It's always time for Tara

[Azahul]

Ok, so at the request of @SEV here is a quick rundown of my Malifaux World Series games this month.

 

As a quick preface, I don't actually play in World Series events very often. I get enough games in person locally that I really only feel the compulsion to play Malifaux on Vassal when my local area is locked down or otherwise seeing enough of a spike that local players don't feel comfortable meeting up for face-to-face games. These have been my first Vassal games in like six months, so I wouldn't really consider myself an internationally competitive player.

 

Nevertheless, I play enough Malifaux to have views and opinions on models. And one of those is that Tara is good. Very good. Best Master in Outcasts good. So despite the fact that when I signed up my plan was to just play my beloved Hamelin into everything and shoot for my regular mediocre results, I saw a few posts in the Errata thread we've got going about Tara needing buffs which seemed... strange. Tara holds the distinction of being the only Keyword in Outcasts where I view every single model as viable, and only one (the Void Hunter) doesn't really get considered as a potential hire (they're a bit pricey and I'd rather just summon them). It's not a big Keyword, but nevertheless I'm not sure there's another Keyword in the game that feels quite so much like every model under its banner is good and useful. Maybe the Crossroads Seven? Anyway, point is, Obliteration would be bottom of my list of crews in need of buffs.

 

But strangers on the internet seemed to think differently, so hey, there was one way to work out if I was crazy. Play a bunch of Tara, online, in a format that I knew was competitive. If she worked there then hey, it would validate those aforementioned views and opinions. And feelings. I like having feelings be validated.

 

Anyway, long story short, I have since played three games of Tara (Tara1, as I've mentioned elsewhere I don't really like Tara2 all that much), won three games with Tara, and given myself a confidence boost. Whoo.

 

Round One

 

Round one was a Symbols of Authority game with corner deployment and Vendetta in the scheme pool, so basically Tara's dream pool. Tara was already one of the game's best Symbols claimer, since she can be anywhere to start with and then can basically Leap four times and interact to get a marker, which is usually well beyond what you actually need to score. I took Spread Them Out as my second scheme, because honestly Tara can score most of that scheme on her own while also picking up Symbols, so I had six points basically in the bag just so long as Tara survived. The final two points were going to come from Vendetta, because a buried Scion can score it with impunity off of basically any cheap model the opponent cares to bring to the table and then is guaranteed to be alive at the end of the game. The main way to counter Tara's Symbol grabbing potential is to use 2" melee range models to guard symbols, but honestly 33 made this a significantly worse prospect as now Tara can just use Stutter Time on the guard to get 33 into position, have 33 unbury, two places at once so that she's not base to base with the guard, and then Slippery renders their melee range irrelevant so you can interact with impunity. Then Tara can bury 33 again and rinse and repeat next turn. Or 33 can just bury the guard and let Tara do the scoring. It's a lot of flexibility. My approach to crew building with Tara is usually just "hire all the non-Minion models, sit on a 9 stone cache, summon the minions as needed" and this was the perfect pool for that.

 

As for the game itself, my opponent was experimenting with Asami2 using a clutch of Yokai as extremely fast schemers. It was a bit intimidating, he had all the markers he needed for Spread Them Out already down on the table before the end of Turn 1, but I was able to bury each Yokai in turn and kill all of them by the end of the first activation of Turn 3. Scored Vendetta with the Scion in the process on one of the Yokai. With Tara uncontested and up scoring the other six points very nearly on her own, and the entire rest of my crew plus Tara's summons just needing to get in the way and deny points, that was basically game at that point.

