You'll probably find that the more competitive players in your meta that aren't playing Reva have already cooked up some counters of their own. If they won't share with you during a casual conversation because you play Reva... play Reva into them and see how they counter her. If you don't play Reva, watch a game where they are playing into Reva (regional tournaments that draw in players from outside your meta are a great way to learn about variations of crews).

[entropolous]

1 minute ago, daniello_s said:

Well, I'm not sure if Dita can attack from across the table ignoring most of the defensive abilities and cover not to mention if she can decide whether to attack Df or Wp but I might be wrong. 

Might want to take a look at the trick shooting upgrade.

[thebarbalag]

2 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

Well, I'm not sure if Dita can attack from across the table ignoring most of the defensive abilities and cover not to mention if she can decide whether to attack Df or Wp but I might be wrong. 

You know, Levi was a straightforward bruiser as well and see how much cuddle he needed.

Dita has a 12 or 14" range, which, while not inconsiderable, isn't the same as Reva's, though Reva needs set up, Dita does not. Both get limited when engaged as to targeting, but Dita gets more deadly when engaged, Reva does not. Reva is Ca 6, Dita is Sh 7. Both have options for amping up damage, Reva's requires corpses, Dita's, Rams. Reva can choose defense stat, Dita can't. Reva's naturally ignores Incorporeal, Dita needs an upgrade to do so. Dita can get around cover and Armor, I believe, as well, while Reva can get around any type of prevention.

Levi actually didn't get a huge cuddle, though that might be what you're saying, not sure. The change to Channel was a hit, but a relatively small one. He's still far more difficult to remove than Reva, and naturally ignores things that Reva needs an Upgrade to get around, though his overall damage scale is smaller than Reva's, he also ignores things like Hard to Wound, and Hard to Kill, which Reva does not.

[daniello_s]

19 minutes ago, entropolous said:

Might want to take a look at the trick shooting upgrade.

I know this upgrade - you have to choose that either you get  to ignore cover OR you can ignore armor/incorporeal. Guess what? Reva has all of those with her every attack

[DeleteAccount]

8 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

Well, I'm not sure if Dita can attack from across the table ignoring most of the defensive abilities and cover not to mention if she can decide whether to attack Df or Wp but I might be wrong. 

You know, Levi was a straightforward bruiser as well and see how much cuddle he needed.

Well, Dita is already reaching 14" natively with a base speed of 7, has a freebie 8" push discarding a card before that even happens and with an upgrade can ignore either cover or Armor/Incorporeal which is preeeeetty close to what you can ignore with Litany of the Fallen, though of course this later is better, so I'd say they are decently comparable with the difference that Dita has companion, one of the strongest rules in the game and has much bigger damage spikes thanks to her triggers (also her armor ignoring is not based on a trigger, so she can stack it and add crit strike or + to damage as needed) and without accounting for how scary Perdita gets once she actually gets engaged. So hey, maybe Perdita also needs a cuddle! Because I certainly am not laughing when she nukes me from miles away, but well, that is her whole gimmick. I mean, it's not like Leveticus was so tremendously overbearing because he had absolute mobility through the waifs, incredible ease to get some numbers into the crew, the ability to consistently summon on each kill, the biggest hiring pool in the whole game going for him as well as being almost unkillable, but we all know it was just the Channel ability with his spell, that was disgusting about him, I mean, a master called "Leveticus's old gun!" would probably be a top tier master right? But what do I know?

Thing is, Reva will probably be killing a model per turn (same thing Leveticus was achieving for me, now he'll just actually use other actions instead of spamming the gun, because he still has multiple playstyles in him), McMourning can do the same thing and get me a Flesh Construct in the deal. She is great if the enemy crew is based on armor to keep themselves alive, but so is McMourning too anyway. Her absurd range is her strength and even then, that range needs help from her crew to be set up to actually be a menace, remove that and she probably stops being scary at all.

[daniello_s]

17 minutes ago, thebarbalag said:

Levi actually didn't get a huge cuddle, though that might be what you're saying, not sure. The change to Channel was a hit, but a relatively small one. He's still far more difficult to remove than Reva, and naturally ignores things that Reva needs an Upgrade to get around, though his overall damage scale is smaller than Reva's, he also ignores things like Hard to Wound, and Hard to Kill, which Reva does not.

What are you talking about? Try to attack model in cover (especially in hard cover) and you'll see how much Levi was cuddled with those changes. Most of the time you'll pull 4-6 damage (focus+shot two times). Reva has a chance of doing 9 damage in the same situation.

I'm playing Levi all the time so when I hear someone stating that this cuddle was minor things I'm starting to laugh as this person apparently has no idea what he/she is talking about.

[DeleteAccount]

3 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

I know this upgrade - you have to choose that either you get  to ignore cover OR you can ignore armor/incorporeal. Guess what? Reva has all of those with her every attack

Now ask yourself how many times you actually need both at the same time. Also, it's not a + to ignore cover, it's full on ignore cover, meaning, there is never a penalty. Reva excels against targets that need armor to stay alive, and becomes pretty tame against models which are wound sponges, Perdita, is very good against armor and very good against wound sponges. I calls it a wash.

[thebarbalag]

11 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

What are you talking about? Try to attack model in cover (especially in hard cover) and you'll see how much Levi was cuddled with those changes. Most of the time you'll pull 4-6 damage (focus+shot two times). Reva has a chance of doing 9 damage in the same situation.

