GG1 FAQ and Errata: NVB changes

[Regelridderen]

2 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

I've been banging this drum for so long and nobody's listened.  Nekima is only a slightly better hitter than some 10 point minions and doesn't have enough cannon to compensate for her fragility.  Like... Seamus has a literal cannon that does more damage than her, and even he gets better defenses.

Seamus needs to Jump through hoops to fire his cannon twice. Seamus has no access to min3 flying minions... Differences in crews is what makes this game interesting. And heck, there are plenty of masters with worse damage tracks, engagement range and Stats

But... that’s not saying there aren’t more ‘competitive’ masters to play. However in most games, the simple beater master swinging a magical greatsword and rushing opponents will be bottom rung. The reason is simple, the rush-to-kill-berserker strategy is easy to read and counter.

Compare her with Pandora instead, she has no engagement range, so opponents are free to scheme or just leave her. Her damage is dependent on the target, she has no fancy movement abilities and is forced to walk forward through terrain etc., and all her support costs actions, unlike Nekima’s that are more derivative effects.

[Nagi21]

18 minutes ago, Regelridderen said:

Seamus needs to Jump through hoops to fire his cannon twice. Seamus has no access to min3 flying minions... Differences in crews is what makes this game interesting. And heck, there are plenty of masters with worse damage tracks, engagement range and Stats

But... that’s not saying there aren’t more ‘competitive’ masters to play. However in most games, the simple beater master swinging a magical greatsword and rushing opponents will be bottom rung. The reason is simple, the rush-to-kill-berserker strategy is easy to read and counter.

Compare her with Pandora instead, she has no engagement range, so opponents are free to scheme or just leave her. Her damage is dependent on the target, she has no fancy movement abilities and is forced to walk forward through terrain etc., and all her support costs actions, unlike Nekima’s that are more derivative effects.

I mean Nekima doesn't even have a "greatsword" in the game lol...

Kidding aside, the reason Lilith worked so well for so long is that while she was a simple melee beater, she actually had some interesting abilities, such as her ability to reposition easily, and her high defense combined with a decent beater statline.  Nekima literally has no subtlety, and really doesn't do anything for her crew outside of being just... big and hitty.

[Regelridderen]

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

I mean Nekima doesn't even have a "greatsword" in the game lol...

Kidding aside, the reason Lilith worked so well for so long is that while she was a simple melee beater, she actually had some interesting abilities, such as her ability to reposition easily, and her high defense combined with a decent beater statline.  Nekima literally has no subtlety, and really doesn't do anything for her crew outside of being just... big and hitty.

Absolutely true. 

And thats really the thing that makes Nekima bad. Not suboptimal defenses, but her one-dimensional playstyle. Just as the Viks are cool, but offer boring gameplay, along with most other beater Masters. 

[Ogid]

Keeping aside if she is better or worse after the IR change, good beaters don't  have to be the underdogs nor their role in a game is being beated by the "high skill" masters. Mindlessly rushing won't always work, but they bring more than that to the table. Just the threat of her damage and that 50mm 2'' engagement range can limit the options of crews; a good player playing Nekima should be as scary and opressive than one playing Pandora; just in a different way.

Putting her damage aside, she is the best Nephilim master for a "growing list" thanks to her totem generating corpses and her being able to "force feed" corpses. And she is quite fast and can fly, which gives her the upper hand scheming and in maps with lots of terrain.

[Kharnage]

58 minutes ago, Ogid said:

Putting her damage aside, she is the best Nephilim master for a "growing list" thanks to her totem generating corpses and her being able to "force feed" corpses. And she is quite fast and can fly, which gives her the upper hand scheming and in maps with lots of terrain.

