Anya Lycarayen (Syndicate Keyword) Discussion

[NoisyAssassin]

Steam Powered Scoundrels did a reveal in their latest episode (and there are more upcoming from other podcasts and content creators!)

https://steampoweredscoundrels.podbean.com/ 

[Rufess]

To compare with Lucius, this version of Anya cannot give order to non-keyword minion, instead she does have access to more high value combat pieces that Elite/Mimic does not. Sovereign is more durable with 2 Thunderstruck a turn. Corvis is getting 2 attacks from his Shove Aside trigger.

Unseen Manipulation and Arcane Reservoir together mean you most likely playing with 2 more hands than your opponent. I think Anya and Corvis can max out the hand game pretty easy. Both of them rely on Flexible Morality to stay alive, so attacking opponent's hand can help their survivability.

Anya's hazard shenanigans remains still, but is more restricted and no longer the centerpiece of the crew. This Anya is more focusing on Scheme Marker shenanigans and friendly models multiplying. She can deny some marker based Scheme just by existing.

 

Drudge, the new member of Syndicate, brings more defense tech and area healing to the crew. Wp is one of the weaknesses of the crew and Unionized can help this out.

They are however as squishy as a 2ss model should be. Keep them near your FwC carrier so they give you a SS back when dying. Or protect them with a Catalan Brawler if you do want them stay longer, since they are most likely handing out with a Scheme Marker.

They are well performed under the order ver. Anya for sure. The hazard ver. Anya, however, is moving around here and there all over the board so can hardly benefit from them. They are still a good hire though to adjust the SS pool, and can be helpful if you want to win a fight over a fixed point.

[santaclaws01]

6 hours ago, Rufess said:

Sovereign is more durable with 2 Thunderstruck a turn

3 times with Ngaatoro!

[Jesy Blue]

7 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

3 times with Ngaatoro!

Was thinking the same thing.

[Rufess]

Had a game last weekend with an opponent who wanted to get a taste of the new Molly. So I took the chance to try out Drudges in origin Anya. My list was like:

Quote

Anya        +7SS
Sovereign
Winston        8
 FwC        2
Yannic        7
Brawler        8
Surveyor    6
Surveyor    6
Drudge        2
Drudge        2
Drudge        2

It was a Break the Line game so I wanted a crew that can hold the center fight. And Drudges had done their job very well. With the protection of Brawler and hazard terrains they were surprisingly hard to remove. And if the opponent could not finish them off, they just healed back to full health in a single activation.

Though there are some limitations playing around them: (1) Harder to take non-keyword models, and (2) Turn the crew into very bubble crew.

 

Syndicate was known for lack of inner synergy thus they can take whatever models as needed. Take Mikhail or Emissary to handle the face-to-face fight, or take Austera or Archivist for range pressure. But Stand Together and Goon Squad from Drudge's card do bring a stronger connection to the keyword. So now they need to think carefully before hiring non-keyword models, just like other keywords do.

And because of the small area of Drudge's effects, the crew now need to stay close to benefit from that. It is okay for those do not move a lot, but for Anya and Sovereign, it is almost impossible to benefit it. Unless you throw a way their mobility and keep them in a fixed spot.

 

Despite the limitations, I do believe Drudges do pay their cost and worth hiring into hazard Anya's crew. They are 2ss models after all. Also I think I would just leave the Brawler home and have Drudges unprotected next time. If opponent decides to kill them first, then at least they draw the attacks from other models, and with the hazard terrains, they may be able to do some damage on the enemies attacking them.

[Gheist]

Hello everyone, just did my first game with Anya and am pretty hyped, just some minor issues:

What am i really supposed to do with Yannic Waller? She seems to demand to be stuck in but needs the brawler to not die instantly.

Does anyone take the Riflemen over Operatives?

And... has anyone ever see Sovereign make it to Round 4?

[HomelessOne]

On 8/15/2021 at 2:33 PM, Gheist said:

And... has anyone ever see Sovereign make it to Round 4?

One time, when I hid him. lol

[Wakefield]

On 8/15/2021 at 2:33 PM, Gheist said:

Hello everyone, just did my first game with Anya and am pretty hyped, just some minor issues:

What am i really supposed to do with Yannic Waller? She seems to demand to be stuck in but needs the brawler to not die instantly.

Does anyone take the Riflemen over Operatives?

And... has anyone ever see Sovereign make it to Round 4?

Congratulations on your first Anya.

