tactics M3E Sandeep Tactical breakdown

[dannydb]

On 7/18/2019 at 8:00 PM, LeperColony said:

Butterfly Jump as a whole seems like a poorly balanced upgrade.

at least we get benifits from focus and then attacking him which is the best way round butterfly jump

[CD1248]

On 7/18/2019 at 12:00 PM, LeperColony said:

Butterfly Jump as a whole seems like a poorly balanced upgrade.

My new theory with him is take the Emissary into the matchup. 7" charge with 2" reach and the ability to charge twice means he can't butterfly away from the second swing in most cases. Plus, Dreamer hates things like Negation Aura that tax his hand.

Also has a better damage track than any keyword model for Sandeep except the golems, which helps.

[Caver Ramos]

Am I the only one that thinks that raspi might be an interesting second master for Sandeep? 

 

With banasuvas mantra you can have the field full of ice Pilars in no time and then start arcing you way to victory without actually sacrificing the ice gamin

[retnab]

2 hours ago, Caver Ramos said:

Am I the only one that thinks that raspi might be an interesting second master for Sandeep? 

She does really like having the Essence of Power around too for +1 to her shots

[CD1248]

Raspy as a second master seems resource hungry, she needs suits for her triggers and card discard to bounce those triggers. Not that it couldn't work, but if she's acting as a 16pt turret you're gonna want to be throwing out a bounced trigger 2-3 times per Activation.

[dannydb]

Has anyone got any further sandeep thoughts. 

 

One thing I had seen which looked quite interesting was the fire starter and fire gamin in to fire golem start 

 

Load Banasuva and Kandara up with burning thanks to pyres and the golems shockwave and then the firestarter started use light under there feet to move them up the golem Banasuva and Kandara up. 

 

Has anyone ever seen it used. I tend to run my Banasuva and Kandara fairly defensively but wondered if anyone else had tried something similar 

[KuronoGray]

I'm a little bit concerned with Sandeep's defensive capabilities. 10 wounds 5/7 and Shield +2 is a bit weaker than almost any other summoner. Shields don't help that much, DF of 5 makes it easy to hit him in the face. No Protected(Elemental) also seems weird. No healing in his Keyword for him.  Anybody else or it's just me? 


As for the post above- Banasuva can DIE reeeealy fast (even with the SSCache). Idk if it is wise to throw him into action carelessly.
Also, don't know if its common tactic, but...
Tried taking lady  Feng as a second master to Deep- abundance of scrap, Big Sized golems, Kandara's Stagger- compliment her abilities and her Bonus action pretty well. Giving Burning to enemy models makes your Fire Golem happier. 

[CD1248]

12 minutes ago, KuronoGray said:

I'm a little bit concerned with Sandeep's defensive capabilities. 10 wounds 5/7 and Shield +2 is a bit weaker than almost any other summoner. Shields don't help that much, DF of 5 makes it easy to hit him in the face. No Protected(Elemental) also seems weird. No healing in his Keyword for him.  Anybody else or it's just me? 
 

Sandeep's best defense is his range. With Guru he never needs to voluntarily put himself closer than 17" from an enemy unless all your Academics are dead or wildly out of position.

If you're worried about someone going deep on an assassination run, pull a Medical Automaton OOK. And remember that Sandeep can punish models that overextend into his bubble harshly with Poison Gamin.

[TheForce]

Re. Firestarter, not sure you need too push them that much. I agree that at least banasuvas is a bit too squishy to have him in the front. Also we already have good movement with Sandeeps command and wind gamin focusing to trigger their demise.

Re. Sandeeps defense, yeah it seems like he will stay alive because he's behind a bunch of other models. 

But on that note Sandeep will then require some academics to arc through. How many academics are you guys playing with?  I haven't played that many games with Sandeep yet but it has sometimes been hard to have an academic in the right spot in later turns. Though I usually don't run more than 3 academics (banasuva, kandara, and oxfordian/shasta). 

And which academics are you running? Is anyone running kudra? She seems a bit lackluster, at least compared to the golems. 

[KuronoGray]

Usually I would have 2-3 academics in the crew too - Banasuva, Kandara and an OX-Mage. Shastar is a bit pricey for my taste and you can hire Casandra for +1 SS for better crew control and mobility. Same goes for Kudra. 
Sometimes I take a Silent One to the team. She is pretty cool and not afraid to heal anything (since golems and Elementals are not LIVING- its kind of hard to heal them directly with most models). She gets all pillars she needs via Demises(Banasuva, Ice Gamin\Golem) and can create her own. 

