Nix's Trip to the Masters - Gencon 2011 Master of Malifaux

[Hatchethead]

Look at me, all SMRT.

[Mydnight]

I appreciate that Fetid, and I have to say that if Palmer is a solid representative of the players in your area, I need to get over there.

We'd love to have you over here and get some games in :-) I'm sure we can provide some entertainment.

[karavak]

Also the true reason Mike lost.

He was wearing a Privateer Press shirt and it angered the Gods of Malifaux

I knew there was another reason! Oh wait.. plus my list wasn't that good (but it will get better!)

hmmm.. but I also lost games when I wasn't wearing the shirt...

Probably should have bought the puppet shirt!

[Fetid Strumpet]

Well,...I can at least provide some entertainment, I do have a Masters degree in Theatre after all!

[Math Mathonwy]

Now, that is not to say its an unbeatable mix. Through testing the list prior to the tournament, it has a tough time against Neverborn, specifically Zorry and Dreamer.

I can see how the list would have a hard time against Dreamer, but why Zoraida, out of interest?

As for the trick, I'm kinda surprised that people (well, Q) insist that there is nothing wrong with it and that it is fine since you can use Fog to shield yourself from it. Fog, that is cast by one of the slowest models in the game who likes to hang back as opposed to being a front line piece in a game where speed is of the essence for 90% of the strategies and schemes.

I mean, sure, there are situational counters to the trick if you think of it in a vacuum forgetting the true aim of the game. Doesn't mean that it is fine.

I am not sure what happened here, as I have not seen someone misplace SPA's before, especially not a player who could make it to the 3rd round of the masters with wins.

Did Masters have some kind of qualifiers? As I thought that it was just a normal tournament and there were newbies as well as hardened tournament players present? An honest question as it is entirely possible (indeed likely) that I have missed something and that Masters was indeed somehow only the cream of the crop.

While it was only a 30 player tournament, the skill level was high throughout the day. Speaking for myself, I was very pleased to see the skill level of my opponents rise with each new game.

I thought that the first Gremlin dude was pretty highly skilled?

A bit disappointed at the Red Jokers in the last game. It did even out, but if only one of those had happened it would've had a crazy effect on the game through no fault of the player (as they were minus flips). Still, I know that I'm alone with this opinion so c'est la vie, I suppose.

[Q'iq'el]

As for the trick, I'm kinda surprised that people (well, Q) insist that there is nothing wrong with it and that it is fine since you can use Fog to shield yourself from it. Fog, that is cast by one of the slowest models in the game who likes to hang back as opposed to being a front line piece in a game where speed is of the essence for 90% of the strategies and schemes.

I've been beating that horse so long it is not only dead but managed to decay and turn to dust in the meantime.

Nicodem *hates* hanging back. Whoever plays him that way doesn't play him very well. You have a master with one of the best ranges of the spells and biggest auras in this game. Put him in the middle of the table.

More importantly, Nicodem is a master with 12 wounds, who can cancel the most dangerous attacks aimed at him with a snap of his fingers (perfect reliability - opponent may cheat with red joker and soulstone on the top of that and you still cancel the attack with one Mindless Zombie) and who should be surrounded with bodyguards armed with Cb 9 paired weapons and defending with Df 7 - anyone who comes close enough to wound him, shouldn't live till the next turn. And they can't lure the Punks away (or shoot them), because of the Fog, right?

Why would anyone fear putting him in the middle?

Nicodem *is not* one of the slowest models in game, because you don't need the speed melee masters have to use to catch their targets. If you move 6" a turn, keep the Fog up with your Casting Expert and spend (0) on Arise or Bolster, depending on the needs, you are doing as much as other masters will be doing (they have to move too) and you'll be in the middle by the end of the turn 2). Fresh Meat and Lure will speed your crew further.

There's reason why I've been saying Canine Remains suck for Nicodem. They offer no utility, they mean he has to waste his precious AP on Reanimating them and most importantly you have no powerful minions to start with. Speed means nothing when you can't survive getting to the objectives first. Nicodem is not fast enough to get to the objective first, so you have to take tools to delay your opponent and you need to get close enough to threaten his models approaching the objective. Vultures + Eyes and Ears are one example of such tool - perch them 10" away from the objective and drop Decay on those who try to pick up the objective.

