So much paralyzing... Trick I want to try with Molly

[brdparker]

I was thinking about this trick to do with McM and Molly and thought how I could apply it to other masters. I came across Nicodem and his Rigor Mortis spell, and thought that it could be pretty effective. Basic idea:

Nico and his totem (vulture/grave spirit/necrotic machine) have access to Nico's (1) spells with soulstone modifiers. Molly has access to Whispered Spirit (and by proxy, access to any (1) spell on the field within LOS and 12") as long as she keeps it in holding. By (magical) extension, HER totem (be it GS or NM) have access to that spell as well. So here's the idea (for the sake of argument, we will say that Nico has GS connected and Molly has NM connected):

At the end of a round, a late-activating Molly (1) Whispered Secrets GS's Magical Extension, giving her access to Nico's list of spells.

Next Turn:

Nico can Rigor Mortis up to 3x a turn.

GS Channels and Magcially Extends Rigor Mortis, dropping an SS as necessary (which is likely, considering its Ca).

NM Channels and Magically Extends Molly's Magical Extension of Rigor Mortis, dropping an SS as necessary (which is also likely, considering its Ca).

Molly casts Rigor Mortis once herself (and can gain it back given the right cards, or not. It's pretty open-ended at that piont).

This allows a remarkable 6 castings of a (1) spell that paralyses a model failing a Wp->17+ dual from 4 different threat points!

Now, this is of course ideal (you may have to Wk into position, need LOS, not flip the black joker, etc), and you have to drop SS's on it to aid the totems, but all the same... Has anyone tried this? If so, was this to good effect?

And can you think of other good master (1) spells to use this on? The original idea was with McMourning;s Wracked with Pain, which is an easier cast of only 12:crows. Undead Psychosis seems somewhat ridiculous when cast from 4 sources. Even Kirai's (1) spells look to be fairly juicy (I'm looking at Chill of Death specifically).

Thoughts?

[Buhallin]

At the end of a round, a late-activating Molly (1) Whispered Secrets GS's Magical Extension, giving her access to Nico's list of spells.

Has anyone confirmed that this would work? It seems off to me... If Molly copied Magical Extension, she'd copy the exact text - and gain the ability to cast one of the spells of the master she was connected to. Since she isn't connected to a master, it wouldn't accomplish anything.

As for the rest... It would certainly be nice to see it pulled off, but even if Molly can copy Magical Extension to its full effect (without which you lose about half your castings) it seems like it would require a great deal of lucky positioning/cards/setup for it to actually work.

[brdparker]

Ah... good point. That would mean she'd have to copy RM itself rather than Magical Extension (But then, she has SS use anyway and by proxy, so does the Necrotic Machine, so it evens out in the end).

And yes, it is very much card/luck driven. Then only ones you can plausibly rely on are Nico getting at least one off and possibly one from Molly as well, but two more chances from the totems (channelled, remember, so that's 4 cards you're seeing in total) SS'ed should get one off.

Consider this:

With 6 castings of RM, two of which are channeled, you are seeing 8 cards, 4 or which need to be a 14+ and 4 of which need to be a 10+ (because all parties have :crows inherent). Unless you get the rJoker with the totems, they will fail (I'll leave out the particularly rare examples of rJoker and bJoker in the same channel).

I would probably SS if I were at most 5 away from the target number, which makes it so that with the totems, I need a 9+ and with the master/henchwoman, I need a 5+ to make it a reasonable chance to cast.

4 cards that can be a 9+ and 4 cards that can be a 5+. This is excluding thoughts about cheating as well. If you add that in, that's 6 more cards that you are seeing. We're seeing 14 of the cards in the deck (or slightly over 1/3 of the deck). We'll call any card that's 9+ a possibility to cast, so we need any 1 of 21 different cards throughout the 14 cards we are seeing, the more of those, the better of course. You're gonna get the cast off a fair amount in a turn.

Of course, that's also not counting their resist (17's a tough but not impossible number), SS'ing into the bJoker/1/2/3/etc., or flipping two good cards in the same channel, negating the benefit of the lower one, but looking at the raw ability to cast the spell in the first place, it seems to be pretty good odds of getting benefit from it assuming you are willing to use SS resources.

Now, insert, say... Decay instead of RM (which has a 14:crows cast instead of a 17:crows) and the card number of plausibility drops from 9+ to 6+, and the number of working cards jumps from 21 of them to 33, which is more than half the deck! Try McM's Wracked with Pain (CC: 12:crows), and now you have 41 out of 54 cards that would work for your purposes! Casting 6 times and seeing 14 cards, that's a huge number with a massive threat range!

