Facing new Titania - rant on how overloaded a kit can be

[whodares]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

 is purely a down side. It always has been. putting it on an action will only make that action worse. Actions with out it need to consider that extra power when you balance the action.

I would agree an 8" attack doing 2/4/5 + Injured is a very powerful attack. Its certainly one of the more powerful attacks in the game. Add in the chance to get positive flips and extra damage on a trigger, and you need to plan around that. (I agree that I dislike the cardhere meaning there is almost no reason to use her attack) . There have been plenty of debates over the power of long ranged actions, and even some with people going "if they don't ignore the downsides, then there is no point in the models". (I don't agree with that).

Neverborn Masters seem to be pretty good at having long ranged attacks without using . Titanias is probably the most powerful of them (Its hard to judge Pandoras as it depends on her target), but Zoraidas isn't too far behind (Shorter range, lower top end but the trigger is for someone else to attack rather than extra damage). It also seems to be the main Action of Titania, which I'm not so sure it is for any of  the other ones.

There were plenty of people complaining about Decay on Lady Justice, saying it is a pointless action and not worth her having it. Its worth remembering that the action exists in several places.  There were also more complaints during the public beta about Dreamer being too powerful than about Titania being too powerful.  That doesn't mean you're wrong, but you are spreading a different message to other people.

I agree with you here. A gun symbol is only making actions worse. In that sense, those Actions should be rewarded by having higher positives, be it damage, conditions, whatever else.

The thing about Titania's Action though is that it's actually superior to every Action that pops into my mind. There might be better ones that I'm not thinking about, but they will be hard to find. It doesn't just stop at dealing a truckload of damage. It also gives Injured by default just for winning the duel. Then she can choose between 2 very good Triggers as well.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

I would have avoided getting close to a section of the board that would trap me permanently in underbush markers. Now it may be that the nature of the board layout makes this a hard thing to do,  but that's not going to be true on all boards. Hire

I think you lost a part of your sentence here. It would probably be something like: Hire models that have Flight, ... and ignore the severe terrain penalties. Rather difficult for a lot of crews, unless they start hiring from other keywords. That doesn't seem to be the intended design as the push in M3E is for more thematic crews instead of just bunching up the strongest ones.

Board layout is also something you might not have control over and the Underbrush markers can be pushed, making safe zones difficult te actually have. Neverborn have Reflexes, but imagine crews that can't push their way out. And even Reflexes/pushes are still not a guarantee to get out considering Titania can move those markers around.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

Lots of people complain about minimum 2 damage as being too low.  I can imagine that It wasn't great against Teddy and its armour until you started being able to cheat the damage flips (which the injured will help a lot, so perhaps its worth using your good cards to make it an uncheatable damage flip. Sure, Titania can cheat an equivalent card to make it cheatable, but then she is using up a lot of resources. (and less likely to be getting her trigger)

While this sounds theoretically sound, it just doesn't work. Once your model gets Injured enough, it becomes wasteful to spend cards in trying to get the flips to negative. Your model is going to die either way, so you might as well try and make the biggest impact it can get.

Your opponent also doesn't have to cheat thesame card, but can use a much lower suit to just get the Trigger off. It saves your opponent cards in the long run (no cheating damage needed) while still doing a minimum of 2 damage on an Armor 1 model. Yes it takes AP, but killing a 10 stone model should take a decent amount of effect in my opinion. Injured completely ignore the investment part, except for AP. No cards needed, because you're almost guaranteed a hit.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

Assist, or condition removal are  very important when Injured is around. Its a little harder to get assist to work, when you also have the chance they are going to move you. But at least if there is a good spot to move you to, you can prepare for that.

Assist is very difficult to pull off against Titania because she can place a model away from the Assister. Assist is also not reliable due to the 1/2/3 flip. -1 Injured sounds good, but then you realise you're still on -2. A small difference, but still a massive advantage for your opponent.

Then there's Aeslin who has guaranteed blasts. Ranged condition removal should do the trick, but this crew has 2 models that can spam Injured. You can activate your condition removal before the second Injurer goes off, but 1 high card in your opponent's hand can and will ruin your day. Both your hands are limited and an Attacker always has an advantage when it comes to random flipping.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

It seems like Titania created a trap for you, and you fell for it. If you were to play the same game again, I would expect you to not move Chompy to within 3" of a marker until at least one of those big hitters has activated. (if at all). Titania can probably still get you in a marker, but it takes more and more AP, making it less and less effective. (And the later in the turn she goes, the les she can get out of that Injured).

I don't deny my opponent played masterfully. The thing is just the amount of board control Titania has by default. You actually can't move Chompy within 5" of a marker instead of 3". Yes, Titania won't get the +, but she'll generally have a high card ready to cheat either way to get the Injured rolling. Then you'll still be within 2" of a marker, which means she can place you on the far side of it. Your 50mm model will have been Placed 2"-ish + 50mm base closer to their crew, so in total close to 4". This already makes it a lot harder for your condition removal to reach your model.

Titania can generally go very early in the Turn with little downside because bursting her down is hard. She has HtW, Cruel Disappointment, Life Leech, Soulstones and 15 Health to keep her alive. I think a master with that much defensive tech should not have such a great offensive threat as well.

 

16 minutes ago, Morgan Vening said:

How tall were the crate and the wall? Because it might be easy to miss, but Butterfly Jump isn't a push, it's a move. Still effected by Severe terrain, but neither needs to be in a straight line, nor stop when contacting Blocking (but Climable) terrain.

The distinction is important.

Due to placement it was not possible to do this. The base has to fit completely over the wall, making it 2" already needed for that. The wall was 2" high, so Butterfly could not save me.

The crate was pretty much thesame. The crate was not big enough to fit Chompy completely on it and he had to go partially over a marker to reach there. The 3" from Butterfly jump was far too short for that.

[katadder]

well her damage track can be good but generally on negative damage its a weak of 2. against teddy this becomes 1. yes she adds injured from 8" away as well but teddy is only df4 anyway and all you have to do is get within 5 and its a negative, so match her cards, dreamer has more deck manipulation than titania does.

on chompy you can burn through stones to make sure of negatives if you cant hit the higher numbers and titania is not going to constantly hit into the thorns (mine rarely does). 

meanwhile what is the rest of your crew doing whilst all this is going on? they are allowed to activate too, and if aeslin and titania are in their 8" range then they are also in range for bend reality even if you cant get to them for melee or the bandersnatch can bury in one of them and suddenly they are getting injured too. bandersnatch and widow weaver are a great mobile team as well and can put threats out there, even pushing things away and then placing webs which will slow aeslin even if doesnt slow titania.

play more games, learn your crews strengths and weaknesses and your opponents. its really not as bad as it seems at first

[yool1981]

@ whodares

A good mini game takes time to learn.

For example, at the start of M2E, my first games vs summoners were very painful until I learnt to deal with them. They remained strong but not unbeatable. The first game against Nelly was not fun either because she used some new mechanics I had to get used to.

It is normal that going up against a crew blindly gets you stomped. You will probably do better next time.

And then again, perhaps in 3 months, Titania will be errated because you are correct and she's OP.

