GG1 FAQ and Errata: NVB changes

[Regelridderen]

6 hours ago, 74legion said:

On paper, it is very beautifully written, and in the game the enemy will do nasty things 
 from a distance greater than 6.( you can not move / deal damage to the Enemy if it is more than 6 (misery condition) and this effect is only 1 TIME per activation. 
If an enemy is near (6) Pandora, it may NOT activate this model. And mood swings DON't work. A defense that Doesn't work is Very good for the enemy. And then the enemy takes defensive upgrades. And the Neverborns and Pandora get even sadder. And it turns out some with arrows and protection - and we without both.

You’re just being argumentative for the sake of being ‘right’. The problem is, you’ll never win games, if you desist from learning to use your models and their abilities. Mood Swings works for others, and it just might be, it can work for you to - if you’re not too Stubborn to learn.

Activation order is one of the most key ingredients to winning this game. Pandora has - as the only model in this game - the ability to dictate the opponents order of activation. That is a superpower. 

Now opponents might want to avoid ‘dora, but most games demand some close contact - unless you’re only facing Parker and Perdita. That said, even if he tries to avoid you, your opponent can’t dictate where Pandora goes, and you’re free to place her, where she annoys him the most - which is in the middle of his crew, near his most powerful models. This makes Dark Thoughts a wonderful ability, as not only does it work defensively, it is also a very offensive ability. 

You’re, not only, denying the model, you’re standing near it’s activation, you’re also forcing a different model to activate, when its owner wouldn’t want it. 

This allows you to :

a: beat up the non-activating model before it gets to do its thing. 
b: force a model to tip its hand, perhaps move into position without being able to attack, and then be set up for the charge by one of your models. 

The setup is quite easy, you rush Pandora into the mids of the enemy - where you want her anyway to open her box. Then you profit. 

-

Pandora isn’t a simple point’n’click master. She demands you understand the synergies in her crew, and that you do not play her in a vacuum. You should have at least 7 other models on the table to back her up and disrupt your opponent. 

[Ogid]

20 hours ago, 74legion said:

On paper, it is very beautifully written, and in the game the enemy will do nasty things 
 from a distance greater than 6.( you can not move / deal damage to the Enemy if it is more than 6 (misery condition) and this effect is only 1 TIME per activation. 
If an enemy is near (6) Pandora, it may NOT activate this model. And mood swings DON't work. A defense that Doesn't work is Very good for the enemy.

From all NVB masters, she is one of the less affected by that change; she has definitely lost a few options, specially for models like Teddy; but unless your regular oponents are one of those crews able to reliabily stun her or ignore defensive triggers (like TT), she should be just fine. Believe me it could be much worse, for example I'm really strugling with Marcus now.... btw, If there is any NVB Marcus player that has figured out how to make it work now, I'm all ears.

But about Pandy, her defensive trigger is great if a Misery aura is near, but even outside of a 6'' it still works; an stunned shooter won't be able to declare triggers in the next attack and his  actions will count against their normal actions (which works retroactively, so if he used a before the first attack, he could be out of actions); that's not that good but in general NVB struggle versus gunlines anyway. I don't know if you have it, but the rider is amazing with Pandora; the ability to reposition Pandora (and Candy) and put her low range auras and pulses just where you want them is game changing (on top of being a rider); that's what I'd recomend if you are having trouble getting her into position. Also take in count Misery is once per activation per aura, a model atacking her can get pinged several times if there is several auras near of it.

Mood swings is brutal. Of course if the other player is stomping Pandora, it will only delay the inevitable; but in a close game that activation control is nuts (it has the "if this model is this crew's leader..." for a reason).

Maybe we could help, who is the master you are struggling against with her?

20 hours ago, 74legion said:

And then the enemy takes defensive upgrades. And the Neverborns and Pandora get even sadder. And it turns out some with arrows and protection - and we without both.

Yeah, the lack of defensive tech sucks; but it what we got for now. The lack of lot of ranged attacks doesn't bother me that much tbh... If you want guns in the faction Lucius may field a decent gunline with Angel Eyes, the Agent, Dopple and 2 BBS.

