Nexus: An NPE like no other

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, santaclaws01 said:

Despite running treasure map on my last few games I still somehow forgot about that marker removal.

 

And the botanist with the corrosive touch trigger.

as i forget abt agenda all game long)

[Maniacal_cackle]

29 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Despite running treasure map on my last few games I still somehow forgot about that marker removal.

It is because ES have too much tech to remember it all.

Which is fine a lot of the time, but for crews with a strong baseline it is really noticeable.

[Paddywhack]

Would making there be some way to remove Parasite Tokens help at all? Even if it costs a couple health or something? Or is it just too easy to get more parasite tokens out there? 

For Insignificant models interacting, I assume you mean Will of Cadmus with a Crow? Or am I missing yet another trick of theirs? 

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, Paddywhack said:

Would making there be some way to remove Parasite Tokens help at all? Even if it costs a couple health or something? Or is it just too easy to get more parasite tokens out there? 

I don't like this solution, just because it is the nature of tokens they can't be removed. If you could just remove the tokens, cadmus might swing to too weak.

1 hour ago, Paddywhack said:

For Insignificant models interacting, I assume you mean Will of Cadmus with a Crow? Or am I missing yet another trick of theirs? 

Yeah, Will of Cadmus with Crows!

[Paddywhack]

7 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I don't like this solution, just because it is the nature of tokens they can't be removed. If you could just remove the tokens, cadmus might swing to too weak.

1 hour ago, Paddywhack said:

Depends on how you can remove them. You can remove Distracted with Assist, but most people find Assist to be a waste of an Action (so I've read for competitive play anyway). It does boil down to Slowing one model to remove a condition. It sure sounds like Cadmus is way too oppressive to play against and just not fun. Even for very good players. That seems like a problem for the game in the long run. Imagine a new player going up against Cadmus and just saying 'forget it'. I know I had similar issues getting into Malifaux during 1st Edition coming on here and reading some of the broken interactions. Thankfully I came back for 1.5 and have enjoyed the game since, but many other players might not. 

[Math Mathonwy]

I think that the main problems are the Summoning, Flush with Cash, We Are Legion, Archivist, the Totems, and the guaranteed last Activation.

1. Cadmus has one of if not the best Summoning games in all of Malifaux. Eyes and Ears are absolutely prime Summons and then they turn into Husks which are also good. Positioning is a big big thing in Faux and Lure is, though not the omnipotent force it was in M2e, still massively strong. It also means that even though you lose AP for doing the Summoning, the Lures can be used to position your models thus negating the loss of AP. The TN is a bit high, thankfully, but Cadmus draws cards super well (naturally, since it's a summoning crew and those seem to always be paired up with superb card draw in this game for some strange reason).
2. Flush with Cash and Meredith means that those Eyes and Ears also provide cards and SS when they die. Which is bonkers. It's basically an Upgrade that instead of costing SS gives you SS due to the way the crew works. Also naturally protects the key pieces.
3. We Are Legion couples with passive (and active) healing and Shielded soaks up absolutely massive amounts of damage. It's completely crazy if you count up how much damage needs to be done to the crew before anything of consequence can be threatened. Blasts and Shockwaves are often the counter to bubble crews but they don't work at all against Cadmus. The only way to threaten them is with massive single attacks - which are countered through an Upgrade. I truly feel that if the crew is allowed to bubble up due to Strat and Schemes and the player has even some skill, this is the closest to unbeatable we have gotten in the history of Malifaux. I'm guessing that the only thing that could challenge it for the spot is the 50-model Nico list from M1e which was dealt with in the first errata... 
4. Archivist is completely crazy. Why does it have Ill Omes +2?? To make sure that the crew has both the first and the last activation each round? Which is completely stupid powerful. And then the rest of the kit while being a massively powerful ranged attacker. Was this thing tested at all?
5. The Totems. What on earth? After making a hideously powerful Master with five AP and superb Summoning you give it absolutely insanely good Totem and then just to mess with us make it two? 2" Melee, 8 Wds, HtW, and a solid Defense of 5. And a built-in Heal Trigger for their Attack. And From the Shadows? And there's two of those? How? Why?
6. Finally, guaranteed Last Activation is just crazy. And why is there an After Resolving Push Trigger in Will? Just to make sure that it's impossible to score anything that requires positioning if you have a Parasite Token?

