Savage Thoughts

[Gaston]

I didn’t start testing Euripides until towards the end of the closed Beta, so my experience with him is somewhat limited. Nevertheless, I thought I would share what I had learned thus far, and hope it is a helpful launching point for other’s brainstorms, games, and ideas. One note is this is written off of the last beta update, so apologies for any factual errors due to changes that have occurred since (or things that changed that I missed). 

Why play Savages? Play-style wise they offer a lot of dominating board control with the ice pillars and rough terrain. They are a very interesting crew to use as you have to manage several resources in wounds for The Old Ways, your discard pile, and the ice pillars themselves. Finally...they are giants and that is just awesome.

Being a relatively recent addition to the game, the Savage keyword is somewhat limited:

• Euripides
• Primordial Magic
• Thoon
• Geryon
• Cyclops
• Gigant
• Bultingun
• Lyssa

The Old Ways: It can be a little crazy to get your head around at first, but it is a phenomenally cool ability. It is particularly useful to cycling suited cards to get multiple triggers in a row, but also just for reusing high cards in your deck. A word of caution with using this ability--you don’t need to overuse it. The general goal should be twice per turn per model is plenty. This is due to Frozen Vigor--you heal the one damage from using Old Ways during your activation, and get to use the Shielded to cover for when your opponent attacks you.

Ice Pillars: A key feature of the crew, one thing to keep in mind is that they generate cover against shooting attacks, to a maximum of 3” from them (they are Height 4 themselves however). I have 12 pillars, and have found that to be more than plenty. Additionally, destructible terrain requires a model to be within 1” and take an action to remove it, so always bring them up a bit further that 1” from models if possible, so that you waste the most amount of AP. Additionally, there are models in each faction with the ability to remove terrain, they will most certainly be counter-hires and things you need to keep a lookout for in order to neutralize. If your opponent does not bring counter-hires, incorporeal, or flight, they will quickly find themselves at a severe positioning disadvantage.

• Guild: Riotbreaker, Cornelius Basse
• Resurrectionist: Molly
• Neverborn: Poltergeist
• Arcanist: Willie Brant, Union Miner, Soulstone Miner, Rasputina, Ice Golem
• Outcast: Mad Dog Brackett, Drache Trooper
• Gremlins: Lucky Emissary, Pere Ravage, Alphonse, Gluttony
• Ten Thunders: Obsidian Oni, Sidir Alchibal, Lotus Eater

An additional item to be aware of with the crew is movement. The ice pillars are fantastic for blocking choke points, but it is a two way street, they also block off you. And just as they give cover, they also provide your opponent’s models with cover. On top of this, the majority of the theme models are on 50mm bases, which does present difficulty maneuvering across the table. It is particularly important to plan your first turn moves before you deploy otherwise you can jam yourself up. Fortunately the crew itself has numerous abilities that let them manipulate the position of ice pillars and teleport around the table. 

Keep this in mind as well for the Bultungin--they are Fae in addition to Savages, which means they drop Underbrush markers. These can be great for slowing down your opponent further, and giving you concealment on the approach. However, there is limited access to ignore them within the keyword, so make sure they don’t ultimately get in your way!

Frozen Vigor: This is an ability found on a majority of the theme models. It is relatively easy to get use out of, and, as previously mentioned, essentially allows for 2 free uses of The Old Ways a turn. Once during your activation (then you heal one wound) and then a second time after your activation defensively (shielded removes the damage from The Old Ways). It is a key balancing factor for The Old Ways and you should try to leverage it whenever possible.

Hard to Kill: A fairly common ability across all the “giant” models, also a fairly straightforward one to understand. Keep in mind to look at healing models when hiring your crew (Serena), or bring models that can self heal (Geryon), in order to keep your guys at 2 wounds or higher.

