Best models for each scheme?

[Maniacal_cackle]

The more I play, the more I find schemes dictate a lot of my choices. So I want to get a feel for opinions on which models are best for each scheme (scoring or denying).

To start us off...

Hold Up Their Forces: we lack a super tanky, low cost, 2" engage model like Ashigaru. But Aversion help. Deadly pursuit is also fantastic for Hold, so our three pursuit models (rougarou. Bultungin, constrictor) spring to mind. Dreamer is nuts for his summoning mechanic on this.

Take Prisoner: we are amazing at this. Serena, Teddy, Widow Weaver, and more can reposition enemies. Bultungin can reposition enemies without damaging them.

Outflank: much trickier for us than other factions. Not sure who in our faction is well suited to this? Perhaps Nephilim?

Assassinate: as one of the glass cannon factions, we can destroy enemy leaders with great consistency. However, hunting them down may be harder and best left to mobile crews like Nephilim or Nightmare.  Matchup dependent.

Deliver a message: doppelganger seems amazing, as she can't be stopped even by nearby enemies. And our many mobile models are great for this. Still, we would rather be killing?

Claim Jump: Serena Bowman with inhuman reflexes feels like one of the best claim jumpers in the game (biased view). Deadly pursuit is also an amazing claim jump ability, so Rougarou may be a nice way to fake out your opponent (especially if they assume you would use Serena to claim jump). Aversion can help deny.

Vendetta: yes. So many options. Candy in particular I find to be brutal, as normally enemies want to avoid her, this punishes them for that. A hooded rider helps her get to her target, but is also very likely to be a vendetta target.

Scheme marker schemes! Of course Iggy and Lucius models are going to be fantastic here. And Zoraida, don't forget how strong she is (especially with her out of faction schemers).

Detonate charges: all our big bases are a disadvantage here. Not sure who excels at it other than Doppelganger.

Breakthrough: widow Weaver + Bandersnatch make a great tag team for getting this in corner deployment. Big investment, but usually pays off for me. I'm sure there are tons of options (bultungin, hooded rider boosting schemers, etc). Especially good when we only want one point, as then half our faction can do it.

Harness the leyline: sooooo many interactions. Very difficult for us, except maybe for puppets and Lucius crews? Pairs well with a claim jump/harness the leyline dominate the centre strategy, so keep an eye out for that combo. We are hard to beat in an all out brawl.

Dig their graves: corpse marker generation is king here, so Nekima's pup seems like the best. For the rest, we kill well, so can get the first point. Beware playing non-corpse marker crews like Dreamer if planning to score the second point. Our 2" engages also make it super hard to score the first point for some crews.

Power ritual: we are bad at scheme markers and bad at outflank. This almost doubles up on the problem. However, getting one point here is easy, and we can set up for the second point in our own base. Situational, but good. Again. Widow weaver + Bandersnatch are my go to team for this.

Search the ruins: Titania is queen no more Any of the above really, but five interacts is a lot. A good option for scoring only one point.

What are your thoughts?

 

[DumbLuck]

Don't overlook the Cyclops for scheme heavy pools, they can do detonate themselves pop a pillar next to a model drop a marker and bonus action another marker off the pillar.  This is also a big leg up for Harness and can easily get you some points for Search, especially if you have a Gigant throw them across the table.

Also for Dig, don't count out the Blackblood shamans carving corpse markers off living models on the field, granted it's not as easy as the blood hunter, but they can still leave a trail of corpses.

[Maniacal_cackle]

15 minutes ago, DumbLuck said:

Don't overlook the Cyclops for scheme heavy pools, they can do detonate themselves pop a pillar next to a model drop a marker and bonus action another marker off the pillar.  This is also a big leg up for Harness and can easily get you some points for Search, especially if you have a Gigant throw them across the table.

Also for Dig, don't count out the Blackblood shamans carving corpse markers off living models on the field, granted it's not as easy as the blood hunter, but they can still leave a trail of corpses.

Wowza, both great tips!

Having a min 3 beater that good at scheming is awesome. They're a bit slow, but some schemes seem perfect.

[Nagi21]

On 12/30/2019 at 4:21 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Hold Up Their Forces: we lack a super tanky, low cost, 2" engage model like Ashigaru. But Aversion help. Deadly pursuit is also fantastic for Hold, so our three pursuit models (rougarou. Bultungin, constrictor) spring to mind. Dreamer is nuts for his summoning mechanic on this.

