|
Post by chewie on Mar 27, 2018 15:28:24 GMT
I find the arc nodes (blind walker and bone shrine) basically completely useless for Maelok. The range of Mortality is high enough and Maelok can be close enough to the front lines to cast Mortality basically wherever he needs to. As you surmised, the soul slave does much more than half of the mortality casting, so Maelok only casts when you need a second one, and very rarely is that far away from where he wants to be. Honestly, the only time I used the blind walker as an arc node, I lost the game by trying to keep Mortality up in too many places too far apart. Personally, I don't think the totem Hunter is very good, even at free. The thrullg does basically the same amount of output with much less risk of being outside control - and will occasionally flat win you a game either by disrupting jacks or knocking off upkeeps (especially rebuke) or just by making your caster immune to gallows. Huh. That's very interesting. I'm assuming the soul slave is mental forcing each turn to get those mortalities out. I'm also assuming this never was really a problem where he got in danger of being removed prematurely. Poor totem hunter, LOL. How do you propose the Thrullg making your caster immune to gallows? It's not that arcane consumption is a hard deterrent. Are you saying to just park Thrullg in front of your caster (him being innately immune to spells)? Lastly, did you ever try out that list with a unit of croak raiders in lieu of one unit of Posse? Was thinking it would give you some ranged presence / skirmishing potential before the meaty bois show up. Thanks for all the feedback, though! I haven't used Maelok a lot, yet, but I'm just about to go through the paces with him. All of this is absolutely awesome food for thought.
|
|
|
Post by chocobsessed on Mar 27, 2018 15:39:51 GMT
Huh. That's very interesting. I'm assuming the soul slave is mental forcing each turn to get those mortalities out. I'm also assuming this never was really a problem where he got in danger of being removed prematurely. Poor totem hunter, LOL. How do you propose the Thrullg making your caster immune to gallows? It's not that arcane consumption is a hard deterrent. Are you saying to just park Thrullg in front of your caster (him being innately immune to spells)? Lastly, did you ever try out that list with a unit of croak raiders in lieu of one unit of Posse? Was thinking it would give you some ranged presence / skirmishing potential before the meaty bois show up. Thanks for all the feedback, though! I haven't used Maelok a lot, yet, but I'm just about to go through the paces with him. All of this is absolutely awesome food for thought. Yes, the soul slave is always using mental force. Again, he's 10 inches behind the front lines at arm 19 and behind a whole bunch of Gators, so I don't often lose him (especially if he can hang out within 4" of an objective for healing) Yeah, parking the thrullgs in front of your caster is really important in the Krueger2 matchup, because his only chance of actually winning is to pull your caster out, and having two spell ward models makes tk and gallows impossible to use. The arcane consumption is only a deterrent against 5 wound spell casters, and even then you have to catch it in both 7" auras and roll a 2 and a 3 on 2d3, so it's not a great deterrent (but very funny when it works). No, I have never used any small based infantry with Maelok. I think the Valkyries can be awesome if you want to play it in WWFF, but none of the blindwater choices are worth while. Bringing arm 13 models just gives something for pow 10 guns to do, and generally, Maelok wins with 5-8 Gators left on the table when they run out of stuff - if that number is instead 0-3 he definitely does not win. You're already playing a fast scenario brick, no amount of skirmishing or ranged presence is going to make up for not being able to grind your opponent down or to jam them out of zones.
|
|
|
Post by chewie on Mar 27, 2018 16:05:39 GMT
Huh. That's very interesting. I'm assuming the soul slave is mental forcing each turn to get those mortalities out. I'm also assuming this never was really a problem where he got in danger of being removed prematurely. Poor totem hunter, LOL. How do you propose the Thrullg making your caster immune to gallows? It's not that arcane consumption is a hard deterrent. Are you saying to just park Thrullg in front of your caster (him being innately immune to spells)? Lastly, did you ever try out that list with a unit of croak raiders in lieu of one unit of Posse? Was thinking it would give you some ranged presence / skirmishing potential before the meaty bois show up. Thanks for all the feedback, though! I haven't used Maelok a lot, yet, but I'm just about to go through the paces with him. All of this is absolutely awesome food for thought. Yes, the soul slave is always using mental force. Again, he's 10 inches behind the front lines at arm 19 and behind a whole bunch of Gators, so I don't often lose him (especially if he can hang out within 4" of an objective for healing) Yeah, parking the thrullgs in front of your caster is really important in the Krueger2 matchup, because his only chance of actually winning is to pull your caster out, and having two spell ward models makes tk and gallows impossible to use. The arcane consumption is only a deterrent against 5 wound spell casters, and even then you have to catch it in both 7" auras and roll a 2 and a 3 on 2d3, so it's not a great deterrent (but very funny when it works). No, I have never used any small based infantry with Maelok. I think the Valkyries can be awesome if you want to play it in WWFF, but none of the blindwater choices are worth while. Bringing arm 13 models just gives something for pow 10 guns to do, and generally, Maelok wins with 5-8 Gators left on the table when they run out of stuff - if that number is instead 0-3 he definitely does not win. You're already playing a fast scenario brick, no amount of skirmishing or ranged presence is going to make up for not being able to grind your opponent down or to jam them out of zones. I'm picking up what you're putting down. Thanks for all the insight!
