Starting Nicodem

[Q'iq'el]

@Q'iq'el

well useing eyes and ears is better then the gs CA but in the end you end up useing 2AP to cast the lower ca spell.

Also if you hide the totem so that they cant be attacked by both range and melee attacks then it wouldn't be able to cast spells.

Well, Vultures do not work like normal totems - they have different purpose. That's perhaps where the confusion comes from.

You hide them early on - while opponent is still away it's easy for Nicodem to get his angles and ranged attacks are the major threat to Vultures. The opponent doesn't have to worry about your Zombies being to his face, so he shoots the birds. At the same time there are no corpse counters on the table and so no reason to expose them. So I hide the vultures.

Comes turn 2 or 3 and suddenly Nicodem has to hide among his undead, drawing LoS becomes very difficult, except for healing Decays, Corpse Counters tend to fall close to Nico, but there's always one or two further away - then my Vultures fly out.

Because Nicodem wouldn't have LoS to crucial targets anyway, it isn't a loss of AP to use Eyes and Ears - better to sacrifice Vulture's AP than Nico's own (as he'd have no good target).

In practice works very well and is hard to counter - it's really hard to justify shooting Vultures, when there are 2~3 Punk Zombies, Crooked Men, Bête Noire and perhaps some Flesh Constructs beating your line.

The grave spirit has flaws itself but for only 1SS and its ablity to give nico armor 2 is a great selling point for a defencive player like myself.

As I said, you use that armor only if you don't have Mindless Zombies around you. Why don't have them?

but its comes down to playing style, im defencive so Im drown to the Grave spirit. The vulture seems to fit more agressive players style.

I sort of not see this distinction. Vultures help when you push forward, but they are actually the best when Nico is surrounded with his troops for protection. That is defensive play-style as far as I'm concerned.

Edited December 31, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[hippieshopper]

Lilith can swing once and destroy all of them and with her fast she can smack Nico.

The Armor changes her damage from what it is to 1/2/4 and with his Hard to Wound...well I would rather take 1 damage instead of 3.

The Vultures are way too fast for a really slow crew...I understand the point of drawing LoS without the Zombies and the cover/Perch thing is a double edged sword.

But looking at it, using the grave spirit is basically telling someone you do expect to get hit. I still would rather not use them that often. I rarely use a totem but when I do it is always the Grave Spirit.

Even with McM, tagging Armor 2 on a Frankie is just sick.

[Q'iq'el]

Lilith can swing once and destroy all of them and with her fast she can smack Nico.

On paper. Even then, the first turn you charge in, so you can't whirl. You can transposition in and whirl, but that is requires good Control Hand and LoS to something meaningful to swap with. Nicodem can easily survive 1 or 2 strikes from her (esp. with Zombies around). In 2nd turn she can whirl if she hadn't been paralyzed yet (tough luck winning Rst:Wp with her), but that won't kill Nico either (as he quite likely healed from the previous damage in the meantime). Zombies she kills can be brought back all at once with Arise and moved out of her whirl range (but still close enough to work for Nico), so it is a meaningless sport. And considering she has to replace something to transposition in, it is not hard to place the MZ so that she cannot reach them all.

In practice competent Nico player will do his best to not let her any close and unless there is distinctive terrain advantage, she will have hard time transpositioning in too.

When I play Lilith against Nico, I try to clear the way with Nephilim so that she has minimal chance of engagement before reaching him. Any mistake, and she has Bête Noire in the face, paralyzing her for the next 2-3 turns.

The Vultures are way too fast for a really slow crew...I understand the point of drawing LoS without the Zombies and the cover/Perch thing is a double edged sword.

Nicodem crews I've seen tend to stick together and work in large groups trying to control the middle of the table and spreading from there (depending on objectives of course). Vultures typically sit where there's nothing else but them. The practical point I'm trying to raise is: Who would send a powerful and fast model to chase a Vulture, when he badly needs anything he can muster to unsettle Nico's army? And even if all the Vulture does is running, it still means the opponent is fighting with one less model, giving Nico even better numbers advantage where he wants it.

Edited January 1, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[hippieshopper]

You can lure them...easily.

[TimeLapse]

@Q'iq'el

I see your point but is worth givig up armour two for the one or two courpes conters? It seems like for me im too married to the idea of the grave spirits amour bonus and possably its chance of casting "the fog".

I get the buching part, most nico game tend to end up with a lot of undead all around nico, and haveing alot of mindless zimbies is better the armour in a way.

though i tend not to have more then one or two mindless zombies because i tend to use up my CC by summing alot of thing or one big thing.

but i never played a game where nico need minfless zombies to live, though i never played him vs lilith and in that case with alot of fast moving modles i would like a zombie or ten and the grave spirit.

one resion that i may play him the way i do is we dont have that meny neverbore players here save two or three pandora players, we mainly have guild players, so im more geared towords high damage models that can easly dicard mindless zombies and CC tokens. so i tend to bring alot of models that are cheep (dogs)and rely on geting CC fromy my own models deaths.

so my out look in my models and list stem from what i face more often then not.

just an intrestng thought i just had.

-Andrew

[hippieshopper]

@TimeLapse

That is why I don't use Vultures either, I never leave my CC's hanging around because they are either rare (Because I am fighting constructs) or because I summon a lot of stuff.

I tend to leave up to 3 mindless zombies around Nico and the GS would just sit back too.

We have a few Neverborn players but very few Ressers, in fact...the only hardcore zombie lovers are my brother and I.