Euripides: The big guy himself is pretty chunky with 14 wounds, however with The Old Ways he has a tendency to burn through them quickly. You really really want to be miserly with using the Old Ways with him, and instead rely on his other abilities, such as... Intuition is a straightforward ability that synergizes well with The Old Ways and makes your activation very efficient with a little forward thinking. Rune Shaped Ice/Frozen Domain are his go to action/trigger, particularly for set up in the early game, it allows you to get out multiple pillars efficiently. Reflected Visage/Shattering Surprise is the best way of moving around the table, and solves a lot of his large base issues. Glacial Shove is great for bottling up enemies and setting Cyclops up later on in the turn. Bowling with Ice Pillars is not something to be underestimated either. It is Stat 6 vs Mv (the TN is based on your duel total), so you should be roughly even or +1 on most models in the game. The important part is that it is a Tactical Action, not an attack. Terrifying? Nope. Incorporeal? Nada. Doesn’t target, so no Manipulative, Serena Countenance, or resist triggers. Distracted? Who cares. With careful positioning, it can also do a surprising amount of damage. This is the ability you save that 13 for, making the Mv duel a TN 19. It is even better if you can get multiple models, multiple times in an activation, and reuse that 13 with Old Ways. At that point you have effectively cost yourself 1 high card, 1 wound, and done 4 damage per model and surrounded them with pillars, restricting movement and retaliation. Blown Back is a nice cherry on top as well. Oh, and then his fist is a mere 3 min damage as well. You know, just in case.

Also don’t forget Entomb in Ice! This ability helps a ton with pillar generation and also stops some crews and schemes cold (pun intended).

Primordial Magic: A support totem, keep him safe in the back to get that extra card each turn! He has two roles depending on your needs and when you activate him: make a model incorporeal (early turn) and remove enemy scheme markers (late turn). Incorporeal is particularly useful with this crew, as the large bases can be difficult to maneuver across the table and there is little in the way of damage reduction. The counter point is that it can be difficult to use that activation early on in the turn, it really will depend on how susceptible your opponent’s crew is to being jammed up by the ice pillars. He can technically scheme run a bit, but he is terrifyingly squishy.

Now for the crew! They broadly fall into general categories to cover various roles (again, new keyword). The henchmen is a bit of a generalist, Geryon is a melee beater, Gigant is ranged, and Cyclops is support. Bultingun are excellent schemers, and Lyssa are a very solid model for only 4ss.

Thoon: Shifting Ice is another useful trick to help your own models navigate the table. Most everything he does is relatively middle of the road, with one stand out: Frozen Trophy. For the most part the crew doesn’t have much that ignores defensive abilities (i.e. armor), so instead when you have a difficult to remove problem, you toss it into an ice pillar. The pillar can then be moved back and away from enemy models so that they cannot free their comrade (remember to reference the previous list of models that can remove terrain though!). This is basically the ability that keeps him from sitting on the shelf. Otherwise, just like Euripides, he has Intuition, which can allow him to set up the next few flips. For example, if you see a weak, severe, severe, you can keep them in that order. Then you cheat to hit the next attack, and even on a negative you will still be doing significant damage. This helps to make up for his rather sad damage track for being the expensive model he is. Otherwise, I haven’t gotten much use from Arctic Pull (read: never), and Freeze the Corpse is corner case, but useful when it happens. 

Geryon: He’s a melee beater! Pretty straightforward guy, and he can also remove pillars to heal himself. The 2” reach is fantastic in M3E, as is the min 3 damage. You should nearly always try to engage at maximum melee range so that your opponent has to waste an AP closing the distance. Chill is a very strong trigger, as it removes an AP from a model as you are damaging it. Shoulder Rush is a way of manipulating ice pillars for benefit, but definitely can feel overly complicated. The key to it is the Focused Attention trigger. 

• Place the ice pillar 6” up from the Geryon
• Use the 5 of Tomes to get the trigger
• Push 
• Move the pillar up 6” 
• Old Ways to repeat 
• Frozen Vigor

At the end you have Focus +2, have moved 2” further than Walk-Walk, and heal back up from Frozen Vigor. Obviously there will be table and terrain limitations, the best you can do is keep this maneuver in mind when deploying. Focus comes into play in a huge way when it comes to leveraging The Old Ways efficiently.

