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Lord Cooper (Apex Keyword) Discussion


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8 minutes ago, vinnyt16 said:

I was playing a 30 stone game against an extremely fast McCabe crew who just rushed me immediately. 

This makes a massive difference. I would recommend playing at 50 stones as soon as time/resources allow, since that's the level the game is balanced at

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22 hours ago, vinnyt16 said:

I'll have to try them again! Didn't notice the 24" patient strike possibility. At 14" it was pretty underwhelming. I guess my other problem (besides being super new) is that I was playing a 30 stone game against an extremely fast McCabe crew who just rushed me immediately.  

Plus I love their models so that alone means they deserve another shot. 

Yeah, dont play under 50 SS games. Stuff will seem under/over powered, and could end up in just making you a worse player because of those incorrect thoughts on models

 

On 2/16/2021 at 3:56 PM, Math Mathonwy said:

They used to have those "official rules lawyers" but decided that it's better that people don't have official answers before eventual FAQs rather than them having to comb the rules forums for official answers.

Easy enough solution; make an official Wyrd Rules Lawyer account, and that account only posts answers to rules questions. then you dont need to comb through forums, you just need to look at that account's posts...

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22 minutes ago, farmoar said:

Yeah, dont play under 50 SS games. Stuff will seem under/over powered, and could end up in just making you a worse player because of those incorrect thoughts on models

 

Easy enough solution; make an official Wyrd Rules Lawyer account, and that account only posts answers to rules questions. then you dont need to comb through forums, you just need to look at that account's posts...

You still would need to comb through quite a few posts, and they wouldn't be organised coherently.

You could do a search, but that'd bring up all the off topic comments as well.

Not to mention you would have to know the ruling existed to go looking for it in the first place.

As is, if I want to know a rule, I know there are two official places to check: the FAQ and the Rulebook. An official rules lawyer on the forums would add dozens of other places to check.

That said, they could do a living FAQ that gets updated as new rulings are made, or more frequent FAQs. One issue is you probably have to test FAQs, though. Since there is no coherent basis to the rules like in MTG, rulings have unintended side effects (see "another" ruling in FAQ).

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12 hours ago, farmoar said:

Easy enough solution; make an official Wyrd Rules Lawyer account, and that account only posts answers to rules questions. then you dont need to comb through forums, you just need to look at that account's posts...

I  don't think this works in practise anything like as easy as this sounds. 

There are already about 70 entries in the FAQ. On this system it is likely each of these entries would have been answered by the rules lawyer prior to the FAQ, so that's already 70 posts, plus some of these answers cover multiple questions, and then things change. For example I believe prior to the Errata Marcus could make models charge, and those models could declare triggers on the attack that the charge generated. The Lawyer would have made that answer, and then with the errata it would have been wrong. 

There are already plenty of cases that questions are asked in the rules forum that have the answer of - "Read the FAQ, it tells you the answer", and thats when all the answers are in one place. When they aren't in one place it makes it a lot harder to keep track of.

It can be made to work (I think Guildball used to do a similar system to that proposed) but it does contain a surprising amount of extra organising work beyond just answering the questions to make it useful. 

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On 2/16/2021 at 9:18 PM, Whut said:

What do you use SS for? I genuinely think the correct Cache for Apex is 0-2. I don't see a good use for them other than damage prevention or getting a Ram on Cooper's attack when needed (I don't take Model 9 who is super SS-hungry)

I played a game with Lord Cooper, 3 Runaways, Artemis, Ullr, Model 9, Rex, Tannenbaum, Haliday and had 4 stones.

I used a few for cards, a couple to prevent some RJ damage, and twice for Mask on Model 9's bonus ability. (Haliday was making soulstones back for me with Archaeological dig). 

I found with model 9, getting free pings of damage by jumping over, and then charging was getting so much value, allowing me to draw up, and shoot into combat with him. I think I got 8 damage total throughout the game just by jumping around. And drew 5 cards total by killing stuff near him. I was a little worried as people say he is fragile, but Df6, Armour 2, stone user isn't that bad. I paired him with Ullr too, for free -ve damages which worked great. He survived 3-4 turns in melee with Ototo, Yasunori, Dawn Serpent, Minako Rei + Fuhatsu was there too.....

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12 hours ago, Higgybeans said:

I played a game with Lord Cooper, 3 Runaways, Artemis, Ullr, Model 9, Rex, Tannenbaum, Haliday and had 4 stones.

