English Ivan (Umbra/DUA Keywords) Discussion

[Cranky Old Man]

I am going to try Ivan for the first time this week. Just wondering how the first turn for Ivan generally is? Do you activate Ivan first and drop out as many shadow markers as possible? Gibson creates them as well?

Any help and suggestions are welcome

[Maniacal_cackle]

38 minutes ago, Cranky Old Man said:

I am going to try Ivan for the first time this week. Just wondering how the first turn for Ivan generally is? Do you activate Ivan first and drop out as many shadow markers as possible? Gibson creates them as well?

Any help and suggestions are welcome

I think most Ivan players play to maximise the number of attacks Ivan makes in a game.  A turn 1 summon can really swing the game, as can his 3/4/5 damage track.

[Pallas4]

16 hours ago, Cranky Old Man said:

I am going to try Ivan for the first time this week. Just wondering how the first turn for Ivan generally is? Do you activate Ivan first and drop out as many shadow markers as possible? Gibson creates them as well?

Any help and suggestions are welcome

Depend of a lot of thing. But I trying do move Ivan with other models (like the effigy) to put Ivan less than 10'' of an ennemy. After... black soulstone (with mask if I can) to put shadow markers around him. And, by default, change the +flip in a crow. And after one or two runic Siphon to trigger the summon. If one is enough, another black soulstone.

But be careful, a player can have some ability to move Ivan and when it happens, i could be.. dangerous for Ivan.

[Fluffaluffacus]

On 9/23/2021 at 5:57 AM, Rufess said:

Lamplighter is always my first hire along with Gibson and Eva, even before Corvis. The concealing and plus modify from the Lamp marker perfectly matched with the keyword mechanism. Plus the heal and push can help a lot.

You rarely get the heal off unless the model is near your lamps, but that seems interesting I suppose. I think generally....for the push I'd just want nocturnes, since they can give the distracted for ungentlemanly.

[Cranky Old Man]

So after a handful of games I am still struggling to get the most out of Gibson. He usually gets left behind and then has been killed every game. The distracted he pumps out is great and the heal is nice. Giving fast to an umbra is nice too. Im thinking maybe bringing the emissary and roar him up 6. 

I guess the key is that Ivan doesnt really need to rush up. His flanking models like Eva or operatives can move faster but Ivan, Mordrake, Gibson, emissary and the brocken spectres can roll up slower.

I am hiring Brocken spectres these days and summoning Daeva. The highest will power in one game i faced was 5 so i could never have summoned a spectre. So I am happy hiring one or two of them in a game. They are a nasty one two punch. Their healing is crazy, heal 2 when they activate within 6 of Ivan and then bonus remove a shadow for a 2 heal. I have had them almost dead back to almost full health. Irreducible damage and having a 3 inch aura where enemies cant heal is extra nasty.

I am thoroughly enjoying playing Ivan. I just have to adjust my thinking to what schemes are better for him. Poor scheme choice has cost me but im 3-1 with him thus far. The loss coming against new Dashel who is beast! Those executioners hard to put down especially when Dashel lets them use stones!

[Cranky Old Man]

The emissary has turned out to be a great addition. A real tank who can give out heals and pull people out of engagements they dont want to be in. 

I have added a rough rider into my list and combined with Eva they are a fantastic scheme duo. While the rest of the crew ball up and try to dominate the midfield, Eva and the rider go off on a flank to score schemes and some strats. I think the rough rider was the missing piece,I use the nightmare version so the model actually fits in nicely. More games this week to see how they go.

[RiceP.]

So guys, what do you think about Double Agent? 
I get that his upgrades are kinda cool, but other then than that, i'm not really sold on him. My main issue is that with him, you have to actually hire some umbra models and i'm just not feeling it. IMO, umbra models are great, but only when you summon them directly into your opponent's face, not when they have to walk with their measly 4 mv, aside from nocturnes, but they are not good overall to me. So, who do you hire with him?
Also, does Daeva "made to kill" would not trigger when summoned with upgrade, because it's during start phase? 

[Defier93]

19 minutes ago, RiceP. said:

So guys, what do you think about Double Agent? 
I get that his upgrades are kinda cool, but other then than that, i'm not really sold on him. My main issue is that with him, you have to actually hire some umbra models and i'm just not feeling it. IMO, umbra models are great, but only when you summon them directly into your opponent's face, not when they have to walk with their measly 4 mv, aside from nocturnes, but they are not good overall to me. So, who do you hire with him?
Also, does Daeva "made to kill" would not trigger when summoned with upgrade, because it's during start phase? 

I’ve played him 3 times and he just doesn’t fit my style, but maybe I’m just too used to Ivan1 nuking things and summoning Brocken Spectres on top of the enemy. 
 

