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Rotten Bells, Lure is too Much


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Hi all,

 

So here's a conversation my local has been having alot. I'm not certain if I should post this in a Resser thread or if it should be a topic in every other faction thread. We will start here.

 

After numerous games playing with and against the Rotten Bell Lure spell I can safely safe that this ability might be game breaking. Not the effect of the spell, but the effectives of that specific version.

 

Simply put, Ca 8 is too high. This spell already has one of the longest ranges in the game, 18" and it ignores the benefits of cover. It also generates a specific movement type that cannot be prevented by clever terrain or model placement. It is not a push, it is not a walk, it is a move that negates disengaging strikes and does not have to travel in a straight line. As I said, the effects of the spell are not the issue. It is that a Bell, with a cost of 5 and is summonable, has a Cast of 8! The average WP is 4 or 5, which means that Bells are +4 or +3 to all duels against it. In all my games, I see a success rate of 90 or 95% with this ability. That is what I find game breaking. In a local tournament I saw a player take 6 Bells with Seamus and easily summon more. This player easily stomp his way to first place. Keep in mind, that it is not just the effect of the lure that is made so powerful, but all the secondary things that can happpen. Smell fear, Seamus heals 2 wounds, shafted; the list goes on. This ability is an almost auto win at the stat value. I see EVERYONE who can take a Bell, taking one just for this lure. I see other crews who can't take a Bell taking something with a Lure like ability just to counteract the fact they will not have a chance to win any of those duels.

 

I believe the Bell needs an errata that puts this ability where it belongs for a 5 stone model. The cast should be lowered to a 6 while keeping the double suits needed but not losing any of the built in suits. In other words, nothing changes for the Bell but the Cast, which is lowered by 2.

 

In the interest of not making the Bell undesirable, the Bell should also have it's min damage changed to 2. As I'm sure few players who use Bells would agree to a flat Cuddling. Even perhaps a poison trigger similiar to what many resser models already have. Infect, poison per crow in the duel total, as I believe is the current standard.

 

Thoughts?

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While I don't entirely disagree, I think this is gonna be a hard row to hoe. The belle lure has always been extremely reliable. But in 1.5 and in current. They're also always going to be summonable. And I know that "adjustments" are extremely few and far between. This was discussed extremely heavily during the wave one open beta, and after months of testing and arguing debating, this is where they came to rest. 

 

I don't know how I would feel if their casting came down- I don't really run them. But there are some amaaazing 5 stone models out there. The utility and survivability of a Belle is definitely high. Idunno.

 

ENinja

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I have to agree. I cant remember the last game I lost when hiring 3-4 Belle in a Resser list. The masters I like to play from the Resser faction are Seamus and Molly. The lures rarely fail and if the very few times they do by either my bad flip and I dont wish to cheat it or my opponent cheats/flips a very high double digit card it doesnt really matter because I just continue to lure with either the same model or several other belle;s I have. 

 

When I play a different faction and face Ressers with multiple Belle's I suffer the same fate and have to eat the same frustrations. The combo's that can be set up via Lure is more than outstanding. Luring into a RN for spell fear, or into Seamus gun range, or Molly's spell range, or scheme markers in the aura of shafted. It's not just the fact I can lure and kill any model my opponent has that doesnt have counter spell but Lures are also crazy good to deny strategy and schemes. It's because the CA is 8 and compunded by the 18 inch range. IMO anytime you see people spamming a moderately costed model of 5SS and that model has a powerful ability that has a 90%+ success rate tells me something is wrong. 

 

I feel that lowering the casting to 6 and raising the Belle's minimum damage to 2 is a more than a reasonable exchange. I could even be convinced to agree to their defense raised to 5 as part of the over all compensation of lowering their cast by 2. Even at CA 6 your still going to succeed on a lot of Lures, just not 90%+. I am starting to feel dirty playing my Resser lists and my opponents are rolling their eyes as well when they see multiple Belle's starting the game. I am not even getting any credit for the wins after I have played a very good game accomplishing schemes and strategies as well as pulling off key combos because all my opponents say after the game is over is that Lure is broken and thats why I won. 

 

Do I have to put my Resser models on the shelf or can we discuss this reasonable change?

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Just because this was discussed in the beta, just because it got through this way, should NOT mean that model changes are beyond changes. That is the worst design idea, nobody gets it all right, no matter how hard they try. I feel that M2E was an overwhelming success but we have to do away with this 'that's the way it is' attitude. After beta, it was deceded that these models would be fine. I say that after months of continued playing, these models are not balanced. Hopefully with enough support, Wyrd will take it seriously.  I'm hopeful as we have seen many times in the past when Wyrd listened to their players, frankly it is what makes Wyrd a cut above the rest of the companies out their.

 

Anyway! Yes IF players really felt it was needed you could raise the def to 5. Though I saw a 5 stone model with 8 wounds and Hard to Wound is fine at def 4. I dont want to start a topic that suggestes a million and one changes when we all know that the issue is strickly the 8 cast.

