Jedza (Seeker Keyword) Discussion

[Whut]

Hey all,
My Seeker Review is up! Check it out if you'd like and leave me some feedback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owPiby6CqDs

 

[SEV]

After a few weeks of ES do you think Jedza is well balance ? 

The Emissary is a ridiculous model an he seems even stronger here. But, beside that, how fair is this crew? 

I really like the esthetic but I don't want to get an OP crew as Cadmus or DUA...

[belorey]

34 minutes ago, SEV said:

After a few weeks of ES do you think Jedza is well balance ? 

The Emissary is a ridiculous model an he seems even stronger here. But, beside that, how fair is this crew? 

I really like the esthetic but I don't want to get an OP crew as Cadmus or DUA...

I think is a strong keyword but it's not OP and you can play against her.

It's two steps behing DUA and Cadmus. Seekers are on third/fourth/fifth position with EVS and Syndicate. And that order depends on your play style.

[dannydb]

I think it's a keyword your going to have to understand how it works in order to disable it, as you can lose so many actions too mikhail and his 2in range and caught in the ring 

 

In addition with emmy shockwaves and pulses with duels arnt way to go so movement shenanigans and going for schemes which that bubbles are less effective are jedza weakness 

[DonQOT]

On 2/24/2021 at 10:15 AM, dannydb said:

I think it's a keyword your going to have to understand how it works in order to disable it, as you can lose so many actions too mikhail and his 2in range and caught in the ring 

 

In addition with emmy shockwaves and pulses with duels arnt way to go so movement shenanigans and going for schemes which that bubbles are less effective are jedza weakness 

Agree with this 100%. Jedza was the new master I've spent the most time learning and playing. I lost all my games until I finally grokked how they work. Then my performance has varied more by how well my opponent understood the crew.

I think overall it will settle into a strong but midrange crew with lots of intricacies to keep things interesting and clever but pinned around one mechanic to encourage good counterplay. Which is great from where I am standing as Jedza is one of my absolute favorites now and think she's taken her place as my new primary (sorry McCabe, you broke my heart losing your Guild status).

[Hawkoon]

On 2/24/2021 at 5:15 PM, dannydb said:

I think it's a keyword your going to have to understand how it works in order to disable it, as you can lose so many actions too mikhail and his 2in range and caught in the ring

Oddly enough that's exactly what happened my last game against them with Pandora. I forgot about caught in the ring, and with Vernon & Welles nearby, that made me quite sad when most of my attacks were on

[DonQOT]

I am curious to know what other, better Jedza crews are now thinking about crewlists.

I am enjoying the zoning potential of their terrain marker shenanigans a lot, and the fun tricks with movement that hurl my grandma mummy around where they thought she and her bubble crew couldn't reach, blink best boy around, and just generally make a nuisance of myself during my opponent's activations, so I've gone in on the minions pretty hard and always take my multi-great godson, Mikhail, but the rest of my ss has been pretty flexible.

I'm mostly just faffing about, though, trying out all the different keywork crew combinations. See if I manage to come up with something clever by the room full of monkeys method.

I'd like to hear ya'll think are now the essentials for when you run the Seekers. Vdubs seems pretty popular, and Emissary, natch. Any other favorites? Upgraded effigy seems like it could potentially be worthwhile here (or at least fun), make you have to work a bit to get your stabby statue and much more doable in this crew than many others.

[extremor]

On 2/28/2021 at 2:48 AM, DonQOT said:

Agree with this 100%. Jedza was the new master I've spent the most time learning and playing. I lost all my games until I finally grokked how they work. Then my performance has varied more by how well my opponent understood the crew.

I think overall it will settle into a strong but midrange crew with lots of intricacies to keep things interesting and clever but pinned around one mechanic to encourage good counterplay. Which is great from where I am standing as Jedza is one of my absolute favorites now and think she's taken her place as my new primary (sorry McCabe, you broke my heart losing your Guild status).

