Nexus: An NPE like no other

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

This is my worry, and one of the big reasons I've come around.

At this stage, it seems like Cadmus probably needs a nerf. But what do we do if there is no nerf in the next errata, and then Cadmus dominates for another year? If the crew actually is as powerful as it appears, tournament play is going to become "declare ES if you want to be competitive."

That said, I don't think we have fully explored it yet. Some issues to consider for whether a nerf is justified:

• At high level competitive play (vassal series), Cadmus seems to be dominating I think?
  • BUT this is played with funky rulesets - single masters, and 15 stone limits. So this isn't 'real' Malifaux. Not sure how much we can rely on the data.
• World class players have tried to take down Plaag's Cadmus and failed.
  • BUT they have a pretty specific meta/philosophy.
  • For example, every Plaag opponent I've seen so far has played a very aggressive game against Cadmus. Perhaps a slow-roll strategy has more potential? Or other strategies? Who knows.
• Detailed theorycrafting is coming up short.
  • There are tons of conversations with people coming up with ideas, and Cadmus having the tools to shut down those ideas very easily.
• Groupthink and self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing.
  • If people believe a crew is overpowered, they probably won't find a way to beat that crew and resign themselves to defeat.

So what we have here is a situation of uncertainty. Early signs are that Cadmus is overpowered and needs a nerf, but it isn't an ironclad case. However, there are basically two options:

• Nerf Cadmus in the upcoming errata
• Leave Cadmus un-nerfed in the upcoming errata.

The first option I think we all understand there is a lot of reluctance for. But consider the second option as well - what if Cadmus is as strong as people think and won't be nerfed for a year or more?

So what should they do? My opinion is give Cadmus a small nerf now (likely targeted at Archivist or Emissary) and see how it shakes out with a small nerf + people learning to fight the crew. Then a year from now, if Cadmus is still dominating, they can do a bigger nerf.

dont nerf cadmus-i become addicted to play it) very fun and easy)) for me, of course-dont care abt opponent))

[im_open_to_suggestions]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

This is my worry, and one of the big reasons I've come around.

At this stage, it seems like Cadmus probably needs a nerf. But what do we do if there is no nerf in the next errata, and then Cadmus dominates for another year? If the crew actually is as powerful as it appears, tournament play is going to become "declare ES if you want to be competitive."

That said, I don't think we have fully explored it yet. Some issues to consider for whether a nerf is justified:

• At high level competitive play (vassal series), Cadmus seems to be dominating I think?
  • BUT this is played with funky rulesets - single masters, and 15 stone limits. So this isn't 'real' Malifaux. Not sure how much we can rely on the data.
• World class players have tried to take down Plaag's Cadmus and failed.
  • BUT they have a pretty specific meta/philosophy.
  • For example, every Plaag opponent I've seen so far has played a very aggressive game against Cadmus. Perhaps a slow-roll strategy has more potential? Or other strategies? Who knows.
• Detailed theorycrafting is coming up short.
  • There are tons of conversations with people coming up with ideas, and Cadmus having the tools to shut down those ideas very easily.
• Groupthink and self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing.
  • If people believe a crew is overpowered, they probably won't find a way to beat that crew and resign themselves to defeat.

So what we have here is a situation of uncertainty. Early signs are that Cadmus is overpowered and needs a nerf, but it isn't an ironclad case. However, there are basically two options:

• Nerf Cadmus in the upcoming errata
• Leave Cadmus un-nerfed in the upcoming errata.

The first option I think we all understand there is a lot of reluctance for. But consider the second option as well - what if Cadmus is as strong as people think and won't be nerfed for a year or more?

So what should they do? My opinion is give Cadmus a small nerf now (likely targeted at Archivist or Emissary) and see how it shakes out with a small nerf + people learning to fight the crew. Then a year from now, if Cadmus is still dominating, they can do a bigger nerf.

I would be very surprised if Cadmus receive a nerf in the upcoming errata due to how recent the release is. With the world (hopefully) going to be allowing Table top games again soon there is going to be huge amount of players (of varying skill levels) taking up the challenge of playing both with and against Nexus.  

