NEW ADR!

That’s depressing.

Lesson learned, read words kids.

I was mostly mistaken because I failed to use ability to read when checking the wording of guided fire lol. With it being once per model per turn my entire idea behind him an the revelator was kind of put in the toilet. 

*sigh* I wish we could have HoV on repenters so I could run the repenter spam list I had come up with back in CiD. A menite can always dream. I do think guided fire would solve most of his problems. But Guided fire combined with open fire might be a bit much on things like redeemers especially considering he has scourge. I doubt he is gonna change anytime soon though.

Having gone through some more tinkering, I think I am gonna cave in a go with Durst and Thyra, I really really really want Reznick to work but I am afraid without Durst the gun-line match ups are going to be very painful. 

Just one. Scourge is COST 4 and Malekus can only ever get up to 9 effective focus with support. He can lob out two, but can’t boost then both. Still pretty good when you want Zealots to wreck heavies on Feat turn.

Looking at the other ADR casters, I think we might be okay going outside of the Durst/Thyra pair. There isn’t a solid gunline caster represented. Cygnar’s ADR seems pretty weak, in fact.

I disagree that he loses *all* of his momentum after Feat. Ignite is a powerful enough spell that takes a heavy which would be mostly dead to all the way dead. I have found that this spell alone gives me late game power on other 'casters who have it.

I do agree that his kit is confused, though. His defensive spell is highly matchup dependent. His ranged support spell lacks effective targets for it (namely because the Vanquisher is so friggin' expensive) and doesn't really support his army's ability to actually, y'know, shoot. Scourge is an odd spell that doesn't fit him at all - it would thematically be more appropriate on a Kreoss iteration. His Feat is excellent, but clearly focused on ranged attacks as there is no such thing as Fire-based melee attacks and he does pretty much nothing else for ranged attacks. And Ignite, while an awesome spell, is better suited on 'casters who focus more on melee.

I can see the overall design here, and it's very much in-line with how Protectorate gunlines play: we will shoot you until you come forward, then beat the tar out of you because our ranged 'jacks are also pretty dang good at melee. However, I don't think he's hit the mark on making that effective. Sevy2 makes that effective because Oracular Vision is a straight middle finger to lists that try to out-shoot him and forces engagement. Sevy1 makes that effective because his shooting is more accurate and it *hurts*. Kreoss1 makes that effective because his Feat requires no upfront cost and basically provides his army a massive to-hit buff. Malekus, on the other hand, only improves accuracy via a limited and expensive spell that puts him at risk of assassination. Open Fire increases ranged output, but it is unboostable and synergizes poorly with Scourge: the two are so expensive that Malekus puts himself at great risk to cast both in one turn. Add in the fact that the natural target for Open Fire, the Vanquisher, is probably two points overcosted and Malekus just kind of comes up short.

I'm going to make him work this year, but I don't think it'll be too successful. SR2017 isn't too favorable to the type of game he likes playing anyway and I don't see that changing much in the coming year.

The problem with this is that if you're casting Scourge, you haven't allocated much of any focus. So your guns might hit, but they'll lack boosts to damage.

Scourge is hideously overcosted as a spell outside of Cryx, I'd rather drop it to get a real buff spell. It doesn't really fit his character or the rest of his toolkit anyway.

Literally, if PP spent another hour designing him they should have been able to come up with something interesting and effective for him. But he instead suffers from the overall lack of vision that PP has for Protectorate.

I think there is a line in the sand somewhere that, fluff perspective wise, this list crossed. That's just too many bombs. Is there an Iron Kingdoms equivalent to unnecessary force?
[/sarcasm]

Also, that is a death clock terror.

I agree that scourge is a really expensive spell, especially outside factions without good arc nodes and high focus. However, I'm confused, jacks get 1 focus powering up. They are shooting the scourge target correct? Since scourge knocks down, couldn't they just use their power up focus to boost damage?