[74legion]

Pandora is the worst master of the neverborn now. Protection is weak - and indicators of will and protection-and ability do not always work. The lack of melee gives her enemies bonuses - it's generally chic. There was a lot of writing about how well she played what her abilities are - but on the game table everything is different than in the card. Pandora is now a master of melee without the ability to keep the enemy close. It looks like the neverborn were testing TT. I will go after the quarantine to buy another not s***** fraction.

[santaclaws01]

57 minutes ago, 74legion said:

Pandora is the worst master of the neverborn now.

Pandora and Woe were literally the least affected keyword in the faction.

[DevilCat]

3 hours ago, 74legion said:

Pandora is the worst master of the neverborn now. 

When you consider how often the enemy has to cheat against her terrifying aura, the new iteration of IR is actually amazing on her.

[Nagi21]

15 hours ago, DevilCat said:

When you consider how often the enemy has to cheat against her terrifying aura, the new iteration of IR is actually amazing on her.

It doesn't matter if they cheat though, the attack can still happen even if it's out of range due to the declared step.

While I agree that Pandora isn't the worst NVB master, she has a lot of counter matchups that are basically unplayable which make her bad in a competitive sense.  Example being she can be very good against some Arcanists like Toni and Hoffman, but dies terribly to Rezzers overall.

Worst NVB master right now is probably Nekima, but she has a fantastic crew to make up for it.  Euripides would probably be a close second.  I'm not counting Marcus cause he's really an Arc master trying to play NVB.  Worst overall crew I feel is Euripides, but that's mostly because marker crews aren't great right now anyway aside from Kaeris.

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

 

While I agree that Pandora isn't the worst NVB master, she has a lot of counter matchups that are basically unplayable which make her bad in a competitive sense.  Example being she can be very good against some Arcanists like Toni and Hoffman, but dies terribly to Rezzers overall.

 

From a competitive POV, it is probably good if your strengths are focused in one faction (Arcanists going by what you're saying) and weaknesses in another (Ressers).

Just don't declare Pandora into Ressers.

[Nagi21]

23 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

From a competitive POV, it is probably good if your strengths are focused in one faction (Arcanists going by what you're saying) and weaknesses in another (Ressers).

Just don't declare Pandora into Ressers.

Right but she also struggles into things like Outcast, TT, and Guild for various reasons.  My point being that just because a crew is really good at taking on one faction (although Collette is a pretty good counter in Arc too...), they're not viable if they're terrible against everything else.  It just makes them a niche tech crew.

[Ceodoc]

On 3/16/2020 at 11:25 AM, Regelridderen said:

If you play to win, prepare to spend topdollar to follow the meta, it’s what sports enthusiasts do - heck, quite a few do just to collect the newest gear (not unlike miniature hoarders). 

Another thing is, that Malifaux meta changes once a year - at least. Via GGXX, if you want to be competitive, you’ll have to ho with that flow. But nothing is dropping you from playing older editions privately - or even have tournaments.

 

 

I have saved up my nerd allowance, please please tell me what filth I can buy to make NVB faction meta?!!

However, I am lucky as I almost exclusively play Dreamer, and certainly won't consider any other NVB master with this errata.

But everything crossed NVB gets a cracking Versatile at Gen-Con!

[Roadhouse]

On 7/4/2020 at 11:14 PM, Nagi21 said:

Worst overall crew I feel is Euripides, but that's mostly because marker crews aren't great right now anyway aside from Kaeris.

 

Can you expand on this a bit? I haven't played a game since M2E and just finished putting together Euripides box, Cyclops, and Bultungin. Just looking at the cards Euripides and Thoon have a lot of cool tricks. Rune-Etched Ice is a shockwave that leaves behind impassable terrain that Euripides can teleport to, or push for more AoE damage, that can also disrupt the targets positioning. Thoon can bury models and move them around with his chain and Arctic Pull, Doppleganger with him seems nuts. The ice pillars themselves appear really powerful if put in in the right places, but I'm likely ignorant of out of faction tech for removing markers.

 

Thanks in advance.

