Aionus up for a small rewrite?

[Jinn]

10 hours ago, Adran said:

The downside to Tara is that to do this will give you 5 back to back activation at the end of the turn that she can't react to, and a straight initiative flip for next turn.  Now there are certainly times you don't want an opponent to have multiple activations, but there are many occasions in a game where I want to pass and would happily let my opponent have multiple activations. And if I could do so to cost my opponent resources then I would certainly go for it. 

If their plan was to have last activation and win initiative, then they can't afford to make you miss many activations. ( as a general rule they can afford to make you miss 2 if Aionius has  just done his unbury trick. Any more and you activate last. Model death obviously will change this. As will him being fast, and doing it 3 times but that's 1/3 + of if his crew, so You should be able to out do the remaining 2/3 with your whole crew. ). 

 

The issue is that if I choose to go that route there is absolutely nothing stopping the Tara player from either causing a bunch of TN14 Wp duels and chip damage with Void Wretches or just burying Aionus to save him. Or from just doing both if the buries don't work out or something else happens. I can't just pass 2-4 activations in a row on turn two when the Nothing Beast and a Void Hunter are in the middle of my crew, and if I did I wouldn't even get anything out of it as long as my opponent remembers to save two pass tokens and a high card. The whole problem with the activations is further aggravated by Tara getting a free activation every turn that doesn't give her opponent a pass token.

In this game my opponents plan was to just kill the Ice Golem before I got to activate it by using a bunch of attacks from a few Void Wretches, a Void Hunter, a Dead Outlaw. That didn't go to plan so instead she buried it (causing it to lose fast) and had it unbury on the opposite side of the board to where the action was. It eventually walked back to the action and got a single attack in on turn 5.

That would all be fine if I could at least have contested the Strategy, but as it stood I needed to both get full points on schemes and ensure my opponent got no points on schemes to get a win. And that was with me being lucky enough to get the first Idol Marker.

12 hours ago, Ogid said:

Then that model is as good as dead; it's gone, too hurt to be able to contest anything, and you can do whatever scheme that model was trying to stop.

Unfortunately they can still drop scheme markers, charge through walls from a safe position, be healed up, and/or attack any of my models that are buried ignoring range and LoS. Very few models in the game can be as effective as Obliteration models are while on such low health. This is how Tara plays and it is cool and powerful and I don't have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is one crew getting a very large and uninteractive advantage on the strategy.

13 hours ago, Ogid said:

Maybe they are good there, but learning how to counter these things is the name of the game; I'm sure there are ways to win there. My (uneducated) guess: Look for a way to block the spawn of one of the corners and focus to control the others; don't spread your models so Tara can't send your buried models away from the middle line. Control the middle line and pick schemes that don't need you to send models too far from that. Beat her models while her 10SS Henchman stay in her deployment zone playing with a void wretch. If you have to send anything alone be sure that model have a very high Wp value (a rider for example), to avoid her to send it back to the square one...

You can't block the spawn of Idol Markers. If I don't spread my crew out (hard to do when you're not incorporeal and have to deal with terrain) then my opponent can get to every Idol Marker spawn except the middle one before I do. It is also quite hard to control the centreline when your opponent's third to last activation is Aionus unburying the Nothing Beast (unactivated, fast) and a Void Hunter (unactivated) (and unburying Tara in a less aggressive position) over the centreline and ready to attack my crew.

I managed to get full control of most of the centreline from turn three onward. I still only got one point from the strategy (from the first idol) because my opponent concentrated something like 40+ SS worth of models around the leftmost four Idol Markers and I would have needed to get to them, kill most of them, and then interact with the Idols, potentially multiple times, to get them over the centreline. It would be a challenge to do that even if I managed to steamroll her crew, which I didn't.

[Adran]

54 minutes ago, Jinn said:

The issue is that if I choose to go that route there is absolutely nothing stopping the Tara player from either causing a bunch of TN14 Wp duels and chip damage with Void Wretches or just burying Aionus to save him. Or from just doing both if the buries don't work out or something else happens. I can't just pass 2-4 activations in a row on turn two when the Nothing Beast and a Void Hunter are in the middle of my crew, and if I did I wouldn't even get anything out of it as long as my opponent remembers to save two pass tokens and a high card. The whole problem with the activations is further aggravated by Tara getting a free activation every turn that doesn't give her opponent a pass token.

