Mr. Moustache aka Hulk Hogan aka Von Schill / M3E

[Jesy Blue]

Quote

He is support not a killer anymore. I do love the trio Max, Hannah and Erik...but a bit expensive

STOOOOOOOOPID EXPENSIVE!!!!!

[Barmution]

21 hours ago, nunorod said:

I don't think one cannot bring Lazarus if is thinking on using him for killing. Think of him of early turn hand removal or late turn ping dmg spreader. 

He will of course be less valuable against a crew that spreads either from origin or because of strat and schemes. 

Also he can clear scheme markers and when needed be tanky because of armour, heal and extra heals from collegues. 

Don't forget he also provides cover if he is close by. He is support not a killer anymore. I do love the trio Laz, Hannah and Erik...but a bit expensive  

I agree that you don't bring him for killing, but you can't bring him for much else either. 2 attacks per turn to generate relatively easy simple duels that requires 7s to go off is pretty mediocre unless your opponent actively A. Clumps up or B. Summons smaller, low hp models. The scheme marker clearing anybody in your crew can do with the grenade belt, the Librarian and Hannah can even Siphon Power to get the suit. The Cover part doesn't come into play a lot in my experience and for it to do so (and in general) Laz needs a lot of attention from VS to get into a good position or keep up with the guys he's supposed to give Cover to.

Is he bad in himself? No. But the opportunity cost to bring him along and support him when you're already packing Arik and Hannah 99% of the time is too high, IMHO.

[Zebo]

Quitting Rapid Fire from Lazarus killed him.

[Jesy Blue]

2 hours ago, Zebo said:

Quitting Rapid Fire from Lazarus killed him.

Rapid Fire on a Shockwave might be a little on too much with Elimination Protocol, that's 4 shockwaves an activation.  If you got Rapid Fire instead of Elimination Protocool, I would say you might be worth it.  But there's so much you still lose with his only shooting action being a Shockwave; it should have just been a double blast, I think they got Shockwave happy.

[Zebo]

They changed Rapid Fire to Elimination Protocols.

People having bad experiences with Lazarus started to complain instead actually try to counter him (it's quite easy, in fact) and Lazarus was nerfed.

[Myth]

Yeah, I'm generally in agreement that Lazarus is reasonably balanced for his cost and has a solid role (durable ranged threat). It is just hard to justify taking him when Hannah and the Strongarm are so powerful that they are often auto-takes, and thus you rarely have the points left over for Lazarus.

[Zebo]

Yes, you must have a reason to take Lazarus.

The only thing that Lazarus does is to shoot.

Regular tricks to avoid fire may not work with him, but it's quite easy to reduce a lot his impact in the game.

Does he compensate for it cost? It's quite easy to avoid it. 

[Jesy Blue]

Had the idea for a bubble build for a Reckoning game once, which had a Freikorp gun line in the shadow of loosely spaced pianos to prevent melee, Lazarus' Bodyguard cover Pulse, Zipp's conceal Aura, and Emissary's healing bubble, plus Earl just kept fixing the constructs when he wasn't replacing Piano Markers.

It was okay, just too few models.

[TheJoyInGaming]

This might be blasphemy but I have enjoyed the Freikorps without Strongarm, Hannah, or Lazarus.

Only minions for me.

[Jesy Blue]

What, no Steam Trunk?  That's bold!

No, it's cool.  Minion heavy is a good way to go, too.  Do you stay in keyword or venture out?

[TheJoyInGaming]

2 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

What, no Steam Trunk?  That's bold!

No, it's cool.  Minion heavy is a good way to go, too.  Do you stay in keyword or venture out?

Touche lol

Pretty much all keyword, though I have taken a Prospector before just to fill points, and to also troll my wife (I feel like this earns me VP IRL). I do this because I hate having antisynergies ie having models that do not get full value with Von Schill’s Give Em Hell or the Librarian’s Consolidate Power.

Speaking of Arik directly, obviously he brings quite a lot of value to any crew he is hired, both in and out of keyword. My problem with him lies in the fact that he may be more easily countered due to his heavy reliance on Shielding and Armor, and he is likely to face something that ignores all of his damage reduction given that both of these are already prevalent amongst the Freikorps. (For these same reasons I think he is absolutely amazing with Hamelin.)

