Ronin are TOO broken

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

Sweet alot of responses... going @ Weirds post cuz he's an officer or whatever that thing is...

It's Marshal. And that means I'm an official rules guy.

1. You move your Cg in Run Through for one action, unless it was errataed which I don't think it was. This is how you are doing all of these things. You are NEVER using your standard walk actions because with Run Through you are pushed and you move your Cg which is 6", so don't even waste your time walking. So Run Through twice is 12" for 2 actions making your effective range 14". Pushes ignore terrain because they don't count as moving, yeah that'll come into play later.

Pushes obey normal movement rules, aside from disengaging.

It's been ruled a couple of times that way. You must have just missed it or something.

Here's a sample from the upcoming FAQ document.

Replace the paragraph for Pushes with the following:

“When a game effect Pushes a model, it is moved the distance indicated by the effect causing the Push. Pushes are move effects, but do not generate disengaging Strikes.”

3. I ignore terrain, if I have it, even better since it gives me cover and I suffer no negatives from it. But the idea is, with 2 average hands working against each other I can kill these units since many of them are very strong units and suffer defensively which is a weakness I exploit. Those units I listed have sub-par defenses with no defense triggers which means all I have to do is aim for them first with my best hand and I can most likely kill that unit because I'll blow my entire hand to do so.

But you don't ignore terrain.

Me:

Again, this is all dependant upon whether or not you hit your attack target. You're still only activating one model at a time. And if you kill one of my models (happens), then that lone Ronin that's all alone is going to get swamped.

You:

5. You would think that, but no, as I run through with my second attack I can push to another position that is alot better for my health, and considering I will have killed with next target I will be moving 10". Good luck trying to keep up with me unless you have a shooting list, then I'll stick around so you can shoot me up.

So then you're saying you don't need to hit? That was my first counter in point 5. You still need to hit. And the Ronin only possesses a Cb of 5 (average since you love averages so much.)

7. Life if easy and great when you ignore half the rules of the rulebook, move 12" and nothing can do anything about it. But the thing is that my Ronin WILL be supported... by other Ronin, so all I have is a swarm of units that just pick off one unit at a time and then move to tie up different units or move away to a unit that's already activated.

See above.

9. Damn two of my low cards gone if I'm incredibly unlucky to move 16" and attack twice from 2" range. I won't take it every time but I'll definitely take it. I don't see how you don't think that's devastating....

Back it up. I don't see it as devastating. You can attack once at 8" then a second one at 8"... at Cb 5 I'm sooooo frightened. :rofl:

10. Sure you can see it coming it doesn;t matter though, I'm faster then you BY ALOT. What else moves 12" in one turn? Not many units do but none of those hit as hard and Ronin. Terrain? Hah I ignore that. And I have a Fate hand too btw...

Again. See above for the terrain that you DON'T ignore.

[The Happy Anarchist]

Just realized it is actually worse off for the Ronin vs Punk Zombie than I thought.

Punk Zombies come with Nicodem right?

They are going to be Def 7 CB 9!!!

So you charge in. You need to get a card at least 2 higher than him to even hit at all, at -2 flips. 8 higher than their card to be able to cheat and a regular fate flip. Remember, he can cheat too, and odds are that you have to cheat first. Hope you flip well. Odds are, even if you hit you will be at a neg flip for damage. Congratulations on your 2-3 damage on average. If you get lucky four or five times you might kill the punk zombie.

In return, at CB 9, he needs to get only 2 higher than you for a cheatable damage flip which can quickly become the 5 damage needed to take you to 1. That is not even including that a crows suit on the attack roll means he only needs 2 less than your card for a cheatable damage flip, or if he gets 2 more a positive damage flip.

Am I using a Master's buff? Yes. A master that they come with. Victoria offers no buffs to Ronin. In fact, most Masters don't have anything that will buff Ronin and if you are lunging them forward to first strike you are out of range of most buffs as well.

