Crossroads seven

[NoahScape]

So, I've been looking at the Crossroads Seven and I'm really interested in putting them on the table. I fear though that for tournament play they become stale. I thought about maybe having crossroads be a special rule as its own faction so you could take any of them as a master and you then just have access to the models in the faction of the one you picked to lead the group. 

 I would find it interesting picking Greed as my master in round 1, then switching to Pride in round 2, only to pick Wraith in round 3. I feel like it adds a lot to the faction and could encourage more people putting them on the table. 

Thoughts?

 I hope I explained that clearly enough. 

[solkan]

2 hours ago, IronmanKC81 said:

I thought about maybe having crossroads be a special rule as its own faction so you could take any of them as a master and you then just have access to the models in the faction of the one you picked to lead the group. 

But that's almost how it works already.  Unlike the previous edition's versions, they're all equally henchman and they're equally valid choices for leader.  There's some dispute about whether a free effigy and a third action is an adequate bonus compared to a master led crew, but otherwise...

And unlike the previous edition's version, you're free to only take some of the seven.

2 hours ago, IronmanKC81 said:

 I would find it interesting picking Greed as my master in round 1, then switching to Pride in round 2, only to pick Wraith in round 3. I feel like it adds a lot to the faction and could encourage more people putting them on the table. 

If you're not playing a fixed faction tournament...  

[Maniacal_cackle]

11 minutes ago, solkan said:

But that's almost how it works already.  Unlike the previous edition's versions, they're all equally henchman and they're equally valid choices for leader.  There's some dispute about whether a free effigy and a third action is an adequate bonus compared to a master led crew, but otherwise...

And unlike the previous edition's version, you're free to only take some of the seven.

If you're not playing a fixed faction tournament...  

I think the intent is he means for fixed-faction tournaments.

Personally I think it'd make a lot of sense and be an awesome and unique way to have the Crossroads seven work.

It'd require testing, as I'm not sure what it'd do to have access to every tech piece in the game outside of ES xD

[Adran]

8 hours ago, IronmanKC81 said:

So, I've been looking at the Crossroads Seven and I'm really interested in putting them on the table. I fear though that for tournament play they become stale. I thought about maybe having crossroads be a special rule as its own faction so you could take any of them as a master and you then just have access to the models in the faction of the one you picked to lead the group. 

 I would find it interesting picking Greed as my master in round 1, then switching to Pride in round 2, only to pick Wraith in round 3. I feel like it adds a lot to the faction and could encourage more people putting them on the table. 

Thoughts?

 I hope I explained that clearly enough. 

Your best bet is to speak to your local tournament organisers.

Its fairly easy to make an event fixed faction OR keyword if they think there is player support for it. There were certainly a few events in the UK during second edition that were fixed Faction OR master that had people play a fixed master but were allowed to choose which faction (assuming they used a dual faction master). 

 

6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

It'd require testing, as I'm not sure what it'd do to have access to every tech piece in the game outside of ES xD

I'm not sure how useful that is, as you have had to lock in your faction before you know the master you face. The question would have to be do you have to announce faction to your opponent before they pick their master or not? (I'm not sure that the counter tech of crew selection is to the extreme that it would make a large difference in balance. Even if you knew the leader the opponent was going to use, I think its very rare that they would be able to tech in enough pieces to ruin your game without you at least expecting it. It depends on if you avoid Master X vs faction Y at all costs because of the tech they could hire, and can't alter the way you play master X when you know the opponent has access to that Tech.) 

[Maniacal_cackle]

16 minutes ago, Adran said:

I'm not sure how useful that is, as you have had to lock in your faction before you know the master you face. The question would have to be do you have to announce faction to your opponent before they pick their master or not? (I'm not sure that the counter tech of crew selection is to the extreme that it would make a large difference in balance. Even if you knew the leader the opponent was going to use, I think its very rare that they would be able to tech in enough pieces to ruin your game without you at least expecting it. It depends on if you avoid Master X vs faction Y at all costs because of the tech they could hire, and can't alter the way you play master X when you know the opponent has access to that Tech.) 

That's a good point. I can't think of any tech piece (or combination of pieces) that can shut down a whole faction, so it would probably be fine!

I vote the next vassal world series implements this!

