Holes in Ten Thunders

[whodares]

11 hours ago, DonCheadle said:

I'd argue YasNas stacks in the sense of enemy VP on the Kodoku trigger (plus he doesn't really get any worse as the game goes on). 

He definitely has similarities (Stubborn, Statline, damage reduction) but isn't one of the riders. 

And let's be honest, be glad that he isn't, imagine him in a Levi crew!

The semi-stacking on the Kodoku Trigger is probably something I don't like at all. It encourages letting your opponent score VP and the entire point of the game is to score as much as possible while denying as much as possible. The fact that Kodoku stacks on up to 3 enemy VP is counter-intuitive to the entire concept of Malifaux.

What I also don't like about it is that it's more something you don't really have control over. While the Riders can guarantee their stacking mechanic from Turn 2, you need to win a duel to even be allowed to use yours AND win the duel with the right suit. This is a lot more card-intensive and I've almost never been able to meaningfully use Kodoku due to this. Then you also have to account for the "minion-only" clause.

 

Yes, it's not enemy only and you can use it on your own minions. Yes, it then uses your own VP which is not counter-intuitive. It still takes away at least 1 card which could have been used for something else.

[DonCheadle]

3 hours ago, whodares said:

The semi-stacking on the Kodoku Trigger is probably something I don't like at all. It encourages letting your opponent score VP and the entire point of the game is to score as much as possible while denying as much as possible. The fact that Kodoku stacks on up to 3 enemy VP is counter-intuitive to the entire concept of Malifaux.

What I also don't like about it is that it's more something you don't really have control over. While the Riders can guarantee their stacking mechanic from Turn 2, you need to win a duel to even be allowed to use yours AND win the duel with the right suit. This is a lot more card-intensive and I've almost never been able to meaningfully use Kodoku due to this. Then you also have to account for the "minion-only" clause.

 

Yes, it's not enemy only and you can use it on your own minions. Yes, it then uses your own VP which is not counter-intuitive. It still takes away at least 1 card which could have been used for something else.

I think it still uses enemy VP, and to be frank this seems to be a minor theme (intentionally so, I might add) for the Oni (see also:Feigned Weakness). 

Comeback Strats are a real consideration, as it makes them better at pools where you expect your opponent to score points early, whereas you'd rather be taking end of game schemes. You might argue that it wasn't executed all that well, but from the perspective of intention I believe it has merit. 

[whodares]

1 hour ago, DonCheadle said:

I think it still uses enemy VP, and to be frank this seems to be a minor theme (intentionally so, I might add) for the Oni (see also:Feigned Weakness). 

Comeback Strats are a real consideration, as it makes them better at pools where you expect your opponent to score points early, whereas you'd rather be taking end of game schemes. You might argue that it wasn't executed all that well, but from the perspective of intention I believe it has merit. 

The Trigger mentions it uses the VP of the target model's crew. Feigned Weakness specifies that your opponent has to have more VP than you in order to get a summon off.

 

I agree on the comeback strats and Kodoku does not use a differential, so it shouldn't matter all that much. The point is that you have to let your opponent get VP in order to get the max value out of the action in case you obey one of his models. Since the point is to win 10-0, this seems rather Wyrd (pun intended).

 

I'll agree that winning vs 0 VP is generally not possible, but it does mean that you go in the game expecting to give up some points. I don't play with that mindset, but perhaps I should?

[Adran]

19 minutes ago, whodares said:

The Trigger mentions it uses the VP of the target model's crew. Feigned Weakness specifies that your opponent has to have more VP than you in order to get a summon off.

 

I agree on the comeback strats and Kodoku does not use a differential, so it shouldn't matter all that much. The point is that you have to let your opponent get VP in order to get the max value out of the action in case you obey one of his models. Since the point is to win 10-0, this seems rather Wyrd (pun intended).

 

I'll agree that winning vs 0 VP is generally not possible, but it does mean that you go in the game expecting to give up some points. I don't play with that mindset, but perhaps I should?

The action is pretty good as a (0) action even without the trigger, so going into the game just expecting to use it as a (0) action obey is probebly fine, and if you do manage to restrict them to no Vp, then you don't get the bonus damage, just the attack. Which is probably still good enough...

[DonCheadle]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

The action is pretty good as a (0) action even without the trigger, so going into the game just expecting to use it as a (0) action obey is probebly fine, and if you do manage to restrict them to no Vp, then you don't get the bonus damage, just the attack. Which is probably still good enough...

Exactly, this was my initial point. As with other riders, it's an ability that gets better as the game progresses. 

