The New Nekima in all Nephilim crew

[Q'iq'el]

So, I've been thinking what use can the New Nekima have for my Lilith crew and how to improve the efficiency of non-growth crews, now that the synergy with Lelu & Lilitu are gone.

Obviously there is her melee prowess - she is still a bigger beat stick than a Mature Nephilim would be, but IMHO the price is too high for that alone.

From her buffs and effects, only Nephilim Princess affects an entire nephilim crew anymore. Terrible Beauty is of some help to Lilitu, but the range is too short to help with Transposition.

Her most powerful buff, Nephilim Heart works only on Tots and Young and of the two, Young are considerably better fighters.

So, within Nekima's range a Young Nephilim statline becomes:

Cb6:masks:masks

Regeneration 1

Because Flay auto-procs, the damage line becomes:

4/6/7 which is very impressive.

Df stays at 5 and Wd at 6. Wp is also 5.

Compare that with Mature Nephilim, that cannot be buffed:

Cb6, paired

4/5/6 damage

Armor 1 (no regeneration)

Terrifying->12

Df4 and 10 Wd. Wp is one higher than the young, at 6.

In terms of general gameplay, Nekima would already be on the table and she does everything Mature Nephilim can and better. With exception of Carry, which is particularly useful if you field Black Blood Shaman.

In terms of survivability, Mature Nephilim can still take more damage than the Young, but it is also worth almost twice as much for Slaughter purpose, is big and is easy to target. Both models gain Regenerate from Nephilim Princess, but arguably it helps Young more (since they have no survivability boosts of their own).

In terms of general tactics, Mature Nephilim has some clear disadvantages. It is not an issue on a normal table, but on a 3D table like Terraclips, with narrow streets, buildings and bridges, Mature Nephilim, just like Nekima, becomes unwieldy - good at blocking entire street with one model, but bad at getting into the combat and fitting in with other models to support them or eliminate threats. Not just bad - really cumbersome and failing to reach the intended target regularly. Terrifying and such a low value as 12 isn't really having any high impact on the game anymore, even against living crews.

In terms of offensive power, Paired Claws on Mature Nephilim offer a solid advantage when it comes to normal hits and attacking models with defensive abilities resulting in negative flip to attack, which doesn't happen all that often, but is reasonably common occurrence.

However when the attacks really matter and the player goes for top damage, the attacks will be cheated anyway - Young Nehpilim can still Focus their attacks to be able to cheat and once they cheat, they do higher damage than Mature Nephilim.

In terms of positioning, 2~3 Young Nephilim can easily attack one target, where only 1 Mature Nephilim would fit.

Since it is going to be at least a partial Growth list, we have to consider the cost of growing these models, when we talk about their price:

For a Mature Nephilim one needs 1 Terror Tot (3SS) and 3 Blood Counters (2SS for Desperate MErcenary) - 5SS altogether, up to 2 mid-value cheats (though with Nekima chances of flipping high enough to Grow and Mature are rather good).

To obtain 3 Blood Counters one needs to do Blood Offering with Nekima and kill Desperate Mercenary with Lilith (or other Nephilim) - 1 BC from Nekima, 1 from Lilith and 1 from Nekima's Blood Sense.

The same procedure allows to obtain 3 Young Nephilim from 3 Terror Tots (11SS including the DM).

So the question is, does it make any sense to bring Mature Nephilim anymore?

Or at the very least, does it make sense Maturing Young Nephilim before the turn 5 or 6?

Let's consider following list:

Neverborn Crew - 35 - Scrap

Lilith, Mother of Monsters

--

5 Pool

Malifaux Cherub [2ss]

• Nekima, The Dark Sibling
  [13ss]
  
  
• Terror Tot Nephilim
  [3ss]
  
  
• Terror Tot Nephilim
  [3ss]
  
  
• Terror Tot Nephilim
  [3ss]
  
  
• Terror Tot Nephilim
  [3ss]
  
  
• Terror Tot Nephilim
  [3ss]
  
  
• Desperate Mercenary
  [2ss]
  
  
• Desperate Mercenary
  [2ss]
  
  

If you want, you can drop 2 Terror Tots and take Lilitu instead (the Pool will be 4SS then).

In the first turn, killing the DM 1 with Lilith and 1 with Terror Tots, you obtain 5x Blood Counter.

That is enough to grow all 5 Tots into Young Nephilim and unleash a horde of very mobile fighters with Cb6 4/6/7 damage line on the opponent. Some of them will die, but there is strength in numbers (some of them will reach the opponent and hit hard) and they are not particularly easier to kill than many other 5~6SS minions, so not really a disadvantage here. Speed allows them to spread and still focus their charges on your chosen models and the size means they can hide better than Mature Nephilim or Nekima herself.