Chain Lure is a problem only if you do nothing to stop it. If you are a player who knows your opponent has a very strong move, but you feel you should be allowed to play the way you like without spending resources on preventing that move, you deserve to lose your minis to it. It's not a hard spell to stop either, with Wp of 5~7 in the typical Nicodem crew.

Yes, Nekima with 2 Lilitu is a strong combo. They can fight for themselves and get nasty chain Lure. But for the price, you get 4~5 strong fighters as an Rez player. 5 Punk Zombies should tear that group apart - Lilitu risks her life when she's luring a Punk Zombie and killing him. It's not the problem with Nekima or Lilitu, if someone tries to oppose them with minions that can't fight.

[Math Mathonwy]

I've been beating that horse so long it is not only dead but managed to decay and turn to dust in the meantime.

wow

More importantly, Nicodem is a master with 12 wounds, who can cancel the most dangerous attacks aimed at him with a snap of his fingers (perfect reliability - opponent may cheat with red joker and soulstone on the top of that and you still cancel the attack with one Mindless Zombie) and who should be surrounded with bodyguards armed with Cb 9 paired weapons and defending with Df 7 - anyone who comes close enough to wound him, shouldn't live till the next turn. And they can't lure the Punks away (or shoot them), because of the Fog, right?

Why would anyone fear putting him in the middle?

All of that stuff needs Nico to activate first. Winning initiative isn't guaranteed (actually, I tend to focus all of my theorizing on losing the initiative as that is the situation you need to prepare for).

Nicodem *is not* one of the slowest models in game, because you don't need the speed melee masters have to use to catch their targets. If you move 6" a turn, keep the Fog up with your Casting Expert and spend (0) on Arise or Bolster, depending on the needs, you are doing as much as other masters will be doing (they have to move too) and you'll be in the middle by the end of the turn 2).

You honestly think that's as much as Dreamer or Pandy is doing in a turn? Wow.

There's reason why I've been saying Canine Remains suck for Nicodem.

Preaching to the choir here.

Chain Lure is a problem only if you do nothing to stop it. If you are a player who knows your opponent has a very strong move, but you feel you should be allowed to play the way you like without spending resources on preventing that move, you deserve to lose your minis to it. It's not a hard spell to stop either, with Wp of 5~7 in the typical Nicodem crew.

You do realize that you need to resist it six times and each time you fail, it's more likely that you get inside the circle of doom that makes resisting even harder, right? I mean yeah, if you get an absolutely killer hand and awesome flips, you can trivially beat the trick.

5 Punk Zombies should tear that group apart - Lilitu risks her life when she's luring a Punk Zombie and killing him. It's not the problem with Nekima or Lilitu, if someone tries to oppose them with minions that can't fight.

Taking five Punk Zombies is a huge gamble against the Neverborn, really.

[Q'iq'el]

You honestly think that's as much as Dreamer or Pandy is doing in a turn? Wow.

That's an intentional misrepresentation of my words. Sure they cover more ground - they have to, in order to employ their abilities. Nicodem doesn't have to.

What I'm saying is they have 2~3 AP they spend entirely on move or on move + 1 spell. That's no different how Nicodem spends his initial turns, unless you burden him with killing Canine Remains and Reanimating bigger things. I'm also trying to say, that by covering 12" he gets where he needs to be, which also brings him up to par, as far as the game goes, with a master that covers 30", but needs to cover these 30" to be where it needs to be. That's how balance works, sometimes.

You do realize that you need to resist it six times and each time you fail, it's more likely that you get inside the circle of doom that makes resisting even harder, right? I mean yeah, if you get an absolutely killer hand and awesome flips, you can trivially beat the trick.

Realistically, no.

First of all, there's the smart placement - fences, impassable terrain, difficult terrain. Push still takes movement penalties. Walk range of undead is typically 3~5", mostly set at 4". You can cut it to 2" or so if you use the terrain to your advantage.

Secondly it's always a cast action for Lure. You always have to flip. The trigger doesn't give you a free lure, but a free cast. In other words, your opponent has just as many casts to cheat as you, to pull the trick off, but you need to win just 1 duel, to break his chain.

So, you don't have to cheat first Lure or even second - you need to cheat one that is low enough to cheat easily. If your opponent takes 2~3 casts to move you 6~8", and he has 10" to beat to get you into melee range (Lilitu's quite big, I'll admit that), break his lure a bit away from his mark. Now she's in charge range and can't ignore that model, so she'll lure it again. Break it again. Then let her spend last AP on one more lure and depending on your cards break it or not.

