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Alpha Marcus


Peturd

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We now have a new title

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So Marcus is getting his hands dirty to fight Cooper. Melee beast Marcus. Surprisingly easy to get 4-6 mutations out a turn with Myranda and an Initiate or two. Myranda giving the positive df (combined with always in cover Marcus) makes it hard to shoot him. And almost as hard to charge him. He can hit a 4/6/8 damage track, with positive on the charge. Myranda can make him charge on her activation. And/or heal him. Which can trigger more mutations being handed out!

The birds are decent schemers. Worst case you target a friendly to get scheme markers where you need em’. And they are fast as heck with flight. Depending on who you are facing they might need the camo mutation.

I think I’ll want the camo mutation on Myranda whenever possible. Vogel might be handy a lot in this crew (both forms). Paul can get Marcus attacking as well.

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6 minutes ago, Peturd said:

The birds are decent schemers. Worst case you target a friendly to get scheme markers where you need em’. And they are fast as heck with flight.

Sadly the trigger is enemy only, and with just stat 4, that's not very reliable. Honestly I don't think the birds will see much play. Marcus looks solid though.

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Marcus seems interesting enough. I do like the incentive to using adaptive evolution....... however not much of his crew really utilizes the discard so I sort of feel like this version of marcus will be even more restricted with his hiring. 

The bird kind of seem meh. I'd probably hire them over hoarcats and molemen but that's not exactly a high bar to hit. Mv7 and flight are really the only things of interest. Ariel strike looks interesting as a way to drop a scheme marker but Stat4 and requiring a tome makes it seem very unlikely. 

 

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1 hour ago, Jordon said:

Marcus seems interesting enough. I do like the incentive to using adaptive evolution....... however not much of his crew really utilizes the discard so I sort of feel like this version of marcus will be even more restricted with his hiring. 

The bird kind of seem meh. I'd probably hire them over hoarcats and molemen but that's not exactly a high bar to hit. Mv7 and flight are really the only things of interest. Ariel strike looks interesting as a way to drop a scheme marker but Stat4 and requiring a tome makes it seem very unlikely. 

 

Mv8 with Feathered Wings, and Initiates/Myranda can make them walk. Adaptive Evolution + Predatory Instinct means you can either be at :+flip:+flip:tome to hit or at :tome to hit with :+flipto damage. Give them Natural Camouflage and they'll be able to go scheme uninterrupted most likely.

The main problem here is that the new Marcus has even less upgrades to spare than the old Marcus. Unless they're planning on widely buffing the lacklustre beasts I'd say this title is strong on its own but fails to fix the problems in Chimera.

I want to have a reason to buy Molemen. I've been holding out for two editions now and it's only getting easier as time goes on. Razorspines and Slate Ridge Maulers could use a boost as well.

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1 hour ago, Raising said:

of course is more restricted it cant hire beast without extra cost

Oh your right! I completely spaced on that. No Blessed (big deal), no hoarcats (not a big deal). However I suspect that this is even a bigger deal in NB. 

 

1 hour ago, Jinn said:

Mv8 with Feathered Wings, and Initiates/Myranda can make them walk. Adaptive Evolution + Predatory Instinct means you can either be at :+flip:+flip:tome to hit or at :tome to hit with :+flipto damage. Give them Natural Camouflage and they'll be able to go scheme uninterrupted most likely.

Yeah I'm sure that would make them good, but the investment cost is pretty extreme. As you said, there is less upgrades to go around and are you really going to invest so much in a 5ss model when you have much more deserving models who can do more with those same upgrades.

1 hour ago, Jinn said:

The main problem here is that the new Marcus has even less upgrades to spare than the old Marcus. Unless they're planning on widely buffing the lacklustre beasts I'd say this title is strong on its own but fails to fix the problems in Chimera.

This nails my problem with Marcus. Doesn't matter which version, he's always going to run into this same issue.

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7 minutes ago, Jordon said:

 

Yeah I'm sure that would make them good, but the investment cost is pretty extreme. As you said, there is less upgrades to go around and are you really going to invest so much in a 5ss model when you have much more deserving models who can do more with those same upgrades.

Just what is the cost to do that? You miss an activation with the upgrade on a different model so you probably want to activate the eagle earlier, and you need a model within4 when you discard the upgrade. 

Alpha used the upgrades a lot more like McCabe, you're happy to discard one each activation as its not lost it's just moved to another model. 

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Only Paul Crocket, Molemen, Vogel and the Rattler don’t discard upgrades on their own.  Paul doesn’t need any, and no one uses molemen sadly. So it’s just Vogel and the Rattler that don’t discard by some means, and Myranda can swap em with tomes on the heal if need be. They are both models that are better to keep their mutations anyway I figure.