Another thing to consider are the potental changes to the overall game that GG21 might bring and how that might bring down Nexus or bring up other crews and playstyles. 6

[Maniacal_cackle]

Just now, im_open_to_suggestions said:

I would be very surprised if Cadmus receive a nerf in the upcoming errata due to how recent the release is. With the world (hopefully) going to be allowing Table top games again soon there is going to be huge amount of players (of varying skill levels) taking up the challenge of playing both with and against Nexus.  

Another thing to consider are the potental changes to the overall game that GG21 might bring and how that might bring down Nexus or bring up other crews and playstyles. 6

I agree it seems unlikely, but I'd argue it is potentially warranted here.

What is potentially going to be especially disastrous is if they nerf all the other top tier stuff and nothing is left to push back against Nexus.

[Kharnage]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

• • For example, every Plaag opponent I've seen so far has played a very aggressive game against Cadmus. Perhaps a slow-roll strategy has more potential? Or other strategies? Who knows.

I'm certainly all for believing that the sword that conquers the world is your own, but I think fast styles were chosen because letting Nexus get its own ball rolling is problematic. The longer the game goes, the worse Nexus becomes, both by number of bodies on the table (having all Eyes and Ears and Husks out and at full Health) and by board positioning to score. I think that's why the known-to-be-competent players chose aggressive, fast playstyles into Nexus. For the same reason that rushing Dreamer early is effective, rushing Nexus *should* be a good way to fight them. 

As for their success in "funky" rulesets, double masters I don't hold to be inherently stronger, and there's no two masters that I know of that come together and say "finally, the answer to Nexus". As for versatile limits negatively impacting Nexus's opponents, Nexus wishes it could hire at least 50% out of keyword, between Ngaataro, Emissary, and Cryptologist. Meredith and Archivist are auto-hires, Spelleaters are good, and everything else is either to taste (Creeper) or is going to be summoned anyway. While "adapting" your whole 50 SS with versatile and OOK picks sounds like a way to play into Nexus, actually applying that and making it work as of yet has not panned out.

The only way so far that reliably feels like a winning strategy into Nexus is to beat them at their own game; Outlasting Grindy murder balls that can dump at least 25-30 damage into a crew a turn. So... Lucid Dreamer (I did this round 2 of the tournament, and my opponent bowed out bottom of turn 2). Once you Lucid Dream your way into passing 90% of the "Or gain a parasite" duels while topdecking and Stitched Gamble your way into obscene damage for cost, suddenly Nexus struggles. But so does everyone else. The problem is once Dreamer is "addressed", Nexus comes out on top again. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

@Kharnage agree with most of those points, but just trying to give a balanced analysis. Everything tried so far screams that Nexus is overpowered. But just noting it isn't quite exhaustive yet.

[Kharnage]

28 minutes ago, im_open_to_suggestions said:

I would be very surprised if Cadmus receive a nerf in the upcoming errata due to how recent the release is. With the world (hopefully) going to be allowing Table top games again soon there is going to be huge amount of players (of varying skill levels) taking up the challenge of playing both with and against Nexus.  

 

So I also wanted to address the idea that real life games can surpass the games put out by Vassal play in terms of assessing a crew. I'm not actually sure this is the case. In the Before Time™, I would get one, possibly two games in on a Wednesday night into my slew of usual players, then head home and wait for at best monthly tournaments with 3 rounds. That's... 7-11 games a month? I knew some guys who got in a game once a month.
I get 5-6 games in an average week with Vassal (well, before a newborn). No proxying required, absolute measurements, no boards to set up and tear down, and the vassal community has, whether it wants to or not, a truly holistic view of how most people play Malifaux just because players all over the world play each other. While I am a diehard Texas meta rep, the Vassal Meta I would argue has the firmest handle of most things because it's so constant and cosmopolitan. Sure, some strong players from my neck of the woods don't like and don't play vassal, but I know how they play and what they like, and can bring that and talk about it when I match against my worldwide opponents.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also worth noting that it isn't like we can wait for perfect data for a nerf.

