Missing Upgrades/Cards in Beta

[FlippingWeak]

Please don't shoot me... i played my first Beta game last night and will accept that I am totally wrong here if told as such... however...

 

Are there missing upgrades or cards ?

 

I only ask as myself and my opponent played Lynch into Seamus last night and found their lack of upgrades made them underwhelming - Lynch didn't do a great deal at all (yes, it was my first game so I haven't written him off) but he just felt like I didn't need him on the table. Are there upgrades to be released or have I made a mistake in downloading the files and not got the full content?

If I am being a fool I take constructive criticism well 😉

 

[Adran]

There are significantly fewer upgrades in M3 than M2e. In general each faction only really has 3 general upgrades they can select. (A few models use upgrades in a  slightly different way, so the file will contain other upgrades) So If you have those, you have the right files.

Its certainly possible to play competitive games where you don't hire any upgrades, they are much less essential to this edition. 

[muraki]

Ditto'in Adran's comment.  General upgrades are standard for a faction rather than model / master specific, and they've definitely tried to cut down on upgrade bloat this edition (which I like, as I was never big into upgrades).  There has been comments from the devs about releasing alternate model cards (that can be used with any version of that model) with the same name, but a different title.  The title system would open up alternate play styles (like maybe a melee or summoner raspy like in her wave 5 upgrades) for a model without having to balance a base card + a bunch of upgrades like in 2nd.  That said there hasn't been an ETA for alternate titles or any details on what the alternate play styles would be like for any master.... so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.

I do agree that sometimes (as I played lynch for a lot of the beta) he feels like he's not doing much, but that's partially due to Huggy being pretty powerful, his keyword being pretty diverse and rig being awesome.  He's also had a big change from 2nd and across the beta, so I need to put in some real time with him before I make a final decision myself.  I think my biggest issue is that I need to stop thinking of him as a mid range blaster, and more of a buffer / ball of death master.

[Gnomezilla]

By the end of the beta, we were trying to find masters that had found ‘auto-take’ upgrades and boost their base cards instead so upgrades were not necessary. Definitely a shift in principle from second edition.

Also, with the minion bonuses upgrades are given to expensive and durable minions most of the time. Lynch’s keyword minions are on the cheaper end of the scale and his crew is otherwise full of enforcers so there are fewer attractive holders for upgrades. 10T got nice general upgrades though, been seeing a good mix of them in play...just in other keywords mostly.

[FlippingWeak]

Ok, I understand and am fine with that - I guess I suffer from that last edition from him and need to play him differently in order to get the most out of him. Interestingly I had thought that his Keyword alone was Honeypot - so this is my own misunderstanding as to what he could take. I will work on this - he was my favourite master in 2e but I think his upgrades made him so... knowing that it will not expand (and the reasons for this) just means I have new shinys to look at. These silver linings are not not bad ones at all.

[muraki]

His keyword is honeypot, so gwen / kitty / graves / tannen / beckoners / illuminated / depleted should work pretty well with him / make up a large portion of his list, but versatile models can be bought for the same cost (like the always fun tanuki), and out of theme models are just +1 cost which can be totally worth it in a certain pool.

As for upgrades, lynch puts out 'the darkness beckons' when he kills models / summons minions and you can put the 3 general upgrades (silent protector, trained ninja, masked agent) on any model.  Sure they're pricy but adding hard to kill or stealth/unimpeded on a model is great for certain matchups.

I think my biggest issue (beyond wanting him to do 5+ damage a round without a gun icon) is that I keep trying to play him in any strat pool, and m3e isn't as good at that as m2e.  Trying to get him / his crew across the board to do back field events, or things where multiple interacts were needed is a bit painful as that's not his keyword's forte (and TT has better movement / interact masters).  Another thing I've noticed in m3e is that sometimes masters need to just put in the work for a round or 2 and score points rather than being a big board threat.  Yes, there's still the big swingy rounds where they go crazy and win the game (cough lynch succumbs 2x , does 5--10 pts of damage and summons a model or 2)... but other times they end up walking / healing / dropping a marker or two to score for a scheme / strat.  One other thing is I feel I need to plan his turns a lot more to get use out of him.  There's less of the 'well at least i'll draw 3 cards and ping a few people with pay for blood... no big deal' from m2e. 

I think the next time I play him, I may try a lure game, use some beckoners to lure models into Gwen and her play at my table ability with lynch to lurk nearby to heal / give out more brilliance / summon depleted or teleport huggy into enemies.  Very pool specific, (I'm thinking turf or reckoning) but could be a fun time.