Lady J vs Guild

[tadaka]

Note I dont play her myself but play a lot of masters vs her.

She is strong enough that for any master I play I have to take her as a solid threat. Some other masters I have found I can ignore and go about my goals with little down side.

I have never looked across the table and went o no not her again. I know she is potent but I never have to go why did I bring this crew im gona get crushed. On the flip side I never go and think I can smoke her in a couple rounds and be done with it.

Even tho she has her anti undead thing i dont find her so potent in her focus that she is a nightmare to play when fielding an undead crew. Tough yes but not OP.

[nilus]

Whats strange is I have used Riposte more often the Faster then You. I think it comes down to the fact that there is a lot more melee attacks then ranged in the game.

Honestly I find LJ to be really balanced. She suffers from the same problem all the Guild masters do. They have no real damage mitigation. But she has 12 wounds.

I guess I really have never seen her low defense as that much of an issue.

[tadaka]

Nil do you feal that way about perdita, Personaly I put her on par with levi for hard to kill with immune to inf, hi will and 8df. Hoff and cridd I agree with that.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Honestly I find LJ to be really balanced. She suffers from the same problem all the Guild masters do. They have no real damage mitigation. But she has 12 wounds.

.

C. Hoffman, Sonnia Criid, and Perdita all have damage mitigation.

Perdita has top tier defense, Evasive 2, and a control mechanic in the form of Quickdraw.

Sonnia has a dumptruck's worth of magical mitigation. And she has portable soft cover.

C. Hoffman has the ability to grab armor and heal himself without SoulStones.

[tadaka]

Well Jonas your right. But I do say crid and hoff are a little on the squishy side. Not that they are not potent just find them to die frequently.

Hoff dispite what you listed is pritty easy to take down with lots of smaller units. Once you get to him. Armor has its down side to lots of little things that do one wound per.

Cridd is hard to kill with spells but goes down pritty quick to well some thing like Lady J.

That being said I find cridd to be about right on the balance scale. Tough as nails for caster heavy, not unbeatable but still not OMGWTFBBQ.

Hoff I have not played enough games with him to have a real opinion on if he is well done on balance.

[Guy in Suit]

Maybe Lady J's Df is low, cuz, well, she's blind!

[M_Ruckuss]

I can't help but feel like you agree with my point about Lady Justice's survivability.

Not really- I can just appreciate your point of view. I cite my earlier points that she is best against resses, can be boosted by totem, has 12 wounds, boosts other gang members and can immolate scarp counters. For a human master shes nails. As I also pointed out earlier, and guy in suit has pointed out subsequently, she is also Blind....

I would just take Ryle and a witchling if I wanted to take a more competetive crew-range and anti-magic. Essentially surely if you provide other tempting targets beside LJ then she will survie. Plus death marshal actually seem pretty wrong for 4ss, especially when used with LJ... they look the tits, models and rules!!!!!!

I also agree with takada and nil- Perdita is, for me, the best master in the game (in terms of rule-wise I like her best and would like to play her the least!!) But i also think Lady J is great as she is-maybe not hard to kill but look at it this way:

Loud, clumsy evil dude swings at LJ. LJ uses 6th sense/hearing to duck and riposte- think of Daredevil pretty much. Shes so awesome in attack all her SS could be kept in reserve, which with the right cards means u can kill stuff through riposte.

I think she is balanced- you could just as easily argue Perdita is to hard as LJ is too weak (in DF). I'm happy with most crew I play against, and although I fear Perdita more than LJ, Neph have no range....against resses LJ must be a NIGHTMARE to play. I would be worried if 1 crew could take all others-yeah Perdita may be better vs guild or Neph, but I reiterate my point about each guild master being suited to a specific role-its thematic and tactically flexible...

Edited December 1, 2010 by McDoogle

[Jonas Albrecht]

Not really- I can just appreciate your point of view. I cite my earlier points that she is best against resses, can be boosted by totem, has 12 wounds, boosts other gang members and can immolate scarp counters. For a human master shes nails. As I also pointed out earlier, and guy in suit has pointed out subsequently, she is also Blind....

I would just take Ryle and a witchling if I wanted to take a more competetive crew-range and anti-magic. Essentially surely if you provide other tempting targets beside LJ then she will survie. Plus death marshal actually seem pretty wrong for 4ss, especially when used with LJ... they look the tits, models and rules!!!!!!

Before this catches on, let me state:

I don't give the slightest care that Lady Justice is blind. It is nothing more than a narrative feature designed to draw parallels between Lady Justice and the statue of Blind Justice. It is not a justification for a lack of damage mitigation. Do not mistake pointing out her blindness for cleverness.