.

3AP wasted on one model, you can Reanimate back as soon as she kills it? A trade of 3 AP vs 1 AP? I call that coming up ahead, especially that Rezzers have more minions on the table for the same cost, more activations to spend etc.

I'm first to admit this is situational, but so is the chain lure. The merit of this example is that it tries to show what actually happens in the game, instead of pure vacuum.

Taking five Punk Zombies is a huge gamble against the Neverborn, really.

No, realistically speaking you don't need that many at all. You want to take some utility too. I just tried to illustrate how expensive the combo is. And the advantage Nicodem has over many other masters, is that he can change the composition of his crew on the go.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[Math Mathonwy]

The combo is expensive, yes, but it gets these sorts of results:

Lilitu #2 moves forward and lures a dog, dragging it in and killing it. Bete pops out of the dog. Lilitu fires up her last AP to lure bete to her death. Bete does "1 with the night" and goes back under the bed.

I still have no 12s in hand, so I activate a Lilitu and lure the Tot back onto the treasure. I then lure another dog to its death, Bete jumps out only to face another lure and death. This time she does not go back under the bed and stays dead. I can see my opponent getting frustrated.

Second Lilitu stands still, chain lures Rusty Alice to her death, chain lures Killjoy to his death, Killjoy tries to smack her with his slow-to-die and fails vs her irresistible, then she walks toward the objective.

Now, I suppose you can argue that Nix's opponents sucked immensely or something but, realistically, it seems that the combo is extremely powerful, works from very far off and is very hard to nullify in a real game situation. Realistically

I'm not sure you appreciate how hard it is to resist the lure, especially inside the circle of doom, but also outside it.

[Q'iq'el]

I'm not arguing the opponents sucked, but I'm sure you can see both the mistakes made by the opponents and the luck involved.

To lure a Canine Remain is easy. It's a pathethic minion. But why did Bête Noire pop up while the Lilitu still had APs left? Clearly that's a mistake. If the intention was to kill or paralyze Lilitu, perhaps it was worth burning 2 high cards and forcing Lilitu to spent all her APs on that Canine Remains, before Bête Noire popped up. Wouldn't it be worth it? It may be that Lilitu flipped high or that Neverborn Control Hand was better and he could cheat higher - that's luck and it's bound to happen with every ability.

The second example shows a rather lucky chain of flips - Rusty Alice is Wp 7, so she has almost equal chance to win every Lure duel against Lilitu. There's even a chance to creatively use Nothing to live for to improve your hand and break the chain again, if your hand is really bad.

Killjoy is a great example of a model particularly vulnerable to the Luring chain - he has low Wp, very low Df and even with a good hand you can't cheat your way out of the chain easily.

But at the same time he's Hard to Wound 2 - with so many negative flips it is hard to cause much damage. Sure, Lilitu can chain her Lures till she gets him, but that's the luck part - so she can cast that Lure even 12 times if she needs to kill him, 1Dg at a time, but that means you have to succeed with 12 casting duels, which is not a given by any stretch.

A winner of a game is always someone who had skill and luck on his side. Sometimes just luck. You read a raport, where Nekima/Lilitu combo was on the winning side, and you get ton of such examples.

Last time I lost a game (no Nekima put together yet), I tried to cast lure 4 or 5 times in the first 2 turns. I had bad hand, I failed my flips against Wp 4 models, not a single Lure got off. Even if I had Nekima, I still wouldn't be able to chain them, because I didn't get them off to begin with. That's the opposite spectrum of things. Lure is heavily dependant on luck - If opponent is 15" away, you need 3~4 flips to get him close and strike once, and then 2 flips for each extension of the attack. With a model averaging 2 damage per strike, that's a lot of cards you need to flip to get it right.

This balancing factor is very easy to forget, when you see a battle in which the Neverborn player got lucky and chained his attacks perfectly.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[karavak]

Did Masters have some kind of qualifiers? As I thought that it was just a normal tournament and there were newbies as well as hardened tournament players present? An honest question as it is entirely possible (indeed likely) that I have missed something and that Masters was indeed somehow only the cream of the crop.

There were no qualifiers. In fact I signed up with the idea of just some more friendly games for the weekend and was a bit surprised how quickly the competitive attitude jumped and how many more rules questions seemed to pop up just because it was "the masters". I thought the masters was just a nice title not the grand poobah of tournies. At least I know for next time!

