Crossroads Seven: Wrath "ARRGHH JUST KILL THEM ALL!!" guide.

[Ogid]

With the new box release I've been thinking a bit about our own version of the crossroads crew, a pocket strategy is always handy. I don't think it's the most powerful one out of the 7 factions (I'm not sure yet, but my money would be in Arcanist version of it), but it's not bad either. This is mostly theoryfaux but I hope you find it useful, feel free to add more crew ideas and share your experience with the crew!

 

In a nutshell:

This crew would be simmilar to Pandora in their own way, less condition focused, but with a lot of disruption, reposition and a dangerous bubble.

The crossroads are a full henchman bubble crew or at least a crew that needs to work in small groups of 2 or 3 models (resonance). Playing them like this, it will give Focused+1 to each crew member at the start of its activation. The scheming potential and speed is bellow average; but they can punish hard models with sin tokens; so stacking these tokens is the name of the game for them.

Each member disrupt and handle sin tokens when the enemy do something in an area around them (and also with some abilities and triggers): Wrath (Friendly model damaged by enemy attack), Envy (Positive condition gained), Sloth (Enemy being healed), Gluttony (Scheme marker dropped), Pride (Cheat fate), Greed (Use SS), Lust (Draw Card). A model doing one of these things while in range of the member of the crew will get a sin token; each member can discard 1 sin token when a model perform that action to disrupt it (You choose the target in Wrath case, you get the condition/heal/cards/SS, the SS/Cheated card have no effect, enemy drop a friendly scheme marker...). These tokens can also be used with the "Destructive Performance" that all crewmember share that discard one token from all enemies within 3'' and deals 3 damage (Tactical action, no-flip-broken-NPE-uninteractive-shit, you know).

Other way to play them is using some versatiles and OOK models to take advantage of what other crew member offers.

 

The crew:

The beaters are Wrath (the leader) and Envy; in these models what stand out is their ofensive potential, they have some other good utility abilities.

• Wrath: This one is a glass cannon mele focused beater (2/4/5) with a  action that is short range damage pulse (Wp13 to deal 2/3/4 in 3''), his only defensive tech are terrifying and SS (so VERY squishy), but he heals while attacking and have a very useful lure to bring models into the bubble.
• Envy: A decent ranged piece with a gatling (12'' 5 2/4/6) and armor 2; being able also to give Focused to a model as a  action (thanks to resonance, one model could have 2 Focused each turn)

There are 2 balanced band members with worse attacks than the above, but still useful in the frontline beating or tanking things and with some good supportish abilities

• Sloth: Tied with Envy for the most tankiest band member (8 Wds, H2W, Manipulative), but he is the slowest (Mv4). His damage track is average 2/3/4, but it deals slow! and have some useful triggers. His spell can make something slow (or undead ally fast) and as  have a 3 heal that gives slow to an ally.
• Gluttony: Above average endurance with (8 Wds) and grim feast as . His damage track is average (2/3/4) and handle Injured, but it has 0'' range. He has a spell that make other models move and eat markers for damage.

The remaining 3 band members are more supportish/control focused ones; some of them have damage potential but they are more useful for their other abilities.

• Pride: The only Df6 stat and a resist trigger. His damage track is bellow average (2/3/3) and 0 range but it's not totally useless because it has some nice triggers (critical, distracted), his spell is quite good, forcing the other player to discard 2 cards or get 2 damage and Distracted+1 per card not discarded; his  is a very useful aura with a good range (6) and a powerful effect; the allies in that range always cheat after the other dudes.
• Greed: The other crew member with a resist trigger. No mele attack. Her spell deals 1 damage per enemy in 3'' around the target and may force the target to discard SS or gain sin tokens. Her tactical action is a short range pulse (3'') that force models that may use SS to pass a Wp14 or discard a SS and gain Sin tokens. Her  let her remove a corpse for a 50% chance of getting a SS.
• Lust: Df4 model. No mele attack. Very utility focused with Seduction to give Distracted and end Focused, Now Kiss to reposition enemies and give Distracted and an ability that... let the other player draw cards (it'd give that model a sin token and can be used to put a bad card on top of his deck). She is the only one without a  .

In NVB i'd say the weakest ones are Greed and maybe Gluttony (no easy corpse generation).

