What's up with Lucius

[extremor]

9 minutes ago, Ogid said:

This is good synergy; it's also possible with Hinamatsu leader using Geisas and Kabukis. Worth trying.

Yes ist is. 👍🏾

[Regelridderen]

On 3/8/2020 at 10:17 AM, extremor said:

To me Lucius is more and more becoming a puppetmaster. I really like the changes to stiched together and within a Lucius Crew it might now be possible to really exploid the distraction aura of false witness. A min 3 damage 6“ WP attack combined with seems good to me!!! 

Besides I‘m not  sure about the new strats and schemes and their impact on how to play Lucius...

I love the thought of this. So how would you go about devising a list. How many witnesses? Would you use Vasilisa? Widow Weaver?

[extremor]

I tried a list yesterday but it was suboptimal because of the strats n schemes. I prefere vasilisa cause of her zero action that gives an additional AP and is able to instantkill a wicked doll first turn after it scooped along and got where you want stiched next turn).  Next time I will try Vasilisa, 2 dolls and 1-2 witnesses (depending on schemes). Also possible would be hinamatsu (cause shes a luring offensive puppet), lawyer (shielded on witness, obey, tftj...),  alan reid (one more question with coordinated attack and Staggered synergie) or Serena Bowman ((8“ Wp attack). 

[Ogid]

14 hours ago, extremor said:

I tried a list yesterday but it was suboptimal because of the strats n schemes. I prefere vasilisa cause of her zero action that gives an additional AP and is able to instantkill a wicked doll first turn after it scooped along and got where you want stiched next turn).  Next time I will try Vasilisa, 2 dolls and 1-2 witnesses (depending on schemes). Also possible would be hinamatsu (cause shes a luring offensive puppet), lawyer (shielded on witness, obey, tftj...),  alan reid (one more question with coordinated attack and Staggered synergie) or Serena Bowman ((8“ Wp attack). 

I like how that sounds, however it also seems hard to play; there are a lot of models and synergies there; keep us informed

A few ideas for your list:

The SS seems tight, but the Effigy of fate is also to consider. It's a Puppet, it's way tankier than dolls (much better to inflict staggered), it also has a Lure, the stat is weak but with the Witness and its own aura is more doable. This also enable some posible shenanigans first turn like scoop it up to Lure 1 or 2 models forward.

About Vasi and her , aside for sacrificing dolls there are a few other things you may consider: An extra Lucid Dreams to get a card to cheat with Stitcheds if you are short of high cards, activate "Tell no Lies" in the Witness without losing Manipulative (more useful if you include some non Wp beater like Hinamatsu), an extra Impassioned Defense (Shielded +4),  an extra command (using a Changeling) or Obey. For this just keep an spare doll around to drop the schemes.

Also, I'm not sure if you play with double masters or not, but Dreamer OOK is 13; which cost roughtly like Vasi+2 dolls (14). Dreamer will also summon 2 Stitcheds (a bit more expensive, needing a 10 instead of a 9; but it's more reliable being able to stone the suit if needed) and he also brings a 8'' Wp attack. His other abilities won't be that useful, but he is still a 3AP model with Incorporeal; he could do some scheming if you are careful to not put him in the way of models able to bypass his Serene Countenance or engage him. Dreamer + Vasi is very expensive, but Vasi may recicle stitched's scrap while Dreamer summon new ones (or start bringing other models to the table).

[extremor]

Has anyone ever played 3 lawyers? Any experience?

[Ogid]

9 hours ago, extremor said:

Has anyone ever played 3 lawyers? Any experience?

Not yet, but I've been toying with that idea. The lawyer is a quite good model, so it might be legit. However a few notes: This is a game where you definitelly want to include wicked dolls to put adversary on your own models to have a better chance to get the TN, the lawyer needs a 9 to obey (that's around 39% with one card asuming you already got the suit, but around 62% with 2 cards). Without it you won't have the cards o cheat them all.

Other than that I see 2 main potential paths for this crew: a very in keyword list around staggered as puppets work well with that and the investigator is the most expensive models they can get a card from obyeing (other than bossing around themselves) or a gunline from hell where you put adversary on Agent/Doppleganger and Angel eyes and just pew pew pew.

If you try it, tell us how it goes!

[Adran]

9 hours ago, extremor said:

Has anyone ever played 3 lawyers? Any experience?

I think I read a report of the extreme Lucius card draw where you had multiple Lawyers and changelings to get a stupid number of cards whilst you feed Agent 46 actions galore. Its fairly TN intensive, but since it draws so many cards it ought to end up positive.

