Immolated Rhino

[BimVooDoo]

Hi there wyrdos, 

This weekend we had our first TOS Tournament and i saw something about the Rhinos that is a bit OP. 

First of all, they are hard to kill, very hard... the damage they take only can come from a tome, this would be ok if they cannot use the shaken tokens to reduce damage by 1. And you can´t use the shaken tokens against them. Very hard to kill. 

Also, they have an aura that negates you the use of flag actions. So you can´t use any hability from the strategies and the Commanders are unable to use almost any action printed on their cards. and the bonus action is lost if you don´t go out. 

And the last one, the splash attack. With a 6, they make a Strenght 3 hit against everything within 6". Automatic hit, that can be cheated, with no option to defend your units. Shouldn´t it be a simple Sp of Df duel and if you fail you get the hit? 

They are extremely dangerous and durable to cost only 3 scrip, i think they should be nerfed in some ways. 

what do you think?

[solkan]

Putting Pinned Tokens on a unit negates Shaken Tokens.

If they don't have Shaken tokens on them, roughly 1/4 of all damage flips kill them.  For that matter, they're basically one shot killed by powered up Rail Gunners once they run out of shaken tokens or anything else that can the strength of the hit to 5 (since Str 5 vs AR 5 causes 1 damage with a 0 flip.)

 

[Tris]

12 minutes ago, solkan said:

Putting Pinned Tokens on a unit negates Shaken Tokens.

 

Nope - inspired tokens negate shaken tokens.

Pinned negates Reinforcement

[BimVooDoo]

47 minutes ago, solkan said:

Putting Pinned Tokens on a unit negates Shaken Tokens.

If they don't have Shaken tokens on them, roughly 1/4 of all damage flips kill them.  For that matter, they're basically one shot killed by powered up Rail Gunners once they run out of shaken tokens or anything else that can the strength of the hit to 5 (since Str 5 vs AR 5 causes 1 damage with a 0 flip.)

 

Yup that´s true, but you still have to do dmg with a tome, the railgunners are ok and almost any shoot can kill them if you have a tome, but what about not having a tome, it´s a 1/4 chance to do it, or you need to cheat it. Of course, they can be killed, but you don´t think they are a little bit overpowered? not only for the effort of killing them but also their splash and the aura. 

[Tris]

41 minutes ago, BimVooDoo said:

Yup that´s true, but you still have to do dmg with a tome, the railgunners are ok and almost any shoot can kill them if you have a tome, but what about not having a tome, it´s a 1/4 chance to do it, or you need to cheat it. Of course, they can be killed, but you don´t think they are a little bit overpowered? not only for the effort of killing them but also their splash and the aura. 

You only need the tome if your base strength is below 5, because the Rhino ignores the flipped card if it's not a tome, not the whole attack.

 

I agree that most of the 3pt units seem quite good for their price though, Eels and Rhinos at the front for being stupidly hard to kill on a good-hitter model and the Marauders for being able to do whatever they want on a rush order, plus being a solid model all around.

Exception here is the Empires Artillery Team which seems like it has no use at all, although I'll have to test that more^^

[Adran]

19 minutes ago, BimVooDoo said:

Yup that´s true, but you still have to do dmg with a tome, the railgunners are ok and almost any shoot can kill them if you have a tome, but what about not having a tome, it´s a 1/4 chance to do it, or you need to cheat it. Of course, they can be killed, but you don´t think they are a little bit overpowered? not only for the effort of killing them but also their splash and the aura. 

I hunted for where we last discussed these, and it was in Kings Empire when someone asked for advice on how to face them.

There are several models in that faction that cause damage on any suit because they have a high enough strength attack in the first place. The Rhino is probably a priority target for this reason. If you can target them before they glory, you can use the shaken tokens to help you hit, and they can't use them to prevent damage.

I haven't looked through the other factions for the same sort of answers, but I imagine they are there. They are durable to low strength attacks only because 1/4 don't hurt it without cheating. If you get a severe tome in hand then you can easily kill them in the one hit even with them able to discard shaken tokens.

Facing them seems like you need a plan to deal with them, even if that plan is just save your low to mid tomes for those damage flips.

