Lady J+ Lucius's Slingshot (aka have I been had)

[Poltron]

Hi guildies!

Yesterday I've been on the receiving hand of the Lucius + Lady J slingshot, and oh boy does it hurt... or does it?

I dont have Lucius card with me, but everywhere I read that he can move a Master 14". However last night, he moved twice on turn 1, used his movement spell on himselft to move another 5", then threw Lady J another 4" in my face. Game was finished at first activation turn 2, him getting 9 (9!!!) Onslaught attacks with 3 AP, killing a gunsmith, Ramos, Toolkit, and a SS miner in 2 consecutive activation. (end of turn 1 and first activation of turn 2)

Have I been had, or is it possible to move him thrice, then cast Reinforcement? Also, if its possible, what would be your best plan of action against this tactic using a static master like Ramos?

Thanks for your time!

Poltron

[Lucidicide]

Lucius has Casting Expert, and Reinforcements is a (0). He can do that. However, Lucius should be at a negative to cast on himself because of Highest Authority. That certainly makes that cast harder.

Getting that many Onslaughts requires 9 Masks when there are only 14 in the deck -- the odds of that are extremely thin. And even if it does happen, those attacks still need to hit. A 1 of Masks puts Lady J at an 8 Cb (or 10 if she's killed something). That shouldn't be too hard to beat. If she's burning Soulstones to make it happen, she's still getting lucky to make it all happen.

Then add in the fact that Gunsmith has Hard to Kill and Ramos & SS Miner have armor, it gets even harder.

Finally, she had to live after being Reinforced (before activating), then win initiative. And you had to have all your crew close enough that she had the AP to just basically attack them.

I guess what I'm saying is that you two had a 1 in 9,999,999,999 game OR you played things wrong.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Reinforcement was done correct.

Onslaught was not... Needs to target same model with follow up attack so at best three kills on secind turn since not fast. That's assuming 4 kills in her actovation.

[Lucidicide]

Reinforcement was done correct.

Onslaught was not... Needs to target same model with follow up attack so at best three kills on secind turn since not fast. That's assuming 4 kills in her actovation.

He said 3AP were used to do it. All 4 could die with 3 AP with perfect Onslaughts. Based on his description, it's all possible... just so incredibly unlikely as to be ludicrous.

[Poltron]

Yeah he was flipping (not even cheating!) mask on every attack end of first turn, + Soulstone if mask was too low, so kill with his melee expert my gunsmith (after 4 hits). Managed to charge end of turn 1 on Ramos + Toolkit, luck on my side, Black joker on attack.

Start of turn 2, he wins Ini with a 13, activates Lady J, and manage to flip high mask again (at that point we were just watching in amazement for his luck-fu) and unload again 4 attacks with only one melee expert on Ramos. I still managed to hold on, prevent most damage, until he flipped the Red joker on his 4th attack + another moderate. Then the SS miner was in range, so he killed him with one hit and one onslaught... (Everytime he wouldnt flip a mask, the SS flip would give him a small mask enough to bypass Ramos's whooping 2 Def )

Like you said, 1 in a 999999 square 3 chance of it happening. Only thing he didnt do correctly was the negative flip on his Reinforcement spell. (Oh and he had 9 activations: Lady J, Lucius, Scale, 2 guild guard, 4 witchling, but when you add them up he couldnt have taken 4 witchling at 35SS, so another thing that could have helped)

Good to know and thanks for the help.

[Lucidicide]

Yeah he was flipping (not even cheating!) mask on every attack end of first turn, + Soulstone if mask was too low, so kill with his melee expert my gunsmith (after 4 hits). Managed to charge end of turn 1 on Ramos + Toolkit, luck on my side, Black joker on attack.

