Competitive Arcanists.

[Ozz]

I have just been thinking about arcanists recently and how people seem to say that they are the weaker faction for Highly competitive play. (bar Colette ) But when i thought about it, i came to the conclusion that everything read whilst to an extent may be true, Arcanists as a faction are not weak at all. Whilst their masters may be less well rounded for doing everything on their own (Dreamer, hamelin ect) As a faction there is not a lot i can see that they can not do? They just appear the best suited to the balanced as a faction argument

Marcus, Fast objective grabbing, distracts you with little toys and can get everywhere he wants with his crew selection.

Ramos, i am not to sure about him i have little experience, but he can take a lot of damage so is hard to put down. And with his avatar he has a lot of tricks for more speed and damage and summon bigger models. So is good at holding an area.

Tina. She does damage. She i think is good at slaughter, and any thing else requiring killing stuff.

Ok i think how i have written this is actually terrible but i think my point comes across simply enough? And i am just thinking am i alone in thinking this? Arcanists just require a slightly bigger investment into more masters, and a less must kill everyone attitude to the game to win?

(Tabled Marcus for the loss of a desperate merc i killed myself, to lose 4 - 5, i shall always be bitter about that one:P) Would be a good example from my experiances

[izikial]

I love arcanists, but I will admit that I am very self depricating, and there for down on my own faction. Ill go through my opinions of othere faction's

Guild, all around strong

Perdita, strong

Lj, strong

Sonnia, strong

Hoff, maybe the weekest of the bunch, but still good

Ressers more anouying than strong I found, but my group dosnt do much with moral dules, I have never fought a nicoderm, kari is a huge pain, spirits and stuff, I don't lose much to them but I finde the games less fun, as I feel like I'm getting no wear

Nb all strong, all a pain, I alnost always lose to them, they don't have a week caster in my opinion

Outcasts mixed bag, if you play out casts you tend to play one, not the hole faction

Hamlin is o stronk

Levie is one I'm fonde of, and can deal with almost anything, strong

Viks, not fought against but apear strong

Sommer ????

Arcanist

Ramos kills but dosnt do objectives

Marcus dose objectives but dosnt slaugter

Collet is very strong, not the best at killing, but dosnt need to, can jus run away

Tina, sloughters well, but can't move, and if she gets seen she will die

So the main diffrence is that arcanists can't take one champ for everything, this is wear there percived weekness comes from, and also people allthough we all buy everything like to have a master wee call our own and arcanists can't do that as well as most, so people fell perturbed when they see perdita do everything, and then play tina and can't assasinate cus the master won't come close

Wow I rambled there

[ukrocky]

Yep arcanists are terrible...

[mythicFOX]

I think where this comes from is a number of things.

Most factions have a master that can perform in most, if not all strategies. Arcanists don't have that. You have to switch masters as some strategies are a dead loss for some masters.

We've also traditionally suffered from a lack of cheap significant models worth taking. We don't have a Rotten Belle, Witchling Stalker, or Insidious Madness. Most of our versions of these minions are either slow, or better when they're dead.

We also have two slow defensive masters who are very tough to keep alive. Not good in a game that's all about speed. There is also a lot less 'in faction' synergy, the cult don't really work with the beasts.

The Arcanist releases tend to be at the beginning and end of each book cycle. We just got the last of our Book 3 toys, and we know we've got new toys coming in a week or so at GenCon.

Arcanists have a bright future. So long as our book 4 stuff doesn't suck :-P

I’m almost certainly sticking with :tomes for the 2013 season. I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t think we could win games.

[izikial]

Talking gencon I havnt seen book preorders anywear, hove you guys seen any anywear?

[Ozz]

Most factions have a master that can perform in most, if not all strategies. Arcanists don't have that. You have to switch masters as some strategies are a dead loss for some masters.

But are there any that can be said Arcanists are not good at/not able to do reliably? I just became curious about it all, who was good at what ect and if i was correct in thinking Arcanists as a faction can have a master that is happily capable of any Strategy currently in the game?

