Waldo's Weekly - "I am the Key(word) Master!"

[mattc]

6 minutes ago, Mortarion said:

Thank you for the list. 

Since I like to play thematic crews, things look pretty much like I suspected. No big changes. Except for thematic Lucius... Woah... 5/9 Mimics now unavailable to him if I count correctly, and a sixth has become non-thematic. 

Which leads me to a question. In the list, there seems to be pretty large differences in thematic hiring pools. Many masters have around 7 models with the same keyword in addition to themselves and their totems. Marcus have 8-9 in addition to making in-faction beasts versatile. And then there are masters like Lucius with 4 models and Nellie with 3. I guess this will be adress somehow before the release of M3E, so it would be interesting to know more about that. Will they get lots of new models? Will they get upgrades allowing them to hire other keywords? Or are they actually stuck with the option of using generic in-faction versatile models or paying the non-thematic tax? A future weekly feature on the fate of the thematically impaired masters would be good.

This list is only the models that currently exist in M2E, there will be more models to come in M3E that will fill in various gaps for masters that are low on models.

[solkan]

6 hours ago, yool1981 said:

LYNCH

Old Key Word – DARKENED

• ·       Jakob Lynch
• ·       Hungering Darkness
• ·       Gwyneth Maddox
• ·       Mr Graves
• ·       Mr Tannen
• ·       Illuminated
• ·       Stitched Together
• ·       Beckoner
• ·       Depleted

This is "Neverborn Lynch", right?

If you take those same models and declare Ten Thunders, you get

Quote

• Jakob Lynch
• Hungering Darkness
• Gwyneth Maddox
• Mr. Graves
• Mr. Tannen
• Illuminated
• Stitched Together
• Beckoner
• Depeleted

so you lose access to one models. because they all changed keyword to Honeypot (and pretty much all changed faction to Ten Thunders) except Stitched Together.

 

For the puppet list:

6 hours ago, yool1981 said:

COLLODI

Old Key Word – PUPPET

• ·       Collodi
• ·       Vasilisa
• ·       Hinamatsu
• ·       Hodgepodge Effigy
• ·       Bunraku
• ·       Marionnettes
• ·       Mysterious Effigy
• ·       Stitched Together
• ·       Wicked Dolls
• ·       Lucky Effigy
• ·       Brutal Effigy
• ·       Arcane Effigy
• ·       Coryphee
• ·       Shadow Effigy
• ·       Carrion Effigy
• ·       Mannequin

You put this together as "Declare Neverborn, then choose Collodi."

You've got three choices:

1.  Dead Man's Hand for Collodi and All of the Puppets (gets you Versatile Neverborn as well).

2.  Leave Collodi (and his totem Marionettes) out of it and declare Ten Thunders to put Hinamatsu in charge.

3.  Leave Collodi (and his totem Marionettes) out of it, declare Neverborn, and put Widow Weaver in charge.  The chart seems to be leaving out most of the secondary hiring abilities (Henchman Widow Weaver taking Puppets, the Domodores taking undead, etc.

7 hours ago, yool1981 said:

LUCIUS

If you've got Lucius at half Guild, half Neverborn, you've now essentially got two partial Lucius lists.

The tail end of M2E expanded hiring pools, and M3E has declared that to be madness, and I think we can guess that the Out-of-faction Patch Model (aka Terra Cotta Warriors) didn't have any friends in the new regime.

[Gnomezilla]

*collects all the collectible Arcanist stompybots, sorts...looks puzzled*

I thought for sure Hoffman would pick up Ramos’ pets. But it looks like he took all the littluns that weren’t Ramos’. The spider is the new symbol of rebellion?...

16 hours ago, Mike Wallace said:

There are some nice possibilities here. And I see everyone gets a last name now.

...

Excuse me. I need to go elsewhere and vent my unhappiness. It will be very loud and very empathic and very educational.

