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What models are strong out-of-keyword?


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Once you start considering going out-of-keyword, there's so many options it's quite easy to get lost!  I thought it'd be helpful if we compiled a list of models we think might be useful out-of-keyword for other crews.

I'll start with models from Forgotten I think will be useful out of keyword, since that's what I play.

The good

Archie: Archie is insanely good in some matchups due to being immune to conditions (for instance, against Kaeris he can't gain burning). He is also a hyper-mobile, hard-hitting unit. Throw a Grave Spirit's Touch on him, and he can regenerate 3-5 health a turn. He screams 'deal with me', but is hard to deal with. However, he does lose one major benefit - he is a great Crooligan beacon, which is lost if you don't have them on your crew. Needs plenty of cards in hand to keep its discard going.

Forgotten Marshal: Can summon all of the Forgotten minions, and can give them a means of discarding cards to boot. Likely quite potent in some scenarios, but expensive (real $ wise), as you'd have to buy all three minion boxes.

Rogue Necromancy: Similar to Archie, this is a mobile & hard-hitting unit that is a bit more specialised. Perfect to take against enemy crews that use poison, as the poison will simply heal up the RN. Needs plenty of cards in hand to keep its discard going.

Molly: As FetidStrumpet notes below, Molly is a good option for card draw, marker elimination, and her triggers!

The bad

All the minions rely on synergies or discard or both to be full power, so are pretty bad (though could be taken in conjunction with some of the above, such as crooligans + archie, or Forgotten Marshal summoning them). As pointed out below, Philip & The Nanny are just a generally bad model.

What are your thoughts on your own keywords? What can we borrow for other crews?

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26 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Your pretty wrong about Molly and Philip and the Nanny in my opinion. Molly doesn’t care about synergies for herself. You hire her to draw cards and destroy and place markers and she does both of those really well no matter wether she’s in keyword or not. 

Nurse can be good out of keyword.

Cheers! I've only played her in keyword, so noted how much of her power came from her synergies. But if she's still solid regardless, that's great! I have edited the main post.

Could you clarify where I'm wrong about Philip and the Nanny? You don't think they're potentially good out of keyword? Or just not as good as Molly?

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51 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

Manos is awesome in and out of keyword..... I even occasionally/often if not running a second master take him in a Forgotten crew. 

Awesome, how do you suggest using him? Just as a beater?
 

52 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

I think mechanically Philip and the Nanny is total garbage and that there are no good competitive uses for him at all, in keyword or out. 

That said, if you don’t care and just want to move models around on the table, then his rules are fun and amusing.

Fair enough! I haven't played them that much, but P&N have seemed quite weak to me so far. But their abilities seem pretty disruptive, I've been wondering if there's some solid applications for the model.

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6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Once you start considering going out-of-keyword, there's so many options it's quite easy to get lost!  I thought it'd be helpful if we compiled a list of models we think might be useful out-of-keyword for other crews.
 

Philip and the Nanny: I'm not sure how good a model they are in general, but they offer potent disruption without being overly reliant on synergies. Also a tough model, can be good for helping defend and disrupt points on the field. Can remove scheme markers from elsewhere on the field as a trigger! They do lose their fading benefit by not being around other Forgotten models, but that may be okay for some tasks.

I agree with @Fetid Strumpet on this one....P&N just isn't useful to me either in or out of keyword.  If you listened to Craig's Third Floor War's podcast episode on Molly (https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/uwxm8-87b4d/TABLETOP-TALK---A-Third-Floor-War's-Podcast) I laid out my thoughts on P&N there. 

6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Molly: As FetidStrumpet notes below, Molly is a good option for card draw, marker elimination, and her triggers! Lethe's caress is also a potent mechanic that can punish your opponent.

Lethe's only works when Molly is the leader so isn't really applicable out of keyword. 

37 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Awesome, how do you suggest using him? Just as a beater?

Manos is a utility piece for me.  He helps me preposition strategy/schemes early. He is extremely maneuverable and can feint or serve in a deception role to pull opposing models out of position. He is a good second string beater and awesome at mid-range or scheme runner hunting. And he is a great tech pick for shutting down demise abilities and blunting the point of alpha strikes with extended reach. 

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I've taken McMourning in a Nicodem list as well as a Yan Lo list and both times he was not hampered by his missing Experimental support. Only Field Testing and possibly Perverse Metabolism would be inactive with the rest of his actions and abilities working as usual. While not as directly damaging as some of our regular beaters, Precise and his 7:ToS-Crow: Skull Saw does have him hitting consistently and ignoring most defenses. He's costly, but if the enemies bringing a lot of armor or HtW he guts them pretty quickly.