[Maniacal_cackle]

52 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I think that the main problems are the Summoning, Flush with Cash, We Are Legion, Archivist, the Totems, and the guaranteed last Activation.

1. We Are Legion couples with passive (and active) healing and Shielded soaks up absolutely massive amounts of damage. It's completely crazy if you count up how much damage needs to be done to the crew before anything of consequence can be threatened. Blasts and Shockwaves are often the counter to bubble crews but they don't work at all against Cadmus. The only way to threaten them is with massive single attacks - which are countered through an Upgrade. I truly feel that if the crew is allowed to bubble up due to Strat and Schemes and the player has even some skill, this is the closest to unbeatable we have gotten in the history of Malifaux. I'm guessing that the only thing that could challenge it for the spot is the 50-model Nico list from M1e which was dealt with in the first errata... 

Yeah, I didn't really click how much damage you have to do to the crew to have an impact. It is conceivable you could do 10 aoe damage and it'd end up a few models take one damage and the rest gets eaten by shielded.

We are legion should be irreducible.

54 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

 

1. Archivist is completely crazy. Why does it have Ill Omes +2?? To make sure that the crew has both the first and the last activation each round? Which is completely stupid powerful. And then the rest of the kit while being a massively powerful ranged attacker. Was this thing tested at all?

Archivist seems pretty insane. I think it was quickly identified as one of the best OOK options in the faction, so yeah, it does seem odd concerns raised during playtesting didn't result in changes.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I think that the main problems are the Summoning, Flush with Cash, We Are Legion, Archivist, the Totems, and the guaranteed last Activation.

1. Cadmus has one of if not the best Summoning games in all of Malifaux. Eyes and Ears are absolutely prime Summons and then they turn into Husks which are also good. Positioning is a big big thing in Faux and Lure is, though not the omnipotent force it was in M2e, still massively strong. It also means that even though you lose AP for doing the Summoning, the Lures can be used to position your models thus negating the loss of AP. The TN is a bit high, thankfully, but Cadmus draws cards super well (naturally, since it's a summoning crew and those seem to always be paired up with superb card draw in this game for some strange reason).
2. Flush with Cash and Meredith means that those Eyes and Ears also provide cards and SS when they die. Which is bonkers. It's basically an Upgrade that instead of costing SS gives you SS due to the way the crew works. Also naturally protects the key pieces.
3. We Are Legion couples with passive (and active) healing and Shielded soaks up absolutely massive amounts of damage. It's completely crazy if you count up how much damage needs to be done to the crew before anything of consequence can be threatened. Blasts and Shockwaves are often the counter to bubble crews but they don't work at all against Cadmus. The only way to threaten them is with massive single attacks - which are countered through an Upgrade. I truly feel that if the crew is allowed to bubble up due to Strat and Schemes and the player has even some skill, this is the closest to unbeatable we have gotten in the history of Malifaux. I'm guessing that the only thing that could challenge it for the spot is the 50-model Nico list from M1e which was dealt with in the first errata... 
4. Archivist is completely crazy. Why does it have Ill Omes +2?? To make sure that the crew has both the first and the last activation each round? Which is completely stupid powerful. And then the rest of the kit while being a massively powerful ranged attacker. Was this thing tested at all?
5. The Totems. What on earth? After making a hideously powerful Master with five AP and superb Summoning you give it absolutely insanely good Totem and then just to mess with us make it two? 2" Melee, 8 Wds, HtW, and a solid Defense of 5. And a built-in Heal Trigger for their Attack. And From the Shadows? And there's two of those? How? Why?
6. Finally, guaranteed Last Activation is just crazy. And why is there an After Resolving Push Trigger in Will? Just to make sure that it's impossible to score anything that requires positioning if you have a Parasite Token?

Mostly agree, but I think most people would include Emissary in the list of problems with the crew (which you kinda did by talking about shielded, but not explicitly).