She has been much test during the open beta though, from the reports I read.

[whodares]

I actually burned 6 stones trying to keep Chompy alive and it still failed. Chompy doesn't have Armor, so Titania and Aeslin alone are enough to actually 1-round him if he doesn't use stones. I do not consider that to be such a crazy investment to be honest.

 

The thing is Titania is actually content at hitting many times on minimum damage is she gets her Trigger off. The difference between moderate + no Trigger and weak + Trigger is only 1 damage. If you are guaranteed to do damage, you have to ask whether or not it becomes worth spending a higher card to force a bit of additional damage. Why spend an 8-9 to be able to get a straight flip if you can use that card to force other models to actually hit their attacks and increase the total damage the crew pumps out?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the point you're trying to make. It's just that guaranteed attacks tend to shift the focus of your opponent to other things that are not-so-guaranteed. Being able to force an opponent to cheat a decently high card while still winning and getting your original goal, damage + Injured, off while having no investment from your own hand is massive.

 

As for the rest of my crew, they could not reach the opponent on Turn 1. My opponent had Concealed models, making Bend Reality useless. I had the choice between summoning or using Focus + Bend Reality because I already needed a Walk to get within range. I tried to go for the most surefire way of keeping Chompy alive, so I summoned, walked twice and used my Free Action to give him Shielded +1. Unfortunately that was not enough.

The rest of my crew had to Walk to get in range. Coppelius got in a prime position to flank on Turn 2, the Daydreams had exhausted their pushes and Walked up once, Teddy tried a last-ditch effort by using his Free Action to get Chompy out of engagement, but it was already too late.

 

The thing that completely screwed me up, was that Titania managed to place Chompy so far forward that the rest of my crew needed an entire Turn just to get into position, while his crew could kill Chompy as they saw fit without moving. This brings me once again to the point that that single action is overloaded by being a superior ranged action which deals beater-levels of damage while spreading Injured and displacing opposing models.

 

 

I've already been playing for several years and I think I have a decent grip on what is or isn't too bad. Right now I feel like Titania is getting close to Sanddeep level which is something I would really like to avoid. I'm still of the principle a crew shouldn't be AND tanky AND killy AND schemy AND disrupty all at thesame time with just a light investment in stones. Because that's what Titania has right now.

Don't get me wrong, Dreamer also violates this principle. The thing is he needs a bigger stone investment to do those things than Titania. You can't really call Dreamer Schemy unless you bring in Widow Weaver;.You can't call him killy unless you bring in Teddy/Carver. Titania just needs to bring Aeslin and she can already scheme via Aeslin's Free Action and they are very reliable to pump out a ton of damage thanks to their superior ranged attacks with Injured.

[Adran]

13 minutes ago, whodares said:

I think you lost a part of your sentence here. It would probably be something like: Hire models that have Flight, ... and ignore the severe terrain penalties. Rather difficult for a lot of crews, unless they start hiring from other keywords. That doesn't seem to be the intended design as the push in M3E is for more thematic crews instead of just bunching up the strongest ones.

I'm not sure what I intended to say, but it was probably more about hiring a crew to take advantage of the terrain on the table should be rewarded. You know what the table looks like before you announce leader, so there ought to be at least some degree of going -this table is wide open, I'm going to pick Pedita for shooting Vs this table is lots of tight walls, I'm going to pick Nellie. If the power of a master depends on the state of the board, then its not just the masters fault they are overpowered.

39 minutes ago, whodares said:

While this sounds theoretically sound, it just doesn't work. Once your model gets Injured enough, it becomes wasteful to spend cards in trying to get the flips to negative. Your model is going to die either way, so you might as well try and make the biggest impact it can get.

Your opponent also doesn't have to cheat thesame card, but can use a much lower suit to just get the Trigger off. It saves your opponent cards in the long run (no cheating damage needed) while still doing a minimum of 2 damage on an Armor 1 model. Yes it takes AP, but killing a 10 stone model should take a decent amount of effect in my opinion. Injured completely ignore the investment part, except for AP. No cards needed, because you're almost guaranteed a hit.

That's a matter for debate. Titania only doing weak damage to Teddy is probably never going to kill him on her own. picking the times to cheat against this sort of thing is a skill that most Malifaux players learn, such as cheating to stop onslaught, but allowing a hit without a trigger to go through. If they have hit the trigger and a straight damage flip, then I think its worth you cheating as low as possible to make it a negative damage flip. If they don't have the trigger, then you can probably not cheat, knowing that if they want to move you far enough to keep you, they will need to cheat in the suit, and there are so only many crows they have. (of course the rest of the turns plan will matter here).

 

51 minutes ago, whodares said:

Assist is very difficult to pull off against Titania because she can place a model away from the Assister. Assist is also not reliable due to the 1/2/3 flip. -1 Injured sounds good, but then you realise you're still on -2. A small difference, but still a massive advantage for your opponent.

Then there's Aeslin who has guaranteed blasts. Ranged condition removal should do the trick, but this crew has 2 models that can spam Injured. You can activate your condition removal before the second Injurer goes off, but 1 high card in your opponent's hand can and will ruin your day. Both your hands are limited and an Attacker always has an advantage when it comes to random flipping.

While I agree assist is risky because of the movement, its otherwise fairly good. You already have used one of Titanias AP to get in position, so a single assist should easily remove the injured + 2 (you can cheat the flip if you want) meaning that one of the 2 sources has gone. Yes, Aeslin can then probably get both the target and the assister with a blast, but 2 models with Injuried +1 is normally less of a problem than 1 with Injured +2. And whilst Aeslin can probably get a second attack, its only if you've allowed your model to get into some undergrowth ladder to bring them towards you with into the vines that Aeslin hasn't had to move.

In later turns when she can get 3 attacks, the assisting may be of less use, but its still something to consider.

(And the higher stat has the advantage when it comes to random flipping, its only if the stats are tied the Attacker has the advantage. The degree of advantage that point of Injured does depends on the stats of both models. Its at its best as the 2 values are close, and as they get further away, it makes less difference).

 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

Titania can generally go very early in the Turn with little downside because bursting her down is hard. She has HtW, Cruel Disappointment, Life Leech, Soulstones and 15 Health to keep her alive. I think a master with that much defensive tech should not have such a great offensive threat as well.

In your game she had to have waited long enough to let you move Chompy near enough. If you had managed to hold that second daydream push a couple more activations, then its much less likely that so much could be unloaded into Chompy in one turn. (I don't know exactly how it went, but chances are you'll have similar number of activations in the first turn)

[whodares]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

That's a matter for debate. Titania only doing weak damage to Teddy is probably never going to kill him on her own. picking the times to cheat against this sort of thing is a skill that most Malifaux players learn, such as cheating to stop onslaught, but allowing a hit without a trigger to go through. If they have hit the trigger and a straight damage flip, then I think its worth you cheating as low as possible to make it a negative damage flip. If they don't have the trigger, then you can probably not cheat, knowing that if they want to move you far enough to keep you, they will need to cheat in the suit, and there are so only many crows they have. (of course the rest of the turns plan will matter here).

Titania is not the only one hitting the model though. That's what makes the Injured so strong. Titania already has decent to amazing damage if you hit the Trigger.