• Attack, use Focus
• Make sure to hit
• The positive to damage cancels out the normal negative
• Cheat a Severe
• Attack again, use The Old Ways to reuse the Severe
• Enjoy doing 9 damage, at least
• Heal with Frozen Vigor

Inhuman Reflexes is an upgrade well worth considering as Diving Charge can provide a bit of extra damage, but Butterfly Jump can be very dirty when combined with the inability to charge the Geryon. With the above, and diving charge, 10 damage in 2 AP is fairly doable (provided you dodge Terror, and Armor, and Hard to Wound, etc.).

Cyclops: An iconic model, and a huge part of the crew. Other than Euripides they are the only other model that can drop an ice pillar on demand. Additionally, they have a strong min 3 damage track (min 3 is a BIG deal in M3E) and Grit for a positive flip. Their biggest impact however may come from Frozen Runes. This ability lets them heal models in a pulse, but even more interestingly they can stagger off an ice pillar. This synergizes significantly with a lot of abilities in the crew. It makes it easier for Euripides to go bowling with ice pillars for example. It is feeds into the positioning control theme of the crew. The other excellent use of Frozen Runes is dropping a scheme marker off of an ice pillar. This neatly side steps a lot of the restrictions on the Interact action, and being able to scheme at range helps the crew with its low maneuverability.

Gigant: Cheaper end, ranged savage giant. The arcing shot is important when playing around ice pillars, as it allows them to ignore the cover that their own crew is generating. They can also teleport around the table with Shattering Surprise, but more interestingly perhaps is that they can teleport other models with the Shattering Shove trigger. There are currently no restrictions on friendly models or which ice pillar they can be placed next to, so you can teleport anything you want a significant distance across the table. Much like the Geryon, they benefit greatly from the Focus/Old Ways combination. They can teleport 8”, toss a boulder with focus, toss it again with The Old Ways for 5 damage, a 3 damage blast, then another shot (at least 2 damage). Bear in mind this is rather card and set up intensive, requiring at least a 5 Rams, an ice pillar, and then a severe to cheat in the focused shot (and possibly discarding to ignore cover). The non-teleport effect of Cave Drawings is situationally useful, but most frequently shows up in Corrupted Idols where you can prevent an opponent from interacting with the Idol until they remove the pillar.

Bultingun: Were-hyena scheme runners! Just by being on the table they place severe terrain, which adds even more movement control to the crew (see a pattern?). Toss in the Mud is a bit pricey needing a 7, but removing a condition and pushing a model 2” can be quite handy (condition removal does compete with Serena’s healing though). Deadly Pursuit though is a key ability that should not be overlooked on them. The End Phase timing has Resolve Effects occur before Score VP, therefore they can push a free 4” before checking to score. This can allow for surprise moves for schemes such as Hold Up or Outflank. Otherwise, they are just super duper fast too. Weakness wise, they are relatively squishy, so keep them from getting locked down by anything too serious.

Lyssa: The Lyssa are they cheap, filler models for the crew. While they don’t appear to be much at first glance, Incorporeal gives them incredible mobility (even through ice pillars) and they are more durable than they cost thanks to combining Incorporeal with Frozen Vigor (and surprisingly good base stats for their cost). A lot of their attacks have a low Stat, making them more reliant on The Old Ways if you want a solid shot at getting something off. Misdirected Rage can be a bit tricky to set up, but any ability that nets you a free action is a very efficient ability to use (you are doubling your AP). Most notably, they have a psuedo-Lure for 4ss, which is a pretty decent bargain.

Non-Savage Models

Mysterious Emissary: His attacks synergize strongly with the Stagger from the Cyclops making it even easier for him to hit. Then your opponents must work through severe, hazardous terrain AND ice pillars to make any forward progress (and take damage in the meantime).

Iggy: He competes a bit with the Primordial Magic to remove scheme markers, but Iggy should be in consideration (even with tax) for every crew. He gets 3 AP with Reckless, and Arson in the right scheme pool means that he can nearly single handedly shut down an opponent.

Angel Eyes: Sniper, ignores cover. You play a crew that controls positioning, but needs ranged attacks that ignore cover. She does this. Additionally, she ignores Armor on a trigger. This is useful as a number of models that remove pillars have armor (Riot Breaker, Soul Stone Miner, Lucky Emissary, Drache Trooper). These are all models you should expect to see and want to remove early. You want your opponent to have to waste AP to get around the pillars, these models are too efficient.

