Korrosion Posted June 26, 2012 Report Share Posted June 26, 2012 Leveticus has the potential to summon lots of SPA's relatively easy and cheaply. Nicodem the same for MZ's. So what mechanic makes Hamelin different to them? Infinite or near infinite loops of rats. Even without going infinite its possible for the same model to activate, die, activate again, die again, then activate a third time, all in one turn. Thats 3 activations per rat. SPA and MZ can't do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaBreadMen Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 What about to place all the new rats in the end closing fase? Every mini who has the ability to summon rats from killed rats, receive a counter when rats are killed in his aura, to be placed later. That would have a huge impact on things like Base Blocking and the armor Rat Catchers receive from having rats around them (if I remember correctly) so it may make it too easy to take out the keystone models, though maybe a combination of this and a new type of counter could work: Like rat infested corpses. I love brainstorming Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graeme27uk Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) Would it not be easier to just reword the Voracious Rats so that it does not say summoned. Could not be placed either, so would need some other wording. Then all you would have to say is that when something is killed within the VR range, a new rat is created but counts as having already activated on the turn that it appears. Hence it would get over the endless activations, and AP abuse as well, but still allow for rats to appear. Something like.... Voracious Rats: When this model or a model within 6" of it is killed, one Malifaux Rat is generated in base contact with the model before it is removed from play. The newly generated Malifaux Rat counts as having activated that turn, though can activate as normal in subsequent turns. The model does not generate Counters of any kind. No other models can be summoned as a result of the model being killed. Edited June 27, 2012 by graeme27uk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dumb Luck Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Yup, I approve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magicpockets Posted June 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Would it not be easier to just reword the Voracious Rats so that it does not say summoned. Could not be placed either, so would need some other wording. Then all you would have to say is that when something is killed within the VR range, a new rat is created but counts as having already activated on the turn that it appears. Hence it would get over the endless activations, and AP abuse as well, but still allow for rats to appear. Something like.... Voracious Rats: When this model or a model within 6" of it is killed, one Malifaux Rat is generated in base contact with the model before it is removed from play. The newly generated Malifaux Rat counts as having activated that turn, though can activate as normal in subsequent turns. The model does not generate Counters of any kind. No other models can be summoned as a result of the model being killed. I just think it's over complicating it again, a simple "cannot activate on the turn it's summoned" is all it needs to achieve the same thing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevelyan Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Is there not a danger that this could prove too effective? An opponent who wins initiative could easily prevent most or all of the rat swarm from moving at all with a decent AoE attack or multiple attack option. At present, the rats are a pain en mass, but a given rat is all but guaranteed to die when hit, and most likely when attacked at all. I think if you remove the advantage in having multiple respawning rats then you also need to look at the whole stat line. Might an alternative solution be to simply remove the (0) Kill all Rats ability from the RatCatchers? Keep the Voracious Rats aura and allow rats killed within it to act as they currently do, but put the power purely in the hands of the other player. And maybe grant the rats Regen 1 to circumvent the turn-to-turn implications of their wound loss from movement, but still weaken them within a given turn if they use Writhing Mass to move. As a side effect, removing (0) Kill all Rats limits the ready availability of healing for the rat catcher. Some healing is an option, but it takes a greater investment of resources to pull it off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graeme27uk Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Just removes the word "summon" which is already an in-game term/mechanic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NinjaBreadMen Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Is there not a danger that this could prove too effective? An opponent who wins initiative could easily prevent most or all of the rat swarm from moving at all with a decent AoE attack or multiple attack option. Although this is true I don't think it would have too great an impact on the crew: a model capable of reliably unloading 2+ blasts in an activation would surely be a pretty important part of the rival crew, so having them activate first to kill some rats is no bad thing. I don't have my rules manual to hand, but wouldn't changing the wording to use 'replace' help. I seem to remember models replacing other models only get as many AP as the replaced model had left over: So if an unnactivated rat is killed and replaced it would still have its activation, where as a rat that has activated, wouldn't get a second activation... same would apply to non-rats. I'll need to double check that though :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cunning Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Although this is true I don't think it would have too great an impact on the crew: a model capable of reliably unloading 2+ blasts in an activation would surely be a pretty important part of the rival crew, so having them activate first to kill some rats is no bad thing. I don't have my rules manual to hand, but wouldn't changing the wording to use 'replace' help. I seem to remember models replacing other models only get as many AP as the replaced model had left over: So if an unnactivated rat is killed and replaced it would still have its activation, where as a rat that has activated, wouldn't get a second