Arcanists versus WP attacks and horror tests?

[Jafar]

Hello All,

I had great game with my friend. I, as outcast player, experimented with heavy Levi Horror crew and WP attacks.
Because he used Colette with Coryphete, he had hard time with all WP duels and stuff.
After match we had quick chat about Arcanists options against Ressers and Neverborn (or Horror tests and WP attacks in general).

We think that Rasputina is answer for some cases also Mei Feng may help, but we both agreed that Mei can be better in 10T.

What are your choices when against masters like Pandora, Horror Seamus, Titania, Jack Daw?
What models (excluded frozen heart Rasputina and Kang aura) may ignore horror duels?

 

 

[Adran]

Well as you say, there is a whole subfaction that is immune to horror duels, which means the faction as a whole probably has the most ignore horror options out there (It also means that if you are trying to build a horror list, you are not likely to want to play it if your opponent says Arcanist).

Marcus can improve the WP of beasts, Oxfordian mages can gain bonus' to their Wp flips, the arcane effigy is a good condition remover, (handy if you've used Colette to prompt them and they failed the Horror duel, you can then clear Paralysed and they activate as normal. )

The faction also has a large mix of living and construct, so is not as vulnerable to Horror unless its Horror (all). 

 

 

[Trixter]

1 hour ago, Jafar said:

What are your choices when against masters like Pandora, Horror Seamus, Titania, Jack Daw?

I played about 5 months with Ramos crew only and suffered really much from Ca_vs_Wp. Until I realized that it is enough to hire Sue =)

[angyi]

If you want to ignore horror duels, it's frozen heart or Kang. If you want to up your chances, it's Arcane Reservoir, Wp6+ and Wp buffs like The Hunger Cry. On the other hand, horror duels and Wp duels are just partially the same. Rasputina and her cult aren't too resilient versus Wp-based attacks in general.

[spooky_squirrel]

If your opponent is already leaning in the direction of showgirls, Oiran are mercenary showgirls from the 10T faction that have an Appealing aura that can help. The aura only affects living models, so would not help the Coryphee.

Outside of that, if I'm expecting horror duels being central to a match up, I have to convince myself not to bring Mei Feng (Immune to Slow and Paralysis) and Kang (horror? You're funny). I don't have Rasputina herself, but I have a number of Frozen Heart models that I've enjoyed using, such as Ice Dancers and Luther (Blessed of December, makes for a good Prompt target and is an Enforcer). The immunity to Horror duels is priceless when dealing with things that are trying to cause it.

[admiralvorkraft]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Coryphee Duet has Wp 6 and positive twists to Wp duels right? That's not too shabby...

[spooky_squirrel]

48 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Coryphee Duet has Wp 6 and positive twists to Wp duels right? That's not too shabby...

It does, but the Wp 4 Coryphee have to live long enough to merge and be near enough to each other to do it. Paralyzed ones and any lured out of position will have a problem doing this. Horror Levi with his undead friends can bring Rotten Belles, which results in Ca 8 lures flying in your direction. This is a completely different problem than simply passing a Horror duel against a 12 or so. Even the flipping you a RJ cannot help you if they're sitting on a 10+ on the flip against the individual Coryphee.

Reducing the impact of the lures becomes very important. Avoiding LOS with vulnerable models and getting something appropriately brutal into combat with them as fast as possible are the two top recommended approaches.

[spooky_squirrel]

That being said, you end up having to choose between dealing with the Waifs or the Rotten Belles, the former to slow down Levi himself, the latter to stop his crew from screwing with your plans.

For someone playing into this, it's a little harder to tuck in and play for your 10 points. Things get pulled out of position and nuked, and you'll find yourself needing to figure out which schemes you can score from even with things being pulled around and killed. There's a couple of ways to get Counterspell into your crew(s) as an Arcanist (Ramos has an upgrade that grants it, Ironsides or Henchmen can use Warding Runes), and that will slow down some of the shenanigans.

This is where I find myself leaning towards Mei Feng. She brings in Kang, who makes your crew surprisingly uncaring about "Bad Things Happen" encounters. Her Henchmen can bring Warding Runes, and she herself can chill out in the middle of the pack venting steam--putting your opponent on or worse to shooting and cast actions against anyone near her, including her (you decide how many AP you want to spend). When it's time to murder one or more support pieces, she can dart out and put a hurt on them, possibly leaving them burning and/or venting steam as a trigger on attacking, and dart back into the middle of her crew.

