Steamfitters and Kandara

[BFOmega]

An Incorporeal, armor 1 unactivated mage would have to take 5 damage to even take 1. Don't know that that's useful, but interesting nonetheless.

[Hot4Perdita]

I have the Ironsides box, and I find the Mages to be fairly worthless. They are very brittle and die real quick. The temporary shielding made them a bit better, but they are still easy to kill.

[BFOmega]

That's true, which just means you can't expose them, or if you do make the enemy have to get out of position to get to them. And at 5 stones, losing one or two isn't that big of a deal. They can do a lot more that 5 points worth of things, damage and pushes, friendly or enemy, being the main two, plus they're Ca6 with a 10in range.

They aren't ubiquitous, but they can be very strong used correctly.

[Hot4Perdita]

True, but they seem to die before they can do much. Plus, if they get engaged, they are toast. With only a (0) melee action, engaged is not where they want to be.

[spooky_squirrel]

8 hours ago, WWHSD said:

After seeing this and the change to Asura Rotten, I was surprised to see that the trigger on Neil Henry's attack stayed a crappier version of what the Rail Workers have on theirs.

Neil Henry can get more attacks just by being in a crew with Rail Workers--the ability had to account for that in some way, especially with how Rail Workers, Neil Henry, and Kang would all interact with each other (and Neil Henry can carry Hard Worker on himself to make things even more fun).

2 hours ago, Jinn said:

I don't have much of a problem with a boost for ironsides but I think it may become a problem with Sandeep. Combined with Arcane Shield, the + Oxfordian Mage can now furiously cast Sandeep 18"+ up the board in three separate pushes without damaging him. That is pretty ridiculous.

It requires some considerable set up, which might not matter a whole lot. Then there's also the consideration of whether or not Sandeep is still in range after the second push. If you're sitting in a cluster of Academics and maxing out your Resonance and are using the Nemesis Mage to do the pushing, you get 6 inches per push (triple negative on damage) minimum. After two pushes, Sandeep is 12" up from where he started, unless you're having to push him around obstacles. Doing it without damaging at all is a big deal though.

1 hour ago, Hot4Perdita said:

I have the Ironsides box, and I find the Mages to be fairly worthless. They are very brittle and die real quick. The temporary shielding made them a bit better, but they are still easy to kill.

They can die very quick, especially if you put them up on the front line. If you play them midfield as a supporting gunline/controller they perform much better. Your observation that they don't like to be engaged is correct. Similar to pure gunline models, they need some standoff to maximize their firepower and effectiveness. However (and especially since we're in a newly released model thread), that's a discussion for elsewhere. You can use the Steamfitters to give them armor to make them more resilient, but this might not be the best use of the Steamfitters.

Kandara might find use in my Mei Feng crews, especially if I'm looking to borrow triggers from other attacks and apply them to the Tiger Claw ability (though to be honest, it has the most potential triggers on its own). Kandara being able to get into peoples' faces and make them burn only makes things nicer for Mei Feng's attack run.

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, Hot4Perdita said:

True, but they seem to die before they can do much. Plus, if they get engaged, they are toast. With only a (0) melee action, engaged is not where they want to be.

To be fair, one of them has a zero AP close attack and can furious cast 3 1 AP close attacks.. If he's close to another mage he's got a built in push trigger that can either move the engaging enemy or shove a friendly mage out of engagement. 

I find that when they die before being able to do much it's because my opponent is trying prioritizing their removal. With their Arcane Shield and Temporary Shielding they aren't usually going to get taken out by a single model in a round unless it's something that can lay down a beating. What more do you expect out of a 5 point model?