[santaclaws01]

2 hours ago, Roadhouse said:

 

Can you expand on this a bit? I haven't played a game since M2E and just finished putting together Euripides box, Cyclops, and Bultungin. Just looking at the cards Euripides and Thoon have a lot of cool tricks. Rune-Etched Ice is a shockwave that leaves behind impassable terrain that Euripides can teleport to, or push for more AoE damage, that can also disrupt the targets positioning. Thoon can bury models and move them around with his chain and Arctic Pull, Doppleganger with him seems nuts. The ice pillars themselves appear really powerful if put in in the right places, but I'm likely ignorant of out of faction tech for removing markers.

 

Thanks in advance.

They really aren't the worst overall crew. They can struggle a bit into Bayou, Guild and Arcanists because they all have plenty of ways to just mass clear destructible terrain without needing to put thought into it. The biggest thing to look out for are super shooty crews with ways to clear out the ice pillars, because they're gonna clear out all your tricks to cover the distance and just blast you from where all your min 3 doesn't matter.

[Roadhouse]

2 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

They really aren't the worst overall crew. They can struggle a bit into Bayou, Guild and Arcanists because they all have plenty of ways to just mass clear destructible terrain without needing to put thought into it. The biggest thing to look out for are super shooty crews with ways to clear out the ice pillars, because they're gonna clear out all your tricks to cover the distance and just blast you from where all your min 3 doesn't matter.

I appreciate the response. Arcanist have 3 demolitionists and a couple December models, Gremlins have 1 Demolitionist, Lucky Emissary, and Pere, for Guild I'm just seeing Riotbreaker and Papa Loco with Blow it to Hell, as well as Basse, but his requires LoS to a model, a trigger, and that model to be within 3 inches of a pillar.

I used the app and filtered for destructible so it's possible I'm missing something. 

The pillars are definitely worse against shooting crews, because LoS is harder to block than charge lanes. Is there something else I'm not seeing?

[Nagi21]

11 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

They really aren't the worst overall crew. They can struggle a bit into Bayou, Guild and Arcanists because they all have plenty of ways to just mass clear destructible terrain without needing to put thought into it. The biggest thing to look out for are super shooty crews with ways to clear out the ice pillars, because they're gonna clear out all your tricks to cover the distance and just blast you from where all your min 3 doesn't matter.

Worst overall in NVB certainly.  The clearing of the pillars isn't even the worst of it, but it's a major thing.  The crew suffers from:

- Things that clear pillars easily (Bayou, Arc, Guild)

- Things that are either flying or Incorporeal (NVB, Rezzer)

- Things that ignore cover entirely or outmanuver them (TT, Outcast)

Coupled with the natural movement issues of a Ht3, 50mm crew with impassable terrain and... well yea.

13 hours ago, Roadhouse said:

 

Can you expand on this a bit? I haven't played a game since M2E and just finished putting together Euripides box, Cyclops, and Bultungin. Just looking at the cards Euripides and Thoon have a lot of cool tricks. Rune-Etched Ice is a shockwave that leaves behind impassable terrain that Euripides can teleport to, or push for more AoE damage, that can also disrupt the targets positioning. Thoon can bury models and move them around with his chain and Arctic Pull, Doppleganger with him seems nuts. The ice pillars themselves appear really powerful if put in in the right places, but I'm likely ignorant of out of faction tech for removing markers.

 

Thanks in advance.

Euri is a pillar generator and mostly support piece.  It's not that he can't hit things hard, it's that he is lacking defensive abilities to stay alive while doing so.  Making and tossing pillars is his bread and butter, but the crew suffers vs anything above Mv 5 due to this, and Euri has AP needs since the crew needs about 2 AP worth of pillars at a minimum.  The pillars also don't do great damage either.

Thoon is very good because of his attack, but he also suffers from two issues.  1) You can't arctic pull a model away the same turn you freeze them, so you have to have backup unless you catch something out isolated, or be very precise about your activation control. 2) Everyone knows Thoon can be nuts, and they all give him a wide berth, which relegates him to a fairly expensive area denial piece.  Not saying that's a bad thing.  In fact it can be a very, very good thing, but you have to know he has a very specific role to play and is not the end all be all.

