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So are Arcanists, Outcasts, and Ten Thunders the dominant factions?


Maniacal_cackle

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1 hour ago, Adran said:

(That's not saying anything about the overall power of Dashel. His summoning power is weaker than Dreamer, Asami, Sandeep, Kirai, Somer, but that puts him roughly middle of the pack in summoning masters not at the bottom.)

Note I'm not arguing if he is better or worse, but from a pure summon perspective he is one of the few masters with a summonable 9SS model (being Asami the other one), Dreamer, Tara and Sommer max summon are 7SS, Kirai is 8SS and Sandeep is 10, but he needs 2 turns or "sacrificing" a 4-5SS hired model to pull off a Golem summoning (if not 6SS is his max gaming)

He also has a stat 6, like most of these masters (I think only Kirai and Sandeep has a stat 7) and he may boost his stat to 8 while also dening enemy schemes. And while he require scheme markers to summon, he has the totem to that and summons also get a tactical action... I don't see how he is that bad compared with the other summoners...

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4 minutes ago, Ogid said:

He also has a stat 6, like most of these masters (I think only Kirai and Sandeep has a stat 7) and he may boost his stat to 8 while also dening enemy schemes. And while he require scheme markers to summon, he has the totem to that and summons also get a tactical action... I don't see how he is that bad compared with the other summoners...

Dashel has a stat of 6 summoning from an enemy marker, if he uses a friendly marker the target number goes up so he is effectively stat 4. The totem helps but you're likely to need to supply schemes and convert them with the totem unless your opponent is being silly. Leaving markers out vs guard crews is not a good move.

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Yes, for calculating his summoning capability I was largely treating him as  Stat 4 as its easy for you to get a friendly marker, but some effort to get an enemy marker. (Certainly possible, but not sure that the effort to get there is less than the hold a card 2 higher. Obviously there are some models that can only be summoned of enemy markers).

I didn't really look at the quality if the model summoned as a comparison, I was just looking at the ability to summon.

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I don't think models like McMourning are a good comparison, as I don't think of him as a summoner (just has a bit of incidental summoning with his kit, but he will rarely do it).

As for Dashel, he has at least four models with 'Drop It' in keyword, so I assume the idea is he forces enemies to drop scheme markers for the extra powerful summons. Some of them can do it from 24 inches away at stat 6!

His crew also breaks the "summoning keywords tend to be inefficient" claim a bit, in that he hands out focus like candy and there are some crazy movement tricks, scheme denial, etc.

On paper, I can see where they were going with him and created an awesome package, but can imagine it falls over in practice a bit.

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OMG, I missread that ability hard... so stat 4 for friendly and 6 for enemy... ty!

Ok, that's a bit underwhelming for summoning... So he basically needs to hit "Drop it" in the Peacebringer to have stat 6.

Looking his card a bit more, at least Dashel has decent defensive stats with Armor+1 and Df6 and has decent triggers and a potential stat 7 in his attacks, plus good support; not bad for a summoner... but it's true his summoning seems clunkier than his peers.

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The dispatcher can get you an enemy marker from itself if you have a 5 of masks so it's not impossible to generate a good summon turn one but there's no way to guarantee it. The crew can eat markers to get soulstones so having the option to stone for that suit would have been nice. Most summoners can generate the resource they need for summons without needing to luck out, this places a lot of stress on Dashel's hand.

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It is also hard to calculate the value of scheme denial that Dashel has. Most of the time (in a vacuum) the opponent is likely to have a scheme that requires scheme markers.(approximately half the schemes need markers). They either have to alter their play to score these schemes (either by dropping extra markers and allowing you easier summoning, or by delaying the actions which drop markers until after Dashel has been and then scoring them that turn or having to put them in more awkward places), or not pick those schemes giving Dashel some form of advantage in VP denial.

Its not something that is easy to see in game because it alters your opponents choices and you can't see what they didn't do. (I'd also say that he has one of the better summon upgrades, with a decent action and only a very mild downside).

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I need to read his cards again... writing from memory with only a peak to the card backfire sometimes XD 🙈🙈

If the keyword may generate enemy scheme markers, then it's a bit more bearable. But still needing 2 suits (one for the marker and other for the summoning ability) instead of 1 to pull off a summon is definitely a handicap. He'd probably benefice a lot from a Lawyer (OOK), it's a very solid model in general, but Tools for the job may be great to get a mask from the discard pile for the dispatcher if there is no luck.

But there seem to be good things in the keyword, the extra ability in the upgrade, good summons (one of them with Ride with me!), Dashel being scarier than the average summoner, coordinated attack triggers...