Regarding the cascading: Titania has an attack stat of 6, which puts her by default above a lot of defense stats. In a Dreamer crew, only Serena Bowman and Stitched together have such a Defense stat, which means she already has an inherent advantage when it comes to flipping and forcing you to cheat first. Sure, you can cheat that 13 on a stat 5, but he can still let it go through with a 12. Once that first hit gets in, it becomes extremely difficult to stop it from spiraling out of control as you already couldn't stop it when you were only -1. What are you going to do now that you have -2? The only counterplay you have to this type of Action is straight-up having a better hand than whatever your opponent has, which is not what I consider to be viable counterplay at all.

 

1 hour ago, Adran said:

While I agree assist is risky because of the movement, its otherwise fairly good. You already have used one of Titanias AP to get in position, so a single assist should easily remove the injured + 2 (you can cheat the flip if you want) meaning that one of the 2 sources has gone. Yes, Aeslin can then probably get both the target and the assister with a blast, but 2 models with Injuried +1 is normally less of a problem than 1 with Injured +2. And whilst Aeslin can probably get a second attack, its only if you've allowed your model to get into some undergrowth ladder to bring them towards you with into the vines that Aeslin hasn't had to move.

In later turns when she can get 3 attacks, the assisting may be of less use, but its still something to consider.

As I said before, if Titania can place a model closer to her crew, you can pretty much forget about Assist in Turn 1 unless you also have some form of Place OR activate that model and run all the way back, effectively "wasting" and entire Turn of that model. Sure, it's a trade for a master activation, but the damage that master did still sticks.

Aeslin blasting only 1 Injured is probably only on Turn 1 as from Turn 2 onwards she can and will always use all her attacks to get you. If she can get 2 blasts off, it becomes a very decent amount of damage for 2 AP + the Injured spread turns all the other models in the crew even more into killing machines. The crew is already very reliable when hitting as only Gorar and a (solo) Bultungin have a stat 5 attack. The rest ALL have a stat 6 attack. Even Injured +1 skews the balance for her crew in a very big favor offensively, which means the player can reserve cards for defensive flips and get an advantage there as well. While Dreamer can stack the deck, Titania just becomes nigh card-independant and can get most things done with an average starting hand.

Injured itself is a very cascading effect and when you get that for free on stat 6 attacks, there might be a problem.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

(And the higher stat has the advantage when it comes to random flipping, its only if the stats are tied the Attacker has the advantage. The degree of advantage that point of Injured does depends on the stats of both models. Its at its best as the 2 values are close, and as they get further away, it makes less difference).

I agree with the first part, but disagree with the second part.

First part: Titania's crew has very high attack stats (with decent damage tracks) to begin with. This means on average they'll have a higher attack stat than the opponent's defense stat. This means the flipping is already in her favour before Injured comes into play.

Second part: Higher Injured allows you to be more card-independant as your actions become nearly guaranteed to succeed. If you have an advantage of 3, you can effectively shut out an opponent with a 10, barring Red Joker ofcourse. That means 17 cards in your deck, 31% of your deck, doesn't even allow for any counterplay and this "only" requires Injured +2 on a model which  has Df 5. Your opponent probably won't have those high cards in hand anymore either way when he tries to stop the original applications of Injured in the first place.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

In your game she had to have waited long enough to let you move Chompy near enough. If you had managed to hold that second daydream push a couple more activations, then its much less likely that so much could be unloaded into Chompy in one turn. (I don't know exactly how it went, but chances are you'll have similar number of activations in the first turn)

I had to go first. I activated Widow Weaver, Bandersnatch and my 3 Daydreams of which the third one gave the fatal push. I had 2 models more than my opponent, so he used 1 pass token and some other insignificant models to pad up his activations: Autumn Knight and Waldgeist.

I could have waited with that last push, but I only had Dreamer, Coppelius, Teddy and a Daydream left. at that point. Unless I wen by the sides, I could not escape the trap.

Going purely via the sides in Reckoning with Detonate Charges, Search The Ruins, Dig Their Graves, Take Prisoner and Power Ritual does not sound like a good plan and Titania's crew can always generate extra Underbrush markers there either way. Schemes generally require interaction with the opposing crew one way or another and not going center would give 2 free points for Search The Ruins and no points for me from any other scheme besides perhaps Power Ritual. That does not sound like a good deal.

[Adran]

4 minutes ago, whodares said:

 

Injured itself is a very cascading effect and when you get that for free on stat 6 attacks, there might be a problem.

I agree with the first part, but disagree with the second part.

First part: Titania's crew has very high attack stats (with decent damage tracks) to begin with. This means on average they'll have a higher attack stat than the opponent's defense stat. This means the flipping is already in her favour before Injured comes into play.

Second part: Higher Injured allows you to be more card-independant as your actions become nearly guaranteed to succeed. If you have an advantage of 3, you can effectively shut out an opponent with a 10, barring Red Joker ofcourse. That means 17 cards in your deck, 31% of your deck, doesn't even allow for any counterplay and this "only" requires Injured +2 on a model which  has Df 5. Your opponent probably won't have those high cards in hand anymore either way when he tries to stop the original applications of Injured in the first place.

I had to go first. I activated Widow Weaver, Bandersnatch and my 3 Daydreams of which the third one gave the fatal push. I had 2 models more than my opponent, so he used 1 pass token and some other insignificant models to pad up his activations: Autumn Knight and Waldgeist.

I could have waited with that last push, but I only had Dreamer, Coppelius, Teddy and a Daydream left. at that point. Unless I wen by the sides, I could not escape the trap.

Going purely via the sides in Reckoning with Detonate Charges, Search The Ruins, Dig Their Graves, Take Prisoner and Power Ritual does not sound like a good plan and Titania's crew can always generate extra Underbrush markers there either way. Schemes generally require interaction with the opposing crew one way or another and not going center would give 2 free points for Search The Ruins and no points for me from any other scheme besides perhaps Power Ritual. That does not sound like a good deal.

I recently had a discussion in the TTB thread about the odds of opposed flips, and assuming I was correct in my assumptions in that thread (I could be wrong) it showed that the change of Values from equal to a difference of 1 had the greatest affect on the probability of winning the duel (on the initial flip). The difference between 1 better and 2 better was slightly less and so forth. So the advantage you get from going from injured +3 to +4 will be less than the advantage you got from injured +2 to +3.

I had no way of including cards in hand in those odds calculations.

You were forced to go first. You had the daydream, Dreamer, Chompy, Coppelius and Teddy to go. Your opponent had Titania, aeslin, Killjoy, 1 pass token and 1 other model.

If you could have activated Dreamer , teddy and Coppelius before the day dream, then your opponent would have been forced to have activated at least 1 of his big hitters before you pushed Chompy into the trap. then Chompy only had to weather 2 of the models, whilst regenerating between the attacks. I think the odds would almost favour Chompy living through that even without using stones (4 attacks doing minimum 2 needing to do 9 damage, with a chance for the extra damage, but also having to pass 4 terrifying tests (Plus Chompy can possibly heal during his activation).

