Wich Obliteration would you pick out of keyword?

[Zebo]

The question is:

You don't select Tara as your Master, and your Opponent declares Colette, Misaki, Dreamer or any other keyword with burying shenanigans.

As Outcast Players we can use Obliteration models to punish buried enemies, but which ones would you pick? 

The Nothing Beast as the more powerful (and expensive) beater to buried models? A Void Hunter as medium choice, even with its stat 5? A cheap Void Wretch? Maybe Aionus to give them also slow or to force them to unbury?

What would you do? 

[Jesy Blue]

I asked this same question exactly 2 months ago!  Biter!

 

[Zebo]

Yes, Andrés then I liked Aionus. 

But since then I think He's been nerfed, and I've got not experience with Obliteration at all, so really can't value the models. 

I wanted advice from Tara players. 

[RisingPhoenix]

It's The Nothing Beast or Aionus.  TNB is a min 3 beater with a bonus action to throw out concealment.  So it can sit near your crew and be useful while doing damage.  But first, I'd ask "why?"  If you're just reflexively taking it to "punish burying" I don't know if it's going to be as good as you think.  I saw this in GG0 a lot with soulstone miners, and the truth was that back when they were Armor +2, the Nothing Beast wouldn't kill them.  So what would happen is that they'd unbury, score Outflank, and then die (because they had some damage on them already).  Which is what their opponent wanted them for, and now you paid 10 stones for the Nothing Beast and they still scored their points.

So say it's Colette, and you decide to score Assassinate in Hamlin (not my first choice, but eh, say the scheme pool is really lousy).  I'd take Hans, hit her with Warning Shot, and then lure her into the bubble and try to kill her in one turn.  Do you know what happens if you try to kill Colette with TNB?  She can declare triggers while buried.  So he does 1/2/3 damage to her, for 10 stones. Welcome to M3E.  

Dreamer... honestly he's not too arsed if you pay 10 stones and all it does is is put wounds on his summons.  It takes two moderates for The Nothing Beast to kill a Stitched, and it takes a moderate and a severe to kill an Insidious Madness.  That's just not reliable  So they're going to get to unbury, and at that point you might as well just do the damage after they unbury with something in keyword.  Concealment doesn't even work against his ranged attacks.  

Misaki... she's honestly fine if she doesn't use From Shadows.  So what's going to happen is you're going to pay 10 stones, and then she'll stop using her ability, and you'll need to find a use for TNB.  Or she can kill him, because boy, he doesn't live if Misaki decides she wants him dead.  

At 10 stones, I'd need it to deny 1.5 VP or score 1.5 VP for the choice to break even.  I don't see TNB earning its points back against those crews.  

Aionus is putting slow on models he hits.  Slow is good.  You won't get a chance to transfer the slow, because the model will unbury during its activation, at which point the slow ends, so the front of his card is effectively blank except for guaranteeing all enemy models that bury near him gain slow.  Also, he's fragile as hell and Misaki is going to kill the fuck out of him.  And he's 11 stones for 2 actions and a 2/3/4 damage track.  Are you okay paying 11 stones for a stat 6 2/3/4 attack?  Don't assume he'll live long enough to start doing 4/5 damage with Eventuality.  And really you BETTER score 2 VP if you're paying 11 stones.  

 

Note: there might be some play in trying to use Existential Bite from Void Hunters to unbury models and then kill them into Public Enemies vs, say, dreamer.  The problem is that you're probably getting 1 bounty token per summon, and I don't know if the 8 stones from biting a stiched up to the surface then eating it is really gonna be well spent.  It's an idea.  Don't do this against Colette, as she's Wp 6, and can declare her trigger, reduce damage by 2, and rebury off Existential Bite.  Oh, and Void Hunters can't kill a Stitched in one round, so they'll need a friend.

[ShinChan]

A Void Hunter can kill a summomed Stitched in one round with some luck or the appropriate cards, giving him Fast with stutter time and ending the stunned and the fast condition with the trigger, that's minimum 3 damage twice. 

Is it likely to happen? Not really, but it wouldn't surprise me either. 

[RisingPhoenix]

Yeah... you'd have to land the first attack, hit a Severe, then land a second attack and hit a severe, or hit a moderate with a trigger after landing a buff that gives them fast.  

So in other words, a Void Hunter can't kill a Stitched in one turn.  FFS play some malifaux, how often does a stat 5  vs Df 5/Wp 5 attack from a minion hit double severe?  Or Severe+Moderate+Land another 5 vs WP duel+Hit a trigger?

Come on, I'd love to see a math run on this.

[Adran]

4 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Yeah... you'd have to land the first attack, hit a Severe, then land a second attack and hit a severe, or hit a moderate with a trigger after landing a buff that gives them fast.  

So in other words, a Void Hunter can't kill a Stitched in one turn.  FFS play some malifaux, how often does a stat 5  vs Df 5/Wp 5 attack from a minion hit double severe?  Or Severe+Moderate+Land another 5 vs WP duel+Hit a trigger?

