Jump to content

Proposed Hamelin Nerfs


Hateful Darkblack

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 113
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

No one ran Hamelin at Gencon. Malifaux remains a gentleman's game.

Or they knew going in that there would not be enough time to deal with 9.84321234871354894321^12 rat activations within the round time limits. :Hiding_Puppet:

Edited by Korrosion
to add the correct tag for the puppet
Link to comment
Share on other sites

walruspride, thanks for chiming in.

Here's why I put this thread up: I want to play Hamelin. I'm trying to put together a good set of house rules for how to do that at my friendly local gaming shop because many of the players there (myself included, after testing) think he's too powerful.

I'd like to make those rules work well, and I'd like to playtest them until they do. I want rules that make him still have the same play style, but not overrun other players and make a negative player experience.

So I'm putting up specific rules for ways I want to try that. And taking advice. And playtesting those rules.

You're welcome to do whatever you like in your games, but meanwhile, I'm going to keep playtesting rules changes.

Cheers!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I support you finding out the best changes for hammy.

Ive played him a few though im not as good as others on here with him by any means.

The only changes i have ever thought of would be to change:

1 understand the souless so you cant target masters

2 haunting melody trigger to do the same

3 stolen all action shouldnt be able to either

Can you spot the trend?

Thats a start n pretty easy fix i know that there is alot of complaints about him and ive had my fair share but

models like levi just kills them which for the most part you just watch a model with full wounds die. Another is zoraida she is probably the most annoying to me takes all your threngths and turns them against you. After hammy whos next lol there are others just as annoying.

I do hope we find something for its just not going to be an easy fix.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Understood

I remember my first game againt him as a newb went 5 rounds with my oponent just toying with me before he tabled me on round 6. But that loss made me a better kirai player in the end after that game i went and found out everthing i was doing wrong.

I can relate to a friendly change for your local players im just not sure if i agree on a decisive change.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
I just started Malifaux and bought the Hamlin gang.TedPro, do you work for Wyrd,all this talk of changes is just talk right?

Oops, just realized I never answered this. I do not work for Wyrd or anything. I'm not even a Henchman. Just a fan. I'm just playtesting house rules for my local meta.

---------- Post added at 10:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 PM ----------

Next set of changes I want to try out:

1. Make Lure Malifaux Citizen a Spell with CC13, once per crew per turn, can't be cast through Magical Extension.

2. Make Bully require a Wp -> 13 duel to target, instead of impossible.

3. Make the Malifaux Rats appear in the same spot as a killed model rather than B2B.

4. Summoning a new Malifaux Rat requires you discard one card for each Malifaux Rat you want to bring back. But you can choose not to do it.

5. Change Obedience and the Pipes' obey-like effect so that they can't make a model destroy itself, similar to limitations on Obey.

#4 is the big change. I'll playtest when I have free time, and post batreps when I do.

Edited by Hateful Darkblack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, #4 would be huge - possibly to the extent that it might require some other mechanic for Hamelin to draw cards in order to stay viable. Keep us posted on how your playtests go!

Will do! Hamelin generally gets really good card flow, from what I've seen, unless his opponent is absolutely refusing to play cards, in which case Hamelin gets a card a round from Obedient Wretch and the opponent isn't cheating, which is a big advantage for Hamelin too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Will do! Hamelin generally gets really good card flow, from what I've seen, unless his opponent is absolutely refusing to play cards, in which case Hamelin gets a card a round from Obedient Wretch and the opponent isn't cheating, which is a big advantage for Hamelin too.

My regular opponent got very wise to Hamelin's draw mechanic very quickly, only ever cheating when there were low cards on the top of my discard pile (or when absolutely necessary, of course). When your opponent is unfamiliar with it, it feels amazingly powerful, but once they get used to keeping it in mind, I found it was very easy to get starved for good cards. I actually find that's one of the main reasons why there's such a divide between players screaming "Nerf Hamelin, OP" and others saying "He's really not that bad once you know how."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Okay, now that the Story Encounter contest is done and I have more playtesting time for other stuff, I am going to do some more testing of these.

I never got a chance to try the last set of house rules, but here's the new set I want to try, which I think will work better:

Next set of changes I want to try out (these are all the changes involved):

1. Indiscriminate Void: Add "This ability can be used once per turn per Crew."

2. Bully: Replace "cannot target this model" with "must make a Wp->13 duel to target this model or the action fails."

3. Voracious Rats: "Use when an action kills any number of models within 6" of this model, immediately after the action resolves completely. You may discard one Control Card to place a new Malifaux Rat completely within the base of each of those models, and remove all Corpse and Scrap Counters generated when those models were killed."

4. Obedience: Add "The Action selected may not cause the model to be killed or sacrificed as part of the action."

5. Pipes: Add "The Action selected may not cause the model to be killed or sacrificed as part of the action."

I'll post results when I've tried these!

Edited by Hateful Darkblack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Played this last set of rules once yesterday and it was really fun. It still feels like Hamelin, just not as easy, and much faster.

I played against my sweetie Becca.

