Third Edition is Coming!!

[wafew]

Just now, Zebo said:

And about out of faction minis with the same keyword? I'm worrying for Anna Lovelace in my VS crew

My guess would be that hiring through keyword isn't exclusive for in faction.

It seems that non-keyword non-general faction models are the new mercenary.

[Cedar]

Mason (or someone who was playing demo at GenCon) wrote (on Facebook if I remember correctly), that models with keywords can be hired regardless of faction.

[DeleteAccount]

33 minutes ago, Cedar said:

Mason (or someone who was playing demo at GenCon) wrote (on Facebook if I remember correctly), that models with keywords can be hired regardless of faction.

So levi players sighed a sigh of rellief. Though remains to be seen what keeps his keyword. Gut feeling is necropunks and transmortis could hace his keyword since levi seems to be all about them amalgamationa of undead and construct.

As a jack daw player also solves the mystery of what happens with the crossroads 7

[Da Git]

10 hours ago, 7thSquirrel said:

Ok this got me thinking. So we don't like the merc option cause at +1 SS they were in waaaaaaay too many lists that had nothing to do with their theme, or no one was using that option at all.

Now, we have basically the same mechanic by Keyword in the Faction, if out of theme pay +1 SS to bring them in. So... ... ... how is that going to be different this time around? Is it ok if Joss (or whatever happens to be strong at the time) shows up with Raspy, Marcus, Colette, Sandeep, Hoffman, Mei and Ironsides all the time but something Howard never does? It just feels like we're going to get in the same spot by using the same mechanic, which is apparently a bad thing to according to the Head Dev.

100% agree with this. 

Usually if a merc is worth hiring, it's either under-costed in its own faction or brings something the hiring faction doesn't have (eg. hiring Johan for condition removal in Neverborn as opposed to 10T or Ressers, who had Chiaki).  Hopefully the main out-of-theme hires are done for the second reason and then one day, they get an in-theme way (like Neverborn got Scion & Serena to replace merc-ing Johan). Time will only tell though.

[katadder]

no cache, so all masters and totem combos need to be equal then. sounds harder to balance as at least if there was some imbalance you just upped the weaker ones cache. guess my forces will end up smaller too as I rarely left any stones over to add to my cache.

[Jinn]

On 8/5/2018 at 1:50 AM, Fetid Strumpet said:

I sort of hope there are no more generic totems, and they just become versatile models. I really personally want to avoid the issue that the Malifaux child and primordial magic caused last edition

My only worry with this approach is imagining if this had happened in 2e. Being forced to bring Mouse with Ironsides or the Eternal Flame with Kaeris would have been awful, instead we were able to hire the Malifaux Child with both of them. Obviously this is only a problem if some models aren't properly balanced, and if Mouse and the Eternal Flame (and totems in general) are balanced then I am happy.

On another note, if I never see the Primordial Magic again it will be too soon 

[Anung Un Rama]

Malifaux child is so boring. Too efficient and appears everywhere

[WWHSD]

13 hours ago, Cedar said:

Mason (or someone who was playing demo at GenCon) wrote (on Facebook if I remember correctly), that models with keywords can be hired regardless of faction.

In the GenCon demo Marcus crew, Marcus and the Jackalope were the only dual faction models. Everything else was Arcanist. Myranda’s shapechange ability allows her to change in a beast from the same faction as the crew. That seems like a pretty good sign that keywords allow out of faction hiring.

[thebarbalag]

Confirmed (in my conversation with Mason at Gen Con) that Keywords work across faction without penalty or limitations. Beast is not Marcus's Keyword, Chimera is.

[Gnomezilla]

7 hours ago, Jinn said:

On another note, if I never see the Primordial Magic again it will be too soon 

Amen.

 

I am disappointed that nobody at the demos yet tried out doubling up on cards and actually running Raspy plus Marcus versus Marcus plus Raspy. We’re all waiting to see dual masters in action!

[edopersichetti]

8 hours ago, Jinn said:

My only worry with this approach is imagining if this had happened in 1e. Being forced to bring Mouse with Ironsides or the Eternal Flame with Kaeris would have been awful, instead we were able to hire the Malifaux Child with both of them. Obviously this is only a problem if some models aren't properly balanced, and if Mouse and the Eternal Flame (and totems in general) are balanced then I am happy.

On another note, if I never see the Primordial Magic again it will be too soon 

I guess no one's forcing anyone to bring a totem, but if they do have a good synergy and work well, and especially since they come for free...why not?

Of course, I agree that it's important to properly balance them and make them useful...

[SunTsu]

On 8/3/2018 at 6:13 PM, Clement said:

Is it though?  Without the placement, a crew would ball up as hard as it can and march to wherever the markers will be dropping.  With the spread, it's a hard road for that style of crew.  This will encourage you to run forward and present a reasonable presence across the whole center line.  Then rush to an idol and punt it into the enemy half of the table, as deep as you dare.  It's got an interesting tension between lots of small models so you can better cover the area and a few big models who can afford the big 3 damage hits.  I think the "convert damage to vp" is an interesting angle to explore.

Where can I find these spoiled schemes and strategies??? Thanks...

[Tors]

GenCon Coverage Thread, First page.

[SunTsu]

On 8/4/2018 at 6:05 PM, WWHSD said:

It’s not a rumor. Mason confirmed it on A Wyrd Place. Crews get a master, totem and 50SS.

I don't understand this thing... I think it's not very in line with giving a cost to masters...

