Som'er vs Ulix

[vairse]

I've been playing Som'er a bit to learn his crew, and I just finished assembling Ulix's core box. At first glance they seem like very similar crews. Both are summoner styled, with a decent amount of bubble effects. When would you take one over the other?

[Adran]

I've not played either this edition, so take this with a pinch of salt. I would pick sommer when I want lots of models and my crew in a few places, and probably a degree of durability. I would pick Ulix when I was more interested in "firing" off pig missiles and leave them to do their thing.

That said the pig mechanic is more of a grow mechanic than a summon mechanic (at least to my mind). I guess it depends on how you build the crew

[Mxbedlam]

Ulix is much much faster honestly and a lot less versatile. Take Ulix when you need fast models and want tons of scheme markers around. Take Somer when you want board control 

[Math Mathonwy]

Also consider the terrain: M3e seemed to up the terrain requirements and it often makes big based Pigs with their short melee ranges very difficult to use against a competent opponent who knows how to make use of terrain and durable models to block off the pigs.

[Rufess]

Ulix and Somer may give one similar feeling since both of the master are supporting master who let his crew to fight the battle. But the 2 keywords are different enough, especially in mobility, to distance from other.

 

Ulix and his pigs are simply speedy melee crew. War Pig is no doubt the most powerful minion within the faction. With all the Reckless, push and obey in the keyword, the pigs can perform bunch of movements, attacks and scheming. Therefore you would like to take him into situations when you can take advantage from those aggressivity and mobility, like Reckoning and Plant Explosive. Breakthrough and Search the Ruins are always nice picks, as well as the Vendetta with growing trick.

 

Somer and his children, in contrary, are more complicate to play with. The main strength of the crew, in my opinion, is attrition game. Somer can recycle his resources, models and hands, while consuming opponent's. So I believe he best fit in Turf War and Idols.

And thanks to Crier, the main schemer of the keyword, this crew is really good at placing scheme marker within close range of enemy model. Schemes like Detonate Charges and Dig Their Grave should be always consider first.

Lastly, let not forget the Stat 7 Lure of Spit Hog which can ruin opponent's game plan on certain scheme.

[vairse]

I did notice Som'er's crew feels like it's going for the long game. I played a game vs Perdita in Reckoning the other night, and even though she deleted most of my summons every round, I could just replace them for an action, and could slowly remove her pieces while she dealt with bayou gremlins/good ol' boys. I ended up misplaying Lenny thinking he was tankier than he is, and was probably going to lose from that, but it's a super solid crew that seems like it can handle most situations once I figure them out. And given the above advice, I'll try out Ulix to handle movement specific pools, as we don't usually run enough terrain locally for the bases to be a problem yet. In the above game I had gone with breakthrough and power ritual which ended up being really bad choices against Perdita, as she took down my 1 fast model (Lucky Emisasary) in a single activation.

[GrumpyGrandpa]

15 hours ago, vairse said:

I did notice Som'er's crew feels like it's going for the long game. I played a game vs Perdita in Reckoning the other night, and even though she deleted most of my summons every round, I could just replace them for an action, and could slowly remove her pieces while she dealt with bayou gremlins/good ol' boys. I ended up misplaying Lenny thinking he was tankier than he is, and was probably going to lose from that, but it's a super solid crew that seems like it can handle most situations once I figure them out. And given the above advice, I'll try out Ulix to handle movement specific pools, as we don't usually run enough terrain locally for the bases to be a problem yet. In the above game I had gone with breakthrough and power ritual which ended up being really bad choices against Perdita, as she took down my 1 fast model (Lucky Emisasary) in a single activation.

Unfortunately, whenever I see those Schemes I just forget about my other masters and look at Mah Tucket with her Soul Stone miners. They just make those schemes so easy to score.  Big Hat feels too slow (unless you include a Pigapult) to compete with Soul Stone miners.

For Ulix however, I'd recommend Big Brain Brin with a Piglet! The combination of Pulling the Strings and Demise (Delicious Bacon) means you can rush a piglet to one side, and have it die at the end-phase to drop a scheme marker.

