Dual Master combos that aren't Zoraida

[melkore]

What dual master lists are people playing with that aren't X + Zoraida?

Off hand here are some ideas:

• Pandora (Leader) + Dreamer looks potentially good.  Hire in The Carver for an additional Nightmare model to give shielded and push around, all the WP duels should make getting summons out pretty easy.
• Titania (Leader) + Nekima - Things need dead on the other side of the board.  Those that survive have Underbrush to keep them on their side
• Lucius (Leader) + Dreamer - Poor mans Zoraida but you get Arcane Reservoir, and Elite models like Alan Reid with Boring Conversation for pulse WP duels and card draw

[Wenshai]

Nekima into Savage. Teleport Nekima straight into your opponents face.

 

Ditto dora/candy

[melkore]

7 minutes ago, Wenshai said:

Nekima into Savage. Teleport Nekima straight into your opponents face.

 

Ditto dora/candy

I haven't looked in to Savage all that much, how does that work?  Or is it just aggressive beat stick that can fly across the table in a turn?

[Maniacal_cackle]

I think when going for dual masters, you have to take into account masters are super resource hungry.

So you usually want a support master plus a resource hungry master (for instance, Molly + Kirai is amazing apparently).

As such, for support masters you're probably looking at either Zoraida or Lucius, or maybe even Marcus in some crews. So I'd suggest looking at combos that half involves them. I'll have a further think!

EDIT: Titania adding Marcus to her crew (or vice versa) might be sweet for Rougarou.

Lucius can move your entire crew forward an extra 6", synergies super well with strong minions (Nekima especially), and provides cards. I struggle to think of a crew where he wouldn't contribute something.

[goth]

I always thought it would be fun to hire Titania + Aeslin (Gorar is 2+1 hiring cost for a third underbrush marker and enforcer insurance!) into a Pandora crew.  I imagine two Sorrows teleporting forward very fast to an already fast Titania for extra life leech, and Aeslin’s counterspell being a factor at least a few times.

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, melkore said:

I haven't looked in to Savage all that much, how does that work?  Or is it just aggressive beat stick that can fly across the table in a turn?

Shattering Shove trigger on the gigant. Push target, if it ends in base contact with an ice pillar then you can place the target in base contact with any other ice pillar.

[Nagi21]

4 hours ago, goth said:

I always thought it would be fun to hire Titania + Aeslin (Gorar is 2+1 hiring cost for a third underbrush marker and enforcer insurance!) into a Pandora crew.  I imagine two Sorrows teleporting forward very fast to an already fast Titania for extra life leech, and Aeslin’s counterspell being a factor at least a few times.

I'm not sure that would work as intended.  Life leech would fall under the multiple auras rule like Misery.

Edit: Although now that I think about it, the fact that each model would heal due to a model in an aura doing something is similar to the bushwacker example used by Wyrd in the rulebook of multiple auras with the same name working so... not sure.

[goth]

@Nagi21 you’re right, I guess scratch that.  I can’t want to see some “Rules as Intended” clarification errata   ... misery does say once per activation while life leech doesn’t specify 

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

I'm not sure that would work as intended.  Life leech would fall under the multiple auras rule like Misery.

Edit: Although now that I think about it, the fact that each model would heal due to a model in an aura doing something is similar to the bushwacker example used by Wyrd in the rulebook of multiple auras with the same name working so... not sure.

I raised this point on the rules forum a while back, and most people were of the view that life leech applies once to every sorrow in range and once to the model activating (they all can only be affected once).

Plus life leech would be pretty OP if it could work that way.

