Anya Lycarayen (Syndicate Keyword) Discussion

[Giovanni Canzanella]

3 minutes ago, Adran said:

4 extra cards is good, but you have spent a lot on it, so you need to make sure the rest of your crew can use those cards to make up for what you have spent.

Indeed, that's exactly my point.
Truth be told, Anya looks like the kind of Master that NEEDS lots and lots of cards, but, to quote you again, 

a pack of Prospect, Yannic and Rifleman

Prospect: 4 SS
Yannic: 7 SS
Rifleman: 5SS

That's 16 SS we are talking about, and to make them work you need to spend a lot of efforts and activation. I don't know if it could be worth the investment. But I would love to give it a try

[Rufess]

Had around 10 games with Anya in last few weeks. Just want to share my 2 cents on the keyword.

Anya

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She has an awesomely variable toolkit: a decent melee, 2 solid control abilities, an irresistible push, and some scheming and anti-scheming actions. And with her high mobility, thanks to the Mv6 and pseudo-Leap, she can reach to any point of the board and do anything she wants. She reminds me a lot of playing Zipp, less controlling and instead more offensively though.
Ancestral Tomahawk is an awesome melee attack with high stat, useful triggers and scry effect, but Union Buster is just a better action. Combine with all hazard terrains within the keyword, the action can deals some considerable irresistible damages to multiple models. According to how your local meta ruling on pushing into Geode Marker, Anya can do 3 individual hazard damages in a single push.
She is way more durable than I would thought thanks for all healing the crew can hand out and her mobility to stay away from threat. Avoid remain in engagement and try the best to keep distance from opponent's big model at the end of activation.
Beware of Hostile Work Environment. Sometime it hurts you too when Corvis or Winston using their Obey-like effect to have an enemy attacks another enemy.

 

Sovereign

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Our taxi and healer. Armor 2 can help it surviving but Df 4 and 6 health do not make it a reliable tank. It has Glory of Ridley trigger under all actions to provide healing in a huge area, which is the key part of the keyword to offset the cost of Price of Progress.
It does have the highest severe damage within the keyword, but this does not mean it should rush into melee right away. Remains in unengaged can make use of the Fly With Me for helping slow model or popping extra healing trigger. Keep in mind that every severe card in hand can turn into 6 damage via Sovereign.

 

Corvis

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A semi-beater/controller. With Mv 6 and Slippery he can move around the board freely. Df/Wp 6 plus Flexible Morality together make him very hard to bring down.
Despite of not having a great damage spread, his melee attack is as valuable as Anya's given that the stat 7, auto Staggered and useful triggers of all suit. It is brutal to attack twice with guaranteed Execute trigger.
Pressure is a strong attack too, especially it can benefit from concealment. The Pulled Here and There trigger and the enemy's action is 2 different actions, hence can trigger hazard effect twice. Just beware of Anya's Hostile Work Environment.
His main role is to give pressure on opponent's hand with all his discard effect. Also he is another pusher other than Anya to trigger the hazard damage.
The only drawback is his relatively high cost of 9. He is not always useful in all situations. In some games he just don't worth the stones. I am still unlocking him and figuring the best match up for me.

 

Winston

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An excellent support model. He is always the first hire in all of my Syndicate list, as well as lots of other keywords. Don't Mind Me and Celebrity make him a decent schemer. Fortune's Favor is a lesser Intuition to let you plan you activation. And Dirigible Ride, maybe the most valuable action on his card, is an excellent attack which has vary usage. With Cut the Cables and hazard terrain he can deal multiple irresistible damage, again.
Red and Black is a nice trigger to have, just do not make the plan on it. If you get a lucky Obey from it but have nothing to do because of Hostile Work Environment, consider to drop a scheme marker. The enemy would suffer damage from the hazard terrain right after resolved that interact action.
Flush with Cash can be rude with his Lucky Thief ability. Negating an attack while healing 2 at the same time are totally worth that single soulstone. Plus that he can always generate soulstone by Sellout trigger himself.

 

Surveyor

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The frontline model of the crew. Standard Df and health plus Armor 1. 2" of melee range on a 40mm model is a considerable area to limit enemies movement and Interact. The melee itself isn't that good, but the blast and pushing trigger can be brutal with all the hazard terrains. I always include 1, and sometime 2 in my crew.
Field of Steel, as discussed above, is the centerpiece of the crew. They always want to go first to activate the hazard aura. Geode Marker is a good add but can be tricky to use based on how your meta rules it.

