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Models to use for Symbols


KingCrow

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We have lots of movement tricks up our sleeves as Arcanists and I was thinking of the best models to use for this Strategy.  One of them was the Soulstone Miner and his ability to unbury relatively close to the enemy deployment zone.  Has anyone tried this? I have yet to play a game of Symbols but this sounds like a model that might finally see some table time.  Thoughts? 

What are other models that people are using to get to the enemy's symbols?

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Soulstone Miners should work out well depending on the deployment and where your opponent places their markers. Worse case scenario you can pop them up near one of your own markers to defend it. Most of the Soulstone Miner's usefulness grabbing markers is tied up in their unbury ability. If the deployment, board setup, and your opponent's first turn actions conspire against you placing the Soulstone Miners near one of your opponent's markers you'll want Plan B models to grab them.  

The Soulstone Miners have the added benefit that after they grab a marker that your opponent placed way away from the action you can just have them damage themselves for Soulstones instead of trying to get back into the action. 

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Kandara with Imbued Energies and the "Don't Mind Me" upgrade stolen from a Gamin makes a great model to grab markers.

She's got Wk6, doesn't take disengaging strikes, and can interact while engaged, and can get fast for a turn.

If you give up "Don't Mind Me" for "Mantle Of Flames" you've got a reasonable chance of being able to cheat in the Severe damage needed to place Kandara in base contact with an enemy that is up to 8 inches away. That can either let her jump over a wall of enemy models or quickly get back to defend your own markers.

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Don't people usually defend their markers somehow? The miners can't pop out near enemy models either so will have a hard time with finding a good spot.

Showgirls have don't mind me, you just need to get them to the markers somehow. Marcus has a plethora of leapers to bounce around the table. :) 

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23 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Don't people usually defend their markers somehow? The miners can't pop out near enemy models either so will have a hard time with finding a good spot.

In the couple of Symbols games I've played so far it seems to be common for one of the markers to be out of the way and away from where most of the rest of the action will be. It takes some time to get a model over to the marker and once you do that model is far enough away that it's hard to make it relevant for the rest of the game. I think this is a scenario where the Soulstone Miner would shine.

If that's not how things play out in a particular game, the Miner is still a decent piece for defending your own Markers. With a 40mm base and a 2 inch engagement range he can block off a good sized area around the marker. He's reasonably tanky if you are willing to spend Soulstones on damage reduction and his "Dropped Down a Hole" trigger can put a potential symbol swiper in a bad spot. If you've got a couple of markers whose main defense is that they are a long run to get to, the Miner can unbury near the one you see your opponent commit to, along the path that the suspected swipers appear to be taking. 

I'll run one (or two depending on the rest of the pool) the next time I play Symbols and see if it works on the table like it does in my head.

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That does sound very helpful as a counter tactic to the counter tactic. :) 

 

Is it common to place your own marker near the centerline to get to pick it up? It's something of a gamble but could probably pay off if you guard it somehow with shadows-deployed models.

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21 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

That does sound very helpful as a counter tactic to the counter tactic. :) 

 

Is it common to place your own marker near the centerline to get to pick it up? It's something of a gamble but could probably pay off if you guard it somehow with shadows-deployed models.

The wording in the Strategy was changed to close that loophole from the beta versions. Now, all of your symbol markers need to be deployed completely on your side of the table and you are only able to Interact with markers on your opponent's side of the table.

One trick that Marcus could pull is using Alpha to make one of your opponent's models remove one of your symbol markers on a turn that they've already removed one since you can only score 1 VIP per turn. Colette can kind of do the same thing with one of her new upgrades but that would be much harder to pull off as there are a lot of hoops to jump through. I don't think we have anything else with an Obey or Obey-like effect.

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If you don't mind devoting most of your master's AP to the strategy, Kaeris with Grab and Drop, Flaming Angel, and Blinding Flame is pretty good for removing enemy markers. Also, anything with a push or leap that can easily get out of engagement seems to be hard to defend against. The harder part of the strategy seems to be keeping your own markers on the board.

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IE Firestarter is probably pretty good for it, 15in flight that you can interact after is probably pretty good. Cassandra can get that without the flight as well (as can Howard, but he probably has better things to be doing...)