Thx. Reminds me of the time I started playing Lucius. 
could you please elaborate on the „how they worked“? I love the lamplighter and moorwrath models but looking at the statcsrds and rules I don’t get the gain from them compaired to strong henchmen and enforcers...

[extremor]

On 2/24/2021 at 3:58 PM, Whut said:

Hey all,
My Seeker Review is up! Check it out if you'd like and leave me some feedback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owPiby6CqDs

 

Hello Whut,

I‘ve watched your review 3 times by now and I am still a bit irritated about your low rating for the lamplighters and moorwraith. In theory the moorwraith seems excellent to use as mobile terrain marker for Jedzas life of the earth (severe and impassable) and it can hit any other model with any mask for a bowled over trigger that moves both the target and the moorwraith 4 inches and be subsequently healed to activate chronicles. If combined with the goo you also get hazardous terrain on top of that. 
...so are they really that worthless? And how is terrain Jedza played if not with moorwraith? Are geodes of 1 surveyor enough??

 

and what about the lamplighter? Is the push n heal not important to exploit the chronicles? 
 

don’t get me wrong, I totally get your analysis of the whole keyword and was simply asking myself if there are different ways to play Jedza with these little fellas cause the models are simply awesome. 

[Rufess]

Players, base on their local meta and playstyle, may have very different opinions and ratings on the same model. To me, Lamplighter is an auto include because of the well matched between Lamp Marker and the bubble nature of Seeker keyword. Plus that Unnatural Glow is a easy button to adjust a model position and trigger all Chronicles effect in one single action. They are also highly considerable in certain keywords outside, like Apex and DUA.

Moorwraiths on the other hand, have the lowest value within the keyword. They are not bad for 4ss and have some great synergy with Grave Goo. Seeker however is very tight on SS thanks for their decent mid-high cost Enforcers. I think they might shine if GG3 is more friendly to low cost minions.

[extremor]

2 hours ago, Rufess said:

Moorwraiths on the other hand, have the lowest value within the keyword. They are not bad for 4ss and have some great synergy with Grave Goo. Seeker however is very tight on SS thanks for their decent mid-high cost Enforcers. I think they might shine if GG3 is more friendly to low cost minions.

First of all: thank you. 
yes I can see that moorwraith aren’t the jack of all trades kind of minion.
Low stats on offense and defense, a very situational free action and possibly one-hit can kill it instantly even though it has armor and shielded. 
 

so what are the Pros, next to being cute models?

-paired with a goo the moorwraith have a 2“ severe, hazardous aura and hand out shielded to the goo. So you can do the same „Push and damage“ shenanigans as with the surveyor. 

-paired with another moorwraith it easily gets shielded +2 to boost damage up to 3/4/5...

- Jedza uses moorwraith as mobile terrain markers for life of the earth if the opponent stays away from the natural terrain... 

 

i think they do bring utility but are simply outshined by the surveyors considering ping damage, mobility and survivability. 

[Rufess]

1 hour ago, extremor said:

so what are the Pros, next to being cute models?

If I was hiring them I would mainly use them as a walking terrain for Jedza and Grave Goo. They are surprisingly survivable due to easy access to Shielded and the fact that opponent would not willing spend recourses on them.

And forgot the Hard Slam. Dirt Nap is a better attack in lots of the case. You can attack a full health enemy or enemy within 6" of Jedza to reverse the healing to damage. Or just heal an enemy to trigger all your Chronicles.

Just be aware enemy using them to against you. During my last game playing Kin against Seeker, Ophelia was managed to pull off some serious attacks with her Clean Up Duty upgrade, putting Injured +2~3 on every models in Seeker's crew in the first activation.

[extremor]

44 minutes ago, Rufess said:

And forgot the Hard Slam. Dirt Nap is a better attack in lots of the case. You can attack a full health enemy or enemy within 6" of Jedza to reverse the healing to damage. Or just heal an enemy to trigger all your Chronicles.