In this game my opponents plan was to just kill the Ice Golem before I got to activate it by using a bunch of attacks from a few Void Wretches, a Void Hunter, a Dead Outlaw. That didn't go to plan so instead she buried it (causing it to lose fast) and had it unbury on the opposite side of the board to where the action was. It eventually walked back to the action and got a single attack in on turn 5

I don't know how the game went, or what you or your opponent did, and it's perfectly possible that what you did was the best option at the time. But from what you say you choose not to activate the ice golem because if you did you would just be forced to pass. Since your opponent was focusing those activations on your golem, your other activations didn't change that situation at all. And so if you had tried to activate the golem and were forced to pass, it wouldn't have made a significant change to the game state to what did happen, but it would have cost Tara 2 pass tokens (effectively). 

[Jinn]

3 minutes ago, Adran said:

I don't know how the game went, or what you or your opponent did, and it's perfectly possible that what you did was the best option at the time. But from what you say you choose not to activate the ice golem because if you did you would just be forced to pass. Since your opponent was focusing those activations on your golem, your other activations didn't change that situation at all. And so if you had tried to activate the golem and were forced to pass, it wouldn't have made a significant change to the game state to what did happen, but it would have cost Tara 2 pass tokens (effectively). 

The reason I didn't try to activate the Golem is because that line of play would (almost) never have allowed me to threaten Aionus if my opponent didn't want it to. The only outcome which would be unfavourable to my opponent would be if the Ice Golem got through all of those enemy activations alive and unburied (just two Void Wretches are probably going to do around ~3 damage and cause ~3 TN14 Wp duels, and that's a small fraction of my opponent's crew), and it would have been exceedingly unfavourable for her if Aionus was still engaging the Ice Golem. Trying to activate the Ice Golem (and thereby passing) was quite unlikely to achieve that outcome, so I didn't do it. I would have had to allow Tara to activate literally her entire crew in a row and all she would have to do with those activations to make me gain almost nothing from giving her free rein is kill or bury the Golem OR Aionus. Instead I tried to threaten Aionus with other models and tried to kill the Nothing Beast before it could be buried (quite hard to do).

I also don't quite understand why you think it would cost Tara effectively two pass tokens. Maybe my local scene is an anomaly, but we usually don't pass activations when our important models are engaged and threatening each other, that is the exact point where we choose save them for initiative.

This argument about the Ice Golem and the Buffering ability is kind of irrelevant though. I don't know for sure what the best line of play is there and I don't particularly care from a balance perspective. There are plenty of models that are more capable than Aionus when it comes to tying up and annoying the enemy crew. My problem with Aionus is only the advantage he gives to the Corrupted Idols strategy. I doubt he will even need to be errataed as long as whatever Gaining Grounds equivalent comes out doesn't make one player near guaranteed winning initiative on every turn except the first into a disproportionate advantage in one of the Strats.

[Zebo]

I personally think that the main problem is to add the number of pass tokens to the initiative flip. It's too powerful. It would be enough simply if the one with more pass tokens could add 1 to the flip.

Still an advantage but not so unbalancing.

[Jesy Blue]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

I personally think that the main problem is to add the number of pass tokens to the initiative flip. It's too powerful. It would be enough simply if the one with more pass tokens could add 1 to the flip.

Still an advantage but not so unbalancing.

Then there is no incentive to keep them & and you just keep passing to give yourself activation control and we're back to the problem of 2nd edition.

On top of that, Qi & Gong would be hella broken.  There would be no quandary of if I use the pass token now for bonus or for passing or to keep an initiative advantage, playing the three way balance mini game.  All I need is 1 at the end of turn to keep the advantage and every one gets bonuses all the time!

[ShinChan]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

I personally think that the main problem is to add the number of pass tokens to the initiative flip. It's too powerful. It would be enough simply if the one with more pass tokens could add 1 to the flip.

Still an advantage but not so unbalancing.

I think they're fine. Any Neverborn player can have a permanent +2 (and 10 extra cards) for a game, and people still consider the upgrade subpar. 

[Adran]

If cursed idols were an M2 strategy, then it would be won by the person who activated last most of the time, because they would get the chance of the last movement of the idol. Hence in general I would want last activation in it to score. If Tara goes first then she would also go last thanks to her second activation. But if she spent a pass token buffering your golem then you get last activation. 