[Erik1978]

I think the blast upgrade for Misaki needed that nerf VERY badly. 

Attacking a simple 6 wound minion with no ability to use soulstones, meant she easily killed that model and handed out 4 x 3 damage which couldn't be reduced. Unless you play on a maze of Ht 3 stone walls, she could easily obtain several juicy targets, and as pointed out: The opponent could do nothing about it. It was down right game breaking.

I think 8" is still pretty good and remember not all models have armor, which means she can still cheat damage and hand out 4 x 3 damage. That upgrade is still solid gold against most crews.

I do agree it's a shame we have no real rider, and not much damage that bypasses armor and the like, where other factions seem to get more and more of those models.

Shenlong should be able to Kung Fu punch the initiative somehow...

[whodares]

13 hours ago, Erik1978 said:

I think the blast upgrade for Misaki needed that nerf VERY badly. 

Attacking a simple 6 wound minion with no ability to use soulstones, meant she easily killed that model and handed out 4 x 3 damage which couldn't be reduced. Unless you play on a maze of Ht 3 stone walls, she could easily obtain several juicy targets, and as pointed out: The opponent could do nothing about it. It was down right game breaking.

I agree that it needed a nerf, just not on all fronts.

First of all the conditions required for this to work. Your opponent needs to have 4 severe cards in hand, because you can be sure I'm going to spend all my severes in trying to block that blast attack. Misaki's Thunder has a stat 7, so against a Df 5 model cheating a 13, he still needs to cheat at least an 11 to have the attack work. Then he still has to cheat in ANOTHER severe for the damage flip as the chance to flip severe on at least negative flip is too low. So that's 2/6 cards in his hand already burned for severe cards. Second attack just thesame. If you use 2 severe cards, he's going to need at least 2 10+ cards just to even get his attack through. Either he has the luck of the devil or he built his hand and you could have seen it coming.

Second of all: blasts and LoS misconceptions. The model that gets hit with hte attack (weak minion in this case) needs to have LoS to the blast. if your minion is 2" high, he can't see over a 2" wall. He also can't see through dense forests and whatever is LoS-blocking. Blasts placed there won't do any damage at all. 12" free placement of blasts sounds great, until you start factoring in unit placement and LoS which can make that 12" rather limiting. EVEN MORE is that the model suffering from the blast damage ALSO needs to be in LoS of the weak minion. No LoS on both blast and blasted model = no damage on that model. I don't know what terrain setup you're using, but the ones we run don't really allow for too many of those sniperlike interactions.

 

Third: model placement. Unless your opponent is a new player, chances are your blasts will only hit 1-2 models. You're spending almost all your high cards on this attack, so why shouldn't a master be allowed to do this kind of damage? Your master is also diving deep in enemy territory and chances of a counter-attack are rather high. For all the risk you're taking for this attack, why is it not allowed to have a decent payoff?

 

Fourth: defensive abilities. Armor makes your blasts pretty weak. The entire point of The Storm was that you could reliably blast with Misaki and that the blast actually did damage. Now Armor +1 takes your severe damage  blast from 3 to 2 damage, which certainly isn't all that stellar. You also have Hard to Kill which it couldn't ignore even before the nerf. there are other abilities, but these are probably the most common and we all know Thunders struggle to deal with these things.

 

Fifth and last: NPE. If Wyrd really cared about NPE they would just nerf several masters such as Nicodem, Hamelin and Sandeep. Instead they give them even more things to play with, further making them more unmanageable for newer players. Tell me how a new player is going to beat Nicodem when he doesn't even know what an Alpha Strike is? Even experienced players think Nicodem is too strong, yet he gets even stronger and stronger. Hamelin was known to be a big NPE and the current GG18 holds him down a bit, but that doesn't mean he's easy or enjoyable to play against for a new player. If you're talking more something in the style of Misaki for NPE, look no further than the Viks, their Whirlwind trigger becomes an aoe min 5 damage on everything in range. Sure sounds counterplayable for newer players /s. My point is there are so many things that destroy newer players that haven't been touched for ages and some have even been buffed.

 

Side-note Should you then hold down Misaki who become our first Tier 1 master EVER for something like this? Even before the nerf Misaki still had trouble playing against the current Tier 1 masters Nicodem and Sandeep. If Misaki was really as powerful as everyone claims, she should have destroyed these masters, yet that was not the case. Why are Thunders (and Gremlins) the only ones getting consistently shafted? We've never been a top contender, yet the top contenders get EVEN MORE stuff. I thought Wyrd was finally aknowledging the problem in Wave 4 when we got Yasunori, but apparently Thunders are not allowed to have strong models?

