Hive mind... how do you beat ressers

[fanteegi]

Right.. it could just be me but I really struggle against 1 particular faction when playing 10t and that' those dastardly ressers. No matter what I try their numbers just overwhelm me and I will inevitably lose.

I use Jacob, misaki and McCabe and they all seem to flop.

Any advice?

I have kang but find him to be too much of a linchpin. If he falls, the rest of the crew will flop.

[Ludvig]

Super duper alpha galore and kill their master turn 1? I think McCabe should manage that, maybe Misaki as well.

[fanteegi]

Which is great if you have the hand for it. Or the master doesn't have janky defensive abilities (like Nico or molly) 

[santaclaws01]

19 minutes ago, fanteegi said:

Which is great if you have the hand for it. Or the master doesn't have janky defensive abilities (like Nico or molly) 

Nico only if he has that upgrade, or just send Ohaguro after him. Molly's costs cards to use, and if she doesn't have any cards she can't summon.

What crews do you usually take? I usually find that 10T has very little trouble against ressers.

[Patzer]

Hit them early and hard. I dont mean you should be reckless and just alpha all the time. But puttning early constant pressure on key models with a focus on disrupting synergy and ending the game early is usually the way to go, against the summoners of the faction at least. 

[fanteegi]

37 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Nico only if he has that upgrade, or just send Ohaguro after him. Molly's costs cards to use, and if she doesn't have any cards she can't summon.

What crews do you usually take? I usually find that 10T has very little trouble against ressers.

My crews vary from game to game as they should. But most commonly I take lynch as I find him very good at killing stuff.

The problem I have is I cannot pinpoint what happens to be wrong in any game. I am not overly conservative nor am I overly aggressive and reckless. I build my crews to achieve the schemes and have plan b's incase anything happens to those key models.. it just fails.

[ElPuto]

As @Ludvig said, Ohaguro can be a pain. Nimble from McCabe, Fast from the Emissary and she can kill whatever you need.

Shenlong can help you too, if you plan to buy a new box. He has the tool to build an effective gunline.

Taelor maybe? She and Kang can be partners in crime and walk the battlefield as a deadly tandem.

My vote is for McCabe, surely he adds a lot of mobility to your beaters but even to your runners and he can kill stuff on his own. 
 

[InvokeChaos]

Can  you give us some sample masters or even crews? Maybe a brief synopsis of what the game looked like? More information is better. Rezzers are a tough nut to crack in general because of summons, but we have the tools. I honestly feel the hardest part is that we are a faction that is notoriously pillow fisted on the low end, and they force a lot of min damage through. Though recent models have somewhat ameliorated this. 

Crime Boss I feel is a staple take against rezzers because they're a 40mm base with laugh off, an ability to effectively remove hard to wound +1 and min 3. Their ml5 is mitigated by lower than average df stats on the undead in general. His 0 action to draw cards on activation is great for using him as a tanking piece and the option to forego that for healing is solid as well.  Charm Warders and Terracotta Warriors dial these guys up so they are great front line models against the hordes. 

Obsidian Statue is similar in this role, providing a nice bit of blocking LoS, Armor 2 and a heal.  If your enemy is plinking 1 dam a hit, he's not going down. Df 3 is hard to deal with though and can be card intensive or invite mods and severes, so I'm not sold on him being "auto-take" but a solid consideration.

Ranged to soften them up is great. Especially models coming in from Nico and Kirai, who are already wounded. Emissary is an all-star with hunting for that 6 damage on 1AP thanks to his focus discard ability. 

More specifically to your masters.  My thread on Lynch kind of addresses how I deal with rezzers as I have taken a 7 activation Lynch into summoners and not lost more than a model and nearly tabled my opponents. It's all about being cagey and not over extending. Summoning engines all have a weakness, you just have to exploit it. Lynch is particularly good at this because he can delete 2 models a turn easily if they are coming in damaged already.  Hell he can do it to full health models with a touch of luck between wanna see a trick and woke up with a hand. 

