Living, Undead vs Other

[011121]

There seems to be a sizable disparity between different model types. Living models have a great number of affects that work on them. Undead too. To a lesser degree Constructs.

Then there's the rest- soulless, nightmares, woes(?), nephilim(?) (I'm not sure if the two with "?" count as living). These models have a great deal of immunity, as many power specify living or undead (or, less often, construct), yet no powers I'm aware of target non-living models.

The disparity is exacerbated by the concentration of the non-living models in the neverborn faction. It seems like a balancing factor should be added. As it is currently resurrections, for one, are often at a significant disadvantage against neverborn.

[Fetid Strumpet]

If you ever branch into the Rezzers it is an issue that will drive you crazy. Currently in the competitive crews that are commonly played today you are going to find it rough going because most of the most popular models across the range are not living or Undead. Almost every crew will have an example of a living model, but all the abilities that Rezzers have to affect living models often don't do anything.

If you play against another Resser player they are going to be trying to utilize all the Corpse Counters that drop as well as you do. Also add to the fact that even those crews not populated by living or undead models often now have models that are also Graverobbers and will be competing with you for those already sparse resources. (Spawn Mother, Widow Weaver, Wendigo, Blessed of December, ARaspy, December Acolytes, etc...)

Also if you ever play against guild you will face 2 exorcists if the Guild player owns them. A silver bullet for our faction we really didn't need. I bring him up not to totally complain about him, but to look at him in the fact that at least he is branching out into being a model that does target those new designations. I really don't know if I feel he is worth his points if you are facing anything other than ressers, so I'm not certain we are at the point we need to be yet, but at least in some ways we are heading in the right direction.

[011121]

we tried a proxy game and I played McMourning specifically because most of his powers didn't specify living or undead (my son was playing Ramos).

Looking through the Resurrectionists (and also Guild) I was struck how some masters are just critically dependent on having an enemy who is either alive or undead.

That isn't a bad ting except that there are no master who are stronger against enemies who are neither of those. That makes the choice a "well duh of course I'll take non-living troops, I'd be crazy not to" kind of thing.

Giving each faction a few troops that are more powerful against the non-living would seem to help redress the balance.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Ummm,...I don't know about that. Doing that would hurt the ressers even more than currently because not only do we not often get to play against models that are living, which a very large percentage of our abilities are effective, but then other crews start bringing silver bullets vs. 90% of our minions. The Exorcist is bad enough, I really don't feel the Ressers need to deal with that across the factions.

I would be ok with more things targeted against Soulless, Nightmares, and maybe spirits, but tossing in anti-nonliving... You might as well just stop making the resser faction if that becomes pervasive.

[011121]

by "non-living" I mean those things which are neither living nor undead. Besides which there are already silver bullets vs undead. Having a few more options really wouldn't matter. What matters is the complete lack of silver bullets for the non-living.

[Q'iq'el]

Not only Nephilim are living, but the Nephilim crews are as dependent on the opponent being Living/Undead as Rezzers.

All these crews have access to the counters they need through means other than the opponent's crew these days. IMHO a non-living crew would be an issue in Book 1 days, but since Book 2 and especially with Book 3 everyone, even Rezzers, can get enough counters regardless of who they face.

Of all Neverborn crews 2 are entirely non-living (The Dreamer　*EDIT: Forgot about Collodi. ). You can probably argue that Pandora list is partially non-living (Woes, as far as I remember, are living, except for these which are also Nightmares or Soulless).

Of all the Outcast crews, 2 contain large amount of non-living models or are entirely non-living.

Almost every Arcanist crew contains some sort of constructs which are all non-living. I suppose Marcus can be an exception here.

From my own experience it's actually it's been far more frustrating to play Lilith against Colette, than to play Nicodem against Colette.

Guild is arguably mostly living faction, but they field quite a few constructs themselves and one chiefly non-living crew.

The characteristic does affect quite a few masters disproportionately and definitely means one needs to review his model selection and not overload on certain kinds of effects. Combat (melee or ranged) models are not affected by the characteristic at all, so if you bring a balanced crew it isn't a major hit. If your build relies on obtaining these counters (semi-growth list for example, which doesn't bring own meal to the table), you can experience some major disappointment.