Not to mention, it is actually YOU that are ignoring the rules in the book, not the Ronin. Poorly worded though that bit may be, you are effected by terrain.

Still, most lists, even giving you the first strike swarm of death, I think there are several lists out there that would donkey stomp it, Nicodem + Punk Zombies.

[Balgin]

Actions

+1 Melee Expert

1 Defensive +3 Defense

1 Run Through Push this model to its Cg. This model may push to make one Diasho Strike. Continue the push after resolving the strike

all Seppuku Sac this Model Gain two Soulstones

Hello there.

First off this post is not intended to offend anyone . Now something doesn't add up here. When did the Ronin lose their (1) Peasant's Clothes : Activates Harmless ability?

Seriously, if you wanted to call them broken that's the one you should be complaining about. I haven't played them, or played against them yet (and have a number of temporary models ready but suspect they all have to be female because they can turn into more Viktoria's, which would also explain the pistol).

Why would you ever run through twice when you could run through once then turn on Harmless to prevent retaliation? Now garaunteed, it's not going to completely prevent it, but it could cause an oponent to waste good control cards on the willpower duel to be allwoed to attack the sword wielding maniac.

I think I'd personaly prefer to use ronin in a more characterful style. Sauntering up, taking a shot, or rushing past taking a quick swipe, then blending in to the crowd. In fact, the "always for hire" talent reinforces this image.

In theory there's no reason to charge up to a shooter if they don't consider you a threat, or even a target. Simply saunter up then swoop in for a quick slice and turn on Harmless again afterwards. And if some foe manages to charge you take that bonus attack from combat expert, then rush away (not forgetting to take the second attack as you depart) then go harmless again.

I see their purpose being more to harrass and to force foes to spend cards from their control hand than to be a direct uber threat of doom.

On paper the ronin look good but I doubt I'd want to use more than two of them. Three at the most. Any more than that would lead to an unbalanced group with major weaknesses that could easily be exploited.

[Achilles]

I'd rather face six ronin than ten Arachnids led by Ramos....

But then, spam is boring. And luckily... most spam players forget to read a certain part of every gaming rulebook...

Hello and Welcome to This Miniature Game!

To fully enjoy your experience, please insure you have the following.

-Some figures to represent your armies.

-A flat playing surface.

-Appropriate measuring devices and random number generators.

-A selection of scenic features to represent your battlefield.

-This Rulebook.

-A Friend.

[Southpaw]

This thread is a Christmas miracle :santa:

[Raintar]

Oh I didn't see the not ignoring terrain FAQ which tones them down a bit.

So then you're saying you don't need to hit? That was my first counter in point 5. You still need to hit. And the Ronin only possesses a Cb of 5 (average since you love averages so much.)

Not being afraid of Ronin because they are Cb 5 is downright foolish. I talked before the units I planned on picking off who included Samael Hopkins, Doppleganger, Canine Remains etc. Let's take a look at their defenses:

Doppleganger: Df 4, Wd 8

Canine Remains: Df 5 Wd 3

Nino Ortega: Df 4 Wd 8

Samael Hopkins: Df 4 Wd 9

Rusty Alyce: Df 4 Wd 8; Df Trigger, Nothing to live for

Nothing impressive here, all of them can be taken out in two attacks let alone three sure you'd be blowing out your entire hand to do it but if you can kill an essential model in the opposing list like any of these it'll be so worth it.

Back it up. I don't see it as devastating. You can attack once at 8" then a second one at 8"... at Cb 5 I'm sooooo frightened. :rofl:

K Nino Ortega just gets set up into position, he has In my Sights cast on a Ronin and takes a shot. He does 2 damage or whatever, the Ronin attacks his own guy, pushes 4" Runs Through twice for 12" makes an attack and then melee expert on Nino. Actually that's enough to kill him considering all I really have to do is hit and I can cheat damage with my +1 to the damage flip. Not that it matters anyway since I'm preventing you from shooting anyway it doesn't matter what happens anymore because the Ronin will eventually kill Nino and he will be tied up until then.