McCabe passing out saber is great for providing some much needed damage.  I feel like badge of speed is a bit of a trap against rezzers. You don't want to get isolated. They prefer that. Strangemetal Shirt for the armor aura is awesome. Getting those + to WP from promises helps a bit against lures. The elixir is great for topping up a tank like the Crime Boss or Obsidian Statue. Fuhatsu or Izamu could fill this role as well. You can try to dive Yasunori into their ranks to try to break the engine, but if you don't guarantee that break, you've lost too many points. 

Misaki is dangerous into rezzers IMO.  They're hard to wound mitigate her high top end damage and reduce the ability to exploit storm.  Stalking somewhat makes up for this, but I feel like you have to play super conservative with her here. That or dive her in hard with misdirection, risk and reward and make sure you disrupt that engine.  Murder asura or philip.

Some models to take a look at:

Kang obviously, though he's super slow and not as tanky as you'd like him to be. I honestly don't run him very often, but he's pretty nasty in a gunline as an anchor point. I think he may have some play with archers where he charges in, and the archers can just shoot what he's tanking, with  if they're near him against those pesky undead.
Any model that's min 3 to mitigate HtW
Crime Bosses for overall tankiness and laugh off
Lust is solid because she can take summoned, diving models and send them back with hopefully slow and/or some damage on them. 
Charm Warders give out entropy to summoned models and can give it as an attack.  Pretty solid. 
Emissary as mentioned above.
Samurai are actually a solid take as they basically ignore cover, and you're looking to spray damage, not pile it on.  So it's a great take for slaughtering zombies and low wound summons.
If you're looking for a new master, fight fire with fire and bring Asami. Her focused +2 action makes ranged threats super deadly even with HtW and she is incredibly AP efficient as a summoner.
Mercs. Sue is strong for his anti-cast aura that basically makes Belles and Doxies much less reliable. Also a great pic in case they go Tara/Beast Bomb because NB is casts. Taelor is now a bit more affordable as well. Lazarus is a solid ranged tank as well.
 

[Lokibri]

As mentioned earlier Jorogumo can be very, very good. Also there is the option with 3 jorogumos and a yamaziko with smoke and shadows and popping the jorogumos into the enemy after turn 1. If they got buffed by McCabe, they can hit quite hard and survive a lot, especially with eat your fill. Use guild hounds to outactivate him then pop those things up. You can give them nimble and reactivate as they are minions.

Dawn Serpent has a very nice option to blast at your enemy. Also, a very good model you can reactivate and nimble towards your opponent and giv'em hell.

 

[anencephalous]

Ressers are strong at the moment. The Kentauri and the Grave Digger have between them pretty much covered all of the obvious Resser weaknesses.

If you are not playing in competitions, your experience may also vary significantly from popular high level tourny play as well. Because tournament games are played on strict time-lines, and games are frequently ended in turn 3 or 4, they naturally favour quick scoring teams (which the many summoners of Ressers do not do well.) Conversely, played with ample time, summoners tend to grind out late game victories which are hard to stop.

TT's do struggle against Ressers, at least in my experience. Firstly, we have one of the smallest game-play mechanic pools of any faction. That is, we have several good alphastrike and support masters, and while each game plays differently, because each alphastrike or push mechanic is different, they really cover the same roles. It doesn’t matter in game terms if it was Shenlong double pushing a fast minion to put down a scheme marker, or McCabe reactivating one. The game-play is different, the effect is the same.

We lack a proper summoner, which would be the fight fire with fire approach, but annoyingly we also lack a true blaster like Wong or Sonnia. The only good thing about the summoners from Ressers is they don’t have armour (the other TT weakness). 