In the end, I'd say it is only a minor issue and not something that hits factions badly. Rezzers and Nephilim crews are the only ones that cannot use Book 1-only builds (unless you believe in going Canine Remains heavy, that is), because of that, but you need only 2~3 models to amend the situation (Mortimer, Rafkin, Molly with her totem perhaps, Nekima or Black Blood shaman and Desperate Mercenaries for the Nephilim.).

Edited September 30, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[Dark Alleycat]

simple solution. make neverborn non nightmare models affected by living effects. make spirit and nightmare models affected by undead effects.

[Ratty]

Firstly Woe and Nephilim are living and work exactly like normal.

Now that's cleared up lets talk about what I call the Rezer Fallacy. If you are starting up Malifaux and you ask someone what Rezers do they will say they resurrect hordes of unliving from their opponents corpses, and most people come into the game thinking this is their strength. Puppet Wars actually shows what their real strength is much more clearly. It's resilience. Most resurrectionist models have either Hard to Wound and a high wound count or Spirit, which means you have to put in more effort to kill them, on top of that you can take the model they just killed and occasionally bring it back.

Most people think that you can turn anything that dies and drops corpse into new models, but most summons have a high cost involved, be it your (0) action for the turn that could be used for something useful (Arise conflicts with Bolter, Call Belle with Trail of Fear, Monstrous Creation with Scalpel slinging), High :crows card or life in the case of Kirai. A lot of the time you will find these costs actually more prohibitive than corpse counters. A lot of time you have to ask yourself do you want that extra Punk Zombie or do you actually want to Bolster the one which is in the perfect position to take out their expensive model. Do you want to Summon a Canine Remain or do you want to use Scalpel Slinging to get in combat with the enemy and keep yourself protected from shooting. And this leads to you having a Sweet Spot for Summoning.

For McMourning it's 2 summons a game generally one early on which you generate the counters for from your own dogs and is generally a Frankie, and the second summon normally a Rogue Necromancy which you generate off the body parts harvested from your enemy or passed to you by dogs from your own force dying. So overall for McMourning you don't need corpse counters to run.

Kirai, has two or three different play styles which you can switch between as you play. You can definitely run her as a summoning Master. I've had games where I've rolled through the enemy turning every model that dies into 1 or even 2 friendly models, and it works wonderfully if your opponent creates spirits. However and here is the important thing, she can also be run as a fast moving assassination master and playing her this way you swap a lot of your summons for Ikiryo (which doesn't need you to sacrifice spirits) or to Swirl the spirits you have into the right position. You may want to summon a Shikome, but you normally can do that out of your Seishin Cache for the game. I've had games where I have not sacrificed a single spirit and still won. The most concise showing of this was a game against Pandora, where I had removed every model on her force except her herself and hadn't sacrificed a single seishin for his Kidnap. So with Kirai it's a real toss up between Summoning vs Speed, so if your opponent isn't giving you the resources you need you might as well go for the Speed option and win that way.

Seamus due to needing a high :crows and the use of a (0) action will at most want to summon 3 times in a game, and your own crew will give you the resources for this.

Nicodem is a buffer/debuffer Master. You can play him entirely for the paralyse and the Bolster, just using your summon to replace models and place a model down if you need it for the objective or to take advantage of the enemy. He's the only Rezer Master I don't play. But from chats to other Rezers this is the strongest way to play him, much better than Arise spam.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Ratty

[Bigkid]

^^ I was just about to post this word for word!

Uncanny....

We (Ressers that is) need to stop complaining about corpse counter denial etc... We're starting to sound like the whinging cry babies of Malifaux!

Let Neverborn players have their fun, go to the bar and suck it up!! (Just be sure to smile and shake your head at the WHFB players on the way. See, it could be worse!)

And stop getting on the Exorcists case! He's fluffy and fits in with the game perfectly! (besides, is he really that good??)

[Math Mathonwy]

It's very random, though. Against some opponents you will be swimming in corpse counters while against others you will need to provide them yourself. Nicodem is a lot more powerful if he can raise eight MZs than when he can raise three.

And yeah yeah, Malifaux isn't balanced master to master but rather faction to faction (meaning that each faction has one or two Masters that are good at everything and the others are situational (except for the Neverborn)).