[santaclaws01]

4 hours ago, whodares said:

Your opponent needs to have 4 severe cards in hand, because you can be sure I'm going to spend all my severes in trying to block that blast attack. Misaki's Thunder has a stat 7, so against a Df 5 model cheating a 13, he still needs to cheat at least an 11 to have the attack work. Then he still has to cheat in ANOTHER severe for the damage flip as the chance to flip severe on at least negative flip is too low. So that's 2/6 cards in his hand already burned for severe cards. Second attack just thesame. If you use 2 severe cards, he's going to need at least 2 10+ cards just to even get his attack through. Either he has the luck of the devil or he built his hand and you could have seen it coming.

So you're assuming that the opponent *also* has a god hand, and has no drawbacks for cheating all their high cards either? Also Recalled Training is a thing, and it's not like 10T are lacking in pushes to get Misaki into a position she can charge a model as soon as she activates.

 

4 hours ago, whodares said:

Second of all: blasts and LoS misconceptions. The model that gets hit with hte attack (weak minion in this case) needs to have LoS to the blast. if your minion is 2" high, he can't see over a 2" wall. He also can't see through dense forests and whatever is LoS-blocking. Blasts placed there won't do any damage at all. 12" free placement of blasts sounds great, until you start factoring in unit placement and LoS which can make that 12" rather limiting. EVEN MORE is that the model suffering from the blast damage ALSO needs to be in LoS of the weak minion. No LoS on both blast and blasted model = no damage on that model. I don't know what terrain setup you're using, but the ones we run don't really allow for too many of those sniperlike interactions.

How often are you in a situation where none of your models can see a decent number of your other models? Are you saying people often take crews where each model is 100% self sufficient and require absolutely no synergy with any other model to the point that you can hide each one out of LoS with the others?

 

4 hours ago, whodares said:

Third: model placement. Unless your opponent is a new player, chances are your blasts will only hit 1-2 models. You're spending almost all your high cards on this attack, so why shouldn't a master be allowed to do this kind of damage? Your master is also diving deep in enemy territory and chances of a counter-attack are rather high. For all the risk you're taking for this attack, why is it not allowed to have a decent payoff?

Again, how spread out do you usually have your crews? You do realize how large of an area a 21" circle (blast marker is 2+8 for storm, double that, +1 for Misaki's base) is right? Yeah no individual blast will be hitting multiple models, but you don't really need them to when you have 4-5 attacks.

 

4 hours ago, whodares said:

Fourth: defensive abilities. Armor makes your blasts pretty weak. The entire point of The Storm was that you could reliably blast with Misaki and that the blast actually did damage. Now Armor +1 takes your severe damage  blast from 3 to 2 damage, which certainly isn't all that stellar. You also have Hard to Kill which it couldn't ignore even before the nerf. there are other abilities, but these are probably the most common and we all know Thunders struggle to deal with these things.

Yeah, that's the point of armor. If you want to ignore it it shouldn't be as easy as attacking a model 1/3 the board away.

 

4 hours ago, whodares said:

NPE. If Wyrd really cared about NPE they would just nerf several masters such as Nicodem, Hamelin and Sandeep. Instead they give them even more things to play with, further making them more unmanageable for newer players. Tell me how a new player is going to beat Nicodem when he doesn't even know what an Alpha Strike is? Even experienced players think Nicodem is too strong, yet he gets even stronger and stronger. Hamelin was known to be a big NPE and the current GG18 holds him down a bit, but that doesn't mean he's easy or enjoyable to play against for a new player. If you're talking more something in the style of Misaki for NPE, look no further than the Viks, their Whirlwind trigger becomes an aoe min 5 damage on everything in range. Sure sounds counterplayable for newer players /s. My point is there are so many things that destroy newer players that haven't been touched for ages and some have even been buffed.

Nicodem has only been widely considered too strong for the past few months. It's pretty disingenuous to say that Wyrd was making an already strong master stronger, especially since Kentauroi are largely considered what makes him so good now, and there have been literally 0 change to Nicodem since wave 5 released, so no, he wasn't considered too strong to only get stronger and stronger. Hamelin was only an NPE in specific pools of gg17 where you just couldn't score schemes against him. Those don't exist in gg18. Now the only NPE against him is dependent on how long it takes an opponent to activate all their rats. As for the viks, if you seriously can't tell the difference between attacking models all within a small area, and being able to threaten over 1/3 of the entire board, I don't know what to say. There's a various counterplay for Viks depending on faction. The counter play against old Storm Misaki is "hide all your models from each other, don't leave your deployment zone, hope the Misaki player has a shit hand and shit flips"

And yeah, NPEs for new players are a problem, but the number of NPEs against a new player are significantly larger than NPEs against experienced players. For reference, last year a relatively inexperienced player who was playing Zipp against a grow list I was running conceded at the top of turn 2 calling grow lists a massive NPE. Why? Because Lilith tangled away one of his models early, and I cheated in a RJ on a mature's damage flip against Zipp thanks to flay from Obsidian Talons.

