Jack Daw: ensouled

[Jordon]

So while I don't feel like Auguste is a priority hire for Jack, I am trying to see what value he could bring. 

Certainly Disturbing Whispers is a solid ability for Jack. Especially Jack2 who doesn't have it anymore. Many tormented models rely on terrifying and you can SoDP on other minions to give them terrifying as well. 

I also think Exclusive Interview can be pretty powerful in the right scheme pool. Standing next to a strategy marker basically forces the enemy into dealing with Auguste in order to score. It's something pretty unique that Jack doesn't otherwise have access to within keyword. 

Ignore the Voices and Interview the Dead are going to be more niche with Jack but still will likely see play at some point during a game. Certainly not the reason to hire him but nice abilities all the same. 

 

So getting into the more weird stuff. I do think Auguste has some interesting play with Guilty. I don't mind giving Guilty the Distracted condition since they can use their Share Guilt free action to burn it off.

What this gives you is some nice efficiency with Auguste's Chasing Ghosts action. Giving a little push to all Guilty, but more importantly the trigger to draw (I'm not sure how many because the artwork is cut off) cards if those guilty have distracted. Not bad for a free action if you ask me. Or it can also allow you to stack some distracted on Auguste himself.

The other thing you can do is use his Crazed Swipe on a Guilty. The 1 min damage is nice as it's not doing all that much to the guilty. More importantly, if you have a low tome you can pulse out some unresisted distracted. If the Guilty has an upgrade, you can also draw a card from them. 

 

Again, I'm not saying that these are amazing reasons to hire Auguste, but if you like the model or you want to change up your Daw lists. Then these might be some tactics that'll get you some value. 

[admiralvorkraft]

Auguste has play - I think - but the key is getting him a stack of distracted before you expose him to threats. I think he might be your t1 ball carrier/turf marker tagger/etc. Toss a mask or two at him and he can be at distracted 3 by the top of turn 2 which isn't bad... In theory.

He probably also has more play into keywords like Qi and Gong, Performer, and Journalist 😛

[HomelessOne]

4 hours ago, Jordon said:

What this gives you is some nice efficiency with Auguste's Chasing Ghosts action. Giving a little push to all Guilty, but more importantly the trigger to draw (I'm not sure how many because the artwork is cut off) cards if those guilty have distracted.

Maximum of two cards. The TN of Chasing Ghosts is 10 and is a Mv 13 duel for enemy models, to be thorough.

[RisingPhoenix]

Draw them In with Guilt of the Many is a spammable 9+ damage attack if you can hit three models.  So if Jack Daw charges through someone (dragging them along), hits someone to make them hazardous, hits the mask, drags both models along, brings them to a third model, and then hits Draw Them In twice you could easily be looking at killing three models that round.  And not small models either. 

I would REALLY hate to play a bubble crew against this.  Like to the point where I'd see him, and immediately drop the "bubble" plan and just take the hit.  He could eradicate a bubble.  It might involve spending soulstones like water, but they're there to be spent.  If he can get 4-5 models within Draw Them In range (which is not unreasonable for a 4" aura given he can move models) its game over.  Problem is, well, your opponent always can pass a TN 13 movement duel, even if they don't necessarily want to spend their cards that way. 

The potential damage output is way high.  Like way, way high.  The risk?  Well, this is not a master that will live through the game, we kinda know that, so don't play him into pools with assassinate.  I don't know if this is going to regularly see play, but it's certainly interesting. 

 

For the Enforcer, well, he hands out distracted and staggered.  Problem is, I don't think he's great at both.  If you burn his distracted to live he's harmless, if you burn it for damage he's squishy.  If a crew could spam distracted on him he'd be hardcore tech, but Daw isn't that crew.  I dunno. I don't see taking him, he's not better than a Guilty+2 stones.  Nellie is probably happy, and Nellie needed more help than Daw, so that's good I guess in a "for the balance of the game" sense. 

[Adran]

15 hours ago, RisingPhoenix said:

Draw them In with Guilt of the Many is a spammable 9+ damage attack if you can hit three models.  So if Jack Daw charges through someone (dragging them along), hits someone to make them hazardous, hits the mask, drags both models along, brings them to a third model, and then hits Draw Them In twice you could easily be looking at killing three models that round.  And not small models either. 