 

Overall

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Syndicate is a highly mobile keyword with thousand irresistible ping damages from hazard terrain and other effects. They can basically play into any pool, but will shine in Symbol and Ley Line. And, because of the scheme markers shenanigan, they really like Schemes like Detonate Charges and Spread Them Out. Especially Breakthrough, since Anya can hand out 3 markers in a single activation.
Since they (or Anya to be more precisely) mainly rely on hazard terrain to deal damage, defending abilities like Armor, Terrifying and Manipulative are vulnerable in front of them. Incorporeal and Depths of Malifaux, on the other hand, would be a harsh counter to them.
Beware that pushing an enemy in hazard terrain into death does not grant you credit of killing it. This will affect how you play in certain S&S.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Rufess

[izikial]

With anya having such a limited pool and her upcoming releases not even being in faction. How to people tend to build her crew? Im guessing its mostly ook and versitial, but what makes the cut for her?

I feel like lamp lighters could be good for her, a heal that pushes is nice for anyone, but sovereign would get alot out of it. Ranged scheme placing to trigger anyas hazardous. And conceling for cover or lit for +flips is nice any day.

[Rufess]

Syndicate is a generalist keyword without much inner synergy. So they can hire any model outside from keyword depends on the match up. Usually I tend to hire tanky/healer model to help Anya survive longer.

 

Mikhail XVI

Decent attack and okay-ish durability. He brings the min 3 damage that the keyword lacks of, along with more ping healing. Syndicate can also help him move up with all their movement shenanigans.

One little trick is to charge Mikhail into Sovereign, dealing likely 1 damage and then heal it back, to trigger Chronicle abilities from himself and Surveyor. It is useful in the first turn (and maybe the second) to transport Mikhail upward and setup Geode marker.

 

Emissary

Maybe the best model within the faction when talking about tankiness and healing. Shielded, Take the Hit, a pushing attack and a healing aura are all the keyword desires.

It however can hardly keep up with Anya, while Anya would not want to stay at a fixed point to hand out with it either. You would need a solid plan on positioning and activation order to use it in Syndicate.

 

Lamplighter

Range heal is very nice, and pushing can be useful in positioning as well as offensive. Lamp Marker is less effective since Syndicate tends to spread out a lot. It is still handy for scheming shenanigans though.

 

Vatagi Huntsman

More hazard terrain is always better. Also Syndicate can trigger Set up the Kill with no difficulty. On the Hunt is valuable only when attacking non-Living models, so they are only considerable when facing certain keywords.

[izikial]

Having seen the new syndicate sniper, wpuld you pay the two extra ss for a vatiga?

[Rufess]

I barely hire the huntsman(like 1 out of 10 games), and I don't see myself hiring the rifleman that much neither. They do have drawing and scheming shenanigans with Yannic the henchman, but other than that they are pretty meh. For the same cost you can have Operative for more reliable card drawing, better range attack and Arson for anti-scheming.

[Giovanni Canzanella]

On 7/7/2021 at 6:02 AM, Rufess said:

For the same cost you can have Operative for more reliable card drawing, better range attack and Arson for anti-scheming.

I agree. Operatives are such a magnificent tech-piece that I always get at least one.
They can guarantee 3 or 4 cards drawing each game, not mentioning the crazy  when they shoot into friendly fire (oh, and they ignore Terrifying, Manipulative and tons of other stuff).
I don't think a Catalan rifleman could ever be as good as an Operative, but I will gladly give it a try once they are out.

[touchdown]

I'm looking at them from an Outcast perspective but the riflemen with Yannick seem really good. They draw a card every turn and you can easily get a stat 7 shot off. Plus ranged stun, and ranged coordinated attack seem really good. Also hard to kill means they're going to be very annoying to remove.

[ryo0909]

I played Syndicate crew for the first time today against Dreamer and it was a hopeless match.
Hazardous ignoring by Incorporeal, Scheme marker removing, Armor ignoring attacks all stung me and it was a tough game.
I'm not used to Anya, and there were times when I couldn't use Bleeding Edge effectively, so I think I can play better next time, but I don't know if I can win.
If you have any advice to play against Dreamer, please let me know.

 

[Gheist]

Aside from of offering advice i can offer my heartfelt compassion because i think playing against Dreamer is always hard if your opponent isn't completely incapable.

