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Proposed Hamelin Nerfs


Hateful Darkblack

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Magic Pockets was/ is a very good player but he was also facing players that were very good and knowledgeable (by his own admission they knew what to expect and used purpose built lists against him). Not taking anything away from the man as he is definately a phenomenal player (and one that I definately respected) but Hamelin does have a lot of advantages that make winning a lot easier (in all aspects of play).

I'm not disputing that he needs some fixing. I've voluntarily stopped playing him against my friends until the fixes happen and am happy to suggest some myself. I'm just keen to make sure that the distinction between "Hamelin is an unusual master who plays in a way which can catch people off guard" and "Hamelin is an overpowered master who has too many potent tricks to be easily beaten by anyone" is observed.

In practice he is currently both of those things, but the challenge is to fix the latter without losing the former. I think some people who have played against Hammy but not played with him don't see the chinks in his armour that are evident from his side of the table, largely because some of the more effective tactics against Hammy are counter intuitive, and many typical tactics are highly ineffective.

The danger in some of the fixes that I see proposed is that they reduce Hammy to the point where straight forward skirmish tactics work against him, with the twin side effects that this can rob him of his unique playstyle and render his excessively vulnerable to people who know which tactics were already more effective.

Making Lure Malifaux Citizen into a spell is a good change that ups the difficulty of doing something without altering overall tactics.

Limiting the activations of the rat swarm, both in terms of the total number of individual attacks and the number of times the whole swarm can be killed off and reactivated is also good. But any change to the rats/Voracious rats and similar should recognise that an individual rat is shockingly easy to kill, a fact which has previously been offset by the fact that they operate as an immortal pack. If you make the pack too susceptible to attacks (by limiting rats which are killed in one of a variety of ways) then you need to consider whether you've just turned any AoE attack of your choice into an easy anti-Hammy weapon.

---------- Post added at 11:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:16 AM ----------

Random thought that just occurred to me as a variant for the whole rat swarm and Voracious Rats aura:

Change Voracious rats to the following:

Voracious Rats At the start of this model's turn, summon one Malifaux Rat completely within 6" of this model. When an enemy model within 6" of this model is killed, Summon one Malifaux Rat in base contact with the model before it is removed from play. The model does not generate Counters of any kind. No other models can be summoned as a result of the model being killed.

This adds a rat summoning aspect to the aura at the cost of not automatically summoning a new rat when an existing rat dies. Instead only enemy models provide new rats on death. The swarm keeps ticking over (and can be further enhances with Stolen, etc), but attacking individual rats is now useful.

Add the following to Malifaux Rats:

Endless Swarm This model ignores damage from Auras, Pulses and Blasts.

The aim here is to prevent an entire swarm from being wiped out by AoE. Individual rats are still easy to target and kill (which would otherwise make AoE an easy win).

Thoughts?

I'm still considering how best to make a swarm act as one unit. Watch this space for further suggestions.

---------- Post added at 12:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:39 AM ----------

Another update. Slightly amended the above proposals, and added some more. The language is a little clunky, especially around #3, but I hope this conveys the intent. It could probably use an independent review to ensure I've not overlooked a few obvious loopholes or abuses.

1) Amend Voracious Rats (aura on Hamelin and the Rat Catchers) as follows:

Voracious Rats At the start of this model's turn, Summon one Malifaux Rat completely within 6" of this model. When an enemy model within 6" of this model is killed, Summon one Malifuax Rat in base contact with the model before it is removed from play. The model does not generate Counters of any kind. No other models can be summoned as a result of a model within 6" of this model being killed.

This adds a rat summoning aspect to the aura at the cost of not automatically summoning a new rat when an existing rat dies. Instead, only enemy models provide new rats on death. The swarm keeps ticking over (and can be further enhanced with Stolen and overlapping auras if Hameling and a rat catcher or two are in close proximity) but attacking individual rats is now useful. This should also stop abuse of grow lists.

2) Add the following to Malifaux Rats:

Endless Swarm This model ignores damage from Auras, Pulses and Blasts.

The aim here is to prevent an entire swarm from being wiped out by AoE following the changes to Voracious Rats above.

3) Change Flock as follows:

Flock When activating this model, simultaneously activate all friendly Malifaux Rats within 4" than have not already activated this turn.

