How to loose friends

[hypoking]

So I’m a few games into Mk2. I’m still getting a feel for things, calibrating expectations and such. Thought it might make sense to jot down a few thoughts before wave two hits.

Here is the score card so far;

I’ve gotten in thirteen games with Ophelia. I’ve won every one of them. I've felt like I was in a position to lose all of twice. Within a modest degree of variation, I’ve used about the same crew each game. I’ve used about the same tactics each game as well. Much as I would like to say otherwise, seems I am not that creative. Funny bit is, it turns out I don’t need to be creative. I find that Ophelia and her pals tend to be just good enough they either table the other guy by turn four or blanket the map in markers. Sometimes they manage both. If you have yourself a big enough blunt instrument you can just sort of wallop the game upside the head until it pops like a piñata.

Here’s the thing about ‘good enough,’ the stuff is uranium. All common sense and reason would argue the junk is completely innocuous. It is boring, it is cold, it has all the joie de vivre of a particularly dull rock. No one wants to waste their time messing around with the stuff. Then somehow, somewhere, someone puts enough of it in the same place and something blows up. Then, all of a sudden, everything everybody thinks they know goes right into the dustbin. Ophelia, well she’s the inevitable and dread triumph of mediocrity. She’s our sledge hammer, our critical fissionable mass.

I’ve never used ‘with my eyes closed.’ I’ve thought about once or twice but I never really saw the point. In hindsight, there was maybe one time when it would have been the right play. Maybe it’ll come up in the future but I kind of doubt it. I’ve never equipped a hooch igniter, its facing too much competition to get the nod in anything but the nichest of niche scenarios.

I’ve never bothered firing the jug rocket. Ignoring los is cool even if you still have to deal with cover, but you know what’s cooler? Teleporting around the cover and shooting whatever’s hiding there in the face. Jug rocket’s amazing, practically guarantees Ophelia full points on entourage.

Threatening gun is a sexy, sexy, evil beast that’s pretty much an auto grab every damn time. The 4/5/6 is nice, the fear bombing is nice, but you’re really grabbing it for the extra ap. What is there not to like about 4ap an activation, makes you extremely mobile, extremely aggressive, and even great at schemes. ‘Cause if they’re going to give you toys without even bothering to playtest them you might as well win some games, amiright?

Ophelia’s too survivable. I find I’m using plink! a lot. Super armor is great, particularly when you can stand next to Lenny and completely ignore most week damage flips. That level of ‘I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-armor,’ along with the odd chunk stone, is enough to ensure that almost nothing is going to be able to one shot her. SLS, despite suffering from comparison to LS, is still a fantastic deterrent and will ensure that most enemies are only going to get that one bight at the apple before she dances away and giggles. Her wound stat, innate stat brick, and the above mentioned armor-substitute mean that she can’t be reliably nickelled and dimed into the dirt. To make things even more awkward, failed attempts are going to be quickly nullified either by dirty cheater or an adjacent slop hauler taping her on the shoulder. On top of that she’s also got in faction access to wendeigo/redjoker insurance, and stubborn on the cheap. Not surprising that shed died on me all of once.

Her personal output, and that of her pals, is kind of ridiculous. No real tricks. No frills. No fancy shenaniganry. Not that many truly exemplary stats to be found in the whole crew. Just a whole lot of moving from point a to point b and some truly absurd damage flips. That’s all they do, they go from here to there and they put very large holes in things as they go along. The weird thing is that it works. Everything else just sort of bounces off or gets washed away in the face of overwhelming firepower. Some fun highlights of this for me involve Ophelia popping off both Viks with one bullet a piece and Ophelia turning Barbarous into confetti con carne with her first ap. Should note that both of the above happened early in turn two.

Something to keep in mind here, Ophelia’s our exemplar but she’s not the sole offender here. The rest of the crew aren’t exactly riding her coat tails. Francois the definitive gremlin auto pick, too cheap for what he does, and he’s damn good at doing that. Raphael’s a pitch perfect objective runner, mobile, agile, and survivable enough to go where you want him and live long enough for him to do what you want him to. Oh, and he can pull of a 4/6/10 with a positive twist to damage, so there’s that to. Rami may be the best sniper in the game on account of reckless giving him that extra jot of focus to play around with. Lenny’s an unmatched buff bot right now, enabling increased survivability, offense, and mobility just by standing in the right place. Youngin easily have the best output to cost ratio in the game right now.

I am awful fond of winning, but even to me this is starting to seem excessive. This is a cautionary tale, guys. When we start mucking around in wave 2 this is what we need to keep in mind. Because if no one bothers to look at the cards or we just hope for the best and wait for last second revisions again, its just going to keep happening.

Edited October 6, 2013 by hypoking

[Omenbringer]

I would tend to agree, Ophelia has always been a bit to good. Also a bit sad that a lot of these "critics" harken back to 1/1.5. At least she cant Launch from a Pigapult without a downside anymore though.

[Iron Heel]

A compeling post since you have quite a few games under your belt.

