Some thoughts and questions about Family and Lucius

[Xekros]

For the Family, can I use ¡A por Él! to Concentrate after I've used Family Values to concentrate with the same model? I'm thinking so, since ¡A por Él! says it happens "after the end of this model's activation," I just want to make sure so I don't accidentally cheat.

Secondly, unless the lore changed significantly, does Perdita still have the whole "bullet bending" shtick going on? I ask because I'm not really seeing it on the card; to me it seems that she should have gotten sharpshooter instead of expert shot, trading with Niño, maybe?

Lastly, and largely unrelatedly, does Lucius still play like Lucius from 2e? He was my favorite master in the game after his rework, but I'm not seeing any of the interesting pieces of it on his card anymore. Things like Devil's Deal or Guild Intelligence were a lot of what was useful, and I also got very good mileage out of the Secret Service trigger. I hope I'm just missing it or it's somewhere else in the crew, but if he's just an Issue Command stick that sounds really boring, to be honest.

That wound up a bit more negative than I intended, especially as I presume it's quite too late to actually change anything, but I can elaborate on the Lucius concerns if anyone's interested for some reason.

Thanks for reading, hope you all can help.

[trikk]

Perdita has no Bullet Bending or any other cover/concealment mitigation. She can ignore friendly fire and have an armor piercing trigger from Expert Marksman.

You can't Family Values to Concentrate and then A Por El to concentrate because it's the same activation and Concentrate is once per activation.

 

Lucius is basically an Issue Command bot but with Changelings it becomes pretty interesting to maximize his ap efficiency and card draw.

[Angelshard]

Regarding family values and A Por El. P.35 in the rulebook has the detailed timing chart says that the activation ends in step C3, but A Por El happens in step C4 chain activations. This is before step 4 Where the next activation starts. The question is, can you take an action between activations, if you can then I'd say yes you can concentrate on the same model that was targeted by family values. If you are the only one with models left you could even use familiy values on the same model again. So you took concentrate from family values in one activation, used A Por El to concentrate in between activations and then used family values again to take concentrate. 

Sharpshooter on Perdita would have been way too strong, but I guess you can see some bullet bending in Cut down to size and Target practice. 

As trikk said the Elite crew is mostly about maximizing Action effeciency and hand manipulation, but there's alot of fun other stuff the crew can do. Lucius himself isn't the tanky type he could become in M2e, but he does have some options in his attack actions, akthough 3 times command is probably going to be his most common activation.

[belorey]

10 hours ago, Xekros said:

For the Family, can I use ¡A por Él! to Concentrate after I've used Family Values to concentrate with the same model? I'm thinking so, since ¡A por Él! says it happens "after the end of this model's activation," I just want to make sure so I don't accidentally cheat.

Yes you can. You can concentrate Once per Activation. But ¡A por él! happens after your activacion.

[trikk]

27 minutes ago, belorey said:

Yes you can. You can concentrate Once per Activation. But ¡A por él! happens after your activacion.

I thoughts it's "at the end of the activation" not "after" so you're correct.

[belorey]

23 minutes ago, trikk said:

I thoughts it's "at the end of the activation" not "after" so you're correct.

The exactly words are:

¡A por él!: After this model ends its activation, another friendly Family model...

[4thstringer]

About Lucius- on his own card yes he is just a poor man's version of last edition.  The biggest difference to playing him is that last edition it was rare to even bother with in theme models with him.  Lawyers, though fun, were garbage.  Guild guard were better once they got buffed, but honestly you didn't need them.  Monster hunters and thralls were the way to go.

Now you can still include some of them, but you will pay a tax and won't get cards for obeying them.  You can end up instead with in theme stuff, a bunch of cards, and a real glass cannon in agent 46.  Investigators are in theme, but tbh I'm not sold on them test.  They also can act as conditional secondary beaters, which feels weird.  Lawyers and changelings keep the obeys going (a thrall, monster Hunter, or executioner might be who you want to obey with them).  

So it's definitely a different play experience with him.

[explorator]

Lucius is a manipulation and control Master, who excels at card draw and hand management. Lucius, like others in M3e, needs Keyword minions to maximize his own poterntial. My mileage has varied with Agent 46, as Stealth only protects from ranged attacks, but he does hit hard, and Mimic is nice for a free action.

Lawyers are excellent in this crew. They can throw around Shielded +2 and have a decent Obey. Investiagtors are must have IMO. The range 0" is deceptive because an AV of 7 and a built-in MASK for stagger can be nasty. Active Crime Scene is one of the few Aura's that makes enemy Scheme and Start markers be ignored.

