WE Neverborn do not MARCh, we charge (vassal march tournament discussion)

[SEV]

Last thing. I played 3 games of R1. Winning one with Dora against @Filox with Dashel and loosing 2 with Dreamer (the other one was against @Insomniakwulf with Seamus). So obviously the main take away is play Dora over Dreamer 😋.

[Alcathous]

8 minutes ago, SEV said:

Last thing. I played 3 games of R1. Winning one with Dora against @Filox with Dashel and loosing 2 with Dreamer (the other one was against @Insomniakwulf with Seamus). So obviously the main take away is play Dora over Dreamer 😋.

I'm definitely guilty of not giving Pandora enough credit in Symbols. Especially in the square deployments she can really make scoring for the enemy tough. Taking her into assassinate pools always feels risky, but that's probably just the Neverborn curse. We score it, we give it up.

[Kharnage]

5 hours ago, SEV said:

4) Go for the points! This is a Malifaux Mantra and even though I'm aware of it, it's easy to get tunel vision or sidetracked from your main goal during the game. As ShinShan said, I should have go far from the fight with Hinamatsu, getting the symbols on the top of the map (+1 points because on T3 I wasn't able to score symbol anyway) and probably help with my scheme (+1/2 points from Breakthrough/Research). I almost did it, than backmoved being afraid to removed my 9ss beater from the conflict and having my position crumble... And yes she helped there, but that didn't worth those 2 or even 3 points that she could have score almost unopposed.

 

Honestly I can say I breathed a sigh of relief when Hinamatsu went for the middle; I had no plan to stop you from scoring over there, and I wanted to take advantage of the only stone user without a Terrifying duel to steal stones from. That being said, her tying up Fuhatsu did cause some problems for me, and Fuhatsu otherwise would have had some fairly clear shots into Dreamer. 
I can also say with confidence that I made some mistakes, but only in retrospect. I set up Desper to break the Web Marker, leap, and score the strategy, but cheated my cards 7+ earlier in the turn, and was afraid of failing the topdeck. That's why I attempted to charge him up the board with Misaki (hoping to flip more cards at it, just topdecked the 8+ then instead of the 7+ later), so he could walk and interact for sure. That ended up giving you points, and put the Bandersnatch in a position that mattered for the rest of the game. I also regret not being able to go for the Daydreams earlier in the game on account of my inefficient Shadow marker placement, and not being able to heal Ototo because he was too far from the monk, instead just healing Fuhatsu at full for focus. 
My Play of the Game definitely goes to the Katashiro slicing up Serena though, that was nuts. 8 Health pre-demise to 3 health post-demise, so 13 damage in a single activation, seems like a lot of power for a 5 stone summonable model, even if it costs him his life. 
Great game, and I hope to play more!
 

[Roadhouse]

On 3/3/2021 at 10:37 AM, Alcathous said:

I don't think Luci wins the matchup by out-fighting Schtook's crew. If you are trying to win in combat, then you definitely need multiple beaters. @Roadhouse has a double mature list that might be able to tango. 

Honestly, the matchup sounds incredibly hard and I don't have an answer.

I've actually thought about the list vs Schtook and I honestly don't hate it. Val doesn't wont have a ton of great targets to alpha becuase by the time she activates you've handed out a bunch of Sheilded and sculpted your hand. She doesn't want to go after the Matures because she can't cheat to hit, for the Lawyers she'd end up needing to stone for pluses, after the first attack, to get past Intimidating Authority. You'd really need to be mindful of the Scribe's aura to make her discard to cheat and obviously positioning is going to be *extremely* important to limit Val to a Walk, Walk, Charge so she'll only get 2 swings. Cheat to hit, cheat damage, discard for Flurry, leaves him on 2 cards assuming he drew off Studied Opponent and he came in on 6 cards (unlikely), if he's only got 1 left at this point he can't even cheat to hit his Flurry attack and if he doesn't stone for a plus you put him on a neg and your lawyer lives on 2. 

Problem comes next turn you can't really punish Val. Best I can think of would be use Lucius to have the Lawyer give her Slow, then make her disengage via Obey through the second Lawyer, then have a Mature charge her and block LoS to the injured Lawyer. With only 1 AP and needing to On Your Heels to get in to attack the Mature, which won't work if she has to cheat due to Scamper from IR, then if she gets there she doesn't get to cheat to hit and if she cheats damage you just Scamper away.

If you lose init T2 then the Lawyer turns into an Undergrad and you probably lose.

Outside the Val bomb, Lovelace is a PITA for the Matures, IR Matures can actually kill Necropunks due to the Blade Rush ping and min 3, and I have no idea what happens if the Schtook player decides to be cagey. Basically you have to not make any mistakes and capitalize on all of your opponents because there is a very apparent power gap in the Keywords.

[Maniacal_cackle]

For Valedictorian, also don't forget that she only has a 1" engagement range.