[Ratty]

The point is when it's a good idea to Raise, then Raise stuff.. Otherwise every Master has other stuff to do with the AP that is just as good.. Nicodem does not need a horde of Zombies. Bolstered Punk Zombies are just as good. A a lot of Nicodem players will tell you they think Bolster is a better use of the (0) action.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Ratty

[Math Mathonwy]

The point is when it's a good idea to Raise, then Raise stuff.. Otherwise every Master has other stuff to do with the AP that is just as good.. Nicodem does not need a horde of Zombies. Bolstered Punk Zombies are just as good. A a lot of Nicodem players will tell you they think Bolster is a better use of the (0) action.

Aye, but he is quite squishy without the MZs so they are definitely needed in some match-ups. Some of those match-ups provide corpse counters for those MZs and some don't. As I said, really random.

[Cunning]

Ratty Black Blood only effects non-neverborn. Nephilim pretty much only works for Lilith's & Nekima's spells and you need to sac a neph to summon another twin.

[Ratty]

Ratty Black Blood only effects non-neverborn. Nephilim pretty much only works for Lilith's & Nekima's spells and you need to sac a neph to summon another twin.

ah yeah sorry. was working from memory... but the point still stands.. it does not remove living.

[Cunning]

Oh indeed. I think actually that Neverborn have quite a high level of living models. Apart from the nightmares and the odd contruct it's living models agogo.

[Hookers]

the weakness of living models is not that they drop corpses. no one cares about corpses.

like the OP says, its that there are simply way more effects that affect living than other model types, say nightmare. this is partially because nightmare didn't exist before book 2. not to mention terrifying: breaking a model is pretty much as good as removing it.

in book 1 the balancing factor was that living models tended to do more damage. book 2 pretty much turned things upside down with very little drawback.

[edonil]

Yeah, the games I've been playing with Resurrectionists, I don't ever care about corpse counters. Never been an issue. The number of tricks that Resurrectionist Masters have built into them that only matter against living models? Annoyingly high.

[011121]

Not only Nephilim are living' date=' but the Nephilim crews are as dependent on the opponent being Living/Undead as Rezzers.[/quote']

Only if you are trying to grow them, which granted is an important power for the tots and younuns but the mature work ridiculously well against non-living.

But getting counters is hardly the only problem. Lots of key abilities (not just for ressers) specify "living" or "living or undead". Examples:

Seamus- Necrotic Ministrations, Trail of Fear, Terrifying

McMourning- Master Surgeon,

Nicodem- Empty Vessel (although this is essential a counter ability it's key because of the speed of creating not just counters but MZ immediately),

Kirai- Spirit Anchor (also allows Spirits), Spirit Food,

And again that's only looking at the rezzes, plenty of Guild and Arcanists have similar problems

Yes but there are anti-construct powers and models out there. Not as many as for living/undead, but at least there are some.

My argument is that if I have the choice of living, undead of non-living troops there's simply no reason to ever go for the first two. There are plenty of things they are especially vulnerable to and nothing that the latter are especially vulnerable. That's bad. there should always be risks and trade offs in tactical choices. Right now there's nothing but upsides to nightmares and soulless.

[011121]

Firstly Woe and Nephilim are living and work exactly like normal.

fair enough.

Now that's cleared up lets talk about what I call the Rezer Fallacy. *snip*

that's interesting, but it's really missing the thrust of my argument. I'm not arguing that Ressers are gimped because the other side may not drop counters. What I'm arguing is that there are several types of models. Some of these types have severe downsides. Some have no downsides. And the ones with no downsides are concentrated in a couple factions. That's less than ideal, particularly since with the exception of spirit there doesn't appear to be a cost associated with type.

This isn't an argument about ressers (although I have used them as examples I could as easily used Guild, Gremlins, Arcanists, etc.) Does that make sense?

[Dracomax]

As a guild player, I'm really not digging on the exorcist. His anti undead capabilities really don't appear to be much, if any better than the Death martials in general, and are overwhelmed by Judge and Lady J.

His anti spirit and anti nightmare stuff looked good, at first, though. Mostly because anti-spirit has been a huge issue with the Death Martials. To be fair, he's decent at that-his aura granting magic weapons is a pretty big thing, and having ranged magic weapons and a couple of spells doesn't hurt. However, the 3 move no charge almost completely overwhelms that.