 

Round two

 

Round two I was paired against Outcasts. Which is tragic, because Outcasts actually have quite a lot of anti-Tara tech thanks to, well, Tara's Keyword mostly. My opponent brought in Arik as their OOK tech pick though to deny unburies in an aura, and chose the Viktorias2. I believe most of this was intended as anti-Tara2 Kidnap tech, since Combat Finesse makes landing 33's Pine Box attack kind of problematic (you can finangle a way around this with Time Warp, admittedly, but it's annoying) and Arik can zone out 33's Expedite unbury with Gravity Well. I took Tara1 though. This was a Break the Line game on Standard Deployment, so I figured I would force the game to be about two different flanks and capitalise on my ability to rapidly redeploy my models to where they were most needed. The scheme pool this round included both Catch and Release and Hidden Martyrs, so I decided to hire two Void Wretches instead of the Scion. This took me down to a mere 7 stone cache, but they were cheap AP able to interact with Strat Markers and my game plan involved dominating at least one flank so their squishiness when unburied wouldn't matter. I didn't really intend on taking both schemes, but threatening both and forcing my opponent to reckon with the possibility seemed good. After seeing Arik was in my opponent's crew I figured Hidden Martyrs would be easier than Catch, so went for that and Breakthrough.

 

Assassinate was in this pool, so the game played out with me placing Tara on the far right and most of the rest of my crew on the far left. Both the Viks and Arik proceeded to gun for Tara, so I mucked with them for a bit using the terrain to make it hard for them to get to her (Diving Charge doesn't help you that much if you have to Diving Charge to get past terrain and you still aren't in melee range), and then around Turn 3 I buried her and had her reappear on the far left flank. Got 33 killed pretty early, which scored me Hidden Martyrs, and I was able to shut down my opponent's attempts at Breakthrough by using Karina to unbury random Void Wretches in my backline and keep their models from being able to interact with Strat Markers to turn this into a 6-3 win (two strat points and an Assassinate after I was silly and stuck a 7 hit point Tara next to the Malifaux Child last thing on Turn 5).

 

Round three

 

Outcasts again! This time on Leylines, another Strategy Tara is really very, very good at with a pool including both Breakthrough and Hidden Martyrs again. I went for the same crew composition, and funnily enough I think this opponent teched for Tara2 by bringing the Viktorias2 as well and Aionus and the Nothing Beast OOK. That did mean I couldn't just leave point scorers buried with impunity, and indeed had to keep most of my burying of my models to the end of turn after I'd out-activated my opponent.

 

Anyway, I played pretty aggressively with Tara and 33 on Turn 1 so that my opponent couldn't claim a Lodestone, out activating him and dropping 33 on top of their Lodestone bearer to bury the Ronin and kill her with Talos. I did have to move Tara into range before my opponent's last activation, so she got jumped by the Viks with two swings that each hit for five damage, so even after stoning I was in a pretty dire spot. I buried Tara, was able to cheat initiative and heal her up, and she spent the rest of the game playing rather more cagey. The early play panned out though, since it left 33 running rampant in my opponent's deployment zone burying model after model, which Talos promptly set alight. The frequent burying meant my opponent had no real leeway on the Strategy, he was only able to score it twice, whereas Tara's crew's mobility left them well able to score it four times. My opponent made up a lot of ground on schemes, but with how squishy his crew was I actually caused a lot of damage and gave myself free reign of the board by the end of the game, leaving this at an 8-5 result.

 

Summary

 

I mean, there's still half the event left to go, but I'm feeling pretty happy that my impressions of Tara based on her performance in my local meta seem to have largely been accurate. She's good. Her crew is good. The way it synergises is actually rather beautiful. 33's ability to sift through your discard pile, combined with Karina's ability to change what your discard pile is, combines to allow you to always have the 7 of Crows in hand. That in turn means that Aionus can always succeed in a Sever Timeline and generate two pass tokens. And that in turn lets you play around the sort of countertech I saw in round three, because I would have 3-4 activations end of turn to work with.

 

Anyway, I'm sure in the next round or two I'll start to actually get pummelled, but it hasn't happened so far and Tara has demonstrated why she is a point scoring machine. She's not the best Master in Outcasts at killing, Leveticus, Von Schill, Hamelin, Daw all do that better than her. But she absolutely is the best Master at scoring in a huge variety of pools, and that's the kind of thing that wins you games. Either way, I'll keep this thread updated through the next few rounds if people are interested. Let me know if any of this was helpful

[SEV]

Great read! Thank. I never played Tara but she seems to be really nice (and asked for a high level of mastery).

Round 4 is definitely the killy round of the tournament. I wonder if you'll stick with her (you don't have to answer that)?

