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

[ScottishMetaLew]

I'll happily give a break down of my lists after the event still two rounds to go. People are sleeping on the Neverborns resident seer. There's not a pool or master I'd be worried about taking him into.  I've played him almost exclusively since m3e. And my win rate is probably about 70% with him.

[Roadhouse]

Euripides was the master that brought me back to Malifaux in M3E after not having played since mid M2, and it was on aesthetic alone. Im generally interested in how to make him work

[Roadhouse]

3 hours ago, ScottishMetaLew said:

I'll happily give a break down of my lists after the event still two rounds to go. People are sleeping on the Neverborns resident seer. There's not a pool or master I'd be worried about taking him into.  I've played him almost exclusively since m3e. And my win rate is probably about 70% with him.

Teach me Senpai

[ooshawn]

i too am interested in his euripides knowledge

[SEV]

Well an other lost for me 3-4 against Hoff... En on t4 unfortunately.

It was actually quite close and I took a beating on t2 (Dora failing to do anything meaningful) and Candy took a lot of heat (depleting my SS cas quickly). At least I manage to Bring the fight where I wanted it : in the forest in the middle. My opponent scored an evidence and LyM while I scored nothing.

Than T3 my newly grown Emissary came as a savior and unleash the hungry lands on his models. I unfortunately failed to kill Joss or Melissa on that turn but at least in SS pools was almost gone as well. I had access to a marker but my opponent played well to denied me a way to interact and I let him score his evidence a bit to easily. 3-0. But despite the score I was confident on my positioning entering the end game.

The problem was we both played a bit top slowly and we didn't have much time left for t4 (17th minutes or so). We agreed to speed things ups to at least finish t4. My opponent had tough decisions to makes though and I think he spend a bit too long on them on t4 (this is highly subjective though and as I said, we both played to slowly in the previous turns to begin with).

That led to an backward situation, because I try to play quickly to come back to 3-3 which I did. Than I was hoping to kill a 4 healthy melissa (o SS for me and my opponent) with Serena (ignoring armor with her gun action) to denied vendetta (logically it was the most probable unrevealed scheme)... Than times was up during Hoff activation and just like that it was game... as he scored the reveal of vendetta with Melissa. 

I want to reiterate that there was no malicious intend from my opponent, just decisions to makes and not a lot of time on the clock.

I do feel that the 15 minutes rules is really punishing though. It's the second time this month that I left points on the table because I have not enough time to activate key models at the end of the game (against Kharnage it was not too bad, I was loosing anyway, but here it was for the tie). 

I would like to see this rule amended for : when the 2h45 (or even 2h30) time is up, players finish the current round (and can't begin a new one) and than count points. I think that would be way less arbitrary and would not take much more time for the players (especially if we go down to 2:30 for the game up to this point). Or we could give each players x activation when the time is up... 

Anyway, this is not the end of the world. This was a really close game and I think it could have gone either way on t5.

So for next round I'm playing Nekima (great map for her) against Ophelia (probably the worst master to fight against in Bayou). As usuall, your tough and advice on the matchup will be appreciated. @Kharnage from you especially, so I won't bring to much shame to your God-queen 🤣

[ooshawn]

Hoffman seems like  a amazing crew versus neverborn imo. impressive you did so well.  

I can't comment much on ophelia in this edition, but If she is anything like last edition, she loves fighting just as much  as nekima does. one thing to note about nekima's crew is that they don't have any extra movement outside of their walk activations. If you carefully premeasure your distance between them and yourself, they should almost never be able to suprise you with a full activation. if you can bait a single attack from them vs a full activation from your models, I can only assume you will win. if you have any ways to push out of melee vs mature nephilims you'll want to probably utilize that option to be able to use ranged vs melee attacks which will be way less effective. 

if you are playing nekima, you might get use out of lilitu ?

[Kharnage]

31 minutes ago, SEV said:

So for next round I'm playing Nekima (great map for her) against Ophelia (probably the worst master to fight against in Bayou). As usuall, your tough and advice on the matchup will be appreciated. @Kharnage from you especially, so I won't bring to much shame to your God-queen 🤣

