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How to Deal with Neverborn/Multiple Lures


warder808

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Hi,

 

I've been playing Malifaux for about a year. The people in my meta are super competitive and use really strong lists, even against a noob like me.

I don't think I've won a match yet. I own: Kaeris, Marcus, Rasputina, Ironsides and Ramos. I have the most experience with Marcus and Kaeris. But I feel like I dont make much headway vs. Neverborn. Another difficult match up is Ressurs. 

So I'm looking for any suggestions on how to try to beat these factions. One buddy did tell me about Ironsides and Warding Runes, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. 

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If there are some competitive Arcanist players in your meta you might want to ask them for some advice, as that advice will be more tailored to what your local opponents will be bringing against you. Also you should try to find opponents who are willing to play some less competitive games, I personally wouldn't enjoy playing nothing but hyper competitive lists, especially as a newer player.

Warding runes will block lures from Belles (and a few other models) entirely and make other types of lures and cast actions much harder to get off against you. If you don't have the upgrade on hand, it gives Counterspell to the model it is attached to. It is rare 2 and can be attached to any henchman and also Ironsides. The counterspell removing their printed suits means that Rotten Belles cannot, ever, lure the model with warding runes attached. The other thing Warding Runes does is give some benefits if your model is within :aura10 of the Oxfordian Mages, a different benefit for each mage. One mage gives regen +1, one mage gives :+fate to Df duels with the enemy master, and the other mage makes you immune to conditions applied by enemy models (this one is really good). The mages were recently buffed so that if you hire all three they cost 1SS less each and they are little bit tankier, this requires their new 0 cost upgrade from Ripples of Fate.

The Oxfordian mages and Warding Runes are pretty good against Ressurs and Neverborn because of their cheap cost (15SS for all three, and they can dish out some serious hurt and conditions) and their :+fate to Wp while in LoS of a friendly M&SU master or henchman model. At 6Wp they can make your opponent spend a lot of resources to take down some pretty cheap models. Because they can hand out burning with their attacks they are really good with Kaeris, as she is M&SU. From what I've heard, Ironsides with her new upgrades from broken promises is a massive pain for your opponent to deal with, so there has never been a better time to play her.

Against Neverborn you're probably going to want a lot of condition removal; if you don't have the Arcane Effigy you should probably get it for this reason (and because it is amazing). Collodi, Pandora, Zoraida, Lilith and Titania can give out some really annoying conditions so you may want to go all out and bring Johan (who is extra good in Arcanists because of his M&SU synergy) for his cleanse, as well as the Effigy. Johan also ruins Collodi's day with his Relic Hammer.

If your meta is competitive then the new upgrades and models from Broken Promises are probably going to begin making appearances soon and you'll want to pick the upgrade deck up, or get the Arcanist upgrades off of someone. Of the new models, I'd recommend getting some Union Steamfitters because an Armour +1 Ironsides is very scary, and so is a Ramos who draws his 11:tome+ back to hand after he summons three spiders. Steamfitters can also drop scheme markers, generate scrap and give burning to armoured enemies.

I'll just finish off this post with a common and powerful Arcanist strategy you may or may not be aware of involving Myranda and Imbued Energies. It is quite simple: you hire Myranda with Imbued Energies and then use her (0) action to transform (into the Cerberus or Blessed of December typically) which sacrifices her, allowing the death clause on Imbued Energies to trigger drawing you four cards.

Good luck and I hope some of this helps.

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Well I actually find Raspy to be a pretty decent drop against Neverborn personally. She and her entire thematic crew are immune to horror duels which tend to come up with some regularity in Neverborn. Also with her ability to drop ice pillars 22" (10" from a mirror) you can block many of those pesky lure models from seeing your crew. This is especially so when you factor in the wendingo who can also drop pillars. She is also decently effective at shutting down models deemed problematic via her paralyze. 

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Stick bleeding edge tech onto something tanky and throw it into the middle of their biggest threat - I personally use Ironsides, but Joss is pretty good as well. This is especially great against something that only has cast attacks.

You could also ask for their advice. They may play competitively but still be happy to debrief afterwards. If not you could suggest they stop being such utter arse hats.