Doppleganger: Pretty obvious, she can be more of whatever you need. Another Cyclops, another Angel Eyes, another Geryon. 

Black Blood Shaman: Spam focus. Check. Passive healing aura. Check. Grows up into a Mature Nephilim who happens to fly over Ice Pillars. Check.

Puppets/Vasilia: She can speed up the slower Savage models and hands out a lot of Staggered. Possibly too costly a take, but a worthy consideration. Hinamatsu loves being shoved through an Ice Pillar by a Gigant. She can also use Pulling Strings for an additional action, this is most notable on the Cyclops, allowing it to take Frozen Runes twice (no non-free action restriction).

Lucius: A fun pick for a second master. He has a sniper rifle as well, so ranged attacks that avoid cover, yay (also Injured!!!). He can also Issue Command to minions, which is everyone except Euripides and Thoon. Given that the Savage models have a lot of min 3 damage tracks, this can be quite the force multiplier. 

Serena Bowman: She is difficult to drop with Eternal (benefits from a larger hand size) and brings a lot of healing to a crew that spends its wounds for defense. She is another model that should make it into a wide variety of Neverborn crews. She can also offensively place enemy models into perfect position for a nice Frozen Trophy.

Upgrades 

Upgrades are actually very useful on Savage models compared to other crews, as they actually have Minions with a high cost and wound stat. This makes the cost of an upgrade more palatable and allows you to access all 3 abilities.

Inhuman Reflexes: Butterfly Jump is VERY strong in this crew, as you can jump out of combat or into cover against ranged. Almost an auto-include for Geryon.

Ancient Pact: Card draw is always good, and with 2 copies of this you get a +2 to initiative flips. This is very useful in Corrupted Idols, where you want to be able to control the initiative, but still have some flexibility to cheat the suit.

Eldritch Magic: A difficult upgrade to find specific purpose for, I think it will mostly be a counterpick against specific masters/crews once the meta settles and we get more experience. Wong, Ironsides comes to mind perhaps?

 

[Trample]

8 hours ago, Gaston said:

Pillars: A key feature of the crew, one thing to keep in mind is that they generate cover against shooting attacks, to a maximum of 3” from them (they are Height 4 themselves however). I have 12 pillars, and have found that to be more than plenty. Additionally, destructible terrain requires a model to be within 1” and take an action to remove it, so always bring them up a bit further that 1” from models if possible, so that you waste the most amount of AP. Additionally, there are models in each faction with the ability to remove terrain, they will most certainly be counter-hires and things you need to keep a lookout for in order to neutralize. If your opponent does not bring counter-hires, incorporeal, or flight, they will quickly find themselves at a severe positioning disadvantage.

• Guild: Riotbreaker, Cornelius Basse
• Resurrectionist: None
• Neverborn: Poltergeist
• Arcanist: Willie Brant, Union Miner, Soulstone Miner
• Outcast: Mad Dog Brackett, Drache Trooper
• Gremlins: Lucky Emissary, Pere Ravage, Alphonse
• Ten Thunders: Obsidian Oni, Sidir Alchibal

Resurrectionist: Molly can remove pillars. Keep an eye out for her too! 

[solkan]

How big of a game of chicken does Rasputina vs. Euripides become?

Because the Ice Golem can remove ice pillars to heal, ice dancers can move pillars around, and Analyze Weakness (on the December Acolytes) turns off Armor and Shielded for the rest of the turn on a model.

[Gaston]

58 minutes ago, solkan said:

How big of a game of chicken does Rasputina vs. Euripides become?

Because the Ice Golem can remove ice pillars to heal, ice dancers can move pillars around, and Analyze Weakness (on the December Acolytes) turns off Armor and Shielded for the rest of the turn on a model.

I only did it once, but it was weeeeeeird. 