activation... same would apply to non-rats. I'll need to double check that though :/ I thought about this but if you replace a model with 0 wds you get another model with 0 wds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bashamer Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 changing rates and adding more statuses to them is a paine. (0) Kill all Rats -> (2) Kill all Rats This would cut down greatly on mobility & re-activation cycles. My main issue is that even tough the rats are obvious I don't feel like it is the problem. The rats are like Pandora's aura, annoying, a bit source of damage over the game and a lot slower to work in game mechanics. Having 20 rats is a problem as that causes people to be able to block off objectives with models that can't be killed, but a significantly high Rare can solve that. Rare 10 should not be an issue. Honestly the problem is the package. When comparing to Pandora (because that is the play style I see) you have an amazing defensive mechanic; -that is mitigated by blast, pulse aura; You have activation control trough rats or Pacify / incite; You have passive damage due to the loss of morale duels / rats; The big difference between them is that Pandora is mostly harmless on her own, where as Hamlin is not. He has more base damage, and his crew is faster right now due to kill all rats. So the real question is; what is the play style they want for Hamlin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yosh Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Honestly the problem is the package. When comparing to Pandora (because that is the play style I see) you have an amazing defensive mechanic; -that is mitigated by blast, pulse aura; You have activation control trough rats or Pacify / incite; You have passive damage due to the loss of morale duels / rats; The big difference between them is that Pandora is mostly harmless on her own, where as Hamlin is not. He has more base damage, and his crew is faster right now due to kill all rats. Don't forget the abilities you mentioned there are just Pandora's abilities. Hamelin got these by his crew, rats, rat catchers and so on. With Pandora, you can have your crew too... So yeah, Hamelin is just as harmless itself as Pandora's whole crew is.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bashamer Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 all masters have crews; but from a play style perspective that is where I see the most overlap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cain Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 Malifaux Rats cannot be activated on the turn they are summoned. Thats what a swarm actually works. Someone kills the Ratcatcher. The respawning rat activates and forms a new one Catcher at the cost of 2 rats. The swarm sinks in numbers but keeps alive. And moves on. With the suggestion the swarm dies immidiately when the catcher falls. The opponent gets a lot fun blasting the rats with AoE or normal attacks and they are all gone. Only way to prevent it is to keep Hamelin nearby. Forcing a big cluster because a swarm more than 6 inch from Hamelin begs to be killed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magicpockets Posted June 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) Re it being too effective, think of it in normal game terms. Rats are a 2ss minion which are rightly easy to kill - but instead of letting opponents kill them all they're effectively doing is "killing" one activation. I think the compromise of then getting to activate them next time/getting new rats instead of removing them completely from play offsets their slight squishyness. Plus don't forget you're still getting models from other non-vermin deaths to add to the swarm. Re making Kill all Rats a (2) action, I don't think this will solve the issue - the main source of pain I see is the odd rat that drops from dead models (especially during a rat swarm activation) which needs to be kept track of for activating and - of course - rats killing each other to stall activations. To be fair, I think the proposed change would solve the (0) issue anyway as the RC could keep up with the swarm but only use the action to "refresh" the rats (who would usually have taken a wound from Writhing Mass) rather than reactivate them. The only issue I see is if someone kills one rat (or a low number) - you'd then have to decide whether to slow down to keep that rat within the VR aura, or leave it to fend for itself. But I kinda like that dynamic too if I'm honest Also, in respect of fixing Hamelin, this thread is purely about the NPE aspect of the game which comes from cycling rats (for me one of six fixes I'd like to see) and by no means are we saying this alone will balance Hamelin - that's a conversation for other (of multiple) threads. *wink* Edited June 27, 2012 by magicpockets Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bashamer Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 my biggest issue would be the introduction of a new state. here is my 2 point rat with it's 4 stacks of tokens to indicate blight counters, wounds, activation status, summon status. This apoach makes an error prone mechanic more error prone, leading to competitive play issues. I'd err on reducing complexity rather than increasing it. In that vein. wounded rats may not activate, a rat taking a wound during it's activation continues it's activation. under 95% of cases this should mean less bookwork per rat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hateful Darkblack Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 How about adding maybe this Ability to Rats? Chaotic: This model cannot activate on the Turn it was Summoned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yosh Posted June 27, 2012 Report Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) How about adding maybe this Ability to Rats? Chaotic: This model cannot activate on the Turn it was Summoned. I like your simplicity. Another call, simply add to the Malifaux Rat's stat card: One of Them: this model cannot target a friendly Malifaux Rat with a Strike Action. - no self-eating swarm Malifaux Rats cannot be activated on the turn they are Summoned unless they are Summoned by the effect of Slaughter Rats. - by this you still give them movement, not an easy shut down by 2+ blast/pulse. No activating rats via the Voracious Rats ability - that rats are too confused Edited June 27, 2012 by Yosh typo... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.