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I disagree, but to some extent I feel most people would expect that. I only feel we can begin discussing errata when ALL models that are above the curve start getting Errata'd. Austringers, Illuminated come easily to mind. Justin has said in any case that Belles and Austringers will not be getting an errata, and that one of the draw backs of an open beta is that people constantly try to change the system, even after printing. If in the fullness of time Ressers dominate the tournament scene as thoroughly as NB and outcasts did last edition, and the reason for it is determined to be the belles then you might have an argument that has merit and might be worth doing. Until then, *shrug*. 

 

Not in anyway belittling your opinion, there are many models I personally think got through the beta WAY too strong, but until repeated multi-meta tournament data proves there is indeed a problem, I'm not calling for specific model errata.

 

EDIT: In an attempt not to inflame the situation or seem like I'm putting down people's concerns, this is the only post in this topic I will be making. Should you wish to discuss with me further on this topic please feel free to PM me. 

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Hell Mr. Fetid... [slow and menancing chair turn] I've been expecting you...

 

I'm not surprised though I have to say, how does one model being a little high on the power curve make up for a model have a straight up ni-unbeatable attack action?

Say what you want about Illuminated being too good, they do not have an ability that is autowin. No Stat with a 8 and massive range and ignores cover. Austrings the same (though they ignore cover ;P) . You would not want to spam nothing must Austringers and nothing but Illuminated, I've never seen it. But, a Bell spam happens all the time. Every resser list seems to have Bells in it. You cannot say that for Neverborn or Guild, respectibly.

 

Not to belittle your opinion or call you potential love of this model into question, I certainly do not intended to turn my thread into a let's pick on Fetid thing, but I have to say that you're not presenting any arguments that would support a Bell retaining it's Ca 8. (Really I do mean it when I say I'm not attacking you, that is not my intention)

 

Ca 8 is too high for a spamable 5 stone model. It breaks the game by being successful 95% of the time.

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While I dont think it will get changed I encourage you to make the good fight. We got told chomp was fine for a long time and finaly it sunk in that hey this guys freaking crazy back in 1.5. No offense but just because wyrd says some thing does not make it so. They are human anc can make a mistake. As a company they want to set the hard line and say no this is printed and we dont want to go in and make a million changes. Truth is if some thing is broken it will continue to come up over and over and over and eventualy they will have to crack for the good of the game. Not saying this is that case. I think it should be but meh im not paid to make the game.

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As a bit of a tangent, I wouldn't say that a Ca drop and a min Dg increase is really making them less effective - three pouncing belles with their min damage doubled doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

 

As for the rest, Justin always watches for problems, but the easiest way to show him if there is one is to have battle reports, tournaments, etc that show if belles are skewing the win ratio. Changes are not going to be easy or quick to make happen (it's not a living ruleset after all) but if Wyrd become convinced they are skewing things then they will look and decide if anything needs doing. 

 

That's not to say don't say anything if you think they are too strong, but also keep it sensible - battle reports, reasoned discussions, tournament results etc are good ways to do it, but shouting all over the forum wouldn't help (not saying its happening, just mentioning it doesn't help!). Basically, go about your normal gaming lives, and if it's really throwing the results, it'll become clear in time. Bear in mind this isn't the beta for them any more though.

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I'm not surprised though I have to say, how does one model being a little high on the power curve make up for a model have a straight up ni-unbeatable attack action?

Say what you want about Illuminated being too good, they do not have an ability that is autowin.

 

Wow, is that really your experience?

 

While I agree that Lure on Belles is exceptionally strong, I have never managed to win or lose a game just because of their Lure. Perhaps I am not that good a player or something. But that is not my experience at all. Sure, I can make it highly probable with 3 Belles and Seamus, that some specific model dies this turn, or two or three are in bad positions. But that is no unique ability, right?

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It's the amount of lures you can do in a single turn that can sometimes make for a NPE. I don't play Ressers much (with or against) at the moment tho but a few belles luring models out of their areas or into ranges for things like Molly's spells to work can be nasty.

 

Am I saying it's overpowered? Not necessarily but at least with austringers they are rare 2 to mitigate their effectiveness and all combos that were tried during playtesting with Lucius and chaps excludes austringers.

 

D.

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Wow, is that really your experience?

 

While I agree that Lure on Belles is exceptionally strong, I have never managed to win or lose a game just because of their Lure. Perhaps I am not that good a player or something. But that is not my experience at all. Sure, I can make it highly probable with 3 Belles and Seamus, that some specific model dies this turn, or two or three are in bad positions. But that is no unique ability, right?

 

What was wrong with that responce?

I dont see how shifting focus from one model that needs work to another is a apt reaction to this thread. If you feel Illuminated are broken then start a thread on the ten thunders or neverborn. I'm talking about Bells though. And Illuminated dont have an auto-success ability.

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The thing I find is though the Lure is very good, it normally takes 3 models to get anything out of it, One model to get the Luring model into position, or 2 Belles moving and Luring once each, + something that can do damage. At this point you are normally talking 17SS of models working in concert to get an effect. Now generally I find 17SS of melee or shooting models can easily get equal if not better results.

 

For example 2 Belles + Seamus to lure out a model and shoot it... For the Same points you can have Lilith and Mature Nephilim rampaging through the enemy lines.