The worst part honestly was slow from Rasputina herself, and that you will never get cover. Otherwise, it wasn't super awful, the other thing was at the time Inhuman Reflexes let you ignore terrain when charging, so Geryon could charge through the pillars. I grabbed the schemers early and left the big boys semi-stranded in the middle, Ice Golem is a PITA, but I didn't have Angel Eyes at the time. He has a rougher time with the Geryon with Inhuman, Butterfly Jump negates flurry and 2" reach with no charging versus 1" reach means he'll basically only get one swing a turn on them. It sucks to get hit, but there is plenty to heal from! The other thing that was weird is that Frozen Vigor triggers from 2" off an ice pillar, but most (NOT ALL) of her stuff is a 1" aura, so you end up hugging, not hugging the pillars.

Analyze Weakness isn't that big a deal to Euripides, they don't have any armor, and Old Ways burns the shielded more often than enemy attacks.

Raspy is ludicrously low defense, and in our game she ended up away from any ice pillars, so she went down fairly easily (last activation of one turn, first of the next, and at that point had too few stones). Given that you can use a Gigant to pop a Geryon over to her, and then eat all the pillars, you could probably turn Ice Shield around and have it be bad for her rather than a good defensive ability. After the only game, it was going to be the plan I tried next time--save activations to the end of Turn 2 or 3, get 2 Focus on a Geryon, have a Gigant Shattering Shove it over to Tina. It eats the rest of the pillars, and 2 focus swings at 3/4/6...well she is Def 4 and 12 health. Then try to get initiative next turn and continue to smack her (depending on damage prevention). Even if you don't kill her outright that should put some fear into her.

The catch with Focus and cheating and the suit requirements, is that you can do lots of cool stuff, but realistically you can only do 1, maybe 2, complete tricks a turn. So you gotta decide what the focus of that turn is, and go for it from there. (I.e. you can port to Tina and hit her OR you can get Angel Eyes to take large chunks off the Golem, but you probably can't do both, depending on cards in hand).

[santaclaws01]

5 hours ago, Trample said:

Resurrectionist: Molly can remove pillars. Keep an eye out for her too! 

Gremlins also have Mancha Rojo and the Wrastlers who can remove markers and get a bonus to the attack. 

[Steve-El-Tragger]

1 hour ago, santaclaws01 said:

Gremlins also have Mancha Rojo and the Wrastlers who can remove markers and get a bonus to the attack. 

Gremlins also have Gluttony who can make you eat your ice pillars :D

[Gaston]

By the time this is done we should have a pretty good list

[FrostHunter]

Lotus Eater from Ten Thunder also can eat any marker to heal himself.

[santaclaws01]

On 8/10/2019 at 9:00 AM, solkan said:

How big of a game of chicken does Rasputina vs. Euripides become?

Because the Ice Golem can remove ice pillars to heal, ice dancers can move pillars around, and Analyze Weakness (on the December Acolytes) turns off Armor and Shielded for the rest of the turn on a model.

Raspy probably won't be wanting to put out as many ice pillars as she usually does either, since all of the giants can get some sort of bonus or use out of them. The incorporeal from the PM is going to be a god send however since Raspy will be putting out obstructionary ice pillars.

Ice Golem isn't that hard to deal with between Heave triggers on the Geryon and Frozen Trophy on Thoon. If you can bury it late in the turn and then chuck it away with Euripides before Raspy can activate them you've pretty much removed the Ice Golem from the fight(or if Raspy isn't in range of it).

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

On 8/10/2019 at 7:01 AM, Gaston said:

essentially allows for 2 free uses of The Old Ways a turn

Doesn't shielded get removed at the end of a turn?

[Adran]

4 minutes ago, Sol_Sorrowsong said:

Doesn't shielded get removed at the end of a turn?

Yes it does, but you can use the old ways outside your activation, and you can view Shielded+1 as a bad heal this edition. It might not "heal" you the one damage if you don't take any more damage (or only take irreducible damage) but  as was said in the post you quoted from (Emphisis mine)

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 5:01 AM, Gaston said:

The Old Ways: It can be a little crazy to get your head around at first, but it is a phenomenally cool ability. It is particularly useful to cycling suited cards to get multiple triggers in a row, but also just for reusing high cards in your deck. A word of caution with using this ability--you don’t need to overuse it. The general goal should be twice per turn per model is plenty. This is due to Frozen Vigor--you heal the one damage from using Old Ways during your activation, and get to use the Shielded to cover for when your opponent attacks you.