Finally, the thing we are really good at - getting a model somewhere and killing that particular thing (provided it isn’t a safe master or henchmen), is actually pretty rubbish against Ressers. Especially Ressers who have played against TT a fair amount. When I first started playing Ressers, my opponents favoured small teams of quality models, and then summoned to round out the numbers. If your rampaging beater is murdering a big model, it is actually okay. And their beaters are pretty limp, because they want the stones and cards for summons. However recently the trend has been starting with lots of small, expendable models, and then summoning even more. Our good, buffed beaters get locked up killing trash, and the attrition and/or wall of tackle zones make end game scoring hard.

So, with all that being said, master choice. I would start with recommending Misaki. The new upgrade throwing around AoE markers was the belated attempt to give us a blast master. The recent nurf was crippling against Ramos, but against Ressers it isn’t that bad. She can spread around a good amount of damage, especially if the summons are kind enough to come in on low health like Molly's. Keep in mind she usually wont be able to remove as many activations as their master summons, but the reduced number gives you a chance to grab some VP.

Secondly, Yan Lo. New Yan Lo is really good at blending packs of things, once he has had some time to level up. With an aoe attack, and increasing power from lots of death, he enjoys an undead mosh pit almost as much as a corpse-marker-using summoner. Again, unless you get lucky, you wont blend as fast as they summon, but you are significantly reducing the numbers.

Third, I recommend Asami. Her summons are fine while they last, and in a match of attrition you will usually lose, but again, you are playing for time while you score, not to wipe the board.

Finally, I quite like Mei Feng into Ressers. A more radical suggestion, but if the board is open, a pack of cheap or summoned undead prostitutes can pretty much ruin any cohesive plan you form. Support models pulled into shoot or charge range, scheme runners away from their destination, beaters pulled next expendable road bumps - a good user of lures can break up your team for a very low SS investment. If the map is open, it is rare I don’t see two or three Belles at the least. Mei Feng is the hard counter to this, allowing at least a bubble of models to get where they need to go. She is usually a pretty average beater, but if your opponent has spent all their cards summoning, she can usually chain together a fair number of attacks for decent effect. Finally, she is our only real summoner (with scrap engine and Toshiro, of course), and while you are wandering safely up the board, you can be putting down one or Kominau a turn, which really helps with the model disparity in later turns.

I am interested that people have had success with Shenlong and McCabe. These are my worst into Ressers, because it is score early or get overwhealmed. In tournaments, they are better, because they can quickly score points, but in a full five turn game they seem to really suffer for me. I can see new Lynch being better, because Depleted summons might give the team staying power.

Other models -

Well, Kang, obviously.

Low River Monks. And I emphasise the plural - monks. If the schemes and strats force you to fight, and sometimes they will, bring many low river monks. Usually I scrape by with one against other factions, but I frequently bring two and occasionally three against Ressers. They give your big models staying power against spammed attacks without good cards. It doesn’t solve the road-bump problem, where your beaters get stuck killing irrelevant stuff, but it does stop you suffering attrition to full table wipe, which did sometimes happen to me before they were available.

Toshiro. Even without Mei, Ressers tend to have a lot of corpse markers. Better you use them than they do. Obviously ones dropped on the other side of the board next to the master aren't going anywhere, but when things die in the middle, they are better off turned into Ashigaru.

Sensei Yu. Yeah, he is always great, but don’t forget his capacity to push corpse markers around. Putting them out of sight, or on top of very tall terrain etc. can be a lifesaver mid-game.

Finally, Misdirection. Against summoner spam this upgrade really shines. Lots of low attacks proc lots of bounces, and can really make the Resser player thing twice about even bothering. Verses Arcanists, they grit their teeth and spend a few stones and low cards, and then Howard murders your master anyway. If you are hoping to get the same damage out of 4 mid range models, you are usually going to have a rough time.