Anyway, some models actually do depend on other models for surivability. Nicodem, Colette, C. Hoffman just to name a few. But with these, its implicit in their mechanics, and part of their crew design. With Lady Justice, there's nothing to indicate that she must be deployed with decoys, save for the complete lack of damage mitigation. A new player will field her expecting her to survive as a frontline figure.

Now, 12Wd is impressive, but lets look at another figure.

Seamus

12Wd

Hard to Wound 2

Hard to Kill

Terrifying.

Df 4.

Is a point of Defense worth all of that?

[Jonas Albrecht]

I also agree with takada and nil- Perdita is, for me, the best master in the game (in terms of rule-wise I like her best and would like to play her the least!!) But i also think Lady J is great as she is-maybe not hard to kill but look at it this way:

Loud, clumsy evil dude swings at LJ. LJ uses 6th sense/hearing to duck and riposte- think of Daredevil pretty much. Shes so awesome in attack all her SS could be kept in reserve, which with the right cards means u can kill stuff through riposte.

I think she is balanced- you could just as easily argue Perdita is to hard as LJ is too weak (in DF). I'm happy with most crew I play against, and although I fear Perdita more than LJ, Neph have no range....against resses LJ must be a NIGHTMARE to play. I would be worried if 1 crew could take all others-yeah Perdita may be better vs guild or Neph, but I reiterate my point about each guild master being suited to a specific role-its thematic and tactically flexible...

Perdita is not Neverborn focused. She doesn't suck against non-Neverborn crews. Against magic, she has High Def, and is impossible to target with spells that Resist WP. Against the mostly melee zombie crews, she still has her high Defense, Gunfighter, and the advantage of range. There are few situations that I would sideboard out Perdita for Lady Justice against a Res crew. Or for Sonnia against a magic heavy crew.

[Wodschow]

To be honest you're the first one I've ever heard complaining about Lady J..

I don't really get it.. If you like Perdita that much, then why don't you just stick to her and be happy about it?

I also don't understand why you are making those comparisons between Masters at all..

Yes, Seamus is harder to take down than Lady J.

Yes, Lilith has a higher Df value than Lady J.

So play one of those Masters if that's what you want.

Although if you only rate Masters from their survivability I suggest you play neither of those and instead take a look at Colette, she must be the ultimate Master for you.

Edit:

Didn't mean to come off too rude, I realized I probably did and wish to apologize that :S

Edited December 1, 2010 by Wodschow

[M_Ruckuss]

Perdita is not Neverborn focused. She doesn't suck against non-Neverborn crews. Against magic, she has High Def, and is impossible to target with spells that Resist WP. Against the mostly melee zombie crews, she still has her high Defense, Gunfighter, and the advantage of range. There are few situations that I would sideboard out Perdita for Lady Justice against a Res crew. Or for Sonnia against a magic heavy crew.

Clcl difference of opinion perhaps Mr Albrecht; i think shes awesome...

[Alondir]

well if u put her in a box u dont need to worry about damage at all basically 12 wounds with a high ss cache, been able to give urself a posertive flip,

she is very tough

there are a lot more flimsy masters, that ur not mentioning the Vics df 1 higher than urs and 7 wounds, and no cache

Somer df 6, 10 wounds no cache

the reason she doesn't have a lot of defence is that she would be too powerful, end of. please

[Jonas Albrecht]

To be honest you're the first one I've ever heard complaining about Lady J..

I don't really get it.. If you like Perdita that much, then why don't you just stick to her and be happy about it?

I also don't understand why you are making those comparisons between Masters at all..

Yes, Seamus is harder to take down than Lady J.

Yes, Lilith has a higher Df value than Lady J.

So play one of those Masters if that's what you want.

Although if you only rate Masters from their survivability I suggest you play neither of those and instead take a look at Colette, she must be the ultimate Master for you.

Edit:

Didn't mean to come off too rude, I realized I probably did and wish to apologize that :S

Do not mistake my questions about her as disliking her. I'm asking about her from a standpoint of curiosity about her design. Yes, I've given counterstatements to some of the poster's explanations, but that's because the answers do not satisfy.

Its not about which Masters I like, or finding the ultimate Master. Its comparing them, and realizing that one seems to come up short. I do play Perdita, and plan to continue, but I also plan to come here every time I have a question I cannot riddle out on my own. I do not look forward to these questions being treated with scorn by the community.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Jonas Albrecht

[Jonas Albrecht]

Clcl difference of opinion perhaps Mr Albrecht; i think shes awesome...

Again, I do not think she is a bad Master.

I am curious about her seemingly low defense when other Masters seem to shore up their defenses with all manner of abilities.

[Jonas Albrecht]

the reason she doesn't have a lot of defence is that she would be too powerful, end of. please

Would you be so kind as to elaborate on why you have come to this conclusion.