Me:

Contain Power, Steal Relic (announced), Stake a Claim (announced)

Hamelin

Obedient Wretch

Nix

The Stolen

Rat Catcher x 2

Malifaux Rat x 3

2 soulstones

Becca;

Destroy the Evidence, Bodyguard (announced), Grudge (not announced)

Kirai

Lost Love

Seishin x 5

Datsue-Ba

Shikome

6 soulstones

Gremlin Village with Creepy Structure

Turn One:

Becca declared one the Rat-Catchers as the Shikome target. (The same as her Grudge target, which I'd kind of guessed even though it wasn't announced.)

Becca advanced the Shikome and Datsue-Ba along one side, and had Kirai summon Ikiryo and a Gaki, cheating twice which gave me more cards. Tried to have Lost Love make Kirai a Spirit but it didn't work.

I advanced up my rats and rat catchers to the Creepy Structure, and had the rats start interacting with it: gained two Soulstones and lost a rat, but just discarded a card to get a new one. Destroyed all rats to advance them up twice, which was actually not a good idea since I didn't need to do so and cards were kind of sparse due to modified Voracious Rats, but at the time I had a lot of cards to spare.

Toward the end, I moved Hamelin up, brought out a Stolen and had it use Abandon against the Shikome, but that didn't work because Becca just discarded two lower cards. The Obedient Wretch drew a card and struggled to catch up. Lost Love healed Kirai.

I ended the turn with 6 cards, so didn't need to discard. That brought out another Rat, of course.

Turn Two:

I actually had trouble getting my rats around the creepy structure, since it was in the way and surrounded by forests, so I swarmed it a little bit, and brought Nix through it and past it.

Hamelin summoned another Stolen, and cast Understand the Soulless (spending a Soulstone) to make the Shikome Insignificant. The Shikome didn't much card and rushed down the map to a Rat-Catcher, who was starting to get left behind.

The Gaki sacrificed one Rat, and then the other rats wounded the Gaki. Datseu-Ba killed a rat -- I spawned a new Rat, but Datsue-Ba also got to make a new Gaki out of it. (Since the new version of Voracious Rats doesn't stop other models from being summoned by the death of a Rat.)

Nix attacked the Gaki and wounded it. Kirai made a Rat into Spirit Food then moved forward. The Obedient Wretch discarded a card and struggled to catch up.

The Ikiryo moved up and killed the Spirit Food Malifaux Rat and made another Gaki, which then sacrificed another Malifaux Rat.

Lost Love moved up. When I had free cycles, I had the Rats get more Soulstones from the Creepy structure. I ended the turn with only three cards this turn.

Turn Three

Hamelin Obedienced the Datsue-Ba to charge a Gaki, and almost got the trigger off to cast Weigh Sins as well (which would have been hilarious since I would have gotten a Gaki on my side!), but the Datsue-Ba cheated to defend, giving me more cards. Then Hamelin hit the Datsue-Ba with Pipes and cheated to Severe, and forced Datsue-Ba to charge the Gaki, but I missed.

Datsue-Ba stabbed and killed three Rats with her special (2) action. I didn't bring them back because I was running low on cards - I wish I had kept them around more.

Datsue-Ba turned another of my Malifaux Rats into a Gaki, and I wasted a card bringing the Rat back, which was dumb of me since Datsue-Ba just brought cast Weigh Sins again and made another Gaki. I moved up a Rat-Catcher. The Shikome killed my Rat-Catcher. The Obedient Wretch moved the Shikome to her with Inevitable Lure, but got 0 damage on the 0/3/6 damage flip unfortunately. My other Rat-Catcher killed the Shikome with his Iron Trap trigger on a melee attack, though.

Lost Love made Kirai a Spirit permanently. Kirai swirled spirits to move herself next to a destroy evidence counter, then swirled the Ikiryo into place right next to it. The Ikiryo destroyed the evidence.

Nix tried to charge Kirai but failed.

A Gaki lunged around toward the evidence counter and got rid of it.

At this point, I had very few cards. I think one.

Turn Four:

Nix moved up and killed Datsue-Ba.

I moved my rats to kill another Gaki.

Hamelin moved up, tried to get in range to attack Kirai with spells, but couldn't. The Ikiryo destroyed the evidence. I moved my Obedient Wretch up to try to attack Kirai with spells, but I failed the spell. (And it turns out it wouldn't have worked anyway, since I tried to cast Obedience, but that doesn't affect Masters of course.)

The Gaki that got the Destroy Evidence ran up to the other one. Kirai swirled spirits, then used In the Spirit World to zip up to the Gaki and destroy the last evidence.

At this point it became clear: My models couldn't catch up with Kirai, who could teleport around the board wherever she wanted.

I still had Nix, an Obedience Wretch, a Rat-Catcher and a few Rats. Kirai had Gaki, Ikiryo, Lost Love and some Seishin. I suggested we end there -- that Kirai had finished her goals, and I couldn't manage Contain Power or Steal Relic, but would have easily gotten Stake a Claim since I had plenty of models in the area.

In all, Kirai got all her strategies and schemes, and got 7VP. I only got one Scheme (in theory) and got 2VP.