 

 

 

[Tris]

15 minutes ago, Adran said:

I hunted for where we last discussed these, and it was in Kings Empire when someone asked for advice on how to face them.

There are several models in that faction that cause damage on any suit because they have a high enough strength attack in the first place. The Rhino is probably a priority target for this reason. If you can target them before they glory, you can use the shaken tokens to help you hit, and they can't use them to prevent damage.

I haven't looked through the other factions for the same sort of answers, but I imagine they are there. They are durable to low strength attacks only because 1/4 don't hurt it without cheating. If you get a severe tome in hand then you can easily kill them in the one hit even with them able to discard shaken tokens.

Facing them seems like you need a plan to deal with them, even if that plan is just save your low to mid tomes for those damage flips.

 

 

 

Which models do we have in KE with a base str of 5?

Grenadiers with av3?

The Artillery, av3?

Anything else?

[Adran]

Not a lot else, (so much seems to get to 4 so you just need a powerful attack trigger) but we do have a lot of piercing attacks, which will help. It felt like more when I last checked..

There is the Artillary stike stragem as well and the Super heavy machine gun can get to Strength 5 relatively easily (Radio Transmitor helps make this happen, along with possibly helping borderers or gloried Infiltrators get that hit in. )

[BimVooDoo]

Yeah, but you only are seeing ways to kill it, but no what they can do before that. In our first tournament, 2 rhinos almost taken my entire company with the splash attack, they teleported and do the splash, it´s relatively easy to take down several models from fireteams since they have to be within 8" of each other and the splash is 6" inches 

 

 

[DeleteAccount]

I see a lot of "str 5 and you kill it!" But I fail to see why they wouldn't have the Thougness upgrade which suddenly makes it impossible to oneshot them and even more of a joke proposal if they have shaken tokens and Rhinos are absurdly good at non defensible damage and table control with the Cinnamon aura. 

RailGuns in glory can win by enough to get those two margins to get into Str5 but what do the rest of mortals do? Rhinos are df6 in glory and it's very easy to get them there. My Royal Rifle corps have to win by 9 to not be dependant on luck to damage one and my Grenadiers will have a hard time even hitting, god forbid cover is also present which should be easy for such a small model. The Artillery crew has the same problem while also being absolute fodder against Cult due to their mobility and the Kings Hand with the Heavy Gun and Symbol of the Realm can remove it from glory and get all the tokens of it but is still unable to kill it if it has toughness since it would need to do 4 total damage into it. And this is 10 script investing 2 of it's versatile actions just to reduce the effetiveness of a 3 script model, oh, and titans are also fodder for Black Ops...

Rhinos just seem to do everything and very well. Our local top player has made it clear that he will always use the max amount of Rhinos allowed in the Fields of Glory rules. At least the Gibbering lamprea has the decency of only attacking one fireteam, two at most and the Marauder and the Artillery team seem to be miles away in power compared to it.

[Tris]

7 hours ago, Adran said:

Not a lot else, (so much seems to get to 4 so you just need a powerful attack trigger) but we do have a lot of piercing attacks, which will help. It felt like more when I last checked..

There is the Artillary stike stragem as well and the Super heavy machine gun can get to Strength 5 relatively easily (Radio Transmitor helps make this happen, along with possibly helping borderers or gloried Infiltrators get that hit in. )

A lot of piercing?

May I ask again, where?

Grenadiers with the right suit, maybe the big gun on the kings hand and.....?

 

Couldn't agree more with @razhem , it's a discussion about relations and point efficency, and the Rhino is right up there at a point where it's just not efficient anymore to deal with it.

There are other units there too, but that's a discussion for another day.

[Adran]

9 hours ago, Tris said:

A lot of piercing?

May I ask again, where?

Grenadiers with the right suit, maybe the big gun on the kings hand and.....?

 

Couldn't agree more with @razhem , it's a discussion about relations and point efficency, and the Rhino is right up there at a point where it's just not efficient anymore to deal with it.

There are other units there too, but that's a discussion for another day.

Charles, (Plus possibly something on his glory moral action). Margret and Kassa have it on a trigger.