Edited January 31, 2012 by brdparker

[Fetid Strumpet]

I was doing something similar to this with my Molly crew. I tend to find that it often is either too suite or numerical value dependent. In my testing it just wasn't feasible to have Molly continually gain a new spell each turn, the suite requirement was just much for every turn, added to all the other things I wanted crows for.

If you copy a spell that requires an additional suite it is best copied as a spell Molly herself will really want to get off once. If you copy high numerical value, it's the same issue as her totem will need a high card you'd much probably burn on another caster. However if you find good low value no suite requirement spells, ahhh then it really works, because then Molly can just hang on to the spell and then her totem can spam cast it. I found my favorite target for this is the Rogue Necromancy's Breath Acid spell, as it is a ranged spell, with the potential for blasts, whose casting requirement just requires you to reach 9. Meaning the Necrotic Machine only needs a 5 on the attack to make the spell work.

Watching the Machine crank out an Acid Breath a turn is a beautiful thing.

[Ozz]

I know you have already realised that copying Magical extension probably does not work for this situation, but also if you could do that, then you would have Molly with access to cast any of the Masters spells, but it would not give her any of them, just access to them and so the totem wouldn't be able to copy them from her through its own magical extension, or that would be my interpretation. Although i do like the idea of Paralysing 6 of my opponents minions in a turn, that sounds like a challenge though:)

[brdparker]

I found my favorite target for this is the Rogue Necromancy's Breath Acid spell, as it is a ranged spell, with the potential for blasts, whose casting requirement just requires you to reach 9. Meaning the Necrotic Machine only needs a 5 on the attack to make the spell work.

Watching the Machine crank out an Acid Breath a turn is a beautiful thing.

Nice... I'm gonna try this out my next game, I think. Also, just realized that NM has a Ca of 4:crows, not 3:crows, so some of the mali"faux"-math is off above.

Paralysing 6 of my opponents minions in a turn, that sounds like a challenge though:)

Achievement: Paralyze 6 of your opponent's models in one turn. Best of luck.

[Fetid Strumpet]

And the fact that the Min dmg is 3 is really nice. Had a game Vs Tina where she kept trying to nuke the Machine who was hiding well away from my crew, in cover, just tossing acid at Raspy's bunched up crew with low def. Was very funny.

[brdparker]

And the fact that the Min dmg is 3 is really nice. Had a game Vs Tina where she kept trying to nuke the Machine who was hiding well away from my crew, in cover, just tossing acid at Raspy's bunched up crew with low def. Was very funny.

That seems really mean. I love it.

[Calmdown]

Molly's whispered secret is a pain because it eats crows and so does everything else in your list, generally. I Don't really feel she's reliable enough or packs enough punch to justify her 9 points.

Paralyzing with Nico plus his totem is enough for me and requires a lot less suits and luck to pull off.

[brdparker]

You see, I've never found it too tough to get it off (a 5:crows), and I would generally keep the (1) spell until the end of the game and have the totem cast it like crazy, increased threat range at a cost of reliability. It only costs one 5+:crows, a 1 SS model, and a totem slot, assuming you were going to take Molly anyway.

As far as the guarding of crows go, my list for the upcoming tournament is as follows:

McMourning

Chihuahua (connected to McM0

Molly

Grave Spirit (connected to Molly)

Desperate Mercenary

4 Canine Remains

Rotten Belle

2 Crooligans

McM - Needs a 10+:crows to summon, which I would definitely hoard a high crow for.

Molly - Needs a 5+ :crows to Whispered Secrets, an 8+:crows to summon, or an 8+ :crows to Sac and kill a model. Whispered Secrets would be the first on that list to use, then summoning. I would possible use Philosophy in a bind, but I'm not going to hold out for it.

Dogs - Need a :crows to get the Rabies trigger, which can be nice occasionally, but I'm not going to hold a :crows for it

Belle - Need a :crows for the rot trigger, and I'm not going to hold a :crows for it.

So really, the only things I want :crows for is McM's summoning as oft' as possible and Molly's Whispered Secret (and I only need to do that once). Given, say, the first two turns of the game, I'm gonna see 12 cards in the deck plus anything I manage to flip... I think I got this

Edit: The smile emoticons really look wyrd now...

Edited February 1, 2012 by brdparker