[InvokeChaos]

@anencephalous I'm intrigued by your pick as Misaki top. Hard to Wound effectively nullifies her ability to blast, as even with a recalled training turn, you're still looking to get to straight by accuracy. Normally what makes her so devastating there is that she can pop a recalled or take a focused swing or two (if you can fast her) to guarantee the . You just don't have access to that really when most targets are going to be HtW.  Even a focused shot is going to more often than not be on negatives. What are your thoughts there?

Another thought to add to all this: I think we actually have a very strong tanking game. I agree that our "mechanical identity" is a bit more flavor than unique, but we have a couple of things we do better than anyone and the thing that immediately comes to mind is healing. A normally hard to find mechanic, we have it in droves. Usually on solid models that bring a lot to the table. From 10T bros to Obsidian Oni to the new Crime Bosses... we have the heals. 10T bros can get armor, we have a lot of HtW and HtK sprinkled and a few high armor pieces. We have self-heals and an emissary that passes out an armor aura when models are going defensive. It's an interesting situation. Shenlong, Yan Lo, McCabe all buff healing and defensive capabilities. Lynch can now too with Cheating Bastard. It's good stuff. 

I also would like to draw attention to GG18 no longer being really an activation game. Summons don't count for Ours. Ply is arguably benefitted by having a lot of models to ply with... but the converse is that if you spam the board, it gives your opponent way more options. Much better to get a tanky model engaged with a couple of others to ply and then go "come at me bro." Supply Wagon wants larger bases and is again a sit and babysit kind of scheme that benefits stalwart over fleeting. Public Execution wants tankier, less likely to die models too. Symbols is probably the only strat that likes to have extra activations for the purpose of trying to get a winger up in their back line for the markers. Also remember the strats are much more back and forth.  Public and Ply only get one VP a turn to one player and Ours/Wagons/Symbols can be denied, even with summons on the board.

So masters like McCabe and Shenlong do well in those schemes. They bring heals to an already decently stalwart crew choice. I played Lynch all month and the biggest thing I noticed was that I could run 7 models of tanky goodness and it wasn't a bad idea. Even when I got blitzed in an alpha that took one out... I could recover and keep the rest alive. Sometimes it really isn't about the numbers. I had Nico chucking Kentauroi into my face, but because my models were able to get healed up and took only minor hits, it was fine. 

I think Mei Fang is a really solid idea personally. Toshiro is a decent play too, but I'm not a fan of how card intensive he is. 

I would like to add into Asami that remember she eats corpse markers (and scheme markers) and Jorogumo are like the ultimate anti summoner tech.  They can charge for 1AP when summoned, Ml5 with a min 3 and a 0 that ignores a lot of defenses.  Summoning a Joro and charging it up can often wreck a wounded summon or two while potentially leaving a fully healed threat if you were able to get flicker 2 from where-ever. 

You don't have to mulch your opponent. And you don't have to out-activate them. You just have to outplay them.  And if you can score 10 points before round 4, then who cares if they mince you round 4-5... you got your 10. 

[Adran]

14 hours ago, InvokeChaos said:

@anencephalous I'm intrigued by your pick as Misaki top. Hard to Wound effectively nullifies her ability to blast, as even with a recalled training turn, you're still looking to get to straight by accuracy. Normally what makes her so devastating there is that she can pop a recalled or take a focused swing or two (if you can fast her) to guarantee the . You just don't have access to that really when most targets are going to be HtW.  Even a focused shot is going to more often than not be on negatives. What are your thoughts there?
 

I agree with your views on Asami being a good summoner against Ressers, but I disagree here. Ressers typically have a lower df than most models, especially their models with hard to wound.If you Hit a Flesh construct whilst under recalled training, your opponent it probably going to have to throw severes to stop you getting a straight damage flip, and you will still be hitting the model. They aren't going to be doing that very often in the turn. 