Take Prisoner: we are amazing at this. Serena, Teddy, Widow Weaver, and more can reposition enemies. Bultungin can reposition enemies without damaging them.

Outflank: much trickier for us than other factions. Not sure who in our faction is well suited to this? Perhaps Nephilim?

Assassinate: as one of the glass cannon factions, we can destroy enemy leaders with great consistency. However, hunting them down may be harder and best left to mobile crews like Nephilim or Nightmare.  Matchup dependent.

Deliver a message: doppelganger seems amazing, as she can't be stopped even by nearby enemies. And our many mobile models are great for this. Still, we would rather be killing?

Claim Jump: Serena Bowman with inhuman reflexes feels like one of the best claim jumpers in the game (biased view). Deadly pursuit is also an amazing claim jump ability, so Rougarou may be a nice way to fake out your opponent (especially if they assume you would use Serena to claim jump). Aversion can help deny.

Vendetta: yes. So many options. Candy in particular I find to be brutal, as normally enemies want to avoid her, this punishes them for that. A hooded rider helps her get to her target, but is also very likely to be a vendetta target.

Scheme marker schemes! Of course Iggy and Lucius models are going to be fantastic here. And Zoraida, don't forget how strong she is (especially with her out of faction schemers).

Detonate charges: all our big bases are a disadvantage here. Not sure who excels at it other than Doppelganger.

Breakthrough: widow Weaver + Bandersnatch make a great tag team for getting this in corner deployment. Big investment, but usually pays off for me. I'm sure there are tons of options (bultungin, hooded rider boosting schemers, etc). Especially good when we only want one point, as then half our faction can do it.

Harness the leyline: sooooo many interactions. Very difficult for us, except maybe for puppets and Lucius crews? Pairs well with a claim jump/harness the leyline dominate the centre strategy, so keep an eye out for that combo. We are hard to beat in an all out brawl.

Dig their graves: corpse marker generation is king here, so Nekima's pup seems like the best. For the rest, we kill well, so can get the first point. Beware playing non-corpse marker crews like Dreamer if planning to score the second point. Our 2" engages also make it super hard to score the first point for some crews.

Power ritual: we are bad at scheme markers and bad at outflank. This almost doubles up on the problem. However, getting one point here is easy, and we can set up for the second point in our own base. Situational, but good. Again. Widow weaver + Bandersnatch are my go to team for this.

Search the ruins: Titania is queen no more Any of the above really, but five interacts is a lot. A good option for scoring only one point.

Hold Up Their Forces: 50/50, depending on what you bring to the table.  Savage works slightly better with this since they are the tanky crew in the faction.

Take Prisoner: We have a lot of options for this but bear in mind that generally we don't want to be leaving models around to do whatever they want.  We don't have that many options to cripple models while keeping them alive.

Outflank: Feasible for basically any of our crews (yes even Dora) in standard or wedge.  Corner turns this into a Nephilim only strategy (but they do love it~).

Assassinate: Very matchup dependent.  Also you will often run into an issue of whether you want to keep that leader alive for one more turn to get both points or settle for the single murder point (this one is more strat dependent than crew dependent).

Deliver a message: Easy one point but it requires leaving the enemy leader alive which 90% of the time is either A) Too deadly to be left alive or 2) Too mobile to get the second point on anyway.  Also means that you're likely giving up a free point as well since aside from Lucius and Zoraida, our leaders always want to be in the thick of things.

Claim Jump: This one is pretty reliable for just about anything, so long as you pick the right model.  Woes, Nightmares, Nephilim, etc all want the enemy to come to them on their terms.  Serena, Candy (sooooo much candy), Vasilisa, Hina, etc.  Anything that can survive a turn in the center is a good option here.  Just don't take it into a mid v. mid fight (i.e. Toni).

Vendetta: This is a nephilim strat every game.  Literally.  If you're not taking this you better have a good reason.  Grab a BBS, pick an enemy 6ss model, and grow that boy into a 10 stone hunter with one job.  The only catch is making sure you don't murder them too quickly.  That being said, I hesitate to say this is good for other crews (savage works due to the tankiness) since it requires the friendly model to survive, which is not something we do particularly well...