That said, I play in a style where I expect to lose initiative, so even in idols I don't care that much if they win every one, because I expect it anyway and have a game plan to deal with that. 

 

[Zebo]

48 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

Then there is no incentive to keep them & and you just keep passing to give yourself activation control and we're back to the problem of 2nd edition.

Disagree, pass tokens only allows you to not bein outactivated (unless a few crews with special pass tokens-generation) and that is how it should be.

Giving so advantage in initiative on later turns (when you don't want to pass) create a new problem to horde crews quite unfair for me.

I think they solved one problem with activation control being too good and created another one with horde crews never winning initiative nor choosing where the idol marker is dropped. 

[dannydb]

Honestly this is more an issue with idols than any models. It's a terrible statergy in my mind because it's possible to manipulate the markers so much for 2-3 crews and they have such a advantage. Also even without the manipulation of pass markers, random placements can realy mess with games. I've lost or won games that should have gone the other way purely cos the markers went a certain way 

[Ogid]

7 hours ago, Adran said:

That said, I play in a style where I expect to lose initiative, so even in idols I don't care that much if they win every one, because I expect it anyway and have a game plan to deal with that. 

QFT

13 hours ago, Jinn said:

You can't block the spawn of Idol Markers.

You can. If there is impasable terrain or a model; that marker will try to get placed next to it; if it can't be placed next to it then it won't be placed.

In Arcanists you could use 2 Ice pilars to block the spawn in one table edge or 3 Ice pilars for the non cornered ones (considering a flat map, it could be less depending on the terrain) for example

16 hours ago, Jinn said:

It is also quite hard to control the centreline when your opponent's third to last activation is Aionus unburying the Nothing Beast (unactivated, fast) and a Void Hunter (unactivated) (and unburying Tara in a less aggressive position) over the centreline and ready to attack my crew.

I can't really picture how these kind of play can be made... how can Aionus have enough AP to be on top on your crew and unbury a ton of model while at the same time being safe of all kind retaliation? 

5 hours ago, dannydb said:

Honestly this is more an issue with idols than any models. It's a terrible statergy in my mind because it's possible to manipulate the markers so much for 2-3 crews and they have such a advantage. Also even without the manipulation of pass markers, random placements can realy mess with games. I've lost or won games that should have gone the other way purely cos the markers went a certain way 

That crew have still to win the opossed duel, cheat a high enough card of the right suit to drop the marker where they want and generate enough pass tokens to have a large enough advantage to cheat the card they want without risking the initiative flip... Being able to manipulate the idol placement is powerful, but it isn't free and it's quite telegraphed when the crew is selected...

That is like complaining a killy and sturdy crew is good in reckoning... they are, so you better go to that game with a crew good enough to face them and a good plan; but you know what you are facing when the leader is selected.

[Jinn]

1 hour ago, Ogid said:

You can. If there is impasable terrain or a model; that marker will try to get placed next to it; if it can't be placed next to it then it won't be placed.

In Arcanists you could use 2 Ice pilars to block the spawn in one table edge or 3 Ice pilars for the non cornered ones (considering a flat map, it could be less depending on the terrain) for example

"If the Strategy Marker would be Dropped on top of a Strategy Marker, Impassable Terrain, or a model, the player with Initiative instead Drops the Strategy Marker evenly on the centerline, touching but not overlapping that Strategy Marker, Impassable Terrain, or model. If this is not possible, the Strategy Marker is not Dropped."

The way I had understood this strategy is that if you fail to drop it the first time then you drop it next to whatever blocked it. If you fail to drop it again then the exact same wording kicks in and you must drop it adjacent to whatever blocked it and so on.

Maybe yours is the correct ruling however and it is possible to block an Idol without filling the centreline. The amount of terrain you would need makes it very difficult to do with destructible terrain though. You would need to get two terrain markers on the edge and another three markers 8" up on one side and then not have them be removed by the numerous models on that side. I expect this would cost more AP to set up than it would take my opponent to remove.

1 hour ago, Ogid said:

I can't really picture how these kind of play can be made... how can Aionus have enough AP to be on top on your crew and unbury a ton of model while at the same time being safe of all kind retaliation? 