Come on, I'd love to see a math run on this.

Saying it can't happen is obviously wrong, and thinking it can't happen will be a mistake.

There is something like a 1% chance of it happening on 1 attack with no input form the Void hunters hand (Naturally flips a ram and wins the duel, ending the stunned, and then on the damage flip flipping the red joker).

Expecting/relying on it is also a mistake

If the Void hunter has a High ram and another severe in hand, then there is probably a decent chance of it happening, at least high enough to make it a worth while plan to consider.

The following numbers are based on a new deck, and may well contain calculation errors. 

I think the odds of a severe damage flip is something like 24% on a straight flip, 8% on a  and 6 % on a .  (I think this is counting the red joker as a severe card, so for the  case you actually have about 1% chance of severe and 5% chance of severe +1).

The odds of your opponent getting 7 or less on their df flip is 52% (Number picked because the 13 then gives you a straight damage flip).

The odds of you winning the duel where your opponent flipped a 7 (and so you can cheat 2nd) is 55% on a straight flip, and  62% on a . (its quite an involved calculation to work out the chances to win and the opponent to have flipped 7 or lower, but I would make a guess at about 30% of the time you are cheating second and your opponent has flipped a 7 or lower)

At this point you're looking at peoples judgements based on their hand and the board state, but my malifaux experience is that its probably not that likely the stitched player would cheat if they flipped 7 or lower and you were on a 10 or higher unless the stitched was important in their plan.

I will at this point remind people that a dreamer player has access to lucid dreams, and so is very unlikely to be playing with a standard deck.

 

Possible  damage combinations to kill a newly summoned stitched with a Void hunter in 1 activation:- (6 wounds and Armor +1 vs a 2/3/5 damage track with a trigger for +1 damage not built in -You seem to think it needs an extra point of damage in what you state is needed to kill it)

trigger + Red joker. (only uses 1 action, so can focus to help)

Severe + severe

Severe + Moderate

Moderate with trigger + Moderate with trigger (this needs 2 conditions. In all other cases the stunned given to the stitched by being summoned is enough)

Severe with Trigger + any hit

Severe + Weak with Trigger.

Red joker + any other hit.

That's quite a few combinations that can happen. Until I'd looked through this, if someone tried to make my buried stitched fast, I'd probably have been prepared to cheat down to lose. Now, I'm not quite so sure...

So I don't have a maths answer as to how likely it is, but that's partially because there are so many routes to get there.

My rough guess is that if the Void Hunter really wants to (also known as has (some of) the cards in hand and is prepared to use them) you are possibly looking at 20-25% chance, which is more than once per game, and  around a 5% chance of it happening with minimal extra input.

 

 

 

 

[RisingPhoenix]

When taking models, you need to be thinking about what they practically can do, not what they might do in an ideal world.  Obviously most models can do 10 points of damage off double severe, even things like Guild Guard and Desperate Mercenaries.  The chance of winning a straight duel against an even stat is 57%.  So there's already some cheating built in to the notion, that Existential Bite needs to land.  Of course it's dreamer, so that's a lot more like 50% or less (dreamer throws the odds out the window).  Some cheating is built into the idea of even landing it, because you are playing against dreamer.

To land a severe after that is a good oh maybe 6% chance, as you said.  So assuming we cheat to hit, we still have a 6% to severe. 

And then you need to hit another attack (again even stat flip) and somehow land another severe (which is now a 4% chance, since you're dumping them from the deck) or you need to hit a trigger (25% chance) and a moderate (~25% chance).  So since those multiply, multiply 6% by 4%, that's 0.24%.  Multiply 6%*25%*25% that's a solid 0.375%.  Total chance of doing it?  Maybe 0.6-0.7%.  Add in a red joker flip, and you maybe get to 1-2% (it does overrule the double negatives).

 

You've made a few mistakes - Existential Bite's severe does only 4 damage, Existential Bite doesn't have a trigger that boosts damage, so many of the damage combinations you listed are just not functional.  As for the cheating, that's easy enough - you can't cheat a minus flip.  Which is what you'll be getting most of the time.  Feel free to take two decks of cards and flip it out - you'll discover that if you do it 20 times, you'll fail to kill the stitched 20 times.  It's even less likely than a 1 in 20.  

In short, if anything is less likely than 75%, don't count on it happening.  If it's less likely than 50%, consider it lucky.  If it's less likely than 20%, don't consider it as anything more than an outlier.  If it's sub 5%, it's ridiculously silly to factor that into your calculations.  It's "well they could hit the black joker" levels of unlikely.  As in every now and then it happens, but it's a silly mentality to count on it.  

[Adran]

Why are you using existential bite rather than void strike?

 

[RisingPhoenix]

14 minutes ago, Adran said:

Why are you using existential bite rather than void strike?

 

Because in the event that the sub-1% (or 5% or even 25%) chance to kill the model doesn't work out, I'd rather not lose a VP on Public Enemies because I missed on a bounty token that turn.  Like literally the only reason I'm discussing an 8 stone hunter over a 10 stone TNB is that ability.