Neverborn lives and dies based on their 2" engagement ranges, so if you're playing a crew with access to those, make sure to abuse them.

[Roadhouse]

Yea, a Slow Val engaged at 2" can't get at an IR Mature unless she naturally flips a mask too high for the Mature to cheat above(could also stone for a mask and cross fingers for a severe)

[ooshawn]

Learned some new things, and I'll feeling pretty good about round two

[santaclaws01]

First game ended in a 5-6 loss, then we both realized at the end of the game that the Shadow Emissary should've dropped a corpse, which would have drastically changed things and might have meant I could've pulled off a 7-6 win, but we decided on a 6-6 tie.

Turn 1 I killed a torakage thanks to RJ intuition and brought another one down to 2 health. That one got killed at the end of the turn by Serena.

Turn 2 the damned took out the 3rd torakage but was taken out in turn by a combination of the dawn serpent, Minako, and burning +5. One of his 2 Katashiro he summoned grabbed a marker and got taken out in turn by a RJ damage flip from the PM. Misaki spent her entire activation trying to kill my incorped Gigant, but failed. Euri grabs a marker and drops some pillars, serena scores CJ and his other Katashiro went to the top to score breakthrough.

 

Turn 3 Shang attacks Euri, who then goes and grabs a symbol and charges back to kill Shang. Misaki and the Emissary retaliate by brining him down to HtK, Serena heals him back up to 6. His Katashiro grabs a symbol and continues working on breakthrough. Minako runs into the center, Geryon hits the Emissary and heaves it back into the center.

Turn 4 Serena heals Euri back up to 10, then charges the emissary getting a RJ damage flip, brining it down to HtK. Emissary heals itself and Minako, walks and attacks Euri, brining him down to 6. Euri runs towards the bottom and gets rid of a shadow marker so that Misaki can't go on him. Misaki jumps out in my backline, grabs a symbol and then tries to kill the Gigant again, fails. Gigant engages Minako, who also tries to kill him and fails. PM uses sheer cold twice to just kill the Emissary, because who needs interactivity. Dawn Serpent finally brings down the Gigant. Geryon, instead of going down to score research mission since there was a secret corpse, charges and attacks Minako to try and heave her into his half of the table, instead deals severe damage on a negative flip just killing her outright.

Turn 5 the dawn serpent killed my changeling and PM with breath of fire, then attack the geryon with it. Geryon charges to cover a shadow marker and attack the dawn serpent which whiffs. Walks back to the center and removes the other shadow marker near the center, heals the geryon back to 7 and clears its burning(the one turn all game I don't have a mask in hand to guarantee swift action), so now Misaki only has 1 activation to bring Serena down below half.


Overall, katashiro are bullshit and my flips were bullshit(for me for the most part). Had a couple areas that I made definite misplays(not dropping an earlier ice pillar close enough to a symbol for Euri to jump to it in the future). Should've waited with the damned a little longer, or just been more aggressive with it turn 1 and taken the hit from the dawn serpent in exchange for picking up the one symbol I never did. Would've liked to shattering surprise the geryon forward, but I just never had a tome in hand to do it when the opportunity presented itself, and the only pillar that was there is what kept the Gigant alive so long, so it was probably for the best.

[SEV]

So how does you round 2 look like?

I'm playing against Arc Hoffman with Dora. 

I just need a way to deal with Joss and I should be fine, right 😉?

[Maniacal_cackle]

16 minutes ago, SEV said:

So how does you round 2 look like?

I'm playing against Arc Hoffman with Dora. 

I just need a way to deal with Joss and I should be fine, right 😉?

Since Joss is ruthless and can do straight flips of irreducible damage while fast, he can single activation anything in your crew (including Pandora). Careful of him!

[Alcathous]

1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Since Joss is ruthless and can do straight flips of irreducible damage while fast, he can single activation anything in your crew (including Pandora). Careful of him!

But also, Candy/Pandora can gobble that fast so he's gotta go after others if he wants his 3rd action. Using Mood Swings to make sure Joss activates while he's stunned is pretty important. 

Ping damage works very well into the armored stomps so I like running sorrows in the matchup, although the Strat isn't the best for them.
 

[Maniacal_cackle]

13 minutes ago, Alcathous said:

But also, Candy/Pandora can gobble that fast so he's gotta go after others if he wants his 3rd action. Using Mood Swings to make sure Joss activates while he's stunned is pretty important. 

Ping damage works very well into the armored stomps so I like running sorrows in the matchup, although the Strat isn't the best for them.
 

Good point, and also make sure he can't stack his focus!

Between activating him stunned and removing his focus and stripping his fast, he might end up swinging for 4 irreducible instead of 15 xD

[SEV]

1 hour ago, Alcathous said:

But also, Candy/Pandora can gobble that fast so he's gotta go after others if he wants his 3rd action. Using Mood Swings to make sure Joss activates while he's stunned is pretty important. 

