Gencon Masters Tournament Predictions

[Nyarlanthotep]

I personally prefer 30ss for tournaments. I feel that there is a tiny bit more skill necessary at 30ss as you have to make tough choices. You can't quite get in that uber-combo while having all the points you need for your SS pool and having grunts, objective grabbers. So something has to give.

At 35ss I find you can normally get everything you need and then have a few SS to spare.

[Fetid Strumpet]

With certain masters. Low SS masters struggle the lower the point totals.

[DarcXON]

With certain masters. Low SS masters struggle the lower the point totals.

Which is why we consider most high cache masters as Tourney worthy. I still believe that 30 SS force too many masters into not being used.

[Gruesome]

Which is why we consider most high cache masters as Tourney worthy. I still believe that 30 SS force too many masters into not being used.

Adepticon was 30SS. I was one of two Nicodems at Adepticon this year and there were easily 5 Seamuses(Seamii?) between the two qualifiers. Plenty of McMournings to go around(but he has a nice cache...) and one or two Kirai as I recall.

I faced a Ramos, Rasputina, Sonnia and something else I do not remember right now...

I'd be interested in knowing the master breakdown there vs. the prior year at 35, or Gencon at 35.

What masters do you believe would not be used at 30SS? Anything with a low SS cache? I believe the finals were Hamelin vs. Viktorias, which would be 0 vs. 0. So there appears to be some players that figured out the "low soulstone cache at 30SS problem".

Edited August 27, 2012 by Gruesome

[Forar]

I suppose it's impossible to account for with all the variables in terrain, crew composition, player skill/experience, schemes/strats, available time, deployment, etc, but I'd always assumed the starting cache was supposed to be balanced at least at some level based on master power / necessity of stones for them to do their thing.

Is this entirely unfounded? To be fair, it's an assumption based on similar game mechanics I've seen elsewhere, but don't recall reading anything of the sort in one of the Malifaux rule books. In some past tournament reports I've read the Outcasts have held up well, as Gruesome noted, so surely a starting cache of 0 isn't so devastating an entire faction was out of the running.

Well, until we found our new Neverborn overlords, of course. (I kid, I kid)

[Gruesome]

zerg op!

Wait... no... I meant the purple ones...

[Fetid Strumpet]

That's what I thought too originally. That the Cache size functioned as a balance mechanism. The more powerful the master the lower the cache size. I personally belive there is a little of that, but the final cache sizes got influenced much more by fluff than balance.

In my opinion, and experience, the Outcasts are a special case, as in most cases they have a number of exceptionally powerful, generally rule breaking abilities (at least as of the first book). That isn't to say that they couldn't perhaps be tweaked. However, fluff is one of the things that influenced cache size, and I personally feel that during the initial design of the game the true power of SS in the game wasn't clearly understood (How could it be, they were building a game from scratch). Otherwise I think you'd have a hard time arguing why game balance wise it's fair that Seamus and Ramos have Caches of 2 while Pandora and Zoraida have Caches of 5. It is certainly a factor of why the NB do so well, as until the release of Mr. Lynch the lowest cache any NB master had was 4, and most had effectively 5.

Look at McMorning. Certainly he, himself, is a solid master, but what, in my opinion, is one of the key things that makes him a really soild choice is his cache size. With the monster cache he beings with he can bring almost the full SS allotment of minions, and also start the game with 8 stones. SS become gold anytime a master has to directly interact with enemy models whether as attacker or defender. Even more importantly, if the opposing master has greater access to stones than yours does you are at a serve disadvantage to affect or defend against the opposing master. Cache size really dominos into so many other things it really deserves a thread of its own for those desiring to talk about it.

[DarcXON]

Adepticon was 30SS. I was one of two Nicodems at Adepticon this year and there were easily 5 Seamuses(Seamii?) between the two qualifiers. Plenty of McMournings to go around(but he has a nice cache...) and one or two Kirai as I recall.

I faced a Ramos, Rasputina, Sonnia and something else I do not remember right now...

I'd be interested in knowing the master breakdown there vs. the prior year at 35, or Gencon at 35.

What masters do you believe would not be used at 30SS? Anything with a low SS cache? I believe the finals were Hamelin vs. Viktorias, which would be 0 vs. 0. So there appears to be some players that figured out the "low soulstone cache at 30SS problem".

I think I wasn't very clear so I apologize. I made two different statements but didn't expand on them so it left it to assume I meant both were relative to each other.

I think the Cache size affects the decision of which master is Tourney worthy too strongly. End of first statement.

At different level games people can bring different combos that will be hard to stop, thanks to the lack of flexibility. Especially in this game since people don't usually know what to expect. The main strength of the Neverborn is that you can use any of the masters for any of the strategies without feeling hamstrung. I feel that Outcast rely on hoping you don't have a hard counter to their lists but since they have very specialized duties, they usually excel at their jobs if you don't. End of second statement.

Sorry

[Wulfen]

What masters do you believe would not be used at 30SS? Anything with a low SS cache? I believe the finals were Hamelin vs. Viktorias, which would be 0 vs. 0. So there appears to be some players that figured out the "low soulstone cache at 30SS problem".

How many players in the 25SS qualifiers at GenCon used Levi? Hoffman? Serious question, what masters were not seen at all the whole weekend, or only at the larger SS sizes?

[Gruesome]

I think I wasn't very clear so I apologize. I made two different statements but didn't expand on them so it left it to assume I meant both were relative to each other.

I think the Cache size affects the decision of which master is Tourney worthy too strongly. End of first statement.

Now I see.

The main strength of the Neverborn is that you can use any of the masters for any of the strategies without feeling hamstrung.

I agree 100%.