Regarding what is a good plan and what isn't is hard to say without watching the game, or at least seeing the table but since you say going through the center was not a good plan, then it might have been better to keep clear for a turn or 2.

From what you have said the undergrowth  really only works that well when Titania is able to bunch it up (as any other time Butterfly jump is likely to be getting you off of it, and potentially outside the Thorns range) and/or lucky enough to get multiple crows.

[whodares]

4 minutes ago, Adran said:

I recently had a discussion in the TTB thread about the odds of opposed flips, and assuming I was correct in my assumptions in that thread (I could be wrong) it showed that the change of Values from equal to a difference of 1 had the greatest affect on the probability of winning the duel (on the initial flip). The difference between 1 better and 2 better was slightly less and so forth. So the advantage you get from going from injured +3 to +4 will be less than the advantage you got from injured +2 to +3.

I had no way of including cards in hand in those odds calculations.

I agree with you that Injured gives less visible power at every stack. The invisible power however becomes that you don't need cards anymore to hit that specific model. When you are guaranteed to succeed without using any resource, besides AP, that action generally becomes an extremely good investment. In that sense I would say stacking Injured does become worth it if you're looking at taking down high priority targets with minimal investment from your side.

 

8 minutes ago, Adran said:

If you could have activated Dreamer , teddy and Coppelius before the day dream, then your opponent would have been forced to have activated at least 1 of his big hitters before you pushed Chompy into the trap. then Chompy only had to weather 2 of the models, whilst regenerating between the attacks. I think the odds would almost favour Chompy living through that even without using stones (4 attacks doing minimum 2 needing to do 9 damage, with a chance for the extra damage, but also having to pass 4 terrifying tests (Plus Chompy can possibly heal during his activation).

Regarding what is a good plan and what isn't is hard to say without watching the game, or at least seeing the table but since you say going through the center was not a good plan, then it might have been better to keep clear for a turn or 2.

From what you have said the undergrowth  really only works that well when Titania is able to bunch it up (as any other time Butterfly jump is likely to be getting you off of it, and potentially outside the Thorns range) and/or lucky enough to get multiple crows.

I was not going for an alpha strike though. I was setting up for Turn 2.

Your plan also assumes I would pretty much forfeit Turn 1 all just so I don't get picked off from within my own half of the map.

I agree it is hard to say without seeing the map, but when most schemes require killing to a certain extent and the strategy is Reckoning, you can't afford to let your opponent get the initiative. Dreamer, and plenty other crews besides him, also don't have a Lure-like effect while Titania has her Triggered Place. This already puts you behind as she can pull models in range while dealing damage while your models would have to spend precious AP in closing the gap.

 

I've already agreed that my opponent's deck was on fire when it came to hitting that Trigger and the Terrifying duels. The thing is Neverborn has Reflexes so they can try and get out of it. Thunders can try it with Stealth, but these are all upgrades. Not every crew can field counter-tech on important models just to stop the chain of stat 6+ attacks. I'm already thinking far beyond The Dreamer and looking at Titania more in general. There are plenty of crews that can't get out of the Underbrush without a very high investment made. Say Titania versus Hamelin happens. I would not rate Hamelin's chances of victory highly.

[katadder]

As said he would have no problem hitting teddy anyway so injured really doesnt matter.

Consider incorporeal models too as butterfly jump on them can make it easy to get away.

You knew your opponent was titania, you know to expect severe terrain and lots of it, so counter build - flight, incorp, planted roots, unimpeded all helps. Bring in the emissary and put down your own markers that his crew doesnt ignore. You already had 2 models that do markers they don't ignore.

Think shes bad wait until you face zoraida 

[Fixxer]

@whodares you really need to get more games in.

This game is not won on paper.  Consistently making the right decision in the given circumstance is what this game is all about. To know the different circumstances you need to put the time in. 

I beta tested and I play a ton of Malifaux. I’m one of those guys that makes too much time for hobbies, total nerd, lol. 🤓  Currently playing Neverborn as my main, go to tournaments...(we consistently have 1-2 a month in the PNW on the I5 corridor... Portland, Tacoma, and Bellevue) 

Honestly, your assertion of models being broken doesn’t help. A lot of time and effort were put into testing and balancing keywords. You made poor decisions in this game... straight up. And that’s ok! Seriously, we are all facing these issues when matched up against a good player bringing an unfamiliar master, or two 😳.. so you gotta take your licks and reflect on what YOU could’ve done better in the game in order to develop your understanding of the variables.

The last thing you wanna do is take anything away from an opponent by disrespecting their play with the assertion of janky rules or OP stats. It’s also a bit of a drag on the testers and developers that spent a lot of time on this stuff. You’re obviously not an expert, you said it was your first game in a while... so by all means ask questions, present the scenario, and accept feedback. 

Titania isn’t broken... either is Dreamer for that matter (you’ll find that discussion under either “Lucid dreams” or “stitched together” threads).

Again, just keep playing and gaining xp... you’ll find success. 

 

 

[Cathaidan]

4 minutes ago, whodares said:

I was not going for an alpha strike though. I was setting up for Turn 2.

Your plan also assumes I would pretty much forfeit Turn 1 all just so I don't get picked off from within my own half of the map.

Dreamer, as has been discussed repeatedly across the Beta and other Forums, is a slow burn that becomes nigh unbeatable if you don't jump on its face in Turns 1 & 2.  You rushed straight at one of the strongest, in your face, killing masters in the game.  (No, I'm not going to say it is OP.  Granted, I play Guild, but Lady J can get off 7 attacks in a round if you stone and have good flips, Perdita can get off a Turn 1, 7 wound attack off and she gets a likely to the damage to help hit it.  There are strong, kill you quickly Masters everywhere.  You played right into one of them.) 

 

 

9 minutes ago, whodares said:

I agree it is hard to say without seeing the map, but when most schemes require killing to a certain extent and the strategy is Reckoning, you can't afford to let your opponent get the initiative. Dreamer, and plenty other crews besides him, also don't have a Lure-like effect while Titania has her Triggered Place. This already puts you behind as she can pull models in range while dealing damage while your models would have to spend precious AP in closing the gap.

Why can't you let him "get the initiative?"  He can't score any VP in Turn 1 and neither can you.  No matter how many things he kills in Reckoning, he can only score 1 VP on it during Turn 2.  As has been noted in this thread and elsewhere, repeatedly, a Dreamer crew that can play keep away and cut his deck down on Turns 1 & 2 is suddenly starting to win more duels than he loses.  Based just off of the Strategy, you've at most given up 1 VP by playing conservatively, and placed yourself in a good position to win the game.

I'm not some grand strategic mastermind, and both you and Adran are correct in that we can't see your table set up, so we can't say for certain.  However, in this thread alone, you have been told that Dreamer's playstyle is typically to turtle and hide while you hone your deck into something that makes other players afraid to enter into any duel with you.  Instead of listening to this advice, and considering any possible ways that you might have put something on the board to prevent Titania from jumping Chompy that soon, you have continued to maintain that Titania is OP.

