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Kastore!


Mindbadger

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So we get a look at what appears to be Kastore's core box and he seems pretty exciting!

Kastore himself doesn't seem too tough up close with 5 def and only hard to wound but can act reasonably well from range, whilst trying to get off one very reliable melee attack. He does need the trigger, but a stat 7 pseudo-obey is strong. He seems incredibly good for scheming, it will be very difficult to stop him scoring certain schemes, which will make him a good pick for some games. I'm guessing his other title will be more up close, melee focused.

I love his totem, very thematic! I was worried about Kastore's bonus action till I saw the blade was unkillable. Again, it will be very hard to stop the blade just doing what it wants to do, hunting down particular models. It feels like more of an extension of Kastore rather than a separate entity, but again, very thematic.

Athorak seems pretty standard outside his bonus action. A lot of his power is tied behind triggers, his actions aren't that amazing without them. The bonus action is amazing against some crews/models though, protecting a key model against certain ranged attacks (or at least AP taxing them). Take that Hoffman 2! This is actually very helpful for Neverborn as a faction.

The Blood Vessels have some incredibly strong actions for 5 point models! A 10" teleport and a bonus action to interact makes them incredible schemers! They won't retain their bonus to stats for long, but it does let them get off at least one good action hopefully. Pretty cool units, though they will end up pretty squishy. Worth their cost, but not sure if 3 are needed.

From what we've seen, Returned seem pretty hard to stop them doing what they want, whether that be dropping scheme markers where they want, splashing damage to clumped up models or hunting down one key model. Still intrigued to see what the other models bring, but expecting to see a beater or 2, outside Barboros. 

 

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Shove the blade in the middle of your oponent crew, pulse damage, profit. Thank god it can't engage models.

The minions look incredibly good for 5 SS... Just compare them to Sorrow (wich are totally fine) to see the power level gap. Unfortunately they're green (but can be played across 3 factions).

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31 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Very cool Master. I wonder what the alt title will be like. 

Any ideas on OoK stuff to take? It seems like there aren't enough minions to fill out a crew. 

Ressers have some OoK some models with Take the Hit which could make Blood Vessels even more annoying. 

I'm pretty sure they've only shown off half of the crew.  There are several models that are undoubtably Kastore's which they haven't shown the cards for yet.

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kastore is awful

he is not a melee fighter with his stats, he is not a good caster-8" dominate, enemy only...

he even cannt kill mindless zombies to drop scheme markers because its keyword only...

dominate must have effect on friendly models like giving fast/focus and make ensorcel if u dont want to make it on enemy

melee trigger to drop marker must be just friendly - not keyword only

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Interesting take. 

Looks to me like he's going to work a lot like Levi. One big attack a turn that deletes a minion, and then he's just generally impossible to kill. Only Kastore can do it while in the thick of things, no getting bounced back to the back line. 

Dominate is going to make him an incredibly annoying tar pit. Stagger and stun and pushing an enemy into engagement range with something will mess up its activation. You can also potentially stagger and stun and get a obey charge on an enemy model. 

 

We'll see if his alternative title and other minions are more your speed. 

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Yeah. He seems pretty good for 7 stones. Trying to figure out what he does best. Could hang out near the center and just be kinda tough for his price with some ping damage. Or maybe hunt scheme runners on a side where he can get the most of his Stealth, but he's not very fast.

On Your Heels on Terrorize is potentially a really big movement trick, but I'm not sure how often you'll be down to pitch a high Mask for a 7ss model.

He seems like an amazing anti-shielded pick. But I don't see a whole lot of crews with shielded all over the place. Maybe Reva and Hoff2?

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1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

On Your Heels on Terrorize is potentially a really big movement trick, but I'm not sure how often you'll be down to pitch a high Mask for a 7ss model.
 

Maybe not in Kastore, but in Lucius Dishonorable you could just use the free suit from planning ahead to get the trigger off.

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6 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Also note with the 'no cheat' bonus, sometimes you'll end up using like a moderate mask to get it off.

This is quite a significant part of his package. Not being able to cheat against either his attacks means that you have a very much higher chance of getting off the trigger for terrorize or getting a straight flip on his 2/4/5 attack.