I used a few for cards, a couple to prevent some RJ damage, and twice for Mask on Model 9's bonus ability. (Haliday was making soulstones back for me with Archaeological dig). 

I found with model 9, getting free pings of damage by jumping over, and then charging was getting so much value, allowing me to draw up, and shoot into combat with him. I think I got 8 damage total throughout the game just by jumping around. And drew 5 cards total by killing stuff near him. I was a little worried as people say he is fragile, but Df6, Armour 2, stone user isn't that bad. I paired him with Ullr too, for free -ve damages which worked great. He survived 3-4 turns in melee with Ototo, Yasunori, Dawn Serpent, Minako Rei + Fuhatsu was there too.....

Yea this is what I don't like about Model 9. Sure he can do that, but he was also effectively an 11-13 Cost model (idk if the 2 damage preventions were on him).

Like... Riders are 11 Cost and Model 9 won't ever be as effective as they are - though granted that may be an unfair comparison across factions, Model 9 serves more of a Tank role, and Riders are some of the best models in the game.

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4 minutes ago, Whut said:

Yea this is what I don't like about Model 9. Sure he can do that, but he was also effectively an 11-13 Cost model (idk if the 2 damage preventions were on him).

Like... Riders are 11 Cost and Model 9 won't ever be as effective as they are - though granted that may be an unfair comparison across factions, Model 9 serves more of a Tank role, and Riders are some of the best models in the game.

One thing to note if you're counting the stones as part of the cost is that this is associated with other value.

If you're using a stone to decrease damage, not only are you keeping your model on the table, but you're wasting actions of your opponent.

An 8-cost model that uses 3 stones to negate 6 damage has potentially negated an enemy beater for half the game.

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13 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

One thing to note if you're counting the stones as part of the cost is that this is associated with other value.

If you're using a stone to decrease damage, not only are you keeping your model on the table, but you're wasting actions of your opponent.

An 8-cost model that uses 3 stones to negate 6 damage has potentially negated an enemy beater for half the game.

The opposite is also true. My beater succeeded in you using 3 Stones for the benefit of "on average 2 Health per stone" rather than "on average 1 health + better abilities/actions"

I can see your point though, it's just not my playstyle at all.
Edit: Although 2x Armor+2 Health is pretty valuable, I admit. I'll think about this more

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9 hours ago, Whut said:

Like... Riders are 11 Cost and Model 9 won't ever be as effective as they are - though granted that may be an unfair comparison across factions, Model 9 serves more of a Tank role, and Riders are some of the best models in the game.

It's a personal experience ofcourse, but i see Model 9 as extremely efficient model and would hire it for 11 Stones without a doubt. It have lot of utility. It's easy to ping lot of 1 dmg which is effective against Armor, HtK etc. Mobility is pretty impressive, it's not a big deal to get almost anywhere on the map with Avalanche placement and 5" push on Bonus. In my games he kills, place markers, remove markers, engage etc and score VP all the time, or deny scoring VP

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11 hours ago, Whut said:

Yea this is what I don't like about Model 9. Sure he can do that, but he was also effectively an 11-13 Cost model (idk if the 2 damage preventions were on him).

1 of them were because he had bounty tokens I needed for strat. But in general he got the final kill with his pinging or attack, then survived everything thrown at him because armour 2. Of course cooper's bonus to heal him was helpful, but heal 2 on an armour 2 model, is essentially heal 6 on any other model.

1 hour ago, Sagrit said:

It's a personal experience ofcourse, but i see Model 9 as extremely efficient model and would hire it for 11 Stones without a doubt. It have lot of utility. It's easy to ping lot of 1 dmg which is effective against Armor, HtK etc. Mobility is pretty impressive, it's not a big deal to get almost anywhere on the map with Avalanche placement and 5" push on Bonus. In my games he kills, place markers, remove markers, engage etc and score VP all the time, or deny scoring VP

I agree. The only time I wouldn't take it, is if I know my opponent can ignore armour, or deal a lot of irreducible damage. If they have 1 model that can I would avoid that model (with all the mobility), or shoot it off the table with cooper.

