New Kid on the Block: Euripides

[Kharnage]

So we've had some time to chew on this new crew available to us, and while I've seen a lot of spooky looking theorycraft, once the "bury your whole family" Thoon builds were fixed in beta, I haven't heard of anyone doing well with the big bois. To the contrary, savage has been donkey-stomped the like two times I've seen them on the table months ago, and the more telling evidence IMO, while I've seen Neverborn players in the vassal community, I haven't seen anyone reach for Euripides in quite a while. 
However, I like their overall flavor, Old Ways seems cool, and as fellow brutal natives of Malifaux, Savage sings to my Nephilim roots. So where are you, successful Euripides players? What builds do you take? What do you fear? What are important takeaways from games you've had? 

[Roadhouse]

Copy of Euripidolls (Neverborn)
Size: 50 - Pool: 10
Leader:
  Euripides
Totem(s):
  Primordial Magic
Hires:
  Thoon
  Doppleganger
  Cyclops
  Cyclops 2
  Wicked Doll
  Wicked Doll 2
  Wicked Doll 3
 

 

Just 2 games so far but holy cow, Rune-Etched Ice is capable of doing so much damage. You can get up to 6 TN14 better-than-shockwave placements that don't require line of sight and you only have to flip 6's. Future sight is beyond underrated when paired with The Old Ways. Intuition isn't crazy, just helps plan the activation.

Doppleganger with Thoon is pretty great, mostly just area denial because the threat of Thoon Icing someone is huge between knowing your top 3 cards and having the top of the discard pile to cheat from. Doppleganger having it too is just icing and what crew doesn't like having a Lure?

 

I'm not really blown away by the Cyclops. They have an interesting kit to be sure, their bonus action and Min 3 with blast trigger is nice. Need to see more games with them, but I suspect Euripides and Thoon are going to hog the spotlight.

[Ogid]

2 hours ago, Kharnage said:

while I've seen Neverborn players in the vassal community, I haven't seen anyone reach for Euripides in quite a while. 

I'm curious, how is the faction is doing in GG1 so far? With all the craziness in the world these days I've been quite disconected from Malifaux.

Hi everyone btw!

[santaclaws01]

56 minutes ago, Roadhouse said:

Future sight is beyond underrated when paired with The Old Ways.

This is only true if an opponent just keeps deciding to attack Euripides knowing that they're going to lose the duel and lose more of their hand. It protects Euripides from random pot-shots and when your enemy starts their activation with you having a a face card/a run of face cards on top of your discard pile, but that's pretty much it outside of getting lucky or a few other edge cases.

[Kharnage]

2 hours ago, Ogid said:

I'm curious, how is the faction is doing in GG1 so far? With all the craziness in the world these days I've been quite disconected from Malifaux.

Hi everyone btw!

Hi there!

I would say Neverborn come out quite strong, overall. Being one of the 4 rider factions, we have access to a high mobility model capable of running Corrupted Leylines, the most "totally changes how crews approach a game to win" strategy, solo. Additionally, Zoraida remaining the Obey Overlord means that she's really good at denying the same strategy. Being a squishball isn't as cool these days with Public Enemies, so Pandora and Nekima kind of got shelved, but Titania and friends can rule a battlefield. With plenty of movement shenanigans, straight up damage, and a versatile Don't Mind Me model, navigating a melee to score Recover Evidence is also quite doable for Neverborn. I'll not claim to know what Lucius is good at or how he fares overall, he's lost when I play with or against him. Marcus has done okay the few times I've played him in Neverborn, but still overall find his Arcanist version to be superior. We have plenty of quick movers who can play aggressively to run Symbols of Authority throughout the faction, the most lacking being I would argue Pandora.
As for schemes, not having False Claim in faction hurts us less than it did in GG0, with more of a focus on going far and wide with Spread Them Out and Runic Binding, or winning a center scrum, like Leave Your Mark or Claim Jump. 
Overall, I don't know if I would go so far as to qualify Neverborn as the most competitive faction, since that should basically go Von Schtook Ressers IMO, but we're at the least in the running. 
I hope this was at least moderately useful!

[Nagi21]

8 hours ago, Ogid said:

I'm curious, how is the faction is doing in GG1 so far? With all the craziness in the world these days I've been quite disconected from Malifaux.

Hi everyone btw!

Contrary to the above I would say NVB are probably bottom tier, just above Guild.  While the schemes are definitely more fighty and less scheme-y than GG0, issues with the faction as a whole are coming to light, particularly with the GG1 nerfs and erratas.

As Kharnage said, Dora and Nekima are basically relegated to casual fun games due to just plain being too squishy without adequate compensation.  Lucius has issues due to his skill ceiling, but he's a schemy master in a GG that's not as schemy, so he's suffered as well.  

Dreamer is still good, although most of the hate directed at him is because he doesn't have any glaring weaknesses, rather than being particularly strong.  People also think Lucid Dreams is insane (usually the same people who have Brin or Yan Lo or SS miners...).

Euri suffers from the same squish as Pandora and Nekima, and the majority of factions have marker removal easily accessible so he's in the same boat as Raspy and Wong. 