Yannic is a support piece to balance out the Price of Progress. She wants to play midfield and offer focus to Riflemen or Sovereign if he's engaged, for a card. She also has Daze and a blast on her shotgun, but the blast is a little unreliable at stat 5 without focus. Remember if you don't need to consolidate she can toss a card to Focus up with Shouting orders. 

I take 1 Rifleman and 1 Operative if I'm wanting the minions. Operatives have so much card draw potential that it's insane, so it's great to take them along. They're very squishy compared to Riflemen. Riflemen are great for Flank or forward deployments where you can Walk Focus Bonus then Shouting Orders to draw a card and crack off two Stat 5 focused attacks with threats to daze, or one stat 7 with gimmicking the trigger.

Finally, yes. Sovereign is hilariously hard to kill if you also take the Emissary or Brawler to pull attacks off of him. Operatives help to refill your hand afterwards and Riflemen can easily add another card to help keep him safe. Just don't let him get near Armor Piercing.

[Gheist]

Yeah i guess i will put in some Training before Anya goes on Video. Still superfun Crew to play.

Yeah okay with a bodyguard the bird may live, but otherwise i don't see him past round 3, anything with severe 5/6 can crack him open with one Focus. Titania just made him go pop

Thanks for the advice, let's see if we can make Ms.Waller work better

[Rufess]

Dying in turn 3 is not as bad as it might sound. This means the opponent have spent resources and 3 turns on Sovereign and have a turn or two left to deal with Anya. Yes she is very killable with even a single turn, but it is always better than opponent spending 5 turns and all resources on Anya.

Sovereign is a big piece of the crew but not the centerpiece. Losing Sovereign doesn't lose you the game, but Anya does. Using Sovereign as a bait to draw enemies away Anya sounds like a fair deal to me.

And if you really want to keep it alive, then try the best defense tech in the game: distance. Run it on the flank and hit and run with the shockwave attack. It still worth its point even just running scheme alone at flank.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Gheist said:

Yeah i guess i will put in some Training before Anya goes on Video. Still superfun Crew to play.

Yeah okay with a bodyguard the bird may live, but otherwise i don't see him past round 3, anything with severe 5/6 can crack him open with one Focus. Titania just made him go pop

Thanks for the advice, let's see if we can make Ms.Waller work better

Lets be fair, with its armour, you need to hit twice with severe 5 to kill . Also don't forget that its shockwave can heal itself. Unless I really need a glory of Ridley for the rest of the crew it is always worth setting up cataclysm on the shockwave, Even if you have to price of progress to get the suit for that extra marker, and it doesn't effect any other model, that's 2 heal for 1 damage, and otherwise no down side. 

Its certainly killable, but its not an easy kill. If you put it in the middle of a fight it will go down, but that's true of most things. Since its the totem, you know its coming, so anti armour is probably more common against it, but if they hire that, you want to keep away from those units. 

 

[Gheist]

4 hours ago, Adran said:

Lets be fair, with its armour, you need to hit twice with severe 5 to kill . Also don't forget that its shockwave can heal itself. Unless I really need a glory of Ridley for the rest of the crew it is always worth setting up cataclysm on the shockwave, Even if you have to price of progress to get the suit for that extra marker, and it doesn't effect any other model, that's 2 heal for 1 damage, and otherwise no down side. 

Yeah thats true allright. Next game up is seamus so exception from the rule

I read  that shockwave more as a pure heal which can have beneficial offensive capablilities anyway

I think i can sell him for a high Bloodtoll, just vs Titania it's hard. She can displace the brawler with her trigger and then moderate 4 dmg (5 with trigger) you relatively easy once your hand runs dry. I won anyway so *shrug*

4 hours ago, Adran said:

Its certainly killable, but its not an easy kill. If you put it in the middle of a fight it will go down, but that's true of most things. Since its the totem, you know its coming, so anti armour is probably more common against it, but if they hire that, you want to keep away from those units. 

 

 It's just that Glory of Ridle seems super key  for the Rest of the Crew, so you can Spam all the triggers you want most of the time. If i would play against Anya, Sovereign would be prime target.

I guess he can survive in a brawl if you put him next to the Brawler or Emissary. It's like with all Models of that kidney, they are going to die, the question is how high will be the pricetag on it for your opponent to take them down

The thing is, my one game with Anya was vs Fae Wedge Deployment which was a round 1 All Out Fight until round 4, so not supertactical

if i have anything to say Sovereign and Anya are going to fly over some building and murder their backline anyway

[Raising]

i've been thinking about Anya 2 disabling capabilities.