*sets the stompybots down tenderly, and leaves*

[solkan]

55 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

*collects all the collectible Arcanist stompybots, sorts...looks puzzled*

I thought for sure Hoffman would pick up Ramos’ pets. But it looks like he took all the littluns that weren’t Ramos’. The spider is the new symbol of rebellion?...

*Points at Avatar Ramos going full Dr. Arachnid* 

*Points to headlines about Ramos being arrested as the head of the Arcanists*

It's clearly discrimination against arachnoid automata.

[Mike Wallace]

56 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Excuse me. I need to go elsewhere and vent my unhappiness. It will be very loud and very empathic and very educational.

*sets the stompybots down tenderly, and leaves*

Everyone who isn't still going by "Cher" rules, anyways.

[Jesy Blue]

I love how The Crossroads Seven are all Henchmen now.... that's a might powerful crew, but I wonder how many points are they now as they may not have a lot of Soul Stones left over. Maybe whoever you're declaring as a faction, that member is the leader (Outcast declared, Pride is the leader and gets 3 AP).

Not much switched over to Qi & Gong, but is it coincident that half of them were also puppets?  I'm happy, thematically as a Ten Thunders player, that we have access to Hinamatsu now, but how do we know Colodi didn't just hop into the "love doll" industry in secret?  Also props on renaming the Oiran to Kunoichi; I hope they become more useful in their assigned assassin role.

The Midnight Stalker & Johan(a) as Infamous?  A weird paring with Zipp... but I'll take it!

Sad to see Ryle Hoffman in the Deadman's Hand.  Also sad to see Sue and Convict Gunslingers be labeled Bandit and not Versatile, but that's because Bandit does absolutely nothing currently; maybe it will be worth something in the next edition.... it can't be less!

[Ludvig]

57 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

Also sad to see Sue and Convict Gunslingers be labeled Bandit and not Versatile, but that's because Bandit does absolutely nothing currently; maybe it will be worth something in the next edition.... it can't be less!

It's going to mesh with Parker so there's that. Seems extremely fitting thematically to me and hopefully Parker gets a slightly better rep in next edition.

[touchdown]

My biggest disappointment is that Anna Lovelace is not Freikorps

[Tors]

2 hours ago, solkan said:

This is "Neverborn Lynch", right? [...]

Yeah, but as a Neverborn Player its a pretty big hit. You loose infaction access to almost 20 Models (without existing crossfaction hiring options) and you get three or four in return.

I collected all native Neverborn and Guild Models. And a bunch of additional models from other faction,  i can field at the moment. With m3e i loose access to about 2 dozens model entrys (most of them beeing able to field a few copys)(given i can still field a few of those in specific corner cases) Thats not including Mercs! 

I am additional "lucky" because i also have every Guild model - the faction with the second most "lost" entrys. So if i calculate them on top, there are more then 30 Models i can't reliable field anymore, if i declare one of my two factions.

Sure, i guess i have 5 or 6 factions now - but thats a weak solace. 

[Bengt]

Soulstone miners being Mah Tucket is pretty bizarre, but at least they are also versatile Arcanists. Raptors just plain defected...

Really don't like adding double names to all and sundry, took me a while to figure out who "Willie Brant, Foundry" might be.

[Tors]

Mah and SSminer have a storyline in some Chronicles (i think). She ransacked a warehouse and did steal a few miners if i remember correctly.

[WWHSD]

13 minutes ago, Tors said:

I am additional "lucky" because i also have every Guild model - the faction with the second most "lost" entrys. So if i calculate them on top, there are more then 30 Models i can't reliable field anymore, if i declare one of my two factions.

Unless he’s got some special rules that aren’t reflected in this list, I think Levi may have lost access to hiring more models than either Neverborn or Guild did.

[Tors]

True, but i would bet my lost Models, he will get at least a similiar hiring pool, spanning various factions.

On the other hand i would have bet on wyrd to be more cautios with invalidating existing hiring pools too...

