Corrupted Hounds Role.

[Ogid]

I can't wrap my mind around this model... why/how are they useful? Do they fit in your lists? 

They seem to die in 1 attack, so I'm not sure how useful the Hunting partners/Annoying abilities would be; they are cheap and their corpses will be useful when they die to grow other Nephs... but that doesn't seem that awesome when you have the blood hunter and those mask triggers to generate them. And as scheme runners they doesn't seem that good when you have the Young Nephs.

Sending them in packs doesn't seem that useful... I'd rather send a mature Neph than 3 dogs for a flank, they deal less damage are slower and are more vulnerable to... everything, shockwaves, blasts, guns, normal attacks... I'm a bit lost with these doggies

A follow up question, Annoying says Walk and Charge are Tactical actions... are all general actions (Interact, Disengage, Concentrate, Assist, Walk and Charge) tactical actions or just those 2?

Ty in advance!

[Pikciwok]

They are very cheap schemers, can be dropped from Fly with me trigger for extra black blood damage, as you have already pointed out they provide you with cheap and numerous corpse source, plus they are Nephilim, so their deaths trigger Nekima's 'Don't kill my Nephilim!' Outrage aura.

Three Hounds can put 3 scheme markers on the centerline much easier than a Mature Nephilim - what's the point hiring Mature if you can hire 3 hounds

[Maniacal_cackle]

I haven't played Nekima, but anytime I see a 3 cost model without insignificant, I feel it has potential. The ability to cheaply interact + some utility is often worth a couple of stones.

[Maniacal_cackle]

For example, consider a hound on idols: it runs up, dies moving an idol, and then leaves a corpse marker behind. Overall very efficient use of three stones.

[Ogid]

Good points, ty guys! I thinking of them as a lone runners or in packs, but taken with other models they could be useful

1 hour ago, Pikciwok said:

They are very cheap schemers, can be dropped from Fly with me trigger for extra black blood damage, as you have already pointed out they provide you with cheap and numerous corpse source, plus they are Nephilim, so their deaths trigger Nekima's 'Don't kill my Nephilim!' Outrage aura.

Three Hounds can put 3 scheme markers on the centerline much easier than a Mature Nephilim - what's the point hiring Mature if you can hire 3 hounds

I totally forgot about her aura... so Nekima is an animal lover after all. I can see the Nekima + a few hounds scenario; the fly trigger is niche... but it's a point too.

Hehe, for schemes I'd pick a Young neph, that one can reach the centerline faster and put 2 schemes in 1 turn... but yes, cheap interacts and assist aren't bad.

Considering other models there could be interesting tricks... Hayreddin/Maurice/Tuco shooting a blast to the model 2 hounds are engaging and cheating/getting average damage will deal them 2 damage (that's 2 extra damage to the engaged model, and then both dogs will heal 1 and if he is close enought he could heal them again with his Hayreddin's black blood)... or Lelu with his Masochistic aura could also be decent with them... or sending for the flank 1 dog + 1 Young... that's extra back up and if the dog die, the young will get extra HP and a corpse.

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

For example, consider a hound on idols: it runs up, dies moving an idol, and then leaves a corpse marker behind. Overall very efficient use of three stones.

This isn't a bad idea in that strategy... my first thought were the dolls; but this crew needs meat not scrap. so hounds will be better.. The Neph have a lot of regen, but this 3 wds interac + meat (heal/grow) can be nice

[melkore]

Outside of generating corpses for Nekima/Growth tokens I find Wicked Dolls to be better and more reliable to get where they need to go without being one shot off the table by pretty much anything in the game.

 

That said I've only seen Nekima once so far and they went the hyper alpha strike with dual Matures, dual young, heyreddin and the pig so getting across the table to drop markers isn't tough for the crew.

[Sharp_GT]

1 hour ago, melkore said:

Outside of generating corpses for Nekima/Growth tokens I find Wicked Dolls to be better and more reliable...

I'll echo this. The hounds can turn into corpses when they die so they're a bit more synergistic with the nephilim, but the dolls are better in the 'cheap runner' role. Dolls have stealth, and an (admittely limited) free action movement to get out of engangement or double interact. Also the offensive abilities of the hounds are pretty lame compared to using the doll to hand out adversary(nephilim) to make the rest of your crew better.

I hate to say it but I don't see much of a home for the hounds

[Azkral]

Seeing the hounds, my question is: why use terror tots? Yes, you can grow them, but you can also grow a shaman to mature nephilim and give tokens to the young nephilim in case one of your mature nephilim dies. 

[Ogid]

I guess they have different uses: Hounds are 100% cannon folder; Tots are intended to be cared about and feeded to grow into something useful (because they are awful for a 4 ss model lol).

