Soul battery sucks (in vanilla Leveticus)

[KID55]

Again. As I said, with mv 6 AND easy fast, she was pretty cool scheme runner with option to shoot something. And I used her always in this way. Now you have no easy fast. And she has to be used as shooter mainly, because scheme runner with mv 4 is useless. And I realised that consealment and FF is real problem now. I agreed that consealment may be counted as countermeasure against shooters, but why she doesn't ignore FF when her crew's beaters want to be in close combat - still mystery for me.

[Adran]

10 hours ago, KID55 said:

 why she doesn't ignore FF when her crew's beaters want to be in close combat - still mystery for me.

I'm not a malifaux designer so I don't know the actual answer, but personally I like giving my opponent 2 bad choices to pick from, so the choice of staying unengaged and shot by Alyce,  or engaging the desolation engine so it can easily hit you is the sort of thing I like.  I know plenty of people don't like this and feel it means they don't get "full value" out of a model/crew because it never uses everything to its max, but I would say on the whole I find that less interesting,  and probably over the past few editions of malifaux, models that are that extreme often are less picked ( I'm especially thinking M2e rasputina who was amazing at shooting but just engage her in melee and she was neutered. )

Also shooting draw backs like Concealment/ friendly fire are there for a reason.  If too many models just ignore them, then they end up being pointless.  

So I agree  if she ignored friendly fire she would be better, but its often not better for the game as a whole. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Yeah, I think that in general most things shouldn't ignore cover/concealment/friendly fire unless there's a good reason (thematic, clear-cut mechanics of the crew, makes sense for the ability, stops a really bad anti-synergy with the crew, etc).

As one example, Underbrush markers are concealing and it would be really poor if the crew was affected by that concealment (although even in that case, many of the models ignore the underbrush markers instead of all concealing).

EDIT: Also 2" abilities. I feel like those are essentially melee range and should ignore concealment xD Zipp's crew for example feels a bit silly with Beau's Lead the Way.

[KID55]

Adran has a good point and I agreed with it. But. There is always some but)) But as I said, amalgam crew tend to fight in close combat. In this case, make Alyce usable (not even effective) require a lot of effort. More that it should be. And as he said it also bad for balance, because, actually, right now Alyce is only for shooting. Because, since she loose her great mv 6 (and easy fast) she can no more run for schemes. So, if previously, when you had no good target for Alyce shoots she can just run to drop a scheme or interact with strategy or at least change position for better shooting, now she crawl, often not able to even reach position, or spending whole activation for it. In mid and late game it's critical, because she not chip 4-6 SS minion, you expecting some profit from 9SS hanchman. I'm okay if Alyce will not ignore FF, BUT will receive something that she could do to support her crew in other way. Bacause just walking with 9SS model and do nothing is the same crap as ultra-effective crew that gives no opprtunities to opponent. Maybe allow her not just create pit trap but also trigger for tossing it? Or create scrap instead on trigger to add synegry with A&D. Or some card draw (surge on healing like Marlena or something else), Levi crew not good at it. Or add some construct support abilities. Or increase her melee potencial. Or something else, maybe you have some ideas. Speaking about lore, if I remember correctly, Alyce discribed as high-skilled gunslinger, so she could ignore FF, I think, from this point of view.

Also, if we speaking about "give 2 bad choises to opponent" I remember Thunder Archers, my personal pain:
- Ignore FF, consealment and incorporeal

- 6 stat that can rise to 8(!)

- 6" aura from Yamaziko that gives +flips to all duels

- possibility to have blast on dmg and sometimes free concentrate (means Chi)

- possibility to make damage irriducible

- can sometimes get fast

- covered by extented reach from Yamaziko (or sometimes some else)

And there are 3 of them.

Yes it cost 28 SS, but: they always shot with +flips, ignoring most annoying obstacles for shooters (FF and consealment), with 8 stat, and they are not easy to take donw because of their range and often you not able to charge them (covered with extended reach).

 

And with all of this they counted as fine, balanced models, because no errata for them for now.

[Thatguy]

On 12/10/2022 at 4:28 PM, KID55 said:

As I said, with mv 6 AND easy fast, she was pretty cool scheme runner with option to shoot something. And I used her always in this way.

You used a 9ss henchman + support to run schemes when you had pre-nerf necropunks in keyword? 

 

[KID55]

Yes, for 2 reasons:

1) I like Alyce

2) Sometimes I needed something more durable 

Right now even if I still like her, when I play her it feels like handicap