Growth lists and spending master AP to get half of a growth effect, assuming you can hit the trigger on Nekima, after assuming you hit the mask Trigger on Hayreddin/Shamans sufficiently, is super suboptimal. Your pinnacle achievement even if suits were called as you go, was 2 AP spent - not including Blood Sacrifice triggers - to increase a model's value by at a maximum, 4. Not even the whole model, you get a health-of-previous-model mature. Ulix spends the same AP suitlessly turning piglets into full health warpigs, potentially getting a free AP and 4 inches of movement out of the deal. I realize I'd much rather have Nekima than Ulix in a fight, but noting her growth mechanic as a perk isn't convincing. Nekima's contribution to fights is her plink damage through blade rush spam and black blood, with a threatening moderate of 5. When the foe can tank whatever focus spam you got from the shaman's efforts with Hard to Wound or proper soulstone use, her damage isn't sufficient to live through the process of handing your df 5 12 wounds master to the enemy. 
And while I surely appreciate her speed (truly it is her greatest strength) with a whole strategy where flight is useless for the lodestone bearer, and yet another strategy where the model that kills things is expected to live to the end of turn to score, she's not bringing a winning recipe. Sure, I can hire a Hooded Rider to run Leylines solo, and sure, I can try to just, avoid the enemy and take advantage of over-extensions, but at some point, there's a roided out Peacekeeper that wants to eat your face, and you run out of board to flee on. There are masters that can solve such problems head on. While I will always love the God Empress, I made it a goal to get invited to USFT, and I can't risk using her to do so anymore. 

[Regelridderen]

You know, it’s quite okay for Nekima to use her power of flight to put herself in basecontact with a Corrupt Ley Line marker, and then have someone else pass her the ball. 

Just because you can’t use flight, Back Alleys or Leaps, when carrying the ball, it doesn’t mean these abilities make a model useless. 

[Ogid]

2 hours ago, Kharnage said:

Growth lists and spending master AP to get half of a growth effect, assuming you can hit the trigger on Nekima, after assuming you hit the mask Trigger on Hayreddin/Shamans sufficiently, is super suboptimal. Your pinnacle achievement even if suits were called as you go, was 2 AP spent - not including Blood Sacrifice triggers - to increase a model's value by at a maximum, 4. Not even the whole model, you get a health-of-previous-model mature. Ulix spends the same AP suitlessly turning piglets into full health warpigs, potentially getting a free AP and 4 inches of movement out of the deal. I realize I'd much rather have Nekima than Ulix in a fight, but noting her growth mechanic as a perk isn't convincing. Nekima's contribution to fights is her plink damage through blade rush spam and black blood, with a threatening moderate of 5. When the foe can tank whatever focus spam you got from the shaman's efforts with Hard to Wound or proper soulstone use, her damage isn't sufficient to live through the process of handing your df 5 12 wounds master to the enemy. 
And while I surely appreciate her speed (truly it is her greatest strength) with a whole strategy where flight is useless for the lodestone bearer, and yet another strategy where the model that kills things is expected to live to the end of turn to score, she's not bringing a winning recipe. Sure, I can hire a Hooded Rider to run Leylines solo, and sure, I can try to just, avoid the enemy and take advantage of over-extensions, but at some point, there's a roided out Peacekeeper that wants to eat your face, and you run out of board to flee on. There are masters that can solve such problems head on. While I will always love the God Empress, I made it a goal to get invited to USFT, and I can't risk using her to do so anymore. 

That's why I started with "Keeping aside if she is better or worse after the IR change" my last post. She has her advantages, I'm not saying (nor know if) those weight more than the disadvantages now she basically has to take everything on the chin.

About growing lists, you are right these are suit dependent and unreliable; it's a bit better including card draw (which it's unfortunately tied to the not so great twins) and Adversary (this is at least in legit models), also Vasilisa may exange the need for a suit for a 8 and a scheme marker and grants an extra Focused pulse; but it's true this is not an opening you can guarantee 100% of the time. The saving grace is Nekima and Hayreddin can stone the corpses/feeds in the worst case scenarios, but that could lead to a bad net gain after all the AP, Wounds and SS used.

However BBSs have their own bonus action to consume corpses, so it's really 1 master AP to grow 1 model, and having 1 or 2 Matures with 8 Wds counting their regen (even 9 or 10 including Serena or using Hayreddin bonus action) and the bonus action ready to go in turn 2 instead of in turn 3 is a big deal even if that leads to a weak first turn. Even if grow lists aren't that great, rely on extra models (cannon fodder lol) seems a path worth exploring to enable her squishy arse now that she has no defensive tech; your 6 models list seems in a bad spot right now.

But anyway, good to hear your thoughs on the matter; I really wanted to know the opinion of our more successful players (and btw, if our Russian players are lurking around, please let us know).

