About the slaughter encounter

[karn987]

I fought a Nicodem who got the slaughter encounter last weekend. I just ran up and stood in melee with his stuff the whole game. I didn't even need to win my fights. I didn't even really try to win my fights except for killing his vultures (because they move fast). I just stood in melee range in defensive stance to slow him down. The game ended and sure, he had maybe 3 times as many models out as me, but he was so far away from the stuff I hid in my deployment zone that it didn't matter. He had no chance at all. That game was over the second he flipped slaughter.

I believe this is what is called being a cheesy player. It's not the games fault you played like a weasel, it's yours. Don't play like a weasel and play to have fun (shocking I know, the game is about having fun) and give your opponent a good game.

It's as simple as that. You can be the jerk of the store and play like a cheesy little weasel, or you can face them and give them a good game. I know personally, I'd never want to play against someone who played like that. I'd probably leave half way through because you wont play the game. To focused on just winning.

I may being a bit harsh, but I hate when people play like this. Its not a fun style of play to go against and it's the kind of thing that isolates the person doing it. Yes it is a valid strategy to play like this, but its not a good thing to do. Im not going to bother trying to poke holes in it, there isn't much point in that.

The point I'm trying to get across is, if you want to play so that winning is all you care about, you will find there are a lot of really mean and cheesy things you can do. But most people don't sink to that low level. Most people want to have fun and enjoy themselves and the rules are written for people like that. They can't cover ever cheesy little weasel move people can think up, it just doesn't happen no system is that tight. They just have to do the best they can and provide a fun experience for as many as possible while adhering to their own goals.

Edited July 23, 2010 by karn987

[Natty]

<Edited to remove first quote and response>

I believe this is what is called being a cheesy player. It's not the games fault you played like a weasel, it's yours. Don't play like a weasel and play to have fun (shocking I know, the game is about having fun) and give your opponent a good game.

It's as simple as that. You can be the jerk of the store and play like a cheesy little weasel, or you can face them and give them a good game. I know personally, I'd never want to play against someone who played like that. I'd probably leave half way through because you wont play the game. To focused on just winning.

You talk like playing to win and playing to have fun are mutually exclusive.

It sounds like you are saying that the only way you have fun is to have the other person let you win? Personally I enjoy competition and so do my friends. I don't want someone to let me win because they didn't try. That is a game I wouldn't enjoy. Let's go play some football against a team that wont tackle you because they don't want to hurt your feelings.

Competition is the core of any miniature game, and the conversation and camaraderie is most of the fun. The miniature game itself is just a vehicle for friends to have a good time together. It is the people that get upset that they lost that cause no one to have a good time.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Natty

[Ropetus]

Ok, so the next time my opponent draws Slaughter for their Strategy I should toss all my Crew on their face and not "play like a weasel". Check!

Oh wait, that makes absolutely no sense...

You're seeing the problem in the players, I see it in the Strategy: if the objective encourages hiding your crew and "playing like a weasel" to win something is wrong with the scenario. You can't blame players for acting in the most effective way they can.

This is the exact reason I don't like Slaughter. It's very tough to accomplish unless your opponent cooperates and doesn't actively deny your chances to kill their crew. Scenarios that force both Crews to take an active role lead to much more interesting games, Slaughter does not meet this criterion.

It is also one of the reasons I left GW a long time ago: since all games were about killing the opposing army, the most important aspect turned out to be 'point denial': you concentrate only on making sure your opponent gets no significant VP by only throwing a few cheap units in the harm's way and concentrate your points in extremely tough unkillable units which you hide somewhere. When the objectives of the game are not tied to killing your enemies, the game turns much more active as you can't deny your opponent all points by hiding your whole army.

-Ropetus

[Q'iq'el]

[ehh looks like I tried to fix a typo and lost a bit of a post on the way... Below is a re-created version:]

I fought a Nicodem who got the slaughter encounter last weekend. I just ran up and stood in melee with his stuff the whole game. I didn't even need to win my fights. I didn't even really try to win my fights except for killing his vultures (because they move fast). I just stood in melee range in defensive stance to slow him down. The game ended and sure, he had maybe 3 times as many models out as me, but he was so far away from the stuff I hid in my deployment zone that it didn't matter. He had no chance at all. That game was over the second he flipped slaughter.