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13 minutes ago, HomelessOne said:

I do appreciate how Alpha captures the feel how how diverse Marcus' gameplay could be in 2e due to his upgrades, regardless of how we ultimately decide to rank him on the tier list.

"Law of Meat" is so iconic Marcus to me that I'm happy to see it used as an ability name again.

4/4/6 beater Marcus was my late 2e love affair.

This seems tamer than that but I'm happy to see a nod towards the past.

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57 minutes ago, Nikodemus said:

4/4/6 beater Marcus was my late 2e love affair.

This seems tamer than that but I'm happy to see a nod towards the past.

I don't know, once you start stacking upgrades, I think he'll be pretty damn scary.

 

If I had to rank the upgrades (without factoring in particular match ups).

1) Natural Camo - 4" severe terrtain, built in push on attacks, cannot be charged, cannot be shot outside of 6". This makes him an incredibly tough nut to crack.

2) Formidable Horns - 2/4/6 with positives to damage on the charge combined with chimera strike means he'll be 1-shotting most minions with a severe. Add in Onslaught.... yikes.

3) Feathered Wings - Leaping, flying, Mv6 is great. Especially with the prevalence of Call of the Wild, which he now benefits from. Butterfly jump also seems particularly nasty when paired with Wilds of Malifaux.

4) Teeth and Claws - He already has access to adversary but it's nice to just get it for free anyway. Puncture is quite nice as it gives him a trigger on every suit (tomes are made irrelevant with this upgrade) and he's got the damage track to really make use of it. 

5) Armored Plates - Armor is always great but probably not as urgent as the other defensive upgrades. Besides I doubt he'll be still very often to make use of the shielded +2.

 

I don't think there's really any bad choices. Sounds like he's going to be greedy and use pretty much all of them anyway so why even be picky.

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8 hours ago, Jordon said:

Mv7 and flight are really the only things of interest. Ariel strike looks interesting as a way to drop a scheme marker but Stat4 and requiring a tome makes it seem very unlikely. 

They seem strong to me. They're only Stat 4 but have a really big, LoS, cover and concealment ignoring threat range. With Adaptive Evolution, Predatory Instinct and Focus they can have a lot of bonuses to hit if you want then to just tag something for a scheme. Or potentially hunt weak back line units. 

 

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2 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

They seem strong to me. They're only Stat 4 but have a really big, LoS, cover and concealment ignoring threat range. With Adaptive Evolution, Predatory Instinct and Focus they can have a lot of bonuses to hit if you want then to just tag something for a scheme. Or potentially hunt weak back line units. 

 

Not to mention with predatory instincts, you can get double positive to the damage flip which is pretty useful.

Having something your opponent really wants to cheat against has some value by itself. Between eagles and crockett, people may run out of things to make you miss xD

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9 hours ago, Adran said:

and you need a model within4 when you discard the upgrade. 

This is I suspect going to be the crux and peak of the learning curve for Alpha Marcus.

As long as you can keep Beast/Chimera within :ToS-Aura:4 of others then the mutation conga line is just going to work, the true second level player even works the line so 9/10 the right mutation is on the right model at the right moment. But, especially with the Empyrean Eagles, clearly geared as fast scheme runners that can operate from a distance I can see circumstances where they end up out by themselves and nothing is within the bubble bounce mutation aura.

Still, I like on principle, really plays into the angry, frenzied beast aspect of Marcus. As we've generally seen, different and still thematic, power tier generally on par with OG version of master.

My big disappointment is that this doesn't really help the underwhelming Beasts, I feel like the crew will largely consist of the same high value Beasts as OG Marcus. In particular I was hoping for some synergy or boost play for Razorspines (now three in a box, but why, we could have had poison play) and also the poor Molemen, still safely consigned to be largely a useless points sink.

Guess I'm hoping to see errata work which boosts some of the underutilised Beasts and at least give both Marcus versions some options for crew variety without taking models which just seem to be less value efficient.

General thoughts on Alpha 😁, on Empyrean Eagle 😄, on wider Arcanist Beast crew flexibility and alternatives 🤨

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6 hours ago, dancater said:

But, especially with the Empyrean Eagles, clearly geared as fast scheme runners that can operate from a distance I can see circumstances where they end up out by themselves and nothing is within the bubble bounce mutation aura.

Yeah. I was thinking you probably want have them work on teams if two so they can throw mutations back and forth. At least until they need to peel off and do schemes. 

 

6 hours ago, dancater said:

Guess I'm hoping to see errata work which boosts some of the underutilised Beasts and at least give both Marcus versions some options for crew variety without taking models which just seem to be less value efficient.

Yeah. I think an errata is the only way to see a change. I don't know that there's a good way to have Marcus boost Molemen without also making the already good options even better.

