Sell me Raspi

[ShinChan]

I've played my first game with Rasputina in Vassal, and the crew looks very lackluster, specially if you play full in keyword as I like to play (maybe adding some versatiles).

My impressions model by model (underlined those that I actually played):

• Rasputina: She is one of the most resource hungry masters I've ever seen, specially taking into account that the resource generation in keyword is almost nonexistent. She really likes to have focus in order to get at least a blast, and she has to discard a card to attack through ice pillars if you want to declare triggers. The Damage track is also quite unimpressive (2/3/4). Harsh Winter is an "ok" ability if she's the leader, but the opponent will discard low cards to prevent his big beaters and key models to gain slow, just remove the Ice Pillars that are causing trouble with low cost models that have nothing better to do or even bringing someone with Demolitionist (which will completely avoid the Slow) or Blow it to Hell.
• Wendigo: Comes for free, can create Ice Pillars, can be used as an Ice Pillar for a couple of models and when it dies, creates another Ice Pillar. Also it's not insignificant, which can help sometimes.
• Snow Storm: A really good model all rounded. Good damage output, with the ideal conditions can get a soulstone back and keeps everybody kind-of-safe from ranged attacks while helping to move the rest of the crew.
• Blessed of December: A fast and expensive scheme runner that can get some serious damage. I see why it makes the cut for so many Marcus lists. I can see her(?) running with a Soulstone Cache to ensure those Pounces for extra mobility and get a  to the attack.
• Ice Golem: Is this the worst of the Golems? I'm not saying he's bad, but he needs some set up to make him shine, and it's quite easy to see it coming and prevent it. I don't know much about the Metal Golem, but the fire one is definitely better.
• Ice Gamin: I don't see me hiring one of this in any situation. I would prefer to have 4 extra SS, put and upgrade on someone or bring a Soulstone Miner, which in turn 2 it would already be at the same cost.
• Hoarcat: Another scheme runner, in theory quite resilient, with almost no damage (Tundra Hunter is wasted ink on this card) and that doesn't bring any utility at all. I could consider it as a pick
• Ice Dancer: Scheme runner with a good movement trick, but that feels is going to die to light shooting. Ice Path is good, but requires careful planning. Two  that require corpses.
• Silent One: The're a reliable source of Ice Pillars outside of Rasputina, so there are a must. I don't thing they're that good, but it's more that the Keyword lacks of better options. Healing is nice, and also the ability to use SS, although I don't see it using a soulstone on them for almost any reason.
• December Acolyte: They look decent on paper, but complicate to fit into a list, unless you're facing a crew with lots of armor/shielded. Having Tools for the Job is nice, but I wish they had more interesting triggers.

General impressions:

• The Beasts models feel like they're not good enough (Hoarcat) or that they could be better with Marcus, so their potential has been tuned down in order to prevent abuses with Marcus' upgrades.
• Most of the models in keyword lack a useful  action. Feels nice to have a thematic ability regarding the lore, but if that means that the models are going to underperform, not sure if it's worth it.
• In the game I played, my MVPs were actually the 2 versatile models I brought: Mechanical Rider and SS Miner. The Mechanical Rider scored me 3 points (2 Research Mission + 1 Corrupted Leylines) while moving Rasputina around in turns 1&2. The SS Miner scored me 1 from Hidden Martyrs and almost the second one, if it weren't for a lucky 13 that my opponent flipped to get critical strike and put me just 1 Wd below half of its health.

 

Don't misunderstanding, it was a fun game, I won by 1 point at the end, but they seem pretty under the curve, with very bad matchups. 

Also, am I the only one that feels like Raputina (or somebody else in her crew) should summon Ice Gamins? Maybe a trigger in the  action or something like that.

[dannydb]

Ice golem and gamin are a good start in to sandeep who is a much much better master 

 

But yer I've found raspy quite lackluster this edition, she's down their with Marcus as worst masters in my opinion 

 

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

I played several (5+) games with Rasputina as I really like her aesthetically (not an Arc player). I am not going to sell you on her (as I also think she sucks), but what I have learned from these games is the following:

- first and foremost, don't think that you have to use Winter's Strike every activation. I barely do that after turn one, to be honest. Raspy's best attack is Freeze Over and you should look for an opportunity (or more likely: create it) to use it as often as possible. If you think of her in this way, she stops taxing your hand too much, as she needs 5's to work and occasionaly a card to discard. Freeze Over is especially great if you manage to position Ice Gamin properly.

