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So based on Gencon what do you expect is the biggest point shake ups coming in 3rd?


dope_danny

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So even a quick look at Gencon showed a large shake up to points. Masters costing points making a 7 unit crew including a totem reach the 50ss amount makes it look like you could essentially see games be more like 'Heres your starting crew box, you either have one extra thing or replace your minions'. Making me think 'Okay so maybe if i run Rail Crew im not running rail crew and Metal Gamin but one or the other depending on the encounter?' but the changes made me think about the big lads in your crew. Case in point i just picked up a Rail Golem -because its a steam powered automaton thats basically a train engine with arms and legs who wouldnt right?- and its 11 points. In the demo art the comparison is a ice golem going down to 9ss from 11ss. Meanwhile cheaper minions go from things like 2ss to 5ss with only the 4ss ice gamin remaining the same. It gives the first impression that roster bloat is being cut down but the big hitters are not so much going to be an expensive addition but a case of 'its this or 3 minions' and we all know sometimes numbers can be more advantageous than raw strength.

 

So first impressions obviously but do you think all the large enforcers are going down as everything kind of averages out or could we possibly see some just expected for above 55ss games in future and for the regular 50ss -which apparently is remaining the baseline- they are simply too expensive with the points changes and become 'large crew only' models?

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Im curious how the balancing of masters will work if there is no cache. Granted Wyrd was really bad about getting the cache right, Sandeep and Nellie had cache 4 and Von Schill has 1, please.

However if you get a master for free, that strongly implies they are all the same cost. If one master coats 15 and another costs 11, aren’t you strongly encouraged mechanically to take the one that’s 15? 

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If that is actually the case then I think that it is going to prove unenecessarly difficult to balance all the masters and in my opinion is uterly avoidable. I understand that 50 SS pool and free Leader is a tradition, but...

  • Pay for your Leader as well.
    In that case you can make some Masters "weaker" with stronger Totems or higher "SS Cash" or they would be able to hire one cheaper model more or... It would be just so much easier to balance.
  • Up the SS pool to (50 + price of the most expensive Master).
    The most expensive Master (and their Totem) - let's say 15 SS - has a SS Cache of 0. A cheaper Master that would cost like 10 SS would have a "SS Cache" of 5 or could spend their SS on one more model.

This is based on the speculation that the format is 50 SS and you do not have to pay for your Leader, though.

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3 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Im curious how the balancing of masters will work if there is no cache. Granted Wyrd was really bad about getting the cache right, Sandeep and Nellie had cache 4 and Von Schill has 1, please.

However if you get a master for free, that strongly implies they are all the same cost. If one master coats 15 and another costs 11, aren’t you strongly encouraged mechanically to take the one that’s 15? 

Depends on if you can hire the 2nd masters without the penalty, and if hiring a second master allows you to take their theme models without the penalty. If you're choices are a 15ss and 11ss master it could matter which of their thematic models would be better for the scenario.

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2 hours ago, Phinn said:

If that is actually the case then I think that it is going to prove unenecessarly difficult to balance all the masters and in my opinion is uterly avoidable. I understand that 50 SS pool and free Leader is a tradition, but...

  • Pay for your Leader as well.
    In that case you can make some Masters "weaker" with stronger Totems or higher "SS Cash" or they would be able to hire one cheaper model more or... It would be just so much easier to balance.
  • Up the SS pool to (50 + price of the most expensive Master).
    The most expensive Master (and their Totem) - let's say 15 SS - has a SS Cache of 0. A cheaper Master that would cost like 10 SS would have a "SS Cache" of 5 or could spend their SS on one more model.

This is based on the speculation that the format is 50 SS and you do not have to pay for your Leader, though.

Mason confirmed that it will be 50SS with a free master and totem and that there is no soul stone cache.

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35 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Mason confirmed that it will be 50SS with a free master and totem and that there is no soul stone cache.

Yes, I know. "You start with Soulstones equal to the amount you did not spend during hiring." That is why I used quotation marks when I was talking about "SS Cach" 🙂

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1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

Mason confirmed that it will be 50SS with a free master and totem and that there is no soul stone cache.

I guess it makes choosing between upgrades or your chache a bigger focus than always having a backup SS when you need it. I wonder if thats going to be a big deal for the masters where a couple of upgrades feel 'mandatory' but the trade off now is if you want the freedom to still cheat fate as well you need to go in with one less minion or something?

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If masters are 15ss as normal hires I would expect enforcers and henches all being significantly cheaper since they'll need to compete for the same spots in crews. I prefer masters having balanced rules instead of an extra ss here and there, it will obviously need fine tuning but there's always errata if something is off the curve. An extra stone in his cache didn't exactly make pre errata Lucius on par with Collodi so it was a pretty poor balancing mechanic anyway.not even sure it is currently meant as a balancing mechanic considering a lot of cache sizes and comparstive power level of masters.

Smaller crews sounds great so it will be more like 3 minions or 1 minion and one big lug instead of 5 minions as an afterthought just to pad activations. If most hiring is to be done in theme it seems natural with smaller crews so you don't always pick every model in theme ending up with the exact same list every game.