On the topic of Sandeeps defense- yes, Medical Automaton can help him, and yes he is a backline summoner- but same goes for many other summoners who have better defense abilities still. 

[CD1248]

39 minutes ago, TheForce said:

And which academics are you running? Is anyone running kudra? She seems a bit lackluster, at least compared to the golems. 

Bana, Kandara, one or both of Oxfordian and Shastar in an average game. 

Kudra is a fairly specific pick, I see her as a flank bully and schemer primarily. Her bonus action can yank stuff out of position for your other models to kill, or for a multitude of positional scheme-related reasons. Her offense is just average for her cost, but she can take an enemy scheme-runner off the board in one activation with relative ease.

Butterfly Jump can be soul-crushing if your opponent doesn't have tools to deal with it, and your opponent may not tech for it since she isn't a ubiquitous model.

I don't see her as competing with the Golems because they're all slow midfield beaters, and given the option to just hire a Gamin then summon two more for a t1 Golem I don't think I'd ever pay 10pts up front for one.

All that said, I run the Steam Arachnid Swarm in the spot she would occupy in almost all cases. Only time I wouldn't is if I really thought Butterfly Jump and her 6/6 df/wp would be backbreaking.

[MuMantai]

Yeah, poor Kudra. She is decent this edition, and still gets outshined... but at least she is playable.

I usually play two academics, Banasuva and Kandara, that is enough. If you are worried about Sandeeps survivability, there is still the Essence of Power, which gets his defense stats up to 6/8, and offense to a 7, which is quite nice. Needs setup, though.

[KuronoGray]

Essence CAN buff his df\wp but there is a problem. It needs an activation before something will try to bully Deep- and since he is a summoner , most of the time your opponent will be the one with pass tokens and initiative. 

[mythicFOX]

Academic wise I only run Banasuva and Kandara, everyone else is a little inefficient or wants you to bubble your crew longer than is optimal.  I'll bring in the Oxfirdian Mage as a tech choice when I think I really need the condition removal.

I often play a fire based Sandeep crew and I've never needed more movement, we've already got; Command the elements, lord of the elements, toss, wind Gamin's demises, and the Golem's draw off flame to move around.  If you want more burning support Carlos can taxi the Golem effectively and is a great objective runner / counter schemer to boot.

As others have said the best way to protect Sandeep is with space, he can summon quick models at 12", so there's really no reason for him to be in harms way.  He can also quite often build up a chunk of focus to spend defensively.  Also once his turn two summon is done his value add to the crew is low enough I'm not over worried if he folds.  If I think an opponent's going to attempt an assassination I sometimes drop Magical Training on him, you'd be surprised how far counterspell goes to make it inefficient. 

 

[dannydb]

Yes I am normally in the bana/Kandara/mage camp. I like SVGs and Kandara I just like golems more 

[extremor]

I play banasuva and Kandara in every game and often use Kudra or Oxfordian Mage. I really like Kudra. Onslought is great and my enemy often needs to put efford in killing her, which allows me to achieve my strategie andschemes more easyly

[KingCrow]

For protection of Sandeep, I like bringing a Mannequin for Take The Hit and healing (with the Focus trigger). Plus the ranged Slow can be a deterrent even with a stat 4. The discard to use Take The Hit is more than made up for all the card drawnin the crew. 

[TheForce]

I recently played in a tournament and played Sandeep 5 out of 6 games. 

Regarding my previous question about how many academics to run, I only ran banasuva and kandara and never really felt like I needed more. 

Most rounds of the tournament I based my crew on this list:

Sandeep, banasuva, kandara, wind gamin, fire gamin, carlos, soulstone miner (w. magical training) and arachnid swarm (w. diesel engine). 5ss cache

With that list I will summon 2 fire gamin turn 1 to create a fire golem. Do you guys also do this or do you start with a golem? I can see arguments for both. There is definitely a risk in trying to merge a golem instead of starting with one, 2 times this tournament my opponents managed to move or kill a gamin so that I couldn't merge them turn 1. But merging a golem does seem more efficient, you can spend more SS on other models, you can draw a few more cards from gamins focusing and the fire golem can start with more burning. 

How many golems do you run? I have tried running 1 and 2, but 1 has felt the best so far. 

[dannydb]

I generally start with gamin and convert over to golems for extra movement and card draw 

[madaxeman]

So...the Oxfordian Mages Elemental Bolt trigger includes an “after resolving” bit at the end. 

“After resolving” triggers appear to apply whether you succeed or fail the action... but in this case is that succeed or fail the_duel, or succeed or fail in doing “one of the list of stuff in the first half of the trigger” ?

