Looking for solace from more veteran players

[RotatingPanda]

So, while still new to the game, I played 5 games tonight (my buddy has this awesome all day gaming thing at his house) and two things really stand out to me that are really frustrating and hopefully a more experience player can shed some light on them.

1. Lady Justice, head of the Death Marshalls, leader of the undead hunting branch of the Guild, has lower Wp than Perdita and Sonnia and had no resistance or immunity at all to Terrifying. So, she can grant her allies immunity but then she herself runs in the face of Seamus or Killjoy or Jack Daw...

2. How is Perdita not ridiculously over-powered? You cannot target her Wp (so why does she have such a good one?), her Df is one of the best in the game, she has a counter to everything, she's good at everything (far better than Lady J)...how is she balanced compared to other master's? And I know that every faction is supposedly balanced against every other faction but I cannot think of a single instance where it would be better to take Lady J over Perdita.

Please, please, please, please tell me I'm missing something or totally wrong somehow. :/

[Drake]

When considering how powerful a master is, bear in mind this game is about completing Strategies and Schemes, not about killing your opponents force. You can wipe out your opponent in this game, still lose!

Perdita is vulnerable to Blasts, and put in a combat monster in melee with her and she will be burning through her SS cache on no time. At range she is very good, but then she is supposed to be. She doesnt get all her reactive attacks in melee.

Lady J is a beast, where Perdita is awesome at range, Lady J is her Melee counterpart. And with a threat range of 12" she can be stuck in to melee tearing your opponents force apart turn 2. As for her WP, it is ok. She is simply inspiring to have around, to the benefit of her allies.

[tenabrae]

Malifaux does have some rock paper scissors to it, not all matchups are good or balanced (I'll leave it to you to decide if that's cool).

Perdita's awesome, but she's really not OP at all, playing vs ortegas with their awesome ranged attacks is a talent... though some crews can just walk over her.

Immune to Influence can be countered by a number of models and a model immune to influence still makes terrifying tests so Wp can be important. SImple duels which are required by some actions and some strategies and schemes don't have a defender (terrifying for exmaple is a simple duel) so Immune to Influence doesn't work, also for example attacking Pandora where Perdita is the aggressor (though Perdy can get around that another way).

LJ being a big scaredy cat is wierd though

To add to what Drake said, LJ can also potentially hit up to 13Cb which is way better than perdy 8Df and can potentially hit for 11 damage without a red joker (though this is probably close to the same likelyhood as getting the red )

Edited July 3, 2011 by tenabrae

[RotatingPanda]

It's silly, but I never even considered that Lady J would be inspiring to others as far as fluff of why her allies are fearless...but still, if she fled off the board or ran away at all, wouldn't her allies?

Doesn't Perdita have Evasive 2? That doesn't strike me as terribly vulnerable to blasts, unless you mean the whole "overcome her Df" thing?

I guess I just don't understand Immune to Influence. For example, can Jackdaw to anything to her...? Don't all of his powers, even his melee and ranged attacks, attack Wp? Aside from his "Severed Ties" aura, isn't she basically unafraid of him?

[ChefsDad]

Lady Justice afraid? Bah!

If you saw the spirit of a hanged man coming at you, one with a reputation like Jack Daw, would you stand there like a lemon?

Lady Justice isnt afraid. Lady Justice is intelligent.

[Ratty]

Jack Daw can stop her cheating or using soulstones, and not much in her crew is magical so it can be hard to get rid of him. Perdita is much easier to deal with if she can't cheat her shooting rolls and can't cheat her defence.

Severed Ties is amazing and doesn't involve Wp duels. So amazing that when I started playing him, I didn't use much else for the first couple of games.

[cerealkiller195]

I just noticed that lady justice has the most wounds i've seen on a model or at the very least one of the highest. Her only 0 action only requires a 6 to cast, combat prowess requires a 7 and you can spam melee expert all over your crew. If you miss her you are in a world of hurt if she gets her trigger..

Comparing her to perdita is odd in ways, perdita has higher defense but much lower wounds. As was mentioned she isn't immune to WP tests such as terrifying. Has 2 less soulstones than justice, all of her abilities are "selfish" they do nothing to augment her crew.

in the end they have two totally different roles because you tailor your force after you flip for the mission with the knowledge of which faction your opponent plays. You always have the option to take models that either accomplish the mission or fight the enemy better. If Lady Justice is scared of something send a construct etc.

[Hookers]

Lady Justice has a two inch melee range so your only real concern is Face of Death. If he pops up that bubble, just kill everything else and wait until you win initiative. Also you are a master, cheat and use stones the highest test is Wp -> 14. Just stay away from jack daw, he moves 10 inches a turn and doesn't have any movement tricks so you should be able to predict where he can go and avoid it. Unfortunately, I think Hoffman is now way better at dealing with undead than Lady J, so I'm not quite sure what she excels at anymore, but she is still a solid overall master that can slice the crap out of pretty much anything. When you get her Cb up to 13 see how you feel about her.