You could have a master play every other master 100 times, and it may not be a sufficiently big sample size because the game has thousands of potential pools.

[Adran]

12 hours ago, Kharnage said:

I'm certainly all for believing that the sword that conquers the world is your own, but I think fast styles were chosen because letting Nexus get its own ball rolling is problematic. The longer the game goes, the worse Nexus becomes, both by number of bodies on the table (having all Eyes and Ears and Husks out and at full Health) and by board positioning to score. I think that's why the known-to-be-competent players chose aggressive, fast playstyles into Nexus. For the same reason that rushing Dreamer early is effective, rushing Nexus *should* be a good way to fight them. 

I don't know that I agree with this. Nexus isn't adding power in the same way a crew like the dreamer is. I mean the husks are not bad models, but the most the crew can steamroller into is 3 husks and 5 eyes and ears.

And what does adding early pressure on to the crew do to stop this?  

Almost nothing. Cadmus can get the 3 eyes and ears on his turn with nothing more than 1 severe card, and still get 2 with only an 8. Meredith doesn't need cards to turn the eyes into a husk. Very few crews can destroy enough markers that they can stop this. Rushing dreamer uses up his good cards, uses up his supply of health, and can disrupt the lucid dreams, or at least cause the fight to happen before the deck is tipped in his favour.

Rushing Cadmus disrupts the Cadmus player how? Its probably not adding damage. It will use up some cards but probably not enough unless you attack with multiple things that turn.  It also puts your models at risk of parasites. Cadmus will probably still summon 3 eyes and replace one into a husk. 

What I tend to do is pick surgical strikes. If I can't destroy the core of the ball (which is hard if its well played) then I pick off models that leave the ball. You can't kill this crew by death of 1000 cuts, you need to do big killing blows. And most of the crew is vulnerable to a big beater turn. Killing the nests is not hard to do if they are away from the bubble, so they should probably be looked at early, and you probably want to have a big threat near the bubble that can Strike if the bubble moves too much. Build up your forces, get big hitters with focus close enough that they can cause problems with 2 big hits on their turn. 

It might also be I've only played with and against Cadmus at my house, where I have a lot of walls/buildings on the table, and build very few wide open spaces, which makes it hard to move the bubble very and remain safe. If the gaps on the table are less than 100mm, then it gets very hard to move models like the emissary through them whilst maintaining the bubble. 

 

As I say, I can't see Plaags Videos, so its possible that he has some style I haven't seen, which completely counters my counters, but his written answers to the things I have had work don't seem to be valid answers as to why they don't work. (he might be right, but I can't see what he means so I just have to assume he isn't)

Such as my last game when I got Pride within 6" of Meridith on turn 1 for his "no Cheating" sin aura, apparently that should kill Pride even though it was almost the last activation of turn 1, and the Archivist as the last remaining hitter couldn't do enough damage to pride to kill him in 1 activation, and I followed it up with a fast Mad dog as my last activation doing blast damage into the crew, and followed it up at the start of turn 2 by killing Meredith because she hadn't been able to heal enough damage in the 3 activations he got between my 2 goes of attacking, and she could only cheat at most every other attack against her because of the Sin tokens which makes it easy to get cheatable damage even when she has a full hand. Its certainly possible that Nexus made some bad plays, but I'm not sure what they were, it hadn't come far out of the deployment. The loss of Merediths healing and the ability to turn eyes to Husks largely neutered the ball and Nexus slowly fell apart. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, Adran said:

I don't know that I agree with this. Nexus isn't adding power in the same way a crew like the dreamer is. I mean the husks are not bad models, but the most the crew can steamroller into is 3 husks and 5 eyes and ears.

And what does adding early pressure on to the crew do to stop this?  

Almost nothing. Cadmus can get the 3 eyes and ears on his turn with nothing more than 1 severe card, and still get 2 with only an 8. Meredith doesn't need cards to turn the eyes into a husk. Very few crews can destroy enough markers that they can stop this. Rushing dreamer uses up his good cards, uses up his supply of health, and can disrupt the lucid dreams, or at least cause the fight to happen before the deck is tipped in his favour.

