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Specialist: How Would you Change Him?


Davos

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Ok, so I know this is a topic that has been beat to death, but I'd like to hear people's thoughts on how they would buff the specialist.  I think with the rise of Azura Rotten's zombie spam (I haven't seen it but I've heard the horror stories) and Nicodem's return, Specialist should see more play, cause he can remove corpse markers, EXCEPT he's literally a waste of soulstones right now.  So I want to see in what ways we could make him playable and help counter the rising tide of Ressers.

  I've always thought it was a cool model (I mean, its a dude with a flamethrower, come on) but obviously it suffers from a ton of problems.  Its Wk & Df are to low for its cost, its range is only 10, and @ 8ss, its damage profil of 2/3blast/4blast is on the weak side.  It did get a small buff from engineer, but its highly card intensive and requires a ton of set up for a single good punch.

So, my thoughts:

Change to Wk 5, Df 5 OR drop the SS cost

Increase the range of his gun to 12

Give him a zero action that lets him push/place within 4 OR give him Reference the Field Guide so you can ensure you hit his suits for the not-builtin triggers/increase his dmg profile

Give him built-in Scout the Field so he gets a free walk at the beginning of the game (or each turn but that seems a wee to powerful)

 

Thought? Suggestions?  

 

 

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Drop him to 6SS and make him a Minion... he'll cost more than a Man, equals a Trapper with a much shorter range, equals an Engineer with a completely different skill set.

The model just really does not justify the Enforcer tag.  Specialist is not on par with a Librarian or Strongarm or Lazarus, so downgrade to minion.

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26 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

Drop him to 6SS and make him a Minion... he'll cost more than a Man, equals a Trapper with a much shorter range, equals an Engineer with a completely different skill set.

The model just really does not justify the Enforcer tag.  Specialist is not on par with a Librarian or Strongarm or Lazarus, so downgrade to minion.

I never thought of that dropping him in status.  I still don't think he'd be worth it without a stats change.   He'd basically gonna feed Hunting Party points or REckoning without a Df icnrease

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Give him a sort of Walking Fire trigger like the Samurai, built in. He can continue to move and fire but has to hit another model or he stops. Increase range to 12 in order to facilitate hitting extra models. That would make his damage spread a little more palatable. Increase his Df +1 for sure.

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In TTB specialists can use the flamethrower at :melee as well. I would rather he live up to his name, buff his marker removal, move or burn etc. Right now hes anti synergistic with engineers since they want to sit on markers he removes. Maybe card draw/cycle when removing markers? Perhaps a trigger on move or burn to push models.

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Increase range to 12", because now with 10" he is almost always become a target for a charge.

Increase his wk +1 and df +1

Increase his severe damage to 5

Shooting expert is a good idea

Then he would worth his cost of 8 SS

OR just increase his wk +1 and df +1 and drop his cost to 6 SS

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@Zebo Good idea, that way it has synergy with freikorps because they have armor, so it only costs them 1 to push whilst not being an auto use for other crews. Or they could take no damage if you worded it as a pulse that ignores armor, which would make sure its not used to be a super efficient illuminated pusher, though it might be a scary lighning bug interaction?

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16 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

Give him a sort of Walking Fire trigger like the Samurai, built in. He can continue to move and fire but has to hit another model or he stops. Increase range to 12 in order to facilitate hitting extra models. That would make his damage spread a little more palatable. Increase his Df +1 for sure.

That would be super flavourful as well - sweeping forward with hours of flame shooting out of the flammenwerfer - fits his figure as well.

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

I would increase his Df and Wk to 5 and would add to his "Move or burn" action "each model in range can suffer 2 damage  to lose Slow and Paralized and push  up to 4" in any direction". 

And this would also be very nice, additional g a bit of mobility to the friekorps list wouldn't go amiss!

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1 hour ago, Nukemouse said:

@Zebo Good idea, that way it has synergy with freikorps because they have armor, so it only costs them 1 to push whilst not being an auto use for other crews. Or they could take no damage if you worded it as a pulse that ignores armor, which would make sure its not used to be a super efficient illuminated pusher, though it might be a scary lighning bug interaction?