Geryon were pretty good, but the IR change hit them like a brick shithouse and now it's almost worth the extra 3 stones for a Mature if you want a big hammer.  They have issues living between activation even with HtK because it's an 8 wd model with no other defenses.  They require a lot of pinpoint positioning, and don't have the mobility to get around easily like the Mature, unless you incorp it with the totem.

Cyclops are a solid support piece, but they die to any consistent fire.  Min 3 damage doesn't work so hot when you can't close the gap reasonably.  Frozen runes is nice, but requires pillars where the action is... so any pillar removal = 7ss paperweight.  The fact that you need a specific tome that you can't stone for to make pillars is also bad, although old ways mitigates that a bit.

Gigants are good but they have some issues too.  Arcing shot is nice, but it's still an 8" range so... a little close.  The biggest issue is that you only get one shot unless your target is within 6", since the boulder states "push models damaged 2" away from this model".  Shattering shove is nice but I feel like it's not used so great due to the damage to pull it off and the weird spots you can put yourself into.  Cave drawings is meh since destroying a pillar isn't an interact, so any model with a bonus action move or something effectively ignores it entirely.

Pillars have issues with the above, plus anything that has significantly more AP than you (see: Collette).  They also block you in due to the 50mm bases on all the savage models.

The crew isn't unplayable, but its not even remotely close to competitive.  Euri is on the same tier as Raspy and Reva, in that there's something there but it just doesn't click together well.

[santaclaws01]

41 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Worst overall in NVB certainly.  The clearing of the pillars isn't even the worst of it, but it's a major thing.

No, clearing out ice pillars is absolutely the worst of it.

39 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

- Things that are either flying or Incorporeal (NVB, Rezzer)

- Things that ignore cover entirely or outmanuver them (TT, Outcast)

Those models can ignore one aspect of the ice pillars, but Euri crew gets so many other bonuses from ice pillars other than just blocking off models. Even then, ice pillars can be placed in such a way as you *can't* outmaneuver them as they are entirely blocking off a path, or they can be placed such that an incorporeal or flying model can't move into where they want to move. Cover being ignored doesn't matter when you're able to quickly engage those models.

44 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Coupled with the natural movement issues of a Ht3, 50mm crew with impassable terrain and... well yea.

Any movement problems caused by ice pillars are entirely self-inflicted. Especially considering being able to give out incorporeal is a thing and shattering shove exists.

 

47 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Making and tossing pillars is his bread and butter, but the crew suffers vs anything above Mv 5 due to this, and Euri has AP needs since the crew needs about 2 AP worth of pillars at a minimum.  The pillars also don't do great damage either.

Mv 6 models still need to flip an 8 to pass his duels, and staggered can be given out for free by Cyclops or on a trigger on other models. Additionally, the ability to consistently cause 8+ mv 14 duels for 2 damage, which being a tactical gets around incorporeal, is pretty damn amazing. It's literally better than Wong, the quintessential shockwave master, without set up or support from his crew, and Wong can just be engaged to stop his shockwaves.

51 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

1) You can't arctic pull a model away the same turn you freeze them, so you have to have backup unless you catch something out isolated, or be very precise about your activation control.

I think you're confusing Arctic Pull with Shifting Ice. Arctic Pull moves models(in a way that's beneficial at least) with the Bump! trigger.

53 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

2) Everyone knows Thoon can be nuts, and they all give him a wide berth, which relegates him to a fairly expensive area denial piece.  Not saying that's a bad thing.  In fact it can be a very, very good thing, but you have to know he has a very specific role to play and is not the end all be all.

You're right about people that know about Thoon giving him a healthy berth, but when you have access to being anywhere on the board thanks to shattering shove that leads to the enemy crew needing to always be bunched up, which you can then punish with Euripides' pseudo-shockwaves.

56 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Geryon were pretty good, but the IR change hit them like a brick shithouse and now it's almost worth the extra 3 stones for a Mature if you want a big hammer.  They have issues living between activation even with HtK because it's an 8 wd model with no other defenses.  They require a lot of pinpoint positioning, and don't have the mobility to get around easily like the Mature, unless you incorp it with the totem.