(And stopping her from catching Chompy that early, based upon pure hypotheticals, is easy.  There is no Lure or push in the game that allows you to pass through a model's base.  Put a 4 ss throw away model or two in front of Chompy so that any lure would immediately bring him into base contact with it unless Titania jumps into the middle of your crew.  I did something very similar in my last game to stop Beckoners from pulling models out of position unless they wanted to burn AP of beaters to kill my throw away scheme runners and leave the rest of my damage dealers standing.  Granted, I play Guild, but 2 Death Marshals in front of the Judge means you have to swing wide early, and burn extra AP, to get an angle that doesn't just pull the Judge into the Death Marshals.  I did something similar against Lynch using Santiago with a Lead Lined Coat and a blocking terrain wall with Francisco and Perdita behind that.)

Take a few days off, think about what people have been suggesting here, and see if you can find away around it.  It took a close victory over Red Chapel and a thrashing by the Brewmaster before I started really thinking about how to position my important pieces to really resist being lured out of position.  It is going to take some time to think over Titania, and what she does, compared to Dreamer and what he does, to see how you get around it.  Listen to the advice you're being given, and really chew it over.  Come up with an answer, test it out, rinse, repeat, until you've got a solution that works for you.

[whodares]

12 minutes ago, Cathaidan said:

Dreamer, as has been discussed repeatedly across the Beta and other Forums, is a slow burn that becomes nigh unbeatable if you don't jump on its face in Turns 1 & 2.  You rushed straight at one of the strongest, in your face, killing masters in the game.  (No, I'm not going to say it is OP.  Granted, I play Guild, but Lady J can get off 7 attacks in a round if you stone and have good flips, Perdita can get off a Turn 1, 7 wound attack off and she gets a likely to the damage to help hit it.  There are strong, kill you quickly Masters everywhere.  You played right into one of them.) 

As mentioned before, I did not rush into her. She placed Chompy twice before he even activated into engagement with her own crew in an unescapable death trap. I know there are more killy masters, but do they do not offer thesame amount of utility, displacement and card control as Titania has. It's perfectly fine for Titania to not kill a model. It will have Injured 2-3 and be easy pickings for whatever comes afterwards. Once you get that first Injured, it becomes trivial to keep stacking it up, unlike the other masters which will always have thesame level of difficulty in hitting those attacks.

To add to your example of Lady J:

• They both have a stat 6 attack, but Lady J can't get a free + to the attack => Titania wins
• Lady J requires to be within 2", while Titania can safely do this from the back => obvious Titania win
• Titania's track is 2/4/5 vs Lady J 3/4/5 => Lady J wins if you're hitting minimum damage, else it's a tie
  • Lady J does get a + to damage if she didn't charge => can be great combined with Leap, but getting the extra attack on Leap already requires you to burn a stone
• Titania can get +1 damage + displacement in a Trigger vs Lady J +1 damage per ram => raw damage = Lady J, but for equal investment Titania actually wins this one
• Lady J can get an extra attack vs a different model, Titania doesn't have such an option => Lady J wins, but only if there actually is another model within 2" of her to hit
• Titania's Heal + Condition removal Trigger vs Lady J Stunned Trigger => While Stunned can be great, I would edge it out to Titania as being able to have an offensive Condition removal is massive

Lady J does have Aeslin's attack Decay as well, which is massive as it allows you to stack up Injured. The downside is that it's "only" a stat 5 attack and the damage track is a lot lower compared to her Greatsword attack. I can see use for this if the opponent has a blastable model or if you want to get some Injured stacks for other models in your crew.

 

OVERALL

I agree with you Lady J has more damage, but it also requires a lot of investment and she has to be in harm's way. She also stays on stat 6, unless you use Decay, which means you will never reach that point of getting "free" attacks. It's much easier to stop Lady J's onslaught of Greatsword attacks than it is to stop Titania's attacks once she gets that first Injured on you.

Pure damage potential is hands-down Lady J. If you look at investment per damage Titania will win it very, very hard.

 

33 minutes ago, Cathaidan said:

Why can't you let him "get the initiative?"  He can't score any VP in Turn 1 and neither can you.  No matter how many things he kills in Reckoning, he can only score 1 VP on it during Turn 2.  As has been noted in this thread and elsewhere, repeatedly, a Dreamer crew that can play keep away and cut his deck down on Turns 1 & 2 is suddenly starting to win more duels than he loses.  Based just off of the Strategy, you've at most given up 1 VP by playing conservatively, and placed yourself in a good position to win the game.

I would have actually given 2 free VP if I played conservatively, of which the second is Search The Ruins. When this scheme is in the pool, you just can't afford to let your opponent have near full board control. Games are won after all by VP and giving free VP away is counter-productive to your victory.

36 minutes ago, Cathaidan said:

I'm not some grand strategic mastermind, and both you and Adran are correct in that we can't see your table set up, so we can't say for certain.  However, in this thread alone, you have been told that Dreamer's playstyle is typically to turtle and hide while you hone your deck into something that makes other players afraid to enter into any duel with you.  Instead of listening to this advice, and considering any possible ways that you might have put something on the board to prevent Titania from jumping Chompy that soon, you have continued to maintain that Titania is OP.

I know Dreamer's playstyle. Again, I never mentioned I was picking a fight on Turn 1. I was setting up for Turn 2 while still maintaining board presence to not give away a free Search The Ruins VP. Titania is also not afraid to go into duels as she can stack Injured on a model and make any Turn 1-2-3 Lucid Dream burning irrelevant from the cards in her hand. Get 2 Injured on a model with a lower stat and you can guarantee attacks with a 10, unless the Red Joker drops.

39 minutes ago, Cathaidan said:

(And stopping her from catching Chompy that early, based upon pure hypotheticals, is easy.  There is no Lure or push in the game that allows you to pass through a model's base.  Put a 4 ss throw away model or two in front of Chompy so that any lure would immediately bring him into base contact with it unless Titania jumps into the middle of your crew.  I did something very similar in my last game to stop Beckoners from pulling models out of position unless they wanted to burn AP of beaters to kill my throw away scheme runners and leave the rest of my damage dealers standing.  Granted, I play Guild, but 2 Death Marshals in front of the Judge means you have to swing wide early, and burn extra AP, to get an angle that doesn't just pull the Judge into the Death Marshals.  I did something similar against Lynch using Santiago with a Lead Lined Coat and a blocking terrain wall with Francisco and Perdita behind that.)

Actually Titania has a Place effect, which bypasses every solution you just mentioned.

Titania also doesn't mind getting 1-2 models in her face as she has a ton of defensive tech AND self-heals, both active and passive. If you throw 2 beaters in her face, chances are she's actually going to kill one of them and severely damage the second before she goes down and this is purely talking about a 1v2 situation. If Titania gets any backup, she will probably straight-up delete one of those beaters per Turn and survive getting 2 beaters in her face for 2 Turns.

[AngelRogue]

You have incorporal models. You have movement tricks and card tricks. Your insidious Madnesses will negate Titania's bonus action if you have them buried near her. There are a lot of things you could have done to have had a different outcome. I run Titania and just recently picked up Dreamer but he seems to have plenty to deal with Titania's tricks.  Run schemes and don't choose something that puts you in her face, If avoidable. I get that your strategy was reckoning, but perhaps let her models move to your beaters and just set up first round and prepare for scoring on schemes? Then get reckoning points as able. Her crew is durable and reckoning is going to be hard for most Masters against her. So don't let her score reckoning on you if you can.