Wedge / turf - assassinate vendetta claim jump death bed research mission.

This is probably Leveticus wet dream...

[admiralvorkraft]

That's pretty similar to my experience of Tara. I like Timeless better (minus the kidnap) but I think she's generally not as powerful. 

Big difference is that I'll often hire one or two Hunters and I never seem to get value out of Aionus. Or maybe I just don't appreciate the value I get from him because it all feels marginal. Idk.

But yeah, Obliteration is extremely good. Best keyword in Outcasts. Please nerf the kidnap so I don't feel bad playing this.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Did I miss your lists? If not, you should post them!

[Azahul]

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Did I miss your lists? If not, you should post them!

I did say my lists were "all the non-Minions, 9 stones" and "that list but swap the Scion for two Wretches", but if you want it laid out clearer than that:

 

Round One

 

Lunch Time (Outcasts)

Size: 50 - Pool: 9

Leader:

  Tara

Totem(s):

  Karina

Hires:

  Scion of the Void

  Aionus

  Talos

  The Nothing Beast

  Thirty-Three

References:

  Void Wretch

  Void Hunter

  The Endless Void

 

Rounds Two and Three

 

Time Is An Illusion (Outcasts)

Size: 50 - Pool: 7

Leader:

  Tara

Totem(s):

  Karina

Hires:

  Aionus

  Talos

  Thirty-Three

  The Nothing Beast

  Void Wretch

  Void Wretch 2

References:

  Void Wretch

  Void Hunter

  The Endless Void

[Azahul]

7 hours ago, SEV said:

Great read! Thank. I never played Tara but she seems to be really nice (and asked for a high level of mastery).

Round 4 is definitely the killy round of the tournament. I wonder if you'll stick with her (you don't have to answer that)?

Wedge / turf - assassinate vendetta claim jump death bed research mission.

This is probably Leveticus wet dream...

Honestly even this, a super killy pool, isn't bad for Tara. She can play a more schemey game for the Strategy, score Vendetta trivially with the Scion, and just bury enemy models near the centre to score Claim Jump (then keep the Claim Jumper buried until Turn 5). Her options are a bit limited without easy marker generation but she has a play.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Oh silly me, thanks!

[Azahul]

8 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

That's pretty similar to my experience of Tara. I like Timeless better (minus the kidnap) but I think she's generally not as powerful. 

Big difference is that I'll often hire one or two Hunters and I never seem to get value out of Aionus. Or maybe I just don't appreciate the value I get from him because it all feels marginal. Idk.

But yeah, Obliteration is extremely good. Best keyword in Outcasts. Please nerf the kidnap so I don't feel bad playing this.

This does actually make a lot of sense. Aionus is a lot more important to Tara1 than 2 in my view, and you can't summon Void Hunters in 2, and of course in a pinch you can even have a Void Hunter do Aionus's role of unburying a model, so they have a lot more reasons to be taken with our Rewind friend. I can see the logic. 

 

With Tara1 he just does too much for me to pass up. He guarantees that I have 3-4 activations at the end of every turn that the opponent can't respond to. Just as importantly, he gets my models on the board without needing to win opposed duels with enemy models. The mobility of Obliteration as a Keyword is basically unsurpassed but it has its limitations, namely that you can usually only get models on the board where both you and your opponent already have models. Aionus lets you have a presence anywhere he is, massively increasing your flexibility, and he can run around while giving Fast to friendly buried models so his AP always feel efficient to me. Not as impactful in the traditional ways for a Cost 10 model, but an amazing lynchpin for Obliteration's unique mechanics.

[admiralvorkraft]

15 hours ago, Azahul said:

This does actually make a lot of sense. Aionus is a lot more important to Tara1 than 2 in my view, and you can't summon Void Hunters in 2, and of course in a pinch you can even have a Void Hunter do Aionus's role of unburying a model, so they have a lot more reasons to be taken with our Rewind friend. I can see the logic. 