Detonate charges: Don't.  It doesn't work well.  We only have one or two models that can lay down non-interact scheme markers and those are very telling.  There's 4 other schemes in the pool.  Move on.

Breakthrough: Widow and Bander are options.  This one really depends on the deployment.  Flank is doable for about half the crews, corner is almost impossible for anything that isn't Nephilim.  It's an option, but shouldn't be the first one.

Harness the leyline: Looks bad, really isn't.  Leyline means using some AP to put markers on the centerline.  Bad right?  Here's the rub:  Where does your opponent need to come to stop said markers?  As neverborn you should (almost) always want to take the center and force a fight there where reinforcements can come fast and furious (doubly so if it's something like Idols).  Now there are some crews where this is a bad idea (Hi Nellie...), but this one is a pocket pick for when you need a scheme that can force your opponent to play your game.

Dig their graves: A couple of gimmicks make this feasible, but it's difficult keeping it secret while doing it.  Nephilim blood hunter + wicked doll = easy second point, the tricky part being figuring out when to dump an AP to drop a scheme marker for an easy kill.  Ironically most of the gaggle has the opposite problem.  Important thing to remember is it's corpse OR scrap markers.  Wicked dolls are 4 stones and useful all around, and easily sacrificed in a pinch, same for pups.  BBS is an option OOK but at that point you might as well be telling your opponent your game ahead of time (could be an interesting fake out though...).

Power ritual: I hold that there's no good reason to take this if there's breakthrough in the pool in 80% of games, but that's not the important bit.  This is a possible take in corner or flank deployments for one point, but this is definitely not a scheme to expect two points out of without your opponent making an error.

Search the ruins: Board dependent.  Five interacts seems like a lot, but if there's terrain near the midline a turn 2 search is generally feasible if the game hasn't devolved into a slobberknocker.  It will get you 2 points more often than not unless you've lost board control (in which case good luck to ya lads...) or there's no good terrain.

 

Top 3 schemes not accounting for matchup:

1) Claim Jump

2) Search the Ruins

3) Harness the Leyline

 

Worst 3 schemes not accounting for matchup:

3) Hold Up (again our low ss models are very squishy)

2) Breakthrough\Power Ritual (these two have the same issues and are interchangeable depending on deployment)

1) Detonate charges

[Maniacal_cackle]

@Nagi21, i suspect we play different crews (I'm Pandora + Dreamer primarily atm), as we have very different rankings!

Claim Jump I agree is best in faction. Search the Ruins I found trivial before the Gaining Grounds update, but after the update (when terrain doesn't count on the centreline), I find it extremely difficult. It is probably dependent on how big of terrain you use.

Hold Up Their Forces I also find one of the easiest schemes on Dreamer. He summons low cost minions in base contact! But I can see it'd be hard for crews like Neph or Woe.

Outflank I find pretty challenging in many matchups, as the enemy just needs to control one flank to deny it.

[Nagi21]

5 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

@Nagi21, i suspect we play different crews (I'm Pandora + Dreamer primarily atm), as we have very different rankings!

Claim Jump I agree is best in faction. Search the Ruins I found trivial before the Gaining Grounds update, but after the update (when terrain doesn't count on the centreline), I find it extremely difficult. It is probably dependent on how big of terrain you use.

Hold Up Their Forces I also find one of the easiest schemes on Dreamer. He summons low cost minions in base contact! But I can see it'd be hard for crews like Neph or Woe.

Outflank I find pretty challenging in many matchups, as the enemy just needs to control one flank to deny it.

Dora/Nekima/Titania mostly.  Dreamer and Lucy incoming.

Search is only "difficult" for Dora and even that I've not had issues with because she's inevitably moving across that centerline unless she's losing.  But again it's dependent on terrain.  A lot of tables I see/play on have terrain only a few inches from the center.

I suppose as long as Dreamer has the activations to spare it's reasonable to do that one.  You know how squishy low ss woes are and the nephilim are even squishier if you can believe.

Outflank is one I hear a lot about but it's doable for Neph very easily, and Titania and Dreamer can both do it with a little effort.  Not to mention everyone can deny outflank without much issue (even Dora).

[Maniacal_cackle]

Our terrain is big and blocky, so it usually touches the centreline or is 5+ inches away from it.

Maybe I'll experiment more!