Is Ophelia useful?

[DanteJH]

Hi all,

me and my friends where gearing up for a tournament in the area and as part of that we played the schemes and strats released for the 5 rounds. For a collect the bounty and headhunter round I chose to use Ophelia. While I did win both games I feel it was more of the crew doing well than Ophelia.  

I feel like she significantly lacks in damage for a gremlin combat master and with masters like Wong, Mah and Somer to pick from there are 3 much better damage-dealing masters with crew support. She may be more resilient depending on how you use her upgrades but she isn't a big enough threat for that to come into play.

Speaking of crew support I find it to be very lacking. Most of her 0s can only target kin models (who are good don't get me wrong) but I'm usually taking maybe a max of 2 kin models unless I'm building for it. Her 'aim high boys' ability is great but (and this could just be me) I tend to use more melee oriented models like frank, Burt and the whiskey golem.

I will say, her totems are amazing and seem to be half the reason I take her. They can use Ophelias upgrades (essentially using her attacks) and can be great if making use of 'aim high boys'. They also give her her upgrade making them very worth their low cost of 2 stones but they do have the defences to match. 3 wounds is suicide nowadays with the large amount of min 3 damage and their df/wp are lacking.

Anyway, let me know why I'm wrong or how you make the most of her. I really love her fluff and am keen to play her well

[Math Mathonwy]

The recent Lenny cuddle made her pretty much obsolete, essentially. Wong and Somer are just way, way better to say nothing of Zipp. I mean, she was kinda weak before already but now she's just a bit sad, really, when compared to ther cream of the crop.

That said, she isn't exactly bad - it's just that she is overshadowed by the juggernauts of the faction who do the same as her (ranged damage) but also other things.

Her Totems are great, though! I love them to bits (though many others on the forums don't agree).

[EpicWaffle]

She's not essentially bad, she's just worse than the others, that s the main gig as @Math Mathonwy said. And about kins, the only really good one is Francois, the others can be left on a shelf ( I love Raphael concept, but without rams he's not worth). Last time I played her in a tournament (before  the last errata) I brought with her frank, Burt and 2 roosters to simply blast everything off; it worked, but just cause my deck was in fire and I managed well my cards, but with Somer I could had done the same amount of damages and much more. Also, for me she s really boring  imo, she needs some sort of work on her kit (as brewie and mah do)! Someone in another post on this argument proposed to cuddles the big 3 to make her better but that would be useless and annoying (you don t make something good by making the rest worse), so maybe some tools to make her more unique and less "almost to the level of that other master" would be nice (I think big brain was kinda oriented to this idea, but imo he's a whole in the water for that purpose). Cause I'm the end, what's the point of having a master solely focused on dealing damages, when we already have that among henchmans and other masters with more "tactical" possibilitie? That's the main issue with her for me.

[Runeman]

I think her (0)'s set her somewhat apart from the other ranged masters. She does provide some really good mobility for some models, in particular the slower ones like Lenny. The problem is that the (0) is really only a quarter of her actions, and in many cases Trixiebelle is a better substitute.

I agree that she probably should have her kit improved at least slightly, for instance by adding one or two personal upgrades. I would like to see something that could be discarded at the start of her activation to allow her to consider one gremlin within 6" or so Kin for the duration of her activation and could be discarded during her activation to allow her to take a second (0). The first part would increase her synergy with other models (in particular Moon Shinobi) the second would set her more apart from the other ranged masters, though it might have to come at the cost of one of her regular action points.

Edit: I do think there would be a point to reducing the number of hireable stuffed piglets. This would both make some people playing against Gremlins happy and make Ophelia slightly more unique in that she can hire three additional cheap activations, that can even do something really useful as filler actions.

[wizuriel]

Ophelia is pretty flexible, does okay damage (for a Gremlin master) and is probably one of the tankier masters we have (with squeel and using a gun to give her plink when needed).

End of the day though if you're looking for a ranged damage dealer that can provide good support Somer just does it better.

 

Personally I feel Ophelia just needs some good guns and a good kin minion.

I would like to see some kind of kin buchwhacker model 

[EpicWaffle]

5 hours ago, Runeman said:

 

Edit: I do think there would be a point to reducing the number of hireable stuffed piglets. This would both make some people playing against Gremlins happy and make Ophelia slightly more unique in that she can hire three additional cheap activations, that can even do something really useful as filler actions.

I see this issue a lot among the threads and I really don't get it. Are there so many people that spams 6 stuffed in every list? And what do they do with that anyway? It's 12 soulstones spent to gain some activation control, which after turn 1 are gonna bring some mild advantage in terms of tarpitting (or if you re lucky some damages) and that's it. Yeah you can blast off them with Wong and Somer but I  bring a maximum of 3 (4 if I need soulstones and I don t bring cranky with Wong) because I want my soulstones spent where It will grant me some value in terms of "achieving points". It's just annoying to say the least, but half of the crews can shut them down before they even get close, or simply ignore and pass by them. Yeah you have ways to make them do some cool stuff (merris gremlin cunning before having the piglet activate so that he deals maximum damage for example) but I never have found use in hiring six of those, cause they simply won't make any point for me. I think it is a really cheap tactic, that works against who's not very expirienced(or plays Neverborn), cause a good player will play around that quite easily, at least in my experiences.

[Askelada]

Think about what can to do with Ophelia, and thinking:

Ophelia + 5 Pool
- Dirty Cheater (1)
Old Cranky (4)
McTavish (10)
- Do over (1)
The First Mate (9)
- Where The Captain Can't See (1)
- Treasure Map (1)
Francois LaCroix (7)
- Stilts (1)
- Dirty Cheater (1)
Iron Skeeter (6)
Iron Skeeter (6)
 

It's crew using companion ability and (0) Iron skeeters for fast to eliminate opponent models, gameplay look like Viktorias crew working. Also we need Do over to take tomes.

Trouble is activation - maybe better idea would exchange McTavish or First mate for some cheap models: bayou gremlins, stuff piglets.

You're thinks?

[Sergrum]

Remember you can't use the iron skeeter on ophelia... nor frank with stitlz (ht 2).