[Cathaidan]

2 hours ago, whodares said:

As mentioned before, I did not rush into her. She placed Chompy twice before he even activated into engagement with her own crew in an unescapable death trap. I know there are more killy masters, but do they do not offer thesame amount of utility, displacement and card control as Titania has. It's perfectly fine for Titania to not kill a model. It will have Injured 2-3 and be easy pickings for whatever comes afterwards. Once you get that first Injured, it becomes trivial to keep stacking it up, unlike the other masters which will always have thesame level of difficulty in hitting those attacks.

Titania has a 6" Move and an 8" Range on her attack.  That is, at most, 20" of coverage in a single turn.  Let's assume she was sitting on the very edge of her deployment.  The board size as per the rules is 36" long.  Your deployment is 8" off the table edge.  If Chompy was anywhere farther back than the edge of your deployment, she isn't in range of that attack.. 

 

Quote

My deployment was plaving LCB far forward.  I pushed him with 2 Daydreams so he could get within Charge range of a Waldgeist.

 

By your own description, you pushed Chompy far forward, using your own models, and you were punished for it. 

 

My point on the referencing the other masters was simply that turning a model into a grease stain or making it easy to do with the rest of their crew isn't something that is rare or specific in this one instance.  It was not to start a calculation as to which is better at doing anything.

 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

I would have actually given 2 free VP if I played conservatively, of which the second is Search The Ruins. When this scheme is in the pool, you just can't afford to let your opponent have near full board control. Games are won after all by VP and giving free VP away is counter-productive to your victory.

I think you need to rethink what is a victory and what isn't.  Yes, games are won by VP, but they are won by earning more VP.  I will give up VP to my opponent if I know that I will earn more or it leads them into doing things that I want them to do anyway.  I recently posted a loss that I suffered against a Lynch crew.  My mistake was contesting VPs too much early in the game.  This allowed Huggy, Graves, Lynch, and Tannen to close the gap to my models too quickly.  In turn, this meant I was doing what he wanted, instead of doing what I wanted.  The correct strategy would have been to let him have 1 VP from the strategy and 1 VP from Search the Ruins in Turn 2, and maybe even a second VP from the strategy on Turn 3, and then table him while I earned all of my VP in Turns 3, 4, and 5.  As long as I have 1 more VP at the end of the game, I win.  If my opponent only gets the VP I allow him to get, and I only contest the VPs that I know I can prevent, I will win.  (Kind of like fighting against Russia in winter.  The Russians will let you take all the ground you want while they fall back, because they will own you in a little while.  It is also similar to the Battle of the Bulge on the Eastern Front, where the Allies gave ground until the counter attack hit.)  This strategy works.  I have used it in plenty of miniature games, and have won at Malifaux using it.

 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

I know Dreamer's playstyle. Again, I never mentioned I was picking a fight on Turn 1. I was setting up for Turn 2 while still maintaining board presence to not give away a free Search The Ruins VP. Titania is also not afraid to go into duels as she can stack Injured on a model and make any Turn 1-2-3 Lucid Dream burning irrelevant from the cards in her hand. Get 2 Injured on a model with a lower stat and you can guarantee attacks with a 10, unless the Red Joker drops.

You over extended to contest VPs that you weren't going to be able to actually defend.  That is what many people have been saying.  You got too close.  You pushed Chompy too far forward.  You don't see that as a problem.  That is the vast majority of the disagreement with you that has happened in this thread concerning your strategy.

 

 

2 hours ago, whodares said:

Actually Titania has a Place effect, which bypasses every solution you just mentioned.

Titania also doesn't mind getting 1-2 models in her face as she has a ton of defensive tech AND self-heals, both active and passive. If you throw 2 beaters in her face, chances are she's actually going to kill one of them and severely damage the second before she goes down and this is purely talking about a 1v2 situation. If Titania gets any backup, she will probably straight-up delete one of those beaters per Turn and survive getting 2 beaters in her face for 2 Turns.

First, The Queen's Command says move, not place.  So it can be stopped by having other miniatures in the way.  Second, let's math this up, 8" for deployment, two moves for 12" (or even another 6" for doing it again).  Titania is in front of your deployment.  She's not behind you or to the side of you.  You can position around her crazy on Turn 1.

As for her not caring what's in her face, good!  You shouldn't care, either!  Don't throw beaters at her early on.  Feed her low cost models that only eat her AP!  Every action she burns eating some 4ss model is a turn she isn't killing something you need.  Like Chompy running on a slimmed down deck.

If you can't take a step back and see how this is something that should be considered, as others and I have suggested, then you're not going to be happy playing strategy games.  There is a reason I don't post battle reports for at least 2 days after playing.  I need to make sure that I'm not tossing out an emotional response.  You aren't considering other people's advice, and are discounting it out of hand for not agreeing with yours.  Take a break, try out some of the ideas we're tossing out there, do little playtests on your own, and see what works.

[katadder]

think he has made his mind up, just feeding a troll now - can I have your stuff when you quit?

[santaclaws01]

@Cathaidan, you have a few things wrong. Titania can move 9" with the trigger on Germinate. His game was wedge deployment, so they were 8" closer to each other at the furthest points. Models can't stop a marker from moving.

[Fixxer]

1 hour ago, santaclaws01 said:

@Cathaidan, you have a few things wrong. Titania can move 9" with the trigger on Germinate. His game was wedge deployment, so they were 8" closer to each other at the furthest points. Models can't stop a marker from moving.

....With resources. Gotta have the card and suit and make the decision to capitalize on an over extended LCB. 

This summary of this game tells all. Titania player played it correctly and got a little lucky. @whodares overextended and underestimates the power a Master, Henchman, and 10ss enforcer can dish out. 

[TeddyBear]

Zipp is like "paper vs rock"  for Titania...

at least on paper...

[whodares]

9 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

My point on the referencing the other masters was simply that turning a model into a grease stain or making it easy to do with the rest of their crew isn't something that is rare or specific in this one instance.  It was not to start a calculation as to which is better at doing anything.

Considering so many people, including people blasting me in this thread, were crying in M2E about alpha strikes becoming too much of a defining factor, I find this rather amusing. I don't think it's right that a model can be taken down by the opposing crew on Turn 1 with said opposing crew barely moving. I was still decently within my own table quarter and Chompy got placed way out of reach of my own crew so I could not help him out anymore.

They nerfed Lure from 18" to 12" specifically to stop these types of things, but now a Place effect can do thesame job. That is not right and goes against everything they wanted; Bonus points for the Lure not doing much else, while this Action also deals damage and hands out Injured. The range is 4" lower than Lure, but a Place effect is far more powerful than a Move effect.