In the dream world I think its 20+cards a turn and 14 attacks with Agent 46. It may not be fully practical.

But you use lawyers to obey lawyers to obey changlings to issue commands to Agent 46. ( A full pack of both can get you 4 cards each lawyer activation, and each Changling activation, and 7 in a Lucius activation so possibly draw 29 extra cards in the turn! (I think)) You really want to activate the lawyers early to get the masks discarded with tools for the job, although if you are mimicing with Agent 46 you also want that early. 

Alternatively I could just be imagining this. 

 

[extremor]

1 hour ago, Ogid said:

Not yet, but I've been toying with that idea. The lawyer is a quite good model, so it might be legit. However a few notes: This is a game where you definitelly want to include wicked dolls to put adversary on your own models to have a better chance to get the TN, the lawyer needs a 9 to obey (that's around 39% with one card asuming you already got the suit, but around 62% with 2 cards). Without it you won't have the cards o cheat them all.

Other than that I see 2 main potential paths for this crew: a very in keyword list around staggered as puppets work well with that and the investigator is the most expensive models they can get a card from obyeing (other than bossing around themselves) or a gunline from hell where you put adversary on Agent/Doppleganger and Angel eyes and just pew pew pew.

If you try it, tell us how it goes!

I tried Angel Eyes, Agent and 2 Lawyers twice and it worked well but with 3 Lawyers and Doppel its more Extreme.
 

Atm I prefere a Investigator List as mentioned by you. But I find it hard to decide what to leave out of the List. Of course I wann: alan, 2 Investigator, vasilisa, dolls, lawyers. But thats too mich SS. 
Thanks for the tip to put adversary on my own models. Never though bout that. 

[Ogid]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

I think I read a report of the extreme Lucius card draw where you had multiple Lawyers and changelings to get a stupid number of cards whilst you feed Agent 46 actions galore. Its fairly TN intensive, but since it draws so many cards it ought to end up positive.

In the dream world I think its 20+cards a turn and 14 attacks with Agent 46. It may not be fully practical.

It might be an idea worth exploring, but the TNs are a big problem... Those chains needs several TNs 9 and one TN7. In fact with 3 Lawyers that idea might be pushed even further, those may chain obey themselves for cards in a very convoluted way, basically as long as one particular model doesn't obey the same model twice in the same turn they are fine; so the following Lawyer activation is legal (1 to 3 are Lawyers, C is changeling , A is agent):

• First action: 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 1, 1 to C1, C1 to A.
• Second action: 1 to C2, C2 to A

That's 5 cards from just 1 activation, but it also require 8 TNs 5 and 2 TN 7... I'm not sure reaching all those TNs are feasible, maybe with 2 dolls putting adversary in all 3 Lawyers it might have a chance, but this needs testing.

The silly thing is Lucius, lawyers and changellings may all start those kind of chains, so that's 15 cards from lawyers (7 duels each, 5 give cards; not counting Agent activation), 12 from changellings (6 duels each, 4 give cards) and 6 from Lucius himself (8 duels, 6 give cards). If I'm not missing something, he might draw more than half of the deck (33 cards) in one turn just from "Following Orders". This isn't real as Laywers needs to activate first to get the suit so those chain activations would only be viable with the Third laywer, Changellings and Lucius (the first and second would have to do shorter chains); but for the sake of not overcomplicating it, lets say they got it built in. Another thing to remember is that in a pinch to cicle 7s and 8s, Changelings may Issue Command the Scribe for a card.

Asuming all this could be pulled of, this would require 15 TNs 9 and 6 TNs 7 for laywers, 15 TNs 9 and 6 TNs 7 for Changelings and 3 TNs 9, 2 TNs 7 and 3 TNs 5 for Lucius. That a total of 33 TNs 9, 14 TNs 7 and 3 TNs 5...

33 TNs 9 are around 1,6 times the number of cards in one deck able to meet that TN... 47 flips plus 33 drawn cards are 80 cards, around 1,5 decks; the odds are against the Lucius player in this scenario as he would need more cards able to meet the TN than he has (even if he manages to pull it off, his non-obey flips would only have the 8 and lower cards)... using adversary in the 3 lawyers and C1 for double flip would net an extra 28 cards flipped for a total of 108 cards or 2 decks; so my blind guess of using adversary in this kind of list is probably the way to go... this would need a simulation to see if it's viable or not as trying to go further is madness but having more cards able than meet the TN than needed is a good start... also the BJ should be keep on the hand as soon as it's drawn because it will stop any chain where it shows up while the RJ only allows the chain to continue, the BJ is much more punishing in this crew.