 

lock down is a brutal given some setup. for example. obey in to corvis to charge and drop a scheme marker with his trigger n the oposite side of the enemy model(at least further than 1" of corvis and if posible at 1" of any other enemy model) the summon a drudge right on top of it. then lock down that scheme marker. since the model got staggered from corvis attack a 5mv model wont disengage with a weak on damage from the dredge(5-staggered-2 =1)

 

with winston is mostly the same but slow instead of staggered

 

then try to push more enemy model inside the no attack zone

 

[Gheist]

The Dredge is in the no attack zone though . So if anybody disengages from him/her, they just push off because he/she can't attack

so unless you get more Models around the roughly 3" Circle, only Corvis/Winston/anyone outside the box can hinder them. 

So if you push more enemy models in you need to have more models around the marker yourself.

I think it's more for shoving a scheme marker on to two enemy model with expert control and then summoning a drudge and lock the marker, that way they have to waste ap repositioning. But maybe someone has better ideas still.

So you wanna go with the Goon squad trigger from the drudge, which is when your opponent shoots the drudge off the marker, and i don't know if i think it's worth all the trouble.

I'm still too hyped on standard Anya, i love the mobility and scheming capability of the crew, you can brawl and then quickly disperse and scheme if it looks like a losing battle. I think Winston Finnigan is one of the best models i currently own painted, it's so annoying and soo much fun...

[RiceP.]

On 7/2/2021 at 11:59 AM, Rufess said:

According to how your local meta ruling on pushing into Geode Marker, Anya can do 3 individual hazard damages in a single push.

Can you elaborate on that one?

[Adran]

37 minutes ago, RiceP. said:

Can you elaborate on that one?

I think the debate is on "moves through" and impassable.

The Errata for Hazardous terrain came in saying that if you resolve an action whilst in base contact with a hazardous marker you take the damage, but you have to move through it to take the damage from non action moving, and since you can't move through an impassable marker Anya pushing you will never take damage from a geode. Some people think this is unintended and confusing (it creates situations with different results). 

You need more than Anya and a Surveyor to do 3 hazardous damage in a single push, but its not impossible... I think you can get it to 5 in explorers if you really try, but it does involve several ook hires...

[muraki]

7 minutes ago, Adran said:

I think the debate is on "moves through" and impassable.

The Errata for Hazardous terrain came in saying that if you resolve an action whilst in base contact with a hazardous marker you take the damage, but you have to move through it to take the damage from non action moving, and since you can't move through an impassable marker Anya pushing you will never take damage from a geode. Some people think this is unintended and confusing (it creates situations with different results). 

You need more than Anya and a Surveyor to do 3 hazardous damage in a single push, but its not impossible... I think you can get it to 5 in explorers if you really try, but it does involve several ook hires...

Pretty much.  If pushing into base with a geode procs it, then anya + a surveyor can get 3 auras off (field of steel / geode / expansionist). 

[Morgan Vening]

2 hours ago, muraki said:

Pretty much.  If pushing into base with a geode procs it, then anya + a surveyor can get 3 auras off (field of steel / geode / expansionist). 

Yup. Though it only works once off a single Geode. It's physically impossible to move a circular object in a straight line from another circular object, and have them remaining touching.

So, unless they've changed 'move of 0" is not a move' (don't have the rulebook/FAQ handy), you need two Geodes if you want to pingpong 3 damage per action. You can go 3/2/3 easily though.

[RiceP.]

43 minutes ago, Morgan Vening said:

Yup. Though it only works once off a single Geode. It's physically impossible to move a circular object in a straight line from another circular object, and have them remaining touching.

So, unless they've changed 'move of 0" is not a move' (don't have the rulebook/FAQ handy), you need two Geodes if you want to pingpong 3 damage per action. You can go 3/2/3 easily though.

I thought it works the other way around, meaning, even if a model moved 0" it counts as moved.

Edit; I've checked rulebook and i think it works like i said (and i even think it was always like that).

Edited October 27, 2021 by RiceP.

[Morgan Vening]

1 hour ago, RiceP. said:

I thought it works the other way around, meaning, even if a model moved 0" it counts as moved.

Edit; I've checked rulebook and i think it works like i said (and i even think it was always like that).

Must be stuck on M2E brain, where a movement of 0" was NOT considered movement. My bad.

[Sianour]

Hi! New to Explorer's here, I bought everything from Syndicate and don't know where to start...

So, we have four henchmens including ?Mr. Ngaatoro, is any a must? 

It seems that the keyword works better in a bubble, but if you want to cover more terrain just send Anya and Sovereing to the sides?

