Book 3 marcus

[ooshawn]

Hello there, Shawn again. Well I ended up going to GenCon this weekend signed up for the Master of malifaux and the story event. I brought rasputina and marcus, hoping to take advantage of the new avatar form marcus had. Well, lets just say I'm completely and utterly dissapointed and I will try to go in depth as to why. Lemme turn around and get book 3 out of my backpack before I continue this post. Might as well bring out book 1 for comparison.

So, everyone knows marcus's crew problems, He is just alittle slower than collette's crew with not as much damage output as rasputina. Still I do pretty well with him. I think personally he would be so much better with even just nimble. Not fast, as I think that would be asking too much and make him too good at certain strategies and schemes. So basically to become a avatar you gotta either hit someone with your built in primal reaction trigger or cast feral twice. That's all good, you can pretty consistantly bring out avatar marcus on turn 3-6 every game. What does it get you though? Not much in my personal opinion.

So avatar marcus, I paid like 30 something bucks for this single model I thought was going to be a must have. Looking to my right at book 3, he doesnt change alot. Gains 1 wp, 1 base df, 1 wd.Companion two beasts, You get flight, +1 cb to beasts, fast. I don't wanna explain chimeric assaulst but its just terribad. God awful bad. Evolution confluence is a spell he gets to make it better but you need a 8 or better of books and It becomes 3/4/6 with poison 2. Onslaught trigger. There are non master models with damage output similar to that. Then he gets instinctive behavior which requires a Ram, and Roar which requires a Book. Honestly, I think instinctive behavior followed by roar are his strongest abilities and needs, perhaps nimble on top of fast to help with schemes, or a serious bump to something. Your playstyle with marcus doesnt change at all. He loses what makes him barely playable and thats wildheart, which is where he gains all his speed from. This isnt completely comprehensive complaint, just the highlights. You have to pay two points for it and either engage a model in combat or waste a 1ap to use feral.

Basically this Ugly model, with a terrible face by the way, is a complete waste of money in my opinion because the rules don't make marcus much better except in the combat area if you can get onslaught going. And in many ways he is much weaker. Especially in the speed department, which wins games. 99 percent of the time you don't even have to kill a model to win a strategy or a scheme, and if its announced he is most likely too slow to catch it.

I didn't play with rasputina all weekend, because I wanted to use marcus as much as possible. All I gotta say is there were several raspy players in the bottum rungs of the tournament and mostly neverborn at the top. On her avatar form which is unreleased, I think everything I have to say on her may be expressed by letting you know, she loses decembers curse. And glancing at the rules to my left I can say her avatar is mediocre. Decembers Maw and hungry winds look good. She can summon a gamin, discarding a corpse counter. YAY! Big deal. Watch out now, ice golems get +1 walk. Oh $$$$$$$$. LOok OUT. Basically she is much hard to kill and it'd help once she got in base to base, which was her biggest problem. I still want decembers curse back.

Honestly, I didnt even stick around for the story encounter tournament as I was so dissapointed with my performance and the book 3 rules for my crews. The masters whom were already good have amazing rules and marcus and rasputina got the shaft again.

[Soundwave]

Not to rain on your rainy parade but... isn't it a tad too early to say with certainty what avatars/masters are godawful, if any? I mean, even if you have the book and have played a few games, it sometimes takes a while for new rules to settle, and for one to take full advantage of them.

[ooshawn]

He is worse than his regular form, I've play tested him several times.

[ukrocky]

I've already replied to your Original post in the avatar marcus thread

[ooshawn]

I replied over on that post too. Trust me he is still bad.....

[ukrocky]

Still bad?!? He never was bad!!!

[ooshawn]

I've played him since I started playing malifaux man. He is much worse than 80 percent of other masters, unless your playing against people who are just messsing around

[Teal]

To give my two cents here, as someone who'd played him, and just about every other non Guild master, he is sub-par, but he wasn't as bad as people made him out to be. Take him in a crew with Silurids, and you have a potent objective force, much better than even Colette, in my opinion (Silurids are boss). He was very weak in some objectives, and very strong in others, but this is a game where you can pick your master after the objective anyways, so I never saw what the fuss was about.

[ukrocky]

Heh, you can call me area 'messing around' if you want, but just look at the UK tournament results

[dgraz]

heh, you can call me area 'messing around' if you want, but just look at the uk tournament results

burn!!

[notmikehill]

I don't think Marcus is really underpowered. What he may lack in utility and abilities he definitely gains by being able to hire any model with the beast characteristic in the game. That's a nice list of figures which can offer a massive amount of utility for your strategy and scheme selection.

[dgraz]

And he can hire any Arcanist model now and get it to be a beast for the game, in turn 1 with Raptors.....just don't make the mistake of taking too many things you need to do that to.

Soulstone Miner or Mechanical seem good choices for this. Raptors opened up a lot of options IMO.

[ooshawn]

What will those results tell me? Have you ever used marcus to reach top 5 at a tournament with more than 25 players?

[ukrocky]

I've not taken him to a 25+ event yet, not had the chance, but I took him to a 20 player event and came 3rd, including playing against all of the other arcanist masters numerous times.

