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Post models you are struggling with, and let's brainstorm ways to handle them


Mycellanious

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I just thought this would be a fun way to create discussion. Post models you are struggling against (or to use) and let's brainstorm ways to potentially handle them. 

 

I'll go first: I dont understand how you are supposed to deal with models like the Nothing Beast. It has guaranteed last activation and unburies next to any model in your crew. Are you just expected to play every game against Tara 1-2 models down?

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21 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

I just thought this would be a fun way to create discussion. Post models you are struggling against (or to use) and let's brainstorm ways to potentially handle them. 

 

I'll go first: I dont understand how you are supposed to deal with models like the Nothing Beast. It has guaranteed last activation and unburies next to any model in your crew. Are you just expected to play every game against Tara 1-2 models down?

Firstly, I'm going to dispel the extremes. 

Tara does have pass token generation as part of her concept, so it is likely that  her crew will activate last, but not guaranteed. 

If it is buried, then it can unbury next to a model with fast. The crew is able to give enemy models fast as the result of an opposed duel with a 6" range. You can try and prioritise denying these duels. Tara can hire Student of conflict or the Dead outlaw and give her own models fast (sometimes the only time I get fast onto a model in a turn). You can also hire condition removal, and save it till your last activation to remove the fast from your models. 

 

Lets say that all didn't work and the Nothing beast gets to activate last and unbury where its wants.  Its doing a 3/4/6 damage on a stat 6 vs WP. That's probably going to average 6 damage. More if you have spent some time setting up the nothing beast with Focus. But its risky saving good cards for the last activation of the turn, so they might have saved a severe for the damage, but what did that cost them? And how annoyed would they be if they never got cheatable damage?

That has probably not killed a major model, its probably either killed a minor model or badly hurt a major model. 

Next turn - Tara probably is going to win initiative if she really wants - she generates pass tokens, so even though she got last activation, she ought to get first as well (although sometimes you can be lucky and force her to have to cheat to get it, I wouldn't rely on it).  Tar a now has a choice. She can either get a second activation from the nothing beast, or get it to safety. If she attacks, then she has probably managed to kill a significant part of your crew, but you will get a chance to react, and have a reasonable chance to deal significant damage back to the nothing beast. (Probably not enough to kill it unless you have Focus +2 on beater model nearby). 

You also likely have several of your crew within 6" of the rest of the obliteration crew (Since they managed to make you fast) so you ought to be able to have a full turn of meaningful interactions.

Tara is probably one of the best at this play style, but she is not the only crew to do it.  Typical counters include setting up to protect the models you don't want them to hit, and trying to prepare a counter strike so you can trade. 

 

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On 8/27/2021 at 1:46 AM, Adran said:

Tara does have pass token generation as part of her concept, so it is likely that  her crew will activate last, but not guaranteed. 

She also gets a second activation, meaning without your own extra activation or pass token generation she does always go last.

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For facing Tara, you could have a look at my Malifaux World Series game 1 if you'd like.

I usually find the Tara matchup pretty easy (although I lost that one and it was the hardest game I've had against her 😜 )

But some of the principles you can steal for making it difficult for her to unbury her models.

Normally she gets the Nothing Beast unburied in my crew and then I just kill it, but that didn't happen this time.

Also, in most of my games I just kill Tara and the crew falls apart, scheming wise. This game I found that difficult to pull off/didn't put enough resources into it, and it was a huge part of why I lost.

I think Tara scored every strategy point he got that game xD

But yeah, my number one recommendation is invest the resources to kill Tara. The crew's ability to score REALLY suffers after that.

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I'm not sure "kill Tara" is advice all that many crews can easily follow. She's mobile, all but immune to projectiles, doesn't want to be in the scrum, and very easy to rescue from danger as a rule. It's easy to follow that advice and fall into a trap of spending several AP running her to ground only for her to vanish from the board, get healed, and come back into play on the other side of the field leaving the beater you sent to do the job wasting yet more AP to get somewhere useful. If you have the kit to keep the pressure on her, by all means do it, but it's not necessarily a strategy that may be within your grasp by the time you see that you're up against Tara.

 

The main limiting factor for the Nothing Beast for me is that Obliteration is a keyword with very limited access to card draw and a lot of cards needed to just make their turn go smoothly. There are TNs galore (Karina's heals, friendly targeted Stutter Times, Tara's Timeslips, Aionus's unbury, and bringing a Covetous Cravings model OOK piles another on top) and your severes firstly will likely go towards summoning and landing at least one offensive Stutter Time. So that Nothing Beast isn't able to count on having any cards to cheat with. It might come out of nowhere Fast and make three swings on a vulnerable model but it will very likely be hoping to just flip higher than the target. If you want to keep it from doing work holding a decent card back to cheat defensively with can be enough.

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Totally agree my perspective is skewed because Molly is so good at it.

That said, you don't really need to chase Tara around the board. She is the main strategy runner of the board. She runs to where she can score points.

For example, in a symbols game, I just beat the stuffing out of Tara every time she crossed the centreline. She had to retreat so much she scored one symbol the entire game xD then I finally killed her turn 5.

