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Best choices for each deployment type?


Maniacal_cackle

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We often talk about strategies, but I find deployment types can be just as impactful on crew composition. What do you reckon are the best masters/crews/models for each deployment type?

On corner deployment, I imagine Nekima crews are very strong. Dreamer is situationally good - he can really hammer less mobile crews, but can't keep up with the best corner crews I reckon.

Wedge deployment is fantastic for Pandora and I imagine Titania might be good at it?

Flank is also great for Pandora.

Standard seems fantastic for Zoraida, since she gets such extensive coverage compared to opponents on it.

And of course, hooded rider is useful for corner and standard for increased movement.

What do you think?

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Great observation.

I think, its highly dependent on terrain though. As an example, I chose Pandora in Wedge/Reckoning - which ought to be a perfect matchup - and got hammered, as the center of the board was a narrow corridor between two large buildings, that blocked LOS and thus hampered my opportunities to focus my efforts and auras, while hampering my ability to respond to scheme runners outside the center.

While Dreamer in corner/turf war would be less hampered, as you’d probably be aiming for the centre anyway. Or he could use the mobility of the spiders / rider to compensate.

-

What I’d love to get from this discussion is some pointers, on how you’d mitigate the weaknesses of masters/deployment. 

 

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I agree with what you said above but I think it's a bit more complex; a crew may have different way to be played so saying a kind of deployment will always be better for a crew may not be accurate. For me deployment favors different kind of playstiles.

Corner and Standard are the ones with more distance between crews; Flank and Wedge promote a quick clash.

Very fast crews may take andvantage of deployments like Corner of Standard to get a positional advantage, invade the other player's half of the board and force them to play the defensive game; but it also may be used for crews that scalate over time (summoners, Yan-Lo, Growing Nephillims...) to get extra time to build his strengh before clasing. Slow, Bubble crews with low scaling over time will prefer a deployment that let them start hammering the other crew as fast as possible, so these crews will favor Flank and Wedge...

However crews may adapt their playstile. For example a dreamer (a summoner with another strong scalating ability in Lucid Dreams) in Wedge with mostly Enforcers/Henchmans and Zoraida/Nekima as double master may start going super agressive from turn 1 or a Fae Crew (in theory a slow crew with no scalating mechanics) with 2 BBS, the rider and the Effigy with the fate upgrade may take advantage of an Standard deployment to get more time to build up their good escalating hired models.

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2 hours ago, Regelridderen said:

What I’d love to get from this discussion is some pointers, on how you’d mitigate the weaknesses of masters/deployment. 

About this bit, this is about knowing your crew and faction and the other guys crew and make the best decision for that particular game.

For example, let's say corner versus Arcanists; you think a Sandeep could be a good pick for the pool so you decide to go for Nekima to rush him because you are confident you can crush him before he summons too many gamins; then the other player declares Ironsides. Rushing ironsides isn't that necessary (she may build some Focused and Adrenaline, but nothing more) and Ironsides bubble is hard to tacke and slow. In this case a more grow style Nephillims with OOK tech to deal with Ironsides trigger and bubble (like Candy) could be a way to adapt to that particular game.

Or let's say you are in Standard Deployment, have declared Euripides and then they pick a very strong scaling master. Then you may try to cheese your way to victory with a hyperagressive turn 1 rush using "Shattering Shove", like the one described here.

It's very hard to give the perfect recipe to adapt because there is too many factors to consider amd it also depend on how many model that player has and how many playstiles that player domines. But in the end it's about taking advantage this game let you build your crew after knowing a lot of information about the game you are going to play (board, deployment, enemy faction, enemy master, strategy and schemes).

This is easy to explain but very hard to master, and I think that's what will make the difference between the top players and the rest.

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12 hours ago, Regelridderen said:

What I’d love to get from this discussion is some pointers, on how you’d mitigate the weaknesses of masters/deployment. 

 

You and @Ogid raise good points about terrain, but I think we would need a separate thread with pictures of boards.

I also agree that you need to examine a game as a whole, but we should still establish some general principles about each piece of game setup IMO.

To answer mitigation...

First, here is a link where I talk about analysing the board.

In general, at least one player has to cross the centreline to score points.

If your opponent has a mobility advantage, consider taking schemes that don't require crossing the centreline.

Vendetta, harness the leyline, power ritual for one point, etc. are good examples of this on corner deployment.

As an example, one time I was Dreamer against McMourning on corrupted idols. I was expecting a slow crew, but he took Kentauri AND the dead rider. He was going to be wherever he wanted to be.

I decided to use ancient pacts to win initiative flips and forced most of the idols to fall on the left side of the board. I also minimised summons to avoid giving him initiaitive via pass tokens. This forced him to use his mobility to come to me. I then vendetta-ed his Dead Rider.

Thus I was able to score without having to travel too far. I was able to force the whole game to happen on my turf. Beware, though. That is a high risk, high reward strategy - I had another game where I did the same thing and couldn't draw severes for my side of the board, so I lost the initiative flips.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/16/2019 at 10:24 AM, Regelridderen said:

What I’d love to get from this discussion is some pointers, on how you’d mitigate the weaknesses of masters/deployment. 

I think the big issue is not choosing the master until after you see the table.  If you don't win deployment, sometimes you can be set in a really horrible spot.  Obviously it isn't always an option but at tournaments you see the pool, deployment, and table before you declare the master so doing so in a friendly seems fine.  

If you and your opponent have pre-selected before coming to the table, then discuss some alterations to the table in order to make it more balanced.  In my meta, we often predetermine our crews and everything before we get to the shop so we can start play faster.  Once we're there we build or manipulate the table terrain until we are both happy with it and have discussed each piece and its features.

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