That aside how was his list, what was the mission?

[Rufess]

Incorporeal and other similar abilities can be pain in the neck for Syndicate to play against. Try to avoid combat with their mobility and focus on the VP, both gaining and denying.

All their movement tricks, despite not able to deal damage with hazard terrain, can still move enemies away from the scoring position.

[ryo0909]

My List

Anya
Intrepid Emissary
Sovereign
Winston
Austera
Yannic
Rifleman
Surveyor

Opponent'

Dreamer Insomniac
Lord Chompy Bits
Coppelius
Widow Weaver
Lady Yume
Insidious Madness
Insidious Madness
Daydream
Daydream

Strategy: Corrupted Ley Lines
Scheme: Outflank
Vendetta
Research Mission
Spread Them Out
Breakthrough

I picked Spread Them Out and Breakthrough, my opponent picked Research Mission and Spread Them Out.

I gave up in mid of Turn4. in my estimation, VP should be 6 vs 7 if we will continue to play by Turn5.
As you can see, it was trial game for both me (with package of Yannic and Rifleman) and opponent (Titled Dreamer and Yume) so I have several misses in that game.

Points to consider
- Sovereign charged to Dreamer on first turn but exited with half the enemy master's health down due to ton of armor ignoring attack. Furthermore, Stitched together was summoned from the scrap.
- I forgot that Bleeding Edge is a gun action, so I lost the chance to use it twice!
- Anya got bury in Turn2 by Yume's bonus action in Tomb 13, which she got by Drifting Off.
- After Sovereign left the board, almost enemy models except Lord Chompy focused on getting VPs, and I was unable to interfere.
- In early turn, the Surveyor was carrying token backwards to the Strategy Marker, so there was little opportunity to set up the Hazardous marker.
- The Yannic and Rifleman gimmick was interesting, but while I was spending 12SS to draw a single card, my opponent is recycling his hand every turn.

While I think these points can be worked around a bit better in the next matchup, I still feel like it will be difficult to win out.
As Rufess said, it's important to focus on VP, but when my opponent also focuses on VP, it's hard to keep them from getting VP.

[Adran]

12 minutes ago, ryo0909 said:

My List

Anya
Intrepid Emissary
Sovereign
Winston
Austera
Yannic
Rifleman
Surveyor

Opponent'

Dreamer Insomniac
Lord Chompy Bits
Coppelius
Widow Weaver
Lady Yume
Insidious Madness
Insidious Madness
Daydream
Daydream

Strategy: Corrupted Ley Lines
Scheme: Outflank
Vendetta
Research Mission
Spread Them Out
Breakthrough

I picked Spread Them Out and Breakthrough, my opponent picked Research Mission and Spread Them Out.

I gave up in mid of Turn4. in my estimation, VP should be 6 vs 7 if we will continue to play by Turn5.
As you can see, it was trial game for both me (with package of Yannic and Rifleman) and opponent (Titled Dreamer and Yume) so I have several misses in that game.

Points to consider
- Sovereign charged to Dreamer on first turn but exited with half the enemy master's health down due to ton of armor ignoring attack. Furthermore, Stitched together was summoned from the scrap.
- I forgot that Bleeding Edge is a gun action, so I lost the chance to use it twice!
- Anya got bury in Turn2 by Yume's bonus action in Tomb 13, which she got by Drifting Off.
- After Sovereign left the board, almost enemy models except Lord Chompy focused on getting VPs, and I was unable to interfere.
- In early turn, the Surveyor was carrying token backwards to the Strategy Marker, so there was little opportunity to set up the Hazardous marker.
- The Yannic and Rifleman gimmick was interesting, but while I was spending 12SS to draw a single card, my opponent is recycling his hand every turn.

While I think these points can be worked around a bit better in the next matchup, I still feel like it will be difficult to win out.
As Rufess said, it's important to focus on VP, but when my opponent also focuses on VP, it's hard to keep them from getting VP.

Based on the little you say, things I would have changed -

Keep sovereign away until you want to kill. If you can get it to go and kill scheme runners and keep it safe from Chompy, then do so. That's your only armour and his only armour ignoring attack (other than the day dreams which has a weak of 1 anyway). Remember the second effect on thunderstruck that can heal Sovereign. I will consider using price of progress to get the cataclysm trigger just to drop a second shockwave close enough to me for the heal 2 (even better if it can affect an enemy as well). 