If I were to hire a melee Henchman for the Freikorps, I would hire Taelor. She is speedier than Arik, has a higher Melee stat, and greater range. Most importantly, she relies on HTK instead of Armor or Shielding so she seems to be a safer investment of Soulstones. Mind you, Taelor is just theoryfaux at this point.

[Barmution]

Minion heavy is absolutely viable with the Freikorps although that would IMHO put an even greater value on Hannah's Arcane Reservoir due to the card hunger stemming from both Shouting Orders and some minion specific abilities. And Hannah is great value on her own to boot.

[Micawber]

I'll be up against a Wong and a Rasputin Crew. Both beeing firsts with Von Schill in 3rd and they're giving me a bit of a headache since both crews heavily punish the bubble playstyle. Anyone here has experience facing those crews with Von Schill? I'd be very thankful for any kind of advice

Just fyi - I normally build my Crew around the Von Schill/Hannah/Arik core. My go-to from there would be an engineer, a librarian and a drache trooper rounding it out with either a freikorpmann or a prospector. I only seldomly go for the scout.

[Jesy Blue]

Arik is solid vs Wong, soak up all those Blasts for focus, but it does drain your hand.

If you know you're facing Rasputina, you'll need both Drachen and both Rocket Launchers; you have to remove all the pillars, all the time.  Don't forget the Freikorpsmann's ability to hold onto Equipment after use, and their Survivalist to keep them up from their own damage, and as long as a librarian looks at him occasionally, he'll stay up.

[Jafar]

Few more games, few more things.

- Hannah = TANK, throw prospector for SoulStones, shield upgrade or engineer buff. Of course some models can kill her easily, but mostly all attacks will be deflected.

- You can counter many things, but mostly it depends on one of your models - for example markers and Drachen trooper

- at high level plays, it may be too easy to counter whole keyword. Simply take things that ignore armour and can kill stuff (my crews are quite elite). But otherwise it's quite decent master.

[Micawber]

10 hours ago, Jafar said:

Few more games, few more things.

- Hannah = TANK, throw prospector for SoulStones, shield upgrade or engineer buff. Of course some models can kill her easily, but mostly all attacks will be deflected.

- You can counter many things, but mostly it depends on one of your models - for example markers and Drachen trooper

- at high level plays, it may be too easy to counter whole keyword. Simply take things that ignore armour and can kill stuff (my crews are quite elite). But otherwise it's quite decent master.

Like you said - in a vacuum there are quite a few models able to kill her in one turn but due to the support available to her and her own "adaptive tactics" you can make killing her quite the challenge. In melee you can easily get her to shielded +2 or higher with focussed (engineer buff). That alone already calls for really heavy hitters like the ice golem  and even then the opponent needs an ice pillar, slow you and discard multiple cards to even declare those trigger through counterspell.
Against ranged she will most likely not be able to rely on counterspell but with her siphon power it's super easy to give herself shielded +2 and concealment through the engineer buff. She is far from unkillable but with just one turn of prep you should be able to weather most sotrms with Hannah.

Von Schill is versatile but what he kinda struggles against is trickier crews with lots of obeys and hand control. The Freikorp is kinda card hungry with all the triggers you wanna hit and all the effects that need you to discard. It's also super frustrating when you give out upgrades and the opponent obeys your model to fire that shiny new rocket launcher into your own folks before you can even activate it.

In my experience it is a lot harder to counter the Freikorp or armor specifically this edition. Afaik there is much less straight "ignore armor" even counting triggers and even then you have so much more movement tricks, heals and general shenanigans at your disposal that it is not as cut and dry like in M2.

[Jafar]

11 minutes ago, Micawber said:

Von Schill is versatile but what he kinda struggles against is trickier crews with lots of obeys and hand control. The Freikorp is kinda card hungry with all the triggers you wanna hit and all the effects that need you to discard. It's also super frustrating when you give out upgrades and the opponent obeys your model to fire that shiny new rocket launcher into your own folks before you can even activate it.