The IR change didn't really hit them that much. Chill and Heave still let them abuse their 2" engagement range+extended reach to deny enemy models efficacy, and reform from ice combined with HtK makes them incredibly hard to actually put down with smart activation order. They're a beater that you don't have to worry about activating early so they don't die before they go for the most part.

59 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Cyclops are a solid support piece, but they die to any consistent fire.  Min 3 damage doesn't work so hot when you can't close the gap reasonably. 

Which you absolutely can thanks to shattering shove. Not to mention on their activation they can go from 1 health to 3 health+shielded while also dealing hefty damage thanks to grit. And if they're attacking the cyclops

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

The fact that you need a specific tome that you can't stone for to make pillars is also bad, although old ways mitigates that a bit.

Agreed.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Arcing shot is nice, but it's still an 8" range so... a little close.  The biggest issue is that you only get one shot unless your target is within 6", since the boulder states "push models damaged 2" away from this model".

While true, this is mostly academic since the times you're going to start your activation and be in that 6-8" range of a single model that doesn't have it's ice pillar at it's back that you want to attack twice is going to be few and far between.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Shattering shove is nice but I feel like it's not used so great due to the damage to pull it off and the weird spots you can put yourself into.

This just reeks of theoryfaux and not actual experience using the action.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Cave drawings is meh since destroying a pillar isn't an interact, so any model with a bonus action move or something effectively ignores it entirely.

They're using their resources to be able to interact once rather than using those resources to interact multiple times, or interact and get in a position for next turn. That's far from "ignoring" it. Not to mention it can be combined with a model in that area to create a big zone where an enemy can't interact.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Reva, in that there's something there but it just doesn't click together well.

...what

 

 

10 hours ago, Roadhouse said:

I appreciate the response. Arcanist have 3 demolitionists and a couple December models, Gremlins have 1 Demolitionist, Lucky Emissary, and Pere, for Guild I'm just seeing Riotbreaker and Papa Loco with Blow it to Hell, as well as Basse, but his requires LoS to a model, a trigger, and that model to be within 3 inches of a pillar.

I used the app and filtered for destructible so it's possible I'm missing something. 

The pillars are definitely worse against shooting crews, because LoS is harder to block than charge lanes. Is there something else I'm not seeing?

There are also models that can just remove markers, they don't have to be destructible, like Mancha Roja and Gluttony. It's not really a problem of volume so much as being able to consistently deny pillars in useful spaces to you, meaning you lose the ability to either dictate where engagement happens and/or you lose the ability to get your buffs in that engagement. Combined with the majority of ice pillar tricks requiring an activation to set up before they can be used, an opponent who knows those tricks and is paying attention can just put a stop to it at basically no opportunity cost.

[LexLock]

Honestly Euripides' crew is just too tome hungry, if you gave Cyclops a tome built in on their Ice Pillar creation the crew could function a lot more smoothly and you could get some consistent openers using Gigants to shoot Euripides or Thoon up instead of relying on RNG and The Old Ways. An interesting way of bringing two crews up would be to add some dual keywords to Savage and December, loan december Thoon or some Cyclops and maybe use some Silent Ones or Snow Storm.

[santaclaws01]

3 minutes ago, LexLock said:

Honestly Euripides' crew is just too tome hungry, if you gave Cyclops a tome built in on their Ice Pillar creation the crew could function a lot more smoothly and you could get some consistent openers using Gigants to shoot Euripides or Thoon up instead of relying on RNG and The Old Ways. An interesting way of bringing two crews up would be to add some dual keywords to Savage and December, loan december Thoon or some Cyclops and maybe use some Silent Ones or Snow Storm.

Fluff wise I'm not a fan of December and savage having cross over with the existing models. I do agree that Cyclops should have tomes built in to their creation. Just trade out needing maybe a 7 for it OR reduce their damage track by 1 on at least min. I pushed so hard in the beta for the Cyclops to embrace it's support role more fully than being the half-support half-beater they currently are.

[Nagi21]

1 hour ago, santaclaws01 said:

This just reeks of theoryfaux and not actual experience using the action.