When this model Moves, you may push any friendly Malifaux Rats which activated with this model into base contact with this model or another friendly Malifaux Rat which activated with this model. If this model has already been Pushed into base contact with another friendly Malifaux Rat which activated with this model on this activation, this model may not take a Move action or be Pushed again on this activation.

When this model makes a melee attack, add +1 to the attack flip and +1 damage for each friendly Malifaux Rat that activated with this model and is currently within 4" of this model. If a Model which activated with this model has already made a melee attack and received +1 to attack flip and +1 damage in respect of this model on this activation, this model may not make a melee attack this activation.

This ensures that not only does the entire swarm activate together, but it also moves together and attacks together. Rather than resolving multiple small activations, movements and attacks, a swarm essentially takes one activation and makes only one attack. The swarm movement is optional to allow a swarm to split. The swarm attack is mandatory but localised so that if a swarm moves apart then both parts can make individual attacks (and don't provide support even if separated). There are some movement tricks which you can use, such as having rats move in a long line for added distance, but since this puts them beyond the range of the rest of the crew it carries its own risks.

4) Amend Slaughter Rats:

Slaughter Rats 6" Burst Reactivate any number of Malifaux Rats.

This works with the amended Flock rules above, allowing the swarm to activate twice as originally intended. Because a given model can only be Reactivated once per Turn, this limits the number of activations that a given swarm can get and prevents silliness with multiple Rat Catchers.

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I'm not disputing that he needs some fixing. I've voluntarily stopped playing him against my friends until the fixes happen and am happy to suggest some myself. I'm just keen to make sure that the distinction between "Hamelin is an unusual master who plays in a way which can catch people off guard" and "Hamelin is an overpowered master who has too many potent tricks to be easily beaten by anyone" is observed.

In practice he is currently both of those things, but the challenge is to fix the latter without losing the former. I think some people who have played against Hammy but not played with him don't see the chinks in his armour that are evident from his side of the table, largely because some of the more effective tactics against Hammy are counter intuitive, and many typical tactics are highly ineffective.

I completely agree with most of this but even knowing his tricks and having access to all of the released models, I still have substantial trouble consistently beating him (this is the main thing I want to see fixed, Hamelin is beatable but it is far from an even fight).

The danger in some of the fixes that I see proposed is that they reduce Hammy to the point where straight forward skirmish tactics work against him, with the twin side effects that this can rob him of his unique playstyle and render his excessively vulnerable to people who know which tactics were already more effective.

I completely agree with this, a lot of the "fixes" that come up for models are often recommended by players that had a very negative initial play experience and dont want to put the time in to figure out a counter. The "Fixes" are often excessively harsh and dont take into account the way the crew was intended to be played.

I am not saying that is the case here (as the OP has shown that he has researched the topic and has started by "standing on the shoulders of giants" so to speak).

Limiting the activations of the rat swarm, both in terms of the total number of individual attacks and the number of times the whole swarm can be killed off and reactivated is also good. But any change to the rats/Voracious rats and similar should recognise that an individual rat is shockingly easy to kill, a fact which has previously been offset by the fact that they operate as an immortal pack. If you make the pack too susceptible to attacks (by limiting rats which are killed in one of a variety of ways) then you need to consider whether you've just turned any AoE attack of your choice into an easy anti-Hammy weapon.

Completely agree with this, the problem with the Rats is balancing them without making them completely useless (or without addressing some of the other abuses they cause).

Random thought that just occurred to me as a variant for the whole rat swarm and Voracious Rats aura:

Change Voracious rats to the following:

Voracious Rats At the start of this model's turn, summon one Malifaux Rat completely within 6" of this model. When an enemy model within 6" of this model is killed, Summon one Malifaux Rat in base contact with the model before it is removed from play. The model does not generate Counters of any kind. No other models can be summoned as a result of the model being killed.

This adds a rat summoning aspect to the aura at the cost of not automatically summoning a new rat when an existing rat dies. Instead only enemy models provide new rats on death. The swarm keeps ticking over (and can be further enhances with Stolen, etc), but attacking individual rats is now useful.