The way I see it he's a very good schemerunner hunter, but can also be used as counter-tech against crews with many defensive triggers and/or heavy reliance on shielded.

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Just now, Hawkoon said:

This is quite a significant part of his package. Not being able to cheat against either his attacks means that you have a very much higher chance of getting off the trigger for terrorize or getting a straight flip on his 2/4/5 attack.

The way I see it he's a very good schemerunner hunter, but can also be used as counter-tech against crews with many defensive triggers and/or heavy reliance on shielded.

Pair him with a changeling and you got scoring power too :D

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So looking at what we have in Returned so far, plus from the models we've seen but not got rules for (two "Nephilimizers and two big flying Nephilim and a shared model in the title box), it seems like it might be tough to fit most stuff in, not even considering versatiles/OOK.

Outside of Caught In The Ring and Bring It, I'm not sure Barbaros brings enough for his 9 points. I feel similarly about Athorak, Wardstones can be great in some situations, but his other actions are a bit meh if you aren't guaranteeing the triggers. 

On the other hand, Gwyll seems like an auto include. Card filtering, a good blast attack than can heal your guys at the same time, Cling To Death for when you need it, plus some good support. It would be hard to leave him out. Less integral is White Eyes, but he does a lot for his cost, I think he actually lines up pretty favourably against Barbaros for 2 points cheaper.

The Blood Vessels bring a lot of mobility and flexibility for a 5 point model, I would see me bringing one and very much considering a second.

This leaves the unknown models. I'm guessing the big flyers will fill a Mature Nephilim role and be mobile beaters, probably with some self healing. No idea about the rest, though I'd imagine the Nephilimzers are more support leaning than combat. Maybe using corpse markers to make Blood Vessels?!

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On 9/30/2022 at 11:59 AM, Mindbadger said:

Outside of Caught In The Ring and Bring It, I'm not sure Barbaros brings enough for his 9 points.

Interesting. I think it would actually cut Gwyll before Barbaros. Barbaros seems to play into with Kastore's tarpit play style.

Gwyll's Cling to Death doesn't seem to have any really great uses at the moment. Kastore's ping or a 2" move. I might be undervaluing Decay, but I haven't been very impressed with it on Mortimer, Rotten or Nico. Of course they don't have the built in heal. 

 

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23 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

I might be undervaluing Decay, but I haven't been very impressed with it on Mortimer, Rotten or Nico. Of course they don't have the built in heal. 

I don't think there's any model with Decay that uses it effectively at a competitive level... Domadore's are probably the best, and I guess Gwyll is modelled off of them. Annoying that Gwyll can't heal the whole keyword, though.

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4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Interesting. I think it would actually cut Gwyll before Barbaros. Barbaros seems to play into with Kastore's tarpit play style.

Gwyll's Cling to Death doesn't seem to have any really great uses at the moment. Kastore's ping or a 2" move. I might be undervaluing Decay, but I haven't been very impressed with it on Mortimer, Rotten or Nico. Of course they don't have the built in heal. 

 

I could see that. I still think Gwyll is good, he brings a lot of utility to the point that it will be rare that he isn't annoying for the opponent in some way.

I think of Cling To Death in the same way as I feel about the whole overheal mechanic, it's a win-win scenario. If you don't need the heal, you get the overheal bonus, if you need the heal you get that instead. Cling To Death just gives you the option of choosing. Granted, none of the overheal mechanics are super powerful, but sometimes a 2" push or a 1 damage aoe will be just what you need.

It annoys me that Barbaros' Broodfighter only triggers off itself, not any overheal. I'll wait to see how the Cavern Nephilim look before writing him off, he can get a lot of attacks off once he gets close.

When do people see picking Kastore in Neverborn over Rezzers? One reason would be Serena Bowman who could do a lot of work in the crew, but those Rezzer upgrades seem mighty good on Returned models...

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5 hours ago, Mindbadger said:

When do people see picking Kastore in Neverborn over Rezzers? One reason would be Serena Bowman who could do a lot of work in the crew, but those Rezzer upgrades seem mighty good on Returned models...