[Vlad the Mad]

I play LadyJ as my primary master and I do find that Df 6 (and not one point more) would have been nice. However, I understand those who say that it might be overpowered as high Df combined with Riposte (eventually followed up by Onslaught) can be really nasty. She would still go down to shooting and spells, one point Df more or not.

Maybe there would be some other way of making here tougher without increasing her Df, like giving her some other extra rule (HtW, Armor, Bulletproof or something else)?

[tadaka]

They could do that but then she would be looking at a nurfs like levi

[Wodschow]

I play LadyJ as my primary master and I do find that Df 6 (and not one point more) would have been nice. However, I understand those who say that it might be overpowered as high Df combined with Riposte (eventually followed up by Onslaught) can be really nasty.

Okay.. Wild assumption on my part, but it sounds like you're saying that you can eventually trigger Onslaught from a Riposte attack.

You cannot do that, only one trigger per duel.. (And Onslaught is not even a Df trigger in the first place, so couldn't be used anyway, neither can her other Cb triggers)

If this wasn't what you meant, then I apologize, it just sounded that way to me

[Doctor Amos]

I still maintain that she's the melee expert master in a shooting faction. She's going to to look underpowered just because of that.

Further example, if they created a gunslinging Neverborne ranged Master, it would never, ever, ever be able to come close to competing with Perdida. But it would give the Borne something they didn't have before.

[Jonas Albrecht]

I play LadyJ as my primary master and I do find that Df 6 (and not one point more) would have been nice. However, I understand those who say that it might be overpowered as high Df combined with Riposte (eventually followed up by Onslaught) can be really nasty. She would still go down to shooting and spells, one point Df more or not.

Maybe there would be some other way of making here tougher without increasing her Df, like giving her some other extra rule (HtW, Armor, Bulletproof or something else)?

Perhaps some kind of Df boost that only works against Ranged strikes and spells. Also, yeah I agree that 6 might be more appropriate for her than 8.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Jonas Albrecht

[tadaka]

Jonas what % of the table do you cover with terrain? Malifaux calls for a lot of terrain to balance things out. Range attacks are very powerfull if people have lots of fire lanes.

[GuySmiley]

Tadaka- I hate to break your heart brother but I support the change to Levi. He really did need it. However, keep in mind that while I am putting away LadyJ for a long time I understand. Heck if they make LadyJ undead I will melt down my entire death marshal crew, and that isn't even a loss of a power. However, that being said...

Your right. To put justice in line with her role as the greatest master ever I think she needs hard to wound, Slow to die, and love of the job. Ok maybe that would be a little much.

LadyJ is like Ivan Drago. Anything she hits she destroys. That is how she wins. You just have to have her move up through cover and los. Don't worry austringers aren't going to do to much to that 12 wounds she is sporting. With a student of conflict she can attack 17 inches away, and on a normal day she can hit 12. So she still has reach on most guns. With her greatsword she avoids the negative flip on most stuff so it can be cheated.

So how does she live. She jumps into a bunch of guys and if you cheat or flip a mask and they don't smack her then they get and maybe die. If they do hit her then do prevention flips because when she gets a chance to go she will kill everything around her. Just make sure it isn't stuff that will explode and hurt her.

Reposte really is that cool. So make like Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove and ride that nuke in.

[tadaka]

Not going to break my heart

I know he was on the Op side.

My issue with the v2 card was solved. Wyrd and I agree that version of the card was not going to work. Perhaps for different reasons but the card was bad

I have not yet played v3 but I think it will be good for the game and for levi so i can kick butt and not listen to o he is to good

Austringers on the other hand need to eat a cuddle bat I pray to the wyrd gods those guys get cuddled to the ground.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Jonas what % of the table do you cover with terrain? Malifaux calls for a lot of terrain to balance things out. Range attacks are very powerfull if people have lots of fire lanes.

We usually deploy 2 pieces per square foot for Bayou and Badlands maps. There's also always a lot of obscuring terrain in the Bayou maps. I dunno why, but I really enjoy the obscuring terrain rules.

[Vlad the Mad]

Okay.. Wild assumption on my part, but it sounds like you're saying that you can eventually trigger Onslaught from a Riposte attack.

You cannot do that, only one trigger per duel.. (And Onslaught is not even a Df trigger in the first place, so couldn't be used anyway, neither can her other Cb triggers)

If this wasn't what you meant, then I apologize, it just sounded that way to me

I WAS actually implying that it works like that. It came up during one of our earlier games and I thought I've found the answer in this post:

http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=10258&highlight=Riposte+trigger

However, searching through the forums now, I see that most people play it differently - since when did this change?