Ow, thats hard. I would say though that you can normally reduce that level of pain quite easily by preventing the hazardous model from moving. Even if you just stop them moving along with the burst of speed trigger, you have potentially prevented 5 or 6 damage on the other 2 models. (You probably also then want to cheat the first draw them in that they are probably in range for, and arrange the movement on the second one that they move last assuming that they are far enough away that they won't make the first two suffer hazardous)

I still would look to drop a bubble plan, draw them in is too scary an area effect to let me want to easily let 3-4 models be got. 

[Gheist]

On 10/1/2021 at 3:18 PM, admiralvorkraft said:

The rule of thumb in 2e was that damage was nice but movement won games. I think that's less true in 3e but being able to pick your battles is still super helpful.

I hate the all-in approach Daw1 favors and 2 plays the skirmishing/isolation game better so I'll probably always run him. Good to have different styles I guess.

I think it's still true in M3E.

but it think the threat of dmg is a big factor in where pieces move. I struggle with the new upgrade because alot of the newer models plain ignore hazardous.

oherwise it' great.

Gonna play him on record saturday, so i guess i'll hold my judgement till then :)

[RisingPhoenix]

23 hours ago, Adran said:

Ow, thats hard. I would say though that you can normally reduce that level of pain quite easily by preventing the hazardous model from moving. Even if you just stop them moving along with the burst of speed trigger, you have potentially prevented 5 or 6 damage on the other 2 models. (You probably also then want to cheat the first draw them in that they are probably in range for, and arrange the movement on the second one that they move last assuming that they are far enough away that they won't make the first two suffer hazardous)

I still would look to drop a bubble plan, draw them in is too scary an area effect to let me want to easily let 3-4 models be got. 

Yup, I think it's most likely a "gotcha" build (something that works once or twice, but fades in effectiveness as the opponent learns how to counter it) but I dunno.  That's a LOT of damage.  And you can use Guilty as Charged to power it up... hmmm.  It's a LOT of damage.  And hey, just making them not take a bubble crew when they want to can be a win in and of itself for a very killy strategy.   I really gotta play test him like a lot a lot, the potential is there but I don't know how easy it is to counter it. 

If nothing else it's nice that Sandeep can't just erase Jack Daw from existence casually.  I still don't think I'd ever pick him into Arcanists, but at least now it's a consideration rather than having your opponent laugh heartily and remove Daw from the table without even using flips.  6 Health Daw had some glaring weaknesses that made him unpickable against entire factions, and now I could with good conscience recommend the crew to a player knowing they can have a real game against most factions using this. 

[Gheist]

On 10/7/2021 at 11:06 AM, RisingPhoenix said:

Yup, I think it's most likely a "gotcha" build (something that works once or twice, but fades in effectiveness as the opponent learns how to counter it) but I dunno.  That's a LOT of damage.  And you can use Guilty as Charged to power it up... hmmm.  It's a LOT of damage.  And hey, just making them not take a bubble crew when they want to can be a win in and of itself for a very killy strategy.   I really gotta play test him like a lot a lot, the potential is there but I don't know how easy it is to counter it. 

If nothing else it's nice that Sandeep can't just erase Jack Daw from existence casually.  I still don't think I'd ever pick him into Arcanists, but at least now it's a consideration rather than having your opponent laugh heartily and remove Daw from the table without even using flips.  6 Health Daw had some glaring weaknesses that made him unpickable against entire factions, and now I could with good conscience recommend the crew to a player knowing they can have a real game against most factions using this. 

I think you can pick him into arcanists way better the the old Jack. And Arcanists struggle with some of the tormented models like Hanged and Monty in my opinion

My expression from first play was that having the new daw on the table is making your opponent move his Models in an awkward way because he has to consider the upgrade and the draw them in ability. which gives you free roam on lure/pull&drag etc. I played vs armor 2 spam so no obviously not much to be done dmg wise, but you can screw heavily  with their positioning.

And I must confess: August Hart is just way better than i gave him credit for. Sure he gets torn apart turn 1 but: if your opponent has no other problems to attack him then you are playing the rest of the crew wrong i guess. And his kit is suited to inconvenience you opponont further. I say it's a winner, but have to get more games in to confirm.