I norm ally default to the flesh construct, whihc I know is a particually low df, but Misaki ought to pick who she wants to hit within reason. So Her Ml 7 attack probably ends on 16. The constructs df probably ends on 10 (average on a positive flip is 9, average on a normal flip is 7). So I am hitting unless they cheat in the red joker. They need to cheat at least an 8 to prevent me having a cheating flip, and I only then need a 10 to cheat again. So I am probably forcing them to use a severe card to stop me cheating but they are still hit.  I probably have 3 attacks, so I would expect most enemy hands to not be able to prevent at least 2 cheatable flips. And Summoners really need the high cards to summon, so if they are spending them on Df flips you are probably in a good way. 

So Misaki can probably still get several blasts off if she wants, because of the pressure on the enemy hand to prevent it. But it is a little less certain than normal

 

[anencephalous]

@InvokeChaos Unless I am mistaken, they did not remove The Coming Storm trigger from The Storm Upgrade, so with no stones in the pool you may always cheat no matter how many negs you have on the flip. I still tend to take recalled to try and save cards for the damage flip, but even dropping a few moderates will get you a few blast markers to pop down. The blasts negate defensive triggers, and don’t care about impossible to wound or level seventeen hard to wound or mass of viscera, so they are pretty handy to toss around.

Yes, we have some nice tanks. But tanks really don’t help against Resser swarm, which is what I tend to face. They get lured next to some trash model, and spend the rest of the game punching things that cost 1 moderate card and 1 master AP to create. Yin is good against Ressers, but no more than she is against anything else, she is always good imo. But because she cannot be easily locked up, casting out of melee, she can still do her job. Izamu, on the other hand, tends to get bogged down verses Ressers. However, since I tend to take Toshiro, Yu and Kang as my default three into Ressers, I usually don’t have space for a pure tank.

GG18 is less an activation game than GG17, but I believe people are overstating how little it matters now. Yes, there are no easy scheme points for whoever goes last in a turn, but that doesn’t mean the more actions are not more useful. Getting to commit second is still very useful, which is why Nellie is still great. Getting to be last in a turn to try and score, no matter what the schemes and strats is always useful. And against Ressers, if you don’t watch out, you can be down lots of models, and it becomes really hard to score. What really did get knocked down a notch was peons, but you don’t see that many of them in Ressers.

Finally, it is nice if you can just "outplay" your opponent, but all of our group are at approximately the same level, and there are no free wins on skill alone. It is not like my opponents are just throwing down summons, then going out for a cigarette - they are using them in an intelligent, frequently optimal fashion. There is no way I am getting 10 VP against anyone in my group by turn 4 unless lots and lots of bad things happened.

 

 

[InvokeChaos]

Good point on Misaki, that does make her much more viable. Especially if you run risk and reward so you have the guaranteed trigger by having "no" soulstones. 

On 1/31/2018 at 4:50 AM, anencephalous said:

Yes, we have some nice tanks. But tanks really don’t help against Resser swarm, which is what I tend to face. They get lured next to some trash model, and spend the rest of the game punching things that cost 1 moderate card and 1 master AP to create. Yin is good against Ressers, but no more than she is against anything else, she is always good imo. But because she cannot be easily locked up, casting out of melee, she can still do her job. Izamu, on the other hand, tends to get bogged down verses Ressers. However, since I tend to take Toshiro, Yu and Kang as my default three into Ressers, I usually don’t have space for a pure tank.

I think this is why Crime Bosses are such a thing right now. Decently tanky, immune to lures and pushes, can punch out some nice damage, built in heal and if you don't need the heal potential card draw. Fuhatsu is also immune to lures and pushes, armor 2 with soulstones... and this is before counting in the numerous pushes and such we have access to as well.  Yeah, maybe Izamu isn't the right pick, but maybe he is. Maybe you're totally ok with a min 3 with 3 attack model that wants to cheat damage to cycle cards being stuck in against rando summons.  If your opponent summoned two models to bog down Izamu, then double lures him... they just used 4 AP on 1 model and 2 of that was master AP. That's a win in my book. 