Marcus I don't see people play much in NVB so I assume he's not great.  Zoraida theoretically should be seeing some table time, but the issue with her is Obey still hasn't been clarified much, so whether she's good or not depends on your local meta's interpretation of Obey.  

Titania is about average, but her main issue is damage output vs things that are tanky (i.e. Rezzer) or things that keep you from using your main triggers (fuck you Brin).  She's probably 2nd behind Dreamer right now.

On paper we should be fine, but in practice, the other factions are just plain more murdery on the table and roll over 5/7 of our crews without much issues due to how central GG1 is and how squishy we are vs how murdery we are.  NVB just has bad matchups against meta crews right now.

[farmoar]

51 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Euri suffers from the same squish as Pandora and Nekima, and the majority of factions have marker removal easily accessible so he's in the same boat as Raspy and Wong. 

curious as to why you mentioned Wong? did you mean Zipp?

[Nagi21]

2 hours ago, farmoar said:

curious as to why you mentioned Wong? did you mean Zipp?

No I meant Wong.  I've not seen much good about him since he mostly relies on shockwaves (like Euri's pillars) and hear more theorycrafting than actual play experience from people.  

[Adran]

19 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

No I meant Wong.  I've not seen much good about him since he mostly relies on shockwaves (like Euri's pillars) and hear more theorycrafting than actual play experience from people.  

It's a bizarre comparison as Wong doesn't use terrain markers and so is completely unaffected by mass marker removal. 

[Nagi21]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

It's a bizarre comparison as Wong doesn't use terrain markers and so is completely unaffected by mass marker removal. 

Euri's damage is mostly focused on blasts and shockwaves.  Wong's main damage is blasts and shockwaves.  Seems fine to me.

[Adran]

2 minutes ago, Nagi21 said:

Euri's damage is mostly focused on blasts and shockwaves.  Wong's main damage is blasts and shockwaves.  Seems fine to me.

The damage is similar to shockwaves, ( even though there isn't any shockwaves in the savage keyword) so I agree they have those similar, but your sentence structure implied that marker removal was the reason you counted them as weak, which isn't a reason to count Wong as weak. 

I look at savage and think the main damage is lots of minimum3 and blasts even though there is some tactical action damage that is based of mass simple duel, they aren't always stopped by the same things that stop shockwaves. 

[farmoar]

5 hours ago, Adran said:

The damage is similar to shockwaves, ( even though there isn't any shockwaves in the savage keyword) so I agree they have those similar, but your sentence structure implied that marker removal was the reason you counted them as weak, which isn't a reason to count Wong as weak. 

I look at savage and think the main damage is lots of minimum3 and blasts even though there is some tactical action damage that is based of mass simple duel, they aren't always stopped by the same things that stop shockwaves. 

Thank you. Was starting to think I misread it multiple times. Even weirder to mention marker removal AND Raspy, witb Wong. 

[santaclaws01]

13 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

Obey still hasn't been clarified much, so whether she's good or not depends on your local meta's interpretation of Obey

...what is there to clarify?
 

13 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

Titania is about average, but her main issue is damage output vs things that are tanky (i.e. Rezzer) or things that keep you from using your main triggers (fuck you Brin).  She's probably 2nd behind Dreamer right now.

Titania can chew up any non-incorporeal/non-laugh off model pretty easily. HtW doesn't matter when you're effectively min 4+. Brin is an annoyance yeah, but he can just be outranged, not to mention that his defenses aren't all that great into Titania at Df 5(which will go down quickly from injured) and Serene Countenance which is going to get ignored by her and then by any model who follows up behind her when he's at Df 2, if he's even still alive, so even being within range for Knew You Were Gonna Do That puts him very firmly in dangerous territory.

[Ogid]

Thanks to both @Kharnage and @Nagi21. So top tier plus bottom tier, average then?

I haven't played that much in GG1, but kind of share some of you both opinions; there are great things in NVB and I do think we can do well; but there is a also some issues with how much we rely on a few masters (being the poster boy of this our jack of all trades Dreamer), some versatiles (like Serena or the Rider) and the BBS to make up for the terrible card draw and trully boost our combat crews.

On 7/24/2020 at 10:12 PM, Kharnage said:

Marcus has done okay the few times I've played him in Neverborn, but still overall find his Arcanist version to be superior.

Ok, this catches my eye... I don't want to derail more this thread so, could anyone that uses marcus answer my questions here.

[Alcathous]

@Kharnage @Nagi21 I think Castle Dora has a place in Recover Evidence. There's a lot of scheme pools that force a fight or crossing the centreline, which can make a great opportunity to pick a killzone and dominate a fight there. Running her with 2-4 lure effects is pretty easy to do, and you can reliably score your strat points while making it an absolute nightmare for the enemy to get theirs. She's got great options for Hidden Martyrs, is one of our best scorers for Let Them Bleed, and has some of our best anti-scheme tech. She may not be the best, but she's far from DOA. 