Ping damage works very well into the armored stomps so I like running sorrows in the matchup, although the Strat isn't the best for them.
 

Yep ping works very well but sorrow are also easy to kill. I'll bring one for sure, maybe 2... I like bringing Hina here to lure stuff away from the healing pieces and for the anti-armor trigger. 

Serena is almost an auto include as is Candy.

So beside that and a sorrow I have 20 SS to play with. 

Emissary (or effigy + upgrade) is good on the R2 map.

Wrath could do a good lure impression and is sin toke ability can be amazing in to a brawl.

Angel eye is an other anti-tumor tech and can offer long range support (but 9 ss seems a bit to much here).

Kade seems a bit fragile here and I don't like Teddy against Hoffman. 

Carver give some focus control and breath of fire is ofter really good against tight packed crew (but 10ss is a huge price tag and I think I prefer Hina over him).

Rider doesn't seem needed since it's wedge (even thoug the terrain advantage him).

Any OOk picks that you like against Arc Hoff? As I said I have a good idea of what I want to play, but maybe I missed something awesome for mex flex slots.

 

Thank

 

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

The map has a lot of choke points. If you're attacker, check if there is a way you could tech in an underbrush marker to disrupt his crew.

[Maniacal_cackle]

A single Waldgeist could really fuck up this map xD

A bit card hungry, though. Not sure you could get more than 1-2 germinates off in the game.

[Alcathous]

16 minutes ago, SEV said:

I like bringing Hina here to lure stuff away from the healing pieces and for the anti-armor trigger. 

Ehn.. aside from Joss' irreducible damage, the crew also has a fair amount of anti-construct plans. I do like the lure, but she's not your only option for that.

18 minutes ago, SEV said:

Emissary (or effigy + upgrade) is good on the R2 map.

Good on the map, plus Spread It Around handing out staggered is great against the augmented bonus action thing. And hazardous gets real good with misery.

19 minutes ago, SEV said:

Carver give some focus control and breath of fire is ofter really good against tight packed crew (but 10ss is a huge price tag and I think I prefer Hina over him).

I like him in this matchup way more than Hina. Focus control, burning, blasts, plus once Joss is dealt with (you have to do so or you lose), Terrifying holds up well.

2 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

A single Waldgeist could really fuck up this map xD

A bit card hungry, though. Not sure you could get more than 1-2 germinates off in the game.

I'm skeptical it's worth it in Pandora's crew for 7 points. Better to bring the emissary and feed it tomes, imo.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Alcathous said:

I'm skeptical it's worth it in Pandora's crew for 7 points. Better to bring the emissary and feed it tomes, imo.

True, may not be worth it. 7 stones is a lot.

Not sure Emissary fills the same role, though. Since the crew is not immune to the markers, you have to be quite precise with your placement. And you want them down on turn one before the opponent can move.

[Alcathous]

2 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Not sure Emissary fills the same role, though. Since the crew is not immune to the markers, you have to be quite precise with your placement. And you want them down on turn one before the opponent can move.

Not quite the same role, but haz/severe really messes up the robot bubble. It's not gonna go down T1, but you should be able to clog up a spot where OP has models early T2. The placement can definitely be hard, but the ghosts at least don't care.

[Alcathous]

I like Emissary in Pandora with multiple sorrows and multiple lyssa, but I don't think that works in an evidence pool, sadly.

[ooshawn]

This might sound like blasphemy, but what if for round too you included nekima with pandora to help with the strategy and maybe even scheming? 

[Alcathous]

5 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

This might sound like blasphemy, but what if for round too you included nekima with pandora to help with the strategy and maybe even scheming?

It's not blasphemy, but alas the ws events are currently single-master only.

[Adran]

6 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

This might sound like blasphemy, but what if for round too you included nekima with pandora to help with the strategy and maybe even scheming? 

I believe it is single master, so that's not a legal list. 

[ooshawn]

Joss has a walk of 5, if you do your tactical action on pandy/emissary he's only got a threat range of 3 inches and you can move him all over the place. Then if you keep a aversion by your models he has to flip a 8 I believe or be pushed out again, plus a no resist 3 inch push aoe from the aversion+ terrorize. If you throw up the riders hazardous terrain he will take a lot of pings, especially if you force stone for the stunned trigger and push him 

[ooshawn]

Also doesn't a geryon just hard counter joss , and cyclops can force staggered on him with no resist

[Alcathous]

8 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

 

Also doesn't a geryon just hard counter joss , and cyclops can force staggered on him with no resist

 

Geryon are very good against most melee beaters. Although all the pushes in Hoffman mitigate that substantially. Is it worth the tax to bring into a Pandora crew? I've considered them ook for anti-charge tech in the past, but usually I decide they aren't worth the points without ice pillar support.