Looks like the Nicodem crew hasn't been played properly. It was either wrong crew composition or poor strategy.

First of all Ressurectionists are slow, but also have ample access to Slow and Paralysis. Nicodem moreso than others - he has Mortimer with access to it via trigger, can take Bête Noire (one of most scary versions as it is practically sure to go off) and Crooked Men (Shafted). Nic himself can cast Rigor Mortis and it is a spell you can use even in melee.

When a model is paralyzed, you can simply walk away from melee without disengaging strikes. If he used Paralysis properly you shouldn't have been able to slow him down dramatically (bar exceptionally bad hand on his part or especially good on yours, but that will kill any crew and any plan).

Secondly, Nicodem likes being bunched up with his crew. IMHO people make mistake leaving him behind and relying on Vultures too much. Yes, he is slow on his own, but you can speed him and his undead entourage up with Mortimer's Fresh meat (thanks to Embrace Death). If he keeps his Punk Zombies as body guard, being close to him is almost suicidal (3x Flurry with Bolster Undead? That can dispatch anyone including melee masters in defensive stance). All that remains are soulstone-boosted Decays on the models that are too fast.

Granted, a slow crew will always have hard time against a fast one in Slaughter, but the more you commit to the crew, the more models you get, the more tools you have to overcome such issues. Bringing a Belle with her Lure or buying a Hangman or two provides you with tools to manipulate enemy positions and helping up your own crew to get in combat by using enemy Wk range against him, for example.

I suppose it is an aspect of the game some may not like, but the more models you buy, the more balanced the game is. This is especially true for Ressurectionists, because their models are highly specialized and you really need to own almost entire line to be able to summon/hire exactly what you need in a tight spot. Some other crews can often do with buying 1~2 extra models of each type, simply to alter the crew composition according to the needs, but it still means buying more models.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[Nutcase168]

Slaughter can be challenging depending on the opposing crew but I don't find it any harder than other schemes.

My last 3 games I won based upon me wiping out his entire crew. But the master I run may be better at Slaughter than others and there are some masters I haven't faced yet.

[Natty]

Ok. Let's look at this backwards. We have mainly been talking about how hard it is to complete slaughter. This about it from the defensive point of view and how hard is it to defend against your opponent getting a particular strategy.

Your opponent gets:

Reconnoiter: Typical defense: Try to kill enough models so they can't claim the quarters. This involves going out and actually fighting.

Claim Jump: Typical defense: Try to get to the middle of the board. You have to be right in the action and be winning the fight so that they don't have models, or have less models, in the center of the table. It's a fight.

Assassinate: Typical defense: This one is a choice, either you hide your master/play very defensively so they can't kill you, which causes you not play as effectively with your most powerful model and maybe make it much harder to complete your own schemes, or you go out there and fight and risk them killing your master. It's a tough choice and not always easy to defend against.

Treasure hunt: Typical defense: Either try to get to the treasure first, or kill whomever they have with the treasure. There is a lot of timing involved with picking up the treasure and killing whomever they have that picks it up. Only very few crews can pick up the treasure and get it back to their deployment zone in the first turn.

Slaughter: Typical defense: Have at least one guy survive. That's it. Keep one guy, any significant model, alive.

You are telling me that slaughter is just as hard to defend against as all the other strategies?

[Q'iq'el]

You are telling me that slaughter is just as hard to defend against as all the other strategies?

I think you are taking it a bit out of context.

It would indeed be so if opponent had nothing else to do and you were relying only on the Slaughter to win.

However he has 1 or 2 additional Schemes and a Strategy to complete and most likely he won't see these points if he's left with just one model. Ok, so he may get Reconnoiter and spread around - it's still enough to kill models in two quarters to deny him these points. If he makes an effort to defend those, he only facilitates your task.

Then you have Schemes of your own. Take the one to defend your deployment zone (depending on deployment, but in case of diagonal deployment it's a solid choice) and the Bodyguard Scheme and announce them - now if he wants to prevent you from taking these 4 points, he has to come to you.

In other words realizing your Strategy and Schemes is one way to win. Preventing the opponent from getting his and winning by getting some extra points on the side of main mission is another. Look at your crew, asses which choice is better for what you've got and then decide if things are not balanced.