Totally agree about card pressure. The hardest thing for obliteration is card pressure (although Karina swapping the discard deck alleviates a lot of that - like you never need to spend a card or stone to summon really).

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10 hours ago, Azahul said:

The main limiting factor for the Nothing Beast for me is that Obliteration is a keyword with very limited access to card draw and a lot of cards needed to just make their turn go smoothly. There are TNs galore (Karina's heals, friendly targeted Stutter Times, Tara's Timeslips, Aionus's unbury, and bringing a Covetous Cravings model OOK piles another on top) and your severes firstly will likely go towards summoning and landing at least one offensive Stutter Time. So that Nothing Beast isn't able to count on having any cards to cheat with.

Well lucky for Obliteration they just got a great new model that draws 2 cards a turn from their discard pile that are ideal for TNs (they're 7 or less.)

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9 hours ago, Jinn said:

Well lucky for Obliteration they just got a great new model that draws 2 cards a turn from their discard pile that are ideal for TNs (they're 7 or less.)

Yeah, 33 is a massive boon on that front. The Discard effect gives a function for the cards of 4 or less too, which Obliteration doesn't have a lot of use for either. Doesn't necessarily free up more severes for the Nothing Beast specifically but it does mean late in the turn you might be able to land a hit when your opponent flips a weak or low moderate.

 

As a rule I find Blasts in general something I'm still very much struggling to learn to play around. I play a lot of bubble crews though (when I'm not playing Tara) and a lot of Hamelin specifically so I certainly invite that on myself, but I still think I tend to be overly sloppy.

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12 minutes ago, Azahul said:

Yeah, 33 is a massive boon on that front. The Discard effect gives a function for the cards of 4 or less too, which Obliteration doesn't have a lot of use for either. Doesn't necessarily free up more severes for the Nothing Beast specifically but it does mean late in the turn you might be able to land a hit when your opponent flips a weak or low moderate.

 

As a rule I find Blasts in general something I'm still very much struggling to learn to play around. I play a lot of bubble crews though (when I'm not playing Tara) and a lot of Hamelin specifically so I certainly invite that on myself, but I still think I tend to be overly sloppy.

For blasts, getting in the habit of play at least 2 inches apart makes a huge difference.

I have a widget that is exactly two inches which helps, and I also declare rule of intent that the model is out of blast range in case the model gets bumped or if I'm on vassal.

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7 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

For blasts, getting in the habit of play at least 2 inches apart makes a huge difference.

I have a widget that is exactly two inches which helps, and I also declare rule of intent that the model is out of blast range in case the model gets bumped or if I'm on vassal.

Haha, yeah, I both have those tools and know I should use them. It's always such a tertiary consideration though sadly.

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Against Tara you bring the new Lady Justice and go to town😜

On a more serious note, I've had some issue with burying models (mainly Colette and Misaki), where it simply wasn't worth trying to kill them, but if I let them run free I lost. I find that the strats in GG2 has lessened the problem as I now have a fairly good idea of where they're going to pop out. Generally, against crews that can reposition all over the board I tend to go more defensive and try to deny as much as possible. If I have a way to increase my chances of getting initiative I also try to bring it. 

Against blast there's really only positioning.

I think my own major headache is hand attacks. I usually have a plan for almost every card I draw and having 3 cards ripped out tends to throw a wrench in my plans.

I've recently played a lot against Youko and god I hate knowing that I can't count on having a hand halfway through the turn. 

I've tried to counter it by bringing extra stones for cards and models with plus flips and stacking focus. But the fact that I can't guarantee a trigger, even though I have the suit in hand at the start of the turn is extraordinarily vexing. 

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8 hours ago, Angelshard said:

Against Tara you bring the new Lady Justice and go to town😜

On a more serious note, I've had some issue with burying models (mainly Colette and Misaki), where it simply wasn't worth trying to kill them, but if I let them run free I lost. I find that the strats in GG2 has lessened the problem as I now have a fairly good idea of where they're going to pop out. Generally, against crews that can reposition all over the board I tend to go more defensive and try to deny as much as possible. If I have a way to increase my chances of getting initiative I also try to bring it. 

Against blast there's really only positioning.

I think my own major headache is hand attacks. I usually have a plan for almost every card I draw and having 3 cards ripped out tends to throw a wrench in my plans.

I've recently played a lot against Youko and god I hate knowing that I can't count on having a hand halfway through the turn. 

I've tried to counter it by bringing extra stones for cards and models with plus flips and stacking focus. But the fact that I can't guarantee a trigger, even though I have the suit in hand at the start of the turn is extraordinarily vexing. 

Yeah, as a Molly main, the hand attack makes me cry as well (although at least I can recover from it, I'm used to planning out my cards). One thing that helps is just sheer volume of attacks. If you flip a lot of cards, even some of the minus flips will hit.

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On 9/3/2021 at 9:24 AM, Angelshard said:

Against Tara you bring the new Lady Justice and go to town😜

On a more serious note, I've had some issue with burying models (mainly Colette and Misaki), where it simply wasn't worth trying to kill them, but if I let them run free I lost. I find that the strats in GG2 has lessened the problem as I now have a fairly good idea of where they're going to pop out. Generally, against crews that can reposition all over the board I tend to go more defensive and try to deny as much as possible. If I have a way to increase my chances of getting initiative I also try to bring it. 