The above is also true, he can potentially cut the oponents options or punish him in scheme heavy pools, that's quite valuable.

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I was only half serious about his summon. Problem it is card intense (most of time you need 5+ mask and either high ram or stone if tou want summon something decent) in crew with nearly no card draw (only on dispatcher trigger) and makes shouting orders being useless most of time (after t1 i use it only on rifleman since rest of crew doesnt want to forefit their bonus action just for focus). Also guild patrols and sergants need to discard, for their abilities. That leaves you with 1-2 cards for cheating duels, hoping your enemy has no discard. 

He has great stats but not amazing dmg track. Also he is only 10 wounds witch is more henchmen lvl then master. His bonus is nice but far from gamechanging. Shouting orders supposed to be his iconic ability are usualy not worth using (for reasons above)

He can work wery well if you get right cards ( you can say it about nearly any master) but if you dont you struggle to do anything meaningfull.

Scheme marker denial is awesome but... if enemy is not stupid he will take no scheme marker based schemes

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48 minutes ago, eddy said:

I was only half serious about his summon. Problem it is card intense (most of time you need 5+ mask and either high ram or stone if tou want summon something decent) in crew with nearly no card draw (only on dispatcher trigger) and makes shouting orders being useless most of time (after t1 i use it only on rifleman since rest of crew doesnt want to forefit their bonus action just for focus). Also guild patrols and sergants need to discard, for their abilities. That leaves you with 1-2 cards for cheating duels, hoping your enemy has no discard. 

He has great stats but not amazing dmg track. Also he is only 10 wounds witch is more henchmen lvl then master. His bonus is nice but far from gamechanging. Shouting orders supposed to be his iconic ability are usualy not worth using (for reasons above)

He can work wery well if you get right cards ( you can say it about nearly any master) but if you dont you struggle to do anything meaningfull.

Scheme marker denial is awesome but... if enemy is not stupid he will take no scheme marker based schemes

This topic is gettin' a bit off track, buuuuut....

Isn't the Guard-crew based around a heavy amount of SS gain through Loot their corpses? That should allow for the summoning suits and filtering cards during the beginning of the turn. Hell, you can use it to keep him alive aswell. 

Maybe my local meta is unique compared to others, but my experience with Dashel doesn't really scream "bland master who struggles to stay alive, kill or summon.". He has access to good damage and somewhat flexible models. And denying Scheme marker-Schemes can be a winning strategy. It means you are dictating a core part of the game.

Several other summoners struggle with card draw, which seems like a fair trade for a summoner.

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11 hours ago, Adran said:

I'm not convinced that's actually true. I would say Sonnia, Lynch, Mcmorning and Leveticus are harder summons to pull off, just looking at masters, (And I could see a case for Ramos and Nicodem as well), and Tara is an easier summon, but then takes more work to put it on the table, so overall is about the same level of difficulty to get a summon on the table.

(That's not saying anything about the overall power of Dashel. His summoning power is weaker than Dreamer, Asami, Sandeep, Kirai, Somer, but that puts him roughly middle of the pack in summoning masters not at the bottom.)

It depends on your definition of "Summoning Master".

I wouldn't count Sonnia, Lynch, etc as one. They summon as a byproduct (and as a result, it's significantly harder), it's not even close to a primary role.

It's like arguing that Dashel is a ranged master, because he has a gun. Or is a melee master, because he has the axe. They're things he can do, but they're auxiliary to his main role, and if you have to end up relying on either to the detriment of his summoning and support roles, your game is either comfortably in hand, or the wheels have come completely off. A game where Sonnia, Lynch, etc don't even attempt a summon, let alone have it significantly impact a game (either be instrumental in turning the game for you as a result, or saving a game) would have to be in the very low fractions.

To me, it's Dashel, Kirai (and Nico), Sandeep (and Ramos), Dreamer, Tara, So'Mer and Asami that are "Summoning Masters" (and have a similar format to their summoning action). The others, Sonnia, Lynch, etc, aren't. And in that list, Dashel is arguably the worst. Tara's work necessary to get her summons on the table might make the actual action comparable in badness to Dashel, but there's no comparison her utility outside of the Summons makes her a better Summoning Master.

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Well, the ceiling for Dashel summoning is "deny an enemy scheme while summoning an executioner which promptly eats another scheme and takes two actions."

So in terms of raw power, Dashel probably has one of the highest ceilings. It should be harder to set up!

Granted nobody is picking scheme marker schemes against Dashel (which is doable ~91% of the time), but you're usually picking Dashel into scheme heavy pools (say 3+), which is ~40% of all scheme pools. So you're at least severely pidgeon-holing your opponent just by the ability existing.