[sephiroa]

you know, i don't know why you are crying like this, if you think marcus is weak, than stop playing with him,

I love marcus, he is not this strong, but that's funny, this means i have to work hard an think realy hard to win with him, but i don't find that a problem.

you might be suprised how much i won with marcus, more than i lost,

i don't know what the stats from his avatar are, but i think i will find a way to use him

rasputina, same thing, if you think that summoning a gamins sucks, or give a golem +1wk, than you are an idiot (no hard feelings)

1 gamin, can do a lot, +1 wk with golem? after 2 turns, he walks 4" farther. never underestimate 1"

and besides, if you only play to win tournaments, then you don't understand the value of a good and nice game with a friend, just to try a stupid crazy list.

i did a demo with a friend, he had nicodem, i had marcus, i had slaugther, he had claim jump,

i won, big time, but he had so much fun, always resseructing punk zombies so that i have to kill them again, he didn't care that he lost, ha had a good time

avatars aren't made so you are sure to win a game, they are made, to give you this extra fun in your game

edit: raspy avatar is melee spell based, so the decembers curse gone, not a big deal

[Cornelious1424]

y

and besides, if you only play to win tournaments, then you don't understand the value of a good and nice game with a friend, just to try a stupid crazy list.

avatars aren't made so you are sure to win a game, they are made, to give you this extra fun in your game

l

So true!!

[dgraz]

and besides, if you only play to win tournaments, then you don't understand the value of a good and nice game with a friend, just to try a stupid crazy list.

Word!! please note my sig.

[Fulgrima]

How do you manifest avatar marcus? i think that will define how good they are really.

[sephiroa]

Word!! please note my sig.

i did

and i believe almost everybody will agree with this

[jdomin2]

http://twitpic.com/639edc

I didn't see this mentioned but for everyone who lives by reactivate shenanigans here ya go.

Also is this guy insig?

[dgraz]

After getting a chance to flip through the book for a little while last nite....

Initial impression is that Marcus is the weakest Avatar in the game. Looked at him and thought that he was more akin to the Privateer Epics...he is different but not crazy good. Then I skimmed the other Avatars and there was a lot of

"What? This Avatar gets this and Marcus gets......"

"Wait, this Avatar can do this and Marcus can...."

Many of them run the problem of altering your game like some people have been discussing....that you're running around doing your strats and schemes - your opponent manifests their Avatar and your entire game changes to take that Avatar down because if you don't you might as well just give up. And some of those seem to easily come into play on turn 3, meaning 3 turns of death for you if you don't shut them down quick.

If someone brought the Marcus Avatar out - I don't think I would care more than I would than if I was just facing Lilith or LCB or Pandora (pre-Avatars). I would have to strongly consider even bothering to invest the 2 ss for it - unless I just wanted to show off my paint job.

Again, this is just a first impression with minimal time on the book and I like to study a little more before making any solid judgements.

[ThePandaDirector]

I will say that I am disappointed with what I have heard of Avatar Marcus so far (though I don't have the book yet). While I love the idea of his crew being challanging while providing more variety than most crews, I was hoping his Avatar would be a true pack leader. Now he might be, and all these complaints could just be down to him not having any super abilities, but it still worries me.

I would expect him to be faster (I mean he's got four legs and wings), have more weapons and attacks (claws, snake, staff... even horns and teeth), have slightly increased stats (he's a bigger Marcus..) and finally have some nice abilities to help beasts in his crew. His ability to Companion 2 Beasts is kind of what I expect (he hunts in a pack), but something fun would be nice.

I think if his Avatar is just Marcus 2.0 as people suggest then he should have easier manifestation requirements compared to deadlier Avatars such as Hamelin.

Either way I look forward to enjoying the hunt, win or lose.

Edited August 9, 2011 by ThePandaDirector

[dgraz]

I think if his Avatar is just Marcus 2.0 as people suggest then he should have easier manifestation requirements compared to deadlier Avatars such as Hamelin.

Either way I look forward to enjoying the hunt, win or lose.

IMO, his requirements are pretty easy and I don't think most people would have much problem (against most crews) getting the Avatar out by turn 3. I just don't think it would be really worth it. I really don't see the crew running any differently than it already does. Run around, distract things, complete objectives.

[Calmdown]

Many of them run the problem of altering your game like some people have been discussing....that you're running around doing your strats and schemes - your opponent manifests their Avatar and your entire game changes to take that Avatar down because if you don't you might as well just give up. And some of those seem to easily come into play on turn 3, meaning 3 turns of death for you if you don't shut them down quick.

If someone brought the Marcus Avatar out - I don't think I would care more than I would than if I was just facing Lilith or LCB or Pandora (pre-Avatars). I would have to strongly consider even bothering to invest the 2 ss for it - unless I just wanted to show off my paint job.

Again, this is just a first impression with minimal time on the book and I like to study a little more before making any solid judgements.

I share your opinion on Avatars; they focus the game on them (and apparently, beta testers said "the best way to deal with avatars is to kill them right away) and them alone when they come out.

Of course last time I brought this up I was shouted down by people screaming "BUT MALIFAUX IS ABOUT OBJECTIVES KILLING STUFF LOSES YOU THE GAME ETC ETC".

Each to his own but I'm pretty sure you're right.

[dgraz]

Of course last time I brought this up I was shouted down by people screaming "BUT MALIFAUX IS ABOUT OBJECTIVES KILLING STUFF LOSES YOU THE GAME ETC ETC".

Personally, I wouldn't shout that down. I agree 100% that Mali is about objectives - killing stuff loses you the game.....

when something that can wipe out your entire crew before you can complete your objectives is on the board, you have no choice but to try and kill it. That changes the entire focus of the game.

Again, mostly guesswork here since I have no experience with any of this yet.