Blessed can leap 7 and walk 10 + interact with IE, and has unimpeded, as can Cerberus. Myranda can taxi 12in plus her base too, but you lose IE for it, and would have to transform her turn one (not that that's exactly an issue generally)

Mech rider would be an interesting choice for it, 12in walk and 4 in push + interact with IE, also unimpeded, though this needs an 8+ of tomes turn 2. Gotta be careful not to expose her too early, but she can handle herself against schemey models. Bit expensive though.

Kudra and Ice Dancers are both quick and have butterfly jump, so don't have to worry as much about getting shot off the board before getting there.

And all of this can be supercharged by Mages/Angelica/Captain pushes.

There's probably some molemen shenanigans that I'm not thinking of cause I don't have them, and Marcus certainly has more options (silurids are good I've heard)

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1 hour ago, BFOmega said:

There's probably some molemen shenanigans that I'm not thinking of cause I don't have them, and Marcus certainly has more options (silurids are good I've heard)

Marcus himself isn’t a bad option since he can walk 24 inches a turn and beat up just about anything that tries to stop him.

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I've found Cassandra is great in symbols.  With her nimble and Stage Presence, she can get up a flank in a hurry.  Symbols are often grabbed in the first activation of a turn, and she loves activating first due to Southern Hospitality, and once that's up very few models can take her down, particularly on a flank.  

In addition, due to her nimble, after she grabs one of the flank she can threaten a 2nd marker the following turn.  Few models can do that.  

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4 hours ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

I've found Cassandra is great in symbols.  With her nimble and Stage Presence, she can get up a flank in a hurry.  Symbols are often grabbed in the first activation of a turn, and she loves activating first due to Southern Hospitality, and once that's up very few models can take her down, particularly on a flank.  

In addition, due to her nimble, after she grabs one of the flank she can threaten a 2nd marker the following turn.  Few models can do that.  

I love cassy but have found with wave 3/4/5 there are just too many models with +ve to attack for her to be a viable option any more.. she drops like a sack of anything vs +ve's without getting through  most of your hand and cache.

 

Weld metal plate armour goes someway to protecting her but for 8 SS there are other options

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On 2/10/2018 at 6:06 PM, Hollingydale said:

I love cassy but have found with wave 3/4/5 there are just too many models with +ve to attack for her to be a viable option any more.. she drops like a sack of anything vs +ve's without getting through  most of your hand and cache.

 

Weld metal plate armour goes someway to protecting her but for 8 SS there are other options

I almost always give her RSA, and very often armor.  And while there are more models with positives, I hardly see them every game.  She's way hardier than some of the other examples you gave - firestarter, automaton, ice dancer, etc.  And at only 1-2ss more than those models I think she's great.  Again, its the nimble with walk 5 in an 8ss package that is priceless on her. Sure, you can find models with leaps, but outside of blessed of december or silurids in a marcus crew, which are similar in cost and not as survivable, its far from easy to guarantee.  

In these online discussions, context is important too (so you know that I'm not just theoryfauxing from my basement)  - I play most of my games vs Alex Schmid and his east coast US group.  I finished 5th at CaptainCon and played Cassie 3/5 games including games vs Larry Mottola and Casey Campbell. The only time she died was vs Larry on turn 4 when she held up his Aionus, Deep, and Hoarcat pride on a flank for a turn and half.  

Ive heard you guys from Flipping Wyrds are pretty good, so I respect your opinion. But I do think Cassie is very good in GG18. In my mind the meta has moved away from cheaper minions towards cheap henches and models w more sustain. So when looking at a 6ss ice dancer vs an 8ss Cassie, I'm choosing Cassandra 95% of the time these days.

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To add to my comment on why I think the meta has skewed away from cheaper minions and towards henchman, it's all based on the GG18 strats and schemes:

- No more Frame for Murder in half the pools

- I feel like too many models are a liability in Ply, especially when you are arcanists and can spam RSA on your models to avoid severe from a late turn focus attack. Same for Public execution - cheap minions are food in that strat.

- A lot of cheap minions are good in theory for Symbols, but if you take too many you are giving up an easy 3 for punish the weak, so it's a tradeoff. In addition, hench can score punish the weak, so another plus for taking more henchmen.