- there were two ways I've composed my lists so far: Ice Golem focused lists and "loose" lists. Once I figured out I don't need to use my good cards for Raspy, I started to build the crew to support Ice Golem and invest my cards into him. I think he's a great beater with tremendous damage track, but as a model he's good only if certain schemes are in the pool, like Claim Jump, Leave Your Mark, Research Mission. Other downside of playing Ice Golem is that you need to take suboptimal models to support (i.e. speed up) him - Snow Storm or December Acolyte. Loose lists are lists which are based on loose synergies between models, which operate more independently from each other. I like Cassandra in them and Blessed with Soulstone Cache.

- Only in-keyword models which are good are imho Blessed, Silent One (always with Magical Training) and Ice Gamin. Ice Golem is situationally good. Snow Storm and Acolytes are imo under the curve. I haven't tried Dancers and Hoarcats. The former seem weak and the latter are among the worst and most pointless models I have ever seen.

- OOK&Versatiles I like are Cassandra and Mechanical Rider. They're both mobile and help you with schemes. Rider is also better than Snow Storm in delivering Rasputina where she's meant to be.

[ShinChan]

2 hours ago, dannydb said:

Ice golem and gamin are a good start in to sandeep who is a much much better master 

 

But yer I've found raspy quite lackluster this edition, she's down their with Marcus as worst masters in my opinion 

 

I haven't played against all the Arcanists masters, but if Marcus in arcanists is one of the worse, the other ones are just too good.

1 hour ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

I played several (5+) games with Rasputina as I really like her aesthetically (not an Arc player). I am not going to sell you on her (as I also think she sucks), but what I have learned from these games is the following:

- first and foremost, don't think that you have to use Winter's Strike every activation. I barely do that after turn one, to be honest. Raspy's best attack is Freeze Over and you should look for an opportunity (or more likely: create it) to use it as often as possible. If you think of her in this way, she stops taxing your hand too much, as she needs 5's to work and occasionaly a card to discard. Freeze Over is especially great if you manage to position Ice Gamin properly.

- there were two ways I've composed my lists so far: Ice Golem focused lists and "loose" lists. Once I figured out I don't need to use my good cards for Raspy, I started to build the crew to support Ice Golem and invest my cards into him. I think he's a great beater with tremendous damage track, but as a model he's good only if certain schemes are in the pool, like Claim Jump, Leave Your Mark, Research Mission. Other downside of playing Ice Golem is that you need to take suboptimal models to support (i.e. speed up) him - Snow Storm or December Acolyte. Loose lists are lists which are based on loose synergies between models, which operate more independently from each other. I like Cassandra in them and Blessed with Soulstone Cache.

- Only in-keyword models which are good are imho Blessed, Silent One (always with Magical Training) and Ice Gamin. Ice Golem is situationally good. Snow Storm and Acolytes are imo under the curve. I haven't tried Dancers and Hoarcats. The former seem weak and the latter are among the worst and most pointless models I have ever seen.

- OOK&Versatiles I like are Cassandra and Mechanical Rider. They're both mobile and help you with schemes. Rider is also better than Snow Storm in delivering Rasputina where she's meant to be.

My experience is almost none, but I would say that Snow Storm is a good pick. She shines more against shooting and shockwave crews, but brings a lot of mobility, is one of the two models with Df6, and hits decently well.

The Golem suffers against so many things (movement tricks, obeys, pushes, lures) to be a good target for claim jump. Also ping damage hurts him and he struggles against tetrifying.

No SS miner? They got hit a bit too hard, but they still are quite useful. 

[dannydb]

Just now, ShinChan said:

I haven't played against all the Arcanists masters, but if Marcus in arcanists is one of the worse, the other ones are just too good.

My experience is almost none, but I would say that Snow Storm is a good pick. She shines more against shooting and shockwave crews, but brings a lot of mobility, is one of the two models with Df6, and hits decently well.

The Golem suffers against so many things (movement tricks, obeys, pushes, lures) to be a good target for claim jump. Also ping damage hurts him and he struggles against tetrifying.