Freikorps currently don't take any damage from Move or Burn. Their Freikorps Suit ability allows them to ignore damage from :pulse and :blast effects. Move or Burn is a :pulse effect.

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I thought it could be a good boost to Freikorps crew the possibility of get pushes, and a great boost to Specialist utility if he was the source. Still not sure about it being a 1 AP instead of 0, since it's :pulse 10 an you could use it twice (or three times with oathkeeper) and almost redeploy your entire crew.

It could be once per activation, but I prefer to make this a 0 action. 

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I think he’s pretty close to 8 as as is. I’d be super happy with him at 7ss. So I don’t think he needs much to make him worth 8. Def 4 seems like something he wouldn’t have if he were a wave 3 or newer model. 

With Schill’s new upgrade you can make him fast every turn, and that is makes him a huge threat again IMO. 

Def 5 with shooting expert or nimble easily makes him worth 8, and even better than 8 with oath of the friekorp or the free pushes from Jack.

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"X and Y" in Malifaux terms doesn't mean you need X for Y to happen. If a model happens to be immune to pulse damage or immune to slow/paralysis removal, the other effect still gets applied.

Not that it matters often, I'll also note that Freikorps immunity to pulse damage is 'may'. They can take damage if they like. Cost me a game, that one did.

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16 hours ago, Mikey_C said:

I think he’s pretty close to 8 as as is. I’d be super happy with him at 7ss. So I don’t think he needs much to make him worth 8. Def 4 seems like something he wouldn’t have if he were a wave 3 or newer model. 

With Schill’s new upgrade you can make him fast every turn, and that is makes him a huge threat again IMO. 

Def 5 with shooting expert or nimble easily makes him worth 8, and even better than 8 with oath of the friekorp or the free pushes from Jack.

Tara already could give him fast every turn! Gotta remember how easy it is for her to give out fast in outcasts.

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12 minutes ago, KID55 said:

This is just Tara. And what about other masters?

 

Well Jack can push him "for free" and give him extra actions

Hamlin can give extra actions

So thats 4 out of 8 masters that can easily give him extra movement/actions and Everyone can hire Student of Conflict

 

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After looking through all of this, I think Nimble, Df +1, and Reference the Field Guide are probably the best combo to buff him into 8SS status.  

On 10/14/2017 at 12:10 PM, Mikey_C said:

With Schill’s new upgrade you can make him fast every turn, and that is makes him a huge threat again IMO. 

I find VS's Oath of the Freikorps isn't that useful, outside a full thematic Freikorps list, which generally isn't strong.   Aftermath is a more useful upgrae I've found and for the most part, you don't want to run a full Freikorps crew.  At most, you're running 3 i find (trapper, libraian, and then eiher Hannah/Anna/Suit and MAYBE a freikorpsmann instead of a trapper.maybe)

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48 minutes ago, Davos said:

After looking through all of this, I think Nimble, Df +1, and Reference the Field Guide are probably the best combo to buff him into 8SS status.  

I find VS's Oath of the Freikorps isn't that useful, outside a full thematic Freikorps list, which generally isn't strong.   Aftermath is a more useful upgrae I've found and for the most part, you don't want to run a full Freikorps crew.  At most, you're running 3 i find (trapper, libraian, and then eiher Hannah/Anna/Suit and MAYBE a freikorpsmann instead of a trapper.maybe)

I run a full Friekorps list and think it is amazing. Giving the strong arm, Anna Lovelace, a Librian or a trapper fast every turn is amazing. And Any turn they don't need fast VonSchill can spring into action. 

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I think its strong, its jsut that with those 4 models you're at 33 stones, not counting upgrades.  which means you're crew is at most 7 models.  And being outactivated by 2-3 is crippling.  Even though you'll get a couple really good shots with your insane buffed models, you're setting yourself up to start in a hole and have to claw back right away or you're gonna have one hell of a time

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