[mythicFOX]

But are there any that can be said Arcanists are not good at/not able to do reliably? I just became curious about it all, who was good at what ect and if i was correct in thinking Arcanists as a faction can have a master that is happily capable of any Strategy currently in the game?

ALL IMHO

There aren't any shared core strategies at 35ss we cannot win, but there are some games we are highly unlikely to win against some crews.

[ukrocky]

Marcus can do everything

[bashamer]

Every master has a "focus" and it is easy to try and stick to that focus; I enjoy reading the rest of the card and seeing what ahppens if you focus on those things.

So here are some things that Tina can do:

1. Ice pillars are amazing in blocking movement and creating difficult terain zones (allowing you to greeze things in place; trigger stalker)

2. She gives models frozen hearth (Kaeris & ice gamin; yep that pretty much doubles her damamge output vs. models w/o armor; using a snowstorm to move molemen up to 8 inces turn 1 :Combat_Puppet: )

3. She can hand out armor and immunity to morale duels; allowing her to bring living models with lower WP (not everyone is a moleman)

That is the only master where I'm confrotable enough with the rules out of the ones listed.

I think you need a deeper model pool in archanists to play one master for every scenario.

[LoboStele]

Most factions have a master that can perform in most, if not all strategies. Arcanists don't have that. You have to switch masters as some strategies are a dead loss for some masters.

Every master has a "focus" and it is easy to try and stick to that focus;

To me, these two things are the only problems I have with playing the Arcanists competitively. I think it's too easy for an opponent to predict what crew you are likely to play, and therefore, plan accordingly, because certain Arcanist Masters are just simply better at some strategies than others. For instance, if you have Shared Slaughter, it's a good bet the Arcanist player is going to run either Tina or Ramos, in which case, if you take some armor-ignoring models, you'll be good on both fronts.

Overall, I think Arcanists CAN be competitive, but I do think it's slightly tougher. That said, I'd put us on par with the Ressers for the most part though. They have Kirai, which is more or less a top-tier crew for everything except a couple strategies. I'd say we have that with Colette. If I REALLY want to win a tournament, I will play mostly Colette, except for perhaps the Slaughter strategy. I do think both Ramos and Tina can handle certain strategies really well though. (I LOVE playing Tina/Kaeris in Shared Supply Wagon, lol) I don't personally have enough experience with Marcus to make the call one way or the other, but I think he's maybe a bit more finesse than people would like him to be, so that makes it tough to consistently perform with him.

So do I think Arcanists can be consistently competitive? Maybe not as easily as some of the other factions. But it can be done, and I'm content with playing and only winning some of my games, but not all of them, for the fun of playing with crews that I really enjoy.

[mythicFOX]

+1 to everything but the 'on par with the Ressers' bit.

[Adran]

Any Arcanist master can do well on any stratergy, but they have more reliance upon their crew than a lot of other masters.

People like Ramos and Rasputina will never be the model interacting in your opponents deployment zone as they just aren't going to get there, but if you know you are planting evidence then you need to pick crew correspondingly.

Crew selection is a very important skill in this game, and I think Arcanists are the faction that uses this skill the most.

[LoboStele]

+1 to everything but the 'on par with the Ressers' bit.

Care to elaborate? You think Arcanists are better or worse?

[bashamer]

One thing to also consider; knowing one master well is easier and less time consuming than knowing 4.

So there is just a smaller pool of people who are willing to learn all amsters to a competitive level; this in turn means that people will focus one one master and even play them under less than ideal conditions. Just because even tough the master is less than ideal the concept of changing masters is worse final result.

[Boardgameguy]

I've been impressed with my Arcanists of late. I typically have been playing NB but have been running Colette of late and have had some games where I went into it thinking Colette was gonna get worked and she sometimes turns out to win in the end. Such as Slaughter or Recoinnoiter.

And I've been running her against strong crews like Kirai and Levi. I know there are least than ideal strategies for the Master's in this faction but I'm trying to try each strategy with each master. Except for Marcus, still need to pick him up.

[mythicFOX]

Care to elaborate? You think Arcanists are better or worse?

