New to the Game and Thinking About Arcanists

[Joasht]

I've never really paid too much attention to the game as the first few releases (when the game first came out) never caught my attention, but with the expansion of the range it seems fairly appealing to me now.

Note, I've opened similar threads in the other forums, because I noticed that you can pick your group after missions are revealed, making it seem more profittable to collect as much of one faction as possible.

I'll just list my questions in point form:

1) How do the Arcanists play?

2) How balanced is the game, overall? If there is a powercurve of sorts, where do the Arcanists sit?

Thanks!

[ooshawn]

The arcanists except for Colette are somewhat one dimensional because they are from book 1 and need to be paired to switched out to complete many schemes. The game is balanced extremely well, you just have to focus on what schemes are good for your crew. Again except for collette, they are super easy to learn.

[ooshawn]

The way I explain the power curve is, some crews are so well balanced like collette, lord chompy bits , and pandora that they seem more powerful than they are.

[edonil]

The way I've been observing things in terms of balance, is that the game is balanced Faction wide, not so much in terms of individual crews. The game really is pretty balanced, but the balance is based around the fact that you write your list after you find out your objectives. The Arcanists are a well rounded faction, each of them focusing on a different type of magic, each with a different style. Ramos is a summoner, Rasputina is a damage dealer, Marcus is a combat buffer (I think...still can't figure him out) and Colette is movement and sleight of hand. They all perform well with different strategies, but this game isn't designed to be one list to rule them all, which is part of why I'm enjoying it so much.

[Uncle]

The way I've been observing things in terms of balance, is that the game is balanced Faction wide, not so much in terms of individual crews. The game really is pretty balanced, but the balance is based around the fact that you write your list after you find out your objectives. The Arcanists are a well rounded faction, each of them focusing on a different type of magic, each with a different style. Ramos is a summoner, Rasputina is a damage dealer, Marcus is a combat buffer (I think...still can't figure him out) and Colette is movement and sleight of hand. They all perform well with different strategies, but this game isn't designed to be one list to rule them all, which is part of why I'm enjoying it so much.

That's only partially true. Yes, you can swap out Crews based on Strategy, but many of the Rising Powers Masters are just plain better, overall.

Collette struggles, somewhat, in a Slaughter but is able to succeed fairly easily in just about any situation. LCB is just plain nasty in any setting, and the Alp bomb is still very, very difficult to deal with. The Rat Catcher is simply broken, although he does fail at Slaughter.

Looking back at Book 1, Perdita and Lilith are simple and effective, whereas their companion Masters are far more difficult to play effectively. And so on.

From an Arcanist standpoint, Collette is our standout Master. With her admittedly limited crew, she has answers for just about anything in the game (the Hanged aside--hate those things). Rasputina is less effective due to her lack of mobility, although we'll see how Snow Storm helps here. Ramos is likewise slow and relies on his constructs to get the job done, and Marcus just does not work well at the moment.

[Halflingspy]

That's only partially true. Yes, you can swap out Crews based on Strategy, but many of the Rising Powers Masters are just plain better, overall.

Collette struggles, somewhat, in a Slaughter but is able to succeed fairly easily in just about any situation. LCB is just plain nasty in any setting, and the Alp bomb is still very, very difficult to deal with. The Rat Catcher is simply broken, although he does fail at Slaughter.

Looking back at Book 1, Perdita and Lilith are simple and effective, whereas their companion Masters are far more difficult to play effectively. And so on.

From an Arcanist standpoint, Collette is our standout Master. With her admittedly limited crew, she has answers for just about anything in the game (the Hanged aside--hate those things). Rasputina is less effective due to her lack of mobility, although we'll see how Snow Storm helps here. Ramos is likewise slow and relies on his constructs to get the job done, and Marcus just does not work well at the moment.

This is a pretty good assessment from everything I've seen so far - I'm a colette player and I LOVE her - however, she is really tricky and the reason I picked her up is because I'm used to that slight-of-hand playstyle already from other wargames (ex-Eldar player). Marcus, if there is any Master in the game that would be considered underpowered, it would be him. He's got some great abilities, but you need to know them in and out and chain them right to really make his group flow. My very good friend got him for her first ever wargame army because he looked cool... its been a painful learning process.

Ramos is cool from what I've seen, but if you get him, expect to spend a bit of money buying spiders. Lots and lots of spiders. Rasputina my friend plays, and yes, mobility is certainly an issue sometimes with her, but she can blast things really nice-like... just sometimes a bit too late in the game.

Have fun with the Arcanists!