[nix]

I can see how the list would have a hard time against Dreamer, but why Zoraida, out of interest?

Zoraida gives the FILTH list a tough time for a couple primary reasons. While many models she can bring with her are vulnerable, Zoraida has a 10WP and can resist both the Lures and Pandora in a straight up fight. More dangerous is her Obey. Nekima is incredibly hard to hide and fairly easy to get a Voodoo Doll onto. Once Zoraida can start obeying Nekima, Nekima an very quickly decimate the remainder of the crew before dying herself.

Did Masters have some kind of qualifiers?

I thought that the first Gremlin dude was pretty highly skilled?

No qualifiers, it was just a normal tournament. All 4 of my opponents were really good, and Stan is probably one of the best Gremlin players I have faced. I was lucky enough to not face any new players, and it seemed (from my perspective) that each round the players who stayed at the top were not new players at all. Even though I may not have chosen the lists they came with, each list was built around strategies or combo's that I do not typically see new players pick out.

[DarcXON]

It's been discussed already. The trick has been play tested. It's only unbeatable if you assume the opponent isn't playing the game at all.

Is it powerful? Sure! For 27 points you can field 5 Punk Zombies - not only The NB players would lack APs to lure them all, but each Punk can kill Lilitu with his Slow to Die action. Just an example to illustrate what it means to bring just three models at such a price.

And while we are at the opponents options, why aren't the models, in this hypothetical combat, hidden from Lilitus? Where is severe terrain, rivers, ht3 walls? How about all the Los blocking spells?

See the problem with this argument is that we did test it out. We tried to block LoS and fight behind terrain and all that stuff, but eventually we got caught and killed by a single cast from Lure.

In your own example the five punk zombies would have to have four 13's in their hand to resist a lure that starts with a 9 (the card played) Unless the person casting lure is in really bad shape this turn, he can put down some 9's and/or 10's.

If they were to slow to die attack, Lilitu is Defense 6 and Irresistible. Since Nekima has to be in range to confer her Regen aura, and Masks for casts, she is within 6 inches. You will need a 9 just to be able to attempt to attack Lilitu.

So my question would be, how are you getting all these high cards?

Trust me on this, Nix is one of (if not the) biggest supporter of Malifaux that I have met, to the point that he continuously says it's balanced. When he said something was broken I paid attention.

[Odin1981]

I'm not arguing the opponents sucked, but I'm sure you can see both the mistakes made by the opponents and the luck involved.

To lure a Canine Remain is easy. It's a pathethic minion. But why did Bête Noire pop up while the Lilitu still had APs left? Clearly that's a mistake. If the intention was to kill or paralyze Lilitu, perhaps it was worth burning 2 high cards and forcing Lilitu to spent all her APs on that Canine Remains, before Bête Noire popped up. Wouldn't it be worth it? It may be that Lilitu flipped high or that Neverborn Control Hand was better and he could cheat higher - that's luck and it's bound to happen with every ability.

The second example shows a rather lucky chain of flips - Rusty Alice is Wp 7, so she has almost equal chance to win every Lure duel against Lilitu. There's even a chance to creatively use Nothing to live for to improve your hand and break the chain again, if your hand is really bad.

Killjoy is a great example of a model particularly vulnerable to the Luring chain - he has low Wp, very low Df and even with a good hand you can't cheat your way out of the chain easily.

But at the same time he's Hard to Wound 2 - with so many negative flips it is hard to cause much damage. Sure, Lilitu can chain her Lures till she gets him, but that's the luck part - so she can cast that Lure even 12 times if she needs to kill him, 1Dg at a time, but that means you have to succeed with 12 casting duels, which is not a given by any stretch.

A winner of a game is always someone who had skill and luck on his side. Sometimes just luck. You read a raport, where Nekima/Lilitu combo was on the winning side, and you get ton of such examples.

Last time I lost a game (no Nekima put together yet), I tried to cast lure 4 or 5 times in the first 2 turns. I had bad hand, I failed my flips against Wp 4 models, not a single Lure got off. Even if I had Nekima, I still wouldn't be able to chain them, because I didn't get them off to begin with. That's the opposite spectrum of things. Lure is heavily dependant on luck - If opponent is 15" away, you need 3~4 flips to get him close and strike once, and then 2 flips for each extension of the attack. With a model averaging 2 damage per strike, that's a lot of cards you need to flip to get it right.

This balancing factor is very easy to forget, when you see a battle in which the Neverborn player got lucky and chained his attacks perfectly.