Something to explore would be puppets to bring stitcheds or Dreamer OOK to have the chance to remove a few low cards with Lucid Dreams, that plus Adversary could make this (or a non-meme version of this) actually consistent; finding the SS to bring all that into a crew would be a feat tho.

Time is another problem, you better flip and think FAST if you don't want to play an 8 hours game... On the bright side, the face of an oponent not expecting it would be gold and killing 1 lawyer will stop most of this non-sense haha.

EDIT: Initially I didn't recall Following orders is one per turn, the 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 1, 1 to 3, 3 to 2, 2 to 1, 1 to C1, C1 to A even if legal, won't give extra cards; so I remade the above with the right numbers

2 hours ago, extremor said:

I tried Angel Eyes, Agent and 2 Lawyers twice and it worked well but with 3 Lawyers and Doppel its more Extreme. Atm I prefere a Investigator List as mentioned by you. Thanks for the tip to put adversary on my own models. Never though bout that. 

Glad to help! I have more time to theorice than to play atm, it's good to read about people making good use of those ideas and it also helps me to see which ones really work and in which scenarios for when I have the oportunity to actually play; so also ty!

Self-adversary is quite eficient, especially in a card starved faction as this one. There is a trade off tho, as including extra low SS models sacrifices initiative and jeopardize those critical back to back activations; but for several uses it may be worth it like fishing for suits with BBS/Gigants or get high TNs like Obey, Lure or Bring it against your own models.

Another trick I've used with that self adversary is Vasilisa + Doll + Effigy; put Adversary (Puppet) in a model with the doll, double walk with Vasilisa and place the effigy, double Lure that model with a  (useful as that lure has stat 4 and needs an 8+). A Rougarou kind of do the same (push 12'') for half the price, but this set up is good if you are already playing with puppets, only leave behind a 3SS model, it might let you double lure into accomplice for a big threat range without exposing that lured model 1 activation and combines well with 1BBS into Mature opening or for a Hinamatsu crew where you already have the effigy. Situational but useful, and it might go well with Lucius because the effigy is "tanky" for a 4SS model, will stagger thanks to Vasilisa's Tangled Threads and drop scrap when killed.

[Adran]

Following orders only gets you cards if it's not that models activation, so your numbers are still wrong. ( obeying lawyer 1 during lawyer 1s turn won't get a card). 

I can't work out if the number of cards drawn is more than the number of cards likely to be needed to cheat to complete the chains ( I probably could but it's late ). 

[Ogid]

True, it doesn't work in the model's activation... that changes a bit the numbers but not the conclusion, just less TNs and less card draw. It shouldn't be hard to do it properly with an Excel sheet and some time, maybe later.

However there is still room to adjust, above I just went for the maximum possible card draw always ending the chain in the Agent following that idea to check how viable it'd be. But the more lawyers in the chain, the less efficient it should become for their high TNs. It should be interesting to check how many lawyers in the chains are the optimum; also investigators generating extra card draw could change that... there could be different "perfect" mixs of Layers and Changelings depending on how many OOK models Lucius includes.

Anyway, the above is still a good aproximation; I've always felt those TNs 9 quite draining but I hadn't looked into that until now. It's a fun puzzle.

[Adran]

On paper I think the perfect chain allows you to draw 53 cards (as well as 3 Tools for the job). (Starting hand of 7 + 46 draws).

There are twenty one 9s needed, (3 masks), a further twenty one 7s needed, twenty three 5s and three 4tomes. 

In addition to the 53 cards drawn you flip 68 cards for those duels (and +1 for initiative), so you have been through the deck over twice, and there is less than 2 decks worth of cards needed to do the chain. 

This should get you 12 extra actions from Agent 46. 

Its 39 SS spent to get here

 

Adding the wicked doll to give adversary will help, as it will probably let you get to flip 12 extra cards, so 80 cards flipped. 

Its surprisingly hard to keep straight who is doing what in the turn. If you are having a bad start to the draw, then you can shortcut quite a lot of it so you should be able to use each activation fairly efficiently to improve your hand overall, despite all the target numbers. (If when you start you don't have the 9 in hand, you don't go through the un activated lawyers for their obeys which will cut down on the draw but still get you the Agent 46 actions for example. The first lawyer can get 5 cards drawn off the first obey (and bonus) with needing 9, 7,5,7,5,7,5,4 , so a decent chance of getting at least one 9 for the second obey ).