Rushing Cadmus disrupts the Cadmus player how? Its probably not adding damage. It will use up some cards but probably not enough unless you attack with multiple things that turn.  It also puts your models at risk of parasites. Cadmus will probably still summon 3 eyes and replace one into a husk. 

What I tend to do is pick surgical strikes. If I can't destroy the core of the ball (which is hard if its well played) then I pick off models that leave the ball. You can't kill this crew by death of 1000 cuts, you need to do big killing blows. And most of the crew is vulnerable to a big beater turn. Killing the nests is not hard to do if they are away from the bubble, so they should probably be looked at early, and you probably want to have a big threat near the bubble that can Strike if the bubble moves too much. Build up your forces, get big hitters with focus close enough that they can cause problems with 2 big hits on their turn.  

Some great points here! And in many ways Cadmus benefits a lot from being rushed. The sooner they have parasite tokens on you, the sooner they can concentrate on the rest of the game.

[Math Mathonwy]

I'm not sure I quite understand the advice above. It first says that Cadmus shouldn't be rushed but then gives an example of rushing Cadmus turn one with massive damage? I also don't understand how Cadmus wasn't able to get Meredith out of the Aura/block the Aura with the Nexus Activation at the end of the turn but I suppose there was some kind of a traffic jam there.

As for how I guess Plaag would handle a Pride+Mad Dog tag team attack on Meredith based on the videos - well, the Emissary kinda solves the problem completely unless I'm missing something and Flush with Cash on Meredith would also help a ton. I'm also guessing that getting Pride and Mad Dog to lay into Meredith in the first place wouldn't be trivial against Plaag but I suppose that depends a bit on the type of movement tricks employed.

Now, I do very much agree that killing Meredith is key but a good Nexus player probably knows this as well and killing a Henchman that doesn't want to get killed is always tricky - close to impossible with an Emissary next to her but very difficult even without if you play somewhat carefully.

Was your opponent familiar with Mad Dog? As I find him a somewhat unique model being that he shoots like Sonnia while being a Henchman. And if the opponent doesn't realize that, it's pretty easy to lose to Mad Dog.

Now, that said, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your post in that rushing Cadmus rarely accomplishes much against a good Cadmus player. I would be very interesting to hear if someone enjoys success against Cadmus by leaving them free to do their thing with the idea that three Husks and five E&Es isn't necessarily a game winning swing in the grand scheme of things.

If the Strat and Schemes allow for it, I think that avoiding Cadmus is the best bet. Zipp did tie Plaag in Symbols, after all. Of course that only works in very select pools but at the very least it would mean that the Explorers player would do well to learn one of the other Masters as well.

Finally, I wish to note that tables with a ton of buildings and narrow alleys absolutely destroys big based 0" reach models so if that's the key to beating Cadmus it might also kill Ulix completely...

[Adran]

 

57 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'm not sure I quite understand the advice above. It first says that Cadmus shouldn't be rushed but then gives an example of rushing Cadmus turn one with massive damage? I also don't understand how Cadmus wasn't able to get Meredith out of the Aura/block the Aura with the Nexus Activation at the end of the turn but I suppose there was some kind of a traffic jam there.

As for how I guess Plaag would handle a Pride+Mad Dog tag team attack on Meredith based on the videos - well, the Emissary kinda solves the problem completely unless I'm missing something and Flush with Cash on Meredith would also help a ton. I'm also guessing that getting Pride and Mad Dog to lay into Meredith in the first place wouldn't be trivial against Plaag but I suppose that depends a bit on the type of movement tricks employed.

Now, I do very much agree that killing Meredith is key but a good Nexus player probably knows this as well and killing a Henchman that doesn't want to get killed is always tricky - close to impossible with an Emissary next to her but very difficult even without if you play somewhat carefully.

Was your opponent familiar with Mad Dog? As I find him a somewhat unique model being that he shoots like Sonnia while being a Henchman. And if the opponent doesn't realize that, it's pretty easy to lose to Mad Dog.

I had the crew set up to be able to attack Nexus when I was ready to.