His Upgrades are VERY good but all require a little set up or cooperation/coercion on the opponent’s part:

Explosive Turn of Events is a great card drain if it can hit 3 or 4 models. That sets up the card shenanigans you get from Corvis and Winston (OOK). Not that good against Armored targets, but horrendous into bubble crews.
 

The UNRESISTED Obey on Turncoat on any Enforcer or below is silly, but wholly dependent on what the opponent takes. It really screws up Riders. Obey them and have them use all of their Fate tokens on an Attack at a Positive on Attack and Damage (that’s how I read it, at least).
 

The summon on Secrets in Shadow can instantly lock down a scheming threat or shooter, but it’s my least favorite of the three. Seems very unimpactful..but to answer your question, you don’t get a Made to Kill attack because it’s not happening during the Activation Phase. 

Overall, Ivan2 seems much more focused on disruption and getting into the backfield to scheme while his crew holds the enemy at bay. I think it’s more like playing Colette1 than anything else. 

[TheUnseemlyOne]

Haven’t played him yet to try it, but displacing shot seems like a good way to move a brockenspecter up the field, which might make them a better hire

[RiceP.]

6 hours ago, TheUnseemlyOne said:

Haven’t played him yet to try it, but displacing shot seems like a good way to move a brockenspecter up the field, which might make them a better hire

I'd figured someone might mention  displacing shot. However, it is not a move, but a swap. For you to move specter or daeva up the field, you have to first move someone else and then negate their 1 or 2 AP spent on moving + 1 AP by Ivan to move Daeva/Spectre for a distance equal to their two WKs. Not a good trade, IMO. On the other hand, if you get to swap with enemy, that might actually be good, but it would require a lot of stars to align. First of all, enemy model you'd be swapping better to not present any danger, as you would probably place it near your team, albeit Ivan can partially negate it with stagger and distracted, it still might be dangerous. Then both Ivan and Umbra model have to be within 8" of the target. And finally you'd just have to win an opposed duel. Seems unreliable to me, that's all im saying.
But, maybe someone sees it differently.

[Adran]

Does the Anti Luminal bridge help your movement? Double agent can allow Gibson to do it twice in a turn. 

That's a pretty good way to drastically boost movement in a fixed direction. 

I wouldn't view the Displacing shot as a speed enhancer, but rather a force enhancer. There have been plenty of these actions over the years that have been used to great effect as a model swap, if you can get the moving model cheap enough (for its speed) and the hitting model relevant enough (right back to first edition where the typical Lilith tactic was to run a terror tot up, and then use her action to swap it with a mature nephilim).  The ability to drastically place a brocken outside its activation, or switch in a Daeva for both the extra attack and the defence penalty can be useful (although the defence won't help Ivan, it might help your next activation).

[Da Git]

Using Displacing Shot on Mordrake or a Nocturne to move up a Broken (with Fast from Gibson!) could be a go as they're plenty fast to move up later and don't really matter that much early game. For example, Walk/Shade Step Mordrake into the perfect position (then Focus, giving it to Ivan). Then Ivan can teleport the Broken 8"+70mm. Then turn 2, Mordake can run off to scheme or do whatever.

Otherwise, as Adran said, Anti-Luminal Bridge moves your whole crew up quite efficiently (provided the enemy can't remove your shadows!). Ivan can make this happen twice.

 

Double Agent also bring in the only in-keyword DUA heal.

Overall, I don't think Double Agent is as obviously-powerful as OG, but I do think he looks super fun and in a lot of ways, more interesting.

[Mindbadger]

A few questions about Ivan 2.

1) If you use Displacing Shot on a daeva and an enemy model, would the daeva get an attack on the enemy model before the enemy model gets placed on the shadow marker? Does the timing allow this?

2) If you use Stick to the Plan on Gibson to drop another shadow marker with the Antiluminal Bridge trigger, after he has had an activation and dropped an Anitluminal Bridge triggered marker, does that mean that 3 markers are all connected and allow movement between any of them, or just between either dropped marker (by Gibson) and the originally targeted marker? Or do you have to create a completely seperate Antiluminal Bridge (so 2 distinct bridges)?

Ivan 2 looks like he might be a bit weaker than Ivan 1 but has a lot of fun tricks and might be better for a scheming game. Things like using his bonus action to make Mr Mordrake Shade Step up the board then switch positions with him to drop some scheme markers in the opponents territory. Or using Turncoat on Pere Ravage to Breath of Fire on his clumped up kin with the crow trigger to take himself and a bunch of gremlins out on turn 2. He definitely seems to have a few "gotcha!" abilities, for better or worse.

[Adran]

New actions won't happen until all parts of the old action are finished, so you don't get to attack part way through. If after all the action is resolved the daeva is in range it can attack. 

The two bridges are unrelated, they were from2 different actions. I don't have the wording to hand but I think you could choose the same marker each time if you wanted but it's still 2 separate bridges. 

