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Maxine full potential help


Pigna

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Hi Explorers, 

New player here, i try maxine and her crew and i just love them. So many ways to use resources and mathematics to shut down Your opponents. But my problem is about Maxine, i can't find a way to use her at full potential, how do you play her? Support or another way? Thanks for advice

Ps

I got crew base, turning tides, Beebe and calypso and one botanist

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51 minutes ago, Pigna said:

Hi Explorers, 

New player here, i try maxine and her crew and i just love them. So many ways to use resources and mathematics to shut down Your opponents. But my problem is about Maxine, i can't find a way to use her at full potential, how do you play her? Support or another way? Thanks for advice

Ps

I got crew base, turning tides, Beebe and calypso and one botanist

I haven't played her a ton recently due to being distracted by other shinies, but in general she's pretty great.  In general when I play I usually like to bring Kiya / Machinist / Tidecaller / Beebe & Calypso.  Harata + the harpooners + Beau are more on a need to have kind of basis.  I know some people don't love tidecaller as much but the unpacking possibilities of 3-4 tosses (specially when 2 are fast)  is pretty hard to say no to.

So for playing her, herself, she's usually focusing on support and scheming (as she's not really sturdy enough to frontline).  So turn 1 she'll be doing 2-3 inpromptus (giving fast to 2 models, giving focus +2 to another), trying to jump forward and place some decent cards back in the deck with her free action, and generally setting the crew up for the rest of the round.  Later in the game I'll switch to more of a blend of impromptu and the revolver / strike depending on what's needed (giving 2 slows out if enemies are clumped up, or shooting people with built in draw out secrets for easy detonate / spread markers, etc).  I don't tend to really do strike between the lines as often as she tends to make sure she's within 8 of the rest of her crew for captain of the superior, but someone else (usually Kiya) is really at the forefront of the attack pattern.  That said tho, when it happens, that attack can be great, because the 'discard until you hit an x card' means you should be able to set up a deep discovery hit on the next swing (tho building in a random discard is also super good if you reconfigure masks).

So in general I tend to choose Rams (for one for all and because it's a suit no one else used until beau came on board) or tomes (for draw out secrets) on her Polymath. 

As for playstyle I see her as a pretty generalist crew.  They're not super fast, or have a lot of interact tricks, so they're not really grabbing those specialty pools, but you can drop em in to most strat pools and find something they can do with a little planning.  It also doesn't take all that much to slide into other pools as the addition of something like welles can make em backfield monsters (tho calypso is a monster back there all by himself) or something like Winston / rook to play the midfield interact game. 

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Thanks for the reply, i had take a look to both Vernon & welles ( other than The rules they looks great and blending well with Maxine theme) and also on Winston for the arcane reservoir. For the gameplay of Maxine during the turn i struggle to use the impromptu and get her within 8 of everybody else 

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Makes sense.  Winston arcane is definitely a good reason for him, but I was also thinking of his dirigible ride (easy way to get him / another model forward) and don't mind me (which lets him help out in things like break the line).

For maxine staying in the bubble, least turn 1 I'd prolly activate her early, impromptu to give fast to kiya + tidecaller, give focus +2 to someone else and maybe concentrate herself (or give out shielded).  So 2-3 inpromptus.  Probably wouldn't count on the free action to get her forwards as there's not that many cards in the discard pile.  Activate the machinist and give some focus + shielded to kiya so he can do irredicible and probably walk.  Activate tidecaller and toss kiya / maxine / someone else.  That'll get tidecaller a walk forward and 3 ish other models 6-8 inches forward before the activate.  Maxine will still be a bit behind (if kiya walk + charges + punches something) but it's not as bad as her still being on the starting line while everything else is a toss + charge away.  Later rounds her free action is great to keep her within range of the rest of her crew, as you only really activate her first / second round 1. 

If you have heals / etc I've also seen people charge + punch friendlies with orville to use up we go to place them 3 inches.  So say charge tidecaller (who has armor 1 so will generally only take 1 damage) and up we go him 1-2 times forward.  Which is also usually good as if orville walks forward round 1 he usually gets blown off the table.  It's doable on others, but without armor / shielded to mute the blow it can get scary.

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On 1/12/2022 at 7:04 AM, Pigna said:

Maxine, i can't find a way to use her at full potential, how do you play her? Support or another way?

This is going to be incredibly unhelpful, but the answer is just yes.

To expand on that, every turn with you need to reevaluate Maxines role in the game. Will she be better buffing up your models? Will she be better going on the offensive and milling your opponents deck? Will she be better staying back, taking some shots while drawing some cards/putting down scheme markers? Some mixture of all 3? Maxine doesn't have any single role in the crew which is where the difficulty in playing her comes from.

Things to consider when choosing what she's going to do for a turn:

What is the board state? Try and identify how useful the big conditions(Slow, Stunned, Fast and to a lesser extent Staggered) will be. Ideally Slow or Fast should be given out to 2 models at once to help your action economy. Stunned should be given out if a model has powerful triggers and you know you won't be able to reliably kill them or keep them from using their actions. Staggered if you just need to lock something down like if you're trying to score Bait and Switch. If you're going to give out Focused or Distracted you definitely want to be using Maximum Force, and someone like the Tidecaller or Kiya getting free focus is pretty big with their spike damage tracks. If you've taken Mr. Ngaatoro poison gains a huge bump in consideration thanks to his Neurotoxins. Give a Henchman or Master that's anywhere near Ngaatoro poison and now your opponent has a huge problem on their hands.