 

With Tara1 he just does too much for me to pass up. He guarantees that I have 3-4 activations at the end of every turn that the opponent can't respond to. Just as importantly, he gets my models on the board without needing to win opposed duels with enemy models. The mobility of Obliteration as a Keyword is basically unsurpassed but it has its limitations, namely that you can usually only get models on the board where both you and your opponent already have models. Aionus lets you have a presence anywhere he is, massively increasing your flexibility, and he can run around while giving Fast to friendly buried models so his AP always feel efficient to me. Not as impactful in the traditional ways for a Cost 10 model, but an amazing lynchpin for Obliteration's unique mechanics.

I actually like him better in Tara2 😛

33 probably changes the equation a bit but he's just so resource intensive. I've liked a pair of Hunters for Glimpse built in, access to positives, and a TN-less unbury.

I guess that's basically Obliterations big leveling factor though, everybody needs tns and suits, no one generates resources, and there are (basically) no tactical actions in the crew. And their mobility is all tempo-locked.

[Azahul]

7 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

I actually like him better in Tara2 😛

33 probably changes the equation a bit but he's just so resource intensive. I've liked a pair of Hunters for Glimpse built in, access to positives, and a TN-less unbury.

I guess that's basically Obliterations big leveling factor though, everybody needs tns and suits, no one generates resources, and there are (basically) no tactical actions in the crew. And their mobility is all tempo-locked.

That's fascinatingly inverted. I usually find on any given turn I only need a little help getting everything unburied. I'd have assumed that between Tara2 being able to do it cheaply with Expedite and in having fewer models to unbury without summons that she'd have less for Aionus. What are you using him for out of interest?

 

To be fair, I've found Obliteration better at resource management as I've gotten better at remembering card order for Time Warps. And as mentioned 33 helps a lot, turning your otherwise usually useless weaks into the low-moderates with specific suits you need for your TNs.

[admiralvorkraft]

2 hours ago, Azahul said:

That's fascinatingly inverted. I usually find on any given turn I only need a little help getting everything unburied. I'd have assumed that between Tara2 being able to do it cheaply with Expedite and in having fewer models to unbury without summons that she'd have less for Aionus. What are you using him for out of interest?

 

To be fair, I've found Obliteration better at resource management as I've gotten better at remembering card order for Time Warps. And as mentioned 33 helps a lot, turning your otherwise usually useless weaks into the low-moderates with specific suits you need for your TNs.

With both Aionus and Timeless, one of them can generate pass tokens while the other holds activation in order to unbury and capitalize. 

Time Warp is great when it works, I find it more of an opportunity to jump on than a plan A, but that could certainly be a matter of experience.

[Azahul]

Makes sense on the Tara2/Aionus front. I haven't delved too deep into Tara2 admittedly, only played a couple of games before deciding I preferred Tara1 in virtually all scenarios, so not surprising there's some nuance I'm missing.

 

On the Time Warp front at least if the deck hasn't given me a good Time Warp, it usually means the rest of the deck should be decent 😁

[admiralvorkraft]

I think Tara1 is often a stronger choice, but I have way more fun with Tara2 😛

[Azahul]

Haha, I'm the other way around (bit of a theme emerging), but it is neat that such a small Keyword is still able to give that sort of flexibility in preferred playstyles. Something to be said for having every model feel worthwhile.

[admiralvorkraft]

On 2/3/2022 at 4:43 AM, Azahul said:

Haha, I'm the other way around (bit of a theme emerging), but it is neat that such a small Keyword is still able to give that sort of flexibility in preferred playstyles. Something to be said for having every model feel worthwhile.

I've thought about it a bit more and with Tara1 I've always gotten good results with Aionus if I've just assumed he'd need 1-2ss per activation and budgeted accordingly. And he does do game-warpingly good work then, I just don't love how needy he feels 😛

[Azahul]

2 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

I've thought about it a bit more and with Tara1 I've always gotten good results with Aionus if I've just assumed he'd need 1-2ss per activation and budgeted accordingly. And he does do game-warpingly good work then, I just don't love how needy he feels 😛

Is that to buy crows? Because 33 largely removes that tax by just giving you the 7 of crows most turns.