Good luck with Schtook!

[farmoar]

2 hours ago, Regelridderen said:

You know, it’s quite okay for Nekima to use her power of flight to put herself in basecontact with a Corrupt Ley Line marker, and then have someone else pass her the ball. 

Just because you can’t use flight, Back Alleys or Leaps, when carrying the ball, it doesn’t mean these abilities make a model useless. 

And have her sit next to the leyline marker until the end of the turn...

[Regelridderen]

35 minutes ago, farmoar said:

And have her sit next to the leyline marker until the end of the turn...

Your point being? That’s where points are scored, and it’s probably where you’ll find your opponent. 

[LexLock]

So why did they nerf Enraged By Insolence? Has anyone ever had it affect their games to any meaningful degree?

That aura is pretty much the only thing Nekima can do that isn't hitting it very hard on her turn. I mean, it's still based around hitting, but it at least makes your opponent think.

As it is now Enraged By Insolence needs too many things to go right to be effective. You need a minimum of four different models in the right spots to get a pretty mediocre effect. Nekima needs to activate the aura, one of your models needs to be killed (oof) by an enemy model within pushing range of another one of your models. All you get is one attack for all this setup, it isn't worth it and it is too easy to counter.

Nekima really needs something to do that isn't just hitting things with a big stick.

[Nagi21]

1 hour ago, LexLock said:

So why did they nerf Enraged By Insolence? Has anyone ever had it affect their games to any meaningful degree?

That aura is pretty much the only thing Nekima can do that isn't hitting it very hard on her turn. I mean, it's still based around hitting, but it at least makes your opponent think.

As it is now Enraged By Insolence needs too many things to go right to be effective. You need a minimum of four different models in the right spots to get a pretty mediocre effect. Nekima needs to activate the aura, one of your models needs to be killed (oof) by an enemy model within pushing range of another one of your models. All you get is one attack for all this setup, it isn't worth it and it is too easy to counter.

Nekima really needs something to do that isn't just hitting things with a big stick.

Unfortunately that's what the designers have decided to shoehorn her as.  Nothing but a (moderately) big stick that has little to no synergy with the rest of her crew.  At least Lilith had some interesting mechanics that bridged the gap between supporting the crew and running around doing her own thing.

To the first point I did actually have it do something fun (and hilarious).  I charged my own model with her, to kill it, causing black blood that killed one model, then took the enraged move and attack to kill another model.  Traded a young for the First Mate and a Stitched, was awesome.

It's really a shame the designers just seem to have this desire to make nephilim (maybe NVB) as unfun to play as possible.  Which is a shame because the keyword in 3e seems to have some good stuff... but it's telling when you're trying desperately to figure out a way to have someone other than the master lead a nephilim crew (I mean hell Kharnage just bailed on NVB because of the design choices).

[74legion]

The developer took offense to the faction (the worst game against stitched and reflexes-in an interview, he said ). And what do we see ? Useless upgrade.

[74legion]

It's gorgeous. To take away from us what we can defend ourselves with - so that there is a choice not to be so aggressive in the game. Did it ever occur to you, uncle, to give US SHOOTERS with a stealth upgrade? Very impressed with the samurai's invisibility.

[santaclaws01]

9 minutes ago, 74legion said:

It's gorgeous. To take away from us what we can defend ourselves with - so that there is a choice not to be so aggressive in the game. Did it ever occur to you, uncle, to give US SHOOTERS with a stealth upgrade? Very impressed with the samurai's invisibility.

Shooters with a stealth upgrade only get protected from other shooters.

[Ogid]

1 hour ago, 74legion said:

The developer took offense to the faction (the worst game against stitched and reflexes-in an interview, he said ). And what do we see ? Useless upgrade.

I totally understand how you feel, I'm still a bit butthurt myself about that change, but to be fair the "bad game" was versus 3 stitcheds and the Stitcheds rework is fair. They aren't the one dimensional beaters in steroids they were before, but they still have punch and got something in return and are still in a decent place.

The IR nerf is too much, but I don't think it's something personal against the faction; probably just a non-playtested enough change. They also talked before in the podcast about how they think the Vanilla variant (no upgrades) is very good because it forces the players to focus in the mechanics; which could also explain why they nerfed that upgrade without a second thought. It's funny tho how they talked about the importance of having choices just in the same bit where they were talking why NVB has no choice to get a defensive upgrade anymore lol.

