Casual Resser Collector Looking for Advice from Vets

[Graf]

I guess something like that could be done, as long as one is aware it has limited value. That mindset is what I wanted to transfer with my previous post.

Usually it helps much more to be given a specific situation and provide ideas for this one, instead of rating all possible combinations.

You can find something along those lines in the Ressers community threads. Look in the pinned thread, there's a list of links. It's mostly GG1, but much of it can be taken into GG2 as well. There also are some more generic ones there. If you have trouble with something specific, @Maniacal_cackle was always happy to include topics other community members asked for. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

In fact I want to do another thread soon but am unsure of topic xD

[Graf]

3 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

In fact I want to do another thread soon but am unsure of topic xD

Well, we still have to cover a few factions. I would like one with the *new* schemes, but am unsure how much input it will get. The amount of people playing on Vassal the last few months is limited. We might have enough here, but not all of them post regularly. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 minutes ago, Graf said:

Well, we still have to cover a few factions. I would like one with the *new* schemes, but am unsure how much input it will get. The amount of people playing on Vassal the last few months is limited. We might have enough here, but not all of them post regularly. 

Yeah, that's the tricky part.  Also I think a lot of people are afraid to post since they think their opinion might not count or something.

Then you got people like me spewing opinions on every topic, whether or not I know anything about it.

[Zalinian]

@GrafI appreciate it! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about it.

I saw some of the guides, and the S&S Budget Guides were fairly interesting to look through. I am hoping some day, soon hopefully, to collect enough Resser data for us and contribute to them.

Quite a lot of those RCT's seem to have slowed a fair few months ago. I am not fully convinced the discussions have been dove into as deep as they could've, and I love me some Excel tables, cup of coffee, and a slow afternoon with an open board. When I coach new chess  players I position boards with puzzles and ask the group 'Where to from here?'. This falls more in line with what Graf was mentioning where there is a mental checklist you go through, and maybe we could add definition to that as it applies to Resser pieces: Is this a line of attack I am capable of maintaining? Do I really wish I had this specific piece out over something else when I find myself in a likely scenario? etc.

Some format of snap shot theory that isn't designed to give people a 'Do this and that' methodology, but a 'How do I evaluate the board state effectively, and what Improvements to my mainline can I make' mentality. As someone who is really new to actually playing I know I would have loved to find a "Let's Analyze Together!" threads, because when I see a dedicated spot where there is high level talk is taking place I can see what the current players are taking into consideration when they play, and then adopt those myself to start. General threads like "Facing Guild" were nice to read through, but it didn't give me a feel of how that position would look like playing into it beyond anecdote; maybe if I saw that position myself, then maybe I could have found a to succeed it.

[Maniacal_cackle]

7 minutes ago, Zalinian said:

@GrafI appreciate it! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about it.

I saw some of the guides, and the S&S Budget Guides were fairly interesting to look through. I am hoping some day, soon hopefully, to collect enough Resser data for us and contribute to them.

Quite a lot of those RCT's seem to have slowed a fair few months ago. I am not fully convinced the discussions have been dove into as deep as they could've, and I love me some Excel tables, cup of coffee, and a slow afternoon with an open board. When I coach new chess  players I position boards with puzzles and ask the group 'Where to from here?'. This falls more in line with what Graf was mentioning where there is a mental checklist you go through, and maybe we could add definition to that as it applies to Resser pieces: Is this a line of attack I am capable of maintaining? Do I really wish I had this specific piece out over something else when I find myself in a likely scenario? etc.

Some format of snap shot theory that isn't designed to give people a 'Do this and that' methodology, but a 'How do I evaluate the board state effectively, and what Improvements to my mainline can I make' mentality. As someone who is really new to actually playing I know I would have loved to find a "Let's Analyze Together!" threads, because when I see a dedicated spot where there is high level talk is taking place I can see what the current players are taking into consideration when they play, and then adopt those myself to start. General threads like "Facing Guild" were nice to read through, but it didn't give me a feel of how that position would look like playing into it beyond anecdote; maybe if I saw that position myself, then maybe I could have found a to succeed it.

I love chats like these and encourage you to try posting some

Sometimes they take off, and sometimes they don't. I also find that a lot of those chats tend to happen more on discord (which is a shame, I think forums are way better).

[Zalinian]

8 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I love chats like these and encourage you to try posting some

Sometimes they take off, and sometimes they don't. I also find that a lot of those chats tend to happen more on discord (which is a shame, I think forums are way better).

I was curious the role Discord played. I know a LOT of forums have slowed down once it got popular, and I too was involved in quite a few that transitioned to it. Did a large chunk of this community forum transition to that as well?

I would love to post some threads about that! I will take snap shots of Resser positions I am in that may be tricky, and then make myself a thread for it.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Zalinian said:

I was curious the role Discord played. I know a LOT of forums have slowed down once it got popular, and I too was involved in quite a few that transitioned to it. Did a large chunk of this community forum transition to that as well?