Growing both BBS into Matures could even be done in turn 1 (very suit intensive tho). If the Neph go for a grow heavy strategy (which I've heard it isn't that competitive btw), they are good candidates for corpses in turn 2+; or maybe you want to keep around 1 shaman to support.

Plus you can summon them thanks to Hayreddin (which btw, it is a shame that he doesn't have the Zombie keyword for hiring purposes )

[Deathinabox]

Hounds may be a good pick if you don't expect your opponent to be dropping corpses. Hoffman, Tara, and Pandora can deny corpses pretty easily

[melkore]

On 10/5/2019 at 6:58 PM, Deathinabox said:

Hounds may be a good pick if you don't expect your opponent to be dropping corpses. Hoffman, Tara, and Pandora can deny corpses pretty easily

That is a good point.  Most of Dreamer's models don't have characteristics to drop corpses so they either drop nothing or scrap.  I hadn't thought about that aspect but I made it hard for my opponent to score the second point of Dig because I left no corpse markers.

[Nagi21]

On 10/4/2019 at 11:30 AM, Ogid said:

I guess they have different uses: Hounds are 100% cannon folder; Tots are intended to be cared about and feeded to grow into something useful (because they are awful for a 4 ss model lol).

Growing both BBS into Matures could even be done in turn 1 (very suit intensive tho). If the Neph go for a grow heavy strategy (which I've heard it isn't that competitive btw), they are good candidates for corpses in turn 2+; or maybe you want to keep around 1 shaman to support.

Plus you can summon them thanks to Hayreddin (which btw, it is a shame that he doesn't have the Zombie keyword for hiring purposes )

I wouldn't go that far but getting a tot into a young is a pretty easy turn 1 affair with a bbs, since the sac knife can get a corpse out with ANY mask (perfect use for those low masks early), and a blood hunter means turn 1 growth aplenty (you just sacrifice a bit of time up the board, which may or may not be a bad thing).  I've found the issue with my grow lists aren't that they aren't growing, but that I'm limited in the model count for Matures.

The hounds make great scheme runners because here's the important thing... they're 3 stones.  Is a young better than them moving around and scheming?  Yes.  Can I have the young in 3 (or 4) places at once to do so?  Nope.  Hounds are great for things like outflank and ley line because they can be in multiple places at once.  And yes they may die, but they require your opponent to put models able to kill them in weird places (they aren't THAT squishy in pairs and their attack is aaaaactually pretty good for 3 stones).

On 10/2/2019 at 5:08 PM, Sharp_GT said:

I'll echo this. The hounds can turn into corpses when they die so they're a bit more synergistic with the nephilim, but the dolls are better in the 'cheap runner' role. Dolls have stealth, and an (admittely limited) free action movement to get out of engangement or double interact. Also the offensive abilities of the hounds are pretty lame compared to using the doll to hand out adversary(nephilim) to make the rest of your crew better.

I hate to say it but I don't see much of a home for the hounds

Dolls are ok but there's a couple things.  Firstly their free action movement is reliant on other models so they can't really go about doing their own thing.  Secondly the corpse marker thing everyone's aware of.  Don't get me wrong, they're a fine support model, but not a scheme running solo model (although I would send hounds in pairs to scheme so... there's that).

Hounds are very good for a few reasons.  With a second hound, EVERY duel gets a +1 per hound.  This includes attacking, which is base 5 already.  Hounds in pairs are def 5 attack 6... which is close to a lot of models that are twice as expensive.  Secondly, their attacks are great when they can close (which is an issue with the dolls as well).  1/3/4 with crit strike means a 3 point model is pushing 2/4/5 (that's basically an autumn knight for comparison), and with a friend that's a stat 6 attack.  Seriously, I've had these things kill Hinamatsu before, they can be deadly (not always but the threat is there).  Thirdly, they are excellent tarpits, in that they force your opponent to use AP on them due to hunting partner and annoying.  A 3ss model that your opponent has to react to and burn precious actions on means they're not shooting at your important models like the young and mature, not to mention it leaves those juicy corpses.  Finally, the hounds also have black blood which A) synergizes well with nekima because of pustule (Hayreddin in particular likes a puppy around) and 2) remember, you can attack your own models.  Anything that is one or two wounds away from dying can be killed easily by two hounds by just attacking one and splattering blood.

Would hounds be so good if they were four stones?  No, but you could consider them.  At 3, ignore them at your own risk.

[Ogid]

Good points. Yep, they have their uses, this thread made me change my mind about them a bit, I consider them more now.

24 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

I wouldn't go that far but getting a tot into a young is a pretty easy turn 1 affair with a bbs, since the sac knife can get a corpse out with ANY mask (perfect use for those low masks early), and a blood hunter means turn 1 growth aplenty (you just sacrifice a bit of time up the board, which may or may not be a bad thing).  I've found the issue with my grow lists aren't that they aren't growing, but that I'm limited in the model count for Matures.