IMHO and based on personal experience, excluding our most recent releases I'd put us fourth, behind Ressers and ahead of Guild.

I put this down to not having cheap objective grabbing models, and a general lack of power in our <6ss models.

Again all IMHO and with the new book out in 8 days with some cool looking new models for us who knows. Those new showgirl's rules look AMAZING.

[Ebonstar]

IMHO and based on personal experience, excluding our most recent releases I'd put us fourth, behind Ressers and ahead of Guild.

I put this down to not having cheap objective grabbing models, and a general lack of power in our <6ss models.

Agree for the most part. Just to elaborate:

Arcanists rely more on two things vs. other factions for the most part:

1) Synergy between models, rather than having "go to" models under the 6ss range.

2) Totems. More than any other faction, Arcanist masters tend to lean harder on totems.

Combine those two ideas and it means Arcanist players have to adopt a different mindset. Our solutions to things aren't as simple as spamming really good models, because we just don't work that way. That said- I still feel we're a solid faction that appeals to people who can work with the differences outlined here.

[izikial]

Sorry, are you saying ressers are 3rd best and guild worst, or other way around

[fritz the cat]

Agree for the most part. Just to elaborate:

Arcanists rely more on two things vs. other factions for the most part:

1) Synergy between models, rather than having "go to" models under the 6ss range.

2) Totems. More than any other faction, Arcanist masters tend to lean harder on totems.

Combine those two ideas and it means Arcanist players have to adopt a different mindset. Our solutions to things aren't as simple as spamming really good models, because we just don't work that way. That said- I still feel we're a solid faction that appeals to people who can work with the differences outlined here.

I agree with point 2, i couldnt disagree more about point 1 though. it may be just the way I play, but I tend to really key on on vital 6ss models in my crews and alot less on necessary synergy. The gunsmith is dynamite at 6ss and i try to fit him in whenever I can, amongst other models that tend to be in that range

[mythicFOX]

Sorry, are you saying ressers are 3rd best and guild worst, or other way around

I'm saying IMHO Ressers 3rd, Arcanist 4th, Guild 5th.

Can slam my fist on the 'eject from conversation button' at this point?

This really is a topic with no answer. In other metas and other view points the answer may be very different. For the record I want to be clear:

I love Arcanists, I am planning to stick with them through the 2013 season, I also believe they can be strong and very competitive.

[ukrocky]

I love Arcanists, I am planning to stick with them through the 2013 season, I also believe they can be strong and very competitive.

Arcanists are rubbish though James! Noone can win with them in the UK!

[Ozz]

This really is a topic with no answer. In other metas and other view points the answer may be very different. For the record I want to be clear:

I was just curious as to other peoples thoughts on the faction as a whole, and how people thought of them. And it seems a good trend so far, in that it takes more understanding and less easy mode models to do well with, but that you can do anything just like the NB can if you know what you are doing? Perhaps have to work a little harder for some but you have all the tools and it can be done if you have learnt your faction

[Cats Laughing]

Arcanists are rubbish though James! Noone can win with them in the UK!

I firmly believe the "Marcus is rubbish" viewpoint still held by many on the forums was a direct result of propaganda by ukrocky (via many many proxy accounts) to make himself look better when he rolled face with Marcus ;-)

[bashamer]

one last thing to consider is also terrain.

Archanists summon the most terrain; and more terrain is awesome when there already is lots of terrain; a 10cm wall is sweeter when placed in a 14 cm gap between 2 10 cm pieces of terrain (34 cm wall vs 10 cm wall)

So that has a huge impact as well.

[Toonook]

I think the main problem faced (well, in my local meta) is due to not many people having large collections, we announce masters instead of just announcing factions to make it fair for people with only 1 master. This does remove the 'Swiss army knife' style where the arcanists have a master for every occasion. Arcanist masters do feel a bit more insular within their own faction, it just feels wrong to not take frozen heart minions with raspy, showgirls with Colette etc. guess it comes down to fluff versus being effective. Same argument with Von Schill and ressers I guess.