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12 hours ago, Sagrit said:

It's a personal experience ofcourse, but i see Model 9 as extremely efficient model and would hire it for 11 Stones without a doubt. It have lot of utility. It's easy to ping lot of 1 dmg which is effective against Armor, HtK etc. Mobility is pretty impressive, it's not a big deal to get almost anywhere on the map with Avalanche placement and 5" push on Bonus. In my games he kills, place markers, remove markers, engage etc and score VP all the time, or deny scoring VP

I can see all that, it's just way too rich for my blood at 11-12 stones. I generally hate models which require suits for what makes them good to begin with though

The other comparison I'd make is Beebe&Calypso
Beebe&Calypso are 12 Stones, have more Health than Model 9 (6@Arm+2 + 6 is at least 8@Arm+2 in my mind) and WAY more if Calypso gets re-summoned (which isn't hard to do), plus built-in healing for the Arm+2 Health. They're much more reliably mobile before hitting combat, they have better disruption, they are arguably better at dealing 1 dmg with no resist, Beebe draws 2x 9Tomes (effectively) every turn instead of only drawing a card when something is killed.
Model9 wins on agility in combat by charging in/out and knife throwing to teleport, he lets models ignore friendly fire, and he has execute. But I see B&C's kit as more tanky, more offensive, and more useful for disrupting enemies for your gunline-ish crew. They can even scheme better simply because they have double the AP to move around, ignore all sorts of Terrain, and can always exit combat with MassOfTentacles.

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50 minutes ago, Whut said:

I can see all that, it's just way too rich for my blood at 11-12 stones. I generally hate models which require suits for what makes them good to begin with though

The other comparison I'd make is Beebe&Calypso
Beebe&Calypso are 12 Stones, have more Health than Model 9 (6@Arm+2 + 6 is at least 8@Arm+2 in my mind) and WAY more if Calypso gets re-summoned (which isn't hard to do), plus built-in healing for the Arm+2 Health. They're much more reliably mobile before hitting combat, they have better disruption, they are arguably better at dealing 1 dmg with no resist, Beebe draws 2x 9Tomes (effectively) every turn instead of only drawing a card when something is killed.
Model9 wins on agility in combat by charging in/out and knife throwing to teleport, he lets models ignore friendly fire, and he has execute. But I see B&C's kit as more tanky, more offensive, and more useful for disrupting enemies for your gunline-ish crew. They can even scheme better simply because they have double the AP to move around, ignore all sorts of Terrain, and can always exit combat with MassOfTentacles.

I don't think that's necessarily a fair comparison, though.

Say you have a pool of 5 soulstones (or however many). That is a pool that is covering both your Model 9 and Cooper. You can adjust to the game and play it as you like. If your opponent decides killing Model 9 is impossible with that pool, you can spend them on Cooper. If you draw the suits you need, you save soulstones. Etc.

Being able to spend soulstones is a great option, usually. Particularly for mobile models that get to pick their battles to begin with! 

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27 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I don't think that's necessarily a fair comparison, though.

Say you have a pool of 5 soulstones (or however many). That is a pool that is covering both your Model 9 and Cooper. You can adjust to the game and play it as you like. If your opponent decides killing Model 9 is impossible with that pool, you can spend them on Cooper. If you draw the suits you need, you save soulstones. Etc.

Being able to spend soulstones is a great option, usually. Particularly for mobile models that get to pick their battles to begin with! 

Yea, I've noticed that others value spare soulstones much more than I do on average. I go into hiring thinking "what's the minimum amount of SS I can leave myself so I can use as much as possible to hire a better crew." That's more of a general discussion though rather than Apex specific

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On 2/17/2021 at 10:18 AM, Whut said:

What do you use SS for? I genuinely think the correct Cache for Apex is 0-2. I don't see a good use for them other than damage prevention or getting a Ram on Cooper's attack when needed (I don't take Model 9 who is super SS-hungry)

I think Harpooners are awful so I'd like to hear more about this. From my perspective:

They shoot much worse than Crypsis Corps while being similar in mobility, they easily die to 2-3 attacks with their lack of defensive abilities and don't provide support like BeneathTheLeaves does, reel in is garbage compared to what Tannenbaum does, and the dogs already provide decent push effects for keeping Cooper disengaged, not to mention OOK Explorers have tons of movement effects (MrNgaatoro, Damned, Intrepid, WFinnigan, etc) . With Cooper/Crypsis/Vagati why take another mostly-static shooter model when shooting is so saturated and far better options exist for Harpooner's secondary roles?

