The Fae, The Nun and a lot of other mean people

[EpicWaffle]

Hello everyone  so since some time has passed since Gen con and Black Friday and a couple of new master are already out for seeking in stores, it would be a good idea to share some experiences against the new crews, in order to build up some knowledge about them (knowledge is power!).

So to start it off, I've a lot of experience with Titania and less against Reva, Parker and Sandeep (all just one game, while against Titania at least 10). About the last three, they are all really scary for what I saw:

Reva capability of dealing damages and controlling the board is nasty once you have some corpse laying around but the moment she comes out of her hiding spot she's an "easy prey", having 5df and no defensive triggers to save her. I would recommend to bring stuff that can block los of corpses (Zipp for instance, or generally 50mm base models) since she can't cast if she has no los, but don't forget about the rest of the crew, especially Vincent (expect to see Bet noir too). The thing that upset me the most about her is that she's not that complicated at all while being so deadly, so I expect to see a lot of player with her.

About Sandeep, I can't say much because I played against him in a tournament and my opponent kinda missed out the point of the crew imo; he sure seems to have a lot of possibilities tho, especially with his upgrades and reliable summonings.

Shifting to Parker, even against him I can't say much in fact of experiences since Mancha Roja thought it was a good idea to deal 1 sever and 1 Rj against him (and I had no intention to stop him  ), but I took a good look at his crew and he looks to me like the "Outcast's Somer": he's crew scheme denial capability is huge, while at the same time being able to place them just by attacking (expect the adversary to pick stuff like dig their graves, set up etc) and, if in good hands, Parker can be really scary with what his upgrade pool can offer him going from making schemes explode to forcing you to give him a stone or receiving 4 damages (without forgetting how he can also move his crew around and discard a bunch of upgrades to fill you up with holes). In general a solid crew with very versatile pieces, but that requires a keen eye to achieve it's best.

Last but not least, Titania: if I had to describe her, she's a much better version of the brew master idea, since the amount of duels you'll have to make when starting engaged with her crew models is awful (the friend of mine that plays her use "fear given form" too, so I'll let you imagine), while also being very durable and one of the tankiest master of all game imo (pair her with Aetheric connection and her impossible to wound and good luck bringing her below half wound, considering she can heal back up pretty easily). The knights are really solid pieces too, not easy at all to take down and capable of "luring your models" pretty consistently with different consequences (Titania can join them too if she has "an audience with the queen"), while Aeslin is just playing annoying (especially since she deny pushes and placements), and fairly scary. Expect massive schemes dropping (so same thing as from Parker, maybe even worse) and a lot of pain if the scenario wants you to group up in a certain area.

 

Hope to hear some feed back about our "new opponents" and thanks to everyone that stops by  

[wizuriel]

Played a close game against Sandeep on Monday and definetly had trouble against him. Took a few rounds of Zipp and a fast Francisco to take him down and in the meantime he managed to summon a few gamin and just widdle away at some of my crew. 

Titania is also really hard to take down, but at least she isn't summoning models while you try and widdle down her wounds. Though I find playing against her your opponent pretty much is guaranteed 3 pts on claim jump (and probably any other scheme dropping schemes) without much you can do about it. 

 

[EpicWaffle]

1 hour ago, wizuriel said:

Played a close game against Sandeep on Monday and definetly had trouble against him. Took a few rounds of Zipp and a fast Francisco to take him down and in the meantime he managed to summon a few gamin and just widdle away at some of my crew. 

Titania is also really hard to take down, but at least she isn't summoning models while you try and widdle down her wounds. Though I find playing against her your opponent pretty much is guaranteed 3 pts on claim jump (and probably any other scheme dropping schemes) without much you can do about it. 

 

I think that claim jump is actually pretty terrible with her for the simple reason that she puts schemes in base contact with your models and you need to have schemes not within 2" of an enemy model to count it; also, once you declare it you ll have to discard all the scheme markers within 2" of the centerline and I guess that is gonna do more damages Han anything since she prefer to have some schemes in order to pump up the damages. Also the fact that she drops such a huge amount of them makes it hard for her crew to use interact for markers generally, so I think what a Titania player will mostly take are stuff like st up, cover breakthrough, leave your mark etc.

Avout sandeep I had the same problem: a mixture of bad luck and his straight tank Ines s if not yet activated forced me to use both francois and Ophelia (using companion) in order to put him down while also using my entire hand! If I didn't gathered enough points earlie on I would had lost, luckily I played it safe (he still managed to send Ophelia to 1 wound left thanks to a lucky prevention flip, but 3 min damages and some  going here and there sure are scary). Thanks for sharing  

[Bazlord_Prime]

Haven't played against any of them yet (well - one game against annoying Zipp, who spent the entire game blocking LoS and lifting and dropping my henchmen, while an Iron Skeeter transported Francois and gave him Fast, allowing him to death-rocket into my poor Whiskey Golem (1st outing!)), but there's a tourny coming up in which I expect to face Titania (and Zipp again).  I'll leave a tale of woe up here once it's all done and dusted!