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With Neverborn and Resser lures in mind:

Kang with Warding Runes and Mei Feng popping up Vent Steam once or twice will ruin their fun. The Counterspell ability on Warding Runes alone makes Kang effectively immune to Lures that aren't coming from things that can spend Soul Stones, and he has an aura that helps with Horror Duels and beating down Undead/Constructs. With Mei Feng popping up Vent Steam and you having appropriate kinds of threats within her protected bubble, you can get some serious denial in against the problem you describe.

That all being said, you're in a tight ball in the middle of the table if you're benefiting from all the auras, which means you might not be getting your Strat and Scheme points in. Make sure that if you do decide to take the utter denial route that the scenario supports it. Schemes like Show of Force can be completed with Envy (Well Rehearsed) and Kang (Hard Worker, Warding Runes) in the circle and the rest of the crew postured for the Strategy, but you've still got another scheme to score.

I've used Mei Feng and Kang into several Lure crews, and the one time I didn't take Warding Runes on Kang, my opponent happily spent every AP of his turn dragging Kang out of the Steam bubble and into his area to beat him down. It made for a wonderful distraction and allowed me to get more pieces into position, but it wasn't exactly planned. I had been hoping to use his Horror-immunity bubble to enable my crew's assault.

Note: it also works well against other control crews, including 10T and Arcanists.

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You could also take Angelica/Performer/Captain to lure/push their models or your models back. You'll want some source of push/lures yourself to get out of engagements and unfavourable bord positions. 

 

With rasputina, i figure that she and the wendigo placing ice walls should be effective to prevent luring. Also try to take advantage of terrain, if possible, to stop pushes or to lessen the distance of a walk 

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If Mei Feng walks up and vents you can have a nice immunity zone. If they lure you once before you activate you get free movement but if you don't want to be lured you move into that zone. Bring a ranged-heavy crew and take out the lurers from the safety of that zone before engaging if they have a lure-centered strategy. 

Using terrain to break line of sight is also good. There should be a few safe spaces on most boards.

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It's especially effective if the chaff models are blocking direct movement between the luring models and the quality targets. With a board filled with varied terrain and chaff models in inconvenient locations, the lures become functionally useless. This is primarily a Turn 1 thing, so your beaters and quality models don't need to be in scoring position yet, they just need to be postured for it.

One of the other things that goes really well for me when I'm running a crew oriented at counter-luring is most of the models have relatively low walk stats (Wk 4), and even with Mei Feng's upgrade that boosts Wk it doesn't help with the lure effects that move a model its Wk towards the luring model, because that upgrade's boost only kicks in on the Activation of the Foundry model affected. I also tend to use outside push effects to enable the slowest models to be in position (such as Angelica), and with the same upgrade that boosts Foundry Wk I get a trigger to bring a passenger (which lets me place a beater/shooter on the other side of chaff models without having to move them or activate it first).
So with canny placement of chaff models you can limit the effectiveness of lures that push models directly towards the luring model, and using relatively low Wk models (exploiting activation-specific movement tricks to work around a relatively low movement speed) limits the effectiveness of lure effects that move a model its Wk.

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Kaeris should also counter lures decently. She can place pyre markers next to blocking terrain to cause large areas safe because of LoS.

Raspy also just blocks off half the board and takes it slow behind her wall of ice.

One constant thorn in my side is Sybelle with the upgrade to make you walk further who places a belle and companions into it. You need to measure your angles to Sybelle with great care.

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On 9/30/2017 at 10:41 PM, Jordon said:

Well I actually find Raspy to be a pretty decent drop against Neverborn personally. She and her entire thematic crew are immune to horror duels which tend to come up with some regularity in Neverborn. Also with her ability to drop ice pillars 22" (10" from a mirror) you can block many of those pesky lure models from seeing your crew. This is especially so when you factor in the wendingo who can also drop pillars. She is also decently effective at shutting down models deemed problematic via her paralyze. 

Read "Cold Nights" one more time.  Ice Pillars can't be placed more than 12" away from the casting model.  Meaning, while you can ice mirror through another model to case, the place range of the pillars is still 12" (and since its a place, no need to ice mirror for LOS anyways).  

I made the same mistake early when I was playing Raspy, before a more experienced player corrected me. 

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8 minutes ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

Read "Cold Nights" one more time.  Ice Pillars can't be placed more than 12" away from the casting model.  Meaning, while you can ice mirror through another model to case, the place range of the pillars is still 12" (and since its a place, no need to ice mirror for LOS anyways).  