It really just strikes me as being a response to Kirai(which makes sense in the fluff, too) that isn't fast enough to cut it unless I build a team around forcing him to move.

[nilus]

This is a bit of a tangent but I think there needs to be a huge blurb in an FAQ that says Nephlim are both living and non immune to terryfing. (Woes too)

It seems I run into a Neverborn player every few weeks who believes both.

[011121]

Probably wouldn't hurt to spell it out explicitly.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I think Ratty's post was more in response to my post than yours. And I dislike the "Summon Summon Summon" lists as much as the next guy actually. But Much of what we do is balanced by the fact that we are supposed and intended to refresh our troops as the game goes on. If we can't get the resources from our opponents that becomes more difficult to do. But the biggest, and more important, reasons I don't particularly care for all the non-living stuff I have to face are the following.

The first one is exactly 011121's point, that there is a gigantic reserve of abilities that specifically target the living. There is a very much smaller pool of abilities that target say, nightmares, or soulless, for example. Personally at this point in the game it feels like it should give you bonus points for being a living model, it is that detrimental. But at the same time abilities that target only living models shouldn't cost anywhere near what they do because they come into play so rarely.

I forget about Terror all the time mainly because the people who I play against rarely have anything, save for maybe 1 model or 2 that can be affected by it. I hardly ever put Seamus' -2Wp aura up because it affects only living models.

And I use the ressers as an example only because that is what I am familiar with, but the issue is more pervasive. Let's look at an upcoming model release for an example of this. Molly has an ability called Necrotic Spray, which inflicts 1 point of dmg to all living models within 1" when Molly takes dmg from a Melee attack. She can also pass this ability on to other Undead in a 6" Aura from her. Compare this ability to Black Blood, which does the exact same thing, but against non-neverborn. I don't mean this to be an example of Resser vs. Neverborn so please don't take it that way, but let's just look at the abilities themselves. Black Blood currently is a better example of design and balance than Necrotic Spray is, in my opinion. Because instead of only affecting one type of model, it specifically excludes a type, but is equally good against everything else. New examples of conditions could be created and it will still work on them because they are "not-Neverborn"

Necrotic Spray is a very inferior ability because it only affects one type of model in the game. The more types of models that get added to the game, the less effective the ability becomes. Perhaps the Designers at Wyrd will create a new type of Arcanist minion called "Aetheric" creatures composed of raw magical energy which are non-living. Black blood will not be reduced in effectiveness because it will still work on that particular type of model, even if those models become prevalent. Necrotic spray will become weaker the more things in such a vein that are added.

So rather than putting "silver Bullets" into the game that are directed against say, Nightmares or Soulless, I'd rather the abilities that are put into the game follow the black blood model and exclude a single trait, rather than targeting a specific one.

[Math Mathonwy]

So rather than putting "silver Bullets" into the game that are directed against say, Nightmares or Soulless, I'd rather the abilities that are put into the game follow the black blood model and exclude a single trait, rather than targeting a specific one.

Very well said!

I feel that effects such as Necrotic Spray go against the guiding philosophy behind Malifaux of choosing your force after knowing the opposing faction and strategy, since all factions can bring a force that ignores the ability. Seamus, Molly and Bete Noire (to pick a couple of examples that might feature in a list together) all lose a great number of abilities when faced with a crew of Constructs or Nightmares. I would still think that they pay points for those abilities, since otherwise they would all be bonus when they happen to meet a living crew and that would be a lot of extra.

Now, a possible way of coping is just to favour the few Masters who are good in every situation no matter the opposition or strategy, but I would like to think that there is a reason that the game features 70% of its Masters that don't fit that mould.

[ProdigalPunk]

I have said this 100 times, but there is no good reason for Nightmares and Soulless models to not be living, or maybe in the case of soulless either a spirit or undead, but still think living is better. As far as game balance goes, it makes much more sense living to be the most numerous, followed by undead and constructs having their specific roles. Mostly filling up Rezzers and the Arcanists with a little trickle to other factions. Even from a fluff stand point it makes no sense.

I also do not really see why they limited terrifying checks to living models. I can see constructs being immune to them, but I think everything else should have to take them. In general I think the differences between types should not be overly as important as it is currently designed.