You're right, I misremembered slightly. Aionus walked up once to be on the centreline and then used his unbury twice to drop an unactivated Nothing Beast and Void Hunter. Herald had put Aionus 6" up the board in concealing and my opponent had soulstones to prevent whatever damage I could get up to Aionus.

I never said Aionus was on top of my crew either. All of the tying up of my crew Aionus did was done by being within LoS to fast models, which included the Ice Golem which my opponent unburied behind Aionus using Sever Timeline.

Again though, outside of defending how I played this game this is kind of irrelevant. Aionus acted as a taxi and as a more annoying version of Mood Swings this game and in any strategy other than Corrupted Idols I wouldn't have a problem with him.

It is literally only due to his pass token generation in only Corrupted Idols that I think this one trigger on one of his actions is unbalanced.

[Ogid]

8 hours ago, Jinn said:

Maybe yours is the correct ruling however and it is possible to block an Idol without filling the centreline. The amount of terrain you would need makes it very difficult to do with destructible terrain though. You would need to get two terrain markers on the edge and another three markers 8" up on one side and then not have them be removed by the numerous models on that side. I expect this would cost more AP to set up than it would take my opponent to remove.

I've read in another part of the forum about people blocking spwans... so It seems legal. It's a expensive tactic and I don't know how viable it would be versus Tara; but it's a possiblility. Rasputina may drop a ton of them and her range is huge, she could be (theoryfaux) a good model to block these spwans and control anything that get close.

8 hours ago, Jinn said:

Again though, outside of defending how I played this game this is kind of irrelevant. Aionus acted as a taxi and as a more annoying version of Mood Swings this game and in any strategy other than Corrupted Idols I wouldn't have a problem with him.

It is literally only due to his pass token generation in only Corrupted Idols that I think this one trigger on one of his actions is unbalanced.

I could be wrong but I think they are fine, there are other crews relying in the same trick to get initiative advantage and it's something that you can count on it while building your crew. Tara crew have some good tricks and her bury mechanic is quite interesting, but she also pay a big prize to it; her beaters aren't impressive, most of the crew have an below average attack stat and meh triggers, they all need to get close and most of the crew is kind of glassy; plus handling out fast to the other crew is a dangerous mechanic, overdue it and you'll be helping your adversary. A buried model is vulnerable, but if it's unactivated the player can just force Tara to place it.

The problem with crew like Tara that rely on a different mechanic than the rest is that they are hard to play against until you figure out how to play around their tricks. Good luck in the next ones!

[Jesy Blue]

...... you could do this with Zipp and Piano Markers!!!

[Mycellanious]

14 hours ago, Jinn said:

"If the Strategy Marker would be Dropped on top of a Strategy Marker, Impassable Terrain, or a model, the player with Initiative instead Drops the Strategy Marker evenly on the centerline, touching but not overlapping that Strategy Marker, Impassable Terrain, or model. If this is not possible, the Strategy Marker is not Dropped."

The way I had understood this strategy is that if you fail to drop it the first time then you drop it next to whatever blocked it. If you fail to drop it again then the exact same wording kicks in and you must drop it adjacent to whatever blocked it and so on.

Maybe yours is the correct ruling however and it is possible to block an Idol without filling the centreline. The amount of terrain you would need makes it very difficult to do with destructible terrain though. You would need to get two terrain markers on the edge and another three markers 8" up on one side and then not have them be removed by the numerous models on that side. I expect this would cost more AP to set up than it would take my opponent to remove.

You're right, I misremembered slightly. Aionus walked up once to be on the centreline and then used his unbury twice to drop an unactivated Nothing Beast and Void Hunter. Herald had put Aionus 6" up the board in concealing and my opponent had soulstones to prevent whatever damage I could get up to Aionus.

I never said Aionus was on top of my crew either. All of the tying up of my crew Aionus did was done by being within LoS to fast models, which included the Ice Golem which my opponent unburied behind Aionus using Sever Timeline.

Again though, outside of defending how I played this game this is kind of irrelevant. Aionus acted as a taxi and as a more annoying version of Mood Swings this game and in any strategy other than Corrupted Idols I wouldn't have a problem with him.

It is literally only due to his pass token generation in only Corrupted Idols that I think this one trigger on one of his actions is unbalanced.