Anya is very mobile. She can cover 24". Don't be afraid to use her to go after scheme runners

I think you've undervalued integrity (at the very least you should be getting 2 cards from the pair).

Surveyor was a bad choice I think. They do the hazardous stuff really well, but you knew hazardous was going to be much less useful. 

But even with several self pointed out errors, you thought you'd only lose by 1 VP, which is pretty good I would say. 

[ryo0909]

I had Surveyor in because I wanted to try out the unresistable AoE with Union Buster and Field of Steel combo. I thought it would be easy to use, especially with so many models having regeneration this time around, but it was hard to get it to work on Incorporeal. However, it seems to work well against Champy and Yume, so I'll probably include one in the next matchup.

You're right, Ingenuity seems to draw a few more cards, but I think I'd rather combine it with Surveyor than go for it every turn with Rifleman.

Unfortunately, my Sovereign and Surveyor were taken out by Daydream. Instead of a regular Dreamer, Insomnia Dreamer can easily access high cards, so they in Df4 had their health cut in half by a focused Daydream blow. (I don't know the odds, but all the cards my opponents got on their first Drifting Off were J+).

I forgot to mention that the hardest part was the remove actions of scheme markers by Chompy's Trail of Gore and Coppelius' Shifting Sands. I felt that the game was bugged when the models where I wanted to place the scheme markers the most were the easiest positions for my opponent to remove them.

In any case, I should have taken more advantage of the mobility of Anya and Sovereign.

[Adran]

As I said, Surveyors are good at making hazardous things, but when you are facing a crew that primarily ignores hazardous, they may not be so good. What they achieved against Chompy and Yume is probably a good example of what they can do against most crews, but I would have thought it would be hard to leverage enough hazardous against probably the most incorporeal crew in the game. I think you were probably lucky that you faced non summoning dreamer with the hazardous list. 

Likewise, you went with Hazardous, so want to drop scheme markers, and your opponent has 2 models that are very efficient at removing your scheme markers. One of which you knew was going to be in your opponents crew as it was his totem. This still sounds like you set your self up to struggle in crew hiring, because you had a plan that you didn't try and change based on your opponents crew. 

I guess its a real learning, facing Insomniac you want to kill daydreams fast if you have armour. He will have access to lots of cards. I can't tell you the exact odds, but when he is looking at 3 cards and picking the best, its probably quite likely that he will have a strong hand. 

Still, with all those issues, you only lost by 1. 

[Giovanni Canzanella]

On 7/19/2021 at 6:13 PM, ryo0909 said:

My List

Anya
Intrepid Emissary
Sovereign
Winston
Austera
Yannic
Rifleman
Surveyor

I quote everything Adran said about your list, he made some good point about the Surveyor being pretty useless in this matchup. Here is my 2 cents about it (I played Anya into a dozen of games now).

Against the Dreamer, I would get rid of Austera and the Surveyor and consider taking Corvis and 1 or even 2 Operatives. 
I already wrote how much I love Operatives, and I find them indispensable against the Dreamer, for the following reasons.

 

• They ignore Terrifying, since they are not considered Enemies; this means, free attack on Teddy and Lord Chompy. Sure, Teddy and Chompy are big tanky pieces but you can manage to deal big chunks of damage before they close on you.
• Operatives has  on their Attack when they shoot into Friendly Fire. This means, you can engage  Chompy or Teddy with Corvis and shoot turn after turn from the backlines with those tasty .
  Once Corvis has lock on Teddy or Chompy, the only way they can get out of melee is by killing Corvis (good luck with that) or to force the Dreamer to Place Chompy out of the melee. In both cases, you are forcing your opponent to find a way around, or to play more defensive.
• Since Operatives are not considered Enemies, the Dreamer CANNOT summon his minions if the Operatives fail a WP duel. This becomes is a HUGE advantage if your opponent ignore this rule and decide to target your operatives.

 

On the top of all this, I think you might even consider taking Vernon and Wells, which gives the enemies a precious to all WP duel.
Of course, considering how fragile Syndicate models are, go heavy on Soulstones. You need a lot of them to protect Corvis and Winston (I wouldn't worry about Anya, she's slippery enough to get away of the melee quite easily).

As you can see, with Anya and the Syndicate you have all the right tools to make Dreamer's life a true nightmare (AH! THE PUN! 🤣).