[Adran]

37 minutes ago, Tors said:

Yeah, but as a Neverborn Player its a pretty big hit. You loose infaction access to almost 20 Models (without existing crossfaction hiring options) and you get three or four in return.

I collected all native Neverborn and Guild Models. And a bunch of additional models from other faction,  i can field at the moment. With m3e i loose access to about 2 dozens model entrys (most of them beeing able to field a few copys)(given i can still field a few of those in specific corner cases) Thats not including Mercs! 

I am additional "lucky" because i also have every Guild model - the faction with the second most "lost" entrys. So if i calculate them on top, there are more then 30 Models i can't reliable field anymore, if i declare one of my two factions.

That's nearly as many as Marcus and Leviticus each lost access to. Just remember this list is only existing models, so there will be some new neverborn, presumably mainly Euripides based. And as you said in most cases you can still play them, you just have to announce a different faction. So really I'm not sure a player with a full M2e neverborn collection has any models they can't use at the moment, just some times you need to announce a different faction

. I'm a little shocked my Marcus advice has too change. For 10 years I've recommended silurids as his best scheme runner, and now he can't hire them at all, even after joining neverborn!

[touchdown]

18 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Unless he’s got some special rules that aren’t reflected in this list, I think Levi may have lost access to hiring more models than either Neverborn or Guild did.

I do wonder if he's going to have any upgrades to expand his hiring pool. Horseman still exists as a keyword so it seems likely there will still be some 4 horseman upgrade.

[solkan]

7 minutes ago, Tors said:

True, but i would bet my lost Models, he will get at least a similiar hiring pool, spanning various factions.

On the other hand i would have bet on wyrd to be more cautios with invalidating existing hiring pools too...

Which would have been worse?

• You can't take Depleted any more because they're no longer in your faction.
• You can take Depleted but you'd be stupid to do so because of the keyword tax or they're no longer good at what they used to do.
• The theme synergy for Lynch is so great that only Lynch would want to take Depleted any more.

I'm using Depleted as the punching bag here because they're one of the models picked out as an M2E hiring pool problem--models that are too good for everyone.

Having models and being forced to use them in ways that you previously didn't have to is pretty much the way of edition changes.  

Disclaimer:  Ten Thunders went from six dual faction masters to two.  I own Mei Feng, Lucas McCabe, Masaki, and Jakob Lynch crews.  All of my Mercenary and Outcast models are huddling together next to an old pair of metal Viktorias.  And I am 10 for 10 on owning the Dead Man's Hand models before the list was announced.

[yool1981]

4 hours ago, solkan said:

This is "Neverborn Lynch", right?

If you take those same models and declare Ten Thunders, you get

so you lose access to one models. because they all changed keyword to Honeypot (and pretty much all changed faction to Ten Thunders) except Stitched Together.

 

For the puppet list:

You put this together as "Declare Neverborn, then choose Collodi."

You've got three choices:

1.  Dead Man's Hand for Collodi and All of the Puppets (gets you Versatile Neverborn as well).

2.  Leave Collodi (and his totem Marionettes) out of it and declare Ten Thunders to put Hinamatsu in charge.

3.  Leave Collodi (and his totem Marionettes) out of it, declare Neverborn, and put Widow Weaver in charge.  The chart seems to be leaving out most of the secondary hiring abilities (Henchman Widow Weaver taking Puppets, the Domodores taking undead, etc.

If you've got Lucius at half Guild, half Neverborn, you've now essentially got two partial Lucius lists.

The tail end of M2E expanded hiring pools, and M3E has declared that to be madness, and I think we can guess that the Out-of-faction Patch Model (aka Terra Cotta Warriors) didn't have any friends in the new regime.

Except everything is painted in my NB theme and I have no interest in playing Guild now and certainly not Dashel.