[MuMantai]

6 hours ago, madaxeman said:

So...the Oxfordian Mages Elemental Bolt trigger includes an “after resolving” bit at the end. 

“After resolving” triggers appear to apply whether you succeed or fail the action... but in this case is that succeed or fail the_duel, or succeed or fail in doing “one of the list of stuff in the first half of the trigger” ?

 

"The first half of the trigger" is the costs. You cannot get the effects of the trigger without paying it's costs. Otherwise, the trigger could just as well read "after resolving, target gains slow".

[madaxeman]

4 hours ago, MuMantai said:

 

"The first half of the trigger" is the costs. You cannot get the effects of the trigger without paying it's costs. Otherwise, the trigger could just as well read "after resolving, target gains slow".

I think I agree - auto-slow is just ridiculous - but wouldn't that be better written as "after succeeding" ? 

After all, it's a trigger that lets you do two things - removing stuff from the target and then also adding different stuff to the target. 

In that context the use of "After resolving" in connection with the second part ("adding stuff") could be read to mean that if you fail to do the "remove stuff" part, the second "adding stuff" part still happens? 

[Adran]

2 minutes ago, madaxeman said:

I think I agree - auto-slow is just ridiculous - but wouldn't that be better written as "after succeeding" ? 

After all, it's a trigger that lets you do two things - removing stuff from the target and then also adding different stuff to the target. 

In that context the use of "After resolving" in connection with the second part ("adding stuff") could be read to mean that if you fail to do the "remove stuff" part, the second "adding stuff" part still happens? 

After suceeeding trigger only would allow you to do it if you won the initial duel. Othewise it makes no difference to the trigger.

The layout of M3 has all the text in italics as costs to perform for the trigger (action or ability) to be allowed to happen regardless of anything else in the trigger. (See costs page 12)

The trigger makes you do the first thing (the cost). If you do the first thing, then you are allowed to do the second thing.

Its just because this trigger has such a large amount of text for the cost that it looks a little strange, but its consistent with the rest of the rules.

 

[dannydb]

So with the drop of GG1 I thought I'd update this 

 

so first of all the change to replacing actually helps not hinders sandeep. you now add conditions together rather than just taking the highest, meaning that you can now have a focused up golem ready to turn 1. in addition they only don't activate if you didn't replace during their activation. as far as i've come across so far this only effect demise replace and the rest of replaces happen during activation. it certainly doesn't effect the duet/golems 

 

the other bit of gaining ground that has an effect on the crew is on the SGV and their ricochet trigger. as per section 9 question one of the faq it states "no. "another" always refers to not the model from which this text is written...." this means that you may ricochet the target if you like. 

 

anyway lets have a look at the strategies and and schemes

 

Corrupted leylines. 
This is potentially sandeeps best strategy in GG1 and he's certainly one of the best at scoring it in terms of being able to summon stuff on to the leylines or obey his stuff to move to the marker. he might not be able to deny quite as well as Colette can but certainly for scoring if you want a master who can almost guarantee 3-4 points from this Sandeep is your man for this. in terms of disruption we do have banasuva's toss and wind gamin who can mess with opponents stuff.

 

Symbols of authority.

Another good strategy for sandeep between wind gamin and SVG we have a decent amount of mobility to score the points for this. we aren't great at covering the points having no 2in range melee in the keyword but if your worried about this hiring something like Elijah or Howard might be a good pick depending on your choice of gamin 

 

Recover evidence 

Some summoners are going to be good at this as they can fight and engage with their summons while their main models run off doing schemes. unfortunately our summon beaters rely on starting with some gamin on the board, and so they will carry the evidence with them, so on this occasion I think its a no 

 

Public enemies 

 This is not a summoners strategy, put sandeep back in the box and fish out ironsiders or hoffman or something else instead

 

i'll update later with the schemes   

[Ogid]

5 hours ago, dannydb said:

the other bit of gaining ground that has an effect on the crew is on the SGV and their ricochet trigger. as per section 9 question one of the faq it states "no. "another" always refers to not the model from which this text is written...." this means that you may ricochet the target if you like. 

While you are right, RAW right now that reading is 100% legal; it seems not to be the intended meaning. That FAQ seems to be a stealth nerf for Nekima that has backfired hard, you may check these two threads were it's discussed:

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/149502-youko-hamasaki-tactics-and-strategies/?do=findComment&comment=1211939

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/149492-moving-the-lodestone/?do=findComment&comment=1212094

"Another" seems to mean "other than the target" in most cases.

TLDR: The Lawful Evil Sandeep players are going to have a blast this GG1