As Adran says, the scheme denial is a factor in power level considerations.

And dammit, now I really want to buy a Dashel crew 😜

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I have not played versus him yet, but on paper he seems quite solid.

It's true the first turn summoning is a bit harder to set up than other summoners, but he gains quite a bit in return. He has 7 summonable minions with a good variety of roles and with a cost from 3 to 9 (Tara for example has 2 summons). And there are a lot of good stuff in his minions. His 4SS minion has take the hit and creep along, the Warden Armor+2 and a slowing attack, 6SS is the only summonable sniper, Mounted guard ride with me, I've got your back and a demise to become a Guard Patrol, Executioner are good beaters... Plus He is the only summoner that may use his summoning ability in turns 4 and 5 to deny enemy scheme markers; other summoners in those turns (specially 5) start to think twice about if summon something or use their AP to score/deny, he can do both. The keyword may also generate SS through sacrificing dogs and guards, has access to Adversary, Focus, Fast, the summoning upgrade has a bonus action...

It seems a keyword with a lot of tools... Does it work that badly in the table?

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1 hour ago, Ogid said:

It seems a keyword with a lot of tools... Does it work that badly in the table?

The problem with it, is what @Adran mentioned earlier. That a lot of Dashel's potential comes from making your opponent play differently.

A loss is weighted more heavily as the keyword not being as effective, whereas a win is possibly going to be chalked up to the opponent playing "badly" (either they played Scheme Markers that Dashel was able to abuse, or took the Schemes that made it much more counterable).

That may be a big factor too. In my local store meta, there appears to be very little counterbuilding. People show up, select a table, generate the Schemes and Strats, announce the Faction and Leader, and then play the crew they had already had in their mind before they show up, with maybe a model or two of countertech (ie, Jury against Dreamer/Tara, an extra Tanuki against McMourning/Brewmaster). When I play at home, I try to have the board set up days in advance, with the pools generated and everything declared, so that the crewbuild is taking everything into account.

It raises the question, how does Dashel perform when being able to effectively counterbuild into specific scheme pools? Cause if you know Claim Jump and Take Prisoner are the only two non-Scheme Marker Schemes available, it shouldn't be difficult to prevent the opponent from being able to score any points from that, short of table wipe (or significant lure-age). If your opponent is only able to score Strat Points, your path to victory got a whole lot easier.

I'm just wondering how much of Dashel's apparent struggle is because people aren't taking ownership of his clear but intangible strengths (forcing the opponent to either have a limited Scheme pool or give Dashel targets for summoning), and instead relying on prebuilt crews.

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Is giving Daschel a target for summoning a big deal?  He's still worse at summoning than Sandeep even with a target.  This isn't Parker Barrows, he removes one scheme marker a round.  Nor is his crew particularly survivable for doing that without getting punished.  Outside of Daschel, only Queeg and the Sargent even interact with enemy scheme markers, making it very different from Parker Barrows (where it feels like putting down markers is basically handing Parker's crew free Fast). 

Then there's this odd thing where every model in his crew seems to be missing stuff.  For instance, Queeg is an 8 wound Df 5 model with... that's it.  For 8 stones.  It feels a bit below the curve.  He doesn't even get an enforcer.    The guard patrol for some reason have a 1/2/4 damage gun.  Wardens aren't great in Hoffman, but they're obviously better there.  Queeg and Daschel together lets you discard a card and take 2 damage to gain Fast as a bonus action, I guess.  Does not seem as good Reckless.   

For that matter Daschel himself seems made out of cardboard.  He's 10 wounds, armor 1, which is extremely not impressive if you're going to extend to target the enemy's scheme markers.  

Then there's the bizarre Loot their Corpse.  It lets you turn corpses into soulstones, which lets you channel their killing power into more stones for more killing power.  Only they don't have much killing power, and their only henchman is Queeg, who has mediocre attacks and is seriously made out of cardboard.  They can't even spend soulstones for anything special.  It's just the weirdest little ability.  I guess you're supposed to toss soulstones with Queeg and Daschel to make them not die?  It feels like they'd be better off with real defensive mechanics.

I don't think your opponent has to respect one thing about a Daschal crew.  I'd love to play someone who showed me differently, but right now I can't see how his models are good or how he's good.  