Against blast there's really only positioning.

I think my own major headache is hand attacks. I usually have a plan for almost every card I draw and having 3 cards ripped out tends to throw a wrench in my plans.

I've recently played a lot against Youko and god I hate knowing that I can't count on having a hand halfway through the turn. 

I've tried to counter it by bringing extra stones for cards and models with plus flips and stacking focus. But the fact that I can't guarantee a trigger, even though I have the suit in hand at the start of the turn is extraordinarily vexing. 

See, if I know my opponent is going to discard my hand anyway, I wouldnt bother stoning for cards. Against something like Youko, you just kind of need to accept that you wont have a hand and need to play accordingly, by either hiring Card Draw, or hiring models that dont really need cards to function properly. Something with a lot of moderate tn's (6+) would be pretty unreliable into Youko, whereas something with Vent Steam which doesnt even require a flip, would remain just as reliable as always

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8 hours ago, Angelshard said:

@Maniacal_cackle honestly attacks are the least of it. I can work around that, focus, stones and targeting weaker models and such. 

It's more my leaps an heals and obeys and other actions that require a suit on models that can't stone that's an issue.

I'd say you know that your opponent is likely to make you discard cards at the start of the turn, so you need to include discard in your plan for the hand each turn. 

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On 9/3/2021 at 10:54 PM, Angelshard said:

I've recently played a lot against Youko and god I hate knowing that I can't count on having a hand halfway through the turn. 

I've tried to counter it by bringing extra stones for cards and models with plus flips and stacking focus. But the fact that I can't guarantee a trigger, even though I have the suit in hand at the start of the turn is extraordinarily vexing. 

If you can kill the Charm Warders, or all the nearby Geisha/Kabukis that enable them, then that is most of the card hate in the crew gone.

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@Jinn true, but, generally, if I've killed all his support I'm well on my way to winning. 

@Adran mainly my plan consists of taking the activations that most need my hand first, trying to use the card before I lose them.

@Mycellanious my reason for stoning is that I hope u get a couple of weak cards out of my deck, so that it'll run a little bit hotter during the turn. 

 

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On 9/7/2021 at 1:46 PM, Angelshard said:

@Jinn true, but, generally, if I've killed all his support I'm well on my way to winning. 

@Adran mainly my plan consists of taking the activations that most need my hand first, trying to use the card before I lose them.

@Mycellanious my reason for stoning is that I hope u get a couple of weak cards out of my deck, so that it'll run a little bit hotter during the turn. 

 

Personally I feel a stone is worth more than that

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On 9/7/2021 at 6:46 PM, Angelshard said:

@Adran mainly my plan consists of taking the activations that most need my hand first, trying to use the card before I lose them.

@Mycellanious my reason for stoning is that I hope u get a couple of weak cards out of my deck, so that it'll run a little bit hotter during the turn. 

 

If you are disciplined you can often work out how many cards you are likely to discard, and then still be able to save cards for suits for a while. But it can be hard when that 6 you had previously "set aside" for a discard is suddenly enough to win you a duel. Is winning that duel worth the risk that you might have to discard a better card later in the turn? 

Whilst I agree that stoning is a good way to remove a couple of weak cards from your hand, I only do it if I have cards in my hand I don't have a use for. If I know my opponent is likely to force me to discard cards, then I am much more likely to think I have a use for a couple of low cards. I might still do it if I have a lot of low cards in my hand, but in general facing a discard crew will mean I stone for cards less than normal. 

Spending those stone won't make you deck run hotter on average, it makes your hand better, which is a different thing. 

 

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I didn't mean that I always just stone for extra cards (though that is pretty much what I wrote, just not in my head). 

I do stone more often against a discard crew, if I have a low or decent hand. But I wouldn't just stone if my hand was good. 

Normally I'm not that fond of stoning a decent hand, as I can usually use the cards for tn's. 

But when I know I can't rely on my hand I prefer either having a couple of good cards to ensure that at least one activation will go as I want or at least get rid of a few more low cards, so my deck will flip better. 

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20 minutes ago, Angelshard said:

 

I do stone more often against a discard crew, if I have a low or decent hand. But I wouldn't just stone if my hand was good. 

 

But when I know I can't rely on my hand I prefer either having a couple of good cards to ensure that at least one activation will go as I want or at least get rid of a few more low cards, so my deck will flip better. 

The problem you have, is that stoning for cards does not make your deck flip better. Removing 2 cards at random from the deck does not result in a better deck automatically. (Sometimes it will, but just as often it will make the deck worse).

What stoning for cards does is make your hand better because your hand is now the best 6 cards from a selection of 8 rather than just 6 cards at random. The reason this is often not a good idea against a discard deck is because they are targeting your hand and so you don't get the full value of your improved cards. If you end up discarding 3 cards to enemy effects you are only able to play your 3 best cards, and there is a lot less difference between the best 3 from 6 vs the best 3 from 8 than the best 6 from 6 vs the best 6 from 8. 

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