- Ours is about surviving, so I'd rather keep the ~ 10ss in a corner in one model which can stone, vs two 5ss minions. 

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1 hour ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

To add to my comment on why I think the meta has skewed away from cheaper minions and towards henchman, it's all based on the GG18 strats and schemes

I agree that the meta has shifted to tankier models, but stand by my statement that Cassy is no longer the force she once was and as such, I dont like to hire her. I dislike that she "has" to be your first activation most turns as well to get her defences up, otherwise she drops. I play in a very tough meta and, unfortunately, nearly all of the crews have +ve to attack in some shape or form so Cassy is almost always underwhelming.

Just a thought, if you're going down the armour route, why not take Carlos? He is then psuedo armour +3 after activating and with the ability to heal the amount of burning he has (which he gains fairly easily). He has the same kind of mobility Cassy offers (arguably better as your opponent cant disengaging strike the 4" push) and can use his engage 3" to protect himself further by forcing engage 2" models to walk. I've used him before and found him disgusting!

 

PS: what is RSA an acronym for?

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Carlos is great. One annoying thing w Steamfitter and Carlos, is that after initiative Carlos starts w burning +1, which equals armor +1, so Steamfitter can't give him armor. So you have to find a way to remove his burning before Steamfitter can do his thing. At least, that is our understanding of the rules.

I play vs tough players too. For my meta, anti armor is more common than plus flip models, so that is why I tend to take Cassandra more frequently. I'm sure I'd think more like you if every crew I faced contained multiple models who have plus flips.  Also, Carlos needs a TN for his push, and a card to discard at the end of the turn for stunt double, and I find Sandeep is so hungry for cards it can end up being one-card-too-many sometimes. 

Finally, due to having to take stunt double, Carlos often has to choose when taking PP or Warding Runes, which limits him when I matchup vs NB or Ressers (who both seem to be super common these days).  I always take Warding Runes on my hench into those two factions, not only to deny lures/pushes/swaps/incites, but for the mage synergies and immunity to conditions.

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Also, In regards to activating her first: in a Sandeep crew, having a model who likes to activate early isn't a bad thing. My mages and Sandeep like to activate later due to arcane shield anyways. And my Steamfitter likes to activate right after I cheat a high card for defense or flip a high card to end a previous activation.

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15 minutes ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

Carlos is great. One annoying thing w Steamfitter and Carlos... 

That's correct, you do have to remove the burning. Luckily the steamfitter has 1 spare AP and every significant model in the game has an ability remove the burning, so you're good to go!

With regards to the discarding the cards Cassy is discarding one for her protection anyway, and top decking a 5 isn't out of the question. Carlos isn't using stunt double every turn either and discarding enemy scheme markers can be useful too.

 

I can see the warding runes argument too if you hire the mages, but in GG18 there are some games where you don't use scheme markers at all so have space for it. I don't like to use practised production if I can help it, but that's mostly because it's playing malifaux on easymode and it could use a harder nerf.:P

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All good points. I prefer to use the 2nd AP of the Steamfitter to cast RSA on another model like Sandeep, but if you are going to make Carlos a super tank, that's a good way to do it. Like I said, I see Ressers, Rets eye, Quellors, etc a whole lot these days, so since Carlos' armor is his biggest defensive strength I often pass on him now. But he's still a great model.

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1 hour ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

All good points. I prefer to use the 2nd AP of the Steamfitter to cast RSA on another model like Sandeep, but if you are going to make Carlos a super tank, that's a good way to do it. Like I said, I see Ressers, Rets eye, Quellors, etc a whole lot these days, so since Carlos' armor is his biggest defensive strength I often pass on him now. But he's still a great model.

But that's another TN6 to hit :P

 

I guess it just comes down to differences in meta. I will try Cassy again though!

 

 

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@SevenThirtySeven since you like Cassandra mostly because of southern hospitality, what is your opinion about Kandara? Human guise gives the :-fate without having to activate early, with regen on top. She costs one stone less. She has similar stats. She has some utilities in a Sandeep crew. She is less mobile though (still her mobility is not bad with lithe and 6 wk) and she has crappy attacks.

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