I've been meaning to use her and haven't gotten around to it, but what about Valedictorian? She seems self contained to where she'd work fine outside of Transmortis. Understandably her damage isn't impressive when Archie would cost the same, but she's a bit more durable with a higher attack stat. Don't know if that makes it up in anyway, curious of others opinion.

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The valedic

16 hours ago, KingJocko said:

I've taken McMourning in a Nicodem list as well as a Yan Lo list and both times he was not hampered by his missing Experimental support. Only Field Testing and possibly Perverse Metabolism would be inactive with the rest of his actions and abilities working as usual. While not as directly damaging as some of our regular beaters, Precise and his 7:ToS-Crow: Skull Saw does have him hitting consistently and ignoring most defenses. He's costly, but if the enemies bringing a lot of armor or HtW he guts them pretty quickly.

I've been meaning to use her and haven't gotten around to it, but what about Valedictorian? She seems self contained to where she'd work fine outside of Transmortis. Understandably her damage isn't impressive when Archie would cost the same, but she's a bit more durable with a higher attack stat. Don't know if that makes it up in anyway, curious of others opinion.

The Valedictorian seems like an auto take against Mei and others that rely on scrap. Getting rid of scrap and corpse markers seems amazing 

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I do like a lot of our masters for out of keyword hireing 

 

Kirai is great in to anyone with armour or lots of healing as ikaryo ignores armour and a lot of her summons prevent healing 

Molly is great in to anyone who puts down markers (titania, zipp, kaeris etc)

i've not tried it yet but i'd immagine vonschtook is good vs upgrade masters (marcus/vonshill)

in terms of non masters I like datsu ba or Manos are good for going after people like levi or yanlo that rely on demise abilities to keep them alive 

 

I also like sebastian with molly if i'm bringing a necro as i can load it up with posion and then use Blood Poisoning to keep it alive and beating.

 

I agree that P+N is hot hot trash 

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Valedictorian for scrap/corpse markers makes sense. Also worth noting the entire Transmortis keyword is good for card draw, right?

Nurse makes sense (for condition control/assist actions?)

Manos and Datsu Ba for hating demise keywords? Is Manos better than Archie as a utility piece against other keywords? Or are the roles different? Archie's maneuverability seems superior (given he gets the mask on the stat, whereas Manos needs it from a card to leap?)

Makes sense that a lot of the masters are strong enough! Are there any masters that are terrible out of keyword?

And have removed P&N from the original post :)

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I personally got a lot of value out of Philip and the Nanny. It's a manipulative model with Chatty that doesn't have to activate to be exactly where you need it to be. You can move the model straight through other ones and have it tarpit. It's an anchor point for Crooligans, double dips with being manipulative and handing out distracted through Molly, and can heal through Archie.  The best way to kill the model is to concentrate, but it hurts if you do. 
It also has the reparations trigger on Boring Conversation, which forces your opponent to either drop irrelevant scheme markers around the board or be denied points. If they can't, then crows make it a min 3 damage attack with slow. 

Whenever Archie hit the dust, Philip and the Nanny were usually still standing and denying actions all game. 

It's not The Jury, but has always pulled 8 stones of weight for me.

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Saduhem, thanks for the insights! I'll definitely try out P&N a bit more (seems especially potent in plant explosives for guarding explosives). Archie + P&N with one crooligan elsewhere on the table is pretty potent zone control.

However, as a lot of those strengths are keyword-dependent, I'll leave them off the original list until more information is available. I'd hate for someone to pick it up based on this advice without a clear cut consensus!

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I've played a decent amount of Von Schtook and the Transmortis crew, I'll do one for them. 

 

The Good: 

     Anna Lovelace: Anna benefits greatly from Gravity Well and Hostile Work Environment, which can be good counter-picks against certain match-ups. She also brings card draw and a reliable amount of damage both in melee and at range. 

The Bad:

     Von Schtook: The Headmaster himself. While Von Schtook does bring the unique ability to turn off upgrades, as well as an impressive blasting attack, Von Schtook costs too much for what he does as a secondary master. Many of his abilities are tied to the Transmortis keyword and he will certainly feel their loss. He won't be able to hand out many upgrades and won't be able to pulse out focus to as many models. He also won't be able to drop scheme markers as easily. 16ss is a steep price to pay for a single model and I don't think he's worth it without his crew.

     Undergraduates: A terrible pick OOK. Their abilities are all tied to the Transmortis keyword with Patronize, Made to Kill, and By Your Side being difficult to use OOK.

     Research Assistant: Move along and the ranged scheme marker placement are really useful. The one problem is being tied to Von Schtook. As explained above, Von Schtook doesn't really like going anywhere without the rest of his class so this guy will likely stay at the university

The Between:

     Necropunks, Valedictorian, Students: All of these I put in one group as they all fall under the same category. These models are strong as they are generic but above curve and are good counterpicks and efficient models for their cost. When you add the OOK tax in, these models likely fall about on curve. It could certainly be worth it to take any of these as they're very self-sufficient but the keyword may have something that synergizes better with the rest of its crew.