No SS miner? They got hit a bit too hard, but they still are quite useful. 

i wouldn't say there too good (save possibly sandeep) but a lot of the beasts need upgrades in order to be worth their points which means marcus kind of needs to be everywhere at once and so cant realy support his crew as well as he should 

 

Ironsides and hoffman are much more tanky and can hit just as hard as marcus. they might not have the mobility that marcus has but there additional tankyness is vastly superior and hoffman has a fair amount of movement tricks 

 

Collette is potentially just a mobile as marcus and while not able to put out the same levels of hitting power as marcus (outside of cassandra and the duet) they generaly have more tricks to keep them alive (though do go down incredibly quickly if your opponent brings the right counters)

 

Meifeng is potentialy more mobile that marcus although her movment is more scripted and can be more easly disrupted. however she is more tanky than marcus is and can hit just as hard 

 

Kaeris can be deverstanding with her pyre markers puishing people for entering certain part of the boards with pyres, providing lots of dammage and her crew can be fairly mobile as well outside of ellijah, especialy the fire golem with its place, the fire starter with mv7 and reckless and carlos with his extra movement free action and butterfly jump 

 

sandeep then has the best card draw in faction, access to one of the most vercitile keywords in the game never mind arcanists, hes got killy models and tanky models (though they might not be as good as the factions dedicated tanky killers in ironsides and hoff) and some good schemers as well 

[Jinn]

13 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

I haven't played against all the Arcanists masters, but if Marcus in arcanists is one of the worse, the other ones are just too good.

From what I've seen, Marcus tends to be rated as the worst Master in either Neverborn or Arcanists by players of those factions.

In my opinion: 50%+ of Marcus's beasts are crap at baseline and then only get to be decent after he invests AP and stones (for Quick Reflexes) into buffing them all. There are a few beasts that are decent before upgrades and great after upgrades, but spending AP and cards to do that should be getting powerful results given that he is nothing to write home about as a model himself.

Compare him to a summoner and he is spending all of those resources to bring in probably 15-20 stones of upgrades a game in a much less efficient way that doesn't bring the usual summoner attrition advantage. Most summoners can bring in 15-18SS of models across two turns easily, and they only have to spend 2 AP instead of 5+, and models are way better to bring in than upgrades because they get AP.

I just don't think bringing in upgrades the way he does is efficient enough to make up for the fact that your Master is effectively a stat 6 2/3/5 beater that has to spend 80% of his AP on turns 1 and 2 buffing his models.

This is a simplification of what he brings to the table, but this is why he falls short as a master in a lot of people's opinions.

[ShinChan]

Well Marcus in Arcanists have access to Sabertooth Cerberus, who with Soulstone Cache and a couple of upgrades, they become ultramobile-killing machines almost impossible to kill. Does it require set up? For sure, but like every support master.

In addition he's crew is one of the fastest in the game, with 2 Cerberus and the Blessed of December. 

But this to talk about Rasputina, not Marcus

[Jinn]

1 hour ago, ShinChan said:

Well Marcus in Arcanists have access to Sabertooth Cerberus, who with Soulstone Cache and a couple of upgrades, they become ultramobile-killing machines almost impossible to kill.

In NB he can hire them with Inhuman Reflexes (Scamper + Butterfly Jump + Disguised is nasty) and he can hire a Grootslang which is more mobile than a Blessed. He is still regularly perceived as the worst master in NB or Arc because every crew has good models and decent tricks but they usually aren't as inefficient as Marcus is. A good crew's models start out great and their Master contributes more to achieving objectives than any other model because they don't have to waste AP bringing their crew up to par. Marcus isn't even close to the worst Master in the game, he is just below the curve, and more so than his competition in his factions (IMO).

On topic, Raspy is pretty bad as well. I hope the alternate Master cards idea is implemented and she gets an actually blasty alternate playstyle with the "Frozen Trophy" trigger somewhere on her card (because she pillared Von Schill in the fluff).

[CD1248]

11 hours ago, ShinChan said:

I've played my first game with Rasputina in Vassal, and the crew looks very lackluster, specially if you play full in keyword as I like to play (maybe adding some versatiles).

Also, am I the only one that feels like Raputina (or somebody else in her crew) should summon Ice Gamins? Maybe a trigger in the  action or something like that.

As a player who got into Malifaux specifically because I loved Rasputina and the December models, and who spent most of beta and the first months of 3e aggressively practicing and optimizing the crew... I dropped her like a hot potato and haven't looked back.

She feels like her keyword is missing a Surge trigger on every single card or something.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

12 hours ago, ShinChan said:

My experience is almost none, but I would say that Snow Storm is a good pick. She shines more against shooting and shockwave crews, but brings a lot of mobility, is one of the two models with Df6, and hits decently well.

my main beef with him is that he cannot target himself with his bonus action being very slow by himself (and if you use one of his actions to reposition your crew then he's even more behind). plus, his bonus action works on a very limited pool of models.

12 hours ago, ShinChan said:

The Golem suffers against so many things (movement tricks, obeys, pushes, lures) to be a good target for claim jump. Also ping damage hurts him and he struggles against tetrifying.

These are good points. Opposing crew limits his viability even further.

Miners are still very good models, I just don't like them aesthetically as they lack any personality.