If the IR upgrade change is for Nekima, there could had been a lot of different ways to dealt with it without affecting the whole faction; for example just reducing her mele range from 2 to 1 would had been a big hit to both her offensive and defensive use of that upgrade; it was the range 2 plus Butterfly jump and Blade Rush what made her so dangerous and safe with that upgrade versus most models.

It sucks right now but I guess we will get some defensive tech or buffs where needed eventually.

[Ogid]

13 hours ago, LexLock said:

So why did they nerf Enraged By Insolence? Has anyone ever had it affect their games to any meaningful degree?

I guess my plan to try a crew with Marcus + Nekima + Hounds crew around that ability is not happening now... 

However "Enraged by insolence" doesn't fit the ability anymore so I propose a name change, some suggestions:

• Mildly annoyed by insolence.
• I promised I would not kill you, he didn't.
• I didn't liked that one anyway, he did.
• I'm not in the mood to deal with this.
• Bring me his head or I'll hand your ass to a Lilitu.

[Nagi21]

4 hours ago, Ogid said:

It sucks right now but I guess we will get some defensive tech or buffs where needed eventually.

Prior experience would not agree with that guess... and eventually is at least a year out minimum.  Why would I want to suffer a half-playable faction that long?

[LexLock]

If Dead Mans Hand were included we'd actually be in a much better position.

Lilith is a much more interesting leader for the Nephilim and Collodi (in my opinion) is good enough to bring some variety to Neverborn in tournaments.

Guild gets access to Ryle which boosts Hoffman a bit and Ressurs get Nicodem who might even bring the power of their average master below Tier 1 (yes I'm bitter).

Ramos is a lot more fair now that Arachnid swarms and SS Miners have been nerfed but he does do a spooky amount of unresisted damage.

I know most won't go for DMH in tournaments but I actually think it would make the game more balanced.

[Ogid]

17 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

Prior experience would not agree with that guess... and eventually is at least a year out minimum.  Why would I want to suffer a half-playable faction that long?

That's something 100% personal. In my case I chose a faction, not a Master; I'll stick with my choice and I'll try to make them work or will just use the most playable masters right now. NVB is my only decent sized collection aside from a Misaki crew and a bunch of TT versatiles, and I just don't want to split my focus between factions yet. Also, I don't have that much time to play or go competitive anymore; so playing a less competitive faction that I enjoy while it gets fixed it's not that big of a deal for me (which doesn't mean I'm ok with those changes, it's really sad to look at masters like Marcus right now; but casual or introductory games are a thing if some keywords fall way bellow the curve). 

Players with other circunstances/priorities/a bigger collection could decide to switch faction/main master for a while; and that's totally fine. You don't have to suffer, play whatever you have fun with

[Ogid]

2 hours ago, LexLock said:

If Dead Mans Hand were included we'd actually be in a much better position.

Lilith is a much more interesting leader for the Nephilim and Collodi (in my opinion) is good enough to bring some variety to Neverborn in tournaments.

Guild gets access to Ryle which boosts Hoffman a bit and Ressurs get Nicodem who might even bring the power of their average master below Tier 1 (yes I'm bitter).

Ramos is a lot more fair now that Arachnid swarms and SS Miners have been nerfed but he does do a spooky amount of unresisted damage.

I know most won't go for DMH in tournaments but I actually think it would make the game more balanced.

You are probably right, but I'm not sure if we would be too strong in that scenario; we would have the highest number of possible masters, 2 masters sharing a keyword and Collodi is a top tier master on its own. AFAIK the region where NVB is more successful is Russia, and there they play with double master and DMH (DMH master's can only be picked as solo masters tho). There the most successful master is Dreamer, followed by Pandora and Collodi (they posted the statistics about one big tournament here).

With some adjustments (mainly reducing the options for everyone to the same number of masters and making DMH avaliable for everyone with M3E boxes) the inclusion of DMH could be more fair, I think I wrote about that before.

[Passenty]

On 3/14/2020 at 8:49 AM, LexLock said:

So why did they nerf Enraged By Insolence? Has anyone ever had it affect their games to any meaningful degree?