Does your opponent look like they're set up for a good turn? This is the biggest time to consider milling out your opponents deck, and is a decision that needs to be made in the Start Phase when you're choosing your suit. Maxine is able to force her opponent to discard half their hand at random and a variable amount of their deck, so ideally you want to choose a suit that isn't important to your opponent. For example, if your opponent is playing guild and wants Rams, choose any other suit so that more rams will get pulled from their deck whenever you succeed. If you're going to go this route, you need to make sure Maxine is safe. She should have something in charge range and then Order in Chaos out to safety, as she's getting less protection from Two Steps Ahead


Is Maxine not in a position to go an attack something or you just need some cards drawn? This is when you want to use her ranged attack. Age of Inspiration is a great trigger when you're hitting double or triple negatives as it gives you a better chance of flipping Severes to draw. Additionally she has Draw Out Secrets, so can fairly easily place down 3 scheme markers in a single activation, all very far away from each other. Last turn and you need to score spread them out? Just choose Tomes for Maxine and she can wait until the final activation and plop out 3 qualifying scheme markers super easily between her 12" range and 6" place




For something specific, @murakigave a good turn 1 opening but I would suggest having Maxine go later instead of first. For example, there's no reason she needs to go before the Machinist, and that's cards in the discard pile right there. She only needs to activate before the Tidecaller and Kiya, who you want to activate fairly late in the turn anyways(or you can activate them early and set yourself up for a turn 2 attack in which case you have even more time to wait for Maxine to activate). Every activation Maxine gets delayed is more chances to get cards you want in the discard pile/more cards your opponent gets in the discard pile.

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12 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

For something specific, @murakigave a good turn 1 opening but I would suggest having Maxine go later instead of first. For example, there's no reason she needs to go before the Machinist, and that's cards in the discard pile right there. She only needs to activate before the Tidecaller and Kiya, who you want to activate fairly late in the turn anyways(or you can activate them early and set yourself up for a turn 2 attack in which case you have even more time to wait for Maxine to activate). Every activation Maxine gets delayed is more chances to get cards you want in the discard pile/more cards your opponent gets in the discard pile.

Good call out there.  I agree, it was mostly just 'do her before you need those conditions, specially fast', and the later you go the better as it gives you more info on what is needed (and maxine is a very 'what do i need to do' master).  Same goes for Tidecaller, tossing models later in turn 1 is better for a lot of things because it cuts down on their ability to get shot off the table (as toss can overextend you like crazy).

Great general info tho, specially round the 'mentality of a maxine player'.  Its definitely a master where you have to say 'ok i have a lot of tools, what one is the best for this turn / situation' and may end up saying 'oh shit everythings good' or 'oh no they all have faults' and work with it.  Compared to other models/masters who have a more defined 'this is my plan for round 1, I'll change direction / targets if something happens, but in general I'll be searching out a specific situation and pushing for it' (like my anya1 plan which is very 'kill or scheme' and plan so I succeed at one or the other (or maybe both!!!) each activation, while anya2 is more 'I'll be disruptive, but not quite sure what that means till I activate')

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17 minutes ago, muraki said:

Good call out there.  I agree, it was mostly just 'do her before you need those conditions, specially fast', and the later you go the better as it gives you more info on what is needed (and maxine is a very 'what do i need to do' master).  Same goes for Tidecaller, tossing models later in turn 1 is better for a lot of things because it cuts down on their ability to get shot off the table (as toss can overextend you like crazy).

Great general info tho, specially round the 'mentality of a maxine player'.  Its definitely a master where you have to say 'ok i have a lot of tools, what one is the best for this turn / situation' and may end up saying 'oh shit everythings good' or 'oh no they all have faults' and work with it.  Compared to other models/masters who have a more defined 'this is my plan for round 1, I'll change direction / targets if something happens, but in general I'll be searching out a specific situation and pushing for it' (like my anya1 plan which is very 'kill or scheme' and plan so I succeed at one or the other (or maybe both!!!) each activation, while anya2 is more 'I'll be disruptive, but not quite sure what that means till I activate')

Playing Maxine in a nutshell

alltheseoptions.png

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On 1/14/2022 at 4:54 AM, santaclaws01 said:

Does your opponent look like they're set up for a good turn? This is the biggest time to consider milling out your opponents deck, and is a decision that needs to be made in the Start Phase when you're choosing your suit. Maxine is able to force her opponent to discard half their hand at random and a variable amount of their deck, so ideally you want to choose a suit that isn't important to your opponent. For example, if your opponent is playing guild and wants Rams, choose any other suit so that more rams will get pulled from their deck whenever you succeed. If you're going to go this route, you need to make sure Maxine is safe. She should have something in charge range and then Order in Chaos out to safety, as she's getting less protection from Two Steps Ahead
 

Would you mind expanding on this a little bit, please? Specifically, what are you aiming for by milling the opponent?