 

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

Ah, yes.  Thank you.  With everything else I was trying to understand, I simply didn't think about using it outside of the activation between activating and end phase, but that makes sense now.  Euripides seems like a lot of fun, but is going to take several games to wrap my head around his particular tricks. 

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

Is the action to remove a pillar considered an Interact action or just a generic action?

On 8/10/2019 at 3:17 PM, Trample said:

Additionally, destructible terrain requires a model to be within 1” and take an action to remove it

If interact, then Gigant's bonus action Cave Painting is very strong to follow up with.

[Adran]

Just now, Sol_Sorrowsong said:

Is the action to remove a pillar considered an Interact action or just a generic action?

If interact, then Gigant's bonus action Cave Painting is very strong to follow up with.

Its not an interact action. its just a generic tactical action

[Gaston]

Cave Painting is still handy for Idols, Turf War, and playing defense for your markers, esp if the Cyclops was used to lay them next to a pillar.

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

Figured this was the main Euripides thread so would add this here. I had my first game with Euripides on Saturday.  Ended 6-6 against Tara and I think I got lucky.  The strat was Turf Wars and of schemes I took Take prisoner and Search the ruins. Tara player took Hold up their forces and Outflank, neither took assassinate.  Corner deployment with terrain as a mixture of 3 buildings (impassible ht5), 2 medium forests and a couple of ht 1 walls and some scatter.

I was using the core box plus 1 cyclops and 2 bultungin.  

Overall I felt the game went pretty well, but I definitely noticed quickly  both the need for many ice pillars and very careful placement of them. Frozen Vigor is a great deterrent to avoid 1 action harassment, but I'm not sure if they become more annoying to my opponent or to myself. This of course being fixed with more experience for me. The corner layout and location of forests made it really difficult to navigate without taking some severe terrain MV penalties.  Luckily the primordial magic could get a gigant or thoon out or through a building/pillar pretty well, but only once per turn.  

This game forced more of a spread on my team and having only a single cyclops did not feel very beneficial.  I did use it to help score Search the ruins by dropping a pillar and then scheme  marker, but only once got a heal off and never got into combat with anything worth smacking. DF4 meant it died turn 4 to Talos and a Void hunter. 

Against Tara, the beast bomb from fast had me scared, but perhaps I exageratted how bad it would be.  The first time it was set up to go off, I luckily had Euripides near enough and created 4 pillars to block unbury access near my activated, fast, gigant. It might have been better to sacrifice the gigant and try to kill the nothing beast, but Incorporeal is annoying and its a henchman.  Thoon's frozen trophy was neutered pretty completely by Tara bury mechanics so he was much less impressive than I was hoping. I do like his MV 6 though.

Bultungins remain great scheme runners with MV6 and end phase push 4, but they got beast bombed later in game and removed. They did help delete 2 void wretches and get points for search the ruins, so I'd still hire them again for sure.  

Gigants were interesting with their rock lobbing.  I tried to charge into Aionus and use the trigger to teleport him through the ice, but it failed. In general I think I could play them a bit more aggressively than I did, yet they take damage pretty quickly and I don't think frozen vigor and cyclops heals will keep them on the board long if someone wants them off.

Final thought is on The old ways. It is brilliant most of the time, but once the opponent figures how to get you to start flipping cards you can lose some of the setup. This happened mostly when I attacked terrifying models or if I had to pass Glimpse the Void triggers.

I'd say it is nicely balanced with the damage because on Bultungins it was always a difficult choice if I should take the guaranteed 1 damage with the high card against a void wretch attack, or possibly suffer 2 or 3 damage if my next flip is poor.  As they don't have frozen vigor, it gets pretty intense.  Even with frozen vigor, most of my minions were whittled down half health by turn 5.  

We both played pretty strategic over killy. In the end, Tara lost 2x wretches hired and 2x void hunters summoned. I lost 2x bultungin, 1 gigant and 1 cyclops.