[whodares]

46 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

So you're assuming that the opponent *also* has a god hand, and has no drawbacks for cheating all their high cards either? Also Recalled Training is a thing, and it's not like 10T are lacking in pushes to get Misaki into a position she can charge a model as soon as she activates.

The Misaki player needs 2 10+ cards AND 2 severe cards to get the combo off vs 2 severe cards of the defender. Do tell me which player here needs the "God Hand" to pull off the combo?

 

48 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

How often are you in a situation where none of your models can see a decent number of your other models? Are you saying people often take crews where each model is 100% self sufficient and require absolutely no synergy with any other model to the point that you can hide each one out of LoS with the others?

 

Again, how spread out do you usually have your crews? You do realize how large of an area a 21" circle (blast marker is 2+8 for storm, double that, +1 for Misaki's base) is right? Yeah no individual blast will be hitting multiple models, but you don't really need them to when you have 4-5 attacks.

 

How bad is your positioning if a weak minion can see your entire crew in a terrain-filled board? Being able to hit 1-2 models with a huge card investment is fine as far as I can say. Smart players see Misaki with The Storm and play accordingly. Positioning is key against blast masters.

You are also incorrect in your calculations for the blast range, even though I've already explained it several times in the thread. You have to make the blast calculation from the model that gets hit. You get 8" from all sides of the target + 2" from the blast marker is 20" total. Add to that the base of the targetted model, which can be 30-50mm, so you actually have a bit more than 21" raw hitzone. Then it depends on who/what that model can see and if he has LoS to the blast marker as well. Any wall in between them means he will fail to hit if you are not higher than the wall, even if the blasted model is higher. If you hit a 1" gremlin and you try to blast from him, anything 1" will block that part of LoS to the blast marker and therefore make it invalid. Thesame for 2" and stuff, it really is more limiting than you might think unless you play with no LoS blocking terrain. In that case, I would bring Shenlong, Yu and Emissary with 2 snipers and do focussed 28" range sh5 (+1 focus Yu) hits of 2/3/5 damage with blasts from the Emissary (0) action. Same deadliness as Misaki and completely safe as you can just stand in deployment and laugh.

 

57 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Nicodem has only been widely considered too strong for the past few months. It's pretty disingenuous to say that Wyrd was making an already strong master stronger, especially since Kentauroi are largely considered what makes him so good now, and there have been literally 0 change to Nicodem since wave 5 released, so no, he wasn't considered too strong to only get stronger and stronger. Hamelin was only an NPE in specific pools of gg17 where you just couldn't score schemes against him. Those don't exist in gg18. Now the only NPE against him is dependent on how long it takes an opponent to activate all their rats. As for the viks, if you seriously can't tell the difference between attacking models all within a small area, and being able to threaten over 1/3 of the entire board, I don't know what to say. There's a various counterplay for Viks depending on faction. The counter play against old Storm Misaki is "hide all your models from each other, don't leave your deployment zone, hope the Misaki player has a shit hand and shit flips"

Nicodem has been considered strong from pretty much when he came out. He suffers none of the weaknesses of other summoners, yet has all of the strengths of other summoners. Then they continued to give him more and more tools, breaking him more and more. Kentauroi are just the latest part of this, but the UK players hated his guts even before wave 5.

Viks and Misaki both make mince meat out of whatever models they target while punishing bunching up. If you say Misaki has no counterplay, then a Ml7 min 5 damage 4 aoe attacks Vik is considered stronger. They both kill whatever they see and Vik CAN ignore armor, HtK, HtW and all that stuff, while having a built-in Recalled Training. Vik also doesn't need as many high cards as Misaki as her min damage is Misaki's severe damage. Yet nobody sais Vik is OP as they learned to position properly against her and not let het get 4 free hits on 5 models. the counterplay for Misaki is funnily enough thesame as Vik: let her hit an inconseqential model and counter-attack right after. Doesn't even have to be thesame Turn, they are horribly out of position if they can't take away enough models when they do go in for the kill.