If it is really all this bad, I hope the cuddle bat emerges quickly. Justin seemed to indicate a little concern about Ophelia in the last Malifools episode...Or was that just me reading in to it?

[Joel]

Conversely, I've faced her a few times and never lost to her. Swings and roundabouts.

[hypoking]

A great player winning against a better-than-it-should-be army isn't remarkable, Joel. A mook like me getting this much success just aint right.

A compeling post since you have quite a few games under your belt.

If it is really all this bad, I hope the cuddle bat emerges quickly. Justin seemed to indicate a little concern about Ophelia in the last Malifools episode...Or was that just me reading in to it?

Think that was just you. Somebody mentioned the threatening gun while he was in the room, he mentioned it and nexus and then immediately went back to 'everything's balanced.'

[IntereoVivo]

Who have you been playing against?

[Phototoxin]

A great player winning against a better-than-it-should-be army isn't remarkable, Joel. A mook like me getting this much success just aint right.

Think that was just you. Somebody mentioned the threatening gun while he was in the room, he mentioned it and nexus and then immediately went back to 'everything's balanced.'

Maybe you're better than you think you are. Maybe your opponents aren't as good as you think they are?

[hypoking]

Who have you been playing against?

Mali-fest, Game Castle, Myriad, couple of guys on vassal.

[WindlordRyu]

A lot of it is probably because she's straightforward. I'd probably place her close to the top of the power curve (The Threatening Gun teleport is probably the best ability in the game), but you can't cuddle a straightforward master because more complicated masters has to do more work to do their thing (complicity ≠ power).

[hypoking]

Familiar with the concept. Spent most of the first beta ranting fruitlessly about how narrow designs were next to impossible to balance.

[IntereoVivo]

Ah, I was more wondering what masters

[hypoking]

Ramos, Lynch, Lyl, Pandora, Raspy, Justice, Sonnia, Tara, Viks. A few repeats in there

Edited October 6, 2013 by hypoking

[xKoBiEx]

Wave two is going to affect the state of Malifaux a lot. Sure, Ophelia and her kin are powerful... but they aren't unbeatable. Many combos are going to be found that seem to break the game. It may also have been a combination of models and objectives. Viks certainly can not accomplish certain schemes and strategies without a lot of effort but they will mop the field in other games. There are too many factors.

That said, I will say hypoking is mostly correct and Ophelia is borderline OP... her name even starts appropriately.

[Dumb Luck]

A counterpoint to Rami. My local group has tons of Ressers, ergo lots of Hard to Wound. As a result, I've never touched Rami.

Raphael/Lenny combo on the other hand ....

[Boshea]

Wave two is going to affect the state of Malifaux a lot. Sure, Ophelia and her kin are powerful... but they aren't unbeatable. Many combos are going to be found that seem to break the game. It may also have been a combination of models and objectives. Viks certainly can not accomplish certain schemes and strategies without a lot of effort but they will mop the field in other games. There are too many factors.

That said, I will say hypoking is mostly correct and Ophelia is borderline OP... her name even starts appropriately.

Vanessa will very likely add a third upgradable sister. Not having to put all your abilities on to the glass cannons will help a lot.

[hypoking]

With all the positives he gets out of focus and ressers' rather lackluster dfs on everything short of nurses and Bette, Rami'd be one of the first minis I'd reach for. Not much different than shooting through cover really.

The crew as whole really doesn't give two damns about negative damage flips. With an average weak of around 4 they just need to worry about landing a hit, and with weight of bodies and reckless cranking out ap that's not a hard trick to pull off.

[Omenbringer]

Familiar with the concept. Spent most of the first beta ranting fruitlessly about how narrow designs were next to impossible to balance.

I would tend to agree, looking at Malifaux history the problem masters from Rising Powers (and to a lesser extent those from Book 1 as well) were pretty specialized in what their schtick was.

---------- Post added at 08:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:57 PM ----------

With all the positives he gets out of focus and ressers' rather lackluster dfs on everything short of nurses and Bette, Rami'd be one of the first minis I'd reach for. Not much different than shooting through cover really.

The crew as whole really doesn't give two damns about negative damage flips. With an average weak of around 4 they just need to worry about landing a hit, and with weight of bodies and reckless cranking out ap that's not a hard trick to pull off.

Gremlin's (and pigs) have never really been about strength of hit only frequency. With the Kin models they sort of have their cake and can eat it as well since they tend to both hit often and hit fairly hard.

[RagingRodian]

To give another perspective, I too have played Ophelia and her crew three times since the new edition. I lost two of those games. Ophelia is tough, I won't deny it, but she is far from unbeatable.

Gremlins have the potential to do lots of damage, but they hurt themselves in the process. When you get that dumb luck double damage trigger the model takes half of that damage. You want that extra AP, you take damage. That starts adding up fast, Slop Haulers can only do so much, and Lenny is expensive and unable to be everywhere at once. It isn't all wine and roses!

I did kill Lady J pretty quickly, but she did do this thing where she brought a sword to a gun fight.....

---------- Post added at 09:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------

A counterpoint to Rami. My local group has tons of Ressers, ergo lots of Hard to Wound. As a result, I've never touched Rami.