You know, when I read through before it seemed everywhere.  I'm just going to make sure I actually count numbers before I make more comments. I think I keep getting confused based on the number of squads that exist.

So all 3 commanders have ways to get piercing. Titan can have it, and isn't too hard to get to strength 5 if you pick the right assets (The drill has piecing as well as the big gun)

Of the 6 squads, its possible to get Borderers to strength 5 on suits alone (well for 1 of its 2 fireteams as long as its injured and you have a radio). I thought I could have got infiltrators there, but I think I got the trigger rules wrong. They can at least have a decent chance of stripping shaken tokens. Grenadiers start with the tools, although I would certainly add a sharpshooter to them to try and hit.

Field intelligence can't do much but hope although they will help you get cards in hand to help find tomes.  RRC will struggle short of being very inspired. Dragoons can Rush at Strength 4, and have a small amount of card draw to also help you find those tomes.

Scouts are unlikely to hurt them, and Artillary have a chance, but you're looking at low av and it being vulnerable to being engaged ( Although I'm still unsure how its being so easily engaged by Burning man on the first activation)

And whilst a lot of those ways require suits, there is a good mix of the 3 non- tome suits.

 

 

I haven't used or faced Rhinos, so I can't comment on how good they actually are on the table. I know Razhems first game against them his opponent badly misplayed several rules to make them seem a lot harder than they were.  Getting them into a good position to affect multiple fire teams requires portals in the right place. And I know they are movable, but if I understand the FAQ, its almost impossible to move the Rhino from beyond the portal. I may be wrong, but I would be surprised if Rhinos are doing a lot of damage on the first turn once an opponent knows what they do. I think they could do a lot more damage in later turns. (Again, it takes a while to get them to glory. Its certainly possible to do so on the first turn, but its starting to take several resources. You can manage it on the first activation, but that requires you to flip/discard aces (I believe I can't see another way to get them two shaken tokens on the first turn), which you can't garentee having when you set up.  And if they aren't in glory, you don't have Cinnamon or the shaken token protection.

I'm certainly not saying they aren't too powerful, as I really don't know. I'm trying to offer suggestions counters to them. I can believe they are a high priority target due to their power.

[DeleteAccount]

Well, I did play against them again on the tournament that @BimVooDoo mentioned and we did mostly play them properly (we forgot Rhinos themselves can't do morale actions in glory) that I noticed.

I managed to cover all portals except one on the first activation, I still did eat a rhino explosion turn 1 on some of my infiltrators and Margaret due to a stalking portal moving close enough to let the magic happen. But this game what was trully crippling was the cynamon aura and that my force had np tool whatsoever to hurt them. It was a 1 Commander Game, had Margaret, Wales Borderers (I don't know where you get them tp str 5, they cap at 4 when being pissed and flipping another Ram on the attack) and Royal Rifle Corps.

Yes, the Rhinos should't have been putting or removing markers (they would have been exploding then without much issue), but if a Marker is already placed or a Rhino was already in the area, suddenly I have no way to remove it and no realistic way to kill it. If somehow I removed the Shaken with the infiltrators who already took a beating, both Rhinos still had the Thoughness upgrade, so even a lucky tome wasn't going to do much for me, so I ignored them as much as I could. Engaging them also meant nothing, they take the parting hit like champs between having to flip the tome, having shaken and having Toughness.

And again, you list things that can maybe go trough it, but my commanders suddenly have to focus on it to maaaaaybeee hurt it. If my best chance us sebding Margaret on a suicide mission against a model that has the perfect tool to go over her defenses, seems like I'm already a few steps behind.

Also, getting into glory is as simple as activating a commander to give it thanks to the asset and doing a Concentrated Effort to get the second shaken token while starting the activation next to a portal or stalking portal. If the Rhino is already in glory, following the faq, a stalking portal can move, teleport the Rhino and coordinated strike activate it so that it can get a full move after being teleported. It's absurdly hard to control all of the cults attack vectors, so there will always be something you can't cover.

Just to restate, on my second game I sort of managed to keep them honest wise when it comes to their explosions, and again, that was mostly because we played it wrong and they were doing objectives, the passive aura and freedom of mobility due to not caring about desingaging is what was really crippling me on that match. They jist cover so many roles.