In my experience it is a lot harder to counter the Freikorp or armor specifically this edition. Afaik there is much less straight "ignore armor" even counting triggers and even then you have so much more movement tricks, heals and general shenanigans at your disposal that it is not as cut and dry like in M2.

Two great points, I agree with you. I don't know power of obey yet, because there is no Zoraida (or other obey - style master) player in my meta. It took great hit after Sandeep era of M2E

As for armour, I had some bad luck with things like Mad Dog red jokering my models etc. and because i play quite "elite" crews, even lose of 1 key model may be quite bad for me. But of course, there is not so many models that can ignore armour/shielded.

[Zebo]

Yes, Hannah can be quite tanky, although I have lost her several times when facing serious models. Who has proved to be a reliable tank to me is Arik.

I think the meta of this edition is becoming the resource control crews. If your hand is drained you have little chances to win, and if you can easily replenish your hand, you have the control of the duels, can trigger easily and have a great advantage.

In the other hand, crews like Freikorp with no way to add suits, so many discarding taxes and so few card drawing, may play face to face with killy crews, or mobile crews, or summoning crews... but put them versus crews that control the cards and they will struggle.

[Micawber]

16 hours ago, Zebo said:

In the other hand, crews like Freikorp with no way to add suits, so many discarding taxes and so few card drawing, may play face to face with killy crews, or mobile crews, or summoning crews... but put them versus crews that control the cards and they will struggle.

I feel like Freikorp actually have an insane amount of control over their suits and triggers betweens things like "siphon power" or "reference the field guide". It's the sheer amount of discard-options for beneficial effects like the mentioned  "reference the field guide" or "shouting srders" that can really starve you for cards if you go overboard. Good thing is that those effects don't care about high cards at all. Then there are those card filtering abilities, mostly on the engineer in "tools of the job" and "strengthen armor".

They do definitely lack card draw but against crews that starve your hand you can at least stone for suits on both of you core models (Arik, Hannah) and can still hit your suits on minions with some of the beforementioned abilities. Also none of the bread-and-butter abilities (Load up, adaptive tactics, strengthern armor) of the crew need any suits to go of.

[Zebo]

8 hours ago, Micawber said:

I feel like Freikorp actually have an insane amount of control over their suits and triggers betweens things like "siphon power" or "reference the field guide"

I wouldn't say that 4 of 10 models is an insane amount, specially if 2 of them need to discard card and the other two suffers/makes damage.

So many discard and so few draw really hurts Freikorps.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

I wouldn't say that 4 of 10 models is an insane amount, specially if 2 of them need to discard card and the other two suffers/makes damage.

So many discard and so few draw really hurts Freikorps.

It might not be insane, but its a lot higher than no way, and probably puts them as one of the best crews for adding the suits they want to an action. (I'd put the engineer at a card cycle rather than card discard as you end up with as many cards as you started with to get the suit and you can do it even if you have no cards in hand).  I fully agree that they don't have good card draw, and so need to manage their card discard carefully, but they are probably one of the better crews at adding suits to reach triggers.

[Jesy Blue]

... but with Arcane Reservoir and so much healing available, it kind of balances out.

[Zebo]

With so much healing you mean the Steam Trunk and the Librarian? 

[Barmution]

25 minutes ago, Zebo said:

With so much healing you mean the Steam Trunk and the Librarian? 

He probably also means the My Loyal Servant trigger on VS himself, Juggernaut on Laz which Hannah can copy, the construct specific healing from the Engineer action, the Survival Skills trigger on the Freikorpsmann and the fact that both VS and the Freikorpsmann has the Survivalist ability which boosts the healing they receive.

Not to be a dink but you seem to have decided that the M3e Freikorps is just all bad compared to M2e and your posts are just reflecting your opinion without even considering opposing viewpoints. They are in a good spot. Play them, but play them to their strengths.

[Zebo]

Not at all. Freikorps is, compared to the rest of the crews, quite stronger than they was in M2E.

More important for me, they are A LOT funnier to play than in M2E (previous 5th wave).

There's things that I dislike of them, of course, and I'm not gonna ignore those.