Needs a lot of tweaking as is this could be abused even more than the current version. With this wording spending the first 2 turns hiding in the backfield wiould allow the flooding of the board with rats turn 3 (the wording sets up an exponential growth cycle for the Rats, i.e. Hire 5 Rats, Turn 1 you'll have 10, Turn 2 you'll have 20, Turn 3 you could have 40, etc). Fargile or not there isn't much that is going to counter that kind of free summoning.

I'm still considering how best to make a swarm act as one unit. Watch this space for further suggestions. Another update. Slightly amended the above proposals, and added some more. The language is a little clunky, especially around #3, but I hope this conveys the intent. It could probably use an independent review to ensure I've not overlooked a few obvious loopholes or abuses.

13) Change Flock as follows:

Flock When activating this model, simultaneously activate all friendly Malifaux Rats within 4" than have not already activated this turn.

When this model Moves, you may push any friendly Malifaux Rats which activated with this model into base contact with this model or another friendly Malifaux Rat which activated with this model. If this model has already been Pushed into base contact with another friendly Malifaux Rat which activated with this model on this activation, this model may not take a Move action or be Pushed again on this activation.

When this model makes a melee attack, add +1 to the attack flip and +1 damage for each friendly Malifaux Rat that activated with this model and is currently within 4" of this model. If a Model which activated with this model has already made a melee attack and received +1 to attack flip and +1 damage in respect of this model on this activation, this model may not make a melee attack this activation.

This ensures that not only does the entire swarm activate together, but it also moves together and attacks together. Rather than resolving multiple small activations, movements and attacks, a swarm essentially takes one activation and makes only one attack. The swarm movement is optional to allow a swarm to split. The swarm attack is mandatory but localised so that if a swarm moves apart then both parts can make individual attacks (and don't provide support even if separated). There are some movement tricks which you can use, such as having rats move in a long line for added distance, but since this puts them beyond the range of the rest of the crew it carries its own risks.

You'll need to change the wording from May to Must in order to do what your thinking. The may means that the Hamelin player will have substantially more control over what the swarm actually does than the current iteration because he has the choice of doing it or not. Also the wording for the attacking portion doesn't really function the way you are intending. As written it only limits each Rat to one strike per activation, not the entire swarm to one strike per simultaneous activation.

4) Amend Slaughter Rats:

Slaughter Rats 6" Burst Reactivate any number of Malifaux Rats.

This works with the amended Flock rules above, allowing the swarm to activate twice as originally intended. Because a given model can only be Reactivated once per Turn, this limits the number of activations that a given swarm can get and prevents silliness with multiple Rat Catchers.

This has a lot of potential but it still doesn't get at the main problem which is the creation of new rat swarms. Also to insure that the Rat Swarms are able to make the second Melee strike you may want to clarify the wording for the changed Flock rule above.

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Needs a lot of tweaking as is this could be abused even more than the current version. With this wording spending the first 2 turns hiding in the backfield wiould allow the flooding of the board with rats turn 3 (the wording sets up an exponential growth cycle for the Rats, i.e. Hire 5 Rats, Turn 1 you'll have 10, Turn 2 you'll have 20, Turn 3 you could have 40, etc). Fargile or not there isn't much that is going to counter that kind of free summoning.

You need to double check who has Voracious rats. It isn't on the Rats themselves, but an aura that Hamelin and the Rat Catchers use. That being the case, no more than three models can possess the aura at any given time, so you can add no more than three rats per turn.

You'll need to change the wording from May to Must in order to do what your thinking. The may means that the Hamelin player will have substantially more control over what the swarm actually does than the current iteration because he has the choice of doing it or not.

The choice of May over Must was deliberate. The aim to to allow a given swarm to split rather than mandating that it stay as one unit, although if you want to mandate a swarm to remain intact than changing to Must is appropriate.

I admit that I'm in two minds about that one myself, though (the first draft I wrote did have Must). What sort of abuses are available if the rat swarm can split?

Also the wording for the attacking portion doesn't really function the way you are intending. As written it only limits each Rat to one strike per activation, not the entire swarm to one strike per simultaneous activation.

I don't see that. Specifically the line "If a Model which activated with this model has already made a melee attack and received +1 to attack flip and +1 damage in respect of this model on this activation, this model may not make a melee attack this activation" is intended to prevent just that.

Please indicate where this doesn't work and suggest an alternative if possible. I admit that the flock text is very clunky and definitely needs some fine tuning, but hope that the intent is clear.