[NoahScape]

My idea is less about tech pieces specially vs a master or faction, and more about pieces and upgrades that may work on certain scheme/strat pools. I played them for the first time yesterday, and there is a lot going on with the crew, but I had a lot of fun playing them and so did my opponent,   

[dannydb]

I think the only issue might be if if your taking the full band compared to partial band and other stuff 

 

Taking lust as a lead 1 round and putting samurai, fuhatsu and then r2 switching to arcanists and having spider swarms and captain in your crew isn't exactly fair 

[Morgan Vening]

1 hour ago, dannydb said:

I think the only issue might be if if your taking the full band compared to partial band and other stuff 

 

Taking lust as a lead 1 round and putting samurai, fuhatsu and then r2 switching to arcanists and having spider swarms and captain in your crew isn't exactly fair 

Mebee have a minimum number of C7 for it to count as a C7 crew? Four sounds like a reasonable amount. More than 50% of the original crew, and nearly 50% of the standard starting cache.

[solkan]

1 hour ago, dannydb said:

I think the only issue might be if if your taking the full band compared to partial band and other stuff 

The full band is seven 7SS models.  And it’s going to be a henchman led crew.  How many more arms do you want tied behind a person’s back?

 

1 hour ago, dannydb said:

 

Taking lust as a lead 1 round and putting samurai, fuhatsu and then r2 switching to arcanists and having spider swarms and captain in your crew isn't exactly fair 

Mei Feng says “Hi.” 🤷‍♀️

Seriously, the first few Malifaux tournaments I played in were “Declare your faction and master at the start of the game, and write it down, like the rulebook says” tournaments.  All this stuff ‘bout fixed-faction or fixed-master lists has always sounded like an exercise in making things more complicated while trying to pack less figures in a figure case.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, dannydb said:

I think the only issue might be if if your taking the full band compared to partial band and other stuff 

 

Taking lust as a lead 1 round and putting samurai, fuhatsu and then r2 switching to arcanists and having spider swarms and captain in your crew isn't exactly fair 

I'm not sure that this is "unfair", in a sense that I don't think the options available to a crossroads 7 are more than those available to a normal master.  That said, if I was a T.O. and wanted to introduce keyword as an option, and I had players worried about this, I would consider adding a requirement that x stones need to be of selected keyword.

But I don't really think it is a problem, in that I'm fairly sure things like Lust and the TT versatile crew is not really that strong a crew, since I don't think its picked now when it could be. 

[dannydb]

I think most TOs wouldn't like this, as said its too abusable withough additional rules. Plus how far do you allow it, if your soloing the band having access to all 8 factions then why can duel faction masters not have a to both factions

 

I don't think it's something that'd going to be allowed for world series

[Adran]

1 hour ago, dannydb said:

I think most TOs wouldn't like this, as said its too abusable withough additional rules. Plus how far do you allow it, if your soloing the band having access to all 8 factions then why can duel faction masters not have a to both factions

 

I don't think it's something that'd going to be allowed for world series

I tried to talk in generalities, so mentioned the Fixed keyword option, in which you enter the event and rather that have selected a faction you have selected a keyword that your leader will always be.

I don't think its actually abusable in any way (Probably the worse I can think of is announcing Nephlim and being able to do an Outcast Barbaros as well as Nekima, but not sure that's actually abuse, just a big surprise. You're turning down more options over all for any keyword than you would have as a faction). 

 

Edit- Just to clarify, from the opponents point of view once you know which band member is leading, its identical to facing a fixed faction list that chose that Band member as a leader, so the only step it might hinder is the selecting your leader.

[Cats Laughing]

I think Fixed Keyword tournaments would be quite interesting.  Several dual faction master would likely rise to the top, and some of the stronger single faction masters would still shine.  Crossroads 7 might be a decent choice for such a tourney but wouldn't likely be a power keyword.  It's not like the Crossroads 7 can bring something like Fuhatsu and Manos in the same list regardless of tourney format (unless it's some weird 'break all hiring rules' format). 

Crossroads 7 as an option in an otherwise fixed-faction format likely wouldn't be that powerful either. Sure they could try to swap in different faction versatile options depending on opponent, but the Crossroads 7 models themselves benefit from having more of their keyword models to put out Sin tokens for each other so the more points into versatile or OOK options means fewer sin generating Crossroads models.  Going to the extreme, Lust leading 50stones of Ten Thunders versatile & OOK models is probably crap on a stick and I'd guess the same goes for any of the Crossroads models.

 

Here's a challenge: Make a scheme/strat/deployment pool. Pick an opposing faction. Build a Crossroads 7 list (any leader & related faction) that would destroy a strong list from the opposing faction that was built for the SSD pool.

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 hours ago, dannydb said:

I think most TOs wouldn't like this, as said its too abusable withough additional rules. Plus how far do you allow it, if your soloing the band having access to all 8 factions then why can duel faction masters not have a to both factions

 

I don't think it's something that'd going to be allowed for world series

On a similar note, it'd be cool if you could declare a leader and not a faction.

Being able to play either TT or Red Yan Lo for example would be neat for the solo Yan Lo players.

But I see the balance issues xD