 

Inside Keyword synergies and anti-synergies:

Obviously sin tokens; each band member may use them regardless of how the other models got it and the resonance (Focused+1). Lust, Glutonny and Wrath have some abilities able to displace or stack enemy models; this is great to hit a few of them with Disruptive performance, wrath pulse or Greed abilities. This crew will be rarely used, other players won't have that much experience versus it, specially if you use a variation of the list (as described bellow)

Too many Manipulative (5 out of the 7), most of them are kind of squishy outside of being able to use SS, so some finesse is needed to perform well; no minions for pact/eldritch. Their healing also put slow in the healed model.

 Emissary (as it could be avaliable in turn 3+ for only 2 SS, let's check what he brings to this crew):

• Create markers that may be used by gluttony to displace and damage models.
• Wrath "Bring it" that trigger an attack over a marker will trigger the terrain twice, for 2 damage.
• Lust may set up some nice enemy stacks for the emissary to blast
• The -2 movement aura is useful to keep enemies (specially clumpered ones that have been hit by a staggering blast attack) in place.

 

Crossroad in NVB:

Aside for a crew with the full 7 (where is nice that the model with a good damage potential in mele and with an useful lure is the one with 3 AP), you can drop a few of them to enable some different flavours. I'm sure there are more, but these are some nice combination I came up with:

Envy "mimic the gun":

• Envy has his 12'', 5, 2/4/6 Gatling. Doppleganger may copy it (7).
• Add 1 BBS pulsing focused and you got 2 Focused attacks with 5 and 2 Focused attacks with 7 per turn. That ammount of firepower isn't expected in NVB.
• For going all in add Angel Eyes and/or Candy.

Sloth "faest":

• Sloth can give Fast to ludicrous beaters like Rougarous or Killjoy; so these can be great adds to the crew.
• His heal is very good, but it also handle slow; a cheap minion with a eldritch upgrade may be worth it or Kade to reposition the Slowed model with his Lure while also removing it.
• An Autum Knight when engaged with more than 1 model will cause more than enough disruption with 1 AP per turn if being healed by Sloth.
• Wrath can Lure models into Carnage range.

Lust "all you need is blast":

• Lust "Now Kiss" (even copied by Doppleganger) and other displacement abilities may clump enemy models
• These clustered enemies are more vulnerable to Disruptive Performance and to have their attack redirected to other allied models.
• Enemy model clumped can be hit by: Emissary Blasts, Rider swings, Serena, Gigants Boulders or Aestlin Decay among others.

Pride "handy execution":

• Pride + Doppleganger using 4 times "this song is all about you"
• Vasilissa and dolls forcing enemies to discard cards.
• Carver/Mature Neph/Kade Execute (the cheat last aura could be terrific to cheat the trigger when you know you can win the duel)

Wrath "revenge served cold":

• Cyclops + 2 Lysa for a lot of sin stacking around Ice Pilars.
• Ice Pilars also useful to lure people in a pinch with Glutonny.
• Pilar pulse staggered (from Cyclops) will set up a nice blast from the emissary

 

So...

[Adran]

I think you've missed how much "anger issues" and "consumed by Wrath" combine to cause defensive tech. They pretty much mean that every time your opponent gets a successful attack against you, you get to "obey and slow" them. (You get to deny another attack against your model, and make them attack a friendly model instead).

Sure, there are ways around, such as only sending in 1 model to attack you, or only having each model attack once until Wrath dies, but that's pretty restrictive.

 

If I play Crossroads 7, I ask myself 3 things to determine Faction - Who do I want to have the extra AP? Are there any upgradesd I want, and what non Crossroads 7 models do I want to bring in for combinations.

[Ogid]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

I think you've missed how much "anger issues" and "consumed by Wrath" combine to cause defensive tech. They pretty much mean that every time your opponent gets a successful attack against you, you get to "obey and slow" them. (You get to deny another attack against your model, and make them attack a friendly model instead).

Sure, there are ways around, such as only sending in 1 model to attack you, or only having each model attack once until Wrath dies, but that's pretty restrictive.

With the help of other Crossroads/Emissary forcing models to get close of each other and locking them up it's a very good defensive tech (plus Pride's aura for easy cheating)... but until that point I expect my oponent to avoid giving me free redirects. And without it, he is just a 7 Wds model in underwear after an easy Terrifying duel . However it's not as good as an obey, the crossroads player only forces him to target the model he wants, but the other player still control his model; he could just cheat a low card to miss the attack and avoid damaging his own model (but the AP would be wasted tho).