[Math Mathonwy]

Just now, Maniacal_cackle said:

Mostly agree, but I think most people would include Emissary in the list of problems with the crew (which you kinda did by talking about shielded, but not explicitly).

Yeah, I started with four points but it grew to six while writing and I left out tons of stuff even still  For example, how the crew has answers to most defensive techs between Husks shutting off Triggers, Archivist disabling HtK and Demise, and the general nature of the ping damage from Parasites... And indeed the Emissary making the bubble truly unassailable.

[trikk]

I think the heal from Emissary's bonus and shielded combine with WaL is what makes it obnoxious. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

6 minutes ago, trikk said:

I think the heal from Emissary's bonus and shielded combine with WaL is what makes it obnoxious. 

And then Meredith's heal on top of that!

If you don't plan your damage correctly, you could easily do 10+ damage and have it negated!

Granted, that by itself isn't broken, but it is quite something alongside everything else...

[LexLock]

The thing about pointing out problems in playtesting is that there will always be defenders of the status quo regardless of how over/underpowered a model/upgrade is, so you need to get enough of a consensus to drown out the people who think that everything is balanced by default.

It's harder to convince people to make changes than it is to keep things the same and even during a playtest people are very cautious about questioning balance and tend to assume that whatever is released must be at its intended power level already.

[trikk]

4 minutes ago, LexLock said:

The thing about pointing out problems in playtesting is that there will always be defenders of the status quo regardless of how over/underpowered a model/upgrade is, so you need to get enough of a consensus to drown out the people who think that everything is balanced by default.

It's harder to convince people to make changes than it is to keep things the same and even during a playtest people are very cautious about questioning balance and tend to assume that whatever is released must be at its intended power level already.

I disagree. There was a lot of complaints of the Emissary and Archivist during the beta and the defenders we're either non-existants or in a very big minority  

[im_open_to_suggestions]

I would personally love to take Basse into them.  The right board and i think they would be laughing. 

[Plaag]

6 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I think that the main problems are the Summoning, Flush with Cash, We Are Legion, Archivist, the Totems, and the guaranteed last Activation.

1. Cadmus has one of if not the best Summoning games in all of Malifaux. Eyes and Ears are absolutely prime Summons and then they turn into Husks which are also good. Positioning is a big big thing in Faux and Lure is, though not the omnipotent force it was in M2e, still massively strong. It also means that even though you lose AP for doing the Summoning, the Lures can be used to position your models thus negating the loss of AP. The TN is a bit high, thankfully, but Cadmus draws cards super well (naturally, since it's a summoning crew and those seem to always be paired up with superb card draw in this game for some strange reason).
2. Flush with Cash and Meredith means that those Eyes and Ears also provide cards and SS when they die. Which is bonkers. It's basically an Upgrade that instead of costing SS gives you SS due to the way the crew works. Also naturally protects the key pieces.
3. We Are Legion couples with passive (and active) healing and Shielded soaks up absolutely massive amounts of damage. It's completely crazy if you count up how much damage needs to be done to the crew before anything of consequence can be threatened. Blasts and Shockwaves are often the counter to bubble crews but they don't work at all against Cadmus. The only way to threaten them is with massive single attacks - which are countered through an Upgrade. I truly feel that if the crew is allowed to bubble up due to Strat and Schemes and the player has even some skill, this is the closest to unbeatable we have gotten in the history of Malifaux. I'm guessing that the only thing that could challenge it for the spot is the 50-model Nico list from M1e which was dealt with in the first errata... 
4. Archivist is completely crazy. Why does it have Ill Omes +2?? To make sure that the crew has both the first and the last activation each round? Which is completely stupid powerful. And then the rest of the kit while being a massively powerful ranged attacker. Was this thing tested at all?
5. The Totems. What on earth? After making a hideously powerful Master with five AP and superb Summoning you give it absolutely insanely good Totem and then just to mess with us make it two? 2" Melee, 8 Wds, HtW, and a solid Defense of 5. And a built-in Heal Trigger for their Attack. And From the Shadows? And there's two of those? How? Why?
6. Finally, guaranteed Last Activation is just crazy. And why is there an After Resolving Push Trigger in Will? Just to make sure that it's impossible to score anything that requires positioning if you have a Parasite Token?

because of playtesters, i think)

[Plaag]

5 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Yeah, I didn't really click how much damage you have to do to the crew to have an impact. It is conceivable you could do 10 aoe damage and it'd end up a few models take one damage and the rest gets eaten by shielded.