I'm playing Levi all the time so when I hear someone stating that this cuddle was minor things I'm starting to laugh as this person apparently has no idea what he/she is talking about.

Reva has to either 1) be in danger or retribution, or 2) have a corpse in range, which requires effort. The Levi cuddle certainly impacted him, by making Levi players choose targets with a little more thought than they had previously. Similarly, Perdita would have to choose between ignoring the cover, or ignoring the Armor/Incorporeal. And Levi doesn't have to pay for the ability to ignore defenses, and ignores more than Reva. Reva also has to pay for her totems via cards, Upgrades, while Levi gets two free models just 'cause. All are powerful. Marcus has a chance at doing 16 damage to a model in cover (unconcerned with cover as any Melee-focused Master). He can also force his target onto negative flips for every attempt to defend. I don't hear people crying for cuddles on him.

My statement about Levi was not that he wasn't reduced in effectiveness, just that the impact is relatively small, and was needed. There's no need to be condescending. "I play Levi a lot." is actually not a refutation of my argument, neither is "he sometimes has to think about cover."

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, Razhem said:

Well, Dita is already reaching 14" natively with a base speed of 7

I'm very likely missing something blindingly obvious but I thought that Perdita had Wk 5?

[entropolous]

I'm guessing that should be a base Sh of 7 (compared to Reva's base Ca of 6)

[DeleteAccount]

22 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'm very likely missing something blindingly obvious but I thought that Perdita had Wk 5?

Got me there, brainfarted to M1 Perdita who I think did actually have Wk 7, but I do believe the freebie push more than makes up for it. Thanks for correcting me though.

[benjoewoo]

Perdita 8" push plus base plus 14" range  = 23.1811". Perdita is actually moving some of that distance, but that's her threat range on activation provided any of her crew has moved generally toward the enemy models. Perditas track is comparable to Revas, being the same on moderate and severe but minus one on weak. Reva can ignore SS prevention and all reduction on trigger at the cost of a corpse, relatively limited resource in some matches but plentiful in others. Perdita ignores the most common problems ranged attack models face. Reva requires some form of set up or can set herself up at the cost of a card, an upgrade, and 1 AP--if you don't run blood mark revas self set up reaches 12.1811" vs 17.1811". Perdita for  a card alone achieves her 23.1811" provided a friendly model has moved up previously, otherwise she has just 14". Reva has Df/Wp 7, often both at 9 with positive to damage flips via Francisco and papa loco. Reva has Wp 7 but can heal when non-peons die within 8 of her or on a ram trigger for her attack. Perdita has 10 wounds I think? Reva has 13. 

The list goes on, but the idea is with set up Perdita is not strictly inferior for using a ranged attack Sh action vs Revas Ca melee. The same comparison applies to Raspy and to an extent other far reaching masters like Sonnia. 

The previous posts provided some options for anti corpse tech specifically. Following that there was a post or so saying that for gremlins specifically the models are terrible--I think the comment on Leve was addressing just the summoning but acknowledging the ability to simply hire many counters from revas own faction. 

It would be intellectually dishonest for pro status quo Reva players to say all the corpse counters are good-they are not all equal. But, it's significantly worse for anti status quo Reva players to say that because they're not equal, there's no credence to the argument anti corpse marker tech is available, which supports the conclusion that Reva needs a cuddle--we're talking about tech that is used almost entirely to counter one faction. Reva is part of said faction as well.

The anti corpse marker tech supplements the strength of your crew to fight Reva. It supplements your tricks to gimp her as well. 

A question I have, if 2-5 attacks from Reva herself between her various potential upgrades is giving you trouble, how do you deal with Sandeep? He allows friendly models to use his attacks and trigger him to attack out of activation. He can easily generate 6 AP of attacks outside of his own activation--5 SS, 7 Wd, essentially armored oxfordian mages can cast Sandeep's spells once each, and on a tome trigger--which I think they can get from being near each other--sandeep gets to cast one of his spells out of activation. This is in addition to being able to summon his totem twice a turn without slow. 

Nellie cheats your damage REGARDLESS OF RJ against her vulnerable models, herself, the press, and Phiona. She punishes you for taking interact actions in a massive area, and operates a control crew remniscient of Magic the Gathering control decks--gives you only pain options or straight denies you after you used resources to accomplish something. It's not even expensive with field reporters costing 4, the press costing 4, and Nellie with upgrades costing 5. After she fills in 17 SS of upgrades and models (2x field reporters plus press), she just needs beaters to support the control models, who can't be charged, have manipulative, and can cheat your damage or let you flip with fake impossible to wound. The above tech happens for a condition based ability she gets essentially for free, and can be used for negative effects for opponents. Even if not used, at the end of each Turn Nellie can essentially go shopping, including to get SS. 

But, Reva does theoretically more damage as a single model at greater range than those guys above, and needs to be toned down. Reva is probably middle of the pack for the new masters, but voices here are some of the most vocal for toning her back.

That leads me to think the issue is really a lack of comprehensive tactics to play against Reva rather than strict inability to. She has weaknesses, just need to identify them. Need to wait on thinking about toning Reva back because I think some of the other masters will be larger concerns, possibly in competitive play and almost certainly in casual play once casual level players are able to execute the tricks.