Always happy to give out advice to servants of the God Empress 😈
Ophelia is a feast or famine matchup for Nekima, and public enemies makes it somewhat more harrowing. You will live and die by when and where you start your engagements. Reach-robbing will be supremely important, as every AP Ophelia and Francois lose (or at least one that isn't spent dealing big beefy damage) is a huge breath of air for a crew with no innate damage reduction. Additionally, Nekima's general reliance on 10 stone models to ruin lives, who themselves all possess a weakness to ranged firepower, is especially dicey in Public Enemies.
So what do you do? This next map possesses a lot of concealment and LoS blocking terrain, so I'd wager you're actually at somewhat of an advantage, since you're likely to start the fight with specifically melee attacks rather than weathering a storm of ranged fire first. There's also not a super clean place for Rami, Ophelia's crutch, to set up and take shots until she can force you to engage in his LoS. If you can manage it, I'd recommend bodying him first; his damage output is huge for a 6 stone model, and his death is affordable in terms of effort. 
Your foe is likely to make use of Twelve Cups to ramp up focus on Ophelia and Rami. This means that concealment as a defensive tool is less useful, but makes cover very important. That 2/4/5 (before crit) track smarts a lot less if they can't guarantee a moderate or severe, and with the cover bonus to defense it adds to the potential to just clean miss, so if you must choose between concealment and cover, choose cover. Obviously not being seen at all is the best choice, however, which the Ht 3 towers and dense clouds help with. With all these tools, you should be able to close the gap and fight in melee, and if you can force Ophelia to fight Matures in melee, this is ideal, since every "oops flipped only a 7" is a master AP lost, and mitigating Ophelia effectively is what will win you the game.
Also keep in mind that 12 cups is annoying because of the Diversion aura, so if you want to use Fly With Me in an activation, use it early, rather than when you've closed. 
Because of Regen in the crew, it's typically in your best interest to fight in protracted, drawn out fights rather than quicky snappy engagements. Obviously you want Ophelia and friends to die as quickly as possible, but what I mean is that if you have to choose between using a card to guarantee a hit or using a card to guarantee Ophelia misses one of her attacks or only deal damage on a neg, I'd recommend the latter. I'm not saying don't cheat attacks, but I would lean defensively on cheating overall.
Also, I have to respectfully disagree with @ooshawn's assessment of Lilitu in this matchup. They're 7 cost, which is a perfect bite-size giving up of 2 tokens, and df 4 with 7 wounds, so if Ophelia can see them, they're likely good as dead, and with Mv 5 and no wings, they're just dang slow. In corner, the longer you give Ophelia to just suck up scheme markers for Focus, the harder your life will be, so I'd recommend a fast crew. Matures if you can, Young if you must. 
Speaking of Fast, using Candy's Goody Basket with Burn Out trigger on Matures can do wonders in the early turns where they can't be seen/reached, since they can just regen the Burn Out damage (make sure to be within 2 but outside of 1, so she doesn't splash herself), and Matures can just carry her up the board to ruin lives with her Corrupted Innocence aura for the subsequent turn. Alternatively, if you feel dirty about OOK, Hayreddin is a decent pick because he makes short work of Ophelia's useful and squishy totems with Pustule spamming, possibly giving you tots in the process. While this is summoning models for Ophelia and friends to shoot, you're probably giving up big chunky points with Matures anyway, so more bodies on the table is just a net plus, and they have a bunch of dead Young Lacroix to eat soon to get big. hopefully.
Hope this gives you some things to chew on

[Raising]

On 3/14/2021 at 5:06 PM, ScottishMetaLew said:

I'll happily give a break down of my lists after the event still two rounds to go. People are sleeping on the Neverborns resident seer. There's not a pool or master I'd be worried about taking him into.  I've played him almost exclusively since m3e. And my win rate is probably about 70% with him.

i'd love to see it, also how much you play with the pilar teleportation theme, do you abuse the giants trigger as a score mechanism?

[ooshawn]

what about if he takes maurice!

[Raising]

4 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

what about if he takes maurice!

dont feel the cover is needed having the pilars to create it for you (plus shield and heal.),

[ooshawn]

oh I was talking about nekima vs ophelia, unless I am missing something

[SEV]

Thank @Kharnagerose art really good points. This is the crew I'll probably register. I hesitate to put IR on Hayredin as well, beside that I like the double BBS build.

Nekima R3 Mars (Neverborn)
Size: 50 - Pool: 6
Leader:
  Nekima
    Inhuman Reflexes
Totem(s):
  Blood Hunter
Hires:
  Hayreddin
  Mature Nephilim
    Ancient Pact
  Black Blood Shaman
  Black Blood Shaman 2
  Candy

 

[ooshawn]

try it out vs me

[SEV]

10 hours ago, ooshawn said:

try it out vs me

Sure! 

[SEV]

On 3/15/2021 at 10:20 PM, SEV said:

Thank @Kharnagerose art really good points. This is the crew I'll probably register. I hesitate to put IR on Hayredin as well, beside that I like the double BBS build.

Nekima R3 Mars (Neverborn)
Size: 50 - Pool: 6
Leader:
  Nekima
    Inhuman Reflexes
Totem(s):
  Blood Hunter
Hires:
  Hayreddin
  Mature Nephilim
    Ancient Pact
  Black Blood Shaman
  Black Blood Shaman 2
  Candy

 

List locked.