[admiralvorkraft]

2 hours ago, Azahul said:

Is that to buy crows? Because 33 largely removes that tax by just giving you the 7 of crows most turns.

Or rams on Tick Tock, or Crows on Eventuality, or (rarely) Tomes for Glimpse on Eventuality or Stutter Time...

[Azahul]

Haha, a lot of that assumes Aionus tries to attack enemy models. Doesn't happen much 😁

[admiralvorkraft]

Fair enough! I find after turn 1 I've generally got multiple existential threat type models in my face and can't afford to have him just playing the pass token game, unfortunately.

[Azahul]

The way I play Aionus is typically charge a buried friendly model (ideally the Nothing Beast) every turn, then Sever Timeline a summon. Do that three or four times to creep down a flank and be in a spot to enable a scheme or strat point or two in the last few turns. Maybe sucker punch an enemy with a big hit in the late game.

 

It sounds like I probably play Tara into much less killy pools than you though, so maybe that is part of it?

[admiralvorkraft]

Naw, I just get slammed with agro plays regardless of the pool because reasons. Or my opponent plays hard denial and I need every tool to try and crack it.

If Aionus gets isolated in a game with the folks I play against he's gonna get splattered.

[Azahul]

On 2/2/2022 at 12:25 AM, SEV said:

Great read! Thank. I never played Tara but she seems to be really nice (and asked for a high level of mastery).

Round 4 is definitely the killy round of the tournament. I wonder if you'll stick with her (you don't have to answer that)?

Wedge / turf - assassinate vendetta claim jump death bed research mission.

This is probably Leveticus wet dream...

Well, lists are locked so I may as well say that, despite the name of this topic, for round four I am going to be playing Von Schill Ironheart rather than Tara.

 

If I lose it is clearly because I abandoned Tara 😅

[Azahul]

Turns out I predicted it! Can't win a game without Tara. Was a close run thing but the Von Schill vs Jack Daw game ended 5-4 in Daw's favour. My opponent definitely outplayed me and I couldn't quite sculpt the critical mass of good cards to push through the actions I needed to win.

[Azahul]

Ok, a quick catch-up on the last two games of the series.

 

Game five was Tara1 vs Seamus1 on Break the Line. I misplayed my turn one a bit, after getting no crows in hand initially I decided I would rather hold my stones for damage prevention rather than spend one on Aionus to get pass tokens from Eventuality. A big mistake, since it meant Tara had to put herself forward before Seamus activated and that meant she got jumped towards the end of Turn One. Luck didn't help, my best card in hand Turn 2 was lower than my opponent's so I lost initiative, and a severe damage flip on negatives meant Seamus killed Tara in melee before she activated on Turn 2. I killed his Dead Rider in return (setting up that kill was why Tara was so exposed to begin with), but after that things deteriorated pretty badly and I started losing models like flies. We called the game after I managed to score Catch and Release with a hired Wretch, only to Black Joker the initiative flip and thus lose any chance of getting the end point of the scheme. I think we ended up calculating that game as a 7-3 loss.

 

Game six was a second Turf War game with both Claim Jump and Research Mission. I decided to give Schill another shot as a result and ran the same build as my previous game. This time I learned my lessons from the previous game, and rather than blithely dive my opponent's death bubble and make a bunch of Hazardous Terrain for him to push me into I hung back, killed Colette's doves and decoys every chance I got, and only dove in once I could start peeling the bubble apart systematically. Hannah killed Cassandra from full health through a Soulstone with a full 9 damage punch, and I managed to pick things apart from there while using my surplus of healing to keep my models from ever dying. It ended in a 7-4 win for Schill, losing no models and only failing on the fourth strat point.

 

To be honest beyond just reinforcing my view that Tara is a fantastic Master with a great Keyword, the other thing I've taken from this event is that Schill2 is a bit better than I originally gave him credit for. I actually think he may work better with Yannic than Schill1, if only because the Yannic-Engineers bubble produces so many Severe cards that you can run out of moderates for Schill's TNs whereas Schill2 just wants to punch and a Severe never feels bad there. Not as good at scheming of course, but still he has more to recommend him than I originally gave credit.