Dealing with Reva as NB

[Manic Mouse]

5 minutes ago, Wifstrand said:

I don't really think of "not being hit" as the same as resilience. If you manage to get a beater up to her, she can crumble. I had it happen once when Myranda managed to walk up late in the turn, shape change to a Blessed of December, then get initiative next turn. That's a lot of damage on Reva. To be fair it was one of my very first games with Reva...

IMO being effective while not being able to be hit is the best form of resilience.

[Wifstrand]

Semantics :-) Anyway, this isn't helping @sinistercats or anyone else face Reva.

As a Reva player, I will keep mulling it over. The thing is, she's still so new, so I don't think her true weak points have been discovered yet. Yes, anything that removes corpses is going to be great. But corpse removal models are few and far between. Besides, she should get one Corpse Candle and one Mindless Zombie per turn (Carrion Emissary), so even if you remove a ton of corpses, she can still somewhat recover from that.

 

A good bet right now is to put her on negative attack flips somehow or failing that get a ton of positive defense flips. Don't bother with the minimum damage, as she can make her damage unreduceable and unpreventable with the right upgrades, and with her built-in Crow trigger she can remove a corpse marker within 3" of the target to deal +1 damage (though it's either this or unreduceable - not both). So don't try to reduce the damage she does, that approach isn't super effective. Make sure you're not hit in the first place. Super general advice that works against any beater, but it bears mentioning.

[Manic Mouse]

15 hours ago, Wifstrand said:

Semantics :-) Anyway, this isn't helping @sinistercats or anyone else face Reva.

As a Reva player, I will keep mulling it over. The thing is, she's still so new, so I don't think her true weak points have been discovered yet. Yes, anything that removes corpses is going to be great. But corpse removal models are few and far between. Besides, she should get one Corpse Candle and one Mindless Zombie per turn (Carrion Emissary), so even if you remove a ton of corpses, she can still somewhat recover from that.

 

A good bet right now is to put her on negative attack flips somehow or failing that get a ton of positive defense flips. Don't bother with the minimum damage, as she can make her damage unreduceable and unpreventable with the right upgrades, and with her built-in Crow trigger she can remove a corpse marker within 3" of the target to deal +1 damage (though it's either this or unreduceable - not both). So don't try to reduce the damage she does, that approach isn't super effective. Make sure you're not hit in the first place. Super general advice that works against any beater, but it bears mentioning.

I don't think there is that much that can help @sinistercats face Reva.  She doesn't really have a counter - like you said even if you can remove corpse counters with one of the few models in the game that can, she can generate 2 per turn without killing any models, and will get more if she kills things or you kill her things.  Like you say, she has high min damage, and can bypass pretty much every defence in the game.  Your advice of "avoid being hit" simply means you need to avoid all her corpse markers and not kill any of her models which means you have large portions of the board you can't enter and you can't kill things, which is game losing anyway.  That advice works against beaters that can't hit you from basically anywhere on the board, since Reva can you can't really avoid her without significantly crippling your positioning and scheme running, and leaving her models alive to run her schemes and attack you.

My main personal issue with Reva is that there really isn't any way around her.  You can't get away from her since she can attack from pretty much anywhere, you can't engage her because you have to get through her entire crew and terrain to get to her, you can't reduce or avoid the 3 min damage she deals since she can get around most defensive abilities in the game, you can't remove corpse markers faster than she can generate them even if you bring some of the few models that have that ability.

Even Reva players can't really tell people how to beat her, aside from the generic "well I guess she's squishy" argument - which is rendered moot when she's smacking you 21" away and it's more effort than it's worth to get to her (and she can simply place away anyway).

Not that I think she's unbeatable, but she is probably one of (if not the) strongest masters in the game right now for damage and board control, but with basically nothing you can do to stop it unlike other masters who may be good at those things.  Other masters that deal decent damage normally have to place themselves in at least some kind of danger to do so, Reva doesn't.  Other masters that are good at wide board control normally aren't good beaters, Reva is (arguably) one of the most consistent damage dealing masters in the game.

[Paddywhack]

Make sure you have some Ht 3 terrain on the board as well. That will help stop her from having a clear LOS across the table. It's not much, but something to keep in mind if you normally only play with HT2 terrain. 

[Wifstrand]

9 hours ago, Manic Mouse said:

Not that I think she's unbeatable, but she is probably one of (if not the) strongest masters in the game right now for damage and board control, but with basically nothing you can do to stop it unlike other masters who may be good at those things.  Other masters that deal decent damage normally have to place themselves in at least some kind of danger to do so, Reva doesn't.  Other masters that are good at wide board control normally aren't good beaters, Reva is (arguably) one of the most consistent damage dealing masters in the game.

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She hasn't been out long enough for us to be able to say anything accurate about her, I feel. Once she hits retail and everyone gets to play her, we can really start breaking her down and figure out how to beat her. I'm reluctant to conclude much of anything right now. But maybe that's just because I love her, I love her box, and I love her playstyle. Not her power level, just her playstyle.

