Thinking about Rafkin some more

[Gruesome]

Let me start by thanking Korrosion for a good(And most importantly, FUN) game and a simple comment that started me rethinking Rafkin.

Pseudo-Battle report to set the stage...

30 points

Lilith(+8) and Primordial Snake thingy

Lelu

Lilitu

Tuco

Tot

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Contain Power, Reclaim Malifaux and Stake a Claim

-----------------

vs.

Nicodem(+8, +Avatar)

Rafkin

4 dogs

Belle

Crooked man

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Distract, Assassinate and Kill Protege(Lelu)

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We experimented with the "James Bond Villain" approach to schemes where announced schemes that fail give you -1VP.

I took assasinate because I figured he would want Lilith going for the full 4VP for contain power.

I had 2 primary goals in the game.

1. Scrape the rust off of Nicodem as I have been ignoring him the last few months learning new rezzers.
   
2. Try to make Rafkin work for me which is something I have been struggling with
   

After a large number of mistakes on both sides including:

1. Korrosion forgetting about negative flips for me because of some irritating as heck tuco ability.

2. Me forgetting to draw cards when casting reanimator for TWO rogue necromancies. (Yes, that's EIGHT cards I never drew)

3. Me forgetting that I had friggin AVATAR and not only not thinking about opportunities to manifest that might be good, but also NOT automatically manifesting in turn 6 and immediately summoning Mindless Zombies behind me to prevent damage from the lilith that was IN MY FACE!

We wound up going 7 turns with Nicodem dying at the end of the 6th turn after failing to paralyze lilith. We had some EPIC rigor mortis "duels". One of the castings was him resisting 29 to 28 and I think another was 26 to 25 or so...

He won 7-3 because his 1 wound Lilith killed nico herself while my full health rogue necro sat next to her paralyzed from the 1 wound lelitu. (I hate lelitu more than Hitler)

If I could have done ONE WOUND to her in that turn, he does NOT get his contain power AND I get assassinate, so I would have won 6-2 instead.

I am not crying about the game, it was a blast. I was disappointed a bit because Tuco and Lelu were dead by the end of the second turn, and I still had all my models and 5 mindless zombies.

But, I left a gap in space near Nicodem and Lilith charged through some boxes and "filled the gap" proceeding to whirlwind or whatever its called...

So, this brings me to Rafkin... Finally, right?

I have always struggled with him, but I feel like something Korrosion said made my brain click. I thought I was going to flask-poison lilith(Actually, my belle next to lilith until Korrosion pointed out that its a ranged attack and the Lelitu that looks SO FAR AWAY is actually still in melee range, so he was stuck in a position where he could only melee and was just not hitting anything. Then Korrosion made the simple comment, "Hey, he gave you a free Rogue necromancy".

Boom... Done.

I will come back to that in a second. Let me say that if Rafkin had been an inch farther away, I could have thrown a flask of acid at my rotten belle and blast templated poison onto Lilith and put an end to all this 8 defense "disappear trigger" rigmarole nonsense that was spoiling my victory parade.

So, while he DID spend much of his time healing himself back from some early Tuco bombs. (I even ASKED Korrosion if his crew had any templates and he said Yes, Tuco does and he has "From the Shadows" deployment)

Now, a non-idiot would have pieced together the idea that it would be pretty dumb to clump up when there is a model with blast templates and the ability to deploy near you to start the game.

But, I did not have a non-idiot with me, so I clumped... and ass-ploded...

(In my defense, I got to the store at about 11:30 in the morning after being at a bar since 8:30 watching Notre Dame play... )

Back to Rafkin.

From a simple economic perspective, I will take him with 4 dogs as a unit with Nicodem for certain strategies from now on and not bat an eye or feel like I am not getting value.

He had 8 Body parts turn 1 and for the next 2 turns, used his (0) healing to make the Tuco blast damage go away. Then he dropped 4 Mindless zombies that instantly became my second Rogue Necro of the game.

Now, I have always known that and usually used him for that, but my mindset was different. I was too focused on what he was NOT doing the rest of the game.

I view him like this now...

For 7 Soulstones, a high-crow card and a medium or better crow(For nico's cast), I get a rogue necromancy and a backline healer that can also apply poison situationally, and when things are really gonna hit the fan, he can give everything hard to kill, which could be huge.

He will be picking his spots to contribute, but really, dropping those 4 corpse counters potentially pays for himself, so everything else is GRAVY.

It is a stretch to me to see value in a non-dogkill list as it becomes very situational then and there is too much potential, IMO, for him to not be worth his points.

I am looking for consistency.

So, thanks Korrosion for the game and the comment. I look forward to our next game.

EDIT: One drowned waltzing into the middle of the pack on turns 5, 6 or 7 wins the game for me...

[Korrosion]

Let me start by thanking Korrosion for a good(And most importantly, FUN) game and a simple comment that started me rethinking Rafkin.

It was a good fun game. I thought early on that I was going to be stomped.