This has a lot of potential but it still doesn't get at the main problem which is the creation of new rat swarms. Also to insure that the Rat Swarms are able to make the second Melee strike you may want to clarify the wording for the changed Flock rule above.

What specific problem around the creation of new rat swarms? And also, which specific part of the wording for Flock? My aim with flock was to clearly limit attacks to once per activation rather than once per turn specifically to allow the amended Slaughter Rats to enable them to make a second swarm attack.

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You need to double check who has Voracious rats. It isn't on the Rats themselves, but an aura that Hamelin and the Rat Catchers use. That being the case, no more than three models can possess the aura at any given time, so you can add no more than three rats per turn.

Crackhead moment, however giving 1-3 free Rats per turn is still exceedingly generous since you dont have to do anything for them other than have models with Voracious Rats on the table. There isn't a material component for the summoning (Corpse, scrap counter or model death), there isn't a casting flip involved (so zero chance of failure) or even the expenditure of an AP to get them.

I can also see a potential abuse of the Rat Problem action (With only Hamelin on the board there is the real potential of recieving a "free" Rat Catcher on turn 3 and another plus a Rat on turn 5). A late game surge of models (after an opoonents crew has been whittled down) can be game winning in a lot of circumstances.

The choice of May over Must was deliberate. The aim to to allow a given swarm to split rather than mandating that it stay as one unit, although if you want to mandate a swarm to remain intact than changing to Must is appropriate.

I admit that I'm in two minds about that one myself, though (the first draft I wrote did have Must). What sort of abuses are available if the rat swarm can split?

I don't see that. Specifically the line "If a Model which activated with this model has already made a melee attack and received +1 to attack flip and +1 damage in respect of this model on this activation, this model may not make a melee attack this activation" is intended to prevent just that.

Please indicate where this doesn't work and suggest an alternative if possible. I admit that the flock text is very clunky and definitely needs some fine tuning, but hope that the intent is clear.

As written there are a few problems. The change replaces and invalidates a lot of current actions.

For example it essentially replaces Writhing Mass (with out incurring a Wd to use) but also makes it so that the Rats are limited to a single 5" Walk per activation (since any rat that participates in the swarm movement can't use Writhing Mass or perform a Walk action).

It enhances the melee potential of one strike but makes the rest of the rats in the swarm worthless for anything other than spaming Overrun by Vermin. The pay off for this one enhanced melee strike isn't worth it unless you can field the Rats in very large numbers.

A 2 Rat swarm (cost 4 SS) has one melee strike at Cb 5 with Damage potential of 2/3/3 and a Wk of 5

A 3 Rat Swarm (cost 6 SS) has one melee strike at Cb 6 with Damage potential of 3/4/4 and a Wk of 5

A 4 Rat Swarm (cost 8 SS) has a melee strike at Cb 7 with Damage potential of 4/5/5 and a Wk of 5

A 5 Rat Swarm (cost 10 SS) has a melee strike at Cb 8 with Damage potential of 5/6/6 and a Wk of 5

A larger swarm is really unrealistic since moving that slowly they are going to be slaughtered on the way in even with Tiny assisting with :ranged strikes.

Making the second enhanced melee strike with the swarm is difficult since you have to get a Rat Catcher in range for the use of Slaughter Rats and weather 2 of your opponents activations (1 following the Rat Swarm, and 1 following the Rat Catcher that gives them Reactivate) with very fragile Rats.

Even with some of those Rats potentially being "free" from the change to Voracious Rats there isn't much incentive in hiring them during crew building other than as expensive and fragile Armor for a Rat Catcher.

What it does encourage me to hire is a very non-fluffy list with lots of Terror Tot Nephlim (even without growing them they are awesome) and rely on Hamelin's Voracious Rats ability in game to summon the Rats and Rat Catchers for free as late game objective grabbers (after the Terror Tots have whittled down the oppositions crew).