Yes slow @ 8“ on its own is real good. Stat 4 is a huge drawback though. 

[extremor]

Slowly building my crew so I will be able to play first games soon. 
 

while reading again I found the „you’re coming with me“ trigger of lamplighters light the way action quite interesting. For only a 5 of mask you can get a nice amount of mobility. E.g if I move 5“ with my first AP and then target a lamp at 2“ to push it 3“ and then place in btb the lamplighter stands 12“ away from where it started and still has one AP left to interact. And he is standing right next to a lit lamp... 

[DevilCat]

Just thinking earlier, I might not take a single moorwraith, but applying the Multiple Small Units concept and bringing more than one might make them more effective. Bringing two and running them as a unit, you bring them up behind the rest of your crew and apply them once your opponent already has key models locked in engagement. You have easy heals for Mikhail (can't stack slow, he can ditch the condition for free next activation), the ability to spam dirt nap up to 4 times a turn against a choice model to drain your opponent's hand, and it'll take a full activation/two min3 hits to halve the annoyance if they're not too busy with the rest of your crew. If your opponent is already tied up between the Damned, Mikhail, the Goo, and/or your Emissary, you've got ample opportunity to set up multiple nodes for Life of the Earth while they have higher priorities.

 

I don't think they're as bad as they look unless taken as a single hire.

[Whut]

On 5/29/2021 at 8:49 AM, extremor said:

Hello Whut,

I‘ve watched your review 3 times by now and I am still a bit irritated about your low rating for the lamplighters and moorwraith. In theory the moorwraith seems excellent to use as mobile terrain marker for Jedzas life of the earth (severe and impassable) and it can hit any other model with any mask for a bowled over trigger that moves both the target and the moorwraith 4 inches and be subsequently healed to activate chronicles. If combined with the goo you also get hazardous terrain on top of that. 
...so are they really that worthless? And how is terrain Jedza played if not with moorwraith? Are geodes of 1 surveyor enough??

and what about the lamplighter? Is the push n heal not important to exploit the chronicles?

don’t get me wrong, I totally get your analysis of the whole keyword and was simply asking myself if there are different ways to play Jedza with these little fellas cause the models are simply awesome. 

Hey extremor! Thanks for watching!

Here are some additional thoughts:

On Moorwraiths, they just compete way too much with other options. Moorwraiths are slow to move unless you manage to chain heals, they rely on Jedza to not get killed easily (being Df/Wp4 and only requiring 5-6 damage to one-shot), they don't have a good bonus action which accounts for 1/3 of the actions they will be taking during the game, and they're only Ht2 with a 30mm base, making them among the easiest Seeker to block LoS from Jedza (alongside Mikhail, but he has Hard2Kill, stones, and can teleport out of activation). I see them as not providing enough vs the support they require, and too easily killed.
Furthermore, each additional model in the Crew which requires Jedza's support (as opposed to being mostly self-sufficient with the _option_ of returning to Jedza's bubble when needed) severely restricts Jedza's mobility and flexibility. With a pair of Moorwraiths who can easily be picked off if ever caught away from Jedza, this causes a lot of trouble when it comes to activation order and moving pieces where they want to go - something Seeker already struggles with when trying to maximize their Chronicle bubble overlap.
What they do provide is being a terrain piece for Jedza, throwing out attacks that Slow with a small Heal, potentially being cheap Life Tokens for Jedza later, and activating Chronicles - which is potentially decent, but terrible compared to Seeker's other options. GraveGoo can do a similar "charge up Shielded and fling into the enemy" thing and has more directly useful effects than 2 Moors (borderline DontMindMe, enemy model removal (think denying scoring end of turn), Regeneration to trigger Chronicles, making terrain pieces Hazardous). Surveyors, which are my preferred LifeOfTheEarth terrain creators, are infinitely more flexible than Moors - with two absurdly strong bonus actions, many different push effects, a 2" melee, OnYourHeels to quickly position, the flexibility of creating impassible terrain on the fly, and being non-oneshot-able alongside Hazardous to survive without Jedza (or at least punish the enemy for attacking). Surveyors are also resilient enough in the bubble to be perfect carriers of FlushWithCash, which then gives them an emergency option to stay alive if caught outside of it - they're also valuable enough to be worth using that Bribery (hopefully to buy enough time to get back into Jedza's bubble) - Moors are probably not. Finally, Geodes can be used for Schemes like research mission, or be used to bluff those schemes at very little cost to the Seeker crew.
Lastly, Moorwraiths compete with Hopeful Prospects for the role of "cheap future Life Token which activates chronicles along the way". Hopeful Prospects have 4 Health and H2K, meaning (if played correctly) they can sit at 2-3 health safely and heal to trigger chronicles just by activating in the Bubble. From most sources they'll require 2 attacks to kill too, meaning if they are attacked and survive they can activate and heal back above H2K. Their 14" gun for 1/3/5 is nothing to scoff at with Focused and will place pressure on the opponent to come to Jedza, rather than Moorwraiths trudging out there slowly. If they do manage to score a kill, they can replace into a Surveyor with Focused+1 and heal to full, which is a powerful effect - it won't happen often but the threat of it is something the opponent must watch out for. And finally, they can heal 2 if given Rams and remove conditions, which cuts down on Jedza needing to do that. Granted, the Hopefuls are fairly static, insignificant, and overlap Sophie in the "card cycling" department - so this will only work in pools where Jedza can play defensively and your other models can handle the interacting.