 

To the original topic, I'm starting some Euri reps this week. I'm come back after I get some games in, but right now I'm looking at him having potential in Recover and Symbols in particular. On paper, I like the aoe damage potential combined with the ability to funnel enemies together using pillars and big bases. I know the 50mils are often cited as a downside of the crew, so I'm going to be looking for ways to turn that into a strength as much as possible. Shattering surprise and ranged tech makes me think the crew has potential to have pretty good target selection if you set up right. Control space > soften the enemy > pressure weak spots > profit? Lol. I'll let y'all know. 

[Nagi21]

4 hours ago, Alcathous said:

@Kharnage @Nagi21 I think Castle Dora has a place in Recover Evidence. There's a lot of scheme pools that force a fight or crossing the centreline, which can make a great opportunity to pick a killzone and dominate a fight there. Running her with 2-4 lure effects is pretty easy to do, and you can reliably score your strat points while making it an absolute nightmare for the enemy to get theirs. She's got great options for Hidden Martyrs, is one of our best scorers for Let Them Bleed, and has some of our best anti-scheme tech. She may not be the best, but she's far from DOA. 

I think the biggest problem with Dora in Evidence is that despite being a central bubble master, she's one of the least oppressive ones.  Compare her to something like Som'er or Hamelin and it's not even close in a midtable melee.  So basically while that does play to her strengths, the meta isn't conducive to her because it favors those flexible oppressive crews.  

[Alcathous]

3 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

Compare her to something like Som'er or Hamelin and it's not even close in a midtable melee. 

I know Som'er is a monster lol. I'm not saying Dora is in that caliber of "always good" but if you pick her into the right game, it is that oppressive. Key thing is that I'm never trying for the midtable melee. I want to stay solidly on my side of the board, and when the opposing crew sidles up to brawl, I pull in their key models over to me after activation and murder them the next round before they activate. Do that twice and you've usually won the game. Mood swings gives a lot of breathing room to killing unactivated models, so I don't have to rely on winning initiative and spiking damage to make it happen. 

[Nagi21]

1 hour ago, Alcathous said:

I know Som'er is a monster lol. I'm not saying Dora is in that caliber of "always good" but if you pick her into the right game, it is that oppressive. Key thing is that I'm never trying for the midtable melee. I want to stay solidly on my side of the board, and when the opposing crew sidles up to brawl, I pull in their key models over to me after activation and murder them the next round before they activate. Do that twice and you've usually won the game. Mood swings gives a lot of breathing room to killing unactivated models, so I don't have to rely on winning initiative and spiking damage to make it happen. 

So how are you getting your opponent to your side of the board if there's no schemes to get him to come to your side of the board?  Pandora has the Raspy problem where you want your opponent to come to you, but you can just as easily be forced into a situation where they sit and wait for you and nobody scores (has happened more than once).  

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

So how are you getting your opponent to your side of the board if there's no schemes to get him to come to your side of the board?  Pandora has the Raspy problem where you want your opponent to come to you, but you can just as easily be forced into a situation where they sit and wait for you and nobody scores (has happened more than once).  

Lure.

[Nagi21]

57 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Lure.

Lure is a 12" range.  If there's nothing forcing your opponent to cross the midpoint of the board, how are you getting him out of position if he sits back, without going towards him first?

[santaclaws01]

1 minute ago, Nagi21 said:

Lure is a 12" range.  If there's nothing forcing your opponent to cross the midpoint of the board, how are you getting him out of position if he sits back, without going towards him first?

The farther back the opponent's crew is, the more of the board they yield to you to safely come forward.

[Alcathous]

4 hours ago, Nagi21 said:

So how are you getting your opponent to your side of the board if there's no schemes to get him to come to your side of the board?  Pandora has the Raspy problem where you want your opponent to come to you, but you can just as easily be forced into a situation where they sit and wait for you and nobody scores (has happened more than once). 

Pandora has so much more agency than Raspy to pull the fight to her. It's lures lures lures.

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Lure is a 12" range.  If there's nothing forcing your opponent to cross the midpoint of the board, how are you getting him out of position if he sits back, without going towards him first?

Literally the entire objective pack. 

In the context of Recover Evidence, I'm holding at least 4 of my opponent's VP hostage wherever I am. 

Spread Them Out, Leave Your Mark, Claim Jump, Sabotage, Research Mission all push the opponent towards center or across the centerline. Breakthrough ever moreso.

Vendetta, Assassinate, Hidden Martyrs, Catch and Release, Let Them Bleed, Take Prisoner, Runic Binding all pull the opponent towards my crew.

With Walk>Lure, I'm threatening at least a 17" area outside of my killzone. Iggy is denying schemes at a 20" bubble. I am confident in the crew's ability to force the space if my opponent tries to score at all. 

Vendetta/Assassinate and guns is where it gets tricky. But I can probably lure you if you're shooting at me.

[Morgan Vening]

3 hours ago, Alcathous said:

Vendetta/Assassinate and guns is where it gets tricky. But I can probably lure you if you're shooting at me.

Yeah, outside of Sniper, and Pigapult, there's not a lot of shooting that can outdistance Walk + Lure, if not just straight Lure.