Soulstones-wise: I'm inclined to agree that one generally needs fewer Soulstones with Apex than with other crews, and I agree with you in that I don't hire Model 9 either.

However, I feel due to the way you can leverage :+flips with Predatory Instinct, a few Soulstones available for Cooper to use purely for :+flip flips on attack (which you immediately exchange for a :+flipon Damage with Predatory Instinct) can make for an incredibly big pay off. Adversary and Focus can gives you cheaper sources of getting the :+flip, but sometimes opponents will also have ways to counter that. Condition removal is the obvious call out, as is losing Focus when you use Reload - but also consider the likes of Concealing Terrain/Serene Countenance/Manipulative etc handing out additional :-flips. In these instances it becomes essential to have access to that additional :+flipjust to get back to a straight flip. Of course you can choose to use Predatory Instinct on the attack flip rather than the damage flip to get around a :-flipmodifier, but then you're basically accepting that you're almost definitely getting 3 damage rather than aiming for 5 or 7, and that feels pretty lacklustre when you can only realistically shoot a 2 to 3 times a turn with Cooper, and shooting is almost the only thing Cooper does well.

So many things can happen in a game to disrupt your planning, especially against good opponents, so I find that having instant access to a :+flip to potentially convert what will normally be a 3 damage shot to a cheeky 5 or mighty 7 damage shot is worth dedicating a couple more Soulstones to the cache. My current preference is somewhere between 3 and 5.

Harpooners: First off I think Harpooners are trash in EVS, as there aren't enough good :mask to go around between them, Orville, and the Tidecaller, and the crew is already brimming with movement tricks.

But I genuinely think they're great in Apex, depending on the opponent's faction and pool. They offer a healthy mix of having a reasonable attack with three good triggers, the ability to hand out multiple conditions per turn to multiple models, three separate ways to move models, one of which can also move markers, a relevant free action, and they can make fantastic use of any low cards stuck in your hand, especially :masks, between Reconfigure and Deep Discovery. Not many models in Apex can meaningful use a 1 or 2 that's sitting in your hand halfway through a turn, but a Harpooner can cash it in for that severe sitting on top of your opponents discard pile.

Their built-in :ramtrigger on their attack is especially useful as you can push enemies out of scoring positions, or into Pit Traps or Strike Markers, and if you use it in melee it's even more versatile as you may place yourself in base afterwards, which can be incredibly efficient to score and/or deny schemes like Take Prisoner or Claim Jump in 1 AP.

They should definitely be left on the shelf against WP attacking crews though, especially if you suspect you'll be up against Obeys. WP4 is very rough place to be when you model can deny your own Schemes or push your own models into Pit Traps/into base contact with Cooper to block his LOS.

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I need at least 3ss to draw 2 more cards on turns 2, 3 and 4. Even if i have Flush with Cash to get another 3 to 7 cards. And then you will always need another 2-3SS to get that trigger who will make the difference between a good action and a briliant action.

It´s hard for me to make a list wihout at least 5ss on my pool. Only when i play with McCabe i start with 2/3SS because i'm going to get anoter 3-5 stones during the game.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alrighty, I made the difficult decision to try the Bellhop Porter instead of the Rex and also give Cooper Hidden Agenda since sneaking in hits with him is HUGE and causing chip damage for even trying to resist is kinda fun. 

I kinda like the Porter. He gives Cooper slightly more survivability, can throw some pit traps around, and can pull your squishy guys out of combat. Extended reach plus giving shielded is pretty sweet. 

I feel like Cooper's crew is less of the static gunline everyone hates and a little more like a water-style army where you're very hard to pin down and then light up the model that had the nerve to engage you. 

Downside is that you can't actually fight in combat and everything is designed so that you don't have to. It might be a problem against Izamu-level beaters or anyone that can one-shot Cooper, but with the runaways getting in the way, the constant threat of getting obliterated by Cooper's shots, and Model 9 sniping out support pieces, you don't have to kill stuff in combat. You just delay, redeploy, and blast away. 

The Rex is still almost certainly better and I'll obviously use it once I get the model, but the Bellhop is sort of a niche pick that can add some additional reactivity to the crew. 

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On 3/6/2021 at 5:02 PM, vinnyt16 said:

Alrighty, I made the difficult decision to try the Bellhop Porter instead of the Rex and also give Cooper Hidden Agenda since sneaking in hits with him is HUGE and causing chip damage for even trying to resist is kinda fun. 