As for the Artillery piece. I haven't played it yet, but it seems plain as day to me that playing one against cult is asking to get it engaged turn 1-2 or just not having any clear shooting lines against anything since they are so good at fighting on their terms.

[Adran]

40 minutes ago, Razhem said:

I managed to cover all portals except one on the first activation, I still did eat a rhino explosion turn 1 on some of my infiltrators and Margaret due to a stalking portal moving close enough to let the magic happen. But this game what was trully crippling was the cynamon aura and that my force had np tool whatsoever to hurt them. It was a 1 Commander Game, had Margaret, Wales Borderers (I don't know where you get them tp str 5, they cap at 4 when being pissed and flipping another Ram on the attack) and Royal Rifle Corps.

Radio Transmitter (champion asset) lets you add 1 suit to a duel once per turn after flipping but before cheating. That can give you the third Ram to get to strength 5.  It does rely on that asset which you might not always take.

 

[Tris]

@Adran I don`t want to get you out of the discussion, just to be clear, I´m genuinely asking if I missed something

 

As to how to deal with those Rhinos . I don`t know, their explosion is maybe the best AoE in the game as there`s no way for the opponent to block that, compare that to the artillery strike stratagem you mentioned earlier - the yget the opportunity to pass a sp 12 test and nothing happens (which would be a 4 for a Rhino btw....)

Their only weak point seems to be their WP, but I´m not aware of any way to do damage off attacking that.

 

As I said earlier, ToS is all about ressource management, even more so than Malifaux I think, and in that game the Rhino just takes way to much to whittle down while doing so mch damage itself - in wd as well as in VP.

With abilities like that, it`s stats are way to good imo, give it def 3 or let us resist against it`s explosions, would be a lot fairer.

[Tris]

4 minutes ago, Adran said:

Radio Transmitter (champion asset) lets you add 1 suit to a duel once per turn after flipping but before cheating. That can give you the third Ram to get to strength 5.  It does rely on that asset which you might not always take.

 

Also you need another high ram to hit in the first place, as you`re only 1 up on the Rhinos def if I remember correctly?

And then there´s the afformentioned toughness upgrade which can be used again and again if you`re in a good spot by going focused effort reinforce on the Rhino.

 

There are certainly ways around it but we are talking about using special assets, commanders and whole units and even our Titan to get a 3pt model down while the rest of the Cult does whatever they want.

 

I´m still not confident enough in my ability to play this game as it`s pretty new, but I`m sure that some units and combos seem concerning to say the least, and the sooner we get the discussion going, the sooner we know for sure if somethings broken or weak, the sooner we get a game we all enjoy playing and can start to grow our communities

[Adran]

I know I'm not very good at the game, I just thought I was reasonable at reading, seems I'm not quite so good at that . I want discussion so its all good. I was admonishing myself, rather than stepping out the discussion.

I know we're looking at significant effort to consistently remove it, but on the counter, we've looked at relatively significant effort to get it that good for the Burning man. You're looking at Commander activations, giving it  and your crew set assets and reinforcement tokens and spending actions on other models to get it doing what it does. (at least Early. I'm fairly sure that it will do what it does fine by itself by later turns if just left alone).If its not supported by the rest of the crew it can be easily killed before it gets to glory if the opponent is slightly lucky with damage flips. Even a squad of 3 infiltrators can kill it in one turn through the toughness asset if they all hit and flip a tome. And that's a 5 script squad killing a 3.5 script model in 1 turn.

 

 

 

 

[Tris]

1 minute ago, Adran said:

I know I'm not very good at the game, I just thought I was reasonable at reading, seems I'm not quite so good at that . I want discussion so its all good. I was admonishing myself, rather than stepping out the discussion.

I know we're looking at significant effort to consistently remove it, but on the counter, we've looked at relatively significant effort to get it that good for the Burning man. You're looking at Commander activations, giving it  and your crew set assets and reinforcement tokens and spending actions on other models to get it doing what it does. (at least Early. I'm fairly sure that it will do what it does fine by itself by later turns if just left alone).If its not supported by the rest of the crew it can be easily killed before it gets to glory if the opponent is slightly lucky with damage flips. Even a squad of 3 infiltrators can kill it in one turn through the toughness asset if they all hit and flip a tome. And that's a 5 script squad killing a 3.5 script model in 1 turn.