 

1 hour ago, santaclaws01 said:

And yeah, NPEs for new players are a problem, but the number of NPEs against a new player are significantly larger than NPEs against experienced players. For reference, last year a relatively inexperienced player who was playing Zipp against a grow list I was running conceded at the top of turn 2 calling grow lists a massive NPE. Why? Because Lilith tangled away one of his models early, and I cheated in a RJ on a mature's damage flip against Zipp thanks to flay from Obsidian Talons.

NPE stands for New Player Experience. Any crew has the possibility to be NPE, but some such as Nicodem and unnerfed Storm Misaki were most-certainly NPE. If an experienced player calls out NPE, I ask them how long they have been playing and if they know what a new wave release is. Not reading up on new waves or not even reading cards as an experienced player is not an NPE. It's just an idiot that loses and wants something else to blame for his loss. If I see you bring a blast master and they stack my entire crew together, am I allowed to even call it NPE when it's just an experienced player being foolish? Can I call NPE on Rasputina when I first play against her and go "nah dawg I don't need to read your cards, I'll wing it"? Experienced players are not allowed to call NPE on something as the N in NPE is missing. It's just a casual player meeting something for the first time and not paying enough respect to it.

[Kaernak]

51 minutes ago, whodares said:

The Misaki player needs 2 10+ cards AND 2 severe cards to get the combo off vs 2 severe cards of the defender. Do tell me which player here needs the "God Hand" to pull off the combo?

 

How bad is your positioning if a weak minion can see your entire crew in a terrain-filled board? Being able to hit 1-2 models with a huge card investment is fine as far as I can say. Smart players see Misaki with The Storm and play accordingly. Positioning is key against blast masters.

You are also incorrect in your calculations for the blast range, even though I've already explained it several times in the thread. You have to make the blast calculation from the model that gets hit. You get 8" from all sides of the target + 2" from the blast marker is 20" total. Add to that the base of the targetted model, which can be 30-50mm, so you actually have a bit more than 21" raw hitzone. Then it depends on who/what that model can see and if he has LoS to the blast marker as well. Any wall in between them means he will fail to hit if you are not higher than the wall, even if the blasted model is higher. If you hit a 1" gremlin and you try to blast from him, anything 1" will block that part of LoS to the blast marker and therefore make it invalid. Thesame for 2" and stuff, it really is more limiting than you might think unless you play with no LoS blocking terrain. In that case, I would bring Shenlong, Yu and Emissary with 2 snipers and do focussed 28" range sh5 (+1 focus Yu) hits of 2/3/5 damage with blasts from the Emissary (0) action. Same deadliness as Misaki and completely safe as you can just stand in deployment and laugh.

 

Nicodem has been considered strong from pretty much when he came out. He suffers none of the weaknesses of other summoners, yet has all of the strengths of other summoners. Then they continued to give him more and more tools, breaking him more and more. Kentauroi are just the latest part of this, but the UK players hated his guts even before wave 5.

Viks and Misaki both make mince meat out of whatever models they target while punishing bunching up. If you say Misaki has no counterplay, then a Ml7 min 5 damage 4 aoe attacks Vik is considered stronger. They both kill whatever they see and Vik CAN ignore armor, HtK, HtW and all that stuff, while having a built-in Recalled Training. Vik also doesn't need as many high cards as Misaki as her min damage is Misaki's severe damage. Yet nobody sais Vik is OP as they learned to position properly against her and not let het get 4 free hits on 5 models. the counterplay for Misaki is funnily enough thesame as Vik: let her hit an inconseqential model and counter-attack right after. Doesn't even have to be thesame Turn, they are horribly out of position if they can't take away enough models when they do go in for the kill.

Quote

 

 

NPE stands for New Player Experience. Any crew has the possibility to be NPE, but some such as Nicodem and unnerfed Storm Misaki were most-certainly NPE. If an experienced player calls out NPE, I ask them how long they have been playing and if they know what a new wave release is. Not reading up on new waves or not even reading cards as an experienced player is not an NPE. It's just an idiot that loses and wants something else to blame for his loss. If I see you bring a blast master and they stack my entire crew together, am I allowed to even call it NPE when it's just an experienced player being foolish? Can I call NPE on Rasputina when I first play against her and go "nah dawg I don't need to read your cards, I'll wing it"? Experienced players are not allowed to call NPE on something as the N in NPE is missing. It's just a casual player meeting something for the first time and not paying enough respect to it.

I was pretty sure most people used NPE as "negative player experience" meaning that even if you play your best whatever makes the model have an NPE (I know way more of these from Warmachine) makes the match almost unwinnable.