 

9 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

I think you need to rethink what is a victory and what isn't.  Yes, games are won by VP, but they are won by earning more VP.  I will give up VP to my opponent if I know that I will earn more or it leads them into doing things that I want them to do anyway.  I recently posted a loss that I suffered against a Lynch crew.  My mistake was contesting VPs too much early in the game.  This allowed Huggy, Graves, Lynch, and Tannen to close the gap to my models too quickly.  In turn, this meant I was doing what he wanted, instead of doing what I wanted.  The correct strategy would have been to let him have 1 VP from the strategy and 1 VP from Search the Ruins in Turn 2, and maybe even a second VP from the strategy on Turn 3, and then table him while I earned all of my VP in Turns 3, 4, and 5.  As long as I have 1 more VP at the end of the game, I win.  If my opponent only gets the VP I allow him to get, and I only contest the VPs that I know I can prevent, I will win.  (Kind of like fighting against Russia in winter.  The Russians will let you take all the ground you want while they fall back, because they will own you in a little while.  It is also similar to the Battle of the Bulge on the Eastern Front, where the Allies gave ground until the counter attack hit.)  This strategy works.  I have used it in plenty of miniature games, and have won at Malifaux using it.

So you're suggesting I hand my opponent 2-3 VP for free, which is already a boatload of VP. Sounds like a good plan ...

You casually mention tabling the opponent by the end of the game, but his entire crew has HtW and they get Cruel Disappointment from Titania. They are also loaded on Concealing and they also have a ton of killing power. They also have Hooded Rider, who becomes a beast from Turn 3 onwards because he can then use his 5 suited Free Action, Attack all enemy models in a 6" range, every single Turn on top of 2 more stat 6 min 3 attacks, which can blast.

Unfortunately, you can't stop the opponent from getting at least 3 VP from the strategy as he still has all his killing power intact, of which 2 can blast and he still has Titania as well.

One-turning Dreamer also isn't hard as Titania as she has +flips on her attack, going straight through Serence Countenance and she's giving him Injured on every attack. Dreamer still has Protected to keep him safe, but I doubt you can throw away 3 cards to keep that up all the time.

 

10 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

You over extended to contest VPs that you weren't going to be able to actually defend.  That is what many people have been saying.  You got too close.  You pushed Chompy too far forward.  You don't see that as a problem.  That is the vast majority of the disagreement with you that has happened in this thread concerning your strategy.

As I said previously, I don't think a single Action should have the amount of impact that Titania's Awakened Hunger has. Beater damage, Injured and (Heal+condi cleanse)  | Place is a whole lot of things going on for a single AP. She has a second action, meant for when you get into melee. It's far inferior to her Awakened Hunger and will never see play the way it is right now. Move some power from Awakened Hunger to that action, as that one at least requires her to get into danger herself.

 

10 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

First, The Queen's Command says move, not place.  So it can be stopped by having other miniatures in the way.  Second, let's math this up, 8" for deployment, two moves for 12" (or even another 6" for doing it again).  Titania is in front of your deployment.  She's not behind you or to the side of you.  You can position around her crazy on Turn 1.

I was talking about her Awakened Hunger, not The Queen's Command. Awakened Hunger is the Attack Action with way too much power.

As mentioned by santaclaws (and in my starting post), you forgot it was Wedge deployment. this makes it a whole lot more tricky.

 

10 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

As for her not caring what's in her face, good!  You shouldn't care, either!  Don't throw beaters at her early on.  Feed her low cost models that only eat her AP!  Every action she burns eating some 4ss model is a turn she isn't killing something you need.  Like Chompy running on a slimmed down deck.

That would work, if only she couldn't use her ranged attack while she was engaged. Unfortunately she still can, so she doesn't have to spend any AP at all on those low stone models. They will kill themselves on Life Leech anyway, so she doesn't care about them at all.

10 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

If you can't take a step back and see how this is something that should be considered, as others and I have suggested, then you're not going to be happy playing strategy games.  There is a reason I don't post battle reports for at least 2 days after playing.  I need to make sure that I'm not tossing out an emotional response.  You aren't considering other people's advice, and are discounting it out of hand for not agreeing with yours.  Take a break, try out some of the ideas we're tossing out there, do little playtests on your own, and see what works.

I did take a step back and posted this the day after. I read back through all the cards to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Titania has a single action which can solve 99% of the problems a crew can face. I don't like those type of actions, especially when M3E is supposed to take a step back from those types of things. Titania's crew has far too many good things going for them right now, which is also not good.

[Barmution]

We are presented with the following options:

1. Believing that Titania is "overloaded"/overpowered based on Whodares' single, self admitted poorly prepared match.
2. Believing that months of open and closed beta play testing didn't show evidence of her power set being overpowered, as well as the reported competitive M3E tourney players have not identified her as anywhere near broken or auto take(in fact I can't even recall seeing her on the lists of the 3 major tourney results I've skimmed, but Zoraida and Dreamer appears as frequently successful Neverborn masters).

The prime argument for 1 would be that competitive tournament players have somehow overlooked the potency of Titania's powerset. But Whodares' main complaint is that it's too easy to set up because the interactions are found as part of the isolated abilities and actions found on Titania's card so I guess that's pretty improbable.

Personally I'm sticking with option 2.

[Adran]

14 hours ago, whodares said:

I was not going for an alpha strike though. I was setting up for Turn 2.

Your plan also assumes I would pretty much forfeit Turn 1 all just so I don't get picked off from within my own half of the map.

I agree it is hard to say without seeing the map, but when most schemes require killing to a certain extent and the strategy is Reckoning, you can't afford to let your opponent get the initiative. Dreamer, and plenty other crews besides him, also don't have a Lure-like effect while Titania has her Triggered Place. This already puts you behind as she can pull models in range while dealing damage while your models would have to spend precious AP in closing the gap.

 

I don't think my plan was " do nothing turn 1". It was "Avoid the area of the board that the enemy has set up to trap you while they can take advantage of the trap." Now ,Hhw big that area is is something that you can only know for your table. I don't know how the board was, but if you are on a board where there is only 1 route through to the enemy, then yes, you have a problem.

What you did, from my reading of it, was play the game your opponent wanted you to. You didn't have to engage at the point the opponent has set up undergrowth markers you can't escape from. I imagine that you didn't realise you were engaging with that extra push from the daydream, but from what you say it was a combination of the board lay out, the actions and order you choose, the deployment of models and markers from both players (good from your opponent) and a lot of luck, it sounds similar to me to letting your M2E crew eat a Viks whirlwind or overpowering Rasputina turn 1 because you didn't spread out. Now you know what can be done I imagine that you would hold out pushing to just over 5" from an undergrowth marker that is also within range of Titania after 1 walk.

It may well be that you can't always manage that, but unless the board literally only had 1 way to get to each other in the middle, and no LOS blocking terrain, you could have at least tried to get there a different route. It might have cost you extra resources, but you would also have been denying your opponent the resources they had already spent on picking the first ground.

If Titania can easily do that regardless of what you do, the board lay out, and the mission, then its worth looking at, but doing it once, when you didn't realise what she could do is not enough to convince me its over powered

 

14 hours ago, whodares said:

I agree with you that Injured gives less visible power at every stack. The invisible power however becomes that you don't need cards anymore to hit that specific model. When you are guaranteed to succeed without using any resource, besides AP, that action generally becomes an extremely good investment. In that sense I would say stacking Injured does become worth it if you're looking at taking down high priority targets with minimal investment from your side.