 

I feel the Belles are where they are because the Rezers have little to no shooting, the Belles themselves do not do much damage (and taking out models is important, every Belle you take is a model that isn't doing direct damage). Rezers really have no way to cover lanes and control the game as they can't set up a sniper to cover a route across the board.

 

also +3 is hardly auto success, if I'm playing against Guild there is a lot of Sh 6 against my Rezers average Df 4, which is +2, but shots do miss.

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To preface I would like to point out that in our local area we have a very strong group of players who meet up several times a week. I usually get 3 games a week in. We see the belle spam crews every week. We have gotten to the point where we have to either run a completetly differnt Resser crew make-up or not play the Resser crews at all for a week or two just to give it a rest. We dont want to discourage our own community from showing up to the local game stores because they know the Lure spamm is waiting for them. 

 

As far as tournament play goes here is one recent event where Victor (polishsausage) won with Seamus and the belle spam;

 

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/98373-m2e-team-tournament-games-plus-mt-prospect-il-march-2nd-2014/?hl=prospect#entry695643

 

He also won a month ago I think in Milwaukee but I didnt run the event and dont have the link to provide. I will keep better records from here on out since the factual data is being called into question. I would also like to add that to Victors credit he switched up the factions he plays from event to event to avoid being a dick playing the spamm belle crew all the time. The community appreciates that.

 

I respect Fetid very much so I am not here to attack him either and I knew before the thread started that he was coming to come in on the oppisitte side of the arguement. Although for a change he didnt really provide a good counter arguement in his short post. The Austtingers which I understand are damn good are rare 2. They are also 6 stones. The Illuminated while not rare are 7 stones and very diifficult to spam to great affect as well as only having a threat range of 8 inches. Neither one of those models has a CA, SH or ML of 8 for 5SS. Although it would severely hinder Seamus in particular I could see keep the CA 8 on a Belle if you were to make them rare 3. Even with only 3 on the table they are still going to cause opponents fits.

 

There have been many changes to M2E since its release. All you have to do is take a look at the errata which is only a few months old. Most of the changes were to certain upgarde cards which went through both closed and open beta and still needed to be changed after the game went live. Its this example that I point to as part of my arguement that even with Beta it sometimes takes several months after the game is live to see that something got through that shouldnt have. I am sure we will have this conversation months down the road regarding a model(s) from Wave 2.

 

Belle's had CA 8 on their lures in 1.5 but the problem was it was a push and not a walk. Often terrain and other models prevented the full movement effect of the model being lured. This edition the lured models can just walk around terrain and or models to continue its path towards the Belle. Then you add in Madame Sylabelle for the extra 1 inch and you have something over the top powerful when coupled with pounce, smell fear, shafted auras etc. 

 

I enjoy playing Ressers. I own all of the models including multiples of the models that can be spammed. I am not anti resser. I am pro Malifaux and the CA 8 on the Belle needs to be adjusted. Even if you had a concrete arguement that some other models needed adjustment that would not be the reason to not adjust the Belle's CA 8. I only offered increasing the min damage and or defense to compensate for the reduction that I know some people are going to scream about. In reality you could drop their cast to 6 and leave everything as is and the model is still an effective 5SS model that doesnt need to be spammed in order to take advantage of a powerful ability. 

 

In the future I will continue to add factual game and tournament results to this thread as we go along since logic doesnt dictate that a 5SS model should never have been given an 8 for cast stat in a new edition where the stat line is king.

 

To be continued...... 

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If Bells has a rare limit of 3 then I'd say, well yeah they can be cast 8, even though 6 lures would be a nightmare still. But, we can't suddenly impose rare limits because many poeple own 5 or 6 Bells and that really janks up Seamus's summoning. No, we need to make it so that running 5 or 6 Bells is not effective as it is. 

 

If people ran only 2 bells then it wouldn't be an issue. The probably is that with a Bell spam your opponent is going to get peal apart and not be able to stop it. The Bell player can keep his models safe and back while his Bells do all the work. I'd say the greater majority of other crews have to position themselves to be threatening and that usually puts them in a threating position. Models that don't have to do that usually have some kind of draw back, like being bad at melee but good at shooting.

 

Many Bells means you lure from a safe place and have other models kill the model you lured. And you can't say that luring one model out turn one and killing is not a big deal. It is a very big deal. I have four bells lure out Von Schill in a game yesterady on turn 2 and he got killed by the rest of the crew. Just one example of who a lot of Bells will pick the one model in your crew you cannot afford to lose on turn 1 or 2 and pull that model in with an ability you CANNOT resist. You may win or cheat out one duel or two but the other four of five will get you. You'll move 20" up the board and the rezzer master and his Rogue Necro or whatever are going to smash you to pieces. If you're lukcy you'll live and win inititave to get single activation before you get killed. All of this done at no threat or cost to the rezzer player.

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The only change to Belles that I could agree to, and in fact encourage, is making Beasts immune to Undress. My Marcus opponent and I can't make eye contact for days after that happens.





If it does get errata'd down to 6 I wouldn't scream foul. I only go with the three at first because they come in the crew box.

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