You can say all you want about "that one time it didn't work" but if you break it down by probability that is where his strength is shown. With him only needing a 4 I believe off the top of his head (not sure what the cc of there lure is 12 or 14 I believe no book in front of me) to cast the spell and say the avg wp of your crew was a "5" you needing a 8 or better to resist just the minimum casting level not assuming it is not hard at all to absolutley drain an opponent of every non severe card in their hand and this is all before pandora would go in which case it's just setting you up for a near endless pacify chain if your models aren't spaced out right (just as stupid an oversight from an overlook in playtesting as the double take lure in my humble opinion).

The only chance any specific crew has of disrupting it with any regular basis is freikorps or ortega's. One of which (friekorps) with a paltry 6 wounds is a real risky move. And ortega's with a gov proxy if you want to say rng procs be screwed with a gov proxy gambling on dora not hitting crows you are resisting at all but simple # duels and terrifing at 10 (8, and 6 respectively if one of those two exceptions). But hey look what happens when people think guild suck and only 3 show up mysteriously leve, and dora, and zoraida run roughshed over a tournament (who would have thought) I can't comment much on dreamer in that I've only played him twice and both opponents were new to him so I think I understood what to do with him better then they but hopefully in a couple weeks or so I'll get a few games in on him with a experianced pilot so I will have a better understanding of him.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Odin1981

[Q'iq'el]

In your own example the five punk zombies would have to have four 13's in their hand to resist a lure that starts with a 9 (the card played) Unless the person casting lure is in really bad shape this turn, he can put down some 9's and/or 10's. .

Yeah, but a single lure moves the Punk Zombie by 4". If you put him by a pond or fence, it's 2". If the Punk isn't himself hidden behind something blocking LoS altogether, you can assume he is some 10~18" away the moment you start casting (you want to get Lilitu close in the previous turn, to have all 3 AP to spare for lures, but you don't want to get too close, or you may get charged in return).

Lilitu has an impressive melee range of 4", so if opponent is 10" away, she needs to force a 6" walk on him. That alone is 2~3 casts against the Punk Zombie.

Whenever Double Take triggers, you cast the Lure again. That means entire duel repeated from the scratch. So you got that 9 off on the first cast. Zombie cannot resist it reliably. What are you getting on the second flip?

And that is the scenario where Punk Zombie was close. Now you have him in melee range, you strike him, but he's Hard to Wound, so, quite probably no cheating on the damage flip. If he is within Nicodem's Bloster range (which is why it is important to get Nicodem to the middle), he has Df of 7, which is tough nut to crack too. So you cause 1~2 damage to him. He can take 3 such attacks, and you need to successfully cast Lure 3 times to achieve that. Yup, Lilitu is rather so-so as a fighter and he has trouble hitting tougher minis.

Now the Fate deck is big and it isn't going to run out on you all that fast, but with each successful cast the chance for a successful cast lowers a little, until you reshuffle the deck. And with each low flip, you may get out-cheated by the opponent, which means you need to spend another AP on a straight out Strike or another Lure attempt...

What I'm trying to say, it only sounds easy when you see a report where Lure chain has been successfully cast. In reality you will have so many duels and flips, even best Control Hand in the world won't carry you through this. You have to rely on luck.

[Q'iq'el]

You can say all you want about "that one time it didn't work" but if you break it down by probability that is where the strength is shown. With him only needing a 4 I believe off the top of his head (not sure what the cc of there lure is 12 or 14 I believe no book in front of me) to cast the spell and say the avg wp of your crew was a "5" you needing a 8 or better to resist just the minimum casting level not assuming it is not hard at all to absolutley drain an opponent of every non severe card in their hand and this is all before pandora would go in which case it's just setting you up for a near endless pacify chain if your models aren't spaced out right (just as stupid an oversight from borked playtesting as the double take lure in my humble opinion).

Just consider, that Lilitu has Cb of 5 and hits for 1/2/4. Just consider sheer number of flips she'll need to kill anything tougher. She's bound to pop up these low flips (she needs 5 to get the spell through and the value is 12, so cheatable with 8 in this case) from time to time, and you need to cheat only once to break the chain.

So she has 2 or 3 AP to waste on your model (depending if she moved or not). If she is out of AP after killing your single minion, you are already winning - you have more minions and she wasted huge amount of cards and all her AP to get just one. And you're likely to bring that one back too.