 

[Gheist]

In case you guys want to give some Feedback on the game, i guess it contains more errors than a lot of games but then... nobodys perfect i guess

[Azahul]

7 hours ago, Gheist said:

In case you guys want to give some Feedback on the game, i guess it contains more errors than a lot of games but then... nobodys perfect i guess

Definitely on my "to watch" list sometime in the next couple of days. 

[Azahul]

On 10/21/2021 at 12:29 AM, Gheist said:

In case you guys want to give some Feedback on the game, i guess it contains more errors than a lot of games but then... nobodys perfect i guess

Hahaha, that was wild! Quite an ending.

Auguste seemed a lot more useful than I initially gave him credit for. There were a good few Min 3 swings in there given how few options you had to increase his Distracted. I wonder if it's worth bringing a Catalan Rifleman to drive up the Distracted...

[Gheist]

23 hours ago, Azahul said:

Hahaha, that was wild! Quite an ending.

Auguste seemed a lot more useful than I initially gave him credit for. There were a good few Min 3 swings in there given how few options you had to increase his Distracted. I wonder if it's worth bringing a Catalan Rifleman to drive up the Distracted...

Yeah Auguste is quite the Hero, i didn't care much for him until the game too. My Girlfriend tried him with nellie and he more or less singlehandedly killed Izamu, so there is one model that has gone up in respect.

I think there is a lot of new models that you have to put on the table to see how they really work, as usual it's preemptive to just judge them by the card.

hm yeah you could  bring Rifleman but you would have to be sure your opponent has no irreducible damage (or keep that damage occupied otherwise) because then August goes down too fast. And depending on matchup he will climb the target priority list fast in the coming months.

Problem is that the whole distracted thing doesn't tie in too well with the rest of the tormented Crew, so i guess i'll stick too having him do unobtrusive stuff round 1 and only go in round 2 at the earliest. if i can keep myself from hiring a 2nd hanged that is I think he August is super Nuts with the new Nellie Title though

[admiralvorkraft]

I need to stress test him more as an independent operator. He does some interesting things but he's hungry for masks in a crew that's already hungry for masks.

[Barmution]

If you're not expecting action directly you could bring in Pride to trade 2/4 hp for 2/4 Distracted then heal up with the Jack's tactical, but at that point you've spent 14 SS in a crew where 16+ SS on Hanged is staple and you probably want Monty and a couple of upgrades as well. The opportunity cost is pretty steep so both Auguste and Pride need to do some serious work for that to be viable.

[Gheist]

21 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

I need to stress test him more as an independent operator. He does some interesting things but he's hungry for masks in a crew that's already hungry for masks.

Yeah i think he is impossible to really tie down.

Masks... but most models can stone for masks that really need them (mostly on your heels and the new burst of speed , Hanged, JackDaw) and he brings good Draw Mechanics with his ranged Attack. Otherwise it's mostly stagger trigger which is nice to have but can be guaranteed by ranged attacks of montresor, Hanged and Crooked man as well as Riptide Markers from the Drowned.

Otherwise You are coming with me on Jakuuna and the Mask trigger on the Crooked Mans bonus are the only ones where you would really need the mask in Hand.

And before i at least have been burning stones left and right for rams and Crows on Jack, so i don't know if it's such a drag on our hands.

[admiralvorkraft]

It's fair. I prefer to budget my stones for damage prevention and only spend them for OMH when I absolutely have to. But you're right that I can work that differently.

[Gheist]

1 hour ago, Barmution said:

If you're not expecting action directly you could bring in Pride to trade 2/4 hp for 2/4 Distracted then heal up with the Jack's tactical, but at that point you've spent 14 SS in a crew where 16+ SS on Hanged is staple and you probably want Monty and a couple of upgrades as well. The opportunity cost is pretty steep so both Auguste and Pride need to do some serious work for that to be viable.

Pride kind of ties in well with the card discard/hand pressure style of the old Daw. I Think it's matchup dependent, but against some crews a super buffed up August might be good. On the other hand i'll just hit him over the head with min 2 until he has no distracted anymore and then he dies. and then you have 4 activations of Pride

I actually played  a lot of daw without any hanged, might be a mistake but did work too, if differently so.

51 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

It's fair. I prefer to budget my stones for damage prevention and only spend them for OMH when I absolutely have to. But you're right that I can work that differently.

Maybe depends how much pressure your opponent puts on. On the other hand if i can place jack daw or a hanged in an uncomfortable spot for my Opponent it's maybe worth the Stone