M3E damage and Seamus

[Erik1978]

I’m a Henchman and have brought many people into the best game ever, and I can honestly say I think M3E is even better than M2E.

 I think we can all agree Killjoy’s 4/5/7 or Viks’ 5/6/8 damage tracks were over the top. It’s nice to see that being toned down.

 Here is where I feel I missed something, pretty much all models now do less damage, and less models ignore armor etc. (Armor actually MEANS something now!)

 But then there is Seamus:

 M2E Seamus had 3 actions and could make 1 shot pr turn, doing 4/6/8 damage, that was pretty good even for M2E.

 Now in M3E, he has 4 actions, can make 1-2 shots pr turn, still doing 4/6/8 damage for no apparent reason but they even decided he should get a couple of decent triggers and last but not least IGNORE HARD TO WOUND to make sure he can get a straight damage flip against all models who can’t use soulstones?!

He has access to models who can easily hand him focus and create corpse markers for him. He can teleport whether you can see him or not, and engaging him doesn’t help either.

I’ve played him, and played against him, and those games have just not been a lot of fun.

New players have asked me if his damage really is 4/6/8 and what they can to about it… I fail to come up with a good answer. Stay behind a forest in the far corner? Grow armor and hug cover so that you might take 2 shots before being squashed instead of 1?

I struggle to understand his damage output going up compared to all other models, any advice (except making terrain with no blocking traits at all).

[Squirrelich]

Probably not the answer you want to hear, but wait, be patient, and most importantly provide objective data to Wyrd of the issue. A lot of things moved at the same time between the edition switch, and a lot more people are testing them now then were when they were moving. The early release of a GG shows they are paying attention and working on it. They fixed some issues in it, I'm sure when they feel it is the right time to do an errata they will fix some more (to be clear: the time the devs think it is appropriate to release an errata is probably different than the internet hive mind, and for good reason)

In game, punish him by taking taking expendable models. If he doesn't have a worth while target to shoot it'll feel bad to pop a 5 wound model because he has nothing else to do, something he may not be able guarantee without cheating anyway. But to date I don't have any tech to protect any high cost model that doesn't already have insane defenses built in.

[solkan]

2 hours ago, Erik1978 said:

Now in M3E, he has 4 actions, can make 1-2 shots pr turn, still doing 4/6/8 damage for no apparent reason but they even decided he should get a couple of decent triggers and last but not least IGNORE HARD TO WOUND to make sure he can get a straight damage flip against all models who can’t use soulstones?!

I want to point out, because I think it's easy to overlook, that A Cause for Celebration has a 2" range.  So Seamus is only getting four actions if that target Corpse Marker on the enemy table half is within 2".

Yeah, at the moment there are exactly two effects with a 4/6/8 damage track:  Seamus's gun, and the Guild Steward's Demise effect.

I think you'd get more attention for "How do I prevent Seamus from being an unstoppable murder machine?" in the Ressurectionist forums (it's sort of strange seeing the discussion of Seamus as "a strong master that you won't bother taking Red Chapel models with").

I mean, just to pick a bad example, two or three Ruthless models focusing on killing Seamus would take him down.  

[Erik1978]

Quote

 mean, just to pick a bad example, two or three Ruthless models focusing on killing Seamus would take him down.

Easier said than done with his 4 actions and teleporting. Carrion Emissary easily puts corpse markers on the enemy half as well as providing teleport options.

[Paddywhack]

I'll say it again - add more Concealment to your boards. Now that Cover is far less useful, you need to actively make sure you have Concealment on your tables to help balance ranged abilities, especially nasty ones like Seamus. 

Make some small fog banks, steam vents, brush piles, something that you can scatter across the table. Being a 'new' terrain type I think a lot of people are forgetting to add it, but without it certain ranged abilities are very strong. It does't have to be anything else either, just Concealing. Forests are fine, but being Dense, Severe, and Concealing can really affect all models and you may not want too much of it. Terrain that is just concealing gives you some ability to affect all ranged attack, not just Projectiles while still allowing free movement, etc. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also some crews just autokill one model a turn, and you just have to get on with either killing some of theirs or snagging VP faster.

Although I may be biased. Seamus tried to assassinate my Dreamer, one shot Serena Bowman instead... Who used demise eternal and a bonus heal and was back at 7 life the next activation. So there are some strong counters to him. Not sure how bad it is when you don't have those.

[Mycellanious]

35 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

I'll say it again - add more Concealment to your boards. Now that Cover is far less useful, you need to actively make sure you have Concealment on your tables to help balance ranged abilities, especially nasty ones like Seamus. 

Make some small fog banks, steam vents, brush piles, something that you can scatter across the table. Being a 'new' terrain type I think a lot of people are forgetting to add it, but without it certain ranged abilities are very strong. It does't have to be anything else either, just Concealing. Forests are fine, but being Dense, Severe, and Concealing can really affect all models and you may not want too much of it. Terrain that is just concealing gives you some ability to affect all ranged attack, not just Projectiles while still allowing free movement, etc. 

Imo, concealment is ineffective against Seamus (and most models) because he has easy access to positives. Since he can only shoot once or twice he's free to concentrate with minimal penalty. Similarly, many Resser models pulse out focus, and there is an upgrade in faction to pulse it out as well. His keyword models give him positives, and worst comes to worst he can just stone for it.

Imo its much better to stone to put Seamus on a negative for damage than to bother with concealing.