[TheUnseemlyOne]

15 hours ago, Mindbadger said:

2) If you use Stick to the Plan on Gibson to drop another shadow marker with the Antiluminal Bridge trigger, after he has had an activation and dropped an Anitluminal Bridge triggered marker, does that mean that 3 markers are all connected and allow movement between any of them, or just between either dropped marker (by Gibson) and the originally targeted marker? Or do you have to create a completely seperate Antiluminal Bridge (so 2 distinct bridges)?

It’s 2 separate effects, but you can link them.  Since the wording on it is “… Until the end phase, after a friendly Umbra model ends a move in base contact with either the chosen marker or the dropped marker, this may Place that model into base contact with the other marker.” You could place multiple times, since a place is a move.  
 

So if you have a shadow marker and Gibson uses Antiluminal Bridge to connect shadow marker 1 ->2, and then Ivan uses Stick to the plan to have Gibson do Antiluminal Bridge to connect shadow marker 2->3, an Umbra model ending a move in base contact with shadow marker 1, could place in base contact with 2 and then 3.  And then if you really wanted to, they could place back to 2 and then 1. 
 

It’s pretty niche, but Daeva can perform some interesting hit and run tactics with made to kill this way. 

[DuBlanck]

Does that loop infinitely? 1>2>3>2>1 etc. I assume the intent is that you cannot, and I don't know why you would.

Made To Kill (or the Shadow Emissary's thing) is only once per turn, is there anything that would continually trigger? Doesn't appear to be in-faction, certainly.

[Maniacal_cackle]

11 minutes ago, DuBlanck said:

Does that loop infinitely? 1>2>3>2>1 etc. I assume the intent is that you cannot, and I don't know why you would.

Made To Kill (or the Shadow Emissary's thing) is only once per turn, is there anything that would continually trigger? Doesn't appear to be in-faction, certainly.

It is umbra models only, so you'd have to find something that happened when a model placed.

You could do something like generate infinite attacks for an enemy Seamus, but I don't see why you would want to xD

[Maniacal_cackle]

Oh, against an enemy Sybelle you could gain infinite distracted!

[TheUnseemlyOne]

1 hour ago, DuBlanck said:

Does that loop infinitely? 1>2>3>2>1 etc. I assume the intent is that you cannot, and I don't know why you would.

Made To Kill (or the Shadow Emissary's thing) is only once per turn, is there anything that would continually trigger? Doesn't appear to be in-faction, certainly.

You could loop it infinitely, but there’s nothing that you can really gain by doing so

[Adran]

1 hour ago, DuBlanck said:

Does that loop infinitely? 1>2>3>2>1 etc. I assume the intent is that you cannot, and I don't know why you would.

I guess it loops just as much as a single bridge does (1>2>1 etc,)

[Peturd]

8 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Oh, against an enemy Sybelle you could gain infinite distracted!

Yeah, toss mordrake across the bridge, back and forth forever. Giving Ivan infinite distracted. But I hope no one would ever actually try that. Nor does Ivan really need a buff like that, lol

[TheUnseemlyOne]

On 1/4/2022 at 1:37 PM, Peturd said:

Yeah, toss mordrake across the bridge, back and forth forever. Giving Ivan infinite distracted. But I hope no one would ever actually try that. Nor does Ivan really need a buff like that, lol

This seems like a niche enough situation that I don’t think it’s too worrying 

[DuBlanck]

Is DUA at all playable as a human faction?

I like the sneaky buggers spycraft side of Ivan & co far more than the ghost parts.

To what extent am I hobbling myself utterly if I lean into Operatives and such rather than spectre summoning?

[Peturd]

5 hours ago, DuBlanck said:

Is DUA at all playable as a human faction?

I like the sneaky buggers spycraft side of Ivan & co far more than the ghost parts.

To what extent am I hobbling myself utterly if I lean into Operatives and such rather than spectre summoning?

Well, that depends on opposing crew and player. Definitely shoot it yourself in the foot a bit having NO umbra besides mordrake. But you don’t need to summon for Ivan to be useful. He becomes a min 3 blaster stat 6 against WP and usually a positive. But nothing else in your crew will be doing big damage or be super tough.

[DuBlanck]

13 hours ago, Peturd said:

But nothing else in your crew will be doing big damage or be super tough.

How viable is it into a scheme/interact-focused pool?

I know popular wisdom is that you want a couple of Min3 frontline brawlers to keep the opponent honest, but the most I've ever enjoyed Malifaux is early M2E playing Colette with no beater at all - the classic "win by 1VP with no survivors".

Corvis looks like he has an acceptable top-end output, though not really the reliable brawler needed for the above. Eva looks good for tangling up a crew with the pseudo-Slow of long engagement range, but nothingDUA  outputs damage very well, or really soaks damage (particularly if there are cards to pay off Flexible Morality).

There seems to be a decent amount of jumping to Shadows, or Bridging, and minor mobility stuff.