(Note- I may well have some numbers wrong somewhere in here, so bear that in mind if you're using my maths as a basis for your argument). 

 

EDIT

Of course the real trick is surviving long enough to go through it all each turn without your opponent killing you for all the time you are spending doing this😀

 

[Ogid]

8 hours ago, Adran said:

(Note- I may well have some numbers wrong somewhere in here, so bear that in mind if you're using my maths as a basis for your argument). 

Of course the real trick is surviving long enough to go through it all each turn without your opponent killing you for all the time you are spending doing this😀

No worries, I'm not interested on nitpicking some random numbers to end "on top", but to have some fun unraveling this and then apply that when I play the master. An yes, this is the perfect crew for an April's fools game, it's not about winning or losing the game; it's about sending a message when your first turn lasts 1h30m XD.

But you have a few good points above, I totally forgot Lucius himself can issue command after being issued commands by changelings (god I'm rusty lol)... that's a game changer to flexibilice obey chains; also including the hand and tools for the job is fair. I'm not sure which number are you using when comparing how many "decks" are needed. I'm using the part of the deck that may reach the TNs: the 37 cards remaining after removing all 1s to 4s and the BJ; and that's also asuming the player is willing to cheat a 12 or 13 to keep the chain rolling; which isn't probably true (but for the sake of simplicity let's asume it's).

But I'm trying to emulate your numbers and I can't make it with only 68 flips drawing all 53 cards. The following are the most efficient chains I've figured out trying to draw as many cards as possible in each activation and always ending the chain with the Agent:

• For Lawyers: L-C1; C-Lu; Lu-A1 // L-C2; C-Lu; Lu-L2; L-C3; C-Lu; Lu-L3; L-A
• For Changelings: C-L; Lu-L1; L-C2; C-L; Lu-L2; L-C3; C-Lu; Lu-L3;L-C; C-Lu; Lu-A1
• For Lucius: Lu-L1; L-C1; C-Lu; Lu-L2; L-C2; C-Lu; Lu-A1 // Lu-L3; L-A // Lu-C3; C-A

Notes: Lu = Lucius. C = Changeling. L = Lawyer. // = separate 2 actions. Numbers = indicates where cards are drawn.

¿Is there any way to improve the above?

Asuming the above chains are the most efficient; those are 74 duels, 43 cards from Following Orders and 3 from Tools from the job. All the card drawn plus the hand are indeed 53 cards (and there are also 12 Agent activations). I needed 26 TNs 5, 24 TNs 7 and another 24 TNs 9.

With my chains all those plus duels are 127 cards (2,35 decks). Using the above value of 34 to compare, then 2 decks (74/37) are needed to reach all TNs and that's considering the best case scenario where no card is "wasted" (like too many 9+ showing up in TNs 5 and 7). Including 2 dolls and putting adversary in the 3 Changelings and the Agent will give 23 extra cards using the above chains; which make them a bit better 2.78 decks worth of flips+drawn; so a bit more margin to "bad" flips and to keep the good cards for the Agent.

However that distribution of 26 TNs 5, 24 TNs 7 and 24 TNs 9 is better than the other with mostly TNs 9; as you say it might let the Lucius player change the chains to better fit his hand (and deck if the player is able to count cards like a pro XD) in a more realistic scenario. Another thing to keep in mind is how hard is to flip each TN asuming a fresh decks: 5 is 63.0%, 7 is 53.7% and 9 is 38.89% (increasing to 62.0% with Adversary); TNs 9 will pressure a lot the hand without that .

 

But enough maths... This gave me an idea about a fun crew (not sure how competitive tho) using this kind of massive funnel of orders with Killjoy and the Agent... It'd need to not include all 6 changeling + Lawyers + 2 dolls as there is not enough SS and the above is fun but probably not practical in a real game. In a crew with so much support as these getting the models that make good use of all those actions killed might be a problem, but in this crew Killjoy has 3 Wds bars and may sacrifice support models to keep himself on the table (he would need different chains as only Lawyers might obey him tho) and the Agent may copy a min 3 damage attack with Drink Blood for massive sustain (and also Onslaught) on top of all the Shielded coming his way.

[Adran]

I'm away from working but I think I managed the following

l- l-l - c - L- c-L-a for 5 cards as 1 action 9,9,9,7,5,7,5 TN.

l-c-A for 1 card 9,7 TN s

And the 4 tomes on  bonus action for surge trigger . 