No it's experience, on both sides of the table.  Putting a pillar where it's useful for an allied model but not completly out of position is tricky, plus it requires a very obvious setup.  The Candy bomb was the first (obvious) choice, but I very rarely see that one work out well since she gets too far up the board too fast often (first world problems).  Seen it used for Euri but then you get into what I was talking about where big fist, thin skin.  Long ranged pillars are also usually cleaned up since it's very obvious for setup again until later game.

I think the issue is that shove wants to punish lone models around the table and pick off edges and skirmishers, but those crews are usually found in open games with lots of schemes, which is not what Euri does well at all as a mid range center crew.  What ends up happening then is you try and use it vs a crew that actually wants to play close together, and while several mv shockwaves are nice, 8's are not too hard to fire off, and those pillars are limited to 8" range so you can only do so much with them.  

I think we can agree that:

The crew suffers from a very common thing in marker removal.

The crew is very card (tomes specifically) hungry.

The crew has a very high skill floor.

 

Put all those together and you have a crew that looks okay on paper but doesn't perform in actual games.

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Putting a pillar where it's useful for an allied model but not completly out of position is tricky, plus it requires a very obvious setup.  The Candy bomb was the first (obvious) choice, but I very rarely see that one work out well since she gets too far up the board too fast often (first world problems).  Seen it used for Euri but then you get into what I was talking about where big fist, thin skin.  Long ranged pillars are also usually cleaned up since it's very obvious for setup again until later game.

Well then it's a good that that Euripides can put out 4 ice pillars up to 17" away from where he activates assuming there isn't already a pillar he can jump to himself.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

What ends up happening then is you try and use it vs a crew that actually wants to play close together, and while several mv shockwaves are nice, 8's are not too hard to fire off, and those pillars are limited to 8" range so you can only do so much with them.  

The closer a crew is to each other the more duels they need to pass. Not to mention that Mv 5 is more common than Mv 6 and the ability to give out mass staggered pushing up the majority of TNs to an effective 16 so requiring 11s or 10s rather than 9s or 8s. Also it's hard to quantify the value of watching your opponent flip a bunch of face cards on simple duels. Hell part of what makes McCabe so good is how many duels he can cause in a turn, and he can't just get them off on a 6 while also generally only requiring 7s or 6s rather than 8s or 7s.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

The crew is very card (tomes specifically) hungry.

I would say it's just tomes hungry, and not card hungry in general. Ignoring the Bultungin, because we can all agree it's not a great model, 2 TNs require a 7, and only 1 requires an 8. Everything else requires a 6 or lower, the 7s are found on bonus actions(that the cyclops can just old ways for and heal themselves up from if using either vigor or the bonus), or Euripides who can just intuition for it(unless you want to charge in then jump back which is great for single target damage), but also Euripides just doesn't really care about his bonus unless he needs to move. The only 8 requirement is on the Lyssa, which is also an opposed duel and a 4ss model. So all told, only 1 TN that you aren't going to topdeck at least half the time, if you even bother going for the topdeck. Not to mention that the PM has Arcabe Reservoir and could turn a low tome into card draw for 1-0 damage depending on situation.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

The crew has a very high skill floor.

While we agree on this, I think w're going off to different conclusions. You seem to be thinking that since this is the case that means it's less useful. And for the average player yes they won't get as much immediate use from the crew. That doesn't mean the crew is noncompetitive though. To determine if something is competitive the assumption should always be that a crew is being played by someone who knows how to play it against a person who has an idea of what it can do.

[Nagi21]

3 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

While we agree on this, I think w're going off to different conclusions. You seem to be thinking that since this is the case that means it's less useful. And for the average player yes they won't get as much immediate use from the crew. That doesn't mean the crew is noncompetitive though. To determine if something is competitive the assumption should always be that a crew is being played by someone who knows how to play it against a person who has an idea of what it can do.

I mean the easy access to marker removal in over half of the other factions make it non-competitive already.  Casually it's playable enough if you get a decent matchup but there's just too much counter play competitively, just like Rasputina.

[santaclaws01]

3 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

I mean the easy access to marker removal in over half of the other factions make it non-competitive already

Under half, and as far as guild is concerned only Dashel(Dashel can get by on the strength of his keyword) and Hoffman really provide an issue, and anyone other than Hoffman and Perdita need to spend 8 stones to bring in a single model with blown apart.