Pleasehelpmethankyou

[Adran]

My view is that the Syndicate doesn't really have "Syndicate" interactions, so you really just want to use the best models for what you are trying to do. The keyword is largely filled with generally useful models, that if you try you can make combos amongst themselves, but they are also often capable of doing a decent job away from the bubble.

So Surveyors are great if you are planning on pushing the Hazardous play style.  Yannick can make a silly amount of card draw (especially if you build for it). Winston does reasonable healing and movement, and Arcane reservoir is always a good thing, but you need to pair him up with someone and have a plan for them if you want to use those movement tricks on your own side( if you just want to drop opponents into hazardous then other than being near the hazardous he doesn't need the friend). Corvus is a toolbox. He has an answer to just about every question, but sometimes the answer is more effort than you need.  Operatives can do some crazy things for their costs, but can also do very little if you don't have a good plan for them. 

 

[muraki]

34 minutes ago, Sianour said:

Hi! New to Explorer's here, I bought everything from Syndicate and don't know where to start...

So, we have four henchmens including ?Mr. Ngaatoro, is any a must? 

It seems that the keyword works better in a bubble, but if you want to cover more terrain just send Anya and Sovereing to the sides?

Pleasehelpmethankyou

Andran is right, the benefit of Anya is that she has a versatile crew that can be built for a few different things.  If you want to bubble you can with a few hazardous methods and using yannic/sovereign to pump out heals, if you need to spread across the board then anya / sovereign are great for that, but rook's slippery and pulled here and there / winston's dirigible ride / surveyor's chain gang / unimpeded or operatives ambush can get you a surprising amount of distance up the board without too much effort.  If you need to drop schemes/interact anya gets a scheme on her bonus, slippery / dont mind me let you do it in combat and a few draw out secrets triggers make things like detonate charges effortless.

My usual crew goes something like anya/sovereign/winston/operative (mainly cause i usually have 5ish stones left), and then changes based on the pool, do I need to grab symbols? then welles or damned show up to help, do i need a bit more killing power, yannic/the brawler are good, am I clumping up a bit, then I may bring the emissary for heals / shielded.  I wouldn't consider Mr Ngaatoro a must have (I assume you include him as the 'key' because he's versatile rather than actually sharing the keyword), but if you're going the obey route you may enjoy him as he'll be more expensive than most of Anya's crew, so bully will be pretty effective for getting some more actions off.  If you do decide to take him, I may drop Rook for him (as using Ngaatoro's obey offensively could do similar things to pressure, but beyond that they have different enough roles you may still want both).

That said, I do usually send anya / sovereign to the sides, tho I usually have Anya killing/scheming like a fiend while she's doing it, and sovereign cause if i run him elsewhere my opponent murders him turn 1

If anything I think Anya's biggest weakness is lack of anti-df tech measures in the crew.  Like there aren't a lot of + damage triggers to get through stuff like armor, so going into a Hoff or Mei list with full syndicate list may be painful.  The conditions that the crew can pump out help there, but it takes more finesse than hitting with armor ignore/easy 3+ damage.

Depending on how new you are to faux....  while there are benefits to playing Anya in a more clumpy game (the hazardous auras / etc), outside of probably corrupted ley lines (as her union buster is great for denying points if the marker holder doesn't have anti-move or end of round movement), I would probably grab titled Anya in clumpier / slower pools over original Anya, as she becomes more of a lucius style friendly obey master who wants a lot of models within her attack range (playing more of Anya2 is probably why I would rank Mr Ngaatoro lower on my list than I had him when I started playing Syndicate, as if I really want to obey my own guys, I'll just take Anya2) and drudge summons are amazing for getting schemes done / gumming up opponents to protect more high priority targets.  I also like Anya2 as she makes the crew feel more synergistic, which s really cool as the first few games of Anya1 / syndicate can feel very 'these guys are all good on their own, but beyond a shared ability they kind of feel like they belong in different keywords'

[Sianour]

21 hours ago, Adran said:

My view is that the Syndicate doesn't really have "Syndicate" interactions, so you really just want to use the best models for what you are trying to do. The keyword is largely filled with generally useful models, that if you try you can make combos amongst themselves, but they are also often capable of doing a decent job away from the bubble.

So Surveyors are great if you are planning on pushing the Hazardous play style.  Yannick can make a silly amount of card draw (especially if you build for it). Winston does reasonable healing and movement, and Arcane reservoir is always a good thing, but you need to pair him up with someone and have a plan for them if you want to use those movement tricks on your own side( if you just want to drop opponents into hazardous then other than being near the hazardous he doesn't need the friend). Corvus is a toolbox. He has an answer to just about every question, but sometimes the answer is more effort than you need.  Operatives can do some crazy things for their costs, but can also do very little if you don't have a good plan for them. 