But, it also feels like the more points they are allowed to bring, the more they can cover themselves against any tricks that my rezzers can bring to the table. I do not mean that to sound like I believe in any way that its some sort of automatic loss, just that its proportionally more difficult. (Also not trying to be "the whining rezzer" here, just framing this from my perspective)

But I will grant that even down to 25SS lists, that the twins make a 14 point block of model that is tough to match in utility for the points, so its sort of rough at any level. But at least at lower points, if they take the twins and maybe tuco, they are not necessarily getting to fill out their lists with as many stitched and other "mess with my head" models as they do at higher levels.

Edited August 27, 2012 by Gruesome

[rancor709]

That's what I thought too originally. That the Cache size functioned as a balance mechanism. The more powerful the master the lower the cache size. I personally belive there is a little of that, but the final cache sizes got influenced much more by fluff than balance.

In my opinion, and experience, the Outcasts are a special case, as in most cases they have a number of exceptionally powerful, generally rule breaking abilities (at least as of the first book). That isn't to say that they couldn't perhaps be tweaked. However, fluff is one of the things that influenced cache size, and I personally feel that during the initial design of the game the true power of SS in the game wasn't clearly understood (How could it be, they were building a game from scratch). Otherwise I think you'd have a hard time arguing why game balance wise it's fair that Seamus and Ramos have Caches of 2 while Pandora and Zoraida have Caches of 5. It is certainly a factor of why the NB do so well, as until the release of Mr. Lynch the lowest cache any NB master had was 4, and most had effectively 5.

Look at McMorning. Certainly he, himself, is a solid master, but what, in my opinion, is one of the key things that makes him a really soild choice is his cache size. With the monster cache he beings with he can bring almost the full SS allotment of minions, and also start the game with 8 stones. SS become gold anytime a master has to directly interact with enemy models whether as attacker or defender. Even more importantly, if the opposing master has greater access to stones than yours does you are at a serve disadvantage to affect or defend against the opposing master. Cache size really dominos into so many other things it really deserves a thread of its own for those desiring to talk about it.

That would be a discussion id like to have in terms of starting caches. Mcmourning is excellent but add in his 6 stones and he is stupid strong

[DarcXON]

That would be a discussion id like to have in terms of starting caches. Mcmourning is excellent but add in his 6 stones and he is stupid strong

Yes, in as far as I can tell with my knowledge of game balance, the cache was based on Fluff and what they would "need" for their abilities. I believe the main reason McMourning got six is because they expected him to get body parts from them. Again assuming that people would want to have body parts early and then did not expect anyone would attack their own models for body parts. Easy mistake to make when you consider how hard it is to play test so many models.

But, it also feels like the more points they are allowed to bring, the more they can cover themselves against any tricks that my rezzers can bring to the table. I do not mean that to sound like I believe in any way that its some sort of automatic loss, just that its proportionally more difficult. (Also not trying to be "the whining rezzer" here, just framing this from my perspective)

Agreed, and the worst thing is the fact that it is so subtle to the Neverborn players that it's hard to explain it to them.

But I will grant that even down to 25SS lists, that the twins make a 14 point block of model that is tough to match in utility for the points, so its sort of rough at any level. But at least at lower points, if they take the twins and maybe tuco, they are not necessarily getting to fill out their lists with as many stitched and other "mess with my head" models as they do at higher levels

Also agreed.

[Korrosion]

But I will grant that even down to 25SS lists, that the twins make a 14 point block of model that is tough to match in utility for the points, so its sort of rough at any level. But at least at lower points, if they take the triplets, they are not necessarily getting to fill out their lists with as many stitched and other "mess with my head" models as they do at higher levels.

Fixed it for you.

I think I enjoy the 25ss games as much as or more then the 35ss games because the number of models I can bring is so much more limited. I really have to plan for the Strategy/Schemes and care less about killing the opponents models. I think that defense/summoning/crew resilience become more important as the game size becomes smaller.

[Forar]

It's funny, but I agree about leaning towards smaller cap games myself. They're easier to get done more quickly, and I find I have to make much harder choices in what I bring to the table. My SS cache is often under the cap, and it becomes a challenge to get everything I want in terms of support and striking power at the same time.

But as noted before, I also generally play guild, so my bread and butter are 4-7 ss apiece (aside from Hoffman's ride, of course), whereas crews that rely on one or even more 9-14+ ss figures obviously feel that 5-10 reduction a lot.

Especially when there's a non-zero risk one of your local outcasts will field Ashes & Dust, a Desolation Engine and Jack Daw or Rusty Alyce at the same time. O.O (not that such a combo is unstopable, but any conversation that begins with "just so we're all friends at the end..." is clearly going downhill fast).

Sure it's easy to out-activate them, but it's a cluster-...shenanigans trying to do anything but throw meat into the grinder.

Edited August 27, 2012 by Forar

[Korrosion]

It's funny, but I agree about leaning towards smaller cap games myself. They're easier to get done more quickly, and I find I have to make much harder choices in what I bring to the table. My SS cache is often under the cap, and it becomes a challenge to get everything I want in terms of support and striking power at the same time.

But as noted before, I also generally play guild, so my bread and butter are 4-7 ss apiece (aside from Hoffman's ride, of course), whereas crews that rely on one or even more 9-14+ ss figures obviously feel that 5-10 reduction a lot.

Especially when there's a non-zero risk one of your local outcasts will field Ashes & Dust, a Desolation Engine and Jack Daw or Rusty Alyce at the same time. O.O (not that such a combo is unstopable, but any conversation that begins with "just so we're all friends at the end..." is clearly going downhill fast).

Sure it's easy to out-activate them, but it's a cluster-...shenanigans trying to do anything but throw meat into the grinder.

To be fair (slightly) Ashes and Dust can account for 5 activations. 2 as the core/dust 1 as A&D and 2 more as core/dust. It is one model that is defiinately worth it's points.