I would love to post some threads about that! I will take snap shots of Resser positions I am in that may be tricky, and then make myself a thread for it.

Yeah, Discord has gotten huge for Malifaux. There's probably 10-50 times the content on the main server I'm on xD

Looking forward to seeing those threads

[Zalinian]

2 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Yeah, Discord has gotten huge for Malifaux. There's probably 10-50 times the content on the main server I'm on xD

Looking forward to seeing those threads

Is there a link I can hop into for one, or is it like a club entrance?

If I make those threads and you the premier Molly player doesn't reply, then I will have to send you a strongly worded letter!

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Zalinian said:

Is there a link I can hop into for one, or is it like a club entrance?

If I make those threads and you the premier Molly player doesn't reply, then I will have to send you a strongly worded letter!

https://discord.gg/HyqkjBAw

Haha, and I'm on the forums almost every day, so will hopefully see the threads But feel free to tag if I'm slack 😜

[Zalinian]

@Maniacal_cackleTch... I'm in.

Cool. Better get to putting some boards together. I find myself lacking terrain for minis, as I custom make all my maps for D&D on Clip Studio Paint. Do you have any recommended pieces that are fun for Ressers? If my play group is gonna put the onus of terrain on me, you bet your sweet Emissaries I'm gonna build towers at the perfect height for the Seamus Gat of the century.

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 minutes ago, Zalinian said:

@Maniacal_cackleTch... I'm in.

Cool. Better get to putting some boards together. I find myself lacking terrain for minis, as I custom make all my maps for D&D on Clip Studio Paint. Do you have any recommended pieces that are fun for Ressers? If my play group is gonna put the onus of terrain on me, you bet your sweet Emissaries I'm gonna build towers at the perfect height for the Seamus Gat of the century.

Haha, I assume this is a joke, but just in case...

Malifaux is hugely reliant on terrain, and having favourable terrain will massively make a difference. So I'd go for balance. Check out the terrain section of the rule book, and the Gaining Grounds 2 section on terrain. There will be a lot of advice.

Also check out the terrain section of this forum, and you'll find there's lots of good tips on stuff to buy or make.

In general, I'd say:

• A bunch of forests (maybe 3-4 inches in diameter). Ideally you want a base for the forest, and removable trees so models can fit on it easily.
• A bunch of buildings, varying in size. For a 'real' feel, the buildings should probably be pretty big compared to the models, but again I find 3-6 inches wide is great and 2-4 inches tall.
• Maybe some water features, probably ~1 inch wide for rivers and 3-4 inches in diameter for pools.
• Maybe some rocks (same rules as buildings)
• Hills (these can be as big as you'd like).

That's probably a good start, but I may have forgotten some stuff.

[Zalinian]

It was a joke outside of me being the one making them, most likely. Lol. I am scrolling through th terrain section now! Awesome.

[Adran]

Hello and welcome. 

Looking at your collection I would say that you have plenty of options to play. Especially if you are primarily going to be playing against other new players. Your best bet is to play some games, find what models you like, what models you don't like, and where you think you have problems. because I know that I can play an identical list to someone else, and play a totally different game because of my style. Internet advise is useful, but we don't know everything, so don't automatically believe someone that says you must own A or that B is useless. Look at why they say that and see if that matches what you see. 

My advice would be to pick a master to start with, and play a few games with that master, their core box and 1 or 2 more models. (depending on what size you and your friends play. The most common size is 50ss, but with a lot of new players you might find it easier to play 30 or 40 ss games to reduce the numebr of models you have to learn and pay attention to)  After a few games you can start to see what works for you and what doesn't. 

On 6/9/2021 at 8:54 PM, Zalinian said:

I looked through the forums and agree with the general sentiment regarding Necropunk. It feels like such a big cost. Assuming you don't cheat a severe card out for the leap suit, you are looking to split, on average, 2 leaps amongst all necropunks you decided to bring for the first portion of the game. It feels like such a heavy hit to anyone who liked running multiples. Summoning is interesting and I have no clue what tricks that change actually snuffs. For Molly is her Core Box/Crooligan the main focus? I think I have all the Resser versatiles other than Sloth and Grave Diggers. Is Call to Madness crucial?

I suppose my next question should be: How deep of analysis do we have, as an accessible resource, of opening maneuvers? I'm thinking of putting together and running a bunch of mock Resser games and hunting for different strategies that can be pulled off on a general level that can be considered relatively universal opens for certain masters. I know there are opposing units that can provide pretty potent counterplay or strategies you must answer, but we can gather data on certain strategies that involve a small handful of units and success rates? Or is the scope of this task, when accounting for the potential schemes you may run into, so much to account for its barely worth it? I can imagine there must be some consistent opens hiding around. I am imagining a format such as 'If running Corners with (x, x, or x) strategies, and if the opponents deployment is missing (general mechanic), then this strategy can consistently succeed (x% of flips, or if you have y suits to cheat.), otherwise this reserved style has a x% success rate out of a 20 game sample size vs. (Insert Master.)' 