Do you typically leave all your VP scoring to 25% chances?

[Adran]

I don't leave all my vp down to just one chance anyway. I probably wouldn't hire obliteration as a counter pick, I was just answering the maths. I certainly wasn't considering the in game reasons for going for the kill. I'm not sure that the bite is a good enough tech for it anyway unless I can chain activate. 

I'll see if I can get some actual numbers worked out tomorrow, but for interests sake I got the stitched killed on my 10 th attempt with neither side able to cheat. I haven't had time to do 20 yet...

[RisingPhoenix]

As I said, I was looking at in-game reasons I might hire them.  There might be some play in biting up models and then killing them for bounty tokens in public enemies.  This flies up in power if your opponent summons insidious madness, but if they're playing properly they probably only summon stitched when they see the counterpick.

I really don't care about theorycrafted math reasons that ignore gamestate, strategy, and schemes.  That sort of stuff is 40k shit.

[Adran]

Sorry, we were talking at cross purposes and I didn't read your initial point well enough.  

As a general rule I don't see a good reason to hire Obliteration models just because you are facing a burying master. If you want to try and Assasinate Colette or Misaki, or kill the Dreamers summons before they hit the table, then you could consider it, but the chances are that you are better off trying to hit the things on the table. I've also not encountered enough models that I "need" to unbury that I think hiring in a void hunter is required.  (It might be useful against a Bandersnatch or an undercover reporter, but I'm not sure its worth it on the off chance they might be there).

So if you have a specific plan for a set of schemes or know the play style of your opponent, then you might find it worth while, but you almost need it to be central to your plan rather than just a "it would be nice if I could also attack buried models".

I think I said last time, about the only general "tech" that I might consider against the dreamer is hiring in Talos. Depending on the dreamer playstyle he might be doing enough passive damage from burning that he can "earn" his points. But probably only in a relatively high WP crew, I think it needs some things to still be buried at the end of the turn to really work.

That said, if I happened to have a void hunter on the table, I would happily use it to attack buried stitched and be happy with my expected kill rate.

 

[RisingPhoenix]

Same here.  I think there might be some play in using Void Hunters to fish up buried models for Public enemies, but only if you can turn it into a consistent set of points.  Other than that, there's better fixes to whatever problems you're having.  

Undercover reporter is interesting.  You could unbury it in the backlines and then it'd be trash.  The only problem is you're just not landing a stat 5 vs willpower 6 consistently, and if you miss then you wasted the stones.  On the other hand, if you hit, the reporter is going to do nothing and die miserably.  That's... interesting at least.  I feel like it's not reliable, but it's not a bad thought.  There's just not enough buried models that really truly care.  

Talos lacks the keyword that lets him attack buried models, because of course he does.  Talos is useless.  It's a natural mistake though, you'd assume as an Obliteration model he'd get Obliteration keywords rather than not getting any Obliteration keywords at all, like he does.  Because he's Talos.  

[Adran]

I'd pick Talos because he just effects buried models without the need to attack. When he activates he sets fire to everything buried automatically. He can then go and do his normal things and still be having an effect.

Of course I'd need a game where I can make use of Talos, so I would want a melee fight in a small area against a crew that will at least have to put effort in to ignore armour, as well as use buried models. So its quiet a small subset of scenarios I'd consider him.

 

[RisingPhoenix]

Yeah, he can give them burning 1 for 9 stones.  Wee.   Then Dreamer remembers they run Serena Bowman (because obviously) and Talos dies miserably to Serena.  Seriously, I'm not sure there's a more lopsided fight in the game than Talos vs Serena.  You'd think Talos was the support model, but nope.

So I guess it's Misaki and Colette.  I don't see him being brought in versus either of those two.  

I'm convinced Talos is in the bottom 5 Outcasts models, and possibly the bottom 5 Malifaux models in general.  He's just so radioactively bad.

[touchdown]

the Hunter seems useful for forcing unburies in inconvenient places, rather than trying for the 1 activation kill which is iffy even with good circumstances

[RisingPhoenix]

15 minutes ago, touchdown said:

the Hunter seems useful for forcing unburies in inconvenient places, rather than trying for the 1 activation kill which is iffy even with good circumstances

It could be.  My question is "what are you unburying?"  Colette can rebury herself off the attack (trigger) and Misaki probably doesn't care if she's suddenly in base contact with a model.

If you think you can fish up Soulstone miners to stop them from scoring though, it could be worth it.

[Adran]

19 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Yeah, he can give them burning 1 for 9 stones.  Wee.   Then Dreamer remembers they run Serena Bowman (because obviously) and Talos dies miserably to Serena.  Seriously, I'm not sure there's a more lopsided fight in the game than Talos vs Serena.  You'd think Talos was the support model, but nope.

 

Good point. Serena  is an in keyword model that effectively counters what I get from Talos. making him a very risky choice. One day I'll find a use for him...