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3 hours ago, Deathinabox said:

The Good: 

     Anna Lovelace: Anna benefits greatly from Gravity Well and Hostile Work Environment, which can be good counter-picks against certain match-ups. She also brings card draw and a reliable amount of damage both in melee and at range. 

A very interesting model! Thanks for that, I'll keep her on my radar.

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6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Saduhem, thanks for the insights! I'll definitely try out P&N a bit more (seems especially potent in plant explosives for guarding explosives). Archie + P&N with one crooligan elsewhere on the table is pretty potent zone control.

However, as a lot of those strengths are keyword-dependent, I'll leave them off the original list until more information is available. I'd hate for someone to pick it up based on this advice without a clear cut consensus!

Yeah, definitely not worth it out of keyword :}

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This is fun, I'll do Yan Lo and the retainers as well

 

The Good

     Yan Lo: This guy is a beast. Early game, he will provide support by pushing models and handing out shielded. Mid game, he will kill everything around himself. Late game, he will push everyone where they need to be to score you points.

     Manos: This guy scores points. With an easy leap, he can move about easily. He makes a great scheme runner, anti scheme runner, and reserve beater. Bonus points for lantern of souls as that will counter several other crews and models.

     Toshiro: Amusingly, the Daimyo if actually better OOK than in. His bonuses help minion heavy crews like experimental and forgotten, but don't add a lot to the elite retainer crew.

The Bad

      Soul Porter: Without a number of Ancestors to push our reliquaries to catch, this little guy doesn't have a lot to do with his actions

     Yin: A decent scheme runner/tank with the problem that Manos does most of her stuff better.

     Ashigaru: A decent bodyguard but OOK is likely too expensive for what he does. He can be summoned by toshiro however, which is a more efficient way of adding them to your crew.

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16 minutes ago, Deathinabox said:

Toshiro: Amusingly, the Daimyo if actually better OOK than in. His bonuses help minion heavy crews like experimental and forgotten, but don't add a lot to the elite retainer crew.

Great for Transmortis since most of their models are Minions and hard hitting ones at that. The + to melee flips really help fish for suits for their triggers. Daimyo's Gift can also hand out Focus and and another Melee action. He also brings a heal that can affect any friendly rather than just Undead or just Living. He is expensive, but if you get even one summon off early game I feel like he makes up for the up front cost. If you take him in Transmortis it's a good idea to give him a general upgrade so Von Schtook and give him Fast if needed. 

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3 hours ago, Deathinabox said:

This is fun, I'll do Yan Lo and the retainers as well

 

The Good

     Yan Lo: This guy is a beast. Early game, he will provide support by pushing models and handing out shielded. Mid game, he will kill everything around himself. Late game, he will push everyone where they need to be to score you points.

     Manos: This guy scores points. With an easy leap, he can move about easily. He makes a great scheme runner, anti scheme runner, and reserve beater. Bonus points for lantern of souls as that will counter several other crews and models.

     Toshiro: Amusingly, the Daimyo if actually better OOK than in. His bonuses help minion heavy crews like experimental and forgotten, but don't add a lot to the elite retainer crew.

Sounds like Yan Lo is a good Master to pickup, in that he is good as a main or contributes a lot OOK. Toshiro in particular cracks me up!

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34 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Sounds like Yan Lo is a good Master to pickup, in that he is good as a main or contributes a lot OOK.

The main issue is that he's dual faction so if you're not planning on maining him often you'll have a lot of models just sitting around from ten thunders

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48 minutes ago, Deathinabox said:

The main issue is that he's dual faction so if you're not planning on maining him often you'll have a lot of models just sitting around from ten thunders

The question you end up at then is how Yan Lo is going to be released.  If you snag one of the 2E boxes, everything but Chiaki is fieldable without Yan Lo in charge.  So it's not too bad.

He's not on the release schedule though so *hopefully* he's getting a new box.  His box minions then would be either Ashigaru or Gokudo.  Honestly, my money is on Gokudo.  With Ashigaru and Toshiro being an add-on box.   (Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll throw in Manos and Yin to that box also so all the resser models are in one spot).

There's something coming in september called "Eternal Servitude" and honestly my money is on Yan Lo models.

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What about the versatile models? Does anyone have good things to say about them?

I've heard good things about Dead Rider (from the podcast), and I'm super keen on the corpse-marker minions for some niche scenarios (particularly 'dig their graves' or when you're taking Dr Mc, etc. Or both!). Also kind of like the idea of using the versatile person that removes insignificant on mindless zombies to deal with corrupted idols. Set up a summoning chain, and you could just dominate a table corner.

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