Hope this will help you

Edited July 21, 2021 by Giovanni Canzanella
mistypes

[ryo0909]

Thanks, both of you. Now I'm awake. I was too fixated on the Hazardous combo.

You're right, Operative is a good model. I didn't realize that Terrifying didn't work, but considering that it also works against Serena Countenance, I see no reason not to include it.

Also, I hadn't appreciated Corvis before, but the tanky model is very important in this match where Armor doesn't work. I'll give this guy a try next time.

To my surprise, I'm looking forward to the next game with Dreamer. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd want to fight Dreamer!

[Giovanni Canzanella]

22 hours ago, ryo0909 said:

Also, I hadn't appreciated Corvis before

Just as I did, my friend. I didn't really catch the importance of Corvis until somebody on this forum (I think it was, once again, @Adran) pointing out that, with an Attack stat of 7, the guy can do EVERYTHING he wants with his triggers, and there is no way to stop him.

Do you want to push Lord Chompy away?  Done!
Do you want to put down a Scheme Marker for "Detonate charge"? Done! (just...don't do that next to Lord Chompy :p)
Do you want to stagger Coppelius so he doesn't run all around the map? Done!

And if you are worried that Corvis  will get punched in the face, then your opponent will have to get rid of tons and tons of card just to avoid the , thanks to his "Flexible morality" ability.
Plus, you have your SS to absorb damage...more than enough to discourage your enemy to target him too hard.

 

[Rufess]

Tried Yannic last week. The healing/damaging pulse had done some great jobs. The single point of healing maybe minimal, but the utility to adjust health of multiple models is huge. I usually bring a Lamplighter into all of my Syndicate crew, but now I am considering taking Yannic to replace Lamplighter as a healer. Though I need to test her more before I can make the call. She need to stay close to enemies for full efficiency, but has no enough defensive tech. 

Also do we have any idea on when will she and her friends being added into the app.

[Giovanni Canzanella]

22 hours ago, Rufess said:

Tried Yannic last week. The healing/damaging pulse had done some great jobs. The single point of healing maybe minimal, but the utility to adjust health of multiple models is huge. I usually bring a Lamplighter into all of my Syndicate crew, but now I am considering taking Yannic to replace Lamplighter as a healer. Though I need to test her more before I can make the call. She need to stay close to enemies for full efficiency, but has no enough defensive tech. 

Also do we have any idea on when will she and her friends being added into the app.

Did you manage to keep her alive through the game?

Looking at her card, I had the same feeling as you: without defensive techs, and needing to be so close to the enemy, I fear she won't survive long.

As for the app, the box is expected basically next week, isn't it? I'm honestly surprised the stats are not in the app already, but at this point it will surely a matter of days

[Rufess]

2 hours ago, Giovanni Canzanella said:

Did you manage to keep her alive through the game?

Looking at her card, I had the same feeling as you: without defensive techs, and needing to be so close to the enemy, I fear she won't survive long.

As for the app, the box is expected basically next week, isn't it? I'm honestly surprised the stats are not in the app already, but at this point it will surely a matter of days

She did stay till the end, but it is only because Anya and Sovereign had a bigger target over their head. The opponent managed to kill Anya at turn 3 and Sovereign at turn 4, and thus had not enough time to handle Yannic. I am not sure however, after seeing her played, would my opponent changing his priority list in the next game.

As for the starter box, I found my LGS had it hit the shelf already. Hopefully the app would update before weekend so I can play my next game cardlessly.

[Korrok]

17 hours ago, Giovanni Canzanella said:

 

As for the app, the box is expected basically next week, isn't it? I'm honestly surprised the stats are not in the app already, but at this point it will surely a matter of days

Monthly releases are usually on the last Friday of each month for "official" Street date I believe. 

[Giovanni Canzanella]

On 7/29/2021 at 12:16 PM, Rufess said:

The opponent managed to kill Anya at turn 3 and Sovereign at turn 4

Whoa, that sounds like a gruesome game. That's the problem with Syndicate, they are just too squishy

[Korrok]

New Anya title and new minion have been shown off today. Anya out here doing her best lucius impression. 

[Xekros]

22 hours ago, Korrok said:

New Anya title and new minion have been shown off today. Anya out here doing her best lucius impression.

I picked up Anya for the surveyors for my Seeker crew, but now I might just have to go with Syndicate, as I did love Lucius last edition.

That said, where did these come from?