[Mason]

11 minutes ago, Kaernak said:

I was pretty sure most people used NPE as "negative player experience" meaning that even if you play your best whatever makes the model have an NPE (I know way more of these from Warmachine) makes the match almost unwinnable.

NPE is closer to "a thing that saps all the fun and enjoyment out of a game."

It's less about whether or not you can win the match (though that's certainly an element of it).

[whodares]

13 minutes ago, Kaernak said:

I was pretty sure most people used NPE as "negative player experience" meaning that even if you play your best whatever makes the model have an NPE (I know way more of these from Warmachine) makes the match almost unwinnable.

 

Just now, Mason said:

NPE is closer to "a thing that saps all the fun and enjoyment out of a game."

It's less about whether or not you can win the match (though that's certainly an element of it).

I see, that sounds reasonable. I've mainly seen NPE being used in League of Legends where it does stand for New Player Experience. By your wording it sounds like quite a lot would have to be reworked though as counter-matchups should then be labeled NPE. I mean, if you play a condition list and I bring Shenlong or Hamelin ... such fun when your entire mechanic is ignored ...

[Mason]

I've always understood it to mean "Negative Play Experience," at least going back to my CCG days.

If you're intending for it to mean "New Player Experience," then it will obviously mean something different. 

[Kaernak]

5 minutes ago, whodares said:

 

I see, that sounds reasonable. I've mainly seen NPE being used in League of Legends where it does stand for New Player Experience. By your wording it sounds like quite a lot would have to be reworked though as counter-matchups should then be labeled NPE. I mean, if you play a condition list and I bring Shenlong or Hamelin ... such fun when your entire mechanic is ignored ...

There is a difference in "negative play experience" and "being countered".  You can play around a counter.  You can try to outplay your opponent really well.  A negative play experience would be dropping a gunline into an army that can't be shot at.  Or playing into an opponent that at any moment can say "you are 19 inches away from my leader, he uses his feat." which knocks you down and proceeds to shoot you to death(you only miss if you roll double 1s at that point.)  Like I said I know more of them from warmachine/hordes (my main game) but it can be very frustrating.  When you lose no matter how tight you played due to a ridiculous ability that you cannot stop...that's an NPE to me.

[Erik1978]

A condition crew isn't null and void against Hamelin or Shenlong. Sure, Hamelin doesn't care but most of his crew aren't immune. I think only him, Nix, and Benny are Nihilist?

 Shenlong can remove conditions, just like 20 other models so also not hopeless against him. If you spend 3 AP from your master, removing conditions from crew members, it's not all wasted I suppose.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, whodares said:

. Then it depends on who/what that model can see and if he has LoS to the blast marker as well. Any wall in between them means he will fail to hit if you are not higher than the wall, even if the blasted model is higher. If you hit a 1" gremlin and you try to blast from him, anything 1" will block that part of LoS to the blast marker and therefore make it invalid. The same for 2" and stuff, it really is more limiting than you might think unless you play with no LoS blocking terrain. 

Are you sure? The rules for Blasts are that you can't be affected if you don't have line of sight to the original target, but a Ht 2 model can see that Ht 1 model over the Ht 1 wall, so can be affected by the blast. 

I may have misuderstood your point, but the Ht 1 wall will only protect Ht 1 models from blasts from a  Ht 1 target, which is somethign I find almost never matters 9Its back to the fallacy that being Ht 1 make you easier to hide,  its only true if you're trying to hide from a Ht 1 model, otherwise its exactly the same as hiding a Ht 2 model)

[whodares]

42 minutes ago, Erik1978 said:

A condition crew isn't null and void against Hamelin or Shenlong. Sure, Hamelin doesn't care but most of his crew aren't immune. I think only him, Nix, and Benny are Nihilist?

 Shenlong can remove conditions, just like 20 other models so also not hopeless against him. If you spend 3 AP from your master, removing conditions from crew members, it's not all wasted I suppose.

Shenlong and Yu can become immune to the damage from burning and poison and they can swap between Low River Style to cycle it so you potentially remove up to 10 conditions per Turn from just those 2 models. If your entire crew is revolving around conditions, Shenlong makes it pretty impossible to get your combo off.

 

36 minutes ago, Adran said:

Are you sure? The rules for Blasts are that you can't be affected if you don't have line of sight to the original target, but a Ht 2 model can see that Ht 1 model over the Ht 1 wall, so can be affected by the blast. 