 

3 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Make sure you have some Ht 3 terrain on the board as well. That will help stop her from having a clear LOS across the table. It's not much, but something to keep in mind if you normally only play with HT2 terrain. 

 

 

 

While this is true, everyone should remember this at all times. Great rule of thumb, people!

 

[TheTrans]

4 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Make sure you have some Ht 3 terrain on the board as well. That will help stop her from having a clear LOS across the table. It's not much, but something to keep in mind if you normally only play with HT2 terrain. 

I must say I may of been 'that' guy last weekend and deployed Reva on the roof of a house. It was mainly to protect her from one of those super fun, super skilled, Vik sling shots, but it also had the added benefit she could even see over the carrion emissary's markers Muhahaha...

[Manic Mouse]

16 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Make sure you have some Ht 3 terrain on the board as well. That will help stop her from having a clear LOS across the table. It's not much, but something to keep in mind if you normally only play with HT2 terrain. 

With Reva's ability to attack around corners this isn't as much help as one might initially think, in my experience.  She will still be able to hit you behind Ht3 terrain, without direct LoS to you, if she wants to.  I've had her kill models that were behind Ht 3 terrain, out of her direct LoS - since she can draw LoS 3" from the markers/corpse candles/mindless zombies at the corner of the terrain.  Realistically this means she can attack up to 3.5-4" behind any Ht 3 terrain without direct LoS.

And of course you can just climb her on top of some terrain and be laughing as the poster above did and see everywhere.  Even being on top of Ht 1 terrain will make her Ht 4 and allow her complete map control.

[Paddywhack]

8 hours ago, Manic Mouse said:

And of course you can just climb her on top of some terrain and be laughing as the poster above did and see everywhere.  Even being on top of Ht 1 terrain will make her Ht 4 and allow her complete map control.

Just to point out, you don't add the height of what you are standing on to your HT. If you can get on something that is a Vantage Point though, it would help. 

[Manic Mouse]

16 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Just to point out, you don't add the height of what you are standing on to your HT. If you can get on something that is a Vantage Point though, it would help. 

My bad, we always assumed it worked that way in our group!

[Paddywhack]

I think it used to in an older edition. Not 100% sure why it was changed. Vantage points don't really help make things better. 

[Ludvig]

Height rules are wonky but getting up on a 2" high vantage point would make her ht 5. Remember that woods are ht 5 by default if I am not mistaken so she will not be ignoring those.

I still haven't faced Reva so you'll have to take the following advice with a grain of salt:

On a board with little terrain to hide her behind you could try hiring a couple of freikorp trappers to get at her from turn 1.

I'm also thinking that Collodi would be an interesting pick. Create a crew that doesn't drop corpses and bring a few hard to kill models in the form of marionettes and stitched together.

[Paddywhack]

10 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Height rules are wonky but getting up on a 2" high vantage point would make her ht 5. Remember that woods are ht 5 by default if I am not mistaken so she will not be ignoring those.

Just another quick note, you do NOT add your HT to the terrain HT when determining LOS. You follow the rules for a Vantage point if the terrain is declared as such and those rules dictate what the model can and cannot see. 

[Ludvig]

51 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Just another quick note, you do NOT add your HT to the terrain HT when determining LOS. You follow the rules for a Vantage point if the terrain is declared as such and those rules dictate what the model can and cannot see. 

Haha, I had forgotten they were that wonky. My sincere apologies, just play on flat boards  

[TheTrans]

Wow the height and terrain rules are that bad?! I love how there is this universal common sense used by most people..but the rules say nope..

[Mutter]

I find cover almost as bad. Really, really difficult to wrap your head around them when coming from another wargame.

But those two are absically my only gripes with the rules, so overall, it's still pretty awesome.

[Paddywhack]

I think they 'used' to do the adding HT thing, but I'm not sure why they changed. There must have been other weird interactions that occurred. 

I've never had a problem with the Cover rules myself - those seem pretty straightforward.

Back on topic:

Reva can be squishy, but only if you can manage to get to her and do a lot of damage in one activation (or after she has activated). If you can get to her after she has activated and do some damage and then win Initiative and immediately hit her again, she will fold. But if she gets to activate she has a number of ways to get away (0 action place or trigger to charge something else). Then she can pretty reliably (for SS anyway) heal with a trigger on her attacks (plus possible Regen). 

Playing with her, what I've found to be difficult is I don't have a lot of ways to heal her Crew. Chiaki is OK, but only heals 2 and isn't always the best option for the crew. Unless I bring other ways to summon (Toshiro being my favorite) I find I can get myself outnumbered quickly. While Reva is nasty, if she doesn't have a crew it can be hard to accomplish Schemes and Strats.

Oh, if they bring Yin, make that a priority target and remember to Focus every time on her. It's better to get 1 regular hit against her than 2 at  on attack and damage. She really doesn't have that many Wds and can fold quick if you do this.