However his damage potential is high: Bring it to make the target engage (and give him a sin token), (charge if needed) a focused attack for 4 to 5 damage easy and heal 1, ghosts for 2 extra damage and an extra attack for 2 damage (or even another 4 or 5 cheating/stonning for Puncture) or Destructive performance for 3 damage; easily 7-10 damage without going out of position with a 12'' threat range.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

If I play Crossroads 7, I ask myself 3 things to determine Faction - Who do I want to have the extra AP? Are there any upgradesd I want, and what non Crossroads 7 models do I want to bring in for combinations.

This crew has a lot of posible twists depending on the faction, that's great.

However when you have locked a faction you are commited to it, so I try to see it more like: If I'm stuck with NBV, what are they offering me?

[Adran]

14 hours ago, Ogid said:

However when you have locked a faction you are commited to it, so I try to see it more like: If I'm stuck with NBV, what are they offering me?

That's true, its just not the way my mind works, (and I own models from several factions), so if I decide I want to look at what I can do with Crossroads I'm unlikely to start off trying it out in a tournament (which is the only time I am faction locked),  without at least a good reason why I picked that faction in the first place.

14 hours ago, Ogid said:

With the help of other Crossroads/Emissary forcing models to get close of each other and locking them up it's a very good defensive tech (plus Pride's aura for easy cheating)... but until that point I expect my oponent to avoid giving me free redirects. And without it, he is just a 7 Wds model in underwear after an easy Terrifying duel . However it's not as good as an obey, the crossroads player only forces him to target the model he wants, but the other player still control his model; he could just cheat a low card to miss the attack and avoid damaging his own model (but the AP would be wasted tho).

I would be surprised if you ever got a free re-direct to an enemy , because it is something that is in the opponents hands, but its presence alone is enough to deter quite a few attacks. You can also use it as a form of Protected, and pass the attack off to one of your own models. This might be as simple as to a model with more wounds, or you might try including Armour, Black Blood, Manipulative, Regeneration and so forth into your crew to be models that are good targets for this re-direct.

You are right it is nowhere near as good as an obey, but it is them spending their resources to attack their own crew, which is always a good thing for you. (Also why its something that may never happen, but its possibility is something that will make your opponent change their plans)

 

[Ogid]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

That's true, its just not the way my mind works, (and I own models from several factions), so if I decide I want to look at what I can do with Crossroads I'm unlikely to start off trying it out in a tournament (which is the only time I am faction locked),  without at least a good reason why I picked that faction in the first place.

I guess for trying them in casual play when you are able to pick from several factions, it's a way to think about it.

In my case I will only be able field them in NVB and maybe in TT but much more restricted; so what the crossroads do in a different faction is something interesting but not useful to me (beyond knowing what to expect if they ever get picked versus me); because If I declare a different faction to only play them, I'll be telegraphing my crew and I'll also lack models to customice them. And it's interesting to see what they ofer in the context of the faction. If some of the above ideas works well (like the shooty crew), it may be a nice pocket strategy that other player don't expect.

1 hour ago, Adran said:

I would be surprised if you ever got a free re-direct to an enemy , because it is something that is in the opponents hands, but its presence alone is enough to deter quite a few attacks. You can also use it as a form of Protected, and pass the attack off to one of your own models. This might be as simple as to a model with more wounds, or you might try including Armour, Black Blood, Manipulative, Regeneration and so forth into your crew to be models that are good targets for this re-direct.

There are ways... but it require totally surround him with models (which has its own dissadvantages); the re-directed target have to be in range, a 1 attack is easy to position to get no other model and most  and spells can be used from outside of his aura range so I'm sure i'll be relying in SS to keep him alive at least in the initial clash if he is the target... after that if the enemy models get near of each other or some stacking tricks are used, that ability will be much more annoying for the other player.

But even without being able to use his redirect, the other crossroads may help him to stay alive. Pride is a nice bodyguard, "solo" aura is very powerful as it may let him cheat a medium card to win a flip if the other player doesn't wan't to preemtively burn a severe card to assure the hit, and even if the other model hit Wrath, the gained sin token means they cannot cheat the second duel. Lust seduction may put distracted and end Focused from a long range in the most dangerous enemy model, making the attacks much less threatening and if I'm worried for him IR is always a nice safeguard.

Also Wrath himself create a nice zone around him where the other player doesn't want to have models, if the assassinate attemp fails, the attacking model is in a very bad position; with the free Focused from resonance, the focused from Envy and some Concentrate/Resonance from other turns; it's not hard having Focused+3 or higher with him, easily reaching 13-15 damage to any model that start at charge range or engaged and healing 3 Wds in the process.