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Student of Sinew


Deathinabox

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So I'm a little disappointed in this guy. I summoned him recently in a game vs Titania. I figured this would be a great time to pull him out but honestly I felt like Steel or Viscera both would have been a better choice to either cut through armor or ignore all the severe terrain. He seems really suit hungry. He wants masks on his melee to activate his counter-undead ability, he wants crows to use his obey, and he wants rams to get his extra attack on his bonus action. Has anyone here gotten good use out of him? He's not terrible but I dislike that I have to jump through suited hoops to get off his unique abilities. Compare this to Steel who has the armor piercing trigger built in, Analyze weakness doesn't require a suit, and has a bonus action that can heal him or a friendly without any suits involved

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15 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I've only seen it on paper, but don't forget you can 'transfer' suits by stoning for suits with Von Schtook and using the cards for the students. Obey is pretty awesome!

Obey is great, but the vast majority of models with obeys or obey-like actions have either the suit built in or a way to get it built in. The only other model I could find who had an obey without an easy way to get a suit was Old Cranky. I honestly think he'd be really cool and on par with steel if he had a way to get that crow built in. I was thinking something like "Secrets of the Dead: When this model activates, it may remove a corpse marker within 2". If it does, this model gains +:crowto all its final duel totals until the End Phase." This would be a buff that's more flavorful than just adding a crow to the action and would require resources (corpse markers) to use while also synergizing with Studied Opponent.

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The Obey is nice, if you have the card and something useful to do with it, but most of the time I'm not worried about. When I tried to make that my focus with him, he really didn't feel worth the points. Maybe if he had a way to make other models count as Undead I might be more interested. 

What I try to do is look for those low Rams for the extra attack. With that he becomes a pseudo 'flurry' model on the charge. With his  great dmg track and triggers, another attack is always good. I have never had the Aura matter though. It feels a bit wasted other than the free attack. You are right though, he is more card intensive than the others. I wish they had varied him a bit more with the other students. Upped his Df to 5 or something. 

My main problem is that he and Steel are both so slow. Steel at least has a ranged ability. 

2 hours ago, Deathinabox said:

He wants masks on his melee to activate his counter-undead ability,

Not sure what you mean here? He has Puncture on Rams and Flay on Masks. Both are great and don't require the target to be Undead. Other than Obey he doesn't actually do anything special against Undead. If kills an enemy Undead, then he gets a card.

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5 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:
2 hours ago, Deathinabox said:

He wants masks on his melee to activate his counter-undead ability,

Not sure what you mean here? He has Puncture on Rams and Flay on Masks. Both are great and don't require the target to be Undead. Other than Obey he doesn't actually do anything special against Undead. If kills an enemy Undead, then he gets a card.

It doesn't specifically list Undead on Flay but it's his counter-undead trigger. He has it because undead typically have H2W so it gets around the extra :-flipby allowing you to cheat in for that 4/5 damage. All the students have puncture but against H2W, you'll still typically be on a negative to damage. Steel has a similar thing with Armor Piercing trigger. Most (but not all) constructs have armor so it helps him fight them. It can work against anything with armor but it's on him because he fights constructs.

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That low rams ability seems nuts, since the aura is already decent to great depending on circumstances. It is a model that also has useful rams, crows, and usually mask triggers, so is a good model to be making use of excess suits.

But from what I hear of Transmortis, seems like a sometimes summon option? Definitely seems niche and not as good on average as the other students, but I imagine it can shine sometimes. Valedictorian summons it with a kill, it activates and obeys the Valley to charge something else (or just run away), then activates its aura to make it hard to counterstrike the valley girl for instance.

But yeah, super niche. Requires the right board state, enemies, and cards in hand.

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42 minutes ago, Deathinabox said:

It doesn't specifically list Undead on Flay but it's his counter-undead trigger. He has it because undead typically have H2W so it gets around the extra :-flipby allowing you to cheat in for that 4/5 damage. All the students have puncture but against H2W, you'll still typically be on a negative to damage. Steel has a similar thing with Armor Piercing trigger. Most (but not all) constructs have armor so it helps him fight them. It can work against anything with armor but it's on him because he fights constructs.

I think you're overlooking the single biggest benefit of Flay:  Against anyone, you get to cheat the damage flip regardless of the accuracy modifier to the damage flip.  For that matter, consider ever soul stone user who can spend a soul stone to add a :-flipto the damage flip.  

I'm pretty sure that's why none of the seven models with the Flay trigger get it built in.

Disclaimer:  Approximately half of the models with Hard to Wound are undead.  The ones that aren't on green cards are mostly living, with some constructs and beasts.

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1 hour ago, solkan said:

I think you're overlooking the single biggest benefit of Flay:  Against anyone, you get to cheat the damage flip regardless of the accuracy modifier to the damage flip.  For that matter, consider ever soul stone user who can spend a soul stone to add a :-flipto the damage flip.  

I'm pretty sure that's why none of the seven models with the Flay trigger get it built in.

Disclaimer:  Approximately half of the models with Hard to Wound are undead.  The ones that aren't on green cards are mostly living, with some constructs and beasts.

Oh yeah, for sure Flay can be great and I think building that suit in would be way too strong. Against things without H2W however, I think puncture (which all the students and Val have) is actually stronger as you'll typically be on a straight flip (so you can cheat) and will be more likely to just top deck a moderate or severe and save you the card you would have cheated.

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5 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Not even in Von-here's a focus-Schtook? ;)

Yeah, I typically use Academic Broadcast on turn 1 to hit most of my models. Then after that, Schtook plays kinda far from most of the others (he's ranged and not very fast in a melee crew) so there's typically not more than 1 or 2 in range of the ability, so it's often more efficient to just shoot stuff or pass out fast. I do consider using it most turns but I often decide something else is gonna be more useful for me.

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