[Natty]

Again, that's not what the anti-slaughter people are arguing. The basic argument is that Slaughter is just plain harder to accomplish than any other strategies. Much harder. Most games will be won if you kill every opposing model, regardless of who has what strategies and schemes. Slaughter forces you to do this.

Sure, it is technically possible to kill every opposing model and not have won the game; but is it likely? No.

[Natty]

Then you have Schemes of your own. Take the one to defend your deployment zone (depending on deployment, but in case of diagonal deployment it's a solid choice) and the Bodyguard Scheme and announce them - now if he wants to prevent you from taking these 4 points, he has to come to you.

This is what I was talking about earlier though. You can take those schemes and force him to come to you no matter what strategy is flipped. It has nothing to do with slaughter. The only difference with slaughter is that instead of coming at you with everything, he can leave one tiny model behind and deny you half of your possible VP. Leaving a terror tot out of the fight is hardly game changing.

<edit> Also, are you arguing that slaughter is balanced because you can rely on your schemes to win and not worry about accomplishing slaughter? That seems to prove the original author's point that Slaughter is kinda unfair to flip.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Natty

[Q'iq'el]

This is what I was talking about earlier though. You can take those schemes and force him to come to you no matter what strategy is flipped. It has nothing to do with slaughter. The only difference with slaughter is that instead of coming at you with everything, he can leave one tiny model behind and deny you half of your possible VP. Leaving a terror tot out of the fight is hardly game changing.

<edit> Also, are you arguing that slaughter is balanced because you can rely on your schemes to win and not worry about accomplishing slaughter? That seems to prove the original author's point that Slaughter is kinda unfair to flip.

I'm arguing that you can't discuss Strategies and Schemes in separation from the entire context of how you start the encounter.

First you hire the crew based on the Strategy you have. You chose Schemes to complement or remedy imbalances. You have to consider the terrain, opponent's faction and all sorts of stuff. It's never the same strategy, unless you play only one opponent with fixed crew on a single table.

You never face just "Slaughter". You have to consider entire kit you get.

It's true that Slaughter is one of the hardest Strategies to complete. It's also one that makes preventing opponent Strategies and Schemes the easiest.

It's much harder to prevent opponent from grabbing 3 or 4 table quarters for Reconnoiter when you run Treasure Hunt or try to grab some terrain features, because you need to keep considerable part of your crew on securing your own main objective. When you play Slaughter, you simply go after opponent's scoring models first without much need to split.

In other words if you compare Strategies 1:1 they do seem imbalanced... it's just that you don't play them 1:1. The effect of your Strategy on your opponents Strategy is part of the deal and the Schemes too and you cannot simply separate those. The premise of 1:1 comparison is false.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[Aberration]

This is what I was talking about earlier though. You can take those schemes and force him to come to you no matter what strategy is flipped. It has nothing to do with slaughter. The only difference with slaughter is that instead of coming at you with everything, he can leave one tiny model behind and deny you half of your possible VP. Leaving a terror tot out of the fight is hardly game changing.

<edit> Also, are you arguing that slaughter is balanced because you can rely on your schemes to win and not worry about accomplishing slaughter? That seems to prove the original author's point that Slaughter is kinda unfair to flip.

I agree that slaughter is tough, but as they say... sometimes you just gotta play with the hand you're dealt.

I've completed slaughter before because my opponent got Claim Jump. I camped in the middle of the board with my entire force so in order to win he HAD to bring everything to me...Bodyguard on my master and stake a claim on something near to center...both announced.

Recon would be harder to counter, given the amount of terrain on most boards to hide behind.

Slaughter/Slaughter would be a fun bloodshed game. So would Slaughter/Assassinate...

[Natty]

I'm not saying that it is impossible to win if you get slaughter, but I am fairly certain 99% of people who want to win, don't want to flip slaughter.

Ignore everything else about the game and just talk about flipping your strategy, something you have no control over.

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If you flip slaughter you have a much higher probability of losing than if you flip any other strategy.

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I just don't see any of the arguments presented against that statement as very valid. You guys argue that it is still possible to win, and yeah, that is right, but you will be less likely to win if you get slaughter than if you got any other strategy.