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2 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Is giving Daschel a target for summoning a big deal?  He's still worse at summoning than Sandeep even with a target.  This isn't Parker Barrows, he removes one scheme marker a round.  Nor is his crew particularly survivable for doing that without getting punished.  Outside of Daschel, only Queeg and the Sargent even interact with enemy scheme markers, making it very different from Parker Barrows (where it feels like putting down markers is basically handing Parker's crew free Fast). 

I'm just going off paper and would love to play him, but...

Dashel can remove scheme markers for a major bonus at 8" range, and executioners can remove them for an extra action  at a range of 3" (but executioners get very strong at half health). Queeg/sergeants have an okay ability against enemy scheme markers as well. I imagine this puts them in the top ten crews for scheme marker denial. They're certainly more powerful when denying schemes than Molly, and she is brutal on scheme markers (though she can do any area of the board more easily than he can).

Executioners are pretty powerful (often stat 7, min 3 beater), and will sometimes be taking three attacks. It is also quite easy to give them fast, so they're one of the rare beaters that can do four attacks in a round (although it is so much set up it would be unusual). Their scatter ability also means they have very powerful scheming/strategy potential (since they can deny schemes and you can't deny them the interact action via engagement usually). It is hard to think of many summons that are more powerful than these guys. And of course you can summon mounted guard. Granted, you need a 13 or 12 AND a scheme marker, so this is definitely 'best case scenario.'

For usual case, guild hound are significant, so you've got a 3 model significant model as your floor. You've got Guard Patrol to act as damage soaks (and are particularly annoying against min-3 attacks where they survive with one health). Riflemen have insane range, and stand and fire is a decent tax effect. They can deliver execute across a table, which is just crazy (takes some setup of course). Sergeants don't seem like a great summon as you want their aura at the start of the game, but they're a decent beater if you're loaded on rams. Their ability to move other models is very good though.

And their summoning bonus action is sweet as.

Defense and willpowers generally float around 5-6, which is pretty solid compared to many crews. Other defensive tech is lacking of course.

Pursue is of course a very powerful ability for a crew that is attacking on stat 5-6.

Perhaps most striking of all is the crew has really good triggers. Critical strike, coordinated attack, drop it, arrest order, execute, hold down (not sure this one counts as it is a hound trigger), armor piercing, ricochet, puncture. The crew has a use for every suit, so no matter what you're drawing you can find a use for it (although trigger management is admittedly one of the hardest parts of mastering a crew, so this part will be hella hard).

One thing to note is that guild in general seems to be exceptionally squishy, and Guard is no exception. The big key with them seems to be avoiding hits rather than tanking hits (although summons means you at least have some expendable minions to slow the enemy down for your firing line).

Soulstones seem like you'll mainly be using them on the master/damage reduction, but don't forget about snagging OOK and versatile hires. Dr. Grimwell's lobotomy hits like a truck if you have soulstones to spare (bonus action move, prepare for surgery with stone for stagger, then stone for lobotomy). And since the crew has ride with me, it is somewhat realistic to set up!

Just some thoughts, anyway. The crew feels like it has some super awesome efficiencies, but would be very hard to capitalise on them. Mastering every trigger in the crew and calibrating matchups to abuse scheme marker advantage is tricky, and it would be quite a challenge to master keeping the models safe... But I wouldn't be surprised if there are some fantastic Dashel players out there. Although personally that 'challenging to play' is exactly what makes me think I'd pick up that crew if I was Guild. There are tons of tiny synergies between all those abilities!

EDIT: Note that my playstyle with summoners is to take a powerful crew and supplement it with summons (rather than relying on summons to bring power to the table). But just thinking Dashel + a cool master or henchmen + Pale Rider + a solid guard minion base + incidental summons sounds like a pretty powerful/fun crew to me!

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1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Just some thoughts, anyway. The crew feels like it has some super awesome efficiencies, but would be very hard to capitalise on them. Mastering every trigger in the crew and calibrating matchups to abuse scheme marker advantage is tricky, and it would be quite a challenge to master keeping the models safe... But I wouldn't be surprised if there are some fantastic Dashel players out there. Although personally that 'challenging to play' is exactly what makes me think I'd pick up that crew if I was Guild. There are tons of tiny synergies between all those abilities!

As I've heard Dashel described by the players who play him (people still play guild apparently), as a crew it's pretty good... until you compare it to the other summoners and some of the shenanigans they can do (i.e. Asami and Sandeep).

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Yeah, I think Nagi nailed it.  Dreamer, Sandeep, Tara, and Asami are all doing better things.  Actually for that matter, Som'er, Yan Lo, and Kirai all seem better. 

