Alpha defence against alpha attack

[Ludvig]

6 minutes ago, nishi said:

forgive me for bad question placement, but does using My little helper means the model can be charged only by models within 3"? I dont have rules with me right now but i belive charge is action by itself.

Yes, you are right. Since you cannot target the model from more than 3" away you cannot charge it because charge requires a target.

[Joel]

8 minutes ago, nishi said:

forgive me for bad question placement, but does using My little helper means the model can be charged only by models within 3"? I dont have rules with me right now but i belive charge is action by itself.

correct - if you are outside of 3" you cannot declare a charge on a model benefiting from the dark protection condition triggered by My Little Helper.

[mojopin]

Hi, just a quick update. Yesterday we attended to a tournament in Girona and my fellow Arcanist broke havoc with his alpha strikes in his two first rounds.

First round. Colette vs Jacob:  Killed two katanaka snipers turn 1 (one of them was the sucker) and finished Jacob lynch in his first activation with cerberus turn 2.

Second round. Ramos vs Perdita. Killed Santiago and Abuela in turn 1 with reactivated and pushed Joss & howard

Third round. His sandepp died after a charge from misaki who flipped red joker to damage (not so succesfull here)

In turn 1 its a lot of soulstones lost. I find this playstyle super efficient 

[Ludvig]

Yes, alpha strikes are good if your opponent can't handle them. What was the Perdita player doing letting them survive that long? She should take out at least Langston in a single activation without even expending effort and she should be able to reach him just outside of his deployment. Another point to note: if your alpha strike gives your opponent 3VP like the katanakas then it sounds like just what they wanted you to do. Now Langston and Joss are too far up to be reactivated again and your opponent could quite possibly have shifted the rest of their crew to a place where they can't be reached by the two of them for a turn or two so they will be walking back and you are effectively out just as many ss for a couple of turns and behind in VP.

[Tris]

1 hour ago, mojopin said:

Hi, just a quick update. Yesterday we attended to a tournament in Girona and my fellow Arcanist broke havoc with his alpha strikes in his two first rounds.

First round. Colette vs Jacob:  Killed two katanaka snipers turn 1 (one of them was the sucker) and finished Jacob lynch in his first activation with cerberus turn 2.

Second round. Ramos vs Perdita. Killed Santiago and Abuela in turn 1 with reactivated and pushed Joss & howard

Third round. His sandepp died after a charge from misaki who flipped red joker to damage (not so succesfull here)

In turn 1 its a lot of soulstones lost. I find this playstyle super efficient 

Sounds like some misplacement happened to be honest - how did Joss and Howard both charge and kill something important turn 1?

How did the Perdita game evolve after that first turn - Perdita should kill either one of these two in an activation while being def 9 herself, possibly engaging and doging the other one?

What was the Rest of his crew doing?

 

What did the charge in game 1 - I bet it wasn`t only the Cerberus killing 3 models?

Again - what did the rest of the opposing crew do?

Had the snipers any chance to shoot at somthing before they died?

 

Don`t get me wrong, I know the strenghts of well performed Alpha Strikes very well (looking at you, @Shen Long ), but in these particular games it does not sound like a huge problem to me (it`s no def/wp 8, ml 7, immune to conditions Rail Golem at least :p)

[Ludvig]

@Tris Both Joss and Langaon can gai reactivate in a Ramos crewdu to his totem but it usually comes at a significant card cost. Couple that with Imbued energies, poaaibly the captain pushing them and you have quite the threat range (but almost the entire list is tied into very few models).

[Tris]

24 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

@Tris Both Joss and Langaon can gai reactivate in a Ramos crewdu to his totem but it usually comes at a significant card cost. Couple that with Imbued energies, poaaibly the captain pushing them and you have quite the threat range (but almost the entire list is tied into very few models).

Yeah, I know that, but as you said, they are probably using a significant amount of cards for that, and they still have to hit, and so on, and so on....

Abuela has a def trigger which lets her maybe survive better and def 6, santiago has hard to kill.

Francisco should be in the crew, so any chargeable model could have plus 2 def, and it's not as if your whole crew should be in threat range, considering blocking terrain and the like.

Also, as mentioned before, what did the rest of the crew do - cower in fear?

And as you said @Ludvig

if I manage to take the hit and neutralize the hitters he's in a lot of trouble

 

[Ludvig]

Santiago goes down to three hits from Joss or Langston, Abuela might even take fewer or the same if you use the trigger. If they take a walk or two out of their deployment I think Langston reaches them even without reactivate just from nimble and fast, I think there was mention of also pushing him further up.

It's not that hard to think that Francisco was protecting Perdy since her controller was setting up to shove her smack into the center of the action. 

Seing that Santiago was in the crew and that Perdita sidn't react to those obvious threats makes me sort of wonder how experienced the player was. In most Perdita crews run by people with bigger model pools Santiago doesn't make the cut.

[Tris]

Yeah, we don't know how the game went, and what the Perdita player intended to do.

All I'm saying is it could've been avoided or the damage could have been mitgitated, as I have the impression that the op might think there's nothing you could do about it

[Fictor]

here you can read the complete Alphas report xD

[Reign]

Ummm....    I'd usually say to take Johan and strip reactivate off of Howard when he moves halfway up the table, but in this case....

Take Chiaki and do the same thing.   she has an effective range of 15" to remove the condition, just save a high card in anticipation of him running Howard up the board, and strip it off...

Now he's a sitting duck and wasted a lot of resources to get a model killed.

[Reign]

Sorry for the double post, but I felt like this needed to be said...

Alpha strikes don't really work in Malifaux, they had a limited run of success with Ratjoy because of the out activation aspect...

The issue is, alpha strikes work GREAT against newer players, or players that don't have the knowledge to stop them easily.   Newer players will find a fun little combination (like Miranda/Marcus) and try to alpha strike you all day.   They stop when you teach them that they are now losing because of it...      

By the time you hit national tournaments, you don't see this tactic as often because it's a gamble that rarely pays off at higher levels and not worth the soulstone investment.
(Except Ratjoy, because it was a 6SS investment aside from Killjoy).