|
|
walden
Junior Strategist
Posts: 136
|
Post by walden on Mar 27, 2018 19:45:02 GMT
Excellent write up. I've tweaked my maelock a list after reading this. Still slightly different 🙂 but some. Ok'd changes.
|
|
|
Post by Azahul on Mar 27, 2018 23:08:06 GMT
Congrats on the win man I'm pretty entertained by the fact that you don't like Arkadius into guns, he's my go to gun drop, but I guess that's partly down to the presence of the lesser Warlocks and partly because you do have Maelok to cover that match-up.
|
|
|
Post by chocobsessed on Mar 28, 2018 0:35:17 GMT
Congrats on the win man I'm pretty entertained by the fact that you don't like Arkadius into guns, he's my go to gun drop, but I guess that's partly down to the presence of the lesser Warlocks and partly because you do have Maelok to cover that match-up. I'm going to be real with you. I've only been playing Arkadius for a month, I might be completely wrong about his matchups.
|
|
|
Post by Azahul on Mar 28, 2018 0:52:35 GMT
In your pairing, I don't really think you are. Arkadius's principle advantage is that his melee threat is equal to or greater than many guns (see, for example, Road Hogs equalling the walk and shoot range of a Storm Strider, or the way the entire list eclipses Dynamo's ranged threat), coupled with the occasional plan mucking with Aggravator. Against most guns he really needs the first turn, and the positioning game and terrain placement can swing things a lot. Maelok's armour probably makes him a lot more comfortable in most of those match-ups.
|
|
|
Post by zwergenkrieger on Mar 28, 2018 15:19:19 GMT
In your pairing, I don't really think you are. Arkadius's principle advantage is that his melee threat is equal to or greater than many guns (see, for example, Road Hogs equalling the walk and shoot range of a Storm Strider, or the way the entire list eclipses Dynamo's ranged threat), coupled with the occasional plan mucking with Aggravator. Against most guns he really needs the first turn, and the positioning game and terrain placement can swing things a lot. Maelok's armour probably makes him a lot more comfortable in most of those match-ups. If armor is what makes Maelok good into guns, why not simply run Carver beast heavy? He almost equals Maeloks ARM stats, offers higher threat, has a better scenario rush game, offers the same amount of attacks like Arkadius...? Maybe he is the best out of two worlds? chocobsessed; Azahul; Gaston; flogger: What do you bring against Madrak1 Champions? I really start to dislike that build more than Nemo3...
|
|
|
Post by chocobsessed on Mar 28, 2018 16:14:09 GMT
If armor is what makes Maelok good into guns, why not simply run Carver beast heavy? He almost equals Maeloks ARM stats, offers higher threat, has a better scenario rush game, offers the same amount of attacks like Arkadius...? Maybe he is the best out of two worlds? chocobsessed;Â Azahul;Â Gaston; flogger: What do you bring against Madrak1 Champions? I really start to dislike that build more than Nemo3... Mortality, mostly. I think that having a massive amount of anti-healing is absolutely required in the current meta. Case in point - I play Maelok into Madrak1 (twice at LVO, twice at Adepticon) - Gators way out-threat champs, and mortality makes it so you have a reasonable chance of hitting (especially if you can break defensive line with sac strike or spectral lash) and then if you leave all the champs on one box, he can't heal them to full with his feat.