As an alternative I would keep Voracious Rats essentially the way it is currently (adding a small previso that it doesn't trigger when a friendly model kills a Malifaux Rat to prevent the Terror Tot Grow shenanigans) and just change Slaughter Rats to reactivate vice killing them. Also I would move Flock from the Rats to the Rat Catcher, making the Swarm activate simultaneously with him to recieve his buffs. Add in a WP 15 duel for Bully (on Minion Hamelin as well) and shift Lure Malifaux Citizen to a spell (that is moderately easy to cast prior to his first death only, something like CC 14 possibly lower if it requires him to sacrifice a friendly model as well). These are rather subtle changes that bring him in line with the other crews without dramatically changing things.

Changing Flock or Voracious Rats to drastically will nuetter the vanilla crew un-necessarily without fixing other things suitably (like the Terror Tot list).

Edited by Omenbringer
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Thanks for the feedback. More is always welcome.

Giving 1-3 free Rats per turn is still exceedingly generous since you dont have to do anything for them other than have models with Voracious Rats on the table. There isn't a material component for the summoning (Corpse, scrap counter or model death), there isn't a casting flip involved (so zero chance of failure) or even the expenditure of an AP to get them.

It is definitely generous in the early few turns, but arguable no more so than having functionally immortal rats throughout the game under Voracious Rats as currently written. By Turn 3, the enemy crew should be in a position to kill at least one rat per activation, and in many cases 2 rats, without them returning. Against that, Hammy will be adding at most three rats from Voracious Rats (plus others from Stolen, etc, but since those are added under current rules as well it doesn't represent a change). I suppose the question is whether the ability to generate new rats freely is offset by giving the other player the ability to kill them, which he doesn't currently enjoy.

I can also see a potential abuse of the Rat Problem action (With only Hamelin on the board there is the real potential of recieving a "free" Rat Catcher on turn 3 and another plus a Rat on turn 5). A late game surge of models (after an opponents crew has been whittled down) can be game winning in a lot of circumstances.

That's definitely worth looking at as a potential problem area.

I'd still like to playtest the proposal, though. My initial counter consideration is that, in practice, under current rules it isn't difficult to add 'Catchers in play either. Stolen add to the rat swarm at the rate of at least one per Turn for free anyway, and nothing really diminishes the swarm once you have even one 'Catcher available, so churning out a spare 'Catcher when you can is pretty much a no-brainer, unless you prefer to have the extra bodies. 'Catchers remain Rare 2, though, so there is still a cap on numbers and under these changes a second 'Catcher isn't the same asset he is under current rules since a given swarm can only be reactivated once.

As written there are a few problems. The change replaces and invalidates a lot of current actions.

Some of that is intentional. I didn't specify it, but I would remove Writhing Mass entirely as redundant under my proposed changes. As an ability it is already hugely clunky and the constant micromanaging of the single Wound is a total PITA. There is remarkably little that, on hitting even a full health rat, doesn't inflict enough damage to kill it, so the Wd cost is really just a restricting on Writhing more than once before someone uses Slaughter Rats. That seems like a painfully slow way to manage a minor piece of book keeping, and I'm actually rather glad my proposed change avoids it.

I hadn't considered Overrun By Rats at all, that was definitely an oversight. You are right that my changes effectively force the remaining rats to spam the spell as their only valid option. I'm torn between thinking that it probably doesn't matter too much (it is currently an option anyway), and worrying that having every rat bar the one which moved and the one which attacked spamming the same spell is just going to take up the same time that I was hoping to save with the changes. Maybe reducing the range to 3" or even 2" so only nearby models can be targetting would keep the spell a viable threat but limit the number of viable targets at any one time? Any thoughts welcome.

The pay off for this one enhanced melee strike isn't worth it unless you can field the Rats in very large numbers.

A 2 Rat swarm (cost 4 SS) has one melee strike at Cb 5 with Damage potential of 2/3/3 and a Wk of 5

A 3 Rat Swarm (cost 6 SS) has one melee strike at Cb 6 with Damage potential of 3/4/4 and a Wk of 5

A 4 Rat Swarm (cost 8 SS) has a melee strike at Cb 7 with Damage potential of 4/5/5 and a Wk of 5

A 5 Rat Swarm (cost 10 SS) has a melee strike at Cb 8 with Damage potential of 5/6/6 and a Wk of 5

That's essentially the design intent, though. I want to reduce the ability of a swarm to chip away at models through multiple small attacks which bog the game down in endless flips and practically guarantee that some will eventually get through.