That aura is pretty much the only thing Nekima can do that isn't hitting it very hard on her turn. I mean, it's still based around hitting, but it at least makes your opponent think.

As it is now Enraged By Insolence needs too many things to go right to be effective. You need a minimum of four different models in the right spots to get a pretty mediocre effect. Nekima needs to activate the aura, one of your models needs to be killed (oof) by an enemy model within pushing range of another one of your models. All you get is one attack for all this setup, it isn't worth it and it is too easy to counter.

Nekima really needs something to do that isn't just hitting things with a big stick.

They didnt want Nekima to do anything cool besides swinging sword but blank card looks bad for masters so they gave her "enraged.." as it takes a lot of space to fill her card.

[Nagi21]

15 hours ago, Ogid said:

Players with other circunstances/priorities/a bigger collection could decide to switch faction/main master for a while; and that's totally fine. You don't have to suffer, play whatever you have fun with

The problem with that line of thinking is that, while legitamate, it forgets that this is a miniature-based game, and that many players are stuck with what they originally bought faction wise.  While cheaper than most games, its not cheap to go full faction swapping from scratch, let alone with Wyrd's distribution issues.  This is how you bleed players from a game.

[Maniacal_cackle]

10 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

The problem with that line of thinking is that, while legitamate, it forgets that this is a miniature-based game, and that many players are stuck with what they originally bought faction wise.  While cheaper than most games, its not cheap to go full faction swapping from scratch, let alone with Wyrd's distribution issues.  This is how you bleed players from a game.

Agreed.

Typically you can at least argue players know what they're getting into when they buy the models.

But if there is a nerf post launch, it negates that. There is definitely a feeling of unfairness, even for justified nerfs. For example, if I had known these changes earlier on with the Archie nerf, I might have had different priorities for how I built my crew.

I personally dislike most power level errata (though some stuff is just ridiculous and the nerf to Stitched was the most well executed nerf IMO).

[Nagi21]

4 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I personally dislike most power level errata (though some stuff is just ridiculous and the nerf to Stitched was the most well executed nerf IMO).

Except for the completely incoherent grammar and no guidance on how it works with Terrifying...

[Ogid]

10 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

The problem with that line of thinking is that, while legitamate, it forgets that this is a miniature-based game, and that many players are stuck with what they originally bought faction wise.  While cheaper than most games, its not cheap to go full faction swapping from scratch, let alone with Wyrd's distribution issues.  This is how you bleed players from a game.

Oh 100% agree here; don't forget I've been very vocal about how this IR and Charge change aren't well executed and how these are going to affect the faction (I've also liked a lot of things about this GG1, but that's another story). And that of course could have a negative impact on players, we have seen it in this same thread. I don't really understand how a change as drastic as the IR one went ahead with 0 adjustments to the faction. IDK, it could also be a just a last minute change, a change to "fix" some model that backfired hard or maybe in this game there are some kind of "politics" in the playtesters side; I've seen it in other games where the least popular factions get reckt by too harsh nerfs*. We only see the last snapshot.

* In fact both of these could had sense, the reasoning in the podcast about how "NVB is very agressive and this will give options to other players" could be some playtesters crying about how hard is to deal with NVB and Wyrd buying it and leaving the whole faction like this fot the next year; or it could also be a Nekima/other model targeted nerf with little thought about how that was going to affect the faction. Also a change with negative consecuences also happened in TT with sensei Yu; his aura nerf prevented the opening where his crew beated the shit out of shenlong to charge him with chi, but also leave the other 6-8SS monks that were rarely picked, specially high river, in a very bad place; the difference is that one only affects one keyword that was being played versatile/OOK heavy anyway, so no real change there.

But at the end of the day promoting a revolt or going full ape shit is not going to help, neither to the faction nor to send the message I want to send; the way to help is testing the changes and giving honest feedback. Also this for me this is just a game to have fun and relax. So, if I ever found myself in a place where playing make me angry instead of having fun, that wouldn't be worth it for me. If that were the case, then I'd just take a break or do something else (read, videogames, other miniature games...) while I cool down, the new meta settles and we start to see the real impact of these changes; but that's just me.