I might misunderstand your rationale behind it. Currently my thinking is: regardless of which suit you pick, you still only have a 1 in 4 chance (roughly speaking) of pulling a Ram out of their deck with each Discard. You might pull a card that isn't the suit you named, in which case you do get to Discard again, but if we assume you keep going until you hit the suit you named, then out of the other 3 suits, you still have only a 1 in 3 chance (again, roughly speaking) of pulling a Ram each swing. And of course you might pull the suit you named before hitting a Ram, in which case the sequence ends and you've eliminated no Rams at all.

I compare this approach to where I would probably just name Rams if that's the suit I fear the most anyway, because then at least I know that any would-be Critical Strike cards against Maxine are now automatically missing her, and I also know for certain that I'll pull at least one out of their deck each time I connect in melee - and possibly 2 if the opponent happens to flip one against her in the duel, and if they still end up losing the duel.

I'm only about 10-12 games in with EVS so far, and while I usually get what I perceive as good value out of Maxine each activation, I could very well be missing something - so I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on this concept.

So far I'm exclusively picking Rams early on, and occasionally swapping it out for Tomes later on

On 1/13/2022 at 9:54 AM, muraki said:

If you have heals / etc I've also seen people charge + punch friendlies with orville to use up we go to place them 3 inches.  So say charge tidecaller (who has armor 1 so will generally only take 1 damage) and up we go him 1-2 times forward.  Which is also usually good as if orville walks forward round 1 he usually gets blown off the table.  It's doable on others, but without armor / shielded to mute the blow it can get scary.

I tend to use this option on turn 1 while unpacking my crew if there's no immediate danger, such as on Corner Deployment, not just because it gives free movement, but also because you put more cards in your Discard Pile to fuel Machinist(s) and Maxine. I generally have Orville fling Calypso up the board twice, (making sure that it still remains in charge range of my Machinist) by hitting it once, then charging past/over it to hit it again, in order to throw Calypso even further in front of himself to block LOS to Orville, with Calypso relenting all the while. This puts a 8 cards straight into the Discard Pile, and if you happen to have a low Mask in hand when you start this process, you can Cheat that in with Orville to make it 9 cards in the 'yard and draw a card courtesy of Maxine's aura.

I might be overvaluing it, but I find that popping all these cards in the 'yard after my first activation of the entire game makes it significantly easier to source Crows & Rams for Navigational Charts/Order in Chaos. After putting 8-9 cards in the 'yard, there's often 2 Crows sitting there for the Machinist to use as early as activation 2. Now, of course it's better to have 2 good Crows in the 'yard to cycle back into the deck rather than just any old Crow, but I often find I'm not getting through the entire deck turn 1 on Corner anyway, so it's not essential. By making sure the Machinist remains in charge range of Calypso (or Tidecaller if you pick him), he can easily heal it back to full, and might even hit his own Crow trigger while he's at it.

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/13/2022 at 3:54 PM, santaclaws01 said:

Is Maxine not in a position to go an attack something or you just need some cards drawn? This is when you want to use her ranged attack. Age of Inspiration is a great trigger when you're hitting double or triple negatives as it gives you a better chance of flipping Severes to draw. 

Great post!

The quoted part segways into a rules question. I assume you are referring to the damage flip when you are mentioning negatives. I discussed with my local players if the expression "any cards flipped during this action" only refers to the duel or also the damage flip. Our tendency was that it would only refer to the duel. 

Any thoughts on this? 

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8 minutes ago, Cuilion said:

Great post!

The quoted part segways into a rules question. I assume you are referring to the damage flip when you are mentioning negatives. I discussed with my local players if the expression "any cards flipped during this action" only refers to the duel or also the damage flip. Our tendency was that it would only refer to the duel. 

Any thoughts on this? 

The cards in a damage flip are cards that are flipped during this action. I can't see why they wouldn't be included. 

 

 

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47 minutes ago, Adran said:

The cards in a damage flip are cards that are flipped during this action. I can't see why they wouldn't be included. 

 

 

TBH I do not remember why we came to that conclusion, I think it had to do with wording on other model's card where they refer to the duel and its damage flip specifically. Other way round, is there any passage in the rule book clearly defining that the damage flip is part of the action and not something separate that is triggered by the action? I didn't find any. 

Maybe I am overcomplicating or have let myself be mislead to easy :D

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11 minutes ago, Cuilion said:

TBH I do not remember why we came to that conclusion, I think it had to do with wording on other model's card where they refer to the duel and its damage flip specifically. Other way round, is there any passage in the rule book clearly defining that the damage flip is part of the action and not something separate that is triggered by the action? 

Maybe I am overcomplicating or have let myself be mislead to easy :D

Lets see, page 23 resolvign an action, Step 5 Apply results

The most common effect of an Action is damage, which is explained on page 24.

Actions like Breath of fire - Models damaged by this action suffer Burning +1.

 

You may be thinking of things which give a :+flipto an action do so to the duel, but not the damage flip from that duel unless specified. 

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