How is Queeg so goddamn bad?  I just envision him walking up to an enemy scheme marker, removing it, and then immediately vanishing as Howard Langston cuts him in half.  You're paying the same soulstones for Queeg and Minako Rei.  How is that even possible?  How can you stick Queeg next to Minako Rei and say "yep, these are same cost from the same game"?  

I dunno, if someone wants to Vassal me, I'll take any ol' outcast crew against him.  Maybe he gives Viks a fair fight.  I guess.  I'd like to see how he plays, and I've been meaning to learn Vassal anyway. But wow I don't see it working out well for ol' Dashel.  

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Yeah, in comparison to Dreamer/Asami, I can see why Dashel seems like he would fall short. But not even due to the summoning. For Dreamer, his keyword is so powerful even before the summoning that it just feels like being hit by an avalanche (plus the broken aspects of Stitched). For Asami, the crew itself wouldn't feel THAT strong if it couldn't take things like the Emissary and other versatile models. Or Dreamer taking Zoraida as a second master for the card draw and scrap markers.

Basically, "summoners that can easily draw six extra cards" is super broken. Summoners that start with a crew that are on par with many other crews before summoning are also pretty suspect.

But for like Kirai, her crew feels very underwhelming without summons. I definitely have never gotten the impression of over-powered playing against her. Sandeep I've not played against, but he looks pretty suspect on the 'lots of card draw + summoning is a bad mixture' front. I also didn't notice before, but his crew is suprisingly mobile (agile on key models, etc), and wind gamin I thought were 7 stones in my original comments xD

Tara I have played against, but felt supremely underwhelming (but I think that game was just massively tilted in my favour anyway). 

I'd possibly be up for giving Dashel a go on Vassal someday, but I won't have time to learn it/set it up for at least a month or two.

EDIT: Also worth noting some crews are just hard to 'get.' Reva was widely mocked in resser spaces for being terribad, but recent tournament placements have changed that a fair bit. Hearing explanations of how the crew works has really opened up my eyes as to why 'the most underpowered resser crew' is actually awesome.

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Tara is definitely in the "hard to get" but the list of Tara, Scion, Nothing Beast, Aionus, Hannah, Scavenger is the real deal.  It's an elite crew that probably falls under "as good as a standard crew plus summoning".  Sandeep is 100% "good as real crew plus summoning".  In addition to summoning wind gamin for scheme runners, his ability to put into play Golems is really annoying.  Also Sandeep and Dreamer get totems that are real models in their own right for some reason - looking at Dashel+totem vs Sandeep+totem is just sad.  Really, Sandeep just gets Banasuva for free.  

If the idea of M3E was that summoning masters would be overall weaker and their crews would be slightly defective to make up for it, Dashel is the only one who actually hit the mark of "weaker master plus weaker crew."  Everyone else gets to play a master that's pretty good and a crew that's just fine (except maybe Kirai).  And then Dashel's summoning is weaker too.

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3 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Maybe he gives Viks a fair fight.

Viks rules. I have a friends who dominated 2 "championships" (8 games in 6 months) with them . Without losing any game. 

They are not kill, but within Viks ,Ronin , Midnight and Emissary they are unstoppable schemers . And it doesn't matter if you didn't remove one single models of the enemy crew , the VP are the important thing at the end .

Running around avoiding enemies is a strange way to play and a lot of people doesn't like it but it pays of in some crews.

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2 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Tara is definitely in the "hard to get" but the list of Tara, Scion, Nothing Beast, Aionus, Hannah, Scavenger is the real deal.  It's an elite crew that probably falls under "as good as a standard crew plus summoning".  Sandeep is 100% "good as real crew plus summoning".  In addition to summoning wind gamin for scheme runners, his ability to put into play Golems is really annoying.  Also Sandeep and Dreamer get totems that are real models in their own right for some reason - looking at Dashel+totem vs Sandeep+totem is just sad.  Really, Sandeep just gets Banasuva for free.  

If the idea of M3E was that summoning masters would be overall weaker and their crews would be slightly defective to make up for it, Dashel is the only one who actually hit the mark of "weaker master plus weaker crew."  Everyone else gets to play a master that's pretty good and a crew that's just fine (except maybe Kirai).  And then Dashel's summoning is weaker too.

I don't believe that Dashel is as bad as you make him out to be.

I understand that Guild-players currently feel underpowered, but I personally think that atleast some, almost miniscule part of this, is the result of hyperbole and the echo chamber(ing) that can occur at times. That being said, I also believe that Sandeep & Dreamer, among other masters, are atleast a bit over the curve. I'd much rather see them be brought down, however.

There are obviously things that need buffing in the Guild-roster, though. Please be gentle, Guild players 😁

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