Changelings are nice, and I try to run two most games. Changelings "Just Like You" action can benefit from Lucius Issue Command to order Lucius himself to Hidden Sniper enemies. Only once per Changeling per turn, but extra shots are nice. Put Expert Marksman on Lucious, and Hidden Sniper igores friendly fire.

The Scribe is pretty meh, but is a source of potential heals when unbutied.

[Dark Reaper]

3 minutes ago, explorator said:

Changelings are nice, and I try to run two most games. Changelings "Just Like You" action can benefit from Lucius Issue Command to order Lucius himself to Hidden Sniper enemies. Only once per Changeling per turn, but extra shots are nice. Put Expert Marksman on Lucious, and Hidden Sniper igores friendly fire.

Unfortunately, just like you only copies tactical actions.

[explorator]

8 minutes ago, Dark Reaper said:

Unfortunately, just like you only copies tactical actions.

Worse...Just Like You only works with non-free Tactical Actions, which there are precious few of.

Issue Command is a non-free Tactical Action. So is Scatter.

[Dark Reaper]

Yeah, I suppose you can issue command yourself, but that costs you a 7+ for a stat5 attack. Seems a poor use of your resources tbh.

[4thstringer]

I tend to think of it as a 7+ for a stat 5 attack that gives injured (so you might be attacking a very low def model) which you don't have to expose your master to any danger in order to do.

Is it an all game move? No.  Is there a very useful place for it?  Sure.

[Xekros]

Wow, that got a lot more traction than I expected; thanks for the replies.

A pity about Lucius, I doubt I'll play him much at this point, might get the same sort of feel from Nellie, at least? I did play him Neverborn in 2e (I'm switching to guild for 3e), but my core crew was essentially a trapper, two autumn knights, and a rougarou when they were released. Seems a bit odd that they toned down Issue Command and then game Zoraida her Ensorcel trigger, but  I'm not a game designer, so maybe it makes sense somehow?

I'm glad the ¡A por Él! Thing works, that should be fun. 

11 hours ago, Angelshard said:

Sharpshooter on Perdita would have been way too strong, but I guess you can see some bullet bending in Cut down to size and Target practice. 

I'm not suggesting that Perdita have both Expert Shot and Sharpshooter, rather that she replaces Expert Shot with Sharpshooter, and Niño replaces Sharpshooter with Expert Shot.

I've just realised that I've been saying Expert Marksman (the upgrade) when I meant Expert Shot (the ability), apologies.

I realize Perdita could take the Expert Marksman upgrade, but then you can't take LLC, which looks like a generally better investment from my limited experience.

[trikk]

17 minutes ago, Xekros said:

Wow, that got a lot more traction than I expected; thanks for the replies.

A pity about Lucius, I doubt I'll play him much at this point, might get the same sort of feel from Nellie, at least? I did play him Neverborn in 2e (I'm switching to guild for 3e), but my core crew was essentially a trapper, two autumn knights, and a rougarou when they were released. Seems a bit odd that they toned down Issue Command and then game Zoraida her Ensorcel trigger, but  I'm not a game designer, so maybe it makes sense somehow?

You can Issue Command on Agent 46 or a Doppelganger for a 5, disengage them from combat/or remove a condition and get a card. I think that's pretty nice. You also can filter your opponents hand

[Xekros]

7 minutes ago, trikk said:

You can Issue Command on Agent 46 or a Doppelganger for a 5, disengage them from combat/or remove a condition and get a card. I think that's pretty nice. You also can filter your opponents hand

The disengage seems pretty easy to block, though, since the push is specifically away from Lucius. I don't necessarily think he's bad, I just think I'd be disappointed by him after the 2e version. Really I was hoping they'd go for more of Youko's design for him, and add Red Tape tokens. I did very much enjoy putting Red Tape on Teddy or Nekima.

The opponent filtering does seem neat, though, that improves my estimation of him somewhat.

[trikk]

3 minutes ago, Xekros said:

The disengage seems pretty easy to block, though, since the push is specifically away from Lucius. I don't necessarily think he's bad, I just think I'd be disappointed by him after the 2e version. Really I was hoping they'd go for more of Youko's design for him, and add Red Tape tokens. I did very much enjoy putting Red Tape on Teddy or Nekima.

The opponent filtering does seem neat, though, that improves my estimation of him somewhat.

TBH he's way better than M2E Lucius power-level wise. I can't say about how interesting he is, because I like simple masters

[Tors]

M2e Lucius was a beast. M3e Lucius is the bottom line at least for nvb. 

[Angelshard]

@Tors M2e lucius was never top tier in m2e, he was b tier at best, even after buffs. 

M3e lucius is way, way more competitive. I'd argue he's a top master in both guild and neverborn. 