Start of turn 2, he wins Ini with a 13, activates Lady J, and manage to flip high mask again (at that point we were just watching in amazement for his luck-fu) and unload again 4 attacks with only one melee expert on Ramos. I still managed to hold on, prevent most damage, until he flipped the Red joker on his 4th attack + another moderate. Then the SS miner was in range, so he killed him with one hit and one onslaught... (Everytime he wouldnt flip a mask, the SS flip would give him a small mask enough to bypass Ramos's whooping 2 Def )

Like you said, 1 in a 999999 square 3 chance of it happening. Only thing he didnt do correctly was the negative flip on his Reinforcement spell. (Oh and he had 9 activations: Lady J, Lucius, Scale, 2 guild guard, 4 witchling, but when you add them up he couldnt have taken 4 witchling at 35SS, so another thing that could have helped)

Good to know and thanks for the help.

Yeah, sounds like you were on the receiving end of the "some higher power hates me" thing. What can I say? Bad things happen.

[Cadilon]

Lucius has Casting Expert, and Reinforcements is a (0). He can do that. However, Lucius should be at a negative to cast on himself because of Highest Authority. That certainly makes that cast harder.

Never thought of using Issue Command on himself. Good idea!

Your comment about Highest Authority though demonstrates one of those things about Malifaux thats hard for me to get my head around. In the vast majority of cases, Abilities enhance the power of the model. But certain models also have "Abilities" that limit them. For some reason my default reasoning is that Abilities are there to help the model and aren't used to make things more difficult for the model. I know this isn't the case because I have a number of models whose Abilities hinder, rather than help, i.e. Peacekeeper and Ryle.

So I guess my point is, I'd never considered that Highest Authority, though being a great help in defense, is at the same time a hinderance to friendly casts as well. That could include some significant situations, like trying to end slow or paralyze. To me it just doesn't 'seem right' or is somehow unfair that an Ability would hurt and not help. But that is just something I have to realign in my own thinking.

[Requirement]

Never thought of using Issue Command on himself. Good idea!

Your comment about Highest Authority though demonstrates one of those things about Malifaux thats hard for me to get my head around. In the vast majority of cases, Abilities enhance the power of the model. But certain models also have "Abilities" that limit them. For some reason my default reasoning is that Abilities are there to help the model and aren't used to make things more difficult for the model. I know this isn't the case because I have a number of models whose Abilities hinder, rather than help, i.e. Peacekeeper and Ryle.

So I guess my point is, I'd never considered that Highest Authority, though being a great help in defense, is at the same time a hinderance to friendly casts as well. That could include some significant situations, like trying to end slow or paralyze. To me it just doesn't 'seem right' or is somehow unfair that an Ability would hurt and not help. But that is just something I have to realign in my own thinking.

This came up in my game last night. Trying to Violation of Magic Ryle to deny points and retain a model. Violation of magic is a Wp resist and my opponent called shenanigans on my targeting Ryle. I see his point. But Ryle's ability is a severe drawback to an "in crew" cast. Like you said Cadilon, it seems unfair that I couldn't target my own model with something that has a Wp resist due to Breach Psychosis(Or even ItI...)

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

He said 3AP were used to do it. All 4 could die with 3 AP with perfect Onslaughts. Based on his description, it's all possible... just so incredibly unlikely as to be ludicrous.

Onslaught has to target same defender vanilla j can therefore kill 3 at best with onslaught.

What is would on highest authority i thought it said enemy or attack in it, if it doesnt i missed that and wasnt neging flip.

---------- Post added at 09:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 AM ----------

This came up in my game last night. Trying to Violation of Magic Ryle to deny points and retain a model. Violation of magic is a Wp resist and my opponent called shenanigans on my targeting Ryle. I see his point. But Ryle's ability is a severe drawback to an "in crew" cast. Like you said Cadilon, it seems unfair that I couldn't target my own model with something that has a Wp resist due to Breach Psychosis(Or even ItI...)

It's a strong balancing feature, that i love.

[Lucidicide]

Onslaught has to target same defender vanilla j can therefore kill 3 at best with onslaught

Not to poke a useless point, but the totem would die if Ramos did, and I'm assuming that's what happened.

[Poltron]

Spot on

[Trevelyan]

Yeah he was flipping (not even cheating!) mask on every attack end of first turn

After the first few Masks I'd start to wonder whether he had actually shuffled his deck.