Broadly speaking I want a swarm to act like a single large model rather than a host of individual models. 10ss for a single model with Wk 5 and a Cb8 5/6/6 attack that has high durability (derived from constant additions to the swarm and the inability of high damage models to apply damage to more than a single component of the swarm at a time) seems benchmark reasonable. Damage reduces both CB and damage for the swarm, and in exchange it tends to last a while doing something.

If I were designing the rat swarm from scratch, I would be inclined to make one swarm a 50mm base with regen to represent the ever expanding mass, immunity to influence since you cannot target so many minds at once, and a few other thematic abilities. abilities such as Rat Problem could be a high CC spell rather than require the sacrifice of a given number of rats, and so on. But as it is we have the present administrative nightmare. A lot of my changes are really a way of taking a number of individual models and finding a way to make them function as a single unit.

A larger swarm is really unrealistic since moving that slowly they are going to be slaughtered on the way in even with Tiny assisting with :ranged strikes.

I agree, and this was generally intended. Combined with the free summons above, I see this as a way to balance the size of the swarm against casual fire while still leaving it vulnerable to a focused effort.

Making the second enhanced melee strike with the swarm is difficult since you have to get a Rat Catcher in range for the use of Slaughter Rats and weather 2 of your opponents activations (1 following the Rat Swarm, and 1 following the Rat Catcher that gives them Reactivate) with very fragile Rats.

Maybe amend the ability further and specify that the rats reactivate immediately after the 'Catcher?

Even with some of those Rats potentially being "free" from the change to Voracious Rats there isn't much incentive in hiring them during crew building other than as expensive and fragile Armor for a Rat Catcher.

What it does encourage me to hire is a very non-fluffy list with lots of Terror Tot Nephlim (even without growing them they are awesome) and rely on Hamelin's Voracious Rats ability in game to summon the Rats and Rat Catchers for free as late game objective grabbers (after the Terror Tots have whittled down the oppositions crew).

I'd have to see how that works in practice. If you don't hire any Rats or 'Catchers at the start then it'll be Turn 3 before Hammy alone has summoned enough Rats to create a 'Catcher (less those added by Stolen, but per above they already exist in current rules), or longer if he is using some of them as Terror Tot bait in early Turns. Without Rats, 'Catchers are considerably more vulnerable and less useful, so practically speaking Hammy is going to want at least a couple of Rats around as armour if the first Catcher appears on Turn 3 (by which point the enemy crew will be in range). And given that those Rats are themselves now vulnerable to enemy fire, the whole arrangement is less resilient.

Certainly there could be some advantage, but taking the changes together (i.e. considering that individual Rats now die easily) I don't see this as any worse than the sorts of things that many other masters can already do. Some masters gradually suffer depletion of their crews over time, but many end up with more models than they had to start.

As an aside, making Lure Malifaux Citizen a spell with a CC in the 13 range is a given.

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A silly suggestion, but how about this added rule,to Hamelin;

Hammy; At the start of the game, when you declare your crew, if your master is Hamelin, your opponent gets to kick you, once, in the balls. No cup is to be worn in anticipation of this. Play resumes as normal.

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A silly suggestion, but how about this added rule,to Hamelin;

Hammy; At the start of the game, when you declare your crew, if your master is Hamelin, your opponent gets to kick you, once, in the balls. No cup is to be worn in anticipation of this. Play resumes as normal.

Well that seems a bit excessive to me, how about a "Purple Nurple" instead?

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Really enjoying all the ideas bouncing around here, some great stuff that we may end up using for my brand new Hamelin crew (yeah I'm gonna be that guy)

I was just curious though, about why a Tot grow list is considered so tough? From my reading it doesn't seem any more favourable than a Lilith grow list, as they both esentially spend the first coupla turns wasting time and getting blood. Is a Lilith grow list conisdered equally nasty to play against, or is it simply the fact that Hamelin basicaly has access to an infinite supply of blood via a single rat?

Just curious is all ^^

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Hello, i read the whole thread and had an idea to keep Hamelin in his own playstyle but get him more in line (maybe). i'll test these out next week wednesday if my friend will let me, but i'll share to get your opinions as well. i changed nothing about the rats, as they are too delicate for me to try to fix at this point.

before writing up, i do realise this could become another sort of powerplay in his own right, but it's my first time doing something like this.