1. Korrosion forgetting about negative flips for me because of some irritating as heck tuco ability.

Veil Appearance

3. Me forgetting that I had friggin AVATAR and not only not thinking about opportunities to manifest that might be good, but also NOT automatically manifesting in turn 6 and immediately summoning Mindless Zombies behind me to prevent damage from the lilith that was IN MY FACE!

One of several/many game changers we both messed up. While driving home I thought of at least 2 black bloods I forgot to hand out.

We wound up going 7 turns with Nicodem dying at the end of the 6th turn after failing to paralyze lilith. We had some EPIC rigor mortis "duels". One of the castings was him resisting 29 to 28 and I think another was 26 to 25 or so...

He died at the start of 6. I won activation after we both flipped ace, then I pulled a 12 to your 11. First thing Lilith did was go "Whirling death to 4 models" then "BAM" great sword to the face! :-O I spent my last stone to bring it to a straight flip with a severe in my hand for the last 6 damage I needed.

We had some EPIC rigor mortis "duels". One of the castings was him resisting 29 to 28 and I think another was 26 to 25 or so...

I lost one 27-26, we both kept throwing stones at the rigor mortis duels and everyone was important. On turn 5 you cast it 3 times in a row to finally have it stick on the 3rd cast. Lilith was paralyzed on turns 3 and 5. Tuco was paralyzed turn 1 and Lelu on turn 2.

He won 7-3 because his 1 wound Lilith killed nico herself while my full health rogue necro sat next to her paralyzed from the 1 wound lelitu.

Disappear and Irresistible were MVP's this game. A half health Lilith tanked the Bell, Crooked man, Rogue necro and Nico all in melee for 3 turns.

I am not crying about the game, it was a blast. I was disappointed a bit because Tuco and Lelu were dead by the end of the second turn, and I still had all my models and 5 mindless zombies.

Lets not forget the little rogue necromancy or 2 who made a face eating appearance :-)

But, I left a gap in space near Nicodem and Lilith charged through some boxes and "filled the gap" proceeding to whirlwind or whatever its called...

It was "just" one strike from the charge at Nico who quickly pushed a mindless zombie onto Lilith's sword thus causing her to swing slowly because of the extra weight. Then you paralyzed her immediately after winning initiative on turn 5. Turn 6 started with a Whirling Death and then a swing at Nico to kill him.

I will come back to that in a second. Let me say that if Rafkin had been an inch farther away, I could have thrown a flask of acid at my rotten belle and blast templated poison onto Lilith and put an end to all this 8 defense "disappear trigger" rigmarole nonsense that was spoiling my victory parade.

I was doing everything I could to make sure he stayed engaged specifically because of that. Same thing with the crooked man. I didn't want any undefensible damage coming in because of blast templates.

He had 8 Body parts turn 1 and for the next 2 turns, used his (0) healing to make the Tuco blast damage go away.

Including flipping the red joker to heal only 1 damage :-)

Then he dropped 4 Mindless zombies that instantly became my second Rogue Necro of the game.

And forced me to put Lilitu in a dangerous position so she could cast Impure thoughts on it. That cost me 2 face cards of masks.

used his (0) healing to make the Tuco blast damage go away.

I would sacrifice a model with Thor's hammer to have a (0) targeted heal on a 7SS model which does other useful things besides.

I look forward to our next game.

Me too! I need to finish some painting so I can field Zoriada and obey rafkin into poisoning his own crew :-) And I know how much you love Collodi...(insert evil laugh here)

EDIT: One drowned waltzing into the middle of the pack on turns 5, 6 or 7 wins the game for me...

That would have been GG for sure. I'm glad you didn't think of it ;-)

I would also like to thank my puking snake for flipping the black joker in 2 consecutive turns while trying to magical extension.

[DeleteAccount]

Frankly, I don't get it, it isn't a free Rogue Necromancy, it's a Rogue necromancy that costs you 8 stones, the activations to kill the 4 dogs, an all activation from Rafkin plus a crow, another crow for nicodem to actually raise it and if by some chance something reaches out and nukes Rafkin, you lost everything.

Unless I'm missing something, seems horrible value for utility, those dogs are better used swarming at the front and being directly raised by nicodem after they die, or at least it seems that way to me. Or hell, take Rafkin out of the equation and keep the 4 suicide dogs, just raise them into mindless and have them follow nico and it's less resource intensive with similar payoff.

[96p]

Rafkin produces the counters needed for the "free" rogue additionally to the 4 normal cc given by the dogs... so yes it's a rogue for free (or 4 punk zombies, 2 flesh constructs, etc)

[DeleteAccount]

I still don't get it, is he stabbing dogs all the time? then how is he getting 8 body part counters in turn one if he isn't picking up the corpses? and if you mean nico uses the corpses and Rafkin gets body parts from preserve bodies, he still has to blow 1 action to even be able to do it and that only accounts for 4 body parts (which nets us 2 mindless), so the other 4 are another 4 actions on his side from stabbing dogs. Numbers still aren't making any sense to me.

