After errata Levi

[Tris]

Don`t worry, we all have that "blindness" once in a while ^^

->I had it with Mad Dogs anti-cover marker, was really hyped about trying him with Levi until I read it again to find out that it only works for Sh attacks, not all attacks...

[Seadhna]

She still can serve as a mobile undying anchor, except you'll have to pull her out of the void with another model, like a scheme runner (i still love me some void wretches who can also heal her while she's under)

[Kaos]

Is still possible playing Leveticus with his core crew (abominations, engine, ash and dust, etc) or you really need to put other stuff (and making him play like other masters) to get something good out of him?

[Freman]

By my reckoning you can fit Leve, Ashes, Deso, Alyce, and an Abomination into a 50 stone list. With Leve's free waifs that's still seven activations which isn't too bad. It might not be good for every scheme and strat, but I can see it being fun.

[Jafar]

10 minutes ago, Kaos said:

Is still possible playing Leveticus with his core crew (abominations, engine, ash and dust, etc) or you really need to put other stuff (and making him play like other masters) to get something good out of him?

Short version:

Outcast Levi is still OK
Pure theme Levi may be weak

Long version:

If you add to Levi, A&D, Rusty some outcast models, it can be very good list. Examples:
Trapper to shoot, winged plague / big jake as scheme runner, Sue as ranged support with nice tools etc.
But if you want to play only in theme (A&D, Deso-engine etc.) it's not good idea. you will lack many things, and now Levi alone is not enough to do killing as before.

I tend to use him with pariah upgrade because I can play some tricks that are not standard for Outcasts, for example belles and lure

[Kaos]

Let's say I can compromise about necropunks since they are in character. 

Lazarus no good with him? Didn't see any mention of him lately.

[Mason]

2 hours ago, Kaos said:

Let's say I can compromise about necropunks since they are in character. 

Lazarus no good with him? Didn't see any mention of him lately.

Lazarus is great with Rusty Alyce.

Use Abominations for activation control, then near the bottom of the turn, use Burn Out to give Lazarus Reactivate. With two applications of Self-Repair, Lazarus can heal back up pretty quickly, and he puts out a withering amount of firepower.

[daniello_s]

When you get Lazarus and Alyce then you invest 20SS in heavy shooting support which depends on the table setup heavily (shooting lanes, soft/hard cover) and absolutely begs for something to support them by either taking put enemy models from cover or negate this cover. In short, if you want to use them to the full extent then you need one if those three options:

1. Watcher

2. Belles and maybe single Doxy

3. Mad Dog

Personally I would go for option 2 as it is most reliable.

 

As for 'in-theme' Levi's crew, A&D is always good, Abominations are to slow to do something reliably and I would hire one only if I had Lazarus in crew and if had spare 4SS, Desolation Engine is very expensive and I would prefer to take A&D instead.

So generally in-theme Levi's crew is not that good as it seems to be but it us not also extremely weak. 

[Nukemouse]

I've often found Deso and Alyce work very well, making a wonderful addition to Levi and enabling him to put out quite a scare with his abominations.

To a certain extent though every master in the game is "worse" by taking their thematic crew, they all have a "more optimal" list you could somehow make. The game's well balanced more or less but of course some models and combos are just better and they wont fit every theme. I wouldn't worry too much about it being perfect, you can still run a functional thematic list and its fun to vary and explore beyond the core theme anyway, most masters run some of their thematic crew plus some other stuff in a combination!

[daniello_s]

38 minutes ago, Nukemouse said:

To a certain extent though every master in the game is "worse" by taking their thematic crew, they all have a "more optimal" list you could somehow make. The game's well balanced more or less but of course some models and combos are just better and they wont fit every theme. I wouldn't worry too much about it being perfect, you can still run a functional thematic list and its fun to vary and explore beyond the core theme anyway, most masters run some of their thematic crew plus some other stuff in a combination!

Well, there are certain masters who run very well with their 'box' crew or with other thematic models i.e. Seamus, Ophelia or Von Schill. Levi's box is still not bad as you can try to summon those Abominations during the game by killing enemy models and Rusty is excellent model on her own. Adding A&D gives you much needed (although expensive) scheme runner but I'm still failing to find a place for Desolation Engine especially that for his cost you can take two other great models from Outcasts like Johan and Trapper/Librarian/Ronin/Convict Gunslinger.

[Seadhna]

Played the rider crew today, and holy macaroni is it a tough crew to play.

 

The riders are extremely fragile Turn 1 and die to mass attacks that target Df.

Then my opponent reveals Rasputina and I weep tears of entropy (because I can'n kill her with Levi due to Counterspell and all of her crazy Ca 7 attacks target Df)

 

Didn't get to use Hooded because he died to a Turn 1 Langston alpha strike (Levi then vaporized Langston for 3 Quick Murder VP).

Pale got stuck in melee with Snow Storm for 3 turns (basically doing nothing) and then finally succumbed to a concentrated effort Turn 3 for an unfortunate Quick Murder from my opponent.