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5 hours ago, dannydb said:

Yer it still feels like you want to go vercitile/ook heavy with Marcus which is sad, I guess it's maybe double cerbs for original Marcus and myranda, double initiates for this version. Who by the way gives 0 support to jacklope 

Surely he gives as much support to the Jackalope as normal Marcus? I.e. one upgrade/turn.

 

I mean you can choose not to in order to prioritise another model but that's the same dilemma Marcus has always faced.

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Seems like Myranda and at least two Initiates are going to be the staple. From there I think there is a stronger argument for Paul.
 

Beyond those, I don’t really see a massive change from the models you’d want to hire from OG Marcus. Maybe less incentive to bring Vogel since he can’t discard.

One thing I’m getting the sense of is how potentially demanding Marcus might be on soulstones. He’s got a lot of really great triggers and often I’d probably stone for a suit rather than remove an upgrade (for chimera strike for example). 
 

Not sure if SS cache is worth considering for Marcus or one of the initiates 
 

 

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2 hours ago, Jordon said:

Seems like Myranda and at least two Initiates are going to be the staple. From there I think there is a stronger argument for Paul.
 

Beyond those, I don’t really see a massive change from the models you’d want to hire from OG Marcus. Maybe less incentive to bring Vogel since he can’t discard.

One thing I’m getting the sense of is how potentially demanding Marcus might be on soulstones. He’s got a lot of really great triggers and often I’d probably stone for a suit rather than remove an upgrade (for chimera strike for example). 
 

Not sure if SS cache is worth considering for Marcus or one of the initiates 
 

 

If Cache is on him he can reliably just stone for the 4/6/8 damage track and likely get most of those stones back!

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10 hours ago, Jordon said:

Beyond those, I don’t really see a massive change from the models you’d want to hire from OG Marcus.

Which is the minor disappointment, which I hope a minor errata modifies. 

10 hours ago, Jordon said:

He’s got a lot of really great triggers and often I’d probably stone for a suit rather than remove an upgrade (for chimera strike for example). 

Yep, as I see it the ability to cycle the Chimera upgrades, having the right one in the right place, and keeping the conga line rotating is going to be huge. As you've identified this is also going to be critical for Marcus as a fearsome beater master himself, if, if, you can work the Chimera upgrades you have huge flexibility and efficiency, alternatively you rely on the soul stone burn method of most masters, but at the cost of the upgrade advantage. 

My plan is a lot of soul stones, with Cache, and learning the ideal rotations. If I can get them to operate then I'm in a superb position to flex reducing soul stones and moving Cache. But initially I'll use them as a parachute. 

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It's been discussed to death elsewhere but I feel like Adaptive Evolution should get errata'd into moving onto the mutation upgrades. It makes even more sense now with this version of Marcus since you really don't want models locking up these mutations. 

Obviously this would be lead to a lot of changes to a lot of cards. This leads me to think that we're less likely to see such an errata happen. I guess the second best option would be to errata those who don't have it (and need it). 

That alone wouldn't be enough to hire say a Moleman, but at least they wouldn't be actively hindering the crews play style.  

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1 hour ago, Jordon said:

It's been discussed to death elsewhere but I feel like Adaptive Evolution should get errata'd into moving onto the mutation upgrades. It makes even more sense now with this version of Marcus since you really don't want models locking up these mutations. 

Obviously this would be lead to a lot of changes to a lot of cards. This leads me to think that we're less likely to see such an errata happen. I guess the second best option would be to errata those who don't have it (and need it). 

That alone wouldn't be enough to hire say a Moleman, but at least they wouldn't be actively hindering the crews play style.  

Heck, if giving them Adaptive is a balance issue, just give them "Evolutionary Dead End: This model may discard any number of it's attached Mutations at the end of it'sactivation", just so you can get them off and back in circulation.

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8 hours ago, aquenaton said:

Is the double negation on on Wilds of Malifaux intentional? Is every model placed by enemies forced to appear almost in melee with Marcus? it seems horribly annoying, even for my Bayou standards.

Just to be clear, means anything that wants to place (ie. models using flight, leaps, etc) must place anywhere on the board not in his aura. If you place right at the very edge of his aura that means when you charge him as a mv5/6 and melee 1” model you can only just barely reach.

So a mature Nephelim, to use as a great metric, would normally have a threat range of 8”. At 8” It’s charge wouldn’t reach Marcus running due to the severe and he can’t place in 4 so can’t use his flight. So has to spend 2 ap (or his bonus then an Ap) to reach Marcus and get a swing off. If Marcus has Camo it’s even worse, as things have to move to 4”, walk, the swing.

If Myranda is hiding in that bubble with Camo then he has +df, df7, -wound against him from shooting. And you can’t easily get by him to get at her. While she cycles him mutations and heals him for 3/4 most turns as he could be getting +++ on the heal flips from her.

Could be a tough/frustrating nut to crack!

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