But, might it be a good idea for me to take "Scheme marker eaters" if I know I;m facing Titania?  Ie, Wild Boars, McTavish, The Sow, Wong...even Piglets, if I also take Gracie/Old Major and chuck Corn Husks on her/him?

[EpicWaffle]

I assume you wanted to play ulix? Aside from the 2 pig pigs (Major and Gracie) and Mctavish I wouldn't bring any of that unless with Liquid bravery somewhere and eve there it's still tough. Main problem is, as I said, that with Titania crews you're gonna have to do a lot of Tn or simple duels mainly against Wp, which is pigs famous weak point (4/3 for minions, which is not enough). So instead of that I would take less  more efficient models (Fingers is great, the 1 Mate if you happen to have Zipp's box, Merris etc)., otherwise you're gonn a have to chuck down all your good cards for your runners! On a side note, I sudjest you to use some activation control when facing her in order to see where Titania want to go: at that point engage her with some big stuff like Gracie, so that she  can't run around reserving you an appointment with the queen  

[hydranixx]

Whenever I've played vs Titania - and in fact, against the same player that you refer to, I'm sure @Bazlord_Prime, there's at least one Fears Given Form, and often a second one somewhere else in the crew. Combined with her playstyle, yes, I agree with the OP, it's really quite oppressive if you're not prepared for it.

Armour turned out to be really good - FgF and most her attacks & the knights attacks are consistently 2 - 4 damage, so strapping on even just Armour +1 goes a long way towards taking the bite out of the simple duels you can't afford to win.

Another good idea to bring some repositioning tricks and try stack the crew together; force him to take those FgF duels instead. I used Ressers so I had Belle Lures etc, but with Gremlins you might have some success with something like Trixibelle's push Lure thing or even better Crackerjack Timing.

Healing is tops against this crew as well, and luckily Gremlins seem to have it in spades. If you throw something like Gracie with DC at her, supported with Bugs or what have you, Gracie shouldn't die instantly. This is one of the NB crews, typically, that has fantastic damage over time but not much burst so she should stick around a bit?

Also, I also agree that McTavish is really quite nice in this match up for all the usual McTavishy reasons. His (0) will be so useful for you against Titania I reckon.

[EpicWaffle]

15 hours ago, hydranixx said:

Whenever I've played vs Titania - and in fact, against the same player that you refer to, I'm sure @Bazlord_Prime, there's at least one Fears Given Form, and often a second one somewhere else in the crew. Combined with her playstyle, yes, I agree with the OP, it's really quite oppressive if you're not prepared for it.

Armour turned out to be really good - FgF and most her attacks & the knights attacks are consistently 2 - 4 damage, so strapping on even just Armour +1 goes a long way towards taking the bite out of the simple duels you can't afford to win.

Another good idea to bring some repositioning tricks and try stack the crew together; force him to take those FgF duels instead. I used Ressers so I had Belle Lures etc, but with Gremlins you might have some success with something like Trixibelle's push Lure thing or even better Crackerjack Timing.

Healing is tops against this crew as well, and luckily Gremlins seem to have it in spades. If you throw something like Gracie with DC at her, supported with Bugs or what have you, Gracie shouldn't die instantly. This is one of the NB crews, typically, that has fantastic damage over time but not much burst so she should stick around a bit?

Also, I also agree that McTavish is really quite nice in this match up for all the usual McTavishy reasons. His (0) will be so useful for you against Titania I reckon.

I would also add something I forgot to explain: if he's running this kind of list, getting 3 points out of Frame for murder. In fact, since both FgF and her abilities deal damages (the one that forces you  to make a df duel if you're in base contact with a scheme), 5 to be precise, you just need to put the sucker  close to her and fail both duel before turn 3. Since they're both abilities, the damage you're going to suffer count as being dealt by Titania, granting you an easy 3 VP (just be sure not be killed by some minions).

 

p.s. I don't know if it's the same player, I'm from Turin (Italy)  

[hydranixx]

Oh, I referred to Bazlord. 

We're in the same country. 

[EpicWaffle]

6 hours ago, hydranixx said:

Oh, I referred to Bazlord. 

We're in the same country. 

Ops! Sorry got it wrong than >.< 

[Vorschlag]

Anything that can ignore armour and hard to wound would be useful cut cutting through the knights.
Titania doesn't like reactivating heavy hitters, so think hog whisperer + warpig/old major/gracie/the Sow, especially if have a way of blocking defense triggers.

The other general option for getting rid of hard to wound + armour is death by a thousand cuts.