I may have misuderstood your point, but the Ht 1 wall will only protect Ht 1 models from blasts from a  Ht 1 target, which is somethign I find almost never matters 9Its back to the fallacy that being Ht 1 make you easier to hide,  its only true if you're trying to hide from a Ht 1 model, otherwise its exactly the same as hiding a Ht 2 model)

Blasts are very poorly worded and I've had that ruled once against me, hence why I always play like that now.

 

The actual wording in the rulebook:

Quote

A model cannot be affected by an aura or pulse that emanates from a location out of LoS. In addition, a model cannot be affected by a Blast Marker if the original target of the blast effect is not within LoS of the model.

 

So it seems you are right and I should have looked it up half a year earlier. Give me a minute, going out to ***** a Judge, fml   

But still the original point stands. You can hide out of LoS of the attacked model and not get blasted thanks to that.

[santaclaws01]

2 hours ago, whodares said:

How bad is your positioning if a weak minion can see your entire crew in a terrain-filled board? Being able to hit 1-2 models with a huge card investment is fine as far as I can say. Smart players see Misaki with The Storm and play accordingly. Positioning is key against blast masters.

Positioning is a lot harder when the blasts can be placed independently and the only way to not be hit by it is to have your entire crew hiding from each other.

 

 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

You are also incorrect in your calculations for the blast range, even though I've already explained it several times in the thread. You have to make the blast calculation from the model that gets hit. You get 8" from all sides of the target + 2" from the blast marker is 20" total. Add to that the base of the targetted model, which can be 30-50mm, so you actually have a bit more than 21" raw hitzone. Then it depends on who/what that model can see and if he has LoS to the blast marker as well. Any wall in between them means he will fail to hit if you are not higher than the wall, even if the blasted model is higher. If you hit a 1" gremlin and you try to blast from him, anything 1" will block that part of LoS to the blast marker and therefore make it invalid. Thesame for 2" and stuff, it really is more limiting than you might think unless you play with no LoS blocking terrain. In that case, I would bring Shenlong, Yu and Emissary with 2 snipers and do focussed 28" range sh5 (+1 focus Yu) hits of 2/3/5 damage with blasts from the Emissary (0) action. Same deadliness as Misaki and completely safe as you can just stand in deployment and laugh.

The blasts are placed 8" and LoS from Misaki, not the target. And again, it's a lot harder to hide your entire crew from each other than from your opponents crew. As an aside, the model being hit has to be within 10" of the Emissary for the blasts, not the model attacking.

 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

Nicodem has been considered strong from pretty much when he came out. He suffers none of the weaknesses of other summoners, yet has all of the strengths of other summoners. Then they continued to give him more and more tools, breaking him more and more. Kentauroi are just the latest part of this, but the UK players hated his guts even before wave 5.

Not really. It wasn't until after gencon that he was considered strong because of Kentauroi allowing him to ferry up models. And how did he not suffer weaknesses of other summoners? He needs corpse markers, he's less durable unless you take an upgrade, but that means you're not taking one of his other upgrades that shores up some other weakness of his base card, he can't really do anything but summon or support his crew. Before he could generate enough corpses(Asura), and sit back with his engine not needing to move much(Kentauroi), he didn't give anything good enough to not just take Molly or Kirai.
 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

Viks and Misaki both make mince meat out of whatever models they target while punishing bunching up. If you say Misaki has no counterplay, then a Ml7 min 5 damage 4 aoe attacks Vik is considered stronger. They both kill whatever they see and Vik CAN ignore armor, HtK, HtW and all that stuff, while having a built-in Recalled Training. Vik also doesn't need as many high cards as Misaki as her min damage is Misaki's severe damage. Yet nobody sais Vik is OP as they learned to position properly against her and not let het get 4 free hits on 5 models. the counterplay for Misaki is funnily enough thesame as Vik: let her hit an inconseqential model and counter-attack right after. Doesn't even have to be thesame Turn, they are horribly out of position if they can't take away enough models when they do go in for the kill.

And again, Viks have a significantly smaller area that they can damage models in than Misaki does. Viks can only damage models in a small area and don't have any way to deal with terrain in the way, getting blocked by another model(other than spending AP killing it), or just getting some condition on them that stops them.

[newsun]

How many masters does 10t have who do 3+ min damage on an attack? How many who do this with a 6+ hit stat? How many have a good defensive trigger? How many models have attack start 7+ and min damage 3 how many have min damage 4+?

[DonCheadle]

34 minutes ago, newsun said:

How many masters does 10t have who do 3+ min damage on an attack? How many who do this with a 6+ hit stat? How many have a good defensive trigger? How many models have attack start 7+ and min damage 3 how many have min damage 4+?