[Adran]

21 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

I mean the easy access to marker removal in over half of the other factions make it non-competitive already.  Casually it's playable enough if you get a decent matchup but there's just too much counter play competitively, just like Rasputina.

I would say  access to marker removal in other factions leads you into counter counter pick.

Mass Marker removal is a rare thing, so whilst some factions do have access to it, you will have a good idea about their crew if they try and pick it up. If a guild player is relying on Riotbreaker or Papa to clear away your pillars, then you need a plan to deal with them. Yes, this puts a slightly higher skill demand on the Savage player, but they shouldn't be shut down by 1 bonus action removing pillars.  Your opponent is spending 15% of their crew on buying that action. That's knowledge you can use to your advantage. And both those models will suffer a little from being outside of their keyword (Probably no power tokens for the Riotbreaker, and no Por el for Papa).

If you play savage you need to be aware of models removing your Pillars. But you know this, and can try and take advantage of this.

[Nagi21]

13 minutes ago, Adran said:

I would say  access to marker removal in other factions leads you into counter counter pick.

Mass Marker removal is a rare thing, so whilst some factions do have access to it, you will have a good idea about their crew if they try and pick it up. If a guild player is relying on Riotbreaker or Papa to clear away your pillars, then you need a plan to deal with them. Yes, this puts a slightly higher skill demand on the Savage player, but they shouldn't be shut down by 1 bonus action removing pillars.  Your opponent is spending 15% of their crew on buying that action. That's knowledge you can use to your advantage. And both those models will suffer a little from being outside of their keyword (Probably no power tokens for the Riotbreaker, and no Por el for Papa).

If you play savage you need to be aware of models removing your Pillars. But you know this, and can try and take advantage of this.

15% of the crew for the cost of removing the main mechanic of the enemy crew sounds like a really fucking good deal to be honest.

[santaclaws01]

5 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

15% of the crew for the cost of removing the main mechanic of the enemy crew sounds like a really fucking good deal to be honest.

A single blow it to hell model isn't going to be removing the main mechanic, it's going to be making it  less effective(although it does pretty much remove Frozen Trophy as a real threat)

[Adran]

Just now, Nagi21 said:

15% of the crew for the cost of removing the main mechanic of the enemy crew sounds like a really fucking good deal to be honest.

But it shouldn't remove your core mechanic. It can remove markers in 1 small area each turn. You have a huge range on where you place your markers most of the time. Don't group them up unless you have to, and you can wait until Papa has activated before you generate some to give you access to them for a turn.  It makes your turns harder, but you have a degree of control over your plan and how you use your pillars. You might need a Plan A and a Plan B depending on what your opponent does with your pillars, but that's certainly doable.

 

[Roadhouse]

Played against Lady J last night. Both our first game in 3rd, but we've been playing table top games for over a decade and played plenty M2E. Rune etched ice is absolutely insane even when I knew I'd only be able to use it twice due to having the Black Joker in my top 3, thanks Intuition. Caused 10 Mv duels, 14 total damage done. Lady J took the bait and came at Euripides, I had the 13, 11, and 10 of Tomes in hand. Future Sight+The Old Ways left him empty handed and Euripides only took 6 damage. Thoon promptly put Lady J in ice. 

My hand was the absolute nuts, no denying that, but I think future sight combined with the old ways is EXTREMELY powerful. Taking 1 point to prevent a damage flip and strip a card from their hand is bonkers, and after the first trigger, you know what suit to target and you KNOW what to cheat to guarantee additional triggers. I had a good idea on my first one because I had caused him to turn so many cards over already from the Ice and guessed right.

That was the top of Turn 2, Lady J was his second activation, he had cheated once with the Judge, once to get the leap attack trigger, and once on his first attack which was too high for me to beat. After that I cheated my 13 of tomes, old ways it on the next, and used my 11 on his last AP becuase I knew he couldnt beat it with his remaining card in hand. The rest of his turn was straight flips and me with almost a full hand (Arcane reservoir and Surge from Primordial).