7 cards. (10 duels)

Changling can get 6 cards each activation. (8 duels I think)

Lucius gets 7 cards. ( 10 duels I think) 21+18+7=46 extra cards drawn. ( 64 duels in total)

I didn't count the card cycling from tools.

 

 

[Regelridderen]

One of my main problems with Lawyers and Obey is the 9s needed, but I just realised that False Witness has no compunctions for J'Accuse'ing your own models.

[Adran]

13 hours ago, Ogid said:

But you have a few good points above, I totally forgot Lucius himself can issue command after being issued commands by changelings (god I'm rusty lol)... that's a game changer to flexibilice obey chains; also including the hand and tools for the job is fair. I'm not sure which number are you using when comparing how many "decks" are needed. I'm using the part of the deck that may reach the TNs: the 37 cards remaining after removing all 1s to 4s and the BJ; and that's also asuming the player is willing to cheat a 12 or 13 to keep the chain rolling; which isn't probably true (but for the sake of simplicity let's asume it's).

I was looking at the raw numbers because I couldn't work out a good way to do it otherwise, especially since I included the surge trigger needing 4.   Hence doing things in complete decks. I counted 21 9s and 21 7s, so thats 21 9+ or 42 7+ cards needed in the chain. There are  21 9+ cards and 29 7+cards in a deck, so 42 and 58 in 2 decks. That means I think the 7+ is the limiting number, so I need to see 73% of the 7+ cards seen in 2 decks (42/58 *100) to keep the chain. I have no idea if this is a legitimate way to look at it, but it seems to make sense.  

As I said I think I have probably miscounted a few numbers. A better way to look at it would probably to run through the chains with decks picking the order, using the highest cards first and see how good the left over cards are. (draw the lowest cards into your hand and don't start deck 2 until you have finished deck 1. 

Whilst the 9s will pressure the hand normally, when your hand ends up being your choice from the whole deck, and is constantly being replenished, I'm not sure how much that pressure is actually there. 

I assumed the best models to Adversary are the Lawyers, but that could just be because its what seemed to make sense. I also always obey lawyers in my chains, and it felt I was less likely to waste cards if I got the positive flip on the hardest TN. But I don't know if it makes any real difference in either case.  Since Issue command isn't an attack it doesn't gain any bonus from doing it to an adversary, and I seem to always be trying to issue command to the Agent. 

 

 

[Ogid]

11 hours ago, Adran said:

As I said I think I have probably miscounted a few numbers. A better way to look at it would probably to run through the chains with decks picking the order, using the highest cards first and see how good the left over cards are. (draw the lowest cards into your hand and don't start deck 2 until you have finished deck 1. 

Whilst the 9s will pressure the hand normally, when your hand ends up being your choice from the whole deck, and is constantly being replenished, I'm not sure how much that pressure is actually there. 

Yes, this needs some testing or computer simulations to see how good it is; but looking at the % of the deck needed to go through the obey chains versus the yield of the obey chain seems a good enough approximation.

The problem with the TN 9s and this meme maximum card draw is that in every activation Lucius needs to pass at least 3 TNs 9+ and will draw 6 cards; without Adversary that's a low chance (39% with a fresh deck); so he will have to cheat 2 of these on average. Asuming he gets the 6 card draw every turn (not counting his activation), in average he will get 2 moderate and 2 severe (less severes as there is only 4 of them but that's roughtly the idea); so in average most of his good cards drawed will go towards feeding the chain; and after 9s and 10s are gone from the deck, then he will have to start throwing very good cards to keep the chain going until the next deck or just cut the loss and waste the AP.

With other sources of card draw (Mastermind, ending the chain with other models, scheme markers with Investigators, surge triggers...) and skiping some models in the chains when the hand isn't good to avoid the risk of losing the AP or having to expend a high severe card, this will probably get better and better.

12 hours ago, Regelridderen said:

One of my main problems with Lawyers and Obey is the 9s needed, but I just realised that False Witness has no compunctions for J'Accuse'ing your own models.

I always forget about them haha. Dolls are cheaper, but they bring a lot for 2SS more so at least 1 might be a good addition to this (and may be even used to end chains for extra draw); and this also give Guild an easy way to pull this off when playing GUI Lucius.

[Regelridderen]

11 hours ago, Ogid said:

I always forget about them haha. Dolls are cheaper, but they bring a lot for 2SS more so at least 1 might be a good addition to this (and may be even used to end chains for extra draw); and this also give Guild an easy way to pull this off when playing GUI Lucius.

I always forget about Dolls and Vasilisa. They seem like a great addition to add some variance to any crew, but there are just soooo many other models, I want to paint first 💩