Hamlin is busted, seriously...

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Azahul said:

Riders are an interesting one. Generally speaking, I'm pretty happy to see a Rider across the table. Hamelin's ability to deny triggers shuts them down pretty hard, and his Stat 7 Lure can make it hard for them to find safe spots on the table in which to operate. But they are mobile and can run a flank well enough, so it is possible for a cagey rider to play around Hamelin. The Mechanical and Pale Riders are the ones I have the most experience in facing, and their ability to do what they want to do without needing to come near the bubble means I have to actually work if I want to neuter them.

Interesting, keen to see it.

For the Dead Rider in Molly's crew specifically, she is a bit of an activaiton control master (so tends to have first/last activation as she likes). So it is usually pretty doable to keep the Dead Rider out of danger until the very end of turn 2 (or start of turn 3 if necessary). But even one token could make it awkward, so would be interesting to see!

[Azahul]

15 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Interesting, keen to see it.

For the Dead Rider in Molly's crew specifically, she is a bit of an activaiton control master (so tends to have first/last activation as she likes). So it is usually pretty doable to keep the Dead Rider out of danger until the very end of turn 2 (or start of turn 3 if necessary). But even one token could make it awkward, so would be interesting to see!

It definitely sounds like an interesting game  

[Jesy Blue]

Hamelin was my second Master so I'm very familiar with him, so when I'm against him I know what to ignore, which is mostly everything, and just play my game. 

As always, if you find a crew too difficult, try playing AS that crew to understand how they work, which will not only increase your knowledge of that crew but will also increase your knowledge of that crew's weaknesses.  It is quite eye opening once the curtain's pulled back.

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Jesy Blue said:

Hamelin was my second Master so I'm very familiar with him, so when I'm against him I know what to ignore, which is mostly everything, and just play my game. 

As always, if you find a crew too difficult, try playing AS that crew to understand how they work, which will not only increase your knowledge of that crew but will also increase your knowledge of that crew's weaknesses.  It is quite eye opening once the curtain's pulled back.

yes-its very hard to lure enemy and give him tokens and then activate vretch and kill it

[NoahScape]

How is it very hard to lure an enemy that with a stat 7 12 inch lure?

[Adran]

27 minutes ago, Plaag said:

yes-its very hard to lure enemy and give him tokens and then activate vretch and kill it

If you compare it to something like Justice who will leap over and kill it, then yes, it is much harder.

2 Lures gives 4 blight with trigger, and then 2 Bleeding disease from Wretch gets you 8 damage.  Spread over 4 actions and 2 activations, that's not a great return. Its not a bad return, but not game breaking in of itself. 

[NoahScape]

Just now, Adran said:

If you compare it to something like Justice who will leap over and kill it, then yes, it is much harder.

2 Lures gives 4 blight with trigger, and then 2 Bleeding disease from Wretch gets you 8 damage.  Spread over 4 actions and 2 activations, that's not a great return. Its not a bad return, but not game breaking in of itself. 

Assuming the model doesn't have any other blight tokens, but again you guys act like blight is really hard to put on a model. It really isn't that difficult. 

 

[Adran]

3 minutes ago, IronmanKC81 said:

Assuming the model doesn't have any other blight tokens, but again you guys act like blight is really hard to put on a model. It really isn't that difficult. 

 

Blight in small amounts isn't difficult to give out. Building up blight to a level that makes bleeding disease scary is either time consuming or resource intensive. (Or it should be if your opponent knows what it does). 

Adding blight before hand isn't Free either, its still cost you something to do (even if that something is as simple as have your model in the right place for when they activate). 

[NoahScape]

I don't understand the push back on the damage cap and/or at least the removal of blight after damage on this ability. Its shocking to me that people think its okay that you can just stack 5 blight on a model and bleeding disease it a couple of times for a flat 5 damage with no damage flip and no reduction of blight. 

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

If you compare it to something like Justice who will leap over and kill it, then yes, it is much harder.

2 Lures gives 4 blight with trigger, and then 2 Bleeding disease from Wretch gets you 8 damage.  Spread over 4 actions and 2 activations, that's not a great return. Its not a bad return, but not game breaking in of itself. 

its also gives you enemy model near yours without support/terminal makes this models stats becomes 0, and then even totems or rats can kill it

[Adran]

14 minutes ago, Plaag said:

its also gives you enemy model near yours without support/terminal makes this models stats becomes 0, and then even totems or rats can kill it

I was assuming that the Wretch killed it, but sure, if you want to make it take more actions to kill it, then feel free. The enemy positioning can be useful on occasion, but most of the time if you are killing it, it doesn't matter where. And that's a lure effect not really related to bleeding disease or blight.  

17 minutes ago, IronmanKC81 said:

I don't understand the push back on the damage cap and/or at least the removal of blight after damage on this ability. Its shocking to me that people think its okay that you can just stack 5 blight on a model and bleeding disease it a couple of times for a flat 5 damage with no damage flip and no reduction of blight. 