The opportunity arose at the end of turn 1, but if it hadn't I could have held back. Pride had effectively 20" threat of that aura (Walk 7 thanks to the emissary)and was deployed with the intent to use it. so unless meredith was back in her deployment zone, it was going to be hard for her to not be in the aura. Parker had got close to the bubble earlier on and badly hurt the nest, but Mad dog was about 11" from the edge of the bubble. 

I played the cadmus list with the effigy and the cryptologist, that was mentioned that Plaag used in one of the posts in this thread so I didn't have the take the hit to worry about. Not sure if it would have worked as well against the emissary. The Bubble was pretty crowded since it had a nest, 2 eyes, Meredith, the effigy, nexus, a spell eater and the Archivist all close together, and Nagatoro and the Cyrptologuist a bit behind. 

nexus had the flush with Cash upgrades on the spelleater and the Archivist, which is why I picked Meredith as the weak link that time. 

I played both sides, so Cadmus knew what a threat Mad dog could be, and in fact I originally held him back to force Cadmus to have to generate his own web markers as otherwise the blow it to hell action would remove any built up. 

Will of Cadmus could have disrupted Pride  (if I hadn't failed the attempt) by blocking the line of sight, but it was only eyes and ears in front of her at this point, with limited wounds, so it was likely that the LOS could be forced anyway. There wasn't a huge amount of space for the key players to move to. But in turn 1 it wasn't possible to block the aura before Mad dog got to activate, and that was where the bulk of the damage happened. 

I may have played the nexus set up badly, I don't know. I can't watch the videos, and plaag just says watch the videos.  I certainly prefer not having Naggatoro and the cryptologist when I would build cadmus myself, but I was trying it out to see what Plaag was talking about. There were lots of small gaps between figure to try and make sure Aura of courage and voice of the Society auras penetrate, which just meant it wasn't possible to move Meredith to hide her.  

If I were to play the game again I would certainly change up the Cadmus list. I like the Crawler, and I would have included the emissary with the threat of that sort of attack. I would probably also add flush onto Meredith, because I'm starting to think she is key. 

I find in the games I have played that the eyes and ears don't do very much. They tend to all appear in the same sort of area, and other than being wound soaks/healing sources I haven't got a huge amount of use. So I'd be more worried about the 3 husks, which is a nice amount of re-enforcement, but in general I try to kill the non replaceable parts of the list, and once some of those are gone, the crew starts to fall apart. 

I think that's about the 4th or 5th game I've had with Cadmus, and none of them have been games that make me say the keyword is broken. I might be missing something, but whilst I'd rate it as a tough keyword, its something that can be beaten. When the world opens up again and I can get out and face other people I might see something that shows why I'm wrong, but this thread doesn't show it to me at the moment

[Sagrit]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

When the world opens up again and I can get out and face other people I might see something that shows why I'm wrong, but this thread doesn't show it to me at the moment

With all my respect, Adran, i'm agree with all you mentioned except of this. This topic actually shows the problem  Karnage is right - Vassal open borders for all of us, so we can see whats going on outside our homeland meta. Lot of strong/average/noobie players all around the world can play with each other, with different playstyles, on different tables and with different scheme pools. And what we currently see, that ppl around the world frustrated by Cadmus. Some of them found summoning to be too strong, others don't really care about summoning, but feels upset about first/last activation control, others raging about tokens can't be removed e.t.c. The problem is not in some specific part of mechanics, but in combination of them in one crew.

I'm sorry, i don't know why you can't watch videos, but maybe we can fix it somehow? I mean it's 2021 now, it shouldn't be a big deal to watch video on YouTube... Is there some region restrictions? Maybe we can upload it to other source? Because it's actually shows  that Plaag is not doing any secret magic tricks, he's just playing as usual, making mistakes, having bad cards and so on. But it doesn't really affects the result - ppl keep loosing. So this is what most of us found to be a problem - it's just too much of everything in this crew, it forgives your mistakes, it allows you to do simple things with devastating effect for opponent. 