 I don't think there is an invisible power to it. You always need cards to hit. If you have a stat that is 6 higher than your opponent, you only win 82% of the duels. Its still a very good chance, but it is still only 4 out of 5 duels (before cheating).  Even at 6 higher you only have a cheatable damage flip about 30% of the time, so not much higher than the chance of you losing the duel

There is very little in this game that is guaranteed by the actual meaning of the word. There are things that are very likely, and as you use up the jokers, things are even more likely if you have cards to cheat. but whilst either your black or your opponents red joker is still there, its not guaranteed.  

[(Keenan)]

23 hours ago, whodares said:

 

 

So far the advice I've gotten is to not play against Titania. 

Actually the advice I, and others, gave is TO play against her. A lot. And with her to understand better how she and her crew work. This is a situation where practice is going to help and whining won't. 

[whodares]

26 minutes ago, Barmution said:

We are presented with the following options:

1. Believing that Titania is "overloaded"/overpowered based on Whodares' single, self admitted poorly prepared match.
2. Believing that months of open and closed beta play testing didn't show evidence of her power set being overpowered, as well as the reported competitive M3E tourney players have not identified her as anywhere near broken or auto take(in fact I can't even recall seeing her on the lists of the 3 major tourney results I've skimmed, but Zoraida and Dreamer appears as frequently successful Neverborn masters).

The prime argument for 1 would be that competitive tournament players have somehow overlooked the potency of Titania's powerset. But Whodares' main complaint is that it's too easy to set up because the interactions are found as part of the isolated abilities and actions found on Titania's card so I guess that's pretty improbable.

Personally I'm sticking with option 2.

You seem to be of the opinion that I think Zoraida and Dreamer are fine. I also think both those masters should be toned down. Zoraida especially with a 25+" (double) Obey range on a stat 7 AND several ways of managing both you and your opponent's decks.

I still believe the beta-testing was flawed from the premise, but I only joined for Closed Beta so I can't speak about Open Beta. CB only changed models that were being played. Several crews got underrepresented and it's showing. Several crews also got several major overhauls, making it highly unmotivating to test them out.

I personally think Titania is a very, very strong pick being looked over right now as she has all the tools to be a top master. Just because there are even more broken stuff in the game doesn't mean you can't complain about other broken stuff.

I could make an entire post on both Dreamer and Zoraida, explaining why I think they are broken. It's pretty much why I picked Dreamer for this game to begin with. I like his concept and I don't want him to turn out like in M2E where he got nerfed because he was too much free mode.

 

32 minutes ago, Adran said:

I don't think my plan was " do nothing turn 1". It was "Avoid the area of the board that the enemy has set up to trap you while they can take advantage of the trap." Now ,Hhw big that area is is something that you can only know for your table. I don't know how the board was, but if you are on a board where there is only 1 route through to the enemy, then yes, you have a problem.

What you did, from my reading of it, was play the game your opponent wanted you to. You didn't have to engage at the point the opponent has set up undergrowth markers you can't escape from. I imagine that you didn't realise you were engaging with that extra push from the daydream, but from what you say it was a combination of the board lay out, the actions and order you choose, the deployment of models and markers from both players (good from your opponent) and a lot of luck, it sounds similar to me to letting your M2E crew eat a Viks whirlwind or overpowering Rasputina turn 1 because you didn't spread out. Now you know what can be done I imagine that you would hold out pushing to just over 5" from an undergrowth marker that is also within range of Titania after 1 walk.

It may well be that you can't always manage that, but unless the board literally only had 1 way to get to each other in the middle, and no LOS blocking terrain, you could have at least tried to get there a different route. It might have cost you extra resources, but you would also have been denying your opponent the resources they had already spent on picking the first ground.

If Titania can easily do that regardless of what you do, the board lay out, and the mission, then its worth looking at, but doing it once, when you didn't realise what she could do is not enough to convince me its over powered

We play with a decent amount of terrain. It's about 33% per Wyrd suggestions. There are many things like trees blocking lanes, meaning it becomes difficult to move in a straight line. For this game, the board had 4 lanes: 2 in the middle separated via a wall and enclosed in crates, and 2 side lanes with some scattered trees/shacks.

Yes, I pushed into engagement range without realising and I know that. That still doesn't mean it's right that a 14" engagement range with 2 Place effects is not too strong. Just look  at that single action and what power it has. Something is wrong and it should be toned down.

 

38 minutes ago, Adran said:

 I don't think there is an invisible power to it. You always need cards to hit. If you have a stat that is 6 higher than your opponent, you only win 82% of the duels. Its still a very good chance, but it is still only 4 out of 5 duels (before cheating).  Even at 6 higher you only have a cheatable damage flip about 30% of the time, so not much higher than the chance of you losing the duel

There is very little in this game that is guaranteed by the actual meaning of the word. There are things that are very likely, and as you use up the jokers, things are even more likely if you have cards to cheat. but whilst either your black or your opponents red joker is still there, its not guaranteed.  

I agree with the fact that you always need cards to hit. the thing is that the probability of your opponent getting those cards is pretty close to 0. If you can get your opponent to Injured 3, he will probably have already burned several of his high cards (and you too) to try and stop it. From then on, your medium cards can block out most of his cards.

I'm using guaranteed here because you just have to face reality. If you can't win a flip with a 4-5 stat difference, you were just incredibly unlucky. The point is you have to spend pretty close to no cards once you actually get a couple of Injured stacks on your opponent, thus the action nets you:

• decent damage
• displacement
• Injured stacks
• card advantage
• (healing if you choose this instead of displacement)

 

Isn't that just a bit too much for a single action to do?

[Barmution]

8 minutes ago, whodares said:

You seem to be of the opinion that I think Zoraida and Dreamer are fine. I also think both those masters should be toned down. Zoraida especially with a 25+" (double) Obey range on a stat 7 AND several ways of managing both you and your opponent's decks.

I have no "opinion" about what you think. There will be objective differences in the power levels of both isolated models and synergies in any game. You are entitled to your opinions about them but the way you engage with any kind of suggestion as to how to deal with stuff seems to be very defensive and not open to the results stemming from anything other that your initial proposal, in this case that Titania's power set is OP, in any way. This is not the only thread where you have argued like this and it won't be the last. Suffice it to say that I disagree with you and that I find engaging you directly in arguments to be an exercise in futility on my part. Whether that is a fault on my or your side is not for me to decide.

[whodares]

9 minutes ago, Barmution said:

I have no "opinion" about what you think. There will be objective differences in the power levels of both isolated models and synergies in any game. You are entitled to your opinions about them but the way you engage with any kind of suggestion as to how to deal with stuff seems to be very defensive and not open to the results stemming from anything other that your initial proposal, in this case that Titania's power set is OP, in any way. This is not the only thread where you have argued like this and it won't be the last. Suffice it to say that I disagree with you and that I find engaging you directly in arguments to be an exercise in futility on my part. Whether that is a fault on my or your side is not for me to decide.

Aren't you the guy who was defending the blatantly OP Nicodem and Sanddeep together with Teddybear? Because I actually got my point there when they nerfed both those masters and made them more managable...