Mechanical got the Vitality potion and completely dominated a  single flank with summoned Arachnids

Dead bossed around the other flank, disrupted enemy positioning and killed at least 2 smaller models (the (0) attack is just boss, as well as the Reap trigger)

 

Still, managed to pull a narrow victory by getting lots of strategy points (without Langston my opponent had very few killy models, most of which were engaged with the riders) and scoring several VP off Convict Labor (final score was something like 7-5 at end of Turn 4 when we had to wrap it up)

 

What I learned from this game:

a) Rasputina is a poor matchup for a rider crew (and for Levi himself, those Unmaking shots need an actual Tome to get through the TN)

b ) don't push Pale into melee with  Snowstorm. Actually, keep Pale as far away from Snowstorm as possible, that Bulletproof +3 ruins his day.

c) don't waste a Red Joker on an abomination summon, it will help you in a different place

d) Mechanical is the best of the four riders

 

most importantly:

now that [+]'s galore aren't available, Levi is extremely hand-dependent

plus, playing a Rider crew, you gotta save those suited 6's to cast your rider (0) actions on Turn 2

so there's like some anti-synergy within the list, because they all need the right cards to function at their best

 

note to self: gotta learn to use Levi's other (0), apart from the Waif summon (the 3rd Waif is actually not that crucial in a given turn if you can keep them in cover)

[Kaos]

Gave Levi crew a spin today. His offensive capabilities are very low. Still thinking the cuddle wasn't exactly good. Abominations best stuff are the various auras. Put them in a crow and they are so much annoying. I think their best bet is to move, use activations to hurt each other so you draw and then just pass to use the aura and hopefully put some hurt on people.

Desolation engine should use his auras as well, swing, trigger the aura again, getting reactivate, swing, heal, use the aura, trigger again and then if you're lucky enough, win the initiative, swing, heal, use aura, trigger aura, die horribly and reform if you have enough abominations.

The only issue I saw is all the difficult flips required for the summoning to happen. And the crew attack power, with the exception of desolation (that anyway can have a bit of problems with high def models) is quite low. The good thing is all the auras and stuff going on make the opponent burn cards very quickly so your good stuff can activate last and try to maximize damage. 

They should really have given Levi a better summoning mechanism, from ashes is too difficult to pull and Alyce have too many things to do to and can't effectively use from aether as much as she wants (and she probably need to cheat cards to make it happens). If you manage to keep the desolation engine relatively fine, you can hurt him with abominations to draw cards, as long as he can activate auras he doesn't care much about damage since he can heal back. 

Somehow I see all the evil circus working and have good synergies but the needed flips are too punishing.

If the summoning spells where a bit better, you can keep chucking out abominations and reforming the desolation engine. As long as Alyce is alive and Levi can finish off stuff,  he got game.

[Starrius]

maybe sticking to pariah of Iron with watchers is the key as removing the cover can ensure the 2 focus shots are doing what we need

[Kaos]

you get only one focus shot. How do you get 2?

[daniello_s]

1 minute ago, Kaos said:

you get only one focus shot. How do you get 2?

Focus +1 for Channel, then shot 1. Focus +1 as 1AP action, then shot 2. 

[Durza]

Use one of his ap to focus?

Dammit, Ninja'd...

[Kaos]

ok so you cannot move if you do that, meaning if your target isn't in sight or range everything changes. Unless your use the 0 ability to teleport.

[Joel]

6 minutes ago, Kaos said:

ok so you cannot move if you do that, meaning if your target isn't in sight or range everything changes. Unless your use the 0 ability to teleport.

but there are options you can hire that allow for re-positioning of Levi  - many things can push him about for example, to get him in those ranges, or to get to a position where the cover is ignored anyway.

[Freman]

Dead Doxies.

Pariah of Bone Leveticus will probably see more use now.

[Starrius]

Bear in mind I am still a new player

 

I've been using levi moving around with ashes and dust and using ashes and dust as my teleportation target since both undead and constructs.

My idea now is to use watchers for their expose ability so levi will not have to worry about cover. Another model I am going to try is arcane effigy

The idea behind this is the initial hit is to try and get to the earth returns to kick in which will also apply burning 1 unless they eat to get rid of their card

Now the second and third shot are to do some damage now we are ignoring cover and I'm happy with weak of 2 with burning 1.

 

This has the potential to remove 2 cards from hand or do a fair but of damage.

 

I aim to test this in my next game but that's my current thought process as a new player.

 

Is there a flaw to my logic I'm not seeing?

[Joel]

only that the watcher setup is pretty easily countered and not always efficient to create.  As you say, testing will show if it works for you or not.

[Starrius]

Just thinking 14" range sh 6 vs df to give the exposed condition could put them behind some of my other models to keep them safe

[Kaos]

pushing doxies or belles looks more efficient than watchers. They are anchors, move other pieces around and not easy to remove. Moving pieces probably means also to put them in charge range so you can wreck face with stuff like desolation engine.

[Joel]

32 minutes ago, Kaos said:

pushing doxies or belles looks more efficient than watchers. They are anchors, move other pieces around and not easy to remove. Moving pieces probably means also to put them in charge range so you can wreck face with stuff like desolation engine.

only the doxies are anchors, and they are excellent models in any crew.

[daniello_s]

51 minutes ago, Joel said:

only that the watcher setup is pretty easily countered and not always efficient to create.  As you say, testing will show if it works for you or not.

That's the fact but Lazarus + Watcher is filthy combo. Lazarus uses (0)AP Assimilate to tag enemy model with Watcher's attack and then fire at the target which can't benefit from cover this turn.