On Lamplighters, I felt they have potential but just... didn't do much for a 7 cost model. Seeker (and Explorers in general) already have incredible 6-8 cost options (GGoo, Austera, Damned, Surveyor, Botanist, V&W, Eva, etc) AND good movement effects (Intrepid, Tidecaller, Mr Ngaatoro) - the Lamplighter doesn't excite due to a few problems. Firstly he's slow (Move 5 and the potential for his Bonus Action to trigger, that's it) which decreases the effectiveness of Don'tMindMe (alongside GraveGoo already being effectively DMM). Secondly his 1/2/3 heal will usually heal 1 because it doesn't ignore Accuracy Fate Modifiers. He also depends on too many suits to be fully effective, both to create new Lamps (5Tome) as well as light them while moving (5Mask) though this may be personal playstyle preference. His saving grace are of course the Lamp Markers - which grant concealment and potentially infinite positive flips, but only one positive per activation and only in a small bubble. Problem is the Lamplighter needs to move to the Lamp before making it Lit and Seeker isn't the best keyword for turtling near a 30mm marker - sure, they will absolutely hold that one area, but most of the crew is melee and have a maximum of 6-8" on their ranged effects - even if the Lamp's position is central to the objective pool, Seeker will still need to move away to fight battles elsewhere on the board. Shimmering Lights is an extremely strong effect with the new Focus/Distracted changes though, so maybe the Lamplighter may see some play - I could see it being effective in some pools to move a Lamplighter into the center of the board and have him be a "coordinator" of sorts, pushing friendly models within the area 6" from the center, helping the others reach targets and be in range of each others' Chronicle effects. If ever engaged, Shimmering Lights can completely neuter enemy threats after a couple pushes (or heals which then cause a couple pushes). I could see this being a decent tactic in Turf War, where the Lamplighter can keep hold of the center marker.

----

Granted I don't feel like I've unlocked the potential of Seeker for myself, so take this advice with a grain of salt. I find that keeping Chronicles & Healers within range of the right targets AND activating them in the correct order is hard to balance among other priorities, and fighting spread-out battles feels incredibly difficult and clunky due to the nature of Seeker's mobility options (requiring other models like Chain Gang or Mikhail's Chronicle, and/or being short like Jedza's Bonus Action) (aside from Damned, who I still consider my first auto-take).