[Adran]

22 minutes ago, Sagrit said:

With all my respect, Adran, i'm agree with all you mentioned except of this. This topic actually shows the problem  Karnage is right - Vassal open borders for all of us, so we can see whats going on outside our homeland meta. Lot of strong/average/noobie players all around the world can play with each other, with different playstyles, on different tables and with different scheme pools. And what we currently see, that ppl around the world frustrated by Cadmus. Some of them found summoning to be too strong, others don't really care about summoning, but feels upset about first/last activation control, others raging about tokens can't be removed e.t.c. The problem is not in some specific part of mechanics, but in combination of them in one crew.

I'm sorry, i don't know why you can't watch videos, but maybe we can fix it somehow? I mean it's 2021 now, it shouldn't be a big deal to watch video on YouTube... Is there some region restrictions? Maybe we can upload it to other source? Because it's actually shows  that Plaag is not doing any secret magic tricks, he's just playing as usual, making mistakes, having bad cards and so on. But it doesn't really affects the result - ppl keep loosing. So this is what most of us found to be a problem - it's just too much of everything in this crew, it forgives your mistakes, it allows you to do simple things with devastating effect for opponent. 

I don't really have the hardware because my phone is old, and my computer is a work computer so I have restricted access to sites. I can read documents happily in small chunks as needed, but watching and listening to a video is not really possible. Also if I had 2+ hours free (not really possible at the moment in my life) I'd rather play a game than watch a video. 

Vassel play has seemed to increase hugely over the past year, but I still think only a small minority of players use it. It certainly allows the crossing of meta information, but its not universal. For some people it might have increased their Malifaux time, but there are a lot of people that don't use it and so until they face something on the actual tabletop they don't have much experience of it. 

I always expect New crews to do well in the first few months after release, because it is easier to learn to use something than it is to learn to beat something. 

I asked in my first post 

On 2/10/2021 at 9:06 AM, Adran said:

What is it about that list that is "broken"? Is it restricted to a set combination of abilities mixed together? Or is there something that regardless of what Cadmus uses will always make it feel broken? 

And I don't think it has been answered by anyone that has played the games, although there is possibly a few answers by people that have watched the videos. 

I personally think its the mix of the emissary (healing and take the hit), and Meredith (healing and summoning) and Flush with cash (keeping vital parts safe) that are really causing the problem if there is one, but I'm open to reading about what others think.

All I know is that my play experience doesn't agree with some other peoples play experience, but that's been true for about the past 10 years of my Malifaux playing, with the internet being quick to  cry "broken" and "useless" and my table top experience of the things not really backing that up. 

[Kharnage]

5 hours ago, Adran said:

And what does adding early pressure on to the crew do to stop this?  

 

 

5 hours ago, Adran said:

Such as my last game when I got Pride within 6" of Meridith on turn 1 for his "no Cheating" sin aura

Yeah, I have a couple thoughts on this. The contradiction of "what rush do" and "also it worked out great when Meredith died early" aside, I don't know why this would happen consistently. Not sure what deployment this was but Meredith being in range of getting blown to pieces by an 8 inch gunner seems a mistake on Cadmus's part to me. This would mean that Meredith got within what, 13 inches of the enemy deployment turn 1? With the knowledge that there's a Mad Dog on the table, unactivated? Additionally, having a fast min 3 run-and-gunner with blasts is the preemo Outcast privilege pick into a Nexus who failed to take Emissary, and being able to dump that much damage down range, especially on the boards you just mentioned, seems like a huge chore for most factions, assuming you even have someone that can (All my Neverborn themed dudes with guns minus Hayreddin blow chunks as far as I am concerned, though some swear by Angel Eyes) 

The point of rushing a Cadmus is to present a threat to Meredith and the Eyes and Ears early, to trip up Husk production. You can't stop Nexus getting out three web markers on her activation to summon, but you can theoretically kill the Eyes and Ears or Kill/Move/Drag Meredith out of range. If you don't turn 1, a Cryptologist equipped Nexus will have two husks out. And frankly, gearing up the next Husk to run into your crew and throw mask triggered Swarms of Mites and no-suit-needed Down to the Last Drops is most of what Nexus presents to get your dudes tokened. Nests are great, but an end-of-turn-2 token explosion is what I find ends most hope of beating them.  