[Ogid]

I think there is potential for all of them as second masters, some are more niche than others tho. A few impressions:

• Dreamer: Summoner for 13SS, that alone is amazing. Summons may be unburied by any other model with Wp abilities, Serena is an amazing versatile so he can still have a very good nightmare to use protected if needed. This one could go well almost any crew that has some Wp abilities. The best main master is probably Pandora for how much synergy there is already between both crews (ton of Wp duels, terrifying, Carver/Teddy...); but being incorporeal and summoning incorporeal models I can see him being also a good partner for Savages/Fae and also Lucius (one summons, the other commands) and even for some very weird Marcus crews because the Bandersnatch is amazing with him and the sabertooth has one of the few 18'' stat 6 Wp duels in the game also in a model that is super nimble so you can summon wherever you want. Zoraida could also be good including also WW/Vasi using the doll to summon extra stitcheds. Most of the time Chompy will be probably left out, bringing both is a lot of OOK points.
• Marcus: Probably a legit one with Titania in a list with 2 Rougarous and with Zoraida to boost some of the nice Bayou beasts he can't access as main master.
• Nekima: The best beater of the faction hands down, so with any master. I suspect she may be good with Dreamer, Serena/BBS and all minions; she is the only model in the faction with moderate damage 5 (not counting octoface trigger); removing most weak cards may be huge for her. A quite fun one could be with Marcus as he can hire the corrupted hounds without OOK tax, and bring them together with Nekima to trigger her aura.
• Titania: Tanky and very fast (specially with her "cradle of Life" trigger) while still having a decent punch (but more trigger dependent than nekima); extra reasons to bring her is the totem, cheap and able to bring important enforcers/minions back to life, the underbrush generation for concealment and the no severe damage aura when clasing into crews with a lot of Focused. All rounder that could fit in a lot of crews. As OP said Titania + Nekima may be a very nasty kill squad that complement each other well.
• Euripides: Not that tanky as Titania but still beefy and fast with the Shattering Surprise trigger, plus a min 3 beater and the ability to create a ton of pilars. Another all rounder able to fit in a lot of crews. Probably good with Lucius thanks to Changelings being able to copy his tactical actions, also good with incorporeal/nimble crews (Minion heavy Pandy, Dreamer, Nephs, Marcus...) to annoy the other crew with Pilars while his own crew has no problem bypassing the pilars; and he als has another amazing totem that is worth it bringing (Arcane Reservoir + Incorporeal for Euripides + some denial)
• Lucius: Not sure about him, he isn't able to act on their own as the above ones (even dreamer may summon away from the fray while scheming), he needs other models around to command and Agent 46 cannot be taken OOK... maybe to consider in crews with powerful minions like Savages, Nephilim or Fae. With dreamer could be good but it could also make him very vulnerable early. Very good totem.
• Pandora: Silver bullet versus condition based crews or crews with good self-loathing targets. Again to consider with dreamer for all the synergy they have, maybe also in crews able to give a lot of conditions to the enemy. Probably including a changeling to make her a medium/long range slowing machine is worth it. Another very good totem.

[Ogid]

About Life leech. I think it'd go like this:

• All auras trigger when a model is activated near of them, so all of them will try to resolve their text.
• I guess the model that activates is the one getting the effect so he could select which one go off first (not 100% sure about this point tho)
• The selected aura will heal and deal damage.
• All the other auras will heal and then will try to deal damage, but that damage will be ignored due the general stacking rules. The healing still occurs because it's not dependent on the damage being done and those models weren't affected by the other auras.

[Nagi21]

6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I raised this point on the rules forum a while back, and most people were of the view that life leech applies once to every sorrow in range and once to the model activating (they all can only be affected once).

Plus life leech would be pretty OP if it could work that way.

Life leech would be 2E misery if it could work that way XD

[Trekin]

I haven't tried it yet, but Pandora + Euripides might be interesting with the Lyssa overlap.

[Pastori]

Lucius supporting Marcus and his flying, armored Rougarou duo is something I plan to try against some very hard to wound Undead in the not so distant future. Don't know if its super powerful, but seems nice on paper.