Tara scored 2 on Turf, 2 on Outflank, and 2 on Hold their forces

I scored 3 on Turf, 2 on Search ruins, and 1 on take prisoner (Karina, way in the back!)

What are people's thoughts about Euripides vs Tara? Her access to Fast and unbury, plus summoning makes it a real challenge I felt.  Aionus also receives 2 pass tokens on unbury, so I never got an advantage on the board or for initiative.

[MajorUndead]

2 hours ago, Sol_Sorrowsong said:

I definitely noticed quickly  both the need for many ice pillars and very careful placement of them. Frozen Vigor is a great deterrent to avoid 1 action harassment, but I'm not sure if they become more annoying to my opponent or to myself. This of course being fixed with more experience for me.

That was definitely the thing that interested me the most in Euripides. The need to master all the ice pillar shenanigans in order to be really efficient with them/not end up causing more problems for yourself than the ennemy.
The perspective of learning how to master such a master is really appealing to me.
 

 

2 hours ago, Sol_Sorrowsong said:

Incorporeal is annoying and its a henchman.

Thoon's frozen trophy was neutered pretty completely by Tara bury mechanics so he was much less impressive than I was hoping. I do like his MV 6 though.

About incorporeal, I feel like Euripides' crew may have some interesting tools. There are several tactical actions that can do damage (Euripides' pillar creation and pillar push, Thoon pillar push, the Cyclops' runes) and the damage reduction from incorporeal only works on attack actions. Maybe it's not enough to deal with a big target like the nothing beast though.
Another good thing with some actions is that they don't target an enemy model, so it bypasses things like terrifying or serene countenance (looking at you, dreamer 😛 ).

For frozen trophy, a crew with some unbury mechanics will indeed make him less interesting.
As I said I haven't played the crew yet, so I don't know if Thoon might still be interesting without that or not, but he has some ways to move ennemy models, so maybe that could still be useful.

 

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

On 9/17/2019 at 2:19 PM, MajorUndead said:

About incorporeal, I feel like Euripides' crew may have some interesting tools. There are several tactical actions that can do damage (Euripides' pillar creation and pillar push, Thoon pillar push, the Cyclops' runes) and the damage reduction from incorporeal only works on attack actions. Maybe it's not enough to deal with a big target like the nothing beast though.
Another good thing with some actions is that they don't target an enemy model, so it bypasses things like terrifying or serene countenance (looking at you, dreamer 😛 ).

For frozen trophy, a crew with some unbury mechanics will indeed make him less interesting.
As I said I haven't played the crew yet, so I don't know if Thoon might still be interesting without that or not, but he has some ways to move ennemy models, so maybe that could still be useful.

 

All good points.  I think those help with Incorporeal to a degree, and possibly could destroy wretches.  The problem I faced, was they are MV duels and void creatures tend to have a high MV value to start making it simpler to pass.  

As for Thoon, he's still worth taking. Of course there aren't many options, but he's quick, can create pillars once something dies (except those pesky void beings!) from corpse markers.  He and Euripides both have intuition, which I forgot to mention earlier but is quite excellent if you can think how to use them, cheating, and old ways best.  (I had a red joker I was able to put as card 3 so I got the big damage on a neg flip attack).  Besides from intuition, you need to remember he can push a pillar 3" on activation, which helped me somewhat with mobility issues concerning my pillars.  

I think he's in a good place, but he'd be so much better (probably too good) if he could manipulate pillars in any direction instead of towards himself.  

[Kharnage]

On 9/17/2019 at 3:36 AM, Sol_Sorrowsong said:

It might have been better to sacrifice the gigant and try to kill the nothing beast, but Incorporeal is annoying and its a henchman.

Just so we're clear, The Nothing Beast is an enforcer. He wasn't using stones to protect it, was he?

[Ogid]

20 minutes ago, Kharnage said:

Just so we're clear, The Nothing Beast is an enforcer. He wasn't using stones to protect it, was he?

It could be an inocent mistake; all cats are grey in the void...