[admiralvorkraft]

44 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

It does, but the Wp 4 Coryphee have to live long enough to merge and be near enough to each other to do it. Paralyzed ones and any lured out of position will have a problem doing this. Horror Levi with his undead friends can bring Rotten Belles, which results in Ca 8 lures flying in your direction. This is a completely different problem than simply passing a Horror duel against a 12 or so. Even the flipping you a RJ cannot help you if they're sitting on a 10+ on the flip against the individual Coryphee.

Reducing the impact of the lures becomes very important. Avoiding LOS with vulnerable models and getting something appropriately brutal into combat with them as fast as possible are the two top recommended approaches.

Sure, but if you see what your opponent is bringing (lures, etc) it should be pretty easy to Dance Together in your first couple of activations...

[hydranixx]

Wp vs Arcanists, yeah it can pretty rough. Much of our resilience comes from abilities rather that raw stats; our Wp stats are usually only in the 4 - 6. Heavy WP targeting doesn't care about our Armour or Df triggers or even cover for that matter, and Arcanists don't have many Ruthless models as far as I'm aware.

One of the most helpful concepts to respect is that of threat saturation. Sure, your opponent can paralyse or debilitate or even kill one of your dudes, but if you have lots of cheaper models you can still persist in your game plan. WP based attacks tend to focus on one model at a time (Pandora is perhaps an exception to this rule of thumb) so if you suspect you'll face lots of WP attacks, consider bringing a bigger crew.

I play 2-3 Raptors in all of my Arcanist games. There's exceedingly few scenarios where they're a liability, and they can either completely deny schemes and strategies all by themselves or get in your opponent's face and eat AP. Even fully knowing their low WP, they can be thrown aggressively into things like Belles or Sorrows and perhaps even meddle with their deck on a  trigger. Considering they're only 3ss I view them as very expendable in these situations and I really don't mind if the Belle or Sorrow uses its more important activation trying to escape or fight the Raptor.

As mentioned, Oiran & Arcane Effigy are also each splendid choices. Oiran can be expensive at 6ss if you don't make full use of their aura, so make sure you're stacked with living models and premeasuring between the Oiran and them a lot. Adding in a single Oiran while providing lots of living threats can prove just to hard to crack. Effigy is generally quite valuable for 4ss even if you only ever used it for running schemes and only ever looked at the front of it's card. The fact that it can strip a single condition with any sort of duel required is outstanding against paralyse and other debilitating things that Ressers and NB can hand out.

34 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

This is where I find myself leaning towards Mei Feng. She brings in Kang, who makes your crew surprisingly uncaring about "Bad Things Happen" encounters. Her Henchmen can bring Warding Runes, and she herself can chill out in the middle of the pack venting steam--putting your opponent on or worse to shooting and cast actions against anyone near her, including her (you decide how many AP you want to spend). When it's time to murder one or more support pieces, she can dart out and put a hurt on them, possibly leaving them burning and/or venting steam as a trigger on attacking, and dart back into the middle of her crew.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Overtime, I've come to feel like Mei is a best used as a simple counter pick that exists to try deny your opponent from using their most potent offensive tools. Usually, it's against guns (she's my auto pick against Guild  ), but she's also pretty handy against Horror duels and conditions in general. She's not complex or tricky or convoluting; she just jumps at the offending Horror duel source, ignores their paralyse effect and then asks your opponent if they're happy being on  or  for all their actions.

[spooky_squirrel]

1 hour ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Sure, but if you see what your opponent is bringing (lures, etc) it should be pretty easy to Dance Together in your first couple of activations...

If that's what you hired the Coryphee to do (early as possible Dance Together), then you have little to worry about, other than making sure that you don't deploy them where an early game walk/Lure pulls the first one that activated out of range/LOS of the second one.

If you're looking to get more work out of them later in the turn (after other crew members have moved, forcing your opponent to commit to something that your Coryphee will respond to), then that will potentially spoil your plans.

I've hired Coryphee for both purposes, early game merging for killing and early game activation/zone control with later merging for scheme purposes.

However, Wp 6 with a baked in isn't going to be as useful/helpful against a Ca 8 lure early in a turn, not if your opponent is managing their Control Hand well. All it takes is a 12+ of any suit and they can overbid everything, including the Red Joker, whether flipping or cheating (better than 2/3 chance that their starting hand has one, since suit doesn't matter). Depending on your activation ordering versus theirs, you might not find yourself getting as much work out of the Coryphee (or Duet) as you hoped. I've run into this kind of problem before, which is why I brought it up.