She isn't low on Df or Wd, but she's no match for Cb8~9 fighters Nicodem brings to the table. Other crews would have it harder to kill her, but easier to resist, so I don't see it as that much of a problem.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[Math Mathonwy]

I'm weirded out by how you manage to have an unpenetrable zombie wall for Nicodem while simultaneously bolstering your troops every turn while sitting in the middle of the table with a very squishy Master without being harmed by anything in a tight cluster of models that are still all over the table performing strategies and schemes.

It seems that your theory combines all of the best case scenarios into a whole that doesn't seem very likely in a real game situation.

[Q'iq'el]

Last post before it gets too OT and entirely circular:

I'm not saying Lure/Double Take/Nekima combo is weak. It is a very strong combo which should reliably kill masters for the price you pay for it (20SS minimum, that's 2/3 of typical crew for just 2 models).

I'm trying to put it in perspective. It's pretty much wrong to judge it by what it does to Canine Remains and such, and even worse to cry cuddle when you see a particularly lucky streak. The sheer number of flips needed to pull it off makes it unreliable and easy to counter. Rest of it is pretty much in "know your enemy" camp - you know Lures are going to rain on you, you take countermeasures.

[Odin1981]

The damage range of the free strike doesn't matter it is just cumalitive. The effect they are describing is once withing 12" of dora 1 wd everytime when within 6" of nekima -2 wp so wp 3 (2-3lures with more than likely 1 ap of 3 used two if they had to walk first) needing a 10 or better (assuming base wp of 5) and this is just based of the minimum casting level.

There are 54 cards in the deck. 21 are bad/suck/fail (bj and 1-5 of every suit), 20 are "decent" 6-10 of every suit, and 13 "good cards 11+ plus rj. They can use a 5 or higher to cast so 37 cards in a deck (around 70% of their deck) without needing to cheat the cast. While to just resist the entry level of the cast there are only (assuming wp5) 9-13 + rj (21 cards to resist) around 35% of your deck. And that is before your in nekima's bubble once that happens to resist succesfully requires one of 13 cards (a hair under 20%) and that is just "the basic casting cost level of the spell" if they have a string of 8's or better (around 45% of a deck) you only resist a 8 with a red joker (around 1.5%), 9 or higher unless a ss user you can't.

Know average hand on turn one with the above knowledge 21 bad 20 decent 13 good. Works out to be around 2.5 bad cards around 2.35 average cards and 1.15 good cards. So on average you will have tops 3 cards that are even numerically possible to resist the 6 lures at a bare minimum because every succesful triggers a "free cast". With a 70% of casting spell without needing to cheat and you only having a 45% of resisting the base level of the spell if anyone can't figure out how this chain just goes on and on I shake my head and walk on. In addition to that is just the two liluto's, that's not even beggining to talk about what pandora is set to do on a hand (yours) that is depleted to maybe 1 good card remaining.

(note I am not getting paid to do these calculations so know that I did "quick math" and the estimated margin of error is around 5% for each case, if anyone doesn't like it screw off and go learn probability and do it yourself)

[Q'iq'el]

I'm weirded out by how you manage to have an unpenetrable zombie wall for Nicodem while simultaneously bolstering your troops every turn while sitting in the middle of the table with a very squishy Master without being harmed by anything in a tight cluster of models that are still all over the table performing strategies and schemes.

Squishy? Nicodem? You must be joking.

And the wall is what I brought with me. 2 Crooked Men, a Belle and a Punk Zombie bought on the start... even with 2 Vultures that's a crew which clocks in at 25SS so you have ample free space for Bête or some other killy minion. One more Punk Zombie raised from the Counter Mortimer got, perhaps in turn 2 or at the beginning of turn 3.

It seems that your theory combines all of the best case scenarios into a whole that doesn't seem very likely in a real game situation.

You can easily do most of it in first 2 turns. Fog is Casting Expert AP, Bolster is (0) action, you bring the minions you need with you. Mortimer moves first, companions Nicodem, they move forward and set up the Fog. Now all of the crew is untouchable until the opponent gets the angles and that will take them the first turn at least.

Before Nekima or something fighty can get to Nikodem, you'll have these shafted counters down too (realistically speaking, opponent squeezes one or two activations in before shafter marks land and I doubt that's enough to get Nicodem in turn 1.

After they start attacking your minions, you'll have your Mindless Zombies there too and you won't need the Fog anymore. No need to cast Arise, because you'll Decay weak opponents, get Mindless Zombies from these kills and heal your own at the same time.