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

19 hours ago, Kharnage said:

Just so we're clear, The Nothing Beast is an enforcer. He wasn't using stones to protect it, was he?

No, that's my mistake. I never actually attacked the Nothing beast during the game, but I'm sure he knew it was an enforcer. I just remembered it being a henchman so that gave me more reason to block it with pillars so it couldn't unbury next to me.

[Inquisitor Wall]

I was curious if anyone had tried out Candy in the crew. Her ability to heal or give out fast seems like it could be really good and she is pretty resilient. However she is a little slow to try and keep pace well.

[Ogid]

On 9/27/2019 at 4:53 PM, Inquisitor Wall said:

I was curious if anyone had tried out Candy in the crew. Her ability to heal or give out fast seems like it could be really good and she is pretty resilient. However she is a little slow to try and keep pace well.

I guess that depends on the game... she is quite disruptive, and thanks to frozen vigor those 2 damage isn't that big deal... Mind however the range of that ability is very short and she doesn't ignore ice pilars while moving nor have any  attack to charge into position; so getting her in the right position without wasting orders wouldn't be that easy. The good thing about she not having a  attack is that Lysa can give her a lot of mobility safely (and potentially 2 pings of Misery auras in her turn). She has a trigger in Glympse that let her place, that's another way to move her around...

I wouldn't pick her for heals or fast in this crew... but if you need the stun and some extra ranged firepower it's not a bad extra on top of that if you can reposition her with Lysa or her own trigger... or hire a Changeling with her... but those are a lot of OOK points, so it's probably not worth it. 

For healing I'd go with Serena, her heal is her bonus action, has 1'' extra range, end conditions and have a swift action trigger; She has a , so she can charge into position without wasting actions.

EDIT: After learning the Gigants have a MisakI-like global teleport effect I'm maybe changing my mind... it can be used to teleport her where she would be needed (or deliver a Gerion with fast...). Not saying it'd be very good, but maybe it'd be worth a look.

[Ogid]

I've been checking Euripides recently, and I'm surprised with the potential of this crew, they seem really fun!

Have anyone tried Changelings or BBS with Euripides?

The Savages have a lot of their ice pilar shenanigans as tactical actions, and some of the best tricks are in Euripides and Thoon. A Changeling would be able to drop 2 Ice Pilars copying Rune-Etched Ice with an 8 or 1 with an 8, and also reposition them with Glacial Shove/Artic Pull/Shoulder Rush.

The BBS aside for the Blasphemous ritual, the heal and the potential grow into a mature brings the ability to create corpses; that is great to combine with Lysa and Thoon  "Freeze the corpse". The range is much shorter than Cyclops and Euripides ones, but it uses instead of  to create them (which may relieve the pressure from that suit) and give some use to these bonus abilities.

The other 2 corpse creators are Blood hunter and Hayreddin; BS needs Nekima to be hired, so unless you are going for that double master isn't worth it just for the markers; and Hayreddin deals too much damage to non-Nephillims to create them and lose a lot of important synergies outside of his own crew... so the BBS seems as the only real option as corpse generator.

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

I've not found that corpses have been the best for ice pillars.  2" is really short range for the bonus action.  Ok, you can run a BBS and lyssa together, but that seems awfully expensive grouping just to get a pillar up.  Instead, just hire a cyclops.  I also feel that pillars are of mixed gains.  I've played two games with Euripides now, the second was against Perdita and had a rather annoying Papa Loco who kept blowing them up.  Even with him taking two out on average per turn, I was getting several up from killing a model with Euripides (or in 8" of him) or by summoning them with his actions.  I didn't have any corpse generators, so most corpse pillars or corpse markers were in less than useful positions, but I had a few in the mid field that gave some help.  @Ogid, the ideas are good and I like thinking out of the box with changlings and your healing suggestion with Serena seems excellent (add to list of models to get), but I'm not sure I'm sold on pillar generation from corpses as a hiring strategy.

That said, I'll be playing Molly soon, so I'm in for an uphill battle keeping pillars on the board, but corpses should be plentiful! Healing will be needed, and I need to find a way to make pillars that Molly won't rip down right away and give her cards.