[Ogid]

On 1/8/2020 at 11:54 AM, Pastori said:

Lucius supporting Marcus and his flying, armored Rougarou duo is something I plan to try against some very hard to wound Undead in the not so distant future. Don't know if its super powerful, but seems nice on paper

I also thought about this concept, but it's hard to fit everything needed and I'm not sure about the final result... With Lucius you'll probably also want a Changeling to have some card draw and be able to obey twice the same model; including Rougarou + Myranda leaves 12 SS with only 3 chimeras that may get mutations (counting the totem), at this point you will want to shapechange myranda into a Rougarou (turn 2 to get an extra mutation) and you want models able to being obeyed with Lucius so not enforcers; that leaves a cost 8 minion with some punch leaving only 4SS cache... but a good call could also be including Paul Crockett and use the extra 2SS to buy IR for the Rougarou to put all those charges in good use with Blade Rush and Horns.

That leaves a bubble crew that can't afford to move out of it any model (maybe Paul and Marcus after putting all 10 mutations on the table) and that will lose a ton of damage if one of the two minions (Rougarou + shapechanged Myranda) is killed... however any model near of any of the rougarous will get destroyed and with all the defensive mutations they should be safe enough... it sounds risky and it needs a very particular pool to work, but I'd love to hear about how it performs in the table.

About mutations: I'd put in Myranda Wings, Armor, Horns and in the Rougarou IR (kind of make up for wings), Camo and Horns. The reason for this is I don't want those models in harms way being most of my damage and Wings + Camo will defend them better than Armor + Wings (specially when they can push other models outside of engagement); but Myranda has her self healing with the shapechanges so it's a bit safer without Camo. Jackalope with Serrated, Armor and Wings being as annoying as possible, Marcus with Serrated also in the frontline trying to soak damage and inflict adversary. Paul get Camo and will try to disengage Rougarous triggering attacks to push enemies out of it (Myranda has no IR so it can't be obeyed to charge while engaged and the IR rougarou with Camo is safer not engaged).

But I'm not sure if that's the best crew around that idea... a Rattler/Bear instead of Paul getting Armor + Wings (taking wings from the Jackalope) seems also good and it is brings an extra possible target to Lucius' Obeys... maybe also tweaking something to include wisps could also be legit with all the pushes from Rougarous (to put those models into the 2'' engagement and give them distracted on top of the damage) and to get also some Lures to bring models into the bubble of death...

However for this particular idea of double master Zoraida is probably going to work better, there are a lot of good good beasts are also NVB Swampfiend (Wisps, Adze and Grootslang) so she will get Eyes in the night targets without paying an OOK tax (and a Wisp for her Doll shenanigans) that are also working well for Marcus. Eyes in the night will also let the crew spread a bit more while keeping it dangerous; she also has better attack actions than Lucius and can obey enforcers so bringing things like Ferdinand, Adze or Grootslang become viable. Lucius is a great master but he really needs more Elite/Mimics (and not being able to pick Agent 47 also hurts) and Marcus really needs extra beasts, so it's hard to make a crew that uses well both master's synergies and that keep working well when some models start to die.

Which models do you plan to bring to that Marcus/Lucius crew?

 

EDIT: After giving it a second thought, maybe I'd try this one just for fun:

• Marcus (Claw), Jackalope (Claw, Armor, Wings), Lucius, Scribe, Myranda (Armor, Wing, Horns), Rougarou (IR, Camo, Horn), Wisp (Camo), Changeling, 3SS.

But something like this would be probably a bit better:

• Marcus, Jackalope, Zoraida, Myranda, Rougarou (IR), Wisp, 11SS for extra model and cache (mutation allocation depends on the extra model).

There are nice options for the last spot: Ferdinand (great for Zoraida's extra cards to fuel both shapeshifters and the shielded+healing; shielded+Armor may let Zoraida get the "burnt out" trigger without damaging the beast), Adze or Grootslang for an extra Eyes in the night model and mobility, Paul (more cache and Zoraida can also obey him to trigger extra attacks), Scorpius (versus McMurning). And even not beasts: Serena for extra healing and condition removal or Vasilisa for stitcheds (but going versus RES having a ton of H2W other options would be better)...

• To pick one: Marcus (Claw) Jackalope (Armor, Claw), Zoraida, Myranda (Armor, Wing, Horns), Ferdinand Vogel (Wing), Rougarou (IR, Camo, Horn), Wisp (Camo), 3SS.