GG2 Arcanists

[retnab]

I've realized that I somehow haven't gotten in a single game during all of GG1 and I'm trying to get back into playing now that GG2 has dropped, but I'm feeling pretty rusty.  Who does everyone feel does well for each strat?  What schemes do our masters love/hate now?

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 hours ago, retnab said:

I've realized that I somehow haven't gotten in a single game during all of GG1 and I'm trying to get back into playing now that GG2 has dropped, but I'm feeling pretty rusty.  Who does everyone feel does well for each strat?  What schemes do our masters love/hate now?

The amazing thing about a GG release is we are all clueless together!

Personally I just play my favourite master into everything new.

[Jinn]

6 hours ago, retnab said:

I've realized that I somehow haven't gotten in a single game during all of GG1 and I'm trying to get back into playing now that GG2 has dropped, but I'm feeling pretty rusty.  Who does everyone feel does well for each strat?  What schemes do our masters love/hate now?

I've only played Colette into Break the Line so far (my only game of ARC GG2), but I think she's quite good into it due to Presto-Chango and her models having nimble and other repositioning tricks. Sandeep is also probably quite good into it with Toss and Lord of the Elements on the Banasuva, Leap on (hired now due to the summoning nerfs) Wind Gamin, and Command the Elements on Sandeep himself.

Turf War is mostly the same as GG0, but Sandeep is probably much weaker at it because summoned Golems and Gamin can't flip markers by killing on the turn they're summoned and they can never interact to do it. Colette's killing power went down a decent amount with the nerf to Sword Trick and Presto-Chango, but the distracted buff made her keyword models better at independently scheming and surviving. Overall I think the speed of her models, and her (albeit reduced) ability to kidnap models and put them in the right table quarter for killing makes her one of the better masters at Turf War.

I'm not gonna go over my thoughts on everything, but I think for schemes the two newest ones have two standout masters for them. Kaeris looks amazing at Death Beds, but Death Beds is a decently difficult scheme even so (effectively it almost becomes Dig Their Graves for Kaeris.) Bait and Switch looks incredibly hard to stop Colette from scoring the first point, but also has potential to be very counterable with the second point. If the enemy leader is alive on turn 5 all they need to do is triple walk into your deployment zone to block it, or if they have a schemer or two, or another model with movement tricks, it'll be hard to score full VP.

[Peturd]

I dont have Colette or Sandeep so removing them from my thoughts: 

Kaeris feels like a good pick outside of turf war. And Toni (or Hoffman) should have some good play outside of symbols. Both depending into the pool  of schemes, deployment and opponent of course.

No love for Mei, but maybe I’m not seeing something.

I like Raspy more than most, but this doesn’t look like her gg (still good at denial as always).

Marcus got a boost, will try to find a niche for him in this packet. I think overall I like Kaeris better, but a plus is initiates are now one of the best targets for magical training.

The obvious crews to take death beds are also targets of it (December/wildfire/elemental/foundry are all near their own markers a lot). Union miners should be able to get detonate charges easily if you keep em alive. Vendetta got less appealing for Coryphee and gamin using the replace trick (don’t usually like that scheme anyway).

Some poorly laid out thoughts from a player in a different meta ... for all that’s worth. Hahaha

[Jinn]

26 minutes ago, Peturd said:

The obvious crews to take death beds are also targets of it (December/wildfire/elemental/foundry are all near their own markers a lot).

While this is true, I think with Kaeris it isn't that bad if you ditch the models that need friendly pyre markers (I don't usually take Firebranded, Fire Gamin, or Elijah Borgmann personally). If you play aggressively forward with Kaeris (maybe give her focus with Envy and walk, walk, place pyre, charge on T1) you may end up with only one Pyre Marker on your side of the board which would stop your opponent from getting the 2nd VP of Death Beds. I still don't think it's a great scheme though, but probably pickable.

On the topic of Marcus; I think he is probably better in Neverborn these days. With the buff to Distracted he can get some real work out of Will o' the Wisps and the Adze, and Rougarou have Shrug Off which counters Distracted. The Grootslang is also immune to distracted, so you can get a real counter list going if you're facing Colette, Youko, or Nellie. Also I think that the NB upgrades are better for Marcus, with Ancient Pact being a sort of better Magical Training and Inhuman Reflexes having some good synergy with Call of the Wild. I know it's not quite on topic for Arcanists, but if you lean into the dual faction stuff he seems better over there. I still don't think he's very good competitively in either faction though.

[Peturd]

Fair point on Kaeris. I like Elijah and less often but sometimes a firebranded. I’ve been playing without putting magical training on a soulstone miner for a while now expecting either the living only change or worse. So fire branded aren’t actually a bad carrier. Tried them in maybe 6 games.  With all the injured, they are a bit more accurate than they appear. All work with the totems pace (though Elijah is usually riding with the mech rider) and the fire branded can use the totems burning to heal. Never have taken a fire gamin.

A good overall point on Marcus, though I never declare Neverborn. I like Marcus and chimeras looks, and style. It’s just not good enough. When I say try to carve out a niche, I truly mean Try with a capital T. I haven’t seen a pool I prefer them in. But won’t go a year without getting games in with him (or Raspy).

[touchdown]

12 hours ago, Peturd said:

No love for Mei, but maybe I’m not seeing something.

Take the following with a big grain of salt, as I just played my very first game with her ever (also 10T, but I only took 1 model not in keyword)

I just tried her into a Break the Lines pool, and did very well. Ride the Rails seems very good in this packet. You're rewarded for being in different spots rather than the center a lot more. You can also do tricks like Metal Gamin throws the strategy marker, ends activation, drops scrap, model #2 Rides the Rails to it, and throws the marker again.