If the Belle cannot draw LOS/range to the models you're wanting to keep control of, you're in a much better position. Blocking terrain (or pillars from certain masters) can do this in a pinch (potential AP control yielded to opponent). Board positioning can do this in a pinch (potential board control yielded to opponent). Early merging for the Coryphee yields activation control (as mentioned before, if you were planning on doing this in the first place, no problem).

 

However, if you can put your opponent on their back foot and force them to react to you more, that gives you control in the game. If you have something that can reach out and touch an early-advancing model with something, you can mess up your opponent's plans. Amina Naidu pulling them in, The Captain pushing them around, Ironsides pulling them in.. all of these are control options that you can use to displace opponent control (or even draw it into an area it does not want to be in). Mei Feng comes up because as was just mentioned, she shuts down some of the more potent tools your opponent might bring:

25 minutes ago, hydranixx said:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Overtime, I've come to feel like Mei is a best used as a simple counter pick that exists to try deny your opponent from using their most potent offensive tools. Usually, it's against guns (she's my auto pick against Guild  ), but she's also pretty handy against Horror duels and conditions in general. She's not complex or tricky or convoluting; she just jumps at the offending Horror duel source, ignores their paralyse effect and then asks your opponent if they're happy being on  or  for all their actions.

Hard-countering a known strength works wonders. In some metas Guild players won't drop Perdita into Arcanists, in spite of her amazing ability to kill things (including armored things), because of the threat of Mei Feng. My first time running Mei was against a crew that was counting on my failing Horror checks. Kang doesn't care if it's Iron or Bone Levi, Kang's friends get bonuses against Levi's while being outright immune to Horror duels. Drop in a friendly Oiran for the bonus Willpower and/or have a steam-venting Mei Feng in the middle of the pack, and your opponent counting on you failing Wp duels (against things like Lure/Obey) and Horror checks is going to have a bad day.

[spooky_squirrel]

Note that putting your opponent on is much better than putting yourself on , especially if there's a stat advantage to your opponent. They must take the worst card (barring Jokers) and cannot cheat. You get to choose to cheat or not based off of what they flip. When there's a stat advantage favoring your opponent, can help reduce the differential when it matters (i.e. attacks that inflict flip-based damage), but they don't help recover from a 2-4 point difference in base stats against an attack action that only needs to tie.

For Arcanist players, just imagine that you're about to use the Metal Gamin's (0), a Ca 8 effect, against a construct that's defending with a 5 or 6. Which one would hurt your chances more, a negative on your flip or a positive on your opponents? You only need to tie to inflict 2 damage that ignores armor while getting your metal minion further up the field.

[osoi]

Where I think I will be up against Wp attacks a lot I also look at Warding Runes to help protect my Henchmen because a lot of the Wp attacks are Ca and stripping built in suits can often be detrimental to them plus I look at running Raspy or Frozen heart models a lot of the time too

[Mxbedlam]

On 11/29/2016 at 10:51 PM, osoi said:

Where I think I will be up against Wp attacks a lot I also look at Warding Runes to help protect my Henchmen because a lot of the Wp attacks are Ca and stripping built in suits can often be detrimental to them plus I look at running Raspy or Frozen heart models a lot of the time too

This. Warding Runes is pretty amazing at saving your big beater henchman from being lured and otherwise cast upon (most casts are nasty because of triggers) plus you get 15SS of enforcers along for the ride. 

[osoi]

To be honest I have taken Warding Runes on some of my henchman without taken a single Ox Mage in some match ups and it has been very worthwhile. You don't necessarily want to bring the mages along.

[joediamond]

Mei and Kang are certainly a potent combo crew, but I'm gonna go with Ironsides/M&SU being the strongest answer to this.

-Warding runes, for counterspell and immunity to conditions from enemies, including Paralyzed (suck it, Terrifying!).  Although you gotta watch out for the likes of Seamus and Pandora, since you'll still trigger effects for failing a Wp duel.

-Oxfordians can easily get  to their Wp 6, which is a pretty nice defense line against a lot of Wp attacks.

-Johan can remove conditions on anything that hits your non-Warded models

-It is easy to slip in Bleeding Edge Tech if you want to give  to Ca.

[spooky_squirrel]

On 12/4/2016 at 1:04 AM, joediamond said:

Mei and Kang are certainly a potent combo crew, but I'm gonna go with Ironsides/M&SU being the strongest answer to this.

-Warding runes, for counterspell and immunity to conditions from enemies, including Paralyzed (suck it, Terrifying!).  Although you gotta watch out for the likes of Seamus and Pandora, since you'll still trigger effects for failing a Wp duel.

Just remember that if you fail the duel, the action still fails (except walk) other affects (sorrows, fears, Teddies) may apply. You just manage to avoid being Paralyzed.