Other than that look for pushes and scheme marker removal.

[Bazlord_Prime]

1 hour ago, Vorschlag said:

 

^^THIS^^ is said player!  ;-)

Though who knows - i might end up facing a newly-enabled Lucius instead :-)

[Bazlord_Prime]

1 hour ago, Vorschlag said:

Anything that can ignore armour and hard to wound would be useful 

Other than that look for pushes and scheme marker removal.

So... It sounds like Wong and a magical/Glowy Gracie could be a good start?

[Vorschlag]

I'm yet to put Wong on the table or see him in action so he also brings the bonus effect of over or under estimation on your opponents part, ideally causing them to blow resources in either cards or activations.

[Bazlord_Prime]

41 minutes ago, Vorschlag said:

I'm yet to put Wong on the table or see him in action so he also brings the bonus effect of over or under estimation on your opponents part, ideally causing them to blow resources in either cards or activations.

Oh nice! Well, i promise to put Wong on the table against you (if we end up facing off), so you can see what he gets up to. The way *I* play him. Which may not be the sensible orthodox way... :-)

But i feel like I've hijacked the thread now, so I'll quit it. Sorry @EpicWaffle!!!

[EpicWaffle]

6 hours ago, Bazlord_Prime said:

Oh nice! Well, i promise to put Wong on the table against you (if we end up facing off), so you can see what he gets up to. The way *I* play him. Which may not be the sensible orthodox way... :-)

But i feel like I've hijacked the thread now, so I'll quit it. Sorry @EpicWaffle!!!

Don't worry  Wong is a nice idea vs a Titania mainly for the fact that he doesn't t deal 12 damage in 1 hit (cough Somer cough), which is hard to achieve vs impossible to wound (I forgot to say that a good player willl bring aetherial connection too), but instead he deals a lot of damage with different timing , which makes it hard for the opponent to prevent it all. Other awesome thing aside that and the glowy target is the possibility for Wong to just make up to 3 markers (it think that's the limit) disappear with a 0, causing some havoc too  

 

Keep in mind tho that only her minions have hard to wound; the queen has Impossible to wound, so the magical condition won't effect it.

[EpicWaffle]

Anyone had any experience with Nellie? I saw her 2 times but were "test-matches" so I don't have much information about her aside what she does

[Four_N_Six]

9 hours ago, Bazlord_Prime said:

So... It sounds like Wong and a magical/Glowy Gracie could be a good start?

If you're going the Wong route, Gracie isn't bad.  There are better options for glowy.  Until I had McTavish, I ran it with Burt, because I'm a jerk.  I tend to alternate between Burt and McTavish now.  However, McTavish would be great in a game against Titania, because he can trash markers.  And McTavish doesn't randomize into combat.  He also provides cover against anything that isn't  for swampfiends.  Might not benefit a lot of your crew, but it does benefit him at a minimum/.  I'd also recommend throwing the Swine Cursed her way if you're doing Wong.  3 models with glowy, especially with Sammy in the crew to upgrade it, will be very nasty.

I didn't get a lot of games in with Titania before I switched to ressers for a while.  Going back to Neverborn eventually and she's in my 4 masters I'll be focusing on.  So I don't know how well her crew stays grouped up.  With Wong,  you definitely hope to get at least a little AoE damage going.  Doesn't have to be the whole crew, but his direct damage isn't very impressive unless you throw in some added damage to stuff around his target.

[EpicWaffle]

Saw a friend of mine playing reva at a tournament Sunday and I must say it looked pretty scary. Lots of damages, chooses how's the target gonna defend, and can make Bete noir pop out where she wants with corpse candles; Vincent is no joke too, pretty sturdy for 9ss, and really annoying to deal with.

His fixed list was something on the line of:

Reva (decaying aura, her up that gives her crow trigger which deny damage reduction and something else I don't quite remember as third)

3x shield barer (these guys are annoying to the least)

Bete noir

Vincent (with the upgrade that gives him FTS)

i think a bell and Jakume obume to finish it all

 

I guess that the strategy might be to either remove line of sight from corpses (big models, Zipp smoke screen etc. ), in order to force her to come out of her hiding spot (still really dangerous but she has 5df with no defensive abilities, so not that hard to chunk down) or having something dangerous going at her that she can't ignore (zipp, francois, emissary or tavish from distance maybe).

Any idea is welcome, since I think I'll ask him a match one of these days in order to see how's the nun with my own eyes.

[Vorschlag]

Taxidermists can help deny corpse markers.

Iron skeeter exhaust markers.

Piggapulting piglets or stuffed pigs into base contact surrounding corpses will block los to height 1 models.

Large base models can block line of sight by themselves or can stand over corpse markers all together.

Models would depend on strats and schemes but make sure there's plenty of blocking and dense terrain at height 4-6.