[vairse]

8 hours ago, GrumpyGrandpa said:

Unfortunately, whenever I see those Schemes I just forget about my other masters and look at Mah Tucket with her Soul Stone miners. They just make those schemes so easy to score.  Big Hat feels too slow (unless you include a Pigapult) to compete with Soul Stone miners.

For Ulix however, I'd recommend Big Brain Brin with a Piglet! The combination of Pulling the Strings and Demise (Delicious Bacon) means you can rush a piglet to one side, and have it die at the end-phase to drop a scheme marker.

Yeah, Mah probably would've been my best bet for the strategy/scheme. I've been restricting myself to Som'er to try and learn him instead of choosing for the pool though. I've been loving Brin with Som'er to get some more value out of the Bayou Gremlins, as well as hand control, so I'm not surprised he works in Ulix as well.

[OracleToronto]

the real trouble with Somer I find is that it's hard to make it to the final turn when using him/facing him. So many rules, options, auras, summons, and general attrition. 

[Mxbedlam]

On 1/19/2020 at 12:48 AM, OracleToronto said:

the real trouble with Somer I find is that it's hard to make it to the final turn when using him/facing him. So many rules, options, auras, summons, and general attrition. 

Practice. 100% the more you play the more confident you become in your movements and options. Play fast, play hard. I have started timing my matches even outside of tournaments lately so I can play a game in the alotted time. 

[OracleToronto]

1 hour ago, Mrbedlam said:

Practice. 100% the more you play the more confident you become in your movements and options. Play fast, play hard. I have started timing my matches even outside of tournaments lately so I can play a game in the alotted time. 

yeah true enough.

[Scoffer]

Tryed hiring Somer (and Zoraida) into Ulix crew yesterday, it worked pretty well. I started with 6 models and had 15 at end of turn 2, totally dominating the field. 

Next step will be hiring Ulix and the Sow into Somer crew. Something like Somer, 2xSkeeters, Ulix, the Sow, Lenny, G&O, Banjonista. This list may look card-hungry, but Somer can summon 3 Bayou gremlins with a single 10m. Bayous turn into 3 cards and three corpses for the Sow to summon 3 Piglets for Ulix to grow.

[wizuriel]

51 minutes ago, Scoffer said:

Tryed hiring Somer (and Zoraida) into Ulix crew yesterday, it worked pretty well. I started with 6 models and had 15 at end of turn 2, totally dominating the field. 

Somer can summon 3 Bayou gremlins with a single 10m. Bayous turn into 3 cards and three corpses for the Sow to summon 3 Piglets for Ulix to grow.

If Somer isn't your leader you only have 2 Drunk and Stupid cards to summon with for him. The only way to get more than 2 models is each time you summon to also stone for the  or  so you can discard the summon upgrade and use it in a future summon

[Scoffer]

22 minutes ago, wizuriel said:

If Somer isn't your leader you only have 2 Drunk and Stupid cards to summon with for him. The only way to get more than 2 models is each time you summon to also stone for the  or  so you can discard the summon upgrade and use it in a future summon

When Somer is not the Leader, there is no way to summon more than two models with a single action even with a stone. That's why I'm speaking about hiring Ulix into a crew led by Somer.

[Clement]

24 minutes ago, wizuriel said:

If Somer isn't your leader you only have 2 Drunk and Stupid cards to summon with for him. The only way to get more than 2 models is each time you summon to also stone for the  or  so you can discard the summon upgrade and use it in a future summon

 

1 minute ago, Scoffer said:

When Somer is not the Leader, there is no way to summon more than two models with a single action even with a stone. That's why I'm thinking about hiring Ulix into a crew led by Somer.

Since we're down into the fiddly details of Som'er's summoning...

Because the "Wait, you ain't my kid..." trigger removes the upgrade from a model that was JUST summoned, that means that non-Master Som'er has the following limitations, right?

No upgrades out:   Can summon 2 models, period.  Trigger removes one upgrade from one of the summoned models.

1 upgrade out:   Can summon 1 model, period.  Trigger can remove the upgrade to allow for more summoning next turn.

2 upgrades out:  Cannot summon.  Consider "Make me proud, Boys!" to kill off one of your summoned Big Hats so you can get moving again.

[wizuriel]

That is correct