If you go alternative route and drop 2 Tots for Lilitu, in the first turn you'll be able to Grow 2 Young Nephilim summon 1 Lelu and it will still leave you with 1 Blood Counter to spare.

However I think a list with Lelu and 2 Young Nephilim would probably perform worse on the table, even if Lilitu & Lelu can still do some solid combos working together.

Edited October 7, 2011 by Q'iq'el

[FearLord]

Interesting theory - looks good on paper - the Young can really put out the damage...

The other option of course is to go for speed - with Nekima, the tots can get an automatic 10" move from casting sprint and if they get another mask on their flip, they can move a whopping 15" from a single AP. They may not kill as much, but its hard to protect against that sort of movement when going for objectives... Also useful as a distraction while some heavier hitters get into position...

[Q'iq'el]

Interesting theory - looks good on paper - the Young can really put out the damage...

The other option of course is to go for speed - with Nekima, the tots can get an automatic 10" move from casting sprint and if they get another mask on their flip, they can move a whopping 15" from a single AP. They may not kill as much, but its hard to protect against that sort of movement when going for objectives... Also useful as a distraction while some heavier hitters get into position...

There are several twists to the "going for speed" approach.

First turn you're going to go for :masks to Ca, because you want to Grow your Tots (or Sprint them). Then Nekima takes damage to get Blood Counter and perhaps moves forward a bit (must stay 6" from DMs though, to generate more Blood Counters... you can deploy DMs forward-ish to facilitate that; 4" if you want the DM to heal her up).

Next Lilith goes in and kills one of DMs and one of the Tots (or two if your cards are bad) kills the other.

At that point you have all the Counters you need and 3~4 unactivated Tots. You can Sprint as far as 15" if you have some masks to spare and attack/lock down some of the approaching enemies or grab nearby objecives. If you'd rather get to objectives further away, you can Sprint 20~30" with both AP (though you probably won't have cards to sprint all of them to full 30").

If Strategy allows you to stay within Nekima's range, you can also Sprint them 10" and then Grow - that means you won't lose that much on the movement in the initial "growing" turn.

[Sliver Chocobo]

Don't forget she can give the tots flight as well

[pgbsamurai]

I don't have the card in front of me, but I thought Nekima gave regen 1 to all Nephilim, so the the mature and lilitu should still benefit from that.

Edit: Sorry, ignore me. Was looking at your stats for the mature and not further down in the body.

[Cunning]

So the question is, does it make any sense to bring Mature Nephilim anymore?

Did it ever make sense to take a Mature Neph? Nekima never had any interaction with them anyway with flay only being on the young and tot.

In terms of normal nephilim nothing has changed. It's really only Lelitu and Lelu who now miss out.

I haven't used normal nephs or Nekima for a while now and I don't see a reason to go back. My standard list being:

Lilith

Primordial Magic

Lelu

Lelitu

1 extra twin depending on schemes and strats

Doppelganger

Insidious Madness

[Q'iq'el]

Did it ever make sense to take a Mature Neph? Nekima never had any interaction with them anyway with flay only being on the young and tot.

In terms of normal nephilim nothing has changed. It's really only Lelitu and Lelu who now miss out.

It was infinitely better to stay with 2~3 Tots and bring Lelu and Lilitu before.

Now we're at the point where bringing 5 Young is where the list is fast, killy and brings enough models to, hopefully, overload the enemy.

Obviously, Nekima will die first, likely, but that is after Young Grow and perhaps even after they kill some stuff using her buffs (if she lives till turn 3 or so).

So while you could make 2 Young before, they'd most likely operate more or less independently, away from, Nekima. It made more sense to Mature them back then, to increase survivability and make them hit harder. Nekima was staying with Lilitu and Lelu to keep DT/Lure up or to help Lelu finish something off. Nephilim Heart was mostly reserved for DT/Lure, so buffing Ca rather than Cb.

On the top of that you had enough Blood Counters, to mature 1, maybe 2 Nephilim from the get go and not many more Tots to Grow.

To make 5 Young you can't Mature any of them - there will be not enough counters. If they kill something and get their own BCs, then OK, but essentially it boils down to this:

Now that Nekima has no synergy with other Nephilim, doesn't make it more sense to spam Tots. Since we can grow them, isn't it better to get 5 Young rather than a mix of Tots and 1 or 2 Matures traditional Growth list would produce?

If you go without Nekima, then obviously Lelu & Lilitu make more sense. Black Shaman as well. But this thread was mostly about finding the way to make Nekima work and make that 13SS count.

Edited October 7, 2011 by Q'iq'el