 

 

20 hours ago, muraki said:

Andran is right, the benefit of Anya is that she has a versatile crew that can be built for a few different things.  If you want to bubble you can with a few hazardous methods and using yannic/sovereign to pump out heals, if you need to spread across the board then anya / sovereign are great for that, but rook's slippery and pulled here and there / winston's dirigible ride / surveyor's chain gang / unimpeded or operatives ambush can get you a surprising amount of distance up the board without too much effort.  If you need to drop schemes/interact anya gets a scheme on her bonus, slippery / dont mind me let you do it in combat and a few draw out secrets triggers make things like detonate charges effortless.

My usual crew goes something like anya/sovereign/winston/operative (mainly cause i usually have 5ish stones left), and then changes based on the pool, do I need to grab symbols? then welles or damned show up to help, do i need a bit more killing power, yannic/the brawler are good, am I clumping up a bit, then I may bring the emissary for heals / shielded.  I wouldn't consider Mr Ngaatoro a must have (I assume you include him as the 'key' because he's versatile rather than actually sharing the keyword), but if you're going the obey route you may enjoy him as he'll be more expensive than most of Anya's crew, so bully will be pretty effective for getting some more actions off.  If you do decide to take him, I may drop Rook for him (as using Ngaatoro's obey offensively could do similar things to pressure, but beyond that they have different enough roles you may still want both).

That said, I do usually send anya / sovereign to the sides, tho I usually have Anya killing/scheming like a fiend while she's doing it, and sovereign cause if i run him elsewhere my opponent murders him turn 1

If anything I think Anya's biggest weakness is lack of anti-df tech measures in the crew.  Like there aren't a lot of + damage triggers to get through stuff like armor, so going into a Hoff or Mei list with full syndicate list may be painful.  The conditions that the crew can pump out help there, but it takes more finesse than hitting with armor ignore/easy 3+ damage.

Depending on how new you are to faux....  while there are benefits to playing Anya in a more clumpy game (the hazardous auras / etc), outside of probably corrupted ley lines (as her union buster is great for denying points if the marker holder doesn't have anti-move or end of round movement), I would probably grab titled Anya in clumpier / slower pools over original Anya, as she becomes more of a lucius style friendly obey master who wants a lot of models within her attack range (playing more of Anya2 is probably why I would rank Mr Ngaatoro lower on my list than I had him when I started playing Syndicate, as if I really want to obey my own guys, I'll just take Anya2) and drudge summons are amazing for getting schemes done / gumming up opponents to protect more high priority targets.  I also like Anya2 as she makes the crew feel more synergistic, which s really cool as the first few games of Anya1 / syndicate can feel very 'these guys are all good on their own, but beyond a shared ability they kind of feel like they belong in different keywords'

Thanks both! It's been very helpful, really.

Maybe on my first game with her I'll try a bit of everything, just to see what can they do on the board...

And lets teorifaux a little bit... what would be the perfect turn one? I thought to use Anya first, Union buster on herself to push all other members 2", then Bleeding edge just to use the trigger and get placed wherever I need, maybe Hostile takeoverto move the scheme marker if needed amb put another marker? So at last I have moved all crew 2" and have two schemes markers pretty advanced in midfield...

I've been playing since the beginning of M2e, but with the change of the edition and covid, it's been ages since the last game i took 😅

[Adran]

Honestly, it depends on what you want. My last game with Anya, I was using Yannick and Hopeful prospects to try an abuse Ingenuity, and most of the crew was laying scheme markers down, to let me get the cards later.  Anya and Sovereign went and disrupted the opponents crew. I think I used Sovereigns Fly with me to move Anya up and held her till I was ready, she has a potentially huge threat range. Ideally I wanted to Bleeding edge a scheme marker within 1 of my target, and then place so I can Charge through it, with a high likelihood of price of Progress for a ram on my Melee attacks, as its "free". 

Its worth remembering that neither Anya or Sovereign are the most durable of models so you probably want to use them as flankers picking off important enemy models, rather than them going into the bulk of the crew, but they can take a bit of damage if you need them to. ( I also like price of progressing a ram on Sovereigns shockwave to drop a second marker near it, for the heal. Its extra good if it gets to hit enemy models as well, but suffer 1 damage to heal 2 is a trade I like).