Henchman Hardcore Joss crew

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

1) Leader: Joss (Cache 3)

2) Howard Langston (12 SS)

- Imbued Energies (1 SS)

3) Arcane Effigy (4 SS)

4) Mobile Toolkit (3 SS)

The strategy is kinda obvious, but depends on our enemy's crew. Give +flips to Mi to Joss or Langston, give Radiance to Joss, charge, hit something, likely kill something, preferably enemy Henchman if he is dumb enough, or someone else. Remove a bad condition via the Effigy if our foe can apply one. 

We need to discard 1 card for the Mobile Toolkit, and 1 for Flurry. I think about dropping Imbued Energies for Well Rehearsed for Joss for extra HtK, so our Henchman is less likely to die, and more likely to pay back. 

What do you think about such a crew? 

[Morach]

I don't think this is a bad crew.  The typical HH crews I've seen involve either Joss, usually with Howard Langston and and a pair of Metal Gamin, or Snowstorm with a December Acolyte and Silent Ones.  Between Joss and Howard you should have resilience + killing power.

I've personally had success using Joss with the Oxfordian trio, and attaching Warding Runes and Seize the Day on Joss.  I think Seize the Day is an excellent upgrade when your opponent only gets 4 models, almost guaranteeing the last activation of round one and the first activation of round two.  If you want to run your list I'd consider it over Imbued Energies, as you could have Howard activate back to back (end of round one, start of round two) to almost guaranteed remove one of the enemy models.

[retnab]

The big problem with this crew is that you have a Peon, so your opponent has to keep one less of your models in the zone to block you from getting the strat.  Joss is tanky enough that Assassinate's (probably) not a concern as long as he stays back, but if someone can dropkick or deny Howard before he does his thing you're going to really struggle.

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

20 hours ago, Morach said:

I've personally had success using Joss with the Oxfordian trio, and attaching Warding Runes and Seize the Day on Joss. 

This is an interesting combo, but you lose 3 SS for nothing, assuming that the Oxfordian trio uses their standard two 0SS upgrades, and taking into account that Seize the Day and Warding Runes cost 1 SS each. Remember that excess Soulstones don't go into your cache in HH, they are just lost, which makes me sad -- just as the fact that you cannot summon models in HH, which makes some really interesting models useless (hey, Ferdinand Fogel!). 

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

22 hours ago, retnab said:

Joss is tanky enough that Assassinate's (probably) not a concern as long as he stays back

Not that I actually plan for him to stay back. This crew is all-or-nothing anyway. No way to heal, a one-use Upgrade on Howard. If Howard Langston doesn't make it to deliver 2-3 MI attacks with +Flips to an important enemy model and dies before that, I am almost doomed to lose anyway. 

After at least one important enemy model is removed, Joss is supposed to have some room to play aggressively. That's what I have Arcane Effigy for, aside from removing conditions: to add Burning+1 to his attacks. Even if Joss gets hit, if he survives due to Hard to Wound, he is very likely to do a lot of interesting stuff too. 

But if I wait for too long, I am likely to suffer too much damage to be able to do something. That's what Henchman Hardcore is all about anyway. 

[Morach]

3 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

This is an interesting combo, but you lose 3 SS for nothing, assuming that the Oxfordian trio uses their standard two 0SS upgrades, and taking into account that Seize the Day and Warding Runes cost 1 SS each. Remember that excess Soulstones don't go into your cache in HH, they are just lost, which makes me sad...

Because the extra SS doesn't go into your cache I also take Killswitch, usually throwing it on the mage with Blood Ward and putting Decoy on the other two mages.  I find that with fewer models the hand limit of 6 stretches a bit further, allowing the discard from furious casting or temporary shielding to be used without consideration.  Even with the 2 extra SS lost I find that this crew hits very hard, and if you lose one model it's not as big of an impact, as every model in the crew is capable of dishing out consistent damage and controlling the battlefield through slows and pushes, while also making Joss immune to your opponent's Slow/Paralyze effects (which can often dictate the success of a given game). If you bring the mages, then you can slow your opponent with their first trigger and use any remaining ones to push your opponent out of the turf war area.

I reserve my SS for guaranteeing initiative control and then damage prevention on Joss, as any low cards can be discarded through the mages' abilities.

If you allow the enemy to go first on turn one, then you can typically have something in range for a mage to furious cast on your first activation.  Repeat for each activation until Joss goes last to move into position.  Turn 2 activate first and have Joss remove one of your opponent's key model.  I haven't seen many HH games go to turn 3 without one side having a significant advantage, and this crew focuses on being a gunline that controls the flow of the game while leveraging Joss as a resilient beater.

With the above being said, I think Joss + Howard is a proven combo in henchman hardcore. Personally I'd rather take Seize the Day to have Howard go twice back to back instead of using Imbued Energies for Fast, but your mileage may vary :).  The Arcane Effigy is a solid model, and removing Slow/Paralyze from a model can be key.  Due to the limited number of actions, Slow on a single model typically removes 12.5% of your turn, and the ability to mitigate this is necessary.

The toolkit is an okay choice, but I think you're looking for a decent model at 3 SS due to the upgrade, and either upgrade will likely provide more value than upgrading the toolkit to a 4 SS model.  Meaning I think it's an okay choice for your remaining SS because of the upgrade that you're able to get because of it.