I kinda like the Porter. He gives Cooper slightly more survivability, can throw some pit traps around, and can pull your squishy guys out of combat. Extended reach plus giving shielded is pretty sweet.

I'd add that handing out +1 Sz to Cooper when he activates can be pretty useful for him to get better LOS on key targets too. I'm not sure I'd bring him even with all of that tech in lieu of Rex as they fulfil (I think) completely different roles on the table, but good on you for giving it a spin!

I hadn't really considered Hidden Agenda on Cooper - I always look at him as a model aiming for 7 damage swings so 1 or 2 chip damage here or there doesn't seem good enough to justify it - but then again cheating face down with such a high impact action does sound really useful. I'd be keen to hear how it goes for you. 

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I've only played one game with that loadout and the Rex is definitely better than the Porter considering all the tech that's default built into Apex lists. The cheating face down thing is shockingly helpful, especially because you can cheat down and force your opponent to drop a power card for free (and make his model take a damage).

Apex can't cycle cards very well so I often end up with a couple 1-3s in my hand. Now I cheat in a 2 facedown on a duel that's like 9 vs 10 with me losing and my opponent has to either burn a good card to beat me (and take a chip) or risk me sneaking through a huge flip. It came up a few times in the game and ended up causing a big headache for my opponent. 

Is it worth 2 stones? That honestly depends on how much you value mind games and how lucky you are off the draw. Cooper is clearly the lynchpin of this crew (although Model 9 is incredible) so anything that increases his ability to do damage is highly valuable imo. 

I'd love for someone who is Vassal-savvy to give it a try in some more games and see if other people also find it helpful. 

 

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One issue with Hidden Agenda on Cooper is the attack is SO strong, that the opponent knows you're cheating your best card.

It's a bit different on say Basse (where you don't want them to know you just cheated a 5 of crows for the trigger, not a 12 for defense), or McCabe (where you could conceivably be saving your high cards for other things, and it combos with his Mirror upgrade).

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On 3/8/2021 at 3:39 PM, vinnyt16 said:

Apex can't cycle cards very well so I often end up with a couple 1-3s in my hand. 

It's interesting you say this because I feel like the crew has a lot of ways to use low cards. You've got Cooper's :tome Trigger draws 2 and discards 1 card, and Hopeful Prospect cycles away a low card and draws a new one, and he's basically auto include for my Cooper crews. Lastly, I really, really rate hiring a Harpooner in my Cooper crews, and it's partially because it can use low cards, especially :mask, to terrific effect with Reconfigure & Deep Discovery.

Still, I do like the idea of Hidden Agenda on Cooper in the sense that if you're trying to optimise his rifle, then you're actively trying to take as many out-of-activation shots as you can, via Ullr's :crow trigger and potentially Vatagi Huntsmen traps, so you'll have multiple opportunities to Cheat Face down each turn - all the while potentially chipping damage from the opponent.

The more I think about it, the more I'm pretty keen to take it on him next time I get Apex on the table! 

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Question about Set up the Kill ability of Vatagi Huntsman. It's Once per Turn, so i assume even if opponent will discard a card, he can "safely" suffers damage from Pit Trap later in Turn, it won't trigger Set up the Kill anymore. 

Amount of Vatagi Huntsman in the crew doesn't matter? If i have 2-3 Huntsmans, it's still only one opportunity for free shot per Turn, right?

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7 minutes ago, Sagrit said:

Question about Set up the Kill ability of Vatagi Huntsman. It's Once per Turn, so i assume even if opponent will discard a card, he can "safely" suffers damage from Pit Trap later in Turn, it won't trigger Set up the Kill anymore. 

Amount of Vatagi Huntsman in the crew doesn't matter? If i have 2-3 Huntsmans, it's still only one opportunity for free shot per Turn, right?

Once per turn per Vatagi within range. 

So if you have two Vatagi within range and the enemy model moves into the trap you declare the Set Up the Kill. Then if he moves again out of the trap you can declare It with the other Vatagi.

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7 minutes ago, Sagrit said:

Amount of Vatagi Huntsman in the crew doesn't matter? If i have 2-3 Huntsmans, it's still only one opportunity for free shot per Turn, right?

It's once per turn for each Vatagi Huntsman in your crew. But it's only one free attack (or one card) when a model suffers damage from a Pit Trap, even if it's in aura of 3 huntsmen.

 

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