I'll wait to see all the whole picture, but I would suggest to evaluate a different approach, such as giving 50ss + 20ss just for leader+totem, or directly 70ss all together...

About generic totems, never really found any real play, except for those clearly underpriced such as Malifaux Child or Primordial Magic. So I sustain the idea of making them versatile non-totem models.

[SunTsu]

48 minutes ago, Tors said:

GenCon Coverage Thread, First page.

Thanks!

But.... I wasn't able to find the thread.... May someone post here a direct link??? 😜

[emiba]

1 minute ago, SunTsu said:

I don't understand this thing... I think it's not very in line with giving a cost to masters...

The cost would there for the event you want to hire a second master.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, SunTsu said:

Where can I find these spoiled schemes and strategies??? Thanks...

It's in the news, reviews and discussion section. I'm posting from a phone so can't link it,  it it's probably on the recent threads in the sidebar, if you use those. 

[Kyris]

1 hour ago, SunTsu said:

I don't understand this thing... I think it's not very in line with giving a cost to masters...

its because you can hire other masters into your crew.

 

So, say you're running titania+totem. you can spend some of that 50SS pool to hiring, say, euripides into titania's crew.

[SunTsu]

55 minutes ago, emiba said:

The cost would there for the event you want to hire a second master.

Yes, but it doesn't makes a lot of sense for me...

This is obviously a discussion for the beta, but setting a cost that does work only if you hire a second master, it seems a vaste of design space... I mean, if I got a master and his titem for free, choosing the most expensive one gives obviously an edge. If instead all master+totem couples costs the same, then it should need that all those couples should be perfectly balanced. Cutted away the cache tool, that will be impossible, and it would lead again to choosing the most performant master again and again...

The cache was the tool to fine balance a master (since its cost was normalized at 15 stones). I don't understand why putting away the cache (that is by itself a good move, since it simplify things for newbies expecially) setting the real cost of the model, and then ignoring it during hiring.... This system reintroduce an unuseful complication...

It shouldn't be much more simple and straightforward and inline with new costing rules just to give a set amount of ss and let players buy whatever they wants??? 🤔

[-Loki-]

Well, in 2E there were often schemes based around ss costs which got wonky around things like masters and 0ss henchmen. Maybe it’s also to combat that?

Also with keyword hiring, just picking the most expensive seems like a bad choice if the rest of the crew you want will now cost even more?

[SunTsu]

2 minutes ago, -Loki- said:

Well, in 2E there were often schemes based around ss costs which got wonky around things like masters and 0ss henchmen. Maybe it’s also to combat that?

Yep, but remain the fact that if the costs are different and the first madter/totem is free, you will introduce a disparity...

[retnab]

39 minutes ago, SunTsu said:

This is obviously a discussion for the beta, but setting a cost that does work only if you hire a second master, it seems a vaste of design space... I mean, if I got a master and his titem for free, choosing the most expensive one gives obviously an edge.

I assume that depends on what else you're hiring.  If you want 90% of one crew but you want to take a more expensive Master to do something as well, it might be cheaper to hire it at a higher cost than have the rest of the crew be out of the higher master's theme and pay +1 for all of them.

[Shadowdragon]

On 8/4/2018 at 10:55 AM, Mason said:

Hiring a model that does not share a keyword with your leader is at +1 Cost.

I'm really not a fan of adding a merc tax to every in-faction model that doesn't share the master's keyword. People react better to positive reinforcement rather than negative, plus keeping themed crews as optional is always better than making them the rule. There should be a benefit to playing themed crews rather than a penalty for playing crews that aren't. Just make it so themed crews gain a crew-wide bonus, or make abilities that work better with in-theme models, that way non-themed crews are just as good, but people who stay in-theme get a little bonus. Unless the intent is to completely phase out non-themed crews, in which case why not just get rid of factions entirely and have each master as their own faction.

[KingJocko]

I think the +1 Cost was a means of reinforcing thematic crews without giving them a flat stat advantage. Instead it becomes an issue of cost efficiency which I believe is less universally objectionable. Pro level players wont do a lot of mixing without meta incentives to push them, but casual players likely wont mind paying the extra stone or two for something different every once in a while. If stat increases was the reward for thematic crews we'd see a lot less experimentation as outside models would be missing the natural synergy of thematic crews and also the stat advantage of a thematic crew.
If the negative presentation really matters they could always increase the base cost of every model by 1 and have thematic models cost 1 less, giving players the sense of a bargain for thematic crews, but it would ultimately be the same thing.

[Adran]

7 hours ago, SunTsu said:

Yep, but remain the fact that if the costs are different and the first madter/totem is free, you will introduce a disparity...

Maybe the intent is for all masters to be costed the same.  

 

2 hours ago, Shadowdragon said:

I'm really not a fan of adding a merc tax to every in-faction model that doesn't share the master's keyword. People react better to positive reinforcement rather than negative, plus keeping themed crews as optional is always better than making them the rule. There should be a benefit to playing themed crews rather than a penalty for playing crews that aren't. Just make it so themed crews gain a crew-wide bonus, or make abilities that work better with in-theme models.

You could just assume the benefit of hiring in theme is a discount on the hiring cost. In the the long term , the bonus being cost is going to be universal. Learning bonuses to other crews sounds relatively complex. I often miss things like a +1 wp bonus from other cards. 

It also is quite restricting to have a universal bonus to all models in that crew, to then make models have to want that bonus. Think how often Vanessa gets to use her Ml expert.  And if you just make it a buff from some models, such as bite of winter, then you are locking some choices down in crew selection.