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Viks Tactics


S4lt

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So there is a lot of talk of Tara, Levi, Parker and Schill but almost no mention of the Viks here. This seems odd given they were probably one of the most popular crews in M2E.

Is anyone running them, and if so, why are you taking them? What do you run with them? 

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I usually take them for Turf War. Both Viks take Soldier For Hire upgrade. I usually take Taelor, Vanessa and Emissary. Options are Barbaros, Hans, Prospector, Stalker, Marlena, Ronin (haven't actually tried Ronin yet, although they are good).

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3 hours ago, Ming said:

I usually take them for Turf War. Both Viks take Soldier For Hire upgrade. I usually take Taelor, Vanessa and Emissary. Options are Barbaros, Hans, Prospector, Stalker, Marlena, Ronin (haven't actually tried Ronin yet, although they are good).

Turf war is what I was thinking of running them in too. I also think there is a place for them in Idols where you ignore the idols for the first turns and just aim at tabling your opponent. 

Have you tried servant of dark power on them? 2ss feels like a lot for hard to kill.

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I use Bishop & The Midnight Stalker, both with Servent of Dark Powers, then once I get TMS across the center line (end of turn 1 without doubt) I have 4 models with 3 AP on the table to run schemes with... coupled with the 5" of free moment you get from each Ronin, you have a very fast crew off all scheme runners..... which no one thinks about when playing Vik's!  They think I'm just gonna bum rush them, but I'm using my superior mobility to score everything, then Battle Tempo back out next turn. 

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HtK does not worth 2ss, the game hasn't change so much, and at 1ss + :+flipto heals were not worth every game, so twice the cost and worse side effect is quite bad. 

 

I've used it many times, and in every single game HtK has does nothing better that could have been done with 1 single SS used for damage reduction. 

Of course, I've never waisted Master's actions in prosecuting and removing scheme markers. 

 

Outcast upgrades started being OP, and after many complaints they were nerfed to the ground, and despite a lot of more complaints, they keep our upgrades at that level. 

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4 hours ago, S4lt said:

Turf war is what I was thinking of running them in too. I also think there is a place for them in Idols where you ignore the idols for the first turns and just aim at tabling your opponent. 

Have you tried servant of dark power on them? 2ss feels like a lot for hard to kill.

HtK pays its price. It's the missing piece to make them really durable. 

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38 minutes ago, Zebo said:

HtK does not worth 2ss, the game hasn't change so much, and at 1ss + :+flipto heals were not worth every game, so twice the cost and worse side effect is quite bad.

It's funny you bring that up!

Prior to the 2 upgrades on the Vik's... I have 11 Soul Stones left.... I just couldn't get that one point to balance out.  I would have LOVED to walk in with 10 stones, but I couldn't let myself waste that 1 point.  Then, if I'm gonna add an upgrade to 1 Vik, I might as well add it to both... otherwise I'll get confused.  And with the way I play, picking up a scheme marker hurts them and stops them hurting me?  Win-win.

9 minutes ago, SuperFly TNT said:

Outcast upgrades were never OP... 

I present Exhibit A.... "Mark of Shez'uul"!

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The first Hired Mercenary had the :+flipdamage to charge attacks, what was huge on any melee beater. 

But the f-lord SoDP gave Eternal to any minion. A Desolation Engine eternal is a pain, and a Drache with mines and eternal was too painful even to play with... 

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I like the Hard to Kill upgrade on the Viks. I payed 2 stones last edition, I will pay 2 this one. <- corrected, it was 1, still gonna pay it.

I have only pulled out the Viks for Reckoning. Viks, Taylor, Bishop, Ronin, and Student. Ronin are mostly flanking scheme runners. I use the Viks to take out my opponent’s corner stones early. I think I had 1 Vik game go to time, and the rest my opponent scooped. The one that went to time, finished 4, and my opponent and I disagreed who would win turn 5. He thought he could stop me, and I think I just needed to hold Lazarus to stop him deleting my markers.

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Hey, never means a mighty long time..... but I was bearly in the open beta so I couldn't say what transpired with stuff that never made it to the printer.    

I throw myself on the mercy of the court!

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1 hour ago, ShinChan said:

Anyone playing the desperate mercenaries? I haven't seen them in any list posted around 😕 I think that the Ronins are a bargain, so if you can afford the Ronin, you just add her, otherwise more stones to the Viks and henchmen.

