Cadmus - The Power of Eyes and Ears

[Pergli]

Good evening,

Lately there has been a lot of flak aimed in the direction of Cadmus' keyword because it is a strong keyword which provides a unique challenge. I've spent alot of time thinking about the general match up and have played over a dozen games into the keyword (outside of beta in it's current form) against some of the best players in the world. This might be preliminary or even outright wrong but I thought I would try to provide another potential perspective on how to deal with this terrifying crew.

There are many things which makes Cadmus strong:

• We Are Legion - Makes trying to kill their models difficult and allows them to pass around healing. This makes you have to be extra considerate to killing their models with trying to either overkill them by 1 wound or burning out their ability to pass out the wounds with AP efficient attacks (onslaught, flurry, rapid fire, fast, blast)
• Will of Cadmus - An extra activation for Nexus which allows them to have better efficiency with their crew for scoring.
• Parasite Tokens - Probably the worst part of the match up. If you dive into the crew and aren't careful, you'll end up with a parasite token and the model will be dead within a turn or two. There are 6 ways you can gain parasite tokens and you HAVE to constantly consider how the Cadmus player is considering giving you these tokens along with saving the right cards to stop this. 
• Excessive healing - Meredith combined with the Intrepid (emissary or effigy, doesn't matter here) means their models are going to heal alot which forces focused fire in the hopes of killing something before it heals back to full. 
• Shambling Nests - It's weird to list a totem as a strength but these models provide so much power to the crew it is hard not to mention them. They can place almost anywhere on the board, have a 2 inch reach to ruin AP efficiency and hand out parasites like candy. They also allow the rest of the crew to start their engine safely while your opponent has to deal with these.

All of the above has been discussed over and over again along with how to counter them or work with them so nothing above should be new for people who have played the match up or spent some time watching the videos Plaag has been posting about Nexus being OP. I've been featured in two of those videos, one where I got rolled and the other where it was extremely close which could have gone either way.

I believe the thing that has not been discussed and is extremely important is the Eyes and Ears. These models are essential for the Nexus player to overwhelm you and win the game. A strong game plan for how to deal with these models is going to be the key which will start helping people win games. You need to be constantly assessing when these are appearing, where they are appearing and timing your own activations to counter punch them when they deploy in order to prevent your opponent from abusing them.

Now, why am I talking about a essentially free or even 2 point model if they are paid for model with Df 3 WP 3 and 3 wounds with no super noticeable actions? Here is a list of everything these freebies provide to the Cadmus player (in no particular order):

• Additional wounds for the WAL pool (9 free wounds can be crazy)
• Additional healing for the WAL pool
• Sets up WAL chains so the bubble can extend farther out while still being safe
• Can be upgraded for FREE from Meredith to become Berserker Husks, heals to 7 wounds and is now a threat
  • If your opponent wants to abuse this, they can bring a cryptologist and upgrade two of them a turn for free
• Additional activation control
• Lures
  • They can use this offensively to pull your models into their death bubble or they can use this to keep their bubble coherent if you're trying to use tricks to pick the bubble apart.
• Easy channels to be attacked through
  • Nexus will use them to attack you or soul shock to pass out additional Parasite tokens or put card pressure on you
  • Spell eaters will make them explode to pass out more tokens
• Increase the power of Will of Cadmus
  • Extra Cadmus models means this ability is even easier to get off
• Potential scheme runners
  • Will of Cadmus can let them interact to drop markers
• Attack your model's AP
  • They can force your model to deal with them if they get engaged with you
• When they die, they force a Df 13 duel to pass out tokens
  • Whats worse, is they can get into the middle of your crew and then THEIR models can pass WAL damage to them or spell eaters can make them pop to force these duels
• Bonus to attack your hand
  • Aren't you glad you tried to save those cards to pass all the simple duels?

The above list of possibilities is INSANE for a 2 point model that Cadmus can summon 3 of a turn fairly easily and I'm sure I missed a few options. What the above list tells me is these models need to be killed ASAP and not near my crew. They will die anyway but I would rather then die on the other side of the board. Yes, Meredith gets cards and if there are models with Flush with Cash near them, they get stones which I believe is why most people try to avoid these models when they are summoned. Not to mention, it feels bad using focus and a henchman to kill one of these free models. Regardless though, avoiding killing these models is the wrong play which then leads to games where Cadmus has 6-9 more models than you on the table while you are being overwhelmed with parasites.