 

 

 

 

It`s just that the cults efforts to get it up there and inspired is something that fits perfectly in their game plan anyways, while the opponent has to get out of his way to try(!) and stop that.

Only thing it absolutely needs are shaken tokens, portals are there anyways and not exclusively usable by the Rhino, so it`s important to get them in a good position regardless of if the Rhino lives or not.

And of course everybody "can" kill it with more luck than Gladstone Gander but is it consistent? - No.

[BimVooDoo]

4 hours ago, Adran said:

I know I'm not very good at the game, I just thought I was reasonable at reading, seems I'm not quite so good at that . I want discussion so its all good. I was admonishing myself, rather than stepping out the discussion.

I know we're looking at significant effort to consistently remove it, but on the counter, we've looked at relatively significant effort to get it that good for the Burning man. You're looking at Commander activations, giving it  and your crew set assets and reinforcement tokens and spending actions on other models to get it doing what it does. (at least Early. I'm fairly sure that it will do what it does fine by itself by later turns if just left alone).If its not supported by the rest of the crew it can be easily killed before it gets to glory if the opponent is slightly lucky with damage flips. Even a squad of 3 infiltrators can kill it in one turn through the toughness asset if they all hit and flip a tome. And that's a 5 script squad killing a 3.5 script model in 1 turn.

 

 

 

 

So you are saying that a squad of infiltrators can "easily" kill a 3 scrip model with 3 tomes to the DMG? I don´t see it at all, because getting 3 tomes on penetration flips, with or without cheating is insanely strange. 1/4 chance with any flip, and you need 3 tomes, positioned next to a card to hit. I´m not a mathematician myself but i can see that you are going to kill a rhino, in the way you said, once on a year of playing. 

[retnab]

As far as the Empire goes, Maggie has the easiest time of it since she can Ruthless Mockery to remove all of its ST's, making it far less durable. Also don't forget when she's in Glory her knife auto-deglories her target, and you can bloody the rhino's nose to deglory it too (just make sure you deglory it when it has 0-1 ST's left or it will just glory right away again).

It's not an easy model to kill, that's kind of its point. 4 scrip for a melee harassment model with an upgrade is pretty costly, if it was easy to kill it'd be pretty awful. Like with the Breachling, the best suggestion is really don't clump up around portals or locations you think your opponent is likely to create portals. Anyone with strength 5 (either naturally or through triggers) or better has a decent chance of dealing damage regardless of the Tome or not, and if they do get a Tome then they can put some serious pain onto it.

[DeleteAccount]

12 minutes ago, retnab said:

As far as the Empire goes, Maggie has the easiest time of it since she can Ruthless Mockery to remove all of its ST's, making it far less durable. Also don't forget when she's in Glory her knife auto-deglories her target, and you can bloody the rhino's nose to deglory it too (just make sure you deglory it when it has 0-1 ST's left or it will just glory right away again).

It's not an easy model to kill, that's kind of its point. 4 scrip for a melee harassment model with an upgrade is pretty costly, if it was easy to kill it'd be pretty awful. Like with the Breachling, the best suggestion is really don't clump up around portals or locations you think your opponent is likely to create portals. Anyone with strength 5 (either naturally or through triggers) or better has a decent chance of dealing damage regardless of the Tome or not, and if they do get a Tome then they can put some serious pain onto it.

So it's a melee harrasment model that never actually does any melee harrassment because it's plain better to do damage pulses which go through most defenses of models and that also can shut down good chunks of the table mission wise. This on the by far most mobile faction in the game. I'm still trying to see the "weakness" on it or the justification of it covering so many roles for it's cost.