They way I read it is that the Marker must be dropped in base with all the things that are blocking the spawn location and evenly on the center line. So if you place 2 Ice Pillars 1" apart, where the gap is position over were the marker is trying to spawn, then the Marker cannot be placed because it is not possible for the Marker to remain in base with both Ice Pillars and still be evenly on the centerline. I think the same thing happens with any Impassable terrain for you could do it with 2 models (dont know why you'd want to tho)

[Ogid]

7 minutes ago, Mycellanious said:

They way I read it is that the Marker must be dropped in base with all the things that are blocking the spawn location and evenly on the center line. So if you place 2 Ice Pillars 1" apart, where the gap is position over were the marker is trying to spawn, then the Marker cannot be placed because it is not possible for the Marker to remain in base with both Ice Pillars and still be evenly on the centerline. I think the same thing happens with any Impassable terrain for you could do it with 2 models (dont know why you'd want to tho)

mmm... good point, the strategy only covers the case where only 1 game element is blocking the spawn, not 2... so there could be 2 ways:

1. It must be placed in b2b with only 1 of the elements blocking the spawn point (then 3 ice pilars are needed for non-cornered ones)
2. It must be placed in b2b with all the elements blocking the spawn point (then only 2 Ice pilars are needed for non-cornered ones)

I'd say it's the number 1... but it could be read as nº2 too. Anyone knows if this have been answered before?

[Adran]

My view is that the game wants idols to be dropped where possible, so I follow interpretation 1. I have no additional rules back up, but the game is more fun when there are idols to push, so making it harder to stop new idols is a good thing.

[Jesy Blue]

You can drop 3 40mm Piano Markers in a single action, Malifaux Child can copy Zipp's 3 Piano Marker drop, Earl can drop 2... this may be an awesome tactic to cut off 2 spots and deny strategy points and focus on the third location.

I like.....

[Adran]

9 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

You can drop 3 40mm Piano Markers in a single action, Malifaux Child can copy Zipp's 3 Piano Marker drop, Earl can drop 2... this may be an awesome tactic to cut off 2 spots and deny strategy points and focus on the third location.

I like.....

Just remember its pretty easy to break those pianos for your opponent... Its unlikely to cut off spots if they want the spot in play

[Ogid]

13 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

You can drop 3 40mm Piano Markers in a single action, Malifaux Child can copy Zipp's 3 Piano Marker drop, Earl can drop 2... this may be an awesome tactic to cut off 2 spots and deny strategy points and focus on the third location.

I like.....

I've created a monster! 

[TheJoyInGaming]

I would argue that the correct option is option 2.

Whilst option 1 may be more fun, I cannot see an argument derived from the rules that would allow you to forgo the requirements to Drop the Marker evenly next to the model you did not choose whilst avoiding "triggering" the clause that tells you not to Drop the Marker. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by TheJoyInGaming
Clarity

[Jesy Blue]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

Just remember its pretty easy to break those pianos for your opponent... Its unlikely to cut off spots if they want the spot in play

Oh yeah, definetly, but if I put them down at the end of the previous turn.... the marker doesn't get placed at the beginning of the following turn.  After that, the damage has been done; blowing them up to your heart's content won't bring back the lost points.

[That Tome]

He is 10 points and rarely does much else that unbury and make pass tokens, that really counter out your summons or use for activaiton control maybe some late game ranged damage but 10ss is a big cost. the pass tokens can feel a bit much but what can you hire for 10ss?

[Maniacal_cackle]

I was rudely surprised when I found out I can't dominate corrupted idol placement in some matchups.

A basic corrupted idols matchup skill is knowing when you don't have the ability to force placement. In these cases, you have to be mobile enough to respond to what your opponent is doing.

If he is forcing idol placement and camping it with 40 stones of models, hit him with 41 stones and negate his advantage.

Idols is one of the hardest matchups to have a set plan, as sometimes the opponent gets to choose placement every turn (whether due to crew advantage or cards drawn).

[Maniacal_cackle]

In fact, I lost a tournament game earlier this month learning this very lesson!

[Deathinabox]

On 10/4/2019 at 2:59 AM, Adran said:

Is it a tactic you have faced often and can't counter or is it one that you have faced once and weren't expecting?

I feel like this should be the first response to any call to nerf a model or keyword.