Again. See above for the terrain that you DON'T ignore.

K doesn't matter, you don't ignore it either so were on a level playing field.

@Karn

1)They are 4/6 Wk/Cg and they have no ability to charge any further then normal. If your going to make that point again, please try to better explain it this time. They can go 12" with 2" reach if that is what you mean, please better format your points.

Yeah look how long my post is I can't get every minute detail. Why don't you think about what I'm saying so you can fully understand it before

2) The Razorspine is insanely fast and it's best option with the 2nd ap is to do Constrict to max its damage. Either way, different factions, comparison is flawed.

Umm no the comparison is not flawed at all we're still playing the same game, Malifaux. Cost efficiency is a constant characteristic for each unit regardless of race. The rattler is meant to be a fast unit meant to take out troops quickly, something the Ronin is better at, and for less points.

3) It has already been established that Ronin are indeed very dangerous offensive models for their points. But there are a great deal of models that can inflict this much damage that fast. This isn't to shocking, especially because those are easy to kill support units.

Yes and I'm saying no other can do it with the speed it can, making it alot better. Sure Joss can do alot of killing but it charges 6" and gets one attack with +1 to damage flip, where as my Ronin from the same range gets 3 attacks with +1 to the damage, see the difference?

4) Thats how you beat a shooting unit, you run ramshot into it's face and stick pointy things it it's body. Slurid do this much better and its a familiar tactic. I do it all the time with my froggy friends or Terror Tots, pretty much standard strategy.

Yep it's great being mobile.

5)Many units can drop this guy in 1 hit, or they just throw slow or some other debuff on him and his threat is much smaller. This is just like any other melee monster in your back lines, it sucks when it happens and it does require a lot of focus. Ever tried to kill an Executioner in your back lines? Thats hard, freaking slow to die and love the job, fat wolverine *grumbles*.

Putting the Executioner in your back lines isn't as good as you think. Using Ronin and knowing where the Executioner is, I can move to a point to where I can use your own guys to skew your direct path to me thus preventing any possible charges from me. Here's when you would think "Oh I'll just move my own guys that'll do it!", no it won't, the Ronin player properly played will know these things and how to negate it and play around it to move to the best possible area. I'm not saying it's a guarantee but you can make it pretty damn hard.

6) Hard to Kill is what lets you sruvive the distance to the enemy and make you hang around an annoying amount of time. Otherwise, its rather easy to deal with, (You will evaporate in Pandora's web of effects for example). Also Harmless, while cool, is easy to deal with if you have a 6 or 7 in your hand, since thats all most models need to pass the check. You need to give them a negative flip on wp to make harmless a PITA.

ANY model in Pandora's web is screwed, unless you have insane willpower so don't even make that argument. That's like saying you shouldn't play a unit because he's dead if Lady Justice can charge it with Vengeance, like yeah thanks I guess I shouldn't use any models because nothing can live against that.

7) Um, Punk Zombies are from a different faction and have different META values in the game. But if you insist, Self-Mutilation and Slice and Dice get around Hard to Kill. But I'm not going to continue with this since yet again, comparing models cross faction and in a vacume does not work.

It does work, because the laws of a game must have some kind of soulstone cost to effectiveness ratio otherwise one faction will be overpowered. All factions must be generally and relatively close to each other to ensure balance within the game and therefore you can make these comparisons.

However, certain units have different jobs and these and where things get skewed. For example a Crooked Man may have an easy time with an Ice Gamin, but a rather tough time with a unit like the Witchling Stalker who can bounce their spells back. It's all about finding a level playing field before comparing the two and seeing who can perform better in those scenarios. When I'm saying Ronin are broken what I'm really saying is that the Ronin can perform the best given many different scenarios that can happen in-game.

8) Huh? If you mean you will play the unit to its strategic purpose, um, good job? Thats what I would honestly expect.