I also like the growing strategy, but you'd need 1 Mask and 1 Ram (plus 1 Nekima's AP) if you wan't the tot growing in turn 1; the problem with this is you are losing the Focused pulse, unless you generate also extra corpses for the BBS.

27 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Hounds in pairs are def 5 attack 6... which is close to a lot of models that are twice as expensive.  Secondly, their attacks are great when they can close (which is an issue with the dolls as well).  1/3/4 with crit strike means a 3 point model is pushing 2/4/5 (that's basically an autumn knight for comparison), and with a friend that's a stat 6 attack.

A note here, the +1 to duels is only in their activation; they are df4 in other models activations. their damage track isn't bad for his cost tho if they got a few Focused from the BBS; but that min 1 make them need the focused badly (and make them bad versus H2W)

[Ludvig]

Nevermind, ninjaed on the hounds only getting boosted in their own activation.

Hounds can be nice for black blood interactions but if I had to pick a schemer to sit in a corner and outflank I think the dolls are pretty great because the opponent will need to get within 6" to hurt them. Their turn one mobility from being carried by a young and then pushing towards a friendly sets them up to be in a good position for a lot of scheming. If you're looking to take down something tough I think the ability to give adversary (nephilim) at range is also a pretty good point in their favour.

[Nagi21]

53 minutes ago, Ogid said:

I also like the growing strategy, but you'd need 1 Mask and 1 Ram (plus 1 Nekima's AP) if you wan't the tot growing in turn 1; the problem with this is you are losing the Focused pulse, unless you generate also extra corpses for the BBS.

Nah turn 2 growing is much better because at that point you have a BBS with a grow marker, a tot with a grow marker, and a young with a grow marker.  At that you can either play turn 2 with a half grown young, a BBS into mature, and a tot into either young or mature.  Or flip the script and make the bbs the mature after putting a 2nd focus on everyone turn 2, make the tot a second bbs or young, and make a mature out of the young.  Either way turn 2 is the better play to go screaming into the lategame (also I need to test 2 bbs lists).

52 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Nevermind, ninjaed on the hounds only getting boosted in their own activation.

Hounds can be nice for black blood interactions but if I had to pick a schemer to sit in a corner and outflank I think the dolls are pretty great because the opponent will need to get within 6" to hurt them. Their turn one mobility from being carried by a young and then pushing towards a friendly sets them up to be in a good position for a lot of scheming. If you're looking to take down something tough I think the ability to give adversary (nephilim) at range is also a pretty good point in their favour.

See the problem is I don't need much to take down something tough (or at least nothing I'm seeing adversary pay off for.  I'm not saying a single wicked doll is a bad option (I can think of a lot of good uses), but I'm looking at it from the position of this is a three point, non-insignificant model that I can bring four of... what happens if i bring four of them?  I don't like a single hound, I like a lot of them. 

Same thought process that went "Hmm... I wonder what would happen if I brought 12 rats as hamelin..."

[Ogid]

39 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Nah turn 2 growing is much better because at that point you have a BBS with a grow marker, a tot with a grow marker, and a young with a grow marker.  At that you can either play turn 2 with a half grown young, a BBS into mature, and a tot into either young or mature.  Or flip the script and make the bbs the mature after putting a 2nd focus on everyone turn 2, make the tot a second bbs or young, and make a mature out of the young.  Either way turn 2 is the better play to go screaming into the lategame (also I need to test 2 bbs lists).

I guess it depends on the game... growing slowly is OK, but it leaves a Mature in turn 2 without his bonus action and with only 6Wds (from a BBS) and with only 1 action unless you set up the corpse in the turn 1. Without extra healing he is vulnerable that turn and doesn't have the Fight with me to engage. The rest of the models would be also hurt and without the bonus. The turn 2 is a vulnerable one with this strategy. It may work because Neph are usualy played very agressively and maybe the other player won't be as agressive as they should, but overelying in this is risky.

But Nekima using 1 or 2 of his APs to forcefeed corpses is also an option, you can get even 2 matures in turn 1; in turn 2 those would be with 8 Wds and with all his actions. In a much better position to make a move if it's needed. Unless you need Nekima doing something else, 1 or 2 APs throwing bodies in turn 1 when going for this kind of grow heavy strategy is worth it imo.

Alternatively, but I'm not sure how viable it would be. Vasilisa can be used to obey a minion to take the  twice per turn at the cost of her bonus and 1 scheme marker and maybe having to cheat because a 8 is needed, that also may let you grow things faster (assuming you can get the suits to generate all the corpses needed of course).

38 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

"Hmm... I wonder what would happen if I brought 12 rats as hamelin..."

Blasts and Shockwaves would happen