McCabe has "min 3" thanks to his inbuilt Ram. He also gets + to his attack flips thanks to Promises. Makes sense since he's our Guild insert. 

Uhh, that aside I'd say we get most of our damage from masters out of RT, and then minimum isn't such a deciding factor (though still important). 

As for Defensive Triggers, we have misdirection, that should be good enough. 

[Jinn]

8 hours ago, Erik1978 said:

A condition crew isn't null and void against Hamelin or Shenlong. Sure, Hamelin doesn't care but most of his crew aren't immune. I think only him, Nix, and Benny are Nihilist?

And Ashes & Dust is also immune, which means that all of your opponents most threatening models are (functionally) immune. I've almost given up bringing Kaeris into Outcasts when my opponent seems likely to bring Hamelin. What really irks me about this match up is that Kaeris's default Totem removes immunity to burning within an aura but Nihilism doesn't count as immunity because they can choose to accept a condition if they want to. This means that there is no way of getting around Hamelin's pseudo-immunity and makes Kaeris's already bad Totem into an actual liability because the only immunity it removes is going to be that of your own models, like the rail golem (and A&D, but if the reason you're bringing your totem is to make you sometimes able to attack one of several immune enemy models then you're better off just using Kaeris as a scheme runner).

Sorry for the rant, but Hamelin is an NPE.

[santaclaws01]

1 minute ago, Jinn said:

And Ashes & Dust is also immune, which means that all of your opponents most threatening models are (functionally) immune. I've almost given up bringing Kaeris into Outcasts when my opponent seems likely to bring Hamelin. What really irks me about this match up is that Kaeris's default Totem removes immunity to burning within an aura but Nihilism doesn't count as immunity because they can choose to accept a condition if they want to. This means that there is no way of getting around Hamelin's pseudo-immunity and makes Kaeris's already bad Totem into an actual liability because the only immunity it removes is going to be that of your own models, like the rail golem (and A&D, but if the reason you're bringing your totem is to make you sometimes able to attack one of several immune enemy models then you're better off just using Kaeris as a scheme runner).

Sorry for the rant, but Hamelin is an NPE.

Rail Golem isn't immune to burning.

[Jinn]

12 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Rail Golem isn't immune to burning.

My bad, seems obvious in retrospect as it needs burning to function. I somehow had the idea that the Eternal Flame had a potential synergy with purifying flame by allowing friendly models that usually don't take damage from burning to heal while near it, by removing immunity to damage from burning. I checked the wording on Combustible Mixture and this is not the case. I find myself disliking the design of the Eternal Flame even more. Is A&D and Lenny the only models with immunity to burning then? 

[santaclaws01]

40 minutes ago, Jinn said:

My bad, seems obvious in retrospect as it needs burning to function. I somehow had the idea that the Eternal Flame had a potential synergy with purifying flame by allowing friendly models that usually don't take damage from burning to heal while near it, by removing immunity to damage from burning. I checked the wording on Combustible Mixture and this is not the case. I find myself disliking the design of the Eternal Flame even more. Is A&D and Lenny the only models with immunity to burning then? 

Low River Monk is also immune to burning. There's probably at least a couple others.

[Tendrepie]

To add a bit to pre 'nerf' storm Misaki: You don't really need a gods hand, just risk and reward (can cheat damage when negative), drop recalled training, go ham on a model that has low defense... The 'cannot be reduced' was a disaster to most incorporeal model, they where nearly unplayable against that upgrade. First time my wife played it she ended T1 with Misaki and won T2 initiative, my entire Dreamer crew was erased before she had activated all her model on T3... and I had stayed far away: Emissary+Yu+stupid weasel (and Terracota) = Misaki travel like 18"? (2+6 for weasel, 2*5 for Yu I think?)  before she even activate, with 4AP... so with 10" threat range on charge, if she started on edge of her 6" deployment and you kept something more than 2 inch away from the farside, you might be toasted... and back then the range for the blast was a freaking 12". Still a little salty about it, I only played Dreamer one more time against it and managed not to get wiped before T5 but that wasn't a fun game either. Then I used other master every time I heard TT until the fix.  Well just Lilith because my other master was Pandora and didn't wanted sorrow or madnesses in that matchup.

As for Terrain, it doesn't matter that much, Misaki is highly mobile, more so with Yu and Weasel and it's pretty easy to find a model from near wich you have LOS on at least two other, especially T1.

Now I think this upgrade is still solid, it can still be devastating and put you on your heels, but at least you have a chance to fight...