Personally I wouldn't care if it had a damage cap, because I don't think that most of the time the best option in the game is to add blight above 5 onto a model. I don't think its that common that you will do more than your suggested cap of 5 on a model anyway. I didn't really see much pushback on it in the thread, it barely got mentioned. 

Outside of Bleeding disease, the keyword doesn't do very much damage, so I'm not sure that when you take the keyword as a whole they have a much stronger damage output than most. (Rat kings can hit hard until they take a hit, but they are glass cannons. Without the ability to create them from rats they probably wouldn't be seen. And a smart opponent can make it hard to get out kings by careful rat removal. Not impossible, and Hamlin's bonus action helps a lot, but the few times I've faced Hamlin I was able to disrupt the kings when I needed to). 

[LexLock]

If Hamelin had a tankier crew or if model spam wasn't so bad this edition he would be a lot more powerful.

Unfortunately/fortunately the Pass Token mechanic does what it's designed to do and Hamelin will lose initiative turn 2 and assuming you have decent models you can pick one of his squishy things to kill or, if you get the opportunity, kill a bunch of rats and get activation control.

Hamelin is one of those masters that is almost broken. The Blight mechanic is disgusting this edition (unremovable tokens are just unfun to play against) but Hamelin's crew is slow, squishy and doesn't really do much. If Winged Plagues were decent or if Rat Kings could take a hit the Plague crew as a whole would be less predictable, but that isn't the case and you're left with a bad crew desperately trying to support a decent master's overtuned mechanic while failing at everything else (including the most important thing, getting VP).

If there is ever a scheme/strat that you score by doing the highest damage in a single action Hamelin's crew might have a shot, but as things are now GG0 and GG1 don't favour slow bubble crews, and if they did we'd be complaining about Ironsides and Yan Lo right now instead of Hamelin.

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 hours ago, IronmanKC81 said:

I don't understand the push back on the damage cap and/or at least the removal of blight after damage on this ability. Its shocking to me that people think its okay that you can just stack 5 blight on a model and bleeding disease it a couple of times for a flat 5 damage with no damage flip and no reduction of blight. 

Well, I gave an example of doing ~30 damage over two activations that requires less setup than doing 30 damage with blight.

So the pushback is against a nerf that is perceived as unnecessary. Certainly Hamelin isn't winning any tournaments that I know of.

[Zebo]

Lately, I've been playing some games with Hamelin, and I think there's some resemblances between Plague and Tormented crews. 

They're tricky crews to play with and against. 

If none player know well how to play with/against, the matchup will be a bit chaotic and can be won by any player. 

If Hamelin knows how to play the crew, and the opponent does not, Hamelin feels oppressive and disgusting to play against. 

If Hamelin doesn't know how to play and the opponent does, Hamelin feels lackluster, slow and bad. 

If both players know its strengths and weaknesses, the game can be quite intense and balanced. 

Plague is a very good crew in some matchups and scenarios, but has very hard weaknesses that can be exploited. 

[Azahul]

10 hours ago, IronmanKC81 said:

I don't understand the push back on the damage cap and/or at least the removal of blight after damage on this ability. Its shocking to me that people think its okay that you can just stack 5 blight on a model and bleeding disease it a couple of times for a flat 5 damage with no damage flip and no reduction of blight. 

In all my games I can think of maybe one time where a cap on Bleeding Disease damage (assuming a cap of 5) would have even increased the number of AP I had to spend to kill a target, and it would have just given the Obedient Wretch something to do instead of leaving her waffling around in the backlines not really contributing. Blight removal would be far more relevant, and also far more punishing, since suddenly those 3 damage Bleeding Diseases (far more common than the 5+ ones) are less effective.

 

It's less pushback and more that I think you're overly fixated on honestly a rather niche part of Hamelin's kit.

[clockworkspide]

I do think having the occasional model able to remove or manipulate tokens would be a good thing, just in the sense that it's an open design space to use.

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, clockworkspide said:

I do think having the occasional model able to remove or manipulate tokens would be a good thing, just in the sense that it's an open design space to use.

I very much disagree.

Tokens are each a mechanically unique sandbox, with their limitations and potential all being extremely unique. Every token crew has a different way you have to deal with tokens being built up.

If you added in models that can remove tokens, that would narrow design space IMO. Every token crew would have to pass a bar of being able to work around token removal. I feel like tokens would just become another condition basically if that happened.

[Azahul]

Didn't many of the token-using models in this edition get converted from using conditions in second edition precisely so that their mechanics could not be turned off by condition removal? Adding token removal to the pool just brings that straight back. I'd feel really sorry for Lynch if such a model ever released 😅

[Zebo]

I would like to know how to put models up to 7 blight, since it seems to be so easy. 

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

I would like to know how to put models up to 7 blight, since it seems to be so easy. 

u have 2 different auras on hamelin and nix, lure with crows makes model have 2 tokens, almost all atacks gives blight token, at the start of turn 2 u may make a lot of tokens on enemy models

[Adran]

20 minutes ago, Plaag said:

u have 2 different auras on hamelin and nix, lure with crows makes model have 2 tokens, almost all atacks gives blight token, at the start of turn 2 u may make a lot of tokens on enemy models

Totally - Lure a model twice (with bonus crow) into range of Hamlin and Nix, and charge it with Hamlin and his Black Staff. Then when it activates it'll be on 7. 