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Hamelin

Bully: This model cannot be targeted by Ht1 or Insignificant models, furthermore models who have one or more blight tokens must win a WP -> 14 duel or the action fails.

Nihilism: aura 12” friendly models, except for Vermin models, lose insignificant.

(1) Lure Malifaux Citizen: (CC: 13 / Rst: - / Rg: -) Summon one The Stolen. This action may be taken only once per turn per crew.

Cb (mask mask) Haunting Melody (Pipes): after resolving this Weapon’s Damage Flip, the defender model must win a WP -> this model’s combat total or gain a Blight Counter.

(1) Understand The Soulless: (CC: 12 mask / Rst: Wp / Rg: 12) Sacrifice a friendly model within 6”. Target model receives a Blight Counter.

Obedient Wretch / The Stolen

(all) Abandon: (CC: 10 / Rst: Wp / Rg: 6): Target Model receives a Blight Counter.

Nix

Nihilism: aura 8” friendly models, except for Vermin models, lose insignificant.

Rat Catcher

Ruffian: Ht1, Harmless, Pityful, Insignificant and enemy models with one or more Blight Counters must win a WP -> 13 Dual or the Action fails.

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Hello, i read the whole thread and had an idea to keep Hamelin in his own playstyle but get him more in line (maybe).

Nihilism: aura 12” friendly models, except for Vermin models, lose insignificant.

If you want the traditional Hammy list with rats to remain viable then you need to consider where his significant models are coming from. That change to Nihilism means that only his stolen can achieve objectives as both rats and catchers are Insignificant and Vermin. Was that intentional?

Reducing the range to 12" should be fine, though.

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Maybe it is just the crews I play (Colette, Ramos, Levi, and Hamlin) but I have never had a problem with Hamlin (after the change to rat catchers wounds.) He straight up loses some match ups and strategies (Pandora, Seamus, Kirai, Slaughter). I feel he is a noob-stomper because once you know how to play against him you can beat him. And now that avatars are out almost every crew has the tools to deal with him (going avatar will end insignificant).

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Hello, i read the whole thread and had an idea to keep Hamelin in his own playstyle but get him more in line (maybe). i'll test these out next week wednesday if my friend will let me, but i'll share to get your opinions as well. i changed nothing about the rats, as they are too delicate for me to try to fix at this point.

before writing up, i do realise this could become another sort of powerplay in his own right, but it's my first time doing something like this.

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Hamelin

Bully: This model cannot be targeted by Ht1 or Insignificant models, furthermore models who have one or more blight tokens must win a WP -> 14 duel or the action fails.

Nihilism: aura 12” friendly models, except for Vermin models, lose insignificant.

(1) Lure Malifaux Citizen: (CC: 13 / Rst: - / Rg: -) Summon one The Stolen. This action may be taken only once per turn per crew.

Cb (mask mask) Haunting Melody (Pipes): after resolving this Weapon’s Damage Flip, the defender model must win a WP -> this model’s combat total or gain a Blight Counter.

(1) Understand The Soulless: (CC: 12 mask / Rst: Wp / Rg: 12) Sacrifice a friendly model within 6”. Target model receives a Blight Counter.

Obedient Wretch / The Stolen

(all) Abandon: (CC: 10 / Rst: Wp / Rg: 6): Target Model receives a Blight Counter.

Nix

Nihilism: aura 8” friendly models, except for Vermin models, lose insignificant.

Rat Catcher

Ruffian: Ht1, Harmless, Pityful, Insignificant and enemy models with one or more Blight Counters must win a WP -> 13 Dual or the Action fails.

I was going to argue with you until I realized that your Blight Counter change would work ridiculously well.

To deal with Rats, in addition to those changes that you mentioned, I'd tack on the requirement for Hamelin to discard a card when he summons a rat from enemy models.

Meaning the Rats retain their core power and mobility, but in order to overwhelm his foes, he must deplete his hand.

Keeping the Void in mind, I believe that this would be a very unique interaction within the crew.

The only argument I would make against your changes, is that (All)Abandon should still apply insignificant.

Simply because it gives a dichotomy to the Stolen outside of "Stand there so if I f*ck up Hamelin comes back."

But other than that, I believe reducing the range on Nihilism, changing the bully mechanic, and reducing the amount of methods Hamelin has to instaban targeting, you're on to something.