I also in general just, distrust chess matching against oneself as a method of demonstration. I certainly wouldn't provide it as a telling counterpoint to games played by top ranked players on a world stage.  I get that you're working with what you have available to you, but obviously if you're looking for a problem with a playstyle that you don't see to start, neither player in that match seems likely to play in a way that presents that problem.

5 minutes ago, Adran said:

All I know is that my play experience doesn't agree with some other peoples play experience, but that's been true for about the past 10 years of my Malifaux playing, with the internet being quick to  cry "broken" and "useless" and my table top experience of the things not really backing that up.

I too have been part of the group distrustful of the next wave of "Broken" cries. It's important to have skeptics for everything, and I usually enjoy that role. I also have played a lot into crews and models that subsequently received or are going to receive nerfs. And for what the bar is for broken, Nexus is just beyond that point. 
 

[Plaag]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

I don't really have the hardware because my phone is old, and my computer is a work computer so I have restricted access to sites. I can read documents happily in small chunks as needed, but watching and listening to a video is not really possible. Also if I had 2+ hours free (not really possible at the moment in my life) I'd rather play a game than watch a video. 

Vassel play has seemed to increase hugely over the past year, but I still think only a small minority of players use it. It certainly allows the crossing of meta information, but its not universal. For some people it might have increased their Malifaux time, but there are a lot of people that don't use it and so until they face something on the actual tabletop they don't have much experience of it. 

I always expect New crews to do well in the first few months after release, because it is easier to learn to use something than it is to learn to beat something. 

I asked in my first post 

And I don't think it has been answered by anyone that has played the games, although there is possibly a few answers by people that have watched the videos. 

I personally think its the mix of the emissary (healing and take the hit), and Meredith (healing and summoning) and Flush with cash (keeping vital parts safe) that are really causing the problem if there is one, but I'm open to reading about what others think.

All I know is that my play experience doesn't agree with some other peoples play experience, but that's been true for about the past 10 years of my Malifaux playing, with the internet being quick to  cry "broken" and "useless" and my table top experience of the things not really backing that up. 

ill tell u as secret-all crews in malifaux are combinations of abilities, but cadmus and most explorers have not balanced abilities, so even if u will fix one-it will not change the result of games-the closest example is dreamer-only nerf of combination of skills and actions will balance this master

[Alcathous]

46 minutes ago, Plaag said:

ill tell u as secret-all crews in malifaux are combinations of abilities, but cadmus and most explorers have not balanced abilities, so even if u will fix one-it will not change the result of games-the closest example is dreamer-only nerf of combination of skills and actions will balance this master

You're mostly right, but there is a balance that can be reached where certain abilities can be exceptionally strong in a vacuum but counter-play exists that negates the ability's strength. 

So, in the example of Dreamer: Lucid Dreams is inherently powerful and that's fine, but the apparent counter of pressuring Dreamer early doesn't consistantly work because his Lucid Dream models are too resilient and are still strong even without a hot deck. Taking down the survivability of some key models would make Lucid Dreams fall in line.

For Cadmus: There's more going on here and I think it is closer to the point @Plaag is making that multiple nerfs are needed. The EE/Husk engine wants to be countered by surgical strikes, but WaL/Flush/Emmy make that hard to pull off consistently. WaL wants to be countered by blasts/aoe, but that's creating tension with the need to kill specific models in the crew, and is made hard to do consistently because of the shielding and healing coming in from Meridith and Emmy/Effy. That's not even touching the surprising mobility and card draw the crew has at it's disposal.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I think if you're going surgical strike against Plaag's Cadmus, the most likely targets are nests (because they're out in front) or Emissary (because you can't hit anything else in the bubble).

Emissary is pretty hard to surgically strike without losing important pieces, though. Summoners can do it in some cases (Kirai?) Molly can maybe pull it off if the Dead Rider can Reap it (requires a pathway, and winning a duel stat 6 vs 7, and the rider dies if it fails). Molly can also pull it off if she sacrifices herself to damage the emissary, and it may just get healed right back up. Reva, I'm not sure how she kills the Emissary other than hitting it for 6 damage for 3 turns in a row, which seems... inefficient. Leveticus can probably pull it off, but then loses one of his lives in exchange (and keeps the parasite token after).