That said, whilst its perfectly possible to do, its often using resources to achieve, that other crews would just be doing damage with. So the fact that it feeds a later big hit is hiding the overall effort to achieve that damage. 

If you have to kill a 25wound model, then setting up a big Bleeding disease will do it faster/more efficiently than just about any other way, but I don't think there is a model with more than 15 wounds. The efficiency to do 15 damage to a model via bleeding disease is, I believe, comparable to the efficiency some other crews achieve via more normal ways. And as you lower the amount of damage you are trying to achieve on a single target, bleeding disease becomes less and less efficient. 

[Zebo]

Well, since auras only are applied when starting activation at 6" and 3", I can bet you don't put any blight with them in the first turn, and only on a couple models in turn 2 unless you're facing a quite inexperienced player. 

 

Yes, lure with crows puts blight. Let's count you spend two actions, and two ss to stack blight, and you have the awesome luck of flipping two crows. So Hamelim can spend his third action in Bleeding Disease and do 6 damage. 

Full activation of a Master for 6 damage doesn't sounds broken. 

 

Of course the rest of the crew plays. Nix can put also some blight with his bite, wich in the other hand does an unimpressive 2/3/4 for an 8ss model. 

 

Building 1-3 blight on many models is not so hard, as long as they are close tho your crew, but stacking high amounts of tokens requires big effort and resources that other crews use simply to erase models from the table without so many complications. 

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

Totally - Lure a model twice (with bonus crow) into range of Hamlin and Nix, and charge it with Hamlin and his Black Staff. Then when it activates it'll be on 7. 

That said, whilst its perfectly possible to do, its often using resources to achieve, that other crews would just be doing damage with. So the fact that it feeds a later big hit is hiding the overall effort to achieve that damage. 

If you have to kill a 25wound model, then setting up a big Bleeding disease will do it faster/more efficiently than just about any other way, but I don't think there is a model with more than 15 wounds. The efficiency to do 15 damage to a model via bleeding disease is, I believe, comparable to the efficiency some other crews achieve via more normal ways. And as you lower the amount of damage you are trying to achieve on a single target, bleeding disease becomes less and less efficient. 

what crews would make a lot of dmg while hamelin use his lure?)

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

Well, since auras only are applied when starting activation at 6" and 3", I can bet you don't put any blight with them in the first turn, and only on a couple models in turn 2 unless you're facing a quite inexperienced player. 

 

Yes, lure with crows puts blight. Let's count you spend two actions, and two ss to stack blight, and you have the awesome luck of flipping two crows. So Hamelim can spend his third action in Bleeding Disease and do 6 damage. 

Full activation of a Master for 6 damage doesn't sounds broken. 

 

Of course the rest of the crew plays. Nix can put also some blight with his bite, wich in the other hand does an unimpressive 2/3/4 for an 8ss model. 

 

Building 1-3 blight on many models is not so hard, as long as they are close tho your crew, but stacking high amounts of tokens requires big effort and resources that other crews use simply to erase models from the table without so many complications. 

it means that u make 6 dmg without dmg flip and vretch will do it and u cannt cheat it; blight tokens dont go away; and its better to make third atack with stuff and make target gain another token and make it stats becomes 0; and it is usefull to spend ss for crows for lure trigger; also u will put servant on hamelin and emissary would push him, so u will have all 3 actions

[Azahul]

It's also worth noting that the two models consistently cited as being the best for stacking Blight fast (and I agree with that assessment) are Nix and Hamelin. I.e. two of the three models with Bleeding Disease. They can put out a lot of Blight pretty quickly, but that's devaluing the supposed strength of being able to nuke the target with all these crazy high damage attacks. A single Bleeding Disease doing 9 damage is amazing (and the highest I have personally ever achieved), until you average it out as the result of a Master and an 8 stone Henchman's activations (ok, 13 damage including the two weak damage results from Nix's bites) 😅 Of course, you'd think that I could have then capitalised on that insane Blight with the Obedient Wretch to make that a far more reasonable 27 damage over the activations... but I'm afraid the target had died. If I remember right, the Obedient Wretch ended up walking and taking an interact action for Benny that turn because I had no targets that felt worthwhile hitting with a Bleeding Disease.

 

Bleeding Disease is cool, don't get me wrong, but if I'm looking to erase a target I could get much the same results by playing Parker and just shooting them. Where it excels is against super resilient targets, particularly tanky Masters and Henchmen burning Soulstones, that can actually survive enough regular hits for the Blight to accumulate meaningfully. Which is a bit of a niche role for an action.

 

And to be clear, I think Hamelin is awesome and I play him at nearly every possible opportunity. All his actions are awesome though, and Bleeding Disease gets a bit of an insane fixation for how rarely it comes up as a seriously significant part of the game.