"Opening sequences" in Malifaux are probably not very common. A few crews can have a turn 1 of "build up", where they intend to set the crew up ready, typically by summoning models  or giving focus to models or repositioning things to make them able to attack on the first turn. This has probably reduced following the last errata on focus being limited to +2.

The nature of the game with a wide range of stratergies, schemes, deployments and terrain on  the table means that in general you probably just want a general plan of what you are going to do first turn that you are prepared to alter depending on what the opponent does. Even if you are settign up for a first turn "alpha strike" you probably will only get a small selection of the enemies crew to choose from to be the target of the strike, so yopu have to be able to adapt it based on what they do. 

I think the game set up and amount of play it gets is too low for you to get anywhere near the level of the format you are imagining. If you and your opponent played each other with an identical game for 30-40 games, then you might start to see that sort of trend, but start changing even just the crew compositions or scheme selections and you would need a much bigger sample size. 

As someone that used to run crews of leapers in previous editions ( I used to run a marcus crews that contained 6-7 models with leap for certain strategies) let me tell you that an unsuited leap is still a very powerful action. Remember that whilst you know you might only be able to cheat to pass 1 or 2 in the first couple of turns, your opponent doesn't know how many times you can leap and has to be prepared for any of them to leap. 

 

On 6/10/2021 at 2:20 AM, Zalinian said:

What is "Rate"? I also see terms like "Tarpit", "Beater", and "Engine" which are pretty explanatory, but some oddball terms I have never seen used.
 

I'm pretty sure Rate is fairly worldwide, its typically a shortening of the Phrase "I rate model X as very good" to become "I rate model X."

On 6/10/2021 at 5:11 AM, Zalinian said:

@GrafI appreciate it! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about it.

I saw some of the guides, and the S&S Budget Guides were fairly interesting to look through. I am hoping some day, soon hopefully, to collect enough Resser data for us and contribute to them.

Quite a lot of those RCT's seem to have slowed a fair few months ago. I am not fully convinced the discussions have been dove into as deep as they could've, and I love me some Excel tables, cup of coffee, and a slow afternoon with an open board. When I coach new chess  players I position boards with puzzles and ask the group 'Where to from here?'. This falls more in line with what Graf was mentioning where there is a mental checklist you go through, and maybe we could add definition to that as it applies to Resser pieces: Is this a line of attack I am capable of maintaining? Do I really wish I had this specific piece out over something else when I find myself in a likely scenario? etc.

Some format of snap shot theory that isn't designed to give people a 'Do this and that' methodology, but a 'How do I evaluate the board state effectively, and what Improvements to my mainline can I make' mentality. As someone who is really new to actually playing I know I would have loved to find a "Let's Analyze Together!" threads, because when I see a dedicated spot where there is high level talk is taking place I can see what the current players are taking into consideration when they play, and then adopt those myself to start. General threads like "Facing Guild" were nice to read through, but it didn't give me a feel of how that position would look like playing into it beyond anecdote; maybe if I saw that position myself, then maybe I could have found a to succeed it.

Those guides are very hard to set up.

Whilst you can take a snap shot of a chess game and be able to work out what is likely to happen, the "history" in a malifaux game is much more relevant. How does the opponent  play? Are they building for big hits and cheating aggressively, or are they holding their cards carefully. Have they been using stones through the game to get triggers, get flips, get better cards in and, or to prevent damage. What is their hand/discard pile like. Why are models in a certain place? Did they go there to score, or to engage an enemy that has now left, or were they dragged their by an enemy model?

The nearest in Chess I can think of is knowing if your opponent is interested in trying to empty the board by exchanging pieces, or has been declining exchanges. That would probably alter your plans. 

There are general takes on what should you do in a certain situation. I would suggest the following checklist as at least a good guide. 

1 - How am I going to score this activation. 

2 -How am I going to protect my scoring this activation, or set up for scoring in another activation

3- How am I going to deny my opponent scoring this activation

4-How am I going to set up for denying my opponent scoring this activation. 

5- After you have looked at all the VPs and decide that you can't do anything helpful to them should you consider "random attacks". (Note, attacking a model to kill it to protect your models so they can score, or so that the model can't stop you removing those markers may well appear in the earlier 4 steps). 

 

Likewise when you draw you hand of cards each turn have a plan on what each card is for. If you have triggers/TNs that need certain suits then consider if you need to save those cards. Think about what attacks you are likely to do over the turn and how much you need them to succeed, and also which of your models are likely to be attacked, and how much you need to protect them. Do you have any abilities that discard cards?  and which cards in in your hand are worth using on those. Does your opponent  have any effects that make you discard cards? how likely are they to get them off and do you need to hold cards to protect from those?