I hope this helps anyways! I forget what my exact ratings were at the time of writing, but either way with the new player pack and FAQ/Eratta changes I would consider Lamplighters to easily be 2 Stars In-Keyword due to the Focused/Distracted changes. I think I would keep Moorwraiths at 1 Star - just too many good options.

[extremor]

@Whutthanks a lot for answering in detail. That clears up all my questions. 

3 hours ago, Whut said:

I find that keeping Chronicles & Healers within range of the right targets AND activating them in the correct order is hard to balance among other priorities, and fighting spread-out battles feels incredibly difficult and clunky due to the nature of Seeker's mobility options

That’s what I expected, too. Positioning and activation Order are nearly as hard as with my NVB Lucius crew. But I never felt I was lacking options. After the game we talked about our experience and your ratings regarding gg1 and possible changes in gg2. And we agreed upon the fact that it largely depends on local meta and regional playstyle. 
 

your video was and still is a great help for me to wrap my head around the keyword thanks a lot for your work!!!

[Rufess]

@Whut Fair enough. I think we play Seeker in a different way because of local meta and playstyle. I play them very cagey and in bubble. Most of my games they will get into position during turn 1/2 and stay there for the rest of the game. Hence the Lamp Marker is prefect for me. Mikhail and Emissary sitting at the center with a Lit Lamp Marker is just brutal.

While it is true that we have access to some great healing (Jedza, Mikhail, Emissary) and movement (Jedza, Surveyor), Lamplighters can move and heal a model in a single action. Beside of them I can only think of Jedza, Rough Rider, and Winston who can do it with a non built-in trigger (well, not a barrier to Winston though). That means they can move a model into a Chronicle aura and heal it to trigger that Chronicle. Damned, Austera and Sophie are usually staying away from the core bubble, with Unnatural Glow their Chronicle are more easy to pull off.

And it is the only active healing beside Jedza that can cast in a relatively long range. Healing 1 is not good but sometime it (plus the move) can save you a model, especially like Mikhail and Emissary who have Hard to Kill. If you don't mind to burning your deck, you can have both the Lamplighter and the model being healed use the [+] from the Lamp Marker to set up the opposite duel to avoid accuracy modifier in the healing flip.

And don't forget their utility outside of the Lamp Marker and Unnatural Glow. Their 2" melee range is always good to lock enemies from Interacting. And with the Shimmering Lights and their own Chronicle, they can hand out at most Distracted +2 to an enemy in a single use of Unnatural Glow, at the cost of healing that enemy for 1. Which may sometime change the game.

I am not saying they are way better than our Enforcers, aka Austera, Grave Goo and Tannenbaum. But, imho, those Enforcers are more situational and should hire based on matchup, while Lamplighter is more general and their tool is more close to the core mechanism of Seeker. Maybe you can give them more chances.

 

btw, still waiting for you review of Syndicate

[Whut]

14 hours ago, Rufess said:

@Whut Fair enough. I think we play Seeker in a different way because of local meta and playstyle. I play them very cagey and in bubble. Most of my games they will get into position during turn 1/2 and stay there for the rest of the game. Hence the Lamp Marker is prefect for me. Mikhail and Emissary sitting at the center with a Lit Lamp Marker is just brutal.

While it is true that we have access to some great healing (Jedza, Mikhail, Emissary) and movement (Jedza, Surveyor), Lamplighters can move and heal a model in a single action. Beside of them I can only think of Jedza, Rough Rider, and Winston who can do it with a non built-in trigger (well, not a barrier to Winston though). That means they can move a model into a Chronicle aura and heal it to trigger that Chronicle. Damned, Austera and Sophie are usually staying away from the core bubble, with Unnatural Glow their Chronicle are more easy to pull off.

And it is the only active healing beside Jedza that can cast in a relatively long range. Healing 1 is not good but sometime it (plus the move) can save you a model, especially like Mikhail and Emissary who have Hard to Kill. If you don't mind to burning your deck, you can have both the Lamplighter and the model being healed use the [+] from the Lamp Marker to set up the opposite duel to avoid accuracy modifier in the healing flip.