My opponent went for this :

Ophelia (inferiority) + 3 brats

Raphael (2 gremlins)

Francois (inferiority)

Samy

Rami

Bokor

7ss

I'm mostly surprised by the upgrade choices (no 12 cups)... With 2 beater with IC Candy will be super vulnerable. But IC doesn't affect any other models in my crew, swagger is fine but doesn't allow fouc stack as 12 cup does. So I'll be careful with Canduy.  Aside of that we have all the usual suspect.

No pigapult to drop Francois and Ophelia up the board. So his movement are somewhat predictable. I'll have to take full advantage of those fog bank to close the gap! 

I played 2 game with Nekima un this map and it went well so I'm confident (but I was with Dora as well last round 😁). 

(Edit : I just want to specify that my opponent agreed to the publication of his list before the round)

[ooshawn]

i wish I could sit through this game and watch

[SEV]

8 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

i wish I could sit through this game and watch

Tomorrow morning, 8h30 GMT-4. If you fancy spending your Saturday morning watching a mediocre Nekima player, be my guess 😀

[ooshawn]

Mental note - do not go near francois

[SEV]

6 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

Mental note - do not go near francois

Yep? I've got table at the end of t4...

Francois kill a full health Nekima on t3 in one activation... Oviously I wouldn't happened if I didn't forgot about scamper from Inhuman reflex... I realized this just after the disaster and I must admit I was a bit tilt even though it was pretty a casual game since we were both in the 0-2 brackets.

Beside that huge blunder, I don't think I made to much technical misplay (forgetting about stuff and not maximizing the interaction between my models). My positioning was bot A1 though and I could have done a better use of coverage. Also, I did a decent job at healing my own models from blood of Ichor, but I probably miss a couple of BB dammage from suboptimal positioning.

The main problem during this game was my strategy. I did well on t1 and was able to close the gap on t3... But : 1) my opponent had time to craft a grat hand (thank to Samy); 2) I was stretch a bit to thin (only a fast mature and Nekima were real threat); 3) mostly I just didn't choose the righ place on the board to pick a fight.

My oponent deployed of the south west of the map. He went on one side of the big platform with all his cre except for Samy and Francois who were on the other side. I went for them. But my initial attack was to weak (1 attack from neekima + 2 from the mature because of above aside on Francois). I did dammage but he had a huge stacy of stone. Also my timing was not good. The Bokor just came back and heal Francois almost to full. Candy double walk to stunt him and move him but all his crew were able to come back on t3 and with plenty of focus to bypass friendly fire and no terrain feature to protect me on this side of the map it was looking bad.

Than I did this IR blunder and my opponent flip a sting of severe on t3 and t4 (flipping 2 severe twice on neg flip to kill a mature and Candy if I remember well)...

Still I don't want to blame luck since I could have mitigated most of that with a better strategy.

I lost 6-1.

So being 0-3 this month I still have 1 game to redeem myself. I'll probably go with the autumn queen for that.

At least if I loose again, I will have fun with a big dinosaur 😀

[SEV]

So how R4 is going?  

With my poor record, I'll already have the head in the Bayou for next month... Still one game to go!

Lewis Phillips is our last hope for an undefeated NB player (he doesn't seems to be on this forum though). Still GL for last round.

@Alcathous @Khyodee and @andorman are the other top NB players. Congrats.

So in the top 4 NB seat, they'll be facing 2 ES and 2 Ressers.

At the bottom of the pairing, I'll be facing the always nice @grim_stoki piloting Colette for an epic battle to avoid last place 😋. 

[Alcathous]

37 minutes ago, SEV said:

Lewis Phillips is our last hope for an undefeated NB player (he doesn't seems to be on this forum though). Still GL for last round.

He's here occasionally: @ScottishMetaLew

My last game is set up as Titania vs Ivan. Rough, but doable. No lists as of yet.

[ooshawn]

It seems like one of the best unimpeded models we have are gonna be razerspine rattlers. that's what I'm using with lucius as they are a minion and pretty fast.  I had some success versus asami. Though I think for this round it's probably best to start with the emissary on the board instead of using the upgrade on the effigy, because the severe forests are so large that he can find use turn 1-2, especially if you have obey or anything of that nature. Definitely put Inhuman reflexes on the razerspine though . 

[ooshawn]

is the best strategy to activate last and try to claim the one that isn't in you're deployment on turn one? so you can easily and safely get back to your's if the need arises?

[Alcathous]

31 minutes ago, ooshawn said:

is the best strategy to activate last and try to claim the one that isn't in you're deployment on turn one? so you can easily and safely get back to your's if the need arises?

Only if you think you'll have trouble getting it later. I have tried this and if you can't support that model in the middle, it will easily get caught. If you rush the middle marker, it makes it easy for your opponent to engage that model, potentially trapping your lodestone in a place where you can't score your backfield markers.

[SEV]

Alright Neverborns... Your honor is safe. I successfully defeated Colette with the autumn queen to avoid last place. I'll leave you for next month and will go play with Unicorns in the swamps.

Cheers.