As to outplaying: I hear you and I don't mean to imply it's necessarily an easy thing. I also don't mean outplay as in "hands down you just win because of better skill," I mean as in you play better. Which is what this game is entirely about. You play better and/or make fewer mistakes than your opponent. Some crews in GG17 you could screw up a lot and still pull out victories because activation control was that good. The reason ratjoy got nerfed was because anybody could pilot it. It was just an oppressive engine of activation control into ok I win now.

I would concur that activation count is being downplayed more than it should. But 8 models seems to be a nice solid number of activations, so it's what you do with it at that point.  And I've had some very strong wins with only 7 activations, including versus rezzers. Activations shouldn't be viewed as intimidating. AP efficiency matters more. It's no longer about flood the board, but more what kind of stalwart models you can bring to last the game and keep it up.

[Jesy Blue]

My meta has few resurrectionists in it, but the two things I love when I play them is Bettari's Drawn To Essence ability, which is not once per turn, to literally cut off anything summoned (it's especially funny on the new undead horse things); and the same thing to a lesser degree, mercenary Taelor and her 0 action Welcome To Malifaux.... not as good, but the two of them combined is hilarious.

[ElPuto]

2 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

My meta has few resurrectionists in it, but the two things I love when I play them is Bettari's Drawn To Essence ability, which is not once per turn, to literally cut off anything summoned (it's especially funny on the new undead horse things); and the same thing to a lesser degree, mercenary Taelor and her 0 action Welcome To Malifaux.... not as good, but the two of them combined is hilarious.

Kang + Taelor and every Undead/Construct in range will crumble.

[Richard matthews]

Use McCabe to paralyze Nico turn 1 (did this a week ago) kamitachi pushes him 7 towards Nico, Nico's engine has to be set up McCabe can paralyze him 2nd activation

[Nikodemus]

5 hours ago, Richard matthews said:

Use McCabe to paralyze Nico turn 1 (did this a week ago) kamitachi pushes him 7 towards Nico, Nico's engine has to be set up McCabe can paralyze him 2nd activation

It was a fairly casual game all things considered so I wouldn't put too much stock into it at tournament tables, but in a similar fashion I had Yin pushed up early to tag Reva with her -Ca -Wp condition. Kept Reva in check half the game. Most resser masters like their Ca actions so having Yin put them on negatives is a fun thing you can try to do. In a more serious game I'd be worried about Yin being punched off the table after her alpha strike, seeing as how it doesn't actually kill any models.

[Richard matthews]

18 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

It was a fairly casual game all things considered so I wouldn't put too much stock into it at tournament tables, but in a similar fashion I had Yin pushed up early to tag Reva with her -Ca -Wp condition. Kept Reva in check half the game. Most resser masters like their Ca actions so having Yin put them on negatives is a fun thing you can try to do. In a more serious game I'd be worried about Yin being punched off the table after her alpha strike, seeing as how it doesn't actually kill any models.

this was at a tournament, close deployment. McCabe is the perfect counter to Nico or asami waits for him to drop all his scheme markers and then jump in and eat them all for flicker

[Ludvig]

On 2018-02-12 at 10:49 AM, Richard matthews said:

Use McCabe to paralyze Nico turn 1 (did this a week ago) kamitachi pushes him 7 towards Nico, Nico's engine has to be set up McCabe can paralyze him 2nd activation

Can't the Nico player just move a model to where McCabe needs to be to have reach for the netgun and stop this on many tables? Sounds like a one-time gimick that relies on them not having Chiaki or not knowing about it. It could let you win several games against unaware opponents, not sure if it would trick the top table Nikos.

[Richard matthews]

yh it comes down to the board and your positioning but he can get there 2nd activation on turn 1 , and a lot of things come down to the board and your positioning but with mccabes speed he is better equipped than most to deal with this as reapers grin wont affect his shot as it does no damage

[Ludvig]

True, that may be too fast to counter. Would love to wash that grin off his face.