10T maybe one day but not now and I have to repaint everything to keep painting coherence:

So no this is actually a big deal. NB  players got hit badly.

fortunately I play arcanist also

[Tors]

24 minutes ago, Adran said:

That's nearly as many as Marcus and Leveticus each lost access to. Just remember this list is only existing models, so there will be some new neverborn, presumably mainly Euripides based. And as you said in most cases you can still play them, you just have to announce a different faction. So really I'm not sure a player with a full M2e neverborn collection has any models they can't use at the moment, just some times you need to announce a different faction

But i never wanted to play TT. And for Events thats a pretty substantial change. And i didn't said "can't use". I said "can't use with my current Factions". Oder Course there will be new Models. And of course i most certainly will buy and paint them. That didn't invalidate the loss of access to Models.

[Ludvig]

30 minutes ago, Adran said:

I'm a little shocked my Marcus advice has too change. For 10 years I've recommended silurids as his best scheme runner, and now he can't hire them at all, even after joining neverborn!

Holy crap, I didn't notice the swampies had gone bayou until you pointed it out. Now my Marcus collection is also severely gutted apart from my guild and neverborn models being all over the place already. I guess I'm back to playing Sonnia just like last edition change. I can manage Perdita as well, they don't seem to have found any illegitimate familymembers yet. 

[Tors]

23 minutes ago, solkan said:

Which would have been worse?

• You can't take Depleted any more because they're no longer in your faction.
• You can take Depleted but you'd be stupid to do so because of the keyword tax or they're no longer good at what they used to do.
• The theme synergy for Lynch is so great that only Lynch would want to take Depleted any more.

I'm using Depleted as the punching bag here because they're one of the models picked out as an M2E hiring pool problem--models that are too good for everyone.

Having models and being forced to use them in ways that you previously didn't have to is pretty much the way of edition changes.  

Disclaimer:  Ten Thunders went from six dual faction masters to two.  I own Mei Feng, Lucas McCabe, Masaki, and Jakob Lynch crews.  All of my Mercenary and Outcast models are huddling together next to an old pair of metal Viktorias.  And I am 10 for 10 on owning the Dead Man's Hand models before the list was announced.

Pretty sure thats the first Time i heard somebody declare depleted problematic. I Think you mean Illuminated?

I am not sure whats worse, i don't think any of this options is ideal. I would have liked for Lynch and company to stay Dual Faction and just be balanced like other infaction must haves.

[Gnomezilla]

36 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Holy crap, I didn't notice the swampies had gone bayou until you pointed it out. Now my Marcus collection is also severely gutted apart from my guild and neverborn models being all over the place already. I guess I'm back to playing Sonnia just like last edition change. I can manage Perdita as well, they don't seem to have found any illegitimate familymembers yet. 

And you never will...

*sounds of Abuela loading several shotguns*

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Tors said:

But i never wanted to play TT. And for Events thats a pretty substantial change. And i didn't said "can't use". I said "can't use with my current Factions". Oder Course there will be new Models. And of course i most certainly will buy and paint them. That didn't invalidate the loss of access to Models.

I must admit I've never quite understood that level of faction loyalty that people will only play that faction so even if the entire crew switches to a different faction they wouldn't play it. But several people seem to have it so each to their own. 

[Clockwork_Fish]

A crew led by the First Mate will be the wackiest goddamned thing ever.  Gators and catfish men parachuting out of the sky, dropping pianos on people, then stealing all their valuables.  How do you put that in an incident report?

[Thedeadclaw]

1 hour ago, Clockwork_Fish said:

A crew led by the First Mate will be the wackiest goddamned thing ever.

First Mate isn't a henchman anymore

(Neither is The Nothing Beast, and probably several more but I'm not looking at the sheet rn and those were the 2 that stuck out to me.)

[Thedeadclaw]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

I must admit I've never quite understood that level of faction loyalty that people will only play that faction so even if the entire crew switches to a different faction they wouldn't play it. But several people seem to have it so each to their own. 

It's because if you want to play the crew in events it's hard to play competitively with just one crew and if you have that vs. a full faction of models you'll do better with the other faction as your declared faction for the event. It's not a problem for me but like. It does suck a little for people who don't play X faction for their minis to switch there.