snord Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 My main problem with the ruling on Drain Souls is not even the Levi/Kirai/Marcus advantages, but how easy it becomes to deny VPs to opponents in strategies/schemes that require the master, like Deliver a Message. In games like this you just lock in your VPs and Drain Soul your own master and the game is done, or, what I think it is even worse, you play badly and your opponent is ready to deliver a message to you but you win the initiative of the turn: drain souls your master and without any effort, after playing badly, you deny your opponent 4 VPs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeleteAccount Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 My main problem with the ruling on Drain Souls is not even the Levi/Kirai/Marcus advantages, but how easy it becomes to deny VPs to opponents in strategies/schemes that require the master, like Deliver a Message. In games like this you just lock in your VPs and Drain Soul your own master and the game is done, or, what I think it is even worse, you play badly and your opponent is ready to deliver a message to you but you win the initiative of the turn: drain souls your master and without any effort, after playing badly, you deny your opponent 4 VPs. This shenanigans is what makes me want for the soul sucking rule to just go poof. I understand how cool it is from a thematic standpoint, but it is either never used or only used for shenanigans like these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcXON Posted July 24, 2012 Report Share Posted July 24, 2012 (edited) So if the Drain Souls Action is pretty problematic, why not make it so Drain Souls Remove models from the game. Alpha should still have the clause that Obey has anyways, and the Obey clause could be changed to "the action may not remove this model from the game" I think this way we all win, and you can STILL use Drain souls in a strategic way. Hell as a Levi player I wouldn't mind losing this one tool for balance benefits. Edited July 25, 2012 by DarcXON Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoboStele Posted July 25, 2012 Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 My main problem with the ruling on Drain Souls is not even the Levi/Kirai/Marcus advantages, but how easy it becomes to deny VPs to opponents in strategies/schemes that require the master, like Deliver a Message. In games like this you just lock in your VPs and Drain Soul your own master and the game is done, or, what I think it is even worse, you play badly and your opponent is ready to deliver a message to you but you win the initiative of the turn: drain souls your master and without any effort, after playing badly, you deny your opponent 4 VPs. You can do this right now by attacking your own Master. I've done it in games before myself, and had it done against me too. In fact, I actually had someone kill their own Marcus in a game against me to deny me the chance to Deliver the message. Was pretty funny actually at the time. So I don't think Drain Souls does anything to help/hurt that. It's probably one of the reasons why you won't see Deliver a Message on most Tournament lists for Strategies, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twisted Metal Posted July 25, 2012 Report Share Posted July 25, 2012 Yes but there is a distinct diffrence of using multiplt AP from one or more Minions and using multiple cards to accomplish the task of killing off the master VS simply doing it as a one action at the end of your masters activation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q'iq'el Posted July 26, 2012 Report Share Posted July 26, 2012 This shenanigans is what makes me want for the soul sucking rule to just go poof. I understand how cool it is from a thematic standpoint, but it is either never used or only used for shenanigans like these. I think it would be perfectly fine if it had additional requirement. Let's say, you need to keep the model within melee range of your master. Or even better in b2b contact (so that there's no advantage for melee masters, who generally have better reach). It would still make Drain Soul a valid tactic, but it would also cost a lot of AP and require some planning to actually pull it off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgraz Posted July 26, 2012 Report Share Posted July 26, 2012 How does that stop you from using Drain Soul on your own Minions and/or Master to deny VP to your opponent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q'iq'el Posted July 26, 2012 Report Share Posted July 26, 2012 How does that stop you from using Drain Soul on your own Minions and/or Master to deny VP to your opponent? It doesn't stop you from doing that. This is the point. Drain Soul has clearly been inteded to do that from the start - some love it, some hate it, but that is for now the reality. What it does however is making the whole thing more tactical. Rather than sacrifice your exposed minions from under your opponent nose and simply deny him points, you have to plan and move your master or minion so that they can do the Drain Soul action on other models. More often than not the opponent will at least be able to mess up the plan a bit (by cutting off access to a sure-kill target etc.). In other words, it keeps the mechanic, it makes it playable rather than automatic exit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgraz Posted July 26, 2012 Report Share Posted July 26, 2012 Ah, I see where you're going now. Yeah, that makes more sense. Although, I disagree that it was intended that way from the start. Actually at the start there was a rule saying that Masters couldn't be targeted at all.....and even some blurb saying something like; "minions are expendable, your master isn't". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q'iq'el Posted July 26, 2012 Report Share Posted July 26, 2012 Agree, I find it strange it can be used on masters now. But even without the masters, the ability has plenty of potential to frustrate the opponent, while the drawback is sometimes minimal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgraz Posted July 26, 2012 Report Share Posted July 26, 2012 Agreed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike3838 Posted August 30, 2012 Report Share Posted August 30, 2012 (edited) Slight threadomancy due to whisperings that certain players (who shall remain nameless but who know who they are ) are practicing pulling off the Alpha trick in the run up to a tournament. Can a Rules Marshall comment on whether this is an intended effect? Failing that, I'm reading the Manual, in particular the rules for friendly and enemy models on page 13. Drain Souls can only be used on Friendly models (page 50) Is a model always Friendly to itself? It doesn't say so anywhere that I can see. In fact, the rules say that "a model is an enemy (to it's crew) when: it is currently under another crew's control. Since a master under the effect of Alpha is still a member of it's own crew, (merely the control has changed, not crew membership), then technically as that line is written, is it not actually considered an enemy of itself, and therefore not eligible for Drain Souls? Sorry for the pedantic rules lawyering, but in the absence of official clarification on the matter it's all I have up my sleeve to prevent what appears to be a pretty obvious loophole/abuse/NPE. Mike P Edit: to clarify with an example I use Marcus to Alpha your Master At that point, your Master becomes 1) friendly to my crew and 2) an enemy to your crew. But which crew is he a member of? 3) Still yours! Therefore, 2) + 3) means he's an enemy to himself Edited August 30, 2012 by Mike3838 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukrocky Posted August 30, 2012 Report Share Posted August 30, 2012 *grin* Marcus. AWAY! :Rat_Super: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenborne Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Well, isn't it considered friendly to the controlling crew while under control? Not sure though if it does iactually become part of the controlling crew, but if it does... by the reverse logic, it would be friendly to itself because it is friendly to its crew and it is in its crew... If that makes any sense at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cthulhurising Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Kinda off topic, but it got brought up here so I figured I may ask it here. Marcus makes Colette a beast, does his Negative twist on all enemy beasts, she flips two cards, takes the lowest. Uses a soulstone (which for her is a plus one twist) so does she flip two cards with the soul stone still? This kinda thing came up the other day. Jacob Lynch has the Cheating Bastard, which lets him cheat last (and by extension use soulstone last) so it brought up the question if you have a negative twist on your flip, would that also go to the soulstone useage too? or is the soulstone just ignored for positive and negatives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mythicFOX Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Edit: to clarify with an example I use Marcus to Alpha your Master At that point, your Master becomes 1) friendly to my crew and 2) an enemy to your crew. But which crew is he a member of? 3) Still yours! Therefore, 2) + 3) means he's an enemy to himself I understand, what you're trying to say Mike. I'm not going to offer an oppinion, it needs an RM to rule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twisted Metal Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Unfortunately the RMs have been avoiding this topic like the plague. My only only hope is that Drain Souls goes the way of "The rule of equalivalancy" and is removed entirely. This is coming from a Levi player. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ratty Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Not avoiding, just not declaring anything till we have had time to discuss it thoroughly. ---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 PM ---------- Drain Souls changed to say (1) Drain Souls: Leaders Only. Sacrifice up to three friendly non-leader models within 6”, ignoring LoS. The Crew’s Soulstone Pool gains one Soulstone for each model sacrificed. Each time a leader takes the Drain Souls Action, every non-leader model in the Crew receives a cumulative -1 Wp for the remainder of the Encounter. Models with the Insignificant Characteristic cannot be sacrificed by Drain Souls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukrocky Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Could have waited till after next weekend's tournament Ratty! Alpha is back to useless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rancor709 Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Is that going to be updated on the errata, faq site Ratty? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukrocky Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Having a slight rant on twitter about the change... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ratty Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Is that going to be updated on the errata, faq site Ratty? It's up in the Resolved issue thread and will go up onto the Errata/FAQ when we next update it. Probably fairly soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mythicFOX Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Good work Ratty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukrocky Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 So. Now that Marcus is fixed, and thank heavens, any update on Hamelin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keltheos Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Oh, we took a break from Hamelin to crush your dreams with this, Rocky. Back to Hammy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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