[Natty]

I agree that slaughter is tough, but as they say... sometimes you just gotta play with the hand you're dealt.

This pretty much sums it up.

Slaughter is tough. Tougher than the other strategies. That's all I've been saying.

[Aberration]

I agree with that. I'd much rather prefer...anything really.

[Nutcase168]

For me who Plays Leveticus/Ramos, I'd honestly prefer Slaughter over treasure hunt. I typically don't have as many signifcant models and those I do run have better things to do than carry that treasure around. Reconoiter isn't much better for me either but Levi at least has options for that.

[Natty]

For me who Plays Leveticus/Ramos, I'd honestly prefer Slaughter over treasure hunt. I typically don't have as many signifcant models and those I do run have better things to do than carry that treasure around. Reconoiter isn't much better for me either but Levi at least has options for that.

I feel like treasure hunt for Levi shouldn't be that hard since first turn you can drag a reactivating SPA on top of the treasure and walk it all the way back.

Sure it leaves your SPAs way out there and vulnerable... but if they die... turn them into more SPAs!

Of course, if you are fighting the Viks or Pandora you are screwed since they will steal your treasure and run it back on the first or second activation of the first turn. No way can you get there faster than that. Basically everyone is screwed with treasure hunt against Viktoria or Pandora so that doesn't really count.

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Ramos.... yeah... I would never want to get treasure hunt if I was playing with Ramos.

[Nutcase168]

I feel like treasure hunt for Levi shouldn't be that hard since first turn you can drag a reactivating SPA on top of the treasure and walk it all the way back.

With SPa being insignificant I wouldn't get full VP on treasure hunt if they held it IIRC, you a significant model holding it in the deployment zone. Best option for Levi is the hooded rider.

Ramos, is boned in most cases unless you run lots of Gamin.

[Natty]

With SPa being insignificant I wouldn't get full VP on treasure hunt if they held it IIRC, you a significant model holding it in the deployment zone. Best option for Levi is the hooded rider.

But you can still pick it up with a SPA and then hand it off on turn 2. The main point is that you get it back to your deployment zone on turn 1. Throw a cheap undead in the list or just let Alyce hold it, shooting anyone that comes close.

[Wodschow]

I think you're thinking of Lilith or Zoraida? Pandora can't move around with the treasure all that well.. 6" is all you'll ever get. It's also hard even to get to pick it up with her on the first turn.

With Pandora I'd rather use her to massacre the other crew and then take the treasure with one of the kids, but whatever..

Pandora is also one of the masters who doesn't like reconoiter, the typical 25 SS crew doesn't even have 4 significant models.

Actually I think Treasure Hunt is more unbalanced than Slaughter, some crews are just so much faster than others.

Slaughter sucks for everyone, but Treasure Hunt is nigh impossible for certain crews and laughably easy for others.

Edit:

How'd you get the treasure back to your deployment zone on turn one with Levi?

EditEdit:

Fastest way I can think of with Levi is burning out the Peacekeeper. If the enemy does nothing this'd allow the treasure to be in your zone by turn two..

Edited July 23, 2010 by Wodschow

[icemantis99]

I'd love to know how that worked too... if the SPA is pushed by keep pace, the treasure gets dropped. And it can only take one walk of 4" due to hobbled. So as far as I can see, it can only get 4" back towards the deployment zone.

[icemantis99]

And can insignificant models even get the treasure? I thought insignificant models couldnt take interact actions?

[Natty]

I play Pandora and this is how I get the first turn treasure:

1st activation: Activate Doppelganger, copy casting expert and dementia. Cast dementia on Pandora 3 times. If she resists, fine, push Pandora the 4 inches to the treasure because she succeeded in a wp duel. If she doesn't resist, that's fine too, but you want her to only get affected by dementia once.

(Remember that it is better to cheat your casting total down with a moderate card so that you barely succeed than to waste a good card cheating your resist total up).

2nd Activation: Simultaneously activate the Poltergeist and Pandora. Depending on where Pandora is, activate the Poltergeist's AOE and have her resist it for a 4" free move and cast dementia on Pandora again, either letting it go off if Pandora doesn't have dementia on her yet or resisting for the free move if she does have it.

At this point, Pandora will have Dementia on her and should have take either 8 or 12 inches of free movement.