Raphael/Lenny combo on the other hand ....

Ressers can take even worse things against Ophelia. Crooked Men are relatively cheap, get +2 defense against shooting attacks, and are Bullet Proof +2- which makes them very nasty against a crew that relies on guns. Flesh Constructs have a Devour attack that, if it lands, will sacrifice any Height 1 Gremlin including Ophelia. One shot kill, and it prevents Pere from doing his exploding trick. Yikes. Did I mention they have a bad habit of coming back to unlife?

Edited October 7, 2013 by RagingRodian

[Manic Mouse]

Do people feel Ophelia's upgrades are better than, say, Perdita with Diestro? That is one broken ass combo, making Perdita probably the best melee master in the game. As well as the best ranged.

[Dumb Luck]

With all the positives he gets out of focus and ressers' rather lackluster dfs on everything short of nurses and Bette, Rami'd be one of the first minis I'd reach for. Not much different than shooting through cover really.

The crew as whole really doesn't give two damns about negative damage flips. With an average weak of around 4 they just need to worry about landing a hit, and with weight of bodies and reckless cranking out ap that's not a hard trick to pull off.

Rami's Sh is pretty poor too for the points you're paying.

[Balefirestorm]

I guess it could easily be fixed by:

1) Making the attack on My threatening gun "Discard after use".

2) Making the (0) Actions on Jug Rocket and My Threaening gun only affect "Other friendly Kin".

Isn't there an errata coming up soon? Bet they'll be fixed then.

[Dracomax]

In the mean time, as long as Battle reports are posted to show where she is OP(even if she loses, I think if you can show that over, say 100 games from 10+ sources that she is more difficult to kill than most other masters, and/or that she also hits harder than other masters, they'll probably look at it) thenI'd bet that if not now, within 6 months she'll be either adjusted, or we'll get a note that they are "working on her."

Given the Batreps we've seen so far, and the number of people saying otherwise, I wouldn't expect she will see too much in the way of errata this time around, as I don't think there is much evidence yet that she needs it, and Wyrd have been fairly conservative on making changes right out the gate. If we see anything, it'll be the "errata'd because the use this is being put to is not what we intended." and even that is unlikely unless they feel it is game breaking—in the past, they've had a tendency to say "That's not what we intended, but that's so cool! go ahead and do it!" unless it was game breaking(filth lists, infinite Hamelin loop, Alp bomb, I'm looking at you.

[Pryokon]

I haven't had any opportunity to play M2E yet (stupid law school, preventing me from doing the stuff I wanna), but I do recall first looking over the Ophelia upgrades, not seeing the discard after use provision on My Threatenin' Gun, and saying "That's an oversight". I like her different guns because they seem to be specially purpose-built with the Threatenin' gun being the "big slug". The issue, I think, is that it's pretty much just better than the Rough Riders unless you're shooting into cover/minus aura or have a high ram for dumb luck. But that's just nitpicking. One possibly overly-good upgrade isn't going to break the game. Besides, it's just for Ophelia. It's not like it's Nexus of Power or something.

Regarding Ophelia and how she performed in version 1.5, I think she performs similarly now and the main issue is that she's no longer counterbalanced by popular bad matchups which were equally broken. I love my Gremlins equally, but I wouldn't dare drop Ophelia against the likes of Hamelin, Dreamer or Pandora. I won't claim this was a good thing, since she was very good against everything that didn't ruin her instantly, but I think this hampered looking at substantive questions of her power level. She still does what she does, but between the OP being cuddled (Hamelin and Dreamer are still unknown quantities as of this post) and a willpower boost to her crew, she may be rising.

That said, I don't think Wyrd is going to be too quick to errata her. Most of their major erratas in the past have been either obvious breaks or stuff that's been gotten around to eventually, which is most of the stuff Dracomax mentioned. If they put out an errata now, they're eventually invalidating a big chunk of their shiny new rulebook right out of the gate, which would be a huge damper on the new players they're trying to attract with this edition. It makes good business sense to do the wait-and-see approach of the "well, maybe, possibly..." question of Ophelia's quality. Plus, who knows what's coming in Wave 2. Maybe it'll all work itself out.

[zFiend]

filth lists, infinite Hamelin loop, Alp bomb

Out of curiosity, what are these?

[hypoking]

The issue, I think, is that it's pretty much just better than the Rough Riders unless you're shooting into cover/minus aura or have a high ram for dumb luck. But that's just nitpicking. One possibly overly-good upgrade isn't going to break the game. Besides, it's just for Ophelia. It's not like it's Nexus of Power or something.

Ok. This is just a nitpick thing on my part, but if you're using the right set up (Lenny-party-liaison/dirty cheater) rough riders are almost always the right choice. Can't overstate how good paired is and once you can guarantee the ram their output is just flat better than the threatening gun. Thing about the the threatening gun is the pseudo-fast and the range 10 great swords it gives the youngins to play around with.

In my limited experience Pandora's been a gimmie match. Once you give Ophelia stubborn there's not a whole hell of alot they can do to stop you from rampaging through their crew.