Perdita might seem OP because she is easy to play right out of the box. She just shoots stuff, and can't be shot at back. Any time you are going against a target number (Wp -> 13 for example) immune to influence does not come in to play, so terrifying, a lot of the tests the hanged make you do, sybelle's rough trade trigger etc. So you can get to her Wp but like you said it's really high anyways. She is susceptible to pulse damage. Df 8 is high, but not unbeatable. They have to flip bad cards eventually. Attack her at the end of a turn, perhaps after you've seen the player use a couple of obeys and know that he doesn't have any masks left. Perdita's crew is kind of slow and lacking in AP, apart from obey, so they don't really complete objectives very well.

[striker8]

You can't really rank and compare the masters based on stats alone and they all seem to have a counter master in another faction. I won;t go into a Hamelin rant either since that's more players abusing that stats and rules more than anything else.

Lady J might not have a stellar WP but I don't think I've failed on a WP duel that really mattered yet and I've played against Pandora and the Dreamer a lot. That's what SS are for!! I might not of won all those games but stats weren't the cause.

Perdita is the ranged master, and she's hard to hit from range but wound wise is kind of weak and if your opponent gets up close and personal, uses pulses, etc, she doesn't fair well. That alone takes her from being over powered to right in the balance.

Sonnia is the Guild magic power house and can do some amazing things but she suffers from being vulnerable to range and melee attacks. So at first look the blast potential makes her look really powerful against some other masters but with low wounds and defense she falls into the ballance with the others in the end.

In the end it's all how the masters work with the minions that really matter the most since the minions tend to be the ones that get the schemes accomplished.

[RotatingPanda]

Thank you, everyone! See, this is why I come here! I don't understand the game well enough to get the balance and the like and to have people break it down like this puts everything in perspective.

This community is awesome

[Dark Alleycat]

Also,a good shot in on Perdita can drop her in her tracks. her Defense is so high because any real strong hit will crush her like a grape.Good flips to bad,but I have had Samael hopkins one shot Perdita if she didnt do a damage prevention flip to save her. She ended up burning 4 soulstones to survive one round of sammy rapid firing her and still ended it with 2 wounds remaining.

[nilus]

I love Perdita but she is the easy button. She isn't OP but she is really straight forward to play. And she is very forgiving.

But trust me LJ has her tricks and strengths. She is really good in melee but she is actually really good at buffing other models. Perdita is much more self contained. Only her Companion ability really effects any of her allies.

Check out the tactic threads posting around here and get some more games in. Trust me it will come together and Perdita will start to lose. About that time someone is gonna start playing a Neverborn master or worse Levi or Hamelin and then you will be banging you head against the wall again.

[edonil]

I'm glad to hear that Perdita only seems OP...right now, our group is all new players and she is reigning supreme, closely followed by our Neverborn player.

[Justin]

Lady J has two more wounds and 2 more soul stones in her cache.

[osoi]

Lady J makes her whole crew work not just her. As others have said Perdita is selfish and plays very well out of the box.

Lady J is very flexible as I am finding out (only really picked her up for demo game purposes initailly but am liking her). If you are scared of low Wp remember there is the Governers proxy totem that gives +2 Wp in LoS plus he has the same Ca as Lady J so it can be easier to get some of her crew spells off via him instead.

Edited July 4, 2011 by osoi

[RotatingPanda]

About that time someone is gonna start playing a Neverborn master or worse Levi or Hamelin and then you will be banging you head against the wall again.

We have two Dreamer players, a Levi player and a Kirai player. I'm already banging my head against a wall...

[tenabrae]

I'm glad to hear that Perdita only seems OP...right now, our group is all new players and she is reigning supreme, closely followed by our Neverborn player.

Perdita, Lillith and Jady J are some of the best masters when you first start out with solid box sets and generally fairly forgiving playstyles.

A few more models here and there and some thinking outside the damage charts helps a lot. For example as was mentioned before LJ can give death marshals melee expert... and death marshalls can give death marshalls more Cb, and LJ can give death marshals more Cb...

Similarly many new Neverborn players forget Lilith has spells other than transposition and illusionary forest and that a mature Nephilim has wing buffet (which is awesome in objective grab missions)

[mythicFOX]

We have two Dreamer players, a Levi player and a Kirai player. I'm already banging my head against a wall...

Tell you right now as a Dreamer player Lady J scares me much more than Perdita. Reposte makes her a very tough to deal with for Chompy.

[Dark Alleycat]

Now,this is assuming that you are playing as guild of course. If you arent,let us know what faction and master you are using so i can tailor this a bit.So as far as Kirai goes. A couple witchling stalkers can do wonders for dealing with spirits. Death Marshals do well against Dreamer and his crew. Or anything with Slow to die for that matter. The dreamer has a large weakness,given that his troops are suited only for hit and run really...anything more and they can get squishy quick. Leveticus...well it depends on how its being played...But you take out his hollow waifs and it really limits his card supply.

If your playing Seamus...Then you shouldn't have trouble with any of those crews mentioned with the possible exception of Kirai. She is the only master that can do as many movement hijinks as Seamus,but she doesnt have the board control.

Best thing to remember...do everything you can to prevent your opponent from being able to play on his terms.

Edited July 4, 2011 by Dark Alleycat