When I tech against Seamus, I follow a couple guidelines: 

1. No enforcers. They tend to be at the hp range Seamus wants to kill and cant use stones.

2. Bring a high cache. Stone for a negative to damage, stone for prevention, and suddenly he's not hitting very hard. Its expensive, but if you could spend 2 stones to neutralize the enemy master for a turn, thats a pretty ok trade

3. Bring minions with HtK. So he needs to shoot twice to get his kill. 

4. Dont take scheme require specific models of yours. Seamus has the ability to remove specific models fairly easily, so its unlikely you will score Vendetta, Claim Jump, etc. 

5. Armor 2 helps a bit, if you can put him on weak damage. 

Basically try and make your crew unappealing to him

[Ogid]

I haven't faced him, but he looks scary with that damage track... Hard to Kill seems strong versus him; specially with some healing to bring the target above the threshold if he is not finished. And maybe Cover auras to get the negative flip for damage or "bodyguard" tech like protected or take the hit to defend key models. He is going to kill models, the key has to be denying the kills he really want to get.

Sun Quiang for example is the kind of model that would help versus him; his Df7 make him hard to get (TT has a H2K upgrade for extra safety), study for corpse removal, some healing for the H2K models and the best thing: his "Bedside manner" + "king of medicine" will make any H2K model around him unkillable XD.

Killing him doesn't seem easy with how slippery he is, but his only defensive tech is Terrifying (12) and Hard to kill and he has df4 and 11 Wds... I guess it's not that hard to kill if he is catched; so maybe some slingshot combo to put a decent beater near of him (which is probably easier said than done with other models of his crew around).

IDK... which are the lists that your meta is struggling to face?

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

Hard to kill is not a big deal for my Seamus, at least as long as I can reduce opposing model to HtK in one focused shot. What I don't like to see on the other side of the table are: models able to use soulstones (and high Cache to actually use them), models with 6 Df, models which grant Cover, models which apply Staggered combined with models that can push me far from blocking terrain.

As for counterplay, I have only one advice which hasn't been given yet: never let yourself cheat your last card if you have no soulstones left. That's the moment of weakness I am waiting for to promptly eliminate any model I fancy with assasinate trigger on my melee attack.

[Ogid]

59 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Although I may be biased. Seamus tried to assassinate my Dreamer, one shot Serena Bowman instead... Who used demise eternal and a bonus heal and was back at 7 life the next activation. So there are some strong counters to him. Not sure how bad it is when you don't have those.

Well, this sounds as a suboptimal play, but quite amusing at least. He could had terrorize Serena and blow up the Dreamer, or pick a different target.

40 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

I have only one advice which hasn't been given yet: never let yourself cheat your last card if you have no soulstones left. That's the moment of weakness I am waiting for to promptly eliminate any model I fancy with assasinate trigger on my melee attack.

Haha, good one, his gun get all the attention and he is squishy; so the last thing an enemy would expect is he looking for mele... however with his stat 6 is doable.

[Mycellanious]

1 hour ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

Hard to kill is not a big deal for my Seamus, at least as long as I can reduce opposing model to HtK in one focused shot.

Perhaps but how many minions without HtK will survive one focused shot from Seamus? HtK guartees at least 2 AP from Seamus per kill, which is more than normal. 

[Paddywhack]

2 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

Imo, concealment is ineffective against Seamus (and most models) because he has easy access to positives. Since he can only shoot once or twice he's free to concentrate with minimal penalty. Similarly, many Resser models pulse out focus, and there is an upgrade in faction to pulse it out as well. His keyword models give him positives, and worst comes to worst he can just stone for it.

Imo its much better to stone to put Seamus on a negative for damage than to bother with concealing.

Sure, but would you rather he be a straight on the Attack Flip or a Positive? If you can force him to miss with a good card his damage doesn't matter. And Concealment doesn't cost anything other than making sure your table has some.

Remember, any LOS that crosses Concealing, no matter how far from the target or attacker will affect the shot. If he's always going to be using Focus anyway, I'd at least like to negate whatever I can.

Not every model can use SS, so while nice, can't do much to save most of your crew.  

[Maniacal_cackle]

A kill-oriented master is going to kill something. 

You can shenanigan to restrict his options (like I did with Dreamer), but at the end of the day he will kill something.

The counterplay is to hit his crew harder than he hits you, or to bog him down enough that you can gain a victory points advantage despite him grinding through your crew.

That said, he may be overpowered (he was the top performing resser master in the UK), so he may eventually be nerfed. Until then, we just have to play around him.

[Ogid]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

That said, he may be overpowered (he was the top performing resser master in the UK), so he may eventually be nerfed. Until then, we just have to play around him.

Well, if he needed some changes, it would be a good oportunity to rework both Seamus and his keyword at the same time to give some synergies. Redchapel seems to need some buffs/tweaks, right now he is being played as a kind of versatile/OOK heavy master.

[Fetid Strumpet]

@Mycellanious has the right of it. Seamus loves the opponent to take big expensive enforcers, because that’s what he can kill the easiest.

He hates SS users if they have a cache.

He hates H2K (seriously rail workers are so frustrating to deal with).

He hates Models like McCabe that can hunt him down when he jumps away. McCabe if he catches him can usually 1 round him to death even on full health.

He hates models with ruthless.

Seamus himself is actually a master in this edition far unlike previous editions. 

[KGC.MILKBAG]

I've played roughly 10ish games as Seamus and I think first and foremost you need to take as much Ruthless as possible.  Look to Versatile or Out of Keyword models if you have to.  You're right, Seamus can do a tonne of damage and is incredibly mobile.  But all that comes at the expense of support abilities.  He does next to nothing to enable the rest of the crew and has to take self sufficient models, or models that buff him.  This makes the rest of his crew decently kite-able and kill-able.  Take out his support pieces and frontliners and just learn to deal with the idea of potentially losing a model from Seamus every turn.  The rest of his crew will be vulnerabe.