|
|
|
Post by Gaston on Mar 28, 2018 16:29:43 GMT
If armor is what makes Maelok good into guns, why not simply run Carver beast heavy? He almost equals Maeloks ARM stats, offers higher threat, has a better scenario rush game, offers the same amount of attacks like Arkadius...? Maybe he is the best out of two worlds? chocobsessed;Â Azahul;Â Gaston; flogger: What do you bring against Madrak1 Champions? I really start to dislike that build more than Nemo3... Mortality, mostly. I think that having a massive amount of anti-healing is absolutely required in the current meta. Case in point - I play Maelok into Madrak1 (twice at LVO, twice at Adepticon) - Gators way out-threat champs, and mortality makes it so you have a reasonable chance of hitting (especially if you can break defensive line with sac strike or spectral lash) and then if you leave all the champs on one box, he can't heal them to full with his feat. Chosen of Everblight
|
|
|
Post by Gaston on Mar 28, 2018 23:47:30 GMT
Azahul ; Gaston ; flogger : What do you bring against Madrak1 Champions? I really start to dislike that build more than Nemo3... Jaga Jaga. Mind you it is not because I think she is the best into him, but because my current pairing is Arkadius/Jaga and rather than chase the meta with lists, I would rather game plan with what I have and like and adjust from there. Jaga into Madrak is actually super interesting. If he is running the Fennblade version, than the Sacral Vault is a huge pain in the potatoes for him, as they have difficulty handling it. Additionally, he cannot run to jam due to Ghost Walk on the Croaks. One of the keys into the match up in my mind is Jaga's feat, a wholly underappreciated part of her kit in CID. I personally prefer Ambushers for the Arm 14. Consider the curious case of the Krielstone Bearer. A lynchpin in the army, he has two defensive mechanisms for keeping him in the game: Call to Sacrifice and Field Promotion/Fury Vault. Well Call to Sacrifice only triggers on attacks, Jaga's feat is not an attack. Additionally it removes from play, so as we learned from Ghost Fleet, the Leader will not Field Promote. Ergo, your troll buddy is one tough check away from no Krielstone early on in the game. Moving on the the feat into Champions. Arm 16 or 18, 5 boxes. At Pow 14 you are either dice off 2 or off 4 depending on the Krielstone's tough check. So you need either a 7 or a 9 to kill. On 3D6 drop lowest that works out to be ~80% or ~55%. If you are looking to clear out a whole unit, you could do a hell of a lot worse than an auto-hitting feat that has a coinflip to force tough. Did I mention Sanguine Bond only triggers from enemy attacks? Cause it does. Moving on to Croaks. Champs be Def 14, Arm 16 or 18. Signs 8's is ~60% to hit, not unreasonable. You can help with aiming obviously, or just roll hot. Also the Champions threat 9", the Croak shots are 10", so...premeasure. Damage-wise, let's take a 10 man unit. You sacrifice 2 to get in close and black oil, the Champs should be bunched up. That leaves 8, 5 will hit. Boosted 11's versus 16 or 18. I think it is 23 on average, so 7 or 5 damage per attack, works out to 25 to 35 points worth of damage. 5 Champs is 25 boxes, with Sorcerer is 40, you are getting pretty close to a trade of 2 Croaks for "8" Champs. Also they are all on fire maybe, Combat Warding being what it is. So while I have not optimized my Jaga list or even my pairing to prey on Madrak1, what I can do is optimize my play of my list to prey on Madrak1.
|
|
|
Post by Azahul on Mar 29, 2018 0:19:37 GMT
If armor is what makes Maelok good into guns, why not simply run Carver beast heavy? He almost equals Maeloks ARM stats, offers higher threat, has a better scenario rush game, offers the same amount of attacks like Arkadius...? Maybe he is the best out of two worlds? So, Maelok has a number of advantages over Carver. A Storm Strider's boosted shot on Feat turn is a lot more effective when it's going into a heavy than when you're putting it into a medium base heavy infantry. Both lists are similarly resistant to the weapon master lightning generators, but Maelok can afford to lose (and then Revive, if he wants to) a Posse member more than Carver can afford a lost War Hog. If I could count on facing Trolls, I'd be running Midas with Bone Grinders and Brigands every time Bone Grinders can be accurate enough to hit Champions, have Grievous Wound attacks, Midas never has a problem with armour, and a Thornfall gunline has the potential to gun down even a Gargantuan if you get Calamity in play. With my current pair, I'm genuinely torn on whether Arkadius or Sturm and Drang is better. Probably depends on the opponent's pairing. It's a match-up I'm in dire need of practicing though, the local Troll players have gone into hiding lately.
|
|
|
Post by kombat46 on Mar 29, 2018 8:58:14 GMT
You played with barnabus1 before and changed to arkadius. What is better and worse with the new pairing compared to the old?
|
|
|
Post by chocobsessed on Mar 29, 2018 15:02:48 GMT
You played with barnabus1 before and changed to arkadius. What is better and worse with the new pairing compared to the old? Barnabas1 is better into cygnar and into cryx (although I'm not confident he would have beaten Denny3 50 thralls), but he's really bad into convergence and Grymkin, which Arkadius is much better playing into. It turns out that Maelok is perfectly fine into cygnar, so it worked out.
|
|
|
Post by kombat46 on Mar 29, 2018 20:19:51 GMT
Thx! Looking forward for the podcasts you will show up on to discuss
|
|