 

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

2 hours ago, Morach said:

allowing the discard from furious casting or temporary shielding to be used without consideration

From my currently very limited HH experience, cards are a valuable resource even in HH, because you both have 6 cards to cheat fate. This means that while you have more cards per model to defend against an enemy, your enemy has more cards to attack, and vice versa. Yes, in almost every Turn you will have a lot of cards that are too low to use for cheating fate, and the Mages are cool at that. But what if you have a really, really good hand, which also happens from time to time?

Either way, I would normally place my bet on Howard Langston activating two times in a row due to Seize the Day, each time with a new hand, not on Joss+3 mages. After all, Initiative might be reflipped. Howard needs 1 card to inflict 4/5/6 with Decapitate on Rams. The mages discard for 2/3/4. They have decapitate-esque thing on their (0), but it is not what they are supposed to do normally, and it is not the thing for which they need to discard. 

[Morach]

15 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

From my currently very limited HH experience, cards are a valuable resource even in HH, because you both have 6 cards to cheat fate. This means that while you have more cards per model to defend against an enemy, your enemy has more cards to attack, and vice versa. Yes, in almost every Turn you will have a lot of cards that are too low to use for cheating fate, and the Mages are cool at that. But what if you have a really, really good hand, which also happens from time to time?

If you have a really good hand, then that's great!  Since I save my few soulstones for initiative flips and damage prevention I'm only expecting to see average hands.  Keep in mind that Howard's Ml 7 and min damage 4 (as you've pointed out below) also makes moderate cards more valuable than the mages.  I'm just hoping to throw more attacks downfield, and use those attacks to slow and push them out of the ring where I can.  In an ideal situation you've got their beater or henchman slowed and out of position, so he'll have to spend his 1 AP moving back into engagement.

15 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

Either way, I would normally place my bet on Howard Langston activating two times in a row due to Seize the Day, each time with a new hand, not on Joss+3 mages. After all, Initiative might be reflipped.

It's why I mentioned the upgrade - Howard going twice back to back will kill something.  Most HH Lists seem to have the henchman, one solid beater/high damage model, and then a couple of cheap activations.  If Howard can eliminate the enemy beater then you've likely just won, as the rest of your models can focus almost exclusively on their henchman.

One thing to note - Seize the Day also works on soulstone usage or initiative reflips, which helps increase it's value in this format.

15 hours ago, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

Howard needs 1 card to inflict 4/5/6 with Decapitate on Rams. The mages discard for 2/3/4. They have decapitate-esque thing on their (0), but it is not what they are supposed to do normally, and it is not the thing for which they need to discard. 

I'm not arguing that Howard is far better at taking out a model. I'm stating that my preference, and yours absolutely can vary, is to spread out the power in my list. In addition to having more models that can contribute something besides an activation, I'm also adding the ability to slow/push/burning/ignore armor.  It is a slightly lower static value, but with the volume of attacks (6 vs. 2 or 9 vs. 3) you should still be murdering something, or multiple somethings, every turn.

In regards to their (0) - it's okay, but not something I plan on using on any mage outside of the one with Blood Ward.  The rest of them severely drop in usefulness once engaged... although you can just push any models you attack (even if you randomize onto the mage) out of the melee so that subsequent shots can hit the target.

Again - I think Joss + Howard is a great combo in HH. I'm just presenting an alternative that suits my playstyle a bit better.

[Adran]

On 22/02/2018 at 2:12 AM, Baskakov_Dmitriy said:

From my currently very limited HH experience, cards are a valuable resource even in HH, because you both have 6 cards to cheat fate. This means that while you have more cards per model to defend against an enemy, your enemy has more cards to attack, and vice versa. Yes, in almost every Turn you will have a lot of cards that are too low to use for cheating fate, and the Mages are cool at that. But what if you have a really, really good hand, which also happens from time to time?

Either way, I would normally place my bet on Howard Langston activating two times in a row due to Seize the Day, each time with a new hand, not on Joss+3 mages. After all, Initiative might be reflipped. Howard needs 1 card to inflict 4/5/6 with Decapitate on Rams. The mages discard for 2/3/4. They have decapitate-esque thing on their (0), but it is not what they are supposed to do normally, and it is not the thing for which they need to discard. 

If you have a good enough hand to not have a card below a 10, then feel free to use those 10s to power flurry if needed. 

A mage can stop Howard Flurrying if it gets to go first, so 3 attacks with 2/3/4 is scarier than 1 4/5/6 attack. It can also activate before him turn  1 if you are trying to do the 2 activations in a row to push him far enough away he doesn't get to attack twice that turn (or at all). RAw destructive power, Howard easily wins, but posiitoning, board control, and spread damage, you may well do better with a similar cost of mages

[WWHSD]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

If you have a good enough hand to not have a card below a 10, then feel free to use those 10s to power flurry if needed. 

A mage can stop Howard Flurrying if it gets to go first, so 3 attacks with 2/3/4 is scarier than 1 4/5/6 attack. It can also activate before him turn  1 if you are trying to do the 2 activations in a row to push him far enough away he doesn't get to attack twice that turn (or at all). RAw destructive power, Howard easily wins, but posiitoning, board control, and spread damage, you may well do better with a similar cost of mages

Which one to go with is also a meta call. If you know that you'll have to beat a crew with a Nothing Beast if you want to win then the killing power of the Mages jumps up quite a bit.