From what I read no upgrades will be mandatory, the bread and butter is on the base card and upgrades "sidegrade" instead of provide necessary abilities that used to be on the card in m1e.

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6 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Im curious how the balancing of masters will work if there is no cache. Granted Wyrd was really bad about getting the cache right, Sandeep and Nellie had cache 4 and Von Schill has 1, please.

However if you get a master for free, that strongly implies they are all the same cost. If one master coats 15 and another costs 11, aren’t you strongly encouraged mechanically to take the one that’s 15? 

You could balance it through the totem.  So each Master+totem combo is about equal, but individual costs can vary.

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29 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

If masters are 15ss as normal hires I would expect enforcers and henches all being significantly cheaper since they'll need to compete for the same spots in crews.

From the models we’ve seen so far, I don’t expect much to change in regards to cost of the models. A number of models kept the same cost as they had in M2E and others got more expensive but appear to have received a rework that makes the new cost appropriate. 

I think that 15SS is going to be a steep price to pay to bring in a second master. There will probably be a few combos that make it worthwhile but I suspect they will end up being a niche pick once the novelty of bringing two masters wears off .

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54 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

...once the novelty of bringing two masters wears off .

So pretty much never. :P 

People are pretty happy paying 15ss for Nekima as she is currently designed and I'm guessing she'll recieve some new abilities with her promotion so she might stay the premiere nvb damage dealer for a few masters. I feel the same thing might apply to Lady Justice unless all masters are getting a lot more focus on buffing their themed models. If the masters and their totems are a complete kit that should also mean you are paying 15ss for two activations which pretty much equates to a 10+5 combo of enforcer+minion.

If Marcus still buffs beasts and Zoraida's swampfiends are still beasts obeying upgraded beasts also sounds quite nice.

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I don’t believe that’s true. You get a master and a totem free. If you hire a second master you pay for them, I would imagine if you want the second masters totem you pay for it. Both totems at gen con were 5ss which means you’d be paying 6 for an off keyword model. Pretty sure you’re rarely going to hire an off masters totem.

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Mason did say that the highest cost non-Master models will hover around 9-10 ss so as not to compete with Masters as hires. Compared to other models, Masters still get the third action, and generally have more and more powerful options than other models, even if they're not as powerful (which doesn't mean anything because you can't look at them in that context in a way that makes any sense) as 2E Masters. Consider buying a 10ss Henchman/Enforcer and a 5ss Minion vs a 15ss Master. You do get one more action and one more activation (that also doesn't mean much any more), and more board control (area occupation, engagement range, etc.), but the extra action you're getting is not going to be as powerful or interesting. 

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I talked to Kai, Kyle, and Matt pretty extensively throughout the weekend, and here is what I remember them saying.

As for the cache/balance thing, the totems are used to balance the masters. Think of the totem as an extension of your master. The two Viks are designed to the same level (theoretically) as Raspy+Wendigo, Marcus+Jackalope, or Lynch+Huggy. 

Hiring an out of theme master costs the additional tax, but you still get the totem for free, as it is essentially part of the master.

Your leader (even a Henchman if you chose) gets 3 AP, not Masters in general. If you hire a second master they only get 2 AP. Henchmen cannot hire masters
 

Some other things,

Keyword beats faction, if it has your keyword you can hire it across faction with no penalty

Engagement ranges were generally shortened by 1" and damage tracks generally lowered by 1. Min 3 is reserved for actual beaters now, smaller models have min 1 or 2, maybe with a thematic way to boost it. 3" engagement is going to be rare, if there are any, 4" seems totally gone 

For balancing in faction, they are trying to use a carrot instead of a stick, making in theme models work so much better due to synergy, rather than heavily punishing for taking out of theme models. So yea you can still take Howard in Rasputina, but Howard is doing nothing for the rest of the crew, and the rest of the crew is doing nothing for Howard. Instead, bring the Golem, and have him pick up Ice Pillars and beat people over the head with them


Edit: It was a very long weekend, so I may not be remembering everything correctly
 

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2 minutes ago, cbtb11235813 said:

 

Your leader (even a Henchman if you chose) gets 3 AP, not Masters in general. If you hire a second master they only get 2 AP. Henchmen cannot hire leaders

 

Discussed this with Mason. Henchmen do get 3 actions when leader. Masters always get 3 actions, leader or not.

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2 hours ago, thebarbalag said:

Discussed this with Mason. Henchmen do get 3 actions when leader. Masters always get 3 actions, leader or not.

This is what Mason said when I spoke with him over the weekend as well.

He also said that the first master + totem are free and determine your keyword hiring, the additional master and their totem will cost you stones.

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Another couple things of note,

2 actions are gone in reality, but not in spirit. One specific example is Flurry (which the Ice Golem has). It is now a front of card ability that reads something like "Once per activation, after resolving a :ToS-Melee: attack, this model may discard a card to take an additional :ToS-Melee:"

Caches are gone, but it seems like upgrades on masters will be less necessary. So maybe crew sizes will work out to be about the same, since you're saving stones on upgrades, but spending them on your SS pool

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