I made the same mistake early when I was playing Raspy, before a more experienced player corrected me. 

Yep, your correct. That sucks, but the range is still pretty decent at 12"

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On 5.10.2017 at 3:18 AM, Jinn said:

Isn't that 12" the Rg? If it isn't, then why does the spell even have an Rg value?

It is specified as Rg but it also explicitly states that the Pilar Markers should be placed within 12" of THIS model. If they would have just written place the markers within Rg then it also could have been measured from the mirror model as you draw Rg from it.

I agree that specifying both Rg and this additional constraint seems a bit doubled but I guess it is just to make it easier to see.

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I think it might just be an oversight, not intentional, as it seems like it is intended to be Rg 12. I hope it is FAQed or Errataed as it seems pretty weird for Raspy to be unable to cast through her models with one of her spells when that's her entire gimmick.

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7 hours ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

The spell has a range value bc Wendigo can cast it too. I don't think it was an oversight.  I think placing wall markers 22" is a bit ridiculous, and I love Raspy.

Why would the Rg value be required for the Wendigo? It would just place the markers within 12" of itself, like Raspy.

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On 2017-10-05 at 2:43 AM, SevenThirtySeven said:

Read "Cold Nights" one more time.  Ice Pillars can't be placed more than 12" away from the casting model.  Meaning, while you can ice mirror through another model to case, the place range of the pillars is still 12" (and since its a place, no need to ice mirror for LOS anyways).  

I made the same mistake early when I was playing Raspy, before a more experienced player corrected me. 

But while casting I would assume you may measure range through your mirror for that action. It's not a separate ability checking range it's still the cast for the purpose of that cast "this model" is measured from the mirror?

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43 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

But while casting I would assume you may measure range through your mirror for that action. It's not a separate ability checking range it's still the cast for the purpose of that cast "this model" is measured from the mirror?

Raspy's card reads:

"When taking as Ca action, this model may draw LoS and range from a friendly model with Frozen Heart within 10" and LoS that is not engaged."

Cold Nights reads:

"Place two Ice Pillar markers touching each other within 12" of this model and at least 1" from any model or Marker."

 

Since the ice mirror node is not the model casting (not "this model" in Cold Nights), the answer seems pretty clear to me, but I've certainly been wrong before.

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1 hour ago, retnab said:

You measure the distance from Raspy.  You can do LoS from the friendly model with Frozen Heart.

 

2 hours ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

Raspy's card reads:

"When taking as Ca action, this model may draw LoS and range from a friendly model with Frozen Heart within 10" and LoS that is not engaged."

Cold Nights reads:

"Place two Ice Pillar markers touching each other within 12" of this model and at least 1" from any model or Marker."

 

Since the ice mirror node is not the model casting (not "this model" in Cold Nights), the answer seems pretty clear to me, but I've certainly been wrong before.

 

Her ice mirror allows her to make the range measuremet from her mirror. How is the range between the marker and casting model not considered the range of the action? The entire section on range and LoS on page 40 repeatedly states things like "To determine if a model (or other object) is in range of the Acting model, measure from base to base." and "Any Action that has a target will also require that the acting model is able to see the Target." So when you are drawing LoS and range from another model's base you are basically using that model as a stand in for the Acting model.

Seems like a rough deal for her, my club has always assumed you can measure to the ice mirror target, that's the whole point of ice mirror. I don't play Raspy btw, I only face her.

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Quote

Ice Mirror: When taking a Ca Action, this model may draw LoS and range from a friendly model with Frozen Heart within 10" and LoS that is not engaged. [...]

(1) Ice Pillars [...]: Place two Ice Pillar Markers touching each other within 12" of this model [...].

(1) Magical Extension [...]  Cast one of this Crew's Leader's Ca Actions with an AP cost of 1 [...].

Two things, from all the above: There is a range restriction, but the ice pillars being placed within 12" is in addition to that range.  So, if you're bouncing it forward with Ice Mirror it must be within 12" of the Frozen Heart model from its Rg and within 12" of Rasputina from the secondary requirement in its text.

Second, when the Wendigo uses Magical Extension, it becomes the "this model" in Ice Pillars as it is the one using the Ability.  So, the restriction is basically just within 12" of it, as it doesn't have Ice Mirror.

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