Well done, +1 for you.

EDIT: Oh, and I also believe that Rats in range of Nihilism should be capable of becoming Significant.

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...before writing up, i do realise this could become another sort of powerplay in his own right, but it's my first time doing something like this...

Bully: This model cannot be targeted by Ht1 or Insignificant models, furthermore models who have one or more blight tokens must win a WP -> 14 duel or the action fails.

This change actually make the ability stronger not weaker since it gives a method of getting around things like Shrug Off as you wont be able to drop both the Blight Counter and Insignificant trait with a successful casting (unless you can manage to throw two :rams suits with the casting, i.e. :rams :rams not 2 :rams).

The change to Ruffian though might work since it ties the ability to the blight tokens, however the vanilla crew Hamelin crew isn't going to have many problems throwing those around (since virtually the entire crew can pass them out easily enough). It will effect non-vanilla crews very well though.

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You remind me of this other guy I knew on the forums! I miss that guy.

This seems like an interesting change to Hamelin! I think I'm still going to keep working on the changes I know, but these look interesting.

I guess one thing to note is: My local meta is quite casual. Several players have only one box set. We have an achievement league, but haven't had any tournaments. We get a lot of new players and want them to have a good time too. In our environment? Hamelin breaks things.

I was going to argue with you until I realized that your Blight Counter change would work ridiculously well.

To deal with Rats, in addition to those changes that you mentioned, I'd tack on the requirement for Hamelin to discard a card when he summons a rat from enemy models.

Meaning the Rats retain their core power and mobility, but in order to overwhelm his foes, he must deplete his hand.

Keeping the Void in mind, I believe that this would be a very unique interaction within the crew.

The only argument I would make against your changes, is that (All)Abandon should still apply insignificant.

Simply because it gives a dichotomy to the Stolen outside of "Stand there so if I f*ck up Hamelin comes back."

But other than that, I believe reducing the range on Nihilism, changing the bully mechanic, and reducing the amount of methods Hamelin has to instaban targeting, you're on to something.

Well done, +1 for you.

EDIT: Oh, and I also believe that Rats in range of Nihilism should be capable of becoming Significant.

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This seems like an interesting change to Hamelin! I think I'm still going to keep working on the changes I know, but these look interesting.

How does the recommended change to Bully do anything other than make the ability work better than it already does?

The suggested change to Ruffian I do like but having it move to Bully as well, will introduce another problem. What do we do with minion Hamelin who also has the ability but doesn't really have a way to pass out Blight counters?

Edited by Omenbringer
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How does the recommended change to Bully do anything other than make the ability work better than it already does?

Far as I can tell, it doesn't. The other parts do.

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:20 PM ----------

Keep missing him for a bit.

Nerd raging and making an ass one oneself and then creating another account so you can participate again isn't going to happen.

Oops, yeah. I guess I was hoping he'd talked to you before bringing in a new account again.

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How does the recommended change to Bully do anything other than make the ability work better than it already does?

The suggested change to Ruffian I do like but having it move to Bully as well, will introduce another problem. What do we do with minion Hamelin who also has the ability but doesn't really have a way to pass out Blight counters?

in my rules (as best as i tried) the crew itself doesn't hand out insignificant anymore, but we can still scratch the insignificant out of it. the rules i wrote up were just my thoughts. the Bully rule i wrote was just to keep a bit of his "normal model" and "rules as they are now" flavour in. i just tried to get "insignificant king" hamelin to a more unique "blight counter" hamelin, as he is the only one that uses it.

edit: sorry, didn't read the part about normal hamelin right. yes that would form a problem, but we can rename it for master Hamelin, it's not like it's the same wording on that card as we speak either.

Edited by Loen-Y
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edit: sorry, didn't read the part about normal hamelin right. yes that would form a problem, but we can rename it for master Hamelin, it's not like it's the same wording on that card as we speak either.

I did find it rather interesting that the new 1.5 Malifaux book does have a different wording for Bully than the one on Master Hamelin from Rising Powers.

I am guardedly optmistic about it (there is always the possibility it was just an omission). It could help a lot of crews however still doesn't address the Gremlin problem (though makes Lenny and the Warpig a lot more valuable against him).

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