In a Treasure Hunt, preventing the opponent from taking the Counter away from you used to be the biggest challenge for Nico, but now the model carrying it needs an entire turn to pick it up and becomes so slow, even Rezzers can catch it. And Nicodem can easily Rigor Mortis him in the turn 3 (via Vulture perhaps) and catch up later.

Realistically, nobody is going to start moving the counter before turn 3 (1 turn to get there, even if you are fast. 2 AP to pick it up, and now you move 4" or less a turn), so you have 2 whole turns to position Nicodem and prepare for the offensive.

Ah, by the way - without Nephilim you don't get diving attacks, so there's no charging without LoS. It would be harder to defend that way against Zoraida with a Mature Nephilim or Lilith with her normal crew + Lilitu/Nekima, but the Fog is very good against Pandora.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[Guy in Suit]

Great report Nix! And thanks for not bringing that heinous filth to our game a few weeks ago!

Looking forward to NOVA.

[Necromorph]

Aaaaand thread degrades into theory-faux. That list is broken beyond belief...I found that one pretty quick reading through book 2 after everyone started picking nekima up...but I never thought about Pandora with it...ugh. I really think thats one of those lists where there are probably only a small minority of crews out there that could give this "FILTH" list any kind of trouble....and Nico is not one of them.

[Math Mathonwy]

You can easily do most of it in first 2 turns. Fog is Casting Expert AP, Bolster is (0) action, you bring the minions you need with you. Mortimer moves first, companions Nicodem, they move forward and set up the Fog. Now all of the crew is untouchable until the opponent gets the angles and that will take them the first turn at least.

Before Nekima or something fighty can get to Nikodem, you'll have these shafted counters down too (realistically speaking, opponent squeezes one or two activations in before shafter marks land and I doubt that's enough to get Nicodem in turn 1.

After they start attacking your minions, you'll have your Mindless Zombies there too and you won't need the Fog anymore. No need to cast Arise, because you'll Decay weak opponents, get Mindless Zombies from these kills and heal your own at the same time.

But this is just it - first turn you are safe in the fog. Second turn you are getting, in your theory, both mindless zombies as well as bolster somehow it seems. And even in such a way that you bolster them at the start of the turn and then raise the dead as mindlesses in the latter part of the turn. All in all your theory sounds plausible if you have two Nicodems, otherwise it seems that you are expecting way much of him every turn.

And Nicodem is squishy in that the pushing shenanigans that the FILTH crew (I like the all caps, btw, nice touch, Nix ) excels at can get you out of position very easily and they you're in for a world of hurt as he really is squishy when things go wrong.

[Math Mathonwy]

Aaaaand thread degrades into theory-faux. That list is broken beyond belief...I found that one pretty quick reading through book 2 after everyone started picking nekima up...but I never thought about Pandora with it...ugh. I really think thats one of those lists where there are probably only a small minority of crews out there that could give this "FILTH" list any kind of trouble....and Nico is not one of them.

Agreed!

We really shouldn't keep this up, otherwise people will start thinking we aren't mortal enemies...

[Q'iq'el]

@Odin1981

I don't dispute it is relatively easier to cast Lure than to resist it. What I'm saying is, you need to cast Lure 4~5 times to kill something which is reasonably close and has average walk range, assuming there's no terrain slowing the opponent down. That's 5 flips for Lure... 3 more flips for Strikes, 3 for damage... you probably have to cheat once or twice in such a pool of flips (11 already)... and it's enough to break a single Lure to waste 1 AP.

People say there are going to be 6 casts. Really? In turn 1? After Lilitu moved at least 2 times? Even in turn 2 it'd be reasonable to assume there are only 2 APs available per Lilitu.

I'm not saying the defense will awlays work. You may lose the mini and with attack that strong, you'll lose it more often than not. But then you have 5 minions for the price of his 3, you have ability to bring your minions back as a Rezzer... there are ways around it and it isn't as hard to adapt to it as people paint it.

Perhaps Lure in B2B contact was not intended, but feed Lilitu a Slow to Die model with some killing power and she'll regret she pulled it all the way to B2B contact, won't she?

And I still don't understand why people ignore Fog in the argument. How can you Lure models you have no LoS to. Even if it's just a matter of making one more move to get a better angle, that's 1 AP down and so much easier to break the chain before she hits her target.