Edited December 7, 2016 by spooky_squirrel
Misinterpretation of Horror/Immunity to Paralyze interaction

[joediamond]

9 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Just remember that if you fail the duel, the action still fails (except walk). You just manage to avoid being Paralyzed.

No you do not.  Gaining Paralyzed is what causes the current action to fail (Pg 62 mini rulebook), not failing the Horror Duel.  All failing a Horror Duel does is give Paralyzed (Pg 55 Mini-rulebook).  But if you are immune to a condition, you never receive said condition (pg 36 mini rulebook).

 

I remember older editions that was the case for Horror.  Or maybe I just missed a recent FAQ entry?

[spooky_squirrel]

Horror and Immunity to Paralyze

[redacted for being wrong]

Edited December 7, 2016 by spooky_squirrel

[solkan]

1 hour ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Where this reading of it comes in is in the wording:
 

This is from the rules themselves, and unless there's a clarification that says otherwise, must pass [if they] target a model with an Action comes up. I'll look around for clarification otherwise, but this is how I've understood playing into Horror (when I fail, the action fails) with Warding Runes (Blood Ward) and Mei Feng (when Kang is not nearby to make the models outright immune). If I've been shortchanging myself, that would be great to know.

Failing the Horror Duel normally gives Paralyze, but if immune, you skip that step because you cannot gain the paralyze condition. If not immune to Paralyze, your activation immediately ends.

[edit]
If this is not the intended interpretation, then a more clear way of phrasing it might be  "Enemy Living models must perform a TN 10 Horror Duel if they end a Walk Action within this model’s engagement range or target this model with an Action."--this would still have all the bad effects on failing (Paralyze, Sorrows/Fears/etc.) and nothing that appears to require passing the horror duel to continue with the action.

The problem is that you're reading the words for the Terrifying ability and inserting the words "or the action fails."

Terrifying does NOT cause the action to fail.  Gaining Patalyzed during a model's activation causes the action to abruptly end before its resolved.  That's what the third paragraph of Performing a Horror Duel is pointing out.

In other words, please point out where in the Terrifying ability a consequence for failing the Horror duel is specified.  It doesn't specify one because there isn't one, the consequences are entirely from the Horror Duel mechanics.  And there's also the explanation in the rules about how the model immune to Horror Duels doesn't have to pass any more Horror a Duels from that model during that turn.

You can complain that the wording would be clearer if Terrifying said "must take" instead of "must pass", but you'd be a few years late considering the number of Terrifying models that would need to be errated.  

So a model that charges a Terrifying model during its activation takes one Horror duel.  If it passes, it doesn't take any more for the attacks in the charge or anything else triggered by targeting that particular model.  If it fails, it gains Paralyzed and deals with the consequences of that.

[spooky_squirrel]

[redacted for being wrong]

As I said, if this is incorrect then I've been shortchanging myself when running Blood Ward-protected Henchmen (and Ironsides) and Mei Feng outside of Horror-immune bubbles; I'm concerned that by leaning the other way I might be incorrectly shutting down what is sometimes seen as a core mechanic of some crews.

[edit] I've been shortchanging myself for a while now. The Honey Badger effect is real.

Edited December 7, 2016 by spooky_squirrel

[retnab]

This should be in the rules forum

[spooky_squirrel]

4 hours ago, retnab said:

This should be in the rules forum

Agreed, opened up a request for clarification there.

@Jafar was not looking to hijack your post, so back to mitigating Wp duels as Arcanists!

[spooky_squirrel]

I've redacted my incorrect interpretation.

The Honey Badger effect of Blood Ward (Oxfordian Mage) and Warding Runes (henchmen and Ironsides), as well as Mei Feng's Immunity to Paralyze is real. Scary gribbly things won't stop them without having something else that responds to failed willpower checks.

So yeah.. Immunity to Conditions is a solid approach to avoiding all the troubles related to Horror. Counterspell (Warding Runes, Ramos' personal upgrade Under Pressure) is good for blocking/ignoring Lure-like effects that require a built-in suit to actually go off. Mei Feng's Vent Steam is simply amazing for putting your opponent on when casting at things within her bubble.

 

Related: the M&SU upgrade Bleeding Edge Tech gives its bearer a (0) that puts nearby casters on a negative, so if you have someone that's going to be in people's faces anyway, it can paint a bigger target on that model by putting the pocket of Rotten Belles on negatives. It'll buy you some activation control, but cost you the enforcer or henchman that rams the Disruption Field into the opponent's bubble--because they will kill or bury it to get its effect off the table.