Short answer, when I declare Neverborn and then decide I want to play Kastore :P

More seriously though, Neverborn have Candy and Serena who both seem like good fits for the list (though Candy might be a bit pricy to take if we are considering the 3 other henchman in Returned (she is one of the best NB models though...). Depending on what the unkown Returned models do there is also a decent selection of models in NB with Drink Blood as a Trigger. The Half-Bloods on the whole aren't great, Mysterious Emissary is generally pretty strong, Killjoy is a big boy but would be 11 stones and Adze gets the ram trigger built in. None of these currently offer any real synergy to Returned but maybe in the remaining models something might be able to yoink heals off of friendly models and pass them around or care about any friendlies over healing. Probably nothing good enough to justify the Drink Blood boys but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

If White Eyes turns out to be strong enough to worth investing in then you could probably consider some of the Grim crew as a support base, Klaus and Hildegard being some fun little support pieces and being able to generate some shielded for White Eyes to eat. More generally Klaus has some okay card control and Hildegard has the potential to drop 6'' healing pulses which could be useful to activating multiple overheals during er activation. Her Take by the Hand trigger Wicked Waltz also seems like a good way of helping manouever Blood Vessels and get a heal swing out of them in the process (not on Hildegard though). I'm considering Hooded Rider to be a decent mobile beater for the crew and to help speed the sword up the board turn 1. Returned generally seems pretty resilient crew with good scheming potential so Wicked Dolls could have a place to run off and do objectives in far off corners while your returned models sit in their aura bubbles.

Going back to White Eyes he definitely offers more to NB than Ressers, but thats more down to him having some fun looking potential with Lucius (I definitely want to give him a go in the Dishonourable list).

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Inhuman Reflexes on Marathine, and access to puppet synergy would be the main reasons to bring Kastore in Nb, Eldritch magic might be good if one of the unrevealed models summons zombies or something.

Overall I feel Kastore is gonna be mid-tier unless his title version has a more powerful set of tools.

Kastore, Awakened feels like his card is a bit anemic (heh) to me, there's a lot of text on there but it doesn't translate into a lot of decisions in his activation, there are so many Once per Turn and Once per Activation restrictions on him and Marathine that it feels like you're starved for choice.

A lot of the time you're gonna end up doing a set routine on Kastores' turn;

(1) Is Marathine near an enemy or objective? bonus to move Marathine.

(2) Are there enemies within 8" of you? Either Dominate Dominate or walk Dominate.

(3) Do your big hit and heal/ping.

All the limitations on Kastore and Marathine don't leave much variety, and his game plan is gonna get stale quickly, especially on turn 1. Like, what does Kastore even do when he's not within 8" of an enemy? I'm seeing a lot of T1 double or triple walks in his future.

Not saying he's bad, invulnerable scheme marker creating/removing Totem and end of turn interacts are strong and he has tons of healing, but his activations feel one dimensional for a master.

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Yeah, I agree with you, I'm hoping the other Kastore has more flexibility in his actions. Awakened, while potentially powerful, is pretty much going to act the same way most turns, unless he is out of range.

I find it slightly grating that Enthrall is a trigger on Dominate. It's such a powerful trigger effect on just an ok ability. Using a master AP to give a non master stunned and staggered is a little meh, but I feel like I'd be using it to purposefully get the obey effect, which generally means stoning for it or cheating in a high mask. If the other player cheats in a higher card than you have a mask, then that's it for that model. I think I would have preferred the action and trigger to be swapped. It would fit his theme of the controlling vampire, more scheme focused. Sure, it might need rebalanced if he was an obey master (especially in the same faction as Zoraida and Lucius) but it would give him more flexibility. 

I really like his model and theme, I would like to be more excited about his actual rules. I feel the same about Marathene (I understand this one a bit, can't go too crazy on an unkillable totem, I love this thing) and Athorak, great concepts but they will act about the same most turns. Maybe it's not the worst thing to have a more straightforward keyword but I'll admit that I have a bit of envy when I see the other Madness of Malifaux masters revealed so far.

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8 minutes ago, Mindbadger said:

Sure, it might need rebalanced if he was an obey master (especially in the same faction as Zoraida and Lucius) but it would give him more flexibility. 

I think that's a tricky thing about having so many masters per faction.

Obeys, stagger synergies, black blood randomly on a card or two... that all overlaps with various Neverborn masters.

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