And don't forget their utility outside of the Lamp Marker and Unnatural Glow. Their 2" melee range is always good to lock enemies from Interacting. And with the Shimmering Lights and their own Chronicle, they can hand out at most Distracted +2 to an enemy in a single use of Unnatural Glow, at the cost of healing that enemy for 1. Which may sometime change the game.

I am not saying they are way better than our Enforcers, aka Austera, Grave Goo and Tannenbaum. But, imho, those Enforcers are more situational and should hire based on matchup, while Lamplighter is more general and their tool is more close to the core mechanism of Seeker. Maybe you can give them more chances.

 

btw, still waiting for you review of Syndicate

I might give them another shot, yea!

And as a heads up, I believe I'll be releasing Syndicate in July when the Outcast model cards are finalized

[extremor]

I played my first game against zoraida yesterday. I used published models only so my list was: Jedza, Sophie,Mikhail, damned, austera, 3x lamplighter and effigy. 
 

we played symbols and I took spread them out and catch and release. Both schemes were very easy to do also my opponent managed to kill damned and austera. The lamplighter shined while using the „you’re coming with me“ trigger every turn. They survived some sillurid attacks and went on as if nothing happened and scored most of my 7vp. I placed one on each flank and one in the bubble (the one with catch). 
mikhail is awesome to engage zoraida as for „caught in the ring“ and the effigy spend his AP leading the way most of the time so other models could use their AP for better stuff than walking. 
 

i know this build ain’t good but it managed fine getting to know Jedza and until further models are released I will play 3 lamplighter to see what they can do. In a interact and scheme marker heavy pool like yesterday their mobility put their weight. 

[extremor]

second game with jedza- this time against molly.

I used the same list since we declared "brek the line" but due to terrain we decided to change to "turf war"... so my list was kind of crappy in this strat: Jedza, Sophie, Mikhail, damned, austera, 3x lamplighter and effigy. 

short summary: the damned killed the necrotic mashine and pinged the necromancy to death, austera and the lamplighters were always following up the molly crew so I felt like my opponent was one step ahead the whole game. he spread out perfectly and stayed away from my bubble. I made the mistake to also spread out after turn 3 to be able to score the strat but didn't manage well. 

we ended up 5:6. my opponent deserved the victory for his magnificent positioning. 

 

so:

-the damned once again was awesome. Leaping, punching, pinging, scoring... he can do it all. 

-austera didn't do much this game. should have gone after the necropunks but I made bad decisions this time. 

-mikhails Koshei is gerat. healing while damaging is realy strong!!! 

-lamplighters have performed worse than last time. archie was a good counter and I had to actively avoid him. so their area of control was very limited and they could not shine. I would not reccoment lamplighters in turf war.

- effigy is great in jedza. after turn 2 he was very buisy pushing stuff around to keep up with the opponents speed. that might have been a bad decision as well. maybe this time I should have given him the upgrade to grow.

 

a tough but very very fun game. afterwards my brain was fryed esp. the lamplighters gave me a headache this time. I love their playstyle even though they are tricky to play... 

[izikial]

Just orderd my jedza crew and some support.

How many ss pool do people like to run with her?

[extremor]

9 hours ago, izikial said:

Just orderd my jedza crew and some support.

How many ss pool do people like to run with her?

ATM 6ss to protect her against very Offensive opponents or a few less against scheme opponents...

[doorstander]

Have only played crew once against Kaeris. Great against the pyre markers, lost knowledge and plenty of wares kept the rest of my crew in the fight against her

[izikial]

Would someone be able to do a turn one walkthrough for jedza useong comman models. Just thinking things like, jedza, sophie, mikhal and emissary/effigy+ any othere super common models.

Placment, actions commonly taken, Things like that