Conclusion:

Kirai is really fast: she's hard to kill with Contain Power, and has no trouble with Destroy the Evidence.

The changes to Hamelin were fun. The Crews felt about evenly matched. I got some really good kills in, and Hamelin was very scary with his many magical powers, but I couldn't move fast enough to catch up with Kirai.

My opponent did really well denying me cards, and I used them too freely. Cards felt very scarce for Hamelin, and the rats felt like less of a sure thing. Becca said that, because cards were so useful for Hamelin, it felt like a harder decision whether or not to cheat at any time, since cheating meant a resurrecting Rat.

The Rats still kept coming, and I could always make new ones from Stolen, but individual rats were often not worth saving. I found something wonderful, though: I was using Rat-Catchers to fight, and all of Nix's crazy abilities suddenly mattered more. I couldn't just solve problems with infinite rats, and Becca could slow me down (rather than speed me up) by killing rats.

Hamelin still felt very strong, just not unstoppable. He still felt like Hamelin, and his Crew felt like a Hamelin Crew. Maybe even more so, since other abilities came up a lot more often once I couldn't solve every problem with an ever-growing horde of unkillable Rats.

I don't know if these house rules were too much of a reduction or not. Hamelin felt powerful and fun to play, but not unstoppable, and I had to manage my resources a lot more and often had to hide or defend my rat swarm a little more. Swarming Rats were still offensively nasty and dangerous, just not so broken.

I think someone attacked Hamelin once, but I don't remember who and it was pretty clear that Hamelin was still really hard to hurt.

Honestly, I really like this set of house rules and I want to try them some more. The only change I think I'd want to make, based on this, would be to make Bully have the same rules as the Rat-Catcher's "Ruffian" because it just seems simpler that way. Maybe give him another mechanic for pulling a few more cards -- like perhaps letting Obedient Wretch draw more. Or maybe if a Malifaux Rat dies and is not brought back, Hamelin gets to draw a card.

I will try again a few more times and report back results.

Honestly, if these keep working out they way they did this time, I'm probably going to buy a Hamelin Crew of my own and start playing them with people who are willing to let me use these House Rules, because he's a lot more fun to play this way.

---------- Post added at 04:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 AM ----------

(I will probably ask Becca to read this and will post corrections if I got anything wrong. Some of this might be misremembered or slightly off.)

Edited by Hateful Darkblack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Following this with interest. I have a Hamelin crew which is waiting for rebalancing so I can play him again.

Becca advanced the Shikome and Datsue-Ba along one side, and had Kirai summon Ikiryo and a Gaki, cheating twice which gave me more cards.

Does this work in turn 1? Hamelin starts with a full hand, and the The Void starts with the words...'Beginning with the second turn...'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Following this with interest. I have a Hamelin crew which is waiting for rebalancing so I can play him again.

Does this work in turn 1? Hamelin starts with a full hand, and the The Void starts with the words...'Beginning with the second turn...'

I am pretty sure it does. The first sentence says you don't draw until turn 2. The next sentence says, "Each turn, nominate an opponent...." and the card-drawing goes from there.

Am I wrong? I'm sorry if I'm wrong.

---------- Post added at 01:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:26 PM ----------

Lost Love cannot permanently make a master a spirit. The fastest way to make Kirai a spirit that is not based on her 0 spell is to kill kirai and have the Lost Love revive her.

Oh gosh! I don't know. I will ask about that. I could have gotten that wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, next time, I'm going to try this:

1. Indiscriminate Void: Add "This ability can be used once per turn per Crew."

2. Bully: Replace with Ruffian.

3. Voracious Rats: "Use when an action kills any number of models within 6" of this model, immediately after the action resolves completely. You may discard one Control Card to place a new Malifaux Rat completely within the base of each of those models, and remove all Corpse and Scrap Counters generated when those models were killed."

4. Obedience: Add "The Action selected may not cause the model to be killed or sacrificed as part of the action."

5. Pipes: Add "The Action selected may not cause the model to be killed or sacrificed as part of the action."

6. Blind Dedication: Give this action to The Stolen. (The Obedient Wretch has it currently.)

I'll post results when I've tried these!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds interesting. #4 and #5 seem like no-brainers. I don't really get #1 - Indiscriminate Void happens in the Closing Phase, so it can't happen more than once per turn anyway. #2 seems like a big change, and would probably encourage the Hamelin crew to focus on killing rather than making the enemy Insignificant.

I'm most interested in the combination of #3 and #6, though - it forces the Hamelin player to make some hard decisions, but gives them a way to mitigate some of the damage to their hand. I do suspect that it will give the crew a huge weakness to things that have both Wicked and Terrifying (Chompy Bits, Avatar Seamus etc) so it would be good to see how it plays out against those opponents.

Looking forward to the results!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, Kadeton! Yeah, #1 doesn't seem to come up much, even now. Maybe with a few playtests it might.

I'll try mre and post batreps, of course. So far, it does seem like there's more choices to make and less certainty that the rats will just take care of everything and Hamelin will just make things Insignificant in his spare time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information