Now activate Pandora (since it was companioned with your totem). First attempt to cast Pacify on an opponent. They don't even need to be in range because the action will fail if they aren't, but the point is, before you can try, you need to take a Dementia WP 13 action, which Pandora succeeds on a 6+. When she beats Dementia, take your 4" free push to land right next to the treasure. Then, don't even care if the Pacify goes off. Doesn't matter. If they were out of range, the action fails, but you got the push from Dementia anyway.

Pandora takes the (1) action to pick up the treasure. She will need to succeed in Dementia again, but this isn't hard for her with her wp-7. Then Pandora takes a walk action back towards the deployment zone (Do NOT use the free push with Dementia yet or she will drop the treasure before she moves). Pandora uses her casting expert to cast anything, again, doesn't matter what, the point is that you succeed in Dementia, giving you a free push.

Since Pandora has pushed while holding the treasure, she now drops it. So, Pandora was in base contact with the treasure (so half a base width towards your side, then walked 3 inches, drops the treasure on the other side of her towards you, meaning that the treasure has now moved about 5 inches closer to your deployment [when you consider it has also flipped itself from in front of Pandora to behind her, and you only need to be touching the base to pick it up]).

3rd activation: Activate a Silurid. Use the (0) action to move into base contact with the treasure (which has moved about 5 inches closer to your deployment). Pick up the treasure and walk the silurid back 5 more inches.

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The treasure should be very close to your deployment zone now and it really doesn't take much cheating to do, because you don't need to succeed in all your Dementia casts, you want to fail one of the resists (just let the first fail go off, and if you flip successful resists you can always voluntarily fail the 3rd or 4th cast), and you can cheat 6+'s for most of what you need to do.

If there is a lot of terrain in the way, you may need to take something like Candy/Hamelin for some more movement out of pushes/obey.

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Getting the treasure back to your deployment with Levi would be easy, but much more risky because you can't really do it anywhere near as fast and your opponent can very easily mess you up between SPA activations if they have any models that move fast.

Levi would do the following:

Alyce casts reactivate on a SPA.

Do the SPA move train to the middle of the board, putting the reactivating SPA in base contact with the treasure. Activate the SPA, pick it up, move your base move, reactivate the SPA, move it again.

If you want it all the way back to your deployment zone, then have one more SPA attached to the one that took 2 moves bringing it back, have that SPA move, pushing the reactivating SPA, so it drops the treasure, then, the treasure will be close to your deployment zone and just grab it and run it in... maybe with another SPA! Who knows; take a million of the things if the game is big enough and leave a train of SPAs behind to pick up and redrop the treasure after a single move.

But like I said, this isn't as good as the Pandora one because you have now left half your army out there waiting to get slaughtered. At least your can use the scrap counters after they are dead though.

<edit> Basically the moral of this huge story is that you can get into base contact with the treasure, move, and drop it on the other side of you with a push so that a different model can pick it up.

Edited July 23, 2010 by Natty

[Natty]

And can insignificant models even get the treasure? I thought insignificant models couldnt take interact actions?

I thought it was just that they don't count as holding the treasure for victory points (so you get 2 and not 4). I am pretty sure they can pick it up and move it.

[Placidemu]

I thought it was just that they don't count as holding the treasure for victory points (so you get 2 and not 4). I am pretty sure they can pick it up and move it.

The errata for Treasure hunt does specify that "The treasure Counter does not count as being carried if carried by an Insignificant model at the end of the game" which by that it would lead me to assume that an Insignificant model can carry it so yeah.

Though honestly with the whole "Slaughter being too hard!" debate I think that Slaughter is much easier to accomplish than Assassinate most of the time. I'd much rather and find it far easier to kill someones entire army minus the master to get the points then it is to kill the opposing master AND keep your master alive. There are some masters that are just really difficult to kill and it makes assassinate harder than it really should be. While there are some crews where the minions are incredibly easy to mow through and make getting at least 2VP easy. I think the fact that Slaughter is a Purely Offensive Strategy while Assassinate is a Mixture of Offensive/Defensive make them both difficult in their own respects.

[theHman]

Yes, insignificant minis CAN pick up the treasure token.

They just don't count as carrying it at the end of the game.