Headhunter post errata

[Franchute]

If Headhunter shows up, now that wind gamins have been cuddled, which master would you bring? Sandeep might not be great anymore, or is he?

[spooky_squirrel]

Sandeep is still good in Headhunter, he still has activation control and an ability that allow (0) interacts, even while engaged on a trigger. Visions Sandeep can still park a yammering Banasuva around some heads to force the opponent to burn resources just to get the head marker needed to score.

Colette has always an edge over him because she has prompt, movement tricks, the ability to hand out AP via All Together Now, and all minions and showgirls can choose to interact as a (0). The only thing Wind Gamin gave Sandeep outside of the stuff I mentioned above was a summonable significant model that was immune to the scenario.

Mei Feng can still use her Jackhammer kick to keep a body engaged (preventing head retrieval), Ironsides can still pull people into her black hole until she finally dies. Ramos can still spawn spiders and sacrifice them for explosive effects. Any master can use Amina Naidu to convert your own people into Peons--let that sink in for a moment as you read how Headhunter scores.

With Wind Gamin being brought down to something more reasonable, the only thing that really changes is that the Wind Gamin are no longer autotake by virtue of outright denying the strategy (and potentially schemes).

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Any master can use Amina Naidu to convert your own people into Peons--let that sink in for a moment as you read how Headhunter scores.

That trick is a bit of a double-edged sword. Amina makes it so that they don't drop a head but she also makes them unable to collect heads at the same time.

It is kind of hilarious if you've got a model that you know is going to die though.  

[spooky_squirrel]

48 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

It is kind of hilarious if you've got a model that you know is going to die though.  

Or a model who is hard enough to kill to require some effort and lethal enough to kill things. They don't need to pick up the heads themselves if they're producing them and tossing them back towards some significant support pieces. If you want to be really dirty, your helpers are accomplices that chain activate after the beater got down to business.

If said model is hard enough to kill to require some effort to deal with, you're pulling quality or quantity AP into a model that they cannot score the strategy off of. If they decide not to, said model is killy enough to produce heads on its own and punish them for not spending effort killing it.

One of the other things I like about this is it allows you to convert a (0) into an attack on the Ram trigger--you're targeting a friendly, they relent, you can get a shot of choice for any Ram. Sure, it's only a 2/3/4 with no triggers.. but it's off of a (0) Action's trigger. Under Ironsides you can be at positives on attack and damage too, if Amina gets scratched up a bit beforehand. Then, since you've only used your (0) so far, take your 2 General AP and get some work done and pass the table over to your opponent; who now has an angry beater of a peon in their face and a smirking lawyer screwing with their battle plans.

[Mxbedlam]

I'll still take Sandeep. Heads are dropped after triggers. So a mage hits it, declares push trigger. Kills the model and drops the head 4-6 inches closer to your models. Sandeep summons a model on top of it, who picks it up for free. Kudra blows up the summoned model so no head. Then next turn rinse and repeat. 

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, Mrbedlam said:

I'll still take Sandeep. Heads are dropped after triggers. So a mage hits it, declares push trigger. Kills the model and drops the head 4-6 inches closer to your models. Sandeep summons a model on top of it, who picks it up for free. Kudra blows up the summoned model so no head. Then next turn rinse and repeat. 

Are you taking To Behold Another World on Sandeep so that your summoned Gamin can grab the head the turn he's summoned?

[Mxbedlam]

On 8/12/2017 at 11:55 AM, WWHSD said:

Are you taking To Behold Another World on Sandeep so that your summoned Gamin can grab the head the turn he's summoned?

For Sure. You basically use a summoned wind gamin as a disposable head grabber each turn. Best thing is, your opponent doesn't always know its coming because Sandeep can summon out of activation. 

[spooky_squirrel]

On 8/12/2017 at 7:24 AM, Mrbedlam said:

I'll still take Sandeep. Heads are dropped after triggers. So a mage hits it, declares push trigger. Kills the model and drops the head 4-6 inches closer to your models. Sandeep summons a model on top of it, who picks it up for free. Kudra blows up the summoned model so no head. Then next turn rinse and repeat. 

Visions Sandeep has some seriously janky stuff to it, even with Wind Gamin being altered a bit. Interesting thing is if the summoned model is a Wind Gamin, Kudra blowing it up gives any friendly model on the table a 5" push. That's something else going to sit on top of a head marker or getting lined up for attack/scoring.

[spooky_squirrel]

1 hour ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Visions Sandeep has some seriously janky stuff to it, even with Wind Gamin being altered a bit. Interesting thing is if the summoned model is a Wind Gamin, Kudra blowing it up gives any friendly model on the table a 5" push. That's something else going to sit on top of a head marker or getting lined up for attack/scoring.

Here's what can be really twisted about that: her Kill the Gamin ability is a (0) on an upgrade, which means if she's already in position, she can (0) to kill the Wind Gamin, get a free 5" push for herself to put her near another marker or scenario-relevant location with 2 AP left to spend. Move and interact? Interact and move? Move into hiding? Charge a scheme runner that thought itself out of her threat range?

Sandeep in Headhunter is definitely not dead. It's just going to involve more thinking about things than:

Quote

'Deep with upgrades, Henchman of choice, Oxfordian Trio, Wind Gamin x2, and beater/scenario scoring package (which could even just be more Wind Gamin under pre-errata and GG17).

With more complexity comes more fragility, which steers things to a place that is a little better.. but doesn't address all the things that can make Sandeep seem overwhelming. I know here in the PacNW, his mobility is what makes people fear him; but most 'Deep players up here are going Commands and bringing another min damage 3 beater to take the "pay attention to me or die trying to score" route to victory.