We are legion should be irreducible.

Archivist seems pretty insane. I think it was quickly identified as one of the best OOK options in the faction, so yeah, it does seem odd concerns raised during playtesting didn't result in changes.

irreducible to throw it to an enemy?))

[Adran]

27 minutes ago, Plaag said:

irreducible to throw it to an enemy?))

I think to stop it being reduced by shielding, although this would mean there was no longer any reason to "chain" damage past the first "we are legion". 

[Plaag]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

I think to stop it being reduced by shielding, although this would mean there was no longer any reason to "chain" damage past the first "we are legion". 

you choose what ability or condition works first fo reduction; as i remember only ss comes at the end

[Maniacal_cackle]

Edit: never mind xD

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 hours ago, Plaag said:

irreducible to throw it to an enemy?))

It is already close to irreducible for enemies, since most things can't reduce damage to 0 or don't apply to abilities. It is mainly shielded and soulstones. It ignores armor, incorporeal, etc.

[Paddywhack]

On 2/23/2021 at 1:47 AM, Math Mathonwy said:

• The Totems. What on earth? After making a hideously powerful Master with five AP and superb Summoning you give it absolutely insanely good Totem and then just to mess with us make it two? 2" Melee, 8 Wds, HtW, and a solid Defense of 5. And a built-in Heal Trigger for their Attack. And From the Shadows? And there's two of those? How? Why?
• Finally, guaranteed Last Activation is just crazy. And why is there an After Resolving Push Trigger in Will? Just to make sure that it's impossible to score anything that requires positioning if you have a Parasite Token?

The totems are ridiculous. Who else has 16wnds, 4 action, totem with average df (should at least be 4), and from the shadows? They are crazy for a free model. 

Last activation (and first often with the Archvist) is also just bad play. It leaves no room for your opponent as no matter how he sets up, you are guaranteed another activation to stop it. If Cadmus didn't have this ability at all, they would still be ultra strong. You could literally play without it and they would still be near unbeatable. 

[ShinChan]

6 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

The totems are ridiculous. Who else has 16wnds, 4 action, totem with average df (should at least be 4), and from the shadows? They are crazy for a free model.

And you're missing HtW lol

6 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Last activation (and first often with the Archvist) is also just bad play. It leaves no room for your opponent as no matter how he sets up, you are guaranteed another activation to stop it. If Cadmus didn't have this ability at all, they would still be ultra strong. You could literally play without it and they would still be near unbeatable. 

Last activation is guaranteed most of the time, either for the amount of summons or for the Will of Cadmus. However, first activation in turns 2-3-4 is not even close to be guaranteed due to the amount of pass tokens. Don't misunderstand me, that Ill Omens +2 is broken, but where it truly shines is when Archivist is picked OOK.

[Paddywhack]

2 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

Last activation is guaranteed most of the time

It is guaranteed all the time with Will of Cadmus. Can't even kill Nexus to get rid of the upgrade as it just passes to the another model. 

[Math Mathonwy]

35 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

And you're missing HtW lol

Last activation is guaranteed most of the time, either for the amount of summons or for the Will of Cadmus. However, first activation in turns 2-3-4 is not even close to be guaranteed due to the amount of pass tokens. Don't misunderstand me, that Ill Omens +2 is broken, but where it truly shines is when Archivist is picked OOK.

But if you save the Pass Tokens for initiative it means that Cadmus will have several activations at the end of the turn where you cannot respond and since there's a lot of Lures and stuff it means that they might draw a unit into the bubble and do horrible things to it.

[Strangedane]

Just came back to malifaux after a long hiatus, wanted to start the spider lady simply due to the art work - but it sounds like it won't be even a little bit fun for my opponent to play against? We both play just for fun, but seems like I should steer clear of this crew, or what? 

Are there any upcoming erratas planned, which might adjust the keyword that we know about?