Spending 1 Hench/Master AP and 1 focus to guarantee a model dead is better than having to spent 2-3 Hench/Master AP to try to kill the husks. At the end of the day, playing into cadmus requires removing their efficiency and this is where it comes into play. Also killing the Eyes and Ears before they activate gives you those sweet pass tokens and activation control to counter Archivist's Ill Omens. I believe this is why he even HAS that dumb ability. I've realized the games where Nexus felt manageable were the ones that I was removing these trash models or they were unable to get them on the board. In those games, the Nexus player had to struggle to make his WAL chains or had to make harder choices on which models would suffer wounds. 

When building your crews, look at what your options are for dealing with these models at RANGE. Anything that can hit 4 damage (hopefully on moderate) is going to be your go to when trying to counter the Eyes and Ears. I can't provide answers to what every faction/crew can bring to this match up to consider this but hopefully the above helps provide something else for you to consider when you're going into this match up to reduce the amount of NPE you are experiencing. Again, there are a ton of factors when playing into Cadmus but it seems this is one that is constantly overlooked. 

TL;DR: Eyes and Ears are a major component to what makes Cadmus a keyword.

[Maniacal_cackle]

All great points, and I'm sure will be critical if I eventually face Cadmus.

One random thought - how do you like Manos in this matchup? His gun means he can safely spam attacks from a distance, staggered nests are hilarious, and his aura negates the Eyes and Ears that do end up dying in awkward places.

And in general it seems like you've taken a gunline approach to defeating Cadmus when I've seen you play, is that correct? Although I suppose I missed the Von Schtook game.

[Pergli]

I think manos provides some good options. He also has assassin so he has AP efficiency and when he leaps, he can attack so 4 potential attacks a turn which is huge into WAL.

I think Anna is a better pick overall though. Card draw, +1 df means she will pass more duels, easy ability for scheme markers, prevents placements and hostile workplace is big. No will of cadmus in a 14 inch bubble can be change the game.

Maybe run both and see how it goes?

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 minutes ago, Pergli said:

I think manos provides some good options. He also has assassin so he has AP efficiency and when he leaps, he can attack so 4 potential attacks a turn which is huge into WAL.

I think Anna is a better pick overall though. Card draw, +1 df means she will pass more duels, easy ability for scheme markers, prevents placements and hostile workplace is big. No will of cadmus in a 14 inch bubble can be pretty big.

Maybe run both and see how it goes?

Haha, well, as a Molly player my first instinct was "just run both + 1-2 other beaters", but that all makes sense! Especially for say like Reva where Anna has superior synergy (well, outside crazy shenanigans on Recover Evidence 😜 )

[Kiryn]

Haha, look at how long that list of strengths is for a 2 stone model. Ridiculous. 

It really is hard to see how this crew go through testing, the layers of efficiency and the lack of agency it gives the opponent is just laughable.

Not to mention the fact that it's boring to play against and borderline cannot be played on the table to five turns within a normal tournament time limit. 

 

[Pergli]

A 2 stone model that they can very easily summon 3 of a turn which is even worse but I think people ignoring these models is when Cadmus starts to feel too overwhelming.

The cadmus keyword itself is fine, it's when people bring the non keywords and abuse the mechanics is when it becomes a NPE. Cryptologists bring extra husks, the emmissary provides additional healing and Toro obeys to let you give out more parasites. 

I would disagree on time limit though. If the cadmus player knows what they are doing and executing their game plan, people can get games in a timely manner. I think my last 5-7 games we were able to get it done within the time limit of a normal tournament. In the beginning though, I definitely had 4+ hour games into cadmus as we were both figuring out how to play and counter play.

If they are bumbling with what to do with a husk or EE for 5 minutes then you're gonna have problems. This is true with any keyword and any crew, cadmus just has so many complex layers that it's taking more time.