They are fast enough to exploit the strategy so I can win easier using them which is the point of using them.

9) Even in a single player game, hyper aggressive units like Ronin tend to be drawn into traps. The best players get caught in these, they are designed for that purpose. Bait and switch to remove a PITA model, was it worth it? Ask your opponent.

If you know what all units do, you can make decisions based on what you know the opponent can do and how he is playing. Using that information you can play around these strategies and better thwart his strategy.

10) True you can do this to move even faster, but I will take that little damage on your Ronin to do that. It moves them into the realm of easy to kill even with their Hard to Kill ability. Plus it also burns your hard for that turn trying to mitigate the damage and you never know, you could flip some high damage. Either way, go right ahead and good thinking.

Cheat lower, yes you don't always HAVE to cheat higher!

11) Ronin, like EVERY model in this game, can be rather easy to kill if you try hard enough. As it has already been said a few times, special abilities is what hoses these guys. If you for example, get caught in Pandora's web of effects, these guys melt. Levy will just whipe them out without a thought. Teddy will happily make them flee then charge and eat their face. The Ortegas will put more holes in their head then they will have head. The point is, they are nothing to special when it comes to special effects =D.

Sure I agree, most masters can kill anything nothing is invincible.

12) Why send a melee guy to do the job of a specialist or a ranged guy honestly? You keep comparing things that are close to their same value going against them when it is more then likely, something much more powerful will go hunting them. I'd send my master to deal with them personally, I'd rather not risk my units when my 1 master can kill 2+ of them without having to try to hard.

I don't know what you're referring to here, but having my master deal with is because he's all powerful isn't always an option.

I see your points that they are a dangerous unit but you are basically freaking out about how mean they are in game theory. In practice, they aren't bad but eh, they are just another dangerous unit that you make sure dies, nothing to special. I think you need to play more games of Malifaux and against a wider variety of units to.

So to summarize, they are a dangerous unit. No one is disputing this, but I don't think they are THAT dangerous. They are not that hard to deal with when actually playing the game because it just takes a little power to wipe them out (like everything else). Their threat and damage output is rather nice, but there are other things that meet and beat this level of threat range/damage. They are only 6 wd's with average stats across the board, when it comes to someone actually attacking them, they are glass cannons in the end. Hard to Kill gives them 1 trick to live, and all that takes is 1 more attack to finish them off.

Sure, they are a maneuverable precision strike unit which is great! I love those kinds of things, and they do it well. But they get in their, hit their target, and get out if they can. I don't see whats broken about that at all.

So please, don't insult people here, don't insult the company, and please don't insult the community. If you want to debate on a topic, do it rationally without ranting on the post and trying to debase the people you are speaking with.

[paperbag4]

Perhaps if your big long posts were shorter, proof-read posts your point would get across better. I'm just saying that "look at the size of my post, of course there will be mistakes" doesn't help you articulate why the Ronin are too broken.

Random question:

In the title, did you mean too broken as in broken more than is acceptable, or as in broken also? That ambiguity might be leading to a lot of the denials of the general brokenness of the Ronin.

[Raintar]

Ok, first off, I did proofread it, but when any person can pick out every unexplained detail and go OMG LOOK AT WHAT YOU SAID LOLOLOLOL with a post that long it gets difficult. If I could rename the title it would be "Ronin too good, possibly broken?" to reach that point that I'd like it at.

[EricJ]

Ok everyone, I think this discussion has run it's course, and when I see people on both sides making the same arguments multiple times and the discussion has become about semantics more than the game, it's time to shut things down.

I think it's been a great discussion, but the bottom line is that the Ronin are not going to be getting any changes in the foreseeable future. I have kept an eye on things here, but I don't feel at the moment they destabilize the game. They were intended to be a powerful unit, and fit a role in both Viktoria's Crews and as mercenaries, and I see them filling exactly the role as intended in design.

On that note, this thread is shutting down.

PS: look for the minis to be available soon