Lucius Upgrades

[Jam Warrior]

With some masters, all their upgrades seem amazing and you can't pick 3.  With Lucius, I ended up taking none in a game last night and didn't miss them.  Talking through Lucius' upgrades mainly to try and organise my own thoughts but also keen to hear other opinions.

Starting with his personal ones.

- Suprisingly Loyal.  An obvious take if you want some sweet mimic action.  The defensive trigger is at least achievable now but still not great.  Likely to be swapped out via Terracotta Warrior if taken.

- Secret Assets.  Nice but expensive, both in purchasing and use.  But more importantly competes with Lucius' new (0) to allow people to interact while engaged, which given the schemes one usually goes for with Lucius is likely to be the preferable option.

- Secret Objectives.  Swap scheme markers for melee attacks?  Nah.  Lucius has people to do that kind of thing for him,

- Legalese.  The scheme marker flipping one is unlikely to be useful due to the lack of end game scoring schemes in GG.  The stealing enemy auras/pulses is highly situational but great in those situations.  A good choice to Terracotta Warrior in when you know what you are facing.

- Useless Duplications. Seems a little redundant to give Lucius the ability to discard a second card to give attackers a negative when he has one already baked in.  Unless you suspect Assassination or a ranged heavy opposition against your mimic heavy crew, probably not worthwhile.

- Watch My Back.  Expensive.  Value depends heavily on your investment in Guardsmen who don't already have companion.  And even then liable to lead you to being out activated.  I've never been tempted.

So not a great crop.  Certainly no 'must takes' beyond Surprisingly Loyal if your crew is heading that way.  How about the general Guild ones?

- Curfew.  Probably the best choice if you intend to concentrate on non killing schemes, as despite Lucius' newly discovered healing powers I often still find myself short on figures toward the end of the game.  

- Dampening field.  Highly situational.  A possible Terracotta swap in.

- Badge of Office.  Unless you're expecting Assassination, Lucius is probably already survivable enough.

- Vengeance bullet.  No good unless you invested in Secret Assets.  Not a bad choice if you did.

- Plant Evidence.  End game scoring schemes are lacking.  Pass.

- Expert Sleuth.  +2 to initiative is nice... but I've often got a Doppelganger with me.

- The Thalarian Stone. #fart noises#

So what do you reckon?  What do you tend to take with him?  I'm still relatively new to the game so am very open to some (all) of my assessments being way off!

[TheBorg]

The trigger from Surprisingly Loyal can be a great way to score for Frame for Murder if you have a low wound model close by, possibly the Scribe since people tends to want to kill him anyway.

Legalese is a must have if you face a good gremlin crew (or Mei-Feng) with Sparks.

Watch My Back has been great for me, but I tend to make very Guardsmen heavy crews with Lucius.

But I agree with you. None of Lucius upgrades are really necessary. I would love the Secret Assets if it didn't require a ram. I would have been fine with a Tome since no one else is using that suit, but now your Rams are best used elsewhere.

[4thstringer]

Watch my back is just so expensive.   I do like it when I'm doing curfew,  to try to catch more models with slow. 

I've been meaning to try vengeance bullet with secret assets,  But haven't yet. 

Surprisingly loyal is one that I really use a lot,  but the trigger definitely doesn't get used much.   Maybe I'll trade it out for vengeance bullet. 

I usually want a full cache with him,  so adding a bunch of upgrades makes him feel really expensive.   Id like it if his upgrades instead interacted with the other things he wants to do, instead of working against them. 

[Ludvig]

Play basic book schemes that all score at the end. Take plant and legalese  Plant is also niceif you're doing entourage or take prisoner is in the pool since people often take Lucius prisoner after killing all his aupport staff. If I play an actual game so GG then I usually only take surpriaingly loyal. Legalese can be nice on a doppleganger, Idon't think Lucius can stackthe abilities if he has it on himself, it qould only help his buddies. If frame is in the pool I love surpriaingly loyal. Just keep a houndaround Lucius, bleed it for the soulstone to then ahift the attack to it ao weak damage from the opponent will kill it. (just saw someone else beat me to it)

I used to take assets all the time, it'sreally soulstone heavy but the triggerto place or remove markers can be golden. These days I'd rather use his built in (0) and save the 5+ stones the upgradeis likelyto end up costing through stoning for suits and since it's so pricey.

[Jam Warrior]

It's a differently named ability with the same effect so Useless Duplications (which I assume you meant) can indeed be combined with Highest Authority to discard two cards for double negative.

'When a friendly Mimic within 3" and LoS is targeted...'

At least I assume Lucius counts as being in LoS to himself?

I hadn't actually noticed it was to be used on other people though, I thought it was just for self protection like Highest Authority!  That makes it more useful in a mimic heavy crew.

[admiralvorkraft]

Useless Duplications is great for keeping Lucius alive, but I don't run him as a tarpit mostly so I don't use it much. Secret Assets is excellent in my experience - yes it is expensive but it's also quite powerful.

Legalese is situational, I won't plan on using it to score me points but I like it as a denial vector if Hidden Trap or Search the Ruins are in the pool.

In favor of both Secret Assets and Secret objectives it seems to be becoming more important to bring some ability to discard friendly schemes. This is particularly true into Outcasts given how many models they have with the Drop It! trigger, but there are enough schemes that won't score if you have markers too close together that being able to clear specific markers can be huge in the right circumstances.

[Ludvig]

@Jam Warrior Thanks, not sureqhere I got the impression he coulsn't use them both. It's way too expensive about 99,9% of thr time. Maybe if there is some gane-winning move with an enemy on plus flips attacking him. I seemto juat draw out the red joker about half the times when I use the single negative from Lucius

[Tris]

On 29.3.2017 at 10:43 AM, Jam Warrior said:

- Watch My Back.  Expensive.  Value depends heavily on your investment in Guardsmen who don't already have companion.  And even then liable to lead you to being out activated.  I've never been tempted.

 

Don't confuse Accomplice with Companion, even 2-3 models with accomplice could be worth it, especially if it's a Mounted Guard who carries a beater for a ride, or Queeg accomplice into something to interact or attack after he whipped it to the frontlines.....

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, Tris said:

Don't confuse Accomplice with Companion, even 2-3 models with accomplice could be worth it, especially if it's a Mounted Guard who carries a beater for a ride, or Queeg accomplice into something to interact or attack after he whipped it to the frontlines.....

But if it was a guardsman there's a goodchance it could alredy companion after Queeg 2ss is justso expensive, I could maybe understand the cost it if it gave accomplice o Lucius. I think Molly gets accomplicealong with her summonibg upgrades so it's not like it would be too powerful on a master.

[Tris]

26 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

But if it was a guardsman there's a goodchance it could alredy companion after Queeg 2ss is justso expensive, I could maybe understand the cost it if it gave accomplice o Lucius. I think Molly gets accomplicealong with her summonibg upgrades so it's not like it would be too powerful on a master.

Yeah, but nobody wants to companion into another guardsman

 I'm just saying that I don't want to use a guardsmen second, because the good guardsmen are more supporter type - I use the guardsman first, and then accomplice into something completely different, for example there's not many strong beaters out there with companion (with the big exception of francisco, of course^^)