How to play against Arcanists ?

[Le gob]

How do you play against arcanists?

We play by tournament rules, ie knowing only the faction of the opponent when we make our crews. I had a few games against arcanists and every time, warding runes and oxfordian mages were in the pool. It makes the arcanist henchmen (and ironside) immune to conditions and gives them counterspell, among other things.

It feels like it's effectively shutting down nearly all Neverborn leaders. So how do you play against them?

[Ludvig]

Lilith can use tangle on her own models to deliver a beater that uses ml which should wreck the mages. She can also block a few critical LoS to either mess with their auras or make the mages unable to furious cast at anything.

Lucius can get some excellent ranged stuff going with austringers and pathfinders to challenge their ranged dominance.

Collodi does the trapper + changeling spam to anihilate the mages turn 1 or early turn 2 and can steal mage ap and slow to block thm from doing furious casts.

They're mostly really good against black blood and misery?

 

[Pikciwok]

I'm Pandora player, and against Arcanists I take Voices and Rile them up. With that combination I can take down the Oxfordian mage with a single strike.

[Passenty]

6 hours ago, Pikciwok said:

I'm Pandora player, and against Arcanists I take Voices and Rile them up. With that combination I can take down the Oxfordian mage with a single strike.

You actually need 2 strikes most of the time but otherwise its a solid plan

[Pikciwok]

@Passenty: True. I need to deal severe damage, or have more sources of misery aura.

Unfortunately, the latter is usually not possible: as much as I love Sorrows I really try not to include Incorporeal models vs. the Arcanists. They have too many casters, including the Mages.

Other things I take are models and upgrades that ignore armor.

[melkore]

Give something Retribution's Eye and hit them repeatedly until they die laughing at all the armor you ignore. 

Their willpower is average or below for a lot of their models so wp duels drain hands.  Incite/Melancholy can be killer against someone like Ramos who activates in a particular order.

Getting around hard to kill with poison or burning if you don't need the kill for points is good. Misery if you play Pandora.

Avoid incorporeal models.

[katadder]

Lilith can target the oxfordian mages quite easily to bring them up and deal with them. consider getting serena bowman when she comes out as your swap model because if she dies she just comes back to be used again  

[WWHSD]

On 12/25/2017 at 6:41 AM, Le gob said:

I had a few games against arcanists and every time, warding runes and oxfordian mages were in the pool. It makes the arcanist henchmen (and ironside) immune to conditions and gives them counterspell, among other things.

 

There's nothing you can do about the Counterspell on the Warding Runes but the other effects on Warding Runes are dependent on having the Oxfordian Mage that grants each effect within range and LoS. Kill Mages or block them off and Warding Runes gets less effective.

[HydroMog]

aeslin can do some work with leaves on the wind to give  to enemy CA actions. but you will have to have something that cranks out scheme markers to best utilize it.

[santaclaws01]

9 hours ago, HydroMog said:

aeslin can do some work with leaves on the wind to give  to enemy CA actions. but you will have to have something that cranks out scheme markers to best utilize it.

She can provide her own scheme marker for it. It's only 1 per Turn and she has 3 ways of dropping them.

[HydroMog]

ya but i find "wicked silence" a waste of ap you have to be in the 2 range

[Pikciwok]

It depends. In Pandora's Tactica someone wrote that he charged with Aeslin many times with good effects. I think with Misery Aura her Wicked Silence may be solid. Plus, that means you put enemy in the range of her own aura.

[thewrathchilde]

I like things with big engagement ranges so you can tie up multiple models, Fears Given Form- even on their higher WP models over half the cards fail the check and it either gets damage or drains the hand. Use cheap activations early then attack the mages to knock down the bonuses, use terrain generation (Lilith, Waldgeists) to block auras, shield you movement till you can strike deep. Block off their Howard Langston/similar beater and attack their other models unless the opportunity presents itself to one round him. Obviously high damage models, Retributions Eye and other things that can get around armor and then using (as suggested above) things like Tangled Shadows to position/swap out your own models. \

[ObliterationPopsicle]

3 hours ago, thewrathchilde said:

...use terrain generation (Lilith, Waldgeists) to block auras...

Minor correction - the markers produced by the Waldgeist's Germinate action are not Dense so do not block line of sight.

Lilith's Illusionary Forest markers do however.

[Treehouse]

Put down an Illusionary forest between Ironsides and the Mages, then charge Ironsides. If the Mages are too close to Ironsides to block LOS with forest, you should be able to charge the Mages instead. Granted, if Ironsides has Challenge up, you'll need a highish card to cheat the WP with Lilith if neccessary. I'd also consider the Arcane Effigy to give Lilith the evasive push. That forces Ironsides to spend her (0) on Rush 'Em, hence she won't be able to put up Chllenge. Bring Lilitu to Lure Lilith away from Ironsides after they exchanged blows.

 

[thewrathchilde]

On 12/31/2017 at 1:42 AM, ObliterationPopsicle said:

Minor correction - the markers produced by the Waldgeist's Germinate action are not Dense so do not block line of sight.

Lilith's Illusionary Forest markers do however.

absolutely correct; the Waldgeist's Germinate doesn't block LOS but they do provide soft cover which can help screen your advance by putting (-) flips on the ranged attacks to help get your models across the board. Also they still are great for disrupting your opponents movement since they are severe. You can use them to disrupt your opponents advance slowing it down or help separate your opponents force making it where its difficult for them to counterattack or react to your blitz or strike when you hit one flank or the other. 

[Xaos]

I'd use either Lilith to brutally kill all enemy models, or Collodi, who ain't that dependant on putting conditions on enemy models, he can do just fine with putting conditions on his own puppets.

[Domin]

Against Arcanists I personally prefer using a Titania's spaming list with Spawn Mother+Wisp and Emissary as summoners and Bad Juju as an immortal beater. With Titania's pushes, we can give him the mobility he lacks to quickly get into melee. Then the opponent has a bad choice - not killing BJ allows him to do carnage, and killing him doesn't kill him. because we have gupps-spamming factory as options to restore him and even give him a +2 damage boost.

The January errata was a blessing for this list, giving him a 2SS discount. Which allowed me to add a bloodwretch as a card-farming mechanic.

 

[Ludvig]

Spawn mother actuallt being used?! Madness!