I think they became victims of their own success. Min 1 was the end of them.

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Serious... sure, they're cheap, sure it's a 14" range, sure it's got Rapid Fire.  But at Stat 4 & 5, Move 4, 1/3/5 damage track, they're laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

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11 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

Serious... sure, they're cheap, sure it's a 14" range, sure it's got Rapid Fire.  But at Stat 4 & 5, Move 4, 1/3/5 damage track, they're laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

The move 4 is a lie (I know that's what it says on the card,) they have Battle tempo. That's putting the move up top at least 5 equivalent if not more.

the damage track on the rifle is asking for a focus. at that point its pretty scary to a lot of things. (hitting the severe 5 is certainty likely enough to worry several models). Sometime I like that its an easy choice to go for a focused shot rather than debate on taking 2 shots or 1 focused, and this is an easy choice, when ever possible you are better to focus and shoot rather than shoot twice.

Between Disguised and Demise they are relatively durable for their cost

They're not great, but they can do a decent amount of work for their 4 ss cost. They are ok at ranged, not bad at scheme marker dropping, a slight pain to kill.

Ronin are clearly better but they are the cost of 1.5 desperate mercs.

 

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6 minutes ago, Zebo said:

Rapid Fire + weak 1= Recipe to Failure. 

I'd agree I'm not going to use it automatically every time I shoot, but if you're shooting something with armour, then its probably still worth it. If you're shooting near the end of the turn and have cards spare to discard, its probably worth it. If the model is on 1 wound left its probably worth it. If that point of damage makes killing it easier, or scores you a point, then its probably worth it.  I'd say Rapid Fire + weak 1= careful choice each time.

But I think you and I have very different styles of play

18 hours ago, Zebo said:

Of course, I've never waisted Master's actions in prosecuting and removing scheme markers. 

Because to me that reads as "I don't make my masters do things that will win me the game. " which just sounds like a stupid idea. I try not to waste my Masters action's on pointless things like killing enemies when I don't need to, although there are plenty of times when you want to kill enemies, most games  aren't won by killing. 

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1 hour ago, Adran said:

Ronin are clearly better but they are the cost of 1.5 desperate mercs.

With an armor piercing sword, On The Move with a 12" gun, & Hard To Kill, I think they are worth much more than the 1.5 times the cost implies.

Mind you, I tracked down the ugly female metal Desperate Mercenary alt sculpt from 1st edition and I LOVED putting them on the table.  If they were 3 Stones, I'd use them... but that are literally half as good as Ronin, and I can't fit them in my super mobile Mercenary crew because they are just too slow for what I'm doing.

Also, point for point, why take a Desperate Mercenary for 4 Stones when you could get a Student of Conflict?

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4 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

Also, point for point, why take a Desperate Mercenary for 4 Stones when you could get a Student of Conflict?

Well the student is either a mobile scheme marker dropper, which it does slightly better than a desperate merc (with 2 decent ways of removing enemy markers), or its an AP transferer, on a 2 for 1 basis. If I'm trying to do something like breakthrough then I don't need to spend all my actions moving to do things, and so I can be taking pot shots with the Desperate merc as well as doing breakthrough.  I can see using either depending on how I expect the game to go. The fact that Focus carries over means that I can spend some time building it up for when I need it.

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Maybe I've not explained myself. 

Still I've not needed to waste my master's valuable actions reaching and removing scheme markers. I've used them sometimes just running and dropping scheme markers, or doing any other mundane stuff. 

But I've never felt "hey, wish I had This Will Fetch a High Price"

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14 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

Serious... sure, they're cheap, sure it's a 14" range, sure it's got Rapid Fire.  But at Stat 4 & 5, Move 4, 1/3/5 damage track, they're laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

Yeah, but with that 14" range they can support the Viks with That One Counts as Mine from about anywhere, which is nice. 

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Since the damage downgrade of the Vik's, I'm running the crew in very Scheme Marker heavy pools with every model scheming and anti scheming... so yeah, I'll use them to deny points to get more soul stones to keep them alive to stop you from getting more points.  But hey, it's how I run Mercenary.

1 hour ago, Trample said:

Yeah, but with that 14" range they can support the Viks with That One Counts as Mine from about anywhere, which is nice. 

I'm either within 12" of another Vik or a Ronin, or I'm half a table away... however, if it comes up that I'm >2' away from using That One Counts As Mine, I'll make it a point to say you were right, deal?

 

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