Hand size 7 and incredible card draw. This by itself makes him really strong. 

Issuing commands through changelings to let doppel and agent copy a good ranged attack and make a nasty gun line copying angel eyes or a rifleman. 

He has free condition removal in his totem. 

Great scheme marker control, both in placing and denying. 

 

[Adran]

I would suggest at least trying Lucius. If you don't just want him to be Issue command on a stick, then you certainly don't have to play him that way.

His overall feel should still be similar, but the way to achieve that is likely to change. A turn of a Lucius crew should have the feel of strange and unexpected things happing all over the board with a surprisingly high amount of success as if it was all part of a masterminds plan. (at least when views through the eye of the "story").

I can read the masquerade story about Lucius, and see how that sort of thing might be achieved in an M3 game. (and also in the M1 and M2 games)

That doesn't mean that his new style will match with how you want him to play, but it might.

 

I guess in the lore Perdita is still a great shot and able to hit anything, but the crew mechanics have changed, and given the Family crew great access to the Focus condition which allows them to mechanically ignore the downsides to cover and concealment fairly easy.

[Cursed25]

13 hours ago, Xekros said:

The disengage seems pretty easy to block, though, since the push is specifically away from Lucius. I don't necessarily think he's bad, I just think I'd be disappointed by him after the 2e version. Really I was hoping they'd go for more of Youko's design for him, and add Red Tape tokens. I did very much enjoy putting Red Tape on Teddy or Nekima.

The opponent filtering does seem neat, though, that improves my estimation of him somewhat.

I found it funny you would have prefered something like Youko's card in TT because when I looked at the 2 (and I plan to play the 2 masters because I really like control masters!  ), I was thinking they have a lot of similitude in what they can do and that Lucius and his crew was doing it a little better than her and her crew!

 

I never played Lucius in M2e, but in M3e I think he will be really strong and annoying to play against!

[Tors]

2 hours ago, Angelshard said:

@Tors M2e lucius was never top tier in m2e, he was b tier at best, even after buffs. 

M3e lucius is way, way more competitive. I'd argue he's a top master in both guild and neverborn. 

Hand size 7 and incredible card draw. This by itself makes him really strong. 

Issuing commands through changelings to let doppel and agent copy a good ranged attack and make a nasty gun line copying angel eyes or a rifleman. 

He has free condition removal in his totem. 

Great scheme marker control, both in placing and denying. 

 

I guess you never played against a competetive Lucius Crew, but two 5 AP thralls used to solve a great deal of problems. Add Monster Hunter, one Investigator and the hidden sniper combined with lucius fantastic dim-bulb and res tape and you got a Crew that could easily handle most situations. Lucius himself got a lot done.

The new Lucius is simply dead after his two main beaters die. And they gonna die against every seriouse list. Than you are left with a Master and two changelings unable to contribute in a meaningfull way and a doppelganger that hasn't reliable targets to copy from. Sure you can draw a lot of cards if you hit all those target numbers and misinformation is nice 70% of the time, but the whole Crew crumbles because negative flips are a terrible form of defence against the new prevalence of focused attacks. Additional the elite keyword is... whacky. Agent46 is a mediocre beater at  best without any defensive abilitys, Reid and Investigators are nice, through 0" is very short and you have but one option to apply staggered on range. I've only played him in NVB with m3e but i have a better performance from every other master. I have to add we play a very aggressive and competetive meta. In casual games he is probably fine (through everything is, as long as it didn't play against non-casual set ups)

[longfanz]

31 minutes ago, Tors said:

Agent46 is a mediocre beater at  best without any defensive abilitys,

What? Agent46 is a beast, you are aware that is not possible to cheat against him, right? this means getting almost every trigger you want or straight or even positive damage flips. Pair him with a decent gun (Ryle if DMH, rifleman, pathfinder...) and you will have a very scary ranged henchman. He also have stealth so certainly  a defensive ability there

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

41 minutes ago, Tors said:

The new Lucius is simply dead after his two main beaters die.

But then Dashel summons another one 😉

[Tors]

27 minutes ago, longfanz said:

What? Agent46 is a beast, you are aware that is not possible to cheat against him, right? this means getting almost every trigger you want or straight or even positive damage flips. Pair him with a decent gun (Ryle if DMH, rifleman, pathfinder...) and you will have a very scary ranged henchman. He also have stealth so certainly  a defensive ability there

I realise that, but i don't value ranged attacks very high when most opponents engage you at 12"+ and you have to bring another pricey piece and a 6 to gain access. Given a Standard Terrain Setup of 30% coverage.

[longfanz]

Well, just agent pouncing around hitting things is pretty good.