And again, the battle plan is to dedicate my commander and send it straight into a 3.5 script model (they like to come in pairs with toughness) which will still face tank her attack anyway thanks to the asset if you don't do an additional follow up and that will then proceed to go over my Df stat and Margaret's redirection from her Asset? And this is even assuming Margaret flips or has the tome during her attack (things might change a lot once Kassa comes out, but at the moment, I'm constantly hungry for cards), she could perfectly whiff that as well and though it's at least without shaken and not in glory, well that was her whole activation. Now imagine Horomatangi is in the house and mab, Rhino is back to 2 shaken instantly.

Like I've already said, the Eel is almost unkillable as well (though still easier than the Rhino, Eel you strip tokens and can actually do damage to it, Rhino you strip tokens and the tome gods can mean you don't even get to damage it on it's window of vulnerability), but it at least has the decency of only being able to attack a fireteam per turn and not locking up a respectable chunk of the table from being able to do Morale actions, which to add insult to injury, are what most of the token stripping actions happen to be, so the Margaret, Infiltrator or Kings Hand trick may not even be an option since you can't get far enough away from it. The Marauder just seems like a very good objective blitzer and nothing else, and the Artillery I still don't really see what makes it attractive aside from being very tough to take down thanks to it having 3 models in it's fireteam plues being able to attach Toughness to it.

[Adran]

16 hours ago, BimVooDoo said:

So you are saying that a squad of infiltrators can "easily" kill a 3 scrip model with 3 tomes to the DMG? I don´t see it at all, because getting 3 tomes on penetration flips, with or without cheating is insanely strange. 1/4 chance with any flip, and you need 3 tomes, positioned next to a card to hit. I´m not a mathematician myself but i can see that you are going to kill a rhino, in the way you said, once on a year of playing. 

That's not quite what I said. I said you could easily kill the rhino if it wasn't supported. ie, If the burning man player doesn't give it shaken tokens, or doesn't spend cards on cheating.

Duel orders are pretty tricky to work out, but to flip 3 Tomes (effectively in a row) is about a 1/64 chance, so will occur about 1 game in 13 if that's all those infiltrators do. (Thats completely avoiding the odds of hitting, but also cheating)

Not likely. But lets be honest, you don't expect to kill most units in 1 activation especially once they have toughness.

What is worth mentioning is that you don't actually need 3 tomes to kill it, even if it has toughness.  Assuming toughness but no shaken tokens, you need a 3 and then a 8 on those flips to kill it as a unit of Infiltrators. And I think over 50% of 6 card hands will have a 8+ in them.

 

 

[unknownuser65]

As an aby Player maybe, I do not see an GH player having that many cards ever. 

22 hours ago, Adran said:

What is worth mentioning is that you don't actually need 3 tomes to kill it, even if it has toughness.  Assuming toughness but no shaken tokens, you need a 3 and then a 8 on those flips to kill it as a unit of Infiltrators. And I think over 50% of 6 card hands will have a 8+ in them.

But Karkinoi with enough tokens might also just do the trick. If they get a 5er margin going. But it will still be hard when the rhino has shaken tokens and toughness.

Having the qdjunct spit mucus on the rhino might be worth it though.

[ClanAzule]

I think one of the huge issues here is that cult players are making it look incredibly easy to hand out shaken tokens and get their stuff to glory.  And what would the number one target for that be but the two rhinos with toughness attached which they can slingshot into the middle of their opponents army and start pulsing.  Your stuff is dying and the rhinos arnt.   To be honest I cant believe this unit made it through playtesting in its current incarnation.  Its one of those game killers that makes opponents not want to get into the amazing system you guys developed.

[Pkropka]

This game is all about card management. So instead of complaining maybe start using it? Draw 6 cards instead of stratagem. Do a mid turn card draw. Gather all tomes you can have. And then kill rhino in one go. If you are unlucky and don't get enough tomes wait for turn 2. You need ANY tome to wound it if you manage your attacks smart.

Yesterday I saw my opponent trying to kill my Rhino using just dumb luck. He failed miserably, I understand his frustration. But to be honest he didn't prepare to fight my Rhino. Next time I expect him to play well.

And keep in mind that Rhinos require shaken tokens to survive. This means no shaken tokens elsewhere. That hurts me most - Rhinos slow down rest of company going to glory because they consume all shaken tokens.