So I may be seeing a flesh construct, but it isn't free either because you are using a 7 point piece (which costs the same as directly hiring the golem) in stabbing your own pieces and doing an all action just to plunk down the resources that nicodem needs to blow even more resources in actually raising it.

Can I get a step by step on this if I'm missing the picture?

[Ratty]

Nicodem Raises 4 mindless zombies, 4 corpse counters are discarded, Rafkin gets 4 Body Parts, Nicodem Summons a Rogue Necromancy, 4 Mindless Zombies which count as Corpse Counters are Sacrificed, Rafkin gets 4 Body Part Counters. So that's 8 Body Parts.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Ratty

[rancor709]

Only if he kills the dog and takes it Cc. Liston knife doesn't give you body parts for friendly only enemy models. If it did he'd be loads more appealing.

[Gruesome]

Sorry I did not explain how. Others have nailed it.

Specifically, Rafkin has an abillity that lets him get a body part whenever a corpse counter within 6 inches of him is sacrificed or discarded by anyone. He is not interfering with the corpses themselves or turning them into body parts directly, he is just letting himself get EXTRA body parts via his ability

So, when Nicodem casts arise, he gets 4 body parts himself. This has no impact on Nicodem getting his mindless zombies.

Then Nicodem casting reanimator sacrifices corpse counters, in this case 4 of them for Rogue Necromancy, so Rafkin gets ANOTHER 4 body parts.

So now, Nicodem went about his business, doing some typical dog killing and summoning. (And getting 1 of his manifest requirements) and Rafkin is standing there with 2 poison tokens on him that he can use for self-healing and 8 body parts that he can turn into an ADDITIONAL 4 mindless zombies.

So, he is basically "doubling" the corpses for Nicodem.

While I have done that since he came out, my view of him has always been focused on his utility beyond that, for which he did not feel worth the points. But, by basically making myself think of him as giving 3 or 4 additional corpses to Nicodem, he feels much better to me as anything I get out of him beyond that, whether its an occasional heal, or a clutch poison blast or granting Hard to Kill, is all gravy.

I feel better about him with a simple mindset change and acceptance of the specific scenario in which I would take him.

Edited September 2, 2012 by Gruesome

[96p]

you even get bodyparts via a dog using "for you master"

[DeleteAccount]

Sorry for being dense, finally got the whole thing. But I do have to ask if it's still worth it to blow 15 stones for what amounts mostly to factory functions. I mean, first turn Rafkin isn't even moving if he poisons all the puppies and prepares to pick up the corpses and I wouldn't personally be in a hurry to raise a rogue so far away from the action. I am a Nico ignorant though, so it's all theoryfaux for me.

[Gruesome]

Sorry for being dense, finally got the whole thing. But I do have to ask if it's still worth it to blow 15 stones for what amounts mostly to factory functions. I mean, first turn Rafkin isn't even moving if he poisons all the puppies and prepares to pick up the corpses and I wouldn't personally be in a hurry to raise a rogue so far away from the action. I am a Nico ignorant though, so it's all theoryfaux for me.

Its not an every game thing. But for me, its an every Rafkin thing.

[96p]

it doesn't have to be a rogue, you can summon what ever you want this way

[Korrosion]

Sorry for being dense, finally got the whole thing. But I do have to ask if it's still worth it to blow 15 stones for what amounts mostly to factory functions. I mean, first turn Rafkin isn't even moving if he poisons all the puppies and prepares to pick up the corpses and I wouldn't personally be in a hurry to raise a rogue so far away from the action. I am a Nico ignorant though, so it's all theoryfaux for me.

It might not be that far from the action at all. 6" deployment + 6" summon + ?charge range is about mid board. Its not unusual for a quick crew to be mid board at the start of turn 2.

[Ausplosions]

you even get bodyparts via a dog using "for you master"

However if Nico is carrying the cc he cant Arise them.

[DeleteAccount]

It might not be that far from the action at all. 6" deployment + 6" summon + ?charge range is about mid board. Its not unusual for a quick crew to be mid board at the start of turn 2.

Keep in mind you are slow, so no charge range, it's not exactly a stellar distance you are covering there and god knows I've learned the hard way how fragile rogue necromancies are.

[Ausplosions]

But when they hit by god it hurts.

[Korrosion]

Summon at the end of turn 1, charge turn 2.

[Mach_5]

However if Nico is carrying the cc he cant Arise them.

Correct. Either a dog passes the corpse counters to Nico (Rafkin gains the BPs) and Nico uses Reanimator (Rafkin gains the BPs) OR Nico uses Arise! (Rafkin gains the BPs) and then uses Reanimator (Rafkin gains the BPs). Either way, with four dead dogs, Rafkin comes out with 8BPs.

[Korrosion]

--snip-- Nico uses Arise! (Rafkin gains the BPs) and then uses Reanimator (Rafkin gains the BPs). Either way, with four dead dogs, Rafkin comes out with 8BPs.

If I remember correctly that is how it happened in the game with Gruesome. He said, "Arise!". I said, "wtf zombies commin for my brains". He said, "Nah, its just a 3 headed undead chimera." I said, "AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"