[Maniacal_cackle]

From Discord, the Von Schtook player:

Quote

literally swap those points in for another viscera and a undergrad or even two undergrads + 2 stones would have likely pushed the game into my favor.

The thing with this specific style of cadmus if you HAVE to pressure it's wounds. They have a ridiculous amount of healing so you need to apply a large amount of pressure to single models

So in their opinion at least, the loss seems to have been something they had control over.

[im_open_to_suggestions]

57 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think if you're going surgical strike against Plaag's Cadmus, the most likely targets are nests (because they're out in front) or Emissary (because you can't hit anything else in the bubble).

Emissary is pretty hard to surgically strike without losing important pieces, though. Summoners can do it in some cases (Kirai?) Molly can maybe pull it off if the Dead Rider can Reap it (requires a pathway, and winning a duel stat 6 vs 7, and the rider dies if it fails). Molly can also pull it off if she sacrifices herself to damage the emissary, and it may just get healed right back up. Reva, I'm not sure how she kills the Emissary other than hitting it for 6 damage for 3 turns in a row, which seems... inefficient. Leveticus can probably pull it off, but then loses one of his lives in exchange (and keeps the parasite token after).

from all the theory faux and reviews i feel that Lures could be a strong tool to pull out and then gangup on on key pieces. 

I agree that the slow roll or keep away approach seems to have more potential of being successful, im also curious if anyone has attempted to just ignore them and try and score points without getting too close. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

7 minutes ago, im_open_to_suggestions said:

from all the theory faux and reviews i feel that Lures could be a strong tool to pull out and then gangup on on key pieces. 

I agree that the slow roll or keep away approach seems to have more potential of being successful, im also curious if anyone has attempted to just ignore them and try and score points without getting too close. 

Lures potentially seem like a great idea!

Although note that they also can be awkward - Kharnage tried bring it, and it just ended up moving the Emissary in awkward ways that didn't accomplish much. Nests are also hard to lure since they only move 3 inches.

Still, would love to try a triple Belle Seamus list against Cadmus xD

[im_open_to_suggestions]

1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Lures potentially seem like a great idea!

Although note that they also can be awkward - Kharnage tried bring it, and it just ended up moving the Emissary in awkward ways that didn't accomplish much. Nests are also hard to lure since they only move 3 inches.

Still, would love to try a triple Belle Seamus list against Cadmus xD

Was looking at the potential use of "Bring it" for the additional movement. I feel that altering the positioning of the models even by a little bit could  have a positive effect.   Even moving the emissary out of the position to "take the hit" on a key model could make a big difference.  

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, im_open_to_suggestions said:

Was looking at the potential use of "Bring it" for the additional movement. I feel that altering the positioning of the models even by a little bit could  have a positive effect.   Even moving the emissary out of the position to "take the hit" on a key model could make a big difference.  

yes, but you have to get in range of the emissary -if you use it on any other model, the emissary can position between two models and move 0 inches for lure a lot of the time.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Not necessarily OP, but why does Nexus get to boost range through models within 12" (ignoring LOS)?

Forcing awkward LOS is great counterplay, but Nexus gets to just ignore it for that ability which covers over 1/3 of the board (not counting the range of Nexus' actual abilities).

[Plaag]

6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Not necessarily OP, but why does Nexus get to boost range through models within 12" (ignoring LOS)?

Forcing awkward LOS is great counterplay, but Nexus gets to just ignore it for that ability which covers over 1/3 of the board (not counting the range of Nexus' actual abilities).

wyrd nerfed zoraida, but gave nexus almost the same ability without los))

[Maniacal_cackle]

Well, Seeker is an interesting counter to Cadmus, watching one of the top tables for this month's series. All the chronicle auras are really an issue for Cadmus. And Mikhail can stop Nexus from targeting anyone else with Will of Cadmus negating last activation xD